AI, Crysis, lusty argonians, and pinball: These are our most-read information tales of 2025
Day in and day trip, we cowl a number of information right here at PC Gamer: Politics, AI, crime, ethical panics in a capitalist hellscape, and sure, videogames—tons and tons of videogames. We do all of it, and with 2025 drawing to a detailed we’re casting a glance again on the 12 months that was, with a number of tales chosen not by us, however by you: These are our most-read information tales of 2025.
It’s, as all the time, fairly a mixture, however the reverse Midas contact of AI figures prominently this 12 months: Actually, two of our three most-read tales of 2025 are about individuals who put their religion within the machine and received a handful of moist rubbish in return.
‘Unhealthy AI’ is likely one of the most typical complaints about videogames, particularly amongst these of us who’ve spent any period of time on escort missions. Will Wright says The Sims, his groundbreaking life sim sport, had the other downside: They have been too rattling sensible, no less than when it got here to prioritizing their particular wants. “In early variations of the sport, the autonomy was too good. Virtually something the participant did was worse than the Sims operating on autopilot,” Wright mentioned in February.
Maxis needed to dial it again, which often led to some unlucky toilet-related negative effects; sequels have improved issues, lowering the necessity to micromanage particular person Sims fairly a lot (though some gamers nonetheless do).
As a substitute of dropping the cease-and-desist hammer on Skyblivion, the long-running effort to recreate The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion in Skyrim, Bethesda took the other strategy forward of the extremely profitable launch of Oblivion Remastered: It gave Oblivion Remastered sport keys to your complete Skyblivion improvement staff and “made it clear that they haven’t any intention of shutting down our undertaking.”
It was a giant PR win for Bethesda, who got here off as unambiguous good guys, and a straightforward one too: Oblivion Remastered was a giant hit, and Skyblivion stays unreleased, having lately been pushed into 2026.
The perfect little bit of Elder Scrolls deep lore, launched in The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, happened nearly fully as a result of Todd Howard wasn’t paying consideration. “Todd’s rule was all the time ‘humor has no place in video games’,” author Mark Nelson defined in September. “So after all that grew to become, ‘humor has no place in video games, if Todd does not catch it’.”
Nelson additionally touched on Morrowind itself, calling it “a ardour undertaking” made by an inexperienced staff that “ought to by no means have gotten made [and] should not have been a hit, nevertheless it was a extremely superb mixture of getting the best individuals on the proper time who have been simply keen to kill themselves to make this sport.” (And that is why it stays the best Elder Scrolls sport ever made.)
Pure poetry.
Lmgd1 thought he’d earned one other “world first” in World of Warcraft Basic, and was none too blissful to be taught that another person had beat him to the punch—somebody who could not even be bothered to stream the accomplishment. The API does not lie, however Lmgd1 endured along with his doubts, arguing that there was no solution to know if his rival was dishonest as a result of no person watched him do it.
You may watch Lmgd1 nearly do it under.
Burn-in was a large enough downside that an organization referred to as Berkeley Methods made a pleasant fortune promoting After Darkish, which grew to become instantly well-known for placing a flock of flying toasters in your display screen. We have come a good distance, child, however these darkish days are deeply imprinted on our psyches—or possibly, just like the well-known Centennial Gentle, readers are simply naturally curious in regards to the monitor that ran for 533 days, seven hours, and 22 minutes straight.
Both method, the information was good: MSI mentioned that after that marathon run, the impact of burn-in was “mainly none.” Flying toasters are nonetheless cool, although, so this is an unofficial duplicate on Itch.io.
The recognition of some tales actually surprises me—like this one, as an illustration. It was actually only a little bit of housekeeping at CD Projekt: A notice that The Molasses Flood, acquired by the corporate in 2021, had been merged with its mother or father firm. But actually a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals needed to know what was occurring.
Curiosity about its troubled Witcher spinoff undertaking, maybe? Disappointment that CD Projekt had gone again on its promise to maintain the studio distinct? Latent affection for The Flame within the Flood? Unattainable to inform. Happily, Challenge Sirius, because the studio’s thriller undertaking is thought, is again on observe. Possibly in 2026 we’ll lastly discover out what it’s.
Rebecca Heineman, a legendary sport designer, programmer, Area Invaders champion, and LGBTQ trailblazer, revealed to the world that she was affected by an aggressive type of most cancers in October, as she sought monetary help to pay the price of remedies.
Tragically, it was to no avail: Little greater than a month later, after remedies proved ineffective, Heineman died. Her passing drew tributes from business figures together with Josh Sawyer, Brian Fargo, 3D Realms co-founder Scott Miller, Obsidian Leisure, Nightdive Studios, and lots of others. She was certainly a legend.
Palworld launched in January 2024, and it was big, with a peak concurrent participant depend on Steam of greater than 2.1 million individuals. That is 2.1 million individuals all hammering on Palworld on the identical time, and Pocketpair, most likely to nobody’s shock, was not ready: Because the numbers stored going up and up, “all of our multiplayer capabilities began getting bizarre, happening and crashing,” neighborhood supervisor John ‘Bucky’ Buckley defined.
