There have recently been a slew of details about the upcoming Assassin's Creed Hexe, from positives, like the return of fan-favorite characters, to less positive news like the pared-back combat system, or the recent dev team layoffs that may affect the scope of the game further. Now, recent leaks by @AgaiinTx on X claim to reveal the pricing and some other details of what they call Assassin's Creed: Codename Hexe.
According to the leaker, Hexe will feature a PEGI 18 rating and will release for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Allegedly the game will use Denuvo. The leaker also claims that June 2027 has been set as the game's launch date, but it is suspected that this is likely a placeholder and will change at a later date. The base game will allegedly cost $69.99, but it will also launch with deluxe and collector's edition, both of which will cost more than the former.
It seems as though the launch of Valve's Steam Deck has resulted in an almost non-stop slew of comparisons between Linux and Windows as a gaming operating system. In one recent test, Meta PCs sought out to test the two operating systems head-to-head to get some hard numbers and potentially settle the debate, however, the results brought up an interesting debate about what makes one operating system better than another.
Benchmarks were conducted on an all-AMD system running an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, an XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB, and 16 GB of RAM, with the AMD Linux drivers effectively making this a best-case scenario for Linux. The benchmarks were run on the latest version of Windows 11 and Fedora Linux 44, games were tested at the same resolution, and results were an average across three runs. All games tested were also the Windows versions running via Valve's Proton compatibility layer.
Capcom's Onimusha: Way of the Sword is one of the more anticipated games of 2026, with an early 2025 gameplay preview showing off some high fidelity graphics and fast-paced melee combat. Despite this, the action game has surprisingly forgiving minimum hardware requirements, calling for just an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB (for 1080p, 30 FPS gameplay on low settings). Ahead of the September 25 launch, Capcom has published a demo and a benchmark tool for Onimusha, which has subsequently been put through its paces on the Valve Steam Deck by Steam Deck HQ, once again showing off what Capcom's surprisingly well optimized RE Engine is capable of.
In Steam Deck HQ's testing, the default "Lowest" settings preset at the Steam Deck's native 1200×800 resolution and with FSR 3.1.4 in the default mode, the benchmark averaged 46.16 FPS with 20.53 FPS for the 1% Lows. Moving up to the "Low" settings preset saw the average frame rate drop to 36.28 in the benchmark, with 15.6 FPS 1% Lows. The tester noted that during demanding combat scenes with more on-screen effects, the frame rate did dip below 30 FPS, even in the "Lowest" preset, but it recovered soon after. There are also likely performance gains to be had from game and GPU driver updates further down the line, and playing with FSR and graphics quality settings may also net some performance gains, since Steam Deck HQ didn't really delve into those settings. Regardless, Onimusha delivers frame rates similar to the performance we saw in our testing of Resident Evil Requiem on the Steam Deck, suggesting that Onimusha: Way of the Sword should get the same Steam Deck "Playable" rating as Requiem.
There's an ever-growing list of games that have received notable backlash for the use of AI-generated placeholder art in games, from Pearl Abyss's Crimson Desert to The Alters, and even the award-winning Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. When the wildly popular Slay the Spire 2 launched to Early Access earlier in 2026, it was littered with roughly scrawled placeholder art. Mega Crit co-founder, Casey Yano recently explained the decision to shirk AI art in favor of the scribbles in a recent interview with GameSpot, and it mostly seems to come down to both communicating to the players that the game is in an early access state and making it obvious what the cards in the deck-builder do. He argues that generative AI also removes authorial intent, so some of the intended communication would be lost if the studio used generative AI art instead of the hastily scrawled concept sketches.
Yano explains that "If we use art that looks nearly complete, then people would think that that's going to be the final art. It has to look like shit. It's important that it looks like shit." He notes that part of that communication of the game's incomplete state is self-preservation, because "otherwise people would judge the game as if it's a 1.0, fully developed video game." He also notes that the art helps avoid confusion among both players and other artists: "Prioritization was mostly about making sure that our players have an emotional connection to the content and also recognize what content is what," he continues to say "when you draw placeholder art, there's a very high chance that when we pass it on to our artists...so I do want the [placeholder] art to be kind of like a framework, especially-especially-the art that's used in the timeline. They're the narrative beats, and I want to make sure that those kinds of compositions and colors and details [are] communicated through those drawings."
