Roblox has done a lot of crossovers and collaborations, but the new one announced today really leaps out at me. The Rolling Stones, the world's greatest rock and roll band, is coming to Roblox in a new game based on the band's 60-year history.

"Players will encounter various parts of The Rolling Stones' legacy trapped inside of colorful crystals inspired by the band's 2023 album Hackney Diamond," the press blast explains.

"Players progress through decades representing the band's eras, working together to find and shatter the crystals while an iconic Stones track from that time soundtracks the gameplay. Doing so powers up a massive tongue-and-lips that releases a surge of rock and roll energy to disrupt each decade and unlock the next — culminating in a globally shared interactive performance that evolves based on community participation."

Am I irritated, perhaps to an unreasonable extent, by this? Maybe. The Stones are the epitome of rock and roll: "Sex and drugs" are essentially synonyms for Mick and Keith, but you've also got a spot of devil worship in the mix, one of the most notorious incidents of violence in rock history, and through it all, some of the most god-tier music ever made. Have no doubt, the Stones are a full-steam money-making machine, but underneath that corporate engine of commerce the spirit of rock remains pure and true—or at least I like to imagine it's still in there somewhere.

Stuff like this kinda takes the wind out of those sails: I destroyed my hearing for this? It's soul-deadening, yes, but it's also kind of weird. I mourn the dessicated corpse of rock and roll because, well, I'm old. But is your average 14-year-old Roblox die-hard really interested in any of this? As colleague Chris Livingston more aptly put it, "Nothing teens want to see more in their game than some 85 year old men singing songs older than their parents."

(Mick Jagger, for the record, is 82; his current wife is 17 years younger than his oldest daughter. Keith Richards is also 82, while Ronnie Wood is a relatively youthful 79.)

It does make me wonder: Is Roblox bringing culturally significant music to new audiences (do the Stones even need to reach new audiences at this point?), or is all of this just kind of weird—a big-in-name crossover that will ultimately prove more baffling than enthralling for its intended audience?

But then, it works the other way too. As part of the collaboration, Roblox has invited community creators Jazzyx3, CASKA’s HAUS, Touzled, Blizzei, DIONESS, morphist4u, WhoseTrade, Empyro, Bad_B0y, raekaro, Spiraxy, Valkenheim, DuckXander, Clockset, and dvdko to "to turn The Rolling Stones' globally beloved logo into not only exclusive cross-platform avatar accessories, but also a limited-edition, co-branded physical item available to purchase via an in-game Shopify integration that connects directly to the band's online store." And I, a man with fond(ish) memories of seeing the Stones on the Steel Wheels tour, suddenly feel like I need to go outside for a while. Or maybe just have a lie-down.

The Rolling Stones Roblox game goes live today, July 10—it should be live by the time you read this—and will culminate in an "epic finale show" running July 17-19. Rock on.

In 1984, an upstart retail company called Costco had just opened its first handful of voluminous warehouse stores on the west coast of the United States when it decided to try an experiment. It installed a hot dog cart in front of its San Diego store and started selling Hebrew Nationals with a drink for $1.50. People, it turned out, liked the hot dogs. The cart became Cafe 150, named for the combo price.

The company sold 245 million of them last year. When the CEO of the company in the 2010s complained to founder Jim Sinegal "we can't sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends," Sinegal, likely then in his 70s, famously shot back: "If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out." A Costco hot dog and a 20 oz soda still costs $1.50.

In 1992, just a year-and-a-half after releasing a cutesy 2D platformer called Commander Keen, a tiny squad of game developers barely out of their teens started a studio called id Software and pioneered the first-person shooter. Then they followed it with Doom, maybe the most important computer game of all time. It was installed on more PCs than Windows. That tiny squad hired more people and then made Quake, maybe the most important 3D computer game of all time.

Decades later, a new generation of people at id dedicated to that legacy defied expectations to make another shooter so good it could proudly stand beside the ones that defined videogames. Then they made an even better one.

On Monday, Microsoft, which owns Xbox, which owns Bethesda, which owns id, laid off 136 developers from the Texas studio, which 12-year art veteran Derek Best described as "nuking a team into the dirt." Neither id Software or Doom were mentioned in CEO Asha Sharma's "Resetting Xbox" announcement. But the studio's new game, released one day after much of the talent behind it were laid off, currently occupies the top banner on Xbox.com.

What does it say about a company when it doesn't understand—or at any real level seem to care about—something it has become the steward of?

Doom, as a series of videogames, has generated hundreds of millions of dollars. But Doom is not just the money it's generated. It's the literally countless mods, maps, and entire games built on its bones; incredible ones are still coming out right now. Doom is the countless people making games today who cut their teeth mapping or had their neural pathways permanently altered the first time they picked up the Super Shotgun. The original game's labyrinthine levels and pulsing music and gory kills were revelatory enough, yet it's literally impossible to overstate its impact on the history of videogames from that moment forward. John Carmack programmed in the network code that enabled multiplayer in one month, in November 1993, and the game came out 10 days later. John Romero called the multiplayer deathmatch, and we're still calling it that today.

id Tech, the studio's ever-evolving engine, is not just a modern marvel that runs like a greased-up bat hurtling out of hell at a time when its competition is leaning on AI upscalers to crack 30 frames per second. It is the origin of yet more careers, thanks to its history of open source releases; one of the best indie games of 2025 uses it. It is a creation that any executive with any amount of vision would see as both a point of pride and an invaluable asset. You bought your way to the inner chamber, the very beating heart, of videogame software. Is that not a thing to revere?

Ahhh, but how much money does id Tech make? How much is it really worth? Xbox, its leadership says, is "not healthy," and as a result hard choices have to be made. That's just sensible business, not a short-sighted attempt to maximize shareholder value this quarter by kneecapping an incredible asset.

How else could this have gone? Last year Costco took home $275 billion in revenue (just $6 billion shy of Microsoft), and its former CEO—the one whose life was threatened over the sanctity of the hot dog—bluntly said "we have never been a company that puts the shareholders on top." A few months ago his successor housed a hot dog in a viral Instagram video before declaring: "The hot dog price will not change as long as I'm around."

He also said, through a mouthful of meat, that it's a good hot dog. And it is a good hot dog! But that's not why people love it.

People love the Costco hot dog because it's a symbol for the whole operation: that you're paying the membership dues because the deals are worth it. That they're going to give you a good value for every goddamn cent you give them. It stopped mattering years ago if the hot dogs themselves made money or not.

Costco's founder Jim Sinegal, who declared the buck fifty frank more valuable than a human life? The hot dog cart wasn't even his thing back in 1984. The idea started at a competing warehouse chain, Price Club, which merged with Costco in the '90s. But Sinegal knew what he had and expanded Cafe 150 into the food court, now one of Costco's biggest draws. That's how you treat a legacy.

The people at id Software—or the people who were at id Software as of four days ago—knew how to treat a legacy. They got it so deeply that it was evident from the very first moments of Doom 2016, as PC Gamer's James Davenport wrote in the very first paragraph of his review 10 years ago:

This thing here? It's important.

How does the company that's for decades been synonymous with the PC—much as we now wish it weren't—end up with its hands on the game studio that's synonymous with the PC, and not see it as a priceless asset?

"Xbox has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history," Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wrote on Monday. id wasn't mentioned. What does it say about the people in charge that they paid to get their hands on that kind of legacy, and then gave it less respect than a $1.50 hot dog?

It's not just you: Steam is down right now. If this were a Tuesday around this time that'd be no big deal (Valve does maintenance every week), but on a Thursday, you have good reason to be looking for an explanation for the error that currently displays when you try to load Steampowered.com:

"You've made too many requests recently. Please wait and try your request again later."

No, you're not being blocked from Steam for reloading the store too many times. Something's wrong: SteamStat.us reports "too many requests" errors for both the Steam store and Steam community. Maybe something to do with the Summer Sale ending today?

Many of Steam's services are still showing a green light, and we're able to see friends online. Steam's matchmaking services are likewise still in operation, according to the status page. It's specifically the Steam website that's out of commission. We'll update this post as the situation develops.

John Carmack has reacted to a major round of layoffs at id Software, the studio that he co-founded in 1991. Microsoft is cutting 136 roles (reports indicate over half of its headcount) at the Doom studio, which just released an expansion for Doom: The Dark Ages this week.

"My 'Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand' statement isn't aging well," Carmack wrote on X, "and this is certainly going to dampen the mood of the founder reunion at QuakeCon next month."

Despite what comes across as disapproval of the layoffs, Carmack stops short of criticizing Microsoft's decision.

"I'm saddened, but I can't muster anger or outrage over it. I don't have access to the books, but I suspect that id Software was a marginal business from Microsoft's perspective. I believe the reports that Minecraft revenues have been carrying several other studios."

Carmack is referring to a recent Bloomberg report that claims profits from Minecraft had been redirected toward less financially successful Xbox studios for the past several years.

"To continue being produced long term, games need to succeed, not just be beloved. Games are competing with every other option for spending your leisure time and money, and the competition is brutal. You can't rule out the possibility that executives are idiots, but that shouldn't be your default belief. I don't think there is any obvious path that would have doubled the revenue from id games."

He then went on to offer some hypothetical strategies that could have prevented where we're at now, which is the decimation of the team behind the most critically-acclaimed shooters of the generation.

"Could they have gotten more with a different pricing strategy? Could they have created more things for fans to buy? Could they have cost effectively marketed in a way that reached more players that would have loved and bought the games?

"Could they have changed the game designs and broadened the appeal to more players without alienating existing ones? Could they have produced the games at a lower cost, faster or cheaper?

"I really don’t know."

In his own response earlier this week, id Software co-founder John Romero expressed grief for those suddenly out of a job—an ordeal that he can relate to, considering that Xbox cut funding for his studio's next game this time in 2025.

"I know what it feels like to leave id while id goes on. It's a strange and painful thing to step away from a place that holds so much of your work, friendships and history… Romero Games was there a year ago. I know how devastating it is, and my heart's with all of you."

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the body overseeing the implementation of United States monetary policy, has announced the creation of five task forces intended to evaluate and improve the Fed's operations. In a press release, Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh named the "external advisers" who will lead each task force, ranging from economics professors to AI investors and corporate executives—executives like Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who will preside over a task force on employment and productivity.

Yes, that Asha Sharma. The Asha Sharma who, just three days ago, announced an Xbox "reset" that will see roughly 3,200 of her employees lose their jobs by the end of the 2027 fiscal year—a reorganization that remaining developers are reportedly convinced will cause irreparable damage to some of the company's most valuable brands.

Sharma will be one of three leaders heading up the Productivity and Jobs task force, which will "assess the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, to inform the Federal Reserve's policy judgments." She'll be joined by Stanford economics professor Charles I. Jones—"currently on leave at Anthropic"—and Marc Andreessen: tech VC, major AI investor, and guy who believes you can improve an LLM's results by simply instructing it to be very, very smart.

"The Federal Reserve's commitment to price stability and maximum employment is unwavering. As is our resolve to pursue our mandate with rigor. The US economy has changed significantly over the last generation, and never more so than right now," Warsh said, deploying a sentence that definitely made sense. "Each task force will carefully consider whether policymakers' means and methods, analytical tools, and policy approaches can be improved upon. I am honored that the best minds from a range of disciplines have agreed to work with us to sharpen our performance as an institution."

Considering Sharma announced that Mojang and King—two of Xbox's most valuable operations—will now report directly to her, I'm impressed that she'll be able to find the time. According to the Fed, we'll be able to follow the task forces' work in updates "posted periodically" on its website.

While I wait for Diablo 4 to figure out its messy new season, the only game that has managed to tear me away from playing more Path of Exile 2 is Hell Clock.

I should've known it would: Hell Clock's new Cursed War expansion was delayed to give PoE 2's season some time to breathe. The developers at Rogue Snail know their audience because they're part of it too: Action RPGs players cycle through games on a seasonal basis, and Hell Clock is perfect for filling in the gaps.

It's a run-based roguelike with an action RPG engine under the hood. There's loot, but you don't need a degree to understand how it all works. You stack on everything that promises more damage after clearing each room and watch screens of monsters explode. There's depth in its buildcrafting of course, but I suspect min-maxing your items is more important in higher difficulties. On normal, I never hit a wall during the original three-act campaign by simply tossing stuff together on the fly.

Hell Clock has had some major updates since I played it the first time, so my trip through the campaign almost felt like playing a new game. Movement is smoother now (you can go full WASD or click-to-move) and bosses are much meaner than before. Rogue Snail also implemented an entire set of crafting items that borrow basic ideas from Path of Exile's crafting system. It took a few nail-biting boss fights for me to realize how important they are for creating items that beef up your defenses so you can survive more than a hit or two.

The Cursed War expansion adds a fourth act that tells the origin story of main character Pajeu, and it's just as bloody as the others. One of the reasons Hell Clock works at all is that it's not an action RPG where you kill demons for the thrill of it—it's a fictionalized revenge story for a real-life massacre that happened in Brazil. Pajeu watched the First Brazilian Republic slaughter an entire town during the War of Canudos. The game takes place years later as Pajeu revisits the town in its hellish, tormented form, armed to the teeth to face the undead soldiers that haunt still it.

Cursed War rewinds the story back to when he was recruited into the Brazilian army during the Paraguayan War as a slave. This is where the fury Pajeu carries in the base game was born, and it makes the sting of the third act—which shows how the atrocities have bled into the present day—last longer than it already did the first time I played through it. Hell Clock feels like a grown up's version of Diablo's Sanctuary, where the demons have names and uniforms.

I felt no remorse for picking up one of the new skills, Tupã's Wrath, and frying every last one of them. Rogue Snail basically put my favorite PoE 2 skill into the game, letting me unleash a flood of lightning bolts in every direction. Each run I stumbled into new ways to scale its damage up, like a relic that causes it to empower your skeletal minions. I found an unstoppable combination on my first run of the new act, that builds a defensive layer over my health as I spam thousands of lightning bolts. Nothing but bosses can touch me now.

At least they couldn't in the normal difficulty mode. Hell Clock also has two harder modes to climb through if you're interested in finding some of the game's most powerful items. There's enough roguelike randomness to challenge even a build like mine in there, especially as monsters gain elemental resistances and other threatening bonuses. And, just like in Hades, there are plenty of mid-run boons I've not even tried yet, let alone the other skills that came with the expansion.

Hell Clock is so good that I don't want to squeeze it dry in a week of non-stop blasting. I want to savour it between all the other things I'm playing. A run here or there while I think of another new combination of relics or skills to try. As much as I am still in love with PoE 2 at the moment, I'm always excited to close it and see how a quick 20-minute rampage through Hell Clock will go, and the $10 expansion has just given me a whole new box of toys to play with.

