Following a rather successful launch in mid-April, the development studio behind Windrose, the co-op pirate survival game, has announced an early roadmap to give players some sense of what to expect from the game in the next few months. The first order of business, and likely the most important for most players, is the announcement that Kraken Express will be focusing on improving the experience and delivering quality of life updates for the foreseeable future. Specifically, the developer has an update planned for sometime in early May that will improve connectivity issues, reduce CPU usage on idle clients and servers, address SSD load during gameplay, and improve performance and stability. The update will also introduce over 40 new building pieces and over 50 other fixes and quality of life changes.

In addition to the announcement of the bug fixes and minor changes, Kraken Express also revealed that it will start actively working on the game's first major content update as soon as the aforementioned fixes have shipped, but it also asked the community for patience because it will take "at least six months to deliver" the new content update. The upcoming update will introduce the game's first additional biome, called Ashlands, which will likely feature new enemies and crafting opportunities, but other than that, not much is known about the new content planned. Regarding the update, the developer says that "Our philosophy now is to enrich the current gameplay systems, instead of only adding new biomes with the respective content, so even before we have the full details, it's safe to say the game will not just grow in size - it will also evolve." Kraken Express was also careful to reiterate on the game's official Discord server that it does not plan to do wipes at any point in time, so no progress will be lost with the introduction of major content updates, like Ashlands.

The Linux community's response to the advent of LLMs and generative AI has been very mixed, but Ubuntu has more or less made its stance clear in a recent project discussion thread about the future of AI in Ubuntu. The gist of it is that, starting with Ubuntu 26.10 Stonking Stingray in October 2026—the next major release after 26.04—Ubuntu will start to get new AI features scattered throughout the operating system. The project's technical lead, Jon Seager, states that in 2026, Ubuntu has started encouraging its developers to use AI internally, incentivizing engineers to "go deep" and effectively figure out what works and what doesn't by measuring output. As internal adoption increases, Canonical will be integrating AI into the OS, but he notes that "responsibility and transparency are at the core of our approach."

This approach means that, instead of stuffing ChatGPT into every nook and cranny of Ubuntu, Canonical will prioritize open source models and offline, local inference wherever possible. Canonical will also pay special attention to the terms of the model, as opposed to simply considering whether the weights are open. The AI implementations will come in the form of what Seager describes as implicit and explicit features—implicit being features that integrate directly into the OS and enhance its standard operation, like speech-to-text and OCR, while explicit features are AI-centric features, like agentic and AI-automated workflows. "Implicit AI features will improve what Ubuntu already does; explicit AI will be introduced as new features." The full statement on how Canonical will implement AI in Ubuntu follows.

Thick as Thieves, an upcoming stealth co-op game from Deus Ex creator, Warren Spector, has been out in the open for a while now, with a release date set for May 20, and it was revealed long ago that it would be a stealth PvE co-op experience, but OtherSide Entertainment and Megabit Publishing, the studios behind the game, have just divulged more information about the game. First off, the price has been set at a very inoffensive $4.99/£4.99/€4.99, although it's likely that there will be regional pricing at play in other markets. Secondly, a gameplay walkthrough has been published to Megabit Publishing's YouTube channel, giving players a fairly in-depth look at the stealth, traversal, and progression mechanics, among others. Thick as Thieves is designed to be played as a single-player game or in a team of two players, and the game is set in an alternate history version of the early 20th century that features everything from magic and early technological innovation to eldritch horrors. The game will launch on Steam on May 20, 2026.

Thick as Thieves will drop players into Kilcairn as a stranger just joining the thieves' guild and looking to make a name for themselves. There are two playable characters, each with their own specific abilities, strengths, and weaknesses, although only one will be available to players with the other hidden behind an in-game unlock. The core gameplay, as you may have already guessed, revolves around players taking on and completing heists in the town of Kilcairn. In order to complete these heists, players will need to sneak through highly patrolled areas, solve environmental puzzles, and pick locks to gain access to forbidden areas. The gameplay walkthrough showed off a number of interesting mechanics, like the dynamic stealth and detection systems that force players to think on their feet and avoid making too much noise, and the various ways players can manipulate their surroundings and enemy NPCs to misdirect and trick them in order to get past—including distracting guards and shrouding the room in darkness by turning off lights, or using gear to lure the guards away entirely. The gameplay is designed to be highly replayable, with each heist offering players different choices and routes to explore. The Thick as Thieves gameplay walkthrough follows.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've seen the numerous issues Windows users have faced, from poor performance to experience-breaking bugs and updates, and AI oversaturation in the OS. While Microsoft has previously announced that it intends to address many of these complaints levelled by Windows users, a new report out of Windows Central purports to have insider information about what the publication calls "Windows K2." K2 isn't a specific version of Windows or a new update that's on the horizon; instead, it's a new initiative within Microsoft that fundamentally changes how the software giant develops Windows and its features.

According to inside sources, Windows K2 is based on three core tenets: performance, craft, and reliability, and it will effectively serve as a reboot for the user experience and the development standard operating procedures. Going forward, Microsoft will be using Insider feedback, user telemetry analytics, and customer focus groups to ensure that Windows 11 is performant, thoughtfully designed, and stable. The biggest shift, however, is away from a focus on agility, which used to be a top priority for Windows development, to an emphasis on quality. Effectively, this means users may see fewer updates and fewer features in those updates, but also fewer bugs. One of the other main driving forces behind K2 is chasing the performance of SteamOS, and the K2 team believes that "foundational changes" that are being made to Windows in the coming months will be able to put Windows on par with SteamOS within the next year or two. File explorer is another major focal point where Windows K2 seeks to improve navigation, search, and file processing performance.

Microsoft PowerToys is an oft-recommended utility that makes Windows 11 much more user-friendly by adding new features and UI tweaks to Microsoft's desktop OS. In an update not too long ago, PowerToys got a nifty dock, and before that a Command Palette, just like KDE's Krunner and macOS's Spotlight. Now, in an April update, version 0.99, Power Toys is getting a handful of new features that make Windows a little more like Linux and macOS. The first notable feature is Grab and Move, which allows you to hold Alt and left click to grab and move a window without having to aim for the border. Holding Alt and right click lets you resize a window from the nearest edge. If you're not familiar with Linux, this is exactly how most Linux desktop environments, like KDE Plasma and Gnome, work, except they generally use the System or Windows key as a modifier.

The other new addition to PowerToys 0.99 is Power Display, which allows you to change external display settings, like the source, power state, brightness, and contrast, from a taskbar fly-out menu. Users can also create specific display profiles that can be displayed and selected from the task bar menu. There are also minor changes to the keyboard layout editor, which now has support for selecting keys that are not physically available on your keyboard when setting up shortcuts and chords. The Command Palette also now features a compact dock option for those with limited screen space, and it has received several new features, including persistent calculator history and options for how applets pin to the dock and how the dock interacts with windows—you can choose to keep the dock above all windows, and there is a new dialogue to choose where apps pin to the dock.

Not long after EA announced that it was being acquired by a group of private investors, the company's new management announced an AI pivot that would see the company cut operating costs significantly. As it turned out, though, workers at EA would later reveal that the company had been pushing AI hard internally long before the takeover, and that the AI push was causing more harm than good and ultimately costing them time. Now, EA CEO, Andrew Wilson, has pushed back on this notion during a recent talk at the Iicon gaming event in Las Vegas.

According to Wilson, "almost all, like 85%, of our quality assurance is done with some kind of machine learning or AI-driven algorithm." However, he also adds that EA's QA hiring is at an all-time high. His argument is that AI has been "almost entirely augmentation," and not a replacement for human workers. According to the CEO, AI is doing mundane checks, like "turn the box on, turn the box off, boot it up, shut it down, does it crash, all these things." Despite these claims, there is evidence of AI-generated assets in Battlefield, and the company has partnered with Stability AI to work on generative AI tools.

