Eidos Montreal announced earlier this week in a LinkedIn post that it was laying off 124 of its employees and that its studio director, David Anfossi was leaving. The studio explained that the layoffs are a result of necessary cost-cutting measures and evolving project needs. The layoffs would affect both production and support teams, and the studio says that they are necessary cuts to allow the studio to concentrate its efforts where it can be most effective. Now, new reporting seems to suggest that the layoffs may have been partially caused by a game whose budget had ballooned and caused financial strain in the studio.

Following the layoffs, Insider Gaming reports that Eidos, who had previously worked on Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, has also cancelled Wildlands, an in-development open-source action-adventure game that the studio had been working on for seven years. The publication reports that WIldlands had had a somewhat troubled development cycle prior to its cancellation, with the team having gone through four different game engines and burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in budget. These reports are further backed up by Jason Schreier's comments on Reddit. Further, according to Insider Gaming's sources, the game was in the debugging phase and nearing completion before Embracer, Eidos's parent company, shut it down.

Since the launch of the Steam Deck and the subsequent competing Windows gaming handhelds, Microsoft has been working on improving its UI for gaming consoles, culminating with the recent adoption of the Windows Full Screen Experience, which was later renamed to Xbox Mode. The latest update to Microsoft's gaming experience, however, comes by way of the Xbox app and its overlay, as spotted by ROGAllyLife. These new features will be available to everyone using compatible hardware and the Xbox app, although they are still in the preview version of the app, so they may only reach mainline status in a few weeks. The biggest update is a new display widget that was added to the Xbox Game Bar overlay, which adds controls like display refresh rate, resolution, projection mode, and Auto Super Resolution, allowing users to test different display configurations without leaving their games.

Users can now also change notification placement in the Xbox app, allowing them to see notifications without completely disrupting the gaming experience. The Xbox app now allows for eight notification placement options—three positions along each screen edge—and this can also be customized from the Game Bar overlay instead of necessitating a potentially game-breaking app switch. These updates are just the most recent in Microsoft's efforts to make handheld gaming more feasible on Windows, but it remains to be seen how Microsoft will change the regular Windows 11 experience after its recent promise to address quality and usability complaints.

We recently heard from industry insiders that a $699 PlayStation 6 may still be theoretically possible, even with the current hardware market conditions resulting in steep prices for components like memory and storage. Shortly following that report, though, industry analyst, Matt Piscatella (via GamesRadar+) predicted that both the PlayStation 6 and the Xbox Helix consoles may cost as much as $999. He largely blames the AI industry demand and inflated hardware prices for the price increase, but noted that there isn't much certainty in the current hardware market, whether you're considering launch dates or pricing. Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games, a consultancy firm, noted that, with the recent price increases to the PS5 line-up, Sony may have "baked in potential future fluctuations...instead of raising prices more frequently and over a longer period of time."

Toto goes on to say that "I think $999 at least for one variant of the PS6 is not impossible," potentially alluding to a PS6 Pro, if current industry prices are anything to go by, but Joost van Dreunen, a video games professor at NYU, argues that "we're quickly moving towards a world in which a $1,000 console will be the norm, and console gaming will be a luxury expenditure." Van Dreunen goes on to predict that we may see the next-gen consoles start at a 50% higher price than the current generation, which would mean a $600 starting price for the base PS6 digital edition and somewhere in the region of $750 for the disc drive model. On the Microsoft side of things, this would put the base model Xbox Helix somewhere around $450, while the "Series X" version would be around $750. Sony is also slated to release a standalone handheld game console that has been commonly referred to as the PlayStation Portable, but there is no indication of pricing on that.

Rec Room, a social VR game that largely revolved around user-generated content and social mini-games for fun, has been added to the long line of games that will meet their doom in 2026. According to the game's developer, Rec Room will shut down on June 1, 2026, due to issues with sustainability and profitability. This is after the studio behind the game announced earlier this year that it was laying off roughly 50% of its development team and scaling back the game's scope due to similar issues. As the game studio explains in the announcements, it "never quite figured out how to make Rec Room a sustainably profitable business," and its "costs always ended up overwhelming the revenue" it earned.

This failure to find profitability is in spite of some rather impressive claims regarding player counts for Rec Room. According to the game studio, Rec Room reached over 150 million players and creators, and players spent a cumulative 68 thousand years in Rec Room. The studio blames a "recent shift in the VR market, along with broader headwinds in gaming," which have made profitability as a game studio all the more difficult. The game will officially shut down on June 1, 2026, along with the official website, servers, and player accounts, although players will be able to play the game until then, and all first-party content will be 80% off, while there will no longer be a requirement for a RecRoomPlus account for certain cosmetic features.

Microsoft recently revealed that Xbox Project Helix would be its next-gen gaming console and that it would play both PC and Xbox games, however, previous leaks tipped a rather high price tag for the upcoming console generation—some expect it to be upwards of $800. While this may have its effects on Microsoft's sales, it also has bigger implications for the wider console and gaming hardware market itself. According to notorious hardware leaker, KeplerL2, on the NeoGAF forums, the reduced pressure from Microsoft may be enough for Sony to raise prices on the PS6. There have also been rumors that Sony is planning a PlayStation 6 Portable, which would be a standalone device and could theoretically fill the gap left by Sony in the more affordable console space if this price prediction is true.

The leaker explains that their "current BOM estimate for PS6 is ~$760, so I would say $699 is still possible with a reasonable subsidy. The question is if Sony will even bother now that Xbox is not direct competition anymore." These comments come at a time when hardware prices have skyrocketed, and availability is low, thanks to the ongoing DRAM crisis largely caused by increased demand from the AI industry. This bill of materials cost estimate also assumes that there will be no decrease in memory or hardware costs, which is currently an unknown, with all the talk about AI being a bubble. Those same hardware shortages and price increases have been the justification for predictions of console delays and numerous cancellations by PC hardware manufacturers. It also recently came to light that Sony will be scaling back its PC port efforts, meaning fewer Sony exclusive games will end up on PC, giving players more of an incentive to buy the PS6, even if prices are somewhat inflated.

When Crimson Desert launched, its reviews—especially those from very early reviewers—were good, although less than stellar, however, the player retention figures painted a more positive picture. Now, it looks as though the reviews have caught up to those high early player counts, at least on Metacritic. As of the time of writing, the review aggregator site ranks Crimson Desert as the second highest-rated game of 2026 so far. With its 8.8 user score, Crimson Desert only trails Resident Evil Requiem, which has a strong lead, at 9.4 points. Following Crimson Desert are Pokémon Pokopia, with 8.5 points, Resident Evil Village Gold Edition, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Gold Edition, and Cairn, with 8.5, 8.4, and 8.3 points respectively.

When it comes to the Metascore, however, Pokopia still holds onto its number-one spot, with 89 points, trailed by Resident Evil: Requiem, at 89 points, and Mewgenics, with a score of 88. Meanwhile, Crimson Desert has not yet been reviewed enough for an overall review score, but it currently has a PC Metascore of 77, which is based on very divided reviews, some giving it as low as 50 points, while others give it as much as 100 points. It's clear Crimson Desert will have a lot of competition in 2026, though, given what a packed year it is stacking up to be in the gaming industry. Aside from the already-launched hits like Resident Evil, Pokémon Pokopia, and Slay the Spire 2, massive launches like GTA VI, Pragmata, and Gears of War: E-Day are also slated to launch in 2026.

It's no secret that the development of GTA VI has been a mammoth undertaking, but the exact figures have been a bit hazy, with previous estimates from early 2026 putting the game's total budget at around $2 billion. Now, thanks to an investigation by an internet sleuth, u/Due-Vanilla-8294 on Reddit, it seems as though Rockstar may have exceeded the $3 billion mark, with speculation putting the game's budget as high as $5 billion.

