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Hey PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! We're officially on the other side of Summer Game Fest shenanigans, and the team is feeling pretty dang tired. Not only did we bring a ton of neat SGF coverage from the weekend, we've also been hard at work on the PC Gaming Show over the last few months, and it finally aired on Sunday! We hope you enjoyed what we had to show off.

While we take a bit of time to recover from announcement madness before we talk about it on the podcast (spoiler alert, that's next week's episode!) let's party up with Robin Valentine and talk all about gamer slang. He recently compiled a fantastic article that lists a whole bunch of gaming words and their meaning, which you should go and read before you listen!

If you're anything like me, you'll have found that bizarre little gaming terminology and acronyms have somehow found their way into your everyday vocabulary. Even if they haven't, you've no doubt typed some ridiculous words like "gank" or "nerf" at least once in your gaming career. Or maybe even a sentence like "Crosscut DP into FADC Plink combo." Words that certainly aren't in the bible and, to people who don't play games (or maybe even don't play a particular genre) sound like total gibberish.

We'll be talking all about them today, like which words have seeped into our vocabulary and which ones we think have fallen out of fashion. Make sure to pop over to the PC Gamer forums and share some of your own gaming slang favourites. We'll have a thread set up about this week's episode, and Lauren and I will be joining in on the discussion, too.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube Music
• Pocket Casts
• Podcast Addict
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio

And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

Hiya PC gamers, welcome to this week's episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast!! The team's been real busy lately: Summer Game Fest approaches, as does our own PC Gaming Show. 'Tis the season for announcements, so everyone has been stuffing their noggins with brand new gaming goodness.

Don't worry, the podcast still soldiers on among the chaos, and this week we're bringing Tyler Colp along to talk all about videogame brand tie-ins. You know, like Monster Energy being in Death Stranding for whatever reason, or Barack Obama co-opting the Xbox version of Burnout Paradise to display billboards for his 2008 campaign. That kinda weird, sometimes fitting/immersive but quite often just very bizarre real-world additions that permeate our virtual worlds.

We also touch upon the brands that go all-out, like the fact that Burger King somehow has multiple real videogames under its belt. We even find a little bit of time to go off-topic into your standard crossover fare, like how they put 2B in everything these days and I also get the chance to talk about the Persona 5 curse,

We no doubt missed a ton of weird tie-ins, so pop over to the PC Gamer forums and share some of your personal faves. We'll have a thread set up about this week's episode, and Lauren and I will be joining in on the discussion, too.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube Music
• Pocket Casts
• Podcast Addict
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio

And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

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Hi there PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! Wow, feels like it's been a while since I wrote one of these, huh? Lauren and I have been on a little break while we showcased some of the fantastic GDC roundtables conducted by members of the PC Gamer team.

Those are all done and dusted now though, so we're back! This week we're looking at games that have been in the throes of development for many years: the dreaded Development Hell. The games that got announced when you were still in school and now you're married with three kids, and have yet to see anything beyond a 90-second CGI trailer. The games that have bounced between developers more than I bounce between pubs on a Friday night. Well, maybe not quite that much, but close enough.

We've brought our favourite opiniated Brit Robin Valentine along for the ride, where we'll be looking at games that are currently in development hell, famously hellish games that made it out and some that never did. Apologies, we do talk about Duke Nukem Forever eventually... right at the end. We'll get there, trust me.

While we take (Duke Nukem) forever to get to one of the most iconic examples of development hell, why don't you pop over to the PC Gamer forums and share some examples of your own? We'll have a thread set up about this week's episode, and Lauren and I will be joining in on the discussion, too.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube Music
• Pocket Casts
• Podcast Addict
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio

And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

For our third and final roundtable from the 2024 Game Developers Conference, we put together a special panel—a quartet of developers who have all been making games since at least the year 1990, and are still active today. Joining us for this conversation: 

• Charles Cecil - Broken Sword, Beneath a Steel Sky
• Khris Brown - Voice director & editor for LucasArts, Double Fine, Ubisoft
• Jordan Mechner - Karateka, Prince of Persia, The Last Express
• Warren Spector - Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Deus Ex

Over the course of an hour our guests talk about how they got into games (and how unlikely their paths would be to replicate today), the challenges of making games with the technology of the '80s and '90s, run-ins with celebrity voice actors like Mark Hamill, and a passion for history. That fascination was key to the stories Jordan Mechner and Charles Cecil told in their beloved adventure games The Last Express and Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (and also led to a particularly memorable encounter for Cecil with Hollywood director Ron Howard).

All four developers have seen the games they've worked on be remade, remastered or followed up by sequels over the years, and they discuss the feeling of leaving behind a legacy.

"System Shock getting remade recently, people still care about a game I worked on 30 years ago—that's cool," says Warren Spector. "Making things that last—when you get to my age, I'm 68 and proud of it, the word legacy comes to mind probably more than it should. I want to leave something behind that's bigger than me. Deus Ex in particular is that for me… later on, when Eidos was acquired by Square Enix and a new series of games set in that universe came out, people would ask me 'how do you feel about that? Does it bother you that someone else is making them?' No! I participated in something that has a life of its own, that has some cultural impact. It's like my baby grew up. Who's upset about a baby growing up? That was pretty special."

The conversation also covers the early days of voice acting in games, with LucasArts veteran Khris Brown talking about how difficult it was for actors at the time to understand the nonlinear storytelling of games compared to film (while working on Double Fine's Brutal Legend, she also taught Ozzy Osbourne how to use his new smartphone). 

You can find the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. YouTube Music
4. Pocket Casts
5. Podcast Addict
6. Castbox
7. Amazon Music
8. iHeartRadio

And more!

You can also check out PC Gamer Chat Log on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves. 

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

For this week's special roundtable episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log, recorded at the 2024 Game Developers Conference, we gathered a party of adventurers and ventured forth into our second annual deep dive into making RPGs. Here's who you'll hear talking about wizards, lovable and hateable companions, and, yeah, a little game called Baldur's Gate 3: 

• Swen Vincke, founder and director at Larian (Baldur's Gate 3)
• Carrie Patel, game director and senior narrative designer at Obsidian (Avowed)
• Sarah Gruemmer, acting lead quest designer at CD Projekt Red (Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty)
• Adrienne Bazir, founder and sole developer at insertdisc5 (In Stars and Time)
• Ted Peterson, co-founder Once Lost Games and former writer and designer at Bethesda (The Elder Scrolls 1-4)

Across an hour and 20 minutes, our RPG discussion includes a dissection of Baldur's Gate 3's approach to romance, as well as the immense challenges of designing intro quests for lengthy RPGs and finding the balance between linear and nonlinear. 

On the romance front, Larian's Swen Vincke talked through their approach to making a mature-rated game and taking that responsibility seriously: "We try to be as true to life as we could," he said. "Internally in the studio there were some people who felt uncomfortable, and we said, it's a mature game, right? We're going to treat it like what you would see on TV. A series I refer to often was American Gods, which I thought was really well done [in how] it treated mature themes and fantasy settings. You can do really crazy stuff and still relate to it. It was always tastefully done. I mean, the famous bear scene—it was really a squirrel that was not looking. The rest was the theater of your mind. You filled that in, we didn't do that!"

Later, Ted Peterson, who served as a primary writer and designer on the original two Elder Scrolls games, talked about how the first game, Arena, was a linear story inside a large open game world—and how trying to make the sequel more ambitious posed some problems.

"[The Elder Scrolls: Arena] was not even meant to be a roleplaying game," he said. "Because it was turned into a roleplaying game it became super linear. The original idea was that you'd go around to a bunch of fighting arenas, build your characters up, and eventually go to the Imperial arena and fight the evil wizard at the end. But as the arena combat didn't work out, we changed it into a roleplaying game where you had to fight through these arenas in a distinct order… so linear was our easy choice."

Peterson remembered that when Arena came out, the reaction was positive—except for players who said "the story kind of sucked."

"I overcompensated by making Arena super nonlinear, and nobody understands the story to this day." 

Thanks to the revival of The Elder Scrolls 2 in fan remaster Daggerfall Unity, Peterson said he's actually been working on a series of books to "explain the background of this story that I wrote 25 years ago and try to patch it all together." 

