One Friday night in early 2018 when I was home alone, I decided it was finally time for me to play Resident Evil 7. I'd heard from too many people that I just had to play it in VR, so I borrowed a PSVR, hooked up what felt like a dozen cables, positioned the camera and a chair in the middle of my living room, and started to play. I was immediately disappointed by how flat and low-res much of the environment looked in the first few minutes of RE7—the game clearly took a graphical hit to run in VR on the Playstation 4. I couldn't help wondering just how much better it could look on my far more powerful gaming PC, a room away.

Sadly, Resident Evil 7 VR's supposed year-long exclusivity deal came and went and no PC support ever materialized, which is a shame—once you get past the limitations of PSVR, it's one of the most gripping, immersive games you can play in a headset. (Also, maybe don't play it when you're home alone with the lights off. Pro tip.) Along with RE7, here are four other VR games we hope find their way to PC.

Tetris Effect

I know, I know: the most obvious possible selection, but that doesn't make it wrong. One of the year's best games is, against all odds, a new version of Tetris, from Rez and Lumines creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Not only does it feel right as a Tetris game, it uses VR in ways that are absolutely capitvating. Emotional is not a word I'd normally use to describe Tetris, but, well, here we are. It's gorgeous and moving and a must-play for anyone who has a PSVR.

Here's hoping that in 2019, it launches on PC with VR support. Odds are pretty good: Rez Infinite launched on Steam a few months after consoles, and supports both the Vive and Oculus Rift.

Jupiter & Mars

An imaginative 2019 PSVR exclusive that we'd love to see arrive on PC, too. Jupiter & Mars looks like a psychedelic trip through the ocean as a permanently high dolphin, with the kind of visual splendor that can make us go slack-jawed in VR. Some VR games we play for cool gun twirling in first person, some we play for clever puzzling or powerful storytelling, and some are just sensory experiences that take you for a ride. Jupiter & Mars looks like it'll be the latter, though it does promise puzzles and has a message about the impact of climate change to go along with its entrancing graphics.

Astro Bot Rescue Mission 

We'll admit it: 2018 has been a pretty stellar year for Playstation exclusives, with God of War, Spider-man, and, apparently, Astro Bot. It's a bit surprising that one of the year's most celebrated games is a VR platformer, but here we are. By most accounts, Astro Bot isn't a particularly groundbreaking platformer. Take it out of VR, and it wouldn't blow anyone's mind. But that just goes to show how much power there is in the immersion of virtual reality. Feeling like you're *inside* the game world, and watching characters move around from a third-person perspective, ignites a feeling of playfulness that you can't get with a TV (or even in first-person VR).

As Eurogamer wrote in their review, "VR makes everything old new again." That is, crucially, not a foregone conclusion: there are plenty of VR games that try to stick to what works in genres outside of VR, and end up being a bit boring as a result. Great 3D platformers are few and far between, these days, and we'd love to have one more on the PC. But since this one is from a Sony studio, it's sadly going to stay exclusive forever.

Resident Evil 7 

Resident Evil 7 was the revitalizing change this horror series desperately needed. It plays well out of VR, and its switch to a first person perspective definitely puts horror back into sharp focus. This is a creepy game, when you're simply walking down a hallway, looking closely at piles of disgusting filth, or fighting off a deranged axe murderer. All of that is even more intense in VR, which naturally moves at a slower pace. It can genuinely be hard to force yourself to walk into the next room when you know some bad, bad shit might be waiting in there for you.

Being able to play Resident Evil 7 in VR without sacrificing on image quality—it's a damn good looking game—is reason enough for it to get a PC VR port. Come on, Capcom: Since everyone's psyched about Resident Evil 2's remake coming in early 2019, why not capitalize on the attention and get people talking about RE7 again, too?

ILMxLAB's Star Wars VR experiences

Rather than a singular game, this is a collection of VR experiences made by ILM and VR company The Void over the past few years. The most recent, Secrets of the Empire, debuted at Disneyland in early 2018. You're a Rebel spy accompanying Rogue One's K-2S0 on the hunt for Imperial secrets, and are able to move around in a location-based VR setting with hand tracking, interactable objects, and everything else you'd expect from a high-end VR experience.

Not all of these experiences are designed in a way that would work at home, but ILM and The Void's next collaboration, Vader Immortal, is a VR series coming to the Oculus Quest headset. That's close enough to a PC release to make me hope the developers can rework their various Star Wars VR experiences into a package that would work well with the Vive or Rift set up for room scale. I don't care if there's much to do with them: in fact, I'd probably be more psyched to just walk around a virtually recreated Tatooine cantina than play a brief VR shooter.

In this week's PCG Q&A, we're exploring which series you've just had enough of playing. In some cases, burning out on a series can be a result of the fact that successful properties will seemingly run forever, past the point where we can still enjoy them, combined with our changing tastes and habits as years go by. Below, you'll find the answers of the PC Gamer team, and below that, we'd love to read your answers in the comments. 

To reiterate, then: which game series burned you out?

Samuel Roberts: Call of Duty

My little brother plays a ton of Call of Duty, and he's not bothered one bit by the lack of a campaign in Black Ops 4, which confirms we're from completely different generations of player. Battle royale and zombie modes are enough to make him drop money on the game, but for me the campaign was always my first stop in CoD. During the Infinity Ward days they were particularly strong, to the point where I replayed CoD 2's campaign multiple times.