These estimations were based on recent financial filings by Rockstar and its parent company, Take-Two, wherein it was revealed that Rockstar had spent as much as $2.1 billion on salaries alone at its Rockstar North location since GTA VI went into full-scale production in 2019. Given that this is only one location's figures and that Rockstar had already started work on GTA VI long before it went into full-scale production, it has been speculated that, by the time it launches, Rockstar may have spent as much as $5 billion on GTA VI. So far, it seems as though GTA VI's high budget may have been worth it, with the game's launch trailer racking up 275 million views since it launched in 2024. GTA VI is also expected to launch at a substantial price premium, with previous rumors floating a $90+ MSRP.

Microsoft has officially announced its next Xbox Summer Games showcase, which will take place on June 7, 2026, showing off the latest of what Microsoft has in-store for gamers in 2026. While it's not yet been revealed what will be shown off at the game showcase, Microsoft did confirm that there will be a Gears of War: E-Day showcase immediately after the Xbox Games Showcase, in which we're likely to see at least a new trailer and maybe a release date for the upcoming Xbox shooter, which was revealed at the 2024 Summer Xbox Game Showcase and hasn't made much noise since, despite its 2026 release date.

The Xbox Game Showcase is slated to start at 10 AM PT on June 7, which is 14:00 UTC. It's already been all but confirmed via the game's Steam store page that Gears of War: E-Day will launch for both PC and Xbox, although not much else is known about the game other than that it will be a prequel set 14 years before the original Gears of War, and that it will be built on Unreal Engine 5.

PUBG: Blindspot launched at the beginning of February as a new 5v5 top-down shooter from the same studio and publisher as the original PUBG, but now, less than two months after the launch of the game, the developer, ARC Team, has announced that the new free-to-play tactical shooter will be shutting down on March 30, 2026. ARC Team says that, although the developers had tried to explore ways to improve the game based on player feedback, the studio is "no longer able to sustainably provide the level of experience we set out to deliver through Early Access."

PUBG: Blindspot has a fairly acceptable 72% positive rating on Steam, but player counts are rather low, with an all-time peak of just 3,251 concurrent players and a 24-hour peak of just 236 at the time of writing. PUBG: Blindspot is already delisted from Steam, and players will no longer be able to access the game. This is only one of a number of recent game closures, with other notable additions including Highguard and a number of other games that were in development, like those that recently got caught up in the Ubisoft reshuffle. Further, Riot recently laid off a number of staff from its 2XKO fighting game due to sustainability reasons, all of which seem to suggest that game studios are fighting for revenue more than ever and are unable to make it work long-term if their games aren't immediately successful.

It was recently revealed that Xbox's new CEO, Asha Sharma, is planning to announce a new Game Pass subscription tier in order to draw in more gamers, and, although there has been no official announcement from Xbox itself, it seems as though those rumors have been confirmed by Better xCloud, an open-source service that adds features to Xbox Cloud Gaming, in a recent analysis of the Game Pass update code.

According to a post by the Better xCloud official X account, there is a new Game Pass tier that uses the codename "Triton" in the Game Pass update code, and all of the games in the new tier are from first-party Xbox Game Studios, as opposed to regular Game Pass, which features games from third-party developers as well. The exact pricing Xbox will use for the new Game Pass tier is still unknown, but there has been speculation that it will be an ad-supported free or low-cost subscription. This first-party approach could theoretically allow Microsoft to keep costs down, effectively eliminating licensing costs from the equation. It would also be a way for Microsoft to leverage the numerous studio acquisitions it has made during the last few years. There have also been talks of a partnership between Xbox and Netflix for bundled subscriptions, so this may be the groundwork for that.

Microsoft unceremoniously killed off the "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign in mid-March, shortly after the new CEO, Asha Sharma, took office, with all but a few traces of the campaign disappearing from the world-wide web in the blink of an eye. Now, in response to Windows Central, Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, has explained why she decided to retire the unfortunate branding so soon after it was launched. The response issued by Microsoft, which is rather short, explained that "Asha retired 'This is an Xbox' because it didn't feel like Xbox," with the representative going on to say that Asha is "personally leading a reset of how we show up as a brand."

This isn't the first time we've seen mention of a reset from Asha or Xbox representatives under Asha's leadership. Since it was announced that Asha would be taking over from Phil Spencer, she has been pushing her messaging of a "return to Xbox," although her efforts have sometimes been more successful than others. In addition to the new messaging, Sharma recently confirmed the future of Xbox hardware with the announcement of Project Helix, which Sharma confirmed will be able to play both Xbox and PC games when it launches. It would not be surprising to learn that Sharma was also behind the simplification of other branding, like the switch from "Full Screen Experience" to "Xbox Mode" that was also recently revealed.

Alongside the official Nintendo Switch 2 launch of Warframe, Digital Extremes recently shipped its "The Shadowgrapher" update with a new quest, Warframe, and game mode for all platforms. Almost immediately after the update went live, gamers were online griping about the difficulty of the new mission, Follie's Hunt, with most complaints centering around the unkillable foe, and some even going so far as to say that the mission was impossible for most to complete. Now, having seen the feedback, Digital Extremes has shipped a hotfix with changes to Follie's Hunt that aim to make it more approachable and less punishing. Digital Extremes explains that it interpreted much of the feedback as a design mismatch—Follie's Hunt is a "deviation from regular Warframe gameplay...so understandably there may be some players who don't align with its design," reads the post announcing the upcoming changes, which will be implemented and iterated on in the coming weeks.

With the first Follie's Hunt update, Digital Extremes has made the Follies hunting players less brutal by removing their invulnerability. Players seeking reprieve can now shoot Follie, and she will retreat momentarily if enough damage is dealt. Further, Follie's Aura doesn't do as much damage to players, and Inky Walls will no longer damage players or inflict knock-down, increasing survivability. Resources are also now easier to find and gather: Atramentum balloons are easier to see; there are fewer balloons to find, and the Atramentum reward per mission has been increased from 5 to 15. The patch notes also contain a slew of unrelated changes, and Digital Extremes has already said it will be monitoring player feedback to see what more needs to be done to make the gameplay fun.

A recent leak claimed that Sony would be increasing the price of the PlayStation 5 across the board by as much as €100 in Europe, although it was unclear at the time whether the US and other international markets would see the same price increases. Now, thanks to an official PlayStation Blog post, Sony has confirmed the extent and details of the price increases, which apply the US, UK, Europe, and Japan. Starting on April 2, US buyers will pay $649.99 for the PS5, $599.99 for the PS5 Digital Edition, and $899.99 for the PS5 Pro, while UK buyers see the PS5 go up to £569.99, the Digital Edition increase to £519.99, and the PS5 Pro spike to £789.99. In Europe prices increase to €649.99, €599.99, and €899.99 for the PS5, PS5 Digital Edition, and PS5 Pro, respectively. In Japan, the PS5 increases to ¥97,980, while the PS5 Digital Edition and PS5 Pro increase to ¥89,980 and ¥137,980, respectively.

The price of the PlayStation Portal will also increase in all the aforementioned regions to $249.99 in the US, £219.99 in the UK, €249.99 in Europe, and ¥39,980 in Japan. Meanwhile, Sony has confirmed that price increases are inbound for South-East Asia—specifically Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—but it has not yet revealed the exact price changes, stating that the blog would be updated at a later date. Sony blames the price increases on "pressures in the global economic landscape," which is not particularly specific, but it's likely that at least part of the price increase is down to the current RAM and general hardware shortages and price increases caused by outsized demand from the AI industry.

Aside from the recent accusations made in court by the New York State Attorney General, Valve's Counter-Strike 2 _has a bit of a sordid history when it comes to case farmers and bots, thanks to its strong in-game item economy, which raked in over $1 billion in 2025. In a recent post on Reddit, Valve's Ido Magal revealed that the gaming giant has just issued 960,000 bans using Valve Anti-Cheat.

