Gaming - Page 101

Officially announced back in September 2021, it looks like Insomniac's long-awaited Marvel's Wolverine game is set to debut next year. This is according to a new report from MP1ST, an outlet that has been the source of several credible leaks and rumors. Although we haven't seen or heard anything official about the game since its 2021 announcement, an early build of the game was unceremoniously leaked as part of the massive Insomniac Games security breach back in 2023.

After the hack, Insomniac responded by stating that the leak wouldn't affect the continued development of its Wolverine game or the unannounced Spider-Man spin-off that is set to focus on Venom. At the time, the leak revealed that Wolverine was on track for a 2026 release, which this new report states is still the target. However, the release will occur after the start of Sony's fiscal year 2026, which would be sometime after April.

And when you factor in the global launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 in May, odds are that Insomniac's Marvel's Wolverine game will probably be the big Holiday 2026 game for the PlayStation 5.

In a very cool project a DIY modder has turned the PlayStation 5 into a portable console, with a built-in display and slim design that makes me wish companies like Sony would think (and build) outside of the box. Check it out:

The DIY project of the PlayStation 5 Portable Edition was built by TERA, who has worked on other DIY consoles over the years, with the modder noting the improvements of prior projects in the YouTube video above. There are changes to the assembly and thermal system that make the new DIY console possible.

The modder used a new enclosure and LCD panel, component assembly, and more in order to create the new PlayStation 5 Portable Edition. It looks pretty damn good, while the system itself is pretty quiet thanks to the new cooling system, even under gaming workloads. It's not huge, either, where it's lighter than TERA's previous mods of the PS5, so light in fact that it's lighter than a base PS5 console.

GPD's new Win 5 gaming handheld pricing will start at $1400 for a configuration that includes the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385+ "Strix Halo" APU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD.

The pricing was revealed in a new post on X by @realVictor_M which says the GPD Win 5 gaming handheld will begin at 9999 Yuan (which works out to around $1400 USD). This is for the configuration sporting the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 processor that features 8 cores and 16 threads of Zen 5 processing power, with the RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 8050S integrated GPU with 32 GPU cores.

Up from there you can get the GPD Win 5 gaming handheld with the higher-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo" APU with the more powerful 16C/32T of CPU power, and a more powerful Radeon 8060S integrated GPU which will begin at 11,500 Yuan (around $1600 USD or so).

AMD is now promoting that its high-end Ryzen 9000X3D processors, including the 9950X3D and 9800X3D when paired with a high-end GPU, can play popular esports games at over 1000FPS.

At a recent media event in China, AMD talked about being able to reach the very lofty heights of 1000FPS+ gaming in a bunch of esports games including Counter-Strike 2, Valorant, League of Legends, PUBG, and Naraka: Bladepoint using its Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 7 9800X3D processors.

AMD says that it's not just the desktop Ryzen 9000X3D series CPUs that can reach 1000FPS+ in these games, but its Ryzen 9 9955HX3D laptop processor, which I reviewed recently inside of the MSI Raider A18 HX A9W gaming laptop.

Chalk this one up as a fan project that Nintendo is probably not a fan of. Super Mario Bros. Remastered for PC takes the iconic 1985 game and gives it a visual makeover that retains the look and feel of the NES classic, while adding widescreen support, subtle parallax scrolling and 3D effects to objects and characters, alongside expanding the cast of playable characters and including content from the Game Boy Color Super Mario Bros. Deluxe port from 1999.

It resides in that "remastered" grey area, where it requires a copy/backup of the original game to function, similar to how the recent native PC ports of classic Nintendo 64 games function. There are elements like art and music taken from the game backups, allowing the code and executables to be distributed without infringing on copyright.

At least that's the idea, as Nintendo is notorious for quickly shutting down any fan or emulation project that deals with its classic games and hardware. One of the coolest features of Super Mario Bros. Remastered is that it includes the ability to add custom characters, animations, and sprites, alongside a level editor reminiscent of Nintendo's Super Mario Maker series.

The Xbox Series S posed a unique challenge for Battlefield 6's dev team, but DICE was eventually able to get the game running at a smooth 60FPS on the lower-end system.

The Xbox Series S is a budget digital-only system with some big drawbacks: its GPU is 60% weaker than the Xbox Series X, and it only has 10GB of RAM, which has become a major sticking point for developers. Multiple game dev teams have discussed how the Series S has been problematic in various ways; Remedy said that having less memory is a 'pretty big problem,' Larian had to delay Baldur's Gate 3 on Xbox because of the Series S, and more recently Dune Awakening dev Funcom spoke out about the system.

Now DICE is the latest game developer to acknowledge the Series S' lower-end power profile. In a recent interview with Kotaku, Battlefield 6 technical director Christian Buhl said that getting the game to run on the Series S was a challenge.

In its latest annual Corporate Report filing, Sony has made a commitment to continue making prestige singleplayer games for the PlayStation ecosystem.