If you haven't heard of indie RPG In Stars and Time, you're in for a treat: solo writer/developer Adrienne Bazir dives into the unique way the game deploys a time loop mechanic to consider the meta storytelling layers that come from a player and character reliving the final moments of a quest over and over again. And make sure you stick through to the end—I promise you won't want to miss Carrie Patel's story about a moment from The Outer Worlds that didn't make it into the final game for reasons that become more and more clear as the tale unfolds.

And if you're hungry for more after this conversation is over, you're in luck: our 2023 RPG roundtable is also a great listen with a whole different crew of experienced designers.

You can find the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. YouTube Music
4. Pocket Casts
5. Podcast Addict
6. Castbox
7. Amazon Music
8. iHeartRadio

And more!

You can also check out PC Gamer Chat Log on YouTube: 

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves. 

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In this special episode of our podcast, recorded at the 2024 Game Developers Conference, PC Gamer Global Editor-in-Chief Evan Lahti sat down with a special group of guests to talk about where PC gaming is at right now. Here's who we brought together to talk about what's going on in PC gaming: 

• Michael Douse - Director of Publishing, Larian (Baldur's Gate 3)
• Rebecca Ford - Creative Director, Warframe
• Eyrún Jónsdóttir - VP of Publishing at CCP (EVE Online)
• Casey Yano - Co-founder, Mega Crit (Slay the Spire)

Across an 80 minute conversation, our panel of game developers talked about making "hyper-engaging" games that defy the traditional advice of appealing to as broad an audience of players as possible; the innovation in game development only happening on PC; Steam as a "democratic" platform; industry layoffs and the emerging use of AI in development; and what we should take away from the standout successes of 2024, like Helldivers 2 and Balatro, which is one of many games to follow in the footsteps of the roguelike deckbuilder space that Slay the Spire popularized.

"[Slay the Spire] wasn't intended to be a new genre-creating thing," Mega Crit's Casey Yano says. "The expectation for a card game was that it has to be PvP, and I didn't think that was true. The only way to prove anything on the internet is to do it yourself, so we just made a game." 

Larian's Michael Douse pointed out that Slay the Spire, Balatro and Baldur's Gate 3 are all "completely unbothered by any notions of casualization or trying to create something for an audience beyond your own audience. Balatro's unbothered by any notion of what it 'should' be, and focused on what [the developer] wants to make. We're definitely going to see more of that in the PC space." 

"We've found that the best people to draw in new players are the players themselves," said EVE Online's Eyrún Jónsdóttir. "When current players draw other players into the game, that [helps] combat the complexity. You need a bit of social support to get into it. Then players really, really enjoy it when they have that kind of onboarding."

Later in the conversation, Warframe's Rebecca Ford highlighted that PC gaming offers a kind of community access you can't find anywhere else.

"I'm a very optimistic futurist for PC as the primary platform," Ford said. "I think it's the most important for people in our age cohort, and has the greatest potential for border-crossing community building. I've connected with more people than I ever thought possible in my entire life, all because I sat in front of a PC, installed Steam, and installed Discord and played games with them. These two things together as forces are so supremely positive, even in isolation. It's a shame you can have very difficult times online, they're not sanitary by any means—but I cannot imagine a better opportunity to be a good online citizen with people connected through something like what we do.

"There's just nothing like it, and I doubt there will ever be anything like it again."

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. YouTube Music
4. Pocket Casts
5. Podcast Addict
6. Castbox
7. Amazon Music
8. iHeartRadio

And more!

You can also check out PC Gamer Chat Log on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves. 

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Happy Thursday PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! How are we all this week? If y'all watch the video version of this pod, you'll know that I've discarded the beloved split dye hairdo I've been donning since before my time at PCG (and I've been here for over three years!!) It's quite strange getting rid of something I've spent so long associating as a huge part of my identity, but anyone who's bleached their hair for an extended period of time will know that it does an absolute number on your locks.

Now my hair may change, but you know what doesn't change? War. War never changes. No, I am not sorry for that terrible segue. The Fallout TV series graced our screens last week and you know what? It's actually pretty dang good!

We've brought Chris Livingston on board to chat all things Lucy, Maximus and the Ghoul, as he was fortunate enough to be able to watch the show ahead of its release. Lauren somehow managed to devour the entire thing in a single Sunday, whereas I only got three episodes in by the time we rocked around to recording. I know, I'm slow! The good news is I've finished the whole thing now, which means I'm primed and ready to talk about all the episodes with you lovely folk over on the PC Gamer forums. Go over there to peep our thread about the latest episode and chat with myself and Lauren.

Be warned there are some light spoilers for the show, but Lauren and Chris were lovely enough to not divulge any major story beats for my sake.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube Music
• Pocket Casts
• Podcast Addict
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio

And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

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Hey PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! Good week so far, I hope? I'm currently sick for the, uh, third time this year. Yeah, I don't know why, the beginning of the year is always a real illness magnet for me. Come May I'll be flying flu-free until 2025, when it'll start all over again. 

I usually try and do a neat clever segue into this week's topic, but my flued-up brain is defeating the teeny tiny part of my brain that's still sorta smart. So this week we're talking all about our white whale games. The games in your genre that are must-plays, touted as the blueprint for which all your favourite games were moulded from, the games that no matter how hard you try you just can't get your head around. 

Maybe you've had That One Game on your backlog for years now. You know the one, the game that you always go "I'm gonna play that today/tomorrow/this weekend/next week" over and over again until it's inevitably been 10 years and you've still barely clocked an hour of playtime. Maybe it's a game you've forced yourself to try and like to no avail.

Whatever your white whale situation is, come join myself and Lauren alongside this week's guest Tyler Colp. We'll be sharing our own white whale gaming stories, and you should totally share yours too. Head over to the PC Gamer forums! We'll have a thread set up for this week's episode. I would love to know which games you're still relentlessly pursuing to this day. Lauren and I will be lurking around in the post too, ready to join the discussion.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

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Hiya PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! Hope everyone's week is going well. I've been doing a lot of decluttering lately, which means I've been doing an awful lot of staring at nostalgic possessions. Old teddy bears, school books and photographs have had me doing a lot of reminiscing recently, which make's this week's episode perfectly on-theme.

We're taking a trip down memory lane this week, talking about our childhood as mini-gamers. We're both fortunate enough to have been around games for as long as we can remember, playing both PC and console games since we were wee babies. We'll be talking about our favourite games as a kid, how those tastes have carried over into adulthood and how the way we game now differs. 

We'll be chatting a bit about stuff like edutainment and browser games as well, and while Lauren and I are fairly similar in age our geographical differences make for some interesting discrepancies in how we gamed growing up!

Maybe you've been gaming since the ZX Spectrum, maybe you didn't embrace gaming as a hobby until you were an adult. Whatever your experience with gaming was growing up (or not!) we would love to hear about your own memories. Head over to the PC Gamer forums, we'll have a thread set up for this week's episode. I'm really looking forward to hearing about all of your experiences! Lauren and I will be lurking around in the post too, ready to join the discussion.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

Hey there PC gamers, welcome to this week's episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! I hope you've all had a fantastic week so far, whether you've been climbing up a cyclops in Dragon's Dogma 2, or having your pawn go around telling everyone you're shagging people in Dragon's Dogma 2, or throwing people off a cliff in Dragon's Dogma 2...

Okay, so it's been a pretty Dragon's Dogma-heavy week for us here at PC Gamer. The sequel to Capcom's 2012 RPG is finally here, and a lot of folk on the team have been playing it. Hopefully you have too, because that's what we're talking about on the podcast this week.

Our Online Editor Fraser Brown was kind enough to sink a ton of hours into it for our Dragon's Dogma 2 review, which makes him the perfect guest to come on and chat about the game with us. We'll be talking about the classes we've been playing, what we like and don't like, and getting way too mad about one specific side quest.

It's a pretty spoiler-free one too, so if you're not too far into the game right now don't fret! You can still listen along to our thoughts as we've all put varying amounts of hours in. Don't forget to pop over to the PC Gamer forums too, where we'll have a thread set up for this week's episode for you all. We'll be popping in there ourselves to join the discussion!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

Greetings goobers, goblins and gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! How's your week been so far? I am writing this from ~the past~ as I'm actually out of the office this week, enjoying some much-needed time off. Will I currently be doing all my errands I've been putting off, or sitting on my arse playing games? Only future Mollie knows.