These sorts of bans are often celebrated by the Counter-Strike community, because, aside from interfering with the CS2 skin and key market, farming accounts generally have a negative effect on gameplay, either throwing matches by being AFK in-game or by having the match played by bots. After revealing the ban wave, Magal encourages players to report farming bans by email (csgoteamfeedback@valvesoftware.com).

Following Intel's recent launch of the Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop CPUs, Maingear has announced three new MG-1 series pre-built desktop PCs based on the new Intel Arrow Lake Refresh CPUsf. All three PCs feature the same Maingear Epic 360 AIO cooler, MG-1 case, and case fan setup, consisting of 3× 120 mm RGB intake fans, 2× 120 mm exhaust fans, and 1× 120 mm RGB rear exhaust fan. Front I/O is also identical across all three models, featuring dual USB 3.2 Type-A ports, a single USB 3.2 Type-C port, and a 3.5 mm combo audio jack, and the MG-1 PCs all come with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. All three MG-1 systems also come with the same 32 GB of DDR5-6000 memory running in dual-channel configuration and a 2 TB T-Force A440 Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD, and are preloaded with "Bloatware Free" Windows 11 installations. Gamers also receive a free copy of Resident Evil: Requiem and the Intel Holiday Bundle, which offers the choice of Battlefield 6, Assassin's Creed: Shadows, Sid Meier's Civilization VII, or Dying Light: The Beast.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus CPU is now live]

The Maingear MG-1 Emerald is the least expensive version of the Intel Core Ultra 200S series PCs, coming in at $2,549, and is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus with 18 cores (6 P-Cores, 12 E-Cores) and 18 threads in an MSI Z890 Gaming Plus WiFi motherboard, paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 12 GB GPU and an MSI 850 W I + Gold PSU. The $3,549 Maingear MG-1 Sapphire gets the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus with 24 cores (8 P-Cores, 16 E-Cores), an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB, and the same motherboard as the Emerald. The top-end Maingear MG-1 Amethyst keeps the same Intel Core Ultra 7 270K but bumps up the GPU to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB, with an MSI MEG Z890 Ace motherboard, a 1250 W 80+ MSI PSU, and a whopping $5,199 price tag. The MG-1 case used in the Amethyst, Emerald, and Sapphire pre-built PCs is compatible with Maingear's MG-1 Panels, which are themed front panels that can change up the look of a PC build.

For many, one of the factors that helped build hype for Crimson Desert leading up to the game's recent launch was its lenient minimum and recommended system requirements, and Pearl Abyss delivered on much of that hype, even though there were issues with Intel Arc GPUs at launch. Overall, the game boasted high player counts and positive retention post-launch, and Korean publication, Inven, reports that the game sold over 2 million units on launch day and 3 million within four days. Pearl Abyss has also reportedly started the R&D process for a potential Nintendo Switch 2 port of Crimson Desert.

According to Pearl Abyss CEO, Heo Jin-Young, there will be a compromise in graphical quality with a potential Switch 2 port, but he also notes that the studio cannot make any promises about a future Switch 2 release. However, the studio is committed to expansion into multiple platforms, including mobile, as a medium-to-long-term strategy. The studio is also considering the possibility of mods for Crimson Desert, but it seems reluctant to support mods, because it would require the studio to open up parts of the proprietary game engine. Aside from the potential Switch 2 port, Pearl Abyss plans to support Crimson Desert in the long term with new content and by expanding on the game's existing content—all while the original core developers from Crimson Desert work on the studio's next title, DokeV, an open-world creature-collector action-adventure game that was announced in 2021 and is slated for launch sometime in 2028.

If you've been anywhere near the PC gaming industry recently, you'll have heard time and time again about companies increasing prices or delaying products due to memory shortages and price increases. While those price increases have affected the current-gen gaming consoles, with the PS5 Digital Disc Edition getting two €50 price increases in 2025, leaker @GyoJvfr on X has revealed that steeper price increases for the PlayStation 5 may be on the horizon, courtesy of a retail source.

According to the leaker's source, the entire line-up of current PlayStation hardware—even the PlayStation Portal—will see a price hike "soon," although the leaker does not have an exact price to share. Following the price hike, the PlayStation 5 Slim will cost €649.99, up from €549.99, while the PS5 Pro will increase from €799.99 to €899.99, and the PlayStation Portal will cost €249.99, up from €219.99. It's worth mentioning that it's unclear exactly how widespread the price increase will be, but recent hardware price increases have been global. No price increase was mentioned for the PS5 Digital Slim Edition, but presumably, it will also receive a €100 price increase.

V Rising is one of those indie games that found a niche and excelled at delivering what its player base asked of it, earning a Very Positive Steam user review score of 89%. That being the case, players have been clamoring for a sequel or its successor. In a recent blog post, however, Stunlock Studios revealed that it would not be making a sequel to V Rising, stating that "the journey to Dracula is a complete one as it stands." Instead, the game studio is working on a new game in the same universe as V Rising, although it's still early days, so it did not share much else about the game.

Being that the new Vampire game will still take place in the same universe as V Rising, it seems logical to conclude that it will be a spiritual successor, but Stunlock also calls the new game "our most ambitious project yet in our 15-year history of making games." Not much else has been revealed about the successor to V Rising, but the studio has also commented that the new game is being designed around the studio's ambitions, commenting that "while the core workings of V Rising are strong and have allowed us to construct a wonderful bastion of dark Vampire delights, that foundation can also be limiting." This suggests something more than a few extra mechanics, better graphics, a longer story, or a bigger world, and the game studio later said that "Our next game will invite you to explore your darkest whims in a world of greater depth, danger, and mystery than ever before," suggesting that there will be more to it than the current survival RPG genre V Rising slots into.

Khadas recently unveiled its Mind Pro mini PC, powered by Intel's Panther Lake CPUs, alongside its modular eGPU solution, which is powered by the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, but the brand has recently announced that the ongoing hardware shortages caused by the AI boom have resulted in the brand needing to hike prices for the entire series and delay or potentially cancel some versions of the mini PC altogether. In a recent statement regarding the pricing of the Khadas Mind Pro Pricing, Khadas references the ongoing PC hardware availability issues and says that, while it will be increasing prices for the Mind Pro, it has "chosen to keep this price adjustment as minimal as possible" by absorbing part of the price increase.

It goes on to explain that the Khadas Mind Pro with the Intel Core Ultra X7 and 64 GB of memory will see a $300 price increase, from the pre-order price of $1,999 to a new MSRP of $2,299. Additionally, the brand has had to delay the launch of the Intel Core Ultra X9 version of the mini PC with 96 GB RAM and the Core Ultra X7 model with 32 GB of memory. It cites a disproportionate increase in memory costs for the 96 GB DDR5-9600 modules used in the high-end version as the reason for the delay in the high-end model. The brand didn't exactly explain why the Mind Pro X7 with 32 GB of memory was delayed, but it did explain that the Core Ultra X7 version that remains available is the best balance between price and performance. It might also be the version that is most likely to sell the most units and where Khadas can generate enough profit to cover some of the increased memory costs. Until the pre-order period is over, the Mind Pro mini PC with the Core Ultra X7 will carry the same $500 discount from the new MSRP, coming in at $1,799 ahead of the March 27 pre-order closure.

It's no secret that Hades has been a hit indie franchise, with Hades 2 garnering 112,947 concurrent players on Steam when it launched out of Early Access. Now, as of April 14, 2026, almost exactly two years after the Early Access launch, Hades 2 will also be available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles as well as Xbox Game Pass and Game Pass PC. The indie roguelite hack-n-slash game will be launching to consoles with all of the patches and improvements that have been released on PC during the game's time on Steam.