They were my gateway to the multiplayer. After Modern Warfare 3, though, the series just tired me out on all levels, and the campaign for Black Ops 2 wasn't terribly exciting based on my time with the first few missions. I'd probably just been playing them for too long, and felt like I'd seen all of the tricks a CoD campaign could possibly show me. 

Jody Macgregor: The Walking Dead

The first season of Telltale's Walking Dead is one of my favorite games, and I loved the second season too. Its finale didn't quite have the same impact as the climax of the original, but what could equal that? Together they add up to one of the most atmospheric takes on the zombie apocalypse in videogames, and it's not like we're short on those. Then the Michonne spin-off happened, and it felt like a tiring restatement of the same formula. I still like the way Telltale structure stories—Batman was a real return to form—but Michonne reduced those Big Decision Moments to predictable cliches more thoroughly than any of their games bar maybe Minecraft: Story Mode. It put me off so much I haven't played New Frontier at all. Maybe I'll come back for the final season? 

Austin Wood: Far Cry

I burned out on Far Cry. I thought Far Cry 3 was great, partly because I'll play any game with a good bow in it, but mainly because despite having the worst name, backstory and appearance of any protagonist ever, Jason Brody was a really interesting character. This was also back when Ubisoft's now well-worn open-world formula still felt relatively fresh, so I spent a lot of time just exploring the Rook Islands. I'd have to reinstall it to be sure, but I think I finished everything apart from those stupid, tiny collectibles. Then Far Cry 4 came out, and while it felt better to play, it also felt pretty familiar and I thought the environments and characters were worse, and from there it was just downhill for me. I don't what it would take to get me back into the series, but I can tell you it's not cavemen and it's not Montana.  

Chris Livingston: Just Cause

I burned out on Just Cause. I really, really loved the chaos and destruction of Just Cause 1 and 2 but it tended to be a bit mindless—which is great! There are plenty of times I want to unplug my brain and just blow stuff up for a while, and those games are a beautiful canvas for that kind of freeform mayhem. After a while, though, I guess it's just not enough to engage me. When Just Cause 3 rolled around and looked like it would be more of the same, I just didn't bite. I know I probably would have enjoyed it for a few hours, but couldn't imagine I'd really get deep into it.

Andy Chalk: King's Quest

Since Austin beat me to the punch on Far Cry (do yourself a favor—play 1, 2, Blood Dragon, and then call it quits while you're still having fun) I'll go back a little further in time to King's Quest. I loved the first three King's Quest games but by the time I had finished with the fourth, Perils of Rosella, I'd had enough. I don't remember if I knew it at the time, or if it actually took the arrival of KQ5, Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder, to make me realize that I had no interest, but when it finally came around I did not care one whit—I don't think I even bothered trying it. The KQ games were great in their day but they never grew out of it, and between that and the way I kind of overdosed on Sierra adventures when I first started playing them (I played the holy hell out of Space Quest, Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and most of the rest, too), I've never felt an urge to go back. 

Tom Senior: Assassin's Creed

For some reason I have lost most of my enthusiasm for Assassin's Creed. Even with a two-year break and a mostly successful revamp in Origins, the notion of going into a new 100-hour adventure and having to rediscover wristblades and start all over again with a new assassin is wearying. It's unfair too, given how much effort goes into making the historical setting of each game so beautiful and different. What I'm really tired of is the fundamentals like running, jumping and fighting, which haven't felt fun and responsive to me in those games for years. I would rather go back to the pistol carnage of Black Flag than spend 50 hours moving up through Origin's leveling system. Hopefully the newly revealed Assassin's Creed Odyssey can make some exciting changes. 

James Davenport: Resident Evil 7

Resident Evil 7 was great, the perfect soft reset for the series that relied on a small cast of interesting characters rather than zombies to scare us. I guess I should walk that back a touch. The first third of Resident Evil 7 was great, but then the zombie stand-ins showed up, the hilarious and spooky Baker family fell to the wayside, and RE7 became a generic monster shooter with light puzzle-solving. I was feeling especially defeated during the short train of cameos during the final moments. Chris Redfield shows up, a Wesker gun saves the day, and whadda you know? It's the same convoluted Resident Evil nonsense I'd been hoping the series had left behind for good. Damnit, Capcom! I've never been chased through a mansion by a middle-aged man in a swamp before! But RE7 spends its final six or so hours taking you further and further away from the dream. If early Resident Evil 8 trailers even hint at Umbrella, zombies, or ropes in an old character, I'm out until someone can convince me otherwise. 

Jarred Walton: Might and Magic

I had several "go to" series growing up, Ultima, Might and Magic, and Wizardry. Ultima and Wizardry suffered ignominious deaths at the hands of the developers, and Might and Magic was basically dead until a tenth installment arrived (twelve years after the previous title) in 2014. I loved Might and Magic III through V, but never quite felt lake the later editions kept up with the times. MM6: Mandate of Heaven was the last game in the series I played more than a few hours, and I never even tried MM8 through MM10.

