Keychron recently announced the new Q HE 8K gaming keyboard line-up, starting with the Q1 HE, Q3 HE, and Q6 HE, all of which feature Keychron's Ultra-Fast Magnetic Lime switches and full metal construction. Keychron has now also added the Q5 HE 8K to the list, for those who want a slightly more compact layout but don't want to sacrifice the num pad in the process. The Q5 HE 8K is available on the Keychron web store in black and white colorways for $239.99. It will likely also launch on Amazon at a later date, but it is not yet available there.

Everything about the Q5 HE 8K is just about identical to the other keyboards in the series, with the exception of the layout, from the polyurethane foam gasket mount to the aluminium plate and OSA profile double-shot PBT keycaps. The main draw over the Q5 HE 8K is that it condenses much of the same functionality as the full-size Q6 HE 8K into a small footprint—408 mm long vs 446 mm on the Q6 HE 8K—while only losing five keys and not compromising with a small zero key on the num pad. Unlike most 1800 layout keyboards, the Q5 HE 8K also has a programmable knob and a row of macro keys above the num pad. Like its brethren, the Q5 HE 8K is a wired-only keyboard, which has the side effect of bringing the front height down to 20.6 mm, and it has the same analog input features and 8 kHz polling rate as the other keyboards in the 8K series. The keyboard is also remappable and configurable in the Keychron Launcher web app, and it features all the usual analog keyboard trappings, like SOCD, DKS, Rapid Trigger, and controller emulation. It also has on-board macros with macro recording or manual programming functionality in Launcher, and it features Keychron's usual hardware OS selector switch alongside a hardware profile selector switch near the USB-C port.

NuPhy recently revealed the Aquarium keycap set in its custom nSA profile for low-profile mechanical keyboards, like the Air60 HE and Node series mechanical keyboards. Now, the brand has announced the latest iteration in its nSA keycap range, the Creative Engine design, which features a much more practical design than the Aquarium set. The NuPhy Creative Engine nSA keycap set is available on the NuPhy online store for $49.95 and includes 126 keys, providing a few alternative keycaps for some modifiers and navigation keys and supporting a little more than an average 100% keyboard. That said, the keycap set does not have proper extended compatibility for odd-ball layouts or even ISO, although you could probably make it work on a split space keyboard, thanks to the 2.25u and 2.75u enter and shift keys, thanks to the uniform height.

Much like the Aquarium keycap set, the Creative Engine keycap set is designed by BOHO and manufactured by KeyTok, a well-known OEM in the mechanical keyboard space. The Creative Engine keycap set is inspired by the UI of Adobe Illustrator, with three shades of gray for the main alphanumeric keycaps and bright yellow for the accent keycaps. The legend on the keycaps echoes the Illustrator theme, with each keycap featuring dye-sublimation printed iconography and lettering for built-in Illustrator keyboard shortcuts. The nSA profile features a 5.5 mm maximum height and a spherical top—this simply means that the top curves in both the X and Y axes, unlike something like Cherry, which uses cylindrical tops that only curve in the X axis. NuPhy explicitly lists compatibility with its own Air, Kick, and Node series low-profile keycaps, but the keycaps should be compatible with any mechanical keyboard that uses MX-style switches and has a layout somewhere between 60% and 100% and uses a 6.25u space bar.

An Assassin's Creed Black Flag Remake has been rumored for years at this point, with the most recent rumors claiming a 2026 launch date, but now, the new Assassin's Creed Head of Content, Jean Guedon, has confirmed in a recent brand update blog post that Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is in development. While the game's existence is now confirmed, no launch date or window has been attached yet, and Ubisoft indicated in the blog post that it is but one of several AC projects "in various stages of development."

As the title of the blog post "Assassin's Creed Into 2026" indicates, Guesdon also gives us an idea of what to expect from the franchise for 2026 onwards, aside from Black Flag. Namely, he says that the next Assassin's Creed game slated for launch is Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe, which looks to have recently received a combat rework deep into its development cycle. Hexe is confirmed to be a narrative-driven, darker twist on the franchise, and Ubisoft will "be quiet for a little longer," ahead of release, but it looks to be the closest to launch. Assassin's Creed Invictus is the name of the PVP multiplayer Assassin's Creed game that Guedon has also confirmed to be in development alongside Codename Jade, which is an open-world mobile game that will seemingly take place in China and was originally rumored for a 2023 launch.

Morefine has announced the N1 NAS, a tower-style NAS solution that packs the AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 8845HS, up to 96 GB of DDR5-5600 ECC memory, dual 10 GbE ports, and built-in PCIe expansion. Pricing starts at $759 for a barebones version, but 32 GB of memory bumps that up to $1,209, while the 64 GB and 96 GB versions come in at $1,569 and $1,929. The Morefine N1 has three M.2 slots for up to 12 TB of SSD storage alongside four hot-swap 3.5-inch HDD bays accessible via the top of the case for an additional 120 TB. The aluminium case itself measured 218 × 193 × 372 mm, making it considerably smaller than many ITX systems but not quite as svelte as a traditional mini PC, like the recently announced Minisforum MS-A2.

The N1 also comes with a built-in 800 W PSU with 400 W dedicated to the GPU power budget, making it adequate for something like an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, although the included PSU power connectors are not specified. Internal space for the dGPU is limited to 330 mm × 66 mm, too, so SFF GPUs will be the way to go. The port selection is also fairly decent for an SFF PC, packing dual USB 2.0, 1× USB4 port, 1× USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1× USB 3.2 Gen 1, a full size SD card reader, 1× HDMI 2.0, and dual 10 GbE RJ 45 ports. It also has a small 3-inch full color touch screen on the front of the case for displaying things like system information.

Rumors recently popped up claiming that Sony would be moving away from PC ports of its major first-party game releases in 2026, especially single-player games. While those rumors have yet to be confirmed by Sony itself, Mike Ybarra, the former president of Blizzard Entertainment, has commented in a recent post on X that this may be the case, but he also points the finger at Valve's Steam Machine as partly to blame for this turn of events. He also adds that Sony sees the recent shake-up at Xbox as the "last nail in the coffin there," implying that Sony is making the right choice and that the shake-up will only embolden the Japanese gaming giant.

The former executive says that the incumbent console manufacturers "view Valve as a major new competitor" in the living room console space, adding that there will be third-party variants running SteamOS that will likely only compound this external pressure on Sony. He goes on to argue that Steam, and by extension the Steam Machine, has the biggest player base and biggest game library of all three living room console makers, and that "shipping good exclusive games matters." Ybarra also notes that Valve's independence, being a private company, allows it more freedom than Sony, who has to answer to shareholders and investors. For Sony's part, it's easy to see how cutting back on PC ports—effectively reducing the Steam Machine's library—could be an easy way to gain a competitive edge. As we discussed previously, it seems as though Sony's PC port business isn't a massive revenue driver in the first place, so it could be a low-risk way for Sony to protect its console ecosystem from incoming competition.

It's no secret that Highguard has languished under dwindling player counts and an apparent lack of funding since its launch in late January 2026, with rumors swirling that Tencent pulled funding from Studio Wildlight shortly after the launch of the game, prompting a round of layoffs that saw around 80% of the development team behind the game lose their jobs. Now, barely a month after launch, Wildlight has announced that it will shut down Highguard on March 12. Servers will remain online until March 12, but it's unclear if players will receive refunds for in-game purchases.

Despite the imminent shut-down, it seems like the developer will release the available content that has been completed in an upcoming update that will launch ahead of the shutdown and add a new Warden, a new weapon, account-level progression, and skill trees to the game—all content that may have added enough interest in the game if released earlier, but will likely suffer from being too little, too late. This isn't the first apparent last-ditch effort to save the game, with previous patches addressing complaints by adding new bases and a new game mode, among other new content, all of which again seemed to be positively received but didn't make a dent in the game's plummeting player counts.

AMD and Lenovo recently drew ire from the gaming community over its apparent lack of support for the original Legion Go gaming handheld, although it was subsequently revealed that ASUS had more recent updates available for the ROG Ally, which is based on the same AMD APU. More recently, it was revealed by Adam Patrick Murray on The Full Nerd podcast that Lenovo has issued a statement in response to the news reports, and that the company has confirmed it will offer support for the Legion Go at least until October 2029. Murray says that his PR contact, who clarified the state of the Legion Go's support, denounced the original comment by Lenovo support that claimed that AMD and Lenovo were no longer supporting the device as an "ugly rumor." That said, the Legion Go's support has never had the best reputation for software support, with gamers often complaining in the r/LegionGo subreddit about slow updates.

