Gaming - Page 70

Your favorite South Park characters (or at least some of them) are coming to Fortnite imminently, and a trailer has just been released to confirm what was teased earlier this week.

As Polygon reports, Cartman, Kenny, Stan, Kyle, and Butters are set to star in Fortnite as part of the 'Born in Chaos' crossover event, with gamers able to take a trip to Cartmanland (and Towelie is in there too, as a sidekick apparently).

As you can see in the trailer above, the South Park characters will be in mech suits to make them full-sized rather than tiny kids running around.

Samsung has put out an earnings guidance that revealed it expects profits will surge in the last three months of 2025, as the company reports record high sales amid overbearing demand for memory.

Memory is currently being swallowed by AI companies outbidding consumer-facing companies that typically have less borrowing power due to how much volume they are requesting. Memory manufacturers, such as Samsung, have become necessary to continue the exponential development of artificial intelligence.

Samsung reports that it expects its profits will triple due to the crazed surge in memory prices over the lack of supply, with Counterpoint Research estimating that memory prices jumped between 40% and 50% during the last quarter of 2025.

ADATA had quite a lot to show off at CES 2026, and a few of the standout products was the new power bank that doubles as a portable storage device, and a microSDXC card that is ready for Switch 2 gaming.

The power bank that doubles as a storage solution is called the SR800, and it's designed to be compatible with USB-C devices, specifically smartphones. The drive features a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface capable of 20 Gbps with a Type-C connector. ADATA informed me the drive is capable of 2,000MB/s read and write, and will be arriving in 1TB and 2TB capacities. Additionally, the battery capacity is 5,000mAh, and is compatible with the iPhone 15 and later, Android, macOS, and Windows devices.

There is also wireless charging capabilities, with ADATA informing me the SR800 has a maximum wireless charging rate of 15W. Additionally, the maximum total output of the USB-C port is also 15W. As for the SDXC, ADATA stated its standard is SD7.1, and it will be arriving in the following capacities: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. With the SMI SM2708 controller, read and write speeds will hit 800/700MB/s, respectively. Furthermore, the microSDXC SD7.1 Express is also backward compatible with UHS-I hosts.

Microsoft has made a deal to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to more smart TV platforms, this time to newer Hisense television sets.

The Xbox app arrives on new Hisense TV models releasing in 2026, Microsoft has announced. Xbox cloud gaming will be offered via the app on a variety of Hisense and smart TVs that uses the V homeOS platform.

The news is yet another milestone in Microsoft's long-term commitment to bring its Xbox console games off-platform to other platforms, including mobile, PC, and directly to smart TV sets via the cloud. This plan could ultimately see Microsoft offering a free-to-stream version of Xbox cloud gaming supported financially by intermittent ad breaks. Reports indicate that a free ad-supported version of Xbox cloud gaming is currently being tested internally at Microsoft.

Bethesda is reaping the rewards of a potent transmedia effect with another season of the Fallout TV series, which is inspiring viewers to become active participants in the Fallout game world.

Season 2 of the Fallout TV show is here, and since its premiere, the series has become the #1 most-viewed program on Amazon Prime in the US. All signs show that Bethesda has pulled off a second successful round of the powerful transmedia strategy that it also used for season 1 of the Fallout TV show--a strong plan that led to Xbox games dominating on Sony's home turf of the PlayStation Store for a time.

Fallout games have seen high engagement on Steam since the release of season 2 of the TV series. According to data from SteamDB, games like Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Fallout Shelter all had increases in concurrent players of over +100%. While it's hard to separate sales data from this mix--all of these games are old, and it's possible that a number of these players are simply revisiting the games and didn't actually buy a new copy--we can take a look at the Steam sales charts.

Wolfenstein 3 is currently in the works at MachineGames, sources tell both Kotaku and Windows Central.

