Gaming

Borderlands 4, the upcoming action-adventure RPG developed by Gearbox Studios, has received its official story trailer

The new story trailer released on the Gearbox YouTube channel gives players a closer look at the big bad for Borderlands 4, the Timekeeper. The trailer shows how the Timekeeper has implanted the player with a Bolt, a spine-grafted cybernetic device that he uses to "dominate the populace" of Kairos, trapping them to the planet. Additionally, the Timekeeper and his Order reign dominant on the planet of Kairos, ruling from a fortress city called Dominion City.

Players will start with very humble beginnings and begin their journey across Kairos to kindle the flames of a revolution against the Timekeeper and his Commanders. The inhabitants of Kairos have already begun rising up against the overlord, and you, the player, are set to be the final spark to ignite a full-scale revolt.

Xbox was rumored to be working with open-source Xbox 360 emulator Xenia to bring original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles to the next-generation Xbox console. But now those rumors have been put to rest.

The rumors came from YouTuber and leaker Extas1s, who claimed Microsoft entered into a partnership with Xenia to begin work on bringing original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles to PC and handheld devices such as the Xbox ROG Ally. More specifically, the leaker stated these games would be coming to PC and handheld devices via a new advanced emulator that would increase in-game performance and graphical fidelity.

Shortly after the media picked up the rumors from Extas1s, multiple industry experts, including Xenia themselves chimed in, with Jez Corden, the executive editor for Windows Central, and known Microsoft/Xbox insider with a solid reputation writing, "Xbox is gunning to bring Xbox games to more devices, this particular scenario isn't a thing at the moment."

AMD's current RDNA 4 generation, led by the flagship Radeon RX 9070 XT, is a turning point for the company as it introduces powerful new AI hardware into the RDNA architecture and overhauls how it renders real-time ray-traced visuals. Our review shows that the arrival of FSR 4's new AI-powered upscaling and powerful RT-capable hardware is a game-changer compared to previous-gen RDNA 3 graphics.

With AMD shifting to a new unified data center and computer graphics architecture called UDNA for its next-generation GPUs, the latest rumors are pointing to UDNA GPUs offering a 20% increase in raw rasterized performance compared to RDNA 4 and a 2X increase in ray-tracing and AI performance. This technology is rumored to power the next-generation PlayStation 6 and Xbox consoles and the next desktop Radeon generation for PC gaming.

Even though a 20% improvement to raw performance might sound incremental and not a game-changer, the RT and AI enhancements will power a level of real-time graphics on the PlayStation 6 and next-gen Xbox consoles that we haven't seen before.

3dSen has been in development for 10 years and is a passion project for Geod Studio. More than an emulator that lets you play classic games from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console from the 1980s, it transforms them (it has a growing list of supported games) with 3D voxel visuals.

The effect of converting old 2D 8-bit sprite visuals into 3D is like playing classic video games from the '80s on an animated 3D diorama or hologram. 3dSen was developed with VR and PC displays in mind, and the process involved painstakingly building support for over 100 NES games, with features like quick save, rewind, custom camera rotation and zoom, and more.

3dSen just hit a significant milestone. It's now available in Version 1.0 form on Steam with a special 40% off launch discount. The list of supported games includes classics like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Super Mario Bros. 3, Mega Man 2, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Excitebike, and more.

NVIDIA's RTX Remix is a powerful and easy-to-use set of AI-enhanced modding tools that allows the modding community to convert older titles into a modern engine, opening the door to a new level of remastered visuals. And yes, this includes ray-tracing, path tracing, and support for technologies like DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation.

RTX Remix is the technology behind the impressive Half-Life 2 RTX mod that is remaking Valve's iconic shooter with new models, animation, and path-traced lighting. Over on ModDB, the vibrant RTX Remix community is working on remasters and ray-traced updates for classic games like Fallout: New Vegas, Max Payne, Mafia, Grand Theft Auto III, Deus Ex, and many more.