Lenovo's full statement reads:

Support for the Lenovo Legion Go (8.8", 1) has not been discontinued. Lenovo is actively continuing to support the Legion Go (8.8", 1) with necessary driver and BIOS updates and will continue to do so through October 2029. Lenovo is working in concert with AMD on driver update cadence, and new updates will be released once they have passed Lenovo's rigorous review protocols.

Keychron has been revamping its mainline mechanical keyboard line-up pretty consistently lately, but its latest launch, the B11 Pro, is a deviation from those designs, falling square in the mobile productivity space rather than the enthusiast mechanical keyboard sphere. The B11 Pro adapts the ergonomic 65% Alice layout seen in Keychron's K11 Max and puts it into an ultraportable, foldable keyboard with scissor switches. The folding form factor and 65% layout mean that, when folded, the B11 Pro measures in at just 196.3 × 143 mm when folded up, making it a potential option for space-constrained travelers and commuters. The Keychron B11 Pro is currently available on the Keychron online store for $64.99, although it will likely launch on Amazon at a later date.

The B11 Pro has a 65% layout, meaning there is no num pad, nor is there an F row—likely a decision made in favor of a compact physical footprint—although there is a dedicated compact arrow cluster, which should make the adjustment to the smaller layout somewhat easier. It also uses Keychron's scissor switch mechanism and concave keycaps, meaning it should feel something akin to a laptop keyboard to type on. Keychron does not specify, but none of the other keyboards in the B Pro series feature NKRO, so it's safe to assume neither does the B11 Pro. Interestingly, Keychron has opted for a soft-touch material on the back of the B11 Pro, and the whole keyboard weighs in at just 258 g. The B11 Pro also features both 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth 5.3, and the keyboard supposedly gets around 135 hours on a single charge from a 250 mAh battery. There's also a nifty sensor that detects when the keyboard is closed—both a convenience and battery-saving feature. Keychron has also conveniently labelled the relevant modifier keycaps with both macOS and Windows legends, and the key maps themselves can be changed in Keychron Launcher, much like the brand's mechanical keyboard line-up.

Ubisoft has been clear that it is working on "several" new games in the Assassin's Creed franchise. One of those games is Assassin's Creed Hexe, a new open-world AC game that has been in development at Ubisoft Montreal in some form or another since 2022. Now, according to Tom Henderson on the Insider Gaming podcast, the combat for Assassin's Creed Hexe is being reworked, with a contortionist coming in to record the motion capture scenes. He also adds that the game looks to be launching sometime in 2027, despite the combat reworks. Ubisoft Montreal, the studio in charge of Hexe, was also leading the development of the recently cancelled Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake, although it seems unlikely that Hexe would be cancelled this late into development, especially since it seems to follow the established Assassin's Creed format rather closely.

Recent teasers released by Ubisoft suggest that the new game will feature themes of witchcraft and sorcery, with a distinct horror influence, and it seems like it will be set in Germany. Hexe was being directed by Clint Hocking, of Far Cry 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory fame, but recent changes to Ubisoft's structure resulted in his departure from the company and the project. Despite this, Ubisoft has assured gamers that Hexe has survived the tumultuous reshuffling that has seen so many other projects delayed. However, the news of the reworked combat may mean that it will need more time in the oven than originally intended.

Lenovo has officially launched the ThinkBook 16+ in China, officially kicking off its LPCAMM2 rollout to mainstream laptop after it launched the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 with the new RAM standard as far back as 2024. LPCAMM2 is a new memory standard that allows all of the performance of LPDDR5X with the upgradeability of a regular SODIMM. The ThinkBook 16+ appears to be Lenovo's first consumer device to feature LPCAMM2, launching with up to 32 GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory backing up an Intel Core Ultra X7 385H and its Arc B390 iGPU.

Specs for the ThinkBook 14+ are not completely listed on Lenovo China, but the rest of the ThinkBook 16+'s specs impress, featuring Wi-Fi 7, 165 Hz display with 100% DCI-P3 coverage and support for VRR, and a 99.9 Wh battery. The laptop also features 2× Thunderbolt 4 ports, 2× USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and 1× USB 2.0 Type-B port, a 3.5 mm audio combo jack, and a 4-in-1 SD card reader for SD, SDHC, SDXC, and CMMC cards. Lenovo has also equipped the ThinkBook 16+ with a Windows Hello-compatible 1080p webcam with a physical shutter as well as support for Lenovo's Magic Bay accessory ecosystem, which has started expanding to more laptops in 2026. The new ThinkBook series also features Lenovo's pressure-sensitive Forcepad, which also integrates haptic feedback and multitouch support. In China, the ThinkBook 16+ 2026 comes in at RMB 8499 ($1,240) while the ThinkBook 14+ 2026 starts at RMB 8299 ($1,210) with all of the same internal specifications. At the time of writing, though, there is no indication that these laptops will launch outside of China, although another laptop series will likely take their place in international markets.

We recently reported on news that Sony will all but stop releasing PC ports of its single-player games on PC, and while those previous reports were from Jason Schreier, a journalist previously shown to have reputable insider sources, another insider has corroborated these claims, adding additional context in the process. According to NateTheHate2 on X, Sony made the decision in 2025 to shift its release strategy, with the result of launching fewer first-party single-player games on PC. The leaker adds that this means there will be "fewer single-player games" on PC from Sony, implying both that Sony may still port single-player games to PC—only significantly fewer of them—and that this new policy may not apply to live-service and multiplayer games.

He also mentioned that there are still single-player PC ports in development at Sony, which may eventually launch, depending on how far they are in the development process, but that these ports are no longer a priority for the Japanese gaming giant. Addressing questions about the justification for the strategy shift, NateTheHate2 commented that, while there have been a few commercially successful PC ports, they haven't been a huge revenue driver for Sony. Looking at the Steam charts data for Insomniac Games, one of Sony's most notable first-party studios, the data lends credence to these comments. The best-performing PC port from the studio is Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, which peaked at 66,436 players on Steam. Meanwhile, the next-best performer is Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which peaked at 28,189. Nixxes Software, the studio responsible for many Sony PC ports, has seen similar successes, with the likes of Ghost of Tsushima topping the charts at 77,154 peak concurrent players, ahead of the aforementioned Spider-Man Remastered, with Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part II Remastered bringing in peaks or 40,462 and 30,690 players, respectively.

Minisforum is known for making powerful mini PCs, like the Core Ultra 9 285H-powered M1 Pro we recently reviewed, and the latest entry into the company's line-up is the MS-A2, an upgrade to 2024's MS-A1. The new mini workstation is marketed as a small form factor desktop server for programming, business, and home lab use cases, and it seems to have the specs to back that up. The whole package measures just 196×189×48 mm, or 1.78 L, making it seriously compact. Official US pricing for the MS-A2 with the Ryzen 9 9955HX starts at $799 with no RAM or storage or $1,199 with 32 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD. The mini PC with 96 GB of RAM and 2 a 2 TB SSD costs $1,919 on the Minisforum store.

The MS-A2 uses AMD's Ryzen 9 9955HX mobile CPU—with a claimed 100 W turbo TDP—paired with up to 96 GB of DDR5-5600 memory and up to three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, for up to 12 TB total capacity, as well as support for U.2 NVMe 22110 drives, bringing total storage capacity up to 23 TB. Networking is also impressive, thanks to dual 10 Gb SFP+ ports and dual 2.5 Gb Ethernet ports. The MS-A2 also sports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity, and it has more than enough ports for proper workstation use. The front of the mini PC has dual USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a USB 2.0 port, and a 3.5 mm audio combo jack, while the back has 2× USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports with DisplayPort 2.0 Alt mode support, 1× HDMI 2.1, 2× 2.5 Gb RJ45 ports, 2× 10 Gb SFP+ ports, 1× USB 3.1 Gen 2, and 1× USB 3.1 Gen 1 port. The Ryzen 9 9955HX has a pretty weak Radeon 610M iGPU, which will get the job done for most productivity tasks, but the MS-A2 also has a built-in full-length PCIe 4.0 ×8 slot for GPU or IO upgrades, and that slot supports can be split into two PCIe ×4 connections.