Hades 2 is currently available for pre-order on the Xbox store for $23.99, but it will retail at $29.99 on release day. Both Microsoft's gaming handheld and the Steam Deck have shown that Hades 2 does not require top-of-the-line hardware to run, but it's reassuring for console gamers to know that Hades 2 will support both 4K resolution and 120 FPS for the Xbox platforms. Hades 2 follows the Melinoë, the sister of Zagreus, the protagonist of the original Hades game, as she plots her way through the winding underworld packed with figures from Greek mythology. The Hades 2 console launch trailer follows.

Marathon launched almost exactly three weeks ago, with a mix of both fanfare and criticism, but given its reasonably strong player counts—with a stable 28,000-40,000 daily concurrent players—it's not surprising to learn that the game has sold an estimated 1.2 million units across the three platforms where it is available. According to Alinea Analytics, Marathon has earned $55 million in revenue across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox platforms. The analytics firm estimates that Steam holds around 800,000 of those players, while Marathon sold 217,000 units on PlayStation 5 and 133,000 on Xbox Series platforms.

The researchers also looked into the correlation between Bungie's previous games and Marathon, and it seems as though the developer's reputation may have been a substantial driving force for Marathon players. As many as 78.2% of Marathon's Steam players had previously played Destiny 2, while 62.7% had played Helldivers 2, and 55.9% played Arc Raiders—although it should be noted that all three titles had colossal player counts, so some of this may be pure coincidence, and some of it could also be attributed to Steam's recommendation algorithms, which would be more likely to show Marathon to fans of similar Bungie games. There have also been rumors of Marathon potentially launching on last-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles, but nothing has been confirmed regarding that release just yet.

Super Meat Boy 3D, the 3D remake of the "tough-as-nails" platformer will officially launch on March 31, according to a new release date trailer published as part of an Xbox Partner Preview. It will be available for the Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam and the Xbox Store, the PS5, and for the Nintendo Switch 2 via the Nintendo eShop. It will also be a day-one Xbox Game Pass and Cloud gaming title, so it will see quite a wide release.

Super Meat Boy 3D is meant to be a 3D reimagining of the original 2D precision platformer that originally launched way back in 2010, which has sold an estimated 2.6 million+ units, according to conservative estimates. Pricing has not yet been announced for Super Meat Boy 3D, but the original Super Meat Boy still retails for $14.99 16 years after release. The 3D version of the game will require at least an AMD Ryzen 3 3100 or Intel Core i3-10100, 8 GB of memory, and an AMD Radeon RX 6400 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti or 1650 to play.

DLSS 5 has been under fire almost since the moment NVIDIA revealed the technology. While some, including some game developers and studios, have seen the ML-based technology as a positive for game development, and while there are still questions surrounding the practical applications of DLSS 5, many have criticized both NVIDIA and DLSS 5 for "sloppifying" games and drastically altering the artist's intent. Recently, David Szymanski and Dave Oshry, the game developer behind Dusk and Iron Lung, and the CEO of game studio New Blood Interactive, respectively, spoke about DLSS 5 in an interview with PC Gamer, echoing many of the concerns of gamers and leveling harsh criticisms at NVIDIA for the way it has handled the response to the new tech.

Oshry, who later expanded on the interview in a post on Bluesky, opened his comments by asking "First of all, who asked for this!?" and going on to say that DLSS 5 deviates from the original idea behind DLSS 5, which was fundamentally a technology used to increase frame rates using an upscaled image without substantial detail loss. He criticizes NVIDIA for calling a generative AI product DLSS, stating that "they're hiding this Gen AI bullshit behind the DLSS moniker because they think we're stupid," encouraging gamers to push back against the tech and vote with their wallets, "just like we did with NFTs and crypto games." Oshry mentions that one of the common defenses for DLSS 5 is that its optional, but goes on to question where tech like DLSS 5 leads while criticizing NVIDIA for recent hardware trends: "You know what's not optional? Paying more for less—which is what we've been doing with NVIDIA for years now." He continues along this line further down, comparing the tech to the other NVIDIA tech that either flopped or was left by the wayside, like 3Dvision and PhysX, and more modern tech, like RTX and Path tracing, all of which had their merits, questioning the merits of DLSS 5. "This is fundamentally changing the way video games look based on artificial intelligence that's been trained on Instagram models and Epstein memes. Are you serious?" The game developer closes off by sarcastically asking "At this rate, why make game art at all? Why not just draw some shapes and colors and let AI generate what it thinks it should look like? After all, who cares, the only thing that matters is "realism" right?" Oshry's full statement follows.

Valve has long been preparing its software stack for the arrival of both the Steam Machine and the upcoming Steam Frame, and the latest update sees the gaming giant add a long list of fixes, QoL improvements, and features to SteamVR as well as changes to the developer back-end in order to prepare for the Steam Frame. As pointed out by u/FantasySynthDev on r/Steam on Reddit, Valve's developer back-end now includes the option to select Android as a supported operating system—a change that delivers on Valve's promise to increase Android support for the Frame at GDC.

The new toggle seems to be there to indicate to users that there is an Android version of the game available, but the Redditor notes that checking the box and uploading an Android build does not yet make an Android version available for download in Steam, further suggesting that this is more preparation for the Steam Frame. Steam has also added documentation for the Android APK upload and VR testing workflows in the Steamworks documentation. While the Steam Frame and Steam Machine may not launch as early as many gamers had hoped, these changes to the back-end and documentation suggest that the new hardware may not launch as long after the "first half of 2026" plans as many feared when Valve declined to announce pricing earlier this year.

Digital Extremes has officially launched Warframe for the Nintendo Switch 2 with its Shadowgrapher update that also introduces the game's latest game mode and a new playable warframe, Follie. Warframe was available for the original Nintendo Switch and for the Switch 2 via the Switch 2 eShop, thanks to the handheld's forward compatibility capabilities, but this latest Switch 2 version is optimized for the new game console. According to the announcement, the Switch 2 version will be playable at 60 FPS and 1080p in both docked and handheld mode, with faster load times and Switch 2-optimized controls, including support for mouse mode using the right Joy-Con.

Warframe for Switch 2 also supports DLSS, better audio and shader quality, and volumetric lighting, meaning the game will look a lot more like it does on a reasonably powerful gaming PC—there was a noticeable decrease in quality on the original Switch. It also features cross-save and cross-play with other platforms, and players who log in on the Switch 2 between March 25 and April 15 will get a free Ambimanus pack with a Vericres Warfan weapon, a warfan skin, the Slicing Feathers mod, three-day affinity and credit boosters, a Broadsword Past/Future sigil, and the Buddies in Gaming glyph.

Just days after it was revealed that Nintendo would be cutting Switch 2 production by as much as a third, Nintendo USA has confirmed that it will be changing its pricing structure for Switch 2 exclusives, specifically relating to the digital editions. As of May 2026, digital versions of Switch 2 exclusive games will cost less than the physical versions, and the first game to receive the new pricing structure is Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, which retails at $59.99 for the digital version and $69.99 for the physical version.

As one might expect, Nintendo blames the increased cost of physical games on the cost of distribution, with physical media obviously requiring physical logistics channels and additional physical packaging and storage media, which increases costs. Nintendo's wording, which refers specifically to "new Nintendo published digital titles," suggests that this pricing change will not apply retroactively, at least not initially, suggesting that games like Pokémon Pokopia will still cost $69.99, regardless of whether they're physical or digital versions.

