Gaming - Page 147

MindsEye has finally had a rather large 6-minute introduction to the game which you can check out below, from developer Build a Rocket Boy, with the founder of the new studio an ex-former producer of Rockstar who worked on the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

In the video above, we get a look at MindEye's gameplay, details of its expansive story, and some teases of the post-launch content coming from the developer, as well as the all-out PC version of the game that has level-creation tools that allow players to create pretty much "anything" they want.

The PC version of MindsEye gives gamers access to all of the game's assets, which allows players to create "anything" their imagination can come up with, as the developer is "passionate about democratizing video game development". Sounds like a huge step towards what we can expect from GTA 6 in 2026, but dropping on June 10.

That SteamOS is a much better bet for running games smoothly than Windows 11 on a PC gaming handheld is a conclusion that'll surprise no one - but some new benchmarking on this topic highlights just how much of a difference there really is.

As you might have noticed last week, a milestone arrived for a couple of handhelds that run Windows 11, namely official support for SteamOS from Valve.

This arrived primarily for the Lenovo Legion Go S, as part of an official partnership between Valve and Lenovo, and Dave2D (hat tip to Windows Central) was quickly on the case. The YouTuber carried out some comparative testing of Windows 11 versus SteamOS gaming performance with this portable, as you can see in the clip above.

The long-rumored Half-Life 3 is now said to be the final chapter in the series that arguably helped shape PC gaming into what it is today.

It has been 20+ years since the release of Half-Life 2, and since the release of the monumental game, fans of the series have been wondering how the story wraps up, especially considering the second chapter is left on a cliffhanger. Since the release of Half-Life 2, fans have been speculating about the third installment in the franchise, with rumors really heating up in 2020 when Valve released Half-Life Alyx, which also ended on a cliffhanger and directly connected back to the end of Half-Life 2.

It's fair to say fans have been frothing at the mouth for any news on Half-Life 3, and previous rumors pegged its release for "sooner than we think". However, no date was given, nor an official word or recognition of the game by Valve. But, a new rumor from DanielRPK on Patreon has claimed that whenever Half-Life 3 releases, Valve will be finished with the series - it will be the "final chapter in the franchise". Given the cliffhanger ending of Half-Life 2 and Half-Life Alyx, it does make sense chronologically that if Half-Life 3 releases, it will be the final pages in the book.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered has been a massive success for Bethesda Game Studios and Xbox, quickly becoming one of the year's best-selling games. The visually impressive remaster (developed using Unreal Engine 5) doubles as a friendly reminder that gamers are hungry for Elder Scrolls titles and that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be a Cyberpunk 2077 or GTA 6-style event when it launches.

However, that could be several years away. So, if you've been enjoying Oblivion Remastered's old-school RPG charm, there's another upcoming Elder Scrolls release called Skywind. This ambitious mod project is a labor of love from a large team of passionate fans recreating and remaking The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind within the Skyrim engine. This includes all locations, NPCs, quests, and more, fully voiced with new visuals and animation.

We've been following this project for years, and the Skywind team has just released a new video showcasing around 20 minutes of gameplay and providing an update on the game's development status.

The launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 is right around the corner, and we have just learned Nintendo's upcoming console will arrive with support for normal USB mice in certain games, begging the question of whether users will also be able to plug in a keyboard.

Mouse gaming is coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, with Nintendo baking in their own version of mouse gaming straight into the Joy-Con 2 controllers, which can be rotated onto their side and used as a mouse in a claw-grip-like fashion. Nintendo intends for gamers to take advantage of this new feature in first-person-shooter titles and possibly creative games such as Mario Maker, as both categories of games benefit from precision. 

However, if the claw-gripped Joy-Con 2 controllers aren't satisfactory, users are able to plug in their own mouse via the USB port. The compatibility was revealed during a look at Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening CE, where producer Michi Ryu did that very thing - use the Joy-Con 2 controllers, stop, and then connect a USB mouse and continue playing. 

Total Grand Theft Auto series revenues have now broken $9.72 billion since the release of GTA V in late 2013.

Take-Two Interactive's latest Fiscal Year 2025 earnings report gives us a new update on how much money the Grand Theft Auto series made throughout the year. According to data published by Take-Two and reviewed by us, the total sum of Grand Theft Auto products and services made about $710 million in revenue in the period (April 2024 - March 2025).

Rockstar released multiple updates for Grand Theft Auto Online in FY25, including Bottom Dollar Bounties and Agents of Sabotage. Series engagement was also driven by the continued support of the GTA trilogy collection on mobile, and GTA V's inclusion on PlayStation Plus in the holiday season.

