News recently broke in a Rolling Stones interview that Halo Studios had relied on AI in the development of Halo: Campaign Evolved, with the game director, Greg Hermann, commented about "how integrated AI is becoming" in the "tooling" of the studio's development pipeline. Following this and other comments that implied AI was being heavily used in the remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, fans started assuming that varying degrees of the creative workload involved in the development of Campaign Evolved was being handled by generative AI. This comes after EA and Krafton both announced an increase in their reliance on generative AI in both the game development process and overall corporate management processes.

More recently, however, an Xbox representative responded directly to Rolling Stones, clarifying that "There is no mandate to use generative AI in our game development, and that includes Halo: Campaign Evolved," contrary to the situation facing many EA workers, who have allegedly been facing pressure to use AI tools for over a year. This response echoed the game director's prior insistence that generative AI is being used merely as a tool by the developers to improve general workflows, and that game development "really is about that creative spark that comes from people." Mentions of generative AI in video games are only becoming more frequent, and many online discussions surrounding AI indicate that it is fuelling an erosion of trust in game studios and developers.

Streaming services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus provide gamers with a wealth of games to play with the obvious drawback that you don't get to keep the games for an extended period of time. PlayStation Plus's free monthly games, however, skip this caveat and allow players to keep the game as long as it's added to their library during the month the game is featured. According to supposed leaks by DeaLabs, November's monthly free game for PS Plus subscribers will be Stray, and it will be available to claim from November 4. After that, as long as players have a PS Plus subscription, they will be able to play Stray. Stray was previously available to play via a PS Plus subscription, but it was subsequently removed around the game's Xbox launch.

Stray is a single-player indie adventure game that originally launched in 2022 for the PS5, PS4, and PC via Steam, later launching on the Xbox Series X|S, macOS, and Nintendo Switch. The game follows an orange cat as it explores an underground cyberpunk city occupied exclusively by robots in an effort to find its way back to the surface. It largely features puzzle-platformer mechanics, with a particular focus on environmental puzzles. The game will apparently be the flagship title for the month of November on PS Plus, but there will be two other as-yet unknown free games joining Stray at the same time.

The 2018 soft reboot of the God of War franchise saw Kratos face off against the gods of Norse mythology, but, as reports from earlier this year claimed, Sony was working on a multiplayer God of War game that we now know would have taken place in Ancient Greece, thanks to MP1st's insider sources. The supposed leak of screenshots of the cancelled God of War multiplayer project would have seemingly taken place before the events of God of War 3, since Hades was still supposedly actively involved in the game's events. The unreleased God of War game was being developed by Bluepoint Games, the same development studio behind Demon Souls and a handful of game remasters, including Titanfall on the Xbox 360.

Further details about the game, including how a multiplayer God of War game would look, are still unknown, but the screenshots provided by MP1st's source reveal that the game would be a return to Ancient Greece—or a territory conquered by the Greek empire. The game was seemingly still in very early development, but it is evident from the screenshots that the halls, rooms, and caverns were being designed for multiple players. Curiously, it seems as though some assets—weapons and statues that bear an uncanny resemblance to warriors and weapons from the Norse arcs—were also borrowed from the 2018 God of War reboot, although it's unclear if these were simply substitutes that would later be replaced or if they'd actually make it into the final game.

MSI has officially announced the latest entries in its Inspire GPU line-up, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Inspire ITX and the RTX 5050 Inspire ITX OC. As the name suggests, the RTX 5050 Inspire ITX line-up is designed for small form-factor PC builds, so both models feature the same compact two-slot design as the RTX 5060 version we recently reported on, measuring in at just 147 × 120 × 45 mm. Both versions of the GPU also feature the same cooling solution, with a single-fan cooler design with a Torx Fan 5.0 and a single heat pipe.

The only notable difference between the two versions is the clock speed, with the vanilla RTX 5050 Inspire ITX topping out at 2587 MHz in Extreme Performance mode (2572 MHz regular boost clocks), while the OC version is capable of 2617 MHz in Extreme Performance mode while boosting to 2602 MHz ordinarily. Both ITX cards feature three DisplayPort 2.1b ports and a single HDMI 2.1b port and have a rated power consumption of 130 W, supplied via a single 8-pin power connector. Users can select between Gaming and Silent modes in MSI Center or dive deeper into customization and overclocking in MSI Afterburner. No pricing information has been announced for the new ITX GPUs.