With the May 19 launch of Forza Horizon 6 just around the corner, Microsoft and Playground Games have officially revealed the minimum hardware requirements for the new racing game, and, at least on the low end, Forza Horizon 6 will not ask players for a lot when it comes to hardware. The minimum spec for the game to run is an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600 paired with 16 GB of RAM, an SSD, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, Radeon RX 6500 XT, or Intel Arc A380 GPU. This should make the game playable at 1080p, 60 FPS at low settings preset. For 1440p at 60 FPS and high settings, or the recommended hardware spec, Horizon 6 will demand an Intel Core i5-12400F or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, Radeon RX 6700 XT, or Intel Arc A580 GPU and 16 GB of memory.

The "Extreme" requirements, which target 4K native at 60 FPS, call for an Intel Core i7-12700K or AMD Ryzen 7 7700X with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT with 24 GB of RAM, while the "Extreme RT" option, which targets 4K upscaled with Ray Tracing enabled, bumps up the GPU requirement to an RTX 5070 Ti or an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT as well as requiring 32 GB of RAM and an NVMe SSD. The game also supports DLSS 4, AMD FSR 3 and 4, and Intel XeSS 2.1, as well as Ray Traced Reflections and Global Illumination, and the engine aims for "high, uncapped framerates," and will support both the Valve Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally handhelds, although there is no word on whether there will be a graphics preset for the handhelds.

Shine-through keycaps are one of the points of contention where the enthusiast keyboard market and fans of gaming and budget keyboards clash. With the rise of enthusiast-grade pre-built mechanical keyboards, though, things have become complicated, with buyers of mid-range and more affordable enthusiast-tier mechanical keyboards often longing for shine-through keycaps on those keyboards. This was one of the common gripes about Iqunix's Magi and MQ series low-profile mechanical keyboards when they launched, despite the overall positive community sentiment surrounding those keyboards. According to a new post by the official Iqunix team on r/Iqunix on Reddit, the brand has heard the community's feedback regarding shine-through keycaps and is planning to release shine-through keycaps for its MQ80 and Magi-series low profile keyboards.

Iqunix says it has not yet confirmed production with the OEM, but has reached out to the community in an interest check, since it will be small-batch production, and the brand needs 1,000 units spoken for before entering production. The idea with Iqunix prototyping and selling the keycaps itself is that it will color-match the keycaps with the aluminium keyboard cases and ensure compatibility with the Kailh Choc V2 low-profile switches and the north-facing lighting on the MQ and Magi-series keyboards. It has not yet released images of the keycaps on the Magi-series keyboards, but the white versions of the MQ80 and the Magi keyboards are two very different colors, with the Magi taking on a sort of creamy off-white color, suggesting that there will be three colorways for the keycaps. The keycaps will be PBT and follow the same profile as the original Magi and MQ80 keyboards—that is to say, uniform height with a spherical top.

Intel just announced the Arc Pro B70 and B65 GPUs with the Arc Xe2 Battlemage architecture, featuring 32 and 24 Xe2 cores, respectively—see TechPowerUp's launch coverage fore more details—but it did not include information on pricing or availability. Fortunately, for those interested in the workstation graphics cards, Newegg has listed the Arc Pro B70 online, spilling the beans on price and a prospective launch date.

According to the pre-order page, the Arc Pro B70 will cost $949.99 and launch on April 24, 2026. Unfortunately, there is no listing for the Arc Pro B65 just yet, but that should launch around the same time as the B70 and will likely be priced somewhere between the B60's current retail price of $659.99 and the Arc Pro B70's $949.99 price, thanks to the increased VRAM on the B65.

Lofree is no stranger to peculiar peripheral designs, with the brand having previously released devices like the Hypace wireless gaming mouse and the Lofree Flow 2, with all its ergonomic quirks. It seems as though Lofree's next release, the Hyzen keyboard, may be even more unique than even those examples. The Hyzen is a futuristic, but otherwise unassuming 65% keyboard made out of CNC-cut aluminium, but its design conceals a few nifty features and an entirely new switch design that supposedly combines the best of both mechanical and magnetic tech. The Hyzen will be a wireless keyboard with a gasket mount design, and Lofree claims that the 10,000 mAh battery can last up to 80 hours. It will launch on Kickstarter on April 23, but early bird reservations are available on the Lofree site ahead of the official launch. Kickstarter pricing plans include the tri-mode wireless version priced at $189 with a $299 claimed MSRP further down the line or a $169 wired version that will later retail for $279.

The Nexus switch is a hybrid mechanical switch, designed by Lofree in collaboration with Kailh, that features both a magnet in the stem for TMR functionality and metal contacts and pins for traditional mechanical operation. Lofree says that the new switch design, which it claims is the first of its kind, combines the tactile feedback of mechanical switches with the low latency, customizable actuation distance and analog features of TMR switches. Aside from the new switches, the keyboard also has a physical toggle that switches the number row to a function row, with the function indicated by a row of LEDs above the num row when the function row is active. The Hyzen also has a knob on the back edge for volume control and a switch to select between 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth, and wired operation. It will also be powered by a Nordic nRF54L series MCU and be capable of 8 kHz polling.

Shortly after AMD released FSR 4, claiming that the tech was exclusive to the latest RDNA 4 GPUs, the company seemingly accidentally published the libraries that make up the backbone of the tech, revealing that there may have been a version of FSR 4 planned for RDNA 3 and RDNA 2 GPUs. While this open-sourced oops was later used by modders to bring support to the aforementioned Radeon RX 7000 and 6000 GPUs, a recent Digital Foundry interview with Sony's Mark Cerny suggests that the INT8 version of FSR 4 may have been a compatibility version of the upscaling tech that would later make an appearance as Upgraded PSSR (or PSSR 2.0) on the PlayStation 5 Pro and its RDNA 2 GPU.

According to Cerny, "FSR Redstone and the new PSSR have somewhat different implementations due to the underlying hardware, e.g. FSR Upscaling uses 8-bit floating point and PSSR uses 8-bit integer." He adds that "in practice, the same model is used, but it's trained on different data, e.g. if targeting a 2:1 fixed upscale then the training data used is just for that upscaling ratio - and that different training results in different parameters...not seeing too much difference in results, the various flavors in the updated FSR Upscaling really are rather close to the new PSSR." He also mentions that, on PC, because players are generally so much closer to their monitors than living room gamers are to their TVs, the goals of FSR and PSSR differ slightly.

Asha Sharma has faced her fair share of criticism since stepping into the role of CEO of Microsoft Gaming earlier in 2026, but she has repeatedly made statements that she would try to guide the company in what she calls a "return to Xbox," with a focus on in-house hardware. According to a new report by The Information, one of Sharma's first moves as CEO of Microsoft Gaming will be to introduce a new lower-price tier of Game Pass in order to attract new gamers to the service and to make the service inticing to a broader range of consumers.

This comes shortly after Microsoft renamed the Windows Full Screen Experience to Xbox Mode, perhaps a rebranding in the name of unifying Microsoft's gaming offerings—a mission that is clearly part of Microsoft's plan, given that its next-gen console is confirmed to be a PC-console hybrid. Previously, there were rumors of an ad-supported tier for Xbox Cloud Gaming, but Microsoft also increased the price of Game Pass across the board as recently as October 2025. A Microsoft executive previously confirmed that Game Pass was profitable as a service, but that Xbox had to emphasize flexibility in its strategy, and introducing a cheaper Game Pass tier may be a viable way to draw in new Game Pass gamers, some of whom will presumably hop over to the more premium tiers, depending on Microsoft's implementation of the new entry-level tier.

There has been much said about OpenAI's Sora video app—both positive, about how the tech would make video creators and social media influencers obsolete, and negative, about how it would kill creativity and fill the internet with soulless slop—but it seems like neither side of that argument will ever get to find out if they were correct. In a recent post on X, OpenAI announced that it would be shutting down both the Sora app and API, suggesting a pivot away from video generation at OpenAI. A final date for the app and API closure has not yet been announced, but OpenAI says it will reveal more information soon.