Following the official release of Fedora 44, Bazzite's lead developer Kyle Gospodnetich has announced the release of Bazzite 44, the atomic gaming-focused distribution based on Fedora, which brings Gnome 50 and KDE Plasma 6.6, as well as many of the same improvements as the workstation OS. However, there are some notable differences for the atomic distribution—namely, the Linux kernel is still on version 6.19.x. Other notable changes and updates to Bazzite 44 include an update to the KDE Plasma Login Manager for KDE versions, a new version of the Bazaar app store, improved image security for ISOs, built-in support for Elgato 4K capture cards, and the removal of QEMU and ROCM, Bazzite 44 also includes the latest ASUS Linux patches for ASUSCtl, which provides access to LED customization, fan control, and various BIOS, boot, and power settings.

While the desktop images of Bazzite 44 are already available, the handheld versions have been delayed, with the developer stating that "we are slow-rolling this update due to the nature and amount of changes present in it to ensure that the vast majority of our existing users have a good experience." He also indicates that there will be more news about Bazzite 44's handheld images "in the coming weeks," so it seems like the delay will be more than just a few days. While this may be somewhat disappointing to hear, it also means that the developers will have more time to test and validate Bazzite 44 ahead of release, hopefully delivering a more stable OS as a result. Bazzite's development team has also promised to ship the new VRAM management patch that recently made a buzz in the Linux gaming world when it releases kernel version 7.

Epomaker's voyage into the world of Hall effect keyboards has been ongoing for a little over two years, now, and, while the peripheral maker oft manages to hit a reasonable price point, the results can be a little mixed. Now, it has shown off a revised version of the HE75 Mag that launched in 2025, bringing some new enthusiast-grade design touches to the affordable Hall effect gaming keyboard. The HE75 V2 has not yet officially launched, but Epomaker has shown it off in a recent livestream on YouTube and published the product page with all the specifications ahead of the official launch. From that product page, we can see that the HE75 V2 has an ABS plastic case with a gasket mount and an FR4 plate. Curiously, neither the PCB nor the FR4 plate have flex cuts, which is generally valued by the enthusiast community, since it prioritizes sound. Pricing has not yet been divulged, but if it is anywhere close to the original HE75 Mag, it should come in at around $100.

As the name suggests, the HE75 V2 follows a 75% layout, keeping both the num row and F row, although it makes use of a reduced, three-key navigation column on the far right edge, making it a solid, if somewhat compromised, all-round option. There is also modular programmable volume knob that can be removed and replaced with two key switches, much like on the original HE75 Mag. Unlike the original, the HE75 V2 comes in either an all-white or all-black aesthetic, both with color-matched translucent PC keycaps—smokey on the black version and frosted on the white keyboard. The translucent keycaps obviously allow a lot of RGB shine-through, and Epomaker has accented that with edge lighting that shines through a faceted diffuser seemingly meant to look like crystals. If the Epomaker livestream is any indication, the HE75 V2 and its Creamy Jade Magnetic switches will have a poppy sound signature typical of an FR4 plate and POM switches. The HE75 V2 will feature tri-mode connectivity, with Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz, and USB-C, and 8 kHz polling over 2.4 GHz and wired connections.

News recently broke about a new DRM system Sony had seemingly silently implemented in the PS5 that would make buyers of digital games go online every 30 days to validate a license or potentially be locked out of their games until they could access an internet connection. Now, according to some research done by andshrew on the ResetEra forums, it seems as though it's not quite as simple as that. As it turns out, going online to validate the DRM license may only be a requirement for the first 14 days as an attempt to avoid users buying a game and then refunding the game and playing it anyway in offline mode using some exploit—at least that is the current speculative explanation, since Sony is yet to address this debacle publicly.

The explanation in the ResetEra forum post details the full methodology, but essentially, what the user found by comparing two copies of the same game purchased on two separate PSN accounts, once before the new requirement and once after, is that Sony is now issuing a 30-day license for the first 14 days and swapping that license out for a perpetual license after the refund period has lapsed. This would mean that, after Sony's DRM server has been able to validate the license once after the 14-day refund period is over, there will be no restrictions on offline play, as is usually the case with console games. This somewhat resolves some of the issues that have been brought up surrounding this DRM feature, but it still may present issues for those who are not able to connect to the internet more than 14 days after purchasing a game—this is especially true, since there is no clearly visible notice about this DRM feature on Sony's site at the time of writing.

Hot on the heels of the news of Sony's new DRM that earned significant community backlash, Andy Nguyen, the developer who previously showed off running a full Linux installation on a PlayStation 5, has officially published their methodology and necessary steps to get the open-source operating system running on Sony's console. The hack requires a PS5 disc version running firmware version 3.00, 3.10, 3.20, 3.21, and 4.00, 4.02, 4.03, 4.50, 4.51, and there is only support for the M.2 drive in the 4.XX versions at the time of writing. There are supposedly ways to downgrade the PS5 firmware to one of the versions that still supports the hack, but those may not always work reliably. If you've followed the jailbreak steps, injected the payload and rebooted back into Linux, you should be greeted by a full Ubuntu 26.04 Resolute Raccoon installation, replete with the Linux kernel 7.

Interestingly, the PS5 Linux installation is quite full-featured, replete with custom VRAM allocation, fan control, and a boost mode toggling—all from within the terminal or a text file, of course. There are some caveats, and driver development is still ongoing—wireless networking, for example, may require you to manually restart the WLAN adaptor to work. The Sony DualSense controllers also don't currently work via the built-in dongle, although they do with an external dongle. The output refresh rate is also limited to 60 Hz across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions, although 120 Hz may be added later. The biggest limitation, however, is that it is a soft mod, meaning that if you restart the PS5 while in the Linux desktop, it will not boot back into the environment unless you apply the same jailbreak again. The upside of that is that the PlayStation 5's base OS isn't affected by the Linux installation, so if you want to go back to using it as a regular PS5, you can just reboot.

Since the launch of the Steam Deck, Valve has poured a lot of effort into not only developing SteamOS but also making the Steam Store and client more user-friendly on handheld devices. Valve's latest Steam Deck Client update builds on this, introducing a number of small changes that make the Steam Deck all the more useful as a console-like gaming experience. Some of the highlights in this latest update include a new optional "Switch to Desktop" button on the login screen—a change that should make the Steam Deck that much easier to user as a docked workstation when necessary. The update also adds a wireless gamepad battery indicator and a low battery level toast notification.

In addition to the aforementioned new UI features, the Steam quick access menu now also houses Steam chat, making in-game socials easier, and there is now a new quick chat feature in Steam Deck and Big Picture mode. Users can access user-configurable quick chats by holding down the view button and selecting the appropriate response. The Steam Deck also now supports Remote Downloads management, allowing you to manage, for example, the downloads on your gaming desktop from the comfort of a couch across the room or the discomfort of an airport across the country. The update also includes a number of bug fixes and UI changes to features like the Steam Input controller customization settings, which can all be viewed in the full update changelog.

Capcom has been fairly open about the fact that there is a Resident Evil Requiem DLC coming at some point this year, but an exact launch date was unclear. Now, according to a hint from the game's director, Koshi Nakanishi, and producer, Masato Kumazawa, in an interview with Denfaminico Gamer, that DLC is still under development. The pair did not outright confirm the release date, but they confirmed that there is a combat-based mini-game DLC coming in May, following up that statement by suggesting that players interested in playing the mini-game DLC complete the game's main quest during Japan's Golden Week holidays.

"So, if you're planning to play it, clearing the main story during Golden Week would be just right for you to be able to play it," said Kumazawa. Golden Week is one of Japan's largest holiday periods and runs between April 29 and May 6, so the implication here is that the Resident Evil mini-game DLC will launch sometime shortly after May 6. The comment to Denfaminico also confirms that the mini-game will only be accessible once players have completed the main quest in the Resident Evil Requiem base game.