Destiny 2 is done: The final patch is out, Bungie is decimated, and the game will remain playable but the story of one of the biggest, best and most influential online shooters ever is over. To memorialize the moment, Bungie has rolled out one last gift for players: A new emblem, free for everyone, called Gloriabundus.

The emblem, shared on X (via Eurogamer), is a simple one, but elegant: The Destiny logo, and a distant city skyline, bathed in light. It's a small thing overall, but the restrained styling is, I think, appropriate for the moment.

Bungie communications lead Dylan Gafner, known to the community as dmg04, also reassured players that while the end has come, Destiny 2 won't be completely abandoned and left to rot. "There may be moments where we break glass for highest priority issues (game crashes)," Gafner wrote in a separate message.

"There will indeed still be downtimes for general server maintenance/upkeep. If we have the opportunity, a small fix could sneak in here or there."

Some Destiny 2 fans have held out hope that Sony will reverse course on the game's end, particularly given the resurgence in players on Steam that followed the end-of-development announcement. But that seems extremely unlikely: Bungie's been on thin ice with Sony for at least the last couple years, and in June it laid off "most of the Destiny team" at the studio.

Update: It turns out that the Gloriabundus emblem wasn't the final final farewell after all. In the noble spirit of "we gettin' fired anyway," the Destiny 2 Team followed up the next with a whole bunch more freebies. Gloriabundus indeed—get 'em all below.

No hit or no damage playthroughs have become an increasingly common badge of honor online, especially in precise, timing-driven action games like the Souls series. But what about in a dice rolling, stats and RNG-heavy CRPG? Davey Gunface on YouTube not only proved it's possible, he did so in perhaps the most tedious circumstances: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous' Unfair difficulty.

WotR and its predecessor, Kingmaker, are two all-timer CRPGs for me. But even die-hard fans recommend them with caveats. Wrath, especially, is kinda bullshit. Once every two to five hours or so across its marathon runtime, a guy who by all rights should be a miniboss is just out of nowhere the strongest guy who ever lived. It's like when Battle Beast first shows up as some guy's goon in Invincible and he solos all the strongest heroes of earth.

Crazy difficulty spikes, Armor Classes through the stratosphere, save-or-die spells, level drain, damage immunities, literal minutes-long hard crowd control, Wrath embraces these and more. Its normal difficulty will make a Baldur's Gate 3 Honour Mode veteran sweat a bit, while completing the "Core" difficulty is a real CRPG achievement in my book⁠—you should get your picture on a wall at Owlcat HQ like you finished a Paul Bunyan Big Boy meal at a roadside steakhouse. The "Unfair" difficulty? It's unfair.

I can only assume Gunface allowed for reloading in this challenge due to the random chance and marathon nature of a WotR playthrough⁠—it really is, consistently, a 100+ hour deal. Gunface set the challenge of getting through without taking any avoidable damage. There are a few instances of story or cutscene-derived, unavoidable hits that just feel unsporting.

He took the definition of "avoidable" to some admirable extremes though, like managing to sidestep a "supposed to lose" fight at the beginning of the game by uncovering a rare sequence gated as the failure state of a specific moral choice. That's pure RPGs, baby.

WotR, like Neverwinter Nights: Swordflight, already sits at the end stage of optimization and powergaming for a Core playthrough. Unfair, let alone hitless, demands you escalate to primeval outer reaches of buildcrafting psychosis.

One example: Gunface got through WotR's infamous Shield Maze prologue with the popular Unfair tactic of sacrificing your starter companions' builds, multiclassing them in ways that are ruinous in the long run, but life-saving in the hyper-specific hell of levels 2 through 4. The one-shot master Rowdy Rogue came in handy, and everybody loves giving companions Lann or Wenduag a Sabertooth Tiger pet.

Across the whole of the game, Gunface opted for a Human (gotta get that extra feat) Witch of the Veil 10 / Loremaster 9 / Rowdy Rogue 1, parlaying the Witch's game-changing early hexes but booboo spell list into the Loremaster prestige class' expanded spellbook. He also picked the "eviler than the bad guys" Swarm That Walks path, making for a fun pairing with his custom portrait, a picture of his dog.

Truly, this is a "beyond the impossible" sort of challenge, one better suited for precise, input-driven games where you actually control whether you get hit or not. Doing so in a game built on d20 rolls feels avant garde. Gunface's full video is a three-hour long runner if you're looking for something to come back to over a few days, and you can also follow him on YouTube or support via Patreon.

PalworldAfter two-and-a-half years of early access, Palworld is launching into full release tomorrow, July 10. It's a moment that brings both good news and some potential bad news: The price isn't going up, which is very nice, but if you have any old mods left installed, you may run into trouble.

Pocketpair said in today's caution that it supports modding, writing, "we look forward to seeing all the amazing mods that will be made after 1.0." The potential for trouble, particularly for people who are coming back to the game for the 1.0 release after a long time away, is found in old and "potentially harmful" mod data that may still be lying around.

"The upcoming 1.0 update for Palworld makes significant changes to the game’s systems," Pocketpair explained. "If you still have mods installed from the past, especially mods that have been left installed since around 2024, you may encounter problems such as crashes when launching or playing the game, corrupted save data or save data failing to load, [or] quests or events becoming impossible to progress."

Simply disabling mods isn't sufficient, because data and mod loaders may still be loaded when the game starts, even if the mods themselves are switched off. The only way to be sure is to nuke it all from orbit—which is to say, manually delete all the relevant data.

Detailed instructions for doing so are included in Pocketpair's mod usage guidelines, but it's not an especially complicated procedure: Back up your save data (always back up your save data before you start horsing around with this kind of thing), delete Pal\Binaries\Win64 and Pal\Content\Paks, verify your game files on Steam, then verify the game launches properly before applying the 1.0 update. If you're subscribed to any Steam Workshop mods, you'll have to unsubscribe from those as well, and be sure to manually delete that data too.

Pocketpair also recommended not reinstalling any mods until their makers have confirmed they've been updated for the 1.0 version, and doing them one at a time to ensure everything works nice and smooth—because, as the studio said, "Please note that issues that occur while using MODs, or modified game data, are not covered by support."

It's been just shy of two months since Subnautica 2 splashed into early access, and developer Unknown Worlds is celebrating its success on X by sharing some official statistics on what players have achieved during their over 58,000,000 hours of combined playtime.

According to the studio's data, those achievements include a spectacular number of drownings. I'm talking about truly impressive metrics regarding millions of people forgetting they need to breathe.

Tallying the top causes of reprint (read: death), Unknown Worlds says running out of oxygen is by far the most common source of Subnautica 2 mortality: Players have drowned a total of 15,636,881 times, accounting for 42.6% of all player deaths. By my calculations, that means that—between Subnautica 2's early access launch at 11 am EDT on May 14, 2026 and the time these statistics were shared at 11 am EDT on July 9, 2026—an average of 192 players have drowned every minute since launch.

For context, the CDC says there was an average of 4,083 yearly unintentional drowning deaths in the US from 2012 to 2021, meaning that in just under two months Subnautica 2 players suffered a number of drownings more than 3,829 times higher than what Americans suffer in an entire year.

Allow me to remind you that these are players who are often equipped with oxygen tanks and who are navigating oceans populated by alien flora that release bubbles of breathable oxygen at regular intervals. It's a stunning accomplishment in mortal incompetence.

But not all of Unknown Worlds' statistics are so grim: The studio also shared that players have collectively traveled 545,615,747 kilometers through the ocean depths of Proteus, which—I'm told—is about 86.8% of the distance between here and Jupiter. And yet the few meters separating players and breathable air still seems so insurmountable. Funny how that works.

Along the way, we've managed to collect over 331 million water slugs, either for avoiding dehydration or just to pile them in a room so we can admire them later. And while it's interesting to know we've built a total of 5,887,642 Tadpole submersibles, the studio included the curious statistic that, somewhere in the world, there's a player who built 195 in a single game.

I can only begin to guess why; there are, as ever, countless mysteries in the deep. And with Subnautica 2's first update arriving this week, there are likely plenty more in store.

As reported by MMORPG, we now know the full scope of the layoffs at ZeniMax Online Studios (The Elder Scrolls Online) and ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Game Studios. A Maryland WARN Act notice shows 213 employees laid off from ZeniMax Online, and 166 from ZeniMax Media, for a total of 379.

ZeniMax Media and Online have two listings at separate offices on the WARN notice. There is no separate WARN notice for Bethesda Game Studios, indicating that the 166 layoffs at ZeniMax include those at BGS⁠—Bethesda and ZeniMax Media share an office address.

Further supporting this, the 136 layoffs at id Software were reported as "ZeniMax Media Inc. (Richardson Texas)" in a separate Texas WARN notice. It is unclear how many of the 166 people laid off from the ZeniMax Rockville office were Bethesda developers, and how many came from the ZeniMax publishing side of the business.

As for ZeniMax Online, we've already heard substantial anecdotal evidence that the studio was devastated by these layoffs, and the numbers add further perspective. Game Developer reported the ZeniMax Online Union as containing 461 members at the end of 2024⁠—mostly based in the Rockville offices, though some were spread across the country.

ZeniMax Online has lost 275 employees between July 2025 and '26⁠—a WARN notice last year for "Zenimax [sic] Media, Inc." using ZeniMax Online's office address put last July's layoff count at 62. Assuming no other significant sources of attrition and that the union accounted for a majority of employees, that means ZeniMax Online now consists of 186 people, or 40% of the manpower it had just a year and a half ago.

A September 2024 Twitter post by user Timur222 shared a since-amended LinkedIn experience entry by former ESO UX lead, Gary Boodhoo. In it, Boodhoo cited ESO as bringing in "$15M in monthly revenue for over 10 years." Now, I'm no businessman, but that sounds like a team you'd want to support, rather than laying off at least 60% of them in a year.

Finding a worthwhile upgrade for your existing gaming PC can be an expensive business. If you want more storage space for the next big game that will cost you a pretty penny, if you want more memory AI has boned you on that front, and if you want a shiny new GPU prices have already shot up and show no signs of coming back down.

But processors, while they too are being courted by AI datacenters, are pretty safe in their desktop consumer guise. And that means there are deals to be had on CPUs. The best I've seen in a long while is this, the Ryzen 9 7900X for just $275 at Walmart today.

Weirdly, it's sold and shipped via Walmart by Newegg. Which currently has the same chip on sale for $316. I'm not going to pretend to understand such shenanigans in the retail business, I'm just going to stay quiet and be happy that we've got such a quality chip at such a good price.

• Join us on WhatsApp for daily deals, direct to your phone.

It's worth noting that this chip is the 'X' version and that means it's the full-fat, 170 W version as opposed to the Ryzen 9 7900, which is a good 65 W processor. Just not quite as good as the 7900X and strangely a lot more expensive right now. But the thing to note here is that, thanks to AMD's excellent Eco Mode, you don't have to run your beefy ol' Ryzen 9 7900X at the full power all the time if you want to save on power and the loudness.

I personally run its larger sibling, the Ryzen 9 7950X in Eco Mode pretty much permanently. It's more than capable of keeping my powerful GPU fed with frames at that level, and won't deafen me because my CPU cooler decides to go HAM.

The equivalent Zen 5 chip, the Ryzen 9 9900X is $329 at Walmart at the moment, but doesn't give you a huge amount extra over this Zen 4 CPU for your money.

Previous

1 / 2

Next

1080p gaming performance

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced)Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra)Homeworld 3 (1080p Epic)Metro Exodus Enhanced Ed. (1080p High)Total War: Warhammer 3 (1080p High)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

110

80

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

115

84

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

120

88

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced) Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	110 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	115 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	120 Avg FPS, 88 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

96

64

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

103

67

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

118

77

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	96 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	103 Avg FPS, 67 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	118 Avg FPS, 77 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

72

39

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

82

44

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

89

49

Homeworld 3 (1080p Epic) Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	72 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	82 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	89 Avg FPS, 49 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

146

77

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

147

77

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

150

86

Metro Exodus Enhanced Ed. (1080p High) Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	146 Avg FPS, 77 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	147 Avg FPS, 77 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	150 Avg FPS, 86 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

158

111

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

167

134

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

159

127

Total War: Warhammer 3 (1080p High) Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	158 Avg FPS, 111 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	167 Avg FPS, 134 1% Low FPS
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	159 Avg FPS, 127 1% Low FPS

CPU performance

Cinebench 2024Blender 4.2.07zipHandbrake 1.8.1Gaming thermalsGaming power

Single-core index score

Multi-core index score

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

118

1589

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

136

1805

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

113

1082

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	118 Single-core index score, 1589 Multi-core index score
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	136 Single-core index score, 1805 Multi-core index score
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	113 Single-core index score, 1082 Multi-core index score

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

129

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

149

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

81

Blender 4.2.0 Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	129
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	149
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	81

Compressing (GIPS)

Decompressing (GIPS)

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

151

195

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

160

206

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

118

128

7zip Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	151 Compressing (GIPS), 195 Decompressing (GIPS)
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	160 Compressing (GIPS), 206 Decompressing (GIPS)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	118 Compressing (GIPS), 128 Decompressing (GIPS)

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

103

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

112

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

76

Handbrake 1.8.1 Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	103
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	112
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	76

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

66

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

62

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

64

Gaming thermals Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	66
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	62
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	64

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

115

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

123

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

69

Gaming power Data

Product	Value
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	115
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X	123
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	69

It's an AM5 chip, so if you're currently on a Ryzen 5000-series processor that will mean a platform upgrade and potentially a new DDR5 purchase (eep), but if your current gaming PC is rocking a six- or eight-core Ryzen 7000-series processor this will deliver a healthy in-place upgrade without breaking the bank. Too much.

If you're willing to spend more, and specifically value gaming performance over everything else (this is PC Gamer, after all) then I can also recommend the Ryzen 7 7800X3D for $370 at Walmart. That's certainly not the cheapest it's ever been, and if you're talking about raw processing grunt the 7900X will outperform its eight Zen 4 cores, but in games it really will deliver. But is over $100 more, so that 12-core chip really does represent the value play here.

👉See all Walmart's CPU deals👈

Rumours continue to swirl around Intel's upcoming Nova Lake launch. The latest of these comes from noted leaker Jaykihn, who has hinted towards some exciting highlights among the desktop lineup. On X, the leaker wrote, "Nova Lake-H has a 12 Xe segment, and Nova Lake-S has a 12 Xe SKU. These are Xe3p."

Basically, this leak suggests there will be both a next-generation Nova Lake mobile CPU rocking 12 Xe cores as well as a desktop variant also sporting the same number of Intel graphics cores (though if that's true, I should probably be calling it an 'APU').

A high-performance iGPU was something sorely missing from the previous Arrow Lake generation of desktop chips, and having heard from our Dave what a 14 Xe core chip can do in the new MSI Claw handheld, it's exciting to think what a slightly upgraded version of Intel's GPU silicon could do in a wee little desktop chassis.

