China is gearing up for the launch of the next OnePlus Ace series phone, but it's not just another gaming smartphone. A neat trick will allow the device to double as a gaming handheld, at least in spirit. Ahead of its April 28 launch, the company has now shared details and images of how the Ace 6 Ultra pairs with its attachable gamepad.

Teased on Weibo and spotted by Android Authority, the company describes it as the "ultimate FPS shooting experience" for the phone. The controller, called the OnePlus Marksman Gaming Controller, functions more like a lightweight shell that the device snaps into. It features four buttons on the back: two act as bumpers (L1 and R1), and the other two double as triggers (L2 and R2).

All four buttons are fully customizable and handle actions like aiming, firing, and special abilities, similar to a standard gamepad layout. Though you will have to keep your thumbs on the screen for movement and camera control. The switches inside the buttons have a 1000Hz polling rate and a response time of roughly 1.8ms, meaning little to no input lag between aiming and firing.

Epic Games is changing how players interact with characters in Fortnite. The company has released an experimental feature for the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) called "Conversations," originally teased as the Persona device. Unlike traditional dialogue trees, Conversations uses real-time NPC conversations via your own microphone.

If it sounds familiar, it should. The technology is the same as that used in the AI-driven Darth Vader tech demo that led SAG-AFTRA to file an unfair labor practice charge against Epic. This time, the company is putting it in developers' hands to build AI-powered NPCs that players can actually talk to.

The tool runs on Google's Gemini 1.5 Flash-Lite model, which acts as the brain for these characters, handling audio input, text generation, and NPC reactions. ElevenLabs then converts that text output into spoken dialogue. For creators, the setup is surprisingly straightforward, requiring as few as 20 lines of basic prompt text to define a character's personality, knowledge base, and tone of voice.

PlayStation is preparing to lock key social features behind a new requirement, with players set to verify their age later this year to keep using common communication tools that are likely to be used throughout every gaming experience.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has begun notifying users that age verification will soon be mandatory for accessing PlayStation communication features, including messages and voice chat. The move is part of a broader push to create "safe, age-appropriate experiences" while giving players and parents greater control over their online interactions. The rollout is expected to apply globally, though no exact start date has been confirmed.

Importantly, the change won't impact access to core PlayStation services. Players who choose not to verify their age will still be able to play games, earn trophies, and access the PlayStation Store. However, communication features, arguably a core part of the modern multiplayer experience and likely regularly used by anyone who participates in multiplayer games, will be restricted until the verification check is complete.

MSI has launched two new 31.5-inch 4K 240Hz QD-OLED gaming monitors featuring Samsung's 4th Gen QD-OLED panel technology, the MPG 322UR QD-OLED X24, and the MAG 321UP QD-OLED X24. The former is a more feature-rich option of the two, aimed at "enthusiast setups," while the latter is a more budget-friendly option with slightly fewer features. Pricing has not been announced, but being QD-OLED monitors, these models will likely be priced north of $700.

The 4th Gen QD-OLED panel in both MSI monitors takes advantage of a 5-layer Tandem OLED with EL Gen 3 emissive materials, resulting in a 30% increase in overall luminous efficiency compared to previous generations. Critically, these monitors do not come with the latest 5th Gen QD-OLED tech from Samsung, but the 4th Gen version comes with most of the features the 5th Gen version has, regardless. MSI has combined these panels with its DarkArmor Film that delivers 40% deeper blacks, and removes the purple tint effect QD-OLEDs are known for when exposed to harsh lighting. Another namesake feature is enhanced durability; the film provides 2.5x better durability compared to displays without it. Both monitors support Display HDR500, ClearMR 13000, and come with a three-year burn-in warranty.

The MPG322URQD-OLED X24 comes with MSI's AI Care sensor, a device aimed at delaying OLED burn-in by dimming the monitor when the user simply looks away from their screen. The sensor has two models, one where it works with the monitor only or connects to Windows 11 to unlock additional functionality, such as "Lock on Leave" support. The monitor also comes with a single DisplayPort 2.1a port, which is capable of providing the monitor's maximum 240Hz refresh rate at a 4K resolution without relying on display stream compression. When connected to GPUs that support DisplayPort 2.1a, this will provide better color quality and unlock DLDSR on NVIDIA GPUs. The 322URQD-OLED also comes with 98-watt fast charging for devices. The monitor's I/O consists of two HDMI 2.1 ports, one DisplayPort 2.1a, a headphone jack, and one Type-C port with DP alt mode and support for the aforementioned 98-watt fast charging.