Just on time, according to the recent launch date announcement, Fedora 44 has officially left the gates, with both Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 44 and Fedora Linux 44 Workstation (with Gnome), seeing significant user-facing and behind-the-scenes updates. The biggest changes come by way of the addition of Gnome 50 on Fedora Workstation and KDE Plasma 6.6 on Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 44. Both versions can now be downloaded from the Fedora website, and existing users can perform in-place upgrades following the official guidance. The full Fedora Linux 44 patch notes are available here.

While Gnome 50 and KDE 6.6 both feature neat UI tweaks, bug fixes, and accessibility and performance improvements, Fedora Linux itself also saw a few notable changes. For starters, Fedora 44 now includes the NTSync driver, and it is enabled by default, enabling some impressive performance and stability improvements in certain games and with the most recent Proton and Wine versions, as we covered previously. All Fedora KDE versions will now all use the same out-of-the-box experience, making initial setup feel more familiar and enabling hardware vendors to sell hardware with Fedora KDE pre-installed with a proper user greeting and setup wizard. Fedora Atomic Desktops have also dropped FUSE2 library support, which may be of import to some users using AppImage applications. Both Fedora Workstation and Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop use Wayland by default, but in the case of Fedora Workstation, Gnome 50 no longer includes any code for X11 compatibility. X11 can still be installed, but it is not officially supported and may result in issues. Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 44 also switches to KDE Plasma Login Manager by default, which may be unfamiliar to some users and may actually have fewer features.

Mouse comparison website, EloShapes has long been an indispensable tool for gamers—and productivity users—to compare shapes when shopping for a new mouse, but it has previously only worked with the outlines of the mice in its database. This was a good solution, but as of a recent announcement, the developer behind EloShapes has started providing 3D models for shape comparison, making it far easier to spot small differences in contours and complex geometry that would have otherwise been hidden in the silhouette view. In the EloShapes search drop-down, you can see which mice models have 3D models available with a simple little icon that appears next to the mouse's name. At the time of writing, there does not seem to be a way to download the 3D models to 3D print a mock-up shape to test ergonomics and fit, but there is a lot of demand for it in the responses to the announcement of the feature.

The new 3D model comparison feature in EloShapes is based on 3D scans of real production units of gaming mice, and it allows you to very quickly compare two or more mouse shapes by overlaying the models over one another. It's a surprisingly complete tool for comparison. It allows you to switch between solid and shaded views to see how the shapes compare when superimposed over one another; there's a built-in ruler to measure features; and it allows you to change the alignment, position, and rotation of the mice to compare based on different datums or reference points. The model even indicates the sensor location, so that you can see if there is going to be any weirdness in the way the mouse feels to aim. The creator of EloShapes said in the announcement on X that there are a number of mice available on the comparison site, and that the collection would grow consistently over time.

Framework, known for its repairable and upgradeable gaming and productivity laptops, has officially released a Laptop 16 graphics upgrade module with the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 12 GB. Framework's original Laptop 16 graphics expansion module, which upgrades the original $350 AMD Radeon RX 7700S, is based on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 8 GB and costs $699. Now, the RTX 5070 12 GB upgrade comes in at a whopping $1,199—a 72% price increase for a 50% increase in VRAM. It's unclear where the drastic price increase comes from, but some of it can likely be explained by the low volume Framework has to contend with, and some of it can be attributed to the ongoing DRAM crisis wracking the PC hardware market.

A Hypervisor bypass recently appeared giving game crackers an alternative way to circumvent protections like Denuvo DRM. The bypass is so effective that popular game repacker, FitGirl, has declared that "all single-player/non-VR Denuvo games are now cracked/bypassed." The announcement comes after four Hypervisor bypasses were released for EA Sports games. The Hypervisor bypass appears to rely on installing a new Hypervisor driver in Ring -1, granting it very low-level access, which present significant security concerns, as acknowledged by FitGirl themself.

The announcement of this universal Denuvo bypass has prompted Denuvo to implement a new workaround: require a regular DRM check with an online server every two weeks, according to recent reports from players online. This updated check has seemingly been applied to games published by 2K, namely NBA 2K25 and 2K26 and Marvel's Midnight Suns. Irdeto, the company behind Denuvo, has also spoken out about the issue, stating that "We're already working on updated security versions for games impacted by hypervisor bypasses. For players, performance will not be compromised by these strengthened security measures." Notably, Denuvo also said that whatever workaround is released will not operate in Ring -1, as has been theorized.

One of the often-touted benefits of console gaming is how physical media enables access to games, even when there is no internet connection for the DRM to verify the game's license. Now, it seems as though the Sony's PS5 will start locking players out of digital-only games if the console has been unable to connect to PSN servers within the last 30 days. This is according to testing done by Hikikomori Media, who found the issue with Wild Arms 4 and Vampire Crawlers, both of which were purchased as digital-only titles in April 2026.

The content creator simulated an offline PS5 by disconnecting it from the internet, resetting the internal clock by removing the CMOS battery, and then booting up the PS5 without an internet connection. Effectively, he tricked the PS5 into thinking that it had been offline for an extended period of time. The end result is that both Wild Arms 4 and Vampire Crawlers were unable to launch after the reboot. It's notable that games purchased before March 2026 would still launch without a hitch. Based on this testing and further testing with a PS4, which revealed a timer showing how long it had been since the console could call home, it seems as though games purchased after March 2026 will need to connect to PSN servers at least once every 30 days in order to be playable.

Valve confirmed not too long ago that it had delayed announcing the pricing of the Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller because of the ongoing DRAM shortage and price volatility crisis that has plagued the PC hardware industry in recent months. Eventually, the gaming giant caved and announced the Steam Controller ahead of the rest of the hardware that was meant to ship alongside it, and in a recent interview with Polygon, Valve confirmed what we all suspected: The Steam Machine and Steam Frame are still being held back by the DRAM crisis. As Valve hardware engineer, Steve Cardinali, explained about the early launch of the controller: "This doesn't have RAM in it, and it's not as complicated to start getting out the door for us. We're ready for it. We wanted to build up quantity so that we could try to address everybody who wants one at launch, but it's possible that the demand for it far exceeds our expectations."

He goes on to explain that there was never a hard-and-fast rule that the Controller, Frame, and Machine had to launch together, although he confirmed that Valve would not launch the Machine ahead of the Controller. It's safe to assume, then, that the Steam Machine and Steam Frame were originally meant to launch around May as well—Cardinali says that the Controller and Machine are "a pair made in heaven," so it only makes sense to try to launch them around the same time, even if "there's no point in holding it back while we work through the other stuff." According to VR industry insider, Brad Lynch on X, the Steam Machine is more severely affected by the memory supply issues than the Steam Frame, since it relies on on-package RAM and on mobile RAM, which doesn't appear to be as severely impacted by the shortages. Reading between the lines, it seems entirely possible that the Steam Frame may launch ahead of the Steam Machine as long as RAM prices remain elevated and unstable.

Keychron has been steadily updating its mechanical keyboard line-up with ZMK firmware and its new Silk POM mechanical switches. One of the more recent updates is the Keychron P6 Ultra, which features a full-size layout, 8 kHz polling, and an understated design with a neat party trick. The hallmark feature of the P6 Ultra is its quick-disassembly ball-catch closure mechanism, which allows for toolless disassembly of the aluminium case. This is becoming more common in mechanical keyboards, because it allows you to more easily get at the internals for modifications, although it does introduce a drawback in that it makes the front height slightly taller—the P2 Ultra measures in at 22.25 mm as a result. Aside from the quick-release closure, the P6 Ultra also features a programmable knob, and the entire keyboard is customizable and programmable in Keychron Launcher, the brand's VIA-like web driver.

