Jeff Kaplan, of former Blizzard fame, having worked on Overwatch and World of Warcraft, has officially announced the first game in development at his newly formed Kintsugiyama studio. The Legend of California is a Western shooter with online co-op and PvP gameplay. The Legend of California is set in an alternate timeline version of California in which the state is discovered as an uninhabited island off the coast of the mainland USA. It will feature a hand-crafted world featuring real-world landmarks, like Yosemite and Death Valley, but interspersed with dynamic points of interest that will move around depending on the generated world seed.

In a recent appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast, Kaplan explains that he wants the game to feel like a world that you can live in, with gameplay mechanics often limited to survival games, like mining, exploration, crafting, and hunting. He says that the goal of the game is not to be historically accurate, but that the development team wanted to remain authentic to the aesthetic and feel of the historical gold rush time period. In terms of gameplay, Kaplan commented that the map will feature four difficulty levels, with different regions and POIs each getting a difficulty level assigned each time the world is generated anew. The Legend of California will launch in Steam Early Access in 2026, and it's so far unclear if there will be a console version.

Redragon has just announced two new affordable wireless gaming mice: The Taipan Pro M810, a right-handed conventional ergonomic gaming mouse, and the Impact Elite M913, an MMO mouse with 12 programmable side buttons. The Taipan Pro M810 is a fairly conventional gaming mouse shape, falling squarely within the same category as the likes of the Razer Basilisk or Logitech G502 shapes, with its left-side thumb shelf, fairly high front, and mid-hump design. The Taipan Pro has eight buttons in total, including middle click, thanks to the two shortcut keys on the left side, two buttons on the top behind the scroll wheel, and a button to the left of the left click.

Redragon markets the Taipan Pro as an FPS mouse, but it doesn't specify the mouse's weight, and it uses the PixArt PAW3311 sensor, which tops out at 12,000 DPI and 35 G acceleration, while the polling rate maxes out at 1 kHz. It uses Huano mechanical switches with a 20-million click MTBF rating, although there is no specific mention of a switch model or actuation force. The Taipan Pro features both 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth wireless connectivity, and Redragon claims it can manage up to 188 hours on a single charge with the RGB accent lighting off and 29 hours with the accent lighting on. Both the RGB lighting and the button mapping are customizable in Redragon's software suite for Windows. By far the most attractive part of the Redragon Taipan Pro 810M is its price, at $39.99 for the white version and $42.99 for the black version from the Redragon web store.

Logitech G305 fans who are looking for something a little lighter with more modern specifications might not have to wait much longer, if the VXE V3 turns out to be anything like the brand's other gaming mice, at least. The VXE V3 gaming mouse recently showed up in a number of leaks on social media sites, like Reddit and X, revealing an egg-like design and purple colorway nearly identical to Logitech's G305 and G203 gaming mice.

Exact specifications have not been made public yet, but ATK Gear has teased the V3 in a post on X, noting that the mouse is "coming soon," although no specific launch date has been announced either. ATK did confirm that it will be a quad-mode gaming mouse, though, which means it will feature the usual wired, Bluetooth, and 2.4 GHz connectivity, with the addition of NearLink, which was also recently featured in the VXE Dragonfly R1. If the R1's internals are anything to go by, the V3 will likely use the HiSilicon Nearlink MCU and something like the PixArt PAW 3950 or 3395 sensor. Given the Logitech G305 is already an affordable mouse, often retailing for as little as $26.99, it makes sense that the VXE V3 will also be a budget mouse, like the Dragonfly R1, which retails at just $18.99.

The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, recently announced that she was taking Valve to court over what she called "quintessential gambling" via loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and Dota, stating that these loot boxes target children and adolescents, and that they put children at risk of becoming addicted to gambling when they reach adulthood. On March 11, Valve published a response to this lawsuit in a dedicated Steam Support page, stating that it does not believe the mystery boxes violate any New York state laws, defending its loot box economy by likening it to real-world blind boxes, and criticizing the attorney general for taking Valve to court while turning a blind eye to the aforementioned real-world examples.

Valve says that it had previously met with the attorney general and explained that these mystery box systems are widely used "not just in video games but in the tangible world as well," likening loot boxes to real-world products like baseball cards, Magic: The Gathering cards, Pokémon cards, and even Labubus. Valve adds that "players don't have to open mystery boxes to play Valve games," and it insists that most gamers never do. According to the gaming giant, it has been cooperating with the NY attorney general's investigation and has shut down a number of accounts found to be using loot box cosmetics on gambling sites, citing that it has closed over a million accounts for this reason. Building on its example of baseball cards, Valve criticizes the NY attorney general taking issue with the fact that the in-game items are tradable and transferrable, suggesting that if trading physical goods, like baseball cards, isn't prohibited, neither should trading in-game cosmetics be.