Anyway, drilling down a little more, the Xe 3P core is an upcoming iteration of Intel's microarchitecture. The discrete GPU tech was codenamed 'Celestial' for a time and was even meant to make its debut alongside Panther Lake. However, that chip went with what was essentially Xe2 'Plus Plus', and Jaykihn also claims what was Celestial 'was canned long ago'.

In other words, Xe 3P has been cooking for a minute. When it finally arrives in the form of the expected Crescent Island GPUs later this year, it'll be primarily geared towards handling AI inference by leveraging LPDDR5X memory, rather than the pricier data centre du jour HBM. It's entirely possible a powerful bit of kit like that could also turn its hand to gaming, but it's unlikely Intel would bring that chip to any gaming-focused cards.

As for a possible mobile APU, Nick recently wrote that a Nova Lake mobile chip with a beefy iGPU would be great news for handhelds, but that it would likely be destined for edge computing only.

But decent integrated graphics? In my desktop processor? That's exciting for sure, but how likely is it? Well, let's look at the leaker in question. Jaykihn claimed back in January the B70 Pro would arrive 'soon' and it did. Then in April, they leaked details about Intel's Core 300 laptop chips that also appeared to mostly bear out. Sure, a broken clock can be right twice a day, but this leaker is noted for having a pretty good track record as these things go.

With the memory crisis in full swing, it's becoming harder and harder to justify that PC upgrade. Though some will simply have enough money not to care, or will be forced to upgrade through breakages, others will simply go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over. Well, that waiting seems to have resulted in a pretty large decline in PC shipments, year-over-year.

According to analysis from the IDC, worldwide PC shipments have fallen by 4.9% between Q2 last year to Q2 this year (via Wccftech). This is reportedly "the first decline after nine consecutive quarters of growth" and, you guessed it, the memory crisis is to blame.

Tracking shipments last year and this year, ICD reports Lenovo dropping from 17 million units to 16.6 million, HP from 14.3 million to 13 million, Dell from 9.8 million to 9.3 million, and Asus at nearly flat growth. The only winner over the last year is Apple, which grew from 6.1 million to 6.7 million, representing a pretty substantial 10% increase. Apple also jumped from an 8.5% market share to a 9.9% market share.

Despite declining shipments, many of these companies aren't losing that much in revenue. That's because they can counteract the loss of sales through rising memory costs by getting consumers to pay for the price-inflated stock. Jitesh Ubrani, the research director for consumer devices at IDC, says, “The real story here is the disconnect between units and dollars: shipments are falling, but revenue is climbing because vendors are pushing through price increases faster than demand is dropping.”

IDC says that supply chain management and capabilities will continue to be incredibly important going forward. Some major manufacturers will be increasingly signing long-term contracts to supply memory and storage for devices, in order to keep selling through the memory crisis. That probably doesn't mean good things for smaller operators, as they'll have to navigate the larger companies' increased buying and negotiating power.

Others, such as Apple, have managed to capitalise on the problem with the launch of its budget-oriented MacBook Neo. Jean Philippe Bouchard, the vice president for consumer devices at IDC, says, “Apple’s share gain coincided with its latest product launch, the MacBook Neo, and while the company did raise prices in line with the broader market, it still remains well positioned against rivals facing the same cost pressures.”

It's worth noting that this is a report on global PC shipments, not necessarily gaming PC shipments, which have historically fared better during periods of decline. But these are far from normal times, and the memory crisis seems set to rage for another year at least.

Bernstein research analysts reckon SK hynix will significantly reduce its prices by the end of 2028, but we are likely to see more increases before then. And even then, that's a pretty optimistic outlook. If the memory crisis only lasts for another year and a half, I'd consider us rather lucky. It's anyone's guess what the PC market will look like by then, and who the winners of the memory crisis will be.

Here's an embarrassing thing to admit on the internet: when I was a teenage subscriber to Nintendo Power magazine, I picked the Donkey Kong 64 soundtrack as my "sign-up gift" because I wanted to be able to listen to the DK Rap on CD. Why I was obsessed with the song I can't say 25 years later, but Donkey Kong 64 is a memorable mess of a game—sprawling, ambitious, funny, inventive, and often infuriating, with a predilection for collectibles so infamous that the developers eventually made fun of themselves for it.

The point is, Donkey Kong 64 is a game that inspires strong feelings in those who've played it. So it seems fitting that members of the DK64 randomizer community, who've dedicated years to picking it apart and putting it back together, would start developing an unofficial PC port with a specific rallying cry:

"Fuck AI vibe coding bullshit."

DK64 Recompiled, announced in a YouTube video in late June, is actually the second project with that exact name, and that's no coincidence. It's the latest example of an increasingly common point of friction in the game emulation and hacking scene, as experienced programmers butt heads with those eager to use new AI tools to spin up new ports of old games in record time. In some cases, ports written with AI tools like Claude are ostracized or ignored. But in the case of Donkey Kong 64, the game's biggest fans weren't about to cede ground.

"The DK64 randomizer dev team is owning this shit now," contributor 2dos wrote in the N64 Recomp Discord server, shortly after the video's debut. "We have decided to take on and own this development due to the poor development direction of another recompilation project of DK64 happening concurrently that is heavily leaning on AI vibe code, and thus is resulting in a poor quality project that will make it progressively harder to manage as time goes on. Our DK64 recompilation project is backed by folks who have worked on and tinkered with the backend of the DK64 code for well over a decade, and do not rely on vibe coding to make code changes."

Static recompilation is a technique that, in short, translates all of a game's code from one system's language to another; unlike emulation, it's not simulating the original hardware holistically. The most prominent hobby project using this technique so far is N64 Recomp, announced just over two years ago, which is a recompilation tool specifically geared towards Nintendo 64 games. Since its debut we've seen modders use it to create PC ports of Banjo-Kazooie, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart 64, and more, while similar projects have sprung up for other consoles like the Xbox 360.

Legally, the freshly written code is clean because these recompiled ports don't contain any of the assets from the original games—players have to provide a ROM file themselves. The porting process has become an ethical, rather than legal, battleground in the last few months, as "vibe coded" projects have begun cropping up practically every day.

One developer has used Claude's AI coding to spin up recompilation tools for the NES, Sega Genesis, PlayStation, Super Nintendo, Game Boy Advance, and Virtual Boy, each with a handful of games at least bootable so far. Another's got GitHub repositories for everything from the PS3 to the ZX Spectrum. Others have used the Xbox 360 recompilation framework ReXGlue to pump out ports at a seemingly astonishing rate—but once you get past the YouTube videos hyping them up, the reality isn't quite so impressive.

"Vibe coding a recomp has started to become significantly more prominent and not in a good way," says Ballaam, a contributor to the DK64 randomizer and now DK64 Recompiled alongside 2dos. "I think GoldenEye was released somewhat recently with being heavily vibe coded and, as a result of that (and probably either dev inexperience or overconfidence in the AI output), it leads to some very critical bugs which make the recomp borderline unplayable. The main N64 recomp server has gone as far as to not promote any recomp which uses AI for a significant portion of it."

That GoldenEye project has also drawn criticism from those who know the game inside and out. The paradox of current tools making it easier than ever to start projects means anyone can vibe code their way to a partially working port, but shaping it into an accurate, crash-free, feature-rich version of a game is a different story.

2dos warns that a big risk with relying on AI is technical debt—a codebase becoming harder to understand and modify as it grows, with maintenance becoming "a nightmare" if you don't put in the work to thoroughly document it. The knock-on effect is that other humans are less likely to want (or even be able) to contribute. If a developer doesn't thoroughly understand the code the AI writes, that will also require them to spend more tokens to fix bugs. Those costs can add up fast, and the AI's "fixes" won't necessarily be good, either.

In the case of the AI-based Donkey Kong 64 recompilation, 2dos discovered that the agentic coding had modified RT64, "the base module that makes the N64 graphics render."

"That would lead to significant management and compatibility issues down the line, and cause other unexpected side effects that are currently visible in preview videos in the other recomp," he says.

Vibes: Questionable

Using AI is attractive because it skips past the slow, manual process of figuring out exactly what every function in a game is doing, which can often take years. Many of the polished recompilation ports available currently are for games that have previously been decompiled, creating fresh, human-readable source code. It's an enormous undertaking even for old games, but understanding what the source code is doing helps enormously when troubleshooting.

Decompilation also makes modding much more viable, which is one of the most attractive features for modern ports of retro games. (DK64: Recompiled's debut trailer touts support for a tag anywhere mod that will let players swap between Kongs on the fly, addressing one of the most common complaints about the game's backtrack-heavy design.)

Developer SrBananaMan64 recently released a PC port of Harvest Moon 64 alongside a range of mods to speed up messages, zoom out the camera, and so on. A completed decompilation by another developer helped make that a reality.

"Recompilation doesn’t actually need a 100% decomp to work, just enough for the symbols to be mapped out to produce a viable .elf file that N64Recomp uses," SrBananaMan64 says. "But this game seemed like it needed the proper enhancements to spruce [it] up… The quality of the game is lacking so it needs the widescreen and high frame rates to compensate for that in my opinion."

He shares the DK team's view that developers "should never let AI take the wheel," even if it can occasionally be an "amazing tool" for specific uses. "Minuscule tasks such as searching through a decomp for a certain function you would like to patch or mod," for example.

Lines for acceptable AI usage are now being drawn across the open source development scene. The maintainers of the Godot engine are now rejecting "substantial pieces" of AI-generated code. A nascent recompilation project for the GameCube & Wii declares "No AI code is used," and that it's a "human hand-made project by a group of passionate developers, who want the best for the Retro Gaming community." So does a solo project tackling recompilation for the PS1.

A port for Sonic Advance also has a "strict no AI policy," championing the endeavor's underlying purpose: "We want humans to use this project to practice their skills. Reverse engineering, documenting, understanding, being part of the process."

Tom, the developer behind ReXGlue, sees the low-effort ports as a "people problem," not an issue with the tool itself. "The real issue is people who don't bother to understand what they're posting," he says. "They're using a powerful tool without putting in the work to actually learn what it does, and then wondering why their project falls apart, performs poorly, or has nothing genuinely new to bring to the table. It's like riding a motorcycle before you can even ride a bike."

One common defense for vibe coding ports boil down to "this is just my hobby project, so ignore it if you don't like it." One counter-argument to that point is ethical. Even setting aside the broader environmental impact and stolen training data of generative AI models, there's an argument that even a fan-made port should endeavor to do justice to the original work—to honor the game's original creators by representing it as accuracy as possible. Another is that a vibe coded port that's likely to have those long-term maintenance issues 2dos warned about could pull interest away from a human-coded project that's more likely to be perfected in the long run. The existence of a half-assed project could even turn another developer away from putting months or years of their work into a game at all.

"That’s a big risk," SrBananaMan64 says. For example the Smash Bros. Battleship project which was completely AI generated will take away from the release of mine." (He's currently working on his own recompilation of the N64 fighter).

Another common defense from those simply eager to play a game they love—that anything is better than nothing—also doesn't necessarily hold up beyond the initial burst of excitement.

"I think there is some sentiment from those who haven't experienced a vibe coded recomp that 'who cares if its vibe coded as long as it works," says Ballaam, "when they don't fully realize that for the most part, they really really don't.

"LLMs nowadays have lowered the skill floor of producing a functioning piece of code that those who are technologically curious but don't have the patience or passion to fully learn a language can feel like they're coding. They scale up their projects but don't scale up their learning to accommodate their desires because they rely too much on the AI crutch."

Perhaps someday, as agentic coding continues to advance, vibe coded ports really will be sufficient. Perhaps a small portion of this initial wave of vibe coders will even pick up enough interest in the process to learn to do the programming themselves. Or maybe the rising costs of AI models will dissuade casual hobbyists from burning tokens on projects that are hard to see through to completion.

For now we're in the thick of it, and we're sure to see more competing projects like Donkey Kong 64 Recompiled before we come out the other side.

We're just a day away from Palworld's much anticipated 1.0 release, and to celebrate Pocketpair both released all 27 pages of patch notes and confirmed that there'll be no price hike when the survival and crafting game exits from early access. Oh yeah, it's all coming together.

"After much thought, we have decided not to raise the price of Palworld following the 1.0 release and will keep it at $29.99," Palworld announced on social media. "We are incredibly proud of how far Palworld has come. Thanks to the amazing support of our players, it has become a success beyond our wildest dreams."

Keeping the price fixed at its early access rate is just "a small way of saying thank you" from the team for all the "continued support" the game has been shown by its very dedicated playerbase.

It's typical for games to raise prices when leaving early access: Valheim, for example, announced it will jump from $20 to $30 when it graduates to 1.0 in September. his isn't outlandish, the whole point of early access is it's an unpolished and unfinished snippet of a game, and therefore its full release should be worth more if you consider the better state it'll release in and all of the additional content it'll contain. If the 27 pages of patch notes are anything to go by, Palworld fits the bill as well, which makes it all the nicer that Pocketpair has chosen to keep the price steady.

All in all, $30 for everything that Palworld offers seems like a proper steal. You get all the much-loved existing features, new additions like the wing pack, plus all the new items and Pals. Oh, and that big old World Tree. It's certainly a great way to kick off and celebrate the launch of 1.0—all that's left is to wait and see what it's like once we actually get our hands on it.

If 2026 has been a poor year in regard to hardware pricing, it's at least been a good one in terms of companies and architectures spreading their roots into unfamiliar territories. Primarily, I'm thinking about Nvidia RTX Spark, the company's first proper desktop/mobile processor announced just last month. And now, it seems Samsung has taken note, as it will reportedly be making its own Arm-based chip for desktop/mobile, or 'AI PCs' as they now unfortunately seem to be called.

Apparently it will be called Gaia—a strange name, perhaps, given the planet-eating energy consumption of AI datacentres. But enough cynicism, the double plus-side here is that not only will we be getting a new processor, but also hopefully some decent competition against Nvidia's RTX Spark alongside Qualcomm's Arm-based chips.

According to Seoul Economic Daily, "industry sources" have it that Samsung Gaia will be based on a 4 nm process and is targeting production as early as next year. Apparently, the company is already talking to PC manufacturers regarding the supply of the chip.

4 nm production is what AMD and Nvidia currently build on, but that's over on TSMC's side of the pitch. Samsung's own 4 nm tech hasn't been as widely adopted, but that's been changing over the last year, and now it seems Samsung deems it ripe for producing PCs.

Samsung certainly has experience making system-on-chips (SoCs), given its Exynos mobile processors, but we'll have to wait and see whether that experience will translate over to PC. Here's hoping.

None of this would be on the cards, of course, if Windows on Arm—the operating system's for-Arm fork, which largely relies on emulation via Prism—wasn't doing so well. But it's certainly doing well enough to support running Alan Wake 2 pretty well on RTX Spark, albeit natively and not via emulation, which won't be representative of the plenty of apps that must still be emulated.