Liquid Swords' debut game, Samson: A Tyndalston Story, proved to be riddled with performance issues and bugs at launch. The less-than-ideal start pushed the studio to release fixes as soon as possible, and over the past month, the developers have kept their word by pushing several updates to tackle these issues. Now, Liquid Swords has shared a new roadmap laying out its plans for the rest of April, May, June, and beyond.

The third major update, coming April 22nd, looks to be the most substantial so far. While the first two updates mainly addressed crashes and some progression-blocking bugs, the third update is expected to bring additional performance fixes, combat improvements, vehicle tuning, time-trial refinements, and more.

Update 4, launching a week after the third, will focus on greater stability, polishing gameplay, and addressing issues specifically reported by the community. Update 5 follows on May 6, though details are sparse, and Update 6 is similarly light on specifics, with no date confirmed yet.

Capcom continues its sales success streak with the debut of its new intellectual property, Pragmata, which became a platinum seller right out of the gate.

Pragmata, Capcom's latest sci-fi action game set in a new IP, has established itself as a hit with 1 million copies sold in just 2 days.

"As a completely new IP, PRAGMATA represents a new challenge for Capcom, built from the ground up with an original world and gameplay concept. We are truly delighted that so many players around the world have enjoyed the game, enabling us to reach this milestone of one million units sold. Moving forward, we will continue making every effort to deliver the appeal of PRAGMATA to an even broader audience," the game's dev team said in a press release.

We're continuing our TweakTown newsletter subscriber-exclusive giveaways, rewarding loyal readers with top-tier gear every week. For our latest giveaway, we've teamed up with ASRock to give one lucky winner a powerful foundation for a next-gen Intel PC build.

There will be one winner in total, and the prize this week is the impressive ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite motherboard.

The ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite is designed for enthusiasts looking for a high-end motherboard without unnecessary excess, focusing on strong power delivery, modern connectivity, and extensive storage support for gaming, creator, and AI-ready desktop builds. ASRock equips it with support for Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) processors, up to 256GB of DDR5 memory across four DIMM slots, and a premium ATX layout ready for high-performance components.

A breathtaking glimpse of Earth from orbit is going viral, with a NASA astronaut capturing a rare "Earthset" moment from the International Space Station.

The post shared on X by astronaut Reid Wiseman has attracted more than 12 million views. The Artemis astronaut described the experience as a "once in a lifetime" view, likening it to watching a sunset from "the most foreign seat in the cosmos." The video was captured using an iPhone with 8x zoom and shows Earth slowly disappearing from view, creating an orbital equivalent of a sunset. According to Wiseman, the footage is uncropped and shot at 8x zoom, closely matching what the human eye sees from space.

The moment wasn't just captured on a phone. Fellow astronaut Christina Koch was simultaneously photographing the event with a high-powered Nikon camera and a 400mm lens, capturing bracketed shots to achieve a higher dynamic range. Nearby, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen were also observing the rare view from different windows aboard the International Space Station.

It's official: Bandai Namco's latest Dragon Ball game is indeed set in the deep future with a new cast of striking characters that are part of the Great Saiyan Squad, a group inspired by Gohan's heroics as the Great Saiyaman in Dragon Ball Z.

Xenoverse 3 is the next mainline Dragon Ball game, and it'll take place in the Age 1000 timeline, the same period used in the Dragon Ball Online MMORPG that's set hundreds of years after the events of DBZ. The new game is still somewhat mysterious, but we do see Bulma lending her Capsule Corp. technological wizardry to assist the characters, including Bret, a young aspiring hero.

The main hero, though, appears to be a hero sporting the pixie bob hairdo, and the reveal trailer didn't show it, but we know this character is a saiyan because we've seen them turn super saiyan in the original Xenoverse 3 announcement trailer from two months ago.

There are some oddities with the latest update for Windows 11, and that includes a series of reboots that may have you worrying that something's gone wrong with the upgrade.

