Witchfire has been quietly building serious momentum on Steam, and now it gets the full print treatment. PC Gamer magazine's issue 423 (US: issue 411) is on sale now, with KILL THE WITCH serving as the cover star in what the publication is calling a world-exclusive feature on the dark fantasy RPG shooter from The Astronauts.
PC Gamer issue 423 cover
What the world-exclusive Witchfire feature actually covers
This isn't a quick preview blurb. According to PC Gamer, writer Joshua Wolens spent many hours inside Witchfire before the feature went to print, and the team also sat down with key members of The Astronauts development team. That includes Adrian Chmielarz, the developer behind cult classic FPS Painkiller, who has been steering Witchfire through more than 10 years of development and multiple years in Early Access.
Version 1.0 is the milestone here. After years of incremental Early Access updates, Witchfire is preparing for its full launch, and the PC Gamer feature lands right at that inflection point. The game has already built strong user reviews on Steam, so the timing of this exclusive feels deliberate.
The magazine exclusive runs until June 27th, 2026, so if you want the full feature before it hits digital platforms, the print or digital issue is your only option right now.
The rest of issue 423 is stacked
The Witchfire cover story shares space with a strong secondary feature on PC gaming's best MMOs, where the PC Gamer team makes their collective case for the finest MMO experiences available in 2026. The list runs from juggernauts like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV to community-driven classics like City of Heroes. Given that every major MMO is playable on PC, the piece functions as a practical guide for anyone looking for a new online world to sink time into.
The preview section leads with The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, from Owlcat Games, which the team describes as carrying serious Mass Effect energy through its over-the-shoulder gunplay and story-shaping decisions. Other previews cover Metro 2039, Scriptorium, Road to Vostok, Windrose, Shadow Dungeon, and Gun Store Simulator.
The Witchfire cover feature is a magazine exclusive until June 27th, 2026. It's available in print and digital formats at $4.99 per issue (US).
Reviews, reinstalls, and hardware tests
The review slate this issue includes Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred as the lead review, with Tyler Colp delivering what PC Gamer describes as the most refined distillation of the Diablo IV experience yet. Alongside that, the issue covers Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War!, Xenonauts 2, Pragmata, Mouse: PI For Hire, and Vampire Crawlers.
The Reinstall column revisits Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, testing whether its lightsaber combat still holds up. The hardware section focuses on ergonomic peripherals, including Cloud Nine's C959 ErgoTKL split keyboard and Razer's Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition mouse. There's also a special report on ZQuest Classic, the 26-year-old open-source engine for 2D top-down adventure games that still has an active development community around it.
Why Witchfire earning this cover matters
Here's the thing: PC Gamer doesn't hand out world-exclusive cover features to games that aren't ready. The Astronauts have been building Witchfire for over a decade, and the fact that the magazine went hands-on for many hours suggests version 1.0 is genuinely close and genuinely playable. For a game that's been in Early Access long enough that some players had written it off, landing a PC Gamer cover exclusive right before 1.0 is a strong signal.
What most players miss is that Witchfire occupies a specific niche that doesn't have many competitors: a dark fantasy shooter with RPG progression that takes gunplay seriously. The Astronauts' pedigree, Chmielarz's history with Painkiller, and the Steam review trajectory all point to a game that has found its footing. The PC Gamer feature is worth reading if you're on the fence about whether to jump in at 1.0 or wait.
Pro tip: if you want to get ahead of the launch, check out the KILL THE WITCH strategy guides for an early look at what the game demands from players before you commit. For broader gaming coverage across every genre, the full gaming guides hub has you covered as Witchfire's 1.0 release approaches.