In the Warframe universe, Tau is a topic that has come up a number of times throughout the game's lore, but, as announced by Digital Extremes at TennoCon 2026, players will finally be able to experience some of the Tau solar system in 2026 when the Warframe Tau update launches. The Tau update will see players chart a course to the new solar system originally created as a utopia by the Sentient race, where players will be met with the slums of Fornax, a ring city fallen to vice and suffering, and the rest of the planets of the war-torn Tau system. Digital Extremes hasn't shared an exact date for the launch of the Tau update, but the giant humanoid vessels that will be used to transit to the new system have already been introduced, so it will seemingly be a slow addition of content leading up to the launch later in 2026. The Tau system will start with two planets at launch, but Digital Extremes has hinted that more is on the way further down the line.
The update also introduces Brysko, a new detective-themed, voiced Warframe with an internal monologue, which will be introduced in a noir-inspired quest that sees players infiltrate the criminal underworld of Tau, where Bloom—a drug of sorts—has taken hold of the citizens. Brysko also seems to be the introduction of a new type of warframe, called a chimera frame, which is distinct from the existing protoframes and original Warframes. The Tau update will also introduce a new minigame called Portau, an original card game built for Warframe. In addition to the new warframe, there will be new melee, primary, and secondary weapons for players to farm and build. The Warframe Tau trailer and announcement continue.
When Valve launched the Steam Deck back in 2022, it generated a lot of positive publicity by partnering with iFixit to sell OEM replacement parts, but it seems as though that may be coming to an end, at least for the Steam Deck LCD. A recent Reddit post in r/SteamDeck showed a support email from iFixit explaining that the company would no longer stock the OEM replacement batteries for Valve's gaming handheld. The email states that the Steam Deck LCD batteries are out of stock and that "it is looking less likely that we will continue receiving OEM Steam Deck LCD batteries."
An iFixit representative later explained in a comment in the Reddit thread that "it's not that we're choosing to not stock these anymore. Unfortunately, Valve is just starting to sunset these parts." iFixit has, in both the original email and in the Reddit comment, confirmed that it is looking for alternatives to the OEM Steam Deck LCD battery. It seems as though the OLED Steam Deck model has not been impacted by Valve's decision, and the decision follows the recent discontinuation of the Steam Deck LCD in favor the OLED versions. Currently, there are alternatives on sites like Amazon, so it's likely a matter of time before iFixit is able to find an alternative.
With the October 6 launch of Gears of War: E-Day fast approaching, more and more details about the game are starting to appear online, whether via official channels or leaks. The latest news is that, in addition to the previously announced Ray Traced lighting, reflections, and shadows, Gears of War: E-Day will feature NVIDIA's DLSS 4.5, as confirmed by an NVIDIA blog post. DLSS 4.5 promises better quality upscaling, temporal stability, and antialiasing.
The addition of DLSS 4.5 means that Gears of War: E-Day will also feature Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, up to 6x, and NVIDIA has also confirmed that the game will feature Reflex for latency reduction in PvP modes. The game will also feature Nanite and the latest Unreal Engine 5.8 versions of Lumen and MegaLights, which should help optimization as well as lighting accuracy. All of this means that Gears of War: E-Day should deliver on a technical and immersive level, thanks to more realistic lighting and shadows as well as more detailed objects and real-time destruction.
After layoffs racked the studio in mid-2025, following the launch of Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, 1047 Games branched off into a Titanfall-inspired movement shooter that would launch into early access as Empulse in late June 2026. Now, three weeks after Empulse hit virtual shelves, the studio has conducted yet another round of layoffs, with news breaking via employees. One employee, Max McCoy, the principal technical sound designer who worked on both Splitgate: Arena Reloaded and Empulse, confirmed the layoffs in a LinkedIn post, stating that "I was caught up in the layoffs at 1047 Games today. It's been rough to see all of the layoffs across the industry, and to have this be my second layoff in under two years is unfortunate." The studio itself has yet to comment on or announce the layoffs publicly.
It's unclear how many employees were caught up in the latest round of 1047 Games layoffs, but it seems as though the launch of Empulse, the studio's latest shooter, has not met expectations. Despite showing promise with positive early reviews, both on Steam and from media, and a development philosophy that seemed to listen to player feedback during the early access period, Empulse peaked at 2,860 concurrent players three days after launch and has not recovered since, with daily peak concurrent players currently sitting at around 1,200-1,400. The original Splitgate, the game that put the studio on the map initially, peaked at 67,724 concurrent players in August 2021, for comparison.