The good news is that it hasn't, but there is a genuine concern, or indeed two, with the April update for Windows 11, and that includes a (recurring) problem with BitLocker.

Windows Latest flagged these issues, and observed that the patch for April, which is KB5083769, requires an unusual number of reboots.

The new Elden Ring live action movie adaptation will premiere in early 2028, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware today announced.

New details about the upcoming Elden Ring film have been released, confirming that the horror-fantasy adaptation will be shot in the "Filmed for IMAX" spec, offering superior image quality, wider aspect ratios, and an overall higher-end finished product. Sony cameras are often used for this spec, and it's interesting to note that Sony also has part of a 30% stake in FromSoftware.

Production is set to begin quite soon as Bandai Namco notes this phase will start in "spring 2026," and the companies have released a full cast list for the adaptation...however, we still don't know which actors will play which roles. The project is also said to be in production "under the guidance" of FromSoft's macabre creator, Hidetaka Miyazaki.

Blizzard has finally brought down one of the most popular World of Warcraft private servers, with Turtle WoW officially shutting its doors after nearly a decade online.

Following a legal ruling in favor of Blizzard Entertainment, the team behind Turtle WoW confirmed via social media that the server will fully cease operations in May 2026, with donations disabled and community platforms being wound down. The ruling includes a permanent injunction preventing the developers from operating, promoting, or recreating the server, or anything similar. This marks a decisive victory for Blizzard in its extensive battle against private servers.

Turtle WoW had carved out a significant niche within the World of Warcraft community by offering what many players described as a "Classic+" experience. Built on the foundation of World of Warcraft Classic, the server introduced rebalanced classes, new dungeons, additional story content, and even playable races, effectively expanding on Blizzard's original design rather than simply recreating it.

Google could be preparing a major shake-up in the AI hardware space, with reports suggesting the company is working on new custom silicon designed to challenge NVIDIA's dominance.

According to a Reuters report, Google is in talks with Marvell Technology to develop two new chips to improve AI model efficiency. The first is a memory processing unit (MPU) designed to work alongside Google's existing Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), while the second is a next-generation TPU specifically optimized for AI inference workloads.

The MPU is particularly interesting because it represents a shift toward offloading memory-intensive tasks from the main accelerator, something that has become a major bottleneck in modern AI systems. By separating data movement and memory operations, Google could significantly improve performance and reduce latency.

The global memory crisis doesn't appear to be easing anytime soon, with new reports suggesting DRAM shortages could stretch well into the end of the decade, which coincides with what I heard from memory manufacturer insiders at CES 2026.

According to Nikkei Asia, DRAM manufacturers are only expected to meet around 60% of global demand by the end of 2027, despite the numerous aggressive expansion plans for DRAM production. The big three, including Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, are investing heavily in new fabrication facilities, but most of this additional capacity won't come online until 2027 or later, leaving a multi-year supply gap.

At the heart of the issue is the explosive growth of AI infrastructure. High-bandwidth memory (HBM), critical to AI accelerators and data centers, has become a top priority for manufacturers. As a result, traditional DRAM used in consumer devices, such as PCs, smartphones, and gaming handhelds, is being deprioritized because it isn't yielding as high a profit. Production of legacy standards like DDR3, DDR4, and LPDDR4 is already being scaled back, further tightening memory supply.

Intel's next move in the handheld gaming space is starting to take shape, with new leaks pointing to Arc-powered chips designed to rival AMD's Ryzen Z-series.

According to a report from VideoCardz, Intel is preparing to unveil its Arc G3 and Arc G3 Extreme chips for gaming handhelds at Computex 2026, both based on the Panther Lake architecture. These chips are expected to feature a 25W base TDP with configurable power profiles, positioning them as direct competitors to AMD's current handheld-focused silicon.

The Arc G3 lineup is tipped to include two variants, with the primary difference being integrated graphics. The standard Arc G3 is rumored to feature Arc B360 graphics with 10 Xe cores, while the Arc G3 Extreme bumps things up with Arc B380 graphics and 12 Xe cores. Earlier naming confusion around "Core G3" appears to have been clarified, with insiders suggesting Intel is aligning these chips under its Arc branding to better reflect their gaming focus.