Following the announcement, The Hollywood Reporter reported that a Disney spokesperson had confirmed that the media giant would be withdrawing a previously announced $1 billion investment into OpenAI's video generation model and product. Disney's statement reads: "As the nascent AI field advances rapidly, we respect OpenAI's decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere. We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators." The closure of Sora comes after backlash and legal action against OpenAI from a number of publishers, including Square Enix, Bandai Namco, and Nintendo over AI-generated videos created with some of their characters and other IPs.

One of the reasons players loved the original Splitgate game was its fast-paced, highly kinetic gameplay that relied as much on positioning as it did gunplay and tactics. Despite its somewhat rough start to life, Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, featured many of those same mechanics. In a recent video announcing Splitgate: Arena Reloaded Season 2, Ian Proulx, CEO of 1047 Games, announced that "a small section of the team" has started working on a new movement shooter that takes inspiration from Titanfall and Call of Duty Black Ops 3. While he doesn't share much more beyond that, Proulx did ask the community for feedback on what players would like to see from a game like that and has published a form for play-testers to apply to test the new game. The fact that the studio is already recruiting play testers suggests that the game has been in development for a good while. The studio was also sure to follow up the announcement with a post on X clarifying that 1047 Games is not abandoning Splitgate: Arena Reloaded now that there's another game in the works.

Proulx says that part of the reason for pursuing a new game is that 1047 Games has always had the dream of being a multi-game studio, and the timing of the announcement suggests that a second project may have been partly motivated by the recent backlash against 1047 Games following the middling launch of Splitgate: Arena Reloaded. For its part, Splitgate: Arena Reloaded Season 2 will launch before the end of March and introduce a number of new features, many of them based on community feedback, including a more cohesive theme, a new battle pass and accompanying skins, three new maps, a new biome that's a twist on a biome from Splitgate 1, and a classic Splitgate 1 TDM gameplay starts, which have been heavily requested by the community. Season 2 will also reintroduce time trial races from Splitgate 1, replete with user-created maps with their own leaderboards. Players will also be able to buy all of the Splitgate: Arena Reloaded Season 2 battle pass with the Splitcoin in-game premium currency instead of needing to spend real money aside from Splitcoin they may already have.

Not four months ago, we reported on Steam breaking 42 million concurrent players, but much like Crimson Desert's recent success, Valve's gaming platform doesn't seem to be slowing down, even during an unlikely time of year. According to SteamDB, Steam has once again broken its own record for concurrent players, reaching 42,318,602 players on Sunday, March 22, 2026, at 14:20 UTC. Steam's own statistics report a peak concurrent player count of 42,282,922 players, which is a little less than SteamDB reports, but still a record high.

Compared to February 2026, which itself was a slower month for the gaming giant, Steam saw an increase of over a million players at its peak. This doesn't necessarily mean all of those players were in-game—in fact, SteamDB reports that there were only 13,731,783 players in-game at the time of the new record. The new player count record was set on a Sunday, which tends to be Steam's busiest day of the week both for players on the platform and in-game. This new player-count record comes in spite of a recent spate of layoffs and studio closures, which have historically signalled a downturn in the gaming industry.

Epic Games has just announced a round of layoffs in an effort to save costs following a downturn in engagement on Fortnite. A recent post to the Epic Games news page explains that "The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded," and Epic says that the layoffs are part of company-wide cost-cutting measures that aim to reduce expenses by over $500 million in order to stabilize the company's finances. These other cost-savings measures will affect contracting, marketing, and hiring at the company, and any staff affected by the layoffs will receive severance packages of at least four months of base pay—with that amount increasing depending on tenure at the company.

The Epic layoffs will affect 1,000 workers, and Epic seems to blame both industry-wide challenged and its reliance on Fortnite as its major cash cow for its financial troubles, with Epic CEO, Tim Sweeney emphasizing that "the layoffs aren't related to AI," and explaining that Epic wants "as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can." He also goes on to say that Epic has struggled to deliver "Fortnite magic with every season," and noting that the game is in its early stages of returning to mobile platforms, but that the goal going forward will be to focus on "fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events," while focusing on Fortnite's user-generated content and on upgrading from Unreal Engine 5 to Unreal Engine 6. The full statement regarding Epic's layoffs follows.

Mozilla has officially launched Firefox 149.0, which is now available for download in the release channel. Firefox 149 introduces a number of bug fixes, many of which were announced in previous beta versions, but there are also a handful of new features that may significantly impact the user experience. Mozilla has taken a page out of Zen Browser's books with a new split mode for loading two webpages side-by-side in split view, introduced a free VPN and added a new "share" button to the toolbar. Firefox will also now automatically block website notifications and revoke malicious websites—as flagged by SafeBrowsing—by default.

Split view can be triggered by right-clicking a link and selecting the split tabs option or by selecting two tabs and clicking the split tabs button in the address bar. Firefox's free built-in VPN, which is directed at security-conscious users, allowing users to mask their location, hide their IP, and protect their data for free. The VPN will require a Mozilla account, there is a data cap of 50 GB per month, and the rollout is starting with France, Germany, the UK, and the US as of version 149's release. Firefox Labs also now features a tab notes feature, for which the developers are seeking feedback during this release. Firefox has also officially implemented hardware acceleration for PDFs, which means documents should load significantly faster. As usual, there is also a stack of under-the-hood changes to Firefox 149, like modern API implementations and a new TrustPanel, and you can check those out in the official update notes.

It was recently revealed that Nintendo is planning an updated Nintendo Switch 2 with a user-replaceable battery that is meant to comply with new EU rules on repairability. That device is reportedly not destined for the US, but Nintendo has also made a more recent change to the Switch 2 for the US market. Specifically, according to Bloomberg, Nintendo plans to cut production of the Switch 2 handheld by as much as 33% due to unexpectedly low US sales during the recent holiday period.

The new production guidelines will reportedly see Nintendo produce an estimated 4 million Switch 2 consoles during Q2, down from its initial 6 million-unit plan. Bloomberg's sources claim that Nintendo declined to increase production targets despite the successful launch of Pokémon Pokopia, instead opting to wait and see if recent releases for the platform will continue to perform well before producing more hardware. Part of the change could also be logistical in nature. Nintendo has previously acknowledged the increased memory and storage prices that have plagued the consumer electronics market of late, and the production cut is likely a move to reduce risk during a time when hardware is more expensive to produce.

Chuwi recently made news for all the wrong reasons, with Notebookcheck finding that the CoreBook Plus and CoreBook X laptops shipped with older, significantly worse, CPUs than the spec sheet claimed. Previously, AMD issued a statement on the matter, washing its hands of the incident and placing the blame squarely—and seemingly fairly—on Chuwi's head. Now, Chuwi itself has stepped up to the plate and issued a response regarding the false CPU advertising.

In a recent blog post, Chuwi blames a production error for the CoreBook X and CoreBook Plus CPU mix-up, stating that a "limited number" of the laptops were assembled with the incorrect CPUs. It goes on to say that affected users should contact Chuwi to request a refund by sending an e-mail to service@chuwi.com or by going through the original purchase channel. Chuwi notes that any returned and refunded devices will need to be in the "original condition with all accessories included," which may be impossible in some cases. The brand has also set a deadline of May 31, 2026, for returns, which is a little over two months from the date of the announcement.

It's no secret that Borderlands 4 launched with some serious performance issues, but 2K and Gearbox have long promised performance updates and fixes to improve stability and the overall gaming experience in the latest installment in the looter-shooter franchise. In a new update, 2K Games has walked through a number of changes that have been implemented and shown off some of the performance improvements that have been made in Borderlands 4 since the game's launch. Gearbox and 2K tested the game's v 1.5 update compared to the v 1.0.2 launch version across a number of in-game quality settings and with hardware configurations representing the minimum and recommended specs, as well as a typical high-end gaming rig, and found significant improvements in both average, 1% low, and 0.1% low FPS. The blog post detailing the testing and results claims around 20% performance improvement when comparing the launch version of Borderlands 4 to the March update, but things become more interesting when you look at how performance changed depending on the hardware and resolution.