Asha Sharma, the new CEO of Xbox, recently announced that the next-gen Xbox gaming console is called the Xbox Helix—at least for the time being—and hinted that more information would be revealed about the upcoming Xbox at GDC 2026. Now, GDC is here, and Xbox has delivered on that hint, with Xbox VP of Next Generation, Jason Ronald, divulging more information about Project Helix in a panel. The most notable piece of information that emerged about the console is that alpha versions of Helix dev kits would start shipping to customers as early as the end of 2027. This more or less confirms the recently rumored 2027-2028 launch window of the next-gen Xbox.

Ronald also reiterated that the next-gen Xbox is "designed to play your Xbox console and PC games," although it's still somewhat unclear if Helix will be a full-fledged console-PC hybrid à la Valve's Steam Machine—although rumors suggest that this will be the case. The executive also confirmed that it is working with AMD on a slew of new machine learning-powered tech, including FSR Diamond, which AMD also announced at GDC, and that the new AMD SoC would be designed around upcoming DirectX versions for improved ray tracing, performance, and efficiency. He also confirmed that the Helix will continue the backwards compatibility trend that Xbox has become known for, promising that Xbox will continue to play games made for the last four generations of consoles. Presumably, this means that the Helix will be able to play games from the Xbox Series, Xbox One, and Xbox 360 generations as well as games designed for the Xbox Helix.

Framework has taken a remarkably transparent approach to recent RAM price increases that affect the pricing of both its laptops and its standalone RAM sales, sticking to monthly price updates throughout the ongoing RAM shortage and maintaining a blog post with monthly updates on the industry situation. Framework's March memory pricing update will see prices on DDR5 SODIMMs increase to as much as $13-18 per GB, with lower capacity sticks seemingly trending towards the higher end of that price bracket. The price increases in question have also affected the Framework Desktop and some pre-built SKUs of the Framework Laptop 16.

Framework also confirmed that it has "started to deplete" its stockpile of low-cost SSDs that were sitting in inventory, and the company predicts that prices for the Laptop 12, 13, and 16 will continue to trend upwards in the coming months as a result of both the storage and RAM price increases. For the time being, the OEM still has supply of 2, 4, and 8 TB SN850X SSDs that are priced below market averages. The impacts of the DRAM crisis on silicon fabrication have also begun to become apparent, since the Intel Core i5-1334U in the Framework 12 is in limited supply.

One of the most important categories for a game to be Steam Deck Verified is that the game's UI must scale well on the device's small screen. When it was earlier confirmed that Valve would be loosening the requirements for the Steam Machine Verified program, we speculated that the display scaling and resolution might be one of the areas Valve would relax its requirements. Now, at GDC 2026, Valve has confirmed that this is the case, providing additional guidelines for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame Verification process. According to the document, the Verified program will be split into Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and Steam Frame Standalone—the latter being labelled "Standalone" because the Steam Frame can also operate connected to a PC or Steam Deck.

According to Valve's presentation, all Steam Deck Verified games will be Verified for the Steam Machine, but not all Steam Machine Verified games will necessarily be Verified for the Steam Deck—this is largely a result of the Machine's claimed performance. At a minimum, games must be able to run at 1080p, 30 FPS, with the same controller support and input expectations as the Steam Deck—meaning full support for controller-only input. Games with controller compatibility issues—for instance, requiring a mouse and/or keyboard to play or interact with the UI—will be rated Steam Machine Playable. Any games that are unsupported on Deck because of SteamOS will get the same rating on the Steam Machine, and any games that are unplayable on Deck because of performance issues will be re-evaluated for the Steam Machine in new testing.

The full release of Fedora Linux 44 is drawing near, and, as such, the Fedora Project has officially made Fedora 44 Beta available for download for those who want to test the upcoming version of the workstation Linux distribution. Fedora 44 has a long changelog, but some of the biggest changes are simply newer versions of the included defaults, like the move to Gnome 50 and KDE Plasma 6.6 as well as an update to Linux 6.19. Like many distributions that use KDE, the Fedora 44 KDE Desktop edition officially makes the move from SDDM to Plasma Login Manager as the default. In general, Fedora 44 also improves things like the installer, which no longer automatically and unnecessarily creates network profiles for devices not involved in the initial configuration. This makes it easier to configure these devices later when necessary.

