Fast-paced. 3D Platformer. Parkour. First-Person. Racing.

Those are the tags affixed to the Steam page for Stuntboost, a game that I've had trouble summing up with a clean label when asked about it. Stuntboost is a skateboarding game that sometimes features a car, a platformer with a speedometer, an ode to those shrunken bedroom maps popularized by early FPS modders.

It's also, quite easily, my favorite game of 2026 so far.

Yet, Stuntboost could've easily slipped under my radar. It's been out for a month and hasn't made a big splash on Steam—it's rated "Very Positive" with 253 reviews. I only found it through a friend's recommendation, and even then, the art style didn't immediately suggest it was my thing.

Stunboost's toy fingerboards and cardboard circuits give the impression of a chill, Hot Wheels-adjacent racer your child could enjoy, but unless that child is accomplished with a mouse and keyboard, that ain't happening. This is the only skateboarding game with a warning that suggests you play with a mouse, and it's immediately obvious why.

Once you learn a few techniques, Stuntboost looks like this:

And this.

And this.

Despite its choice of vehicles, this thing's for FPS movement sickos—an exercise in precision camera control and first-person platforming. It's essentially a three button game (jump, crouch, grind) about gaining and maintaining speed. Many of its tracks are non-linear obstacle courses that ask you to find your own way across, and the devs actively encourage looking for shortcuts.

I've been obsessed (a word I'm not using lightly) with Stuntboost's 40+ levels for weeks now, replaying tracks and cutting seconds off my times to score the top medals. And once I have those medals, I get to work shaving hundredths of seconds to take the number one spot on my friend leaderboard. Oh man, this is a dangerous game for a friendly rivalry. I now live in fear of a Discord DM informing me that the PB I spent hours honing has been shattered.

But I honestly welcome the excuse to replay tracks, because Stuntboost's movement is fundamentally thrilling, and its maps are masterfully crafted with standard and absurd routing in mind. Its wide ramps, massive jumps, and daring speeds remind me a lot of Trackmania—my favorite racing series—but more specifically, a subset of "full speed" community tracks that never ask you to brake.

Stuntboost also nails a lot of little quality-of-life features that you rarely see in games with way larger budgets. Information about a track is revealed in stages: I can't see friends' times until I've beaten the track once, and global leaderboards are locked until I get the diamond medal. The ghost of my best time appears automatically, but I can also turn on the ghosts of my friends or anyone else on the leaderboard. I can even watch anyone's replay in full as long as I've discovered the same shortcuts they used—a smart touch (possibly inspired by Neon White) that prevents spoilers and entices me to search for what I've missed.

Watching replays is a big deal, too, because it's primarily how I picked up on community techniques that opened my third eye: varial kickflips, grind hopping, speed storage. Every sloped surface is an opportunity for just a bit more speed and every ramp-shaped object—be it a plate, playing card, or three-ring binder—is a springboard that could send me across the map. The variability of a single track can be staggering.

Later worlds (which visit other rooms of the same house) expand beyond the skateboard with car levels that revolve around drifting, free roam scooter levels with S-K-A-T-E collectibles, and a longboard that can't jump. Some of these are just a neat palate cleanser, but the car levels are particularly spectacular for how they force me to relearn how I turn and, eventually, hit sick drifts that're impossible on the skateboard.

Every level has a hidden tape that unlocks a free cam (excellent for scouting) and contributes to unlocking a set of bonus levels. I haven't played all of these yet, but I'm told there's a huge tower gauntlet with a fierce leaderboard race. There's also a speedrun mode that times a run of the complete game, board skins, and a daily challenge.

I am in awe of how unique and fun and fully-featured this thing is, and for $7. Frankly, it's an injustice that Stuntboost isn't one of the year's big indie success stories, but that's nothing new. The indie games that click for me always gravitate toward interesting movement mechanics or use of physics, and that rarely intersects with what PC gamers are currently going wild about (deckbuilders, autoshooters, and city builders mostly).

I've played lots of those—what I want are more games that make me feel alive and dangerous. Stuntboost has me vibrating in place, leaning into high-speed turns, and cursing a god I don't believe in. It's an intoxicating rush on a level I have not experienced before, and you should absolutely play it.

There's nothing I like more in a Fallout game then stumbling across some weird little settlement filled with oddball characters. So when I saw that this mod for Fallout 4 added a whole new town called Detour that's built on top of an overpass near Bedford Station, that was an instant download.

Better yet, the mod features new quests and over a dozen new characters voiced by real people—no AI was used!

But there's something better than that, even. I was delighted to discover that the town of Detour has its own gang. It's a small gang, sure: the overpass Detour is built on isn't particularly big and the town itself is pretty tiny, so there's not a whole lot of room for different factions to spring up. But that doesn't stop the members of the Detour Degens from occupying one little corner of the town where they hang out in matching jackets, smoking cigs, chugging from beer bottles, and looking tough.

Sort of. Look, the Detour Degens are no Tunnel Snakes, that's for sure. But they live on an overpass. They're doing their best.

There are a few different types of missions you can do to raise your reputation with the town of Detour, and besides helping out the sheriff with bounties and recovering stolen goods for a few of the merchants, you can also get in good with the gang. The two members of the Degens I met told me that the third member, their leader, was locked up and they wanted me to spring him.

Yeah, there's a total of three members of the gang. Like I said, they're doing their best.

It was sort of amusing because the gang leader was locked up maybe 15 feet away from the gang's turf in an itty bitty jail cell in the cramped sheriff's office. But in keeping with Fallout tradition, there are a few ways to get the Degen's leader out of the clink.

Another gang mission was to tag various places around town with the Degen logo, which was also kinda cute. I don't really know why you'd need to advertise your gang in a town that small: surely, everyone knows you by now.

But I still did it because I wanna be in the smallest gang in Fallout history (except for maybe Maud's Muggers). Once I tagged the town (it took maybe two minutes) they invited me to join them in a proper criminal quest. I won't spoil it, but like all good heists it went a little wrong in the middle and turned out fine in the end. Plus, the Detour Degens now have a new member, bringing the roster up to four people! I'll wear my new leather jacket proudly from now on.

You can download the Detour mod here, and I'll just point out again that it's been made without the use of AI, something that feels less and less common in the modding scene these days.

Unreal Engine maker Epic Games is running a game jam in November with thousands of dollars in prizes up for grabs. Contrary to so many art contests which ban the use of AI, participants in Epic's event are highly encouraged to use AI.

The theme of the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam will be revealed on November 11, and participating individuals and teams will then have from November 12–15 to produce their games with the help of AI tools.

Some will work in-person at a San Francisco event space, and there will be daily livestreams with progress updates. The winners in three categories will each receive $7,500, with smaller cash prizes for second and third place winners, as well as additional categories like "best team." Also on the table are "Development Continuation Grants of up to $50,000 per team."

Epic extended the invitation with a reference to The Matrix's 'red pill' scene, presenting red-pilled AI-driven development as an opportunity to "ship awesome games in a weekend," while old-fashioned blue-pilled development would have you "wait months to prototype." The hand offering the red pill features an extra finger, a reference to the common mistake made by AI image generators.

The choice follows a recent pattern from Epic of aloofness and defiance directed at AI critics. Last week, the company referred to its new Epic Games Store launcher as "vibe coded," sending the message that it's not ashamed to rely heavily on AI for software development.

Following a report that Epic directed a team working on a Star Wars and Marvel crossover to pivot to "AI first" development, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said that the company is "moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration."

The CEO is bullish on AI not just for coding, but for other fields as well, saying that he expects creative work to become more about "direction" than manual creation.

"Developers who are getting value from AI should speak up," Sweeney posted recently. "There's safety in numbers. MOST developers are doing it and loving it—and if they're not talking about it it's mostly out of fear for haters attacking them, their product, and their company."