At any rate, it will very much be a game of "wait and see", but even if the only effect is to push RTX Spark and Snapdragon X Elite/X2 Elite machines a little lower in price, positive changes could be afoot

It's Spring in Forza Horizon 6 Series 2, so we've got another treasure chest to find. While last week sent us into the snowy hills of Sotoyama, this week's Ito region Treasure Hunt calls for a beach day. Finding the specific beach you need on the islands of Japan, you know, where there are tons of beaches, isn't easy. Here's where you need to go.

Forza Horizon 6 Ito region Treasure Hunt location

This week's Festival Playlist Treasure Hunt chest is in Ito, on the beach at the northeast tip of the region, past the coastal town of Ine—you can see the white and blue sign on your map. It's basically as northeast as you can travel in the region, and there are no major events around here, just a billboard. Simply:

1. Travel to the coastal town of Ine in the north of Ito—this is where the Moto Auto Zine story missions take place.
2. Take the road northeast up the narrow coastline on the right side of the harbour.
3. Drive onto the sand and up to the northern tip, where you'll see the chest.
4. Crash into the Treasure Hunt chest to smash it, completing the challenge.

As always, you'll earn three Festival Playlist points, 5,000 XP, and 100,000 credits, which is a good reward for such a quick diversion.

This week, those Festival Playlist points go towards the 2017 Mercedes-AMG GT R and the 2017 Saleen S7 LM, which is much more exciting than last week's trucks to be sure. You should also grab the last few points to unlock the Series 2 milestone rewards, the 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau and the 2018 Lotus Exige Cup 430, before Series 3 rolls around next week.

It's the 16th anniversary of Star Trek Online this year, and the 60th anniversary of Star Trek itself. That's an absurdly long time for both MMOs and TV shows. For fans of the shows, though, it's bittersweet, as the two remaining ones are now rushing towards their post-cancellation conclusions. Star Trek Online, on the other hand, feels like it's entering a new era.

OK, I might be getting a wee bit ahead of myself, but things are definitely changing. Earlier this year, Cryptic Studios' former CEO, MMO heavyweight Jack Emmert, returned, taking up the CEO mantle once more. And just as critically, Cryptic and publisher Arc Games were able to extricate themselves from owner Embracer—a company that's mostly known for buying studios and killing them.

It's going to take time to really see the impact of these changes, but STO's new Undiscovered update does feel different—for numerous reasons. The ongoing storyline has been temporarily paused, one of STO's oldest arcs has been completely remade, with two Voyager veterans returning to voice their characters, and there's a big push to make sector space a bit more interesting—namely by revamping Deep Space Encounters.

Executive producer Thomas Marrone tells me that he's "really grateful to have Jack back", and that the returning CEO has been interested in Cryptic's STO team "trying new things and asking a lot of questions".

Marrone doesn't want to call it a "rut", but prior to the changes, the team found itself in a comfortable rhythm.

"We had a rhythm of here's an episode, here's a TFO [Task Force Operations are the dungeons and raids of STO], here's a couple patrols, here's an episode, here's a TFO, here's a couple patrols. And that was great, and I know people enjoyed it, because we have all the metrics. That's just what you do as a live service company, but with Jack back, we do have a mandate to try new things, and to look at, are there ways to give people something new every update. Undiscovered is one of the first examples of this."

Undiscovered's remade storyline and Deep Space Encounters still tick all the traditional STO boxes. They're extremely replayable and won't take a million hours to finish. Episodes are brisk (though not rushed) and the sector space encounters aim to be 15-minute adventures. With both comes new rewards, new and returning characters, and more voice acting. And the update launched with an event that will see players rewarded with a gigantic Bird of Prey.

It's not entirely unfamiliar, then, but as Marrone says, it's a "different flavour". And instead of adding, say, a new storyline or multiplayer diversion onto a creaky frame, the update is attempting to patch up the frame itself. "It's really geared at making the game feel alive and feel like it's worth flying around and exploring sector space in a way that I don't think we had before."

Emmert has enabled this, says Marrone. "Jack has encouraged us to think about new ways of building content for the game that isn't just the same thing over and over again."

Senior narrative designer Flo McQuibban says the team is "trying to push the boundaries" of what they can achieve both narratively and mechanically—"within the limit of what's possible with our development timeframe of our resources".

That last part is important. After Embracer acquired Cryptic, it gutted the team and put a mobile studio in charge of Cryptic's MMOs. And while the Embracer days are behind it, Cryptic's still having to run multiple MMOs without the resources that, say, Blizzard or Square Enix have available to them. So when it wants to do something new, like remake an arc, that needs to be the focus.

So don't expect Cryptic to immediately jump right into another old arc to remake it.

"I mean, we'd love to," says Marrone. "There are so many other arcs that are really cool and have good bones. The Iconian War is another great example of something that could really use some help, at least with the cutscenes. Unfortunately, game development is a zero sum game, in that we have this much time to make this much stuff."

But that certainly doesn't mean it won't happen. STO has a legacy of tweaking old stories. Indeed, the story that was just remade had been given a glow up a few years before it was put in the vault—though it wasn't even close to the extent of the Undiscovered changes. But Cryptic has to balance out any trips back in time with producing brand new storylines and activities.

So how does STO keep going for another 16 years? McQuibban thinks maintaining a good relationship with the community is the trick.

"We're a very communicative development team," she says. "And I feel like the playerbase has a lot of empathy back towards us, and grace and patience for when we are transparent and in regular discussion with them … I think that's going to be key, and it's part of like empathy towards the players. We hear you, and we see you, and your feedback; maybe it'll take a while to fix, but we've seen it, and we've logged it, and we're gonna consider it and figure it out together."

It can be challenging, though, "as the game gets older, technologies advance, expectations change about what's in a game," says Marrone. But it helps that "STO is blessed with a very, very high rate of retention". I've been playing STO since 2010, and somehow have managed to keep playing despite the nature of my job, meaning I'm constantly bouncing between games. And it's backed up by the concurrents, too, which are not incredibly high, but have been remarkably stable over the last decade.

So while the team has this mandate to experiment, one of the other things Emmert has been encouraging is, as McQuibban mentioned, empathy. "Jack said right when he got back that he wants us to have empathy for the player," says Marrone. "So that means that we play the games ourselves, that we understand the experience of playing the game, and that we understand, hey, this isn't so great, this is really cool, we should do more of this, we should do less of this, we should fix that."

As long as the team maintains this relationship with STO's players and understands what they want, reckons Marrone, "that is, I think, going to carry us; it's the relationship that's carried us this far".

With Paramount's plans for Star Trek still up in the air, and the last two shows going into their final seasons, Star Trek Online is going to need to keep the flame burning. I'm pretty confident it's up to the task.

For the most part, the long-awaited and worst-kept secret, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, is very faithful to one of my favourite games from 13 years ago. And anything that's brand-new, like some islands, the ship officers, and an extended story, fits in pretty seamlessly, almost like they were there in the original.

But you know what I don't remember from the original Black Flag? A microtransaction store filled with obnoxious outfits, faux battle passes, and weekly challenges. You know where I've seen that before? The RPG era of Assassin's Creed. Where I hated it.

In a full-priced remake of a 13-year-old swashbuckler, and a single-player game no less, Ubisoft decided to tack on one of the most distasteful cases of monetisation. You're greeted by the store on the main menu, little adverts when you pause the game, and it's actually fewer buttons to access the shop in-game than it is to save your progress. That's neat.

Inside this store you'll see very immersion-breaking outfits that I'm sure must appeal to someone, otherwise they wouldn't exist. I'll stick to my pirate outfits. Though I suppose it is being faithful to the original Black Flag in letting you buy resources and the 'Map Pack' that just reveals all of the treasure maps, Mayan stones, and so on. I mean, you could just Google that if you're lazy.

So, you might say that I shouldn't complain because it doesn't really affect me. True, to an extent—I won't buy exploitative map packs or these gaudy skins, so I won't see them in my game. But there's still a cash shop shoehorned into a "faithfully enhanced remake". That's not what I'd call faithful or enhanced.

More importantly, it undermines one of the key areas I'd have liked the remake to improve—the lack of new outfits in Resynced is one of my main disappointments. I want more costumes to find while exploring the world, especially now that it's bigger. Instead, the original outfits have simply been shifted out of the merchants and into chests across the map. The new skins Ubisoft has created, you've got to pay for separately.

Then there are the Animus Projects and whatnot directly lifted from Assassin's Creed Shadows. There are free (thankfully) reward tracks that look like battle passes, and you progress them by completing weekly Anomaly challenges. There's the Exchange store where you can trade Keys for Connor's iconic robes—I can only assume that Altair's and Ezio's robes, which were present in the original and are now mysteriously absent, will appear in the store in the future update.

Now look, Ubisoft, I'm not logging on each week to complete mindless challenges like it's a live-service multiplayer shooter. Just let me find the damn outfits by exploring the beautiful open world you've created and diligently expanded on in Resynced. Please.

Ubisoft was presented with the perfect opportunity to iterate on what many, myself included, would claim is the best Assassin's Creed game. And in as many ways as it has, it's also taken a step back. Content locked behind unnecessary, mindless challenges and microtransactions could instead have been fun rewards for the new activities and locations the team has added. If Black Flag Resynced is faithful to anything, it's Ubisoft's obsession with trying to pinch my dubloons. Talk about the golden age of piracy.

Data centres require a lot of energy to run. It's why it's so frustrating to hear AI's major players attempt to play a game of misdirection by making claims along the lines of a single LLM prompt requiring but a fourteenth of a cup of tea. Worse still, as big tech continues to build out its AI infrastructure, data centres' power demands are only set to increase.

Worldwide data centre electricity consumption is expected to rise from 447 terawatt-hours in 2025, to 565 terawatt-hours in 2026. That will mark a 26% year-over-year increase, according to Gartner's latest forecast.

Data centres' power demand globally is expected to rise 27% this year, peaking at a predicted total of 132 gigawatts. That's up from 2025's 104 GW total, with analysts expecting to see power demand continue to rise—according to Gartner, data centre demand may cross the 290 GW mark by 2030.

Gartner's Director Analyst, Linglan Wang, explains, "Surging demand for compute-intensive AI workloads is driving unprecedented data center power growth, while AI capacity is now constrained by power availability, making data center power security the new battle ground for scaling and protecting margins in the global AI race."

Gartner estimates that AI-optimized server adoption will account for 31% of data centre power consumption this year, having grown by 84.2%. By 2027, the power demands of AI servers is expected to grow by 47.8%, surpassing that of 'conventional servers.' Comparatively, the power demands of the 'conventional server' segment grew by about 1.2% in 2026, and is on a trajectory to grow by 2.4% in 2027.

Given that recent analysis of Google's latest environmental report suggests the company's energy consumption is on a trend of exponential growth, an upward trend across the industry is unsurprising. It's also perhaps worth noting that not all of Google's energy comes from renewable sources, and that the total electricity consumption for this one company last year was 43 TWh. That's almost 10% of Gartner's global numbers.

Add to that a reported 80% of the world's data centres have been built in less than optimal climates, having to compensate with a whole lot of temperature control systems, and environmentally, things start to look all the bleaker for the climate conscious. In fact, Gartner lists the power consumption of the 'Cooling and other Infrastructure' data centre segment as having grown by 22.6% in 2026.

Not only that, but increased demand from data centres will likely tax local power infrastructure—not to mention any of the other reasons why data centres make especially poor neighbours.

Black Flag Resynced has finally launched, and with it, a reprisal of the eternal debate surrounding the different stripes of Assassin's Creed combat. As Morgan notes in our review, Resynced ultimately "loses more than it gains" thanks to its wide-ranging changes masquerading as quality of life, and I'm inclined to agree.

For me, the most glaring offender here are the fights. Now don't get me wrong, Black Flag's combat was a bit of a joke, an almost cinematic experience of watching an endless array of beautifully brutal finisher animations play out before your eyes, as Edward terminated his fifth ship crew that day. It was cakewalk combat, and it's even easier to see that if you return to Black Flag after playing Resynced.

The counter window is absurdly long and you only have to kill one enemy to chain finisher everyone else around you. But what Black Flag did have was choice. You could whip out your hidden blades and decimate enemies in a more low profile manner, pick up a massive axe and swing it about your head, or even carry and reload a musket, and each weapon had its own bespoke melee animations. I remember being amazed the first time I killed a fella with a musket in Black Flag that they'd even made animations for it.

Resynced, by comparison, only lets you use boring old cutlasses, and I struggle to see how removing a vast swathe of situational weaponry is an upgrade. For my part, I almost exclusively used hidden blades, throwing knives, and the occasional musket in the original—I literally would've unequipped my cutlasses if I could have. So playing through Black Flag Resynced in its entirety with them didn't really feel like the same game to me.

Not to say that Resynced doesn't have some decent ideas combat wise. Its kicks-on-demand are fun, and it's certainly a tad more challenging than Black Flag ever was, but what I struggle to understand is why that increase in difficulty couldn't have combined with the original's weapon choice? All Black Flag's combat really needed to be better was removing the endless chain finishers and reducing the counter window—that alone would've made a huge difference.

I feel like the removal of temporary weapons also fundamentally misunderstands that combat isn't their only use. Having a musket, for instance, lets you take out troublesome sharpshooters in towers or on ship tops—the only way to do that now is get close and hope your pistol has the range, or climb up and kick them off. Throwing knives let you quickly kill enemies that spot you at a distance, so are useful in stealth, but also slick as hell.

These were never only weapons for pure combat, but tools that changed how you approached situations, which is the core premise of Assassin's Creed, and something you kind of needed before Resynced removed fail conditions for stealth missions. The saddest part is that we have a new enemy with a blunderbuss. I feel like that would have been an incredible temporary weapon to pick up and use. What did we get instead? A rope dart.

Resynced's combat is certainly passable, it just isn't Black Flag combat. You can't remove viable playstyles from a game and then claim it's a true remake. If I can't play a remake the same way I played the original, it's something else entirely. But that's ultimately my issue with Black Flag Resynced—it may be beautiful and have better ship combat, but its myriad changes mean it doesn't retain the feel of the original, something I realised when I went back and played Black Flag after finishing Resynced.

The full scale of Xbox's rash of layoffs is still to be properly tallied up—partially because CEO Asha Sharma is yet to announce a further 1,600 axed roles. One particularly harsh casualty is id Software, which has taken around 136 job losses on the chin. A move that one employee described this week as reducing it to the size of a "support studio".

We're just now learning about the projects that the developer, which had just released a large DLC for Doom: The Dark Ages, was cooking—courtesy of Gamesbeat. The report states that id Software was looking to pitch a Perfect Dark reboot:

"The team was also considering doing a game based on Perfect Dark, the franchise that hasn’t had a new addition since Perfect Dark Zero in 2005 on the Xbox 360 game console … Concept art was in the works."

