Steam in-home streaming may be the future of PC gaming in the living room. Sure, you can build a powerful gaming machine for the living room. But that's expensive. You might be able to run an HDMI cable from your desktop to your big screen TV. But that's usually impractical. In-home streaming is the third option: you use an old PC, or build a low-power client box, to stream games over your home network. Valve's in-home streaming started as an exclusive beta feature in Steam, but now it's built right into the client and available to anyone. It only takes about five minutes to set up, and it works amazingly well.

If you're ready to try out in-home streaming yourself, I'll walk you through the whole process: how to enable streaming in Steam, what kind of host PC and client you'll need, how to make sure your home network is up to the task, and how to control your games once they're up and running.
What do I need for in-home streaming?
In-home streaming is a simple concept. You run a game on your PC much like you normally would it displays on your monitor and can be controlled with your keyboard and mouse and then Steam captures the data from that game and beams the audio/video signal to another PC! With in-home streaming, you can run Windows games on a Mac or Linux PC, run demanding games on an older laptop, or simply stream to a miniature PC in your living room.

The absolute basics you'll need:

a host PC (like your gaming rig) running Steam on Windows
a client PC in the living room (smaller/weaker/cheaper) running Steam on Windows, OS X or Linux/SteamOS
a home network that can connect the two

Now let's get a little more specific. What kind of hardware do you realistically need to run in-home streaming?

The host PC

Your host PC should be powerful enough to run a game while simultaneously encoding it as a video signal. For best results, this would have:

a quad core CPU (such as an Intel i5 or i7 processor from 2011 or newer)
an Nvidia 600 series GPU or newer. Why Nvidia? Because Nvidia's 600 series cards support hardware accelerated video encoding.

I've successfully used Steam in-home streaming with an overclocked 4.3GHz Sandy Bridge i5 2500k CPU and an AMD 7870 card (which doesn't support hardware encoding). So you definitely don't need an Nvidia card. In fact, Intel's built-in HD Graphics GPUs also support hardware encoding with Quick Sync, so you may be able to stream a game without a dedicated GPU at all.

If you are trying in-home streaming with an AMD card, but do have an Intel CPU, you should make sure Quick Sync is enabled on your computer. Here's a tutorial for enabling Quick Sync.

The client PC

The great thing about streaming is that your host PC is doing the brunt of the work. Ideally, you can stream to some crappy old laptop or a cheap, low-power living room machine. But your client machine still needs to be powerful enough to handle decoding the video signal Steam is sending it.

Valve recommends a client with a GPU that can encode H.264 video. Again, Intel's processors with HD Graphics can decode video using Quick Sync, so you may not even need a separate GPU. Any Nvidia or AMD graphics card you can get your hands on should support hardware decoding.

The network

You want a router that doesn't crash on you all the time. Ideally, it has gigabit (not 100 mbps) ports. There's a whole section on the requirements and configuration of your home network below.

Next up: let's talk about how to set up in-home streaming and how to tweak it for better performance.


Setting up in-home streaming
Enabling in-home streaming takes about five minutes. Here's what you do:

On your gaming PC, login to Steam and open the Settings menu
Select the In-Home Streaming tab
Tick the "Enable streaming" checkbox
On your client PC, login to the same Steam account

Bam. You're ready to stream.

How do I control my client PC?

In-home streaming should automatically detect any XInput device plugged into it. An Xbox 360 controller is your easiest, most likely choice. Valve notes that "DirectInput controllers other than gamepad style controllers (wheels, flight controllers, etc.) are not currently supported. Other controllers using XInput are fully supported."

You can also use a Dualshock 4 configured with an XInput wrapper. A keyboard and mouse plugged into the host will work too, which is important if you're streaming to a laptop. If you're streaming to a living room Steam Machine, you'll probably want to stick to a control, since the Big Picture interface is optimized for it.

Try it out. If everything works perfectly, you don't need to read the rest of this guide. But like with most aspects of PC gaming, you'll probably want to do some tinkering to increase performance. You may run into slowdown or input lag. That means it's time to optimize your home network and in-home streaming's settings.
Tweaking Steam in-home streaming settings
I recommend trying out your in-home streaming setup with the following settings:



Balanced client performance strikes a balance between video picture quality and performance/responsiveness. Ideally, this means the image on your TV will look great, and the streaming lag will be imperceptible.
Enabling hardware encoding will use the power of the GPU on your host computer to help quickly render the game you're streaming into video.
Enabling network prioritization will potentially allow your router to traffic shape the data crossing your network and give in-home streaming more bandwidth than, say, Netflix.
Setting automatic bandwidth means Steam will determine how much bandwidth it uses. It's the recommended setting. Counter-intuitively, the "unlimited" bandwidth setting can increase latency, according to Valve's own developers.
1080p resolution is a practical choice for streaming: better quality than 720p, but not desktop resolution, which would be higher if you have a 1440p monitor. Since the TV you're streaming to is likely 1080p, the native resolution will look just fine.
Enabling hardware decoding will use the GPU on the client computer to help quickly decode the H.264 video signal your client computer is outputting. Otherwise, the CPU has to do all the work, which could hamper performance.