Sweeney and Epic have received support for their AI positivity on X, but despite the platform's concentration of Grok users and aspiring AI entrepreneurs, substantial resistance also shows up in the replies.

"So do yall think you invented the concept of a game jam or what?" said one poster in response to the AI MegaJam announcement. "The ludum dare game jam was only 24 hours in 2002, so like, a quarter of the time as your game jam. but you want to make it look like its only possible with AI with this 'wait months to prototype.'"

The closure of BioWare is a tremendous loss, not just for gamers but for Canada: The Edmonton-based studio was named one of the country's best places to work multiple times over the years, even after the Electronic Arts acquisition that ultimately spelled its doom. It's not entirely surprising, then, that its shutdown caught the attention of one of the country's top politicians, who had some harsh words for Electronic Arts about it.

"This is private equity, this is what it does. Buy up businesses, run them into the ground, and rip them apart for short-term profit," Avi Lewis, leader of the New Democratic Party—traditionally Canada's third-largest political party, although it's run aground a bit over the past several years—wrote on social media.

"The developers at BioWare know how to run the studio. They know how to make the games we all love. They should be given the first opportunity—and the federal support—to buy it and run it themselves. And if we want to avoid the Mass Effect effect in Canada, we should be keeping private equity out, not welcoming it in."

The NDP are a center-left party, although the ol' Overton window has resulted in a more centrist style in recent years—a drift Lewis was elected specifically to correct. He's been fairly forceful on that front, speaking out in support of anti-fascist causes and calling for the nationalization of vital industries in Canada that have been swallowed up by larger international interests. Predictably, that led some of his followers to jokingly (I think) call for BioWare to be nationalized.

This is private equity, this is what it does.Buy up businesses, run them into the ground, and rip them apart for short-term profit.www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indus...

— @avilewis.ca (@avilewis.ca.bsky.social) 2026-10-22T21:26:28.216Z

While the "Mass Effect effect" line is a bit of a clunker, Lewis showed off his gamer cred in response to an inquiry on X: When asked who he romanced in Mass Effect 2, he replied, "If I'm honest, I'm a Mass Effect 1 on the PS3 type of guy."

Get ready to start talking about Half-Life 3 again, folks, because it's that time of year: Winter is closing in, The Game Awards are coming, and somebody at Valve said "HLX."

HLX, for those who haven't been following along, is a rumored codename for Half-Life 3, or Half-Life something, the near-mythical new Half-Life game that Valve may or may not be working on.

It first appeared in early 2024 as part of a data string inside a Counter-Strike 2 update that bore a very strong resemblance to "HLVR," Valve's codename for Half-Life: Alyx—a revelation that had PC Gamer contributor Rick Lane "vibrating with excitement."

Sadly for Rick, nothing came of it: No new Half-Life game, 3 or otherwise, followed, and HLX was filed away with all the other myriad Half-Life 3 rumors, hoaxes, and leaks. That is, until Valve composer and audio artist Mike Morasky brought it up completely out of the blue during a GameSoundCon panel on "Valve's Approach to an Open and Flexible Audio Engine."

In response to a question about managing voice counts—essentially the maximum number of sounds that can play simultaneously—Morasky touched on some of the variables involved, before mentioning the role played by Valve's HDR system in optimizing audio. "Deadlock has their own version of HDR," Morasky says. "HLX has its own version, and so on and so forth."

Adding fuel to the fire, co-panelist David Feise, seated next to Morasky, immediately turned to him after the HLX comment and whispered "nice work," or possibly "nice one," obviously suggesting, hey man, you're not supposed to talk about that. Feise then quickly puts an end to the answer as Morasky laughs nervously, saying Groups, which Morasky had been talking about leading up to the HLX remark, "is its own one-hour talk, so come talk to us about that afterwards."

There's no question that Morasky said HLX, and that Feise reacted. In fact, at the end of the panel Feise leaned in and said, "Good job, you only said HLX once." Because this isn't the first time he's done it: Morasky appeared oh-so-close to saying "HLX" in 2025, although he was able to catch himself midway and shift gears, awkwardly, to "Alyx."

So HLX does seem to be a thing, but exactly what type of thing is anyone's guess. Maybe he's tripping over Half-Life: Alyx, or referring to some bit of internal tech, or maybe the whole thing is all just a put-on—Valve devs having a little fun with us. Or maybe it really is Half-Life 3! Nobody knows.

It is interesting, though, that PC Gamer editor Tyler Wilde—a man who does not indulge in the frivolity of baseless rumor and speculation—said in 2025, as the previous round of Half-Life 3 rumors was heating up, that he does think Valve is working on a new Half-Life game (although not necessary Half-Life 3), and that "it's not unreasonable to believe that a new Half-Life game will be announced within the next year or so." Here we are, a year later—and a year closer? We'll see.

"Valve's Approach to an Open and Flexible Audio Engine" panel can be seen in full on Vimeo.

You can now dual wield certain weapons in Cyberpunk 2077 thanks to its Edgerunners 2.5 patch, though sadly it's limited to revolvers and pistols from the power category, which you can either use dual-wielded, or mix and match if you want to have multiple iconics at once.

First, though, you need to unlock the Double Trouble perk in the Cool tree at 9. There are also four subsidiary perks, which improve your dual-wielding proficiency. There are a few important things to remember:

• Dual-wielded iconics will retain their abilities and effects.
• Dual wielding two weapons will make them weaker, though this is somewhat mitigated via Double Trouble's other perks.

Either way, using two iconic power pistols and revolvers adds a lot of potential in terms of comboing effects and running and gunning your way through Night City's mean streets

Though perhaps not the most memorable of Edgerunners 2's characters, Weak Kingsley, or "The King" has the best drip, including his spectacles and crown-emblazoned coat.

No wonder, then, that Cyberpunk 2077 added the new Clampdown quest that lets you get his outfit and gigantic hand cannon in the Edgerunners 2.5 update, similar to how it did for David's jacket and Rebecca's Shotgun for season one. To complete this quest, you need to:

1. Complete The Heist, two gigs for Wakako, and then wait for her message, starting the Clampdown quest.
2. Read the message, head to the meeting at BuryGer diner and speak to King, accepting the job.
3. Go to the prison.
4. When directed, head to the bathroom and interact with the duffle bag under the bench.

The quest will continue, but you'll have King's iconic Coronation Tech Revolver, plus his full outfit, including the glasses.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword has received universal praise for its combat animations, which somehow manage to look natural and fluid no matter what angle or direction hero Miyamoto Musashi has to swing his sword to parry an incoming blow. In a post-launch interview, I asked Capcom how—beyond doing a ton of work across Onimusha's lengthy development—they managed to raise the bar for this sort of action game.

"Starting the project six years ago, we felt it was important to have that detail to sell the power and the excitement of the action, so it's something we really focused on," said director Satoru Nihei.

"Even at that starting point, we knew it was something that Capcom, as a company, have as a great strength: We have a lot of assets and tech available to us that allow us to create these varieties of actions. That's something we really felt we could leverage to make the game really stand out that a lot of other places can't really copy. On top of producing a lot of animations and motion capture, we have to give a lot of credit to the programmers for taking that data and putting it in a form that we can have them make these very smooth transitions, with these physics-based calculations, to go from one animation to another. It was a big team effort in getting the animations to look how they do."

PC Gamer actually got a behind-the-scenes look at that process when we traveled to Osaka this summer to see Onimusha: Way of the Sword wrapping up development.

The effort put into Onimusha's animations is even more impressive within the scope of the final game and its roster of intricately choreographed boss fights. Despite being the third of Capcom's three big releases this year, following Resident Evil: Requiem and Pragmata, Onimusha features some fancy samurai dismemberment tech new to the publisher's in-house game engine. Rather than factoring into the more scripted boss fights, it comes into play when Musashi chops weaker enemies into pieces with dramatic finishers like the lightning fast Issen strike.

