BioWare's original Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) duology are apparently the most popular Star Wars games, which is probably why remakes had been greenlit for both games at one point in time. And it also explains a big new announcement at last night's Game Awards.

Last night, Lucasfilm Games made a surprise announcement: A spiritual successor to the fan-favorite Knights of the Old Republic series is in the works. It's called Fate of the Old Republic, or FOTOR for short, and it's being led by original KOTOR game director Casey Hudson. There's a very deliberate attempt to capture KOTOR's lightning on a bottle once again.

The emphasis on KOTOR is a business decision based on popularity. According to Aspyr co-CEO Michael Rogers, the Knights of the Old Republic games are the most popular Star Wars titles that have been released. Rogers made this statement in a declaration in the now-resolved false advertising lawsuit against Aspyr--the studio had previously been sued because their KOTOR re-release didn't ship with the DLC that it had been advertised with.

Hogwarts Legacy can be grabbed for the grand total of absolutely nothing, as Epic Games kicks off its high-profile freebies for the holiday season this year.

The open-world action RPG was revealed as the new free game by Epic at The Game Awards, and it attracted quite some attention.

Indeed, as Windows Central reports, when Hogwarts Legacy went free on the Epic Games Store, it was problematic trying to actually grab a copy, with the game showing as unavailable for some.

Reddit has announced it will be challenging the Australian government's decision to ban popular social media platforms for under-16s and implement age verification restrictions on platforms.

Reddit has alleged that the ban and the restrictions that follow infringe on the platform's freedom of political discourse. For those who don't know, Australia recently implemented a social media ban for under-16s that requires the top social media apps to block access to their platform for those under that age, including current account holders. The ban went into effect on Wednesday.

In response to the ban, Reddit has filed a lawsuit in the Australian High Court against the regulator implementing the ban, writing the ban could prevent teenagers from engaging in political discussions years before they become voters, suppressing their freedoms. Reddit added that there is a large amount of content teenagers can view on its platform, and the new restrictions wouldn't have much impact anyway.

One of the many highlights of The Game Awards 2025 was LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which received a new trailer showcasing exciting aspects of the upcoming title and its scheduled release date.

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is scheduled to release on May 29, 2026, and when it gets into the hands of the public, it will be the first LEGO Batman game to release since 2014's LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. The new trailer showcases more of Batman moving through Gotham City and the many iconic characters he will encounter, such as Catwoman, Robin, Batgirl, and Nightwing.

Additionally, we see some of the special abilities these characters will have, such as Catwoman calling a black cat to take out an enemy, Robin using up-close-and-personal zip lining, and Batgirl hacking a door. Many foes are shown off as well, along with numerous Batmobiles from Batman franchises, such as Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Combat has even been inspired by Rocksteady's Arkham series as Batman and his compadres engage in a class beat 'em up-style flurries.

Amazon Game Studios and Crystal Dynamics have announced two new Tomb Raider games, and both are coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

The Game Awards 2025 has closed out and during the presentation we got to see what Crystal Dynamics and Amazon Game Studios have been cooking up behind closed doors. Introducing Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, a new reimagining of the 1996 genre-defining title that will take players to exotic locations lost to time, such as the jungles of Peru, ancient ruins of Greece, the deserts of Egypt, and a mysterious Mediterranean island.

Players will hunt down the scattered pieces of the Scion, an artifact described as having immeasurable power. While doing this, Lara will face off against lethal predators, solve deadly contraptions, and overcome treacherous landscapes.

Framework has added to the collective misery around RAM price increases as the firm just announced a major hike in the cost of DDR5 memory for its DIY notebook.

As VideoCardz noticed, the DDR5 memory supplied with the Framework Laptop DIY Edition is now 50% pricier, due to the "substantially higher costs we are facing from suppliers and distributors" the company notes, stressing that the new prices are still below the levels seen on the open market.

Those who've already pre-ordered won't have the cost of their machine changed, as you would hope, but any new orders going forward will be substantially more expensive if you want to pile on the system RAM.

The Game Awards 2025 has wrapped up and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took home the Game of the Year award, but Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 6 managed to snag one leading up to the crescendo of the show.

In what has surprised most likely absolutely zero people, Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto VI took home the "Most Anticipated Game" award, beating the likes of 007 First Light, Marvel's Wolverine, Resident Evil Requiem, and CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 4. Without having any hard data to look at, and purely judging on my own perspective of the gaming industry, I think it's pretty safe to say that GTA 6 would have won this award by a landslide, and if there was a second place trophy to be given, it would have been handed to The Witcher 4.

GTA 6 is not only the most anticipated game of next year, but it's the most anticipated piece of media next year, with analysts predicting the title to generate anywhere between $3 - $6 billion in the first year of its release, and more than $10+ billion over its lifetime. Some analysts have even predicted it will make $7.6 billion in just 60 days. All of those numbers are representative of the general market sentiment toward the title, and how it took home the "Most Anticipated Game" award.

