Have you seen the Large Pixel Collider in action? We built the most dangerous computer the world has ever known, and we're capturing gameplay footage of the most graphically-intensive games at settings that would cause conventional PCs emotional harm.

Last week, we debuted our footage of Arma 3, with gorgeous results. This week, we have Metro: Last Light, running at 1440p with every graphical option set to Ultra. Is it enough to bring the LPC to its knees?

Spoilers: No, it is not.

See what's inside the Large Pixel Collider, our own personal demigod of a PC.

Steam Machines are coming soon. Very soon. In fact, they're supposed to come as soon as early 2014. Even sooner than that, however, Valve will send out a prototype of its own design to 300 randomly-selected users for beta testing and it announced a game to come bundled with those prototypes for SteamOS testing.

4A's post-apocalyptic survival horror gem, Metro: Last Light, will be that game. After a May release date on Windows in May of this year, the game landed on Linux and Mac earlier this week. Considering that Linux is the basis for SteamOS, the operating system that Valve plans to release early next year, it was already at least partially primed to work on a Steam Machine.

The entire catalog of Linux-compatible Steam games should be available to play on SteamOS when it launches next year. Although that currently includes just around 200 games, there will be no shortage of games to play if you switch to the OS. You can always manually add non-Steam games into your Steam library and SteamOS will be able to play non-Linux games. But with Metro and the recently-announced Linux version of Total War: Rome II that will also be compatible with the Steam Controller, we can count two more relatively high profile additions to the Linux slate.

Metro: Last Light has had a fairly random assortment of downloadable content so far, but the latest is perhaps the most fully fledged, particularly if you enjoy getting slabs of new story content rather than extra guns or alternate modes. The Chronicles pack has just been bolted onto Last Light - er, if you part with $4.99/£3.99 first - and adds three additional single-player missions centered around side-characters Pavel, Khan, Ulman and Anna. It also adds that fan-made bicycle shotgun weapon because, hey, old habits die hard. As do mutants.

Want to hear more about those single-player missions? We have you covered. "Discover how Anna, the unflinching Polis Sniper, tried and failed to rescue Artyom from the Reich forces in the ruined botanical gardens," reads the press release. "Put the irrepressible Pavel’s deadly skills and ingenuity to the test as he attempts to escape the Bandit Lair beneath Venice. And guide Khan and Ulman through the forgotten, haunted tunnels of Polyanka in a chilling supernatural tale that reveals a dark secret from Khan’s mysterious past..."

Metro: Last Light is quite good, by the way.

Deep Silver have revealed details of the third of Metro: Last Light's four planned DLC packs. The 'Developer Pack' is due out next week, and... well, I'll level with you, it's a bit of an odd one. Of all the DLC bits we've seen for the post-apocalyptic shooter, it's the one that most resembles a random assortment of disparate ideas, mixed together into a thick goulash.

Here are the three main parts, as announced over Deep Silver's PR tannoy:


"Players can experiment with every gun and attachment combination in the Shooting Range, and complete unique marksman challenges for each weapon."
"The AI Arena allows players to pit customisable squads of human soldiers and mutants against each other or prove themselves in several challenges."
"Lastly, players can explore Metro’s cast of characters, and human and mutant foes, up close in the ‘Metro Museum’."


There's a solo mission, too. The Spider's Nest traps you in a arachnid-infested catacomb, with just a lighter, a torch, and a giant flamethrower for company. That'll be a fun one for arachnophobes.

Despite the weird mix of ideas here, I quite like the sound of the AI Arena. It's unlikely to usurp Salty Bet as the king of the AI battlers, but - as someone who has spent hours creating random fight scenes in Gmod - it's bound to be an amusing distraction.

Previously, Metro: Last Light received the Faction Pack, adding three single-player missions that each dealt with a different group in the game, and the Tower Pack, an out-of-universe combat arena. The final DLC release will be the Chronicles Pack, which will add more single-player missions that explore the side-characters Pavel, Khan & Ulman, and Anna.

Metro: Last Light's Developer Pack is due out September 17th, and is priced £3.19, $3.99 and €3.99.

A soggy, post-apocalyptic underground is no place to find oneself trapped in—so let's jump right back into it, shall we? The second of Metro: Last Light's DLCs was released yesterday. Okay, so the screenshots don't look like the post-apocalyptic Metro we've become far too familiar with—in fact, there's an odd, clinically Portal-like feel to some of these scenarios. That's because 4A Games is using this DLC as an opportunity to focus on what it feels wasn't given enough attention in the base game: the combat.

"We changed everything —from the control scheme, to our animation system, AI, projectile modelling, audio…" 4A says in a developer blog post. "And ultimately, all this work only really came to bear in a few gunfights spread across the campaign!

"We wanted to create some DLC that took advantage of these new, refined combat mechanics, that allowed players to explore the system in more depth—and so the Tower Pack was born."

The Tower is a "combat simulator" almost entirely removed from the Metro universe, with the only familiar carry-over being Last Light's combat mechanics. It's a kind of arena, filled with all of Metro's enemies and weapons, in which you'll get to really let loose with the mechanics in a place separate from Artyom's mission.