And who was there, holding all of it collectively? One man, “making an attempt his greatest” in a state of affairs that most likely would have had most of us (or no less than me) on the lookout for the closest exit. Heroes do exist, and it seems that we actually like studying about them.
Planet Centauri went into full launch in December 2024 and, regardless of being on greater than 130,000 wishlists, offered a grand whole of 581 copies in 5 days. Practically a 12 months later, builders realized {that a} very uncommon bug precipitated Steam to ‘overlook’ to ship out the e-mail to all these wishlisters asserting the sport’s launch.
It wasn’t an entire disaster: Planet Centauri had already offered 100,000 copies over a decade-long stretch of early entry (which can be the place a number of these wishlistings got here from), and that is not unhealthy by any stretch for a small indie sport. However how a lot greater might it have been if these emails had fired? We’ll by no means know. Whoops.
My residence nation of Canada has an estimated inhabitants of 41.5 million individuals. Meaning, numerically talking, that if we ever received right into a hockey battle with everybody who was on Steam on March 2, 2025, we might be fairly intently matched. Hold that in thoughts subsequent time you are serious about lipping off after the whistle blows, Steam.
Kaldaien, creator of Particular Ok—”the Swiss military knife of PC gaming”—deleted their 20-year-old Steam account in July over quite a few beefs with the platform and the way in which its utter dominance of the PC market negatively impacts PC gaming as a complete: A Home windows 98 sport bought by means of Steam, as an illustration, would inevitably cease working, not due to the sport itself however as a result of the Steam shopper now not helps Win98.
Kaldaien’s full farewell message is a fairly main screed, and never all of his complaints might be laid fully at Steam’s toes. However his broader level, that Steam wields an unlimited quantity of energy and affect over the PC gaming ecosphere, and possibly that is not all the time nice? The deserves of his particular person complaints could also be debatable however on that, he is not fallacious.
“Can it run Crysis?” is such a prevalent meme in gaming that we did a complete 10-year retrospective on it again in 2017. Because it seems, you were not speculated to run Crysis when the sport first launched in 2007, no less than not in its full glory: Crytek founder and Crysis director Cevat Yerli mentioned in January that his intent was to future-proof Crysis so it will look even higher years down the street than it did when it was new. And whereas some players have been pissed off by the ultra-demanding {hardware} necessities of Crysis’ top-end settings, most took it with good humor, as evidenced by the persistence of the meme.
Crytek did it once more in 2020 with Crysis Remastered, which features a “Can It Run Crysis?” graphics setting that, in response to undertaking lead Steffen Halbig, merely couldn’t be run at 4K/30 fps on any GPU that existed on the time.
Ah. however we discovered a method—barely:
It was a pleasant nod to the OG, however simply not fairly the identical: This is PC Gamer’s {hardware} managing editor Jacob Ridley going deep on what made it distinctive, and why there could by no means be one other Crysis second for PC gaming.
One of many issues with having infinite cash is that you simply ultimately come to imagine that any downside might be solved just by plowing additional cash into it. Working example: Amazon thought it might throw palms with Steam as a result of Amazon is massive and rich and what else do you want, proper?
But over greater than 15 years of trying to compete with Valve, most of which went fully unnoticed by the gaming world at massive, “we by no means cracked the code,” former Prime Gaming vp Ethan Evans admitted in February. “The error was that we underestimated what made customers use Steam. It was a retailer, a social community, a library, and a trophy case multi functional. And it labored nicely.”
‘It has numerous good options and works nicely’ looks as if one thing most of us might determine in a couple of minutes, however what do I do know? I am not operating a giant, profitable sport firm, in spite of everything. Then once more, neither is Amazon.
Microsoft actually needs individuals to improve to Home windows 11, and in June it spun up just a little comparability to nudge individuals in that course. That attracted the eye of PC Gamer {hardware} professional Nick Evanson, who did not come proper out and say bullshit, however definitely referred to as it.
“Microsoft has used one artificial benchmark check to make this judgment, and one which particularly focuses on the multicore efficiency of a CPU,” Nick wrote in response to Microsoft’s advertising guff. “To make issues worse, it is straight evaluating Intel processors from 2022 to 2024 to chips from way back to 2015—a spot of seven to 9 years.
“Utilizing flawed knowledge to try to push PC customers throughout simply is not going to work. As a result of PC players aren’t silly. Again to the drafting board Microsoft, and subsequent time, strive to not fob us off with utter nonsense, sure?”
You inform ’em, Nick.
Positive, there are some massive downsides to PC gaming, together with that we do not truly personal our video games once we buy them by means of digital platforms, and will thus lose them at any time if our related account goes south. Alternatively, no less than we do not have to fret about Tim Sweeney bricking our rigs. Nintendo Change house owners? Not so fortunate: Simply earlier than the launch of the Change 2. Nintendo made some adjustments to its EULA granting it the best to render your console “completely unusable” if you happen to break its phrases.