Despite the recent success of both Frostpunk 2 and The Alters, 11 Bit Studio has confirmed that it is laying off 20 employees in a round of layoffs that it says is necessary for upcoming development phases of projects currently in its portfolio. This was confirmed in a recent statement to Game Developer, in which the studio explained that it had avoided larger-scale layoffs by transferring staff internally to other projects. In 2025, the studio was reported to have 299 employees, meaning this 20-employee layoff comprises around 6-7% of the studio's overall manpower. A studio representative also explained in a statement that 11 Bit Studios's financial situation was stable, but that the studio was downsizing in preparation for upcoming production cycles.
Part of the statement by 11 Bit Studios reads:
We need to adjust new project teams to current needs, manage our expenses carefully and maintain cost discipline. Regarding the transfers and numbers, we managed to ensure internal transfers for most of our employees so they could continue their careers within the company. However, for the roles that, unfortunately, could not be carried over into new projects at their early stages, we had to make the difficult decision to part ways with around 20 employees.
Wooting is one of the rare keyboard manufacturers that meets gamers in the middle, providing gamers with both a web app and an installable program to customize their gaming keyboards. Now, the keyboard maker has announced App Linking, which enables per-app profiles in a new beta version of Wootility. Now, Wooting users who have the Wootility Background Service enabled can switch keyboard profiles on the fly, depending on which window is in focus in their operating system. It supports up to eight linked apps per profile on the keyboard, and the 80HE and 60HE V2 can support up to four on-board profiles. The update also refines the RGB sleep timer control UI and allows editing profiles directly from the icon tray.
Wooting's profiles control everything from actuation points, features like RT, SOCD, and analogue input, to key mapping and RGB lighting. This means you could set up a Wooting 80HE or 60HE to act like a macro pad while something like a video editor or CAD suite is focussed, a regular office keyboard with a lower polling rate and reasonable actuation point when word processors or web browsers are open, and a high-performance gaming keyboard with 8 kHz polling, RT, and a 0.1 mm actuation point when in games. One caveat with this background service functionality is that it currently does not work with Wayland on Linux, since that display server, since apps are generally isolated under Wayland, and support for features like this is spotty at best on Wayland. The Wooting support team is engaging with the community about Wayland support on Linux, and it seems as though the development team will look into supporting certain desktop environments, like KDE.
Update Jul 13th: As of Wootility version 5.4.1, App Linking is now available in the stable channel for both the web and download versions of Wootility, although those using the web version will still need the background app running to enable functionality. Wooting has also officially added support for 14 new third-party switches, including from Gateron, TTC, Ugaming, and Wuque Studio. Full changelog available here.
It hasn't been long since Logitech launched the G Pro X2 Superstrike gaming mouse that made waves thanks to its adjustable haptic feedback and actuation distance features, but it already seems as though the peripherals maker is preparing a new iteration of the G Pro X2 Superstrike. According to a recent leak via the Pericord Discord server, shared by @jakeufps on X, Logitech will launch the new mouse at Logitech G Play in September.
It's unknown if there will be any physical changes to the mouse, and obviously, the rumors are unconfirmed, but the supposed leaker says that the mouse will not get a new sensor, at least not a full Hero 3 update, but it will get an upgraded MCU, and tweaks to the HITS haptic feedback and adjustable actuation system. Since Logitech launched the X2 Superstrike, a number of other mouse makers have entered the magnetic mouse switch market, so Logitech will have more competition than last time. At the time of writing, gamers are asking for improved skates and a redesigned shell, mostly to reduce weight and rebalance the weight so that the second-gen Superstrike isn't as front-heavy.
Following recent news that Halo Studios has canceled an unannounced Halo project, the studio has officially announced that Halo: Campaign Evolved has gone gold, meaning that, less than a year after the game was announced, initial development has officially concluded. Given how close the game is to launch, the studio will likely move on to preparing for launch and testing for any day-one patches that may be necessary. The announcement that the game has gone gold by no means indicates that it will launch in a perfect state—Borderlands 3 was famously riddled with performance and stability issues and had missing features at launch, and that game went gold nearly two months before launch.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is slated to launch on July 28, and it is meant to be a remake of the original Combat Evolved experience with nine additional weapons, the ability to hack and pilot new vehicles, more difficulty levels, and updated graphics. Campaign evolved is built on Unreal Engine 5, so there are questions about how difficult the game will be to run. The development cycle of Halo: Campaign Evolved has also hardly been drama-free, with the studio facing backlash from fans after it was reported that generative AI was being heavily used in the development of Campaign Evolved.