The P6 Ultra is available on Keychron's online store for $199.99 and on Amazon for $179.99, and it can be purchased with the Silk POM Red (linear), Brown (tactile), and Banana (early-bump tactile) switches. It is only available in black, and it comes with black Cherry profile double-shot PBT keycaps with gray and orange accent keys. Keychron says the 4,000 mAh battery in the P6 Ultra is capable of keeping it going for 660 hours on a single charge, at least without the backlighting disabled. With the backlighting on its lowest brightness, that drops to 200 hours per Keychron. It features both 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity for convenience and broad compatibility. Unlike many of Keychron's other mechanical keyboards, this seems to be based on a design similar to that of the Lemokey P2 HE, which also features the same silicone bean gasket mount and quick-disassembly feature.

With Valve today officially announcing pricing and availability for the Steam Controller, it was only a matter of time before people started asking questions about the Steam Machine and even the Steam Deck 2. Fortunately, in a recent comment to IGN, Valve developer, Pierre-Loup Griffais, has addressed the latter right off the bat. Griffais commented that the Steam Deck 2 is actively being worked on at Valve, although neither he nor the gaming giant can divulge any more concrete information about the upcoming gaming handheld, let alone a potential release window. He does note that the Steam Deck 2 will be a culmination of the lesson Valve learned during the development of its previous hardware projects.

Given prior comments that the Steam Deck 2 would need to be a sizeable performance leap over the current Steam Deck, it would not be surprising to see Valve wait until something like RDNA 4 or 5 reaches sufficient efficiency, performance, and pricing figures to be stuffed into a handheld APU without severely impacting the battery life. At that point, the Steam Deck 2 may have more serious competition to contend with, specifically from the likes of Sony. It has recently been rumored that the Steam Deck 2 would not use a semi-custom AMD APU but would launch in 2028 like the original Steam Deck, instead being powered by an off-the-shelf unit—a move that may offer Valve more flexibility to react to different market conditions and new mid-cycle CPU refreshes.

To call Noctua popular in PC building enthusiast circles would be an understatement, but the company may have just scored even more points among its fans by publishing free 3D models of all its fans. According to the post on X announcing the 3D models, Noctua intends for makers, designers, and engineers to use these models for "mechanical design, renderings, or animations," and the actual license on the Noctua page states that the models "may not be used, in whole or in part, for the manufacture, reproduction, or commercialization of the products they represent or any substantially similar products." At the time of writing, a number of fans are not available on the 3D downloads site, but a substantial number are available as STEP files, which makes them almost universally compatible with CAD software.

Aside from using the models themselves as visual references, the CAD files should make it significantly easier for case designers to accurately design mounting points and plan cooling routes using Noctua fans. From poking around in the CAD models, it's notable that Noctua has published the products with separate bodies, which is useful if you want to, for instance, print a missing rubber corner for noise damping. Noctua notes that certain geometry, like the fan blade curvature, has been adjusted to protect the company's IP and to avoid users doing airflow simulation with the 3D models. Publishing 3D models for end-user use is becoming more and more popular, with companies like Keychron and ZSA doing the same for their keyboards. Cooler Master also famously has several case series for which it has released 3D models for users to design and print their own accessories.

GPD has officially announced its Box mini PC and its G-series eGPUs, which both now feature faster external PCIe interfaces for gaming and AI use cases. The GPD Box itself is a fairly standard Panther Lake mini PC, although not too much has been revealed about the Box aside from its new eGPU interface. The GPD Box swaps out the traditional USB4 or Thunderbolt 5 port with an MCIO 8i (Mini Cool Edge IO) port, which is capable of full PCIe 5.0 ×8 bandwidth. MCIO 8i aside, the Box looks to have a healthy assortment of ports, with dual USB Type-A and Type-C ports, alongside a 3.5 mm audio jack on the front and two USB Type-A ports, DP and HDMI for display, and dual Ethernet ports on the back of the mini PC. That MCIO ×8 port is theoretically capable of bidirectional bandwidth of up to 512 Gbps, although there are legitimate concerns about rated insertion cycles and wear on the ports, given that MCIO was initially designed for server applications, where hardware would be plugged and unplugged far less frequently than in consumer applications. It should also be noted that it is limited to PCIe ×8, even on PCIe Gen 5, meaning it will be limited to 256 Gbps bidirectional bandwidth on PCIe Gen 5.

The GPD G2 itself is the eGPU enclosure launching alongside the Box mini PC, and it is capable of connecting either over USB4 v2.0 or MCIO 8i, making it useful for more than just the GPD mini PC. GPD claims that the G2 can run an NVIDIA RTX 4090 with only 2% performance loss, which is a level of throughput that neither Thunderbolt 5 nor OCuLink can achieve. The G2 eGPU dock itself has dual USB Type-A ports for peripherals and a USB4 port with 100 W PD charging, and there's a built-in PCIe SSD expansion slot in the eGPU dock for extra storage. The G2 also has its own on-board PSU that connects to the GPU with an externally routed 12v-2×6 cable—GPD has not yet revealed the output of that unit, but presumably, it will at least be enough to power an RTX 4090 if that's what the company is staking its performance claim on. Availability and pricing have not yet been announced, but the Weibo announcement post lists 2026 as the release date, so we will likely find out more, including more specifications, later this year.

The Orbital Pathfinder is one of the more unique gaming mice out there, owing to its modular, highly configurable design and high-performance internals. Now, more than a year after the mouse first launched, Orbital has announced an updated version of the Pathfinder with refreshed internals, additional modularity and shapes, and an updated scroll wheel in a new special edition clear shell. The new Pathfinder: Ghost also gets a lower starting price, retailing for $149 instead of $189 for the base mouse and exploration kit, with a $29 expansion kit, starting on April 30—however, it will be a made-to-order one-time production run. The brand has also confirmed that the expansion set will be available separately for the black version, suggesting that the improvements will be brought forward into the mainline Pathfinder base kit as well.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the Orbital Pathfinder is now live]

The new Pathfinder operates on the same modular philosophy as the original version but with new materials and additional options. Orbital has introduced four new shapes—the interchangeable attachments that allow you to change the shape of the Pathfinder—thereby expanding the number of configurations to over 5,000. The brand has also updated the PCB, which now supports modular switches and is based on the Nordic nRF54L15 MCU, and the mag-alloy scroll wheel has also been redesigned, although it's unclear what exactly the changes there are. To celebrate the launch, Orbital has also created a Special Edition version of the Pathfinder that's made from a "clear plastic alloy," likely composed of some mixture of polycarbonate.

Fedora 44 was meant to be launched today, April 14, 2026, but a gander at the Fedora developer mailing list reveals that the workstation Linux distribution will be delayed to April 21 at the earliest. Adam Williamson, the Fedora QA developer who made the announcement clarified in the email that the reason for the delay is a long list of outstanding blockers—bugs or broken features that are big enough to break the experience or prevent the launch of the OS—that nobody is willing to waive. These bugs include issues with KDE's plasma-setup network setup, the NVIDIA Mesa driver setup, KDE keyboard layout selection, the systemd-oomd.service, and Grub breaking booting to Windows systems with BitLocker enabled.

On the one hand, this means that gamers and workstation users on Fedora, and all of its various iterations, like Bazzite, Nobara, and Rocky Linux, will have to wait a longer for the new version, along with all of its bug fixes, the new kernel version 6.19, and promised new features. On the other hand, the delay will give the project's developers extra time to iron out those experience-breaking bugs and deliver a working operating system. Some of the highlights of Fedora 44 are a move to Gnome 50 and KDE Plasma 6.6, a streamlined install process, finalizing the move to Plasma Login Manager on KDE spins, and adding support for Budgie 10.10.

Update Apr 27th: It has been officially confirmed during a go/no-go meeting that Fedora 44 will launch on April 28, and users can already download RC-1.7 for testing.