Recently, after ASUS launched the ROG Xbox Ally series and rumors popped up about Xbox potentially abandoning its long line of first-party console designs, Xbox president, Sarah Bond clarified that Microsoft is "100% looking at making things in the future," and commented that next-gen hardware is in development, although her words seem to have been carefully chosen, seemingly to avoid making any concrete proclamations about the next-gen gaming console before everything was finalized. In a recent interview with Famitsu, however, head of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, confirmed that the next-generation Xbox would be Xbox's in-house design.

In the interview, when asked about what comes after the Xbox Series X|S, Spencer responded that, while the ASUS ROG Ally would be the next Xbox hardware launch, the next first-party hardware launch out of Microsoft would be the next-gen Xbox. Not only does this confirm that the next-gen Xbox will still be an in-house design, but it suggests that there will be no first-party Xbox-branded handheld gaming PCs until at least 2027, when the next-gen Xbox is expected to launch. Conveniently, this doesn't discount any potential successors to the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally before that date. Previous rumors indicated that Microsoft was developing an in-house gaming handheld, only to later offload that engineering effort onto ASUS. While there has been no word on whether Xbox is planning another handheld console to align with the next-gen console launch, Sony looks to be developing both handheld and home console systems, each with its own APU co-developed by AMD.

It has long been rumored that Battlefield 6 would be accompanied by a new battle royale game mode to replace the aging Firestorm, however there has been no official announcement of a PVP battle royale mode two weeks after the new shooter launched. New information from online data miners, however, now suggests that this radio silence may be intentional. According to @ModernWarzone on X, DICE and EA will launch the free-to-play Battlefield: RedSec battle royale game mode on October 28. The launch strategy here is rather curious, since EA apparently won't release any trailers or marketing material ahead of the launch, making it essentially a shadow drop alongside the Battlefield 6 Season 1 update.

Aside from the official name, which is getting heavily criticized online, the free-to-play battle royale game mode will closely follow the same formula as its predecessor. Previous supposed leaks from the same source indicated that Battlefield: RedSec would feature a highly destructible map with 100 players competing for first prize, and that matches would last "around 25 minutes." Of course, these rumors are from earlier this year, so they should be taken with a grain of salt. Internal Battlefield Labs update changelogs also leaked earlier this month, confirming that RedSec players will each have two slots for armor plates and that the battle royale game mode will feature both ground vehicles and helicopters for aerial combat, with the requisite countermeasures also available for players. Players will also be able to talk to one-another with proximity chat.

If you've been following along since the launch of Borderlands 4, you'll know by now that the latest entry into the legendary looter shooter franchise hasn't had the smoothest launch. While early patches were issued to address some of the more bothersome performance issues relating to frame drops and hitches, average frame rates were still what most would describe as suboptimal, with even high-end hardware struggling to hit 60 FPS at higher resolutions. The game's latest October 23 patch, however, claims to improve performance, with 2K Games and Gearbox promising "widespread stability improvements," in addition to UI polish, multiplayer fixes, and quality of life improvements for both the audio and visuals in the game. The claims were subsequently put to the test by MxBenchmarkPC on YouTube, and although the performance improvements varied by resolution, FPS saw improvements of up to 20% at 4K with Very High settings.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth performance review of Borderlands 4 is now live]

The YouTuber tested Borderlands 4 on a PC using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 paired with an Intel Core i7 14700F at 4K and 1440p with a variety of quality settings. At 4K with optimization applied in the settings page via the "Auto-Detect Graphics Preset" function, the performance difference drops to around 10%. While comparative testing was not conducted at 1440p and with DLSS and frame generation enabled, performance remained above 60 FPS at 1440p with DLSS running in DLAA mode. When DLSS was set to "Quality" at 1440p resolution with the optimized settings, the frame rate jumped up to 90-100 FPS, which is more than playable for a non-competitive game. The frame rate in the YouTube test footage is also impressively smooth, with little to no hitching visible in any of the tests.