It's no secret that things are in a state of flux at Xbox and all of its in-house game studios, and this appears to extend to Halo Studios. Despite building excitement for Halo: Campaign Evolved, which is slated to launch in late July 2026, it seems as though projects are being cut at Halo Studios all the same. Most recently, news broke via game journalist Rebs Gaming on X that Halo Studios had officially cancelled a new Halo project known internally as Project Ekur. This information was later validated by Windows Central reporter Jez Corden, although the nature of Project Ekur is still unknown.
Palworld officially exited Steam Early Access on July 10 with a massive 1.0 update that dropped a host of new game mechanics, new areas, and new pals to collect, raise, train, or put to work. The 1.0 update, which landed on a Friday two and a half years after its Early Access launch, seems to have been very popular, with SteamDB reporting a whopping 855,459 peak concurrent players on launch weekend. Steam reviews following the update have also been immensely positive, with July 10 alone seeing a spike of 1,877 new positive reviews on Steam. Palworld's 1.0 launch success has also placed it in fourth place in the global Steam Top Sellers chart, which measures game success by revenue.
The Palworld 1.0 update addressed many bugs and added plenty of features across both the game's single-player and multiplayer gameplay modes, including new traversal modes, new crafting features, and new pal breeding and base-building options, among many more. These sweeping changes, however, have not all been received positively. Some users in the game's Steam reviews complained about new key binds that can be confusing or inconvenient, while others complained about the increased map size and lack of massive online multiplayer features making the open-world game feel empty. Despite the handful of negative reviews, player counts have remained high, even well into the Monday after the launch weekend, which is when there is usually an observable dip in player retention.
It seems as though Criterion Games has officially addressed the questions about the future of Need for Speed that arose after its 30th anniversary rebranding as "a Battlefield studio." In a recent interview with IGN, Vice President of Battlefield Studios Europe, Rebecka Coutaz, has basically confirmed fans' fears that Need for Speed is all but dead. When asked about the potential future of its racing games following the rebranding, the VP responded that "We are solely focused on Battlefield," indicating that, 2022's Need for Speed Unbound would likely be the last entry into the studio's racing IP. This comment likewise spells doom for the Burnout franchise, which hasn't had a new entry since 2018 with the Burnout Paradise Remaster, if you can even call that a new entry.
The absence of Burnout and Need for Speed leave a notable gap in the racing game market that games like Forza and the DiRT series don't necessarily fill, thanks to the combination of street and track racing and stunt driving. A quick gander at SteamDB reveals that, aside from the live-service push, the reason for moving away from Need for Speed as a franchise may be due to declining player interest. On Steam, Need for Speed Unbound peaked at a disappointing 14,063 concurrent players at launch and has since plateaued at around 1,000-1,500 peak concurrent daily players. Battlefield 6, on the other hand, currently sits at around 50,000 daily concurrent players, previously peaking at an all-time high of over 740,000 concurrent players.
Following the recent confirmation that layoffs related to Asha Sharma's Xbox reset have resulted in significant layoffs at ZeniMax-run studios—amounting to 50% of Id Software's workers and 25% of Bethesda's—OneBGS, the CWA-affiliated Bethesda Game Studios Union, has announced that its workers has organized marches outside Bethesda's studios in Montreal, Canada; Austin and Dallas, Texas; and Rockville, Maryland. CWA representatives said in an email seen by Game Developer that the layoffs have affected as many as 440 unionized workers at Bethesda and ZeniMax, and the union says that the protest will start on July 15 to fight for the rights of its workers.
"Microsoft and ZeniMax leadership have made the devastating decision to slash over 440 positions across BGS, ZOS, id, ZWU (QA) and ZeniMax corporate (including CTO and CSUR). Because we organized and certified our unions, we have hard-won legal rights and protections that non-unionized studios simply do not have. The company wants us to accept this as a done deal and quietly disappear. We won't let that happen. Our next steps are to mobilize. We need every single member visible and unified."