If you were in or around the PC building space in 2020, you'd have at least heard about the fire risk related to the PCIe riser cable on the original NZXT H1 mini ITX case, which eventually resulted in a recall and replacement PCIe riser kits being sent out. Since NZXT has launched the newest iteration of the SFF case, the H2 Flow—which TechPowerUp has reviewed—the PC case maker has seen fit to publish a blog post explaining the engineering changes it has made to the new H2 Flow's riser cable to avoid the same issues from popping up again. NZXT starts things off by reminding us that the problem with the original H1's PCIe riser cable was that the mounting screw made contact with an internal power plane in the riser cable's PCB, resulting in a short circuit that could lead to a fire.

The brand goes on to explain that the issue has been avoided in the new PCIe riser cable with two safety measures. First, there is a physical boss, or "shoulder" that extends into the PCB through-hole to protect the PCB from the screw threads and to ensure that there is a consistent and guaranteed gap between the screw and the PCB. Secondly, NZXT has changed the design of the PCB such that there are no power planes or traces surrounding the screw hole—every trace around the screw is grounded, and that ground plane extends externally to a copper screw pad on the top and bottom of the PCB, adding another layer of protection. NZXT notes that the screw pad may be missing in some early review samples, which is something you can observe in our review of the H2 Flow, but it is included in the final mass production versions of the case. NZXT claims that these measures have eliminated the failure mode that caused issues with the original H1 chassis.

Resident Evil Requiem just launched as the latest game in Capcom's long-standing horror game franchise, and almost immediately upon launching, it skyrocketed its way to the top of the Steam Top-Sellers chart and pulled impressive player counts. At its launch day peak, there were 320,056 concurrent players in the game, and, at least at the time of writing, the player count has not dropped below 230,000, according to SteamDB. Since its peak, player counts have been steadily fluctuating between 260,000 and 290,000 players.

With those player counts, it is by far the most successful Resident Evil game on Steam, surpassing the runner-up, Resident Evil 4, by almost 100% and scoring a 114,000-player lead on Resident Evil Village. It is also entirely possible that there will be another player-count spike over the weekend, since it is a game series that even many older gamers resonate with. It's worth noting that this massive player count is on Steam alone, and Requiem launched on just about every platform possible, from the PS5 and Xbox Series to the Nintendo Switch 2 and even Epic Games on PC. Requiem even reportedly runs at acceptable frame rates on the Steam Deck's humble internals, with some players even reporting as much as 60 FPS on low quality settings. In our in-depth handheld performance review of Resident Evil Requiem, we called it "one of the best AAA games in terms of PC handheld performance," thanks to its compatibility with a number of systems and its lack of visual compromises to achieve solid performance.

The gaming mouse market is currently being flooded with lightweight wireless gaming mice with flagship sensors from Chinese manufacturers who have caught onto the forged carbon fiber and magnesium alloy construction trends. The latest installment in this recent trend is the newly announced WLMouse Ying Magnesium, which takes inspiration from the industry-leading Endgame Gear OP1. We have seen this shape from WLMouse before in the Ying Carbon Fiber gaming mouse that launched in 2025, but more than just the shell material has changed for the WLMouse Ying Magnesium series.

The Ying Magnesium Alloy offers the same Omron Optical switches as the carbon fiber Ying, but it also features the option of TTC Nihil Transparent Black Dot switches for a slightly heavier click feel. The Ying Magnesium series will also feature the Nordic 52840 MCU and PixArt PAW3950 sensor, with 8 kHz polling and wireless connectivity, as is to be expected from a modern gaming mouse. WLMouse cites the weight of the WLMouse Ying Magnesium mice as 47 g (±2), and the magnesium shell will apparently be available in seven colorways, ranging from regular silver, white, and black to a baby blue and bright red versions of its Nekko patterns, a white watercolor koi fish theme, and a deep purple colorway. No pricing has yet been announced, but that is expected to be revealed alongside the full launch on March 10, 2026.

We recently reported on a Lenovo MWC leak that claimed Lenovo would show off a Legion Go Fold at Mobile World Conference in Barcelona in early March. Now, a new leak shared by evleaks on X has shown off what Lenovo will apparently call the "ThinkBook Modular AI PC Concept." The leaker didn't provide much information other than the name and two images of the device, but the combination of the word "modular" in the name and the clues from the images provide a pretty clear idea of what's going on.

From the looks of it, the ThinkBook concept will have a traditional clamshell design, but the space where the keyboard deck would usually be on a traditional laptop will instead be a space for modular accessories. The accessories shown off in the leaked renders of the device are a laptop keyboard and a display equal in size to the main display in the top of the clamshell. This looks to be an iteration of devices like the Lenovo ThinkBook Flip, although the ThinkBook Modular AI PC Concept could achieve a similar effect, especially in terms of screen real-estate and possibly ergonomics, although likely with significantly lower costs, thanks to a simpler design without a flexible OLED panel. The new concept would also offer users more flexibility—you could just leave the lower display at home or pack both displays and a mechanical keyboard and mouse for better ergonomics and all the other benefits better peripherals offer.

The Orange Pi Neo is a Linux-powered gaming handheld that was announced way back in 2024 with the goal of launching sometime in 2026. It was to be powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U with 16 GB of RAM or 8840U with 32 GB of RAM, and it would run Manjaro Linux natively. Now, the developer behind the project has posted on the development log hosted on the Manjaro forum that the Orange Pi Neo-01 will be delayed due to high memory and storage prices. Originally, the handheld was meant to be priced at $450-550, depending on the CPU and memory, which is very competitive, given the 1080p, 120 Hz display, dual trackpads, and dual USB4 ports. The skyrocketing prices of DDR5 memory and storage would likely result in massive price increases or vanishingly thin margins for the Orange Pi Neo-01, so it makes sense to delay the project until things calm down. The developer does mention that FCC and CE compliances were complete and that a number of improvements had been made to Manjaro Gaming Edition in the meantime—although this means it will be challenging to update the internals if the launch is pushed back too far. Currently, it's unclear when the Orange Pi Neo-01 will launch, but it seems unlikely that the RAM crisis will end soon.

Due to high prices of DDR5 RAM and SSDs the project is currently on ice. Certifications for CE and FCC are now complete. Also a lot of improvements around the Manjaro Gaming Edition had happened. We are now waiting for a good time to launch the product.

Corsair acquired Drop in December 2023 in an effort to expand its peripheral business beyond the basic gaming keyboards and audio gear it offered at the time, and it has since adopted some of Drop's keyboard expertise into its new Corsair MAKR 75 DIY keyboard kits. Now, Drop has announced that Corsair will be fully absorbing Drop, closing down the online storefront and turning Drop.com into a showcase for all of the collaborations Drop has done in its time making premium peripherals.

The announcement makes it clear that Drop.com will no longer be an operational storefront by March 31, and anyone looking to place an order on Drop will need to do so by March 25. The announcement states that "many Drop products will continue to be offered directly from Corsair and partner channels," and while Drop says that buyers can "expect exclusive announcements, limited runs, and products shaped by partnerships and creativity," it seems like Drop's operations will be scaled back as a result of the change—by how much is unclear, though.

Nintendo has officially announced Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves as the latest installment in its never-ending creature-capture series. The two new games will introduce Generation 10 Pokémon and be available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2 sometime in 2027. It will be the first Pokémon game exclusive to the Switch 2, and there's no word on whether it will launch for the original Switch or Switch OLED later down the line. An exact launch date was not revealed, although late 2027 seems likely based on previous launches.

The reveal trailer—which is not actual gameplay footage—shows a continuation of the 3D aesthetic, revealing the usual selection of biomes, including oceans, grasslands, rock outcroppings, dungeons, and forests. The trailer also gave us a glimpse at the three new starter Pokémon, Browt, the Grass type, Pombon, the Fire type, and Gecqua, the Water type. The trailer also teased underwater exploration, and what looks like an island resort or town sort of in the style of hut-over-water buildings typically found in calm tropical waters.

It was revealed in January that the PlayStation 5 Pro would get an upgraded PSSR 2.0 scaler in Q1 2026, finally unlocking the full hardware potential of the PS5. It was announced in a recent PlayStation Blog post that the aforementioned PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) update would start rolling out to the PS5 Pro globally starting on February 27, with Resident Evil Requiem being the first game to use the more advanced PSSR version. Sony says that the upgraded PSSR scaler will soon also be usable with any of the over 50 games that have so far implemented the original PSSR games. A system update will be shipped in March that will let players enable an option titled "Enhance PSSR Image Quality," to apply the upgraded model to older games.