The biggest changes noted in the test results were seen in the native resolution with no DLSS, with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 and Intel Core i7-9700K gaining around 43% FPS at 1080p Low, while the RTX 3080 and i7-12700K gained 26% at 1440p native and high graphics presets. Lastly, the NVIDIA RTX 4080 paired with an Intel Core i7-13700K went from 54.96 FPS to 78.43 FPS at 1440p native with very high graphics settings. The performance improvements with DLSS upscaling were less impressive, at between 17 and 35%, although that's still a notable improvement, especially on the low-end, where frame rates jump from 53 to 67 FPS. 1% and 0.1% lows are up across the board, with some tests seeing 0.1% lows get nearly a 100% improvement, which will make the game feel significantly smoother. The Borderlands development team attributes the performance uplift to general efficiency improvements as well as refinements to the Shader PSO process (Pipeline State Objects). The developers also worked on reducing polygon counts for effects and optimizing features like effects, physics, cloth simulations, and Unreal Engine 5's Virtual Shadow Maps, all of which helped reduce CPU and GPU usage during gameplay.

When news broke about Ubisoft's recent layoffs at Red Storm, which saw 105 people lose their jobs and resulted in the studio being relegated to a support studio for other development outfits and for Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine, it was unclear whether any games would be affected by the layoffs and transition. Now, it has been revealed by Insider Gaming that Red Storm was working on 10 games at the time, including five new games: the next Ghost Recon game (Project OVR internally), a turn-based tactics game reminiscent of XCOM, Tom Clancy's The Division 3, Beyond Good and Evil 2, and a new unannounced project that was very early in the development stages. It's unclear what the studio's role in these new games was, or what their future holds, but Ubisoft has not yet announced any game cancellations or even acknowledged the changes at Red Storm.

Red Storm's full game list is as follows:

via Insider Gaming

• Beyond Good and Evil 2
• Brawlhalla
• Ghost Recon (Project OVR)
• Rainbow Six Siege seasonal content
• Rainbow Six's Slice & Dice
• Splinter Cell
• The Division 2 (audio work)
• The Division 3 conceptualization
• Watch Dogs Director's Cut (support development)
• Unannounced project in conceptualization

Crimson Desert has had an eventful launch, rife with backlash over the use of generative AI, a lack of Intel Arc GPU support, and somewhat mixed reviews painting a different story to the game's player count. Regardless of all the aforementioned issues that Pearl Abyss faced surrounding the launch of Crimson Desert, the game had an objectively strong launch weekend, topping 230,000 concurrent Steam players on launch day and reaching a peak of 248,530 concurrent players on Steam just three days later.

A stronger indicator of the game's success, though, especially a game with strong loot and exploration mechanics, is its player retention after the initial launch, and here, too, Crimson Desert seems to be keeping pace. On Monday, March 23, following the game's launch weekend, Crimson Desert managed a 205,834-player peak, according to SteamDB. Crimson Desert also maintained strong positioning on the Steam sales, where it currently occupies second place for revenue generated, following the seemingly unbeatable Counter-Strike 2. Of course, data on player retention on console platforms may be a different story altogether, but that data is not publicly available.

One of the biggest pain points for Windows 11 users in recent years is Microsoft's insistence to log into an online account to access Windows 11. Seemingly as part of the Windows team's recent initiative to address community feedback, Microsoft may be moving towards a Windows 11 that no longer requires that online account login at the initial setup. While no official plans have been confirmed, Scott Hanselman, a Microsoft Partner Product Manager and VP of Developer Community, recently hinted at the change in a post on X. This announcement comes after Microsoft revealed plans to improve Windows 11 memory management and the overall user experience.

"Ya I hate that. Working on it," reads Hanselman's response to a comment on a post asking about removing the login requirement on Windows 11. While it's unclear what exactly "working on it" means—it could mean he's actively working on the code to remove the login requirement, or that he's working on convincing higher-ups to commit to the change. Either way, in a recent blog post Microsoft announced that it would be making changes to Windows 11 in the name of delivering a quality user experience, such as returning the ability to move the task bar and removing much of the recent flood of Copilot integrations from certain apps. Microsoft removed the known mechanisms to bypass the online account sign-in requirements in October 2025, citing issues that arose because users would accidentally skip setup screens when using those methods, "causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use."

There's been quite the din about DLSS 5 since NVIDIA previewed the AI-powered tech mid-March, with some gamers calling it "AI slop," NVIDIA's CEO firing back a dismissive response, and an official NVIDIA statement that seems to call into question many of the earlier claims NVIDIA made about the technology's capabilities. Now, Chloe Appleby, a program curator at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum, has weighed in on the issue in an interview with GadgetGuy, expressing concerns about the implications about the repeatability and state of a game when DLSS 5 comes into play.

Part of the driving force behind game preservation is that it allows gamers and researchers to go back and experience games throughout history, but technology like DLSS 5 may make that complicated, as Appleby explains: "If these new AI technologies become essential for making and playing games, it has the potential to not only add another layer of potential copyright complexity but bring into question what version of a game should be preserved. Do we preserve both DLSS off and on? Is the DLSS 5 version consistent amongst players and if not, what version represents the collective experience?"

More and more game studios are leaning into generative AI as a solution to speed up their game development workflows, with some using the tech in early development—as was supposedly the case with Crimson Desert recently—while others openly use generative AI for final game content. Capcom recently revealed in an investor briefing that it falls into the former camp, not the latter, claiming that the studio uses generative AI for in-game content, but that is experimenting with the tech in order to find ways to use it in a variety of fields in order to speed up game development.

"Our company will not implement the materials generated by our AI into game content. However, we plan to actively utilize this technology to improve efficiency and productivity in the game development process. Therefore, we are currently exploring ways to use it in various areas, such as graphics, sound, and programming." This is the same approach we have seen a handful of game developers use. Take-Two Interactive's CEO, for instance, recently mentioned that the company was "already seeing instances where generative AI tools are driving costs and time efficiencies," despite being adamant that no generative AI was being used in the creation of its game content. Capcom's approach seems to be similar to that of Sandbox Interactive and Pearl Abyss, both of which used AI-generated in-game assets during early development with the intention of replacing those assets before the game's release, albeit with varying degrees of success.

Square Enix previously revealed that it would be leaning into generative AI tech for coding and bug fixing, aiming to rely on the tech for as much as 70% of its QA and debugging by the end of 2027. It seems as though the game publisher is experimenting with AI in a much more public way, according to a new report by The Sankei Shimbun. The Japanese publication reports that Square Enix announced a new AI integration into the Japan-exclusive Dragon Quest X MMORPG, which will take the form of a ball of slime—appropriately named Chatty Slimey—in order to help players feel less lonely and guide them through the start of the game.

The AI chatbot will receive text input, combined with the context of the player's on-screen content as context, and will respond with a generated voice when called upon. There will also be instances where the chatbot will appear without being summoned, like when the player beats a particularly difficult enemy or obtains a rare item—presumably this will help players learn about the game's systems and loot. Square Enix says that, despite Dragon Quest X's large player base, the game has a particularly steep learning curve, which can be a barrier to entry for new players, which is why it was chosen for the AI chatbot. It's unclear if similar tech will be introduced in other games at the time of writing, but given the studio's previous interest in AI, it seems likely that this test, which is currently seeking beta testers, will inform future implementations.