Epomaker already has a comprehensive line-up of wireless mechanical, Hall-effect, and even inductive keyboards, but some of the company's more interesting launches have been in the low-profile space, with recent examples including the carbon fiber Carbon 60 mechanical keyboard. Now, though, Epomaker has officially launched the Luma40, which may turn out to be far more controversial for regular users than any previous releases. Not only does the Luma40 take the small form factor to the extreme, slashing the key count to just 47 keys—similar to the Comaker TH40 we previously reviewed—it also features an ortholinear layout, meaning the keys are not staggered, or horizontally offset from one another. The Luma40 is available on the Epomaker online store for $115.99, with a launch discount bringing the price down to $98.59. It is only available in one color, with a single switch option: Kailh White Rain low-profile switches with a full POM construction and middle-weight 50 gf actuation force.

Despite the unorthodox layout and form factor, the Luma40 uses a standard qwerty layout in its stock form, although ortholinear layouts are famous for allowing customization. The Luma40 opens up customization with the open-source VIA web app, which allows you to remap keys, create macros, and select different backlighting modes and colors. The same is true for the keycaps. With the exception of the dual 2U space bars, the Luma40's keycaps feature the LAK profile, meaning they're all interchangeable, so remapping the entire keyboard to your liking, or even testing exotic layouts like Dvorak is made easy. Those keycaps are also made of transparent PC with screen-printed legends. This will allow for full RGB shine-through using the north-facing backlighting, but it also means the keycap legends will likely not be as durable as something like double-shot PBT. Those keycaps sit atop Kailh low-profile switches mounted in a PC plate and CNC-cut aluminium case. The Luma40 has both Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz connectivity options, with a diminutive 1,450 mAh battery delivering an estimated 7 hours of battery life with the RGB at full brightness and 75 hours with no backlight. There's also the option of running it off the USB Type-C wired connection instead.

Electronic Arts, the gaming giant behind games like The Sims, Apex Legends, and the Battlefield franchise, today announced a new partnership with Stability AI that it claims will help artists more quickly iterate and develop games more efficiently. However, according to a recent report by Business Insider, EA has been pushing its employees across the board to use AI for at least a year. Sources who spoke to Business Insider revealed that, despite what EA says about any AI tools it plans to develop with Stability AI in the future, the current in-house AI tools have caused more hassle than anything else. EA employees familiar with the AI tools say that the AI tools often hallucinate, to the point that developers have to go in and manually fix code that the AI tools generated.

Artists also took issue with the fact that their art was being used to train these AI models, which would theoretically devalue their work and result in reduced demand for artists. There are also reports that around 100 employees were recently terminated from the QA department because the AI could easily review and summarize tester feedback. Despite these complaints, EA is leaning into AI more heavily than ever with the aforementioned Stability AI partnership. News also just broke that Krafton, the publisher behind PUBG and the Subnautica franchise, has announced that it will be pivoting to become an AI-first company. Specifically, Krafton will be spending $70 million on GPU horsepower to power an increased reliance on agentic AI for automation and efficiency. Towards the end of September, it was revealed that EA's new owners—a group of investors—would be leaning on AI in order to "significantly cut operating costs," which has clearly already started to materialize.

We recently reported on a rumor that AMD would soon be launching desktop APUs based on its Krackan Point architecture that has until now only been featured in mobile parts. At first, it seemed as though Strix Point and its more powerful AMD Radeon 890M iGPU would be limited to the mobile side of things, however a well-known leaker, @9550pro on X, has recently pointed out that AMD's AGESA update version 1.2.7.0 does make mention of Strix Point in its code. This observation is backed up by further evidence shown in a post by @xgfancz on X, who pointed out that the list of architectures in the latest 1.2.7.0 AGESA beta update makes clear reference to "STX," presumably "Strix Point," alongside "PHX," which would be Phoenix Point, AMD's current Ryzen 8000G series of desktop APUs.

All of this suggests that AMD Ryzen 9000G desktop APUs may launch with Strix Point architecture instead of being limited to Krackan Point, as was previously the assumption. Stepping up from Krackan Point to Strix Point would mean that iGPUs in the Ryzen 9000G series may feature up to 16 CUs and RDNA 3.5 instead of RDNA 3 in the current APUs, which could mean gaming and iGPU performance right around the level of the likes of the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme now making its way to swathes of gaming handhelds. The AMD Ryzen 9000G desktop APUs aren't expected to launch until closer to the end of this year, and even if they do, there's no telling if they will launch at the same time as what is essentially the 8000G refresh we have seen in rumors before.