"One particular piece of technology that was added specifically for this title that we couldn't have done before is what we call the dynamic dismemberment system," Nihei said. "If you slash enemies with certain attacks they get cut in the exact path that a sword passes through. While that's something that has been done in the past in other games, one of the challenges and things we built on that was brand new with Onimusha was having that happen along with enemies still being animated as they're dying and dropping.

"In lots of other games you'd cut them, they'd kind of freeze when you do the cut and then fall apart. We had to have the programmers add to RE Engine to be able to enable that to really sell the impact of moves like the Issen. That was something brand new added to the engine."

This isn't the first time Nihei has talked about Onimusha's dismemberment system, but I followed up by contrasting it with other action games like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which go a bit more freeform with their chopping. Nihei said that the Onimusha team knew they didn't want to go that route even early in development.

"In other games where you have that ability to cut up anything—just because of the tempo and style of game we wanted to make, it wasn't something we considered for Onimusha. Choosing exactly which direction and how you want to cut, we didn't think it was a good match for this particular title. Rather, we wanted to have something that happened reactively to how you're playing, to show off the power of the abilities."

Now that Onimusha's dynamic dismemberments are bedded into RE Engine, I hope they'll show up in Capcom's future games. Surely next time Leon blows a zombie in half with a shotgun its guts will be slipping and sliding all over the place.

After EA's announcement this week, PC Gamer reached out to BioWare veteran David Gaider to ask for his reflection on the closure and his memories of the studio. Gaider joined BioWare in 1999 to work on Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn and went on to be lead writer on the early Dragon Age games, leaving BioWare in 2016 and co-founding Summerfall Studios in 2019.

Gaider on BioWare

The loss of a legacy hurts

The closure of BioWare and layoff of roughly 400 people at Electronic Arts is being rightly excoriated as an example of the corrosive effects of capital on pretty much everything good. But that same sort of thing happens, maybe more often than we'd like to think, on smaller scales, too. Case in point: Gamepires, creator of open-world survival game Scum, which announced last week that it's putting people out of work.

The bad news came via an unattributed message posted on X: "A difficult decision has been made to reduce the size of the Gamepires team, which means saying goodbye to colleagues who've helped shape Scum and the studio. This step is necessary to help Gamepires adapt to challenging market conditions and long-term sustainability."

It's all very bloodless and generic—the sort of statement that could've come from just about any game studio making layoffs over the past six months or so.

What makes this particular case feel so egregious, though, is that Gamepires was acquired by Splash Damage Group, in a deal backed by Emona Capital, just eight months ago. And that acquisition was made just three months after Splash Damage made major layoffs of its own, so it could "remain agile and adaptable in what has been a very challenging market." And those layoffs came just two months after Splash Damage was acquired by then-unnamed private equity investors.

Splash Damage hasn't released a game since Gears Tactics in 2020: Its planned next big thing, Transformers: Reactivate, was cancelled in 2025. Gamepires' survival game Scum, meanwhile, is still ticking over nicely on Steam, where it's being regularly updated with hotfixes and content updates.

In fact, Splash Damage said when it acquired Gamepires that "bringing the teams together around Scum gives Splash Damage Group immediate, meaningful work to focus on," adding, "That stability has been important for protecting roles and giving the studio a solid foundation for its future. Splash Damage Group is currently just under 150 people, and we will be working closely with Emona to grow the group over the next few years."

Yet here we are, eight months later.

So, to recap:

• Splash Damage gets bought up by private equity
• Splash Damage lays off employees
• Splash Damage, backed by private equity, acquires Gamepires
• Gamepires lays off employees

The number of people put out of work wasn't revealed, but in response to our inquiry Splash Damage issued the following statement:

"Gamepires is part of Splash Damage Group and has reduced the size of its team in response to challenging market conditions and to support the studio’s long-term sustainability.

"These redundancies have affected colleagues we work closely with, whose work has helped make SCUM what it is today. We know this is difficult news for those leaving. We have great respect for their work and the contribution they’ve made to both the game and the studio.

"Development of SCUM will continue, and we’ll keep working with our colleagues at Gamepires to support updates and new content."

The day after the closure of BioWare and cancellation of the next Mass Effect game, a purported trailer for Mass Effect: Universe has surfaced on Reddit. The authenticity of the trailer is unknown at this point, but at the very least it sure looks legit.

Straight to it, here's the video:

Man, that looks like Mass Effect—and sounds like it, too. The music is right, and at least two PC Gamer employees are pretty sure that's Liara's actual voice. Shepard's out, but the new guy seems suitably Shepard-like, although I can't help but notice the absence of the N7 logo on his uniform. Maybe the new guy was meant to be a rawer, rougher kind of troubleshooter—more of a housecleaner than a world-saver—or perhaps the ascent to the rank was meant to be part of the character's progression, which would've been cool.

There are no obvious AI telltales here, at least none that I can see, and adding to the trailer's "real deal" potential, a redditor claiming to be an EA employee said yesterday that a trailer for the new game had been produced and suggested that it was not as early in the development process as was widely believed.

Not long after the trailer came to light, Jason Schreier of Bloomberg said on Bluesky that it is indeed real, and that BioWare had been working on the game until its closure.

Whatever the case—and we're still working on verifying its provenance—the trailer is also just the right blend of sexy, violent, and corny: Even if this isn't a real trailer for what BioWare was working on (and at this point it seems pretty certain that it is), it's a Mass Effect we would definitely play.

I find myself charmed (and perhaps a little perturbed) by the little black envelope included with this Klim Everest laptop cooling pad. Inside you get a set of shiny stickers, a warranty card, and, err.. a comic strip depicting the fictional process that begins when you order one.

"Your product was carefully retrieved from our inventory with sterilized anti-bacterial gloves and placed on a satin silk cushion," the first panel explains. "The party we organized to celebrate your order lasted three days."

Okay, that's something I've never seen before. And I'll be honest, the sarcastic comic endears me to the product more than it should. I could do without the last panel, though, which says: "If you feel like it, send us a photo of you (or your pet) and we'll send you a printable version of this comic strip with your photo on it."

A step too far, I feel. Anyway, the pad itself is a very sizable unit, designed to cool laptops from 14 to 17.3-inches in size and powered by a USB Type-A port. Atop its silver plastic frame sits a foam gasket, designed to create a seal between the bottom of your lappy and the outside air. Two 60 mm fans pull cool air from the rear of the pad and fire it at the bottom of your machine, into any awaiting vents.

The full MSRP of the Klim Everest is listed as $60, but it's currently down to $50 at Amazon. There are cheaper options on the market, but this one is much more wallet-friendly than, say, this Razer unit for a mahoosive $150.

Speaking of which, I have an ageing Razer Blade 15 that likes to get toasty under full load. So, I booted up the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark, ran it on repeat, and gathered my temperature readings—before placing the lappy atop the Everest (making sure not to block any vents) to see if it made much difference.

Klin Everest laptop cooling pad testing

Results recorded on a Razer Blade 15 (2020) gaming laptop with an Intel Core i7 10875H and an RTX 3080 mobile GPU

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Ultra RT, DLSS Quality)TemperaturesCPU statsGPU stats

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 15 | No cooling pad

51

41

Razer Blade 15 | Cooling pad set to maximum

51

40

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Ultra RT, DLSS Quality) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 15 | No cooling pad	51 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 15 | Cooling pad set to maximum	51 Avg FPS, 40 1% Low FPS

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

Avg GPU (°C)

Max GPU (°C)

Razer Blade 15 | No cooling pad

70

85

66

73

Razer Blade 15 | Cooling pad set to maximum

70

83

65

73

Temperatures Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 15 | No cooling pad	70 Avg CPU (°C), 85 Max CPU (°C), 66 Avg GPU (°C), 73 Max GPU (°C)
Razer Blade 15 | Cooling pad set to maximum	70 Avg CPU (°C), 83 Max CPU (°C), 65 Avg GPU (°C), 73 Max GPU (°C)

Avg CPU freq. (MHz)

Max CPU freq. (MHz)

Razer Blade 15 | No cooling pad

2562

3380

Razer Blade 15 | Cooling pad set to maximum

2583

3442

CPU stats Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 15 | No cooling pad	2562 Avg CPU freq. (MHz), 3380 Max CPU freq. (MHz)
Razer Blade 15 | Cooling pad set to maximum	2583 Avg CPU freq. (MHz), 3442 Max CPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Max GPU freq. (MHz)

Razer Blade 15 | No cooling pad

1192

1775

Razer Blade 15 | Cooling pad set to maximum

1163

1775

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 15 | No cooling pad	1192 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 1775 Max GPU freq. (MHz)
Razer Blade 15 | Cooling pad set to maximum	1163 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 1775 Max GPU freq. (MHz)

The Klin Everest does manage to lower the peak CPU temperature of the Blade 15 by two degrees, resulting in ever-so-slightly higher clockspeeds. However, gaming performance and GPU stats remain well within margins of error.

