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Starfield has been in development for a long time, Todd Howard says, and Bethesda has kept the game mostly under wraps. New supposed leaked screenshots may give us a first glimpse at this mysterious space adventure.

Starfield is Bethesda's first new IP in 25 years and is one of the "big and crazy projects" the studio teased in 2016. Details are sparse. We know it's a singleplayer-only "space epic" and that Bethesda consulted with SpaceX's Elon Musk while making it. It's also had a long dev cycle.

If these new leaked screenshots are accurate, we have our first glimpse at an older 2018 build of Starfield. There's not a whole lot to see; just a third-person view, a basic stamina/HP bar, and an astronaut on the side of a ship--likely our own personal interstellar cruiser. The HUD is pretty interesting though, and shows oxygen levels, distance/elevation, what appears to be a radar, and phases of the moon. It could be fake but the insignia on the astro's shoulder matches the curious Constellation logo on the bottom left of the Starfield teaser trailer.

The entire GPU market is really out of whack right now, it's kinda unbelievable -- between a mountain of work to get the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 reviews up -- while keeping up with all of the rumors from both sides is exhausting for everyone.

Well, now we have yet another Big Navi rumor that seems to paint the card in a not-so-great light. It seems that some pieces of the Big Navi puzzle are coming together with specs on the Navi 21-based Big Navi aka Sienna Cichlid.

Navi 21 will reportedly pack up to 80 compute units (CUs) where we should see 5120 stream processors, with a Navi 21A variant at 2050MHz while there will also reportedly be a Navi 21B at up to 2200MHz. The higher-end Navi 21B at 2200MHz would result in shader performance of around 22.5 TFLOPs -- which means it'll lose in a big way against NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3080 which has 29.8 TLFOPs.

NVIDIA launched the GeForce RTX 3080 just over a week ago now, and the GeForce RTX 3090 a few days ago -- while the GeForce RTX 3070 launches next month, we're now hearing the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is right behind it.

According to our friends at VideoCardz, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is launching soon with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. It will be using the Ampere GA104-200 GPU with 4864 CUDA cores (compared to 5888 CUDA cores on the RTX 3070).

The 8GB of GDDR6 on the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is reportedly clocked at 14Gbps on a 256-bit memory bus, with 448GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The reference board for the RTX 3060 Ti is at 180W or so, while custom boards are rated at up to 200W.

GAINWARD has just officially launched its new GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3080 Phantom series graphics cards, with an interesting style that actually looks great.

It seems GAINWARD will have 4 different models of its new RTX 30 series Phantom cards, with the GS (Golden Sample) being the best with the highest GPU boost clocks and highest TDP. They will use the same cooler as the other cards, but feature different PCBs.

All of the new cards will use 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors, with the highest-end GAINWARD GeForce RTX 3090 "GS" graphics card rocking a 420W TDP with boost GPU clocks of up to 1845MHz.

I don't know how I'd feel if I opened up the box to my newly-ordered, highly-anticipated EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card from Newegg to see it in the box, out of its retail packaging.

But this is what some gamers are experiencing, with Reddit posts showing that some people have been getting their new EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card from Newegg and it was in a box, but out of its retail packaging.

Not just that, but some of the cards were even physically damaged.

EVGA's upcoming GeForce RTX 3090 KINGPIN graphics card has been used Vince "KINGPIN" Lucido himself to utterly destroy the 3DMark Park Royal world record.

The new EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 KINGPIN graphics card will be using what looks to be the same (but I'm sure upgraded) cooler -- but the legendary OC specialist himself Vince 'Kingpin' Lucido used LN2 cooling to push the RTX 3090 KINGPIN graphics card to a huge 2.58GHz.

The previous record for 3DMark Port Royal and its Hall of Fame was from 'vmanuelgm' with a score of 14674, but KINGPIN blew that out of the water with 16673 and the LN2 cooled RTX 3090 KINGPIN graphics card. He used an Intel Core i9-10900KF processor alongside the RTX 3090 KINGPIN on LN2 cooling.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will have all the staples of a marquee AAA PC game: uncapped frame rates, VRR for high-refresh displays, FOV sliders, and ray-tracing support for RTX video cards.

One big change for Cold War is how the engine now runs on DirectX 12, which enables all kinds of new optimizations via the DX12 Ultimate APIs like Sampler Feedback Streaming (devs have more control how data is streamed to GPU), and accelerated DirectStorage APIs that power NVIDIA's new ultra-fast RTX IO data technology.

