I’ve been a PC gamer since the early 1990s, and over the past three and a bit decades I’ve never once regretted my allegiance to those awkward beige boxes that have brought so much joy into the lives of myself and so many other people.

Yes, they can be expensive. Sure, they're more complex and frustrating than consoles. There have been times I’ve sat down to play a game, only for hours to pass as I try to fix game-breaking crashes, reinstall drivers, or just generally swear at Windows; but at the end of the day, I was always convinced that the PC remained the greatest gaming platform in the world.

PCs (and I’m including my beloved Amiga A500+ here) were always miles ahead of consoles when it came to graphics and audio, and the ability to upgrade components meant you could remain at the cutting edge for years. Upgrading and even building your own PC was fiddly and expensive, but it was also fun and rewarding. I still get a thrill when I first power-up a newly built rig and see it successfully boot.

The openness of the platform (despite Microsoft’s best efforts) meant I could buy games from where ever I wanted (one of the main reasons, I believe, why PC games are usually cheaper than console games), and play obscure indie games that would never be published on consoles due to licensing costs (which is another reason why PC games are cheaper); and, with some tweaking and a bit of (perfectly ethical and legal) emulation, backwards compatibility has never been a problem. The likes of GOG should get a shoutout as well for keeping very old PC games running on new hardware.

And right now in 2026, I'm lucky enough to have access to the most powerful PC gaming hardware ever, on which to play some of the best and most graphically impressive PC games ever made. I should be feeling like there’s never been a better time to be a PC gamer. Instead, however, it feels like PC gaming has never been worse.

Thanks for the memory

Why am I so down on the current state of PC gaming? For a start, while PC gaming hardware has never been better, it’s also never been so expensive — and that makes it less accessible for most people. The price of graphics cards has skyrocketed, and SSDs and RAM, once two of the cheapest and most effective ways of upgrading your PC, are now ridiculously expensive.

According to PC Part Picker, the average price of two sticks of 16GB DDR5 memory has leapt from around $150 to over $600 in the space of 18 months. Meanwhile, 64GB of the stuff has gone from around $250 to over $1,250 — and this isn’t even for the fastest models.

Even older DDR4 isn’t immune, with 16GB rising over 18 months from $50 on average to around $170, again according to PC Part Picker.

People are getting priced out of PC gaming, or being prevented from even considering it; and as a PC gamer, that’s heart-breaking. I’m incredibly fortunate that my job has enabled me to build a PC with an RTX 5090 and 96GB of DDR5 RAM, but there’s no joy in writing about things that so few people will be able to experience.

With prices of gaming components, PCs, laptops, and even consoles climbing ever higher, sales are understandably dropping. And with the costs of developing games exploding, we’ve also seen huge amounts of very talented game developers lose their jobs, and entire companies, such as BioWare, close down.

Perhaps worst of all, this past week I’ve found myself agreeing with something Elon Musk — someone I genuinely think is an awful human being — said. I need a lie down. And a pint (probably not in that order). I’m in a PC gaming funk, but who — or what — is to blame?

AI. It’s AI’s fault

Now it would be far too easy, simplistic, and perhaps even lazy to say this is all AI’s fault. But it’s all AI’s fault. Screw AI.

The AI goldrush has seen an explosion in the number of data centers required to run and train large language models (LLMs) used by AIs, and these need a lot of memory, which has led to a global shortage and made prices for components that use memory, such as RAM, graphics cards and storage, skyrocket.

I, like many other PC gamers, have been watching all of this in horror for a while now, but things really came into sharp relief this week when Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, one of the biggest culprits of the RAMpocalypse, was quoted as saying on the Cheeky Pint podcast (via IGN) that "it's quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer."

A lot of people took that as Altman accusing us PC gamers of being greedy by wanting RAM for our rigs, and to say that didn’t go down well would be an understatement.

Now, I usually have a policy of ignoring the rubbish Altman spews out (it does wonders for my blood pressure); but I have to admit, when I saw the quote, it riled me up. PC gamers having to endure the RAMpocalypse is bad enough, but to be blamed for it, especially when all we want to do is play games, was too much.

Then, in a real-life example of the ‘worst person you know just made a great point’ meme, the world’s richest man, terrible Diablo player, and failed truck salesman, Elon Musk, piped up to say “The people deserve to have their RAM too!”

I’m not naïve enough to think that Musk is seriously on the side of ‘the people’, but when one of the most widely-mocked individuals on the internet gets some begrudging props for coming out against something you said, that’s not a good sign.

Sure enough, Altman backpeddled, saying he was “taken out of context”, and he was actually complaining about people running local AI models. In a way, I’m inclined to believe that — as CEO he has a vested interest in stopping people using their own models and instead using OpenAI’s, but the damage was done.

Regardless of context, it was a tone-deaf thing to say — almost as bad as Nvidia’s 'GeForce 8800 GTX — 20 Years of a Legend' tech demo, which was released this week. Nvidia once was loved, or at least respected, by a lot of PC gamers for making genuinely excellent graphics cards and pushing the PC gaming industry forward with various innovations over the years.

Sadly, it has also become incredibly successful due to AI — so successful that it often feels like it's lost interest in the PC gaming industry that made its name, with rumors swirling that it’s ending production of the RTX 5090, while doing nothing about the rising costs of its components thanks to an AI bubble which it's benefitting from and contributing to.

So, when it launched a demo that invited players to relive a time when PC gaming was actually fun and affordable, by allowing them to virtually install its iconic GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card into a retro Windows Vista PC, it felt like Nvidia had misjudged the mood. To make matters worse, Nvidia recommends you have an RTX 5080 to play it — a GPU that is incredibly expensive and hard to find due to the memory shortage, and which is also rumored to be for the chop.

“Oh well,” some of us PC gamers might have thought, “at least we still have perpetual underdog AMD in our corner.” Except, AMD CEO Lisa Su has just been quoted as saying that “We are a data center first company.”

As Nvidia’s closest competitor, AMD was supposed to keep Team Green on its toes, while having a more consumer-friendly approach (being more open to open-source, and not limiting its latest tech to just its own GPUs, for example). Instead, it looks like AMD has had a heel-turn worthy of WWC’s most dramatic betrayals.

To be honest, I’ve been wondering what’s going on with AMD for a while, as it was rather quiet this year in the consumer GPU space; but this turn to the AI-powered dark side still hurts.

Could we really see the two major GPU makers stop making graphics cards altogether? It’s too bleak a future to imagine, but after a week like this, I can’t help but wonder.

What can we do?

I don’t want this to just be a wall of depressing text that would make even Roger Waters think ‘that’s a bit much’, so is there a glimmer of hope to be had? Is there anything any of us can do?

At Computex 2026 this year in Taiwan, I was perplexed by how almost every PC maker was going on about AI-in-everything with a fervor that I’ve just not seen replicated by consumers. I was worried that I was just out of touch.

But there’s been a growing backlash against rampant AI that’s given me hope. I’m not against all forms of AI, but AI that takes work from humans, that plagiarizes human art (including depressing walls of texts written by aging tech journalists), that diminishes creativity and sucks up resources… that AI I would love to see the end of, and I’m not the only one.

Boycotting games made with AI, and avoiding companies that don’t use AI responsibly, can hopefully show companies that this isn’t a magic money tree that they should neglect their customers for. Look at what’s happening with the current stock-market rout on AI companies, where it seems voters were rebelling against rampant AI data center expansion and an administration that seemed all too happy to let tech companies cross lines and drop ethics all in the name of AI (sorry, SI) supremacy.

I don’t want to seen an economic meltdown; but a wake-up call to the likes of Nvidia and AMD, to let them know that the customers who made them — primarily PC gamers like me — aren’t to be taken for granted, would certainly be welcome.

• PS5 Bazzite Deck is a new spin on this gaming-focused version of Linux
• It allows you to boot your PS5 to a Steam Deck interface and play PC games
• You need to jailbreak your Sony console to run it (via the PS5 Linux loader), and that's a risky path to take for a number of reasons

Don't want to fork out all that cash for a Steam Machine? If you've got a PS5, you could turn it into a spin on Valve's gaming PC thanks to a custom version of a Linux distro — although the major catch is you'll need to jailbreak your console.

TechPowerUp noticed the PS5 Bazzite Deck project on GitHub, which takes this flavor of the gaming-focused Bazzite distro and adapts it for Sony's console. (Bazzite Deck is different from vanilla Bazzite, as it was built specifically for handhelds to offer an experience similar to SteamOS for the likes of the Asus ROG Ally — but without some of the headaches of running Valve's OS on that portable).

When PS5 Bazzite Deck is run on a jailbroken console, it'll boot straight into the Steam Deck interface (Steam Gaming Mode), and you can play your PC games from there.

You don't need to install the PS5 Bazzite Deck OS, either; you can just run it from a USB stick (via the PS5 Linux loader). As the developer VivaLaVent explains, when you next restart the PS5, it'll boot its own operating system again, and you'll be back at Sony's welcome hub.

So the PS5 isn't modified by running this OS as such, except for the fact that you have to jailbreak the console (then run the PS5 Linux Loader).

This project is compatible with the base PS5 and PS5 Pro consoles, and you can also switch to a desktop mode running KDE Plasma on your PS5, should you wish.

Of course, game compatibility is going to be hit-and-miss, although a gamer on Reddit observed that they've successfully run Horizon Zero Dawn, Palworld, Genshin Impact, and Rimworld — although Marvel Rivals was a non-starter.

Analysis: interesting times

I should make it very clear up front that I wouldn't recommend jailbreaking your console even as an experiment. There are potential legal ramifications (depending on where you live) with doing so, the possibility of Sony banning your account, and a whole raft of risks (including the third-party software involved, of course). So, if you do want to turn your PS5 into a take on a Steam Machine in this way, proceed at your own risk.

That said, there's an increasing amount of activity around getting the PS5 to run PC games, as you might have seen, so clearly this is something that quite a few gamers are interested in. Most notably, we've seen Playden, which is a very different way of running PC titles on a PS5, by using a compatibility layer (a custom port of Wine) to pull this off. PS5 Bazzite Deck differs in that it replaces the entire OS with a new one, as opposed to running on top of Sony's system.

By all accounts, PS5 Bazzite Deck is pretty slick. One Redditor shares their experience: "I've been using this distro for 4 days, and WOW! Seriously, it's way better than the others. There are constant updates that bring bug fixes."

The DualSense controller support is also niftily implemented by all accounts, as you can pair to both Linux and the PS5 system (saving you from unpairing when switching between the two). The controller's touchpad works like a mouse on the PS5 Bazzite Deck, and seemingly waking from sleep takes only two seconds (much faster than the PS5's normal wake time).

Another gamer on Reddit declares: "If the PS5 turns out to have been the perfect Steam Machine all along, it would be so funny."

But I refer you back to my previous advice on jailbreaking (and game compatibility). Still, this kind of modding is attention-grabbing, to say the least, and we're also seeing it in reverse, with a breakneck pace of development for PS5 emulation on the PC (very much accelerated by the use of AI, it's worth noting).

That effort is, of course, generating a ton of interest given that GTA 6 is nearly here, and indeed there are theories floating around that the work on that PS5 emulator could force Rockstar to launch the PC port much earlier than intended (before an emulated version is up and running). The rumor mill reckons we could see the PC version of GTA 6 early in 2027 as a result.

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy Resonance for the past few weeks, and it is a delightful love letter to the Final Fantasy series — a beautiful turn-based role-playing game (RPG) that blends new and old across its gameplay and aesthetics to create an adventure I have adored every second of.

While it might have its roots in a now defunct mobile gacha game — Brave Exvius — don’t hold that against it. The only holdover is the core story. Everything else, from the gameplay to the wide world map to explore to the visual style, has been overhauled — the pay-to-play elements are gone too; all unlocks are completely free

The end result of this total rebuild is a classic-feeling RPG that is somehow just as at home among 2026’s gaming lineup as it would have been among one from decades ago.

There are some tweaks I’d make here and there: mostly to Visions, and to the story that’s a little predictable, but neither of these issues has sapped the joy from what is easily among the best Nintendo Switch 2 games I’ve played this year (it’s also releasing on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PS5 and PC).

Back to basics

After spending decades finding ways to mix up the turn-based action it popularized, Final Fantasy Resonance returns the series to a much more classic interpretation of it. When it’s their turn to act your party and enemies get to make a basic Attack, spend MP to perform some kind of special Skill action like casting a spell, Summon a powerful esper to fight by their side, or use an item from the party’s bag — with the order characters go determined by their speed.

It facilitates a slower and more tactical approach to engaging enemies than the action-focused gameplay of more modern Final Fantasy entries, which pairs nicely with Resonance’s less traditional combat mechanic: Stagger.

Dealing enough damage to your foes that’s a flavour they’re weak to will fill their meter and Stagger them — they’ll lose their go that turn if they haven’t acted yet, will take more damage until the next round, and whoever staggered them will get a second action.

If you Stagger every enemy at once, you enter a Sweeping Stagger — your whole party will get a second action, and you’ll be able to deliver a powerful Resonance attack. This sees one of your equipped Visions rush forward to deliver a cinematic finishing blow — showcased by a 3D cinematic that briefly takes you out of the game’s HD-2D style.

Resonance isn't just Final Fantasy meets Octopath Traveler. It might seem that way based on my description so far — seeing as it borrows Octopath’s visual identity and a core aspect of the series’ Break and Boost system

But besides the nuances of Resonance’s Stagger system, which make it different from what Octopath offers, you’ll also find this game’s plot is quintessential Final Fantasy — more on that in a moment — and it takes a different approach with its Job / Class system through Visions. They feel more like weapons you swap in and out than a Class you’ll want to perfect and stick with.

Visions are (mostly) manifestations of the core Final Fantasy games’ protagonists which aid your party in combat: performing the Resonance attacks I mentioned earlier, but also unlocking a separate list of actions and abilities for the party member they’re equipped to. Most skills you’ll only have access to while the Vision is actively deployed, but there are also permanent unlocks to earn by mastering a Vision — letting you mix and match aspects of Visions on a single party member to craft your ideal champion.

As I mentioned, this will feel a lot like Jobs from other Square Enix titles, but because so much of a Vision’s identity is lost from your character when you unequip it — most permanent Mastery unlocks are more generic, yet still useful, abilities like improving stats — I’ve found it better to see Visions as Equipment. Before entering a tough fight, you might want to swap out your loadout to best suit the challenge ahead — such as equipping your party with water attack dealers when facing off against a fiery foe.

A medley or overstuffed buffet?

Taking everything I’ve said so far, you might fear Final Fantasy Resonance would turn out to be a mess.

It combines aspects of several games (Octopath Traveler, Brave Exvius, and classic Final Fantasy). It jumps between 3D and HD-2D visuals across different cinematics. There’s just over two dozen Visions to master, each their own skills to augment the base abilities your party develops. You can call forth powerful Summons to deal even more damage to your foes. There’s a giant map to explore, bursting with secrets to discover in every corner. There are main quests and side missions to complete over tens of hours, as well as secret boss fights and a coliseum to become the champion of.

It’s a lot, yet Final Fantasy Resonance never felt like a mess.

Square Enix shows a mastery of the HD-2D art style. The world's environments are stunning, character sprites are expressive, and there are some amazing 2D spectacle across the game’s cutscenes and attack animations. The animatics feel fan-made in a good way — full of expression, and getting as much as possible from the medium.

The flashes of 3D work surprisingly well to augment special moments. Rather than feeling incongruous, the 3D Vision Resonance attack and Esper Summon cinematics give these abilities an appropriately otherworldly aspect.

Games which let you throw everything and the kitchen sink at your enemies have a habit of feeling too easy. However, playing on Expert difficulty, I found fights (especially boss fights) were a challenge — one I could overcome, but not without playing tactically. Button mashing and praying won’t save you here.

These different abilities also built up gradually over time. This let me get to grips with systems before some new aspect was thrown into the mix.

And when the gameplay is so engaging, and the visuals so beautiful, I had no problem adventuring back and forth to complete side quests and seek out every secret hiding in the world.

Close to perfection

If I must find fault with Final Fantasy Resonance, it would be in two areas.

The first is that while I love a lot of the Visions system, it struggles for much of the mid-game because it focuses too much on the main Final Fantasy protagonists who are (let’s face it) pretty samey. This is showcased by the fact that the majority of them are classified as Commando or Breaker types.

The precise builds and abilities do change, but for example there aren’t many supportive Healers amongst them — meaning building out a dedicated support character in your party is a little tough at times as you’ll either need to stick with a Vision you’ve mastered, or accept your party will be multi-classing early on.

Given how useful some Mastery abilities are, you’ll want to multiclass to some extent (Tronn’s ability to halve MP costs is one you need to unlock for as many characters as possible as soon as possible), but given the game says the Vision system offers you the freedom to customize the party however you want, I was a little disappointed that the reality doesn’t quite match this.

Secondly, I’d say the plot is Final Fantasy in its purest form. There are crystals, war between ancient mystical powers and new age technology, sacrifice for the greater good, twists and turns that reveal secrets about the characters’ and the world’s past, and an awful lot else that is a little cliché.

The story is certainly good enough to keep me engaged; it's just nothing special.

Though as I’ve said, neither of these gripes kept me from adoring Final Fantasy Resonance. Every time I sat down to write this review I had to force myself to not reach over for my Nintendo Switch 2 to play another five minutes — and like any good game my attempts to set time limits on myself never succeeded in keeping my play sessions shorter than a few hours at a time.

While it is available on several consoles and PC, my Nintendo Switch 2 has been superb. If you have a choice, this is where I’d recommend playing, as it runs so smoothly, it’s easy to chip away at quests while on the go, and you can still enjoy a beautiful big-picture experience when the handheld is docked.

Should you play Final Fantasy Resonance?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility features

Besides the features built into your console of choice, Final Fantasy Resonance has no accessibility features baked into it.

However, as a turn-based RPG, gameplay can be as slow as you need. It doesn't matter if you take five seconds, five minutes, or five hours to lock in an action, and unlike games such as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, there are no active parry or dodge mechanics that require precise timing on the player's part.

How I reviewed Final Fantasy Resonance

I reviewed Final Fantasy Resonance for around 30 hours on my Nintendo Switch 2. Predominantly, this was with base system hardware in handheld mode — plugging away on trips, my commute, and while relaxing on the couch — but I did experience the big-screen docked mode for several hours on my 4K Fire TV (relying on an 8BitDo Ultimate 2 controller for inputs).

In all modes, the game ran smoothly, and I never regretted my decision to play the game on the least powerful system it’s launching on.

First reviewed October 2026

• Sony has announced a new range of PS5 controllers and console covers
• They come in three translucent finishes, including orange, green, and gray
• They play upon the transparent look that was popular in the 1990s

Translucent gaming hardware is having a moment right now, with the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 and Microsoft’s see-through Xbox Series X leading the charge. Now, Sony is getting in on the act with a new range of PlayStation 5 covers and controllers that take you back to a time when seemingly everything had a touch of transparency about it.

Dubbed the Prism range, the new accessories are available in three translucent forms: Flare Orange, Emerald Green, and Graphite Gray. They come with a “premium glossy sheen for a sleek and elevated design,” Sony says, and those finishes “give players a closer look into the design and craftsmanship behind our DualSense controllers and PlayStation 5 consoles.”

As Sony alluded to, it’s not just the DualSense controller that gets the Prism treatment. The PS5 console itself can take on one of the collection’s looks thanks to three dedicated console covers that can be fixed to your PS5 to overhaul its appearance.

Sony says that the Prism PS5 controllers cost $84.99 / £74.99 / €84.99, which pushes the price a little higher than the standard PS5 controller but is in line with other special editions.

The console covers, meanwhile, will set you back $74.99 / £64.99 / €74.99. You’ll be able to pre-order the products on November 10, 2026, and they’ll officially launch on February 4, 2027.

We'll be covering the pre-orders of these products live and predict that the combination of their slick finishes and the appeal to retro and long-term PlayStation fans means they will be in hot demand!

Retro revival

Many tech companies have brought out translucent devices in recent years as they seek to capitalize on the nostalgic hit the look provides for fans of ‘90s design and throwback gaming culture.

Sony is no different, with company designer Leo Cardoso saying: “We know how much our fans have been looking forward to the return of transparent controllers. We wanted to bring back the iconic see-through trend of the late ‘90s in a fresh, modern way that complements the PS5’s industrial design.”

With Sony’s main console rival Microsoft launching a translucent green Xbox Series X alongside an “OG Green” see-through controller, PlayStation bosses might not have wanted to feel left behind — or for their fans to cast envious sideways glances at their Xbox-toting friends and family members.

Now, they might not have to worry about that. And if you’re a fan of the retro aesthetic and want to bring a touch of the 1990s to your PlayStation 5, this could be one way to do it.

Planet Zoo 2 is the sequel to 2020’s zoo-building management sim. And it’s crammed with more animals, scenery items, and game modes than ever, so you can really let your creativity run wild.

Building zoos is my happy place. Life is stressful, the cost of living is shocking, and politics is so absurd I often feel like I’m being doped with increasing levels of satire to make the world’s first irony-immune man. Playing games like Planet Zoo 2 lets me spend time in a simpler world, where I can spend five hours tweaking the placement of ferns and rocks to make simulated siamangs happy.

As a result, I’ve spent a lot of time playing the original Planet Zoo. More than a lot, actually. Over 1,100 hours. That’s more than 45 days straight — a fact that makes me feel slightly queasy about my priorities in life. I’ve spent more time experiencing its highs and dealing with its limitations than I’ve spent with my extended family. So, naturally, as soon as I heard Planet Zoo 2 was in development, I knew I had to be the person to put it through its paces.

With the addition of aquariums, aviaries, wildlife reserves and more besides, I couldn’t wait to get my teeth into the new game and see what it was capable of. Even if it meant jettisoning a thousand hours of work, binning my old zoo and starting building from scratch, I was eager to see how all the new tools and content upgraded play. So are the two games birds of a feather, or is Planet Zoo 2 of a different stripe entirely?

Wings, fins and fur

As a bit (okay, a lot) of a Planet Zoo nerd, when Planet Zoo 2 was announced, I had plenty of things on my mental wishlist of upgrades I’d like to see. But top of my list were the addition of both flying birds and fish, two types of critters that felt conspicuous in their absence from the huge roster of DLCs released for the original game. So honestly, it was pretty pleasing to see both of these kinds of exhibits included when previews of the game dropped.