Sony says that the new PSSR "takes a very different approach to not only the neural network but also the overall algorithm," and Masaru Ijuin, Capcom's Senior Manager of Engine Development Support Section, R&D Foundational Technology Department, explained that "With Resident Evil Requiem, we focused on enhancing the presentation quality of the protagonist through an upgraded version of RE Engine to deepen the player's immersion in horror. For example, each individual strand of hair and beard is rendered as a polygon, allowing it to move realistically in response to body motion and wind," going on to explain that the level of fidelity Capcom was able to achieve was made possible by the upgraded PSSR features, since things like hair and similar fine textures are difficult to upscale.

The hype for Marathon has been building leading up to the free server slam event on February 26-March 3, with all that excitement coming to a head at the start of the Marathon free test weekend, which kicked off with a sizeable peak player count of 143,621 players just under two hours after the start of the event. Given that the server slam event started on a Thursday, it seems likely that many of the players who have since stopped testing the new extraction shooter had real-world responsibilities to attend to. Those numbers also only represent the game's Steam market share. Accounting for players on Xbox and PlayStation 5 would likely lead to significantly higher player count figures.

Despite this success, online discussions surrounding the new shooter seem to be surprisingly divided, with players both praising and criticizing Marathon for everything from its art style and UI design to the gunplay, lack of tension and PvP action, and the NPC AI being challenging. Character balance was also a common topic that featured in critical reviews, with some players complaining that certain characters are too overpowered while others are not capable enough. While some of these complaints, like the UI being difficult to read and certain performance issues, seem to be somewhat more widespread and valid, the Marathon development team at Bungie has responded to and acknowledged almost all of the common complaints in a recent post on X, either offering some advice to improve the player experience or requesting more detailed feedback so that issues can be dealt with ahead of launch or in post-launch patches.

It was recently revealed by Komodo Station, Valve's official retail partner for Steam hardware in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, that prices for the Steam Deck OLED prices will increase by as much as 17% in March. However, as the storefront explains in the announcement, these price increases are as a result of "increases in logistics costs and increased exchange rate volatility," not as a result of the ongoing memory shortages and price increases. It specifically notes that prices in Hong Kong remain unchanged, which should be a positive indication for western audiences that Steam Deck prices aren't about to skyrocket—yet.

While neither Valve nor Komodo has provided any indication that prices are about to increase for the Steam Deck, it has been revealed that Valve's supply chain is affected by the current memory crisis as much as any other hardware company. The gaming giant recently postponed announcing pricing for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame due to increased uncertainty and skyrocketing memory prices. The Steam Deck may still be somewhat exempt from these price increases because of Valve's pricing structure that follows the typical console model instead of a PC pricing strategy—that is to say that Valve has priced the Steam Deck very competitively in order to attract buyers to its platform and storefront. However, if Valve is already eating the cost of inflated Steam Deck memory and storage costs, it almost seems inevitable that it will eventually have to increase the price of the Steam Deck. Currently, even Nintendo is considering price increases for the Switch 2 after its LPDDR5X cost price increased by as much as 41%.

While Xbox seems to be completely behind the idea of multi-platform day-one game launches, Sony has had a number of hit single-player games come out on PS5 in recent years, only for them to mosey over to PC years later. Now, according to notable gaming journalist, Jason Schreier (via the Triple Click podcast), even these slow PC ports may take a back seat going forward. Schreier, who is notable for his frequent insider insights, says that Sony's strategy for PC seems to hinge on its live-service games, adding that "I think the sense I'm getting is that they're backing away from putting their exclusive console stuff like traditional single-player stuff on PC." This news comes in spite of recent comments from former Sony executives who clearly believe that there is money to be made from PC ports and Sony's own planned Cross-Buy feature that would go a long way to unify game libraries across PS5 and PC.

He goes on to say that he believes that major upcoming future single-player titles may not make it to PC at all. When asked about the upcoming Wolverine game, slated to launch on September 15, he said that he "wouldn't be surprised if it never came to PC, but even if it does, you have a strong idea of what that is, and that you need a PlayStation to play it, at least for the indefinite future." Schreier, commenting on the commercial success of the PC ports we have seen come out of Sony, said that "I'm not sure how super successful those PC releases were," implying that Sony may not miss out on a lot of profit as a result of ditching PC ports. He would later take to the ResetEra forum to comment that his statements in the podcast were not speculation, saying that "I mean, it's not speculation, but sometimes topics come up on the show before I'm quite ready to publish a story about them. More to come soon I'm sure." Schreiers implication that the commercial success of PC ports may have been limited does hold some water. Aside from some of Sony's biggest hits, it's easy to see how interest in a game would wane after it has already been on the market for over a year—as much as that may be self-inflicted on Sony's part. Additionally, he mentioned in the podcast that Sony, unlike Microsoft, has never made any commitment to cross-platform game releases.

Highguard's abysmal launch and rapidly declining player counts are well documented at this point, but it recently came to light that Wildlight was not the indie darling it was portraying itself to be. According to a report by Game File, Wildlight, and by extension Highguard's development, was being funded by TiMi Studio Group—whose Montreal studio working on unannounced open-world AAA games was recently shut down. Now, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports that Tencent pulled funding from Wildlight shortly after the game's launch, with management breaking the news of the pulled Tencent money to staff in a meeting on February 11.

This sudden loss of funding may explain why Wildlight was forced to lay off as much as 80% of the Highguard dev team so soon after the game's launch—the studio simply no longer had the financial backing to work on a game that was not an immediate success. According to inside sources, staff were under the impression that continued funding would only be guaranteed if certain player count and retention metrics were met. Former Wildlight developers put the onus for the game's failure on management, citing hubris and a misguided belief that Wildlight would be able to emulate Apex Legends's success, since the management team had previously been involved in that launch.

Surgent Studios, the game studio behind EA's acclaimed platformer, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, has revealed its latest game, FixForce, a 3D "extraction platformer." As the developer's genre-bashing description of the game suggests, FixForce is a co-op platformer that puts players into a bright, post-apocalyptic world and makes them solve environmental and movement puzzles, fix broken machines with nearby scrap and parts, and get back to the repair van before the character's battery or time runs out. The only dangers in FixForce are the water and rogue bots that either undo your work or outright attack you, and if you happen to take enough damage, your head pops off, whereupon other players can simply retrieve it and pop it onto a new body, so that you can finish the job.

The developer is targeting the same group of players who love "chaotic co-op games," like Peak and Lethal company, as well as gamers who appreciate classic physics games, like Portal, Garry's Mod, and Ratchet and Clank. FixForce features simple colors and graphics, and the minimum spec echoes that, asking for a Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel Core i7-6700K and a GeForce GTX 1060, Radeon RX 580 8 GB, or Intel Arc A580. Each round can feature up to six players in co-op. The game was originally meant to launch under Pocketpair Publishing, but the founder of Surgent Studios said that "We saw the pure chaos and hilarity FixForce unleashed as it came together, so we made the decision to move quickly and publish it ourselves," adding that FixForce is unlike anything the studio has worked on before, since it's all about chaos and fun whereas the previous two games the studio was responsible for were about abuse and grief. FixForce will launch on Steam and Epic games on March 12 in early access.

RedOctane, a relatively new game studio started by rhythm game veterans with the mission to "to bring rhythm gaming back with more power, more precision, and a deeper connection than ever before," has officially announced its first game, Stage Tour, which is slated to release on Steam and begin alpha testing in "summer 2026," or sometime around June or July. Console support is also planned, but there have been no concrete announcements of specific platforms or release dates. Stage Tour will feature instrument designs from Gibson—specifically the Gibson, Epiphone, and Kramer brands—with whom the studio says it has a multi-year partnership to license and feature designs.

Stage Tour follows the typical note highway rhythm game style that was popularized by games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The game studio says that Stage Tour is being developed as a "love letter to rhythm gaming," and that it is meant to "feel familiar and authentic," while also evolving the genre in what it calls "the right way," by using modern technology. The announcement itself doesn't make mention of custom peripherals beyond calling out plastic instruments, but there is a FAQ page that confirms that players will be able to buy the game bundled with a Gibson Kramer guitar controller, which has been a popular design in the rhythm game space—it's unclear if the Kramer's hardware will be updated for the game's launch. RedOctane is also actively recruiting for music to add to the game, although it has not revealed what music will feature in Stage Tour, aside from a mention of a "variety of music around the Rock and Metal genres."

Riot Games, the developer behind massive games like League of Legends and Valorant, recently suffered a round of layoffs after the middling console launch of 2XKO, its new 2v2 fighting game. Now, just over two weeks later, the studio has confirmed to Game Developer that it has laid off "around 12" more employees, this time in its publishing division. This round of layoffs doesn't only affect a single team after an ailing launch though, with the publication reporting that three teams have been affected by the layoffs.

