PC Gamer Weekender 2018 Roundup

On the 17th and 18th of February this year, the PC Gamer Weekender (or, as is meant to be billed, The PC GAMER Weekender Played on OMEN by HP) took over the sweeping second-floor halls of the prestigious Olympia in Kensington, in what would be the third event from the long-running outlet.

As with previous years (where last year’s also took place at this venue), developers travelled from across the world to showcase, give talks and meet the public under the banner of PC Gamer’s event.

This year’s event felt vastly more organised than previous years. 2016’s talk from Henrik Fåhraeus’ Stellaris presentation — which was memorably held in a packed treble-booth at the back of the event — formed a steep contrast with 2017’s structure, which seemed to regularly distribute the organiser’s editorial staff at the opposite end of the venue from where they were needed (at least based on how much rushing to and fro I remember seeing).

For those unfamiliar with the event, the main appeal is most definitely the extensive gaming show floor. This year the event featured over eighty titles, with retro, board-gaming, arcade and tournament areas bolstering the headliners and indie selection.

In addition to the games, there were also areas set aside for talks, presentations and mentoring opportunities. The OMEN/ESL area was central to the event and featured plenty of tips and advice for competitive gaming (mostly Overwatch, to be fair) from a selection of pros — not exactly my scene, but they certainly held a crowd well. Elsewhere, the PC Gamer Stage had some interesting offerings — including sections on Subset Games’ Into the Breach, Firaxis’ Civilization VI: Rise & Fall and Haemimont Games’ Surviving Mars. There was also — as with previous years — an area for PC Workshops and talks (across two separate stages) on getting into the industry, along with developers showcasing their games.

The former of those two, getting into the industry, featured a solid line-up, covering PR, community management and social media management. In my opinion, however, the most interesting offerings came from Muse Games (Guns of Icarus Alliance) and Slitherine staff, who were talking about their ascendancy from fans to members of the team.

PC Gamer Weekender 2018 was also noteworthy for its announcements and showcases. The previously announced, four-hundred-strong battle royale game Project X was revealed as Mavericks: Proving Grounds. Muse Games showcased a fully functional, cross-platform version of Guns of Icarus: Alliance, which will run between PC, Mac, Linux and PS4. We also finally got to see Two Point Hospital in action. Good times.

Between the team, we managed to play most of the games on show at the event, of which there’s a full list available over on the event website. Of those we managed to play, we have articles releasing over the coming weeks. You’ll be able to find links to them, in addition to other coverage of the games, below as they go live:

– Anger Force: Reloaded
– Annwn: The Otherworld
– Basingstoke
– Biomutant
– Candleman: The Complete Journey
– Deep Rock Galactic
– Empires Apart
– Extinction
– Fade to Silence
– Guns of Icarus: Alliance
– Muddledash
– Macrotis: A Mother’s Journey
– Murderous Pursuits
– Nippon Marathon
– Phoenix Point
– Planetoid Pioneers
– Razed
– Real Farm
– Shift Quantum
– Sure Footing
– Vermintide 2
– Warhammer 40,000: Gladius