The PS5 release of Starfield has long been rumored for 2026, but it was unclear when exactly the game would launch for Sony's gaming platform, but Bethesda has now confirmed that Starfield will launch on the PS5 in April 2026. Specifically, the launch is slated for an April 7 release. Starfield's PlayStation 5 release will coincide with the launch of a free game content update and a new story DLC, all of which was detailed in a recent developer deep-dive on the Bethesda Softworks YouTube channel.

Bethesda says that the Free Lanes update was heavily guided by player feedback, and that it will be the biggest update since the game's launch. Free Lanes will add a new vehicle and spacesuit, as well as new weapons to find and POIs for players to explore and interact with. It also adds a cruise mode to speed up interplanetary travel and allow players to interact with their crew and ship on longer trips. There are also a new material to enhance weapons and ships, and an expansion to the progression system to give players more to do in space and on the planets they encounter. Enemies have also received an update to make enemy encounters more challenging and varied.

Following the recent early performance benchmarks of the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, Intel's Arrow Lake-S Core Ultra 3 205T has broken ground on PassMark, and it's giving the Core Ultra 5 255 and Core Ultra 5 255T a run for their money, at least in single-core benchmarks. Multithreaded benchmarks paint something of a grimmer picture for the Core Ultra 3 205T, though—likely due to the reduced core and thread count of the 205T, which features just eight cores and eight threads, likely four P-cores and four E-cores.

The Core Ultra 3 205T scored a respectable 4,561 points in the single-core benchmark, beating out the Core Ultra 5 255 and 255T by 3.2% and 6.6%, respectively. When it comes to multithreaded tasks, however, the Core Ultra 3 205T falls behind. In PassMark's benchmarks, the 205T was nearly 15% behind the Core Ultra 5 225. Still, the Intel Core Ultra 3 205T comes in ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 5 435 by a significant margin in both single- and multi-core tests, and the Core Ultra 3 205T seems to have been tested at a peak TDP of 35 W, all of which may make it worth considering for lower-end office builds.

Crimson Desert's official March 19 launch is just around the corner, and in the lead-up to the launch, PlayStation Japan and Pearl Abyss have shown off the upcoming action-adventure game running on base PS5 hardware with respectable image quality and performance. The presenters of the Play! Play! Play! broadcast play through the first few minutes of the game's prologue and show off a few tutorial scenes, and, although it's difficult to gauge image quality directly, there is some information to be gleaned from the broadcast. Overall, performance and image quality seem to align with the promises made by the minimum hardware requirements published earlier this month—even if there are some upscaling artifacts visible in finer textures, like character hair.

The most notable aspect of the gameplay footage is that there are no obvious framerate issues, texture pop-ins, or stuttering visible. Even at longer draw distances, image quality seems to be well controlled, and motion remains smooth, even during high-action scenes where the load would generally increase. The demonstration has been heartening for PS5 players, since there were suspicions that the PS5 gameplay footage was being kept under wraps ahead of the game's launch due to lackluster performance. The broadcast also serves to give players a taste of the challenging combat, puzzle-platformer mechanics, exploration, and atmospheric world they can expect from the game's launch.

Jeff Kaplan, formerly a Blizzard executive, recently announced both a new studio and a new game, The Legend of California, which is slated to launch in 2026. Since the game's launch, the reception has been somewhat mixed, but that seemingly hasn't dampened the spirits of the studio or its executive. In a recent 10-hour livestream of The Legend of California, Kaplan addressed some of the negative comments he'd seen online, mainly taking aim at players who were criticizing the game, but who he seems to think weren't the target market in the first place.

The specific demographic that spurred Kaplan's comments were Overwatch players who have had what he describes as a "nerd rage-out," and expressing their frustration at Kaplan's chosen genre, visuals, or game design for The Legend of California. In response to these players, Kaplan said "if a game comes out, and you don't want to play it, and you've never played it, shit the f**k up---no one cares. We don't need to hear that you aren't into it." He goes on to question the reasoning behind players voicing their opinions on a video game they're never going to play, asking "Who cares about my opinion if I'm not going to play it, and if I've never played it? Why does my opinion matter on that?"