Remedy Entertainment has revealed Control Resonant at The Game Awards 2025, a long-awaited sequel to the studio's title "Control" released in 2019.

The upcoming title is set to release on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, along with the PS5 and Xbox Series X. For those who don't know, or have never played Control, that title is focused on Jesse Faden and her trying to locate her brother. Faden becomes the director of the Federal Bureau of Control, a government agency shrouded in secrecy tasked with containing and studying paranatural phenomena.

Control Resonant is set seven years after the events of the first Control game, where players will be able to see the fallout of the events following the end of 2017's Control. Jesse Faden is no longer the character players will be stepping into; as the trailer reveals, Dylan Faden, Jesse's brother, will be the protagonist, searching for his sister.

Rockstar Games has officially addressed the recent controversy surrounding the firing of employees from its Rockstar Games UK development studio, stating that the employees were abruptly fired for leaking Grand Theft Auto 6 features.

The controversy began when Rockstar fired 34 employees from its UK studio, prompting them to protest outside the studio and claim that Rockstar didn't provide any evidence of their alleged gross misconduct. Additionally, the employees stated they were fired without due process or proper representation, and that Rockstar wanted to simply break up the union that was forming in the studio.

Rockstar has now responded to these allegations in a statement it provided to IGN, writing that the individuals who were let go were fired for discussing "confidential information (including specific game features from upcoming and unannounced titles) in a public forum". Furthermore, Rockstar dismissed allegations that the former employees were fired for union membership activities, describing those claims as "entirely false and misleading."

The mystery of the Game Awards statue has finally been solved once and for all--it's a new Divinity game, and it looks quite macabre.

Larian revealed their next project at The Game Awards 2025 with a truly harrowing and memorable cinematic trailer. The footage was for a new game in Larian's long-running Divinity series, showcasing a look at the new Hellstone.

Not much is known about Divinity, but it's said to be Larian's biggest game yet--even bigger than Baldur's Gate 3, which is quite a claim.

BioWare developer Casey Hudson is returning to the Star Wars franchise to work on Fate of the Old Republic.

Knights of the Old Republic fans have reason to celebrate: A new spiritual successor RPG is in the works that aims to capture the same magic of the original games. It's called Fate of the Old Republic, and original game director Casey Hudson is back to lead the project.

"This is Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, a single player narrative-driven action RPG and spiritual successor to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Working on KOTOR was a defining experience of my career. This is a dream come true for me and our team of incredible storytellers and game makers," Hudson said on Twitter.

New court filings in the now-settled class action lawsuit against Aspyr reveal key details on Lucasfilm's game slate, including remakes of both Kotor I and II.

Aspyr had previously been sued in a class-action lawsuit (Malachi Mickelonis v. Aspyr Media, Inc. 8:23-cv-01220) for alleged false advertising, stemming from the original Kotor Switch release. At the time, the developers had advertised the Switch release would include a famous mod that restores tons of cut content. That never happened--the game launched on Switch without the mod, and new reports from Game File's Stephen Totilo reveal why.

Nestled in GameFIle's reporting, which combs through recent court filings in the case, is mention of a Kotor II remake. Lucasfilm had greenlit the project, which was codenamed Juliet, but it would come after. The Kotor II remake is apparently still part of Lucasfilm's game production roadmap, at least that was the case back in March, however things can change quickly in the games industry.

Microsoft could announce the melding of Xbox and Windows sometime in 2026.

Next year, Xbox turns 25, and the brand has been anything but static over its multi-decade run. Xbox was built on disruption, first through Xbox LIVE online play, then with subscription services like Game Pass. Now the next disruption is on the way: Merging PC and consoles together in a hybridized device.

Reports indicate Microsoft's next Xbox console won't be a console at all, but a Windows 11 PC that mimics a console experience. It's possible that the Xbox console as we know it will be relegated to an app "experience" within this new Windows 11 gaming framework. Exact details on what's going on are unclear, however a key Xbox hardware designer says that the future of the Xbox ecosystem will be revealed in 2026 to coincide with the division's 25th anniversary.

US deep-tech AI startup Tiiny AI has just unveiled the world's smallest personal AI supercomputer, with the new Tiiny AI Pocket Lab, which has been officially verified by the Guinness World Record under "The Smallest MiniPC (100B LLM Locally)".

This is the first global unveiling of the new Tiiny AI Pocket Lab, which will fit in your hands -- or your pocket, duh -- and is capable of running up to a full 120-billion-parameter LLM (Large Language Model) entirely on-device, without the need of cloud connectivity, servers, or high-end GPUs.

Tiiny has developed its super-small AI supercomputer for energy-efficient personal intelligence, and the Tiiny AI Pocket Lab runs within a 65W power envelope. The new Tiiny AI Pocket Lab enables massive AI model performance at a fraction of the energy and carbon footprint of traditional GPU-based systems.