In terms of noise? Yes, very much so. The Everest makes an irritating whirring sound whenever it moves a meaningful amount of air, and the extra cooling doesn't convince the Blade 15's fans to shut up under heavy load, either. The two combine together to create quite the racket, particularly at higher settings.

And in terms of temps? The Blade 15's RTX 3080 mobile still jumps to the same thermal peak, even with the cooler set to maximum, although I did record a single degree difference in the average GPU temps. However, the clockspeed and performance figures remain well within margins of error. In fact, the average GPU frequency is slightly higher without the pad, as are the 1% lows. Excellent.

That being said, it did manage to drop the peak CPU temperature by a whole two degrees, which seems to have resulted in ever-so-slightly higher clockspeeds. Not that it made any difference to actual gaming performance, but hey. A tiny win's still a win.

What my editor has sent me, then, is a large and noisy plinth to rest my laptop on—and little else. The Everest would likely make more of a difference when used with badly overheating machines, perhaps within hotter ambient temperatures, but it certainly hasn't made any major improvements to my gaming laptop on a sunny October day.

I think a simple laptop stand, enough to raise your machine off a desk to free up airflow beneath the bottom vents, would be a more cost-effective buy. I've found a decent-looking one for $18. It doesn't come with a comic, though. Shame.

So, is the Klim Everest a "Recycle Bin" candidate? Well, it's loud, largely ineffectual, still pricier than you might expect, and quite the desk dominator. Oh, and the bargain-basement screen is rubbish, as is the RGB lighting—and quite a few user reviews note reliability issues.

Ah, screw it. Put it in the bin and be done with it.

If you care about retro PC gaming hardware, there's a good chance you've heard of the now-defunct 3dfx. And if you know 3dfx, there's an even better chance you've heard of the 3dfx Voodoo graphics card. Well, according to one of its founders, its success is owed at least in part to the legendary shooter Quake.

Ross Smith recently spoke to our friends at Club386 in celebration of the first 3dfx Voodoo turning 30 years old, and he talks about the 'Quake effect'.

Effectively, though Quake launched in June 1996, it didn't get GLQuake, which allowed for 3D hardware acceleration, until the start of 1997. John Carmack reportedly reached out to 3dfx, which then worked on an API called MiniGL that could run the game. In its implementation, 3dfx cards could then run the game at a better resolution in greater detail with a wider range of colours.

Smith says, "I would certainly give id, John, and Quake a great deal of credit for our overall success—we probably sold millions of boards because of that game, and it was magnificent. That’s the last game I’ve gone all the way to the end on, and I was exhausted after doing that. It was well crafted, beautiful, dark."

It makes sense why developers would want to work with the likes of 3dfx because better compatibility makes their games look better. And a developer is more likely to sell a game if it can wow an audience.

This symbiotic relationship was key to 3dfx development at the start. 3dfx reportedly reached out to developers to show games pre-rendered on 3dfx Voodoo cards, and "they loved it".

Smith argues this relationship to developers was quite unique at the time. "Most other companies, like S3 or others, saw game developers kind of as a necessary evil, not as the lifeblood of a company that’s focused on gaming. So we flipped the whole thing around.”

This is a relationship that might seem familiar nowadays, with the likes of Nvidia, Intel, and AMD working directly with developers to improve software. Nvidia and 3dfx famously took each other to court for various patent infringement complaints in the late '90s and early '00s, and Nvidia acquired many of 3dfx's assets after it filed for bankruptcy in the early 2000s. So in a way, we have 3dfx to thank for parts of Nvidia's successes in the following years, too.

And 3dfx was unique in a few ways. The Voodoo cards had great 3D acceleration because it was designed specifically for 3D acceleration as a co-processor alongside a 2D card, letting the CPU do other background work at the same time.

It was just one of many steps towards hardware that was specifically designed for gaming rigs. "We did something revolutionary there," says Smith, "we didn’t have a VGA. That was partly down to our lack of design experience, and partly down to my concern about profitability and compatibility. Being compatible with a million apps is really hard—being compatible with 200 games is much easier.”

Yesterday, EA announced that it's closing BioWare, the studio behind beloved RPG franchises like the original Baldur's Gate games, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. Alongside BioWare's closure—and the cancelling of its next Mass Effect project—EA is reportedly laying off around 400 people in an effort to "align talent and investment" in the wake of its record-breaking private equity buyout.

While recent years have brought no shortage of high profile studio closings and game cancellations, the news of BioWare's shuttering has prompted an outpouring of sympathies and frustrations from the fans, fellow developers, and former studio staff. Among those mourners is former BioWare game director and ex-general manager Casey Hudson, who reacted to the news on X to say that BioWare's influence will continue even if the studio itself doesn't.

"This is sad news on multiple fronts—for those of us who worked there, for our friends and colleagues at BioWare who are impacted, and for fans who were looking forward to the next Mass Effect adventure," Hudson said. "I started my career at BioWare and will forever be grateful to the founders, Greg and Ray, for inviting me to join in BioWare's legendary journey. Its legacy will live on through those who were part of it and continue to create games through a passion for unforgettable stories, worlds, and characters."

During his tenure at the studio, Hudson had a major influence on some of BioWare's most-loved releases, working as project director on both Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the Mass Effect trilogy. After leaving BioWare in 2014, Hudson returned in 2017 as its general manager—before ultimately departing a second time in 2020, following the troubled development and launch of Anthem, the studio's ill-fated live service shooter.

Since then, Hudson's been acting as proof of his own assertion about BioWare's lasting influence in game development. Following the 2021 founding and subsequent 2024 closure of his NetEase-acquired studio, Humanoid Origin, Hudson announced in 2025 that he'd started yet another new company: Arcanaut Studios. There, he—and a team stacked with other ex-BioWare devs—are currently at work on Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, a "narrative-driven action RPG" that Hudson has called a "spiritual successor" to KotOR.

Hudson's far from the only developer who's reaffirmed BioWare's continuing impact on game development since the news of its closure broke. CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski noted how BioWare offered crucial support during the development of the Witcher 1, while Larian CEO Swen Vincke wrote on X that the studio "led the way in making RPGs big."

Legendary immersive sim developer Warren Spector offered a more blunt reaction to BioWare's shuttering, calling the closure "utter bullshit."

Bloody hell, that monster with the metal stakes for arms and legs is quick. No matter how fast I run or how well I hide it'll be right where it needs to be, on time and ready to impale me. Don't get me wrong, I actually quite like coming face to face with a de-fleshed monster— especially when it looks this cool—but I'm not a fan of being funneled into the same set pieces over and over again.

Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival does a lot of things right; its body horror and gore is top tier and some of the puzzles really grew on me towards the end. But its action and horror didn't manage to hit the same highs no matter how many grotesque monsters it threw at me.

I played Hellraiser on its standard setting—I find it's a good way to get a baseline—and while I didn't have a massive problem with how easy that was, I didn't gel with how inconsistent the fights were and how, ultimately, nothing I did mattered.