And, listen—it's not confirmed this pitch hasn't been picked up, or even that it's been impacted the layoffs. But I think we can all take a deeply educated guess that it's unlikely id Software is going to have the resources to make it. It's a studio whose majority of staff has been shown the door, forced off its homegrown game engine and forced to work in Unreal. Chances of it happening are microscopically slim.

Which wouldn't be the first time Microsoft has killed a Perfect Dark reboot in the past five years. Back in 2025, a staggering 9,000 layoffs saw developer The Initiative closed, and their version of the game—which had an impressive gameplay demo in 2024—tossed into Microsoft's growing landfill of shuttered projects.

Another project from the hollowed-out studio that likely won't see the light of day is a John Wick-inspired game dubbed "Fury", says the Gamesbeat report:

"It had elements of sci-fi, noir, and Louisiana and Chicago gangsters. It had a modern, cyberpunk-like feel. It had a concept called Gun Fu, which combined gunplay with martial arts. The game was supposed to feel a lot like a John Wick movie, but it was not formally greenlit for production."

Sounds awesome, and I figure if anyone could've pulled it off, it would've been id Software, progenitors of Doom—shooter experts in their own right. Will it ever see the light of day? Well, Microsoft would have to restore an estimated 3/4ths of its staff, first. I legitimately can't think of a game that a studio who has lost that much talent could even make. When your co-founder's mourning their own former studio, you're probably in trouble.

It's amazing the lengths to which advertisers will go to serve a juicy new pop-up ad on your screen. From Windows itself suggesting apps, to motherboards automatically installing software, now to monitors prompting users to download antivirus trials. No, they won't be covering the bill after the trial ends.

As noted by TechSpot, user Mags_Smash took to the PCMR Subreddit last week to show that the LG Monitor App Installer was prompting them to get a free 30-day trial of McAfee. They claim the LG Monitor App Installer was silently installed via a Windows update without their consent. After searching through the technical details of the reliability monitor in settings, they found the LG app had been downloaded via one of their three LG monitors.

They urge users to not only disable this from happening by clicking through settings and activating the 'prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata' option, but also suggest users should completely disable the Windows Store, where the app was downloaded.

The comments section on this thread has many other users complaining about seeing the exact same pop-up, linked to the silent installation of LG's software. One user claims they don't hate Windows for its bloatware, "but this is the first time I've had it install bloatware without my knowledge and genuinely made me think it was a virus."

Notably, LG isn't the only brand accused of doing this in the thread. One user complains their Alienware monitor asks to install Dell/Alienware software, and we've definitely had experience of continual pop ups from Alienware screens reminding us to download the Alienware monitor software, however nothing has ever automatically installed without our consent. Though they aren't the only user to name-check Dell in the comments section.

However, one thing does make LG stand out above the rest here, in a negative sense. Where some peripherals prompt users to download their software, or just download it without asking in the worst cases, LG is prompting users to get a subscription to a service it doesn't directly own. As well as this, users would have to pay for McAfee after the 30-day trial, so LG is incidentally prompting users to spend cash.

I have reached out to both LG and Alienware for comment on this story, but have not yet heard back. Either way, companies being able to serve ads to your PC without asking and prompt you to get a subscription to a separate service, because you've bought a monitor from them, certainly rubs me the wrong way. I don't particularly like anything installing software without asking, but attempting to get me to download even more bloatware is more than a minor annoyance in my book.

I love the engineering hubris of seeing a device and saying "I can run Doom on that", but I never thought 2009 sandbox game Minecraft would become a similar measuring stick. Ever since one engineer got the game running on a Game Boy Color, I've found myself wondering 'what's next?'

YouTuber Game of Tobi recently shared their work, and it's a thing of beauty (via RetroDodo). They didn't just want to approximate Minecraft in a 2D environment; they wanted a game that actually looked and felt 3D.

As they point out, the Game Boy Color launched hardware generations before we would get portable tech hardware intended for 3D games. They say, "Honestly, I wasn't sure if it is even possible to have something like this on the Game Boy because it is in 3D, and it is recognisable as a 3D world where you can walk around."

Though it is worth noting that Game of Tobi's port isn't the full Minecraft. You can choose from a couple of worlds, and it doesn't seem to have a health or inventory system. You can also break and place blocks, but it doesn't appear to have mobs or secrets.

Tobi is not done here, though. "Of course, I could just call it a day with all of these features, but let's just be real. I really want to do something with this. So, I also added a Nether, of course. Not a lot of stuff you can do there, but it does work."

With the Game Boy Color's limited controls, it does look a tad awkward to navigate. It seems like the D-pad controls movement, and then you hold another button while pressing the D-pad to look around. This means looking around and moving at the same time seems impossible to do on the 1998 bit of hardware.

If you fancy giving the game a go for yourself, you can download it for free via Game of Tobi's Patreon. The game itself comes in a .gbc file format, so to play it on the original Nintendo hardware, you will need a flash card and a little technical know-how.

Textures are off by default, and Tobi explains this is because it slows the game to a crawl. Rather impressively, at half the speed and in black and white, Tobi's Minecraft ROM even works on the original Game Boy, the Color's 1989 predecessor.

Still, this is one of those experiments that seems to come out of wondering if something can be done, rather than because it offers a better experience. Minecraft runs on both Nintendo Switch consoles, plus the majority of handheld gaming PCs, plus it even runs on phones.

If porting Minecraft becomes anything like modders' fascination with running Doom on random hardware, I'm hopeful we'll see a port to a vape or a charging station by the end of the year.

It comes as a surprise to absolutely no one that Subnautica 2 has finally surpassed 5 million copies sold. It did sell two million copies in just 12 hours after all. Then, not that long ago, it broke 4 million copies sold, which was excellent for everyone involved except for Krafton. And now its 5 million copies sold coincides with its first major update in early access, 1.1.

The biggest addition from the latest update was the introduction of just a little violence, after masses of players complained about the game's forced pacifism. You still can't kill sea creatures though, only bonk them on the head or zap them when they get uncomfortably close.

I played a great deal of the first Subnautica and Below Zero, despite my thalassophobia, and so far Subnautica 2 has lived up to any expectation I had. The only practical issues I had with the early access game so far seem to have been addressed in its 1.1 update.

After exploring all that was available to see, I took to settling in for some good old-fashioned base building, something that has always been a favourite pastime in Subnautica games. After gathering material and saving up silver I managed to make a pretty impressive build, the only thing left to do was make a moon door and a tadpole dock big enough for my two, yes two, tadpoles.

This proved to be difficult. Actually it was more than difficult, it was pretty infuriating. No matter what I did, I just couldn't seem to get the build size right, and I had a great deal of trouble fitting it into my pre-existing build layout. But hopefully this will be easier in the future as Unknown Worlds has improved the "placement for the Tadpole Dock" to make it easier to slot into small spaces.

Other base-building updates (which is all I'm really bothered about right now) include better placement for the fabricator, a new dedicated storage structure, as well as additional improvements to "rendering, creature behaviour, and the user interface." I'm here for all of that.

"With this update, we focused on refining the early-game experience and core systems," Fernando Melo, executive producer at Unknown Worlds explains in a press release. "We’ll continue shaping the world of Subnautica 2 together with our players throughout Early Access." I can't wait to see what Unknown Worlds does next.

Thank you again rural Walmart from r/pcmasterrace

Thanks to the very hungry AI industry and the resulting memory supply crisis, RAM is reaching prices I naively once thought impossible. Between the tail end of 2025 and now, I've had a bit of a rude awakening, let me tell ya. However, that doesn't mean you can't get RAM for a reasonable price—you just need to know where to look.

One lucky Redditor shared an amazing find, posting they'd picked up 32 GB of DDR4 memory for only $50. Then they found a second kit for the same price. That's 64 GB of RAM for 100 bucks total. Now, the obvious question is 'Where did this jammy poster make such a mythical find?' Apparently, in a rural Walmart though the poster has not yet specified a US state.

The really eye-widening detail is that the Reddit user got the two kits on clearance, with a bright yellow sticker on the box declaring that both kits had been reduced down from $319. An equivalent kit will set you back about $230 from Amazon at time of writing. This is your irregularly scheduled reminder to check out your local rural retailer.

Now, there's always the option to simply wait out the memory crisis. Our Nick did the testing earlier this year, and found that 16 GB of RAM is absolutely fine for PC gaming in 2026. Mind you, that does come with its share of caveats. Furthermore, sources say the memory supply crisis won't ease until at least 2028 when a number of major memory manufacturers complete their capacity-expanding builds.

All of that is to say, perhaps your rig is in a position where a memory upgrade just can't wait that long. As analysts reckon memory prices will continue to rise this year, with some even predicting a spike as significant as 50% in Q3, you may want to check your own rural retailer sooner rather than later.

Failing that, you can stick with us on the hardware team as we keep our eyes peeled for what few RAM deals there are. Though, to get 32 GB at an even sort of reasonable price, you may be better off scooping up one of the best cheap gaming PC deals instead.

One of the most controversial bits of World of Warcraft: Midnight was Blizzard taking aim at UI mods (addons) that impacted combat, with the idea that you probably shouldn't have to make your game look like an airplane dashboard designed by a drunk person just to play a videogame. Something that I've come around to, for the most part.

In a recent interview with PCGamesN, game director Ion Hazzikostas has affirmed Blizzard's choice to revoke addon author's access to combat information (with a few exceptions): "I know this may be a controversial statement, but I will say that, overall, [the new UI] has been successful so far. It's not done, it's not perfect; there's more work to go, and we are continuing to undertake that work."

"Controversial" is somewhat correct, mind. While I've been handling the shift absolutely fine, I'm also primarily a DPS guy—during the last raid tier, healers were suffering due to a complete mismatch between Blizzard's encounter design and their UI's ability to track dispellable debuffs.

Essentially, while Blizzard has touted that it's designing its encounters with an addonless world in mind, a raid encounter in Midnight's first season, Crown of the Cosmos, had a debuff called Null Corona that needed to be dispelled. However, because the studio's changes made it impossible to track dispels, healers were forced to squint at their party member's health bars to find a tiny purple jpeg.

This was eventually hotfixed, but that's far from the only issue. The homegrown DPS meter could, er, be better. It's missing a huge amount of functionality that was there with meter addons before, a step back by pretty much every metric. And it's not like Blizzard isn't working on it, but it's easy to feel salty about a sweeping lack of convenience—the rapidfire development cycle of hobbyist mod builders absolutely beats the often-complicated and difficult tasks of a major development studio.

"I think that, by and large, the vast majority of people are completing the same level of content that they were before, and far more are doing it without feeling like they need to seek out external tools. There have been some exceptions to that where the community has figured out ways of making some computational logic work, and we didn't want to keep breaking things in the middle of a patch."

That's another asterisk to the whole thing—many high-end raiders have figured out ways to gain the same functionality they'd lost before, but because of both the new rules around addons and the usability lost from the death of something like WeakAuras, these addons mostly aren't accessible to the general public.

Hazzikostas says that patch 12.1 should iron out a lot of those kinks, though: "The 12.1 update has what we think is a more comprehensive overhaul of the security backend of our addon interface, which should make it a little easier for addon authors to write addons, but also close some of the loopholes we've seen pop up here and there. Alongside that, we're continuing to improve our base user interface."

Ultimately, Hazzikostas says that "I think, while it's certainly been a transition with its challenges, we're excited to have this new baseline and foundation, and things will only continue to get better from here, both as we continue to add functionality to the base UI, and we continue to empower addon authors to add customization options.

"And as we, frankly, internally relearn some aspects of how we can build encounters in this new world. I think that's going to open up new doors and possibilities for players in raids, dungeons, Delves, and everything in between."

While former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider won't play The Veilguard, he knows enough to realise that the series ain't looking too hot right now. He's pretty sure it's dead, at least under EA.

When we asked if he saw a future in the series he considers "his baby", he wasn't hopeful.

"From Electronic Arts? Unlikely. Throughout the entire time I was there, we were always one breath away from the project being shelved. The thing that happened is that we kept releasing games, and it would sell much better than they thought it should, and it kept surprising them."

EA never seemed to understand Dragon Age, as evidenced by the Origins trailer that used a Marilyn Manson track and was filled with blood. Instead of a mature fantasy RPG, it was presented as some edgelord nonsense for teen boys. This misunderstanding continues to this very day. EA CEO Andrew Wilson, for instance, blamed The Veilguard's failings on a lack of live service features. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

Things were different with Mass Effect, EA's favourite RPG.

"It was funny," says Gaider, "because if Mass Effect releases didn't sell as well, they got excuses, because it was an action-oriented game. They thought it should sell more. It was slicker."

Gaider has nothing bad to say about the sci-fi RPG, and counts Mass Effect 2 as one of the "best RPGs of all time", but the differences in the way Dragon Age and Mass Effect were treated by EA must have stung.

"The way EA looked at it was that Mass Effect was the slick, modern RPG that had action, and they could sell really easily. Whereas Dragon Age was old-fashioned and focused on story. Our action, ranging from Dragon Age: Origins, was a little bit on the slow, cumbersome side, and then was too fast. They never knew what to do with it. So whenever a Dragon Age game sold well, we got excuses on the opposite side. Basically that it was a fluke."

It's worth noting that Dragon Age: Inquisition beat EA's sales expectations and became BioWare's most successful game. But EA has always treated Dragon Age, as Gaider says, like "the redheaded stepchild".

"They gave us a head of marketing at one point who literally talked about having to put lipstick on a pig in order to sell it. When you're on a team and you're hearing this, you're like, ‘Alright, what am I supposed to do with this?’"

Despite all of this, Gaider is interested in working on Dragon Age again—albeit not with EA. Though this is a more recent development.

"If you'd asked me that in the past, I would have said absolutely not. That I’d done my time. I left the Dragon Age team before I left BioWare. After Inquisition came out, I went to Mike Laidlaw and I said, ‘I've told all the stories with mages and dragons and what have you that I have in me. And I could keep going, but if I keep working on this, it's going to become rote, and I think that would be a disservice to the team. So I should step aside, let fresher voices rise’. I don't know if that was the right decision, but it felt right at the time."

If someone gave him the keys to Thedas now, though, he might be up for it.

"I do like a challenge," he says. "So if, out of some weird alignment of the stars, somebody handed the Dragon Age franchise back to me and said, ‘Breathe the life back into this baby’, that'd be a tough one, but I think that'd be an interesting thing to do. To go back to the basics of what made Dragon Age appeal to so many people in the first place. And go somewhere dark and dangerous, and do things that will make people upset. I think that’s what I would want to do with it."

If Richard Garriott can get his hands on Ultima again, who knows? Maybe there's still hope for Dragon Age.