As PC gamers and enthusiasts, we all know by now that there is a supply shortage of various silicon components in the personal computing market, with the blame largely falling on AI demand and NVIDIA's and AMD's pivots to AI data center supply. In a recent report by Money UDN MSI's General Manager, Huang Jinqing, predicts a 15-30% price increase for its gaming products across the board as a result of the current market conditions. Jinqing goes on to say that there is an NVIDIA GPU supply shortage on the order of 20%.

As a result of the current supply shortages, Jinqing suggests that the overall PC market will shrink by as much as 10-20%. Recent retailer reports paint a slightly grimmer picture, though, with Mindfactory's sales figures pointing to a more significant decline in GPU sales volume. In light of the recent shortages, especially of DDR5 memory, hardware makers have turned to older platforms, with ASUS announcing increased production for DDR4 motherboards. Now, it seems as though MSI will follow ASUS down that path, with Jinqing confirming that it has signed long-term contracts for memory and shifted production to increase DDR4 motherboard output.

Resident Evil Requiem only just launched to massive fanfare, having surpassed 5 million units in a matter of days, however, just over a week after passing the 5-million sales mark, Capcom has announced that Requiem has surpassed 6 million units sold in the 16 days since the game launched. According to the gaming giant's announcement, this officially makes it the fastest-selling Resident Evil game in the franchise's history.

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

In the post celebrating the achievement, Capcom also announced a celebration event for the franchise's March 22 30th anniversary, and revealed that it is developing additional content for Resident Evil Requiem, although it declined to elaborate what the additional content would be, beyond simply stating that "Going forward, Capcom plans to implement several measures, such as ongoing support and additional game content, so players can continue to enjoy the title longer." It seems likely that this "additional game content" will go beyond the already announced story expansion that Capcom recently revealed in a post on X.

It's undeniable that Palworld has had a successful Early Access period, even spawning a spinoff late last year in Palfarm and collaborating with some of the biggest games in the indie industry. Now, as the developer, Pocketpair is lining up to launch sometime in 2026, John Buckley, head of publishing and communications lead at Pocketpair, has made a few comments hyping up the launch during a GDC interview with GamesRadar+. Buckley says that, while survival crafting is a niche genre with a large player base on Steam, Pocketpair hopes that Palworld will be a game with something for everyone to enjoy. "There's so many incredible, incredible survival crafting games, but I think every survival crafting gamer has their like ideal version of what survival crafting should be, and we hope Palworld 1.0 will be that kind of something for everyone, lose yourself in this world, survival crafting game."

He goes on to suggest that the 1.0 launch will add polish to all of the game's mechanics and flesh out the mechanics that are still incomplete in addition to expanding the base content of the game for more advanced players "Now, a huge chunk of quote unquote end game content will be added. So if you really want to continue from where you left off, sure you're not missing out on the full experience, but you are missing out on some things. We've tried our best to expand everything. Not just the end game, but also improve the early game, add more to the early game, flesh out the middle game, kind of something for everyone, really."

AMD's hardware has generally enjoyed better support on Linux than its Intel and NVIDIA competition, although adoption and feature-parity to Windows can sometimes be a little slow. This has been the case with the AMD's APUs, which only just received power and usage monitoring via a pull request for Linux 7.1. The new AMDXDNA driver will expose power monitoring metrics for AMD Ryzen AI NPUs via DRM_IOCTL_AMDXDNA_GET_INFO, alongside new metrics to expose real-time NPU busy metrics to applications.

Both of these new metrics will presumably be used by those running and developing local LLMs and can be used to gauge hardware utilization and improve scheduling for AI tasks. These changes are expected to land in Linux 7.1, slated to release after 7.0, which is currently in development and is expected to launch sometime between April and May. Linux 7.0 itself is expected to introduce some significant performance improvements when it comes to cache and memory handling.

German retailer Mindfactory indicates that AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT is its top-selling GPU for weeks 9-11 of 2026 (meaning March 1-15), although it also indicated that there is a dramatic decrease in GPU sales during the same time period. According to the retailer data (shared by TechEpiphanyYT on X), AMD made up 55.6% of the outlet's sales for that time period, with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT in the lead as top seller with 25.6% market share and the RX 9060 XT following that up with 20.3%. The next five spots, though, are all NVIDIA GPUs—namely the RTX 5080 at 11.8%, the RTX 5070 Ti at 9%, the RTX 5060 and 5070 at 7% each, and the RTX 5090 at 5.3%.

