Square Enix have announced that mobile game Deus Ex: The Fall is being re-released on Steam in a new and reworked PC edition, to be released on March 25th. Did anyone ask for this? Probably, because The Fall was supposedly a competent if somewhat unremarkable extension of the atmosphere and ideas of Human Revolution. As you'd hope from a PC port, the game has been augmented to support keyboard, mouse and controller. The mobile version's in-app purchase options have also been removed.

Here's the feature list that Square Enix have released alongside their announcement:


No in-game purchase options
28 Steam achievements
Adjusted AI
Steam Trading Cards, Badges and (TBC)
Revised tutorial
Full keyboard and Mouse control optimisation
Rebalanced game economy taking into account no IAP
Microsoft Controller support
Removal of auto target options
Reduction in aiming recital size
Choice in cover style as DXHR (HOLD or Toggle)
Resolution options
Anti Aliasing option
Vsync
Control maps for keyboard and gamepad


Basically, they're doing everything that would be required of an iOS to PC port. Will it be enough? It's hard not to be massively sceptical about a mobile port, but, if Square Enix can deliver a quality conversion, The Fall should be a nice slice of Deus Ex to tide us over until the mysterious Deus Ex: Universe is further revealed.

Deus Ex: The Fall will release on Steam this March 25th, priced 8/$10.

It's a testament to the legacy of Deus Ex that so many still see such potential in the classic cyberpunk game. With its Revision mod, a small team of designers at Caustic Creative is working to put its own stamp on the original experience with redesigned music and environment art.

As we can see in the large number of sample screenshots for the project, Revision aims to offer "new level design, aesthetic direction and world-building detail," according to Caustic. It's obvious that the development team is primarily concerned with way it feels to play Deus Ex and has said it won't be altering the original storyline in any way. As project audio director John French puts it in a video explaining the mod's changes to the game's music, the challenge, and attraction of re-imagining Deus Ex is a straightforward one.

"Why do this project?" French says "Why score something that already has a remarkably good soundtrack? Because we wanted to see if we could do it justice. Because it was there. I hope we did things properly. I hope that everyone enjoys the experience that we've built here."

Deus Ex: Revision isn't available just yet, although Caustic Creative lists early-2014 as the projected time period when the team will complete its work. A demo is currently available to download, but it's missing the new soundtrack and doesn't represent the entire mod or the final versions of the new environment art, according to Caustic. You can check out a list the designers have created detailing the progress they are making here.

With the success of the 2011's Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the announcement of other games within what's being called the Deus Ex: Universe, Revision could be a good reason to revisit how we all got here to begin with.

We talk about the Titanfall beta jetpacks, mechs, magic guns, and all while Wes sits in the corner for being the only one who hasn't played it. Then Evan fills us in on his experience playing Evolve, the new asymmetrical shooter from the Left 4 Dead developers, and Wes emerges to guide us into a world of pure imagination in the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod.

Give your Valentine some space for a minute and listen to PC Gamer Podcast #372 - Pure Imagination.

Have a question, comment, complaint, or observation? Send an MP3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com or call us toll-free at 877-404-1337 x724.

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@ELahti (Evan Lahti)
@wesleyfenlon (Wes Fenlon)
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@demiurge (Cory Banks)

Podcast theme by Ben Prunty.

We talk about the Titanfall beta jetpacks, mechs, magic guns, and all while Wes sits in the corner for being the only one who hasn't played it. Then Evan fills us in on his experience playing Evolve, the new asymmetrical shooter from the Left 4 Dead developers, and Wes emerges to guide us into a world of pure imagination in the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod.

Give your Valentine some space for a minute and listen to PC Gamer Podcast #372 - Pure Imagination.

Have a question, comment, complaint, or observation? Send an MP3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com or call us toll-free at 877-404-1337 x724.

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed.

Follow us on Twitter:

@ELahti (Evan Lahti)
@wesleyfenlon (Wes Fenlon)
@tyler_wilde (Tyler Wilde)
@demiurge (Cory Banks)

Podcast theme by Ben Prunty.