Take the final fight scene with our aforementioned monster with stakes for arms and legs, otherwise known as Charlotte, for example. After being chased through the cult's HQ and the woods she finally cornered me in a clearing in the woods. I used everything I had against Charlotte, going through all the ammo and healing items I had diligently stacked up all while sliding and dodging out of the way of incoming attacks, but she just wouldn't go down. Finally, when I had nothing left, she got me. And then the realisation set in as a cutscene played out; I was never meant to win this fight.

This happened a couple of times throughout Hellraiser, an action set piece in which your actions didn't really matter. One segment felt like a poor man's COD zombies that saw me nailing planks of wood to the windows in a futile attempt to keep those pesky brain-eaters out. It's not my first rodeo so I was on it. But ultimately I chewed through all the ammo and other resources I had yet again. Soon after a flood of zombies invaded the small cabin I was in and pushed me into a corner where I was trapped by the horde's flailing arms.

I actually managed to get out of that situation thanks to some well placed crouches but I didn't last much longer. Eventually one dropped from the rafters (don't ask me how he got there), and I crashed through the floor boards in another short cinematic. Ah, this was all part of the game's plan. It's fine for there to be an outline of how the action should play out, but when the guard rails are this obvious it can be suffocating.Why not make it all into a cinematic if my actions have so little consequence?

I may have even been able to excuse the strict script if killing enemies were satisfying enough for the journey to outweigh the destination. But the kills are just sort of okay. Enemies' torsos randomly detached from their legs when I threw a saw blade at their head, zombies fell to the floor as if playing dead only to then bite at your ankles, and fighting the guys in full suits of armour is far less epic than it sounds; you just have to hit them over and over with a blunt object.It's very tedious.

My favourite part of the action by far had to be using the genesis configuration box, an item that bestows the user with limited telekinesis. In fights you can use it to throw deadly items that are helpfully highlighted in blue, like nails or even fire. But this played less of a part than I would've liked with pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles carrying the brunt of the action.

Something's wrong

So the action isn't all there, but what about the horror? Well, unfortunately I didn't find Hellraiser scary at all. The jumpscares were predictable and I quickly learned that most of the time when a monster scuttled across a gap in the wall or stabbed the log I was crawling through, it was all just for show; it couldn't kill me and therefore wasn't scary.

You get haunted by a monster riddled with flowing veins stretching out of its body that looks so cool while in the Labyrinth but it never really amounts to anything, none of the horror in the Labyrinth does. Occasionally, the extra-dimensional sadistic cenobite Chatterer will chase you around the maze but he walks pretty slow so he was never much of a threat. At one point I literally ran circles around him while using the genesis configuration to solve a finicky puzzle.

I will admit, though, I may be slightly numb to jumpscares and horror at this point, so take this with a grain of salt, but while my tolerance may be higher than most, a well placed scare can still get through. Silent Hill: Townfall and Amnesia: The Bunker are just some recent examples that come to mind.

Wasted potential

It's all a bit of a shame because the look of Hellraiser: Revival is great. I loved all the guts and gore, and every single one of the major monsters looked so awful I couldn't tear myself away. Charlotte may have been an annoying boss fight, but it's been a long time since I saw a monster that was designed so brilliantly that I felt the odd mix of impressed and horrified.

The puzzles were another highlight. I found using the genesis configuration to solve them to be intuitive and rewarding. It actually had me wishing that this game was solely set in the Labyrinth. I think a stealth horror game where the protagonist has to sneak around the maze while solving puzzles would have been much more satisfying and scary. It could have also made the cenobites seem a bit more intimidating, because instead they came off as a bunch of kind of chill alien things who were just into some kinky stuff. They kept their word, helped guide you, and occasionally followed you around the maze.They seemed alright to me.

Ultimately, Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival was simply okay. It's not particularly innovative and the action isn't massively satisfying. But when you stack it up against the greats of the action horror genre like Resident Evil 4, The Last of Us, or even Alan Wake 2 its pitfalls become even more apparent. The gore is cool and all the BDSM is certainly eye-catching, but a fetch quest for the biggest dildo available isn't enough to bump this game up into a must-play for a fan of the genre; you can get better elsewhere.

It all started in primary school, when the teacher would wheel in an old box of a TV and fumble around for ten minutes trying to get a vaguely educational program onto the screen. These were the moments when my class was perhaps the most engaged, as the DVD player fell asleep and the screensaver kicked in: the logo began bouncing around the screen, ever-avoiding the corner sweet spot.

Finally I've been able to experience the sheer joy of watching the logo bounce perfectly off the corner with 10 Million Pixels and its Steam Next Fest demo.

It starts off simple enough: Among the millions of 2D pixels there's a small gap. You launch a ball and watch as it starts bouncing off the walls slowly whittling down the health of each pixel until it's destroyed, giving you a point. You use these points to buy more balls to launch into the ever growing hole.

But that's not all, come on now. Scattered around the map are pink gems power-ups and if you manage to carve a path to them and actually get a ball to bounce into it then you can use them to either power up your balls or unlock different kinds. You can make them faster, do more damage, or even allow you to reuse an existing ball.

I started out with the basic orange ball, then went on to the toxic green ball that deals escalating tic damage to the pixel block it hits. After that I got the blue ball which is slightly quicker, and then the pink ball which is even speedier. The final ball in the demo is the lightning ball that can shock nearby blocks, breaking them as it passes.

I had more fun than I probably should have passively launching balls into the ever-growing mines and watching them whittle down all the pixels. It wasn't just satisfying to watch but also to hear as the ball hitting and breaking blocks emanates a warm popping sound. There's also incredibly chill lo-fi music on in the background which honestly nearly sent me to sleep; it's lovely.

Oh, but there is a point to 10 Million Pixels. You're on a mission to break all the pixels in order to find the one golden pixel. This can be located anywhere in the map, and while you occasionally do get a special golden ball which can point you in its general direction, the only guaranteed way of finding it is to break all the pixels.

It took me around 40 minutes to find the golden pixel in the demo, although the full game will have different maps that hide varying solid objects that cannot be broken inside. I carried on playing even after I found the golden pixel because I wanted to see what said object is. It turned out to be an image of an angel and devil with a fish's skeleton hanging upside down from a balloon and hook between the two. I don't know what that means, I don't know how that's meant to pertain to breaking pixels, but I do know that I enjoy breaking pixels, and that's all that matters.

In spite of a bloodletting that saw the end of BioWare—a lion in winter, sure, but still a studio with a rich legacy—and around 400 employees laid off, EA seemingly still has videogame irons in the fire. Per a report from Variety, the corporation is working on a new Battlefront game, said to be in the hands of Respawn and DICE.

This is not officially confirmed, of course. In its gore-flecked letter to staff and rubber-neckers in the wake of yesterday's BioWare news, EA only said that its future involved "bringing together our Respawn and DICE studios to collaborate on a future project."

This, it boasted, would allow it to "balance our resources, and leverage the technology to deliver a shooter portfolio that unlocks growth." Which certainly gets me excited about things to come.

Nevertheless, multiple sources tell Variety that the "future project" is, indeed, a third Battlefront. Which is probably a good idea, in all fairness. I don't think either of the previous two modern Battlefront games have quite lit the world on fire—in fact, the second one's lootboxes were so bad it sparked an uproar that made it all the way to the Belgian Gambling Commission—but the notion of a big boisterous shooter filled with Star Wars stuff feels like something that could be pretty cool, right?

And hey, Respawn's done a good job on those Star Wars Jedi games to the point that we all now go around referring to them as the 'Star Wars Jedi' games like that's not an absurdly bad name. Meanwhile, DICE rather pleased our resident FPS czar Morgan Park with Battlefield 6; he scored it 82% in his Battlefield 6 review and called it "automatically one of the best shooters of the year." So sure, sign me up to see what the two can do with a Battlefront game together.