Heroes of Might and Magic took a similar trajectory, in that I thought one through three were great, and four and beyond couldn't keep my interest. That's the sad reality of getting older and more responsible, perhaps. After staying up until 6am far too many times with HOMM3, I finished school, got a real job, and pulling an all-nighter on a game was no longer something I wanted to do. I have no idea if the later versions are any good.

Sorry Might and Magic. It's not you, it's me.

While the speedruns performed live on stream at Games Done Quick events aren't necessarily the fastest runs in their categories (though world records have been broken), they're often some of the most entertaining. The live audience ups the pressure, and the commentary from the streamers as they explain their ridiculous glitches is always fascinating.

Last week, the latest Awesome Games Done Quick marathon raised over two million dollars for The Prevent Cancer Foundation and gave us many more frame-perfect feats to be awed by. Below are some of our favorite runs from AGDQ 2018 (specifically of games that are on PC, naturally), and we'll have more about the event and its future soon.

Note that you may have to skip ahead a ways in these videos if they don't auto-jump to the beginning of the run. You can see all the runs on AGDQ's YouTube channel.

Resident Evil 7 (1:49:27) 

By Carcinogen

Probably the most widely celebrated speedrun of AGDQ, it's no surprise that we'd want to highlight this incredible Resident Evil 7 run first. It's a perfect entry point into what makes AGDQ special: a talented runner, an informative and funny couch of commentators, and a challenging game that's tense to watch. Carcinogen's run is full of moments where things go wrong and he manages to just barely survive, but it's his charisma that really makes it all fun—like when he takes the piss out of a jumpscare by adding in a scare of his own. —Steven Messner

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (27:49) 

By tinahacks

Lizardcube's gorgeous remake of Wonder Boy 3 is mostly faithful to the original, and has a retro mode you can activate at any time to see the original graphics. During tinahacks' skilful run she uses that to skip boss intros, and one of the Lizardcube team, who is there on the couch, is just a little bit crushed by it. Having someone who worked on the game there to contribute insights adds a lot to what would already be an impressive speedrun (I played a lot of Wonder Boy 3 on my neighbor's Sega Master System, and I never came close to being as good as tinahacks). Lizardcube are actively involved with the speedrun community, and even decided to leave a few of the more interesting glitches in their remake so runners could exploit them, as you'll see here. —Jody Macgregor

Skyrim (50:26) 

By Wall of Spain

I enjoyed seeing high-skill speedruns like Claris's run of Sonic Mania, but I also like the goofy stuff and Wall of Spain's glitchy tumble from one end of Skyrim to the other was as goofy as they get. He stops to get married (or at least tries to), screws up one of the only fights necessary to finish the main storyline, and makes extreme use of the strange fact that in Skyrim your character's velocity remains constant when you load a different save. You can complain about Bethesda's open-world games being buggy, but without those bugs glorious messes like this wouldn't be possible and speedruns wouldn't be half as fun to watch. —Jody Macgregor

Half-Life: Opposing Force (26:14) 

By alexh0we

It starts slow, but stick with this run to the second chapter where alexh0we starts murdering hapless NPCs to steal their guns, strafe and machinegun boosting, and sticking some brutal jumps. Most interesting from a technical perspective are the framerate tricks—drop it low enough, for instance, and you can walk through lasers because in no frame will they connect with you. Alexh0we's stream of informative commentary keeps this run entertaining even during the slow parts.  —Tyler Wilde

Arabian Nights (47:17) 

By Kotti

The Awful Games block of ADGQ is a gauntlet of nightmarishly terrible games, but none are as baffling or as hilarious as Arabian Nights, an extremely obscure 2001 platformer that tried to cash in on Prince of Persia’s popularity. From start to finish, the run is a confusing mess of inexplicable glitches and terrible game design underscored by Arabian Night’s eye-rolling portrayal of Middle-Eastern culture and Conan the Barbarian-style objectification of women. You have to see it to believe it. Speedrunner Kotti has to endure multiple crashes just to beat the damn thing, but it’s all worth it for the couch commentary and laughably bad cutscenes. —Steven Messner

Left 4 Dead 2 (55:15) 

By mr.deagle, The Master, burhác, and MrFailzzz 

This is a special run in a few ways. Firstly, it's co-op, which you don't see in a lot of speedruns, and secondly, Left 4 Dead 2 isn't going to throw out weapons and zombies in the same way each time, which sets it apart from games that can be perfectly memorized. Yet the zombies are mere pests to these players, who are wholly focused on performing impressively huge skips (which involve a grenade launcher) and bunny hops. Though I could never play as well as this squad does in Left 4 Dead 2, runs like this can reveal how much challenge comes from us buying into a game's premise rather than the game itself. Play Left 4 Dead 2 like a race to master, and the undead are just speedbumps. —Tyler Wilde

Hollow Knight (38:28)

By Mickely3

It's slightly sad to see one of our favorite games of 2017 demolished in under 40 minutes, but Mickely3's run contains some impressive glitching—did you know you can just float around all the time and Hollow Knight is totally fine with that?—as well as just some old fashioned good platforming.  —Tyler Wilde

Yesterday we did the highs, and today we do the lows. These were the more disappointing moments of 2017, according to our PC Gamer global team. And yes, you'll find some loot crate chatter in here. Let us know your lows of the year in the comments. 