I didn't think Just Cause 2 Multiplayer could be more ridiculous than it was when it launched in December, but Build World, a custom server created by avid JC2-MP player Jman100, proved me wrong. Any normal JC2-MP server you join will be filled with dozens of people stunt jumping off of jumbo jets or flying boats across the sky. Jman's Build World adds something new: his server, called Jman100's Freeroam Construction Sandbox, includes a separate instance where players can spawn any object that exists in Just Cause 2, from a tree to a Mt. Rushmore-like rock face, and place it as they see fit.

I put together a gallery of Build World's weirdest and funniest sights, which you can find here. But that wasn't enough to convey the silly fun of exploring Build World, so I had Jman100 tour me around his server while I captured video. We inevitably spent most of our time doing backflips in stretch limos, flying boats through the air, and causing havoc with Just Cause's crazy physics. Check it out below.



For more of Build World, check out our gallery, which includes an interview with Jman on how he scripted the server. Want to play for yourself? Here's the server's website.

The next Hitman game was cancelled. Then it was uncancelled. Now it's being talked about in an open letter on the Hitman website. "Dear Miley," it reads. No, wait, that was the other one. "Dear Hitman fans," it begins, before outlining, in some detail, what Io's next sharply dressed bald assassin simulator will entail.

If Hitman: Absolution converted you from a Hitman fan into a lapsed Hitman fan, there's good news: you can read the letter anyway. Also: I have a feeling the missive is meant for you most of all. I'll quote the highlights, but the highlights are talk of "open, non-linear level design" and "huge, checkpoint-free, sandbox levels". Those were some of things we moaned about it in our review. I don't see any mention of "non-excruciating nun-based trailers", however, so Io may still have a way to go yet.

Io say that "the game concentrates on the core Hitman fantasy of using a wide range of tools to take out a diverse group of targets across expansive, exotic locations around the world. We are building this game on the backbone of the Glacier 2 engine, using the best parts and what we have learnt through Hitman: Absolution and drawing inspiration from past titles like Contracts and Blood Money to fulfil the core Hitman fantasy. That means we re packing in an extreme level of detail on the largest levels we have ever built for a Hitman game. We ve adopted an open, non-linear level design approach to the game, ensuring the game will play out across huge, checkpoint-free, sandbox levels. Our aim is to create living, breathing and believable levels which will allow gamers to play around with the AI to create those unique moments every fan of the Hitman franchise loves."

Promising words. Io have also "removed 47 s magic pockets" and brought Contracts mode back - which is nice. As letters go, it's certainly a lot better than the Council Tax bills and pizza coupons I generally get in the post. Now, Hitman fans - what are you going to write in reply?

Thanks to Blue's News.

Square Enix has issued the following statement to clarify today's news about the cancelation of a Hitman game that was being developed at Square Enix Montreal:

"There's a bit of confusion around the Hitman projects currently in development at Square Enix-owned studios and so we wanted to take the time to clarify what each studio is working on to clear up some of this confusion. Io-Interactive is developing a new, AAA Hitman game that will be coming to PC and next-gen consoles and Square Enix Montreal is fully focused on mobile development of games some of which are related to the Hitman franchise," A Square Enix representative said. "We look forward to sharing more details about these titles later this year."



All is not well with agent 47, the eerily hairless protagonist of the Hitman series. The LinkedIn profile of senior game designer Richard Knight indicates that the next-gen installment in the series he was working on at Square Enix Montreal was recently canceled, Videogamer first discovered.

The LinkedIn profiles of other employees at Square Enix Montreal indicate that the game was a re-imagining, and that it would have featured some form of microtransactions.

In late 2012, we first reported that the next-gen Hitman game was being developed by the then newly formed Square Enix Montreal, and not the original Hitman developer, IO Interactive. Hitman: Absolution director Tore Blystad said the franchise would be handled similarly to how Activision handles the Call of Duty games.

It s like with Treyarch and Infinity Ward, Blystad told OPM. You have an IP that has been developed. They will feed off each other, as well as somethings that stand out. I think with these big franchises it takes a long time to develop just one game. If you can, work a little bit in parallel at least and help each other out.