I tested multiple games using these settings, including Nidhogg, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Spelunky, Assassin's Creed IV, Towerfall Ascension, and Samurai Gunn. Performance in Injustice, Nidhogg and Towerfall was near-perfect I couldn't perceive the input lag compared to playing those games natively, and Injustice only slowed down for a few seconds on one occasion.

Results in the other games were more mixed. Assassin's Creed IV had both input lag and a low framerate, but it's a demanding game, and was running at max settings. Spelunky and Samurai Gun are not demanding games, but I noticed substantial input lag in both (with Samurai Gunn I had bandwidth set to "unlimited, which may have contributed to the problem). They were playable, but not ideal. This is an important thing to remember about in-home streaming: performance issues won't necessarily stem from a game's graphics settings being too much for your host PC to handle. Valve is still working on compatibility for games and hardware, and some games simply perform better than others. When I tried in-home streaming with the same setup back in February, Nidhogg ran at about 5 frames per second.

If you experience similar issues with input lag, the first setting you should adjust is the client performance option. Switch it from balanced to fast.



On fast performance, my input lag issue with Samurai Gunn disappeared.

If you have streaming issues with the above settings, your best bet is to simply change things up and see what works. Even if you have a great GPU, you may find that software encoding (your CPU doing all the work, with no GPU acceleration) gives you better framerates. If you really want to measure your performance, turn on "display performance information" in the advanced client options.

Next up: wired vs. wireless and the network settings to make streaming work.


What kind of router and home network do I need for in-home streaming?
Short answer: the faster the better. Long answer: for optimal in-home streaming support, you'll ideally have a house wired for gigabit ethernet, with both your host device and client device connected via a hardline.

In my house, a cable modem connects to a wireless 802.11n router, which is then wired to a gigabit LAN switch. That switch plugs into a mess of cables snaking throughout the house, one of which comes out in my room (where it plugs into my gaming PC) and one of which comes out in the living room, where another LAN hub splits the Ethernet signal to a Steam machine, Roku, and other devices. That sounds like a tortuous path, but it's still way faster than wi-fi.

If you can't connect over ethernet, wireless is an option just not a good one. Wireless interference from neighboring networks could cause lag or stuttering, and your wireless bandwidth may not be sufficient to stream at 1080p, the default setting. Still, it might be good enough to sustain 720p streaming. If wi-fi is your only option, it's worth trying. Try these settings, enabling fast performance, network prioritization in the host settings, and 720p in the client settings:



Any router with gigabit ethernet ports and/or 802.11n (or, even better, the latest standard, 802.11ac) should have more than the required bandwidth to handle in-home streaming, so you shouldn't need any special tech to get everything working. "Should" is the operative word there, though there's a huge thread on the Steam forums of people testing in-home streaming with different wireless setups. Some work, some don't. It's possible your router, or the walls of your house, or something else, may not play nice with streaming. Running tons of other data through your router simultaneously (like torrenting, streaming Netflix, etc.) could also tank streaming performance. These are the perils of networking.

By this point, you've hopefully gotten in-home streaming working well enough to play games in the living room or on an old laptop. If the stream dream is alive, there are a couple more things you can do to make it even better: set up family sharing to stream games you don't own, and use in-home streaming to stream non-Steam games and applications. Like, for example, the Dolphin GameCube and Wii emulator. Yep, you can do that.
Family sharing and non-Steam streaming
If you live in a house with roommates, or have family members with Steam, or kindly friends who want to share their libraries, family sharing and streaming make a great combination. Enabling family sharing gives you access to the entire library of your generous lender. To set it up, simply have your family member/friend/roommate login to Steam on your host computer, go into the settings, open the family tab, and authorize your computer. Once you log back into your own account, you'll have access to all their games, and you'll be able to stream them to your client.

Streaming non-Steam applications is an even neater trick. Potentially, any game or other program you can add to the Steam library can be streamed. That includes Dolphin you can read about how to add Dolphin to Steam in this thread.