Sony has no plans to shrug off singleplayer games any time soon, especially now that its live service ambitions have been rattled by the fickle market. A new strategy filing outlines Sony's upcoming plans for PlayStation and its various divisions, and "highly narrative-driven singleplayer games" are listed as growth opportunities for the business.

What's interesting is the distinction between how Sony will use singleplayer games versus live service games. The former is more focused on expanding the user base through must-have games, but this isn't just about consoles--remember that Sony sells games on PC now too, so PC users are included in the PlayStation ecosystem. Sony wants gamers to buy PS5 consoles to play PS5 games, but they also want to sell those same games to PC players later on.

Squadron 42 won't be at this year's digital CitizenCon event, and there's a possibility that the campaign may not meet its intended 2026 launch.

Star Citizen's standalone singleplayer campaign Squadron 42 might get delayed again. In a new 3-hour Star Citizen Live update, content director Jared Huckaby sat down with chief technology officer Benoît Beauséjour to discuss the game. Squadron 42 was briefly mentioned, with the developers saying that the campaign's absence from CitizenCon will allow the teams to focus on making the game rather than preparing trailers and promotional materials.

In the stream, Benoit clarifies that there are actually two separate teams working on both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 in parallel, and Huckaby offhand mentions that he's "not sure" if the studio will meet the 2026 release target for S42.

Original Fallout creator Tim Cain shares more thoughts about modern day games in the series, discussing what he'd do differently while praising Bethesda's business decision to open up the franchise to more widespread players.

With their punishing features and unclear game mechanics, classic Fallout games aren't always the most fun to play. Getting into these older cRPGs can be a chore, but Bethesda changed all that with Fallout 3, bringing the franchise into 3D with mass-market appeal. Offering Fallout to a casual audience is a big reason why the franchise has delivered multiple platinum best-sellers.

Bethesda's Fallout games are criticized for their "casualized" features--e.g. Fallout 4 doesn't even have skills--but even the original creators say that the studio is doing something right. In a recent interview with YouTube channel The Evil Eye, Fallout 1 creator Tim Cain gave Bethesda credit for their business acumen.

Sony will release a new upgraded version of its in-house PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) upscaling tech in 2026, and while it's based on AMD's FSR 4, Sony clarifies that the update won't bring direct FSR 4 support to the console.

Previous reports indicated that AMD's new FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 would be coming to the PS5 Pro, bringing higher quality upscaling to the system. This isn't quite right, though; the PS5 Pro uses Sony's purpose-built PSSR upscaling tech, not a dedicated version of FSR 4. While it's true that the PS5 Pro's PSSR is built off of and derived from AMD's FSR 4, Sony uses its own specialized version that's trained on console-based games and content.

Sony set the record straight, reminding WCCFTech that the PS5 Pro won't be getting dedicated AMD FSR 4 compatibility.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is finally coming to Xbox and Nintendo Switch in 2026, complete with some pretty hefty quality of life improvements and valuable pre-order bonuses.

It's official: After years of waiting, Final Fantasy 7 Remake will release on Xbox Series X/S and Switch 2 in January 2026. Square Enix announced the news as part of the recent Nintendo Direct, and surprisingly the game is a Play Anywhere title on Xbox.

What makes this version of FF7 Remake stand out is an interesting new mode called Streamlined Progression, which is basically an easy mode that lets you play with cheats enabled. "The Streamlined Progression feature introduces unlimited MP and HP at all times, unlimited limit and ATB gauge during battles, 9,999 damage, easier weapon ability acquisition, and more to streamline gameplay and allow players to focus on the story and hybrid combat."

Ripple Effect has provided some performance stats for Battlefield 6, saying that it will run at 4K and locked 60FPS on Fidelity Mode on the PS5 Pro, and at 1620p on Performance Mode with a "higher frame rate".

The base PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles will run Battlefield 6 at 1440p on Fidelity Mode and at 1280p on Performance Mode, with Ripple Effect noting BF6 would run at 70-110FPS on Performance Mode, or around 85FPS on average. The base Xbox Series S console runs at 1080p, but Battlefield 6 Technical Director Christian Buhl said it runs "very solidly" at 60FPS, despite needing to tweak some levels, and make changes to make sure that happens.

Buhl explained: "We turned down some fidelity settings in Series S, both to hit our performance targets and to lower the amount of memory. The biggest challenge for us, honestly, was memory - much less than the other consoles, also less than our mid-spec PC - So, that was our biggest challenge: making sure that all of our levels could fit into the memory on the Series S".

Capcom has announced a new Mega Man game just a few months after investors asked about the franchise during an earnings call.

Mega Man is one of Capcom's most evergreen franchises--it's a retro staple that matured to sell 43 million in its lifetime. Investors think similarly about the iconic series and have asked Capcom multiple times about new Mega Man games. Now just a few months after the latest inquiry, Capcom revealed the Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection at today's Nintendo Direct.

"The Mega Man series is one of our most important IPs, and we are continuously considering ways to develop it further," Capcom had said in July, months before today's Star Force announcement.