If you have a Capcom ID, you may want to check your email to see if you are one of the 11,774,247 caught in the latest Capcom data breach.

Capcom has issued a public apology (via Notebook Check), declaring that "unauthorised access by a third party occurred to our online membership service 'CAPCOM ID', resulting in the leakage of some customer information. "

The 11 million figure is the number of email addresses with system-specific identification information (like account creation time, last login, and client IP address on last login) that were leaked. 43 accounts had additional information exposed, including the date of birth, gender, country/region, and nickname on the account.

196 Capcom accounts have also had their login passwords illegally changed, though the company says "No leaks of passwords set by the customers themselves have been confirmed". It also says, "The passwords for these accounts have already been reset, and we are continuing to investigate the extent of the impact of the unauthorized access."

Capcom states that no credit card information was included in this breach, and it has reportedly "completed the implementation of emergency measures and the identification and response to the attack methods".

Capcom claims it originally caught the breach on October 19, 2026, and blocked access as soon as it was discovered. On October 20, a task force was created to gather information and prevent any further damage. On October 21, the breach was reported to the police and the Personal Information Protection Commission.

From here, those affected should receive an email from Capcom declaring that their data was in the breach, and the company urges users to be extra vigilant in watching their emails. Capcom suspects that those caught up in the breach might receive suspicious emails impersonating Capcom or similar companies, attempting to get access to their accounts or phish them.

Though hackers did not gain access to customer-made passwords in this breach, it's probably a good reminder to set up different passwords for different accounts, and also a good reminder to use a password manager, too.

We prattle on about GPU prices so much nowadays that even we're getting sick of it. Yet for as long as the memory crisis rages on and prices keep rising, we'll keep bringing it up. We'll also keep trying to spot the best prices for graphics cards, which is exactly how I spotted these specific pricing horrors.

The RTX 5050, RTX 5060, and RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB are now only separated by a mere $70. That's not between each card—the jump from an RTX 5050 to an RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB is just $70, down from nearly double that at their intended MSRPs.

'What's the big deal, then?' I hear you ask. 'Surely that means less cash for a better card?'

It is a big deal, and no, it doesn't.

This is due to dreadful circumstances: the cheapest RTX 5050 that I could find is this one currently $400 at Best Buy. It's not only far in excess of the MSRP—which should be a mere $249—but it's actually in excess of the MSRP of the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB at $379.

The cheapest RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB I could find is $470, and the cheapest RTX 5060 is $420.

Moreover, if you look beyond the 8 GB options at the bottom of the stack, to the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB, that card jumps up to $789. That should be around the $429 mark MSRP-wise—should.

What's even worse is the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB is currently the same price as the RTX 5070. That card is also $789.

It's pretty terrible anywhere you look. Our own in-house tracking shows prices are currently spiking once again, not the least bit the high-end market.

Lowest price per GPU

We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

Lowest pricing (Price, $)

Week

AMD Radeon RX 9070 GREAMD RX 9060 XT 16 GBAMD RX 9060 XT 8 GBAMD RX 9070AMD RX 9070 XTIntel Arc B570Intel Arc B580Nvidia RTX 5050Nvidia RTX 5060Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GBNvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GBNvidia RTX 5070Nvidia RTX 5070 TiNvidia RTX 5080

Lowest pricing Data

Timestamp (Week)	AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)	AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB (Price, $)	AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB (Price, $)	AMD RX 9070 (Price, $)	AMD RX 9070 XT (Price, $)	Intel Arc B570 (Price, $)	Intel Arc B580 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5050 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5060 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5080 (Price, $)
1	N/A	370	280	600	700	230	260	250	300	430	368	550	780	1100
2	N/A	370	270	600	700	230	260	250	300	430	340	550	750	1099
3	N/A	370	280	550	700	230	250	250	291	430	370	524	750	1000
4	N/A	370	280	550	695	230	250	250	296	430	345	546	750	1000
5	N/A	350	270	600	670	230	250	250	300	430	340	481	749	1000
6	N/A	350	270	600	670	230	250	240	289	379	340	499	749	929
7	N/A	350	270	550	650	230	250	240	299	430	350	520	750	999
8	N/A	350	270	550	650	200	250	250	299	430	342	500	749	980
9	N/A	350	270	560	650	220	250	250	299	430	323	500	750	999
10	N/A	360	270	550	600	210	250	250	299	430	340	480	730	989
11	N/A	340	250	550	600	200	250	230	280	400	320	489	699	990
12	N/A	350	275	530	600	200	250	220	279	400	320	500	730	989
13	N/A	350	280	530	600	200	250	220	279	420	342	527	750	1000
14	N/A	370	280	530	600	202	250	220	279	420	313	540	750	1000
15	N/A	380	288	530	600	202	240	200	279	430	350	499	749	1000
16	N/A	380	288	530	620	202	240	200	270	430	350	499	750	1100
17	N/A	390	310	580	660	200	250	235	260	430	330	549	750	1230
18	N/A	390	310	580	700	200	250	240	290	450	330	540	829	1268
19	N/A	400	310	580	720	200	260	240	299	450	330	549	899	1380
20	N/A	440	310	600	720	200	290	240	299	520	330	620	1000	1350
21	N/A	440	350	590	730	250	290	260	299	520	351	620	950	1365
22	N/A	400	346	630	730	250	300	260	299	520	360	620	950	1365
23	N/A	440	346	630	730	250	300	260	340	520	360	630	950	1290
24	N/A	440	346	620	730	250	300	260	340	520	360	625	950	1290
25	N/A	440	346	610	730	250	300	260	349	550	360	630	950	1250
26	N/A	440	340	610	730	250	300	290	349	550	360	604	950	1260
27	N/A	440	340	630	730	250	300	290	349	570	360	640	950	1290
28	N/A	440	346	620	720	250	290	290	349	515	390	630	900	1250
29	N/A	449	350	620	710	250	290	290	349	500	390	636	990	1290
30	N/A	440	350	620	710	260	290	290	330	500	390	630	990	1290
31	N/A	440	350	620	670	260	290	290	330	500	380	599	990	1290
32	N/A	430	360	620	710	260	290	290	310	515	380	599	990	1290
33	N/A	430	360	600	710	260	290	290	349	490	400	599	980	1290
34	N/A	440	360	620	710	260	290	290	349	550	380	599	980	1270
35	N/A	430	360	600	700	260	304	290	350	550	380	599	900	1290
36	550	440	360	600	700	260	300	290	340	550	370	599	980	1250
37	550	440	350	600	700	250	304	290	340	570	370	599	980	1250
38	550	440	350	600	700	250	304	290	340	570	370	599	980	1250
39	500	400	360	600	700	250	298	290	340	570	330	599	920	1250
40	500	430	360	600	700	260	291	290	340	565	330	599	955	1250
41	500	430	360	600	700	250	290	290	339	560	330	560	900	1250
42	550	450	360	635	690	260	290	290	350	570	380	550	950	1250
43	500	470	370	650	720	260	310	299	359	650	420	755	1030	1290
44	500	470	400	650	720	260	310	299	N/A	780	420	763	1088	1479
45	530	460	360	630	730	260	310	299	359	773	389	800	1150	1550
46	530	470	400	650	740	260	310	299	359	570	389	759	1150	1550
47	520	470	409	650	740	260	310	299	359	570	389	725	1150	1450
48	500	470	430	650	760	260	330	N/A	359	780	389	779	1150	1450
49	570	500	450	667	760	260	330	310	380	780	488	779	1150	1653
50	550	520	400	700	800	290	330	310	439	789	470	779	1150	1654
51	570	520	400	700	830	290	330	400	N/A	789	470	789	1200	1800

If you were in need of a graphics card right now, I'd probably buy an RX 9070 GRE for $570—that's only $20 over MSRP.

That's about as good as it gets.