Andy Kelly: Andromeda flops

I didn't like Mass Effect Andromeda for a lot of reasons, but the main one is that it utterly fails to make you feel like you're an explorer in some uncharted galaxy. The premise is perfect, voyaging through the stars to find a new home. But the execution is disappointingly inept and unimaginative, with nothing out there that feels truly alien.

Say what you will about Interstellar (I love it), but that film really nails the idea of the planets they visit being so wildly outside of the rules of Earth, making them as terrifying as they are awe-inspiring. The giant waves, clouds of ice, and so on. But the planets in Andromeda had none of that. A desert, a jungle, an ice world. Your classic sci-fi archetypes.

And the angara, the only real native race you encounter, have human-shaped faces and a relatable culture and politics. It cheapens the Mass Effect universe when you can travel to a new galaxy and it's basically the same as the Milky Way. BioWare wasted an opportunity here, and that's why Andromeda was a major letdown for me this year.

Samuel Roberts: Horror show

I thought I'd love Resident Evil 7. The demo suggested they were going for something a bit like PT—an original and shocking horror game. And it is for about an hour, even if it's never close to PT's levels of scares and invention. By the end of the game, though, as I shot a procession of goo monsters, and took down yet another boss by shooting the same weak points over and over again, I felt like Resident Evil was in the same shape as when I started. If anything, the boss fights and set pieces were less interesting than Resident Evil 5, which seems to have gained the reputation of taking the series in the wrong direction. But it's definitely a better, more entertaining game to me. 

I think I'm among the few that didn't love it. The Baker family as a series of bosses should've been interesting, but I didn't find any of them that scary, except when you'd find the dad lurking in the corridors of the house after you thought you killed him. Resi definitely looked the part: the colour palette was nice and grimy, the VHS tapes were pretty cool—especially the SAW-style death trap one. But it didn't really reinvent the series for me. If it was in third-person rather than first, I genuinely think it'd be considered an average entry in the series, maybe slightly above the first Revelations game.

It doesn't help that the VR mode was launched exclusively on PlayStation. Hopefully we get to try it in January. It's not that Resident Evil 7 was the worst game I played in 2017—I enjoyed it a load more than Rime or Perception—but I thought it'd be a grand new chapter. 

Tyler Wilde: Mass disappointment

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, but I enjoyed The Last Jedi. I like that it didn't play to the expectations set by The Force Awakens, which I think is the inferior film. So I have a hard time understanding why certain Star Wars superfans absolutely hated The Last Jedi—but I can sympathize. As a big Mass Effect fan, I found very little to like about Mass Effect: Andromeda. Many people I know enjoyed it just fine and probably look at me the same way I look at The Last Jedi discontents. Sorry! Though I waffled over my feelings about it for awhile, when I look back, I really didn't like it. 

What begins as a story about, and potentially a critique of, colonialism instead backs the Milky Way's expansion throughout Andromeda—with an early nod to noted rich person Elon Musk, of course—so long as invading aliens can stand in as the true evil. Minor conflict with the indigenous angara is easily resolved by having that common enemy, and outside of the angara, the villainous Kett, and the ancient Remnant robots, no other intelligent aliens are found in Andromeda. Humanity (and its alien pals) thus becomes a savior of the locals, an ahistorical theme which skims over all kinds of ethical points: as the more technologically-powerful party, are the Milky Way settlers refugees or invaders? Why have the colonists chosen to replicate the old militaristic power structures they left behind? Delete the Kett and focus more on inter-alien relations—both between those from the Milky Way and the civilizations they encounter in Andromeda—and I think you'd have a much more interesting game. The Krogan rebellion and distrust from the angara are easily the best aspects of Andromeda, but are set aside to make way for war against Borg-like, done-before, alien monsters.

On top of that, I found the plucky 'Chosen One' protagonist dull, as well as most of the supporting cast (whose reasons for leaving their entire galaxy behind are largely ridiculous), and rehashing the original trilogy's focus on ancient aliens and their super-powered artifacts works against making Andromeda feel like a mysterious new frontier—same shit, different galaxy. And these are just criticisms of the story. I'd take over this whole article if I detailed my issues with the sidequests and combat.

Chris Livingston: Take-Two vs Open IV

While this one does have a happy ending, it was still a deeply unpleasant and easily avoidable mess. Back in May, the creator of OpenIV, a GTA modding tool, received an email from Take-Two Interactive requesting any further work on OpenIV be halted. When modder 'GooD-NTS' asked for more information on the matter, Take-Two's legal department mailed a cease and desist notice to his place of work, accusing him of violating Russian laws. GooD-NTS decided, after some deliberation, to stop updating the mod.

It's worth keeping in mind that, at the point of this C&D, OpenIV had already been around for nearly a decade, available for modders and mod-users to play GTA 4 and 5 with modded content. It was relied upon for dozens if not hundreds of mods as it allowed GTA game files to be edited. Its creators had also taken measures to ensure OpenIV couldn't be used in GTA Online, only in single-player.

Naturally, there was an explosion of outrage from gamers over the shutdown. A petition garnered tens of thousands of signatures and Rockstar's games were heavily review-bombed on Steam. One machinma maker created a video depicting Take-Two and Rockstar executing modded characters while others wondered how they'd be able to create new work without OpenIV.