Windows GDID (Global Device Identifier), its own telemetry service, has drawn ire from users for some time. Turns out the data it tracks can be used by law enforcement to incriminate alleged hackers, which is both a decent outcome and sort of worrisome if you think about it too much.

As noted by TechSpot, the US Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs recently announced the arrest of 19-year-old Peter Stokes. Linked to the hacking group Scattered Spider, who are reportedly responsible for 100 network intrusions and over $100 million in ransom payments, the thing that reportedly incriminated him was his Windows GDID.

Back in May last year, Scattered Spider reportedly called the IT helpdesk of a jewellery seller posing as employees and managed to talk them into handing over password reset details. This then gave the group access to three accounts, for which Scattered Spider asked for $8 million in ransom money. Though the jeweller didn't pay, it did reportedly cost the brand $2 million.

Despite using a VPN and a tunnelling service to mask his traffic, Stokes was reportedly caught due to his GDID, which logged information on the device. A court order seemingly forced Microsoft to hand over all the evidence linking Stokes to that machine, and this was used by the US government to justify its arrest.

This wasn't helped by the fact that Stokes seemingly showed off his wealth by posting photos of fancy hotels on Snapchat. The 39-page judgment details not only the GDID link but the Snapchat bragging.

Stokes was seemingly stopped at the airport by law enforcement, and he was reportedly carrying two hard drives with evidence in them, linking him to the crime.

Though stopping potential hackers is in the interest of those who don't want to be hacked, the way law enforcement caught Stokes is only more likely to stoke fears around GDID. Proton, a privacy-focused mail, drive, and VPN service provider, discusses "Windows as spyware", and though in this case, "the system worked as intended", it argues "GDID raises important questions about user consent and who actually owns the hardware you pay for."

Proton makes note of the fact that users don't explicitly consent to GDID and its data tracking trappings. "In all of Microsoft’s extensive online documentation, GlobalDeviceId merits a single mention buried in a highly obscure technical document that no one is ever likely to read."

As you might be able to guess, Proton's advice is that if you want to do away with GDID, you should swap to Linux. And with the last few years Microsoft has had, it's easy to see why one might want to move away from its software.

Bandai Namco's next anime action game is just on the horizon as it gears up for another Sword Art Online release, Echoes of Aincrad. It was one of the top played demos during Steam's most recent Next Fest, and that demo is available for those of you who can't stand to wait just a few more hours.

The anime souls-like is is releasing for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, but its console launch times don't exactly line up across platforms. So, here I am to break it all down with details on the Echoes of Aincrad release date and time.

When is the Echoes of Aincrad release date and time?

Echoes of Aincrad launches on Thursday, July 9, at 3 pm PDT for all players on PC around the world. The base game is available on Steam for $70/£55, or you can upgrade to the deluxe edition for an extra $20/£20 and tack on the expansion DLC launching later this year.

The Echoes of Aincrad launch time in more regions for PC

If your timezone isn't listed above, check out this handy time and date site to sort all of the tedious timezone math for you. I've already adjusted the calendar for Echoes of Aincrad's launch time, so you'll just need to plug in your city.

Echoes of Aincrad launch times for PlayStation and Xbox

Does Echoes of Aincrad have preloading?

No, Echoes of Aincrad does not have pre-loading for players on Steam. Pre-loading is only available for consoles.

Back when Microsoft acquired Bethesda, our first thought was, 'I wonder if this will be bad,' but our second thought was, 'Ooh, maybe now Obsidian will make Fallout: New Vegas 2.' And when the Fallout TV show turned out to be a hit, we scratched our heads over the continued absence of a new Fallout game.

Now it looks like a new Obsidian-made Fallout RPG may actually happen. Word on the street is that Microsoft has put Obsidian's Josh Sawyer—who directed Fallout: New Vegas—at the helm of a new Fallout game as part of the "Xbox reset" shakeup, which will see 3,200 people lose their jobs.

The situation is "still in flux," according to the Bloomberg report that broke the news, and could change. But supposing that Obsidian and Sawyer do dive into this project, are you excited? There's a poll below, and the comments are open.

I'm feeling ambivalent. I like Obsidian and Sawyer, and a new Fallout game seems like a perfectly good pursuit for the developer and director, and a good thing for fans of the series who've been asking for just this for years.

But the news comes alongside thousands of layoffs across Xbox, including a substantial number at Obsidian itself, which has reportedly cancelled an Avowed sequel and other projects to make way for Fallout. It's not exactly an auspicious way to kick off a new project, and it's hard to sustain feelings I'd describe as positive after a bunch of people were just put out of work.

The Television Academy (which is not a place where TVs go to school, I've just learned) has announced the nominations for this year's Primetime Emmy Awards. And, yeah, yeah, The Pitt got 25 nominations, of course it did, Widow's Bay got 19 noms, and Pluribus got 18.

Eh, who cares? This is a PC gaming site. How did TV shows based on PC games do?

Great! Sort of. Fallout Season 2 hauled off an impressive nine Emmy nominations, but don't pop the Nuka Cola yet—none of the actors on the show were nominated. Not Ella Purnell as Lucy, not Aaron Moten as Max, not Kyle MacLachlan as Hank, who were all great this season. Not even Justin Theroux got a nomination, despite being deliciously creepy as the unhinged Robert House.

And somehow, Walton Goggins as Cooper Howard and The Ghoul didn't get a nom. I am surprised at this! Goggions would seem to be a shoe-in as a crowd favorite: he was nominated for Fallout Season 1 in 2024, though the award went to Hiroyuki Sanada for Shōgun, and I can't really beef about that because he was great. But Goggins was even better in Season 2, particularly his scenes as Cooper Howard in the pre-war sequences, which are easily my favorite parts of the show.

Who did get nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a drama? Noah Wyle, obviously, for The Pitt, Mark Ruffalo for Task (he was good), Gary Oldman for Slow Horses (no argument here), Sterling K. Brown for Paradise (only watched the first episode), and Rufus Sewell for The Diplomat (didn't see it).

How do you feel about those guys getting nominated and Goggins not getting gogginated? Here, do me a favor and answer this quick poll:

At least the people who turn Goggins into the Ghoul are up for a nomination: Fallout Season 2 is up for two Outstanding Makeup categories (non-prosthetic and prosthetic), and one for Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes.

The show is also nominated for Outstanding Stunt Performance for the episode "The Profligate," though I just scrubbed through that episode and I'm not sure which stunt was being submitted—possibly the performer leaping through the air while wearing power armor, at the end.

Other categories include sound editing, sound mixing, hairstyling, and production design. Just no acting!

You can see Fallout's complete list of Emmy nominations here. We'll just have to cross our fingers for Goggins to finally win an Emmy in Season 3.

When it comes to finishing games in a timely manner, I've got two major weaknesses guaranteed to tack on dozens of unnecessary hours to my total playtime: snappy, satisfying card games, and fishing minigames of literally any caliber.

I'm serious—I love fishing in most videogames. It can be the most notoriously finicky games, like the hellish fishing controls of Okami, or the more thoughtful and serene ones, like Cast 'n' Chill. I just want to sit somewhere on a dock or a boat and listen to the waves gently roll around me, only to be interrupted by the sounds of me furiously mashing whatever button reels in a bite.

Some of you are nodding along in agreement, because you're wise with good taste (and poor time management skills). As for the rest of you, I'm assuming you agree with my colleague Lauren's take on how fishing minigames are the worst. I'll have to sit you down for a stern talking-to later, but for now, I have a new quiz to deliver.

So here's the deal: Set aside some time, because I'm going to show you screenshots of fish from 21 games, and then you tell me what game that fish is from. You've got 16 minutes to see how many you can reel in. Good luck! And when you're done, let us know how you did.

Former Destiny 2 and Marathon director Christopher Barrett has settled his lawsuit against Sony and Bungie. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Barrett implied a favorable outcome, saying he's "very satisfied" with it.

Barrett had a long career at Bungie, where he spent nearly 25 years as a designer and director on the Halo and Destiny games. He also served as game director on Marathon before his unexpected departure in 2024; subsequent reports said he was fired following complaints of inappropriate behavior with women at the studio.

Barrett, however, alleged that the real reason for his dismissal was a desire to avoid paying him more than $45 million under the terms of his employment agreement, and to "shift blame for and deflect attention from their massive business failures." He sued Sony and Bungie for $200 million, alleging that they colluded in a "premeditated scheme to terminate Barrett, avoid paying him the tens of millions of dollars he was owed, and make him a scapegoat for Defendants' business failures and reputational issues."

It initially appeared that Sony was going to fight: Its reply to the lawsuit included multiple examples of written communications between Barrett and female subordinates, which it claimed "reveal his pattern of misconduct." They included alleged drunk calls, requests to play "sexually charged games of 'Truth or Dare'," and comments such as "You want to be worshipped, I think?" Barrett's lawyers, however, said Sony was misrepresenting the nature of the interactions by cherry-picking text messages and "alleged conversations."

Sony's reply included a detailed breakdown of what Barrett earned following Sony's acquisition of Bungie in January 2022, and what was left on his contract when he was terminated: He was paid $36,811,044 in 2022, and $1,883,057 in 2023; he was due to collect another $45,579,627 from 2024-2026, broken down into three payments of $941,529 each for unvested RSUs [restricted stock units] in May and November 2024 and May 2025, and three payments of $14,251,680 each for re-vested shares (including Premium Bonus) in July 2024, July 2025, and July 2026.

Those staggering sums came about as part of Sony's $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie in 2022, $1.2 billion of which went toward talent retention: Essentially, Sony had big plans for Bungie as a multi-game studio in those days, and wanted to ensure key employees like Barrett stuck around for the long haul. But those massive payouts started to look less well-considered following layoffs at the studio through 2023 and 2024, which put hundreds of people out of work. Meanwhile, higher-ups on these retention bonuses were essentially incentivized to stick around thanks to their 'golden handcuff' deals.

In a way, this settlement looks like something of a repeat: While numbers weren't revealed, Barrett seems very happy about it, and even if he 'only' got what he claimed he was owed on his contract, that's still $45 million in his pocket, just a couple weeks after Bungie laid off most of the Destiny development team and some Marathon devs as well.

In a joint statement shared by Barrett on LinkedIn, Sony and Bungie credited him for contributing to "some of Bungie's most successful games," and said they have added his name to the Marathon credits as the original game director.

Completing the Art Lover quest in Black Flag Resynced sees you finding art pieces from Great Inagua's scattered collection to return them to the manor. This is one of the new quests that was added in Resynced, alongside a new character, Bernard. This aged butler served the previous owner of the house before Du Casse took it over.

There are lots of different ways to gather the Great Inagua art collection and the reward is one of Ezio's outfits, so I'll run through the easiest ways to gather what you need.

Black Flag Resynced art collection locations

To complete the Art Lover quest, you'll need to find 30 art pieces across the Caribbean, though you'll have to return to talk to Bernard once you've found 15 and then 25, before completing the quest at 30, earning yourself the Master Assassin outfit (One of Ezio's outfits) and the Obsidian Hull ornament.

There are many ways to gather art, but it's worth noting the Templar and pirate portraits you hang in the manor don't count towards this quest. Here's how to gather the art collection:

1. Collecting ship models

Every time you board a ship for the first time after defeating it, you'll earn its model, and these models count as part of the Inagua art collection since you can display them on a shelf in the main room. Since there's a British and Spanish variant for each ship type, that's ten art pieces you can easily earn, not to mention that you'll unlock extra ship models as you complete the main story.

2. Buying art pieces

You can buy six art pieces from any General Store, though since these cost Reales, you might want to hold onto your money and leave these as a last resort. It depends how quickly you want to complete the quest and get Ezio's Revelations outfit.

3. Looting plantation warehouses

The first time you loot a plantation warehouse, you'll get a painting you can hang in the manor, which counts towards the Great Inagua art collection. Plantations are easy to find; simply look for the island symbols that have three plants growing out of some soil. You'll have to head inside, find the key, and unlock the warehouse door. These can also contain treasure maps.

4. Kenway's fleet missions

Some of Kenway's fleet missions (the ones you organise via the map in the manor or Jackdaw's cabin) provide art pieces as rewards, specifically, the Piracy and Trade missions. They also have a scale and skull symbol on the map and list their type below their title.

You'll need a brig for Piracy and a schooner for Trade. Simply look for the missions that have a little furniture or art piece image in their listed rewards—they're usually pretty easy to recognise as, besides map pieces, they're the only rewards that have "1x" next to them.

5. Treasure maps

While not all do, some buried treasure maps contain art pieces as their rewards. Specifically:

• New Bone treasure map (722,607)
• Abaco Island treasure map (543,694)
• Jiquey treasure map (812,114)
• Principe treasure map (605,132)

That last one is locked by the main story until you go to the island of Principe, since it's not on the main map. If you're struggling with any of these, check out our treasure map guide linked above.

With all of these, you should easily be able to cobble together the 30 pieces you need, just make sure to return to Bernard when the quest marker reappears in Great Inagua. If you want to know your progress, open the world map, press X to open the quest list via the prompt in the top right, and cycle through sidequests to find and toggle it active.

Just like the original game, getting all the outfits isn't simple in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, but for a slightly different reason. Most outfits are still bought from the merchants or crafted, but a few have moved locations for no apparent reason.

Everyone's favourite Crimson Cloak, for example, is no longer available from the General Store. Likewise, loyalty outfits like Ezio's robes are now behind quests. The remake also borrows a few tricks from Shadows to further complicate your wardrobe collection.

How to get all Black Flag Resynced outfits

There are 26 outfits in Resynced, or 28 if you're counting the exclusive pre-order and Deluxe Edition bundles. You'll get at least two outfits by default a short way into the story. You start with Duncan Walpole's Robes for your trip to Havana, and when you leave, Cap'n Kenway will modify them, unlocking Edward Kenway's Robes. Unlike the original game, you can swap back to Duncan's Assassin robes if you'd rather they not be replaced.

If you've pre-ordered the game, you'll be able to equip Blackbeard's Crimson Outfit, and those with the Master Assassin pack (included in the Deluxe Edition) will also have the black and gold robes of the same name.

If you've played the original game, you'll notice a few odd absences, despite Ubisoft stating that every legacy outfit would return. For example, we didn't find the Officer and Explorer outfits, nor Ezio's and Altair's robes. I suspect the latter two will be available in the Exchange store in the future, however, similar to Connor's outfit.

Here's every other outfit you need to unlock:

Brown Cloak

The first outfit you can get is the Brown Cloak from the large chest in the Governor's compound in the southeast of Havana, Dry Tortuga, at the following coordinates: 204,573. You can grab this while you're sneaking around during the main mission, or return later.

Pirate Cloak

Purchase it for 600 Reales from the General Store after completing the main mission This Old Cove to liberate Great Inagua, Gibara. It's basically the Brown Cloak but with a cool skull on the back.