Fedora 44 also adds support for Budgie 10.10, which is itself migrating from X11 to Wayland, Fedora changes the build infrastructure to make package builds more predictable and reproducible. Wayland support and the built-in emojis are also now better supported thanks to the upgrade to IBus 1.5.34, and various other frameworks and programming languages have been updated to improve security and modernize the OS. Fedora 44 launches officially on April 14, 2026, but beta ISOs for Fedora Workstation (with Gnome) and Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop can be downloaded ahead of the official launch. There are also the usual ISOs for server, cloud, and IoT versions.

Gaming has largely been split into two camps: mouse-and-keyboard gamers and controller gamers, and while devices like the Lenovo Legion Go and the new Joy-Cons on the Nintendo Switch 2 blur those lines, the Phase project, recently shown off by a new startup called Pixelpaw Labs, is attempting to blur those lines even further. The Phase is a split game controller that combines using magnets and pogo pin connectors to become a standard PC mouse. The goal behind the project is to "bridge the gap between a mouse, a mobile gamepad, and a controller," all in one device that can be carried with you when you might do both work and play away from home. Phase has not yet launched, although Pixelpaw Labs aims to launch the project as a Kickstarter, and it is currently offering a $20 refundable pre-launch deposit, which also guarantees a 15% discount when the Phase launches on Kickstarter. Kickstarter launch pricing is slated to start at $159 or $188 with the Phasegrip accessory.

Given that this is Pixelpaw Labs's first product and the fact that there is an inherent risk to Kickstarters, it would be impertinent to not mention that there is non-zero chance that the project never makes it to production. That said, the design and concept are interesting, as are some of the workarounds that the designers behind the project came up with for some unexpected problems. For one, the Phase doesn't have a scroll wheel when the two controller halves are in mouse mode—instead, the whole left click button is a touch-sensitive surface. The mouse connects wirelessly or via USB-C while in mouse mode, and it features a 16,000 DPI sensor—likely something like the PixArt PMW 3389 or PAW 3335, both of which are commonly found in gaming mice, even if they are somewhat outdated.

One of the Epomaker keyboards we spotted at CES 2026 was the charming little Luma40, which is apparently being followed up by its polar opposite, at least in terms of the layout and form factor. The recently announced Epomaker Luma100 is a 96% wireless mechanical keyboard that packs much of the benefits of a full-size mechanical keyboard into a slim, compact form factor. The Luma100 is not yet available on the Epomaker site, but the product page has launched, giving us a good idea of what to expect from the new low-profile mechanical keyboard. The Luma100 measures in at 37.1 × 12.85 cm with a stated 23 mm front height—presumably with keycaps installed. Aside from the low-profile design, all-aluminium chassis, and the 96% layout that preserves the num pad in a more compact footprint, the Luma100 has a number of interesting features that might interest potential buyers.

The most obvious difference between the Luma40 and the Luma100 is the layout, but the Luma100 also has a gasket mount, as opposed to the tray mount of the Luma40. The Luma100 also uses much more conventional keycaps, with ABS DSA low-profile keycaps with shine-through legends to match the Luma100's north-facing RGB backlighting. Additionally, the Luma100 follows a much more conventional row-staggered layout, ditching the Luma40's ortholinear design. The switches in the Luma100 are similar to the Luma84's, though, being that they seem to be based on the Gateron Low-Profile 2.0 switch standard, although it seems as though Epomaker has commissioned a custom switch for the Luma100, since the switches shown off in a recent unboxing video are unlike other Gateron switches, featuring clear PC housings and a light green stem.

Crimson Desert, the upcoming open-world action-adventure game from indie studio, Pearl Abyss, is finally closing in on its March 19 launch date, and as part of the lead-up to the launch, Pearl Abyss has officially published the minimum hardware requirements for both PC and console, including a proper dedicated handheld spec sheet that should give owners of the ASUS ROG Ally and Xbox Ally handheld gaming PCs an idea of what to expect. On the Xbox Series X and the Sony PlayStation 5, players can choose between Performance, Balanced, and Quality graphics settings, all of which with their own framerate targets and render quality settings. Performance targets 1080p resolution with 60 FPS, VRR or VSync enabled and ray tracing set to low.