After a tumultuous few days, Rockstar began talking directly to the modder and soon OpenIV was back and being updated again. Which is, frankly, what should have happened in the first place. Legal action should be a final step, not an opening move. Modders who spend a decade adding content to a game clearly have passion for it, and mods, as I've said before and will no doubt say again, add value to a game. Even if you don't actively support mods (Rockstar doesn't, hence the need for OpenIV in the first place), don't treat modders like enemies. Bringing the legal department of an enormous corporation to bear on an individual who simply loves to create new content for a game on a volunteer basis is a terrible, terrible look.

Wes Fenlon: Loot boxes make for homogenous game design

I think everyone is pretty tired of talking about, and hearing about, loot boxes, but they really are the biggest topic in gaming in 2017, and I think the industry's low point of the year. There are many reasons to dislike them, even cosmetic boxes like Overwatch's, and there are real concerns about how those systems lure in players with addictive tendencies. There are definitely people spending money on loot boxes who can't afford it—not all whales are millionaire lawyers with piles of cash to burn.

I'm thankful loot boxes don't have that kind of pull for me. But even if I don't spend money on them, they're in the games they play, making those games worse. Here's what I had to say about loot boxes on the PC Gamer Show a few months ago, about how they take some of the excitement and mystery out of games by making them too similar.

They're boring. Hopefully this year's backlash means we see far fewer of them in the new year.

Jarred Walton: Component prices aren't meant to rise over time

This has been a strange year for certain segments of the computer hardware scene. Normally, the trend is for everything to get 'better'—faster, smaller, more efficient—while at the same time becoming more affordable. That state-of-the-art PC you bought in 2014 for $3,000 will be slower than this year's mainstream $1,500 system. But for GPUs, SSDs, and RAM, 2017 decided to go a different direction.

Cryptocurrency mining had a major impact on graphics card prices, peaking with cards like the RX 570 and RX 580 selling for more than twice their official launch price. Even now, nine months later, you can't buy an RX 570 4GB for under $200, and it was supposed to be a $169 card. Nvidia weathered the storm a bit better, though GTX 1070 is still nowhere near its all-time low of $350, and with Bitcoin flirting with the $20,000 mark, Ethereum at $800, and Bitcoin Gold at over $4,000, we're still not done.

DDR4 RAM and SSD prices meanwhile have remained high throughout the year. This is mostly thanks to the increased demand from the smartphone sector, where 64GB NAND is now common on high-end models like the iPhone 8 and Galaxy Note 8, the latter of which packs 6GB RAM. Increased supply is supposed to help reverse the trend in 2018, though you can't help but worry about the prices being kept high next year.

Tim Clark: Destiny 2

The moment I first clapped eyes on Destiny 2 at the reveal event in May, running in 4K at 60+ FPS, could easily have been my high of the year. But as we know, what followed has been something of a shuttle crash. It's not that Destiny 2 is a bad game when viewed in isolation. I completely agreed with Tom's verdict that there was an excellent 60-70 hours of grind to be had, and it's especially fun played with friends, as our awards noted. But Bungie's fundamental blunder—and the more I think about it, the more arrogant it looks—was the idea that the sequel could be tailored almost entirely for the casual audience, and the hardcore players would just suck it up and stick around because, hey, that's what they do. Or perhaps even more cynically, maybe the bean counters felt it didn't matter if nobody sticks around so long as enough of them bought the base game, season pass, and some of the baubles in the microtransaction store.

If the vacuum where the endgame should've been was the only issue, then that would have been bad enough. But Bungie compounded the issue with a string of mistakes, from a hidden XP throttling system, to an exotic weapon released seemingly untested, to a DLC expansion that locked vanilla players on PC out of stuff they paid for just over six weeks ago. It's been a baffling series of self-inflicted wounds, and I can't recall such a big studio having to issue so many apologies, so soon after launch. What's most frustrating is that I still love much about the game and still spend a lot of time—too much!—playing it. 

The universe Bungie has built, how the weapons look and feel to fire, and the amazing experience of raiding with a team of friends are all things I don't want to leave behind. I think underpinning all the game's problems, though, is the studio's focus on scooping up as much Eververse store money as possible. Somewhere the path to what made the game fun in the first place has been severely strayed from. It's not understating it to say that the changes that need to happen in 2018 will make or break the game. I hope Bungie sees how seriously it needs to reconsider its current approach to making money from the playerbase. For the extended dance remix version of this discussion, here are my thoughts on Curse of Osiris. 

Resident Evil 7 was a brilliant survival-horror game that, arguably, saved the series. It sold well, but not as well as Capcom hoped, reaching its 4 million sales target seven months later than expected. The developer has set an overall sales target of a whopping 10 million. Perhaps the fact that it's sliced the base price of the game in half for US buyers, and by just shy of 40% for UK audiences, might help.

The price cut, to £24.99/$29.99, happened without fanfare earlier this month alongside the release of the Gold Edition of the game, which contains all downloadable content for the game, including the Not a Hero and End of Zoe DLC.

The sale price of the base the game didn't actually change on Steam: it remains £20/$24 (that was previously a 50% price cut, and now it's just a 20% discount). That's still a great deal, but the permanent price drop surely means that future sales will bring the price down even further.