With that, NVIDIA and ModDB are currently hosting a $50K RTX Remix Mod Contest, which will award $50,000 in cash prizes to the most impressive RTX Remix mods for classic PC games.

Bethesda teamed up with developer Virtuos to release The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered in April. In a few short months, it has become one of the biggest-selling games of the year on PC and console platforms. With new Unreal Engine 5-powered visuals, the Oblivion Remastered looks like a completely different game compared to the 2006 original. However, its core gameplay and mechanics remain mostly unchanged.

This is because the cutting-edge 2025 visuals sit on top of the original game's engine, which means you've still got the lovable and dated Bethesda quirks that make Oblivion feel unlike anything else. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered was a surprise launch. For fans wanting a full-blown remake, Skyblivion is an ambitious mod project rebuilding and redesigning the game from scratch in the Skyrim engine.

Skyblivion has been in development for over a decade, and its release is on track for 2025. Now, you might think that with the recent debut of Oblivion Remastered, there's a conflict of interest. That's not the case; key Skyblivion developer @Rebelzize was recently invited to Bethesda Game Studios' main offices to sit down and chat with the team; a short visit that turned into spending the day talking about Elder Scrolls and modding with Todd Howard and the team.

Unreal Engine 5 powers some of the biggest games being released today, and its tech is set to power some of the biggest titles on the horizon, such as Mafia: The Old Country, Borderlands 4, The Outer Worlds 2, and The Witcher 4. As impressive as Unreal Engine 5 games look, with advanced features that can render stunningly detailed open worlds with ray-tracing, Epic Games' latest engine technology isn't perfect.

Stable performance has been an issue with several UE 5-powered games on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. There have been widespread reports of stuttering and other problems with major Unreal Engine 5-powered games, alongside the need for powerful GPU hardware on PC just to meet the recommended specs.

There's room for improvement; this is where Unreal Engine 5.6 enters the picture. This recent major update to the engine is all about performance. According to Epic Games, Unreal Engine 5.6's updates allow consoles like the PS5 and high-end PCs to achieve a stable 60 FPS with hardware ray-tracing. It's a bold claim that looks like it might be true.

With the hype surrounding the upcoming release of Borderlands 4 on September 12, NVIDIA has announced that every game in the mainline series is now playable over the cloud with GeForce NOW. This includes the original Borderlands Game of the Year Enhanced, Borderlands 2, Borderlands 3, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

NVIDIA also confirms that the highly anticipated Borderlands 4, which is currently garnering positive press from those who have played it early, will also be available to play via GeForce NOW on day one. GeForce NOW is widely considered one of the best cloud gaming services, leveraging powerful GeForce RTX hardware and technologies like DLSS and G-Sync to deliver a smooth experience on various devices.

Right now, gamers can save 40% on a six-month Performance membership for $29.99. This membership offers sessions of up to six hours, ad-free play, and 1440p resolution. Gamers can instantly jump into games they own or have access to on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and PC Xbox, with a library of over 2,000 games available to stream.

Spoiler warning: The first hour of Death Stranding 2 has been leaked online...but you might not understand what's going on in the footage.

A gamer has uploaded the first 56 minutes of Hideo Kojima's new game Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, giving important story and character updates along the way. We also get a nice bit of uninterrupted and raw gameplay footage that highlights Death Stranding 2's emphasis on gunplay and stealth this time around, hearkening back to Kojima's halcyon days of Metal Gear.

There's just one big catch: The entire video is in Spanish, so there's a chance viewers won't be able to read any of the subtitles. The footage is a predictable mix of story developments and flashback sequences where applicable as well as an interactive walkthrough that runs players through the basics of the game--sneaking, balancing cargo/weight management, shooting, and using the dynamic high-tech UI to track, plot, and travel across the world.

Star Wars fans are flocking to a 7-year-old game to have fun with friends as Disney releases a steady flow of TV shows and multimedia.