The plan was to let IO Interactive begin work on a new franchise while Square Enix Montreal took the lead on a new Hitman. But following a devastating fiscal year for Square Enix, IO halved its workforce and went back to Hitman, which, as far as we know, they re still developing now.

So it s not like we ll not get another Hitman game, it just might take a little longer until we do, and we won t be seeing the one Square Enix Montreal was working on.

We weren t the biggest fans of the most recent Absolution, but the Hitman series has had some amazing moments, especially in Hitman: Blood Money, which we ve recently reinstalled.

The Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod was released earlier this week, adding multiplayer support to the tropical island of Panau. It instantly became our mod of the week, and we jumped in together at lunchtime to see if we could survive the chaos.

No-one survives the chaos, it turns out, but that's okay, because a barrage of ridiculous things are happening around you all the time. Here are but a few.

Andy grabbed onto someone's chopper and wouldn't let go



The Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod lets you teleport to various checkpoints with a quick chat command. First stop: the airport. We'd played an early beta test of the JC2 multiplayer mod, and already knew that airports tended to be a hotspot. We were not disappointed. The sky was full of spiraling jets and attack choppers trying to shoot each other out of the sky - the perfect opportunity for a spot of trolling.

In Just Cause 2 you can press F to grapple distant vehicles. If you hit a chopper, you'll dangle haphazardly beneath with a gun in your free arm. Normally choppers are piloted by passive NPCs, but in the multiplayer mod they're piloted by angry, angry humans. There's little a chopper can do with an illicit passenger, though. This person wobbled around trying to shake Andy off, and then tried flying low to scrape him against a building, to no avail. Andy was soon killed by stray bullets.

An army of jumbo jets tried to bring down the Mile High Club blimp



Our next stop was the Mile High Club blimp, a party boat suspended high above the archipelago. This place was so manic that we stayed there for the remainder of the hour.

You can't bring down the Mile High Club blimp, but that didn't stop players from trying. We were playing on a pretty lawless server, which means anyone can spawn any weapon or vehicle they wish from a menu. Naturally, players started spawning the biggest planes they could and repeatedly rammed them into the blimp. The blimp withstood the charge and gradually became enclosed in a collection of blackened jumbo corpses.

Tom outran a crashing jumbo jet



The last place you'd want to be during a jumbo jet vs. blimp free-for-all is on the deck of the blimp. It's mostly given over to a snazzy neon bar, but there weren't many drinkers around on account of the risk of being completely squashed. In an accidental moment of dramatic self-preservation, I zip-lined across the deck as one landed behind me. It screeched to a halt a few metres behind me in this picture, taken moments before I was shot by an attack chopper.

People start "dangle jousting" with machineguns



The skies are full of fire in the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod, in the open server we played on anyway. Some servers require you amass points to purchase weapons, but with hundreds of players, each with their own attack chopper or rocket launcher, our collective hour was incoherent, but wonderfully manic. The carnage was so intense we felt a bit aimless at first, but as soon as you start setting challenges for one another the mod comes to life.

In a savvy move, Avalanche have knocked 80% off Just Cause 2 on Steam. The mod is free, and also on Steam, so there are few barriers if you want to try it out yourself, and I'd certainly recommend it. I'd also recommend turning off the chat with F3 if you do, though. It's a bit of a free-for-all in there.

Like a carnival barker standing in front of a strange-looking circus machine, the wonderfully chaotic Just Cause 2 wants you to take a ride. Syncing up nicely with the official Steam release yesterday of its massive and free Multiplayer Mod, JC2 is seeing a steep discount. The 80 percent price drop to $3 on Steam for the standard version of the action game runs through December 19.

It's not the first time and it almost certainly isn't the last time we'll see a deal like this for JC2, but with the full launch of the Multiplayer Mod, there's likely to be maximum-level shenanigans going on. With its giant Panau playground, which on some mod servers could potentially hold many thousands of players simultaneously, you'll be chasing cash and wreaking havoc. There are also plenty of servers with smaller player counts, for those of you who might want a more contemplative skydiving and stunt-flying experience. It's a giant playground and real showcase for what a dedicated modding community can accomplish.

Check out our Mod of the Week feature for tips on navigating the mod as well as an intro to some of its various limo-racing, jet-hijacking possibilities.