Flat out my favorite addition has been aquariums. These new piscine enclosures are as pretty as a picture. Aquariums feel really versatile, whether you want huge open-air tanks or to build a wall of fish into your restaurant. Walkthrough tunnels make creating immersive exhibits a breeze, and the need to filter habitats separately depending on whether they require fresh, brackish, or salty water adds an extra layer of — excuse the pun — depth.

Underwater decorations also look fantastic, allowing you to create really richly colored coral reefs and rafts of seaweed and grasses. But naturally, the animals in Planet Zoo are the stars of the show, and there’s a huge variety of sea life on offer to populate your tanks, whether you’re looking for sharks, rays, turtles or schools of fish. Wisely, Frontier has steered away from including many sea mammals like whales and dolphins — a sensible decision in light of the increasing attention that’s been paid to the ethics of keeping highly intelligent, social mammals in small tanks — but the game does include manatees, and there’s still huge potential here for semi-aquatic mammals like seals and walruses.

Leading up to Planet Zoo 2’s release, I was particularly excited about the addition of flying birds, as this adds a whole new dimension to your habitats compared to flightless fowl like ostriches and emus. While aviaries — essentially roof support poles and netting sitting over a classic habitat — don’t feel quite as fresh an experience as creating aquariums, I can still see how I’ll be able to use them to create stunning enclosures. And the variety of feathered friends already on offer is decent, adding everything from toucans to brightly colored long-tailed parakeets.

In fact, animals in general have had a definite glow-up in Planet Zoo 2. Not only have the earliest, lower-definition critters from the base game, like lions and African elephants, received new meshes to bring them in line with sleeker-looking critters from later expansion packs, but fauna in general looks stunning in this game.

There’s also a really solid variety of animals on offer at launch, from gila monsters to giant pandas. Don’t get me wrong: some of my personal favorites from the original game and expansions still aren’t here. Frankly, any zoo that doesn’t have fennec foxes in it is not a zoo I want to spend time in. But all the classics are here, with just enough funky additions — Goodfellow’s tree-kangaroo, anyone? — that I’m already pretty jazzed about additions that might be coming up with future updates.

All told, the variety offered by Planet Zoo 2 makes creating diverse, vibrant zoos feel easier than ever.

Management material

Given that Frontier Developments has launched two more park management games — Planet Coaster 2 and Jurassic World Evolution 3 — in the almost seven years since the OG Planet Zoo’s release, its core gameplay loop has inevitably evolved.

First off, career mode feels the most well-rounded it’s been in a Planet game to date. While you’ve always been able to dip in and out of individual missions on the map to complete objectives and pick up bronze, silver, and gold medals, the progression between them feels increasingly organic.

Functioning as an extended tutorial, career mode leads you through a variety of maps and scenarios throughout the world. As you complete bronze medals at each zoo, you’ll learn new mechanisms and unlock new accreditation tiers, in turn granting you access to higher tiers of animals. While this does mean your progression is somewhat locked to missions, the non-linear connection between maps made me feel much freer to pop in and out of maps than past games.

A big part of this is down to the addition of wildlife reserves. Releasing animals was a relatively shallow mechanic in Planet Zoo — enabling you to offload unneeded creatures in return for dollars or Conservation Points — in its sequel, this has been spun out into a sub-game in its own right.

Wildlife reserves’ core gameplay loop is pretty straightforward. When you arrive in a new reserve, you’ll create ecosystems for released animals by painting one in the landscape, clearing any invasive plant species, and balancing the terrain and plant requirements. Once it’s ready, you’ll be required to release animals from your zoos of the compatible type, balancing the ecosystem, and place research items like camera traps and acoustic monitors to unlock higher levels of research in your zoos.

I’ll be honest here: wildlife reserves are the area that I feel both sound like the most transformative on paper and yet haven’t fully clicked for me in practice. Part of this is because they rely heavily on my least favorite tool: the terrain painter — more on that shortly.

But it’s also just because these mechanics feel relatively shallow. These reserves don’t really require much ongoing management, and given there’s not much more detailed interplay among the flora and fauna once it’s placed, you can basically just set and forget these areas. As a result, I often found myself just rushing to establish ecosystems and dump the required animals in them so I could return to meatier zoo management. I’m hoping that the more I play with them, the more I’ll find to love about these freer locations, but so far they’ve stood out the least to me.

One other factor that's occasionally caused me slight discomfort is the presence of bugs. No, I'm not talking about those tarantula exhibits: at release, there have definitely been some odd issues creeping in.

I've encountered nothing game-breaking, just slightly hinky behavior here and there. At one point, items I was meticulously placing using the advanced move tools would randomly jump to a different position once I clicked place. Meanwhile, I've experienced several well-documented issues where animals ghost through their bars or get boxed up en masse inside their habitats for no clear reason. Fair play to Frontier Developments, though: they promised to patch these issues pretty quickly and, at the time of publishing, I think all of these issues have been fixed.

If you're wanting a freer experience than career mode can offer, Planet Zoo 2 still has all the other game modes you loved from the original. Franchise mode lets you focus on building your global zoo network from scratch as always, adding the ability to create your own wildlife reserves to help you feel like you’re really contributing to global conservation.

But hands-down my favorite gameplay mode is still Sandbox. I’m a bit prone to hyperfixating on small details — I know: the dude with 1,100 hours in the game is a bit obsessive. You don’t say. And that’s why I love this mode. Being able to concentrate on tweaking every last detail and focusing on building the most realistic zoo I can without needing to sweat about profitability or management just speaks to the creative part of my brain.

And, on that front, Planet Zoo 2 is better than ever.

Build baby, build

Given I’m talking about a game crammed with gorgeous wildlife, brand new habitats and new game modes, I’ll admit this makes me sound tiresomely dull. But honestly, what’s gotten me most excited about Planet Zoo 2 is the part that should be the most boring: logistics upgrades.

Rather than management sims, I’ve always felt like the Planet games are fantastically creative park design tools with a fun game on the side. And these tools have been refined across the board.

Let’s start with the placement tools. Not gonna lie, on release the placement tools in Planet Zoo were so rigid I can honestly understand if many people rarely dug into creating detailed scenery. Fortunately, these have been significantly improved — they feel more fluid, while the scale tools from Planet Coaster 2 and mirroring tools have been added, giving each decorative item significantly more versatility and making it much easier to create organic-looking areas like rockfaces.

Frustrating memories of trying to select scenery items in Planet Zoo — with their utterly random-seeming hitboxes — still haunt me to this day, particularly as deselecting items felt super awkward. In its sequel, these tools have been overhauled, not only making it easier to select and deselect items even on controller but also providing a range of toggles that allow you to restrict selection to certain types of objects, from nature objects to pathing.

While creating pathing used to involve an exasperating degree of trial and error in the original, pathing tools have had significant improvements here. Alongside the original’s straight and curved pathing options, upgrades from Planet Coaster 2 and the Jurassic World Evolution series have been introduced, like stamp and draw tools. This makes it trivial to introduce more organic-looking paths than ever and even super-precise circular courtyards and viewing areas.

All of these features contribute to making buildings and decorative items feel far easier and more fluid. But it’s not only placing man-made structures that has been improved. I’d argue that one of the hardest areas of creating your dream zoo in Planet Zoo used to be making natural scenery look organic. A significant proportion of that monumental playtime I clocked in the first game came from meticulously placing bushes piece by piece to make scenery look suitably wild.

Fortunately, Frontier has introduced the scenery brushes first created for Planet Coaster 2 into this game, enabling you to quickly paint scenery across your landscape. Not only does it come with a wide array of pre-created options, but you can also make up your own using any combination of scenery you’d like. While the end result can be slightly random-looking and the brushes still don’t get tight enough for creating really dense-looking foliage, this massively speeds up initial placement and allows you to then manually shift and complement the items for significantly faster decoration.

Similarly, terrain brushes have also had loads of new options added, with attract, repel, and curl brushes adding good variety to the existing toolset available. Terrain painting also comes with a significantly wider array of options, with not only lots of sub-terrain types — such as wild grass, long grass, forest floor or scree — but also brush presets that blend combos of the above.

Sadly, these terrain painting tools are the ones that I feel most lukewarm about. While they should add an enormous amount of extra variety to your landscapes, in practice I found them quite hard to blend subtly, with the intensity slider never quite going low enough to reduce hard borders between terrain types. You can achieve a similar effect by rapidly clicking to feather the brushes, but this is one of the few areas where I feel the tools at your disposal could do with some more refining.

Still, though, the impact of the tool and brush improvements has made the game feel far more fluid in action. They’re all tiny QoL upgrades in isolation, but they’re huge in aggregate. It takes Planet Zoo from a game that’s almost notoriously fiddly and rigid to something that feels more approachable for people who don’t have 1,000 hours to learn all of its tricks.

Should you play Planet Zoo 2?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility features

There’s a small range of accessibility features available here. For those with visual impairments, you can scale the in-game font from 60% to 100% and the UI from 70% to 100%. Meanwhile, Planet Zoo 2 caters to most forms of color blindness, allowing you to change the color of subtitles, as well as the positive, warning, and negative UI feedback colors.

How I reviewed Planet Zoo 2

Given its lengthy career mode and how long it can take to build custom enclosures, I wanted to make sure I had a broad experience of the game, so I played Planet Zoo 2 for over 75 hours. While I was reviewing the PC version, I made sure to try it out on a variety of devices, including my desktop gaming PC, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark, and my Steam Deck. I also tried playing it with the SteelSeries Aeon Pro controller to ensure it was as playable on controller as it is on mouse and keyboard.

When in-game, I tried to test out as wide a variety of content as possible. I played a significant chunk of the campaign, started several franchise zoos, and began building my own zoo in sandbox mode. I built aquariums, aviaries, and traditional habitats, as well as other scenery items. And I completed multiple research levels in different wildlife reserves.

As for my own experience, not only do I have that ludicrous 1,100-hour playtime in the original Planet Zoo game, but I’ve been playing management sim games ever since the OG, Theme Park, back in 1994. I’ve been gaming across a wide variety of platforms for at least 35 years and now play principally on my PC, Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X.

• First reviewed: October 2026

CRKD Nitro Deck 2: One-minute review

The CRKD Nitro Deck 2 is primarily billed as a Nintendo Switch 2 controller for handheld use, but it offers a lot more besides. It's CRKD’s follow-up to the Nitro Deck and Nitro Deck+, two previous accessories aimed at the original Nintendo Switch.

The CRKD Nitro Deck 2 has a functional design focused more on ergonomics than style, although some of the colorways add some panache; the Pal Grey variant I reviewed, for instance, harked back to retro Nintendo controllers, thanks to its colorful face buttons and darker grey accents.

The Nitro Deck 2 fits to the Switch and Switch 2 by clamping on the sides of the unit, rather than actually connecting to the Joy-Con 2 slots. A small button on the back clicks and twists to tightly grip your console, and tight it is; even when I held it upside down, my console didn’t move an inch. You can then connect to your console wirelessly via Bluetooth or wired by using the included U-shaped USB adapter.

CRKD’s mobile app can be used to remap the inputs of the Nitro Deck 2, as well as enable the ‘No Deadzone’ mode for the joysticks. Its interface is clear and easy to use, and I didn’t experience any bugs. One downside, though, is that you have to reconnect to the app every time you open it by holding two buttons for three seconds, which limits the convenience of back-and-forth adjustments.

All the buttons feel great, providing plenty of clicky feedback and responsiveness. The back buttons are awkwardly placed, though, and I found myself accidentally triggering them on occasion.

The real highlight of the Nitro Deck 2, though, is its joysticks. Not only are they precise and responsive, but they also feature dials that let you adjust their tension at any point, which is an excellent design choice and should allow any gamer to get their preferred feel.

Unfortunately, poor ergonomics detract from the Nitro Deck 2’s otherwise positive performance aspects. Not only do the pads angle inwards at the bottom, contrary to the majority of gamepads, but it’s also heavy when loaded with a console. These factors can make it cumbersome and awkward to use, especially when trying to game upright.

The Nitro Deck 2 is easy to pair to the Switch or Switch 2 via Bluetooth, although it takes a while to reconnect to your console after sleeping. Reconnection is quicker in wired mode, but it’s still not instantaneous. It was also easy to pair with PC and Android devices, although it’s a shame you can’t switch between them without having to pair each time.

The battery life of the Nitro Deck 2 is reasonable, lasting for as long as CRKD claims (15-20 hours), according to my testing. It’s a small inconvenience that you have to charge it separately from your console, though.

When you consider all that it offers, the Nitro Deck 2 represents good value. Not only are you getting handheld pads for the Switch 1 and Switch 2, but you’re also getting protection for your console, a standalone controller you can use with other platforms besides Nintendo’s, and a kickstand. Comfort issues do hamper the experience somewhat, but if you don’t mind holding a weighty unit, the Nitro Deck 2 is a fine choice as a versatile gamepad.

CRKD Nitro Deck 2 review: Price & availability

• $89.99 / £89.99 / AU$161
• Available now in multiple colorways
• Good price for a versatile handheld gamepad

The Nitro Deck 2 costs $89.99 / £89.99 / AU$161 and is available now in four colorways: Smoke Black, Pal Grey, LRG Fusion, and White. It comes with a USB cable, a double-ended USB adapter, and a legacy adapter for Switch 1 compatibility. The joystick caps and D-pad hat are replaceable, but no extra sets for either are included in the box.

This is a reasonable price for a unit that’s not only a Switch and Switch 2 handheld case and handheld controller, but also a standalone gamepad for PC and mobile, both wired and wireless.

You won’t find many more complete solutions for your Switch 2 than this, or even third-party substitutes for the Joy-Con 2 controllers, save for a few examples, such as the Mobapad M12 HD and M12S. A more left-field alternative to the Nitro Deck 2 is the GameSir G8+, a Bluetooth mobile controller that doesn’t officially support the Switch 2, but users have reported compatibility with the system.

If you just want a more comfortable handheld experience for your Switch 2 while sticking with the Joy-Con 2 pads, the Genki Attack Vector is a reasonably priced solution that offers three sets of grips as well as a backplate cover. What’s more, it can remain attached to your console when docked.

CRKD Nitro Deck 2 review: Specs

CRKD Nitro Deck 2 review: Design & features

• Functional looks
• Solid build quality
• Basic but effective mobile app

The Nitro Deck 2 has an appearance that’s more about function than form, with its soft edges and curves being more about ergonomics than aesthetics. It’s a fetching piece of design nonetheless, and the Pal Grey finish of my review unit added a retro appeal, with its dark grey accents and colorful face buttons alluding to the classic SNES controller.

The build quality is respectable, too. Although the plastic shell didn’t initially strike me as being particularly premium, I quickly felt its solidity and sturdiness once I held it in my hands. The sliding mechanisms for both pads operate smoothly as well.

Rather than the pads of the Nitro Deck 2 actually attaching to each Joy-Con slot on the Switch or Switch 2, they simply clamp to the sides of the console without actually inserting into these slots. To tighten the clamp, you simply push and twist the button on the rear of the unit. This requires a fair amount of force, and so does releasing it to remove the console, but I wouldn’t say it was overly arduous, and it’s worth the effort for the secure fit it provides.

When attached, the Switch 2 fits snugly and securely; I had no worries about it coming loose, as there wasn’t a hint of looseness. The unit also aligns precisely with the dimensions and contours of the Switch 2, although my one small gripe is that accessing the game card flap can be fiddly, as there’s little room to reach down to lift it up. This isn’t an issue when the Nitro Deck 2 is attached to the Switch 1, though, since the flap on that console opens the other way.

Speaking of which, the Nitro Deck 2 fits just as well to the Switch 1 as it does to the Switch 2. Thanks to the included legacy adapter, its USB-C port is still accessible, so you can still have a wired connection between the console and the Nitro Deck 2. This wired connection to both the Switch 1 and 2 is handled by another adapter, a double-ended U-shaped USB-C jack, that slots into the bottom of the Deck and the console.

The Nitro Deck 2 also features a kickstand on the back, allowing you to use your console with another controller. This is made of metal and feels very solid. It’s also very sturdy when open, and it folds flush into the back of the Deck. It can be a little difficult to release it from its clip, but this is a small price to pay for its secure fastening.

To customize the inputs of the extra shoulder and back buttons, you can use the M button in combination with others to alter the mapping. However, you can also use CRKD’s mobile app, where you can remap every button, as well as enable a ‘No Deadzone’ mode for the joysticks in order to increase their sensitivity.

The app is clearly laid out and easy to navigate, and I didn’t experience any bugs or glitches, which was somewhat of a surprise given the poor rating it has on app stores. For some bizarre reason, though, it only operates in landscape mode, but more frustrating is the fact that switching between the app and your console isn’t exactly a seamless experience; you have to hold the Home button and the left D-pad button for 3 seconds every time you go back to the app after exiting it.

CRKD Nitro Deck 2 review: Performance

• Excellent joysticks
• Awkward to use upright
• Some connectivity issues

While its grips may look ergonomic, I struggled to get entirely comfortable with the Nitro Deck 2. Partly, this is due to the sheer weight of the unit when loaded with a console, which makes holding it upright a chore, even for short periods.

But the other half of the problem stems from the grips’ orientation. They protrude outwards at the top rather than at the bottom, running counter to the best Nintendo Switch 2 controller shapes, and are at a less natural angle for your hands. I did acclimatize to their form somewhat, but I was never entirely at ease with it.

I also found the back buttons awkward to use, as they were too low down to align with my natural finger placement around the grips. Their low travel and resistance meant there were times when I accidentally triggered them, too.

These issues aside, though, the Nitro Deck 2 offers fantastic performance. The face buttons are clicky and satisfying to use, while the D-pad is very comfortable thanks to its circular hat. Its floating design also meant presses had plenty of travel, which in turn created good feedback. I found the shoulder buttons were easy to reach and use as well.

The best input of all, though, is the joysticks, which feature dials at their bases for adjusting resistance on the fly. This is a great idea and one I wish more controllers implemented. Looser settings allow for easy maneuvering and quick flicks, while tighter settings give you more control and precision.

The Nitro Deck 2 also features motion controls. I found these to be accurate and responsive when aiming with the bow in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, although using them in handheld mode isn’t exactly practical, given the whole console moves with your hands.

Unfortunately, I did experience some small connectivity issues with the Nitro Deck 2. Although pairing with my consoles was a relatively quick process, it can be slow to reconnect when you wake your console. It activated quicker when I used a wired connection, but it wasn’t instant.

The Nitro Deck 2 worked just as well with my Switch 1 as it did with my Switch 2. It’s a shame, though, that the aforementioned legacy adapter doesn’t support console charging. I’m not sure whether this was a particular issue with my review unit or a known limitation, but either way it’s a shame from a convenience perspective.

As for other platforms, I had no issues connecting or using the Nitro Deck 2 with PC or my Android smartphone via Bluetooth, although hot-switching isn’t possible, with pairing required each time you move between devices.

The battery life of the Nitro Deck 2 is reasonable — according to my testing, it lasts about as long as CRKD claims it can, which is between 15 and 20 hours. However, it’s a shame you can’t charge your console and the Deck with a single cable, as there’s no passthrough feature.

Should I buy the CRKD Nitro Deck 2?

Scorecard

Buy the CRKD Nitro Deck 2 if…

Don't buy it if…

CRKD Nitro Deck 2 review: Also consider

How I tested the CRKD Nitro Deck 2

• Tested for over a week
• Used on various platforms
• Relied on extensive gaming experience

I tested the Nitro Deck 2 for over a week, using it with both the Switch and Switch 2, as well as with a PC and my Android smartphone. I tested both wired and wireless connections. I also tested CRKD’s companion mobile app.

I played games such as Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, both of which are good tests for the responsiveness of the buttons and comfort of the D-pad. I also played The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is a great test of all facets of a controller, including the motion controls.

I’ve been gaming for decades and have plenty of experience testing controllers and other peripherals for numerous platforms, including the Switch and Switch 2. I’ve also reviewed other Switch 2 accessories, including handheld grips.

• Read more about how we test
• First reviewed October 2026

• Epic is kicking off an 'AI MegaJam' next month
• It's a four-day competition for developers to build a game with AI, giving away $50,000 worth of prizes
• Coming on top of Epic's recent push of AI in its preview launcher and elsewhere, this has provoked quite the negative reaction from gamers

Epic has announced an 'AI MegaJam' in which you can 'vibe your way to $50K,' a neat little rhyme there, but gamers are predictably bewildered by the idea of this event which rewards game developers using AI.

The MegaJam is a four-day competition that starts on November 12, whereby teams of up to five people can use unlimited AI agents to create a playable game in either Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN).

You can compete and code from anywhere, although there will be teams taking part locally (for two days) in San Francisco at Digital Jungle, where Epic promises "teams from Anthropic, Google, Meshy, OpenAI, SpaceXSI" and other big-name AI brands (expect daily livestreams, too).

Epic tells us: "Bring any AI tools into your workflow, from asset generation to coding agents. Get creative! Prototype the mechanic you never had time for, or try the art style you weren't sure you could pull off."

The prize pool is $50,000, which is split up into a bunch of categories. The main prizes are for the best Unreal Engine and UEFN games, which will net $7,500 respectively, with second and third places winning $5,000 and $2,500 in those categories too.

The best student project for either UE or UEFN will also receive $7,500, with the same runner-up prizes of $5,000 and $2,500.

The best team overall will bag a further $5,000, meaning the maximum prize here will be $12,500 (as presumably they must be one of the main category winners). There are a bunch of other modifier prizes, mind you, as extras on top, including best mobile game or solo developer ($2,500 apiece).

Epic also notes that: "Standout Unreal Engine and UEFN entries can earn development continuation grants of up to $50,000 to keep building after the jam."

Analysis: negative vibes

As you might imagine, there's been an immediate and strong negative reaction from gamers. There are multiple observations that Steam is already full of 'AI slop' games, with gamers asking why on earth Epic is encouraging this.

The irony of Epic proclaiming that the invited vibe-coders should "get creative!" isn't lost, either, given that most gamers view AI as the grim reaper for creativity, wielding its pixelated scythe as it kills and extracts the souls of games.

As one Redditor laments: "We're being bombarded with thousands of AI slop games because 'with AI, anyone can make their dreams a reality and become a game dev!' The game market is going to collapse, as seen in the latest Steam Next Fest, all thanks to AI bros and AI billionaires. Oh, how I hate Tim Sweeney."

