Gaming

Based on the impressive footage and depth shown in its recent gameplay deep dives, Pearl Abyss's Crimson Desert has quickly become one of 2026's most highly anticipated games for fans of single-player open-world adventure and RPG titles. With elements of Skyrim, The Witcher, The Legend of Zelda, and the studio's own Black Desert MMO, Crimson Desert is promising to deliver a sprawling and massive open-world game when it launches on March 20, 2026.

And with that, Crimson Desert is the latest game to join AMD's Game Bundle program for Ryzen and Radeon. From February 10 through April 25, 2026, if you purchase an eligible Ryzen 9000 Series GPU, Radeon RX 9000 Series GPU, or laptop with an eligible Ryzen processor, you get a free copy of the game.

That said, there are some limitations on the GPU front: Crimson Desert is limited to the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT, so Radeon RX 9060 XT buyers are out of luck.

Out at the end of the month, Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem is arguably the first major AAA release of the year, and one of the biggest in a stacked year that also includes a little game called GTA 6. Releasing on PC and consoles, Resident Evil Requiem is described as the most immersive entry in the series to date, with players taking on the role of two characters, fan-favorite Leon S. Kennedy and newcomer FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft.

The PC version is set to be the definitive one at launch, especially for those with a high-end GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics card. In addition to enhanced, higher-fidelity visuals, the PC version is launching with Path Tracing or Full Ray Tracing modes. With ray-traced lighting, shadows, and other effects, there's also NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation support to boost performance, smoothness, and image fidelity.

And with that, NVIDIA has announced the new Resident Evil Requiem GeForce RTX 50 Series Bundle, giving away a free copy of Resident Evil Requiem Standard Edition on Steam with eligible purchases of GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards, desktop systems, and laptops.

New Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro mentions that new movies could premiere within Fortnite, adding a new layer of digital engagement to the interactive cultural blender.

If Disney's vision goes according to plan, it might help transform Fortnite into a movie theater. Reports from Puck News indicate that Disney's newly-appointed CEO could greenlight premiering new films within the Fortnite game itself. Epic did this first by showing Quentin Tarantino's new Kill Bill short, Yuki's Revenge, as part of its big Fortnite After Dark collaboration.

As per Puck News sources, D'Amaro reportedly said this about Fortnite: "That is gonna be another example where Disney will show up as one. It's not just gonna be one character. It could be a new film premiering there, it could be the place that you decide to book your next cruise vacation. You could participate in the Super Bowl in some way there."

Mewgenics, the latest game from Binding of Isaac dev Edmund McMillen is a hit upon launch, where it has become the #1 best-seller on Valve's PC gaming storefront.

On the heels of mega-successes like Vampire Survivors, Megabonk, and Silksong, the indie world has a new sensation: the supremely weird and unhinged turn-based RTS where you selectively breed cats to get new stats and fight in Final Fantasy Tactics-like combat.

It's called Mewgenics, and it's currently the top-selling game on Steam. Word-of-mouth is spreading fast, and talk of Mewgenics--as well as live streams, screenshots, and clips--are being shared everywhere that gamers gather. The game has done so well that Mewgenics co-developer Tyler Glaiel recently confirmed that he and McMillen recouped their dev budget in just a few hours after launch.

Control Resonant, Remedy's new Devil May Cry-like action game, wasn't made with generative AI tech.

With thousands upon thousands of developers being laid off as companies simultaneously grasp AI in a bid to save costs, artificial intelligence has become a hot-button topic in the games industry. That seems to go double for generative AI, which can be used to create interactive worlds without the need for a game developer--like Google's new Genie or Microsoft's MUSE.

Not everyone is using AI to make games, and that includes Remedy. In a recent call with investors, Remedy's interim CEO was asked about AI's disruptions in gaming, and whether or not the studio will use it while crafting new projects.

Remedy's live service shooter FBC Firebreak failed to gain traction, but that doesn't mean the devs are ready to pull the plug.