Following the recent launch of the Keychron K4 Ultra and K10 Ultra, the accessory maker has officially launched the new K5 Ultra 8K, a low-profile wireless mechanical keyboard with a full 100% layout and sleek cherry wood accents. The K5 Ultra is the latest version of the low-profile K Ultra-series, which means it uses the same ZMK firmware and has the same 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity as the previously announced K3 Ultra had. The K5 Ultra has launched with an MSRP of $114.99, and is available in black on the Keychron online store or on Amazon. The K5 Ultra is also capable of refresh rates of up to 8 kHz over both the wired USB Type-C connection and the 2.4 GHz connection. Wireless connectivity is powered by a 2,400 mAh battery, and Keychron cites 370 hours of use from a single charge with the backlighting disabled and the keyboard running at an 8 kHz polling rate.
The Keychron K5 Ultra uses a proper full-size layout and includes both a programmable knob above the backspace key and a macro row above the num pad. The K5 Ultra is available with Keychron's relatively new Milk POM low-profile switches—which follow the Gateron Low-Profile 2.0 pin layout—in three switch flavors. Milk POM Reds are linear with a 45 gf actuation force, while the Milk POM Browns are tactile with a 50 gf actuation force, and the Milk POM Banana switches are a strong tactile switch with 57 gf actuation force. All three switches have 3.1 mm of total travel, but the Reds have 1.3 mm of pre-travel, while the two tactile varieties have 1.7 mm pre-travel. The K5 Ultra measures in at 436.6 x 128.29 mm and has a 15.55 mm front height. It also features two-stage flip-out feet for different typing angles.
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced has seemingly managed to turn things around following a wave of negative reviews on launch day. Not only has its Steam review rating swung from "Mixed" to "Mostly Positive"—with 77% of the game's 3,555 English reviews now positive—Ubisoft has also announced that Black Flag Resynced has sold over 2 million copies in just over 24 hours since its launch. This at least matches but possibly exceeds the day-one performance of 007 First Light, which sold 1.5 million units in 24 hours.
Previously, reviews on Steam frequently complained about the game's microtransactions, which totaled to more than the $69.99 price of the Deluxe Edition. It's not entirely surprising that the game has reached such heights, given that its day-one Steam peak player count, as reported by SteamDB, was 99,451 players, beating out every other Assassin's Creed game to date—the previous record belonged to Assassin's Creed Shadows with 64,825 peak concurrent players.
Jsaux, the maker of a smorgasbord of functional and decorative Steam Deck accessories, has just provided an update on its previously announced Steam Machine faceplate project, which it has revealed to potentially be coming in three separate iterations. On the brand's Discord, it recently held a poll asking for community feedback on three separate versions of the faceplates: one with a large monochrome e-ink display akin to Valve's initial prototype, another with a smaller color e-ink display with a knob and additional buttons on the front, and another with a large color dot matrix display.
It's unclear whether Jsaux will release all three versions of the display, but judging by the response on Discord, both versions of the e-ink faceplate were popular, although the full-size monochrome e-ink display ended up winning the popular vote with 49% of the votes preferring that version. It's worth noting that Jsaux's Discord poll simply asked which version of the display faceplate the accessory maker should launch first, and not which version it should launch at all, suggesting there is at least some intention to launch all three versions.
As promised previously, Palworld 1.0 has officially launched on Steam, bringing with it an absolutely gargantuan list of updates, features, and fixes. The update officially launches the game out of Early Access and adds 72 new pals to the game, bringing the total to 287—over 50 more than in the latest Pokémon Legends Z-A game. Palworld 1.0 also adds a new area, a floating island called The World Tree, and it expands the original world with new points of interest, Ancient Ruins with minigames, new islands with new volcano, desert, and ruin biomes, and new NPC settlements in four regions, each with their own NPCs and quests. There are several other gameplay changes, new mechanics, and systems overhauls that appear to largely be focused on increasing the fun of late-game and high-level gameplay, base building, combat, and life sim activities.
It's also worth noting that anyone running mods on Palworld has been instructed to remove the mods ahead of the 1.0 update in order to avoid game-breaking bugs. However, Pocket Pair explains that this advice is merely a precaution, due to the massive gameplay changes that have come as a result of the Palworld 1.0 update. Pocketpair has expressed its support for modding and its appreciation for the work done by its modding community, but it notes that mods that have been installed on Palworld "since around 2024" may result in crashes at launch or during gameplay, corrupted save data, or quests becoming impossible to complete. The studio advises only reinstalling mods once the mod creator has specifically confirmed that the mods will work on Palworld 1.0. The full release notes, available on Steam, span several pages, but some of the other update highlights follow.