Riot Games has been owned by Tencent since 2015, and it was recently revealed that Tencent shuttered a newly formed studio, TiMi Montreal, which was working on AAA, open-world, cross-platform games, but had yet to release or even announce any of those games. Tencent's other hulking Chinese rival, NetEase, also recently implemented a round of layoffs at another studio that had yet to announce or release any games, and it seems like that studio may not be in it for the long haul, if the employees posting about those layoffs are to be believed.

Windrose, formerly Crosswind, is an upcoming PvE co-op pirate survival crafting game that recently made waves during the Steam Next Fest, attracting over 22,000 concurrent players during its demo period. The Discord server for the game also ballooned to well over 20,000 members, and the hype for the game's expected release date reveal was so intense that the development team felt the need to temper expectations when it released the Raging Seas trailer for IGN Fan Fest. In the announcement following the trailer release, the developer behind the game explained that the game's potential scope made it impossible to announce a realistic launch date at the time, adding that "the full EA version of the game could be several times bigger in content and scale than the demo. Like x10 islands, x10 points of interest, more ships, enemies, crafting and building, etc."

In short, the developer asked fans to "let us cook more," explaining that the priority needs to be delivering a quality experience and shipping the game "on time and in best condition possible." The message goes on to promise fans that a release date will be revealed as soon as the development team is confident that it can deliver on all of its goals without having to delay the game. Windrose combines crafting mechanics, adventures on the high seas, and Souls-like combat in an ambitious new project. The demo offered players access to three islands, a ship and crew, early quests and boarding, and a limited selection of weapons, enemies, and survival mechanics. Obviously, the game has a pretty vast scope, and it's being developed by an indie team, so it makes sense that the developers would ask players to be patient for the release date and other information.

The build-up for Bungie's new survival extraction shooter, Marathon, may be coming to its peak ahead of the upcoming server slam event and imminent launch in the following week. The new game has built up so much hype ahead of the play test that Marathon has officially blown past all of its similar competition in the Steam bestsellers chart. At the time of writing, Marathon sits in third place in Steam's official chart, which ranks game sales based on revenue earned. To reach that, it had to climb 58 places in the last week alone, surpassing both Arc Raiders and the ever-popular Warframe.

SteamDB reports that Marathon is the 35th most wishlisted game, which may not sound like a lot, but it also reveals that over 10,000 people have added Marathon to their wishlists in the last seven days. If Marathon continues on its trajectory, it will have come a long way since its early 2025 lukewarm reception, which resulted in a delay from its original September release date to March 5. Players will be able to test Marathon in an upcoming server slam event on February 26-March 2.

Aside from its recent side-quests, like the new K2 HE Concrete and Resin Editions, Keychron has been updating its Q- and V-series mechanical keyboards with the new Ultra designs, featuring new ZMK firmware and Silk POM switches, and the latest installments in that series are the V10 Ultra and the V0 Ultra, which have just been released with those same enhancements. The Keychron V10 Ultra, an Alice layout mechanical keyboard, retails at $124.99, while the V0 Ultra, a standalone wireless mechanical num pad, is launching at $69.99. Being part of the V-series means that both the V10 Ultra and V0 Ultra are made of ABS plastic, and, being part of the Ultra family means they will both feature 8K polling—although the usefulness of this is debatable on a mechanical keyboard. The V0 Ultra is a standard num pad with a row of four macro or navigation keys above the 10-key portion and a column of five macro keys to the left of it. It also has a programmable knob in the top left corner.

The Keychron V10 Ultra 8K features a 75% Alice layout, which is meant to improve ergonomics by allowing users to angle their hands inwards, opening up the chest and shoulders, and it has an additional column of macro keys and a programmable knob along the left edge of the keyboard. Both the V10 Ultra and V0 Ultra have south-facing per-key RGB backlighting, and the V10 Ultra has a claimed 660 hours of battery life from a 4,000 mAh battery on 2.4 GHz with the backlighting disabled. The V0 Ultra packs a smaller 1,800 mAh battery but still claims up to 360 hours of battery life with the backlighting disabled. Both the V10 Ultra and V0 Ultra feature double-shot PBT keycaps in the OSA profile, and they are available with Keychron Silk POM Red linear, Brown tactile, and Banana tactile switch options. Both keyboards are also hot-swappable with any Cherry MX-style switches. Both of the new releases also use poron gasket mounts, which help reduce negative auditory feedback and soften the typing feel. Both the keyboard and the num pad also offer Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C wired, and 2.4 GHz connectivity.

Despite recent concerns about driver updates, Lenovo's Legion Go has been a staple in the handheld gaming space since it launched, thanks to a large 8.8-inch display and the detachable controllers. Still, that large display can't compete with devices like the 11-inch OneXPlayer 2-in-1 devices as a portable general computing device. A new foldable Legion Go concept, leaked by Windows Latest, may be in development to potentially address users who want a handheld that can pull double duty as a handheld gaming device and a laptop. According to the leak, the Legion Go Fold will use a foldable POLED display that unfolds from a 7.7-inch form factor to 11.6-inches. The controllers will also allegedly connect wirelessly, enabling the display to be used in 7.7-inch mode in landscape mode or in either portrait or landscape mode while attached to the controllers in 11.7-inch mode—such a portrait mode display could conceivably be split to function somewhat like a Nintendo DS. Of course, there will also be a detachable keyboard accessory to use the Legion Go Fold as a mini laptop in 11.7-inch mode.

The specifications for the Legion Go Fold will also be nothing to sneeze at, featuring an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, 32 GB of memory, and a 48 Wh battery. Lenovo will also keep the vertical FPS mode from the Legion Go and Legion Go 2 for the Legion Go Fold Concept. While the Legion Go Fold may launch as nothing more than a concept, Lenovo is one of a few laptop makers that brings these foldable compute concepts to market, with recent examples of this including the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable. So it's not entirely impossible that Lenovo will bring something like a Legion Go Fold to market at some point. That said, it would be a niche within a niche, so it doesn't seem entirely likely that we will see a commercial version of the foldable handheld at any point soon. Regardless, Lenovo will allegedly show off the concept at MWC 2026 on March 2, 2026.

Awekeys, one of very few companies making metal keycaps for mechanical keyboards, has just announced the Awekeys Air as its latest addition to the line-up. The Awekeys Air keycaps are low-profile keycaps designed for slim mechanical keyboards, like the Iqunix Magi65 Pro, NuPhy Air series, and even split ergonomic keyboards, like the ZSA Voyager and MoErgo Go60. The Awekeys Air series is available for both cross stems—for Choc V2 and Gateron switches—and Choc V1 stems, which are common on niche low-profile split keyboards, and Early Bird Kickstarter pricing starts at $109 for a 68-key DIY kit, $139 for a 95-key 80% Base kit, and $159 for a 113-key 100% kit. These prices are only for the Ivory White and Obsidian Black, with the Titanium Black and Satin Copper coming in slightly more expensive and the limited edition Satin Silver and Satin Gold costing as much as $249 for the 80% Base kit. These prices will also increase when the keycaps hit retail. The Kickstarter campaign lists MSRP of the Ivory White and Obsidian Black 100% kit colorways as $249, but keyboards and accessories often cost less than anticipated when moving from a Kickstarter to regular retail.

The Awekeys Air keycaps come in six different colors—Titanium Black, Ivory White, Obsidian Black, Satin Copper, Satin Silver, and Satin Gold—and Awekeys is offering a hand-finished brush finish on the Gold, Silver, Copper, and Titanium colorways. The keycaps themselves are made from a recycled alloy called cupronickel, which is predominantly copper and nickel, which resists corrosion, offers some anti-microbial benefits, and is considered low allergy risk—although you may want to avoid it if you have a known nickel allergy. The keycaps are also available with legends or as blanks, and the profile has a uniform height with spherical tops and a total height of 5 mm.

Sony is one of the gaming giants that's still stubbornly holding onto the idea of console exclusives, and Gran Turismo is one of the franchises that still sticks to Sony's living room gaming console. This isn't due to a lack of time or technical know-how, though, as is evidenced by a tidbit recently shared by industry insider, Jeff Grubb, on his podcast, Jeff Grubb's Game Mess. According to Grubb, Sony has an internal version of Gran Turismo 7 that runs on the Nintendo Switch 2, although it will seemingly never be released on Nintendo's newest handheld gaming console. This echoes previous rumors that there were other versions of Gran Turismo games with internal builds running on Windows and Linux as well as a version of Gran Turismo 6 with full VR support.