Electronic Arts has just announced a partnership with Stability AI, the company most well known for its Stable Diffusion image generation model. EA says that the partnership will see EA and Stability AI work together to "co-develop transformative AI models, tools, and workflows" to empower creative teams in the game development process. The stated goal is to improve efficiency and give artists "more time to focus on what matters most," although one of the examples given in the statement is generating textures for use in games, so it stands to reason that EA games will soon feature a not-insignificant amount of AI-generated content. The partnership will start with the generation of PBR materials for texturing in-game models.

While Stability AI is known for its Stable Diffusion image generation model, it is also responsible for video, audio, and 3D generation tools, and the statement makes it clear that these 3D generation tools will be used in the development process. The announcement suggest that, for the time being, the AI systems being developed in the partnership will be used to generate individual assets and "pre-visualize entire 3D environments from a series of prompts." It remains to be seen how the gaming community will respond to EA's announcement, but there has been significant push-back from gamers in other cases where AI-generated content was spotted in games or their marketing.

Assassin's Creed Shadows has been out since March already, but now Ubisoft is bringing Naoe and Yasuke's story to the Nintendo Switch 2, with an all-new trailer revealing that the latest installment in the Assassin's Creed franchise will arrive for the Switch 2 on December 2, 2025. The trailer is accompanied by a fall roadmap and an official press release with more details about what to expect from both the Switch 2 version of the game and the rest of the game's content updates. Ubisoft confirmed in the announcement that Assassin's Creed Shadows on the Switch 2 will have all of the game's current title updates and free content at launch, with the exception of the Claws of Awaji update. The aforementioned update will arrive in an update in 2026.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth performance review of Assassin's Creed Shadows is now live]

Assassin's Creed Shadows will also feature cross save for those playing on multiple systems, and Ubisoft has implemented some tweaks to the game's UI for the Switch 2's touch screen. Ubisoft also announced Title Update 10 and 11, slated for October 28 and November 25, respectively. The most notable changes coming to the game with Title Update 10 are the parkour changes, which will unlock more freedom by removing parkour barriers and tweaking parkour moves to work in more scenarios. The November Title Update 11 will be the game's third free story drop, called "A Puzzlement," which will take "a more humorous, silly tone" that Ubisoft says is more reminiscent of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It will also adapt one of each protagonist's moves for the other character. Naoe will learn a version of Yasuke's war kick and Yasuke will learn how to "stealthily dispatch enemies in a non-lethal way." Ubisoft also teased a special collaboration coming in November, but declined to provide further details.

It appears as though Elden Ring Tarnished Edition, the version of the game being developed exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2, has continued to be rather punishing to the handheld console's rather low-end hardware. According to a recent announcement on the official Elden Ring account on X, the Switch 2 port will be delayed to 2026, with the developer citing a need for "time for performance adjustments." This is not the firs time a Switch 2 game port has been delayed, with Borderlands 4 developer, Gearbox, previously announcing an indefinite delay for the launch of the Switch 2 version of the looter shooter earlier this year.

When IGN got hands-on time with Tarnished Edition at Gamescom 2025, performance was so bad that the publication called it "a disaster in handheld mode" and game journalists and influencers in attendance were banned from recording clips of the game running on the Switch 2. The performance issues were largely reported to be frame rate dips, even during actions as simple as panning the camera, but there were also complaints about confusing button mapping making the notoriously difficult game even less intuitive. As was the case for Borderlands 4, a new release date has not yet been announced, but fans have largely responded positively to the announcement, with the sentiment being that Bandai Namco should take its time to deliver a polished game that performs well enough to enjoy at launch.

It appears as though the gaming industry is continuing its brutal trend of studio closures and layoffs. This time, Ubisoft has announced a double-whammy of layoffs affecting two studios in a cost-cutting effort. The two affected studios are RedLynx and Massive, with affirmed job cuts at Massive and the proposed restructuring at RedLynx entering collective negotiations on October 30. The job cuts at Massive appear to be final, and the announcement doesn't clarify how many jobs will cut, but the stated justification is to focus on The Division franchise, the Snowdrop engine, and Ubisoft Connect. The RedLynx announcement, however, cites a renewed focus on "small screens," a reduction in costs, and stronger prioritization as justifications for the proposed job cuts, which would result in the "reduction of a maximum 60 positions." The shift would see RedLynx transition fully from a multiplatform studio to developing exclusively for small screens—presumably referring to smartphones and tablets.