To add a non-Steam game to your library, click the "+ Add a game" button in the bottom left corner of the Steam window. Add any game you want, and try running it through Steam. Streaming may work without a hitch.



In some cases, like with Blizzard games, Steam may try to run the launcher instead of the game itself. That's no good. To fix the problem, right click on the game in your steam library, go to properties, and change the target to the game .exe instead of the launcher .exe. In the target field, you may also need to add -launch to force the game to skip the launcher. Adding -w for windowed mode may also get a game working.

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Go, now, and Steam stream. If you simply can't get streaming to work with your setup, try posting in the Steam community. It's full of hardcore streamers who may come up with a solution to your problem. Since in-home streaming is integrated into the stable steam client, expect updates and improvements regularly. We'll keep this guide updated to deal with new Steam in-home streaming features as they arrive.

Writing news posts for things that haven't actually happened yet is a tricky business, so let's just stick to the facts: Star Citizen gameplay will be livestreamed from Gamescom at noon PDT, and you can catch it all right here. (Wild speculation about what's going to happen during the stream is contained within.)

As promised, speculation: The word on the street is that the livestream will include spaceship races and a demonstration of co-op gameplay featuring a group of gamers controlling a single large ship navigating, manning turrets, that sort of thing. Roberts Space Industries says nothing about any of that, however, acknowledging only that there will in fact be a stream. (Although the inclusion of a partial shot of a Murray Cup poster in the livestream announcement is probably telling.)



Whatever happens, you can watch it all here, courtesy of the fine folks at Twitch. Enjoy!

Alpha and Early Access reviews offer our preliminary verdicts on in-development games. We may follow up this unscored review with a final, scored review in the future. Read our full review policy for details.

Review by Tom Marks

Step into the next randomly generated room of the dungeon, hear the click as the doors lock, and see the traps and summoning circles that await and you ll know that death is haunting you. In Crawl, Powerhoof s co-opetition game currently on Steam Early Access, death isn t just inevitable, it s required. But Powerhoof has managed to take the classic dungeon crawler formula and make dying fun as hell.

Crawl is a local multiplayer game for two to four players. A random player starts as the hero and begins to fight through the dungeon while up to three other players (or AI characters, which are impressively intelligent) float around as ghosts. The ghosts get to control all the monsters and traps in the dungeon, and whoever lands the killing blow on the hero takes his place. All the players try to level-up their hero to level 10 and then make their way to fight the final boss, which is currently the same every time. If you can kill the boss which is also controlled by the ghost players you are declared the victor, but the party only has three tries total. If you lose the third attempt, it's game over for everyone.

Crawl is a wonderful tribute to the arcade era. The splash screen asking you to Insert Coin, the name entry being limited to three characters, the low-fidelity announcer voice, and the pixel graphics all pay homage to classic arcade beat-em ups like Double Dragon and The Simpsons. Much of that arcade inspiration adds to Crawl's charm, but its old-fashioned design choices do limit its appeal in places.


Above: Tom, Tyler, and Wes play a full game of Crawl.

Crawl s controls, for instance, are simple and easy to pick up, consisting of only movement and two buttons for your basic and special attacks. It supports the use of a mouse, a gamepad, or a keyboard, but the keyboard option means you ll only be able to attack and shoot in straight or diagonal directions while everyone else, including the AI, gets a full 360 degrees. It feels like Crawl was made to be played with a classic, arcade cabinet Joystick, but this sort of control scheme, while nostalgic, can be very frustrating. Moving while trying to aim ranged attacks is limited and difficult, especially when compared to twin-stick control schemes used in games like The Binding of Isaac.

Another polarizing choice is the current lack of online play. Crawl is the most fun and crazy multiplayer experience I ve had since Monaco, so it s unfortunate that local is the only way to play. The Steam store page has this to say: What about Online Multiplayer? It's a possibility, but if you can't get around a PC with some friends we recommend waiting until we have more news. The AI is smart and skilled enough to keep me amused when I want to play alone, but Crawl is really meant to be played with others and the lack of online play limits my ability to do that.



When I do have company, the blissfully frantic game sessions last around 30 minutes. The longer the hero takes, the more chances the ghosts have to mess them up, so my friends and I sprint through the halls. Playing Crawl two-player, however, is a whole different experience. At a much slower pace than the hectic three and four-player modes, a 1v1 game becomes a battle of skill and timing. If you rush toward the boss with little to no time spent as a ghost you won t have any gold to buy better items, so choosing the right moment to lose a fight is just as important as when to win them.

