It has been another busy year for features on PC Gamer, so we've collected together a few of our favourites before we stand ready to produce a whole lot more in 2019.
As 2018 draws to a close let's step back and look at PC gaming as a whole, to celebrate the history of the platform and enjoy the variety of games that have crossed our hard drives in the decades gone by. This year the magazine ran two enormous features across four issues charting PC Gaming Show, which featuring a ton of new announcements and exclusive previews of PC games.
You can't have the highs without a few lows. There have been a few missteps along the way, just look at the horrible old 40-year-old keyboards.
Behind the games
As always, we're keen to get inside game development to see how everything works. Alex Wiltshire spoke to developers about the how blockbuster games are written. The first piece shows how much thought goes into elements of a game that many of us may tend to gloss over, and the second piece shows how difficult it can be to create a coherent story in a project at such scale.
Samuel also spoke to a bunch of horror game developers to see what they how microtransactions can be used to launder money.
Turning a mod into a game and bringing it to market is still extremely tough in 2018. We spent time with a few teams to find out the story of Somewhere, a game that might not exist.
We also examined some of the more serious themes running through our favourite games of recent years. Xalavier Nelson Jr. discussed how The Witcher 3 deals with religion and belief.
Community and culture stories
Let's pause for a sec to note that the biggest games in the world the resurrection of Genesis LPMud is another great example.
Games increasingly offer pathways for modders to make a buck from their contributions. Steven met a struggling artist whoa Final Fantasy 14 community leader accused of blackmail and sexual harassment by over a dozen women.
Now it's time for the necessary EVE Online contribution to this annual round-up feature. Steven told the story of how one rounded them all up in one place for you to browse whenever you like.
Also Steven rated every penis in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Is this a culture story? I'm going to say... yes.
Diaries
It wouldn't be a PC Gamer features section without some diaries. Though sometimes frivolous, in-game stories are a great way to capture the way we truly experience games, not as abstract pieces of design or as nice pictures, but as quite stupid adventures. For example, I'm not sure what Joe was trying to illuminate when he sang at a faux American Idol audition and then started a riot.
There was also that time a desperate escape from a deadly planet in No Man's Sky Next.
Chris Livingston has been at it again, and frankly I can't improve on just listing the headlines here.
—The Skyrim guide to following your followers
—Survival game Green Hell made me so mad I pummeled an innocent armadillo
—I bought this Steam game just to see what the hell it was, and after playing I still don't know
—I destroy everything I touch in god game The Universim
—Graveyard Keeper turned me into the most evil character I've ever played
—Trying to murder a tavern full of people with Oblivion's poisoned apples
—I ruined santa's life and career by giving him diseased raccoons in The Sims 4
Hardware
A huge amount of time goes into testing the latest hardware and keeping our broad suite of recommendation articles up to date. You might be trying to find the all of our buying guides for more.
In addition to trying out tech and looking for deals, the team are on a mission to demystify PC gaming hardware with explainers such as should I use a 4K TV as a computer monitor?
And finally
Wes has been WASDing wrong his whole life.
See you in 2019!