The last time Assassin's Creed Hexe made news, it was revealed that the combat had been scaled back significantly—after nearly four years in development, at that. Now, an Insider Gaming report, citing internal sources, claims that Ubisoft has removed as many as 50 developers from the project. The developers who have been removed from Hexe have supposedly been assigned to what is known internally as the "Interproject team," where they have up to three months to find a new project to work on or potentially be laid off. It's currently unknown whether this will have an impact on the eventual state of the game, but the move appears to be just the latest in Ubisoft's efforts to cut costs, although less forcefully than previously.

It seems as though the development of Assassin's Creed Hexe may not be going as smoothly as Ubisoft would like, which may be problematic given the expected 2027 launch date. It may also be Ubisoft taking a cautious approach, which would echo what has been reported about the future of Assassin's Creed remake projects. The rumor of a smaller dev team on Hexe comes shortly after Ubisoft officially confirmed that Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced would launch in July of 2026, and leaks revealed that an Assassin's Creed 1 remake is likely also in the works. It was also revealed that the as-yet unannounced cozy life sim, Alterra, was cancelled in a recent cost-cutting measure, which is what the Hexe downsizing seems to be as well.

With Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced now officially confirmed and virtually around the corner, a new leak from @xjØnathan on X, Ubisoft is also working on a remake of Assassin's Creed 1. The leak allegedly stems from someone within Ubisoft, although not much else is known about the AC1 remake. The Black Flag remake was a collaborative effort between Ubisoft Singapore, Barcelona, Bordeaux, Belgrade, Chengdu, India, Kyiv, Montpellier, Philippines, Quebec, and Shanghai.

This recent leak corroborates a recent rumor that Ubisoft already had at least one Assassin's Creed remake in the works, however, future remakes will hinge on the success of Black Flag Resynced. It remains to be seen what approach Ubisoft takes with the Assassin's Creed 1 remake, but, given the way the gaming giant has handled Black Flag Resynced when it comes to features like DLC and multiplayer gameplay, or the absence of those features, it's safe to assume Ubisoft will be taking the same cautious approach with the Assassin's Creed 1 remake. There seems to be a decent amount of interest in Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, which has garnered nearly 30,000 followers on Steam since its announcement just two days before the most recent leak.

Back in January, we checked out the ASUS Zenbook Duo at the ASUS booth at CES 2026, where ASUS confirmed that the new dual-screen productivity laptop would feature Intel's Panther Lake CPUs, a new Ceraluminum coating, and redesigned hinges that bring the device's top and bottom displays closer together. Now, following the launch of the ASUS Zephyrus Duo, ASUS has officially launched the Zenbook Duo 2026 with two distinct models available for purchase at the time of writing. The biggest difference between the Zenbook Duo US8407AA-DS99T and the UX8407AA-PSXT is that the former uses the less powerful Intel Core Ultra 9 386H CPU, while the latter comes with the Core Ultra X9 388H. The two CPUs share similar CPU performance, but the 388H gains a significant lead when it comes to iGPU performance, thanks to the inclusion of the Intel Arc B390 iGPU compared to the more standard Xe3 graphics in the 386H.

Editors note: our in depth review is now available.

Both models share the same dual touch-enabled, 14-inch, 2880×1800p, 16:10, 144 Hz OLED displays with 1,000 nits HDR brightness and 500 nits of SDR brightness. Similarly, both laptops come with 32 GB of LPDDR5X memory and a 1 TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD by default. While ASUS positions the Zenbook as a sort of catch-all laptop capable of doing everything from creative work to general productivity, and even a little gaming, the ports tell somewhat of a different story. Both have a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, dual Thunderbolt 4 ports with both USB Power Delivery and support for external displays, a single HDMI 2.1 FRL port, and a 3.5 mm audio combo jack. The Zenbook Duo comes with the ASUS Pen 3.0 with wireless charging as well as a Zenbook laptop sleeve, and the bottom display has a detachable wireless keyboard. The Zenbook Duo is available directly from the ASUS store, with the Core Ultra 9 386H variant starting at $2,499.99 and the Core Ultra X9 version starting at $2,699.99. The Core Ultra 9 version is expected to start shipping on May 11, while the Core X9 version will only be available in "late Q2."

Digital Extremes has long teased an upcoming update for mid-2026, and the game studio has finally put a name on the update and given gamers an idea of what to expect when it rolls out in June. The details about the upcoming update are still scant, but Digital Extremes did reveal that the Jade Shadows: Constellations quest would be a follow-up to the Jade Shadows quest that saw players delve into the backstory and relationships that motivate the enigmatic Stalker. Jade Shadows: Constellations will see players return to Stalker's lair, although this time, the action seems to center on Stalker's children, Orion and Sirius. Digital Extremes released an animated short for Jade Shadows: Constellations, showing off Orion and Sirius battling it out on a desolate world, with the Protoframes of Garuda and Ash, Vena and Ryoku, respectively, also making an appearance in the trailer. By the way Digital Extremes is framing the introduction, it seems as though players will be offered a choice of which of Stalker's children to side with during the quest.

The update will also introduce two new Railjack missions in the Uranus Proxima sector, and both of these Railjack missions will be tied to Vena and Ryoku. Nidus, a stalwart Warframe tied to the game's Infected faction lore, will also receive a minor rework in Jade Shadows: Constellations, in which he will get increased health and an overall buff to his abilities. Finally, DE also confirmed that, starting on May 4, Operation: Belly of the Beast will be returning until June 1, giving players a chance to access new and returning rewards. More details about Belly of the Beast are available here, but players wishing to participate—at least those who have completed The New War quest—will be able to play through two operation missions on Uranus, one of which will be in the new Brutus node and feature classic Ascension-style defense mission types, but with special Jade Light Eximus units spawning in for an extra challenge. The animated Jade Shadows: Constellations trailer follows.

Xbox executives, Asha Sharma and Matt Booty, recently publicly released an internal memo in which they detailed the upcoming changes to the Xbox Games strategy, revealing that Microsoft would be reevaluating its approach to Xbox exclusive games and further addressing the viability and value proposition of Game Pass. The memo also addressed the future of Xbox hardware, stating that Project Helix would lead in performance and that the short-term goal was to work on the shortcomings of the Xbox Series X|S consoles to make them more attractive for gamers. Sharma and Booty also recently spoke to The Game File in an interview and divulged more of what those plans meant for the future of Xbox.

Addressing Game Pass first, Sharma said that the recent price cut applied to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass were the first steps toward attracting more players who will stick around long-term. The CEO went on to say that the executives have been rethinking the Game Pass approach, commenting that, aside from making it more affordable, they are evaluating how value looks in the context of the modern gaming landscape and the rapidly changing world. Matt Booty, Chief Content Officer, commented that Microsoft would be working on the games coming out of Xbox Game Studios, so that it could deliver a predictable cadence with a robust roadmap, and that it would "aim for quality."

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 made waves when it launched in early 2025, going on to earn numerous Game of the Year awards later on in the year. Now, in a recent announcement, Sandfall Interactive has officially announced that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has sold over 8 million copies since it launched, which is an impressive milestone for a relatively small indie studio, especially for a genre that generally appeals to a smaller subset of the overall gaming audience.

This is yet another indication of the comeback of original single-player games that has been ongoing in the last few years, with other single-player games, like Crimson Desert and Pragmata also hitting it big in the first half of 2026. Sandfall Interactive has also announced a new update for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that adds fun new cosmetics in celebration of the milestone and of the game's one-year anniversary.

More often than not, finding a pre-built mechanical keyboard with any layout other than US ANSI can be challenging—broad layout support is one of the reasons Keychron became popular in the first place—and finding a true 100% mechanical keyboard in ISO or JIS layouts can be even more challenging, given the keyboard market's tendency to prefer more compact designs, like the Wooting 60HE v2. Fortunately, NuPhy has just updated its somewhat affordable Node100 and Node75 wireless mechanical keyboards with support for both ISO and JIS.