Bethesda apparently wants to capture the potent transmedia effect that it's currently enjoying with its Fallout TV series and try to adapt that formula across its biggest franchises. One of these includes the grandfather of FPS games, Wolfenstein. New reports say that MachineGames, the current stewards of the franchise, are working on a new mainline chapter of the series to coincide with the upcoming Wolfenstein TV series from Amazon.

The news comes by way of both Kotaku and Windows Central, who have both heard that Wolfenstein 3 is happening. The update comes just months after MachineGames studio head Jerk Gustafsson said that he "hoped" the group would get to work on a new Wolfenstein game.

NVIDIA unveiled G-Sync Pulsar at CES 2026, a new gaming monitor technology that's touted to be able to take a 360Hz refresh rate display and make it feel like you are using a 1000Hz gaming monitor.

Being on the ground at CES 2026 gave me an opportunity to try out two of the Pulsar-ready monitors, which were from ASUS and MSI. Each of these test units was running Overwatch 2 in the firing range, and I was given several minutes on both units to try Pulsar enabled, versus disabled. At first, I didn't notice much difference, but then I noticed the image the display was producing was far clearer during movements that required fast motion of the in-game camera, such as swiping the mouse in a direction to hit a headshot.

This difference was immediate for me, especially after performing the exact same movement after switching Pulsar off. I wasn't able to determine a quality difference between the ASUS and MSI displays, which both performed extremely smoothly during my preliminary limited testing time. For those who don't know, NVIDIA's Pulsar technology is attempting to fix one of the biggest problems with gaming monitors, perceived blur caused by moving objects and a mismatch of the colors produced within frames.

ASUS has unleashed a wave of new products at CES 2026, and two that stood out amongst the slew of announcements were three new cutting-edge gaming monitors.

The three new monitors are the ROG Swift PG27UCWM, the ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDN, and the ROG Strix OLED XG34WCDMS. Each of these new gaming monitors comes with RGB stripe OLED technology which makes improvements to the level of brightness each pixel can display, and the color accuracy. The end result is an image that has improved color accuracy and general texture. The improvement is significant for text clarity, with ASUS writing, "Say goodbye to color fringing, distortion, and image sticking."

The PG27UCWM is the 27-inch model debuting with this Tandem OLED technology, which has been paired with a 4K 240Hz panel capable of switching to 1080p at 480Hz. Additionally, the PG27UCWM has a 0.03ms (GtG) response time, 1x DisplayPort 2.1a UHBR20, and HDMI 2.1 ports. The PG34WCDN is an ultrawide monitor that features a 1800R curvature, WQHD resolution, and BlackShield film, and Tandem RGB OLED, marking what ASUS is claiming to be a world's first.

ADATA XPG has showcased its latest in power supply technology at CES 2026, with the company unveiling the soon-to-be-released Cybercore III.

The Cybercore III is an 80 PLUS PLATINUM certified PSU, which comes with GPU Power Guard, a new in-system alert that is triggered when 12V-2x6 connectors exceed their power ratings. The Cybercore III features an enlarged FDB fan, which is 26% larger than the previous generation. The fan measures at 135mm, and has been paired with 8x industrial level protections with a 10-year warranty.

Additionally, the Cybercore III is compatible with an Intel ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 with a 12V-2x6 (600W) connector. The Cybercore III is coming in two wattages, 1200W and 1000W. ADATA ran us through the Cybercore III at CES 2025, and when held in the hand you can immediately notice the robustness of the PSU, particularly how well constructed it is.

NVIDIA ACE, which is a toolset that leverages a range of AI-powered technologies to create digital humans, is something we've covered a few times here at TweakTown. After going hands-on with tech demos and short gaming experiences in the past, at CES 2026, NVIDIA announced that it has partnered with Creative Assembly to bring NVIDIA ACE to the Total War series.

Starting with Total War: Pharaoh, NVIDIA ACE is implemented in-game to add an AI advisor that players can engage with via natural language, running locally on a GeForce RTX graphics card. For those who have played a Total War game or two, you'll no doubt be aware that the game's blend of Civilization-style empire management and epic real-time battles makes it one of the more complex strategy games on the market.