Balanced bumps up the resolution to 4K upscaled from 1280p with FSR 3 and targets 40 FPS with Vsync, while Quality scales 1440p to 4K with FSR 3 and targets 30 FPS with Vsync enabled. The PS5 Pro steps up all quality settings to 4K, with Performance and Balanced using Upgraded PSSR upscaling to upscale 1080p and 1440p with 60 FPS and 48+ FPS with VRR, respectively. Quality mode on the PS5 Pro goes straight for 4K native at 30 FPS with Vsync and ray tracing on ultra. For the Xbox Series S, there are only two quality settings: Performance, at 720p, 40 FPS with Vsync and RT off, or Quality, at 1080p, 30 FPS with RT off. The Xbox Series X, on the other hand, offers Performance, with 1080p at 60 FPS with VRR or Vsync and RT set to low; Balanced, with 4K upscaled from 1280p with FSR 3, at 40 FPS with RT on low; and Quality, which is 4K upscaled from 1440p with FSR 3, at 30 FPS with RT set to high.

Pragmata is an upcoming fresh original sci-fi action-adventure IP out of Capcom, and if the studio's claims are to be believed, there is a lot of hype for an interesting new game franchise in a world full of remakes and copycats. According to a recent post on X by the Pragmata Japan account, the game's demo has been downloaded over 2 million times, and over 2 million players have added Pragmata to their wish lists.

According to independent data on SteamDB, Pragmata currently ranks 15th in the Steam Wishlist charts, just ahead of the Valve Steam Deck and behind Total War: Warhammer 40,000. Curiously, the Pragmata Sketchbook Demo's SteamDB page only records a peak concurrent player count of 7,932 players, although Pragmata will be a cross-platform launch, so there's likely decent interest on the PlayStation 5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series consoles. Pragmata is slated to launch on all aforementioned platforms and on PC via Steam on April 17, 2026. Pragmata also already has a Platinum ProtonDB rating, meaning it should play well with Linux and the Steam Deck.

During the development of GTA VI, Rockstar was hacked and had its data—much of it related to GTA VI—stolen by the aforementioned hacker, and although the hacker was arrested and is currently serving time for the hacks of both Rockstar and numerous other companies, he claims that the GTA VI source code he obtained during his raid is still being kept by someone external to Rockstar. According to @videotechuk_ on X, the hacker who cracked Rockstar's security in 2022, Arion Kurtaj, has managed to smuggle a smartphone into the UK prison where he is being held and has been using it to communicate with the outside world via WhatsApp. In one message thread, Kurtaj claims that the Grand Theft Auto VI source code was successfully stolen and is still being held by "someone" external to Rockstar.

The hacker is apparently surprised that the source code has not yet been made public—the hacker, aka Lapsus$, stole 90 unreleased GTA VI clips, some of which were released, but he never did publish the game's source code. Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive have been taking aggressive measures to prevent leaks surrounding GTA VI, with it being speculated that the company's recent return-to-office mandate and a series of contested layoffs were both attempts to catch or prevent leaks of the hotly anticipated installment in the GTA franchise.

ASUS recently announced the NUC 16 mini PC at CES 2026, with the NUCs confirmed to feature Intel's Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs, LPDDR5X-9600 RAM, and Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics. When the NUC Pro 16 was revealed, pricing and availability were somewhat nebulous, but that information has been partially revealed ahead of launch thanks to @realVictor_M on X.

According to the leaker, who cites what appears to be leaked Chinese press materials, the NUC 16 Pro with the Intel Core Ultra X7, 32 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of NVMe storage will cost RMB 10,999, which converts to roughly $1,600 ($1,591.50 exactly, at the time of writing). Part of this high pricing is likely to be a direct result of the current memory crisis caused by AI center demand, but it should also be noted that international pricing is rarely ever as simple as a currency conversion, so expect prices to be somewhat higher than that $1,600 when the mini PC launches internationally. It's also notable that ASUS originally cited the Intel Core Ultra X9 as the high-end CPU spec for the mini PC, and the pricing cited by the leak is for the X7 version. Currently, the Chinese launch looks to be scheduled for March 11, so an international launch should follow shortly thereafter.

Valve has been working to improve SteamOS since the launch of the Steam Deck, and the latest SteamOS and Steam Client updates out of Valve combine a whole host of bug fixes that were previously fed into the testing streams. Most notably of the lot are the changes to the accessibility and Steam Input options, but Valve also fixed a few issues that have been part of the SteamOS experience for some time, including flickering UI elements, low-resolution thumbnails on the Recent Games screen of the game library, and issues with button mapping and Switch Pro controller LEDs coming on when they're not supposed to. There are also some additional improvements to features like family sharing and high contrast theme options, but the most interesting addition comes by way of the generic SteamOS 3.7.20 release.