In short, there's a lot of venting and vexation out there, so does this feel tone deaf from Epic? Very much so, but you wouldn't expect anything else really given CEO Tim Sweeney's recent (and past) comments on the subject of AI in gaming, and what's been going on at Epic lately.

Witness Sweeney's proclamation earlier this month that a "huge pivot" is happening at Epic where it's "moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration," with the chief exec arguing that AI can be "empowering for creators" and not the death of gaming. And of course there's also the new Epic launcher in preview, which took a tongue-in-cheek approach with a release announcement that declared: "Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that's way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look."

All of which went down swimmingly well with most PC gamers, of course.

Interestingly, the idea for this AI MegaJam may have originated in this discussion on X, where SYD Games Studio suggests such a developer competition. Sweeney replies that it's an "interesting idea" and appears to have taken that ball and run with it (he also observes that AI represents "truly a new age of gaming and software ahead").

I get that AI can be a useful tool when employed by game developers to save some time doing coding grunt work (with the appropriate careful checks in place), but extending vibe-coding more broadly to embrace the entire game-making process is just asking for trouble and heaping on the bad feelings towards Epic here. At this point, Epic seems to be almost trolling gamers, and coding aside, the general vibes are getting distinctly nasty.

You could be forgiven for having reservations going into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. After all, both last year’s instalment, the much-derided Black Ops 7, and this game’s direct predecessor, Modern Warfare III, were clearly rushed and displayed a level of sloppiness that suggested the first-person shooter franchise had reached its breaking point.

Thankfully, it’s now apparent that these were merely temporary hiccups, and Modern Warfare 4 sees developer Infinity Ward successfully bring Call of Duty back from the brink with a fresh and exciting instalment that represents the absolute pinnacle of what the series has to offer.

The brilliant single-player story campaign delivers blockbuster thrills, there’s a stellar extraction shooter component filled with tense encounters in DMZ, and the core multiplayer experience is wonderfully crafted. It’s a package that you shouldn’t miss, and if it represents the trajectory of future installments, I’m confident that we’re in good hands.

Boots on the ground

The Modern Warfare 4 campaign is simply superb and sets a new benchmark for the series’ cinematic storytelling. It truly feels like the culmination of the last decade of the Call of Duty series – and not just the Modern Warfare games.

It all kicks off in the fictional city of Hajin, South Korea, where you play as the lowly Private Park. An unwilling conscript in the country’s mandatory service program, he and his squadmates are suddenly thrust onto the front lines when a routine patrol is interrupted by the start of a full-scale invasion by North Korea. There are some genuinely shocking scenes in the opening as your team pushes through a rapidly crumbling city, dodging artillery strikes and witnessing widespread civilian casualties.

The early death of a squadmate hammers home the high stakes, and the decision to focus on newcomers rather than the established Modern Warfare cast makes it clear that there’s no plot armor here. You genuinely start to care about these new arrivals, with each member bringing a distinct and memorable personality to the squad’s dynamic. Dunn, a US Marine embedded in the local unit, is a particular highlight. His cultural cluelessness and overconfident swagger are frequently played for laughs, stopping the otherwise bleak tone from becoming too unrelentingly miserable.

It’s a big departure from the almost Marvel-movie-like silliness of the recent Call of Duty games (I’m looking at you, giant Harper mission from Black Ops 7), and the focus on a ground invasion makes for a grittier story that’s more in line with the events of the original Modern Warfare trilogy. Despite this more constrained focus, there are still plenty of memorable set-piece moments, such as an invigorating sequence that has you rapidly switching between different team members spread out across an air base, working together to fend off waves of North Korean troops.

There’s even one massive, open-world mission that unfolds similarly to a Far Cry game. It’s far more in-depth than the disappointing open-zone levels of 2023’s Modern Warfare III, with resources to scavenge, outposts to clear, and even a few puzzles to crack. It took me a few hours to clear, and since I didn’t see everything, I really appreciate being able to return to it later from the mission select screen and pick up where I left off.

Park’s story plays out mostly linearly, but it's interspersed with missions that detail the exploits of the fan-favorite Captain Price in the lead-up to the invasion. Set a few years after the events of the previous game, which, spoiler alert, ends with Price executing his long-term adversary, General Shepherd, in the middle of the Pentagon, the former SAS soldier is now on the run and travels between global locations hunting the members of a sinister cabal.

Price’s segments offer all the bombastic Mission: Impossible action that made the recent Black Ops 6 campaign so great. One minute you're infiltrating a New York nightclub, and the next you’re speeding through Paris, hanging out the side of a car chased by legions of heavily armed gangsters. Vladimir Makarov, a terrorist Price pursued throughout the previous game, is unceremoniously killed off in just the second mission, paving the way for the introduction of Archer, a new foe portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen. Unlike Makarov, he’s a compelling villain with coherent motivations and, importantly, enough screen time to appear like more than an afterthought, as his predecessor unfortunately did.

While Park’s journey sees the recruit come face to face with the horrors of war but emerge victorious thanks to camaraderie and teamwork, Price’s is all about the dangers of abandoning your morals and sacrificing those close to you in pursuit of revenge. They contrast excellently and, while the messaging certainly isn’t subtle, the way both gradually converge for a unified conclusion is nevertheless highly satisfying.

Off the books

The events of the campaign lead directly into the new DMZ extraction shooter mode, which sees mercenaries returning to the crumbling ruins of Hajin to find and extract abandoned military tech left over from the war. It plays like a simplified version of titles such as Arena Breakout: Infinite or Escape from Tarkov, with your chosen operator dropping in to the map from an upgradable field base.

This serves as a little hub world that you return to in between runs, offering limited storage for your scavenged gear, a 3D printer to forge new equipment with collected resources, a vendor for spending extracted cash, and intelligence detailing the non-player character (NPC) foes and most dangerous players active in the zone. While most extraction shooter games include base-building elements, it’s rare to see your home as a physical 3D space you can actually explore, and it makes the experience feel much more immersive.

You have three options when deploying into Hajin: Story Missions, Dynamic Ops, and Free Roam. Free Roam is the most basic: it drops you into the massive map with a few other players to pursue your own goals, whether that means finding good weapons to extract or trying to complete DMZ Orders, little challenges that guide your experience. Dynamic Ops is more guided, feeding you a stream of multi-stage objectives with increasing rewards for each that you manage to complete.

They’re assigned at random, with a good variety of options in the mission pool that range from taking out key NPC targets to taking over military camps and collecting stashed bombs to destroy marked vehicles. Story Missions, meanwhile, offer a more linear experience that feels much closer to the campaign.

One early highlight had my team of three taking on guards at an abandoned hospital, pushing our way up to the intensive care unit and wheeling a sedated enemy general to a rooftop extraction point under heavy fire. It was genuinely exhilarating, and became even more exciting when a squad of enemy players turned up to disrupt our mission.

Other players can appear regardless of your chosen mode, leading to tense PvP situations where one wrong move can mean the difference between a successful escape and losing your current operator and all of their equipment. Not every encounter has to end in a fight, though, as you can work together with enemy teams (and even opt to join them) if they’re willing to cooperate, leading to some fun emergent play.

I entered one story mission and quickly discovered that my team of randoms was absolutely terrible, with no apparent interest in actually completing our tasks, so I beelined to a nearby enemy squad shouting “friendly” until they sent me the invite to join them. I quickly led my new friends right back to my useless former teammates, and took great pleasure in helping mow them down to steal all their gear.

No two games feel the same, and if that wasn’t reason enough to keep coming back, Hajin itself is a treat to explore. It’s big, beautiful, and filled with a variety of aesthetically distinct zones ranging from freezing cold, abandoned North Korean villages to the rusty ruins of the South Korean city and even some of the barren outskirts of Russia. Even when you’ve seen it all, the dynamic weather effects can still take you by surprise, introducing challenging conditions like dense fog or heavy rainstorms that make it more difficult to navigate and spot foes.

DMZ would be a strong offering as a standalone extraction shooter game, so it represents incredible value when bundled in alongside the rest of the Modern Warfare 4 package. This is a mode that I’m going to be coming back to time and time again in the weeks and months ahead.

A fresh start

Of course, no Call of Duty game is complete without a robust suite of core multiplayer modes, and Modern Warfare 4 delivers a truly superb experience across the board in this regard. The pacing of matches is perfect: noticeably snappier than the comparatively pedestrian battles of Modern Warfare II but not as overwhelmingly rapid as the wall-jumping, hip-firing action of Black Ops 7.

Fast movement helps you navigate the smaller maps of classic modes like Team Deathmatch or Kill Confirmed quickly so you’re always encountering new enemies to fight, keeping the excitement high. Focusing on tactical positioning is still rewarded, thanks to a finely tuned TTK (time to kill) that gives the player who lands the first hit an advantage, but not a guaranteed victory against particularly skilled opponents. New traversal mechanics like a ledge grab that lets you hang off the side of buildings and objects are seamlessly implemented too, opening up new exciting opportunities on every battlefield.

As I noted in my impressions of the Modern Warfare 4 beta, the overhauled ballistic system is far more than a marketing bullet point and genuinely impacts how you engage with weapons by accurately simulating the trajectory of bullets based on the position of your muzzle. In practical terms, it means being able to reliably hit shots when quickly shooting from the hip, which gives you a chance against players that slide around corners with SMGs at breakneck speeds to try and catch you off guard.

The guns themselves are all fantastic to use, with best-in-class model fidelity, impactful sound effects, and slick animations. There’s a great variety in the arsenal to boot, which spans from modern assault rifles to the antique WWII gear used by the real-world North Korean military. GUNNY, a new automated helper smartly built into the gunsmith system, makes it easier than ever to tweak your attachments for that perfect build. While I will always prefer poring over the detailed stats, giving newcomers the ability to automatically create good attachment setups based on their specific playstyles helps keep the playing field even.

As for the maps, they’re some of the best that we’ve had in recent years. They’re definitely on the smaller side unless you dive into the massive Ground War: Combat Outpost mode (which plays almost like a Battlefield match), though none of them stand out as suffering from poorly balanced spawn points or unfair sightlines. They’re visually stunning. Those taking place in South Korea, such as Silkworm, stand out particularly with their lavishly detailed streets, while little animated intros grant each arena a distinct visual identity.

Wrap all of this up in a slick UI that finally doesn’t look like the Netflix home screen, and it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that Modern Warfare 4 is going to reshape the direction of the long-running series going forward. If I had to truly nitpick, I would fault the lack of faction divisions in the operator lineup – being able to tell at a glance which team a player is on without having to rely on the red enemy indicator would help readability.

For something this insignificant to be my only complaint is a testament to how strong the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 package is

Should I play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility features

As with most modern Call of Duty games, there is an expansive selection of accessibility settings. This includes a wide selection of visual presets designed to enhance readability, as well as an assortment of subtitle options for the campaign.

The controls are also highly customizable, with full remapping supported whether you’re using a keyboard and mouse or a controller. You can also tweak aim assist settings and enable presets designed to reduce motor strain.

How I reviewed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4

I played more than 25 hours of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 for the purpose of this review. This included a full playthrough of the campaign, multiple DMZ sessions both solo and with a friend, and plenty of multiplayer. I also drew on my experience playing more than ten hours of the game’s beta, and some extra hands-on time in a studio visit earlier this year.

I tested everything on PC using a 5070 Ti-powered model by retailer Sca with a compact Corsair 2000d RGB Airflow case, Asus ROG Strix B860-I Gaming Wifi motherboard, Intel Core Ultra 7 265K CPU, a 2TB WD Black SN770 SSD, 32GB of DDR5 Corsair Vengeance RAM, and an Nvidia 5070 Ti manufactured by Asus. This setup lets me play smoothly on custom graphics settings at 1080p with most options set to High.

For peripherals, I used the new Logitech G Pro X2 Rapid keyboard and Logitech G Pro X3 SuperStrike mouse throughout my time with the game.

First reviewed October 2026

• An AMD 'Gainsborough' chip has been leaked in a benchmark
• The codename suggests that this could be the CPU of the Steam Deck 2
• Whether or not the performance fits the bill isn't clear yet, and there are doubts around the timing here too — but it's still a hint that Valve could be exploring the hardware to use in its handheld sequel

We've caught sight of a chip that supposedly might power the Steam Deck 2, which serves as a hint that Valve could already be working on its handheld sequel.

TechPowerUp spotted the development with an AMD 'Gainsborough' APU having been leaked via OpenBenchmarking. It's an engineering sample chip with 6-cores (12-threads) and a base clock of 2.4GHz – but what links this to Valve's next-gen handheld?

Well, it's tenuous, granted – so arm yourself with a pile of seasoning – but the word Gainsborough is the key here, as Valve has used codenames inspired by Final Fantasy VII for Steam Deck silicon before. Namely Aerith and Sephiroth, and Gainsborough is Aerith's surname, as well-known GPU leaker Kepler pointed out.

Seemingly this Gainsborough chip was paired with 24GB of system memory for testing, although that doesn't necessarily reflect a potential upgrade for the Steam Deck 2 in this regard – that's a shaky idea given the RAM crisis and how long it might last for. All this means is that this memory configuration is currently what AMD or Valve is trying out the chip with.

There are benchmark results here (of course, it's on a benchmarking site), and we get to see that this new AMD APU hits 3,508 points in Furmark at 1024 x 768 resolution. That's a bit faster than the Steam Deck which scores 3,323 (albeit at 1280 x 800).

Analysis: benchmarking clarification

If the benchmarking seems unimpressive, it's going by the raw numbers, but remember that this is very early testing with drivers which are still a long way from being knocked into shape. In other words, expect the Gainsborough APU to be a lot faster than this when the chip is fully finished and the drivers are properly honed.

Overall, at this stage it's difficult to read exactly what this benchmarking tells us, but the fact that it's already quicker than the current CPU in the Steam Deck is promising. Although some gamers out there are still arguing that it seems lacklustre, and that this wouldn't be enough of a generational upgrade for Valve's handheld sequel.

Also, this CPU is expected to debut late in 2027 or in 2028, and frankly, that feels a little early for the Steam Deck 2 given what's happening with the RAM crisis (in terms of keeping the retail price down). Also, when a Valve engineer most recently spoke about the Steam Deck 2, Pierre-Loup Griffais was very guarded on the subject of a potential launch timeframe, and the hardware sounded very much up-in-the-air still.

However, hardware cards being played closed to the chest like this is hardly surprising, and this doesn't rule out Valve exploring the Gainsborough chip currently for a possible Steam Deck 2 launch towards the end of the decade.

We shall see, but for now, I'd treat this one with a lot more caution than your average rumor. Nonetheless, it remains a tantalizing hint that Valve is now beyond tinkering with ideas for the next-gen Steam Deck, and is actively testing out potential hardware.

• A leaker has claimed the PlayStation 6’s storage and memory alone could cost $680
• That lines up with past predictions that the console will cost $1,000 or more
• Sony has remained silent on the potential cost of its next-generation device

It’s no secret that the ongoing AI-driven RAM crisis has pushed component prices to extraordinarily unpleasant highs, and that’s made everything from graphics cards to new smartphones more expensive. Now, it looks like the misery could be spreading to the upcoming PlayStation 6, with some predictions indicating that an eye-watering price tag of $1,000 or more could be on the horizon.

That idea comes from renowned leaker KeplerL2 on the NeoGAF forums, who recently argued that the procurement cost to Sony of the PlayStation 6’s memory and storage alone comes to $680. That’s before we even consider other components like the GPU, CPU, and motherboard, and it makes for grim reading for anyone hoping for a reasonably priced console from Sony.

The context here is that KeplerL2’s comment was made in response to another forum member. That person had expressed doubts over KeplerL2’s previous prediction that the total bill of materials for the PlayStation 6 would come to $960. That prediction was made in July 2026, and with prices only increasing since then, the final bill to Sony could easily push past the $1,000 mark — especially if the RAM and storage come to $680 before anything else is factored in.

While some games consoles have historically been sold at a loss in order to drive software sales, Sony has said in recent months that “As a principle, we do not intend to sell hardware at significant losses.” That suggests that if the PlayStation 6’s bill of materials really does come to $960 — or more — then that’s likely to be close to the price that consumers will be asked to pay.

More bad news for PlayStation fans

KeplerL2 is a well-known leaker in the world of consoles and computing hardware, and in recent weeks they have made claims surrounding console release dates, the performance of the next Xbox, and AMD’s own version of DLSS 5. Their past track record gives them a degree of credibility, but as with every so-called leak and rumor, it’s sensible to treat it with a dose of skepticism until it is confirmed.

Still, given the way hardware prices are going, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see the PlayStation 6 debut at $1,000 or more. Costs of the priciest PlayStation components — including the memory, storage, and GPU — are way up compared to when the PlayStation 5 launched and are showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, they could get worse over the next year or two.

Sony has not made any comments on which way prices for the PlayStation 6 might go, so we’ll have to wait and see for now. But combined with the news that Sony is planning to ditch physical discs altogether in the near future, the future could be tough for PlayStation gamers.

• Nvidia has considerably improved the AI model for DLSS 5
• This means the tech now offers up to 40% faster frame rates
• Team Green has also improved frame generation, and is bringing DLSS 5 to two new games: Hogwarts Legacy and Where Winds Meet

If you were wondering how soon Nvidia might start ramping up the performance of DLSS 5, well the answer is that it just happened.

Team Green's neural-rendering tech, which officially debuted in NBA 2K27, has only been out for just over a month, but Nvidia is claiming that it has doubled the performance of the AI that drives DLSS 5.

When it was first previewed in March 2026, DLSS 5 needed a pair of RTX 5090 GPUs to run, with the company improving the performance of the AI model by 5x for the release of the tech in NBA 2K27. With this latest update, it's now 10x more performant than that baseline.

Nvidia also made it clear that it has reduced the video memory (VRAM) usage of the tech considerably, noting that: "The DLSS 5 October update shrinks the [AI model] footprint by 24% to roughly 118 million parameters while reducing 4K VRAM usage by 20%. The result is half the GPU overhead of the September [launch] version while maintaining comparable visual fidelity."

Based on Nvidia's testing in NBA 2K27, that translates to boosts in frame rates in the order of 30% to 40%. Check out the video clip below to see the gains in the basketball game.

This new DLSS 5 model launches on October 16, with availability for RTX 5000 GPUs, RTX Spark laptops and the GeForce Now streaming service.

Nvidia also announced that DLSS 5 is being introduced for Hogwarts Legacy on November 5, and also Where Winds Meet in the "near future", although we aren't given a specific launch date in the latter case.

Finally, away from DLSS 5, Nvidia announced that it's bringing in a new performance mode for frame generation, speeding up the tech considerably. The company explains that this benefits from a "faster and lighter algorithm" that boosts frame rates even further, and that it'll offer up to 35% better frame rates with an RTX 5060.

This performance mode is called 'Preset C' in the Nvidia app's frame-generation override.

DLSS 5 is also coming to RTX Remix on October 23, meaning old games can get a graphical makeover with added neural-rendering goodness. That only makes sense. given that gamers have been fudging support (in various ways) with classic PC games anyway.

Analysis: a laudable step forward — but gamers want more

It's remarkable to see DLSS 5 performance being boosted so quickly, although Nvidia needed to act in this regard. One of the main criticisms of this tech has been that the performance hit is too hefty, and it requires a powerful RTX 5000 GPU to run smoothly enough — at a time when the prices of such graphics cards are getting rapidly more expensive.

That said, an increasing number of gamers seem to be accepting that DLSS 5 is worth the cost to the frame rate for the visual uplift. Those folks will doubtless be pleased with Nvidia's progress here, and likely wouldn't disagree with Team Green's assertion in its blog post that 2026 has been a "year of relentless DLSS innovation."

Of course, there are still skeptics who'd rather Nvidia didn't bring AI into play in this way with DLSS. And it's also true that these early optimizations are where the larger gains will be carved out, and as the AI model is further refined, performance improvements are likely to become a lot more modest.

There are also gamers out there who are asking whether, now that the AI model is much improved, this going to usher in wider support for Nvidia's older graphics cards? As this Redditor put it: "Great so could we get official support on the [RTX] 40 series now since the new model is so efficient?"

It's a good question, given that Nvidia has promised that after tuning RTX 5000 performance it's going to work on bringing support to the last-gen RTX 4000 range. I'm guessing this won't happen until early next year, though.

The other work on DLSS frame generation is obviously welcome, too, albeit the new 'Preset C' option has attracted some criticism for causing a bit more glitching and artifacts while boosting frame rates by a decent amount. Not everyone is seeing this, mind, and how obvious it is may be somewhat subjective going by reports (and it could obviously depend on the specific game, too).

At any rate, this preset should be useful for laptop gamers looking to further bolster frame rates with relatively modest Nvidia GPUs — and indeed, it's likely tied into the release of RTX Spark laptops to help their gaming chops.

• Nintendo has confirmed its commitment to physical games
• The statement comes as Sony abandons physical media
• “We go off of what the consumer prefers,” Nintendo declared

Physical game releases are becoming increasingly rare these days, but one company that still plans to sell its titles this way is Nintendo. The Japanese gaming giant confirmed as much in an interview that might come as some relief to fans of disc-based media — although don’t take it as a guarantee that things will stay this way forever.

Speaking to Brazilian interviewer Rodrigo Coelho, Bill van Zyll, Vice President & General Manager of Nintendo Latin America, explained that, “There are no plans to ditch physical [media]. We know how much the fans like it as well.”

Nintendo’s van Zyll gave the example of the Nintendo Switch 2, for which games are available in both digital and physical formats. That's something Nintendo appears to be committed to continuing, at least for the time being, which could help to assuage the concerns of some fans.

Nintendo fans on social media seemed hopeful about the revelation. “Maybe there is window for cartridges to make a comeback in some capacity,” mused one on Reddit, while another proclaimed that “I have no plans to abandon Nintendo. The system works!” “I hope Sony takes notice,” wrote a third, referring to Sony’s decision to completely abandon physical games by 2028.

Good news — for now

Of course, there’s no way to know exactly how long Nintendo will remain devoted to physical games for. As van Zyll said in the interview, “historically, we’ve been very agnostic. We go off of what the consumer prefers and take that into account very heavily”. While that might mean physical releases are here to stay at the moment, van Zyll’s response doesn’t rule out a change of approach in the future if consumer tastes shift.

With that in mind, it’s worth considering that Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has previously noted that “Our business is well over 90% digitally distributed,” which explains why GTA 6 is going to be an entirely disc-less launch. While Graft Theft Auto players and fans of Nintendo games are two quite different groups, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Nintendo follow Take Two’s example in the future.