Crawl s catch-up mechanics are one of its best features. The visual language Powerhoof has created is intuitive enough that I could figure it out after my first playthrough with the AI, but when I started battling against real people I felt like I was somehow cheating by knowing so much. I might have had an insurmountable advantage, but Crawl balances this out by making life for the hero as hard as possible.



Every level-up you get as the hero gives the other players points to upgrade their monsters, meaning the longer you are the hero, the stronger your opponents get. Additionally, the vast majority of your gold will come from dealing damage to the hero, so staying alive forever will leave you with a poorly-equipped hero and underleveled monsters. Crawl also makes healing items as sparse as possible, so eventually you'll have to die. Sometimes you ll want to die. What results is a game where everyone usually gets to around level 10 with a remarkably consistent and satisfying game duration.

Crawl takes its inspiration from the arcade cabinets of old and plays exactly like a distilled, quarterless version of those experiences. Powerhoof has already proven that it s committed to updating the game, spending the time it was delayed by tax woes on additional content before release. The game currently has enough monsters, weapons, and unlockables to keep me playing for quite a while, and with the promise of more of everything, including new boss fights, Crawl can only get better with age.
Verdict
If you can find friends to join you, Crawl is an incredibly fun and unique experience. If you mostly have internet gaming friends, however, you might want to hold off until Powerhoof comments further about online play.
Outlook
Great. Crawl already feels like a big game and Powerhoof has promised to make it even bigger.
Details
Version reviewed: v0.01:01 Giant Spider
Reviewed on: 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7-4700, 32GB RAM, GeForce GTX 880M
Recommended: 1.66 GHz Dual Core Processor, 1GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics or equivalent
Price: $10/ 10
Publisher/Developer: Powerhoof
Multiplayer: 4-player, Local only
Link: Steam store page

The Warlords of Draenor Collector's Edition may not be the cheapest way to go about getting the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, but fans with a taste for swag will no doubt want to take a moment to at least consider the option.

Revealed yesterday, the collector's edition includes the full version of the Warlords of Draenor expansion, of course, but also comes with a two-disc "Behind the Scenes" DVD/Blu-ray set, a soundtrack CD, a 160-page Art of Warlords of Draenor book and a Blackhand mouse pad. There's bonus in-game content as well: The Dread Raven Mount and Dread Hatchling Pet, a pair of StarCraft II portraits, the Diablo III Warsong Pennant and a unique Hearthstone card back.

It's a pricey option, listing for $90 at Gamestop, but such is the way of collector's editions. The package also includes a single level 90 character boost, although as you may recall that's something we don't recommend you take advantage of.

So what do you think? Is this the sort of package that tempts you to open your wallet, or will you carve a slightly less extravagant path through history? Either way, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor comes out on November 13.

Consider the box. There was a time when the lowly construct of cardboard was more ubiquitous than Steam: If you wanted a game, you bought it in a box, complete with manual, reference card, promotional material for other games in the publisher's catalog, and, in many cases, the stuff : Supplemental reading material, perhaps, or a swanky poster, or a microscopic alien space fleet in a ziplock bag. And it was good. Browsing row upon row of brightly colored boxes of various sizes and shapes was exciting not just because you knew you'd be coming home with something, but because you could never be entirely certain what was inside. That mystery is an element of the game-buying experience that's just not possible with the "all things at all times" nature of digital distribution, and for some gamers that's a real loss.

IndieBox hopes to fill that void with a unique blind subscription service: an indie game delivered to your mailbox every month, along with specially crafted box art, a manual, and other goodies. You never know what you're going to get: You pays your dime, as they say, and you takes your chances. It is perhaps an odd way to do business, but as co-founder John Carter explained, there s an odd kind of sense to it, too.

The IndieBox works on two levels. The package itself is a DRM-free "collector's edition" of a hit indie game Teslagrad, Escape Goat 2 and Forced so far with soundtrack CDs, papercraft, posters, and other tchotchkes. The "mystery" is that the box sold via monthly subscription, but each month's title is kept secret until it ships. It's possible to buy the games after the fact if you're really hung up on knowing what you're paying for, but the price is considerably higher than the monthly subscription rate, which runs from $15 to $18 a month, plus shipping, depending the length of the subscription term and it may be out of stock.

"The original idea was that it's kind of a 'book of the month' club, but for indie games," Carter said. "We want to build the reputation that you don't need to know the game we're giving you for you to enjoy it like that one friend in high school who knew all the cool games. All you needed to hear from him or her was, 'Hey, have you heard of X game?' and you'd already be sold. They were the tastemakers of the day."