Captain Drake's Outfit

Loot the chest in the ocean off the northeast coast of Sacrifice Island, Conttoyor, at the following coordinates: 18,547. It will be marked when you use the nearby sync point.

Merchant Outfit

Purchase it for 3000 Reales from the General Store after completing the Sequence 4 main mission Overrun and Outnumbered.

Politician's Outfit

Purchase it for 3,000 Reales from the General Store after completing the Sequence 4 main mission Overrun and Outnumbered.

Privateer Outfit

Purchase it for 3,000 Reales from the General Store after completing the Sequence 4 main mission Overrun and Outnumbered.

Feline Pelt Outfit

Build the Treasure Dealer at Great Inagua, Gibara, after completing the Sequence 4 main mission This Old Cove, and trade the following items:

• 2x Ocelot Pelt
• 6x Jaguar Pelt
• 1x White Jaguar Pelt
• 2x Black Jaguar Pelt

Whaler Outfit

Build the Treasure Dealer at Great Inagua, Gibara, after completing the Sequence 4 main mission This Old Cove, and trade the following items:

• 2x Humpback Whale Skin
• 2x Killer Whale Skin

Shark-Hunter Outfit

Build the Treasure Dealer at Great Inagua, Gibara, after completing the Sequence 4 main mission This Old Cove, and trade the following items:

• 1x Great White Shark Bone
• 2x Bull Shark Skin
• 2x Hammerhead Shark Bone

Stede Bonnet's Attire

Masquerade as the one and only merchant (or gentleman pirate) Stede Bonnet by looting the largest chest on the east hill of Mystery Island in the far east of Navassa, at the following coordinates: 913,123.

Captain Morgan's Redingote

Part of The Black Island DLC pack in the original game, this content is included in the remake. You need to loot the large chest overlooking the shore in the hills north of Black Island, northeast Gibara, at the following coordinates: 915,618.

Pirate Captain Outfit

Complete the Ambergris Key treasure map. You can find the map next to the campfire on the northeastern beach of Corozal, western Chinchorro (31,230). Then head to Ambergris Key, southern Chinchorro (30,157) to collect the chest.

Crimson Cloak

Complete the Anotto Bay treasure map. You can get the map by looting the warehouse in the northwest of Havana (205,600), then sail to Anotto Bay, northeast Charlotte (590,245) to collect the chest. This outfit was available immediately from the General Store in the original game.

Governor Outfit

Complete the Isla Providencia treasure map. Grab the map from the warehouse in the south of Nassau (594,750). You then need to progress the main story until you gain access to Isla Providencia, where you'll find the buried treasure near boat wrecks on the southern beach (487,11).

Stealth Outfit

Just like the original game, you need to complete 16, just over half, of the Assassin Contracts. You'll get the Stealth Outfit, plus the Hidden Ones Sigil legendary trinket. Completing every contract will net you the legendary Spring-Steel Swords.

Foreign Diplomat Disguise

You'll get this fancy red overcoat as a disguise during the Sequence 12 main mission Governor No Longer and keep it afterwards.

Mayan Armour

Find all 16 Mayan stones to recover the stones required to complete the Mayan Mysteries side quest and open the locked door on Tulum.

Templar Armour

After completing Sequence 3: A Single Madman and taking Julien du Casse's Templar Key, complete the four Templar Hunts and use the keys from each to open the gate in the manor in Great Inagua, Gibara.

Master Assassin Outfit

To get Edward's Master Assassin robes, you need to complete the Art Lover quest by collecting art, such as paintings from raiding warehouses, ship models from boarding enemy vessels, and sculptures from chests or merchants.

Edward the Legend

Fully restore and upgrade every building at your base, including the manor, in Great Inagua, Gibara, unlocked after beating This Old Cove. You'll need heaps of resources and Reales, so don't expect to do this quickly.

Naoe's Robes

Reach level 12 in the Riptides Animus Project to get Naoe's outfit from Shadows. This is a free battle pass progressed by earning and spending Data Fragments. These contain items available in both Black Flag Resynced and Shadows.

Yasuke's Yoroi

Reach level 12 in the Undertow Animus Project to get Yasuke's outfit from Shadows. This is a free battle pass progressed by earning and spending Data Fragments. These contain items available in both Black Flag Resynced and Shadows.

Dark Animus Corsair Robes

Reach level 18 in the Eye in the Dark Animus Project, a free battle pass progressed by completing Anomaly challenges. Unlike the other Projects, all the rewards here are exclusive to Black Flag Resynced.

Connor's Outfit

To get Connor's cool robes from Assassin's Creed 3, you need to purchase them for 3,000 Keys from the Animus Exchange store. This is effectively the replacement for Uplay challenges which used to be the home of legacy Assassin outfits.

Nomad's Bronze Ensemble

You can get the Nomad's Bronze Ensemble for free at the bottom of the in-game store. You should also grab the Rustic Flintlocks and Shipmate Monkey while you're here.

Though it makes a variety of changes to the original, Black Flag Resynced adds quite a lot of new content to the much-beloved Assassin's Creed instalment. There's a boatload of new sidequests, including a whole new chapter you unlock later in the game. There are also tweaks to combat, stealth, the Jackdaw, and legendary ships.

The point of this guide is to walk you through the new content as you play, so you know what unlocks when, and don't miss anything along the way.

How to access all new content in Black Flag Resynced

Before I run through how to access all of the new stuff in order (so you can use this guide while playing), there are a few more general changes to the game.

First off, combat and stealth:

• A new blunderbuss-wielding enemy
• The ability to crouch anywhere by pressing X and a visibility meter
• You can perform Heavy Strikes by holding the attack button
• There are now Trinkets you can equip with unique buffs. For example, finding all Mayan Stones now also gives you a Trinket that absorbs gunfire as well are the Mayan Armor it used to
• You can't pick up enemy weapons anymore
• No more hidden blade combat beyond finishers
• No more fail conditions for stealth missions if you are found

And in terms of the Jackdaw and ship combat:

• Three new officer quests that provide upgrades, such as firing double broadsides, enhanced brace, and the ram ability you used to get by defeating all legendary ships
• New secondary firing modes for ship weapons, including:
  • Continuous Heated Shots for broadside cannons
  • Double shot for the bowchasers
  • Shrapnel barrels for the barrels
  • Deadman's Cohort for the mortar (unlocked via his officer quest)
  • Swivel guns can now be manually aimed AC Rogue-style
• Legendary ships are tougher and respawn over time
• New sea shanties, some of which you unlock via sidequests (like Captain Stede Bonnet)

The way you get many of Black Flag's outfits has also changed, the Jackdaw's Ship Plans are now called Ultimate Plans, and the Treasure Maps have changed somewhat, too. All that said, here's everything new in order of when it unlocks during the game.

1. Rope Dart (Sequence 3: Sugarcane and Its Yields)

This is Black Flag's new combat tool, a rope dart you can hang enemies with, or throw at them to pull them towards you, though it has a cooldown.

2. A bunch of quests, Rifts, and two new pets (Sequence 4: This Old Cove)

This is the first major set of unlocks once you take the cove at Great Inagua. This includes:

• Art Lover quest: You'll meet the butler, Bernard, during This Old Cove, and he tasks you with collecting art pieces to restore the manor's lost collection.
• Two new officer quests: A Second Chance and A Proper Shipwright will appear to the southeast and west respectively. These quests see you recruit two officers to the Jackdaw who provide special abilities and a nice pair of pistols if you complete their questlines fully.
• Rifts and Animus Projects: Rifts are new narrative activities that explore Edward Kenway's choices. The first one appeared for me on the south coast of Great Inagua after I finished This Old Cove. From this point on you can also earn Data Fragments for Animus Projects, unlocking cosmetics and gear. As you progress the story, you'll unlock more Rifts, so keep an eye out.
• Two new pets: The first new pet is Soot the Cat in the town of Great Inagua, marked by the Cat Distribution System local event. The second is Albert the Monkey, who you can find at the Monkey Business local event marker in southeast Havana, off the shore on a ship. Your equipped pet in your loadout will sit on the railing as you sail.

3. Blackbeard's Treasure sidequest (Sequence 8: Do Not Go Gently)

This sidequest unlocks after Do Not Go Gently in Sequence 8 and sees you tracking down Blackbeard's treasure via a special map. This quest automatically starts through the main story, so you don't need to worry about activating it yourself. This acts as an epilogue for Ed Thatch's character.

4. Captain Stede Bonnet sidequest (Sequence 8: Marooned)

Once you complete Marooned, you'll find the Captain Stede Bonnet sidequest marker in the manor in Great Inagua. As with Blackbeard's Treasure, this quest is about the merchant-turned-pirate, Stede Bonnet, who you encounter throughout the game.

5. A World Without Gold chapter and one more officer quest (Sequence 11: Everything is Permitted)

Though this is a very late unlock, it's actually most significant for my money, adding an entirely new chapter to the game. Once you complete Everything is Permitted, you'll find the That Bastard Maynard quest marker by the tavern in Great Inagua, after you leave the Assassin's Compound with Anne. As you might have guessed, this quest is about Maynard, the pirate-hunter you briefly met in the original game.

You'll unlock the officer, Tobias Smith, via this questline when you complete I Just Want to Talk as well as his upgrade. His quest then continues separately to A World Without Gold. If you then complete No Box Dark Enough (which you'll find in Great Inagua) and then his subsequent quests, you'll unlock a new mortar type for the Jackdaw which fires a continuous stream. This is the final major new unlock in Black Flag Resynced.

I'm not sure who asked for daily quests and what is essentially a battle pass in Black Flag Resynced, but here we are. Similar to Shadows, you can earn Data Fragments to spend on unlocking special cosmetics and keys in your Animus projects.

First off, make sure that you have the Eyes in the Dark project active, as this one gives you rewards in Black Flag itself versus AC Shadows. Otherwise, here's how to earn Data Fragments so you can spend them on new cosmetics and keys, which you can use to unlock further items in the exchange.

How to get Data Fragments in Black Flag Resynced

The main way you get Data Fragments is by completing anomalies located around the Caribbean. These activities first unlocked for me after I completed Sequence 4: This Old Cove, where you take over Great Inagua. If you open your map and press tab (X on controller) to open your quest log, you can cycle down to anomalies and look at all the different ones available.

The range of activities depends on which project you have active in the Animus, but generally they are quite straightforward, and either involve sinking corrupted ships and convoys, or completing short puzzle sections, such as the rifts. Once done, you'll earn the amount of Data Fragments listed, which you can then spend to unlock rewards on your active project track.

These rewards include cosmetics, weapons, but also keys, which you can spend in the exchange to purchase items themed around other Assassins Creed games, too. You'll get new anomalies to complete based on the timer above each one. So, if you complete one, you'll have to wait a while for another to replace it.

Finding Blackbeard's Treasure in Black Flag Resynced is actually a lot tougher than the game's other treasure maps, mainly because it doesn't give you any coordinates, forcing you to rely on your knowledge of the Caribbean. This is a new quest that was added in Resynced, but you won't get it until after you complete the Do Not Go Gently main quest.

Edward finds the treasure map hidden in Blackbeard's hat, which starts the hunt, so you can't miss it. Below I'll explain where the map points to, and how to navigate the area it's contained within.

Where to find Blackbeard's Treasure in Black Flag Resynced

The location Blackbeard's Map points to is Anotto Bay (coordinates 590,245) to the north of Kingston on the north coast of the island, in the Charlotte region. When you arrive, you'll find a bunch of pirate ships also laying claim to the treasure, who you'll have to sink before landing the Jackdaw.

Finding the treasure is relatively straightforward. From where you land, hop across the boats to your left and dive down, looking for the sunken mineshaft. You'll have to navigate these tunnels, dodging sharks and sea anemones until you reach an area with wooden platforms, gunpowder barrels, and a bunch of enemies. Pick up one of the kegs and take it over to the far side of the room where the rubble is (this will glow green when you hold LT on controller).

Place the barrel down and shoot it to blow up the rubble. Continue on until you reach the cave where you have to confront Blackbeard's former sailing master, and then grab another gunpowder barrel and carry it up the path to the right of the waterfall, where you'll find a second pile of rubble to destroy.

Inside, you'll find the treasure, though you'll have to head back to Great Inagua afterwards to actually complete the quest. As a reward, you'll get Blackbeard's portrait, which you can hang in the loot cave area of the manor.

Legendary ships were the pinnacle challenge of the Caribbean in the original, and they return even stronger in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. These boss battles now have more unique gimmicks and phases, and pack a serious punch. But you've got a lot more tools of destruction to deal with them, the rewards have changed, and they now respawn so you can fight them again.

Black Flag Resynced legendary ships explained

Just like in the original, there are four legendary ships, located in each of the corners of the map. They'll be revealed once you destroy the fortresses in their respective regions:

• El Impoluto (Dry Tortuga)
• HMS Fearless & Royal Sovereign (Eleuthera)
• La Dama Negra (Serranilla)
• HMS Prince (Nevassa)

These are extremely tough battles that will require an almost, if not fully, upgraded Jackdaw to take on. I recommend at least having the best armour, broadside cannons, swivel cannons, and ram—check out the Ultimate Ship Plans, some of which are hidden behind treasure maps.

In fact, the legendary ships are even harder in Resynced compared to the original game, having more health and dealing more damage, as well as having clearer phases as you whittle their health down. Your biggest advantage, though are the three new naval officers, who you should recruit before going after the legendary ships:

1. Padre, recruited through the A Second Chance quest after Sequence 4: This Old Cove, lets you charge ram for bonus speed and damage.
2. Lucy Baldwin, unlocked in A Proper Shipwright after Sequence 4: This Old Cove, allows you to brace at the last second to almost nullify damage taken.
3. Tobias 'Deadman' Smith, unlocked in No Box Dark Enough after Sequence 11: Everything is Permitted and A World Without Gold, lets you maximise broadside cannon damage and completing his quest also gets you a powerful multi-shot mortar variant.

The major difference in the Resynced remake is the reward. You'll notice that the old Ram Dash upgrade you got for beating all four legendary ships is now unlocked by recruiting Padre. Given that these are endgame challenges, you can now get and use Ram Dash much earlier—it's been buffed, too. In its place, legendary ships now reward you with ship cosmetics for the Jackdaw's figurehead, hull, wheel, and sails.

Legendary ships are also repeatable now—they'll respawn after a period of time if you fancy a rematch.

Here are all four legendary ships and how to beat them:

El Impoluto

• Location: Dry Tortuga (161,804)

Despite stalking the seas of the starting region, I'd argue El Impoluto is the second-hardest legendary ship. It's incredibly tanky and deals obscene amounts of damage from its lengthy cannon barrages, which make it hard to perfectly brace and nullify the hits. Plus, while it favours close-range ramming, it's got very long-range cannons, so you can't just sail away from it.