So yes, technically this is not 'new' news, but Capcom didn't actually mention the price cut anywhere as far as I can see. And if you're just interested in the base game without the DLC, it's worth knowing about. It's near its historic low at the moment, and if you're patient you'll probably be able to pick it up for an even better price soon.

Every week, we produce our Highs and Lows feature, rounding up the week in news, games and whatever else is drifting through our heads when we write it on a Friday afternoon. Since it's the end of 2017, we've produced a special round-up of the year, with contributions across our global team. Enjoy, and check back tomorrow for our lows of the year.

Samuel Roberts: Age of Empires 4 exists

Here something I never would have predicted at the start of 2017: Microsoft bringing back Age of Empires. Not just with enhanced editions of the older games, but with a brand new fourth entry, made by the RTS specialists at Relic. Not loads is known about it, but at Gamescom it came out of nowhere with a trailer, and in 2018 we'll hopefully see a lot more of it.This is the first new Age of Empires in 13 years, which is crazy. Along with MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, it's cool to see series from that era of PC gaming return. It doesn't get more PC gaming than Age of Empires for me: that series was fundamental to my interest in PC back in the late '90s, after I sampled the first game on a PC Gamer demo disc.

I hope Age of Empires 4 comes with a scenario editor. Earlier this year, I wrote about how much I loved AoE2's scenario editor, and how it let you make 20 William Wallaces fight 20 Joan of Arcs. If we can't violate the truth of history with the most ridiculous large-scale encounters imaginable, it just won't be my Age of Empires. 

Andy Kelly: Paint it black

Okami is one of my all-time favourite games, but for years I had no easy, convenient way to play it. I don’t own any consoles, so I couldn't even play the 2012 re-release, and I had trouble emulating it at a stable frame-rate. So I was delighted this year when it was finally released on PC with 4K support. It finally looks like it looked in my mind when I played it on a PlayStation 2 and a tube TV back in 2006, and I’m stunned by how beautiful those ink wash-inspired visuals still are, even at modern resolutions.

A lot of great stuff was released for PC this year, so it might seem odd that my highlight is a re-release of an 11-year-old game, but I think that proves just how fond I am of Okami. As well as looking gorgeous, it's a grand adventure in the Zelda mould, full of interesting characters, beautiful locations, and puzzle-filled dungeons. It’s just a lovely place to exist in, and I loved every one of its 30+ hours. Yes, it's a big game, and the pace can be incredibly slow, but I can forgive that. It's a game to be savoured, not rushed.

Hell, I don’t even care that it’s locked to 30fps. In light of the game's quality, I'm willing to sacrifice a few frames per second. And I think it's healthy not to let technical limitations dictate your enjoyment of a game every time. When I first played Deus Ex it was at 15fps on a shitty laptop with onboard graphics, and it's still my favourite game of all time. So yeah, Okami is amazing and I'm glad I can play it whenever I like now. I'm listening to the soundtrack as I write this and feeling a powerful urge to return.

Tom Senior: Elite strats

This year I've been cheered by the gentle, ongoing presence of strategy games on PC. It's still rare to get a big blockbuster like Civilization VI every year, but War of the Chosen was brilliant, I had a good time with Dawn of War 3 before it seemed to falter after release, and Total War: Warhammer 2 is going to take over my Christmas gaming time. 

It has been an interesting year for 4X strategy games as well. Stellaris and Endless Space 2 continue to grow, and I look forward to returning to both games next year after they have had more time to mature. Age of Empires Definitive Edition will provide a nice reliable hit of nostalgia in 2018, but like Samuel I'm most excited about Age of Empires IV, whenever that's due. I've been trying to second guess Relic’s approach since the game was announced. The scale of the setting might inspire a move away from the micro-heavy approaches to recent games, and I wonder if we will see a move away from complex progression mechanics and unit upgrade systems in favour of a more sweeping, accessible RTS without the esports pretensions. The future is bright for strategy fans.

Tyler Wilde: Major players

None of my favorite games this year came from Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Bethesda, EA, Microsoft Game Studios, Capcom, Take-Two, Warner Bros, or Sega. It's not that these publishers have stopped putting out games I enjoy—many of them published some fine games this year—but that the selection of great PC games is becoming more and more diverse and plentiful. My best of 2017 list includes Divinity: Original Sin 2, Night in the Woods, Rocket League (which didn't come out this year but is still my most-played game), Sniper Elite 4, Absolver, and Torment: Tides of Numenera, none of which were backed by a major publisher. I couldn't say the same thing five years ago. And ten years ago? Forget it.

Chris Livingston: VR isn't dead

This is a weird one for me, because among the PC Gamer staff I've perhaps been the most skeptical of VR (possibly because I lived through the first round of VR pie-in-the-sky promises in the 1980s). And by no means have I changed my views on it: it's simply not cheap or convenient enough to become a part of mainstream gaming. And won't, I think, for another decade. Still, I think (and have always thought) the technology is neat if impractical, and I was a bit worried that after it failed to truly catch on for the PC, it might simply wither and die.