NVIDIA has built a new location verification technology that would help the company know where its AI GPUs are being operated, in a bid to help prevent its AI chips from being smuggled into countries where US exports apply.

In a new report from Reuters, the outlet said that NVIDIA has demonstrated its new location verification feature privately over the last few months, but hasn't released it just yet. When it's released, it'll act as a software option that customers and data center operators can install, so they can keep a tighter eye on the AI chips in their fleets.

The newly-developed software from NVIDIA is an opt-in, customer-installed service that keeps an eye on GPU usage, configuration, and errors. It has a pretty decent feature set, providing data center operators with the following abilities:

Microsoft has posted an update covering all of the advances and improvements it has brought to PC gaming on Windows in 2025, from the arrival of the full-screen experience (FSE) for gaming handhelds through to Windows on Arm gaming improvements and the arrival of DirectX Raytracing 1.2 (DXR 1.2).

However, with the general sentiment that gaming on Windows 11 has only gotten worse in recent times, as most Windows updates either focus on adding new AI features and bloat to the operating system, or worse, cut game performance in half for GeForce RTX owners, the post also makes a statement on the future of Windows gaming as we head into 2026.

"We're committed to making Windows the best place to play," Ian LeGrow, Corporate Vice President, Windows + Devices, writes. "And we will continue refining system behaviors that matter most to gaming: background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations, and updated drivers."

AMD's FSR 'Redstone' update is now available for RDNA 4 owners to play with, improving image fidelity and performance across a wide range of games, including Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which also features the brand-new FSR Ray Regeneration technology that improves ray-tracing lighting effects. Alongside the debut of FSR 'Redstone,' AMD has also released the AMD FSR SDK 2.1, now available on GPUOpen for all game developers.

AMD FSR SDK 2.1 includes the full FSR 'Redstone' suite of neural rendering technologies: AMD FSR Upscaling 4.0.3, AMD FSR Frame Generation 4.0, AMD FSR Ray Regeneration 1.0, and AMD FSR Radiance Caching (Preview).

As introduced with AMD FidelityFX SDK 2.0 (AMD has renamed all FidelityFX tech to the simple AMD FSR), once a game adds new FSR 'Redstone' technologies, future AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition driver releases for Radeon GPUs can automatically update the version of ML or AI-based technologies used.

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.12.1 is here, and it adds official support for FSR 'Redstone,' which launched earlier today. For a breakdown on everything you need to know about FSR 'Redstone,' check out our main story on the technology, which includes the new AI-powered FSR Upscaling, FSR Frame Generation, FSR Ray Regeneration, and FSR Radiance Caching - which now fall under the AMD FSR banner.

As we've seen with the launch of FSR 4 earlier this year, which has been renamed to FSR upscaling (ML), the FSR 'Redstone' suite is exclusive to the latest RDNA 4 and Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics cards. With over 200 games set to add FSR 'Redstone' by the end of the year, AMD FSR just got its most significant update since the technology first debuted.

The new AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.12.1 drivers for Radeon GPUs are available for all RDNA gamers, as they also include some fixes for existing issues, alongside adding support for new workstation GPUs, the Radeon AI PRO R9600D and Radeon AI PRO R9700S. Here are the full Release Notes.

Nintendo shares have slid as much as 4.7% on Wednesday, hitting their lowest levels since May, wiping $14 billion in market share, as there are major concerns over the increasing price of DRAM memory chips required for the Switch 2.

Inside of the Nintendo Switch 2 is 12GB of RAM which the company needs, but they have gone up a huge 41% in the last quarter, with the NAND storage board for the Switch 2 also now 8% more expensive, and expected price increases for the add-on storage cards in 2026, too.

Pelham Smithers of Pelham Smithers Associates said: "The rise in NAND prices is starting to really impact express SD card prices. A 256GB express SD card costs $89.99 on Amazon. This is effectively a cost that Nintendo has passed on to the gamer".

HKC teases its next-gen RGB Mini-LED technology that will be presented to the world at CES 2026 in a few weeks time, using new RGB Mini-LED tech that will unleash ultra-bright, ultra color-accurate displays, overcoming the limitations of conventional Mini-LED technology.

The Chinese display maker has introduced what it's calling "the world's first" RGB Mini-LED display, but we did see Hisense launch its massive 116-inch RGB Mini-LED TV at CES 2025 at the beginning of the year, but HKC will use the new RGB Mini-LED technology inside of new gaming monitors in 2026. This is how RGB Mini-LED technology differs from regular Mini-LED tech:

If we compare this to Hisense RGB Mini-LED tech that has over 20% more color volume, even when compared to high-end QD Mini-LED displays, that shows that RGB Mini-LED tech should rival OLED and its advantages.