Good news for fans of Remedy's bizarre co-op shooter: FBC Firebreak could be kept online indefinitely. In a recent Q&A with investors, Remedy interim CEO Markus Maki said that the group might just keep Firebreak's servers up and running--even if the game slips into maintenance mode while Remedy focuses on other games.

More importantly than wants, though, is the reality of cost and Maki says that it would actually be pretty cheap to keep FBC Firebreak online.

If you can't wait for The Witcher 4, well, you'll have to I'm afraid, but you might be able to keep yourself entertained for a spell with a new mod for The Witcher 3 that acts as a prelude to the incoming next instalment.

PC GamesN highlighted the 'Dawn over Kovir' mod (via TechRadar) which lets you take control of Ciri as she's becoming a Witcher.

The maker of the mod, Alexander Fandera-Maslov, explained that it took some 800 hours to create this add-on. It's apparently inspired by the cinematic reveal trailer for The Witcher 4 (and the content therein may "overlap or be enhanced by the new Ciri game", we're told).

Remedy's revenue has spiked throughout the Holiday 2025 quarter, which is good news for the developer because their most recent game, FBC Firebreak, bombed on the market.

Last year, Remedy released an experimental live service co-op shooter set in their Control universe. The game, funded by Game Pass and PlayStation Plus deals, was the first game that Remedy self-published. The project didn't do well upon release, leading to profit warning impacts and Remedy's previous CEO, Tero Virtala, being ousted by the board.

Remedy's fortunes have temporarily reversed, as the Finnish auteurs have now reported a strong +46% spike in revenues for the Oct - Dec 2025 period. Remedy generated 17 million euros (~$20 million) through Holiday 2025, most of which came from royalties from in-development games like the Max Payne remakes as well as the Control sequel.

Blizzard's StarCraft is an iconic PC gaming franchise, a real-time strategy series that helped birth modern-day esports while still delivering cinematic single-player campaigns. It's also a PC gaming franchise that has been missing for years, and one that has seen multiple rumors and even announcements of third-person and even first-person shooter spin-offs - the most well-known being StarCraft Ghost from the Nintendo GameCube era.

In 2024, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier reported that the developer was working on a new first-person shooter set in the StarCraft universe, with Far Cry veteran Dan Hay at the helm. This project is apparently still in development and could receive a major reveal at BlizzCon 2026 later this year.

In addition, in 2025, we learned that Blizzard was partnering with Nexon (owner of Arc Raiders studio Embark) to create a new StarCraft game for the Southeast Asian market, which, at the time, we assumed would be a successor to StarCraft and StarCraft II's iconic RTS multiplayer. Well, fast-forward to today, and a new report from Korean site dnews (via ResetEra) claims that this, too, is also going to be a shooter.

With Tero Virtala being ousted on the heels of FBC Firebreak's bad sales performance, Remedy Entertainment has appointed a new CEO who has made a commitment to keeping Remedy's signature style intact.

Remedy has appointed a new CEO, Jean-Charles Gaudechon, to lead the studio. Gaudechon has had a long history in the video games industry, spending over a decade handling high-level exec functions at EA's international divisions--distribution, publishing, live services, etc.

In the announcement, Gaudechon made interesting remarks on Remedy's creative operations, outright pledging to essentially shield the studio's artists and developers using good business savvy. This is important, because Remedy still plans to self-publish new games, and that can be risky.

Ghost of Yotei proves that PlayStation users still show up for exclusive content, with the game generating hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue in Sony's Holiday 2025 period.

Sucker Punch's new standalone sequel Ghost of Yotei is a big hit for PlayStation. In Sony's latest Q3'25 results, company management specifically mentioned Atsu's new adventure was a big driver for earnings in the quarter.