Nacon secures a big multi-year deal to make new WRC games from 2027 - 2032, the companies have announced.

A bit ago, we reported that EA and Codemasters halted development of new WRC games, and that WRC 24 would be the last title in the series from this particular developer. Now the WRC franchise has found a new home with French video games publisher Nacon, a group known for its popular sports games like its Rugby League and Cricket titles, as well as AA games like Robocop: Rogue City.

Nacon's new WRC games will offer a "complete reboot" of the series, and the publisher will have exclusive rights to make games across six seasons from 2027-2032 across PC and consoles.

Mortal Kombat 1 will not receive any future DLC content, including new fighters and story updates, NetherRealm has confirmed.

NetherRealm is officially moving on from Mortal Kombat 1. The visceral fighting game released in September 2023 and has received a steady flow of content drops, including a slew of extra fighters across two Kombat Packs as well as a story expansion. Now the game has run its course, and NetherRealm is focusing on its next big project.

"We are hearing players' requests for continued game support of Mortal Kombat 1, and, while we will continue to support Mortal Kombat 1 through balance adjustments and fixes, there will not be additional DLC characters or story chapters released from this point on," the studio wrote in a Twitter update.

Physical gaming is slowly being ebbed away as digital continues its dominant sales streak for major publishers like Capcom.

Capcom wants to eventually sell 100 million games per year, and it has a plan on how to make it happen: Carefully drive up sales through specific platforms using the tools provided. This plan usually sees Capcom deeply discount its games on digital platforms like Steam, the Nintendo eShop, and the PlayStation and Xbox stores. As we can see from the company's FY24 earnings report, the results speak for themselves.

According to the data, digital made up 90% of Capcom's total software sales for the year. The company hopes digital will hit 94% this fiscal year (FY25, the current period, which ends in March 2026).

PC is now the top platform for Capcom's digital game sales.

Capcom's new Fiscal Year 2024 earnings report highlights an emerging trend for the company, primarily with digital game sales. PC has now overtaken console in terms of digital game sales, with PC raking in 28.211 million games sold, or about 60% of total digital game sales during the yearly period. Console comes in at 18.517 million digital sales, making up about 40% of the total.

For reference, Capcom sold over 51 million games during the year, up significantly over FY23's results of ~46 million game sales. These results highlight the publisher's strong commitment to favorable operating margins (digital means no manufacturing and/or shipping costs) and the shift to digital markets that can better be adjusted through well-timed price discounts.

The Switch 2 will not support Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) while docked, Nintendo has officially confirmed.

A bit ago, Nintendo changed the Switch 2's website to remove any mention of Variable Refresh Rate support on TVs. Previously, Nintendo had expressed that the Switch 2 would support VRR while connected to a compatible TV, similar to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

Now the company has issued and official statement, confirming once and for all that the Switch 2 only supports VRR in handheld mode: "Nintendo Switch 2 supports VRR in handheld mode only. The incorrect information was initially published on the Nintendo Switch 2 website, and we apologize for the error," a rep told Nintendo Life.

Analysts expected GTA 6 to boost console gaming, but the delay to 2026 has dropped these forecasts by multiple billions of dollars.

Rockstar delayed GTA 6 to May 2026, and this move will have implications for the games industry and its various segments, especially console gaming. GTA 6's launch was expected to drive up sales and adoption of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S and help mature these slow-growing platforms, while also spiking software spending and potentially in-game purchases via any analogous GTA Online multiplayer component.

All-told, analyst firm Ampere Analysis estimates that GTA 6's delay will have a $2.7 billion implication for the console market. That is to say that GTA 6 was expected to contribute to a sizable multi-billion dollar spike in spending on the console platform. Rockstar's hugely anticipated sequel was also to help fire up console sales, with an estimated +21 million combined PS5s and Xbox Series systems forecasted to be sold in 2025 alongside GTA 6.

The Federal Trade Commission has dismissed its case against the Microsoft-Activision merger.

The largest video games acquisition in history is now left unchallenged. The FTC has dropped its administrative case and will no longer be tackling Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard King in its administrative court.

The federal agency released a filing that confirmed the adjudicative lawsuit that directly challenged the antitrust implications of the merger has been dismissed.