As detailed by Creative Assembly, the AI advisor, represented in-game by an era-correct NPC, can be called on to answer questions related to the game as well as offer advice on strategy, explain why one of your settlements just revolted, and countless other situations. This implementation of an in-game AI assistant has been trained on all the ins and outs of Total War: Pharaoh.

NVIDIA's RTX Remix platform has been a game-changer for the PC modding community, giving developers and enthusiasts access to tools that let them upgrade classic PC games with modern path-traced visuals. Plus, access to RTX Technologies like DLSS Super Resolution, Frame Generation, Reflex, and neural rendering.

One of the highest-profile RTX Remix projects currently in development is Half-Life 2 RTX, which looks and feels like a modern path-traced remake of Valve's iconic shooter, with impressive path-traced lighting. With over 125 RTX Remix mods and a vibrant community creating tools and plug-ins, RTX Remix is getting upgraded in 2026 with the arrival of RTX Remix Logic.

With 2025 bringing path-traced volumetric (like smoke) and particle effects, RTX Remix Logic builds on this by giving modders the ability to "remix" a game's visuals based on game logic. For example, in Half-Life 2 RTX, opening the door to Ravenholm could then randomly pick a time of day and type of weather, totally transforming the game. Yes, Half-Life 2: Winter.

NVIDIA has outlined some of the advancements it has made in bringing local AI to as many users as possible, and according to the company one of the main issues with connecting PC users with local AI is the size of the AI models themselves.

NVIDIA explained during a press briefing for CES 2026 that significant improvements have been made in reducing the size of AI models, and maintaining an appropriate level of intelligence. According to NVIDIA, small AI models that were shrunk down from its larger Cloud-based counterparts were about two years behind in intelligence levels, but just in the last six months significant improvements have been made, doubling the intelligence of these small language models.

NVIDIA told the press these smaller models are getting close to matching their Cloud counterparts, and that generally the intelligence gap is closing between the two. NVIDIA added that it believes 2026 will be the "breakout year" for AI PCs, as other metric indicators such as the first months downloads for most of its PC models have jumped 10x in a year, with the top four tools also doubling in popularity during the same period.

At CES 2026, NVIDIA not only announced DLSS 4.5 for PC gaming but also made it available now in over 250 games and apps. This is all possible via the NVIDIA App, which offers a DLSS Override tool that lets users choose which model to use for Super Resolution upscaling.

NVIDIA's second-generation Transformer model for DLSS 4.5 features five times the computational power of the baseline DLSS 4 and takes full advantage of the more advanced Tensor Cores in GeForce RTX 40 and 50 Series GPUs. However, like with DLSS 4, users will be able to select the new Transformer Model, the older model, or DLSS 3.5's CNN model for upscaling.

And if you want to check out DLSS 4.5's improved image fidelity alongside reduced ghosting and shimmering, all you need to do is go to the NVIDIA App's Settings, opt in to access Beta or Experimental features, and DLSS 4.5 will be primed and ready to go.

Although we didn't get any new GeForce RTX GPU announcements from NVIDIA at CES 2026, not that we were expecting any based on the current memory crisis, but we did get the announcement and launch of DLSS 4.5.

Building on DLSS 4, which launched alongside the RTX Blackwell-powered GeForce RTX 50 Series in 2025, DLSS 4.5's second-generation Transformer model for Super Resolution features five times the computational power of the original DLSS 4's Transformer model. NVIDIA calls it its most sophisticated AI upscaling model so far, trained on a significantly expanded data set.

Now, as we and others have already covered, DLSS 4's Super Resolution model, which improves performance by upscaling from lower resolutions to 1080p, 1440p, or 4K, is (or was) the gold standard, offering impressive image clarity. So then, how good can DLSS 4.5 be?

NVIDIA talked about something really cool during CES 2026, with new gameplay being unlocked thanks to on-device AI.