Immersive sim legend Warren Spector shared some thoughts on yesterday's closure of BioWare, and they're uncharacteristically spicy—so much so that he led into them with a warning for sensitive readers.

"I try very hard not to curse at any time but especially in public. Unfortunately for my vocabulary and the delicate sensibilities of some who read this I can’t control myself. Hell, I don’t want to control myself," Spector wrote in a brief message on LinkedIn.

"BioWare is more than just another studio. For decades it's played a central role in the history of our medium. They, for many years, as effectively as any studio, married art and commerce. Their work changed things."

And then, the cursing, and the warning that sensitive readers should cover their eyes while Warren gives 'em both barrels: "This is such bad news, such a devastating historic event all I can say is that it’s utter bullshit. Anyone who participated in this travesty should be ashamed."

It is perhaps not the eruption of ear-scalding profanity you were expecting (or hoping for), but the truth is that Spector has been a studiously even-tempered professional throughout his career. I don't know if I've ever heard him publicly say anything harsher than "heck" or maybe "gosh darn" for as long as I've been following him—PCG pal Joshua Wolens described Spector as "so pure, like if hot chocolate was a guy," and I think that pretty much nails it.

Easy as it is to joke, though (and I suspect Spector is playing to character somewhat here), his message does very aptly reflect the weight of the moment. The closure of BioWare is a pronounced symptom of an industry (and a world, really) that's gone wrong in some very fundamental ways. What kind of multi-billion-dollar game company, supposedly one of the best, looks at a studio like BioWare and says, "Nah, I can't do anything with that?"

The fact that EA managed to make mild-mannered Warren Spector—who's supposed to be enjoying his retirement—straight-up call bullshit on the whole thing speaks volumes about how bad a botch this really is.

But he wasn't finished. "Maybe all of the people who participated—the folks in suits (real or virtual) should lose their damn jobs," Spector continued. "I ask them to ponder this: What do you contribute to gaming? What price do you pay for failure? I’d love to see THEM on the unemployment line instead of the people who do real work. Why is it always the do-ers and makers who pay the price? Someone explain that to me!

"I wish I had more curse words."

Spector is correct: As we've seen so many times before, it's never the C-suite that suffers when the axe falls and hundreds or thousands of the people who actually make games get put out of work. Roughly 400 people lost their jobs at EA yesterday, including those impacted by the BioWare closure; CEO Andrew Wilson, meanwhile, was paid more than $38.5 million in 2026—$8 million more than he was paid in 2025. Regardless of whether or not Spector has more curse words at his disposal, I think he picked absolutely the correct one for the moment: This is bullshit.

It's winter time in Forza Horizon 6's Horizon Meets series, so once again we have a new Treasure Hunt to find to get some seasonal points for earning the newest automobiles on offer.

This week, the chest is in east Sotoyama, the northernmost region, by a mountain lake. You can see it in the image above, but this one is exceptionally easy to spot on the map.

1. Just pan north on the map from Soni Circuit in Takashiro and you'll spot the big pool in the far east of Sotoyama.
2. The chest itself is on the beach that runs along its right side from northeast to southwest.

Head there and smash the chest to get 100,000 credits, 5,000 XP, and three Season Progress. Also make sure to complete the new photo challenge, too, if you're looking for extra points.

In the era of speedy solid state drives, I barely remember the last time I saw a loading screen. I say 'barely' because it was, in fact, last night as I waited for Star Wars Zero Company to compile its shaders for a second time following a crash I encountered during the tutorial mission. Some of us are just blessed (read: cursed) like that. Thankfully, more and more games are moving towards pre-compiling shaders.

Case in point, Nvidia just released a fresh GeForce Game Ready Driver that adds support for Advanced Shader Delivery in both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 and Gears of War: E-Day. I've not had a chance to test the Nvidia GeForce 621.01 WHQL driver yet, but journalist Sebastian Castellanos notes "considerably lower system RAM usage" with it installed.

He wrote on X, "In Gears of War: E-Day, [RAM usage is] about 7-8 GB lower in my case. CPU usage is still relatively high though."

To briefly recap, Advanced Shader Delivery is Microsoft tech that compiles a game's shaders before you ever hit 'play', distributing them during the download process and banishing that pesky in-game load screen. This update brings support to all RTX GPUs, from the 20-series to the 50-series, but the tech is only available for certain games.

Back in May, Microsoft worked with AMD to get Advanced Shader Delivery support in a number of games—but only if you download them via the Xbox app. It's the same story here, with Nvidia writing, "When you download or update a supported title, the exact Precompiled Shader Database (PSDB) tailored to your rig is bundled with your download via the Xbox PC app, meaning ASD-supported games purchased from the Microsoft Store will offer a seamless experience."

Nvidia also breaks down why one cannot simply add Advanced Shader Delivery to every game, and why waiting around for a game to compile shaders is even a thing to begin with. "Modern games rely on tens of thousands of complex shaders," Nvidia explains, "However, generic shader files must be compiled locally into instructions specific to your GPU and driver version, which is a CPU-heavy process that forces players to wait up to 30 minutes every time a game launches or updates.

"Pre-compiling every possible combination on the developer’s side would mean users download terabytes of data with each new game and update, leaving local compilation as the long-standing norm." Nvidia goes on, "Microsoft’s new Advanced Shader Delivery solves this by offloading the heavy lifting to the cloud."

Mass Effect 5 is officially cancelled and EA's shutting BioWare down, putting an end to decades of some of the best RPGs in gaming—and while I don't have too much positive to say about BioWare's later run (Veilguard was a decent action RPG with a story I couldn't stand), much of that has to do with EA's management of it.

Regardless of my nervousness towards ME5, I think it's a shame that I never got to find out whether it'd fix my issues with the Veilguard's storytelling or not. Especially since it's just been revealed that an award-winning science fiction author was on board.

Derek Künsken is a science fiction author who has won an Asimov Reader's Award (from the Asimov Science Fiction magazine) in 2012 for The Way of the Needle. More recently in 2021, he also snagged an Aurora Award (from the Canadian SF and Fantasy Association) for Tool Use by the Humans of Danzhai County. He's often a finalist in these categories, too.

Künsken wrote on X: "I have a weird announcement. On and off for the last five years, as a contract writer, and as a senior writer on staff, I've been hoping to be allowed to say where I worked. Today I finally got the green light: I've been working on the next Mass Effect.

"Unfortunately, the light turned green because BioWare is being shuttered. Over the coming weeks, I'll get more clarity on what I can say about what I did and saw and learned. I hope it's more than nothing—what we were cooking was really cool. I can say that everyone I met at BioWare was a decent human being, an expert in their field, and was ambitiously imaginative about what a future experience of Bioware could be. Working closely with Parrish Ley and Mary DeMarle will be highlights of my writing career."

I want to clarify my above cynicism: Even when I'm critically tearing into a videogame for its writing, I do so with the understanding that there's a huge gulf between what a writer puts in and what actually comes out. Videogames are monstrously complicated beasts, and sometimes development cycles are so terribly tangled that even solid authors can't spin a good yarn out of them.

For instance, writers who produce some of the best companions in RPGs (Tali'zorah, Mordin Solus, and Solas) don't turn around and create a Taash because they got hit very hard with a brick in between games and became bad at their job—more often than not, the structure of the studio has changed enough to make that job very hard. That David Gaider, the guy who made Dragon Age, left partially because he was done EA's increasing hostility towards the craft makes me confident in that assumption.

All this to say, I don't know if Mass Effect 5 would've been an incredible story: But I will say it's a damn shame that none of the work Künsken put into it (a clearly talented science fiction writer in his own right) will have a chance to prove me wrong. Or the work of any of the game's writers, for that matter.

Good things rarely last forever, as is the case with the iconic UK biscuit Happy Faces and now Arc Raiders' PvE test. We knew it wasn't going to last long as Embark announced that it would only stick around for a week, but it disappearing from the game still sucks.