Sony's own sales data takes this even further. Back in November, just a month after release, Sony had confirmed Ghost of Yotei hit 3.3 million sales. Sony also confirms that it sold 13.2 million first-party games total during the entire quarter. This means that Ghost of Yotei made up over 25% of total PlayStation first-party games sold in Q3'25.

Discord today announced new age-restriction protocols in a bid to keep teen users more safe on the platform, including requiring some users to prove their age via ID or facial scan in order to get access to certain areas.

Discord is one of the most influential communication platforms on the planet, and has become the de-facto place to talk about--and promote--the billion-dollar video games industry, among many others. It's also where communities thrive, allowing users to engage in a forum-like environment with the added bonus of real-time chatting. With swelling engagement and adoption, Discord is eyeing a public offering, and making some transformations.

One of the biggest changes is that users may now have to prove their age in order to access Discord in its totality: "Beginning with a phased global rollout to new and existing users in early March, users may be required to engage in an age-verification process to change certain settings or access sensitive content. This includes age-restricted channels, servers, or commands and select message requests."

Microsoft's next-generation Xbox will reportedly run a full version of Windows 11 alongside its Xbox "mode" with a console-like UI, be found in different shapes, sizes, and power, and run the likes of both Steam and the Epic Games Store... all rumored for 2027.

In a new report from Windows Central, the next-gen Xbox will come in all shapes and sizes, and its 2027 rumored launch is the "best case scenario". The outlet reports: "Turn your next-gen Xbox into a streaming PC, coding station, music production studio, or whatever else. The difference here is that the Gen-10 Xbox "PC" will also run all of your current Xbox games, in addition to games from Windows 11 PC stores like Steam".

Windows Central also reports that Microsoft is working with OEMs like ASUS and others to build a "variety of options for next-gen Xbox gamers across a range of price points, like the two Xbox Ally models". The outlet was also told that Microsoft is still forging ahead with its first-party Xbox handheld, even "if the traditional Xbox console is the focus for now".

Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass has evolved since its inception, delivering day-one access to first-party releases and major third-party titles across consoles and PC. However, the surprise, seemingly sudden 50% price increase for the premium Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier in October 2025 caused significant backlash, diminishing Game Pass's overall value proposition in gamers' eyes.

As far as Xbox's first-party lineup is concerned, 2026 is going to be a banner year thanks to Forza Horizon 6, Fable, Gears of War E-Day, Halo: Campaign Evolved, the next Call of Duty, and more. According to a new report from The Verge's Tom Warren, Microsoft is planning further changes to the Xbox Game Pass tier structure in 2026, though there probably won't be another significant price increase.

That said, it's probably not great news for those with a PC Game Pass subscription. Citing sources familiar with Microsoft's plans, the company appears to be looking to merge the Xbox Game Pass Premium and PC Game Pass Tiers, which would presumably remove access to the biggest day-one game releases for PC gamers in favor of a more streamlined set of offerings.

The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, also known as Strix Halo, is a beast of an APU. It combines a 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 CPU with a max boost clock speed of 5.1 GHz, Radeon 8060S Graphics, a powerful NPU, and up to 128GB of unified memory. The upcoming AYANEO NEXT 2, which is the company's impressive next-gen PC gaming handheld, is set to include a flagship Strix Halo model with an MSRP of $4299.

The company is expecting to launch its Indiegogo campaign for the AYANEO NEXT 2 next week, and with pricing and specs for the various models confirmed, the AYANEO NEXT 2 flagship model sports the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory, and 2TB of PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD storage. Although the retail price is listed at $4299, the 'Early Bird Price' for this model will be $3499.

For those wanting an AYANEO NEXT 2 with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, the more sensible option appears to be the version with 64GB of memory and 1TB of storage, which has an 'Early Bird Price' of $2299 and an MSRP of $2699. Either way, you're looking at a lot of money for a PC gaming handheld with RTX 4060-level performance, with the inflated pricing most likely due to the current DRAM crisis.