If future Mollie is sat on her butt ignoring her responsibilities in favour of videogame pixel people, she's probably doing it from her Steam library. It's just one of the many game launchers vying for our attentions, yet it continues to dominate as most people's preferred choice. But what about the Epics of the world? The Ubisoft Connects, the EA Apps, and won't someone please think of the Amazon Games?

We'll be talking all about PC game launchers, and who better to talk about it with than the man who ranked a whole bunch of 'em earlier this year? Robin Valentine heroically stuffed his PC full of launchers and gave them all a whirl, slapping a percentage on each one. You should absolutely go and read his fantastic launcher ranking ASAP, but don't forget to come back and listen to us talk about it afterwards.

Are you a loyal, diehard Steam user? Perhaps all of the Epic freebies lured you in and now you don't dare use anything else, or you're one of the few who reliably and regularly resyncs their libraries to GOG for the ultimate centralised platform. Whatever you do, we'd love to hear about it. Make sure to head over to the PC Gamer forums, where we'll have a thread set up about this week's episode.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

Happy Thursday PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! Dang, we're officially at episode 52 which means it's been an entire year of the podcast. Well, we actually took a two-week break over December so our anniversary was on March 2, but you know. We won't tell anyone if you won't.

It's been a fantastic year of getting to host this podcast with Lauren. She really is the brains behind this whole operation, and there's no way we could get an episode out to all you lovely folk every week if it wasn't for her. Make sure to drop her a thanks over on the PC Gamer forums on this week's episode thread! Here's to many more episodes in the future, and the two of us cooking up plenty more PC podcasting shenanigans.

With those little celebrations out of the way, it's time for us to put on our wellies and wade into the discourse swamp. The whole "yellow paint on ledges" topic has come back into the spotlight in the last few weeks, so we've brought paint-hater Tyler Wilde along to discuss how we feel about its increasing inclusion in games.

Crate can be broken? Pop some yellow paint on it. Rocks on a cliff can be clambered up? Better throw some paint on there so people know. It's become a frequently-used form of communication in games, but not everyone is a huge fan of it. Just who is going around all these worlds with a paintbrush and a dream? Are there better ways to tackle visual communication in our beloved games? Would we all crumble without a bit of colour telling us where to go and what to do?

A lot of people have opinions about the yellow paint, and I'm sure you do too. After you're done thanking Lauren for all her lovely hard work, don't forget to drop your own thoughts on the debate on the forums. We love to reply to you all and see you joining the discussion!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

Wassup PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast. I hope your week has been good so far. It's well and truly flu season for me, and I'm sick for the second time in a month which has cut my gaming time pretty drastically. How am I ever going to ascend past scrub status and git gud?

Well, do I even want to git gud? Is the art of mastering a videogame all it's cracked up to be? That's what we'll be talking about on the podcast this week, and we're joined by competitive shooter aficionado Morgan Park. He once wrote about his experience with getting good at Hunt: Showdown, and how it actually kind of killed the fun for him, making him the perfect guest for this episode.

We'll be talking about the games we've tried to take seriously, what we thought of that process and ultimately, whether we think getting good at a videogame is as fun as it sounds.

Whether you're sweating away in every ranked mode you come across or happily stick to the casual side of your favourite games, we'd love to hear what you think. Pop over to the PC Gamer forums, where we'll have a thread up about this week's episode. You can share your own experiences and thoughts about "gitting gud," and feel free to tell us if we're actually all a bunch of scrubs. I promise I'll only cry a little bit.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

Heya PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! Hope you've all had a great week so far. Please tell me I'm not the only one deep in a Balatro hole this week. That game is taking up every dang lunch break I have! Whenever I tell myself I will play something else, my mouse hovers over the play button for Balatro instead. I'm officially poker-deckbuilding-roguelike-pilled. Phew, try saying that ten times fast.

The triple-threat genre isn't even all that out there anymore. Genres in games have become A Whole Thing. Metroidvania. Soulslike. Survivors. 4X (which I finally found out stands for explore, expand, exploit and exterminate, thanks Google). Sometimes a game can even end up being four or five different things: Roguelite FPS co-op survival crafting anyone?

Myself and Lauren will be talking all things genres this week, bringing along Harvey Randall as our sacrifice to the genre gods. "But wait," I hear you attentive listeners/viewers ask. "Didn't Lauren specifically promise to not fight about genres as part of her New Year's resolution?" Yes, yes she did. Listen, when do any of us stick to those things anyway? It's almost March, we're long past trivial matters like a New Year's resolution. 

You can still definitely bully (affectionate) her about it on the PC Gamer forums though. We'll have a thread going up about this week's episode where you can pop in and share your thoughts with us. We'll be in there too having a chat with you! Feel free to tell us what you think about genres. Do you think they're dumb, cool? Are you a "Wish product page" kinda genre enjoyer, or do you yearn for the purity of a single-genre experience? Make sure to let us know!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

What's up PC gamers? Welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! How has everyone's week been so far? I hope you've been finding plenty of time to play games and do the other things you love outside of general life stresses.

For the 10 or so years they've been around, Steam reviews have been a great source of entertainment to me. Occasionally they help make an informed decision on whether a game should be going into my cart, but most of the time they're a collection of inside jokes, goofy references to the game being reviews and can be genuinely rather funny.

With so many Steam reviews sounding downright silly out of context, they're the perfect fodder to pluck and challenge each other to guess which game is being talked about. So that's exactly what myself and Lauren are doing this week! We've each pulled a handful of Steam reviews for games that appeared in our PC Gamer Top 100 list last year—we had to try and narrow down all the games somehow—and we're making each other figure out where the review came from.

It's a nice chill episode so kick back and maybe try and suss out each one along with us. If you've got some Steam reviews that you still think about years after reading them, head over to the PC Gamer forums and tell us about them. We'll have a thread set up for this week's episode—let us know how many of our reviews you got right and share some of your own.

As always, catch us at the beginning of the episode to see what we've been up to in the last week. We always love getting to share the games we've been playing and other hobbies we've been dabbling in between each episode, so make sure you tune in.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

Hey there PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! I hope everyone's been well this week and battling all the winter nasties going around right now. I've not been so fortunate—most of my week has been spent in bed feeling pretty dang sick. 

I remember when my parents would always say to me: "If you're too sick to go to school, you're too sick to play games!" While teenage me used to laugh at the thought of not being able to stare at a monitor for eight hours while fighting off a virus, adult me has been shriveling away under the covers, unable to stomach even looking at my Steam Deck. On the bright side, I'm several episodes deep into an Angel rewatch. Silver linings and all that.

Thankfully, my illness was kind enough to wait until after I had the opportunity to play a bunch of Steam Next Fest demos. It's a good job, since that's what myself, Lauren and Senior Editor Chris Livingston are chatting about on the pod this week. Steam Next Fests are great, giant dumps of videogame demos to gorge on for a week. An increasing amount seem to stick around once the Fest is over, but a lot of 'em are only live for its duration before disappearing.

With literal hundreds of demos to choose from, the three of us took some time to play the ones that caught our attention. We'll be sharing our faves we've played so far, which ones are releasing soon that you should keep your eye on, as well as ones we're super jazzed to play but haven't quite gotten around to yet. 

We're always down for some recommendations too. If you've been playing some Steam Next Fest demos yourself, head over to the PC Gamer forums and tell us about them. We'll have a thread set up for this week's episode where you can plug your favourite demos and let us know what you thought of the ones we've been enjoying.

Lauren and I have our usual pre-episode catchup too, letting each other know what we've been up to the previous week. Thankfully I had some relatively exciting things going on before I came down with The Plague (okay, it's a cold, but I feel rough!) and Lauren's been up to some neat stuff of her own.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

What's up PC gamers? Welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! I hope you've all had a fine week so far and have managed to cram plenty of gaming time in. Maybe you've been sitting on your cushy gaming chair with your triple-monitor setup and your future-proofed desktop, or lounging around on your sofa holding a Steam Deck inches from your face. 

For myself, Lauren, and Tyler, we've been in the latter camp an awful lot lately. We're all officially Steam Deck owners—Tyler handled our Steam Deck OLED review and was an LCD owner before that, and Lauren and I became members of the portable PC club over the winter break. 