"The biggest change is that the Black Ops engine now runs on DirectX 12. This has led to a huge improvement in terms of performance and latency reduction. For players that prioritize immersive gameplay, we have a great partnership with NVIDIA to bring ray traced effects, performance-accelerating deep learning super-sampling, and Reflex latency optimization technology," Beenox UI/UX director Marc-Alexandre Milot said in a recent video.

Resident Evil VIIIage might not be next-gen exclusive after all, and Capcom says it's working on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One console versions too.

Resident Evil VIII is being developed from the ground up for next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X hardware and will flex the new capabilities of the new-and-improved RE Engine. There's just one potential issue with this plan: It restricts game sales to platforms that haven't really matured and skips the PS4's 110 million install base, and the Xbox One's 50 million+ base.

Apparently Capcom wants to remedy this and now says RE8 could drop on current-gen systems too.

The latest version of Microsoft's Insider Preview for HoloLens enables a feature that makes sharing HoloLens 2 much simpler. The headset can now calibrate your eye position automatically and in the background.

HoloLens 2 produces impressive holographic images that allow you to compute in 3D space, but the magic only works when you calibrate the headset for your specific eye position. The existing method for calibration requires going through a manual process that takes many steps and a few minutes. It's not exactly easy to share the headset with other users.

The latest Insider Preview for HoloLens adds a new feature for HoloLens 2 called Auto Eye Position (AEP), which eliminates the friction that comes with sharing a HoloLens 2 headset. With AEP enabled, users no longer go through a manual calibration process. When you put the headset on and begin to use it, AEP works in the background to automatically align the holographic output with your eye position.

Pimax VR this week released more details about its long-awaited Sword motion controllers, including pictures of the most recent pre-production sample. The company said that it is entering the "final development stage," and the team is working 7-days a week to complete the project.

The wait for the Pimax Sword controllers has been long. Pimax promised these controllers to Kickstarter backers three years ago, but the company put their development on the back burner while it focused on building its ultrawide VR headset lineup.

In the latest update about the Sword controllers, Pimax sheds light on a few of the controllers' technical details. Each Pimax Sword controller will include a status indicator light strip along the front edge. The Sword controllers have a sensor halo that resembles a fencing sword's hilt, hence the name for the controllers. Pimax said the controllers offer full 360-degree tracking coverage with no dead coverage angles thanks to 26 embedded tracking sensors.

The upcoming three-game Mass Effect remastered trilogy has been delayed to 2021, sources tell VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb.

EA and BioWare plan to re-release the entire original Mass Effect trilogy as a remastered collection for current-gen systems, complete with all DLC (a rare move). While EA has yet to reveal the trilogy, sources have been rumbling about it throughout 2020, hinting at a release sometime this year to help commemorate BioWare's 25th anniversary. Apparently that won't happen.

Sources now say both the reveal and release of the Mass Effect trilogy has been delayed to 2021. Earlier reports said BioWare was to originally announce the three-game collection on November 7 during N7 Day.

UPDATE: Microsoft has finally announced the Funimation promo:

Sony owns Funimation, but apparently that hasn't stopped a big digital deal with its main competitor.

Xbox Game Pass is so powerful that even Sony wants to ride the wave. According to reports from Comic Book, Sony-owned Funimation is offering two months of its Premium Plus all-you-can-play anime streaming service free for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. The promotion is to be part of the Xbox Game Pass Perks rewards system, which has included promos like free Spotify premium subscriptions in the past.

Microsoft gets around Apple's clandestine anti-game streaming policies by enabling remote play in the Xbox iOS app.

Back in 2019, Microsoft said Xbox owners would be able to turn their consoles into game streaming servers. The new Xbox mobile app made that promise a reality. Gamers can now use their Xbox One consoles to stream games to their phones across wireless networks. This includes iPhones, a platform that's been notoriously cut off from Microsoft's ambitious Project xCloud streaming service.

Sony has implemented remote play for years now and this is technically nothing new for the industry or for console gaming. It's still a clever little trick that allows Xbox gamers access to titles on-the-go, but you still have to own an Xbox console (and games) in order to play Xbox games on your iOS devices.

EA reveals the full scope of its new Star Wars Squadrons starfighter, confirming it's a live service game with rotating seasonal rankings, level ups, and in-game unlockables with multiple currencies.

Star Wars Squadrons is one of EA's most interesting new games. It's a live game that's not monetized. Let that sink in for a minute: EA, a company who makes billions every year from live service monetization, is making a live service game with online elements without any microtransactions. This is somewhat transformative for EA and could be a stepping stone for future games.