Eligible staff at Massive will have the option of taking part in a "voluntary career transition program" that will give them "the opportunity to take their next career step on their own terms." The transition program also comes with an unspecified severance package, although the online response to the announcement was still bitter, with many netizens questioning the ambiguity of the statement on X and the studio's apparent reluctance to refer to the changes as layoffs. This news comes after Ubisoft earlier this month announced a consolidation of many of its IPs under a new subsidiary called Vantage Studios, which saw the Chinese gaming giant, Tencent, scoop up a 25% stake in some of Ubisoft's most recognizable AAA games.

With talks of next-gen console hardware now afoot, both on the Xbox and Sony sides of things, conversations have started to spring up about the potential performance and fidelity improvements that will materialize with the likes of the PS6 and next-gen Xbox. Shuhei Yoshida, however, argued in a recent episode of the FPS podcast on the Skill Up YouTube channel that we are beyond the point where graphics and performance are the differentiating factor. Yoshida seems to suggest that Sony should pursue frame rates rather than graphical fidelity, "Graphics have almost hit the level that even I cannot tell the difference between some of the graphics capabilities, like ray-traced or not ray-traced, unless it's side by side, or higher frame rate," going on to say that higher graphical fidelity may have some continued niche appeal. The current-gen Sony PS5 and PS5 Pro both offer high framerate gameplay options, although those frame rate modes generally sacrifice some graphical fidelity in the process by dropping the resolution. An improvement in processing power on the PS5 may mean that these performance modes will no longer need to drop the image quality or resolution.

Current rumors suggest that the PS6 console launch could see an additional PlayStation 6 Portable handheld device launch alongside the living room console, a strategy that affirms Yoshida's position. The former Sony executive is confident that Sony's "new generation" management, which is led by 47-year-old CEO, Hideaki Nishino, is capable of pulling off the necessary innovations. Yoshida also touched on the Japanese game publishing scene during the interview, specifically mentioning that the indie publishing scene appears to be growing. The indie game industry has recently earned itself a reputation for eschewing high-resolution graphics, with a lot of indie titles garnering attention thanks to innovative game mechanics instead.

The Qwertykeys Neo65 keyboard line-up, known for its premium build quality, customizability, and relatively affordable price, was recently updated with a Hall effect version in the Sonic He+, with Qwertykeys promising an upgrade module akin to the one offered by Wooting for the 60HE+ for Neo65 mechanical keyboard owners. That Sonic He+ PCB module has now become a reality, offering Neo65 owners a drop-in upgrade to turn their mechanical keyboard into an HE keyboard with 8,000 Hz polling. Unlike the Wooting 60HE+ module, the Sonic65 He+ module kit comes with just about everything you'll need to convert a mechanical Neo65 keyboard to its Hall effect sibling. That means the PCB and a carbon fiber plate, a new ribbon cable, mounting and assembly hardware, Owlab Nova Magnetic switches, stabilizers, case and plate foams, and even the frosted translucent keycaps with the cyberpunk green or purple legends.

It also includes accessories, like an upgraded keycap and switch puller, USB cable, and a tool to remove the PCB and plate assembly from the plate. The Sonic65 He+ module is available at $80, and users have a choice of white or green legends on the smoky keycaps. The Sonic65 He+ offers similar features to similar Hall effect gaming keyboards, including customizable actuation distance, Rapid Trigger, SOCD, Dynamic Keystroke, and macro creation via the proprietary NeoFlux web driver. The Hall effect sensors offer 0.01 mm sensitivity, and the Owlab Nova Magnetic switches included with the module have 3.5 mm of travel and a 50 gf bottom-out force, which is similar to the linear red mechanical switches that come with many old-school gaming keyboards. The switches also feature a closed-bottom design and a box stem, which should offer a cleaner sound profile and minimize stem wobble.

OwLab is known for its premium enthusiast DIY mechanical keyboards, like the $499 PT750, with sister company Qwertykeys bringing up the rear with midrange enthusiast DIY kits. Now, however, OwLab has announced a new sub-brand called Ticktype, which appears to fill the pre-built keyboard niche. While the new keyboard brand has only just been given a name, two keyboards that previously fell under the Qwertykeys brand, the Evo75 and Evo80, will now be sold under Ticktype. That said, Ticktype has also debuted the DP104, a new full-size wireless mechanical keyboard that takes inspiration from retro gaming—much like the QK65 MK3 we covered recently—and the custom mechanical keyboard scene, but with the benefits of a pre-built keyboard.