IndieBox releases are very polished and professional, so I was surprised to learn that it's all handled by a three-man operation Carter, who handles partnerships and press; Jason Blank, the lead developer; and James Morgan, the president, who takes care of everything the other two don't backed up by a "small team of volunteers." They work out of their homes, keeping in touch online with applications like Slack and Google Hangouts, and so it's not entirely surprising that it was difficult, at first, to get developers on board.



"We originally brainstormed indie games that we'd love to work with and then just started doing cold calling. When we were just starting out developers were interested but nervous we might be vaporware or a scam. We didn't have a product to showcase yet, so we didn't take offense," Carter said. "We still consider ourselves very lucky that Rain Games was so interested in working with us. Since we've been able to 'prove ourselves,' studios have been much more receptive to cold calls and have started reaching out to us."

The process of designing each box involves more "brainstorming" about how to best represent that month's game, with approval for almost everything coming from the original developers. Some elements, like the soundtrack and poster, will always "more than likely be there," while other bits, like the molded mouse keychain in Escape Goat 2, will change from box to box.

"The manufacturing team focuses on what fun contents they can include in the box, while the design team gets to work on designing the box and manual. While all game assets are provided by the studio, we (so far) have done all the designing. We sometimes partner up with great creative people like Cubeecraft, who designs all our papercraft for us," Carter explained. "Meanwhile, the manufacturing team is brainstorming the perfect contents, pricing them as low as they can, and reaching out to manufacturers. Both the manufacturing and design brainstorming are a team effort, however we ask everyone else on the IndieBox team to give us insight. You never know where a good idea is going to come from."

IndieBox's creators and volunteers assemble packages to mail to subscribers.

Specific creators vary from box to box. "The first two boxes had original box art. Teslagrad was done by Dan Jones and Escape Goat 2 by Kailyn Boehm. It's one of our goals to work with independent artists to showcase their art and reimagine these great games," Carter said.

His earlier references to separate design and manufacturing teams" make the operation sound almost industrial, but the truth is that each one is composed of two people, a "director" and a volunteer, and the boxes are assembled and prepared for shipment at what Carter described as "packing parties."

"We each invite a few friends, provide food, caffeine, and a copy of the box for their hard work. Each month we need more friends to come out to help out," he said. "We're looking forward to paying them sooner than later, though! We do all the assembly, from packing to sealing to boxing to shipping."

While IndieBox works with manufacturers to produce items every month, they assemble the boxes themselves.

The response to the IndieBox has been very positive so far. A little over 600 people have signed up for the service, and requests for a second print of Teslagrad, the debut IndieBox and the only one not currently available for purchase in the IndieBox store, continue to come in. And while some gamers have "pushed back" against the idea of paying for games without knowing what they are, others have signed up for the service specifically because they want to be surprised and importantly, the demand is diverse.

"It's definitely a mix of both those who long for the old days and those who are jealous for missing it, but I think it's more than that," Carter said. "Nowadays, when you buy a game, it's in a DVD case with a sheet of paper that holds the DRM Key on it. And that's it. Back in the day, you might get stickers, posters, maps, and you'd definitely get a manual that would hold key information as well as spark your imagination for what the game holds in store for you," Carter said. "Because that era of gaming died out just as indies were starting to rise, just like with the younger gamers, this generation of game makers would also miss out on being able to provide the same amount of physical attention to detail that they put into their games. We're making sure that these high quality games do get to have a collector's edition as well."

Not every developer is interested in that opportunity; one studio turned the IndieBox team down flat "on philosophical grounds," because "they believe that the physical medium is a dead one and they'd rather not see their game represented in it. But those who are get to see their creations given the Full Treatment: Everything about the package, from the quality cardboard box to the USB credit card on which the game is stored and of course all those wonderful extras, looks absolutely professional.

Escape Goat 2 delivered on a USB card.

Will it last? Can it last? Digital distribution is ascendant, and no matter how good IndieBox's final product may be, its long-term success will be reliant on the ongoing demand for a type of product that, by most assessments, is in the midst of a long, slow and inexorable death spiral. And unlike the boxes of old, it can't even get lucky with the occasional bored shopper at GameStop; it is targeted almost exclusively at the demographic that's most keenly aware of the advantages of digital. It's a seriously tough sell, but Carter is optimistic.

