Chris Thursten
PC Gamer
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Chris:
Collected Works: Jeff Kaplan
The game director of Overwatch on false starts and new beginnings at one of the world’s most storied studios. → Read More
Star Wars Galaxies was an MMO that almost changed the world
The rise and fall of an MMO with limitless potential. → Read More
Dead Cells review
A fantastic and often punishing action platformer. → Read More
Dota 2's battle royale mode has promise but needs polish
The history of Dota is the history of ideas being poured into a giant bucket full of wizards. From Aeon of Strife to the wild herds of tower defence games that roamed the plains of the Warcraft III custom map scene, Dota has always been a mongrel thing. In that sense it's appropriate that Steam's former chart-topper should spend the summer paying tribute to the genre that toppled it. Packed in… → Read More
Dota 2 review
We originally reviewed Dota 2 in 2013. It has changed significantly since then, so much so that we decided to review it again. Our original review can still be found here. For more about why we've chosen to re-review certain games, head here.Given that it started life as a faithful recreation of the original Defence of the Ancients mod, you’d be forgiven for thinking of Dota 2 as the… → Read More
Today Theme Hospital is a fiddly management sim, but the daft jokes endure
Theme Hospital has been through several stages of life. At launch in 1997 it was a big deal, the successor to theme park—the game that made Bullfrog’s fortune. Theme Park was an irreverent, colourful management simulator that turned the Guildford studio from a domestic player to an international contender. Theme Hospital adopted Theme Park’s tone—and great swathes of its code—and turned it to a… → Read More
BattleTech guide: Manage your mechs to victory and riches
BattleTech is a deep and granular tactics game. Avoiding disaster means paying attention to the details of a given encounter, and inevitably you're going to make a few costly mistakes along the way. Ahead of the game's release, then, here are a few learnings from the battlefield. If any of these tips help you avoid having your favourite mech's arms and legs shot off, then I've done my job. → Read More
BattleTech review
If, as Sid Meier likes to say, good strategy game design boils down to providing a series of interesting decisions, then what comes next should be a series of interesting consequences. This is where BattleTech excels. Harebrained Schemes has taken the hard sci-fi tabletop game (best known to PC players as the basis of the MechWarrior series) and married it to the XCOM formula in a way that… → Read More
Battletech is shaping up to be a great tactical combat game, and an absorbing mercenary sim
Harebrained's latest channels the spirit of tabletop mech adventure. → Read More
Singleplayer games aren't dead, they're just changing
Ignore the extreme end of games-as-service design and solo experiences are thriving. → Read More
Singleplayer games aren't dead, they're just changing
Ignore the extreme end of games-as-service design and solo experiences are thriving. → Read More
Hello Neighbor review
This ambitious stealth horror adventure is destined for the bargain basement. → Read More
Hello Neighbor review
This ambitious stealth horror adventure is destined for the bargain basement. → Read More
Battlerite review
Battlerite gathers up the best parts of MOBA, free-to-play and competitive game design and frames them in the most flattering light it can muster. This game of close-fought, tightly-crafted arena combat isn’t just one of the best team action games released this year: it is a goodwill ambassador for a corner of PC gaming that doesn’t always make the best first impression. → Read More
Battlerite review
Battlerite gathers up the best parts of MOBA, free-to-play and competitive game design and frames them in the most flattering light it can muster. This game of close-fought, tightly-crafted arena combat isn’t just one of the best team action games released this year: it is a goodwill ambassador for a corner of PC gaming that doesn’t always make the best first impression. → Read More
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is still a brilliant murder sim
The boot is as mighty as the sword in Arkane's splendid combat game. → Read More
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is still a brilliant murder sim
The boot is as mighty as the sword in Arkane's splendid combat game. → Read More
What Destiny 2's lore suggests about the future of Bungie's MMO shooter
The arrival of Destiny 2 on PC will, inevitably, change the way the story of Bungie's MMO is told. In its first, console-bound iteration, uncovering Destiny's secrets meant a slow process of investigation and exploration—endless theorising about lore and level design, poking at the corners of every environment in search of clues. Although some data mining did occur back then, the presence of… → Read More
Assassin's Creed, Zelda, Horizon or PUBG? Have your say on the Golden Joystick Awards' Ultimate Game of the Year
Your vote can make the difference in the closest-run Ultimate Game of the Year contest in recent history, as the best of PS4, Xbox, Nintendo and PC go head-to-head – here are the leading contenders → Read More
Total War: Warhammer 2 brings high fantasy to a redesigned campaign
Warhammer 2 is an unusual sort of Total War sequel. Creative Assembly's spin on Games Workshop's Old World has been envisaged as a trilogy from the beginning, a three-game cycle where each individual game will eventually stitch together into a single massive strategy sandbox. The factions and many of the features of Total War: Warhammer 2 were planned out before work on the first game began.… → Read More