The Tick type DP104, aside from being a full-size mechanical keyboard with a proper num pad and an aluminium case, boasts a number of features that make it both fun to use and easy to mod for beginners just looking at their first mechanical keyboard. For starters, the DP104 has a quick-release ball-catch top case, meaning the top case releases by applying only a little pressure in the correct direction, allowing you full access to the keyboard's interior for stuff like modifications, cleaning, or changing out the gasket mounting system for something stiffer or with more give. The other neat feature is the colorful "interactive pixel display" located above the num pad. This small landscape display can be used for fun features, like the reactive fireworks mode, real-time typing mode, and an "audio reactive mode" that displays an equalizer that reacts to nearby sounds, or you can make it display keyboard status, like battery charge, OS mode, the time, and caps lock status. The DP104 also has a customizable RGB light bar and two volume control buttons just above the arrow keys.

Following Apple's recent move to upgrade the Vision Pro with the latest M5 SoC and a new band, Samsung and Google revealed the first Android-powered mixed reality headset to challenge Apple's Vision Pro at nearly half the price. The Samsung Galaxy XR has dual 4K Micro-OLED displays with up to 72 Hz refresh rates (with 90 Hz "upon service request"), and it is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 SoC, which supposedly delivers 20% faster CPU performance and 15% faster GPU frequencies. The virtual display has a field of view of 100° vertically and 109° horizontally. Much like the Vision Pro it is meant to compete with, the Galaxy XR uses cameras for video passthrough, relying on two 6.5 MP sensors with 18 mm, f/2.0 wide-angle lenses.

The inside-out tracking uses six cameras to track the world and your hands, and the Galaxy XR also has a depth sensor and five IMUs (inertial measurement units) to accurately interpret head movements. Controls are handled by a mix of eye tracking, voice commands, hand tracking, or the Samsung Galaxy XR Controllers, which are designed for gaming. In addition to eye tracking, the Galaxy XR supports iris recognition for biometric access to both the device and certain apps. The headset also comes with dual two-way speakers and a six-microphone array with support for beamforming. The headset weighs in at 545 g, with an additional 302 g coming from the external battery that should provide 2-2.5 hours of continuous use, depending on the application. It is only available with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage, and there is no microSD expansion. The Galaxy XR is available now on Samsung's online store at $1,799.99.

Modoyo is a new game studio out of Stockholm, Sweden, and its first game is Heart Electric, a fast-paced elimination hero shooter that pits 16 players against one another in teams of four, with the added twist of the "Flux" maglev traversal mechanic that adds verticality to the map. Heart Electric is still under development, with Niklas Fegraeus—who served as design director on Star Wars: Battlefront II and lead designer on Battlefield V—at the helm as creative director, but it seems as though a release date might not be too far off. No launch date has been announced, but the game has a Steam Store page, and Modoyo recently opened applications for a play test scheduled for October 24-26.

Modoyo says that Heart Electric is being developed "with player feedback at its core," suggesting that the game will change significantly ahead of its launch based on community feedback after this play test. Currently, it features a colorful, cartoonish art style somewhat reminiscent of that of Paladins or Fortnite. There are four playable heroes currently announced, each with a unique design, and Modoyo has put a lot of emphasis on the importance of tactics, teamwork, and synergy, with mods, perks, mods, and different weapons serving those goals. The minimum system requirements call for a 4th-Gen Intel Core i5, 8 GB of RAM, and at minimum an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, although this is subject to change.

We have seen previous rumors claim that AMD would launch Ryzen 9000G series APUs for its AM5 platform sometime soon, although there has been no official announcement from AMD, yet. Most recently, though, data miners combing through AMD's AGESA 1207 code have managed to find evidence of new Krackan Point desktop APUs. Krackan Point has been spotted in MSI BIOS updates with references to the 00B60Fxx microcode, and the changelog for ASUS X870 beta BIOS versions mentions "new APU support," which could only really be Ryzen 9000G. These new APUs are said to be based on Zen 5, but previous leaks said that they would instead be a rehash of the 8000G APUs, making them a Zen 4 refresh. At any rate, it will likely still be a while before launch, since this is the first time the code has been spotted in desktop BIOS versions.