Speculation suggests that these internal, non-commercial builds of games like Gran Turismo are likely to be testing platforms for Sony's own future hardware endeavors, which the hardware and game development teams can use to gauge things like minimum required hardware specs, optimization, and even graphical fidelity options for smaller screens. The timing of this information lends credence to the existence of GT7 on the Switch 2, since Sony has allegedly been working on a full-fledged gaming portable console that is slated to launch alongside the PS6 somewhere between 2027 and 2029, depending on the state of the ongoing PC hardware shortage.

AMD announced its Ryzen AI 400 series "Gorgon Point" mobile APUs based on Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores at CES 2026 earlier this year, simultaneously showing off the AM5-based Ryzen AI 400-branded desktop APUs at the same show. Now, according to a new leak by Moore's Law is Dead on X, AMD will allegedly launch the new Ryzen AI 400-series desktop processors for AM5 in the first half of 2026. MLID adds that the launch may even happen as early as Q1. He also released what he claims to be a short promotional video of an AMD Ryzen AI 400 Pro processor in an AM5 socket to lend credence to his leak.

Exact specifications for the AM5 APUs are unconfirmed, but if they're anything like the laptop counterparts, it is expected that the new APUs will launch with the same silicon as Strix Point but with adjusted power management and increased clock speeds. This means we can expect to see the Ryzen AI 400 desktop processors top out with a 12-core (4× Zen 5; 8 × Zen 5c) CPU cluster tied to a 16 CU RDNA 3.5 iGPU, and a 60 TOPS NPU.

EA's Full Circle studio published the hotly anticipated Skate, a free-to-play live-service installment in the popular franchise, just six months ago, and to a booming 134,901 peak concurrent players. However, those figures quickly dropped to the little-over-2,000 daily players we see today, and it seems as though the dwindling player count may have been an indication of what's to come. According to a recent blog post put out by Full Circle, the studio will be "reshaping" itself, making changes to better support Skate's long-term future, and those changes mean that "some roles will be impacted," which is to say that the studio is laying off staff.

Neither EA nor Full Circle have commented on how many developers or team members are being laid off, but the studio says that these are individuals who helped build the foundation of Skate, suggesting that they were part of the core development and art teams. This announcement comes not too long after EA was bought out by a group consisting of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, who subsequently announced a cost-savings plan that would see EA pivot to AI in order to increase efficiency, manage debt, and cut operating costs. The news of layoffs is also only the latest in a recent slew of layoffs and studio closures across the ailing gaming industry, which has seemingly hit the live-service genre particularly hard.

The State of New York's attorney general, Letitia James, has officially taken gaming giant, Valve, to court in a state court in Manhattan, alleging that the combination of games like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and Dota, wherein players can earn and use real money to buy loot boxes, and Steam's Community Market, where rare skins and items can be sold, often for exorbitant prices, amount to "quintessential gambling." There are reports of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive skins selling for as much as $2.5 million, with the game touted as having the biggest in-game economy of any video game. Valve previously adjusted the way it presented loot boxes and their rewards to players, seemingly specifically to avoid EU gambling regulations.

The lawsuit, spotted by Reuters, alleges that "Valve's loot boxes are particularly pernicious because they are popular among children and adolescents," going on to state that these mechanics put children at risk of becoming addicted, with the complaint adding that children are four times more at risk of becoming addicted to gambling in adulthood if they are exposed to gambling before the age of 12. The lawsuit seeks restitution for players and a fine of three times Valve's earnings from any activities deemed to be illegal. Loot boxes are largely looked down on by gamers and lawmakers alike, because players are encouraged to spend money on them, and they provide no guarantee of any return or specific value. If James succeeds against Valve in the lawsuit, it could set a precedent that may result in sweeping changes across both Steam and the gaming industry at large.

NuPhy is known for making some of the best mid-range low-profile mechanical keyboards, having recently launched the Node series, a $99.95-109.95 low-profile mechanical keyboard family shortly after releasing the V3 update for its Air series keyboards. Now, adding to its growing list of accessories for its aforementioned low-profile keyboard collection, NuPhy has released a NuPhy x Riel Aquarium nSA profile keycap set, which is available on the NuPhy site for $49.95.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the NuPhy Air 60 HE is live]

NuPhy designed the Aquarium keycap set in collaboration with Riel, and the set will be manufactured by KeyTok, but it uses NuPhy's low-profile, uniform-height nSA profile, which can also be found on its pre-built low-profile keyboards. The keycap set employs a whimsical sea-life theme, featuring various shades of blue and off-white alphanumeric and modifier keys and orange navigation accent keycaps. There are also alternative white and blue modifier keycaps featuring aquarium doodles. The Aquarium nSA keycap set is made of five-sided dye-sublimated PBT, and the set has a total of 159 keycaps. Given that nSA is a uniform-height keycap set, compatibility with ortholinear and small form factor keyboards with split spaces should actually be quite high.

Back at CES 2026, we got a brief look at Keychron's resin and concrete K2 HE Special Edition wireless TMR keyboards, but the company has officially launched both the Concrete Edition and Resin Edition K2 HE keyboards, with both keyboards launching via Keychron's direct-to-consumer online store for $199.99. Both keyboards are based on the K2 HE, which has been one of Keychron's more popular models since it launched, and there isn't much by way of technical improvements over the original K2 HE aside from the design update. The resin edition features a smoky translucent case with an almost marbled aesthetic that shifts in the light, while the concrete edition has a simpler brutalist design, with color-matched keycaps and a solid gray aesthetic.

Both the K2 HE Concrete and Resin Editions are based on the same MCU, TMR sensor, and switch architectures as the original K2 HE, meaning they use the same Gateron Double-Rail Magnetic Nebula switches as the original—with 4 mm total travel and enabling all the typical analog features and online customization via Keychron Launcher—and feature the same 1 kHz polling rate and wireless connectivity via Bluetooth 5.3 and 2.4 GHz. It also goes without saying that both keyboards have the same 75% layout as the previous K2 HE keyboards. The material changes have also resulted in different dimensions. The K2 HE Resin Edition measures 321.13 × 131.3 mm, with a 27.06 mm listed front height and 4° typing angle, while the Concrete Edition comes in at 322.13 × 132.13 mm with a 27.39 mm front height and 4° typing angle. Both also use an aluminium switch plate and have a tray-mount design.

There has been a lot of talk about the new Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, since it was announced that she would be taking over from Phil Spencer, and she has even made a handful of statements about her intent for the future of the Xbox platform—even if some of those have simply led gamers and commentators to the conclusion that she is there to usher Xbox into the night. However, in a recent interview with Windows Central, Sharma and the new Xbox CCO (Chief Content Officer), Matt Booty, have commented on the immediate future of Xbox and what Sharma previously referred to as the "return to Xbox."

According to the two executives, the next steps revolve around the next-gen Xbox hardware platform, which is rumored to launch around 2028 as a PC-console hybrid, and Microsoft's first-party development efforts. Sharma said "For me, the spirit of 'Return to Xbox' is about returning to the spirit that the team was founded on... It's that spirit of surprise, it's the spirit of building something nobody else is willing to try," going on to explain that "I think that our core Xbox fans and players have invested up to 25 years of themselves in these universes and our console. I want to make sure everybody knows I'm committed to Xbox, starting with the console. We're going to keep meeting players where they are—the world continues to evolve and change. We're going to make sure Xbox is a great place for developers and players. We want to invest in reducing the artificial divide between different types of devices that they want to use with us. I think that's going to mean a lot more investment in breaking down the barriers, in helping developers build once and show up across different hardware experience."

Valve has steadily been adding features to SteamOS and the Steam Client since the release of the Steam Deck and leading up to the Steam Machine, but the latest Steam Deck Beta client update aims to address two main issues that have apparently been prevalent in the Steam Hardware Survey, which should result in more accurate GPU data reporting. The first change fixes incorrect VRAM reporting on some GPUs, although Valve doesn't provide any explanation about which GPUs are affected by this bug, while the second change makes it so that the Steam Client automatically detects the display adaptor with the most VRAM—therefore likely the most performant or the least likely to be an iGPU—when collecting Steam Survey information.