"It's an impressive trajectory for a small company with next to no marketing budget (yet) and once we start making it out to events like GDC, E3, and PAX, I feel that we're going to get some big exposure that will come with high subscription numbers," he said. "The game industry as a whole may be shifting to a digital direction and I don't see that slowing down, but there will still be that demand for high quality physical products, and we're looking to keep filling that niche. In fact, as the shift to digital increases, that only gives us a larger market to cater to!"

I was a big fan of Plants vs. Zombies (I literally own at least five distinct versions) but PvZ: Garden Warfare left me cold. As a $30 third-person online shooter, it had the stink of a cash-in, and so I paid it very little attention and ignored it completely at launch. But what I won't touch for 30 bucks, I'll jump all over when it's free.

And free it is, as the latest addition to EA's Game Time program on Origin. Just find it on Origin or hit the Game Time page, grab it and give it a rip. It's a time limited demo but the clock won't start ticking until the first time it's fired up, after which you've got 72 hours to play as much as you want. As with other Game Time releases, progress made in the demo will be saved so you can pick up where you left off if you opt to spring for the full version.

It's fun to watch EA take meaningful steps toward making Origin relevant in a field dominated by Steam. Steam managed to move to the top of the heap largely through the power of its famous sales; now Origin is doing it by giving stuff away. Not everyone is ready to embrace the platform just yet, but as strategies go, it seems to be a winner.

Each week PC Gamer s writers gather around a seance table and ask the previous seven days to reveal themselves. Not like that.

Tim Clark: What kept you, Snake?
I m mostly not much one for boss battles, but the fight with The End from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is, by a distance, my favourite. It s funny, tense and startlingly creative essentially everything that s good about Hideo Kojima s stealth series. Kojima s detractors inevitably point to his narrative excess and his games debatable interactivity but, honestly, screw that noise. Metal Gear Solid V coming to PC, in the form of both The Phantom Pain and its Ground Zeroes prelude, is great news. As Tyler pointed out in his
rousing piece earlier this week, this is an interesting, systems-based game running on a powerful engine. The PC version will likely be the definitive one. Now we just need Konami to confirm P.T. next...

Phil Savage: Craving curation
Steam is changing. Today saw the release of some new library upgrades, and, thanks to the dataminers of SteamDB, we've got an idea of the upcoming improvements to the service's store. This is all good news. Few things this week excited me more than realising I can now select multiple games in my Steam library. No, don't look at me like that. I own a lot of games and have a need to categorise them all.

Okay, fine, the potential store changes are more notable. Specifically, the idea of following individual and group curators for personalised front pages. It's a necessary move the continued sale of games like Air Control proves that Valve aren't interested in running a curated platform. Here's the thing: they never were. For years, they allowed unmitigated shit onto the store because they had deals in place with the publishers who shat them. Being on Steam is not, and has never been, a guarantee of quality. But being on the recommendations list of some reliable curators could be.



Tyler Wilde: Shadow Realms
Last week, I was griping about BioWare s live action You ve Been Chosen teasers. I m skeptical of any game revealed by not telling us what the game is. This week, however, we ve all begun forgetting about the teasers in favor of having thoughts about Shadow Realms, the game they were teasing. And Shadow Realms sounds pretty cool. It s a 4v1 episodic RPG, where the one is the Shadowlord, who s essentially a dungeon master. The Shadowlord attempts to stop the party haunting them, setting traps, casting spells, summoning monsters, and controlling any monster in the level." And despite last week s cryptic marketing, which usually suggests there s nothing real to show, alpha invites are going out next month. Find out more in our interview with BioWare Austin General Manager Jeff Hickman.

Samuel Roberts: Metal Gear? It can t be!
I have to echo Tim s enthusiasm for Metal Gear Solid V coming to PC I m a huge fan of that series and I ve completed all of them multiple times (except MGS4, since life s slightly too short for me to sit through its ludicrous hour-long closing cutscene again). I now want Konami to take it further. Some PC players would like an education on Metal Gear and why it s been so critically and commercially successful on consoles for such a long period of time. Konami already ported the original to PC years ago. Why not bring it out on Steam? Likewise, a few years ago, Konami employed port specialists BluePoint to remake MGS2 (eh), MGS3 (amazing) and PeaceWalker (very odd, but with a lot of connections to MGSV). MGSV is a great start from Konami, and I m glad it s not being seen as an afterthought release-wise like Revengeance was, but I think re-releasing the older games on PC could see that series be even bigger on Steam than it is on consoles. As Andy pointed out a few months ago, Metal Gear Solid has always belonged on PC.