Until now, Krackan Point APUs have been limited to mobile applications, with the AMD Ryzen AI 5 340 and Ryzen AI 7 350 both coming to laptops earlier this year. Until now AM5 owners looking for an APU have been limited to something like the AMD Ryzen 7 8700G, which launched all the way back in January 2024. If the laptop silicon is anything to go by, Krackan Point will bring AMD's RDNA 3.5 to the desktop, although with iGPUs falling short of the powerful Strix Halo 8060S. We will likely see APUs top out at the same Radeon 860M iGPU as the laptop variants, or potentially step up to the Radeon 890M iGPU, where the Ryzen 8000G APUs topped out at the 780M. The 890M would bring 256 more shaders into the mix for a decent performance uplift, although this seems to be a GPU configuration reserved for Strix Point. Current speculation also suggests that CPU core counts will be limited to eight and six cores for the Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 CPUs, respectively.

One of the weirder gimmicks to come out of the enthusiast keyboard market is mini displays on keyboards, generally used to display anything from keyboard battery life and connectivity or OS modes to typing speed. The Qwertykeys QK65 MK3, however, takes the idea of a keyboard-mounted display to the next level. As the Instagram teaser and Discord announcement revealed, the QK65 MK3 includes a tiny vertical color screen—unclear whether it will be OLED or LCD, although LCD seems likely—on the right edge of the keyboard, replete with a set of built-in games that can be played on the screen. It seems as though the games will be controlled by two, maybe four, small buttons mounted directly under the display and potentially two Game Boy-inspired buttons mounted along the top edge of the keyboard, similar to shoulder buttons on a controller or gaming handheld.

The design of the QK65 MK3 also sets it apart from its kin, with a decidedly retro gray and beige aesthetic and bright accents clearly inspired by the design of old Nintendo game consoles and retro PCs. That said, it will also likely be available in a multitude of colors, as is usually the case with Qwertykeys keyboards. QK65 keyboards have also historically been available with wireless PCB options, so it stands to reason that this will be an option for buyers as well. Aside from the 65% layout, the rest of the specs, materials, and details for the QK65 MK3 are as yet unknown, although it will likely be available with an aluminium case and a variety of plate options—specifically FR4, aluminium, POM, PC, and carbon fiber—like its predecessors. It's unclear just how much the QK65 MK3 will cost, but the QK65 v2 comes in at $165 without keycaps and switches, and the QK65 v2 Classic is priced at $175. Qwertykeys keyboards are generally sold as custom kits, meaning buyers will need to bring their own switches and keycaps or buy them separately from Qwertykeys.

The ASUS ROG Ally Xbox and ROG Xbox Ally X are Microsoft's Windows-based response to the Valve Steam Deck and its streamlined, touch-optimized SteamOS based on Arch Linux. While Microsoft claims to have done a lot of work to optimize Windows for the handheld, and that appears to hold true in many cases, it looks as though Linux might still be the superior choice—at least in some cases. Cyber Dopamine on YouTube tested the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X with Bazzite, a Linux distribution that follows Valve's SteamOS formula very closely, and found that not only is the start and resume functionality better, but there is a performance uptick in some games.

As demonstrated by the YouTuber, the Xbox Ally X suspends and wakes from sleep significantly quicker running Bazzite than it does running Windows, even if he's in-game. Apparently, the controller also sometimes fails to initialize after waking from sleep when the handheld is running Windows—an issue also reported by other users on Reddit—which is not the case on Bazzite. More importantly, however, frame rate testing reveals that, even running games via Steam's Proton compatibility layer, there is a notable improvement in frame rate and efficiency. Running at 17 W TDP, the Xbox Ally X manages around 47 FPS in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, while the same settings and power options result in 62 FPS on Bazzite. The same plays out at lower TDP settings. At 13 W, Windows manages 35 FPS, while Bazzite gets around 37 FPS. Hogwarts Legacy also saw a jump from 50 FPS on Windows to 62 FSP on Bazzite at 17 W. Bumping up to 35 W sees the gap shrink to just 5 FPS, with Bazzite remaining in the lead. He also mentions that the frame rate was more consistent on Bazzite, with frequent noticeable frame rate dips on Windows that weren't present on the Linux distribution. It should be noted that Bazzite isn't perfectly implemented on the Xbox Ally devices just yet, with support for features like LED control on the joysticks still missing. The developers behind the project have promised that "you're getting full support in a few days" when it comes to those hardware features currently missing.

