Gaming

The Nintendo Switch 2 can add another highly anticipated title to its growing library of third-party games, as Nintendo and IO Interactive have confirmed the release of 007 First Light in a new announcement trailer.

007 First Light has received a new announcement trailer posted to the Nintendo of America YouTube channel, where we see a young James Bond get himself into some trouble that I'm sure he is going to enjoy working his way out of in a not-so-graceful way.

For those who don't know, 007 First Light is being developed by Danish studio IO Interactive, famous for the Hitman franchise, and First Light will be a new origin story on 007 that focuses on narratively driven action that is not linked to any previous Bond media, meaning this a fresh new take on 007.

Nintendo has just wrapped up its Donkey Kong Bananza-dedicated Direct, where it gave a deep dive on the upcoming title, revealing aspects such as the villains of the story, Donkey Kong's abilities, and his companion that will be tagging along with him throughout the duration of the game.

The Donkey Kong Bananza Direct was mostly gameplay-focused. Nintendo revealed that players will journey to the center of the Earth with Donkey Kong and his companion, Pauline. In the upcoming title, Pauline is a child who was hidden inside a rock until DK discovered her. As players progress through the game, they will get deeper and deeper into the world, with each level being completely different from the last.

Donkey Kong Bananza takes aspects from other Nintendo titles, such as Breath of the Wild, with DK being able to climb on almost any terrain, participate in unique challenges, and take on bosses for rewards and upgrades. One of the biggest surprises of the Direct was Nintendo revealing that Donkey Kong is able to transform into different animals, such as a zebra and an ostrich. Each of these forms gives DK special perks and abilities, such as the ability to fly or run on water.

Microsoft is slated to fire thousands more employees after it just let go 6,000 people in May in an attempt to better position the company for success.

The news comes from a Bloomberg report that states Microsoft is now targeting its sales department for the culling of employees and will be looking to take on third-party firms, or outsourcing its sales requirements, following the departure of the new former staff.

The layoffs are expected to be announced in the coming weeks as the fiscal year ends, and the new layoffs come on the heels of Microsoft firing thousands of employees in May, with some higher-up positions at the company not being safe from the redundancies.

Valve has just kinda silently pushed out a pretty big upgrade to its in-game performance tools inside of the new June 17 Beta client update with Steam now offering a full Performance Monitor that tracks your FPS alongside CPU and GPU utilization, clock speeds, temps, and RAM usage.

The updated Steam FPS overlay now offers real-time graphs for each metric, or users can choice a pared-down display that only shows in-game FPS. The new overlay also flags when there are Frame Generation features like DLSS and FSR are active, separating true rendered frames from those that are created using AI upscaling technology.

For competitive and heavily detail-focused users, they'll enjoy knowing what their true FPS counts are, versus upscaled FPS, so they can tweak their settings based on actual performance. If the newly-updated Steam FPS overlay shows full GPU memory, then reducing your texture quality is something you'd normally do first... while if your CPU usage is maxed-out, you can make the appropriate tweaks to your in-game visual settings.

Beat Saber is officially dropping support for Sony's PSVR2 this month.

Despite major technological innovations, the PlayStation VR2 didn't make a substantial splash in gaming the way that Sony had hoped it would. Maybe it was the steep $549 price tag on top of having to already own a PS5, or maybe it was the games selection. Whatever the case, it looks like the PSVR2 is winding down both on a platform and partner level.

Today, Beat Games announced that Beat Saber on PSVR2 and the original PSVR will no longer receive new updates and content, and that multiplayer functionality is also being removed on January 21, 2026.

A new feature in Donkey Kong Bananza has fans speculating about a modern day Mario Paint game on Switch 2.

The Nintendo Switch 2 feels ripe for a Mario Paint sequel. The new upgraded console supports USB mice and its JoyCon controllers can be tilted sideways and converted into a makeshift mouse cursor, with built-in sensors simulating those of a computer mouse. It even supports the original Mario Paint mouse that released on the Super Nintendo in 1992.

Nintendo has been tight-lipped on any possibility of a Mario Paint on Switch 2, but we've now had a glimpse of what that might look like, at least on a conceptual level. The new Donkey Kong Bananza game on Switch 2 features an interesting new creation toolset called DK Artist mode, where gamers can paint, mold, and customize digital 3D creations in a kind of studio environment.

If you've taken the plunge with Nintendo Switch 2, you may have experienced the handheld disabling its rumble effect - and some gamers are complaining that this is happening to them surprisingly often.

IGN picked up on this, as well as plenty of Switch 2 owners on Reddit (like the above person) who are seeing the effect switched off with the following message displayed on-screen: "Rumble has been turned off due to prolonged use."

So, it seems that the idea is that if lots of rumble is coming through with a game, the Switch 2 will proactively turn off the effect - perhaps to save battery. After all, longevity is a priority with handhelds and rumbling the Joy-Con uses power.