The ISO versions include UK, DE, and FR layouts, with JIS only supporting Japanese, although the keycaps are still in the regular Latin alphabet. Interestingly, the JIS layout features a fully split space bar with 2.25 U and 2.75 U keycaps, likely in order to fit the denser bottom row of the JIS layout more than anything. The ISO and JIS layouts are also available in both the full-height and low-profile versions of the Node keyboards. At the time of writing, ISO and JIS are only available in Lunar White and Ink Grey colorways. ISO and JIS layouts also come at a $10 premium over the ANSI versions for both the Node75 and Node100, with both the high- and low-profile Node75 starting at $99.95 in ANSI but $109.95 in ISO. Likewise, the Node100 starts at $109.95 in ANSI-US but $119.95 in ISO and JIS.

Canonical has today released Ubuntu 26.04 LTS as the company's latest update to the mainstream Linux distro. As we reported previously, Canonical has upgraded the minimum system requirements to 6 GB of RAM, but that change comes alongside a number of upgrades to the distro itself, some of which will be immediately noticeable, while others will silently improve the user experience in the background. Ubuntu users can download Ubuntu 26.04 directly from Canonical, or users of previous Ubuntu versions can simply run "do-release-upgrade -p" in their terminal.

The biggest user-facing change is the move to Gnome 50, which now mandates Wayland and has improved, non-experimental support for both VRR and fractional scaling. Gnome 50 also implements a new feature that allows the cursor to render at the monitor's full refresh rate, even if the foreground app is running at a lower frame rate. The Gnome 50 update also sees the Yaru theme get some nifty visual tweaks that bring it closer to the standard Gnome theme and a new icon pack. Resolute Raccoon also moves Ubuntu up to the Linux kernel 7.0, adding better memory management, removing the "experimental" tag from Rust, and updating various drivers and services, like ZFS, and adding security features, like TPM-backed full-disk encryption. Ubuntu 26.04 is also the first Ubuntu version to ship NVIDIA CUDA out of the box, and AMD's ROCm platform is available in the Ubuntu repos for those looking to run local AI.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the state of platform exclusives in the video game console industry, from controversial rumors about Sony potentially leaving behind much of its PC port business to Microsoft's recent announcement that it would be "reevaluating" platform exclusives as part of its new strategy for Xbox Gaming. All of this aside, however, it seems as though there is a degree of success to be had from casting a wider net when it comes to hardware support.

According to an update on the Virtuos Games website—a game studio that helped Playground Games bring Forza Horizon 5 to the PS5—Forza Horizon 5 has sold more than 5 million copies on Sony's console alone. This nearly matches some of the estimated sales figures for the game's Steam release, which sits anywhere between 7.24 million and 8.36 million, depending on which analytics figures you're referencing. This is despite Forza Horizon 5 only releasing on PlayStation 5 in 2025, nearly four years after the original PC and Xbox launch. This sort of timed exclusivity is very similar to the model that Sony has been following with many of its games and largely one that Microsoft has been moving away from, and will possibly return to in the future. As it stands, Forza Horizon 6 is launching on May 19, with a PS5 release date promised for later in 2026.

Hot on the heels of a sizeable update to how Wooting keyboards handle on-board keyboard profile switching, Wooting has announced a new round of cases to add some custom flair to its 60HE v2 HE keyboard. The new silicone Wooting 60HE v2 cases are slightly translucent, and come in aquamarine or white colorways. Wooting also says that the translucent nature of the silicone case allows the keyboard's RGB to shine through the case, sort of like a pudding keycap.

Wooting designed the silicone case for the 60HE v2, but it is also compatible with the friction fit mounting system of the original Wooting 60HE+. It is meant to serve as a lighter, easy to install alternative to the original aluminium case that comes with the 60HE v2. The silicone case, which has a 70 A hardness rating—making it about as stiff as the rubber on the outsole of a shoe—measures just 19.3 mm tall at its tallest and has a 4° typing angle. Currently, it retails for $39.99, making it the cheapest aftermarket case Wooting sells aside from the brass UwU case. If you build out a Wooting 60HE v2 module with a silicone case and the cheapest options available, the case is discounted to $19.99, bringing the build down to $179.99, making it just $5 more than the original Wooting 60HE+ at the time of the 60HE v2's launch.

Since Asha Sharma took over as CEO of Xbox Gaming, she seems to be trying to tackle a number of complaints regularly levelled at Microsoft's gaming division. The most recent material change to be announced to Microsoft's gaming stack is a price cut for Xbox and PC Game Pass. More recently, however, Sharma and Matt Booty, the new Chief Content Officer at Xbox Gaming, published an internal memo detailing a strategy shift, which could result in significant changes to how gamers interact with Microsoft's gaming IPs and divisions.

The full memo is available after the break, but the gist of it appears to be that Microsoft wants to strengthen Xbox Gaming's position as a hardware supplier and build the Xbox ecosystem, starting with Gen 9 (Xbox Series X|S consoles), make Game Pass more sustainable, increase the viability of cloud gaming, and address game discoverability, discoverability, and social features, including live service gaming and UGC games. Sharma and Booty say that they want to make Xbox "the best place for developers and creators to build and grow," and they specifically mention that Xbox will "reevaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing, and AI, and share more as we learn and decide." The memorandum also mentions making Xbox "affordable, personal, and open," with "flexible" pricing to lower the barrier to entry.

It was recently rumored that Gears of War: E-Day would be shown off at a June Xbox Summer Games showcase in 2026, and we have already seen drips and drabs of information about the upcoming game's plot, setting, and characters. Now, according to a purported leak by GhostOfHope on X, Microsoft is planning to launch Gears of War: E-Day sometime in September 2026. GhostOfHope is a known leaker, generally focusing on games like Call of Duty, lending some credence to the rumor. It should be noted that, while E-Day has an official Steam Store page, and Xbox Game Studios has previously acknowledged the game's existence, neither Microsoft nor Xbox Game Studios has actually commented on the release date or a release window. That said, it would not be surprising to see a September launch, since it has been said to be releasing in 2026, and September is usually a busy time for video game launches, since it's right before the holiday season.

Since the launch of the Steam Deck, Valve has been steadily updating SteamOS with new features in order to improve the gaming experience on its gaming handheld, all the while working with developers and providing them with tools to make it easier to support the Steam Deck. The latest beta update to the Steamworks dashboard for partners—developers and publishers—comes in the form of frame rate reporting for SteamOS users. With the new feature, game developers whose games have received Steam Deck Verified status will be able to access data gathered from Steam Deck users who opted into frame rate reporting.

Currently, the feature will provide game developers with a graph of average frame rate data for the 30 days, but Valve says that it will later add additional information about frame rate fluctuations, giving developers even more information to use to optimize the game. Valve says that it has added frame rate reporting to the Steamworks platform in order to help developers address user feedback from gamers who disagree with Steam Deck Verified ratings, stating that this data "can be valuable for developers to better understand the experiences of customers who disagree, especially in the context of a specific title or update." In the future, it will also expand this frame rate data to include games rated as "Steam Deck Playable," and it will add frame rate variance to the graph to indicate frame rate stability. Valve also provides developers with other Deck Verified data gathered by surveying users who have spent more than 10 minutes in a game. Presumably, features like these will eventually be available for the upcoming Steam Machine and Steam Frame, too.