If you are a keen collector of physical games, and prefer to own hard copies of every title you play, Nintendo’s announcement will be great news. But with the industry increasingly heading in the digital direction, you might want to pick up hard copies of your favorites, just in case Nintendo decides to change course.

In my books, the most satisfying part of any action role-playing game (ARPG) like Diablo or Titan Quest is the constant feeling of progression. Nothing quite compares to watching your little on-screen hero grow from a tiny ant that can barely bash their way through a pack of lowly wolves to a maxed-out bringer of destruction that mows through entire armies without breaking a sweat.

Minecraft Dungeons 2’s aggressive level scaling robs the player of that experience. In the more than 12 hours it took for me to beat the story campaign, I never felt more powerful. Sure, I unlocked more interesting abilities and got to try a variety of weapons, but the amount of time required to take down each newly spawned foe remained near-constant throughout.

A friend even joined my game towards the end of my playthrough, with their level 1 character effortlessly keeping pace with my level 40 one throughout the final encounters, really underscoring the system’s ridiculousness. I’m sure the intention here is to make it easy for friends to jump into the same lobbies and play together without having to worry about their respective levels, but it left me wondering what the point of all the grinding actually is.

Blocky buddies

It’s a shame, because there is still some good in Minecraft Dungeons 2. This standalone spinoff recreates the blocky look of the popular Minecraft survival game expertly, with its own more stylized twists that make the world instantly recognizable, yet refreshingly new thanks to more expressive lighting and Pixar-like character animations that make everything pop even from the distant isometric perspective.

I may have lamented the fact that I couldn’t wow my friend with my character’s power, but the co-op experience is otherwise well done. Creating a group with up to three companions is impressively straightforward no matter where they play, thanks to seamless cross-platform connectivity. There’s even couch co-op, which is quite rare in 2026 and worth praising. The ability to play with others easily goes a long way in making Minecraft Dungeons 2 genuinely worthwhile for younger players.

For everyone else, however, everything here is just too straightforward to appeal. The enemy variety is sorely lacking for starters. The expected Minecraft favorites like the Creepers, Zombies, Skeletons, and, of course, the iconic Chicken Jockey are all present and accounted for, along with the evil grey-skinned Illagers from the first Minecraft Dungeons game. Unfortunately, most enemies function indistinguishably. Those with projectile weapons spray arrows at you from afar, while the rest just rush towards you in a big group.

The strategy in every encounter is to simply mash the attack button and occasionally dodge, even as more powerful Illagers with magic attacks are introduced. The boss fights are equally bland, forcing you to whittle down gigantic health bars for minutes at a time while waves of low-level enemies spawn in. To make matters worse, many of them are repeated throughout the campaign with little variation.

It’s frustrating because, on paper, the combat does have some depth: you have a melee and ranged attack, plus three equipped abilities granted by items that you’ve managed to find.

The weapon selection is decently varied, with scooping shovels and fast-attacking double daggers performing very differently from slow-swinging war hammers or claymores, and a steady trickle of new gear encourages you to experiment. They can be upgraded too, with unlockable enchantments that add little mechanics such as a lightning strike that triggers at the end of a chain attack.

Your abilities are powered by a blue soul-meter, which fills up a little with each defeated foe. I think the intention is to create some form of rhythm, with you alternating between melee, ranged, and your abilities, but the fundamental problem is that there’s just no real strategy to any of it.

Sure, you could probably spend ages creating a build with complementary gear – though there’s no real reason to bother when the aforementioned enemy scaling wipes out any real power gain.

Lacking craft

Much was made of Minecraft Dungeons 2’s world in its marketing. It’s much more open than the previous game, though I wouldn’t exactly call it a true open-world.

The map is designed like a linear corridor that funnels you from one story mission to another with no real room for exploration. Yes, there are side quests and optional dungeons scattered around, but none of the ones that I sampled offered anything that felt meaningfully distinct from the main story.

Regarding the story, the most polite way to describe it would be ‘functional’. It’s presented entirely in second person through a narrator that is devoid of personality. There are no memorable non-player characters (NPCs), no charming companions, no real atmosphere at all — just a bland summary of events.

The game also serves as the Minecraft community’s introduction to The Sift — a new dimension that’s being added to the main game sometime next year. It shows up a few times in the campaign in both procedurally generated encounters and a hand-crafted map. It's got a very distinct aesthetic and its own unique enemies, though it's sadly mechanically indistinguishable from the normal world as you navigate through it spamming attacks.

Like many elements of Minecraft Dungeons 2, it feels like a missed opportunity. Everything here is perfectly functional, but it’s just bland to the point of tedium. If the pitch was a skimmed-down version of Diablo for kids, then developers Mojang and Double Eleven have delivered a serviceable product.

Creativity is a core part of the Minecraft brand, and here I wish the team had been more adventurous.

Should I play Minecraft Dungeons 2?

Play it if…

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Minecraft Dungeons 2 has some accessibility options. The game features a guidance trail that is enabled by default. Subtitles are used throughout, with customizable sizing, color, and background opacity.

There are two font options: the default stylized font and a simplified, easier-to-read version. There are also multiple color blind modes, a high-contrast mode, and the ability to set your own HUD colors.

How I reviewed Minecraft Dungeons 2

I played more than 13 hours of Minecraft Dungeons 2 on my RTX 4090-powered PC using the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller as my main peripheral, along with a 1080P Lenovo monitor and Logitech computer speakers.

I completed all missions of the single-player campaign and experienced a decent amount of side content both solo and with a friend.

First reviewed October 2026

When you think of the biggest Nintendo games, images of Link’s green tunic, Mario’s blue dungarees and Princess Peach’s pink dress invariably come to mind. Yet where mascots Samus, Starfox and Kirby won the battle for players’ hearts, it was 2006’s Wii Sports that truly conquered the world’s wallet.

Bundled with Wii consoles outside of Japan,Wii Sports shifted a mind-boggling 82.9 million units, cementing itself as the third best-selling video game to date. By all rights, Nintendo’s Sports series should be a titan on par with Grand Theft Auto, yet despite Wii Sports' ubiquity, its patchy sequels have never come close to the same impact.

Where the original Wii Sports succeeded on novelty and sheer simplicity, its sequels struggled to expand the formula, adding mini-games without any of that trademark Nintendo soul. This time around, Nintendo has decided to give the faceless brand a likeable character of its own — Wuhu Island.

Taking place on an open-world version of the glistening isle (first seen in 2009’s Wii Sports Resort), Switch Sports Resort on Nintendo Switch 2 immediately oozes the good-time feel of an all-inclusive holiday with its most inviting dose of sun, sea, and sports yet.

Welcome (back) to Wuhu Island

The first stop on my sporty getaway is a testament to that breezy vacation feel — a tour of the island itself. Taking to the skies in the Pilotwings-esque Prop Plane mode, I grip the Joy-Con 2 between my fingertips, soaring across the sun-drenched isle like I’m steering a paper airplane.

Swerving serenely through photo spots to collect rings isn't a deep experience on its own, but it’s a breezy scene-setter for this motion-controlled holiday — adding a juicy extra dish to Switch Sports Resort’s bountiful buffet. The only thing missing from this all-inclusive getaway is the free drinks.

Where its predecessor, Switch Sports, launched feeling sparse, Switch Sports Resort has 12 different playable events right from the off. When it comes to competitive new sports, Thumb wrestling is a clear highlight. As I hold the Joy-Con 2 in a thumbs-up position, careening around, the playground favourite is surprisingly tactical.

Able to gently lower your thumb to bait your opponent, thumb war becomes a tense mind game, as you attempt to lure your opponent into a trap with a feigned press by flicking your thumbnail down. While only ever considered a ‘sport’ by grubby-fingered five-year-olds, this needlessly in-depth virtual recreation leaves me grinning.

The new Power Cruise then sees me taking to the seas in a jet ski, soaring across the ocean as I collect coins, leaving me pining for a Wave Race revival. Playing this single-player, it’s hard to get a good read, but I think there’s definitely strong multiplayer potential here.

Boarding, boating, and mouse mode magic

Skateboarding was another pleasant surprise during my return to Wuhu Island. Skateboarding uses mouse mode, with players dragging the Joy-Con 2 to simulate kicking with your leg and flicking the controller off the surface you’re resting it on to jump.

This laid-back island tour swaps Prop Planes sky views for the sidewalks, letting you grind rails and get big air as you scoot around collecting wheels and discovering postcard-filled photo spots.

It’s an impressively detailed environment, allowing me to peer inside a basketball hall before ollieing over a slew of sunloungers. I think we can all agree that mouse mode has been a bit of a letdown overall, yet outside of simulating a mouse in strategy games, using the mouse as a skateboard is oddly the most convincing support I’ve experienced on Switch 2 thus far.

Of the returning sports, Archery seems to have been tweaked the most. With your bowstring’s pull no longer shackled by the length of the Wii nunchuck’s cable, I can now draw my arrow back further, battling the wind to get the perfect shot as I loose my arrows into a selection of different targets.

Archery feels newly fiddly, but in a way that suggests depth rather than clumsy controls. A special mode sees the archery target divided into different colours, with players only aiming for the colour that corresponds to their avatar.

Of the other returning sports, 2026’s version of boxing feels pleasingly precise, with uppercuts, blocks and jabs landing with far improved accuracy over the Wii and Wii MotionPlus days.

Tennis is just as brilliant as I remember it being on a 480p CRT TV, with table tennis also feeling more nuanced, improved motion controls ensuring that back-and-forth rallies feel more frantic than ever.

Last(ing) resort?

Online multiplayer (first introduced in 2013’s little-played Wii Sports Club) makes a welcome return, giving solo players something to get stuck into alongside Island Crown, a new single-player mode that sees you forming a feud with a named NPC rival, challenging different CPU opponents in order to climb up each sport’s ranks.

After grin-inducing 45 minutes skating around Wuhu Island, soaring through the skies and challenging rivals to a thumb war, I leave my demo won over by its summer holiday charm. Where Wii Sports felt weirdly clinical, Switch Sports Resort looks to inject some much-needed personality into Nintendo’s stalled series.

Whether there’s enough here to keep players waggling for tens of hours still remains to be seen, and while it would be almost impossible to replicate that first Christmas when elderly relatives were whopping their offspring at Wii Tennis, so far, Switch Sports Resort is shaping up to be the best Sports title Nintendo has put out in years.

Belkin Travel Bag for Nintendo Switch 2: review

Belkin’s Switch 2 travel bag is designed to carry your console and its various accessories in comfort, while providing protection from the elements and more.

As Switch 2 cases go, it's a somewhat plain affair. While the slight ruching of the outer material lends it a rugged appearance, and the green and lilac colorways are more lively than the black variant, there’s little in the way of branding or fanfare. This may disappoint those looking to make more of a statement, but those looking to stay discreet will no doubt be pleased with Belkin’s utilitarian approach.

Its materials, though, should appeal to everyone and rank among the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories on this front. The outer fabric is soft and smooth, which, along with its ergonomic form and minimal weight, makes it very comfortable against your back. It’s not unlike something you might find lining a piece of outdoor kit — although it’s worth noting that Belkin doesn’t mention anything about the bag being water- or even splashproof.

The shoulder strap is also well made. It too feels smooth and comfortable; it didn’t dig into my collarbone, as such straps often do, despite lacking a padded covering. There’s more than enough adjustability to accommodate a broad range of user heights and preferences. Admittedly, actually adjusting the buckle can be a little hard sometimes, but this is a price I’m willing to pay in return for a secure fit.

What’s more, you can easily wear the bag over any shoulder, thanks to two fastening points at the bottom. You can attach it to either of these via the plastic carabiner at the end of the strap, which is strong enough to be secure, yet still easy to unhook when needed, thanks to the angling of the mechanism that makes it easier to push in.

In addition to the shoulder strap, there’s also a carrying handle at the top. This is slightly padded and soft in the hand, making it comfortable to hold.

The main compartment has a fair amount of space inside, with enough room to fit multiple accessories, including the Nintendo Switch 2 dock, controllers, power cables, and more. Its wide opening makes for easy access, too, thanks to the zips that run almost the entire length of both sides. They operate very smoothly, and I rarely experienced any snagging.

Within the main compartment are three others. One is designed for the console itself, and is lined with an exquisitely soft felt that prevents your screen from scuffs and scratches. A hook-and-loop strap goes over the top, which is quite slack, even with your Joy-Cons attached. However, the snug fit of the pouch itself is sufficient to keep your console in place.

What’s more, this slackness is actually a positive, since it allows you to store your console with bulkier, third-party controllers attached. For instance, I managed to fit the console in with CRKD’s Nitro Deck 2 attached.

Attached to the outside of the console compartment is another compartment that contains the game card sleeve, which is easily removable. The sleeve fits a reasonable 10 cards, but there are other Switch 2 cases that hold more, such as Turtle Beach’s PlayTrek 2-in-1 case (14) and PlayTrek travel case (12).

The compartment itself isn’t felt-lined, but it still has a soft material. You’ll struggle to fit much in the pouch inside, and anything bulky will compromise the space needed for the adjacent console compartment.

For such items, the netting opposite is more appropriate. It’s big enough to fit cables, power adapters, and both Joy-Con 2 controllers, although probably not all at the same time. And while the netting expands a fair amount, it has a tendency to sag when it’s fully loaded, even if the items in question aren’t particularly heavy. I also noticed that pointed items, such as paper manuals and the like, can stick right through its holes — a minor gripe, but one worth pointing out nevertheless.

On the outside of the bag, there’s a simple zip pocket on the front, which covers almost the entire length of the bag and is roomy enough to fit a few larger items, but you won’t fit items such as the dock, for instance.

On the matter of protection, the bag has a fair amount of cushioning on the bottom — which Belkin describes as an “impact-resistant base” — and around the sides. However, there’s less on the front and back, and since this isn’t a hard shell case, I wouldn’t be confident piling heavy items on top of it.

But if you don’t need this level of sturdiness, Belkin’s travel bag offers a lot more besides, and for a reasonable price at that. If you’re in the market for a light and comfortable over-the-shoulder bag for your Switch 2 and its accessories, it’s a fine choice that’s hard to beat.

Belkin Travel Bag for Nintendo Switch 2 review: Price & Specs

Should I buy the Belkin Travel Bag for Nintendo Switch 2?

Scorecard

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Belkin Travel Bag for Nintendo Switch 2 review: Also consider

How I tested the Belkin Travel Bag for Nintendo Switch 2

I tested Belkin’s travel bag for a couple of days, making sure to fill every compartment, fasten every zip, and adjust the strap length across its full range, as well as attaching it to both hook points. I carried it around on my commutes, fully loaded with the Switch 2 and numerous accessories.

I filled the bag with cables, manuals, and the Joy-Con 2s. I also stored the console with the CRKD Nitro Deck 2 attached to test the capacity of the console storage compartment.

• Read more about how we test
• First reviewed: October 2026

Sometimes the old ones really are the best, and Gears of War: E-Day is unapologetically retro. This third-person cover shooter could have easily fallen out of a time machine straight from the Xbox 360 era, were it not for its incredible graphical fidelity.

If you’ve played any Gears of War game, then you know exactly what to expect going in: intense combat encounters as human soldiers fight a desperate war against an invading mutant menace. Does E-Day reinvent the series? Not at all, though it does make some small changes by introducing somewhat more open levels and refining the weapon upgrade system introduced in Tactics.

That's far from a bad thing, though. Gears of War is an acclaimed series for a reason. Mowing down waves of baddies is still as fun as it ever was twenty years after the release of the first game, even if the story campaign feels a bit drawn out at times in between the bombastic set-piece moments, and the suite of competitive online multiplayer modes offers plenty of reasons to hone your skill and keep coming for more.

Back to the very beginning

E-Day does plenty to appeal, even if you haven’t played a Gears game before. It’s a prequel, set more than a decade before the events of the first game’s story, so it doesn’t require any prior knowledge to understand. It takes place on the titular ‘Emergence Day’, when the evil Locust army first emerged from underground and began its full-scale invasion of the series’ fictional Earth-like world. The story is a relatively small-scale one, focusing entirely on the initial first few days of the war in the city of Kalona.

The campaign is extremely strong in its opening hours, which really dial in on the more horrific and brutal elements of the franchise. Although still an experienced soldier, long-time protagonist Marcus Fenix faces a then-unknown threat that he and his companions, a ragtag group of his friend, a fellow soldier, Dominic Santiago, along with strangers Mags Carter and Lucas Reyes, are completely unprepared for.

There’s a real sense of chaos as the Locust tear through the city streets, with civilians running in panic, cars crashing, trains derailing, and huge sinkholes starting to tear up the floor. Weapons are limited at first, but you steadily gear up as the story unfolds. Experimenting with new assault rifles, snipers, shotguns, grenade launchers, and so on as you unlock them leads to a satisfying feeling of progression, further enhanced by a steady stream of unlockable upgrades for each and every one of them.

These range from basic stat buffs to more in-depth overhauls that fundamentally change how the weapons operate and can be paired together in interesting ways. The slow-to-reload lever-action Gnasher shotgun, for example, becomes an entirely different beast when you outfit it with a full-auto firing mode and the ability to replenish shells when stowed. It’s supremely enjoyable to experiment and, even without any upgrades, all of the guns are suitably punchy with satisfying sound effects that make each shot a joy.

E-Day introduces a small handful of large, more open environments to explore, with short side missions here and there. There’s plenty of guidance, and you’re always being funneled towards the next objective, so it doesn’t ever feel like you’re in a true open-world, but there are still plenty of collectibles to hoover up.

Their placement isn’t sophisticated, and you can easily find most of them without straying too far from the beaten track, which does seem like something of a missed opportunity.

Beauty in destruction

Luckily, you don’t need much encouragement to really take your time soaking in each and every environment, as they are absolutely gorgeous. This is without a doubt one of the most graphically impressive games ever released, with a level of fidelity that is simply leaps and bounds ahead of other recent releases.

The detail is truly staggering, with everything from sweeping views across the city to the individual items on sale in an abandoned convenience store realistically rendered and beautifully lit. I constantly found myself stopping to zoom in on every little thing, impressed with the sheer number of references to in-universe history.

All of this helps Kalona really feel like an actual place in a way few other video game settings do. The layout of its roads and public transportation network is totally believable, and your journey feels truly grounded, as you move through the game – even later on when the streets have been reduced to near-ruin.

There are some definite low points, though. This is by far the longest Gears of War campaign, taking me roughly 25 hours to complete while chasing every collectible and optional side mission, and a few hours in the middle should have been shaved off. Encounters are well-balanced in the opening and final acts with a good variety of foes and plenty of cover, but there are some sequences near the midpoint that just involve facing off a steady stream of overly tanky enemies in quite small arenas.

The shooting is so compelling that pumping them full of bullets for minutes at a time isn’t a dealbreaker; their removal would just have created a much tighter overall experience.

Continuing the fight

A Gears of War game wouldn’t be complete with a suite of multiplayer modes, and E-Day is no exception. The player versus player (PvP) deathmatch mode is excellent, challenging two small teams to face off and rack up kills with weapons from the campaign. Simplistic, yes, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not incredibly fun to blast away at others.

The player versus environment (PvE) games are more complicated, with 12 players divided into four squads tackling multiple objectives in a large open space to earn currency to spend on upgrades and defensive gear.

Bizarrely, the teams don’t interact with each other that much aside from the odd shared boss fight, so I don’t really see why the format needs 12 players, though any excuse for more of the strong combat is a good thing. There’s also a more traditional wave survival mode, which I can see becoming a favorite among friends looking for something more casual.

Throw in a wealth of unlockables, and you have a recipe for a good time even if, like the story campaign, it’s not anything revolutionary.

Should I play Gears of War: E-Day?

Play it if…

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Gears of War: E-Day has a wealth of accessibility settings, found in the dedicated accessibility menu. There are multiple menu narration options alongside the ability to customize the size of UI text, enable subtitles, show speaker names, and fully tweak subtitle background color and opacity.

Distinct content filters are present for gore, profanity, and online chat content, plus visual settings such as a color blind mode, high-contrast mode, and navigation aids.

How I reviewed Gears of War E-Day

I played Gears of War: E-Day on my Nvidia RTX 4090-powered gaming PC. With this rig, it could easily hit a rock-solid 75 frames per second (fps) at ultra settings while playing at 1080p and using Logitech peripherals: the newly announced X3 Superstrike mouse, Pro X2 Rapid keyboard, and Pro X3 Lightspeed headset.

I played the game for over 25 hours, during which time I completed the campaign and saw the vast majority of side content. I also dived into the multiplayer modes for a few hours to check them out and compare them to other online games.

First reviewed October 2026

• Borderless Gaming is a tool that's sold on Steam
• It just got an add-on to easily fudge DLSS 5 to work with various PC games
• Reviews of the tool have turned rather colorful, as those who still hate DLSS 5 and all it stands for are chipping in

You can't have missed all the chatter about experimenting with Nvidia's DLSS 5 in all sorts of different PC games, and if you've felt the urge to join in but have been too intimidated by the idea of fudging the tech to work, a solution is now at hand.

VideoCardz noticed that Borderless Gaming, a tool that's sold via Steam – it's used to facilitate gaming in a borderless window, as the name indicates – now has DLSS 5 support. Or, as the developer put it: "DLSS 5 Neural Rendering for Everyone."

The dev notes that: "DLSS 5 Neural Rendering is now available in Borderless Gaming – without replacing game DLLs, modifying game files, or needing a game-specific mod. Install the effect, select the preset, and apply it to your game."

Borderless Gaming applies DLSS 5 directly through its own BGFX pipeline, the developer explains, rather than forwarding requests to Nvidia's DLLs.

In short, this is DLSS 5 being fudged in about as no-fuss a manner as can be, save for the fact that you have to buy and install the app, of course. This implementation shouldn't be confused with native DLSS 5 support, because it's simply a workaround to bring the neural rendering technique into play (with variable results as you might expect).

Note that the Borderless Gaming app doesn't actually come with this built-in, but after installing the tool itself, you need to also download the appropriate effect (DLSS5-NR v0.2.1 currently) from GitHub here (installation instructions are provided at that link).

Analysis: catching some of the DLSS 5 hate

According to the developer, this implementation can work on a wide range of GPUs – not just the officially supported RTX 5000 models – and an RTX 3090 can hit around 30fps typically with DLSS 5 turned on. Obviously the frame rate will vary massively depending on the game and graphics settings, but the gist is that you can get something playable on the RTX 3090.