WB Games gets restructured with new leadership and content focus while its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery, plans to split in two parts.

Following an expensive multi-year merger, Warner Bros Discovery is breaking up, and that means big changes across all segments. WB Discovery will split into two groups: Global Networks and Streaming & Studios, and WB's games division will be nestled under the studios branch. So...how will all of this affect gaming?

WB Games will now focus on four core billion-dollar IPs: DC (primarily Batman and Superman), Mortal Kombat, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones. The entire video games unit is effectively being restructured and bifurcated to work on these franchises.

DOOM: The Dark Ages is receiving its Path Tracing update this week, and we got to check it out early, running on a GeForce RTX 5080 in 4K. Path Tracing, or Full Ray Tracing, uses cutting-edge technology to calculate realistic shadows, reflections, ambient occlusion, global illumination, and more, covering everything related to in-game lighting.

DOOM: The Dark Ages already features ray-tracing on all platforms, with developer id Software leveraging the technology for global illumination and even hit detection. The Path Tracing update, which introduces DLSS Ray Reconstruction support, improves the game's fantastic visuals and lighting to deliver a seamless, more immersive cinematic action experience.

As seen in titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, it's the little details that make DOOM: The Dark Ages so impressive with Path Tracing enabled. From how light from objects interacts with each other to how weapons look more like a part of the world in first-person, especially when you see things like fire and ominous red lighting reflected on the Slayer's shotgun.

Until GTA 6 arrives on PlayStation and Xbox next year, GTA V will remain one of the most popular games on all platforms. Earlier this year, Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto 5: Expanded & Enhanced on PC, introducing several visual improvements to the game that first debuted on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Part of the visual overhaul included the addition of ray-tracing and support for AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution technologies.

However, the ray-tracing in the GTA V update was pretty basic. The reflections were console-like and lower quality than other RT-heavy PC games, and the ray-traced global illumination only covered a single 'bounce'. Tracing and calculating multiple light bounces is hardware-intensive, but it is something that modern GeForce RTX GPUs and AMD's new RDNA 4 line-up can handle.

As part of the game's GTAV Title Update 1.71 for the new GTA Online 'Money Fronts' update, the team at Rockstar is improving the Grand Theft Auto 5: Expanded & Enhanced's ray-traced effects.

With the recent announcement of the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds from Microsoft and the Xbox team, which will introduce a new Xbox-focused version of Windows 11 when it launches later this year, the company gave us our first look at its plans for the next Xbox console and the future of Xbox gaming.

Earlier today, we reported on Xbox President Sarah Bond's announcement that it has partnered with AMD to co-engineer silicon for next-generation consoles. This part of the announcement is business as usual. For generations, Sony and Microsoft have been developing custom CPU and GPU hardware for PlayStation and Xbox consoles.

However, this "multi-year" partnership now extends to a "portfolio of devices," including handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally, as the handheld's Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chip features prominently in the announcement video from Sarah Bond.

2K and Gearbox have detailed the launch plans for the upcoming Borderlands 4. Although attention is being placed on the game's lack of an $80 price tag (turns out the game will launch for $70), PC gamers will probably want to take a closer look at the game's minimum and recommended hardware requirements.

When it comes to PC specs, the 'recommended' settings are the ones that you should pay the closest attention to, as they refer to running the game at a high resolution with visuals on par with or better than console, and at a decent frame rate. Borderlands 4's recommended specs are causing a bit of a stir in the PC gaming community because it's a triple sting of asking for a high-end CPU, GPU, and RAM.

On the CPU front, Gearbox says the game requires 8+ CPU Cores for the best performance, listing the Intel Core i7-12700 and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X as a baseline. On the GPU front, Gearbox says the game requires a GPU with 12+ GB of VRAM, listing the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT as the baseline.

Bungie has announced it will be delaying the release of Marathon to focus on several aspects of the game, including making it more challenging, rewarding, increasing visual fidelity, and adding more social experiences.

This official delay by Bungie comes on the heels of the developer being caught in the middle of a negative press spiral, with the first problem being that Alpha play tests of the game generated poor player feedback, and the developer admitting to stealing artist designs for Marathon assets. The latter of the two really caused the sentiment around Marathon to be negative, with reports stating morale at the developer dropped to an all-time low following the controversy.

Additionally, following the negative response from the Alpha play tests and the artist debacle, reports stated the entire marketing plan for the game had to be reworked, along with the roadmap to release. Moreover, it was reported at the end of May that a delay was being discussed between Bungie and Sony executives, as neither wanted to release the game in what was described as a "now actively hostile environment."

Launching games into subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus may negatively impact long-term sales for indie game developers--and this path may become "very damaging" to studios, a Revenge of the Savage Planet developer says.