THQ Nordic is quietly stacking its lineup for Nintendo's next-gen platform, with new information revealing multiple unannounced projects already in development, and all of them are coming to the Nintendo Switch 2.

A recent update to THQ Nordic's official website has confirmed that the publisher is currently working on seven unannounced titles for the Nintendo Switch 2, as well as six additional unannounced projects for the original Nintendo Switch.

The discovery offers one of the clearest indications yet that third-party support for Nintendo's upcoming hardware is already well underway behind the scenes, which is likely relieving for some Nintendo Switch 2 owners who have been complaining about the lack of new Switch 2 titles.

Sony's rumored PlayStation 6 ray tracing performance uplift is under the microscope, with renowned leaker KeplerL2 sharing some performance insights.

A post circulating on NeoGAF breaks down claims that the PS6, powered by AMD's next-gen architecture, is slated to deliver up to 10x ray tracing (RT) performance over the PlayStation 5.

Using performance data from Assassin's Creed Shadows, KeplerL2 shared an image that isolates RT workloads and compares them to overall frame time, arguing that RT only accounts for a fraction of the total rendering cost, which showcases that ray tracing performance is only one part of the performance equation, and gains in RT performance don't equal proportionate in-game frame rate gains.

MINISFORUM's N5 Max is not your everyday NAS; it's a beast. It's powered by the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, aka 'Strix Halo,' which is paired with 64GB of LPDDR5X memory clocked at 8533 MT/s. With the integrated Radeon 8060S graphics, the AI performance is on the order of 126 TOPS, which is why the company is positioning this as a fully integrated AI NAS for local workloads.

The MINISFORUM N5 Max also ships with OpenClaw pre-installed on its 128GB system drive, the free and open-source AI agent and assistant that is becoming increasingly popular in the productivity space. And as modern large-language models and AI make dealing with large amounts of data easier, the NAS side of the MINISFORUM N5 Max supports up to 200 TB of total storage across 5 HDD and 5 SSD slots.

This is a device we've covered in the past; however, we've got news (via Tom's Hardware) that the MINISFORUM N5 Max will be available to order later this week, on April 23, with a sticker price of $2,899.

When it comes to emulating classic console hardware on gaming devices, the consensus is that emulation itself, and playing copies of games you own that might be decades old on capable hardware, is a good thing for video game preservation. Essentially, if your original PlayStation and N64 consoles no longer work, there should be an alternative to hunting for decades-old replacement hardware that is no longer manufactured on the second-hand market.

This is where the Polymega Remix comes in, a new $199 USB device from Playmaji that connects to a laptop, PC, or gaming handheld like the ROG Ally. The device includes a built-in CD/DVD optical drive that also serves as a cartridge reader, and when paired with the Polymega App, you can back up or install your retro game collection on a modern device. And thanks to emulation, you're only a few clicks or button presses away from playing a few retro classics.

Out of the box, the Polymega Remix supports a wide range of CD-based consoles, including the original PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Neo Geo CD, TurboGrafx-CD, and the Sega CD add-on for the Sega Genesis. Cartridge support is also available, but because classic console hardware uses different sizes and interfaces, it is offered via modules sold separately.

Even before the current memory crisis led to price increases across a wide range of PC and gaming hardware, the pricing history of the current generation of video game consoles has been unprecedented. As we're closing in on six years of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles going on sale, they're both now notably more expensive to buy than they were on day one in most markets. Compared with previous console generations, in which prices steadily declined over time, this unprecedented situation has led to something we never thought we'd see.

Australian retailer EB Games, which is basically the GameStop of Down Under, is offering its members a trade-in deal that gives them $749.95 in cash or store credit for their 2020 launch-day PlayStation 5 disc-based consoles. To highlight the noteworthiness of this trade-in deal (via Press Start), $749.95 AUD was the launch day price for the PlayStation 5 in Australia.

Which means EB Games members can essentially get a full refund for a six-year-old console they've used week in, week out to play games. A potential reason EB Games is offering this trade-in deal is that the current PS5 disc-based slim refresh console is priced at $999.95 AUD in the country. This 33% increase likely indicates that the retailer plans to refurbish these consoles and sell them at a discounted price relative to the current $1,000 price.