It's a neat enough solution by the looks of it, although as ever, if you're curious, I have to issue my usual warning about third-party apps here: download and use them at your own risk.

Borderless Gaming is an app that's been around for a long time, but the Steam reviews have turned distinctly colorful of late – with some of that color revolving around this latest move with DLSS 5. As one reviewer puts it: "Added DLSS 5 for no reason but to make games look worse... Slop." (Hence the above clarification that DLSS 5 isn't actually added to the app itself at all).

Nvidia's DLSS 5 was controversial when it was first announced, although the reception to its neural rendering trickery has warmed up considerably since it went live in a game (NBA 2K27). There are still haters out there, though, as the Steam reviews for Borderless Gaming illustrate.

It's also a fair question whether Nvidia might take action against projects like this, which are going further in terms of tweaking and playing about with DLSS 5 tech. It's likely that for now, with DLSS 5 getting a greater level of positivity from many of the gaming experimenters out there, Team Green might let it slide – at least for the time being.

• Logitech G has just released a new microphone for gaming and streaming
• The Yeti 2 is a successor to the legendary Blue Yeti
• It has a wealth of new features and a color screen

Logitech G has just launched the Yeti 2, a new streaming microphone designed to be an all-in-one solution for content creators.

The first Yeti launched back in 2009 and quickly became something of a legend in the streaming space. It was relatively affordable and offered good plug-and-play performance for the time, making it one of the easiest-to-use and best microphones for streaming for many starting out in content creation.

Originally manufactured by Blue Microphones, the brand was bought by Logitech in 2023 and gradually folded into the Logitech G portfolio. Despite this, that old model still continues to be made and remains a popular choice.

The Yeti 2 looks to take everything that people loved about its predecessor and overhaul it with modern technology and a wealth of new features.

It keeps the same iconic pill shape and overall aesthetic, now housing a redesigned array with three capsules.

There's a new 1.3-inch screen too, which can be used to keep track of key settings like gain or pickup pattern. It can also be set to display a cute animated mascot with an expression that changes when you're too loud or too quiet.

The default option is naturally a cute pixel-art yeti, but there are plenty of other pre-set characters to choose from, and even the option to upload images to create your own.

Senior global product marketing manager SM tells me that making the Yeti 2 easy to use was a key priority for Logitech G, something apparent in its feature set. It includes an adjustable AI-powered denoiser to cut out background sounds,

This runs locally on the microphone, without the need for any PC software.

There's also now a proximity sensor built into the mic (which SM is very keen to stress is not the same as a camera) in order to track the position of your face and distance from the mic. This adapts everything from pickup pattern to EQ and gain automatically in real time, on paper making that you always sound as good as possible with minimal tweaking.

All of this comes in at just $159.99 / £139.99 / AU$249.95 — handily undercutting premium alternatives like the SteelSeries Alias or Shure MV7+.

• Discord is working on a new 'Game Mode' feature to reduce CPU and GPU usage while gaming
• The new feature seems to be an auto-toggle of the Reduced Motion feature on the desktop app when a game is running
• It's not yet clear if any improvements will be made to resource consumption while screen sharing

Discord is infamous for its high RAM, CPU, and GPU consumption while gaming, and some of those aspects are finally being addressed.

As reported by VideoCardz, Discord is working on 'Game Mode,' a new feature for the Discord client that frees up CPU and GPU resources while a game is running by disabling effects and animations for smoother gameplay.

Discord already offers options to reduce system resource use, notably Reduced Motion, which reduces the intensity of animations and hover effects when navigating the client. Users can also disable hardware acceleration, which stops the app from using the GPU for better performance within it, and disabling it should stop "visual glitches like frame drops in games or performance problems".

Game Mode sounds a lot like Reduced Motion, with DiscordPreviews (on X) describing how it reduces animations and effects automatically once a game is detected. With this in mind, Game Mode might not be the best answer to solving Discord's system resource issues, especially since there's no mention of RAM usage reduction.

It's also worth noting that Discord is an Electron-based application (a framework for desktop applications that uses web technology), which means Discord's web app is essentially running in an embedded browser engine known as Chromium — the same engine Google Chrome is built on, which is another app that is heavy on system resources.

What about screen sharing?

It's unclear if Game Mode will do anything new other than serve as an automatic toggle for Reduced Motion while gaming. In that case, Discord still has a long way to go in ensuring the desktop app doesn't continue to creep up as a system resource issue for gamers.

At the very least, having Discord devs address the issues is a great start, but it remains to be seen if Game Mode will also help with keeping CPU and GPU usage as low as possible while screen sharing.

Unsurprisingly, the latter uses high amounts of system resources, especially when streaming at higher resolutions, but it's more reasonable compared to simple voice chat or the app being open in the background and still hogging memory.

Still, in-game frame rates can suffer when using screen share, even if the resolution is below 1080p, and this is far more problematic on lower-end systems with less RAM. Solutions such as a capture card on a separate system (or specifically a laptop) can help solve game performance problems completely, but it's not exactly an affordable option.

If Discord can optimize the desktop app or move away from its Electron-based nature, it could go a long way toward removing all of the major pain points.

Last week I flew out to Warsaw for Logitech G Play 2026. The gaming brand’s annual flagship event saw a wealth of new product reveals, with the Pro X2 Rapid keyboard and Pro X3 Superstrike mouse dominating headlines in the PC gaming peripheral space.

I tried them out at the venue ahead of the official launch, and they’re great pieces of hardware, but ones squarely aimed at a very specific audience of esports pros and aspiring competitive gamers. With top-of-the-line specs, they’re also pretty expensive at $229.99 / £209.99 / AU $399.95 and $199.99 / £169.99 / AU$299.95, respectively.

I naturally assumed that such high-end kit would be the highlight of the show for me, but it was actually something right at the other end of the price spectrum that impressed me the most.

More for less

The Logitech G316 X 75 is the latest arrival in the brand’s more budget-oriented G3 series.

It’s a smaller version of the existing G316 X 98 from earlier this year. I didn’t really pay much attention to the original launch: it was a full-size keyboard, and I’ve always preferred more compact designs for that extra desk space.

As a 75% size model, the G316 X 75 ditches the pointless numpad (seriously, when was the last time you used yours?) and a couple of little-used keys like Home and End to give you roughly 2.4in / 6cm on the right-hand side — perfect for positioning your mousepad if, like me, you’re short on desk space.

It wasn’t just the size that drew me to the G316 X 75 on the show floor, however. It’s a very flashy-looking keyboard with full RGB backlighting and a large LED strip with zones you can customize in the compatible Logitech G Hub software. There’s also a little LED screen in the top right corner which, alongside an accompanying button and dial, is used to turn on game mode (locking the Windows key), adjust music volume, or tweak key settings like RGB brightness.

It seemed like a practical little addition in my hands-on time, with some playful touches like a dancing smiley face that appears if you leave the keyboard idle. I found myself wondering if you could display your own little custom icon or emoji on the screen, though, sadly, a representative told me that wasn’t possible for now. A missed opportunity for even more personalization, perhaps.

The materials were decent for the price too. The whole keyboard is plastic, but it still feels weighty and suitably premium, with no noticeable flex when typing. Keycaps are double-shot PBT, with shine-through legends, so they should hold up for a long time as well. If anything does go wrong, both the keycaps and switches are hot-swappable for easy repairs.

On the subject of the switches, they’re tactile ones developed by Logitech that feel a bit different to alternatives from the likes of Cherry or Akko. They require a bit more force to press, and don’t really have that noticeable mid-press biting point characteristic of tactile switches. Unusual, but not necessarily a bad thing. They’re not super loud either, and are very smooth and still suitably satisfying to press.

This is obviously a keyboard geared more towards casual gaming than anything else and is wired-only, though that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few decent specs. The big one is the 8kHz report rate, which should ensure that you’re not held back by delayed inputs if you do venture into more competitive titles like Counter-Strike 2.

All of this comes in at just £89.99 / $99.99 / AU$169.95. I’ve tested keyboards that cost a hell of a lot more and offer far less bang for your buck, so I can see the Logitech G316 X 75 becoming the go-to choice for cost-conscious gamers.

Venom PlayStation Portal Carry Case review

With Grand Theft Auto 6 right around the corner, I imagine that quite a few PlayStation players will be dusting off their PlayStation Portal — or even newly buying one — to enjoy 2026’s biggest game on the go. But if you’re planning to take your Portal on the go, it’s important to keep it safe, and the Venom PlayStation Portal Carry Case can do just that.

I’ve spent a few weeks using Venom’s PS Portal case, and honestly it impressed me. I used to be the type of person who would just wrap my Portal or Nintendo Switch in a sweater, throw it in my bag, and hope for the best — what can I say, I just didn’t want to spend my money on something as unexciting as a case.

But the Venom makes the outlay feel a bit easier to swallow, as it comes in at an exceptionally modest price of $25.99 / £14.99 / AU$49.95. Given that it also comes with a tempered glass screen protector, cleaning tools, and thumbstick grips, that’s really not bad, is it? Don’t be fooled, though, despite its low price tag, Venom’s case still rivals some of the very best PS5 accessories.

This comes down to one main thing: its durability. For such a cheap case, the Venom PlayStation Portal Carry Case is surprisingly rough and ready. It has a hard outer shell, and when dropping the case now and then, or throwing it into my bag, it never showed any signs of wear and tear, and my console survived without issue. The exterior was not damaged during a scratch test, either, and its textured look is pretty appealing.

My system also sat pretty snug inside the case, which has a molded interior to slide your PlayStation Portal into. There’s also a hook-and-loop strap which fastens it in place, and although it's a bit cheap, it serves its purpose well.

My only complaint is that there’s no fabric pad to sit over the screen, so the fastener rubs up against the screen. I’ve not seen any scratch marks or anything, but PowerA’s case — which I’ve slid into the ‘also consider’ section — offers more secure protection with fabric padding and dual fasteners.

There’s a second compartment inside the case too, and this has a zip-locked net that can hold accessories like earbuds, cleaning tools, and cables. It was plenty big enough to house my accessories, although the zip isn’t very high quality, and it came undone at one point — though I was able to fix it very easily. Luckily, the zip on the exterior is a bit stronger, and I found it to be secure at all times.

The Venom case also has a solid handle which has a rubber grip, which is pleasant to the touch and tall enough to fit my relatively large hands.

In honesty, this model is more like a starter kit for PS Portal owners than just a case, though. It comes with a tempered glass screen protector, which is basic, sure, but easy to fit and decently durable. There are also a couple of cleaning wipes and some neat thumbstick grips which seamlessly fit on and feel satisfyingly textured.

So, should you buy the Venom PlayStation Portal Carry Case? If you don’t want to spend all too much, and want a durable piece of kit with some nice extras thrown in, then the answer is yes. I think PowerA’s case is marginally better, thanks to its stylish design, USB-C charging passthrough slot, and fabric padding.

But Venom’s case does offer a bit more storage. I’d argue that Venom’s model is on the bulky side, and it did take up a lot of room in my bag, but if that’s not a dealbreaker for you and you need a quality, affordable case, then look no further.

Venom PlayStation Portal Carry Case review: price & specs

Should I buy the Venom PlayStation Portal Carry Case?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Venom PlayStation Portal Carry Case review: also consider

How I tested the Venom PlayStation Portal Carry Case

• Tested across multiple weeks
• Directly compared to rival models
• Tested by a seasoned gaming accessories reviewer

I spent a couple of weeks testing the Venom PlayStation Portal Carry Case, using it as the main mode of transport for my precious remote player. I took it with me on the go and made sure to try housing it alongside various accessories and assess it for any damage afterward.

To judge how durable Venom’s case was, I tried dropping it from a controlled height, performed some scratch tests, and then checked for any signs of wear and tear. I also compared the Venom case against rivals, mainly the PowerA Protection Case for PS Portal, which is my usual go-to.

More generally, I’ve been reviewing gadgets for years here at TechRadar, where I serve as a Senior Reviews Writer. I’ve tested a whole lot of gaming accessories, including cases for the PS Portal and Nintendo Switch 2, as well as controllers, screen protectors, and audio gear.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed: September 2026

After one week of World of Warcraft: Forever's beta, I have to say, my initial impression is one of cautious optimism. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but I think Blizzard could, just maybe, be onto something here.

Like many other veteran WoW players, I've been dabbling over the years. A little bit of retail here, a little bit of Seasons of Discovery there. But nothing has quite matched that initial experience from all the way back in 2005 when I first created my Tauren Hunter and stepped into the world of Azeroth.

That's made spending a full week with the closed beta for World of Warcraft: Forever a particularly interesting experience. Like many others, I've gone into it with plenty of nostalgia for the original game, but I'm looking for that little extra to pull me back in for another round.

I'll get into specifics soon, but there are some really positive signs that Blizzard is taking a massive step in the right direction with Forever.

Of course, there are certainly things Blizzard has changed that I'm less convinced by, including one specific issue that I think could cause problems further down the line. But, even in its current state, WoW: Forever is just outright fun for 'Classic Andies' like myself.

The mythical Classic Plus of legend

Perhaps what I like most about WoW: Forever (at least, in its initial state) is that it genuinely feels like the mythical 'Classic Plus' we've speculated about for years. Yes, there are new models. Yes, there are plenty of new abilities and instances, but the core experience that made Classic so compelling appears to be present. I'd argue that Classic is less about art style and more about how the players actually interact with the world.

The starting zones, for example, are subtly refreshed and remixed to add depth and variety, but they don't streamline those initial levels of experience. There are no compromises for convenience here; everyone is footslogging across open fields to kill eight boars. You will be spamming the same spells and abilities over and over in the initial levels as you're being drip-fed abilities.

These subtle instances of friction add a lot of flavour to the experience — and, I would argue, are generally the reason that Classic is the way it is. While I'm certainly a fan of certain aspects of modern WoW, such as the incredible class design and dungeon mechanics, I've always preferred the jankiness and character of Classic. There are so many small little things that add up to make the world feel more alive.

Over the years, Blizzard has smoothed out the wrinkles with additions like the raid-finding tool and flying mounts, and I think, along the way, we've subsequently lost a lot of that character. I'm certainly guilty of nostalgia when I look back at classic WoW, but I do genuinely think that certain additions have reigned in that sense of adventure that we felt back in the day. Even as early as The Burning Crusade, we were diverging from what made WoW so compelling.

An unashamably old school approach

In its current state, WoW: Forever strips out most of the modern conveniences in favour of an unashamably old school approach. My gut feeling is that Blizzard has got a good balance here.

People will surely have strong opinions on this, but I've been having a blast spontaneously grouping up with players while questing out in the world. Forever has that vibe where you're subtly encouraged to engage with players in your immediate environment. While most of this comes from an adherence to classic quest design, Blizzard has leaned into the experience with additions like the new camping system, which is just a lovely touch that really adds a lot of flavour.

As a brief overview, the camping system lets players passively sit around a player-built campfire to get small buffs. It's cleverly entwined with the new profession changes so that players have more ways to interact aside from simply grouping up. It's a brief respite for players out in the world.

And, since everybody is out there footslogging, the world feels genuinely big and dangerous again. It all adds up to a kind of adventure that I haven't really experienced in WoW since the first Seasons of Discovery phase. The beta feels very similar in that everyone is still working it out, and everyone is eager to explore the world. Some of that is surely 'beta vibes', but I've seen enough to suggest that most players are going to have an absolute blast unlocking the fresh secrets of WoW: Forever.

A sight to behold

Graphically, the game is a real upgrade, too. The lighting effects in particular add a lot of atmosphere to the zones without detracting too much from the original vibe. The art style (mostly) looks the same, but Blizzard has leaned into making the world a little more immersive with new lighting and increased draw distances.

For my sins, I also like the new Skyborne race, which has really divided the player base (mostly between those who are flatly opposed and those who are ambivalent).

I think Blizzard was stuck with a tough decision in regard to adding an elven race to the game. Simply adding Blood Elves for the Horde would have left the Alliance without a new option. Conversely, adding both Blood Elves and High Elves into the game would have likely meant quite a few more zones to add.

Instead, we've got a completely new race of Elves for either faction with one starter zone: Zephyrus Isle. There's no doubt it's a compromise.

Having played through said zone, however, I was pleasantly surprised. I don't think the zone is quite as different as some are painting. Yes, there are a few quests that are reminiscent of modern WoW, but the overwhelming majority are as you would expect in Classic. I think if someone were to play WoW for the first time, they wouldn't find that much of a discrepancy between Zephyrus Isle and the other starter zones.

The biggest issue with the Skyborne, by far, is that some of their character models stick out compared to those from the older races. WoW: Forever lets players toggle between classic 'SD' character models and modern 'HD' models, and in the case of the former, there's definitely a marked difference in-game. It's particularly visible with the various Druid forms that the Skyborne have access to.

Dividing the fan base

So, overall, my impressions are positive, but I do have a few misgivings about WoW: Forever's initial direction. As previously suggested, I'm very much on the side of 'fewer changes' rather than a maximalist when it comes to Classic Plus. I generally believe that Blizzard should tread carefully when tweaking the winning formula.

Because of this, I'm slightly wary of some of the class changes that Blizzard has already implemented into the game. In some cases, they've genuinely fixed serious issues that have made certain classes unviable or boring, but in others, I think they've stripped out a little bit of character. Inevitably, there will always be balance issues with any changed system, but what I'm worried about is making classes too smoothed out.

Take Hunter, for example, which was my main class in the original iteration of WoW. Blizzard has added a few spells and made the class a little easier to play by removing some of the finer animations. I think the changes will prove popular, but I loved the subtle gameplay of timing certain abilities around your auto attacks. It was difficult to master but rewarding, and I'm not so sure I'd enjoy the new changes as much.

I'm also really not a big fan of the current mega-servers that appear to lock players into one faction long-term on the player-versus-player mega realm. I understand why Blizzard is implementing modern server technology, but the rigidity of the current setup is going to divide the players dramatically.

In my own case, for example, I have a group of friends who want to play Alliance on the PvP megaserver and another who want to play Horde. Under the current setup, there's no option for me to have characters in both factions without having two separate Blizzard accounts. Previously, I would just have two characters on separate servers.

I would assume that many veterans who have accrued friends over the years might be in the same situation as me. I've known some of these people for over twenty years, so I'm weighing my decisions carefully.

Considering the server technology appears to be using some form of sharding (like retail), I don't quite grasp why Blizzard doesn't allow both factions on the PvP server. Corpse camping, for example, is quite easily solved through instancing. In a high-population area, players are constantly switched between shards anyway, which doesn't particularly lend itself to a social or 'classic' experience.

I suspect the reasoning behind the rigidity is a new system that groups players into instances based on previous interactions. In practice, that means encountering guildies and those who you've grouped with before. It's a nice system, but it's not so nice that it offsets the issue of faction locking.

For myself, the rigid modern server structure is by far and away the biggest issue I have with WoW: Forever so far. I'd even go so far that this will quite literally divide the player base — both in opinion and in-game. The idea of not being able to play with half my friends in perpetuity certainly puts a massive dampener on my experience.

Will Blizzard address it? I'm not so certain based on how committed they appear to the current setup. However, if they would, then I'd even go so far as to say that this could be the best iteration of WoW so far. For me, at least.

• Logitech G has released a new gaming mouse
• The Pro X3 Superstrike is an upgraded version of the Pro X2 Superstrike from earlier this year
• Major upgrades include better weight distribution and a new chipset for better power efficiency

PC gaming accessory maker Logitech G has just released the Pro X3 Superstrike, an upgraded version of the Pro X2 Superstrike that came out earlier this year.

We called the original model a 'revolutionary' innovation in our 5-star review, praising its unique Haptic Inductive Trigger System (HITS) switches. Relying on electromagnetic current, HITS allows you to customize everything from the exact actuation point of each click to just how much resistance there is when you press down.

This is a boon in an esports setting, where a short click speed can cut down click latency and, potentially, provide an edge over your opponents.

The upgrades found with the Pro X3 Superstrike are subtle, as you might expect given the short time between the two releases, but serve to make an already best-in-class product that little bit better.

It weighs the same 61g as the X2 model, but has been reworked internally for more even weight distribution. This, the team behind the mouse tells me, is the direct result of feedback given by esports pros who complained the original was too front-heavy.

Under the hood, it's also powered by a new chipset, dubbed the NxLOGI. Power efficiency was a major focus, with Logitech claiming that the X3 Superstrike can last more than 135 hours on each charge for a massive 45-hour boost compared to the X2.

There's an upgraded sensor too, which supports up to 48,000 DPI (compared to the 44,000 DPI of the previous model). Other flagship specs, like an up to 8,000Hz wireless report rate, remain unchanged — though there's now the option to achieve that when using the mouse in a wired capacity too.

Interestingly, there are some new features on the software side: you can now choose a range of Pro Presets in the compatible Logitech G Hub app, all inspired by the settings used by esports players like m0NESY or ShowMaker.

The result is a mouse that's clearly the better pick if you're weighing up the two, but all of this does with a price hike in the US and UK. The X3 Superstrike retails for $199.99 / £169.99 / AU$299.95. That's $20 / £10 more than the X2 (though, weirdly, the Australian price remains the same).

A Logitech representative did tell me that the X2 Superstrike will remain on sale alongside the X3 Superstrike for a time as an alternative for those who want something a little cheaper.

• A regular leaker says the chips for the PS6 and Xbox Helix have been 'taped out', meaning the design is final for manufacturing
• The leaker claims 56 TFLOPS of power for the Xbox Helix and 40 TFLOPS for the PS6
• That compared to 16.7 TFLOPS on the PS5 Pro and 12 TFLOPS on the Xbox Series X

The launches of next-gen console hardware from Sony and Microsoft are edging ever closer, and the latest rumor doing the rounds suggests that the chips for both the PlayStation 6 and what's being called the Xbox Helix are now 'taped out' — as in, finalized for submission to chip manufacturers.

This comes from well-known tipster KeplerL2 (via VideoCardz), who also predicts 40 TFLOPS of performance for the Sony hardware and 56 TFLOPS for the Microsoft hardware. That's Tera Floating-Point Operations Per Second, or how many trillions of calculations a processor can do in a single single.

While TFLOPS gives us some indication of how powerful these consoles will be, they're not the whole story, as architecture choices and memory bandwidth will play significant roles too. That said, it seems the Xbox console may have a major edge in terms of raw power — although the Xbox Series X had a 20% edge on TFLOPS over the PS5 back in 2020 too, which didn't necessarily translate into better-looking games.