So what makes Squadrons unique? It has online PVP and PVE play, it's sold for $40, and has a massive webwork of unlockables, customizations, and a rotating seasonal ranking system. It even has daily challenges. Again, it's not monetized. The game is specifically designed to be massively replayable and has tons of unlocks, cosmetic customizations, and a myriad of earned currencies and XP. These things typically are made to promote engagement monetization; engagement grows as more people play, which spins the flywheel of mTX earnings.

Microsoft's Phil Spencer confirms Xbox hardware isn't going anywhere, and that Xbox Series X|S won't be the last lineup of Xbox consoles.

Xbox has been a service-first business for some time. Microsoft has spent billions to establish Game Pass and its new cloud streaming Project xCloud as a multi-platform, versatile service that links all devices together. Xbox is about delivering content and services to devices you already own, but that doesn't mean Xbox hardware will be phased out. Quite the contrary.

In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, VP of gaming Phil Spencer confirms that streaming and service innovation will continue to shape consoles. Hardware is an important access point to the ecosystem and will remain a part of the business for some time.

A patent uncovered by Dutch tech publication LetsGoDigital reveals that Sony is experimenting with inside out tracking and new controllers for a future iteration of its PlayStation VR HMD.

Sony is gearing up for the launch of the next PlayStation console, which is due to launch in less than two months. The new console is supposed to support the company's PSVR headset, but there have long been rumors of a new PlayStation headset coming down the pipeline. The newly published patent gives even more fuel to that rumor.

Sony filed for patent WO2020189691 - Input Device with the World Intelectual Property Organization (WIPO) in April 2020 and WIPO published it on September 24. The translated patent document describes a method of tracking controllers with "a plurality of light-emitting portions" with a headset-mounted camera.

A mysterious company called Photon Lens recently started dropping hints about its upcoming augmented reality smart glasses for the fitness industry. We've only a few details about the device, but what we know so far has us very intrigued.

Photon Lens appears to be a very new company or, at the very least, a secretive company. Photon Lens doesn't seem to have a website, and the company's LinkedIn and Twitter pages are just a few weeks old. During that time, Photon Lens has dropped several hints about the specifications of the device.

According to Photon Lens' social media posts, the new smart glasses will be the first "true augmented reality" device designed for the fitness industry. The headset offers a 50-degree field of view, which is comparable to HoloLens and Magic Leap. And the image should be crisp, thanks to 2 million pixels of resolution per eye. All in a package that weighs just 85 grams.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card is finally here (our review on the RTX 3090 FE, and MSI's custom RTX 3090 GAMING X TRIO) but Maingear's new SFF gaming PC is something you need to check out.

Maingear's new Turbo line of gaming PCs is a small form factor family (SFF) of rigs that have the company's hand-crafted APEX liquid cooling. This means it can keep the CPU (both Intel and AMD's latest chips) as well as NVIDIA's new 8K monster GeForce RTX 3090 nice and chilled under water cooling.

CEO of Maingear, Wallas Santos, explained: "Paired with our hand-crafted revolutionary APEX liquid cooling and custom desktop designs, our new line of gaming PCs deliver the most performance that we have ever offered. When equipped with the incredible RTX 3090, our Turbo desktop in particular truly transforms into an unbeatable small-form-factor beast unlike any other pre-built on the market".

HP is gearing up to release the Reverb G2 VR headset finally. Today, the company announced that it would begin shipping Reverb G2 VR headsets to pre-order customers this coming November. Demand is high so new orders will see a delay.

HP's highly-anticipated Reverb G2 VR headset is just around the corner. The new device takes the dual 2160x2160 per eye displays from the original Reverb headset and combines them with technology derived from Valve's Index VR headset. Valve contributed the lenses, head strap, and the speakers that come equipped on the Reverb 2.

Along with the shipping windows announcement, HP revealed that the final version of the Reverb 2 would come with a few changes from the pre-production versions that some influencers have reviewed. HP said the retail Reverb G2 would include updated lenses that "reduce the Fresnel ring reflections and improve clarity." In other words, you should see fewer "godrays" through the new lenses compared to other headsets.

Microsoft clarifies how external hard drives will work on its next-gen Xbox Series X and Series S consoles.

The next-gen Xbox duo will support existing USB 3.1 external hard drives, but there's some caveats. Today Microsoft confirmed a bunch of new details on what to expect from cross-gen storage and next-gen performance, and how the new $219 expandable SSD memory card fits into the mix:

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