The reception of PlayStation's recent decision to stop producing physical games media in early 2028 has been heard far and wide across the internet, with fans even going as far as to start the "Don't Kill the Disc" petition on Change.org. More recently, a survey on Push Square, a publication that largely serves PlayStation enthusiasts, found that 45% of 6,454 respondents were "seriously considering" switching to PC gaming as a result of the announcement, while 23% were firm in their decision to stick with PlayStation going forward, and 15% said they had already thought about it. Of those who responded to the survey, 41% cited Sony ending physical games as their reason for moving to PC. Although there hasn't been a massive outcry about it just yet, Xbox is apparently also planning on moving away from physical media, with rumors claiming a disc-to-digital attestation system coming to the Xbox Helix console.
Another point of contention in the next-gen console line-up is pricing, with some rumors placing the PS6 BOM cost at near $1,000. Only 14% of 5,664 respondents in the same survey said that they would buy a PS6 at launch if it cost $1,000 or more, while 29% said they would buy or build a gaming PC instead, and another 29% said they would skip the PS6 console generation altogether. Up-front hardware cost is one area where console gaming usually has an edge on PC gaming, and, while the PS5 console generation saw Sony an Xbox embrace multi-platform game launches from their in-house studios, it seems as though both companies are prepared for at least some backlash for the upcoming console generation. For its part, Xbox appears to be approaching things a little differently by more or less treating PC and Xbox gaming as a monolith, especially with the next-gen Xbox Helix console all but confirmed to be a PC-console hybrid.
Following the launch of the Steam Machine, Valve has finally rolled out its compatibility rating system for its living room gaming experience in Steam, with a new UI that shows both Steam Machine and SteamOS compatibility ratings. The new UI is only available in SteamOS in the Steam Deck client or in Big Picture mode, which makes sense, since the update is more than likely targeted around the launch of the Steam Machine. It's unclear if Valve will add a similar SteamOS compatibility indicator to the desktop and web clients, although it does display SteamOS and Steam Deck compatibility in the library on both desktop and the web, so it seems likely that the feature is planned for later.
Currently, the SteamOS and Steam Machine compatibility ratings are hidden in a fly-out window under a UI block called "SteamOS compatibility." The window shows three tabs, for the Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and then general SteamOS, all of which have their own specific compatibility requirements. While the Steam Machine tab shows information relating to the Steam Machine Verified program, the SteamOS tab simply notes whether the game will run on SteamOS via the Proton compatibility layer and whether it needs an internet connection for initial setup or gameplay. The SteamOS rating is likely to apply to most other modern Linux distributions, so it is a welcome addition to Valve's Linux gaming feature set.
The hype has been building for the launch of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced for a good long while, and it seems as though sales have been strong, with SteamDB reporting a peak of 99,451 concurrent players in the first 12 hours after launch on Steam alone. However, it seems as though player impressions could be better, with the Steam review rating currently sitting at an underwhelming "Mixed" rating. Many reviews praise the quality of the remake, but Steam gamers have taken issue with the monetization of Black Flag Resynced.
During the first 12 hours since the game's launch, it has managed to accrue 2,778 reviews, and only 62% of those reviews are positive. For the most part, negative reviews on Steam are taking Ubisoft to task about the inclusion of over $80 worth of microtransactions and DLC that show up repeatedly in the game's menus. This is true for players of both the $59.99 standard version and the $69.99 Deluxe Edition. The majority of the positive reviews of Black Flag resynced defend the cosmetics, saying that the inclusion of microtransactions for cosmetics is unimportant in a single-player game, but others argue that the perks offered by certain cosmetics, like shorter cooldowns, change the gameplay in meaningful ways. Others have complained that it's not merely the presence of microtransactions, but the fact that Ubisoft is seemingly using Black Flag and its link to Assassin's Creed Shadows to push players to buy the latter game.
It's no secret that Xbox is undergoing massive changes, including everything from mass layoffs to studio closures, but it seems as though studios and developers are starting to feel the less obvious repercussions to the recent hardships at Xbox. According to a recent report by IGN, the layoffs at Bethesda may result in delays or crunch during the development of Elder Scrolls 6, which was announced as far back as 2018. One Bethesda worker commented to IGN that "their [the workers] loss will have a substantial and cascading effect on the game and morale of this studio," while another said that "it's been a mix of every discipline: programmers, artists, and designers." Overall, it seems as though morale is low at Bethesda following the recent layoffs and the subsequent removal of a memorial set up to commemorate workers who were caught up in the layoffs.