Direct comparisons with current generation consoles are tricky, as so many other variables will be changing as well as TFLOPS figures, but TweakTown reports that the PS5 delivers 10.28 TFLOPS, the PS5 Pro offers 16.7 TFLOPS (typical) and 18.05 TFLOPS (peak), and the Xbox Series X can hit 12 TFLOPS.

But how much will it cost?

Both the Xbox Helix and the PlayStation 6 are expected to be based on the AMD Zen 6 family of CPUs and the AMD RDNA 5 GPU architecture, if previous leaks are to be believed, and there has been talk of 30GB of RAM being packed inside the Sony console (no RAM predictions yet for the Microsoft one).

Judging by the ongoing discussion on Reddit, gamers aren't placing too much stock in these leaked TFLOPS numbers, as they aren't guaranteed to convert directly into gaming performance. The bigger debate seems to be over how much Sony and Microsoft are going to charge for these next-generation machines.

There are mentions of "an inevitably massive price hike" while another user is prepared to "say goodbye to affordable console hardware" in this generation. As we've already seen with the Steam Machine, the ongoing shortage of memory chips is driving up prices across the board, including in gaming hardware.

As for when we might actually see these consoles, don't hold your breath: experts say a launch before 2028 is unlikely, even if the design for the main processor chips have now been finalized. We'll just have to fill the time exploring everything Grand Theft Auto 6 has to offer in the meantime.

I can't stress enough that Control Resonant is an absolute marvel in terms of visual enjoyment. Remedy Entertainment has crafted one of the most immersive visual experiences in gaming, doubling down on its predecessor's trippy, psychedelic, and mind-bending nature, and taking it to a new level using Nvidia's path tracing.

Putting my Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super to the test, I ran Control Resonant on LG's 39-inch 5K2K OLED monitor, and I was pleasantly surprised by the significant enhancement to every detail on screen (albeit it did leave my GPU rather toasty).

At a 5120 x 2160 display resolution which is a 21:9 aspect ratio, you're getting 33% more pixels than a regular 4K gaming monitor at a 16:9 ratio, so the demand on the GPU is harder than most can handle — and even though Control Resonant was cooking my GPU, the frame rate was quite surprising.

With DLSS 4.5 Quality and Frame Generation enabled, and the high graphics and high ray tracing presets, performance remained fairly consistent within the high 50fps to low 60fps range. At 5K2K resolution, that's very reasonable, even if Control Resonant relies on Frame Generation to keep the gameplay smooth.

Dropping DLSS down to Performance mode pushed the frame rate to the high 80fps mark, and it's worth noting that it remained consistent even in moments of intense combat with tons of foliage and objects involved.

It's worth noting that the graphics with standard ray tracing are still fantastic, and the high (or even the medium) preset is likely the best route for any PC gamer who is using a low- to mid-range GPU (with Frame Generation). Lighting in all areas, specifically those where the Hiss is present (the really bright red zones), is phenomenal, and frankly, that applies to the experience without any ray tracing at all.

Path to victory

However, the star of the show is path tracing, which can be enabled by switching to the ultra ray tracing preset. I instantly knew my GPU was in for a rough ride once its temperature shot up to nearly 80C — but that's to be expected when running path tracing on a 5K2K display.

With DLSS Performance and Frame Generation enabled, I was able to achieve a solid 60fps in most scenarios, with occasional dips into the high 50s during traversal and combat. This aligns well with Remedy's system requirements for Control Resonant, which require an RTX 5080 for 60fps at 2160p using DLSS Performance, as the RTX 4080 Super is relatively close to this current-gen GPU for performance.

Realistically, this setup is out of the question for most gamers, as it will cost around $3,000 / £3,000 (or potentially more). LG's display is very expensive, sitting at $1,799.99 / £1,499 (on sale I should note), but an Alienware AW3926QW 5K2K alternative might help lower the cost.

The RTX 4000 series is discontinued, but pricing for anything equivalent to the RTX 4080 Super in the current-gen line-up (an RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5080) would cost at least $800 (much more for the latter GPU), and then you need to add the cost of the other PC parts.

Handheld gaming PCs are still expensive, but more reasonable than an entire new PC build — and I tested Control Resonant on my Lenovo Legion Go S Z1 Extreme. That portable managed a solid 40fps on its handheld preset, and 70fps when dropping the resolution to 900p and enabling FSR Balanced with frame gen.

Overall, running Control Resonant at 5K2K is very demanding for any gaming PC, as expected, but I walk away shocked that it's even remotely possible given how much it elevates the gaming experience.

• Epic Games Launcher has been identified as the culprit behind mysterious chimes on users' PCs
• Epic has confirmed it's planning to update the launcher to reduce the frequency of its 'party chimes'
• Users have requested a feature that turns off the chimes altogether

Multiple PC users have recently noticed mysterious sounds playing at random, and it appears the Epic Games Launcher is the culprit.

As reported by TweakTown, a Fortnite news page on X discovered the Epic Games Launcher randomly playing sounds on their PC, as several audio files matching them were found in the Epic Games 'social chimes' folder.

Each sound represents actions in a game party, such as a party user leaving, push-to-talk activation or deactivation, and message notifications, which sounds bizarre as this occurs even when users aren't in Epic Games parties.

Epic has since confirmed (via a FortniteStatus X page) that the 'party chimes' were playing more frequently than necessary, and it is now updating the Epic Games Launcher to 'narrow which events play a sound while the launcher is in the background'.

These party chimes are sounds I've noticed on my Windows 11 system, playing at very random intervals, and sometimes even when the launcher isn't visibly open. The sounds aren't accompanied by pop-up notifications either, which only added to the confusion for me and many other PC users previously trying to pinpoint the source.

TweakTown states that Epic plans to introduce an option to toggle the chimes on or off in the future, but, surprisingly, a toggle option isn't a top priority as of now — especially since user replies berate Epic for not including an option to remove the sounds altogether.

For now, at least, a quick workaround is to delete the files from the directory as follows: Program Files (or Program Files x86)\Epic Games\Launcher\Portal\Extras\SocialChimes. It's worth noting that this is only a temporary fix, as Epic Games Launcher updates will likely overwrite this and place the files back into the directory.

Perhaps this entire case serves as yet another reason to use Steam for many users, where bugs are rare occurrences — but at the very least, PC users can rest knowing there isn't some unwanted or unknown application running on their system.

DBrand Killswitch Nintendo Switch 2 review

The DBrand Killswitch for Nintendo Switch 2 is the ultimate protective solution for your shiny new hybrid system. Rather than being a traditional carrying case, it acts as a permanent protective shell for your system, keeping it shielded at all times. I’ve spent a few days gaming with the Killswitch for Switch 2 now, so here’s how I’d rate it.

First of all, I have to applaud the ease of setup. The main case is incredibly easy to pop on. I just had to remove a couple of adhesive strips on the case, push it onto my system, and bam — it was done. The Joy-Con 2 controllers also slot into individual cases, and there’s a protective cover for the system’s kickstand that sticks on seamlessly.

The case has gaps for all of the crucial elements like volume controls, the power button, the USB-C slots, and vents. I also appreciated how slim the protective case felt — sure, it adds a bit of depth, but it doesn’t make the console feel too broad.

Like a lot of the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories, the Killswitch feels very high in quality, and plenty durable. It also offers great ergonomics, with the textured case and its curved feel making the system incredibly comfortable to use in handheld mode. I tried playing a wide variety of games, including Mario Kart World and Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, and whether I was turning tight corners or exploring a mystical area, the system never felt unwieldy or chunky.

Although the case adds some bulk to the Switch 2, you’re still easily able to use it in docked mode. That’s because the Killswitch comes with a dock adapter. Just place it onto the Switch 2’s usual dock, and you’re good to go. It has 4K 60Hz passthrough, so you can still enjoy the best Nintendo Switch 2 games without compromise, meaning it serves as a super-convenient solution.

You get a few extras depending on the Killswitch variant that you select. I went for the Travel pack, which also includes stick grips and a travel cover. The grips push on without difficulty, and they have a tactile, secure feel that makes gaming feel as easy as ever. The travel cover is a neat inclusion too, and has ten slots for Nintendo Switch 2 or Nintendo Switch games.

So, it’s safe to say that I’m a big fan of the Killswitch for Switch 2. But there’s one thing worth considering. It’s pretty pricey. The Killswitch starts at just under $60 for the Essential package, which comes with the main case, a skin, and the dock adapter. But if you get the Everything variant, which also adds the stick grips, travel cover, two screen protectors, and a Joy-Con 2 controller holder, it's just under $155. That’s an awful lot to pay for the fully protective package any way you shake it.

One other minor thing worth noting is that the protective case and stick grips are a little susceptible to picking up dust and fibers. This didn’t bother me all too much, but I did realize the grips were a little grimy after an hour's worth of use. Not a dealbreaker, but worth pointing out.

But I’ll be clear. The DBrand Killswitch for Switch 2 is an excellent protective option for your console, and I won’t be taking it off my system any time soon. If you want excellent durability, seamless setup, and flexibility for handheld and docked play, it’s a top-class choice.

DBrand Killswitch Nintendo Switch 2 review: price & release date

• Prices start at $59.95
• Released in June 2025

The price you’ll pay for the Nintendo Switch 2 variant of the Killswitch will vary depending on the model you select. Typically, it’s $59.95 for the Essential pack, $99.85 for the Travel option, $134.80 for the Ultra variant, and $154.75 for the Everything package. I have seen the Killswitch go on sale at times, though, so it’s worth checking DBrand’s site for discounts. The Killswitch for Switch 2 was released in June 2025.

Should I buy the DBrand Killswitch Nintendo Switch 2?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

DBrand Killswitch Nintendo Switch 2 review: also consider

How I tested the DBrand Killswitch Nintendo Switch 2

• Spent a week testing the Travel bundle
• Made use of all the accessories
• One of a vast number of Switch 2 accessories I’ve tested

I spent a week testing the DBrand Killswitch for Nintendo Switch 2, and kept it on my system everywhere I went.

I tried dropping my system from a controlled height to judge its durability, and made use of all of the accessories in the Travel package, including the dock adapter, game card holder, and stick grips.

More generally, I’ve spent years testing gadgets here at TechRadar, where I serve as a Senior Reviews Writer. I’ve reviewed a vast amount of Switch 2 accessories, from cases like the Hori Adventure Pack to controllers such as the Turtle Beach Rematch Wireless Controller, and have been a Switch 2 owner from day one.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed: August 2026

It’s been eight years since I last played a match in Heroes of the Storm.

For the majority of my late twenties, though, it was the MOBA my group of friends and I played night after night. Sure, everyone else was on League of Legends or Dota 2 as they were deemed to be the superior games in the genre, but we enjoyed our home in Blizzard’s crossover brawler, battling away as iconic faces such as Thrall, Jim Raynor, Tracer, and Diablo himself.

I fondly remember the nights spent playing HOTS, and our group would regularly reminisce about the hours we spent together on the game. We’d retell the same stories of the incredible plays and frustrating losses that we would experience every session — and never tire of joking about all the times someone would overextend in mid lane.

However, in that time between my last game and now, and following Blizzard’s decision to put the game into maintenance mode in July 2022, I had fully moved on.

But suddenly, that all changed. At this year’s BlizzCon, the opening keynote presentation kicked off with a surprise that no one could have anticipated. Heroes of the Storm is getting a new hero: Xal’atath, the Harbinger of the Void.

Cue a flurry of messages in the group chat, a Robin Williams ‘what year is it?’ gif, and exclamations of “we’re so back.” The game’s subreddit, a near-dormant sanctuary for players still fighting away in the Nexus, exploded back to life as well. The passion and excitement were reactivated in an instant — and I felt the same too.

A surprise return

Naturally, I had to reinstall the game, and over the past week I’ve dived in for a couple of hours nearly every night. I’ve amazed myself at how quickly I’ve picked it up again and how much I’ve remembered about each map, hero, and the flow of a game. It’s felt so good to be back, and it’s reminded me why I think it’s such an unsung hero in the MOBA genre.

See, Heroes of the Storm strips out a lot of the more, let’s say, hardcore aspects that were found in a lot of the top MOBAs of the time.

There’s no last-hitting creeps to get extra resources, no shop at which to spend gold to build your character, experience is shared team-wide to (theoretically) keep everyone on a level playing field, and there are generally fewer secondary features to think about during a match.

That led to some thinking that Heroes of the Storm is a ‘dumbing-down’ of the MOBA, but I’d argue that the game isn’t lacking in complexity.

One way is with the talents that are earned as you level. These allow you to build your character in a chosen way, adapting your strategy to your strengths and countering the team composition you’re facing.

Surprising depth

The main gimmick, though, is that rather than playing in a single arena over and over again, HOTS offers several maps that feature different main objectives. These require you to prepare and be ready for those moments when you need to defend an area, escort a payload, or gather scattered resources.

Achieving these gives you a temporary boon that works towards destroying your opponent’s home base, or Nexus. That might be a giant bone golem that lays siege to any structures in its path, or a barrage of missiles that directly attack buildings. At one point, a player could take control of a massive plant abomination to root enemies in place and smash up the other team’s defences.

These objectives add dynamism and give players a direction to move towards at regular intervals throughout a match. They also encourage more teamfighting, which I find is the most exciting and enjoyable part of any MOBA, where positioning and smart engagements are rewarded over repeatedly clicking on a creep at just the right time to build a pot of gold.

While I can appreciate there’s a skill to farming creeps efficiently in the opening phases of a Dota 2 or League of Legends game, I’d rather not be spending my time doing that. I’m also not a huge fan of the downtime in those games, going back to buy items and fiddling around in menus to buy a bigger sword or stock up on wards that you scatter across the map to give vision.

In comparison, Heroes of the Storm is a game of near-constant action, with matches that generally last a glorious 20 minutes or so. Sometimes shorter if you go on a tear, and sometimes longer if things are tight, but rarely too long that it starts to feel like a slog — especially in those painful situations where you can see the writing’s on the wall in the first 15 minutes.

This is all before I’ve even dug into the roster, which is a joy for any Blizzard fans and anyone who loves to have a diverse range of fighting styles at their fingertips.

As well as its satisfying selection of tanks, assassins, brawlers, and supports to master from across WarCraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and more, Heroes of the Storm has fun experimenting with all sorts of characters.

Abathur is a classic: a creature of the Zerg who hides in the backlines, but can assimilate with other players anywhere on the map to provide support. There’s Cho’Gall: a two-headed ogre who has its movement controlled by one player and abilities controlled by another — cue chaotic attempts to work together. And there’s the Blizzard deep cut, The Lost Vikings, who challenge you to control three different characters at once, almost bringing the stress of a full RTS experience to the game.

It’s these new and fascinating ideas in its map and hero design, as well as a focus on the more thrilling aspects of a MOBA, that make me think Heroes of the Storm has always been such an underrated gem.

I’m hoping this new spotlight on the game not only brings back a lot of old fans like me, but also introduces it to an entirely new audience so Blizzard sees reason to release heroes and updates in the future.

Pokemon’s Lego Smart Play sets couldn’t be more perfect, even if you hate the Smart Brick. I was convinced of this when I first saw them ahead of their launch, and since their public debut, I’ve only grown more in love with the builds now that I have them in my home.

When Lego first debuted its Pokémon sets, it showcased a few display-focused builds — designs aimed at older audiences to be shown off on a shelf more than to be actively played with. This meant relatively high prices to account for the massive brick counts and complex building techniques applied.

At first glance, the dozen Smart Play sets the duo just launched are the exact opposite. They’re built for play — with two of the sets coming with a Smart Brick (or two) to bring the Pokémon models to life — and generally cheaper and simpler build-wise. But like the Smart Brick, they’re so much more than meets the eye.

From a play perspective, thanks to tiles hidden in each Pokémon’s belly, the Smart Brick can know which creature it is and make distinctive sounds when the critter is being fed, training, sleeping, driving a vehicle, or hiding in the tall grass waiting to be captured by a trainer.

Importantly, two pokémon can know when they’re near each other and engage in a battle — which cleverly takes into account if the Pokémon was recently trained, which types it’s weak or strong against, what innate power it has (third-stage and legendary Pokémon will be stronger than first-stage starters), and what health it has (plus if it has been healed by something like a potion).

It’s very sophisticated but also so incredibly intuitive. Moving the Pokémon like action figures — shaking to charge up attacks, lunging forward to strike, moving away to dodge, and lying down to rest after a busy day — enables every single action the Smart Brick is programmed for. I gave my wife the Pikachu to play with without telling her anything, and she instantly knew what to do.

Smart and simple

At the same time, so many play features don’t require a Smart Brick at all.

While the actions will lack sound effects, Pikachu can still lie down in his fold-down bed, emerge from the tall grass when a pokéball hits the target, battle with the spinning target, and be played with in whatever way you can imagine.

So when you’re waiting for the Smart Brick to recharge, or if you simply decide not to pick up one of the All-in-one sets that comes with a Smart Brick in the box and opt for a merely Compatible set instead, you’ll still have a play set that feels complete — something I couldn’t say for Lego’s first Star Wars Smart Play models.

My only caveat is that the battle-focused sets — Charizard vs. Jolteon Ultimate Battle and Umbreon vs. Garchomp Championship Battle — are a little more dependent on the smart brick to create engaging fights between the blocky pocket monsters.

Perfect for play doesn’t mean perfect for everyone, but as a display build, these models again have so much potential.

Not necessarily out of the box — the background scene elements are always the most visually stunning — but with some creativity and time to build your own, these blocky figures could easily be posed as part of beautiful dioramas.

If you prefer minifig scale designs, you’ll be disappointed, but if you don’t mind something that’ll take up more room on your shelf, I think these sets have so much potential — especially as each Pokémon’s design is so distinct and accurate to its in-game version.

Lastly, I can’t round things off without talking about their best aspect: price.

Simpler, play-focused sets come with fewer pieces and therefore a more affordable price. For kids who love Pokémon but for whom you can’t fork out a lot of cash for a set that’ll sit on a shelf, these Smart Play sets are perfect.

Plus, for the same price as the Eevee build, which was previously the most affordable option, you can grab two or three of the cheaper Smart Play compatible sets that just dropped.

Whether you buy one or all twelve of the new sets, I’m certain Pokémon and Lego won’t disappoint. These sets show how Smart Brick integration should be done, and I’m hoping we’ll see dozens more sets just like these down the line.

All-in-one sets

Smart Play compatible

• The Steam Machine now has a collection of official repair guides
• They're written by iFixit and are commendably thorough
• The only catch is that they highlight the trickiness of some repairs or upgrades, notably the system RAM

The Steam Machine now has a whole raft of repair guides from iFixit, which is great to see – although they have highlighted some fiddly and less-than-ideal aspects when it comes to working inside Valve's compact PC.

TechPowerUp spotted (via VideoCardz) that iFixit published 18 repair guides for the Steam Machine, which cover essential maintenance or the replacement of parts in the device.

It's a thorough set of instructional guides, detailing how to replace parts of the chassis or the Steam Machine's fan, and carry out key upgrades to the RAM and SSD. It even shows you how to replace the motherboard, and how to properly clean and maintain the Steam Machine.

Valve has a partnership with iFixit which has produced a similarly in-depth collection of guides for the Steam Deck, and also sells replacement parts for that handheld, from thumbsticks and bumper buttons through to a new screen or battery. Replacement parts are reportedly coming for the Steam Machine, too, though they aren't on sale yet.

Analysis: easy does it with some of these repairs

This is great, and what I particularly like is the cleaning guide, which is an effective reminder of what a dust magnet PCs can be — and to keep the innards of the Steam Machine relatively dust-free.

However, what this also makes clear, as noted at the outset, is that some of the replacement procedures are relatively tricky — notably upgrading (or replacing) the system RAM.

Okay, so it's nothing too bad if you take your time and work carefully, but there are a lot of steps — 49, in fact, and that's to reach the memory to replace it (then you have to reverse those steps and put the Steam Machine back together). This isn't something that less tech-savvy people will be able to do, at least not without running a serious risk of breaking something else in the process.

Indeed, I'd say you'd need to be pretty confident in your abilities to perform a RAM replacement. Removing the fan is one of most awkward steps, and one method involves heating the glue (with a hair drier if you don't have iFixit's iOpener heat pad) to make the two attached antennas easier to detach. This, and a few other fiddlier aspects, are where I could see something quite easily going awry.

As one of the readers of VideoCardz observed: "Upgrading RAM is super annoying. They should place it near SSD or something in the next revision, because as it is now you have to basically dismantle the whole damn thing. Not that it's particularly 'hard' to do, but it's super annoying and you can actually damage something, like Wi-Fi antennas for example."

Still, I can't knock the quality of the guides, and the thoroughness of the step-by-step instructions, complete with diagrams and information about exactly which way you should orientate the device when moving onto the next step.

Of course, you won't be able to perform repairs until you have the replacement parts, and hopefully iFixit will stock these before long (as it does with the Steam Deck). Right now, parts are obviously thin on the ground, as Valve needs them for manufacturing as many Steam Machines as it can, but that situation will change in time.

When I first saw the IKEA x Xbox collaboration at this year's Gamescom, I was struck by two conflicting ideas.

With its multi-functional side table, TV stand, and decorative controller box, this is some smartly made furniture with some genuinely helpful uses. Then, with a thumbstick stool and a D-pad cushion, it's also one of the silliest things I've seen.

Taken as a whole, you can see it's a mix of the playful and the practical. After I spoke to designers at both IKEA and Xbox at the show, it turns out that was the point all along.

"That was present throughout the journey because it's important," explained Philip Dilé, product developer for IKEA of Sweden. "Playing games is playful; it is fun. Solving people's needs connected to that can be very functional and practical. We tried to balance that, for sure.

"We wanted to make things that are relevant for people who play games. Something that reflects you, or that you feel allows you to express yourself...but the object itself is a beautiful piece of home furnishing."

It's a philosophy echoed by Carl Ledbetter, partner head of design at Xbox: "Just like when we design a console, it can be as quiet as people want it. They can put it back and let it recede into their environment. Or they can pull it forward and have it be very expressive. And I think some of those same qualities are in these products in the YXSTABY collection."

Ledbetter used the controller display box and the TV stand as examples of this. With the former, it's ideal for enthusiast gamers who like to collect controllers and show off their favorite designs in a dedicated gaming space. Meanwhile, with the latter, it serves a "dual life" — whether it's sitting in the corner while you're watching shows and movies, or wheeled front and centre for an intense gaming session.