The Vampire Survivors "turboturn" spinoff, Vampire Crawlers, has officially launched on Steam in Early Access, serving as yet another reminder that what seems to really matter in gaming is fun factor. Despite the bizarre combination of turn-based deck-builder, dungeon crawler, and roguelite, Vampire Crawlers has peaked at 40,802 players within 48 hours of launch, according to SteamDB. It has also managed to hit fifth place in Steam's top sellers chart and shore up nigh-universal praise, with an "Overwhelmingly Positive" 98% positive review rating on Steam. Even in the first 48 hours, Vampire Crawlers has already come close to the 77,061 peak concurrent player count of Vampire Survivors. It should also be noted that these numbers are for Steam alone, and Vampire Crawlers also released on Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series.

The Steam reviews praise the game for its addictive, original mix of gameplay mechanics and satisfying gameplay loop, but a number of reviews also commend it for how well it keeps gameplay feeling fresh with new mechanics and interesting encounters. One minor complaint that pops up in a few reviews is the overall length, at just 15-20 hours, according to a few reviews, given the long legs that Vampire Survivors has had, it would not be surprising to see plenty of additional content come to Vampire Crawlers in the coming months and years. The Vampire Crawlers launch trailer follows.

It was recently rumored that PlayStation would be moving away from publishing PC ports of its mainline first-party single-player games, which came with the implication that Sony would not port the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine game to PC. Speaking at a recent ALT Games Festival event in Australia, Shuhei Yoshida, Sony's former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, commented on the PlayStation exclusive situation and how PC ports impact Sony's gaming portfolio and financials in his view. Yoshida is of the opinion that PC ports are largely a positive move for Sony, and that they don't meaningfully detract from console hardware sales or game sales on consoles.

Instead, Yoshida says that Sony's PC ports could help recoup some of the initial game design and development costs—presumably because games usually get a bump in sales when they launch on other platforms, and because developing a new game is far more costly than porting an existing game to a new platform. The latter is especially true with modern hardware, which all share similar x86 platform specifications, with the exception of systems like the Nintendo Switch 2 and Valve's upcoming Steam Frame. He also goes on to say that he is "not seeing any proof of them (Sony) changing their strategy this generation, but if they are changing, it's going to be interesting how they are able to maintain the investment on big budget games." On the topic of AAA game budgets, Yoshida comments that the ever-increasing budgets in the AAA industry don't seem sustainable. The full interview with Shuhei Yoshida on YouTube follows.

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.

Recent rumors revealed that Microsoft may be ditching APU customization for Xbox Project Helix, its upcoming PC-console hybrid that is expected to launch around the $1,000 mark, opting instead for an off-the-shelf AMD APU that will seemingly be available to other manufacturers as well. Now, per a new rumor by ubiquitous leaker Moore's Law Is Dead on the Broken Silicon podcast, it seems as though that high price may come with a significant performance boost.

Moore's Law Is DeadWhat's even more of a cause for optimism, though, is how much better PS6 and Helix will be. Helix is basically a high-end PC, even using the same silicon as AMD's 70-class or maybe 80-class RDNA 5 GPUs. It isn't an ultra-level of PC hardware, but still far more powerful than consoles usually have. It will have the biggest APU in console history... Yes it will be expensive, but guys, if it's even $1,200, it's like a $2-3,000 gaming PC. That's disruptive.

It has long been predicted that 2026 would be a year for expensive PC hardware launches, especially on the gaming and enthusiast side of things, and that is turning out to be true for ASUS's latest gaming laptops in the ROG Zephyrus line-up. As per a recent announcement by ASUS Taiwan, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo, Zephyrus G14, and Zephyrus G16 have officially been made available for pre-order in the East Asian nation. All three laptops feature color-accurate, high-resolution OLED displays, lightweight aluminium chassis, Intel Core Ultra 9 386H CPU, and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50-series graphics, making them powerhouses for both gaming and creative workflows. As we shared in our coverage of CES 2026, however, it seems as though there are more SKUs coming later down the line with different GPU configurations.

The ASUS Zephyrus Duo, largely the flagship device of the three launching today, packs an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU with 24 GB of GDDR7 alongside that 16-core Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU and up to 64 GB of LPDDR5X. Despite the dual 16-inch, 120 Hz, 1,100-nit, 3K OLED displays—which incidentally have 100% DCI-P3 Wide color gamut coverage, Pantone validation, and stylus support—and dual USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a 3.5 mm audio combo jack, a full-size HDMI 2.1 port, a full size UHS-II SD card reader, and dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, the laptop measures in at a reasonable 24.9 mm thick at its thickest and weighs in at 2.82 kg. In Taiwan, the Zephyrus Duo will retail for NT$269,999 or $8,570.31.

Polish game studio, 11 Bit Studios, has just released its 2025 earnings and revenue report, indicating a rather positive year for the company, which earned 21.9 million PLN ($6.05 million) in profit, which it attributes to the sales of Frostpunk 2 (880,000 copies) and The Alters (545,000 copies). More excitingly, the studio announced that it will be focusing on a new strategy between 2027 and 2031, which includes a "reimagining" of This War of Mine and a new game set in the Frostpunk universe, which the studio says is its most valuable franchise.

Of course, Frostpunk 1866 has already been announced for a 2027 release, and that is mentioned separately from the other Frostpunk project, which 11 Bit Studios says will be in a completely different genre to the usual city builder franchise. Nothing else appears to have been published about the other upcoming games or the This Was of Mine remake, but it could easily be the same or a similar story from a different perspective or a straight remake of the side-scrolling POV game. 11 Bit also confirmed that it was working on at least two new IPs, and that it would see an "increase in the regularity of releases," and it made references to both its development and publishing divisions, suggesting that we will see more indie games, like Death Howl, Creatures of Ava, The Thaumaturge, and The Invincible.

Alterra, a cozy game inspired by Animal Crossing and Minecraft in development at Ubisoft, has officially been cancelled, according to a recent Insider Gaming report. The news broke by way of insiders at Ubisoft, who claim that the news was broken to them on the morning of April 21, after which the team working on the game was sent home. Following the news of the cancellation, IGN published a statement by an Ubisoft representative, who said that "As part of our portfolio management approach and evolving creative house-led model, we continuously assess projects at every stage of development to ensure alignment with our strategic priorities, quality ambitions, and long-term market potential," continuing to explain that "projects that no longer meet these expectations may be discontinued."

It should also be noted that there have been no layoffs as a result of the cancellation of Alterra, and the team working on the cozy game will simply be made available to other development projects. The comments by the Ubisoft representative suggest that the company doesn't think the game would have been successful in the current gaming climate, and they echo recent rumors about Ubisoft carefully assessing the value of future Assassin's Creed game ports with the upcoming Black Flag Resynced launch. This move is only the latest in a series of decisions at Ubisoft aimed at cutting costs and making the company more efficient, and it follows a March round of layoffs that saw 105 people lose their jobs.

We've known for a while now that the upcoming Xbox Project Helix game console will be a hybrid game console, able to play both PC and Xbox games, but recently news broke that the Xbox Helix would be using an off-the-shelf AMD APU, followed by a leak from KeplerL2 on the NeoGAF forums that it would be a third-party console. The latter rumor claimed that the Xbox Helix would not be available directly to consumers from Microsoft itself, instead adopting something of a Steam Machine model—the original Steam Machine, not the 2026 reboot—and making the hardware design available to hardware partners similarly to how AMD and NVIDIA sell their GPUs to board partners who package them in their own way.

Xbox Vice President, Jason Ronald, chimed in with a response on X, saying simply that "Project Helix will be available as a 1st party Xbox console," and nothing more. While this somewhat debunks the rumor started by KeplerL2, it also leaves the door open to the possibility of third-party Helix consoles. This idea somewhat holds water, given the context of the previous rumor about the off-the-shelf APU. If Microsoft did not license the Xbox Helix design, and brands could simply buy the APU directly from AMD to make their own hardware platforms, similarly to what's been happening with other Radeon 780M-powered APUs that have been popping up in Windows gaming handheld devices since the Ryzen Z1 Extreme handhelds launched.