One worker expressed concerns over how the workload will be handled with fewer workers around, saying "There is a fear that we are going to be replaced by cheaper, contracted labor, or we will hire folks to replace them that will need to be onboarded (our tools are proprietary, other devs aren't going to know how they work) resulting in more delays, and we'll need to crunch to make up the time," adding that the Elder Scrolls 6 developers "were already running a tight ship and are worried about this delaying the game (though a final release date was not yet chosen as far as we know)."
Minisforum showed off a range of new hardware at Computex 2026 earlier this year, and one of the new products it announced there was the MS-03 workstation mini PC, a new small form factor workstation PC designed for productivity, NAS, and local AI workloads. The MS-03 is based on the Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra 9 386H, a 25 W (80 W max Turbo) mobile CPU with four P-Cores, eight E-Cores, and four LP E-Cores, and four Arc Xe3 cores, meaning it's not going to be an outstanding gaming, content creation, or rendering workstation.
One of the big draws for NAS and server use cases is undoubtedly going to be the ample storage options and networking. Not only does the MS-03 have three M.2 slots that support up to 8 TB per slot, it also includes an adaptor to support U.2 SSDs, for up to 15 TB of enterprise storage, and the full-size PCIe ×8 slot can be used for additional storage expansion. The MS-03's chassis is made of aluminium and features a slide-out motherboard tray for easy upgrades. Although the CPU is soldered, it uses DDR5-7200 SODIMMs. Minisforum says that it offers up to 128 GB of memory, but it's unclear if it will only sell as a barebones kit or as a pre-built PC as well.
It has been known for a while that, as part of the new Xbox reset strategy under new CEO, Asha Sharma, Xbox would be leaning into Xbox exclusives more and more going forward, with it being understood that "Xbox exclusive" referred to both PC and Xbox Series consoles—given that the upcoming Helix console is a console-PC hybrid. Now, a new report out of Bloomberg claims that Microsoft will take Sony's approach to exclusives by releasing single-player titles, especially its AAA first-party and high-budget games, as Xbox exclusives. Meanwhile, multiplayer games will remain multi-platform, as many of Xbox's games have been for years. When Sony recently made a similar switch, it was widely criticized, even by former Sony execs, because the timed exclusives had little to no impact on console sales.
Allegedly, the goal of the strategy shift is to strengthen Xbox's platform sales, after the gaming giant's focus on Game Pass failed to deliver meaningful results. Reportedly, Game Pass subscriber numbers peaked around 30 million at the end of the 2026 financial year, which is 47 million behind the 77 million goal that was set in 2017 when the subscription was launched. The recent changes at Xbox and Microsoft have also led to mass layoffs, the loss of a number of studios, which will either be bought out or go independent, and cancelling a handful of unannounced games. It was also recently revealed that Xbox Game Pass contracts and negotiations with external studios had been placed on hold, although there's no clear indication whether those negotiations and contracts have since been resumed.
Crimson Desert reportedly initially started out as an MMO but later pivoted to a single-player open-world game, although it still has much of its MMO DNA, even though it launched as a single-player title. According to Pearl Abyss CEO, Heo Jin-young, at a recent corporate briefing, the studio is currently evaluating the possibility of an online mode for Crimson Desert.
Jin-young commented that it is still too early to make any conclusive statements about what form a multiplayer Crimson Desert will take, with the CEO clarifying that, although he has noted significant interest in multiplayer, the studio is conducting technical and gameplay feasibility studies to determine if multiplayer is possible and how to implement it. Jin-young expressed that he thinks there is room for a multiplayer mode, and he notes that online gameplay could increase player retention and the game's longevity on the market.
Recently, new Intel Nova Lake-S iGPU IDs were added to the Linux kernel driver stack, revealing that Intel may be planning to launch as many as seven SKUs in the Core Ultra 400 desktop CPU series. Until a new rumor by leaker @jaykihn0 on X, however, little was known about the upcoming Nova Lake-H and Nova Lake-S CPUs and their iGPU configurations. The leaker claims that Intel's Nova Lake-S desktop line-up will feature at least one SKU with a 12-core Xe3P iGPU configuration.