So it's been great to see that some developers and publishers are still embracing it. Bethesda went all in this year, releasing a special episode of Doom plus the entirety of Fallout 4 in VR. Both games have their issues, but they're also both extremely enjoyable through a headset. Rockstar released a truncated version of LA Noire in VR, Croteam brought us Serious Sam VR, and there were some smaller games like Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality that use the technology astoundingly well. Gamers are still interested, too: a Kickstarter for an 8K VR headset asked for $200,000 and received over $4 million.

VR isn't dead, and that's good. There's a long road ahead, major advances in the tech needed, and way more games required. It just needs more time, and the more developers (especially big ones) that keep their hats in the ring, the more time it'll have.

Wes Fenlon: Japanese games had a hell of a year

Japanese game companies have been struggling for years, having to spend more and more money to developer big games that bring in less and less cash as their players switch over to mobile. For a long time, this was only a woe for console players—we barely got Japanese games on PC at all! But holy hell, has 2017 been a great year for Japanese games everywhere. Off the PC, the Nintendo Switch has been a phenomenal success, and it's a joy to play games on. Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the best games I've ever played. Yazuka 0 was the talk of the town for months, earlier this year. Persona 5 is the most stylish RPG in ages. Nioh revitalized Team Ninja.

And on PC, the story has been just as great. Nier: Automata proved to be a smash hit beyond all expectations, and it's still being talked about constantly after being out for nine months. Sega and Platinum games brought Bayonetta and Vanquish to PC after years of fans pining, and both look and play as smoothly on PC as they deserve—easily the definitive versions of those games. Resident Evil 7 made the series scary again, something it desperately needed. With every success, it feels like Japanese developers and emboldened to plan PC builds of their games right from the start.

The highlight of my year was tapping into the excitement around Japanese games with an entire week of features devoted to them. The ones I'm most proud of are How Japan learned to love PC gaming again, which tries to capture the how and why of PC gaming finally sticking for Japanese developers, and Phantasy Star Online will never die, a feature about the incredibly welcoming fan communities still playing PSO to this day. I had both of these stories in my head for years, and publishing them was true catharsis. It's hard to imagine Japanese developers topping their 2017 output anytime soon, but that's okay. 2017 was a year of resurgence and renewed confidence, and I think everyone's excited about what comes next.

Jarred Walton: Ryzen shout, the CPUs are out

This year has been insane on the CPU front, and while we didn't award AMD's Ryzen our Best CPU of the Year, it's chiefly thanks to AMD that Intel has pulled out the stops and actually released some compelling upgrades. Starting with the Ryzen 7 parts, and then moving through Ryzen 5, Ryzen 3, and finally Ryzen Threadripper, AMD has become a viable competitor in the CPU realm once more.

My hopes for Ryzen were perhaps too high, but Ryzen 7 is still a very fast processor. The 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 models compete well against Intel's i7-5960X, i7-6900K, and i7-7820X, particularly in professional applications. But most games don't utilize lots of cores, so Ryzen somewhat unexpectedly does a bit poorly in games. It comes down to per-core performance, where Intel's architecture is simply better tuned at this stage.

But choice is a good thing, and we should see new Ryzen processors next year that build on this year's successes. Using an updated Zen+ architecture and a 12nm process should allow for higher clockspeeds, and hopefully AMD has refined the core design to improve latencies as well, which would boost gaming performance. There are rumors of new 400-series chipsets, but the new parts should be compatible with existing 300-series AM4 boards. Ryzen was this close to greatness, and the update may actually push AMD over the top.

Tim Clark: Finally winning something

When we moved into our new office our bosses decided to liven up the place with some motivational slogans on the walls. One of these is positioned just behind Evan's head and reads: "Results matter and success feels good". I have had plenty of time to ponder it, it wasn't until my trip to China in the summer that I truly I understood the management inspo. I was there following Muzzy's bid to win the Hearthstone Spring Championship, and though he ended up having a rough tournament, it was fascinating seeing how these young players deal with all the prep and pressure. My feature on that experience is my favourite thing I wrote this year, and China only cemented my love of the tournament scene.

I also got a tiny taste of what it's like to compete. Between the proper matches, Blizzard organised a press tournament to keep us out of trouble. Over the course of multiple 3-2 series victories (two of which I fell 2-0 behind in), and one absolute stomp against a nice Japanese lady who didn't seem to have played the game before. The rush of relief I felt when I won the final—and with a Pyroblast to face, no less—felt better than probably anything I've experienced related to gaming. Plus it meant I got to have my picture take with Ant and (the actual winner) Hoej, both of whom are absolute sweethearts.

Generally speaking I avoid any sort of serious competition, and though this was of course supposed to be a bit of fun, you better believe I took it seriously, even going so far as asking Muzzy for pick and ban advice. So I guess what I'm saying is results do matter, success does feel good. I just needed a children's card game to teach me.

I'd lost faith in Resident Evil. Everything after Resident Evil 4, Shinji Mikami's bold reinvention, was a disappointment. I was sure that game would herald a new golden age for the series, but then I played Resident Evil 6. So I was delighted to discover that the seventh main entry is a return to form, inspired by the first trilogy of games. It focuses on slow, creeping horror, a thick atmosphere, arcane puzzles, and self-preservation over melodrama and dumb slow-motion action. And that's why it's the best Resident Evil in years, even if it's not quite the dramatic change in direction the shift to first-person suggested it might be.