When news first broke about the ASUS Xbox Ally gaming handheld, there was a lot of talk about Xbox abandoning its first-party hardware in favor of similar partnerships. Recent rumors refuted these suppositions already, but now a more official statement has been made by Sarah Bond, president of Xbox, in an interview with Variety. The executive explained that the decision to partner with ASUS for the Xbox Ally because the two could innovate and "transform the experience" more quickly and more innovatively working together rather than separately.

Bond goes on to say that, while the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally is meant to be just one tool in the Xbox gaming arsenal and that Xbox has not wavered in its development of next-gen console hardware. "We are 100% looking at making things in the future... We have our next-gen hardware in development." She also emphasized Microsoft's partnership with AMD, which was only just announced in June 2025 and would see the two companies collaborate to combine "the power of Ryzen and Radeon for consoles, handhelds, PCs, and cloud." She goes on to comment that there's "more innovation to come," hinting that Xbox would lean further into its handheld development, which will seemingly materialize in both hardware and software. Currently, it is expected that the next-gen Xbox console will arrive in 2027.

In light of the recent flood of AI-ready mini PCs coming from the likes of Framework and GMKtec, Zotac has announced its own competitor, this time opting for a slightly different approach than the hyped AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU. Instead, the component company known for its mini PCs and discrete NVIDIA GPUs has equipped the Zbox Magnus (stylized as ZBOX MAGNUS) with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and up to a 20-core (8 performance, 12 efficiency cores) Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX CPU paired with dual memory slots for up to 96 GB of DDR5-6400 CSODIMM or DDR5-5600 SODIMM RAM—all in a mere 2.65-liter chassis. By default, however, the Magnus doesn't ship with RAM or storage, with a barebones variant currently listed on the company's Chinese site at a converted price of around $1,966 (13,9999 Yuan).

The product page lists the cooling solution as a heatsink and fan, but it's unclear whether there are separate heatsinks and fans for the CPU and GPU, raising questions about potential thermal throttling, given the tiny chassis. Zotac says that the Zbox Magnus is the first mini PC of its size to offer a desktop-class GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB GPU in a chassis that small, with the chassis measuring in at just 210 × 203 × 62.2 mm. That small chassis comes with the caveats that the Zbox Magnus needs a 330 W external AC-DC adapter, and that it features a soldered laptop-class CPU. Despite the small chassis, the Zbox Magnus has a decent selection of ports, with five USB Type-A ports, dual front USB Type-C ports, and dual Ethernet ports. It also comes with wall mount hardware and Wi-Fi antennae in the box.

Dead Cells has been one of the most talked-about indie games in the seven years since its launch, with fans clamoring for a sequel that seems to never be coming—despite plenty of other content having recently been added to the game. In a recent interview with PCGamesN, Motion Twin, the developer behind the smash-hit roguelite, has addressed the demand for a sequel to Dead Cells. The co-creative director and game designer at Motion Twin, Yannick Berthier, explained that Motion Twin is "a collective of individuals that are creative and want to create stuff," and that the company's unorthodox structure allows it to follow creativity instead of pursuing profits.

Berthier went on to say that part of the reason Motion Twin made Windblown instead of Dead Cells 2 is that the team wanted to create something in "a new universe, super bright, that could be co-op." He also supposed that the company's indie nature allows it to continue exploring things that the creative team want instead of appealing to shareholders or the internal pressures of a parent company. Windblown launched nearly a year ago, on October 24, and although it's still in Early Access on Steam, it's still notable that it has not yet surpassed Dead Cells when it comes to player counts, at least according to SteamDB. Despite this and the continued pressure from fans for the sequel to the beloved roguelite, Berthier says that Motion Twin doesn't regret pursuing Windblown instead of Dead Cells 2, going on to say that the eight-person, employee-owned studio "followed its heart." Windblown has changed greatly since its launch, with frequent updates mostly based on player feedback, but it still seems to be fighting a bit of an uphill battle to be able to compete with its predecessor. Currently, Windblown is only available in Early Access on Steam, and a full 1.0 launch date has not yet been announced.