"That was a big part of our philosophy: how do we make products that can adapt to how people want to use them? Either be as expressive as possible, or just be part of your world," summarised Ledbetter.

You can see that approach clearly in all of the more practical products from the collection.

Take the side table. Closed up and next to your sofa, it could be mistaken for another piece of clean and minimalist furniture you'd find in IKEA. Open up the sliding doors on the front, though, and inside there's space specifically designed to store controllers, headsets, and battery packs — plus the all-important cable management and power connectivity options you need to keep your tech charged between sessions.

"This came up time and time again: cable management, charging stuff — where do you put it when you're done? People don't want it all over the place," said Ledbetter.

And Dilé agreed: "We looked at it from the perspective of: what does gaming throughout the home look like? Because, of course, people play at their desks, in the living room, on the couch. In so many different ways. For us, it was important to cater for a lot of these different needs.

"And there's one never-ending challenge working for IKEA: cable management. It always comes up over and over again. I think it's a very real frustration for people.

"Take the TV stand, for example. Yeah, you need to have the console there; you need to have somewhere to charge the controllers, somewhere to put a headset. That was one of the benefits of working together with someone like Xbox that knows gaming, and the hardware, and the players. That made the brief really, really clear."

And even though designing for gamers was a big part of their brief, both teams were also well aware that they wanted products that a non-gamer would be happy to live in their home. This meant offering something that wasn't bedazzled with RGB lighting and garish colors.

"You need to cater for gamers, but also for non-gamers or people who are living with gamers, or people who want to have the functionality but still want to have a nice home," said Dilé.

"[We wanted to create] things that maybe your spouse or the people you live with also want to put in your home. These aren't just things that you accept because of your hobby. That was an important balance for us.

"There are so many people who play games, so it’s incredibly diverse. We really wanted to showcase that you can have that [gaming] experience and still have beautiful products that blend into your home to create a nice environment that you want to live in."

That led Ledbetter to reminisce about the first meeting between both parties, where they both discovered they shared very similar design philosophies and were keen to get both of their respective design teams together to bounce around ideas.

The result is this YXSTABY collection — nine products encompassing everything from stools, seats and cushions, to TV stands, storage and display cases — set to launch in October later this year. A weird and wonderful mix of items that speak to both the fun side of gaming and the practical needs in the home.

Ledbetter summed up his hopes for the collection as follows: "Think about it: we create these controllers, and we sell millions of controllers, but we're not in charge of the controller’s home. We make the controller, and then where does it go? We don’t know. So, now, there's this opportunity between IKEA and Xbox to build that home. It felt like a completion of that journey."

Indie games have arguably become a cornerstone of PC gaming, even more so with modern-day entries becoming huge hits such as Hollow Knight: Silksong, Hades 2, and a superhero surprise from developer Adhoc, Dispatch.

In comes Blackwood, a cinematic third-person action indie, set in New York in 2012. You play as Anton Blackwood, an ordinary DVD store owner by day and an assassin by night, taking on contracts and dealing with the challenge of balancing two lives at once.

After playing two hours of Act 1 (the only one available so far) during my short preview at Gamescom 2026, I can see Blackwood's promise. It's quite evident what developer AttritoM7 Productions is aiming for with its gun-fu style gameplay, heavily focused on explosive, cinematic enemy takedowns, intense gun fights, and stylish maneuvers.

Blackwood is very clearly inspired by classic martial arts and gun-fu movies, notably John Wick, and even borrows elements from classic games like Dead to Rights and Max Payne. Players can either choose to challenge enemies in a gung-ho play style, rushing out and executing different takedowns you can pick before setting out on a mission.

A more tactical approach is also possible, staying in cover and strictly going for headshots only (fitting for a John Wick-styled game), which would perfectly suit the hardest game difficulty.

Blackwood nails enemy takedowns, which is easily the one aspect that will keep me coming back to replay missions I can once Act 1 is complete. (Video Credit: AttritoM7 Productions)

The takedowns swiftly shifting straight back into gunplay are where Blackwood absolutely shines, and I can't go without stressing how impressed I am with what AttritoM7 developers were able to pull off there. In so many sequences, I was instantly taken back to those iconic moments in John Wick movies, where Keanu Reeves pulls no punches.

Ultimately, what holds Blackwood back is jankiness in combat, especially during hand-to-hand encounters. During multiple scenarios, there are bugs and stiffness in certain animations from Anton and enemies that I couldn't ignore.

Controlling Anton can be a struggle sometimes, as certain button prompts are unresponsive while in cover, and since enemies can flank the player, that unresponsiveness can lead to some pretty frustrating deaths.

The weapon recoil feels great, and I can see that AttritoM7 designed Blackwood's gunplay to have players make every shot count — which is especially important, since preparing for missions requires you to purchase ammunition with dirty money earned from fulfilling contracts.

However, I set aim assist to its lowest level (minimal), and it felt like the reticle was fighting against my control of the joystick — and it also doesn't help that the ultrawide field of view resolution desperately needs adjusting.

The opening street shootout was a great way to kick the game off, and I very quickly learned that enemies are unforgiving, requiring the player to be wary of a gung-ho playstyle. (Video Credit: AttritoM7 Productions)

Some of the audio in both combat and some NPC dialogue feels a bit out of place too, particularly during one of the early contract missions in a subway station. There are many elements like this, especially involving animations (notably Anton's run and other NPCs' movements), that end up impacting immersion.

Fortunately, while Blackwood isn't launching in early access, its remaining Acts will be released later for free (for existing owners), with Act 2 planned for March 2027 and Act 3 in September 2027 on Steam. Hopefully, with the release of the following content, patches can be made to significantly tweak and adjust those pain points.

Blackwood is a very promising game and has plenty of opportunity to shine among some of the best indie games available. However, it's a little rough around the edges at the moment, and a few steps away from realizing its potential.

• Sony has revealed two new PlayStation headsets
• They're intended to supersede the previous PlayStation Pulse models
• There's no word on pricing yet

Sony has just unveiled the "next line of PS5 audio products" with two new PlayStation Pulse wireless gaming headsets.

Both models are intended to supersede the old PlayStation Pulse Elite, which was released in 2024. The new PlayStation Pulse Edge boasts custom planar magnetic drivers that deliver "studio-inspired" sound and has eight magnets under the hood.

It comes with a detachable boom mic offering AI noise rejection alongside a USB Type-C adapter and premium carrying case.

Major features include built-in volume controls that integrate with the console's operating system, a game audio and chat balance slider, and active noise cancellation.

The upcoming PlayStation Pulse, in contrast, is positioned as a more entry-level model. It cuts the number of driver magnets down to four, which likely means less bass and reduced clarity. There's no boom mic either, so you need to rely on an integrated microphone instead.

It also loses the game audio and chat balance feature, lacks active noise cancellation, and isn't bundled with any kind of case.

Sony has been quite cagey about pricing, with no word on how much either model will cost on the official PlayStation Blog. This makes it hard to determine whether this refreshed line will offer good value, especially given the abundance of excellent headsets currently offered by third-party brands like SteelSeries and Corsair.

We do know that both models will be available in both white and black, however, and will hit shelves early next year.

They will also connect to the PlayStation Portal out of the box, thanks to their native PlayStation Link compatibility.

Every now and then, a game comes along that doesn’t just entertain and engage me — it totally enraptures me. It stands as a pure work of art that reminds me of exactly why I love this medium and captures the essence of a book you just can’t put down. For me, that’s exactly what Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is — an engrossing experience that I simply can’t get enough of.

This Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive tactical JRPG offers a combination of excellent turn-based combat and rewarding exploration, alongside captivating storytelling and a great cast of characters. And its sheer scale cannot be understated — I’ve spent north of 200 hours in Fortune’s Weave, and there’s still so much more I have to see.

I’ve played through each of the four Flame Lords’ paths and taken the battle to the demonic god Balor, and I’ve got a number of thoughts about gameplay, visuals, and narrative to share. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at why Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is one of the best Nintendo Switch 2 games you can play right now.

Four paths converge

I won’t get into the weeds of the premise in Fortune’s Weave, but to sum up, you’re able to play as four heroes, known as the Flame Lords, as they compete in a grand arena event known as the Heroic Games. The champion of the Games will be granted a wish of their choosing by Divine Sovereign, Solel, who rules over the land of Dagda and its capital, Dagsion.

After completing the brief prologue — which acts as a solid tutorial for newcomers — you can select any of the Flame Lords’ paths and play through them in any order you like from a central hub area. This approach works nicely, as you don’t have to replay the prologue each time you start a new journey, and you’re able to dip in and out of each story as you please.

This makes up Part I of the game, which was probably my favorite overall. Although some cutscenes and quests are the same across the four stories, they still feel distinct and gripping in their own right. Each pathway has a distinct tone and feeling to it, with each Flame Lord having a deeply personal ambition and a unique set of close allies. For instance, the vengeful and skilful Leda is joined by the womanizing bard Sirocco and protective warrior Buccar, whereas Dietrich is partnered with the excitable Esmeralda and bizarre and eccentric missionary, Fabio.

The core cast of characters is truly excellent, but you’ll also be able to recruit more allies as you progress the story, including foes you face in the Heroic Games and parties of interest across Dagsion. Many of these units can be recruited across all four stories, though their recruitment requirements often vary, which encouraged me to experiment with different characters across different stories.

What makes the multi-path system click is that you’ll uncover revelations in one story that answer questions — or even pose new ones — about events in one of the other paths. There are plenty of twists and turns — some perhaps more obvious than others — which change the way you perceive certain characters and add substantial depth to units that may seem less significant on some paths than others.

This cross-path storytelling is done really well, and the narrative is strong, more generally. I won’t spoil anything, but it’s got its fair share of shock instances, touching moments, and character development that help it to hit — and if not, exceed — the standards that the series has set thus far.

Gameplay-wise, things are kept pretty fresh too. Each Flame Lord has specific abilities that they can make use of on the world map and beyond, with Dietrich able to battle warriors and learn their combat arts, Leda capable of holding performances to unlock unique materials, Theodora able to recruit warriors to assign battalions, and Cai skilled enough to wrangle mounts for himself and his allies.

And luckily, all of this comes together nicely in the latter parts of the game. While Part I is more individually tailored to each Flame Lord and their journey through the Heroic Games, paths begin to converge in Part II, known as the War Arc. Again, I won’t spoil anything here, but Part II offers far less variation across each pathway, but there are still some interesting differences in dialogue, and the way you approach battles will likely change considerably.

I loved how the enormity of Fortune’s Weave came together in Part III, though. Here, you’ll be able to unite all of the Flame Lords beside the game’s true protagonist, you. It’s awesome that you’re able to make use of all of the heroes’ unique abilities and even re-recruit old units for the final battle against the demonic lord, Balor.

Being able to bring all of your units, inventory, and abilities into a singular, epic finale is incredibly rewarding and makes building the ultimate army even more enjoyable.

I see grids in my sleep

Let’s delve a bit more deeply into gameplay, which, as you’d expect, is outstanding in Fortune’s Weave.

For the most part, you’ll be battling on classic grid-based battlefields. Honestly, I’ve fought on these so many times I’m starting to see them in my dreams. It's that classic turn-based Fire Emblem that you know and love, with some returning features, like Combat Arts (which provide benefits in exchange for weapon durability) and gambits (in Theodora’s path), for instance.

But there are new mechanics too, like Blaze Arts, which are unique to specific units. By sacrificing HP, Blaze Arts enable you to deal more damage, move further, buff allies, and more. The health trade-off means they don’t feel like a cheat code, and they also fill a blaze gauge, which will burst at a certain point, forcing you to work with reduced HP for the rest of the map.

Standard battles feel brilliantly balanced, and I never felt that difficulty spikes were too severe or that I had to grind much to push past my opponent. When you do want to grind, though, you can enter into a skirmish against foes on the world map, or try your luck in a dungeon.

Dungeons work a bit differently, and you’ll move around a 3D area to face foes in Clash Battles. These are a bit different and combine light action segments with more traditional turn-based JRPG combat rather than tactical grid-based battles. I think that they’re a great option if you want a break from the usual maps and want a faster-paced method for gaining experience or class proficiency for your units.

That’s not to say that the standard maps aren’t engaging though; quite the opposite. There’s some excellent map variety, and some battles will ask more of you than just routing the enemy. In some cases, I had to defeat more giants than my opponents, rescue defenseless citizens from a huge serpent, or even collect missing cargo before thieves made off with it. Battlefields are also delightfully diverse throughout the heroic games, and become even grander as the stakes rise towards the back end of the game.

If at any point you’re struggling, you can make use of Blessings, enabling you to rewind to a previous turn, increase your strength, or reduce the cost of Combat Arts, for example. I kept usage of these to a minimum, as I was playing on the slightly more gracious Normal/Casual difficulty. But there’s also a Hard mode, and you can play Classic (where units are permanently lost when they fall in battle), where Blessings will likely feel a bit more necessary.

All in all, combat is incredibly addictive, varied, and offers impressive depth. Building a squad with the right balance in terms of classes and weapons is massively satisfying, and breaking things up with a bit of dungeon crawling keeps the experience feeling fluid and fun for the game’s full runtime. And given that we’re talking about a title that will take you well over 100, if not 200, hours to finish, that’s an impressive feat in itself.

Beyond the battlefield

Before I wrap up, I want to touch on my experience with Fortune’s Weave outside of battle. There’s quite a bit to do, both within the capital, Dagsion, and in the land of Dagda more broadly.

Dagsion has all of the stuff you’d expect. A training ground to boost your aptitude with specific weapons, a shopping district, an inn for viewing support conversations and restoring motivation (which is used for training and increasing your Blessings level), and an area where you can take an exam for whatever class you want to be.

A lot of your time in Fortune’s Weave will be spent using these facilities to increase your weapon levels, boost support with your allies, and acquire better equipment.

If I were to nitpick, I’d argue that the support grind can become a little tiresome for some units. If you want to recruit a new ally who requires a high support level, it can take quite some time to fill the gauge and add them to your team, though some are easier to add to your roster than others.

There are more things to do, though, like going to the Theater, taking a bath at the Thermae spa, and accepting subquests from distressed townsfolk. Perhaps the most unusual option, however, is Bird Time.

Here, you can feed the Pale Raven (the main protagonist in bird form) to increase your support level for later in the game. Is it a bit goofy? Yeah. Does it get a bit repetitive? Sure. But I kinda love the feeling of getting that sweet ‘perfect bird time’ message when you have a successful interaction with your ally.

Outside of Dagsion, you can enter the aforementioned dungeons, search for materials, enter into some smaller hub areas, and speak with wandering merchants. The world map is easy to navigate, but you’ll only have a set amount of time to explore before the day of the Main Quest arrives. This helps the game to maintain good pacing throughout, and while there’s a ton to explore, it’s broken up with main story goodness in healthy intervals, in my view.

On a technical level, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is pretty solid too. It keeps a lot of the enticing visual style seen in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but being a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, there’s a clear step-up in terms of resolution, and character models look excellent too. Be it Fortuna, whose vibrant hair pops with eye-catching yellow, or the striking, rich reds of Bertrand, the White-Maned Demon’s clothing, I found myself impressed by the visuals pretty consistently.

Some background textures do look a bit basic, however, and while the game runs smoothly, it’s not targeting a silky 60fps (but this never bothered me, personally).

I also want to shout out the game’s excellent soundtrack, which is more eclectic than you may think. There’s the classic orchestral-style stuff, which creates a real sense of grandeur and high stakes, but there are also spacey, synth-led tunes in the temples, which create ambience and intrigue, as well as electronic music with pumping bass in some mysterious hidden areas.

On the topic of sound, the voice acting is exceptional in Fortune’s Weave. You feel each character’s unmistakable personality through just about every performance, and this only makes you feel more attached to your units. The perfect example is Fabio, whose voice acting is just as outlandish and unusual as you’d hope for the character, though he also has some authentic, impassioned emotional scenes that stole the show. Great stuff all round.

To conclude, then, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is a masterful tactical JRPG that has it all. Addictive, depth-filled combat, fresh mechanics, a well-paced, multi-layered story, and a likeable cast of characters. It hypnotized me from minute one, all the way to the end, and its careful balance of tight turn-based gameplay and exploration really worked for me. As things stand, I consider Fortune’s Weave to not only be among the best Fire Emblem games in recent memory, but also the best game on the Nintendo Switch 2 thus far.

Whatever you do, don’t skip this one.

Should you play Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility features

There are a handful of ways to customize your experience in Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave. You can make UI adjustments, like altering the size of the battle minimap, toggling the grid display on and off, you can personalize camera controls and sensitivity, and choose from a number of different subtitle languages.

There’s even an Enemy Masking mode that changes the appearances of insectile enemies if you have arachnophobia or entomophobia. There is no colorblind mode, or similar.

How I reviewed Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave

I spent just over 200 hours with Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, during which time I played through the main story (including each of the Flame Lords’ individual paths), completed just about every subquest, and recruited countless allies.

For the most part, I played in docked mode, with my Nintendo Switch 2 connected to my Sky Glass Gen 2 TV and Marshall Heston 120 soundbar. However, I did dip into handheld mode now and then, and usually had my Sennheiser CX 80U wired earbuds connected when playing on the go.

More generally, I’ve spent years reviewing gaming software, hardware, and accessories here at TechRadar, where I serve as a Senior Reviews Writer. I’ve covered all sorts of titles, from Switch 2 exclusives like Kirby Air Riders and Yoshi and the Mysterious Book to RPGs such as Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake and Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles.

I've also played a number of Fire Emblem titles, including Awakening, The Blazing Blade, and Three Houses.

• IGN asked Valve if the RAM crisis would impact the Steam Deck 2
• Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais said "not really", but added: "It's just a matter of looking at the current conditions and seeing how and when we can deliver"
• This is effectively saying that the spec won't be compromised, but the release timeframe might slide

Valve is sticking with its plan for the Steam Deck 2 in terms of ensuring that the sequel will be a proper generational leap compared to the existing handheld.

IGN interviewed Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais (along with Jeff Leinbaugh) and brought up the subject of whether the RAM crisis – which appears to be intensifying in an unpleasant manner as this year rolls on – would affect the Steam Deck 2.

When asked if the memory supply shortage had changed Valve's plans for the sequel of the Steam Deck, Griffais said "not really", adding "We've talked before about how we want to make sure there's a very delineated performance improvement for something like a future Steam Deck, and I think we're still looking at it in the same way."

Griffais continued: "It's just a matter of looking at the current conditions and seeing how and when we can deliver something like that. But from what we're working on, as far as the user experience goes and what the product that we're trying to build goes, it's very similar goals."

In other words, Valve still wants to make the Steam Deck 2 a major leap in handheld performance, and the only thing that pricier components (not just system RAM, but other elements of the device) will mean is that the "when" of the delivery timing might be altered.

So, I read this as essentially hinting that the release timeframe could be pushed back, but ultimately the spec of any Steam Deck sequel is not going to be messed with due to any component price rises.

Analysis: value is more important than timing

I think this is a sensible stance. Having clearly laid out its stall from the get-go, shortly after the launch of the Steam Deck, in terms of making the sequel a considerably more powerful handheld, Valve can't go back on that really.

Well, it could, but it wouldn't be a good look, and I think this is basically what Griffais is getting at with that key "how and when we can deliver" comment. The Steam Machine being released at a less-than-ideal price hasn't done Valve's reputation any favors, and a lot of gamers have been seriously disappointed with the end result in terms of value there. I don't think that Valve can take the risk of a repeat performance with the Steam Deck 2, as that'd further erode the goodwill of gamers.

Personally, I'd prefer Valve to wait until after the RAM crisis has (mostly) blown over before introducing the Steam Deck sequel – even if that means a long delay, and the memory shortage continues for the rest of this decade (as some are predicting). I'd rather have a performant handheld with a palatable price tag – and wait however long that may take – than something that's expensive arriving sooner.

It sounds like Valve is very much thinking along those same lines, perhaps not surprisingly given that RAM-driven price hikes have reportedly had quite a negative impact on Steam Deck sales in recent times.

Drakong Challenger: One-minute review

The Drakong Challenger takes aim at the budget controller market by offering a basic but high-performing pad. On the style front, the Challenger is very much a case of function over form. You’d be hard-pressed to tell it apart from your run-of-the-mill Xbox controller, although the green rings around the thumbsticks are one notable point of difference.

Just like that controller, the Challenger is very comfortable in the hand. It’s also surprisingly well-made, with a solid shell and planted buttons. What’s more, it’s pleasingly light, making it easy to use for long periods. All this makes it one of the best Xbox Controllers at the budget end of the sector in terms of construction.

Although there’s no software to accompany the Challenger, you can assign the back buttons quite easily using the M button. A rumble notifies you when your assignments have been confirmed, which is a useful indicator.

The Challenger impresses in action. The triggers and sticks are as smooth and precise as you would expect from their Hall Effect technology, while the D-pad and face buttons are satisfyingly damped and quick to respond and rebound. The back buttons are a little less tactile, but they suffice nonetheless.

Given how inexpensive it is, you’d seriously have to consider the Challenger over a standard Xbox controller or any other, for that matter, so long as wireless connectivity is something you’re willing to sacrifice.

Drakong Challenger review: Price & availability

• $34.99 (about £25 / AU$50)
• One month of Game Pass Ultimate included
• Good price-to-performance ratio

The Drakong Challenger costs $34.99 (about £25 / AU$50) and is available now. It comes with a USB-C cable, as well as a code for a one-month free trial of Game Pass Ultimate.

The Challenger is cheaper than the official Xbox Wireless Controller, although that gamepad has the advantage of wireless connectivity. However, it doesn’t include a rechargeable battery as standard, nor does it have customizable back buttons.

If you want something a little more feature-packed, but don’t want to spend a huge amount, the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline is a good alternative. It has companion software that can be used to remap buttons, as well as adjust vibration intensity and thumbstick dead zones. Also, the controller itself is far more vibrant than the Challenger — and many other controllers, for that matter.

Drakong Challenger review: Specs

Drakong Challenger review: Design

• Classic Xbox controller design
• Light yet solid construction
• No accompanying software

As far as looks go, the Challenger barely departs from the traditional Xbox design. It has the same shape, size, and layout, with the only additional flourishes being green rings around the sticks and a subtle outline around the two halves of the pad. There’s no RGB lighting, despite what those aforementioned stick rings may lead you to believe.