Aside from weird edge cases, like users running both a workstation GPU and a gaming GPU in one system, these changes should result in more accurate data from the Steam Hardware Survey. It's unclear how widespread these reporting issues were or how far back they go, but the changes are unlikely to have an effect before a wider roll-out, and it's unclear when the wider roll-out will happen. The beta client update also includes two minor updates to Steam Input. The update adds a multi-button selector for the button chord activator, which Valve says will improve compatibility with extra grip buttons on modern controllers. Valve has also changed the way the Gyro to Joystick Camera output works, matching the Gyro to Joystick Deflection behavior, which it says is useful for "identifying a game's internal joystick deadzone." Polishing both the Steam Hardware Survey results and Steam Input might be steps to prepare for the launch of the Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and Steam Frame.

Blizzard's recent rebrand of Overwatch 2 to just Overwatch also saw the game studio announce a series of new heroes coming in the first season of Overwatch's new era, one of which is Jetpack Cat, who quickly became a fan favorite. In a recent appearance on The Omnic Podcast, Overwatch's associate director, Alec Dawson, said that the popularity of Jetpack Cat, and other unorthodox characters, has led the development and design teams to consider more "oddball" heroes for future releases. Blizzard has promised to add one hero to the game every season for the first year—meaning a new hero every two months—but there was no word on whether the plan was to continue at this cadence indefinitely. In the podcast, though, Dawson clarifies that this is the goal as long as it's sustainable and there's no big gameplay event or similar to get in the way. He also says that this release cadence also gives the developers "a lot more opportunities to take some chances" on gameplay differentiation, different roles, and "something a little bit different" so that players can find characters they enjoy playing with or whose design they enjoy. He adds that the response to Jetpack Cat has been heard in the Overwatch team, and it "helps us think about what sort of characters and heroes we want to do in the future, as well."

At the same time, in a recent interview with PCGamesN, Dawson commented that Jetpack Cat is the most banned character in Overwatch at the moment, and that is a situation Blizzard would like to address so that she can be used more frequently in competitive matches. "We love the cat, but we are going to tone down a little bit of her aggression," he continued to explain that Jetpack Cat's ability to dive a backline will likely be somewhat suppressed in an upcoming nerf: "When she gets both her minor perk, Claws Out, and her major perk, Territorial, the combination allows her to be an absolute menace that's diving backlines and taking 1v1s. So we're going to tone that down just a little bit and see how that goes, but the cat won't be scratching as much as she is currently." He added that the hero ban feature has been helpful to guide the balance and development of heroes, which will likely only become more complicated with the new hero release cadence. Notably, Blizzard has also been responding to community feedback on topics like hero design, as was the case with another new hero, Anran, who was criticized for looking generic after her announcement.

The disappointing launch of Highguard has been well documented by now, but the game has just hit a new low, despite recent developer efforts to keep things afloat following a round of layoffs. According to SteamDB, Highguard's player count has continued to trend downwards, reaching a new low of just 743 peak concurrent players in the 24-hour period preceding publication. February 23 marked the first time the game dipped below 1,000 peak concurrent players in a 24-hour period—down from a launch peak of 97,249—and player counts haven't recovered since then.

No Man's Sky had a similar launch trajectory, releasing with a massive 212,000+ peak player count which quickly dwindled to just over 1,000 in 2018 before the game's surprise resurrection—it now sits at around 20,000 peak concurrent daily players. Highguard's dwindling player count is despite recent content updates reportedly bringing a bit more excitement to the gameplay—recent reviews show an uptick in positive feedback and a reduction in negative reviews.

One of the simpler solutions manufacturers have come up with to mitigate the ubiquitous 12v-2×6 GPU power connector meltdowns is colored cable terminations that simply give the user an indication that the GPU power connector is properly connected. According to a recent post on r/MSI_Gaming, those colored connectors are both doing their jobs and causing concerns among MSI PSU users. The original poster shared an image of the stock 12v-2×6 power cables of an MSI MPG A1000GS ATX 3.1 PSU that had slowly been creeping out of both the PSU and PNY RTX 5080 GPU connectors over the course of two months, exposing the colored yellow connector end that is meant to serve as a warning against thermal meltdown events.

While the slowly loosening connector had not yet resulted in a meltdown, it had seemingly started causing instability in the user's system during heavy gaming loads. What's more concerning is the multitude of comments in the Reddit thread echoing the OP's story, saying that they had properly connected both ends of the cable until there was a positive click, but despite this, the cable seemed to be creeping out at one or both ends. Some commenters hypothesized that part of the reason for these meltdown events that happen so long after the system was first built is that repeated thermal cycling causes the plastic connector to expand and contract, resulting in the cable slowly coming loose. The redditor was eventually told to request a replacement unit through Amazon, but if the number of similar reports in the same thread are anything to go by, the issue appears to be at least somewhat widespread with MSI's cables.

Sony's upcoming Horizon Hunters Gathering three-player co-op game was revealed earlier this month, but it seems as though Sony is deeper into development than it let on during the announcement, because the gaming giant is apparently already ready for its first Horizon Hunters Gathering closed beta test. Sony announced the beta test via a post on the game's official X account, linking to a website where you can register to try out the game ahead of its official launch. The Horizon Hunters Gathering closed beta will take place from February 27 to March 1 for both PS5 and PC players (via Steam).

The closed beta will be limited to three playable hunts—Axle, Rem, and Sun—two game modes—Machine Incursion and Cauldron Descent—and just one environment—Colorado Springs, and only players from the USA, Canada, and much of Europe will be eligible for the closed beta, and the US play test will be limited to 4 PM-7 PM PST, while EU players will be allowed to play at 7 PM-10 PM CET. Players will also be subject to selection by Sony, so applying via the PlayStation Beta Program will not guarantee access to the beta. PlayStation players will be allowed to bring along two friends, for a full party of three, but PC players looking to test the beta with friends will need to apply separately—no free invites for friends on Steam. The play test will also be under strict NDA, which means players will not be able to share any gameplay or opinions outside of Sony's beta tester Discord server, nor will they be allowed to share screenshots or stream gameplay.

Shortly after Discord announced a plan to expand its use of Persona age verification globally as part of its new "teen-by-default" account settings, it has confirmed in a recent FAQ page update that it will not require age verification for "90%+ of users" after facing significant backlash. The social media platform explains that it will be going ahead with its teen-by-default, but that most users just don't access age-restricted content or because the internal age verification systems will be able to automatically determine age without any user action. Discord's CTO, Stanislav Vishnevskiy, said in a blog post that "we knew this rollout was going to be controversial. Any time you introduce something that touches identity and verification, people are going to have strong feelings," but effectively explained that the original announcement was misinterpreted or explained badly. He goes on to say that Discord was evaluating Persona for biometric age verification data in an experiment in January, but has since decided not to proceed with the Persona partnership because it did not meet the bar of requiring on-device verification. He does, however, say that Discord will require age verification via k-ID in countries like Australia, Brazil, and the UK, where laws require it and do not allow Discord's internal estimation system. Discord will also be introducing a new "spoiler" channel option, which will allow communities to stop using age-restricted channels to avoid discussions about spoilers and politics.

At the same time, however, it was revealed in a post on Bluesky that Twitch has adopted Persona as an age verification system for Twitch Partners in order to receive payment. The age verification process required users to submit a selfie along with an image of a government ID card, passport, or driver's license. This report of mandatory Persona age verification on Twitch comes shortly after it was reported that hackers had discovered an exposed frontend for Persona that both demonstrated the platform's lackluster security and revealed ties to the US government and a potential mass-surveillance apparatus, although these were partially explained as an upcoming partnership with the government to verify the identities of remote federal workers. It's unclear how widespread Twitch's use of Persona is at this point in time, but a number of creators have made their voices heard via an open letter in Twitch's User Voices feature in light of the recent controversies surrounding Persona.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is slated to launch on March 19 for PC after almost nine months as a PS5 exclusive, and Nixxes and Kojima Productions just revealed the minimum PC hardware requirements, as well as the supported upscaling and graphical enhancement options, in a PlayStation Blog post. According to the blog post, the absolute minimum spec, which gets you 30 FPS as 1080p with low settings, requires an AMD Ryzen 3 3100 or Intel Core i3-10100, 16 GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB. Medium, or 1080p with medium settings, requires an RTX 3060 12 GB or Radeon RX 6600, and an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 or Intel Core i5-11400. Stepping it up to High (or recommended specs), which gets you 1440p at 60 FPS with high settings, requires an AMD Radeon RX 6800 or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X or Intel Core i7-11700. Very High, or 4K resolution at 60 FPS with very high settings, calls for an upgrade to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 or Radeon RX 9070 XT, while the CPU and memory specs remain the same as for the High tier. All spec tiers require 16 GB of memory, Windows 11 or Windows 10 1909 or up, and at least a 150 GB SSD.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will also offer PC players support for both 21:9 and 32:9 ultrawide aspect ratios, and players with 16:9 displays can simulate a cinematic experience by opting for a 21:9 aspect ratio with black bars on the top and bottom of the display—this option will also be introduced for PS5 at the same time as the PC release. PC players will also get support for upscaling tech from all three GPU manufacturers: NVIDIA DLSS 4, AMD FSR 4, and Intel XeSS 2, with both frame generation and upscaling options available. These upscaling options can be used in conjunction with Dynamic Resolution Scaling, and players will be able to adjust upscaling quality. The game will also see the debut of Pico—Progressive Image Compositor—on PC. This is the upscaling technology used by Death Stranding 2 on PS5 and developed by Guerrilla Games for the Decima engine, and it can also be used alongside all available frame generation options and on all available graphics card manufacturers. The game will also offer native AA options for those not interested in upscaling.