I loved the PvE test, it was a lot of fun and a very nice alternative to what can be a quite intense PvP experience. I played both over the last week, and while I got better loot in PvP, it was nice jumping into PvE every now and then just to have a chill experience killing arc and running around a pretty map.

So what's next? Well, now PvE is over Embark needs to figure out whether the whole ordeal was worth it or not and whether the team should bring it back. "More than 30 million rounds of PvE were played over the testing period," Embark says in an official blog post. "This gives us a huge amount of information to analyse. As such, we're going to need a short period of time to dive into the numbers and draw out the insights."

Arc Raiders has certainly experienced a revival since the release of its major Frozen Trail update alongside the PvE test. The concurrent player count jumped from 50,000 to 185,000, Steam reviews are back to Mostly Positive and its recent Steam blog post announcing the PvE test got 17,000 upvotes compared to Frozen Trail's 7,000. PvE has been a massive hit, and I'd call it a success.

But to ensure it gets the most up to date sentiments Embark is asking players to submit their opinions to the PvE-test-feedback channel in the official Discord, as well as completing a survey that will be sent out to a few players from October 22.

"We need a bit of time to understand what the data is telling us, and what our community is saying," the blog post continues. "On a surface reading, we know that the test has been polarising. As always, our decision on how to proceed will prioritize the overall health and enjoyability of the game.

"We don’t yet know what the outcome of the data analysis will be, but we expect to be able to follow up with further information in November."

I don't actually believe that this test is as polarising as Embark thinks it is. Because at the end of the day if this is what will bring players back to Arc Raiders then adding PvE is the only sensible way forward. Unfortunately, as it is with all live service games, once a game is out there in the wild it no longer belongs solely to the developers. PvE may not be the original intended experience, but if it's the one that will keep this game afloat then I say go for it.

A redditor's mother-in-law found a Steam Deck OLED on an Amtrak train—and ever since, the redditor has been trying to send it back to its rightful owner. Now it's finally on its way home.

Apparently, the redditor's mother-in-law found the device several months prior, but "she had no idea what to do with it or how to even turn it on. She just came to visit and handed it over to me this weekend."

The user, vgalz, originally tried looking on the Steam, Steam Deck, and Amtrak subreddits to find the owner. Having no luck, they then reached out to Steam Support representatives, who said they couldn't connect the finder with the owner but did recommend reporting the missing Deck to local law enforcement.

Vgalz also tried to befriend the owner on Steam, tried to log into their account to get their name, and commented on a Redditor's post who they believed owned the Deck, all to no avail.

It turns out that the original owner posted about their missing device on the Steam Deck subreddit, but it was missed because they made the post nine months ago.

And so, with the user found (and with the owner of the device verified), the redditor sent it back home in a hand soap box.

Vgalz says, "It took a little bit of effort but it feels amazingly good to have helped get this baby home"

They continue, "And to everyone reading.. if you get the opportunity to do a good deed for someone, please do. If everyone does the selfish thing every time, then the world just sucks. Everyone has the ability to be better than that. And it feels really good to do it."

In between the device being lost and being found again, the Steam Deck has seen a significant price increase, with the 512 GB OLED model going from $549 to $789 and the 1 TB OLED model going from $649 to $949. That had to have made the loss sting even harder, but, it's always nice to see a happy ending.

And even Vgalz benefited from the situation, as a separate redditor gifted them a game as a reward for their kindness. Everyone involved, give yourselves a pat on the back.

The Final Fantasy 14 community is getting a real green thumb as it rolls up its sleeves to help water player gardens all over Eorzea.

In case you missed it, a huge security vulnerability in the programming language PHP has rendered websites across the internet into the dark as (presumably very tired) teams across the globe undertake emergency maintenance. That's extended to certain games, too, including Final Fantasy 14.

Square Enix suspended the MMO's login servers on October 21, leaving many unable to play. Only console players and those who are chronic AFKers (hello, it's me) were left in an eerily quiet game. The problem with having so many unable to log in? Well, Final Fantasy 14 has a gardening system for those with player housing. If you're growing crops, you need to make sure you're watering them. Leave them dry for too long? That'll be a big ol' Rest in Peace to your would-be harvest.

That's a problem in itself, but especially for one of its most popular crops: Thavnarian Onions. The seeds alone require cross-breeding, and then take a whole five days to grow. That's an awful lot of time and investment wasted if the crops die.

So it warmed my heart a little to see players who are able to hop into the game offering their watering services to those who remain locked out. A Reddit post called "PHP Watering Service" cropped up overnight, allowing players to comment their house ward and plot (because Final Fantasy 14 is an insane game that doesn't have instanced housing) for unsundered green thumbs to go and tend to.

It's one of those real sweet moments of community coming together to lend a hand—watering other people's crops doesn't require any sort of special permissions, and it's a small act of kindness to ensure folks don't come back to the game to an onion famine. I even tried to lend a hand myself, but players have been so quick to jump in and assist that I haven't actually had the chance yet.

Square Enix has now said it expects to re-enable logins later today—as of writing, the game has been dark for many for around 18 hours. It's not exactly the longest outage videogames have ever seen, but it's been lovely to see how people come together in this game nevertheless.

Clearing a compound is one of the early orders you'll have to complete when you arrive in Modern Warfare 4's DMZ mode, and it requires you to assault a mini enemy stronghold.

Compounds are marked with the little tent and flag symbols on the map, though they vary in difficulty, and some of them require keys to open. If you're looking for an easy one to complete, I recommend the two in Daesong Ridge in the south of the map. These army camps are open, so they're easy to access, and they don't have too many enemies. To clear a compound you need to:

• Kill every enemy in the compound—your current progress is represented by the percentage bar on the left, though it counts up instead of down.
• When you kill the last enemy in the stronghold, make sure to pick up the Medical Extraction Intel they drop and extract it to complete the order.

If you can't find the last enemies, they may be stuck in something, so search around, or just make some noise to attract their attention, or if all else fails, find another compound.

While you're in the compound, don't forget to loot any safes you find for some decent valuables—in the army camps, these are in the tower and in the main building, though the smaller barracks also have lockers and containers with loot.

If you've ever been to a dentist's office, there's a good chance you might associate them with little aquariums. Well, it turns out that link is also how we got the classic After Dark Fish screensaver that PC users enjoyed in the early '90s.

That's according to Ed Fries, co-founder of After Dark and former vice president of Game Publishing at Microsoft, who spoke to Jesse Petrilla about it recently. Reportedly, an artist approached Fries as she was working on a scene set in a dentist's office, and "she wanted to have an aquarium in it because there's always an aquarium in a dentist's office."

"And she said, is there any way I could have a little part of the screen and have fish move in it?" Fries supposedly told them, "I'm a video game programmer. I can make fish move on the screen. Give me the fish, and I'll make them move."

Fries made a looping animation for them, then went back to the artist to ask for some bigger fish characters they could use for "this crazy idea" they had. With the new larger fishes in hand, Fries then stayed late at the office and turned his entire screen into one big aquarium.

This screensaver started life as stills of fish moving, with parentheses on screen to mimic water moving, and o's to represent bubbles. Fries says that people in his office asked for copies of the screensaver, "and pretty soon when I'd go home at night, I'd see it running on all these computers around the office, which was fun. Anyway, that was kind of the start of my whole fish phase of my career, which I don't always talk about."

This screensaver led to the official After Dark fish screensaver that became synonymous with Windows screensavers in the '90s. Fries was hired full-time to work on Excel for Microsoft, and he decided to make the new screensaver while learning how to work in Windows. He then started work on a Mac version of the screensaver after a co-worker on the Microsoft Word team asked Fries to do it.

This co-worker then wrote a fish editor where users could customise their fish in their tanks. "There was a whole kind of group of people at Microsoft at that time, like an underground group that made useless games, useless stuff. That group, which I was part of, called themselves bogus software."