Something big is happening in EA's Battlefront II: Gamers are returning to the galactic third-person shooter by the thousands. Starting in April, Battlefront II's game population has leapt meteorically. In April, according to Steam Charts, the game had 760 average daily players for the entire month, but presently Battlefront II has 9,457 average players for the month of June. The jump from April to present represents an astronomical +1143% increase in players.

It also looks like Battlefront II is so popular on Steam that it set a new concurrent peak players record in June 2025, which is surprising to say the least because the game turns 8 years old this November. Data from SteamDB indicates that Battlefront II had over 28,000 players in the last 24 hours.

Microsoft's gaming aspirations have shifted from making Xbox the best place to play to making Windows #1 for gaming, indicating a homogenization of the brand. But the tenets of this new universal model haven't changed--take a multi-platform approach to virtuously build an expansive software base while reinvesting in your core infrastructure.

Xbox isn't a console anymore, and hasn't been for some time now. It's now more apt to say Xbox is an experience. Microsoft is bringing this Xbox console experience to Windows 11 for the first time with the Xbox Ally X, a handheld PC that blends a console user experience with a PC operating system and beefier hardware specs.

It's not just the user experience, though. Xbox console games have also crossed over to other platforms now that Microsoft has broken exclusivity of first-party games. This fragmentation of the ecosystem breaks down the isolated "walled garden" that companies used to build up their platforms in previous generations. This approach isn't valid any more because Microsoft now has some of the broadest franchises on the planet with Call of Duty, Elder Scrolls, and Minecraft.

In a new video posted on X, we've got a look at the single-player campaign from the new Battlefield, which you can check out below:

In a new post to X by dataminer @Temporyal we've got some early footage from the campaign of the new Battlefield, which is not a gameplay clip from a playtest or the Battlefield Labs test from previous leaks. The clip doesn't include watermarks that are there if someone was playing the closed playtest of Battlefield.

The footage looks very early, but teases a little of what to expect from the single-player campaign of the new Battlefield game. We can expect a big campaign for the game, with this video just being a simple tease of things to come.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy gives updates on the current revenue mix for the streaming business, says most earnings come directly from viewers.

Like PBS, Amazon's streaming platform Twitch is very much a viewer-supported operation. Twitch lives and breathes on community, whether its social interactions or the collective of millions of viewers paying for subscriptions, donating, or by watching advertisements. That's the real message that Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wants to send--it's not just a game stream, but a "community-centric live stream," Clancy says.

In recent interviews, Clancy outlines how viewers are directly responsible for the success of their favorite streamers and the Twitch platform itself.

Splitgate 2 developer 1047 Games is hit with layoffs shortly after releasing their F2P shooter, and studio co-founders have suspended their pay amid the reductions.

It looks like Splitgate 2 may not be having a successful launch, at least on PC. SteamDB numbers show Splitgate 2 had a peak of 25.7K on Steam, with about 10K players in the last 24 hours. Conversely, megaton shooters like Counter-Strike 2, PUBG, and Apex Legends accrue over 100,000 players each in a 24-hour period, and some reach over a million players each day.

Coupling this limited data with recent controversy mires things even further for Splitgate 2. The studio was recently criticized for launching the game with expensive microtransactions like an $80 skin bundle, and CEO Ian Proulx triggered backlash for a particular hat he wore this month at the Summer Games Fest.

Nexus Mods is now under new ownership, and the modding community is hoping the old adage "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" rings true here.

Premiere PC mod hosting site Nexus Mods recently changed hands and is currently being run by a new team, with site owner Robin Scott aka Dark0ne citing burnout as the reason for him stepping down. The new owners of the site recently introduced themselves to the community in an announcement post.

Nexus Mods is now owned by Chosen, a somewhat-mysterious figure, who has put together a triumvirate of leaders to run the site: Foledinho, Rapsak, and Taagen, as they're known by their website usernames. The team's reveal post aims to assuage community worries around monetization, ads, and premium subscriptions--will Nexus Mods be bogged down with money-making strategies?