Marvel's Wolverine has been on Sony's release roster for ages, with Sony having released a brutal trailer for the game as far back as September 2025. Insomniac Games, the Studio at the game's helm, just confirmed on X that Wolverine will launch on September 15, 2026, which is right in the middle of the previously promised "fall 2026" release window. Unfortunately, as expected, Marvel's Wolverine appears to be a console exclusive, at least at launch. There is no mention of a PC or Xbox launch date anywhere on the PlayStation Store or in the release date trailer.

Marvel's Wolverine will follow the titular character as he "searches for answers about his past," and the trailer reveals that players will revisit Logan's complex history as an anti-hero, fighting against and potentially alongside the likes of Sabretooth and Mystique, with scenes from the trailer teasing locations ranging from the American west to Japanese back alleys. The PlayStation Store page also confirms that Marvel's Wolverine will be single-player only and will feature offline play. Marvel's Spider-Man 2, another Marvel game developed by Insomniac for the PS5, initially launched on PS5 in October 2023, but only made it to PC in January 2025; if that game is any indication, it'll be a little over a year after launch before Marvel's Wolverine makes it to PC.

Shortly following the recent announcement that Phil Spencer would be leaving as the head of Xbox Gaming, the division's new CEO, Asha Sharma, released a long statement expressing her distaste for AI slop and her belief that, although "AI has long been part of gaming and will continue to be," games "are and always will be art, crafted by humans and created with the most innovative technology provided by us." Many gamers have been skeptical of these and similar statements now and in the past, but it seems as though industry veteran and founder of Xbox, Seamus Blackley, seems to be convinced that those are empty words, whether Sharma believes it or not. In a recent interview with GamesBeat, Blackley said about Sharma that he believes "her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night," going on to say that assurances like the aforementioned one by Sharma are "just what occurs to people to say when they bring in someone from an outside business into games."

In Blackley's view, Microsoft's bet on AI will result in a lot of the non-AI businesses being sunsetted, and that is what is happening to Xbox under the new CEO. He says that, just like AI has taken over "everything else," it will take over gaming as well, at least at Microsoft, going on to say that "Asha's background is entirely in software as a service and AI. The implicit thing here is that games is going to be AI-driven software as a service." Part of his justification for this belief is that, despite gaming industry veteran, Matt Booty, acting as Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer, Sharma is an outsider to the gaming industry and doesn't necessarily understand the industry. His concern is that such an outsider, especially one coming from an AI background, can only see gaming in an abstract way. That said, he does admit that there have been outsiders that have succeeded in gaming, but those that have understood that gaming is a content business. He also jokingly says that her statement about the future of Xbox "reminded me of that meme 'Hello, fellow kids!'" and that she would have to figure out what's interesting about gaming.

We previously covered how enterprising gamers managed to bypass AMD's FSR 4 restrictions to get Redstone frame generation tech working on older RDNA GPUs with OptiScaler. Now, it seems as though OptiScaler has managed bypass another one of AMD's limitations that restricted FSR 4 implementations to DirectX 12 games. According to the build notes uncovered by a Reddit user u/eduhfx, OptiScaler is testing adding Vulkan support in a new test build v0.9.0-pre10. Notably, OptiScaler is using a compatibility tool to work around FSR 4's lack of Vulkan support, similarly to how Linux translates DirectX, calls to Vulkan with DXVK or VKD3D. This also means that FSR 4 on Vulkan should work on Linux systems, as well, where games often run better under Vulkan than DX12—although at the time of writing, FSR 4 w/DX12 currently has issues running on Linux due to a Mesa issue that seemingly cannot be solved by the OptiScaler team.

Added Vulkan w/DX12 support - FSR 4 VK w/DX12, FSR 2.1 VK w/DX12

Currently, known issues:
FSR 4 VK w/DX12 has issues on Linux due to missing Mesa extensions
Not interested in reports as nothing we can fix on our side as far as we know

Just last week, we reported on the closure of Spliced, a newly formed NetEase game studio that suffered layoffs even before it had announced or released any games. Now, that same misfortune has come for TiMi Montreal, a division of TiMi founded in mid-2021 to create AAA, open-world, multi-platform games. The studio's closure was revealed in a now-removed LinkedIn post (via Game File) by a programmer at the studio, who said that "Today, TiMi Montreal is officially closing its doors," and goes on to lament the fact that the "the public will never get to experience what this team was capable of producing."

While TiMi Studio Group has been responsible for a number of high-profile mobile and cross-platform titles, including Call of Duty Mobile, Delta Force, Arena of Valor, and Age of Empires Mobile, among others, TiMi Montreal had not even announced any projects. The studio and its parent company, Tencent, also have yet to address the alleged closure, but several other employees sounded off in the comments of the original LinkedIn post, suggesting that the news of the closure is more than just hearsay. This news also comes shortly after Sony shuttered Bluepoint games, serving as yet another indication of an ailing gaming industry. Of course, without an official statement or more information, it's difficult to know how many employees were affected by the closure or how many will go on to work internally at Tencent or other TiMi studios, for example.

Shortly after news broke that Ubisoft is, in fact, working on "several" Assassin's Creed launches after its controversial Creative Houses reshuffle, the company has published an official Reddit post detailing the newly appointed lead for the Assassin's Creed franchise as well as giving gamers a taste of what's in-store for the future of the franchise. The most notable take-away from the announcement is that the Assassin's Creed franchise will be led by Martin Schelling as Head of Brand, Jean Guesdon as Head of Content, and François De Billy as Head of Production Excellence.

All three members of the Assassin's Creed leadership team have previously worked on Assassin's Creed games: Schelling was Producer and Senior Producer of Black Flag, Origins, Revelations, and Valhalla; Guesdon was Creative Director of Black Flag and Origins, among other franchise credits; and De Billy served in a number of roles on Revelations and Black Flag and as Production Director on Origins and Valhalla. Ubisoft says the new team "marks the beginning of an exciting and ambitious new chapter" for the franchise, although it will be picking up where previous leaders left off in the aforementioned Assassin's Creed projects Ubisoft already has in the works. Appropriately, given the history, it seems as though the first Assassin's Creed project that will be released after the new leaders take over is the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake. That said, the remake is likely all but complete, especially when it comes to more meaningful gameplay and artistic elements, meaning the new team likely won't have contributed much to that, if anything.

A new patent application by Sony may provide players with an alternative to pausing a game that would ostensibly prevent halting gameplay execution by putting the game into an alternate gameplay state while players deal with momentary distractions or decide whether they want to fully pause the game to deal with something like a message. The patent, (US20260021411) filed with the USPTO, explains a number of potential ways to achieve this, seemingly with the idea that different games and genres could implement different versions of Soft Pause. Sony touts Soft Pause as particularly useful for VR use cases, in which a jarring pause and cut to a menu screen may cause nausea or dizziness

The Soft Pause concepts include everything from having the game slow down while the feature is active, making the game easier, guiding the player towards objectives or enemies, boosting player assist features—features like aim assist or stretching time windows for certain inputs—or even having a machine-learning tool take over from the player entirely while Soft Pause is active. It's unclear if that ML model would be trained on player data or if it will offer more generic support. It remains to be seen if or when this will be implemented at all, and, realistically, it could go either way. If it is implemented, it will also be interesting to see how each game implements it, especially in competitive games. Currently, being AFK in a competitive game can be disastrous, and, while something like Soft Pause might be able to provide something of a solution to short AFK moments, although games like Paladins already have an AI that takes over gameplay when players are disconnected. Other recent Sony patents include an adaptive controller of sorts that puts all controls into a touch interface.