The next-most-popular AMD GPU at Mindfactory was the Radeon RX 7600 in the eighth spot, with the RX 7900 XTX, 7900 XT, and 7700 XT following in 10th, 11th, and 12th place. Curious as it may seem to see AMD in the lead where NVIDIA usually dominates in most other markets, it follows trends set by previous Mindfactory reports. More concerning, GPU sales have also reportedly fallen to roughly a third of their usual numbers, likely as a result of stock shortages and skyrocketing hardware prices across the board. While recent reports indicate that GPU prices might be correcting slightly, at least on the AMD side, other component supply issues and the resulting high prices may be dissuading people from platform upgrades or fresh PC builds altogether.

Keychron's recent move to the HE 8K line of analog keyboards has seen it launch a number of new high-performance gaming keyboards with the new Ultra-Fast Lime switches and wired-only connectivity. Now, the keyboard maker has announced the C0 HE 8K as the latest installment in that line-up of gaming keyboards. The C0 HE 8K is a left-handed gaming-oriented wired Hall effect gaming keyboard with a built-in wrist rest and an aggressive angular design. The Keychron C0 HE 8K is launching at $59.99 on Keychron's online store and on Amazon. The Keychron C0 HE 8K is an affordable take on a one-handed gaming keyboard, so there is no gasket mount or wireless connectivity to be had, although it does have many of the same features of Keychron's higher-end keyboards.

The C0 HE 8K has 35 keys in total, making it technically a 35% keyboard, although it's only the left half of the keyboard, replete with the num row and F row. The keyboard's chassis itself is made of ABS plastic, while the keyboard features an aluminium plate and a tray-mount design. The keycaps are double-shot shine-through ABS in the OEM profile, which should feel familiar with many gamers coming from a standard gaming keyboard. Like all of Keychron's other HE keyboards, the C0 HE 8K offers customization of everything from the switch actuation distance to SOCD, DKS, Rapid Trigger, and Mod Tap through Keychron Launcher. The C0 HE 8K's Ultra-Fast Magnetic Lime switches feature a very lightweight 25 g actuation force, 3.35 mm of travel, and an all-POM construction. One of the stranger aspects of the C0 HE 8K is its "ergonomic angled space bar," that Keychron says is designed to align with the natural curvature of human fingers. The C0 HE 8K also features a built-in silicone palm rest for improved comfort. While the C0 HE 8K is largely marketed at gamers, Keychron also pitches it as a control surface for creative workflows.

Microsoft Gaming Copilot has been out in the open and available as a beta for PC, mobile, and the ROG Xbox Ally since October 2025, but at a recent GDC conference, Sonali Yadav, Xbox Gaming AI partner group project manager, commented that Gaming Copilot would be landing on current-gen Xbox Series X|S consoles before the end of 2026. Gaming Copilot purports to help its users "get to the fun, faster," with gaming recommendations based on what you play, "get help without leaving your game," by providing players with advice based on their current place in the game, and "brainstorm strategies and get tips or insights with personalized coaching." The service operates similarly to Microsoft's original Copilot service in that it takes screenshots of your gameplay and analyzes them to provide the aforementioned recommendations.

I'm excited to announce that later this year, we will bring Gaming Copilot to the current-generation consoles, and we will continue to bring it to more services that players are playing.

Epomaker recently showed off its typewriter-style Glyph mechanical keyboard at CES 2026, although there was no word on when the keyboard would launch, the exact specifications, or what the price would be. Now, the keyboard maker has officially released the Glyph keyboard in all its retro glory, alongside three other keyboards: the $119 Luma100, which we covered previously, the RT100 Pro, and the Epomaker x Aula F75 Ultra.

The Epomaker Glyph is a 75% mechanical keyboard with 83 keys, a programmable knob, a 2.79-inch full-color TFT screen, and a built-in tablet stand. The highlight of the Glyph is mostly its retro design, which is emphasized by the round, uniform-height keycaps that look a little like bottle caps. The keyboard itself is made of ABS plastic, while the keycaps are dye-sublimated PBT, and the plate is made of aluminium. The Glyph comes with either Epomaker Wisteria V2 switches, which are linear switches with a 45 gf operating force, POM+PTFE stems, PC top housings, and PA66 bottom housings. It also features 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth connectivity and an 8,000 mAh battery. The Glyph is available on Epomaker's website for $139.