However, all this isn’t to say the Challenger has a disappointing construction. After all, to many gamers, the Xbox controller form is comfortable and practical. And despite the plastics not feeling particularly premium, the Challenger is surprisingly solid and pleasingly light at the same time, which is always a winning combination.

What’s more, the sticks and buttons are well fitted with no play in them at all, which isn’t something that can be said about most budget controllers. The back of the handles is textured for added traction, but the improvement is marginal given how subtle this texture is.

There’s no software available to customize the Challenger, but there are two mappable back buttons. I couldn’t find information on how to map them anywhere, but thankfully it’s a fairly simple process to figure out. You simply press the M button and a back button simultaneously until you feel a rumble, then press the button you want to assign and another rumble will confirm its activation.

The Challenger has no wireless connectivity, which is a shame but understandable at this price point. The included USB cable is quite long, but it isn’t finished in a braided fabric, which is something you often find on the best gaming mice to improve flexibility and reduce drag. It does at least seem quite durable, and the connection at either end was solid in my experience, despite the small amount of superficial wobbling at the controller end.

Drakong Challenger review: Performance

• Solid and responsive buttons
• Precise and tactile triggers and sticks
• Easy connectivity to Xbox and PC

The Drakong Challenger might be a budget controller, but that’s not something you’ll notice when gaming with it, as every input is smooth, solid, and precise. The face buttons are also well damped and very responsive, rebounding quickly to allow for easy spamming when needed. The same goes for the D-pad, and despite its traditional four-pronged hat, it felt comfortable in my thumb, even when performing rolls and frantic inputs in Tekken 8.

On the shoulder buttons, the texture is subtle but noticeable, and feels quite nice on the fingers, although I’m not sure it provides much in the way of traction. The Hall Effect triggers are light but offer a surprising amount of control, which was especially helpful when accelerating and braking in Assetto Corsa. The Hall Effect thumbsticks were accurate and responsive when steering, too, as well as when aiming in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. I also appreciated their soft, grippy coating and textured rims for added purchase and feedback.

The two back buttons are easy to reach, but they don’t feel quite as tactile as the other inputs, lacking depth of travel and dampening by comparison. Also, I found them quite easy to trigger accidentally, even when I didn’t have a particularly tight grip on the pad.

Surprisingly for an inexpensive controller, the Challenger features a headset jack. The cable connection is solid, and I didn’t notice any loss in audio quality relative to connections made elsewhere.

As for the pad itself, I had no issues connecting it via the USB cable to either an Xbox Series X or to my PC, being just as easy to use with the latter as the best PC controllers.

Should I buy the Drakong Challenger?

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Drakong Challenger review: Also consider

How I tested the Drakong Challenger

• Tested for several days
• Played a variety of games
• Experienced with many other gamepads

I tested the Challenger for several days, using it for a variety of games and on both PC and Xbox.

I played Assetto Corsa to test the triggers, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl to test the precision of the sticks. I also played Tekken 8 to test the responsiveness and comfort of the D-pad and face buttons.

I’ve been gaming for decades and have used a wide variety of systems and controllers in that time. I’ve also reviewed a range of them, from simple budget-friendly affairs to feature-packed premium offerings.

• Read more about how we test
• First reviewed: September 2026

The article contains spoilers for Returnal.

I’ve always been a fan of roguelike games. One of my first PlayStation Plus downloads was an indie known as Tower of Guns, where you blast your way through the titular tower, only to start again each time you die. It hooked me immediately — I spent pretty much an entire summer holiday shooting through the tower’s many floors, only to get kicked back down to the start with each defeat.

That type of cyclical gameplay loop just scratches a deep itch in my brain. I’m the kind of player who plays carefully and hoards items for moments that may never appear. However, the high stakes of roguelike games have always given you focus, while the temporary nature of your loadout, abilities, and progress encourages experimentation.

In most story-driven games, player deaths have few consequences – dying in God of War or Control might set you back a few minutes, but you’ll typically carry on as if nothing happened. In contrast, the roguelike genre is defined by hard resets with each death. The issue is that it’s hard to tell an engaging story when you’re constantly sending the player back to square one.

But what if dying was part of the story? That’s the question at the centre of Returnal, the 2021 roguelike third-person shooter from Finnish developer Housemarque that launched as a PS5 exclusive before making its way to Windows. Crucially, Returnal makes its cycle of death and reawakening the central theme of its dense, mysterious narrative.

This summer, about a decade after downloading Tower of Guns, PS Plus delivered me another unforgettable roguelike experience with Returnal – and while I had heard some high praise for its gameplay, I wasn’t prepared for just how much its story would affect me. Keep reading for my take on why Returnal is worth returning to.

Life on loop

Returnal follows space-farer Selene Vassos, an astronaut and explorer who crash-lands on the uncharted world of Atropos. After emerging from the wreckage of her ship, Helios, players guide Selene through the jungles and ruins of Atropos, fighting through rooms of alien animals and humanoids to track the ‘White Shadow’ distress beacon she hopes to use to escape.

In theory, you can do this all in one life – but Returnal quickly makes it clear that everything on Atropos wants to kill you. And unless you’ve got the reaction times of an Olympic gymnast, something on Atropos is going to kill you. When you do eventually fall to one of the planet’s many hostile creatures, the game flashes through a series of visions before Selene wakes up at the crash site, which becomes the starting point for each subsequent run. In fact, the screen displays the message ‘Helios Abandoned’ each time you leave camp, to really set the mood.

On these follow-up attempts, you’ll come across corpses – your own corpses. Versions of Selene that didn’t make it to the White Shadow are dotted around Atropos, sometimes accompanied by voice recorders that begin to explain the planet’s war-torn history.

The core gameplay of Returnal is that of a competent third-person shooter with light movement mechanics. It’s Dark Souls meets Titanfall meets Resogun after three cups of coffee – you move quickly, shoot quickly, and dodge dozens of on-screen projectiles. The controls are tight; the game feels incredibly responsive, fast but never floaty.

Various gameplay aspects come together to make Returnal feel addictive and alive. The game offers ten satisfying weapons, each with a few dozen modifiers, and carefully designed combat rooms that are rearranged with a dash of random number generation (RNG) on each new run. About a third of the way through the game, you unlock the best grappling hook in gaming since Just Cause 3, which is naturally a huge plus.

And while Returnal can be punishingly hard – looking at the PlayStation trophies reveals just under a third of players have beaten the first boss – it’s always incredibly fun to play. Even after beating the main game, I spent a few weeks scaling the Tower of Sisyphus, the endless mode added with a free DLC in 2022.

Our Returnal review has a more detailed breakdown of the game’s mechanics, but it’s the game’s story that, in my opinion, makes it a must-play.

I was quickly hooked by Returnal’s enigmatic premise. It takes a relatively small idea – making the gameplay loop an essential part of the story – and runs with it, filling every spare moment with symbolism and intrigue.

An impossible Apollo-era astronaut stalks Selene around Atropos; Selene’s house appears in the overgrowth, seemingly plucked from its place on Earth and becoming a doorway to surreal cutscenes, and all the while Selene’s visions become infected with robotic beings and eldritch tentacles.

Mystery and mythology

Being a fan of games like Outer Wilds and Firewatch, Returnal’s approach to scavenging lore and building your own interpretation of the narrative really clicked with me. The game has a Nolan-esque way of revealing its story (only with much better female characters). Its twists and turns work their way through the player’s expectations like the tentacles that plague Selene’s post-mortem hallucinations, and many of the big twists are hinted at from the beginning.

The first comes halfway, when Selene finds the White Shadow escape signal, is rescued and returned to Earth, lives a normal life, passes away, and wakes up… back on Atropos. The second comes at the end of the game, when it’s revealed that, back on Earth, Selene crashed into a lake after seeing the Astronaut that follows her around Atropos on a bridge, her own ‘white shadow’. In the back seat, a young boy is trapped – Helios, abandoned.

YouTube essayists and Reddit commenters have spent the last five years analysing this game to Atropos and back – some theories suggest that the planet is a manifestation of Selene’s guilt over the crash, while others point to the ghostly astronaut as an avatar of her emotionally distant mother, Theia.

Others point to Returnal’s layered Greek mythology references – Selene and Theia are named for the goddesses of the Moon and sky, with Atropos being the goddess of destiny. If you’re a lore-obsessive like me, now’s a great time to explore.

To me, Returnal is a fundamentally abstract piece of art that allows its themes to resonate with one another beyond the confines of a rigid narrative structure – at times, it feels like a sort of conceptual web, tying up ideas of motherhood, trauma, ambition, and release with no prescribed interpretation. Not bad for a shoot-em-up.

In fact, I found Returnal genuinely moving. In the second half of the game, as you fight through frozen wastelands and infinite ocean depths, Selene goes totally mad, talking only in prayer and prophecy. Actor Jane Perry does a phenomenal job of making her character seem both tragically lost and genuinely enlightened. Late-game cutscenes and lore drops put the focus on how much Selene gave up to become an astronaut, again tying this story to roguelike gameplay as Housemarque links sacrifice to pushing forward.

Housemarque released its latest game, Saros, earlier this year. Like Returnal, Saros offers Housemarque’s iconic third-person bullet hell gameplay and cryptic environmental storytelling – the difference is I won’t be waiting 5 years to play it.

• Docked VRR finally arrives more than a year after Nintendo announced and then unannounced it
• Requires a system update to both console and Dock
• It seems to work on a title-by-title basis and will require games to update to use it

Nintendo's latest system update for the Switch 2 is here and delivers a much-wanted new feature: VRR support in Docked mode. But there's a catch: a the moment, it only works on one game, and we're not sure how many more will follow, because it's reported to work on a "whitelist" system.

When the Switch 2 launched, VRR (variable refresh rate) was only supported when using the console in handheld mode. Having the same feature available in Docked mode means your display's refresh rate and the game's frame rate can be synchronized to get rid of any screen tearing or judder when you're playing on one of the best gaming TVs or the best gaming monitors that supports VRR.

Unfortunately, the new VRR support in System Update 23.0.0 only appears to be available on a title-by-title basis, unlike the way that the PS5 can force VRR support at the system level on games that don't natively have it.

The big concern here is that Digital Foundry reports that "the feature appears to operate on a whitelist, so only games that developers have flagged as supporting docked VRR will activate it" — and what's unclear is whether the whitelist will require a slow certification process by Nintendo, or whether developers can just quickly roll out an update with support.

It means that, at the time of writing, the list of titles with docked VRR support only includes Nintendo's Switch 2 Welcome Tour, which has just been updated to add the feature. That's it. We at least assumed Nintendo would be ready with updates for all its own games.

What's new in the Switch 2 update

In the release notes Nintendo says: "VRR output is now supported in TV mode. When both the software and the TV support it, the video will be output at a refresh rate that matches the game's processing speed."

We've known for a while that the Switch 2 Dock supports docked VRR, because Nintendo told us on its US website before removing the text last year. So it's nice to see the feature finally being implemented, even if it'll take a while for the appropriate game patches to arrive.

In addition to VRR the Switch 2 software update gives you the ability to make a complete data transfer from one Switch 2 to another. There's a new toggle for Switch 2 Boost saving you a trip into System Settings, improved accessibility support, background music in the Mii editor (which you can turn off if you don't want it) and the usual interface tweaks, unspecified bug fixes and optimizations.

Nintendo's support page for the new system update is here.

Not long into Marvel's Wolverine, protagonist James "Logan" Howlett is joined by fellow mutant and Team X member Mystique. The blue-skinned shapeshifter is eager to share a shocking discovery with him: a sinister secret hidden behind a closed door. But I ignore her request, instead continuing down the hall to soak in the game's stunning visuals.

It's the natural-looking rain streaming down a window that initially catches my attention. But beyond the pelting precipitation, I also spy equally impressive smoke, flames, and burning embers spewing from a fiery explosion – the apparent fallout of Wolverine's enemy-eviscerating entrance.

The destruction below is contrasted by beautiful moonlight above, which is occasionally punctuated by eye-pleasing flashes of lightning.

Production values as sharp as Wolverine's claws

Of course, if you've played any recent first-party PlayStation game, these realism-rivaling effects probably won't come as a huge surprise. As expected, Insomniac Games' latest superhero romp is obscenely pretty, polished, and packing the sort of production values that've come to define Sony's single-player, story-driven output.

This level of quality extends to Wolverine's characters and storytelling as well. Supported by incredibly layered, emotional performances (Liam McIntyre and Troy Baker especially stand out as Logan and Nathaniel Essex, respectively), the former features unmatched facial details and visual fidelity.

And while the game's narrative doesn't quite achieve the extreme highs of its technical and artistic excellence, it works surprisingly well, spinning an engaging tale that'll please Marvel enthusiasts while also welcoming complete newcomers into this potentially complex universe.

There are a ton of familiar characters, both friends and foes, that fans will love spending time with. But the game's pre-X-Men tale also does a great job introducing these favorites without boring the established audience or relying on exposition dumps.

In Wolverine's universe, for example, Logan and Jean Grey meet for the first time, challenging its writers to not only introduce these well-known characters to each other, but also to a potential new audience. The task is handled elegantly, however, in an early mission at Team X's HQ that sees the pair naturally sharing personal details while searching for drawings a mischievous mutant child has hidden for them.

Slice and dice with cinematic style to spare

This is a single instance, but the lengthy story often leverages these quieter, absorbing – and interactive – scenes to flesh out its nuanced characters and connect the larger story to the obscenely over-the-top bloodbaths that fill the rest of the campaign. While storytelling and characterizations certainly have their place in Wolverine, the game is, first and foremost, a visceral, action-packed power fantasy focused on showing fans what it feels like to get behind the titular mutant's adamantium death-dealers.

Of course, considering Logan is virtually indestructible and his signature retractable claws are capable of turning even a tank to ribbons, the developers also faced the daunting task of balancing the combat difficulty. How exactly do you ensure encounters are challenging and consequential when you're playing as someone who can return from the brink of death and cut through steel like it's warm butter?

Using a variety of creative systems and mechanics, Insomniac has mostly found a nice balance between allowing the beast-like protagonist to be the absolute badass you'd expect, without being ridiculously overpowered. At its core, the combat is an absolute button-mashing blast. Complemented by intuitive, snappy inputs, immersion-ratcheting DualSense effects, and environments filled with destructible items, simply shredding through hordes of enemies feels fantastic.

Reducing goons to piles of lopped limbs and red plasma is also as easy on the eyes as it is on the thumbs. Slick animations, cinematic finishing moves, and more blood and gore than you'll find on the floor of a slaughterhouse ensure every kill is as fun to watch as it is to execute.

The visual abuse Logan suffers is also a surprising highlight, as he too becomes soaked in viscera. But it goes deeper than that, literally, as his clothes become increasingly tattered, exposing ugly wounds and the highest fidelity sweat and body hair I've ever seen – enter photo mode at your own risk.

Whether you're taking on Bolivar Trask's cybernetic soldiers, chipping away at a towering Sentinel, or sinking your claws into any number of baddies and bosses we won't spoil here, slicing and dicing from behind Wolverine's shiny skewers is endlessly entertaining. But the game's attempts to deepen the combat beyond the animalistic amnesiac's rage-fueled hacking-and-slashing are a bit hit or miss.

As Logan levels up, you can invest points to unlock new moves and special abilities, dubbed "Techniques." The former are primarily flashy skills and combos that build on the character's base attacks, parries, kicks, staggers, jumps, dodges, and other core skills. Adding these to your already considerable arsenal definitely has benefits, from delivering more damage and disarming enemies to recovering some health and even flinging foes into each other.

Most of all, these moves – which require specific button inputs to pull off – inject a ton of cinematic style into your kill sprees. But more often than not, that's exactly why I used them, as their offensive and defensive benefits alone didn't feel impactful enough, especially when I could achieve similar results by spamming basic "barrage" attacks, dodging from danger, and unleashing specials as they cued up.

Those latter attacks, however, do make a huge difference. Working off cooldown timers, these devastating moves put you a button-press away from barreling through targets like a human drill, spinning through hordes with the force of a tornado, and performing other table-turning abilities.

These special attacks can be upgraded and also include a nice healing option when you're at death's door. Speaking of Logan's regenerative superpower, he also has access to "Rage," a resource he builds during combat that supports a second wind-like mechanic and – as advertised – allows him to go full-on feral, ventilating targets even more viciously than usual.

When combined with the specials – and some other late-game enhancements I won't spoil here – both the basic and rage-fueled skills make for unquestionably thrilling encounters, albeit battles that aren't as deep as their designers intended.

Snikt!-fueled style over substance

Similar sentiments can be applied to Wolverine's non-combat content as well. You'll spend most of your time in this globetrotting adventure painting cities and towns – across Canada, Japan, Madripoor, and more – plasma-red, but when not shish kebab-ing baddies, you'll retract your claws for some less violent activities.

In addition to the excellent story interludes, Logan does some investigating, chases fleeing enemies – on foot and while straddling a motorcycle – and a surprising amount of platforming.

None of these tasks are optional, and while they don't offer anything particularly special, they do deliver the occasional fun distraction. The bike chases, for example, are practically on rails, but it still never gets old slashing a pursuing vehicle's tires with your claws.

The platforming sections, meanwhile, generally get the job done, but sometimes kill the immersion when the mutant – who can often scurry up trees like a cat – suddenly can't scale a fence, crate, or wall.

Wolverine makes no apologies for being a linear, scripted action-adventure, a quality that often works to its benefit. But it can also be a detriment, like during those fickle platforming moments. This heavily directed approach does afford players some freedom, encouraging them to sniff out collectible bottles of whiskey and timed challenges accessed in Logan's creepy "Nightmare Cabin." These mini-games, unfolding in his haunted memories, also shed a bit of light on his dark, foggy past.

Whether hunting for booze or conquering these timed tasks, you'll collect DNA strand-altering "Adaptation" points, a currency that feeds another character progression path. But these passive perks don't feel all that meaningful among Logan's already considerable arsenal. Toss in the fact that these cabin-diving diversions have you partaking in the same gameplay you're already doing on the critical path – only against a clock – and they feel like an undercooked attempt at optional content.

Suit crafting feels similarly half-baked. The game contains 30-plus costumes and accompanying claws, a fantastic, fan-pleasing inclusion. But the suits are purely cosmetic, and accessed by investing the same "materials" hidden around the world.

Donning Logan with a cowboy hat or dropping him in this hyper-realistic world as his anime-inspired Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls persona is awesome, as is the permanent health bump you receive as you buy more suits. But with just the same single resource used and no gameplay effects added, calling it "crafting" is a stretch.

As a linear, single-player action-adventure, Wolverine works brilliantly, delivering a visually striking, cinematic blockbuster supported by engaging characters and emotional storytelling. It's also brimming with stylish, blood-soaked combat that kept a smile stretched across my face until the credits rolled.

When it strays from its heavily scripted path, however, attempting to layer strategic depth into its arcade-y encounters – as well as engaging, optional activities into its carefully crafted world – it does reveal some undeniable cracks in its adamantium armor.

Should you play Marvel's Wolverine?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Marvel's Wolverine includes an impressive suite of accessibility assists, beginning with plenty of options to tailor the blood, gore, violence, and profanity to any player's comfort level.

Beyond that, there are various difficulty settings, as well as ample gameplay assists to further tweak and tailor the challenge within those defaults. In addition to the expected inclusions for customizing subtitles, UI, and HUD elements, a huge selection of audio and visual assists are also available.

While a variety of high-contrast modes and color customizations are included, dedicated protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia selections seem to be absent.

How I reviewed Marvel's Wolverine

I spent just over 25 hours with Wolverine, completing its campaign before replaying many missions to seek out collectibles and attempt optional time trial challenges.

I played the game on my PS5 Pro using my budget TCL 4K 65" TV, with HDR enabled. For audio, I tested with both the display's onboard stereo speakers and Sony's PlayStation Pulse Elite headset.

First reviewed September 2026

• PlayStation cuts ties with Kojima Productions for upcoming Physint game
• Hideo Kojima states PlayStation tried to cancel Physint, so he decided to look for a new partnership
• Xbox and Kojima Productions now have a partnership for Physint and future projects, including OD

Sony dented its reputation in the gaming industry with its announcement that it would be ending the production of physical game discs — and the trend of controversial decisions is still going strong.

PlayStation has cut ties with Kojima Productions for its upcoming game, Physint, and Xbox has swooped in as a replacement in a new partnership with Hideo Kojima's video game and film production studio.

In a statement on X, PlayStation says: "After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with Kojima Productions on its project, Physint. We continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima's vision for the game."

From that statement alone, it's not exactly clear why the split has occurred. However, Hideo Kojima took to X to weigh in on the matter himself, stating: "We unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the Physint project," which is PlayStation in form, at least based on its cancellations of multiple projects from its first-party studios.

"Physint is an important project both to me personally and to Kojima Productions. Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner. We found Xbox, a partner with whom we share a common vision for the future, and we have decided to team up with them once again."

Unsurprisingly, Xbox is more than happy to partner with the critically acclaimed developer, as its CEO, Asha Sharma, says: "We're honored that Kojima-san has chosen Xbox to work with Kojima Productions on Physint. His ambition to challenge conventions reflects the kind of creativity we want to support at Xbox."

Sony's Physint cancellation attempt hints at bigger concerns

Fortunately, Physint is in fine condition, with development still underway, as Kojima confirmed, calling it Kojima Productions' "genre-defining action-espionage title", which many have lauded as the next Metal Gear-style franchise since Kojima left Konami in 2015.

However, the bigger question remains: is the split between the companies solely due to the PlayStation's Physint cancellation attempt? Considering Kojima's stance against a digital-only future, which Sony has greenlit for games, it's hard to imagine that this didn't play a role in the partnership's collapse.

Kojima highlighted his sadness about Sony's decision to end the production of physical PlayStation game discs, considering the loss of ownership, which he described as a company suddenly stating, "You can turn on the tap for a certain amount of money each month."

That points towards fears of subscription services and how media will only be accessible by using them, and easy access to favorite movies and games will cease to exist.

It's not hard to imagine Kojima getting cold feet about launching Physint on PlayStation as an exclusive, without any physical game discs, as it directly highlights his fears of an all-digital future. It may not have been the direct factor behind the separation, but the timing (a few months after Sony's disc-axing announcement) certainly doesn't appear to be coincidental either.

Whether the blowback from this new decision will push Sony to reverse course is to be seen, but if Kojima's pushback on an all-digital future has anything to do with the disbanding, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see other developers eventually do the same.