The latest PlayStation 6, codenamed 'Orion,' and the upcoming next-generation PlayStation handheld, codenamed 'Canis,' have more hardware details revealed by renowned leaker KeplerL2. Posting on the NeoGAF discussion boards, KeplerL2 notes that the PlayStation 6's current spec should include 30GB of GDDR7 memory in a clamshell configuration, with 3GB modules.

In addition to its capacity, assuming a memory speed of 32 Gbps, the PlayStation 6's 30GB of memory could use a 160-bit bus for a total memory bandwidth of 640 GB/s. Compared to the baseline PlayStation 5's 16GB of GDDR6 at 448.0 GB/s, that's a 42% increase in bandwidth. Compared to the PlayStation 5 Pro, it's a more modest 11% increase in bandwidth; however, the capacity increase to 30GB is sizeable compared to current-gen hardware.

And with several leaks and rumors pointing to Sony also releasing a new portable PlayStation gaming handheld with custom hardware, KeplerL2 notes that the handheld will ship with 24GB of memory, reportedly utilizing LPDDR5X modules.

Sony doesn't believe that AI, generative or otherwise, will replace actual creatives in animation or games production.

Sony executive management once again comments about the use of artificial intelligence in content production, saying that AI is another utility or tool that a professional creator would have in their toolbelt--so to speak. In a recent Q&A with investors as part of Sony's Q3'25 earnings report, company CFO Lin Tao delves further into how Sony sees AI and how the group is using the tech to possibly help streamline and innovate things like game development.

We've already reported on the Sony CFO's first comments on AI, about how Sony wants its workers to use AI and how the group is prepared to disrupt how it makes games if it can help the PlayStation business. Tao says that Sony intends to use AI to accelerate and enable creators rather than replace them.

Arc Raiders has been a hugely profitable game for Embark Studios, but we can't be sure just how much the developer's take actually is.

With over 12 million sales across all platforms, PvPvE extraction shooter Arc Raiders is one of the most popular games on the market right now. The game sells for $40 per copy, and direct math says Arc Raiders could have made up to $496 million, or half a billion, from launch until January 2026 (this doesn't account for returns, charge-backs, and key resellers).

It's also recently been confirmed that Arc Raiders is a highly profitable game. There's reports that Arc Raiders had a budget of $75 million, and Embark won't confirm this number, but studio CEO Patrick Soderlund tells IGN that it's "not far off" and is a "ballpark" figure. In that same interview, Soderlund comments on the game's profitability and what it means for the people who made Arc Raiders.

Sony CFO Lin Tao indicates that the company is prepared to disrupt how its first-party developers make video games if it means being able to innovate and streamline content production while keeping costs managed.

Sony is going all-in on artificial intelligence, at least when it comes to game dev. In a recent Q&A with investors, Sony executives were asked about the use of AI in game development, a query that was likely spurred on by Google's new Genie AI tool. Sony Chief Financial Officer Lin Tao assures investors that AI is being used for game dev at PlayStation, yet the tech is still early and experimental.

"There is high affinity between AI and game and animation. In the long-term, I think, it's a very positive thing and there will be more content. But many areas will be impacted, especially how we develop and produce. So I think that this process, from idea to game, will be changing. But it's still too early to say what the impact will be, and how that will impact costs," Tao said in Sony's Q3'25 webcast.

Valve has recently updated Deadlock with some mentions of "HLX" inside of it, with HLX rumored as the codename of Half-Life 3, providing us with some more hopium fuel that it's on its way this year.

One of the biggest sources of Valve projects -- Gabe Follower -- confirmed on X that Valve's latest update for Deadlock includes mentions of the HLX project, who added that "HLX survived Valve's winter break".

One of the replies on the post said: "Gabe, i think that its getting to a point that HLX isnt half life X or 3. I think its just a new addition onto games that could be for moderation, making the games better, or something else completley. Stop giving us hopium that eventually turns into despairium. Thanks".