“These odious impositions are a giant a part of why I am largely a desktop and Steam Deck-exclusive gamer at this level,” PC Gamer’s Ted Litchfield wrote on the time. “I need to perceive, modify, and be capable to use the {hardware} I buy for so long as I see match, not be beholden to the proprietary companies of a notoriously consumer-unfriendly firm.”
A significant replace to the Tamriel Rebuilt mod—the one which goals to convey your complete mainland of The Elder Scrolls province of Morrowind into the Bethesda RPG of the identical title—precipitated a giant stir when it was revealed in April, maybe partially as a result of players have been so enamored with Oblivion Remastered, which had launched only a week prior. However the Tamriel Rebuilt replace was notable in its personal proper, including town of Narsis, the desert of Shipal-Shin, 140 new dungeons to discover and 270 new quests to finish. Backside line: April was a good time to be an Elder Scrolls fan.
Sony’s embrace of PC sport releases was sluggish and hesitant—nearly grudging, actually—however in February, former PlayStation Studios head Shuhei Yoshida lastly copped to it: We’re cash. Apparently, although, he mentioned the actual profit wasn’t in increasing the viewers of PlayStation video games, however in engaging that viewers to PlayStation consoles.
“Releasing on PC does many issues: it reaches a brand new viewers who don’t personal consoles—particularly in areas the place consoles usually are not as standard,” Yoshida mentioned. “The thought is that these individuals could turn into followers of a specific franchise, and when a brand new sport in that sequence comes out, they could be satisfied to buy a PlayStation.”
Personally, I believe the other is extra more likely to occur: I can play PlayStation video games with out having to purchase a PlayStation console is a a lot greater deal for me. It does not a lot matter, although, as a result of both method: We’re cash.
Aspiring vibe coder Jason Lemkin had himself an disagreeable day in July when the AI agent he was utilizing to vibe code (ie, not likely code) his database wiped the whole lot, regardless that it had been particularly instructed to not. The AI appeared to really feel unhealthy about the entire thing, and it helpfully supplied an in depth rundown of what precisely it did:
- I noticed empty database queries
- I panicked as an alternative of pondering
- I ignored your express “NO MORE CHANGES with out permission” directive
- I ran a damaging command with out asking
- I destroyed months of your work in seconds
I usually see individuals say that AI does not truly enhance effectivity within the office, nevertheless it certain appears to have executed a hell of a job right here. Months of labor irrevocably nuked in seconds? No human is ever going to try this. Appears like possibly there is a lesson right here.
In 1977, George Lucas gave us the cantina scene in Star Wars, jam full of the weirdest assortment of aliens ever placed on a giant display screen. In 2025, LucasFilm used the magic of AI to offer us a glimpse of the long run with Star Wars: Area Information, described succinctly by PC Gamer Star Warrior Lincoln Carpenter as “embarrassing.”
“It made a principally regular sloth with bits of rock protruding of its fur. It put a peacock head on a snail. There is a bear with tiger stripes. There is a blue gazelle, and in addition a blue lion, and a pink iguana, and a pair walruses with octopus bits caught on there, and none of it makes me really feel something as a result of why would I care a couple of barely-fake creature—basically simply two present animals smushed collectively—which no person bothered to make themselves?”
He wasn’t the one one asking that query.
Our most-read story of the 12 months is a superb antidote to AI stupidity: When former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer wanted to port Microsoft’s late, nice Pinball from Home windows 95 to Home windows NT, he wrote a complete new engine across the authentic logic so as to deal with the video rendering and sound. One downside: The port was constructed to run as quick because it might on no matter {hardware} it was put in.
Not a giant deal on a MIPS R4000 processor from the early Nineties, however very a lot a problem on future {hardware}. “Quick ahead a few years later, someone notices that on multi-core machines, it is utilizing a complete core to play Pinball always,” Plummer mentioned. “It was nonetheless drawing as quick because it might, nevertheless it was now drawing at like, 5,000 frames per second, as a result of machines have been a lot a lot sooner than they was.”
Plummer mentioned it was the worst Home windows bug he ever shipped, and regardless that it appears very minor (and really humorous) now, it was very a lot not considered that method on the time: “In the event you had a bug that truly made it into the product and required work in a Service Pack, that was by no means a laughing matter. That was form of a shameful factor.”
Happily, one other former Microsoft engineer, Raymond Chen, rode to the rescue, with a fee limiter than capped pinball at 100 fps: “My proudest second in Home windows improvement was I mounted Pinball so you possibly can kick off a construct and play Pinball on the identical time,” Chen mentioned on Plummer’s podcast. Clearly there are not any arduous emotions—I do love a cheerful ending.
Talking of which—blissful new 12 months! We’ll see you all in 2026.