Evan Lahti: Go, go, go!
I m so happy to see CS:GO gaining more popularity as an e-sport. On Thursday, during only the group stages (the seeding rounds) of the ESL One championship in Cologne, Cloud9 s match against Titan peaked at 270,000 concurrent viewers. Those aren t Dota 2 or League of Legends numbers, of course, but that figure exceeds what CS:GO drew during the grand finals of its last tournament. Valve made some improvements to CS:GO s spectating experience in a recent patch, and its comment during The International indicates that they might be throwing more of their support behind the game on most days the second-most popular on Steam in the future. It s inherently tougher for FPSes to catch on as e-sports because perspective-swapping between players isn t necessarily a great experience, especially for non-players, but continued support from Valve would have a huge impact on the scene.

Tom Senior: Rise of the PC
PCs are everywhere at Gamescom. They're pushing Ryse to 4K monitors in Crytek's booth, rendering 4 vs. 1 battles in Evolve and Shadow Realms. They're powering Firaxis' Civ: Beyond Earth demoes, sitting under tables in Paradox' booths and enabling huge League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive contests on the show floor. The Metal Gear Solid 5 announcement is the big news of the week, but it's symptomatic of the quiet ascendency of a platform that wasn't taken seriously by some publishers five or six years ago. There are a few holdouts, sure. I reckon Rise of the Tomb Raider will make it over late, and we may never see a PC version of Destiny, but these instances are proving increasingly rare. Hopefully in future, if we're lucky, we'll see more simultaneous PC/console releases for more big budget games, but let's not go too crazy.





THE LOWS

Samuel Roberts: Gamescom blues
Gamescom is like the local/mid-term elections in the realm of trade shows. If you re a journalist or one of the thousands of people being squashed in Cologne, I m sure it s delightful, as the show is notably better for access than it is for news but from the outside looking in, it felt like a bit of a non-starter for announcements outside of the great news about Metal Gear (I also share Tim s love of The End, MGS3 s astonishing boss battle), the reveal of Shadow Realms from BioWare and the Tomb Raider thing that pissed absolutely everyone off (even though the whole thing might be a timed exclusive it s pretty hard to work that bit out). A bunch of EA titles that probably should ve made an appearance Star Wars: Battlefront, Mirror s Edge, any of the other BioWare games in production didn t, meaning it ll likely be another ten months before we get even a whisper out of them again. If you re at home watching out for Gamescom announcements, I can t imagine it was nearly as exciting as the E3 shows were. There s plenty to look forward to in the rest of 2014 and early 2015, but for actual new things, it was kind of quiet.

Tom Senior: Gamescom attendees deserve a little more
Three hundred thousand people bought tickets and stormed the Koelnmesse this week, and many queue for a long time to be ushered into a theatre and shown some trailers at ear splitting volume. Ticket holders deserve a chance to catch some advanced access for their cash, so here's a shout-out to the developers who put playable builds on the show floor this year. Often games aren't ready for mass consumption in the wild conditions of a conference hall, but when you walk past rows and rows of packed-out Fifa kiosks every day it's clear how much that exclusive access matters to people. People were even enjoying a few battles in PIllars of Eternity in one noisy corner of Hall 9. I can only admire their powers of concentration.



Tyler Wilde: Rise of the Tomb Raider is an Xbox exclusive
I don t care much about exclusivity deals that keep games off the Xbox One or PS4 (though I m sure I would if I owned one or the other), but when the PC gets lumped in? And by Microsoft? It makes me feel unwanted, alienated. Why can t you just be an Xbox gamer?

As I argued earlier this week, Square Enix might be getting a good deal by making Rise of the Tomb Raider a timed Xbox exclusive, but I m still disappointed whenever risk abatement involves withholding games. I get it, though. Developing games is expensive and any way to help ensure success is welcome. But for the brave, a lot of money can be made on the PC, and I fear console-focused publishers will never have a chance to figure it out amid their exclusivity deals and pre-order bonuses. The response to making less money on PC, where there are no discs to print, no used games, and long-term promotion, should be to solve it.

Oh, also, hey Microsoft, I d buy a PS4 before an Xbox One, so seriously, don t worry about keeping games off the PC. It won t help anyway.

Phil Savage: Exclusively empty
I get that words change their meaning over time. This is a natural and healthy part of the evolution of language. But sometimes evolution goes wrong. This has happened to the word exclusive . It hasn't changed its meaning; it's lost its meaning. It is meaningless a carcass of a word that rots the sentence that it's dumped in.

