THE EVIL WITHIN
PC Gamer US Edition|June 2022
The first upgrade: PC gaming’s most perilous rite of passage
Phil Iwaniuk
THE EVIL WITHIN

There are two sides to PC gaming, more or less. One of them involves sitting somewhere comfy and playing games on a PC. The other, less clearly defined in the pastime’s name, is about taking stewardship of the machine that makes the games happen. This side of the coin is far less logical than the other, which by contrast is fairly simple intrinsic enjoyment. The knowledge that we could delve inside our PCs and have some agency over the performance they contain is inherently corrupting, like the sacred insights within an Elder Scroll or an uncomfortable Adam Curtis documentary. Things are never the same afterwards.

Upgrading one’s personal computer, then, is a natural rite of passage for the subculture. We’re making the machine ours by dictating the exact specification of components within it, hewing its form from a Scan basket and watching its proverbial newborn eyes blink up at us with parental adoration when we hit the power button. It’s just a shame it’s such a dreadful and convoluted ordeal, isn’t it?

TRIAL BY FIREWALL

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Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.
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Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.

Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big.I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and eggplants I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game.

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