SteamOS 3.7.20 officially merges the NTsync driver from a previous beta release into the mainline OS version, which is a change that could see some games get notably higher performance in some instances. NTsync is a Linux kernel driver that's been in a stable state for a little over a year, but in essence, it aims to increase performance by more closely matching Windows NT synchronization when using the Proton compatibility layer. Other versions of Proton and WINE have had NTsync for a while as a performance booster, but now Valve has added official support for it to the kernel, leaving less development work in the hands of the community and Valve itself. NTsync promises performance uplifts in some games, although not all of them, and it won't always necessarily offer better performance than the existing Fsync, but it gives Linux gamers another option to use when they're tinkering with Proton settings to eke out that last drop of performance.

Heart Machine, the studio behind Hyper Light Drifter, its spiritual successor, Solar Ash, and its actual successor, Hyper Light Breaker, recently implemented a round of layoffs following the launch of Hyper Light Breaker, and it appears this round of layoffs—the second in recent memory—has not been taken lightly by the remaining developers at the studio. According to a recent report by Game Developer, employees at Heart Machine have officially joined the CWA (Communication Workers of America) in a voluntary bargaining agreement in the name of job security and workers' rights. The union members are reportedly currently evaluating their priorities and what they plan to bargain for, but the developers at the studio say that the justification for joining the union is to be able to protect the craft and the creative collaboration that enables game designers and video game workers to create "something they'd want to play themselves." According to an announcement by The CWA, a majority of workers at Heart Machine signed the unionization agreement, meaning contracts at the studio will now be drawn up with CWA representation.

Unionization has been something of a trend in recent years in the video game industry, with video game voice actors joining the protracted
SAG-Aftra strike in 2024 and 2025 seeking protections against the exact sorts of layoffs that previously affected Heart Machine developers, in addition to protections against the AI systems currently taking over the gaming industry. 2025 also saw the launch of the United Video Game Workers' Union, which seeks similar protections against practices like layoffs in the name of profit. A recent video game industry survey also indicated that as many as 82% of video game workers support unionization, with younger workers responding even more positively. The news of Heart Machine joining the CWA also follows the announcement that EA is cutting an unspecified number of jobs at its Battlefield 6 studios.

Not too long ago, Colorful released its iGame Lab Vulcan NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs, which feature a clean white design language. Now, the GPU maker has announced a new Mini-ITX case to go with those GPU designs. The Colorful iGame Lab Vulcan Armor chassis is a 617 × 186.6 × 210 mm, or roughly 24 L in volume. Colorful specifically lists compatibility with its iGame RTX 5070 Ti Vulcan W OC, 5080 Vulcan W OC, 5090 D v2 Vulcan W OC 24 GB, and 5090 D Vulcan W OC 32 GB, since those are the GPUs that feature the shroud design that fits into the dedicated cutout on the side of the chassis, which exposes the GPU intake fans to fresh air.

The chassis offers support for up to 240 mm radiators—and comes with a 240 mm radiator, rated at 240 W TDP, with slim fans pre-installed—and SFX PSUs up to 110 mm long. While the chassis is technically designed for Colorful's own GPU shrouds, it technically fits 3-slot GPUs up to 373.2 mm long—an enterprising modder could likely fairly easily 3D print a bracket to fill make up for any discrepancies between the case cutout and the GPU shroud on third-party designs. The case also sports a magnetic attachment base on the top panel for attaching things like the Colorful Vulcan screen. Front I/O consists of a USB 3.2 Type-C port and dual USB 3.0 ports. International pricing and launch dates have not yet been confirmed at the time of writing.

The latest in a long line of layoffs and budget cuts affecting the gaming industry comes by way of EA, who has just been confirmed to be laying off developers across all four studios that worked on Battlefield 6—those being Criterion, Dice, Motive, and Ripple Effect. This is according to a report by IGN, although it's unclear how many employees will be affected by the layoffs. Battlefield 6 has seemingly been one of the most successful Battlefield game so far, allegedly topping 7 million unit sales in the first three days following the October 2025 launch, making it a big revenue driver for record profits in Q3 2025. As of the time of writing, Battlefield 6 has peaked at 747,440 concurrent players on Steam, with daily concurrent player counts peaking at around 65,000-70,000 players. Part of EA's justification for the layoffs is "feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs," so perhaps part of the reason for the layoffs is players moving from Battlefield 6 to the free-to-play Battlefield RedSec.