Adding to the recent controversy surrounding Intel Arc GPU support—or lack thereof—in Crimson Desert, gamers recently flagged a very peculiar in-game painting, among other assets, as evidence of use of generative AI in the game. The image depicted a battlefield filled with cavalry, but many of the soldiers and their horses were blended into one another, and there were general inconsistencies in the image that stood out as being AI-generated. Despite the almost obvious use of generative AI, Pearl Abyss did not use Steam's generative AI disclosure on the Crimson Desert store page. Now, three days after the AI-generated in-game art was discovered, Pearl Abyss has issued a statement, via the @CrimsonDesert_ account on X, acknowledging that it was AI-generated but also claiming that the artwork was not meant to make it into the final game.

According to the announcement, the development team used "experimental AI generative tools" during early iteration to generate 2D props to "explore tone and atmosphere," and that it was always the studio's intentions to replace these AI-generated assets with final artwork after an internal review by the art and development teams. Pearl Abyss says that it "acknowledge that we should have clearly disclosed our use of AI," adding that it apologizes for the oversights. The studio also notes that it has started an internal audit of all in-game assets in order to replace any affected content, and that those updated assets will appear in upcoming patches. The game's Steam store page has also been updated with the corresponding generative AI disclosure following the statement and community backlash, which reads "Generative AI technology is used in a supplementary capacity during the creation of some 2D prop assets. Any such assets are replaced through our production pipeline by our art and development teams, ensuring they meet our quality standards and creative direction." Pearl Abyss's full statement follows.

With every Windows 11 update seemingly introducing a new bug or somehow breaking some core functionality, it seems as though trust in Microsoft and Windows is at an all-time low, with the recent "Microslop" insult popping up in online tech circles as a sort of culmination of the recent spate of issues. Microsoft has apparently been following the backlash against Windows 11, with Pavan Davuluri, President of Windows + Devices, stating in a new Windows Insider Blog post that "over the past several months, the team and I have spent a great deal of time analyzing your feedback," and subsequently laying out a plan that walks back many of the contentious changes that have been made in recent Windows 11 updates and promising to add highly requested new features and return features from older Windows versions that likely shouldn't have been removed in the first place.

One of the earliest complaints about Windows 11—before Copilot launched—was that the task bar could not be relocated to other screen edges, but Microsoft will soon introduce more taskbar customization, including moving it to the top, left, or right screen edges as needed. Microsoft will also walk back many of the Copilot integrations, stating that it will be "more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows." It specifically calls out removing Copilot from Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets, and Notepad. The other two important changes that will come from the new plan for Windows 11 is giving users more control over updates to reduce interruptions—essentially allowing users to go longer without restating without an update and skipping updates during device setup, and restarting and shutting down without updating. Microsoft also plans to address File Explorer and speed up launch times in order to deliver "smoother navigation and more reliable performance for everyday tasks," as well as polishing the user experience overall.

Sony recently introduced Upgraded PSSR—aka PSSR 2.0—on its PlayStation 5 Pro consoles with the launch of Resident Evil, finally unlocking the additional AI chops of the PS5 Pro's APU. If recent comments by Sony's Mark Cerny to Digital Foundry are anything to go by, PlayStation's console hardware will be following a similar trajectory to gaming PCs when it comes to these ML and AI-based features. Specifically, it seems as though frame generation will be one of the next advancements to make its way to the PlayStation platform, although it seems as though gamers will need to wait a little longer for that to be implemented—if it is implemented during this console generation at all.

Addressing a question regarding FSR Frame Generation on PlayStation, Cerny commented that "FSR Frame Generation is also based on co-developed technology...and an equivalent frame generation library should be seen at some point on PlayStation platforms." He goes on to say that frame generation will not be making it to Sony's consoles in 2026, stating that "we have no more releases planned for this year." Given that the next-generation PlayStation hardware is slated to arrive somewhere between 2027 and 2028, it almost seems likely that Sony will announce FSR Frame Generation at the same time as the PlayStation 6 with a cut-back version available for the PS5, although it's potentially possible for Sony to update the current PS5 Pro with FSR Frame Generation, since FSR Redstone was developed in partnership with Sony, to begin with. There have already been modders who have run FSR 4 Redstone Frame Generation on RDNA 3, as well, so it may be possible for the PS5's RDNA 2 APU, as well, although at the cost of a higher performance penalty.

It recently came to light that NVIDIA may be planning a GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile GPU with an upgrade to 12 GB of GDDR7, 4 GB more than the currently available 8 GB models, with both Lenovo Yoga and ASUS laptops appearing to be planning new models with the new GPU configuration. While there still hasn't been any confirmation from NVIDIA itself, another handful of Lenovo laptop listings have shown up, lending credence to the earlier claims—this time in official, public Lenovo specifications documentation.

According to Lenovo's spec sheet for the Legion Pro 5 16ADR10, the new laptop will pair an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX with 32 GB of DDR5-5200, a 1 TB PCIe 4 ×4 SSD, and NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 5070 12 GB. The GPU itself looks largely unchanged from the version in Lenovo's other Legion laptops, with the exception of a much lower boost clock in the Legion Pro 5. Despite having the same 115 W TGP as the LOQ models with the 5070 12 GB, Lenovo has rated the boost clocks of the RTX 5070 12 GB in the Legion Pro at 1425 MHz, compared to 2347 MHz in the LOQ models, which are identical to the original RTX 5070 8 GB. There have been murmurs of an April release for these laptops, but those are unconfirmed so far.

Recent right to repair laws passed in the EU demand that, starting in February 2027, electronic devices have batteries that are user-replaceable with commonly available tools and without risk to the end user—that is to say, they shouldn't require proprietary tools or tools that aren't available to consumers. Nintendo, for its part, already preparing an update to the Nintendo Switch 2 to comply with this law, according to a report by Nikkei (via Covergeek), although the exact details of the more repairable battery model is unknown at the time of writing. According to the report, the more repairable Switch 2 will only launch in Europe, but Nintendo would expand the hardware to different regions as required by law.

In iFixit's teardown of the Nintendo Switch 2 and its battery replacement guide for the Switch 2 Joy Cons, the organization noted that the battery for both the Switch 2 and its Joy Cons were adhered in place, and a spudger was required to remove the batteries from the devices. While this isn't necessarily a specialized tool, it could be argued that needing to either dissolve an adhesive or pry a battery loose could add additional risk to the end user. To this end, it seems likely that both the Switch 2 and its Joy Cons could see a revision with weaker adhesive or no adhesive at all, which would make battery replacements easier and safer. It could also mean that Nintendo will need to replace the tri-point screws that hold the Switch 2 together.

Crimson Desert just launched on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles after years of waiting and months of anticipation building up to the launch. Unfortunately, the game's launch seems to have been more divisive than Pearl Abyss anticipated. The first sign of what was to come was the first wave of pre-release critic reviews, which varied from the likes Forbes giving it a 5/5 score and calling it the "best in its class" to outlets like Insider Gaming and PCGamesN scoring it 7/10 and 6/10, respectively. Currently, the game's Steam Store reviews are "Mixed," with only 59.99% of the game's 4,049 reviews positive. Review scores aside, Crimson Desert still managed to attract a day-one peak concurrent player count of 239,045 players, which would later show signs of settling around the 100,000-player mark.

Common threads among many of the less positive reviews are the underwhelming narrative and the wealth of systems that aren't quite fleshed-out enough, although most do praise the game for its breathtaking environmental design and the variety of mechanics it implements and niches the game attempts to fill. Much of the community on sites like r/CrimsonDesert, have expressed indifference at these mixed reviews, stating that the game wasn't going to be for everyone and that some people will not get along with it, once more demonstrating the divide between gamers and critics. Part of what makes Crimson Desert's reception disheartening is the amount of build-up that surrounded the game—which has led to a rather steep 28.96% drop in Pearl Abyss's stock price following the launch.