Rumors stated that Xbox and Meta were planning to unveil an Xbox-branded Meta Quest virtual reality headset sometime next week, and now the first leaked image of the device has appeared online.

In an X thread that has since been removed, an image of the Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition packaging has been posted, and while the thread no longer exists, it was far too late to stop the spread of the image, as it has been reuploaded now countless times across various social media platforms. The packaging shows a collaborative effort on the product, with it stating "Meta 3S Xbox Edition" on the front, along with "Meta Quest" and "Xbox" in the bottom right-hand corner.

Additionally, the VR headset, while being black, features green accents around the face panel edges, matching the iconic Xbox green hue. Following this leak, more details about the VR headset leaked online, with reports stating it will cost $399, come with three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and feature 128GB of storage. Furthermore, these recent leaks said that the new product will be announced on June 24.

Black Myth: Wukong, an extremely popular Souls-like game developed by Game Science, has finally had its Xbox release date confirmed, with a new trailer published to the Xbox YouTube channel.

Game Science released Black Myth: Wukong on August 20, 2024, and its reception was phenomenal. It gained massive traction on both PC and PlayStation, with players stepping into the shoes of the Destined One, a monkey protagonist based on Sun Wukong from the iconic story Journey to the West. Black Myth: Wukong was praised for its Souls-like combat and mostly linear progression, acquiring several accolades, including Game of the Year awards. Within the first month, it sold 20 million copies, making it one of the fastest-selling games of all time.

That was just on PC and PS5. Black Myth: Wukong is finally coming to Xbox exactly a year later, with the latest trailer confirming a release date for August 20, 2025. Black Myth: Wukong will get its first-ever discount soon, which will include Xbox as well. With a 20% discount from June 18 to July 3 on the PlayStation Store, from June 18 to July 11 on the Microsoft Store, and from June 20 to July 11 on PC (Steam and Epic Games Store). Xbox fans who want to take advantage of the 20% discount will need to pre-order between June 18 and July 11.

Sega has accidentally made public sales data for 11 of its major games in a recent presentation document for its annual management meeting.

The company tried to block out years of sales data for a selection of its titles, but, regretfully for the company, someone decided to just place a gray overlay on top of the sales figures and not erase what was underneath. The information was easily accessible and revealed game sale data of the last six fiscal years, which includes titles such as Sonic, Persona 5 Royal, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and the Like a Dragon franchise.

What was learned from this accidentally leaked sales data is that Persona 5 remains one of Sega's biggest franchises, it has under its umbrella, with Persona 5 Royal moving as many as 7.25 million units over the last six years. Other staple titles for Sega are Sonic Frontiers at 4.57 million units and Sonic Superstars at 2.43 million units. Notably, the sales data below stretches from Fiscal Year 2020 to Fiscal Year 2025 and features 11 of the company's titles.

Action Soulslike Lies of P has achieved noteworthy success with 3 million copies sold, publisher NeoWiz has announced.

Released in 2023, hack-and-slash action game Lies of P was instantly recognized among gamers for its fast-paced gameplay and imaginative, tough boss fights. It quickly became a breakout hit for Korean games publisher NeoWiz, and in less than two years on the market, Lies of P has now sold 3 million units across all platforms.

The news comes shortly after a new expansion, Overture, was released for Lies of P earlier this month. The Overture DLC is currently reviewing favorably among fans.

Chinese gamers make up more than half of Stellar Blade's breakout PC sales, analyst firm Alinea Analytics estimate.

Stellar Blade is smashing success on PC, with the game selling over 1 million copies on Steam within 3 days. The game's breakout performance on PC helped push total cross-platform sales to 3 million. This means that about one-third of the franchise's sales were made in this short PC launch window.

According to new data from Alinea Analytics, most of these new PC game sales were made in China, underlining the region's healthy appetite for action-based hack-and-slash games.