When asked for comment by GameIndustry.biz, EA said that "We've made select changes within our Battlefield organization to better align our teams around what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our biggest priorities, and we're continuing to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs." This round of layoffs comes mere weeks after EA laid off an unknown number of developers at Full Circle, the studio behind Skate. These layoffs are seemingly part of EA's plan to cut costs following a recent acquisition by a consortium of investors in late 2025.

Xiaomi's upcoming Book 14 laptop has leaked online, revealing the expected specifications for the upcoming thin-and-light productivity laptop. According to Digital Chat Station on Weibo, the Xiaomi Book 14 will feature Intel's Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs, specifically the Core Ultra 5 325 and Core Ultra X7 358H, with either 24 GB or 32 GB of memory and 1 TB of storage. This means that the Xiaomi Book 14 will be available in at least one configuration with Intel's impressive new Arc B390 iGPU, which has proven itself in both gaming and creative workloads aside from the usual productivity fare.

Following DCS's post, Aura Pig also posted on Weibo about the upcoming MacBook competitor, stating that the both the build quality and battery life of the Xiaomi Book 14 were impressive. The 14-inch display is also touch-enabled, although the laptop is purportedly squarely in the premium category, suggesting a high price. The current-gen Xiaomi Book 14 tops out at 16 GB of memory and is only available with Intel's 12th-Gen CPUs and up to 512 GB of storage, so the new model will be a significant upgrade in terms of performance and convenience if the leaked specifications are any indication. Weight on the new Book 14 will be slightly lower than the old model, at around 1 kg compared to the 1.37 kg in the current Book 14.

Leaks about an upcoming Razer Viper V4 Pro have been circulating for a while now, with multiple e-sports pros seemingly using the new mouse in competitive tournaments. Now, though, the new wireless mouse has effectively been confirmed by two separate posts showing off early retail appearances of the Viper V4 Pro. First, a Reddit user posted in-store images of the Viper V4 Pro retail packaging that had seemingly accidentally been put in the storefront ahead of launch, and although the post was subsequently deleted by the r/MouseReview subreddit user, it didn't stop the images from showing up on X. For the most part, it seems like an iterative update to the existing Viper V3 Pro, as was expected, given the specs of the DeathAdder V4 Pro.

The aforementioned retail box gives us a good idea of what to expect from the Viper V4 Pro—that is, a minor sensor update to the Razer Focus Pro 50K, new Razer Optical Gen 4 switches, a Razer optical scroll wheel, and a 49 g total weight. Notably, the sensor is a slight improvement over even the Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro, although much of the rest of the mouse's specifications are practically identical. As expected, the Viper V4 Pro adopts the same more efficient and lower latency dome-shaped wireless receiver as the DeathAdder V4 Pro, replete with 8K polling and a claimed 180-hour battery life. According to Danish computer store, ComputerSalg, where the Viper V4 Pro was prematurely launched as well, although without any photos, the mouse will also be available in white at launch, and it will cost a staggering $199 (DKK 1,290 converted excluding VAT). This is significantly more expensive than both the existing Viper V3 Pro and the DeathAdder V4 Pro, so it's likely a pre-launch placeholder or the price of some special edition colorway. All of this indicates that the Viper V4 Pro is likely to launch within the next few weeks, but it will have to contend with both the new tech in the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike and the slew of Chinese gaming mice with similar hardware specs and much lower pricing.

Given the current state of the gaming industry, rumors have started to emerge about the next-gen gaming console launches, with previous rumors claiming that the PlayStation 6 would launch alongside a new standalone PlayStation Portable gaming handheld, and that the PS6 would have less graphical processing power than the upcoming Xbox console. In a new post on YouTube, ubiquitous leaker and industry insider, Moore's Law is Dead, claims that the PS6 Orion—the living room console—will feature 2.5-3× the rasterization performance of the PS5 and 6-12× the ray tracing performance of the PS5, or 3-6× faster ray tracing than the PS5 Pro and roughly twice the raster performance of the PS5 Pro. This is thanks to a significantly faster RDNA 5 GPU with 52-54 CUs running at around 2-3.6 GHz and delivering around 34-40 TFLOPS of theoretical performance.