Now we've all had a bit of time to take our backlog with us wherever we go, how are we feeling about things? We have a chat about how much use we've been getting out of our Decks, what games we think work best, and discuss whether something like this could ever truly replace our sprawling desktop setups. 

For all you ROG Ally users and MSI Claw anticipators out there, don't fret. We spend a little bit of time talking about the competition and the ever-growing portable PC market. If we somehow convince you to buy your own Steam Deck or other handheld device by the end of this episode, apologies to your bank balance.

Whether you're a day-one Steam Deck owner or someone who's been on the fence about purchasing one, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Pop over to the PC Gamer forums, we have a thread set up all about this week's episode where you can share your own experiences and chat with us about it.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

In a new episode of her podcast on Spotify, the streamer said that she'd probably still be streaming on Twitch if it weren't for a rise in "manosphere, red pill bullshit" she sees coming from some of the "most popular and well-established, typically male creators" in the past couple of years.

"Some of the stuff I see them say and do breaks my heart," said Pokimane.

Over the course of the hour-long episode, the streamer says more on that topic and details a number of other reasons for her departure from Twitch, which comes at the end of an exclusivity contract she had with the platform.

Pokimane says she's "insanely grateful" to have had that contract, which guaranteed income regardless of viewership, but no longer wants to be exclusively tied to Twitch or any other streaming site. The contracts aren't as lucrative as they used to be, she says, and she thinks that having a quota for streaming hours can lead to "prioritizing hours streamed versus how good the content that you're streaming is."

Now that she's "free as a bird," Pokimane will experiment with other streaming platforms like YouTube, and says that Twitch's "messy" management is part of the reason she's moving on. She criticized its botched rule changes (such as the nudity rule it recently deployed and then quickly walked back), its management of partnerships, its marketing, and its moderation, including inconsistent or ineffective wielding of bans.

"My priority is making a cool, safe environment and community for many, many, many people," said Pokimane. "I think there are a lot of problems that minorities on Twitch still face and that I wish they could do more about. I do think they try and I appreciate that a ton. I really do give them credit for that. 

"But girl, it's 2024. We still got so many of these damn problems. Like when I tell you there are people, viewers on Twitch, who harass and stalk streamers to no end, who have made thousands of accounts ... and you can send this information, for years, to Twitch, they can't do a thing about it. They're not going to do a thing about it, because they don't do IP bans."

Pokimane hopes to expand her audience and provide better viewer experiences on other platforms, away from what she sees as an increasingly-toxic Twitch streaming culture, which she cites as the biggest thing driving her away from the site following a period of optimism during her Fortnite and Among Us streaming days.

"During the pandemic there were so many people watching streaming and caring about games," Pokimane said. "There were so many more girls. There was such diversity in the demographic, and I felt so much more seen and heard. And I was like, 'Wow, this is what I've always wanted for streaming.'" 

Now, however, Twitch has "regressed a lot" she thinks: "Especially with the rise of so much manosphere, red pill bullshit—I feel like that stuff has flourished within the male-dominated livestreaming sphere," she said.

The streamer now feels that staying on Twitch either means futilely combating "bigotry and shit spewing" from other Twitch streamers, or trying to grow her following by appealing to their audiences, neither of which she wants to do.

"Why are you going to speak against someone with dozens of thousands of followers and stans that are going to go against you and shit down your throat?" she said. "It's almost like there's no point expressing your opinion to people that you're never going to change anyways, you know? 

"And frankly, a lot of them are prepubescent little boys that just need to go through puberty and then they'll figure it out. You know, like, I don't want that demographic. I don't want to take responsibility for them. But it also hurts my brain to see other streamers put such bad ideas into their minds."

Pokimane doesn't specify the streamers she's referring to—"you guys already know who and what I'm talking about," she says—and reiterates several times that she's grateful for all the success she's had on Twitch and appreciates the good parts of the site. But now that her contract is up, she's excited to explore YouTube, where she sees "much more positive and well-rounded communities than you tend to see on Twitch," TikTok, where she sees "so much cute, cozy gaming content," and other platforms.

"I could literally sit on Instagram and talk shit for an hour now and I've never been able to do that before," she said. "Can you believe that I've never been able to do that before?"

Pokimane's hour-long podcast episode covers other causes for her decision to ditch Twitch, which include something "batshit crazy" she says happened with a Twitch employee, but doesn't detail, and the experience of being one of Twitch's "faces." She also discusses today's other platforms in more depth, including the controversial, gambling-focused Kick, which she says she won't be using.

Pokimane's first-ever YouTube stream will happen on February 1.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

HelloPCgamerswelcomebacktothePCGamerChatLogpodcast. Phew. Is that a new world record for introducing this week's episode? 

Sorry, that was a terrible bit. Let me start again: Hello PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! I hope you've all had a rad week so far. Did any of you check out Awesome Games Done Quick over the last week? We certainly did, and it's encouraged us to put our running shoes on and talk all about speedrunning.

We've brought back Associate Editor Ted Litchfield to talk about some of our favourite stuff in the speedrunning community. The games we enjoy watching, our favourite runners and video essayists who cover this sort of stuff, what makes the art of speedrunning just so dang cool and interesting. We go over a little bit of AGDQ too, including some of our favourite runs of the week and... a speedrunning dog? You go, Peanut Butter.

Lauren and I get together before the episode to do our usual pre-topic catchup, too. We're officially both Steam Deck Owners now, which means we've been broadening our horizons and playing a ton of new stuff! Lauren's keeping her New Years resolution going too, which you can hear more about this episode.

Whether you're a speedrunning savant or someone who likes to watch the odd video, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Pop over to the PC Gamer forums, we have a thread set up all about this week's episode where you can share your own experiences and chat with us about it.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Greetings PC gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! If you've never listened before: Hey! Welcome! This is a podcast where myself (Mollie Taylor) and my co-host Lauren Morton talk all things PC gaming, sometimes with other members of our team. If you're a regular listener: Hey! Thanks for coming back, we appreciate ya always.

First of all, how the hell are we halfway through January? Time is a construct, etcetera etcetera. Secondly, how do y'all feel about tutorials? Do you love 'em, hate 'em, are you a textbox skipper or someone who diligently studies all of a game's systems before you dive in? That's the kind of stuff we'll be talking about this week, along with Staff Writer Harvey Randall.

We'll be finishing around in our brain for some of our favourite tutorials, and ones that almost made us stop playing the game altogether. We'll also be talking about some of the things we prefer in our tutorials, and why the platformer genre is usually the one with the coolest learning tools. 

As always, Lauren and I have our weekly pre-episode catchup. Check out what we've been playing, the games we're really jiving with at the moment and what's on our todo list for the coming weeks.

We'd love to hear your tutorial thoughts, too! If you head over to our PC Gamer forums we'll have a thread set up all about this week's episode where you can contribute the discussion and have a chat with us about the whole thing.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Hey there PC gamers, welcome to 2024! It's a new year and that means 12 entire months of new games for us to sink our teeth into. I hope your holiday season was full of good food and good gaming—I know mine sure was.

Before I get into what this week's episode is all about (though you can probably already guess), I actually have something pretty exciting to announce: The PC Gamer Chat Log is now on our forums! We have a dedicated PC Gamer Chat Log category where Lauren and I will be posting about the new episode every week. Since we're usually asking questions or chatting about pretty open topics, we wanted an opportunity for all of you who listen and watch to join in on the discussion. 

You'll also be able to catch both me and Lauren lurking around each episode's post, getting involved in the conversation and answering any questions you might have about the topic we're covering that week. It's something both of us are really excited about, and I hope you are too! 

Now that's done and out of the way, here's what you can expect in this week's episode. With it being a new year and all, Lauren and I are looking to the months ahead and seeing what's what. The games we're most excited for, our very terrible and way-too-early Game of the Year predictions, as well as our gaming new year resolutions and what's in and out for us in 2024.

We'll also be doing a little bit of catching up and sharing what we played while we took a much-needed week away from the website and got to do some work-free gaming. It's a rarity, so we definitely made the most of it. 

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

Don't forget to check us out over on the PC Gamer forums, too! We'll be checking in every week to see what you lovely lot have to say about each week's episode, and joining in the discussion ourselves.

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Happy Thursday PC gamers, and welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log Podcast! Have you been up to much this week, or are you finally relaxing now that the pace of huge-hitting games has begun to slow down a bit?