Glorious Model O was once held in high regard in the realm of gaming peripherals, but that design has since been surpassed by more modern designs with lighter shells and more responsive, accurate sensors. Apparently there is still a market for the original Glorious Model O gaming mouse, at least according to Glorious, who recently announced the Glorious Model O Classic. The Model O Classic is a rehash of the 2019 Glorious Model O design, replete with the RGB strips, original sensor hardware, and even the original honeycomb design that's largely fallen out of use except for in the most lightweight gaming mouse designs.

The Glorious Model O classic features the same BAMF sensor, based on the Pixart PAW 3370, as the original—although it's now simply called the "19K Optical Gaming Sensor," which means it has a maximum wireless polling rate of 1 kHz, tops out at 19,000 DPI, 400 IPS, and 40 G acceleration. Despite the honeycomb shell, the Model O Classic still weighs in at 69 g, whereas many solid-shell gaming mice released in the last year or two come in at 40-50 g, with some, like the Corsair Sabre V2 Pro even dipping into the mid-30s. Glorious also still uses the Glorious Core software to customize the Model O Classic, meaning customization requires installing software that is only available on Windows. The Model O Classic wireless gaming mouse is available on the Glorious online store at $89.99.

Hot on the heels of Valve's critical public response to the New York State attorney general's lawsuit against the gaming giant over its in-game monetization and loot boxes, the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) ratings body has updated its rating system to address similar concerns over in-game monetization and "interactive risk categories." As of June 2026, new games registered in Europe and rated by PEGI will be subject to additional scrutiny surrounding "purchases of in-game content, paid random items, communication features, and features that incentivize players to continue playing," according to the announcement. In essence, this will examine daily rewards, loot boxes, in-game cosmetics and premium currency purchases, and in-game chat moderation and content control. Chair of the PEGI Council, Beate Våje, says that "with the updated set of age rating criteria, PEGI aims to make parents aware that certain features in games should be carefully assessed, and that parental tools can be a very helpful assistant when doing that."

Under the new criteria, games that feature in-game purchases, specifically those with quantity- or time-limited sale mechanics, will be rated 12+, while games that use NFTs and other blockchain tech will be rated PEGI 18. Games with "random items" will be PEGI 16 by default, although they will be PEGI 18 in some cases. Games with what the ratings body calls "play-by-appointment" mechanics—things like daily quests or login rewards—will be rated PEGI 7, while games that punish players for not playing daily will receive a PEGI 12 rating. Lastly, PEGI is enforcing age restrictions on "safe online gameplay," which will result in games with entirely unrestricted communication receiving a PEGI 18 rating. Conceivably, games with proximity voice chat that cannot be disabled will also fall into this last box, although PEGI specifies that there needs to be a way to block or report users, so it's possible that being able to mute proximity chat may not be enough to escape a PEGI 18 rating on the grounds of online safety.

Pearl Abyss's Crimson Desert is just over a week away from its March 20 launch, and in a recent Steam News post, the studio behind the game has provided additional information about the release, while the Steam Store page now reflects that the game will launch with Denuvo DRM. The news update confirms that players jumping into the world of Pywel will be able to preload the game 24-48 hours ahead of the official launch, starting on March 17 or 18, depending on which part of the world they're in—the game goes live on March 19 at 10 PM UTC, so the exact launch date differs by region. Pearl Abyss also confirmed that Crimson Desert will not support cross-platform save, and there appears to be no plan to add it in at a later date. While Crimson Desert will be playable completely offline, Pearl Abyss warns that the game will need an internet connection on day one in order to install a day-one patch.

It's unclear how the addition of Denuvo DRM will affect gameplay, especially since Pearl Abyss set a pretty low barrier to entry with the minimum hardware requirements that it published earlier this week. Denuvo, and other DRM services, have, in the past, been known to cause performance degradation, even on higher-end hardware, but if the game was tested for the minimum requirements with the DRM in place, players can likely expect little to no performance hit. While Denuvo doesn't necessarily lock Linux users out of Crimson Desert, its use is generally frowned upon by the Linux gaming community. Pearl Abyss has not mentioned Steam Deck or Linux compatibility in any of its communications surrounding Crimson Desert.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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