A 12-core Xe3P iGPU solution would conceivably be a worthwhile entry-level dGPU replacement, given the performance observed in tests of the current Xe3 B390 iGPU. The leaker also tips that Nova Lake-H, the upcoming mobile CPU line-up, will feature several 12-core Xe3P configurations, similar to the current Core Ultra X7 358H and Core Ultra X9 388H SKUs which both feature 12 Xe3 cores, while lower-end Nova Lake-S and -H parts will fall back to 4 Xe3 or 2 Xe3 configurations. There is no word on whether there will be a 10-core Xe3 or Xe3P iGPU SKU as there is with the Arc G3 handheld gaming CPU family. These leaks come not too long after another rumor revealed that Intel's Xe3P iGPU architecture is expected to be significantly faster than even the current Arc B390 iGPU that has taken the crown for high-performance integrated graphics from the likes of AMD's Radeon 890M.
Obsidian has famously been caught up in the recent Xbox reset, with the game studio losing as much as 25% of its staff to layoffs. According to recent insider reports out of Bloomberg, one of the consequences of the headcount reduction appears to be a narrower focus, which in this case has resulted in the effective cancellation of Avowed 2. The publication's sources say that the studio made the decision to cancel Avowed 2 due to the lackluster commercial performance of the first game in the series. The studio had previously hoped to build the Avowed franchise by rapidly developing the game's sequel on top of tech it already had.
In lieu of Avowed 2 and the other canceled projects, Obsidian will now begin development on a new Fallout game led by Josh Sawyer, who previously worked on Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas, which would go on to become a fan-favorite Fallout game. The success of New Vegas is likely the reason that Sawyer and Obsidian have been tasked with developing another Fallout game, and insiders claim that Sawyer had been working on a separate game that was structurally and thematically similar to Fallout.
The KeyBoy Advance, a new 50% mechanical keyboard designed by PromoType (Galo), has just entered a group buy. The design, as the name suggests, is heavily inspired by the aesthetics of the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, achieving its retro looks with a case made of either anodized or e-coated aluminium or translucent PC, reminiscent of the classic translucent cases Nintendo was known for at the time. It is a small form factor keyboard that uses an unorthodox 50% HHKB layout, keeping the main alpha cluster and a 10-key number row while providing optional split space layouts, and it is fully remappable in VIAL, the open-source browser-based keyboard remapping utility.
The KeyBoy Advance is a barebones kit, meaning buyers will need to supply their own keycaps, switches, and stabilizers, but the PCB and plate feature options for both ANSI and ISO Enter keys, and buyers can choose between an MX switch-compatible soldered PCB, a wired-only hot-swap PCB, or a hot-swap PCB with wired, Bluetooth, and 2.4 GHz connectivity. Prices vary by vendor, but at Unikeys the soldered PCB with an anodized aluminium case is the cheapest option, at $275. Supposedly, the group buy is selling at a 20% discount off the RRP, which suggests that the KeyBoy Advance will eventually become available as an in-stock item. The group buy expects to ship in Q4 2026, although the date is not guaranteed, and will be available until Jul 22, 2026.
The collateral damage from the recent "Xbox reset" continues, with recent reports confirming layoffs at both id Software, the studio behind Doom: The Dark Ages, and Obsidian Entertainment, the studio responsible for The Outer Worlds, resulting in workforce losses of around 50% and 25%, respectively, at the ZeniMax-led studios. According to a Kotaku report, around 60-70 workers will be let go at Obsidian, with layoffs not limited to one particular department. The publication's insider source says that there has been no communication about how the studio will redistribute the workload from a "huge list of projects" among the remaining staff. Additionally, most of the affected staff have already been informed, with many of the layoffs taking place on July 6. Other staff were informed that they would be laid off later this year in Xbox's 1,600 eliminations that are planned for financial year 2027.
Id Software has been hit much harder, losing around half of its workforce, or over 90 workers, across multiple disciplines and departments. Reports indicate that certain departments, like quality assurance, have been "decimated" by the layoffs. According to an internal email obtained by IGN, Jill Braff, CEO of Bethesda Softworks, an Id Software sister company, says that "by working more closely across the organization, sharing expertise and capabilities, and by focusing our investments on the opportunities with the greatest potential, we believe we can better support our franchises and IP with meaningful long-term potential," suggesting that smaller studios like Id Software may become support studios after the mass layoffs, and both Xbox and Bethesda have indicated that studios will be reorganized to ensure the success of their biggest franchises.
Update Jul 9th: Derek Best, former Principal VFX Artist at id Software, commented in a post on LinkedIn that "the VFX team was eliminated down to one single artist with no lead or producer," resulting in a massive loss of institutional knowledge and an uncertain future for the studio's in-house id Tech 8 engine. His full statement follows.
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