I hope you're not relaxing too much though, because almost every single one of us has an ever-growing backlog that haunts us. Remembering to play and finish all of the games we have across every launcher can be a real pain, so some people like to try and tackle that with some handy spreadsheet managament.

Our Online Editor Fraser Brown is one such person, so we've dragged him along onto this week's episode to interrogate him about his spreadsheet. What is the actual purpose of it? What categories does he use to help keep things in check? How can we steal his spreadsheet to improve our own gaming lives?

Lauren and I share what organisation methods we also make use of... if some of us even get that far in the first place. We spend some time trying to figure out just how best we want to get the most out of our hobby, and also spend a little bit of time talking about organisation elsewhere in our gaming lives too.

As always, Lauren and I will be checking in with each other at the beginning of the episode to see what we got up to last week. It may have been a quieter week for both of us but worry not, we'll be back with a bang next week with plenty of cool stories to tell.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Hey there gamers, welcome to this week's episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log Podcast! I hope you've all had a great week, whether you've been playing a ton of games or taking things a little easier right now.

This week we've got Staff Writer Morgan Park back on the pod to talk all about battle royales. As our resident shooter aficionado, Morgan's played his fair share of battle royales from the more traditional games like Fortnite to the increasingly popular extraction shooters like Hunt: Showdown. 

With Morgan's wealth of experience and mine and Lauren's sporadic encounters with the genre, we chat all about how battle royales got their start and how our own foray into playing them happened. We also talk about which games are hot right now, and where we think the genre is going in the future. Battle royales aren't all about the shooters though, and we take a little bit of time to delve into some of the more interesting takes across PC and other platforms.

Don't forget to check in with myself and Lauren at the beginning of the podcast too, where we share our weeks with you, letting you in on any fun stuff we've been up to since the last episode.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Hey there gamers, welcome to this week's episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! This year's list of Top 100 PC Games has finally dropped online which means opinions about placements are flying. Heck, we made the list and we still have opinions on where our favorties landed.

We've brought together one of our newest Top 100 participants, magazine editor Robert Jones, and executive editor Tyler Wilde who's been doing it more than a decade, to hash out how this year went. We'll dig into some of the wacky spreadsheet math, the voting process, and then the traditional freeform meeting marathon argument that makes the list what it is every year. We'll go over which of our favorites we actually had to vote to demote, which series we're still coming out swinging for, and the crucial but controvercial "importance" score. Yes, Disco Elysium really did place first with raw votes again this year. And also yes, we did do all this voting before another cetain big RPG launched. 

As always, Mollie and I have a quick catchup before the episode proper to go over what we've been playing lately. With the main bulk of the 2023 RPG storm behind us, we're both taking time to settle. Mollie has found herself hooked on a new gacha game that she promises has a great story, actually. Meanwhile I, the slowest gamer in existence, am returning to my save file in Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Hey there gamers, welcome to this week's episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! Have you ever played a game and thought to yourself "Dang, I really wish they'd adapt this into a movie or TV show?" Don't lie and say you haven't, we've all done it. At least, Lauren and I have certainly done it, and that's what we're going to talk about this week.

We've both taken a game we'd like to see adapted into a TV show or movie and tried to cast it. Which actors would fulfil the role for our ragtag videogame protagonists to a T? Some of us thought far too hard about this (it's me, I thought way too hard about this), and some of us thought just hard enough. Turns out casting your dream adaptation is a lot tougher than either of us realised, and we'd love if you challenged yourself to try and cast your own videogame adaptation.

As always, Lauren and I have a quick catchup before the main meat of the episode to talk about what we've been playing this week and other fun stories to share about our lives. Even though we've been drowning in Starfields and Cyberpunks galore, we've still managed to find the time to sit down and chill out with some other cool games and do some fun things outside of work, too.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Hey there everyone! Another week has come and passed, and with it a new episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast. This week we have Wes Fenlon back on the pod to chat all about videogame HUDs, plus a little bit of talk about UIs in general, too.

Trust me, this is something you also deeply care about even if you don't realise. Ever wished you could turn a minimap off and explore without being shackled to it, or grumbled about a game picking a compass as its choice of directional assistance? Ever played Dead Space and said to yourself "damn, that's a nice diegetic heads-up display"? Probably not, but you may have thought something similar.

That's the kind of stuff we're talking about this week: Your health bars, damage numbers, ammo counts, all that good stuff. What do we like in a videogame HUD, and what do we deeply detest? Which games do it best, and why don't more go down the diegetic route? Naturally, we touch on some UI stuff too, talking about some super-stylish interface designs.

You may already have some strong HUD opinions, or this podcast may make you realise you care more than you thought! Either way, feel free to share your own HUD thoughts with us in the comments. We'd love to hear 'em!

Before we get stuck into the main meat of the podcast, catch up with Lauren and I at the start and see what we've been getting up to this week. As always, we've been doing plenty of fun videogame-related things over the last seven days and we always love to share our weeks with each other and with you.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Hey there gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! Did you think we were gonna leave you high and dry without a Starfield episode to dig into? Of course not! 

We’ve brought Chris Livingston back this week to talk all about Bethesda’s latest RPG. He wrote an excellent Starfield review for our website (which you should totally go and read!) and has amassed around 90 hours in the last couple of weeks, so he has tons to say. 

Lauren and I have been playing a bit too of course, though we’ve not come close to clocking the amount of time Chris has. We’re all going to share our thoughts and impressions with each other, though. What have we really liked so far, and what haven’t we been so keen on? Feel free to share your own thoughts on Starfield with us, too!

What's up gamers? Happy Thursday, and happy PC Gamer Chat Log episode day! I hope you're not too busy drowning in Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3—whatever game is hogging all your attention right now—and have a little bit of time to sit down and hang out with us while we chat.

We haven’t been solely dedicated to the Starfield grind this week though, so make sure to catch up with us at the beginning of the episode to see what other shenanigans we've been up to. It's been a pretty good week for both of us, and we're excited to share our stories with you!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

What's up gamers? Happy Thursday, and happy PC Gamer Chat Log episode day! I hope you're not too busy drowning in Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3—whatever game is hogging all your attention right now—and have a little bit of time to sit down and hang out with us while we chat.

This week, Lauren and I are talking about overhyped and underhyped games. First of all, what even constitutes as a game being hyped too much or not enough? It's a tough definition to nail, and we certainly discuss it before we dive into our personal opinions on games we don't quite understand the love for and the ones we wish had heaps more.

There's also the rare occurrence: A game received just as it should be. A game that receives just enough love or criticism that feels justifiable in our gamer brains. We kept our picks for each category a secret from each other before filming, and there are some surprise choices on both sides.

As always, tune in at the beginning of the pod to see what the two of us have been getting up to this week. As always, we sure are gaming, plus some other fun bits on the side. Surprisingly no arcade trips for me this week, though! All PC games all the way, baby.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Heya gamers, welcome to this week's episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast. I hope you've all had a great week so far. Who's still rolling the dice in Baldur's Gate 3, and who's in the Starfield waiting room?

There's been a lot of us who've been sinking our time into huge games recently, or preparing to lose our lives to one ASAP. There was a point where Lauren and I wondered if anyone actually liked long games anymore, and it turns out the answer is yes!

So this week, we'll be chatting all about huge, sprawling games. Was there a point where people were getting real exhausted with 80-hour stories, and why was that? Did the open world collectathon kill our enthusiasm for these experiences? What even constitutes as a long game? We'll be talking about all that, plus talking about some of the long games we've played ourselves as well as ones we're still yearning to finish.

Join us for our pre-episode catchup too, where we share our week in gaming with each other and all of you. Both of us actually went and did some gaming things outdoors for a change, and we have some great stories to tell you this week. If you feel like it, share your week in gaming with us too!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Happy Thursday PC gamers! What better way to celebrate Friday eve than with a brand-new episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast?

First of all, thank you all for your kind words on last week's episode with Baldur's Gate 3 lead writer Adam Smith. I'm glad you all enjoyed listening just as much as Lauren and I enjoyed recording the podcast. If you haven't had the chance to check it out yet, what are you doing?! Go, go, go! Then come back here to listen to this week's episode, obviously.