Xbox Game Pass is another tool for developers and publishers, and it can be a boon or a bane depending on how everything shakes out. The FTC v Microsoft trial from 2023 highlighted the "cannibalism" effect of Game Pass wherein players will just subscribe instead of buying games they want--lower-cost, but potentially longer-term subscriptions "replace" game sales in this case. While big-name publishers like EA and Ubisoft can afford to hedge these bets, smaller-scale studios may not be able to take on the risk.

On the flip side, some of these games may not even get made without the help of subscriptions. It's true that launching games into PS Plus or Xbox Game Pass can secure lucrative multi-year deals to fund game projects, but what happens after all that's over? It's hard to say exactly--the deals are secretive and widely vary--and we do know about a bonus fee structure for active players, but if your indie game is on Game Pass for multiple years, does that impact sales?

Square Enix has clarified what the new Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles remaster does and does not include.

Final Fantasy Tactics is coming back with a big new re-release, complete with upgraded visuals, full voice acting, and major quality of life improvements. Unfortunately, the updates will begin and end with the base game, and will not include anything outside of the 1997 original. That means no extra jobs, characters, or features like co-op multiplayer that were introduced in the enhanced PSP version, The War of the Lions.

This was to be expected--overhauling the full range of Final Fantasy Tactics would be more expensive, plus War of the Lions is a PSP game, so there's potentially some hang-ups with PlayStation on that front. War of the Lions added some nifty mechanics and even had playable versions of Cloud Strife and Final Fantasy XII's Balthier. The PSP version also added new classes like the Dark Knight and a bunch of new battles and quests.

Microsoft is making good on its promise to bring more Activision Blizzard games to Xbox Game Pass.

Xbox Game Pass subscribers are getting some pretty big drops this month, especially if you're an RTS fan. Microsoft reveals that all three Warcraft games are coming to Game Pass PC and Game Pass Ultimate this month, but predictably these games will be PC-only and have not been adapted for consoles (yet?). It's the remastered trilogy, though, and not the original games that are coming to Game Pass; Warcraft I & II Remastered and the unpopular-at-launch Warcraft III: Reforged. All three games will be available on June 26.

On the Activision front, another major Call of Duty game is crossing over, this time with Sledgehammer's 2017 shooter Call of Duty: WWII. That one will drop June 30, and will include both the console and PC version of WWII.

Marathon has been delayed to an unspecified period so that Bungie can make big changes.

Today, Bungie announced that Marathon has been pushed back and will no longer release on September 23.

The studio is taking this extra time to make some major adjustments to the extraction shooter, including the addition of proximity chat, more emphasis on survival gameplay, dynamic environmental storytelling, and what sounds like a new visual overhaul that will add a darker tone with grittier themes straight out of the original Marathon trilogy.

NVIDIA has announced that the Path Tracing Patch for DOOM: The Dark Ages will be released on June 18, and once downloaded, DOOM players can make their blood even bloodier.

For those who don't know, path tracing is the best form of ray-traced lighting in games, and is considerably better than standard ray-tracing, but with that bump in graphical quality comes a performance hit.

According to the tech experts at Digital Foundry, who have posted the above video comparing standard ray tracing and path tracing, turning on path tracing on a Ryzen 7 9800X3D with an RTX 5090 at 4K with DLSS set to Performance and the graphics setting set to Ultra Nightmare, turning on path tracing reduces the average in-game FPS by about 39%.

Nexux Mods is easily the most popular modding website for PC gamers, and has been for the better part of two decades. The founder of that website, known as Dark0ne has announced he has hung his hat up, and sold the website to new owners.

In a new announcement posted to the website's blog page, Dark0ne explained that the burden of the gigantic website he created was taking a toll on his mental health due to stress-related issues. This made him realize he had been burning himself out, and it was beginning to impact his staff and Nexus Mods as a whole.

The founder further explained that one of the reasons he took so long to sell Nexus Mods to new owners is that he never found anyone who "really 'gets' the modding community the way I do," and that finding a buyer was difficult as they would need to understand not only the way Nexus Mods works as a business, but also the wider modding community.

Nintendo has officially announced when its next Direct will take place and what the company will be focusing on throughout the duration of the livestream.

The company took to its official X account to share that the next Nintendo Direct will be held on June 18 and focus on Donkey Kong Bananza. For those hoping this would be a deep dive into the upcoming game, or if Nintendo was going to discuss more titles after covering the new Donkey Kong game, you will be saddened to know this Direct will only last 15 minutes. The duration of the Direct suggests this will be a quick look at what players can expect out of Bananza, and no other title will be mentioned.

Notably, Donkey Kong Bananza will be released on July 17 as the second Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive title, and the first major Nintendo title to release on the Switch 2 following its launch. For those who don't know, Donkey Kong won't be alone in Bananza, as he will have a companion purple rock that tags along for his adventure after he rescues it from being buried in the ground on Ingot Island.