The company talked about how on-device AI is helping unlock totally new gameplay, using Inzoi and PUBG as recent examples of using it for AI citizens in Inzoi, and AI teammates in PUBG. NVIDIA said it has worked with Total War developer Creative Assembly on reimagining Total War: PHARAOH Advisor with its NVIDIA ACE technology.

The Total War Advisor can help you get used to the gameplay mechanics, asking it questions along the way with a prompt, and the advisor will help you.

ASUS ROG announced its new collaboration at CES 2026 with Hideo Kojima-founded Kojima Productions, for a new lineup of KJP peripherals, including a new custom ROG Flow Z13-KJP gaming tablet.

The company says that at the heart of its new collaboration is "Ludens", the belief that humans aren't just thinkers, but players and creators. The new collaboration combines the spirit of the ROG motto with "For Those Who Dare with KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS" vision From Sapiens to Ludens.

ASUS says that Ludens are the ones who experiment, mod, create, and challenge what games - and gaming hardware - can be. By uniting cutting-edge ROG hardware with KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS visionary storytelling, this partnership is a tribute to that spirit: everything we build, every detail we design, is for gamers everywhere - For Ludens Who Dare.

Polish game dev and publisher Teyon is gearing up for a new project, and recent job listings give some clues on what it could be.

Teyon, the team mostly known for the favorably-reviewed RoboCop: Rogue City and Terminator Resistance video games, is currently working on a new unannounced game. No concrete info has been revealed so far, but two recent job listings give some clues, revealing that the project will be a "modern action RPG" for both PC and consoles.

Another big clue is that the game will have animals, including wild wolves and dogs. Terminator Resistance also had a stray dog, and dogs in general were important to the story. It's unclear what the game actually is--whether it's another Terminator sequel--however Teyon's typical fare of 80s machismo movie adaptations may lean towards something like Don Coscarelli's Beast Master.

Bethesda's Todd Howard is aware of the Fallout London total conversion mod, and is quite impressed that the FOLON team was able to finish and release the mod to the public.

Total conversion mods are typically few and far between, but Fallout London is among the most acclaimed. The ambitious DLC-sized mod adds a 25-hour campaign set entirely in London, complete with 200 quests, new factions, and an extended dialog system. Interestingly enough, one of the volunteers working on FOLON actually turned down a job at Bethesda to keep working on the mod.

Since mods are the lifeblood for Bethesda games, it's only natural for bigwigs like Todd Howard to take notice of big projects like Fallout London, and now he shares his thoughts on the mod and the overall positive fan reception around it (side note: FOLON has been downloaded over 1 million times).

Bethesda may not be using AI to generate things for its games, but studio head Todd Howard does see the technology as a tool of sorts...yet he is a strong believer that human-created art will always come first.

As the games industry starts to use AI in various ways to help create new projects, some executives are taking a people-first approach to the technology. When asked about how AI could help accelerate the multi-faceted world of games development, Bethesda's Todd Howard delivered a neutral take, saying that it's another potential tool, but it will always require a human operator in order to really make use of it.

In a recent interview with IGN, Howard essentially says that Bethesda Game Studios is continually iterating on and building its game engine tech--especially the newest version of the Creation Engine that will power The Elder Scrolls 6. Innovation won't come at the cost of creativity, though, and Howard says that the studio "wants to protect human artistry."

Former ZeniMax Online Studios head Matt Firor breaks his silence following his departure from the company, outlining the reason why he left the division that he helped create.

Back in July 2025, Microsoft made devastating cuts to its workforce, culminating in multiple Xbox projects being cancelled. One of these was Project Blackbird, a new MMORPG set in a fresh IP that had been in development at ZeniMax Online since 2018.

Shortly after Blackbird's cancellation, ZeniMax Online Studios founder Matt Firor resigned. Now as the new year turns, Firor shares his thoughts on Blackbird's cancellation, saying it was indeed why he departed. Blackbird was a dream project for Firor, and we had been reporting on the mysterious project for many years.