PCG Article Discussion for February 2026

[neogunhero]

I'm sad Deadlock is 'just' a MOBA—not because I don't like them, but because I'm in love with Valve's lore and characters enough to want any other game instead

An RPG, an MMO, an FPS—I'll take anything, man.

www.pcgamer.com

I feel the same way about Deadlock. I haven't played as much as the author, but I have the same love/hate relationship with it. I have been a lifelong Valve fanboy so I'll glaze them: they've made an absolutely amazing fictional world full of intriguing lore, great character designs, such unique artistry that you can tell Valve has poured their hearts over, yet... it's a MOBA. I hate MOBAs. Hate is strong word, lets say I have little to zero interest in playing a MOBA for very long at all. I have never found the genre engaging or fun to play. Strange because I generally do like RTS games, this is basically a different flavor of that, yet I just have always had this strong dislike for the genre.

I wish they would do something different with it, but with this huge cast of characters it seems the only options are a MOBA or a hero shooter, neither of which I'd like to play. I'd even play a fighting game with these characters.

I have played Deadlock and I can admire all the great aspects of it while not being a fan of the gameplay. In typical MOBA fashion, players take ages to kill, respawning takes forever, you're always traveling to where the action is when you do spawn in, it's just not the most engaging gameplay to my eyes.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I hope this is what happens. This bubble bursts, leaving all of these AI companies/shells of the former companies left with countless bits of hardware, and they start slinging them out at dirt cheap prices. Kind of like how corporations get new laptops every two years, they send all the old laptops to businesses to clean them, then they get resold on eBay for pretty cheap. It'll be like a large scale, international version of that, hopefully. I just hate seeing my favorite hobby that has been a part of my life since childhood become increasingly out of reach of my budget.

Sadly, this is not going to happen. AI adoption is skyrocketing, which is why there is a RAM shortage. People are sending in billions of prompts every day, and AI is beginning to catch up with search engines in usage. The only hope is that AI can be made vastly more efficient, which is the current push. For the large models, generative learning is no longer feasible, so now programmers have taken over.

 

[Pifanjr]

I just hate seeing my favorite hobby that has been a part of my life since childhood become increasingly out of reach of my budget.

I think hardware can easily become 5 times as expensive and PC gaming will still be a relatively cheap hobby as long as you're okay playing on lower settings or skipping the AAAA games.

If a medium performance PC costs $5,000 but you can get 10 years of entertainment out of it, that's only a $500 a year or $45 a month investment, which is really not that bad for a hobby you can do for multiple hours every day. And you could halve that if you're okay with a budget or second-hand PC.

Not that that means you're not allowed to be upset that gaming is becoming increasingly more expensive, especially since it seems that it's for no good reason. It's like those hobbies that get ruined because scalpers buy up the entire stock before anyone else can and selling it for heavily inflated prices.

 

[Pifanjr]

'It's my favorite feature': Dawn of War 4 is adding a way to multi-attack enemies using a dragbox

"Everyone knows you can multi-select units via rectangle with left mouse button, but in Dawn of War 4 you can multi-attack enemies."

www.pcgamer.com

I've definitely seen this feature in at least one other RTS before, though I have no idea which one.

 

[neogunhero]

I think hardware can easily become 5 times as expensive and PC gaming will still be a relatively cheap hobby as long as you're okay playing on lower settings or skipping the AAAA games.

If a medium performance PC costs $5,000 but you can get 10 years of entertainment out of it, that's only a $500 a year or $45 a month investment, which is really not that bad for a hobby you can do for multiple hours every day. And you could halve that if you're okay with a budget or second-hand PC.

You make a good point. The value proposition of building a gaming PC is pretty high. Every new build I've had started at under $1000, with new hardware being added in over the years that are all considered fairly mid-range. This GPU I have now is the single most expensive piece of computer hardware I've ever bought at just over $400. Even if these prices continue to raise, the longevity you get for the money spent is still really good.

Sadly, this is not going to happen. AI adoption is skyrocketing, which is why there is a RAM shortage. People are sending in billions of prompts every day, and AI is beginning to catch up with search engines in usage. The only hope is that AI can be made vastly more efficient, which is the current push. For the large models, generative learning is no longer feasible, so now programmers have taken over.

I think that should be the main focus, how to make the models as energy efficient and hardware efficient as possible. Nvidia put out a recent update for their DGX Spark that reduced idle energy consumption by over 30% which is a great starting point. Also figure out how the scale back on hardware. Does an AI model really need 50,000 RTX 5090s? Obviously yes for now, but I hope one day a solution to that can be found and the hardware requirements can start to scale back. Once those things are achieved, a lot of the negative public perception will start to fade.

 

[BeardyHat]

Just in general, there's also a lot of fun to be had using lower end hardware. You can pick-up a business laptop with an integrated Vega 8 graphics that'll run a huge swath of stuff. Sure, maybe not Cyberpunk, but there's heaps of old or low spec games out there that'll work. Just a few I've been thinking about lately that run on basically a potato:

https://www.slipseer.com/index.php?resources/quake-brutalist-jam-iii.549/

Diffusion mod for Half-Life

You, James Smith (served in SWAT for a decade with no failed ops), on vacation and driving your car to some nice place, to take a break from your usual work routines. Driving on a deserted road somewhere in Utah, the car breaks down. With miles of nothing...

www.moddb.com

Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony – Official Website of the Retro FPS

Welcome to Blade of Agony, a story-driven WWII shooter inspired by Wolfenstein and Doom. Download for free and experience a new kind of retro action.

boa.realm667.com

Not to mention all the random indies on Steam.

But yeah, I am also hoping for improved efficiency and developers slowing down on graphical fidelity. I kind of imagine it might be how things usually go at the end of a console lifecycle, where they understand how the hardware works and how to squeeze every last drop of performance and quality out of it.

This is also not even considering emulation. Even with the most basic iGPU you can easily emulate most older consoles.

 

[neogunhero]

After accidentally deleting their fiancée's Red Dead Redemption 2 save, someone paid $159 to enlist Arthur Morgan's voice actor to apologise for them

That's one way to do it.

www.pcgamer.com

If I did this, this is what I'd have Roger Clark say:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbdygECc6MU