The leaker also shot down rumors that recently surfaced claiming that the PlayStation 6 may be delayed to as late as 2029 due to the ongoing memory crisis, stating that the nature of memory and APU fabrication contracts make it unlikely that the PS6 will be delayed that long. Instead, we may see a brief period of increased pricing or scarcity at launch. Apparently, according to his sources, Sony has a contract with TSMC to start mass-producing the PS6 as early as Q2 2027. MLID also mentions the AMD "Canis" APU slated to arrive in the PS6 handheld console, claiming that it will feature four Zen 6c cores, two Zen 6 LP cores (for running the operating system), and 16 RDNA 5 CUs running at 1.6-2 GHz with a 15 W total board power, all being fed by LPDDR5X memory over a 192-bit bus. All of this will allegedly be targeting 1080p gameplay with a significantly higher power limit when docked. He also speculates that the handheld will feature "vastly better" ray tracing than the PS5.

Valve's announcement of the Steam Machine has generated a lot of excitement amongst PC gamers and apparently more than a little consternation in the ranks of traditional console makers, although the recent announcement that pricing for the upcoming living room PC is delayed due to the RAM shortage has poured a bit of cold water on things. Adding to that disappointment, Valve recently softened its promise to deliver the Steam Machine and Valve Index in "early 2026" as it had initially promised.

In a recent Steam Year In Review news post, Valve says that "We shared recently that there have been challenges with memory and storage shortages, but we will be shipping all three products this year. More updates will be shared as we finalize our plans." Notably, however, this previously read "We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us," according to VideoCardz, but the verbiage has since been changed. The Steam Store page for the Steam Machine only lists "coming soon" in the release date section, but it's also curious that Valve seems steadfast in its plans to release the Steam Frame, Machine, and Controller simultaneously, despite the potential delays in delivering the hardware.

Intel's Core Ultra 7 270K Plus was recently leaked in an upcoming HP prebuilt desktop PC, ostensibly once more confirming the imminent launch of the new Arrow Lake Refresh desktop CPUs. Now, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus has appeared in PassMark's benchmark charts, potentially both confirming the specifications of the mid-range Arrow Lake Refresh and setting expectations of performance for the new CPUs. According to PassMark, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus scored 50,478 points in the CPU benchmark, coming out around 16% faster than the 14-core Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 5 245 KF that preceded it.

That benchmark score, although based on a single benchmark, puts the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus almost exactly halfway between the Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 7 265K, which is not a terrible place to be. According to previous leaks, now somewhat validated by this benchmark score, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus will add four additional E-cores over the original 14-core Core Ultra 5 245 CPUs, for a total of 18 cores and 18 threads—6 P-cores and 12 E-cores.

Slay the Spire 2, the much-awaited successor to the indie roguelike deckbuilder, has finally launched on Steam, and within 24 hours of launch, it has rocketed to the top of the Steam Sales Chart and recorded some impressive player count figures. According to SteamDB, Slay the Spire 2 has attracted a peak of 430,456 concurrent players during its first 24 hours out the gates, and it has reached the number one spot in the Steam Sales chart, beating out both Marathon and Resident Evil Requiem for revenue on March 6, 2026. Mega Crit, the studio behind the game, even celebrated the game surpassing 179,456 concurrent players, marking it as "the highest ever for any roguelite."

By all indications, the indie game appears to have had a very successful launch, and the 97% positive review rating on Steam backs that up. The new installment in the game series builds on the gameplay and world of the original by adding new characters, cards, abilities, and secrets, but it notably adds a co-op mode as well. Judging by the Steam reviews, most of the improvements seem to successfully build on what made the previous game great without sacrificing anything in the process, and the multiplayer functionality seems to have been executed well, rather than shoehorned in for wider appeal.

There has been a lot of talk about the future of the Xbox gaming brand since it was announced that Phil Spencer would be stepping down as head of Microsoft's gaming business. The new CEO of Xbox, Asha Sharma, has previously defended against a barrage of this skepticism, revealing that she has in mind a "return to Xbox," and with new posts on X by both Xbox and Sharma, she confirmed that part of this return does indeed include a hardware launch. The next-gen Xbox is called Project Helix, and although neither Sharma nor Xbox itself has revealed much more about the next-gen console than the logo and project name, Sharma also hinted that more information may be revealed at GDC, which is slated to take place on March 9-13.