It's just Lauren and I this week, and we're gathering up our strongest videogame heroes to compile the ultimate RPG party. Every good party has a strong tank, dexterous ranged damage dealer, a powerful mage, and someone to keep them all alive along the way. 

We picked our parties in secret, coming together during this episode to reveal our choices and do our best to justify them. We both went for pretty different methods. By that, I mean I took on this challenge like an absolute goblin, while Lauren did the task properly. Sorry, Lauren. Make her feel better by dropping your own ultimate RPG party picks in the comments, would you? Also just so you know, we actually filmed this right before Baldur's Gate 3 came out, if you're wondering why there's a distinct lack of horny companions.

Don't forget to join us at the start of the podcast for our weekly catchup, where we chat about what we've been playing over the last week. Is it a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 again? Perhaps. Give it a listen and find out!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Hey there PC gamers and welcome back to this week's very special episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast. 

Why is it special, I hear you asking? Well, if the headline at the top of the page didn't give it away, we've got a real special guest joining myself and Lauren on the podcast this week. Adam Smith, lead writer on Baldur's Gate 3, is with us this week to talk about everything to do with the game's narrative, characters, honouring the series' legacy and converting the rules of tabletop D&D to a videogame format. 

A former journalist over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Adam joined Larian right at Baldur's Gate 3's inception and has been along for the whole ride. Understandably, that means he's got a lot to say now he can finally share the game with the world.

It's the first time we've had a guest from outside of our PC Gamer team, so I sincerely hope you take the time to give this week's episode a watch or a listen. Adam had a wealth of super interesting things to say about Baldur's Gate 3, and I'm sure you'll enjoy hearing him talk about the game as much as Lauren and I did.

It wouldn't be a Chat Log episode without a pre-podcast catchup though, and Lauren and I still found a bit of time to share our weeks with each other before we spoke to Adam. Spoiler alert: It's a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 all round. Who has the time for anything else right now?

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Happy Thursday gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! How have you been this week? Did you watch any EVO shenanigans, did you go out and touch grass? Or, if you're like all of us here at PC Gamer, did you spend your entire weekend holed up inside your room playing Baldur's Gate 3?

If you did, you're in the perfect place because this week's episode is all about Larian's latest grand RPG. We've got Associate Editor Ted Litchfield returning as a guest this week to talk about our first 10 to 20 hours in Baldur's Gate 3 and how we're feeling about the game so far. 

We chat a bit about our chosen Tavs and perhaps spend far too long on our egregiously horny companions—you can blame our BioWare romance brain rot for that one—but take enough time to talk about creative combat solutions and using unique class rizz to talk your way out of combat situations, too. There are some spoilers for Act 1 of course, so if you're not too far yet then maybe come back to this episode once you're a little further in!

It's probably already obvious what we've been up to this week, but Lauren and I still take a little bit of time before the main meat of the podcast to do our weekly catch-up. After all, we've somehow managed to find the time to play some stuff that isn't Baldur's Gate 3. Wild, I know. Don't forget to also let us know what you've been doing this week, whether that's endless dice rolls or playing something else entirely.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Hey gamers, welcome to this week's episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! We've been doing this for almost six months now, can you believe it? Whether you've been listening since the first episode or tuning in for the first time, thanks for sticking around!

This week, we've brought back Chris Livingston, PC Gamer's connoisseur of gaming's more bizarre ongoings. We're talking to him all about Skyrim mods, from the oddly specific fixes to the down-right horny. 

Skyrim is easily one of the most malleable, moddable games in recent history. It's become somewhat of a medieval, dragon-filled dollhouse for gamers to install a shocking number of mods and completely change the entire look and feel of the game. There are some genuinely excellent quality-of-life fixes out there, some mods that could only be described as "minor fault that annoyed one guy so much they fixed it," and some rather weird additions of both SFW and NSFW variety.

Chris even put together a fun quiz on which Skyrim mods are real and which ones he made up. Turns out it's quite hard to make up ridiculous Skyrim mods because the chances are it already exists. Who'd have thought?

As always, Lauren and I have our pre-podcast check-in, too. Join us as we share which games we've been playing this week, and talk a little bit about Palia, an upcoming cozy MMO we both had the opportunity to play back in July. Don't forget to let us know what you've been playing this week, too!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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What's up gamers? Welcome to this week's episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! Did you video podcast watchers notice our brand-new look in last week's episode? We've gone a little colourful, I hope you like it! Anyway, grab your headphones and put together your ultimate videogame music playlist. But don't play it yet! First, listen to our episode all about our own love for all things videogame music.

This week, we've brought along Weekend Editor Jody Macgregor. He may be a games journalist now, but Jody actually started out writing for music magazines. It makes him the perfect podcast guest this week, bringing the knowledge from both sides with some real neat facts about the evolution of music in games.

We all have a chat about some of our all-time favourite soundtracks, from JRPGs to games that have done some utterly rad stuff with adaptive tracks. Jody and I talk about how much racing games in the 2000s continue to influence our music taste today and spend way too long talking about all the cool radio stations in games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row. Everyone has a favourite station they'll fiercely defend, even if it's a station that usually plays music we hate. Drop your own favourite videogame radio station so I can judge if for some bizarre reason it isn't K-Rose in GTA San Andreas.

As always, check in with me and Lauren at the beginning of the podcast for our weekly catchup. After a sleepy few gaming weeks for both of us, we've been busy bees this week! I played more than one game! Lauren sort of played games! It's truly been a period of growth for both of us.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Greetings gamers, welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! How are y'all this week? I hope it's been a good one. This week Lauren and I have brought Online Editor Fraser Brown along to talk all about MMOs—where they've been, where they're at now and where we think they're going in the future.

All three of us have sunk unspeakable hours into MMOs, from Guild Wars 2, to Final Fantasy 14, to Star Wars: The Old Republic. We offer a brief history on the MMOs we've played over the years—and I share more than a few bizarro ones I found in the depths of the internet as a child—and which ones have held our attention for thousands of hours.

Is it time for theme park MMOs to step aside? Which genres deserve to be MMOfied in the next decade? Which MMOs on the horizon are we looking forward to and will we ever see one that manages to thrive alongside juggernauts of Blizzard and Square Enix design? We also make Fraser relive his 300 hours with New World. Sorry, Fraser.

Don't forget to tune in at the beginning of the episode for mine and Lauren's weekly catchup. As always, we share with each other (and you!) some of the fun things we've been up to this week—games we've played, books we've read, events we've attended—and don't forget to share your week with us, too!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Hey everyone, welcome to the latest episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log Podcast! I hope you're all having a great week so far. This week we've brought Morgan Park back on the podcast to talk about doing some good old-fashioned videogamin' with your significant other.

Some hobbies are made to be shared, and videogames can be the perfect way to spend time with your partner while getting to enjoy something you both love. There are so many multiplayer games to play together either as part of the same team or in a fierce head-to-head. There's even tons of fun to be found in backseating each other's singleplayer games, like ones with important story-swaying decisions or blood-pumping action games that are equally thrilling to watch as they are to play. Or maybe you're just the type of couple who loves to play their own stuff without anyone else's input, pushing those monitors together so you can game in a "together but separate" kinda way.

We chat about the different games both us and our partners like, and if we've ever managed to entice them over to a game we've been a huge fan of. Which genres are the best for gaming together, and which ones are best left to playing with your buds or random strangers on the internet? Do games play a big part in our relationship, and do we have any cute videogame couple stories? Are any of us a Discord household, and how do you manage to stop that damn echo when you're both in the same call? 

We talk about all that, plus Lauren and I get together at the beginning of the episode for a quick catch-up on what we've been playing this week. With the Steam sale about to end, we've both scooped up our final fresh deals and even had a bit of time to check them out in the process. I even managed to play something new for once. Imagine!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log Podcast! Or if it's your first episode, hey there, welcome! Hope you enjoy our little show. This week we're bringing in our resident Witcher expert Lauren Aitken to talk about the third season of the Netflix show. 

Lauren's read all the books, played the games, watched the TV show and has the tattoo sleeve to prove it, and she's here to give us the lowdown on some of the lore changes as well as offer her thoughts on how season three is shaping up and what we can expect in the future. With me being a total Witcher newbie and Lauren Morton falling somewhere in the middle, we've all got some thoughts on Henry Cavill's final escapade around the Continent before he passes the sword onto Liam Hemsworth.