Alongside the Framework 13 Pro that was just announced, Framework also released the OCuLink Dev Kit, which is a new modular adaptor that replaces the Framework Laptop 16's Graphics Module with an external OCuLink port, allowing you to connect high-performance peripherals and hardware across a PCIe 5.0×8 interface and offering a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 128 GT/s. Framework suggests that users could use the OCuLink port to build out their Framework Laptop 16 as a lightweight on-the-go laptop, removing the dGPU and using that in an eGPU setup while docked at a desk and relying on the iGPU in the laptop for work away from the desk.

The Framework OCuLink Dev Kit includes the hardware that goes into the laptop itself, an OCuLink Expansion Bay adaptor, as well as the external bits, including a Graphics Module OCuLink Dock, for mounting your Framework Graphics Module externally, a PCIe OCuLink Dock with a full-size PCIe slot for hardware like GPUs, networking cards, capture cards, and whatever else goes into a PCIe slot; and an OCuLink 8i cable to connect the dock to the laptop itself. In order to use the external graphics module, you'll need to supply your own desktop PSU, since Framework does not include one in the package, and it should also be noted that the OCuLink port does not support the same charging capabilities as USB4 or Thunderbolt, so you'll still need to run at least two cables when using the Dev Kit.

Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma was recently quoted in a leaked internal memo stating that Game Pass was too expensive and that it didn't provide adequate value to its consumers, and it seems as though she has now followed through on the implied promise in that internal memo. As announced on Xbox Wire, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass are both receiving price cuts, with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate coming down from $29.99 to $22.99/month and PC Game Pass dropping from $16.49 to $13.99.

At the same time, though, starting in 2026, Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass users will lose launch-day access to Call of Duty games. Starting with the next Call of Duty game, Game Pass players will need to wait "about a year" for Call of Duty to hit Game Pass. Fortunately, current Call of Duty games will remain playable on both PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and other major releases will still hit Game Pass on launch day. It was previously reported that Microsoft lost $300 million in Call of Duty sales by including the popular shooter series in Game Pass, despite Game Pass being an overall profitable endeavor.

It was recently confirmed that Ubisoft would soon be officially revealing Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, a remake of one of the more well-regarded Assassin's Creed games. A new leak out of Insider Gaming, confirmed that, although Black Flag Resynced promised new characters and content, Ubisoft would not be introducing multiplayer or DLC, neither fresh nor original, to Black Flag Resynced, regardless of how successful the game turns out to be.

The leak also purports that Ubisoft has at least one more Assassin's Creed remake in the works, although it seems as though Ubisoft is taking an overly cautious approach to the commercial performance of its remakes. Source have claimed that future remakes would hinge on the success of Black Flag and the upcoming second Assassin's Creed remake project. While it's unknown which Assassin's Creed game will follow Black Flag down the remake path, it seems as though Black Flag itself will do reasonably well, given the game's reputation and the hype surrounding the launch.

Nintendo seems to be revisiting Splatoon, the traditionally multiplayer game for the Switch and Wii U, with Splatoon Raiders, a new single-player action shooter. Splatoon Raiders will officially be available on July 23 for the Nintendo Switch 2 from Nintendo for $49.99 for the digital version and $59.99 for the physical version, and it is currently available for pre-order. The Splatoon Raiders launch date announcement comes with a launch date trailer that reveals some of the gameplay.

Based on the gameplay trailer and the game description, Splatoon Raiders will see players take up residence as a mechanic aboard a floating raft alongside the musical trio Deep Cut—making their return from Splatoon 3—where they will have to survive by exploring and raiding nearby islands, facing off against en enemy known as Salmonids in outlandish combat encounters. Splatoon Raiders will also allow players to customize the raft they call home and seems to offer comprehensive weapons and loadout customization options for players to experiment with. The game's graphics, however, follow the same cartoonish aesthetic as prior Splatoon games, but Nintendo hasn't provided any information about expected frame rates or image quality just yet. The Splatoon Raiders trailer follows.

The Toei Company, the Japanese media giant behind some of the most popular anime around, like One Piece, the Dragon Ball franchise, and Sailor Moon, has officially announced "Toei Games" as a new video game company entering the scene. At the time of writing, it's unclear what part of the game production pipeline Toei Games will be responsible for, but it's not the first time that The Toei Company will be involved in game development in some capacity. Currently, Toei licenses many of its IPs to other game development and publishing companies, like Bandai Namco, who publishes many of the Dragon Ball games. Toei was briefly involved in the gaming industry in the 1990s, but seems to have lost interest in 1998 with Chameleon Twist 2. Based on the blurb on the Toei Games website, it seems as though Toei Games will work with other developers or studios in some capacity, suggesting a publishing role rather than a development role.

Toei GamesEven as times and media evolve, our DNA remains unchanged.
Our unwavering desire: "deliver beloved stories to the world."
Having continuously created countless stories, Toei will now deliver them through games.

Toei Games will be an accomplice.
One who believes more than anyone in the unique, profound passion of creators who love and strive to create games.
Their driving force: "I love this," "I want to make this."
We want to deliver that to the world.

It seems as though 2026 will be the year of age verification for online communication platforms. Following the prior news about Discord starting to require age verification for all accounts—a move that the company later walked back after backlash—it has now been revealed that Sony will soon start to mandate age verification for PSN online communication features. This is according to a report by Push Square, which shared a screenshot of an age verification prompt from the PlayStation Store.

The screenshot shows a QR code that redirects users to start an age verification process on their smartphones, which would prompt users to provide a copy of their ID, perform a facial scan, or receive a text message on their mobile phone that uses information stored by the mobile network provider to ascertain their age. Sony has more details about the age verification options on a FAQ page. At the time of writing, age verification seems to be limited to the UK and Ireland, but this seems to be a move to comply with recent age verification requirements, and there are currently age verification laws being implemented or talked about everywhere from the US to the EU, and Australia, and all of those laws restrict teens and children from accessing similarly risky or potentially harmful content online, meaning similar processes may be implemented across the board.

Natalie Vock, a well-known Valve contractor and Linux graphics driver developer, recently debuted a new patch that enabled better VRAM management on Linux for GPUs with low VRAM. When we originally covered the set of kernel patches, we noted that it could cut VRAM usage in half in some applications, potentially making certain aging graphics hardware viable for gaming where it may not have been before the patches. Aside from some early tests by Vock herself, not much other data was available at the time to draw any conclusions about the potential performance improvements. Now, thanks to NJ Tech on YouTube, we have some idea of how the patch could improve performance on a GPU like the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, which has a mere 4 GB of VRAM. The YouTuber tested the GPU across nine games, including some heavy hitters, like Crimson Desert, Hogwarts Legacy, and Cyberpunk 2077 in CachyOS, which was the first Linux distribution to package and release Vock's kernel patches in what it calls GPU Booster. In the current GPU market, it would be nice to have a silver bullet to make low VRAM GPUs viable, but the results are far more varied than that, with some games seeing no improvement and others seeing up to 100% increases in FPS.

In Alan Wake II, VRAM use is actually increased, but there's a more than 2× increase in FPS, going from 14 FPS to a very playable 42 FPS average. In Resident Evil: Requiem, VRAM use is identical, but there's a 16% FPS increase, and in Silent Hill f, the story is similar, with identical VRAM utilization but marginal performance increases. Crimson Desert saw a decrease in VRAM usage, but there was no measurable performance increase as a result, as was the case with Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk 2077, both of which saw reduced VRAM usage but an increase of 1 FPS average in the former and identical performance in the latter. The Last of Us Part 2 actually saw a 1 FPS drop in both average and 1% low FPS, but it seems as though there was just too much graphics memory pressure for Vock's VRAM patches to mitigate the issue. Death Stranding 2 and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 also saw little to no improvement despite reduced VRAM utilization in the former. The full video by NJ Tech follows.