The next-gen Xbox has long been rumored, with recent rumors claiming that it will be a hybrid device, bridging the gap between a living room console and a PC—perhaps in response to the recent rise of devices like the Steam Deck and the pressure of the upcoming Steam Machine—and Sharma more or less hints at this in her post, stating that "Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games." This isn't the first time Sharma has spoken about the next-gen Xbox hardware platform, having mentioned it in a recent interview as a key part of the brand's future. Speculation about Sharma's leadership of Xbox has also veered into deep skepticism, largely resulting from Sharma's history as CEO of Microsoft's CoreAI platform and her willingness to use AI in the gaming industry, even if she claims that she will not tolerate AI slop.

ATK, maker of the Blazing Sky Duckbill mouse that launched in mid-2025 and the recently announced Yogo75 mechanical keyboard, has officially unveiled the launch date, design, and some specifications for its upcoming Zero wireless gaming mouse. The Zero takes a slightly different approach to most of ATK's other gaming mice, opting, instead of the usual ABS or forged carbon fiber, for a translucent, textured polycarbonate shell that will allow you to see the internals of the mouse. The Zero has been confirmed to be arriving in at least three translucent colorways: black, pink, and white, although ATK is known for having a wide variety of color options on most of its gaming mice.

According to the official teaser on X and a recent Reddit post, the ATK Zero will feature much of the same tech as has been present in many of the brand's more recent releases, including the Nordic 54L15 MCU, a PixArt PAW 3950 Ultra sensor with up to 42,000 DPI sensitivity and a 20,000 FPS mode, 8 kHz polling, and a 300 mAh battery. The aforementioned spec sheet also mentions a 39 g weight and dimensions coming in at 120.1 × 63.2 × 38.1 mm, making it almost identical to the Pulsar X2 CrazyLight Medium in terms of size, shape, and weight. The ATK Zero will feature custom ATK optical switches for the main clicks, a TTC Gold encoder for the scroll wheel, and pure PTFE skates. The launch date is currently set for March 11, although pricing is still unknown.

Marathon recently had quite a successful server slam weekend, drawing in nearly 150,000 players at one point on Steam alone. In the hours since its March 5 launch, it has consistently played host to around 80,000 concurrent players, showing that it wasn't just the free test drawing players into the new extraction shooter. However, it seems as though Bungie wants to include as many gamers in the fun as possible, according to the game's ESRB rating, which has recently been updated to include both the Xbox One and PlayStation 5 in addition to the previous ratings for PC, Xbox Series, and PlayStation 5 platforms.

Bungie has not confirmed whether it is planning to bring Marathon to older systems, but it's curious nonetheless that the game would receive a dedicated rating for last-gen consoles, especially since older games that launched on last-gen consoles but have since become playable on new consoles, like Destiny 2, have not been updated at the ESRB to include newer console generations in their ratings. Marathon's minimum hardware requirements for PC are far from high-end, calling for just an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT and an Intel Core i5-6600 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600 with 8 GB of RAM. The PS4, for its part, is powered by an AMD GCN 1.1.0 GPU with 1152 shading units, coming in at around 1.843 TFLOPS theoretical performance, which is substantially lower than the GTX 1050 Ti's 2.183 TFLOPS, but given the nature of tailored console hardware, it wouldn't be surprising if it could be run smoothly on the aging hardware. However, it has been reported that Marathon runs fairly well on Windows gaming handhelds, so it may be technically possible to get the game running on older consoles if the development team decides to put in the work.

Resident Evil Requiem recently launched as the newest installment in Capcom's zombie horror franchise, and although it received glowing reviews, even topping the Steam charts and handily beating out every other Resident Evil game on PC, gamers were a little disappointed to find out that the game was originally meant to feature a return to Raccoon City and the Spencer mansion from Resident Evil 1. According to prominent game leaker, Dusk Golem on X, part of the reason for the mansion scene being cut from Requiem was to avoid repetition in both the upcoming Code Veronica remake and a Resident Evil 1 remake.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of Resident Evil Requiem is now live]

According to the leaker, Resident Evil 1 is confirmed as being in early development, and a Code Veronica will be the next game in the series, which would mean having gameplay in the same mansion in three successive games, which, in the leaker's own words would "start to feel very samey & not very special at all." Resident Evil Code Veronica Remake is slated to launch in 2027, although the Resident Evil 1 remake is still in the early stages of development, so it seems like a 2029 release date would be the earliest we can expect. Supposedly, the remake will be in the updated RE Engine in which Requiem was also made and demonstrates decent visuals and performance, even with modest hardware requirements.

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.