The resurgence of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 in 2025 is fully underway, with the near-decade-old title setting a new record for concurrent players on Steam yesterday.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 has been trending since May the 4th, with players flocking back to the 2017 title to revisit large-scale warfare in the Star Wars universe. Nothing quite captures the film-like experience offered by the Battlefront series, and that magic still shows up in 2025, setting a new all-time record for peak players on Steam as of May 24.

The previous all-time peak for the game was 10,489 in 2021, shortly after it was made available on Steam. As an Origin exclusive until June 2020, there are no figures to highlight the number of players on PC post-launch. However, as many would remember, the game had a rollercoaster first couple of years.

We are hoping, wishing, and praying that Valve releases Half-Life 3 this year... but new rumors on Reddit from leakers suggest that "people might not like the story" and that the story hook for codename HLX (Half-Life) could have gamers divided.

During a recent livestream from Valve insider Tyler McVicker, GameFollower said that people might not like the story of Half-Life 3, but McVicker has a strong policy of not posting any spoilers about the storyline of Half-Life 3, but it seems that gamers might not be happy with the story Valve has prepared for HL3.

But, knowing Valve... Half-Life 3 would've been playtested for an insane amount of time, and the developer has even gone as far as hiring an in-house experimental psychologist specifically tasked to playtesting. This is how thorough and meticulous the developer is about making their games near-perfect.

Sony is reportedly working on a PlayStation 6 handheld, with previous reports that the new SoC would be fabbed by TSMC, but now we're hearing new rumors that it could be fabbed on Samsung Foundry's new SF2P process node.

In a new post on X by insider @Jukanlosreve he has heard that Sony is "currently evaluating a new low-power gaming SoC project -- internally referred to as "Jupiter". The insider adds that "the chips is expected to be developed by AMD and fabricated using Samsung Foundry's SF2P node, with mass production targeted for post-2028. The deal hasn't been finalized yet. It's still under review between Sony, Samsung, and AMD".

In the most recent rumors of the PlayStation 6 handheld, it should be more powerful than an Xbox Series S console, but less powerful than a regular PlayStation 5 console, which is due to the lower memory bandwidth inside of the PS6 handheld.

As AI increasingly gets everywhere, you can bet it's going to be more of an influence in the gaming world, and hold that thought, because Intel has freshly revealed its plans for an AI coach.

Over at Computex 2025, Team Blue showed off its own take on an AI assistant (hat tip to VideoCardz for picking this up), but it's quite a scaled-back effort compared to NVIDIA's G-Assist, at least in this initial form.

Intel's AI Gaming Coach will only work with supported games, meaning that the developer will need to incorporate the tech into any given title. So, that'll certainly limit how much we'll see of the coach, depending on how hard Intel pushes devs to use the tech.

In the video game world, the wait for a good Game of Thrones adaption continues - or does it? Well, maybe, or maybe not, because the new Kingsroad game has just emerged on PC and mobile, and it appears to be divisive to say the least.

Game of Thrones: Kingsroad arrived a couple of days ago on Steam and the Epic Games Store for PC gamers, and Android plus iOS too, with the game being free to play. However, despite the lack of any entrance fee, the opinions of the game in its full launch state remain seriously polarized (as were the critiques of Kingsroad while it was still in early access on Steam).

The pitch is an action-adventure RPG with a proper Game of Thrones story (set between seasons four and five of the TV series) the brings "Westeros to life with remarkable detail and never-before seen scale" and Unreal Engine 5 graphics. However, the reception is more mixed than a compilation of 80s hits on a C90 cassette. Steam denizens either like it, or really, really hate it.

It's always worth checking out the free games that crop up on the Epic Games Store because sometimes they can be surprisingly good - even away from peak giveaway times like the Holiday season - and that's the case this week.

If you head down to the Epic Games Store now, there are actually three games that can be bagged for the princely sum of absolutely nothing: Sifu, Deliver At All Costs, and Gigapocalypse.

Okay, so these may not be AAA titles that'll immediately make you leap out of your gaming chair, but they're well worthwhile offerings. Sifu is the game you may have heard of - check out the trailer above - and it's a martial arts beat-em-up from Sloclap that has some seriously ardent fans.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has undoubtedly been a hit - a huge one, in fact - but a surprising amount of gamers haven't finished the game yet.

Indeed, those who have claimed the title of 'Champion of Cyrodiil' which is the achievement for completing the main questline was only 3% at the end of last week, and only stands at 7% now.

That's according to True Achievements (as noticed by Screen Rant) which has tracked the achievements completed by a sample base of some 185,000 Oblivion Remastered players, with only just over 13,000 of them actually having completed the RPG.