Capcom surprise announced Resident Evil 9 Requiem will be coming to the Switch 2 on launch day, but it won't be the only game showing up to Nintendo's new platform.

The reports were right: Capcom is bringing the Resident Evil games built on the modern RE Engine over to the Switch 2. All three mainline sequels will all be releasing on the Switch 2 on February 27, 2026: the Texas Chainsaw Massacre-themed RE7 Biohazard, the monster-mash medley of RE8 Village, and the newest game, RE9 Requiem. The games will be on the market in time for the franchise's 30th anniversary in March.

Capcom had not revealed Requiem's launch on Switch 2 until today's Direct showcase, however given the publisher's goal to eventually sell 100 million games in a year, we should expect more ports whenever and wherever possible. Future RE Engine games haven't been confirmed but it seems highly likely that the modern remakes will arrive too. Switch gamers previously had to rely on clunky and costly cloud streaming to play the RE2 Remake.

The Virtual Boy is coming back in early 2026 to blur the eyesight of an entirely new generation.

Nintendo has made the perplexing decision to resurrect its biggest-ever hardware failure, the Virtual Boy, as part of its Switch Online classics program. The headset released in the 1990s and was touted as an early form of virtual reality, but there's just one problem: The screen is only in red. People would complain about eye strain, and ultimately the system failed and became a rare miss for the company. It's somewhat similar to Nintendo's Labo, a cardboard spiritual successor aimed at what the Virtual Boy was trying to achieve.

This version of the Virtual Boy isn't the actual system. It's just an empty stylized case with red viewfinder goggles that you slot your Switch into, just like the Labo kits. Nintendo will release 14 Virtual Boy games (which is nearly the full library, there were only 22 games made for the system) on February 17, 2026 for Switch Online Expansion Pack subscribers, but the mock-up headset will come later.

As Sony cancels multiple projects, closes studios, lays off workers, and tightens budgets, Naughty Dog is making what could be the studio's most costly game yet.

Naughty Dog's new game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet might end up costing more to develop than all of the studio's previous games, including The Last of Us and the Uncharted series. It's possible that the game, which emphasizes high production quality and cinematic gameplay, could become the most costly PlayStation first-party game--perhaps even beating Concord's purported $250 million budget.

In a recent interview with Variety, studio co-president Neil Druckmann discussed Intergalactic's development, confirming that production is well under way...and that video game actor Troy Baker is joining the cast.

Nintendo's popular Switch 2 can be given a big boost in battery life for those brave enough - or foolish enough, you might argue - to attempt a DIY battery swap.

Needless to say, this isn't for the faint-hearted, but if you're confident enough of your technical knowhow in terms of tinkering around inside the handheld, it's certainly possible to replace the battery with a beefier power pack.

As Tom's Hardware highlighted, this was proved by a YouTuber who goes by the name Naga, and you can watch how the transplant is done in the above clip.

NVIDIA's GeForce Now kicked off its RTX 5080 tier yesterday - the upgraded 'Ultimate' subscription - but it didn't get off to a smooth start.

There was a rush of gamers hitting the streaming service upon the launch of the RTX 5080 plan, presumably checking out exactly how well it performs - and that led to games failing to launch on GeForce Now. Or, in some cases, the GeForce Now app wouldn't even start.

Late in the day came a further update noting that the issue was mitigated, so all should be good now. Although NVIDIA did say that it was "continuing to monitor for any further issues" around eight hours ago (at the time of writing).

We have the full specs leak for the next-gen PlayStation 6 console, which should be powerful enough to offer console gamers the world of 4K 120FPS (and beyond) gaming.

In his latest video, leaker Moore's Law is Dead outed the full specs of Sony's next-gen PS6 console, with AMD's new semi-custom "Orion" APU at its heart, fabbed on TSMC's new 3nm process node. Inside, it'll feature 7-8 x Zen 6c + Zen 6 LP (9-10 cores in total depending on if any cores are disabled) with up to 40GB of GDDR7 memory clocked at 32Gbps on a 160-bit memory bus.

GPU-wise, AMD's new Orion APU for the PS6 features between 52-54 RDNA 5 CUs clocked at between 2.6GHz and 3.0GHz with 10MB of L2 cache (with 34-40 TFLOPs of compute power). MLID notes that the RDNA 5-based GPU inside of the PS6 chip is organized into 3 x Shader Engines, each with 9 Workgroups each for a total of 27 Workgroups.

Borderlands 4 has set a new launch record on PC, where it achieved over 200K players just a few hours after release...yet the game is currently at a Mixed rating on Steam due to technical issues.

Gearbox and Take-Two appear to have a bonafide hit on their hands with the latest Borderlands game. Data from SteamDB shows that Borderlands 4 managed to hit an all-time franchise record for peak players on the platform; the sequel hit a peak of 201,273 players just hours ago.

While the sales numbers might be doing well, the game is currently at Mixed reviews due to Borderlands 4's alleged optimization issues. Users are reporting problems with the game ranging from the usual crashes and bugs to FPS drops and stuttering cutscenes.