The first hour, however, is very different, more in line with contemporary horror games like Amnesia and Alien: Isolation. It's a perfectly paced, terrifying introduction to the dilapidated Baker household, whittling away at your nerves, never pushing things too far. But when you start finding weapons and green herbs, and puzzles start getting in your way, it's like playing one of the PlayStation-era games again: albeit with vastly better visuals and a new, more intimate perspective.

The Baker house is a disgusting, eerie, and oppressive space, reminiscent of the original game's Spencer mansion, if not quite as opulent. There are no marble statues or lavish rugs here: just creaky, dust-covered floorboards and fridges stuffed with rotting meat. It's one of the grimiest games on PC, and you can almost smell the stench as you creep through its dimly-lit corridors and damp underground passages. And when Baker family patriarch Jack shows up, things get really scary—more so than the regular enemies, which are an admittedly uninspiring collection of slimy blobs.

But what I really love about Resident Evil 7 is how lean it is. It takes a series that had become hopelessly bogged down in absurd mythology and outdated ideas and confidently hits the refresh button. There's still the odd tedious boss battle, but for the most part it feels like a new, almost standalone game. It's a reboot done right, retaining the spirit of the source material but making it feel fresh by ruthlessly excising the bits that don't work. And the subtle connections to the other games in the series are more special as a result of Capcom distancing itself from its own legacy.

There are a few things wrong with Resident Evil 7. It loses its way in the final act, for instance, giving you too much ammo and throwing too many identical slime monsters at you. But overall, I love it, and I'm glad Capcom took a chance on something so different. The days of Leon S. Kennedy back-flipping over zombies and Wesker dodging bullets like a character in The Matrix are, hopefully, over. I'm eager to see where Resident Evil goes next, and whether it'll continue to shake up the formula. And I love the idea, based on clues in the ending, that this is set in another timeline. There's a lot of backstory I think it's best Capcom just writes off.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard's Not A Hero DLC was originally due in the first half of the year before being delayed, instead landing alongside its Gold Edition and End of Zoe DLC. All three are out today, with developer Capcom marking the occasion with a Joe Baker-starring trailer. 

And he's good with his fists, it seems, as he lays flat whichever Molded zombie-likes and/or Umbrella soldiers that stand in his way. Observe: 

Owners of the Resident 7 base game stand to get Not A Hero free-of-charge, Capcom reminds us in a blog post, while End of Zoe comes in at £11.99/$14.99 as a separate download. Season pass owners receive both, as do those who opt for the game's Gold Edition—which also comes with the previously released Banned Footage portions of additional content. 

As for what each new slice of DLC entails, End of Zoe sees players following up on Zoe Baker's unfortunate story alongside the "mysterious outdoorsman" Joe Baker, as featured above. Not A Hero, on the other hand, stars series veteran Chris Redfield who enters the fold in the immediate aftermath of the base game's Ethan Winters' tale.

Action-heavy, Chris "takes on this new challenge fully equipped with new weapons and tools designed to counter bio organic threats," in his latest outing, adds Capcom's blog post. "Encounters with deadly foes lurk around every corner—including a brand new type of enemy."

More information on all of the above can be gleaned from the Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Steam page. I liked this minute-long short with game director Koshi Nakanishi about redesigning Chris Redfield this time round:

Resident Evil 7's End of Zoe is due December 12, and will arrive alongside the first-person horror venture's complementary Not a Hero DLC. We took a closer look at what both entail last month, however two new trailers dive a little deeper than before. 

First up, it seems runaway baddie Lucas is again hosting some Saw-inspired death games in Not a Hero. I particularly enjoyed his role in the base game, so I'm quite pleased to see his story (and twisted imagination) revisited.

In End of Zoe, we see Resi 7's story unfold through the eyes of Zoe Baker. While helping base game protagonist Ethan fumble his way around the Baker plantation, we'll learn how Zoe became a prisoner in her own home—and how her parents started out as seemingly pleasant people. 

Of course we know the shit hit the fan thereafter, but seeing this I almost feel sorry for them. Almost.  

If you're yet to play Resident Evil 7, let me point you towards Andy's 90-scoring review over here. And if you like what you read there, know that RE7 is on sale for just £20/$30 (half price) as part of the Black Friday sales. 

Despite thoroughly enjoying its first-person perspective and cast of new characters, I wasn't as taken with Resident Evil 7's faceless Molded zombie-likes. Its incoming and complimentary Not a Hero DLC, however, looks to add some new, terrifying baddies to its bounds—which you'll see a brief snippet of in the game's latest trailer.

Fresh from Paris Games Week, the latest short centres on returning series star Chris Redfield and his pursuit of familiar villain Lucas Baker. He's at his usual cat-and-mouse tactics, as we see Redfield laying waste to hordes of undead within the expansion's underground mine setting, all the while chatting to his support team at base. 

From what we've seen before now, it's so far, so similar. That is, until around the 1.18 mark below. 

What the hell is that thing? With its glowing eyes, erratic movements and extended appendages, I really don't fancy tangling with that one. 

But I guess that'll be inevitable when Not a Hero drops on December 12, eh? When it does it'll be a free download for "all Resident Evil 7 Biohazard owners", so says Capcom. Until then, here's Andy's warm words on the base game.