Rick Lane
Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.
Latest articles by Rick Lane

Quell your fears, Ultramarines! Just because Space Marine 3 is happening doesn't mean the end of support for Space Marine 2: 'There are surprises even dataminers haven’t found out about'
By Rick Lane published
News "No one is abandoning the game."

'We want to increase the cost of silence': Hunt: Showdown 1896's latest update brings a new event, a massive list of bugfixes and a tougher challenge for stealthy players
By Rick Lane published
News Quiet play has been 'undervalued' in the past.

Publishers 'don't want to be anywhere near' Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches: 'It's proving to be very stressful'
By Rick Lane published
News "Will we have to push our game up, or will we have to delay further?"

'Ok, so dragon builds are a thing now': galaxy-brained Helldivers 2 player incinerates a bile titan with a hover pack and a flamethrower
By Rick Lane published
News Free fire.

'We're actually getting GeoGuessr on Steam before GTA 6': the Google Street View puzzler arrives on Valve's platform this April
By Rick Lane published
News The Steam edition focuses on the competitive Duels mode.

Here's that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 mod that turns everyone into skeletons you asked for
By Rick Lane published
News "Here's a mod that can be both funny and scary."

Forget REPO, Monster Hunter Wilds and Assassin's Creed Shadows, Steam's current global top seller is an early access game about managing a drug empire
By Rick Lane published
News "This game is everything I want in a good 'build your own empire' game."

Tony Hawk apparently intervened to get Bam Margera into Pro Skater 3+4: 'No, you're gonna do it'
By Rick Lane published
News The skater and former Jackass star was seemingly omitted from the remake's roster.

Steel Hunters is like a more tactical Titanfall, but as an extraction shooter it's undermined by boring loot
By Rick Lane published
Steel yourself Wargaming's latest free-to-play shooter has some exciting tactical potential, but its loot game is too lightweight.

'Never thought I'd go back': Helldivers 2 players steel themselves to return to the site of its most infamous battle, Malevelon Creek
By Rick Lane published
News "They better make Malevelon live up to its name."

Medieval colony sim Norland is getting a 'damn big update' that completely overhauls the game's mechanics: 'We're rolling out some radical changes to the core gameplay'
By Rick Lane published
News Colony migration.

Eagle-eyed streamer spots that Roberta Williams' portrait in King's Quest 4 is based on her author photo on the back of the game box: 'I never noticed it before.'
By Rick Lane published
News "P.S. We really gotta bring back game devs telling you to get better at the game when you die".

'You’ve been asking, and we’ve been listening': Myst remake adds a whole new world to the classic adventure, one originally introduced in another overhaul from 25 years ago
By Rick Lane published
News Rime and reason.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard gets a crumb of support as EA offers free weapon skins to coincide with a 50% discount
By Rick Lane published
News All Dragon Age games available for cheap until March 27.

I downloaded this bear-obsessed comedy FPS to kill time before Doom: The Dark Ages and discovered the most underrated shooter on Steam
By Rick Lane published
Right to bear arms Bears in Space offers far more than cosmic ursine adventures.

Former Age of Empires 2 dev claims Microsoft demanded its first expansion should have a Korean faction, because 'StarCraft sold 3 million copies in Korea'
By Rick Lane published
News "Once someone simply repeats a previous argument, it's clear they are no longer functioning from logic or intelligence."

Chaotic courier sim Deliver At All Costs will crash through your letterbox this May, and its latest trailer is even weirder than I expected
By Rick Lane published
News Strap yourselves in for May 22.

A bizarre mod that adds human poop to Skyrim led me on an enlightening journey into Viking sanitation: 'Your world will certainly be more immersive, but it will also certainly smell worse'
By Rick Lane published
News Everyone Poops—Mihail's Shards of Immersion adds droppings for humans, falmer, and giants.

This upcoming Korean tactical shooter features 'situational awareness AI' that reminds me of the uber-smart clones from Monolith's FEAR
By Rick Lane published
News "In Project TH, the AI system is designed to actively utilize environmental structures to apply continuous pressure on the player."

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 sold 5 times more than the original in its first month
By Rick Lane published
News That number is US sales, but it suggests Warhorse's purse is overflowing with groschen.

Palworld's Crossplay Update does far more than let you play with console buddies, adding photo mode, a drafting table and 'dimensional Pal Storage'
By Rick Lane published
News Palmaxxing.

After launching as an Epic Store exclusive, World of Goo 2 dribbles onto Steam this spring: 'We’re grateful to Epic for funding development of the game'
By Rick Lane published
News The Steam version will arrive with achievements and "other updates".

Razer is collaborating on a gaming CAPTCHA to combat AI-powered bots, and of course the first game to use it is the worst Web3 nonsense I've ever seen
By Rick Lane published
News Verify your Razer ID with Proof of Human, whatever that means.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.