The Tower Pack went live on Steam yesterday. If you previously purchased the Season Pass, your game should update automatically. This is the second of Last Light's planned four DLCs, and we've also got some vague hints about the content of the final two DLCs. The next pack, the Developer Pack, will include a shooting gallery, an "AI arena" and a museum of all things Metro, as well as a new solo mission. The final Chronicles Pack sounds like it'll be the real corker of the bunch, though, offering three new single-player missions played from the point of view of four side characters.

Good news, Metro fans! According to Deep Silver CEO Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, more Metro games are planned beyond this year’s Metro: Last Light. Speaking to Joystiq at Gamescom last week, Kundratitz refused to officially announce a Last Light sequel, but emphasized that the franchise would have more entries eventually.

"I’m very glad we acquired that brand," Kundratitz said, referring to Deep Silver’s purchase of Metro from THQ during that troubled publisher’s asset auction earlier this year. "While it launched in a very dry space in the gaming calendar this year, it still got a lot of attention."

Kundratitz also said that future games would be made “more accessible to a broader gaming audience," but insisted that Dmitry Glukhovsky, the author of Metro 2033, still holds the license and has some say in the creative process. Any changes to broaden the audience for future Metro games will have continue to be approved by Glukhovsky.

We enjoyed Metro: Last Light, so we’re happy to see that more Metro games will probably be heading our way in the near-ish future. Now begins the long, long wait.

Thanks, Joystiq.

It's a little late - Metro: Last Light's Faction Pack DLC came out a couple of days ago - but this launch trailer gives you a good idea of the styles of play associated with each of the game's factions. Essentially: sneaky, snipery, and - er - hate-y, as you complete three missions as a Polis Ranger, a Red Line Sniper and a Reich Heavy. It never said they were nice factions.



The Faction Pack is the first of four planned DLC updates for Last Light. Other add-ons will include the Developer Pack, which will "give creative players some interesting tools with which to explore the world of Metro"; the Tower Pack, which is said to offer a "unique solo challenge to Metro veterans"; and the Chronicles Pack, which will bring more single-player missions to the game.

Metro: Last Light Faction Pack is out now, available for $4.99 / £3.99 / €4.99

Deep Silver has announced a new mutation of Metro: Last Light DLC called the “Faction Pack” which straps you into the soggy boots of three different soldiers who—like the name suggests—belong to separate factions.

There’s the Redline sniper who must defend an outpost during a radioactive storm, a “Reich Heavy” charged with holding the frontline, and a Polis Ranger rookie looking to navigate a forgotten library. Each character has his or her own unique mission, though we wouldn't be surprised if each of the missions tied together somehow.

The Faction Pack hits Steam worldwide on July 16 for $4.99 / £3.99 / €4.99, though it won’t cost you a pretty penny if you snagged the season pass.

Deep Silver also briefly touched upon three new DLC packs, with the “Chronicles Pack” being the most promising as it features new single player missions as well. The other two featured a challenge based "combat simulator" and an AI arena, which sound slightly less interesting than new single player content. The publisher didn't announce release dates or prices for the other pieces of DLC, but hopefully the Faction Pack sets an example the rest will follow.

From PlanetSide to Quake to Team Fortress, the current issue of PC Gamer US is locked and loaded for a countdown of the 25 Greatest Shooters of All Time. Plus, we bring you our review of a brand new Eastern European dystopian shooter with mutants—Metro: Last Light—and invite you to Reinstall a classic Eastern European dystopian shooter with mutants—S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.
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Subscribers should have this issue in hand, unless your mail carrier suffered some unfortunate fate similar to the player character in Fallout: New Vegas, and is now wandering around with amnesia collecting canned food and scrap metal. Alternatively, you can snag the issue on a physical newsstand, or the digital ones listed above. Subscriptions and single issues are available, so in the words of Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple: "The choice is yours, and yours alone!"

Also inside:


Double Fine Adventure now has a name: Broken Age. We have new details!
Competitive Minesweeper? Yep. It exists.
Our first glimpses of Battlefield 4
Five hours hands-on with Company of Heroes 2's campaign
Reviews of six gaming headsets
Reviews for Defiance, Monaco, and Resident Evil 6
A mod to make Legend of Grimrock even grimmer
Your letters, the PC Gamer Rig, and everything else you expect to see

Chris, Tom Senior and Rich discuss Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Metro: Last Light, spiders, Tomb Raider, and the Oculus Rift. We also have a bit of a think about the Xbox One and what it means for entertainment in general.

The podcast is rated adult-only on iTunes, but this is one of those episodes where that's actually true. This is almost enitrely Tom's fault. We're never going to let Tom describe a game experience that involves a tunnel of any kind ever again. Apologies in advance.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. You can also download the MP3 or listen on YouTube.

To ask a question in a future episode, follow the PC Gamer Twitter account - we'll put a call out a few hours before we record. You can also follow us as individuals:

Chris - @CThursten
Rich - @richmcc
Tom - @PCGLudo

Show notes
This guy can shoot a gun really, really fast.
Marsh's review of Metro: Last Light.
Three ways the Xbox One could affect PC gaming.
Joe Danger is coming to PC.
Our Planetside 2 community. Again.