Which characters are we loving this season, and how are we feeling about Yen, Ciri and Geralt trying to play happy family? What did we think about the production: The wigs, the special effects, Yen's terrifying purple eyes? With politics, redemption arcs and magical teens going through their emo phase abound, we try and recap as much as we can about how the first volume has gone so far.

Don't forget to join us at the beginning of the podcast too, where Lauren and I do our weekly catchup. Sit down with us to see what we've been playing (or not playing) over the last week, and other random anecdotes. Maybe you can share with us which games have been taking over your life in the past seven days, too.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Welcome back to another episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log Podcast, gamers. It's time to put on our mourning outfits and visit our gaming graveyard of half-finished and barely-touched titles that linger in our Steam libraries, shaming us for our lack of commitment.

We've all done it, though. Excitedly booted up a game, put a handful of hours into it. Then, perhaps a game we were more excited for comes along. Or maybe life got in the way a bit, and we forget videogames exist for a while. By the time we try and come back to it, we've long lost any motivation to play it or any understanding of what the hell we were doing there in the first place. It's a real shame!

There are a ton of reasons for not finishing a game, and Lauren and I take a bit of time to talk about our own personal ones. Which games did we try super hard to finish, only to fall at the final hurdle more than a few times? Which games did we straight-up rage quit, never to boot them up again out of sheer frustration? Which series have we bought in bulk only to never even install a single game from it? We'll be confessing all our gaming sins in this episode. If you've got any unfinished games haunting your libraries too, let us know. Make us feel better about our transgressions.

As always, come and join us before we get stuck into the main topic to see what we've been up to this week. Lauren and I share the games we've been playing—some of which may, uh, not be on PC—and other random snippets of our life in the last seven days. Hopefully, your week has been more interesting and less intensely hot than our own.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Hey there, welcome to another episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! We're a couple weeks out from the summer showcase season and our brains are sufficiently saturated with all manner of announcements, gameplay trailers and odd spectacles that retain the weird spirit of E3.

It was certainly a big week for games, so Lauren and I have brought back senior editor Robin Valentine to try and cover all the neatest things we saw across the week. Which showcase "won," which trailer was our absolute favourite and were there any pleasant surprises for us?  What the hell was Nicolas Cage rattling on about to Geoff Keighley? We do our best to go over every showcase and pluck some highlights from each one.

If you were listening a few weeks ago, you'll have caught our pre-brief with Wes Fenlon, too. We look back on some of the predictions we made and copium-filled wishes we had and see if anything we said actually lined up with what the showcases had to offer. Plus, of course, we take a bit of time to talk about the unavoidable juggernaut that is Starfield. Some of us are a little more excited for Bethesda's space adventure than others, and we share our hopes and concerns for what's to come.

We've brought Robin along for our weekly catchup too, letting you all in on what we've been up to in our gaming lives and beyond. I continue to betray the very foundation of PC Gamer, while Lauren and Robin try to set aside their frazzled post-E3 brains to remember what they managed to get up to that didn't involve working their asses off to bring you excellent roundups of each showcase and the best bits of the week. Be sure to thank them for all their hard work!

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! I hope you're sufficiently Summer Game Fested out, with a ton of hype for upcoming games to sit on top of your ever-growing backlog.

Sorry but not sorry, because this week Lauren and I are here to totally add to that backlog. We're halfway into the year and have seen some ace releases already. From Dead Space to Diablo, 2023 has already been packed full of huge games. But what about the little guy? The games that are really bloody good, but may not have had their moment to shine.

We'll be chatting about some of the hidden gems of 2023 that you may not have heard about. Or maybe you have heard about them and needed that tiiiny push to finally boot it up and play it. We go over some of our personal favourites, plus ones that have been on our radar and regretfully have had no time to play yet. We also go through some gems that our team have been loving and reviewing quite highly, hopefully sending you away with some new games to try out.

We'll be checking in with you at the start as always, sharing what we've been up to in the past week. Well, what we've been getting up to that doesn't involve being glued to a desk while working through all the summer showcase presentations, that is. Or if you're me, having the rare opportunity to ignore all of that and enjoy some nice live music in a field instead.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

1. Apple Podcasts
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts
4. Stitcher
5. Castbox
6. Amazon Music
7. iHeartRadio
8. Podcast Addict
9. And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Hey there, welcome back to PC Gamer's Chat Log podcast! Not-E3 week is upon us, and what better time to try and get everyone we know into PC games than a week that's full of cool PC game announcements?

Lauren tasked both of us with picking the perfect PC game for four people in our lives. What would get our Mom sitting at a desk with a full setup? Perhaps our roommate who only plays FIFA on their PlayStation, or someone we're currently chatting up on Tinder? What about the book-lover on TikTok who didn't realise how many games had fantastic, sprawling stories and now she's on the hunt for more?

We squirrelled ourselves away to secretly figure out the answer to each person, before getting together on this podcast to present our results. How alike were our thought patterns for each person? What was our logic behind each decision? Take a peek and find out, and maybe try and think of your own answers for each person and let us know what they are!

As always, we kick off the podcast with a look back at what each of us has been up to over the past week. With two huge game releases last weekend in the form of Street Fighter 6 and Diablo 4, we've been kept pretty damn busy in the gamingsphere. Some of us may have even been on some super-secret press trips lately, too. Shhh, don't tell anyone.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio
• Podcast Addict
• And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

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Welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! It's officially June and you know what that means: It's announcement season, baby. This week we have Wes Fenlon back on the pod to have a little pre-brief about the whole summer showcase bonanza.

Now, of course, the summer announcement season isn't quite the huge event it used to be. E3 is gone, possibly forever. Summer Game Fest has sort of taken its place, but a ton of developers and publishers have started doing their own thing instead, while also being considerate enough to do it all within some kind of schedule. 

Regardless, it's still an exciting time for our favourite games. With Wes heading off to sunny LA to peruse some cool games next week, we chat about some of our most anticipated showcases and huff a little bit of copium for announcements we're hoping for. We also discuss some total wildcards that we would like to see at the show, and of course we couldn't help but mention that funny little space game Bethesda's been working on. Not only that, but we chat a little bit about how we spend this season both behind the keyboard and simply enjoying the shows with our pals.

For once, we also have our guest joining us for our weekly introduction and catch-up. All three of us will be chatting about what we got up to in the last week. What have we been playing? Was it good? How many times did Wes kick my ass at Street Fighter 6? Is Lauren still deep in her Roots of Pacha hole? Probably.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio
• Podcast Addict
• And more!

If you prefer some faces to go with your voices, you can also check out the podcast over on YouTube:

In every field, including gaming, there's some uneasiness that AI will be used to push people out of jobs. The developers at Blackbird Interactive don't see AI as anywhere close to that capable, however—at least not yet.

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"With Midjourney or Disco Diffusion, the various art programs, our pedigree as a studio [values] art very highly," said president Rory McGuire. "We've been collecting amazing concept artists for as long as the studio's been around. As a craft we value it a lot. All of us have spent time with those programs. I think they have a lot of value, but I think that quote about 'the power of a thousand interns' is pretty spot-on.

"We've built pitch decks for projects, concept pieces and key arts, and I've never seen an AI program produce a piece of art that was even close to any of our senior concept artists. And in terms of giving them direction... I spent a bunch of time with Midjourney and you can keep refining a concept and eventually get it kind of ballpark, but if I have to give something direction 20 times, what's the actual value of that? We have concept artists that we give directions to once and they nail it 95%."

From there the discussion moved to how much of art—and game development as a whole—is about thinking and problem-solving, not just the act of creation itself. Blackbird's CEO Rob Cunningham mentioned the motto "Think now, draw later" and how important discussion is to the creative process, beyond just the final produced piece of art that a tool like Midjourney can produce.

We also discussed what AI tools are likely to be used in game development first, and how its efficacy will depend more on the game designers than the tools themselves.

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Another week, another episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! This week, we've brought in senior editor Robin Valentine to chat all about our favourite (and least favourite) level tropes.

You know the ones: The classic water level, the weird stealth level that doesn't belong in the ultra-violent action game, the bizarre segments that plonk you on a turret and force you to down hundreds of goons with infinite bullets. They're everywhere in games, and we've all slogged through our fair share of stereotypical game design. Why do games default to these often out-of-place levels? Why are tailing missions so goddamn boring? Why do we still kinda love them anyway?