I watched Gamescom's console press conferences in a state of constant confusion. The word exclusive was deployed in so many ways, for so many scenarios, and none of them applied to what the word should mean. Even worse was the phrase first on console for Xbox/Playstation, which was liberally spat out for games already on PC. The phrasing is deliberately ambiguous. It can be read in multiple ways, but specifically applies to one. If a core part of your business strategy is to mislead your customers through empty phrasing, you are doing something wrong.



Tim Clark: A beastly problem
Just when I thought I couldn t QQ any harder about the seemingly endless stream of Zoo players in Hearthstone this week s highlight: queuing into five straight Zoos in casual back come the bloody Hunters. Between the Webspinner and Haunted Creeper, the Hunter class already had its early game bolstered by the new Naxxramas cards, but with the arrival of the secret-spawning Mad Scientist this week the class is now likely out of control again. Hey, you like playing against secrets right? Wait and see how much you like playing against opponents who don t even have to pay any Mana for them. The salt is strong with me.

Evan Lahti: Steam needs an overhaul
Steam updates constantly, but the design of the client itself has remained almost untouched for at least a few years. SteamDB sniffed out an upcoming update to Steam, but it only seems to address a few piecemeal issues rather than being a skin-to-bones reimagining of the program, which I think Steam desperately needs. The glut of indie games, DLC, Workshop content, and software that s flooded Steam in the past few years has rendered the store page and other corners of the program less useful; it s unlikely that tweaking Steam s lame tags system or adding a discovery queue will address Steam s fundamental problem: there s too much stuff, and it isn t meaningfully organized.

Last night, Paradox took to a Gamescom stage to talk about their existing and future titles. During the conference, they announced Europa Universalis 4's third expansion, and Crusader Kings 2's, I dunno, sixty-ninth expansion? Something like that, anyway. EU4: Art of War will focus on the 30 Years War, and improve naval combat and army control. CK2: Charlemagne will introduce a new 769AD start date, and chart the rise of Charlemagne and The Holy Roman Empire.

Here's the trailer for Charlemagne:



And the seventh expansion's feature list:


New Earlier bookmark, 769, almost 100 more years of Crusader Kings II
Special story event series for Charlemagne
Annual Chronicle in the style of the Saxon chronicle
Custom Kingdoms and Empires, create a new title from a lower-tier title, can customize flag and name
Dozens of new cultures
Brand new system for climate and seasonal transitions
Regency overhaul


And now for Art of War:



Features? Yup:


30 years War: Unique mechanics and events for the religious conflict that ravaged Europe.
Napoleonic Era: Fight for or against the revolution and create entirely new custom client countries on the map from your conquests.
Fighting on land or at sea: You can now sortie from sieges, transfer occupation to allies and give objectives to your subjects and allies. Entire Fleets can now be upgraded with one click, you can now mothball fleets to avoid paying maintenance, and your fleets can be set to automatically transport armies.
Marches: Turn your vessals into bulwarks against your enemies, getting less tax but strengthening their defences.
Improved Diplomacy: Sell Surplus Ships, Fight for your subjects CB, Declare War in Support of Rebel factions in other countries and new peace options.
Gameplay Enhancements: Build entire armies in one click and abandon cores that you no longer wish to support.
Free Features for the accompanying patch: Completely new rebel mechanic, local autonomy on province level, new cardinal system for Catholics, new reformation mechanics and a new look map.


At this point, you're probably all, "so when will this stuff be released?" The answer, uninformatively, is "the near future".

With last night's Warlords of Draenor release date announcement, World of Warcraft fans know when to use up all their remaining holiday days. But what will they be doing as they shirk off the responsibilities of dumb reality? Blizzard's "In Action" trailer gives us a taste, via a brief look at the expansion's new areas, Garrisons, PvP zones and more.

If you'd prefer a specific look at just one of those areas, check out this run through of WoD's new Grimrail Depot a dungeon set on a moving train.



Warlords of Draenor will be with us 13 November.

Ha! I did it! After hours of subroutines and advanced 3D GUI's, I've finally stolen Invisible, Inc's upcoming trailer and... Wait, what do you mean it's on YouTube? Well how about this intercepted communique detailing the procedural turn-based stealth game's Steam Early Access release on 19 August? They've got that, too? Honestly, I don't know why I bother.

You can find details of the game's recent improvements over at the Klei forum. I'm looking forward to trying this one out, because to state the obvious it has stealth, permadeath, procedural generation and turn-based combat. That's many of the words I like packed into one single description.