We discuss some of the most common videogame level tropes, which ones we really love and the ones we really, really don't. We seem to generate a half-official tier list every time we do one of these, and this episode is no different. Which level tropes can we stomach for games to come, and which ones deserve to go straight in the bin? Does a good escort mission exist? Tune in to find out.

Like always, Lauren and I take a bit of time at the start of the podcast to chat about what we're up to. Has Lauren finally bought a train ticket to Honk(ai) on a Star Rail? Am I playing anything other than Tekken 7 right now? Don't kid yourself, everyone. I'm definitely playing Tekken 7.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio
• Podcast Addict
• And more!

If disembodied voices aren't your thing, you can also peep the video version on YouTube below:

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It's another episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! This week, we've roped in associate editor Ted Litchfield, the expert in all things virtual romance. We're chatting all about RPG love affairs and our favourite videogame squeezes.

At this point, it feels like RPG and romance go hand in hand. After all, what's a bit of world-saving without a few smooches along the way? We talk about a few of the major presiders over the RPG romance like BioWare and CD Projekt Red and how much we either love or hate their eligible bachelors and bachelorettes.

Were their romance systems actually good, though? What even is a good romance system? Why are so many videogame characters easily wooed by being repeatedly spammed with the same gift? We talk about so-called "vending machine romances" versus ones that actually test your memory and knowledge of characters' personalities and which one we actually prefer. 

Not all romances are intentional though, and we talk about which of our accidental love stories are our fave. We also confess that we may get a little too defensive over who we knock virtual boots with in these games, because nothing's more precious than a bundle of romantic polygons.

As always, Lauren and I kickstart the podcast by letting you all know what we've been up to this week. Surprise! I actually did something that wasn't playing Tekken 7 or hitting the arcade for once. Okay, I still did those things. But I added a little variety for once, okay?

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio
• Podcast Addict
• And more!

If disembodied voices aren't your thing, you can also peep the video version on YouTube below:

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We kicked off our FPS roundtable talking about innovation in shooters, and how Escape From Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown have embraced difficulty as ways to hook players and make a win feel particularly meaningful. 

"It used to be you played UT or something and it's like, do you win the match, yes or no... and that's kinda where it ends," said Etheridge. "But in something like Hunt, it's not just did you win the match, it's 'did I get enough dollars to get my optimal setup for the next round or not?' Trying to think long-term."

Hunt: Showdown manager David Fifield joked that he loves the community meme that in which shotgun users call snipers campers, and snipers call shotgun users campers.

"If you wanted to make me angry as a design director, tell me the audience is playing our game wrong, and I'd get real mad real fast," he said. "But if players want to say to each other they're playing the game wrong, then I'm deeply interested. Why are they feeling that? Why are they coming back? What do they all want? Can you play your way?"

From there our roundtable talked about ways their games try to give players a variety of ways to win—through raw shooting skill, through tactics, through luck—unlike the simpler design of twitch shooters. And we tackled an eternally hot topic: balance.

"For Apex, we look at our weapon sandbox as a very delicate balance, where each weapon has a need in the game," said Evan Nikolich. "It's not so much about having everything balanced on the head of a needle, at least in a BR. It's about providing the tools to players so those tools feel fair. They have strengths and weaknesses, but there's always some kind of counterplay in the sandbox."

There's another hour of FPS discussion after that, so give the full roundtable a listen above or on your podcasting app of choice.

And if you like this sort of deep dive into game development, make sure to check out our recent RPG roundtable podcast and chat between the creators of Dwarf Fortress and Caves of Qud, also from this year's Game Developers Conference.

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Hello and welcome to the ninth episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! This week, Lauren and I are joined by guides writer Sarah James to talk all about our precious MMO babies.

With Sarah coming from World of Warcraft, Lauren from Guild Wars and myself from Final Fantasy 14, we have a great variety of MMO characters to gush about. The beauty of MMOs is you can be anyone, really. Turns out the three of us all play our MMOs and their respective characters a little differently, which probably speaks a whole lot to our individual personalities.

We offer a bit of backstory on each of our mains and talk about characters from other MMOs we've dabbled in. Do we see our characters as an extension of ourselves, or more like an old-school MySpace page that serves no other purpose than being pretty? 

We also chat about lore accuracy and role-playing, and Lauren reminisces about a very special Elder Scrolls Online character. If you're also a fierce defender of your MMO toons—whether they be personified shitposts, replicas of pop culture characters, extensions of yourself or a totally original character—this is the podcast episode for you.

As always with Chat Log, Lauren and I start off the episode having a chinwag about what we got up to this week. I continue to be an awfully predictable gamer (albeit with the addition of the flu this week) and Lauren once again tempts me with the idea of brilliant-sounding Stardewlikes.

You can check out the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio
• Podcast Addict
• And more!

If disembodied voices aren't your thing, you can also peep the video version on YouTube below:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

*Soothing voice* Hello and welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast. Why am I talking like this today? Well, Lauren and I are getting our warm fuzzy blankets out and perfecting our mood lighting to talk about the cozy gaming trend, the most relaxing and calming of all videogame trends.

Is there a difference between wholesome games and cozy games? What are the wildest 'cozy' gaming recommendations we've seen on TikTok? We also continue our fascination with cooking in games by discussing whether cooking is cozy, and offer up our own recommendations on the ultimate comfort games to play on a rainy evening. Lauren attempts to convince me that cozy horror is a genre without offering any proof, so I'm looking to you wonderful listeners to drop your own recommendations for us!

It wouldn't be an episode of Chat Log without Lauren and I getting together at the start to talk about what we've been up to this week. We talk about how our brief Minecraft Legends coop session went, and some quick thoughts about how we enjoyed (or didn't) enjoy the game as Minecraft lovers. You can also check out Lauren's Minecraft Legends review, if you want some more concrete criticisms. 

You can find PC Gamer's Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio
• Podcast Addict
• And more!

If you'd prefer some faces to match to our voices, you can also check out the episode on YouTube below:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

Welcome back to the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! This week, Lauren and I are joined by Executive Editor Tyler Wilde to discuss E3's unfortunate demise. Well, maybe.

With the big gaming showcase of the year cancelled once again, it's not looking good for poor E3. Is this the end for a once-beloved games show, or is there any chance it can come back stronger than ever in 2024? Is Geoff Keighley waiting in the distance, ready to swoop in and make Summer Game Fest the new It Girl of the gaming world?

We mourn what we loved about E3—the drama, the shared cultural moments, the utterly cringeworthy technical problems—and share some memories of the shows from our time as both casual enjoyers and members of the press. We also talk about the not-so-great and what it was like to be a writer rushing around appointments in years prior.

As always, Lauren and I get together before the podcast to talk about what we've been up to this week. What have we been playing, and why are we suddenly trying to convert everyone into book enjoyers? Blame Lauren, not me.

You can find PC Gamer's Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio
• Podcast Addict
• And more!

If you'd prefer some faces to match to our voices, you can also check out the episode on YouTube below:

RSS Feed | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Direct download

It's another episode of the PC Gamer Chat Log podcast! This week, Lauren and I are diving into the dark depths of the internet to find the most egregious videogame merch possible.

Merchandise is one of the main ways we all express our love for videogames. How else is anybody going to know I mainline Final Fantasy 14 if it's not plastered all over my body and around my house? But not all videogame merch is made the same—some of it is well and truly cursed. Think Modern Warfare 2's Ghost plastered on a pencil skirt.

Lauren and I talk about some of the merch we own ourselves, the type of merch we hate, and what we'd love to see more of (anything but another crew neck, please). We also decide on the ultimate miniature videogame figure: Will Pop Vinyls, Nendroids, or Tubbz come out on top? If my terrible opinions are anything to go by, I think you already know.

As always, we take a bit of time at the start to talk about what we've been up to this week, too. Which games have taken over our lives this week? Am I once again foolishly trying to get good at a fighting game, and is Lauren knee-deep in some RPG or cosy sim? 

You can find PC Gamer's Chat Log podcast on a whole bunch of podcast platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Castbox
• Amazon Music
• iHeartRadio
• Podcast Addict
• And more!

We love a disembodied voice every once in a while, but we think this podcast in particular is great in video form. Catch it over on YouTube or down below!