Here are some tips for the fight:

Once you beat El Impoluto, you'll earn the following rewards:

• 12,000 Reales
• El Impoluto sails
• El Impoluto wheel
• El Impoluto hull
• El Impoluto figurehead
• El Impoluto ship model

HMS Fearless & Royal Sovereign

• Location: Eleuthera (811,858)

The HMS Fearless & Royal Sovereign legendary ship battle is unique in that it's actually a two-on-one. Rather unfair, if you ask me, and it's the one I had the most trouble with. Since you'll have to contend with two ships at once, they have reduced health compared to the other legendary ships. And once you destroy one of the pair, the other will set itself ablaze and chase you down.

Here are some tips:

Once you beat this legendary ship battle, you'll earn the following rewards:

• 12,000 Reales
• HMS Fearless sails
• HMS Fearless wheel
• HMS Fearless hull
• HMS Fearless figurehead
• Brothers in Arms ship model

La Dama Negra

• Location: Serranilla (241,73)

La Dama Negra is armed to the teeth and, in fact, the only ship with armour, too. Metal plates of the hull reduce damage you deal to the sides of the ship and prevent swivel gun critical hits. Your positioning is very important here.

Here are my tips:

Once you beat the ghost ship, you'll earn the following rewards:

• 12,000 Reales
• La Dama Negra sails
• La Dama Negra wheel
• La Dama Negra hull
• La Dama Negra figurehead
• La Dama Negra ship model

HMS Prince

• Location: Navassa (854,55)

Described as the ghost ship, HMS Prince is arguably the easiest of the legendary ships to fight, though it certainly drags on once you reach its second phase and it starts hiding in the fog.

Here are some tips to take it out:

Once you beat the ghost ship, you'll earn the following rewards:

• 12,000 Reales
• HMS Prince sails
• HMS Prince wheel
• HMS Prince hull
• HMS Prince figurehead
• HMS Prince ship model

The Elite Ship Upgrades from the original game have been renamed in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. Now called Ultimate Ship Plans, these schematics still serve the same purpose: fully upgrading the Jackdaw. So you'll want to find each and every one of the locations if you're hoping to take on the legendary ships.

All Black Flag Resynced Ultimate Ship Plan locations

There are 12 Ultimate Ship Plans for you to find, locked behind either dives or treasure maps. You'll need to complete the first Sequence 6 main mission, Diving for Medicine, before you can start hunting for the plan locations in earnest, since this unlocks the diving bell, and most of the plans are located underwater.

Once you've found the plan, you then need to head to any shipmaster to purchase the upgrades for your ship—they're not free, unfortunately, costing both Reales and materials.

Here's where to find all 12 Ultimate Ship Plans in the remake:

Finding all the Mayan stone locations is one of your big distractions while sailing the Caribbean in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, and it's mostly unchanged from the original game. You still need to solve 16 of these stele to complete the Mayan Mystery task and unlock the Mayan Armour, one of the best outfits. But just like the treasure maps, a few locations have shifted around in the remake.

All Black Flag Resynced Mayan stone locations

While you might have stumbled upon some of these Mayan sculptures beforehand, you need to complete This Old Cove during the main story to be able to interact with the stele. James Kidd will explain how they work but, basically, you just need to climb to the top of the sculpture, interact with it, rotate the pattern until it aligns with the glowing objects, then grab the Mayan stone.

You need to collect 16 Mayan stones from the stele across the map in order to open the door guarding the Mayan Armour in Tulum, which you'll have access to after completing the main missions Nothing is True and Overrun And Outnumbered. This unique outfit now comes with a charm that houses its old perk of deflecting projectiles. That means you can gain the benefits of the armour without necessarily wearing the silly costume.

You'll find them on the following islands:

• Great Inagua, Gibara
• Cat Island, Eleuthera
• Cape Bonavista, Dry Tortuga
• Misteriosa, Serranilla
• Santanillas, Chinchorro
• Matanzas, Dry Tortuga
• Sacrifice Island, Conttoyor
• Tulum, Conttoyor
• Tortuga, Punta Guarico
• Pinos Isle, Castillo de Jagua
• New Bone, Serranilla
• Long Bay, Charlotte
• Isla Providencia, Serranilla

Here's exactly where to find all 16 Mayan stones via their coordinates and how to solve them in the remake:

1. Great Inagua, Gibara

You complete this one during the main story mission This Old Cove, so you can't miss it. It's a simple one to start you off, but just in case, rotate the overlay so that the squares line up with the square pillars on the left and top right.

2. Cat Island, Eleuthera (703,670)

On the northern beach, just a short distance from the warehouse that you'll have raided earlier in the main story. Flip the overlay so the large circle covers the rubble on the left and the oval is around the narrow rock.

3. Cape Bonavista, Dry Tortuga (159,583)

To reach it, head up into the mountains from the northernmost synchronisation point. Rotate and shrink the overlay so that the largest circle surrounds the bottom pillar, while the two smaller circles are around the top two posts.

4. Matanzas, Dry Tortuga (311,617)

This one's in the hills in the far southeast of the island, past the warehouse. Rotate it left so that the large circle near the cross on the overlap lines up with the tree, and the two medium-sized circles match the rocks on the far right side.

5. Misteriosa, Serranilla (265,171)

The first Mayan stele on this island is on the western beach, with Spanish soldiers on the walls above it. All you need to do is rotate it left so the two circles cover the posts at the bottom, and the arches line up with the broken arches on the wall.

6. Misteriosa, Serranilla (272,175)

The second sculpture on this island is on the ramparts leading up to the synchronisation point in the northeast, next to a treasure map. Rotate it left so that the largest circle lines up with the biggest rock on the left, next to the boat.

7. New Bone, Serranilla (400,92)

This stele is in the northwest of the island, conveniently where the warehouse guard and his muse will be talking. It's one of the easiest to solve: flip the overlay so that the four rectangles cover the rocks at the bottom.

8. Santanillas, Chinchorro (187,221)

There's only one Mayan stone on this island, but there were two in the original game, located in the ruins near the centre of the occupied island. Flip it so the thicker, parallel lines connecting two of the circles are around the two pillars at the top.

9. Sacrifice Island, Conttoyor (18,548)

Next to the synchronisation point in the centre of the island. All you have to do is flip the overlay so that the thicker, parallel lines of the triangle join up the two rocks at the bottom.

10. Tulum, Conttoyor (30,382)

This one's on the west side of the island, not far from where you finish the Overrun and Outnumbered mission (which immediately follows Nothing is True). To solve the puzzle, flip it almost fully so that the two circles on the same line match up with the top and right pillars.

11. Tortuga, Punta Guarico (846,352)

Just up the hill from the plantation's northern beach, you'll find another Mayan stele, not far from the island's synchronisation point. Solving it is as simple as flipping the overlay so that the smallest circle is on the rock at the bottom, and the line shoots off towards the ocean.

12. Pinos Isle, Castillo de Jagua (303,452)

There are two Mayan stones up for grabs on this island, the first of which is just a short walk south of the synchronisation point in the northwest. Rotate the grid left to match the rectangle with the collapsed pillar at the top.

13. Pinos Isle, Castillo de Jagua (312,454)

The second stele on Pinos Isle is east of the synchronisation point, on the hill overlooking the shipwreck on the shore. And solving it is very simple: flip it so the rectangle aligns with the wall at the top.

14. Long Bay, Charlotte (502,216)

You need to progress the main story until you gain access to Long Bay and reach the Observatory. Once there, the stele is to the left of the main entrance to the Observatory.

15. Isla Providencia, Serranilla (487,33)

You also need to progress the main story to unlock Isla Providencia, which houses the final two Mayan stones. The first stele on the island is in the northernmost temple ruin area close to the beach where the Jackdaw fast travels to.

16. Isla Providencia, Serranilla (476,16)

The second stele on Isla Providencia is just to the right of the synchronisation viewpoint in the southernmost temple.

As mentioned, once you've gathered all 16 Mayan stones, return to the locked door back on Tulum, Conttoyor, near the beach in the northeast. You'll be greeted by a short climbing section in the temple before grabbing the Mayan Armour. You'll also get the Yax Tun pendant, which absorbs all gunshots without you having to wear the (frankly, kinda ugly) Mayan fit like you had to in the original game.

Is there anything more piratey than searching for buried treasure? I think not. Digging up the treasure map locations was one of my favourite side activities in the original game, and that's not changed in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. If you completed everything in the original and thought you knew it like the back of your hand, you don't now. The tectonic plates have shifted, as the remake has moved the location of major islands, and the clues are different too.

All Black Flag Resynced treasure map locations

There are 22 treasure maps in Black Flag Resynced, mostly lining up with the original game. If you're wondering where the old Anotto Bay to Principe map has gone, that's more or less been replaced by Blackbeard's Treasure quest.

To be able to dig up the buried treasure, you need to have the associated map—you can't skip straight to the reward, sorry. That's why I've also included where you can find each map.

Speaking of booty, buried treasure chests generally include a handful of Reales and either an Ultimate Ship Plan upgrade, a Design Plan, or some art for the Great Inagua collection, making them a worthwhile distraction while not murdering Templars and boarding ships.

Here's where to find each buried treasure chest via their coordinates and the rewards you'll get, sorted into the order you're likely to encounter each clue (some are locked behind story progress):

Cape Bonavista

• Rewards: 1,500 Reales

Havana

• Rewards: The Queen Anne's Figurehead design plan, 3,000 Reales

Salt Lagoon

• Rewards: Serpent Figurehead design plan, 3,000 Reales

New Bone

• Rewards: Maize Deity, 3,000 Reales

Abaco Island

• Rewards: Earth Monster relief, 2,500 Reales

Andreas Island

• Rewards: Harpoon Strength ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Nassau

• Rewards: Elite Sails design plan, 3,000 Reales

Isla Providencia

• Rewards: Governor Outfit, 1,000 Reales

Anotto Bay

• Rewards: Crimson Cloak outfit, 2,400 Reales

Kingston

• Rewards: Gilded Hull design plan, 3,000 Reales

San Juan

• Rewards: Fire Barrel Strength ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Petite Caverne

• Rewards: Heavy Shot Storage ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Pinos Isle

• Rewards: Ivory Wheel design plan, 3,000 Reales

Matanzas

• Rewards: Mortar Storage ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Tulum

• Rewards: Fire Barrel Storage ultimate plan, 3,000 Reales

Jiquey

• Rewards: Baroque Guitar, 2,500 Reales

Cumberland Bay

• Rewards: 4,000 Reales

Princípe

• Rewards: Standard Bearer art, 1,000 Reales

Cayman Sound

• Rewards: 4,800 Reales

Ambergris Key

• Rewards: Pirate Captain outfit, 2,400 Reales

Misteriosa

• Rewards: Heavy Shot Strength ultimate plan, 3,600 Reales

Long Bay

• Rewards: Scottish Broadswords (rare cutlass)

"Just when I thought I was out," Al Pacino hissed in The Godfather Part 3, "they pull me back in!" I'm starting to feel that way about MindsEye, the infamously bad action game from Build a Rocket Boy: I played it, I had an accidental good time, the expansion was abysmally bad, and it was over. But now, for suitably bizarre reasons, it's back in my life.

We're talking about MindsEye today because, as reported by Eurogamer, Build a Rocket Boy is bringing in an unknown number of community members for an on-site playtest at its studio in Edinburgh. And by "bringing in," I mean the studio is paying for their flights to Scotland, two nights' accommodations, and flights back home. I would guess that at least one meal is also being covered, given that attendees will take part in a meet-and-greet with Build a Rocket Boy staff.

How bizarre, I thought to myself, particularly given the game's minuscule player numbers. What could Build a Rocket Boy possibly have to show that justifies an in-person event, and more to the point, why would anyone care?

But one group cares very much: Build a Rocket Boy developers. The studio is holding this event, and more to the point paying for round-trip flights and hotel rooms, after repeated rounds of layoffs—the most recent in May—that left the studio gutted, and that just doesn't sit right with at least some of the workers at the studio. So they're going to protest the playtest at Build a Rocket Boy headquarters this Saturday, July 11, while the playtest is happening.

To be clear, this all seems legitimate and true. Build a Rocket Boy did indeed announce an in-person playtest for "a small group of community members" on its Discord back in June, promising to pay for "flights to Edinburgh, flights back home after the event, and hotel accommodations."

And there is indeed a protest planned, according to a Town Spot post: "Build A Rocket Boy execs are spending thousands on an unnecessary playtest event after laying off over 400 staff over the last year—come join affected workers and supporters outside their offices to show we're organised and ready to fight for jobs."

It's serious enough that the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain—the group that's currently embroiled in legal action against Rockstar over the 2025 firing of 31 employees—is getting involved.

"With their latest release labelled the worst game of 2025, and surrounded by allegations from their workers of secret surveillance, mishandled redundancies and union blacklisting, BARB management are now desperately turning towards fans to save them," the union wrote on Instagram. "As well as trying to buy fan favour with prize holidays, they are handing over work, both paid and unpaid, from the BARB workforce to the BARB fanbase, during a game sector job crisis.

"The playtest, which will see fans take on testing duties usually carried out by professional staff, follows another recent decision to cut longstanding staff members on the community team and hire a player, with no sign of a formal interview process or role advertisement."

The union, which is also in the midst of legal action against Build a Rocket Boy over allegations that the studio was "recording individuals in their homes and without their consent" via surveillance software installed on employee PCs without their knowledge, confirmed that it will be taking part in the July 11 protest.

What happens next, I can't even guess. MindsEye itself is enough fun that it's not a bad pickup for, say, a tenner or less, as long as you enjoy "fun" in the MST3K sense—but for some reason, it's still holding at a $35 regular price. The long awaited Blacklisted expansion that promised to reveal evidence of sabotage against the game, meanwhile, was just straight-up garbola, lacking even the high school drama club earnestness and occasional bits of absolutely bonkers bullshit that made MindsEye itself entertaining. As someone who's played more MindsEye than most, this dogged, determined effort to salvage MindsEye is beyond baffling, akin giving CPR to Lenin: People might talk about it, but probably not for the reasons Bulid a Rocket Boy wants.

We're always keeping an eye out for new Stardew Valley mods. For instance, not long ago I played a mod where I could open my own grocery store and make Pierre buy my seeds for a change, dammit! It was satisfying.

But here's a mod (via Gaming Bible) created by modder kittycatcasey, aka spacechase0, that immediately looks different from all the other Stardew mods out there. That's cuz it's in 3D. Have a look at "The Third Dimension," a proof-of-concept video of a 3D version of Stardew Valley—and then come back here and help me decide if it looks completely rad or vaguely horrifying.

I'm delighted at first: the video shows the modder strolling around their house, interacting with the kids, and talking with their spouse, Penny. It really is neat seeing the game's bright and cheerful art in 3D, even though the sprites (except for structures like walls and floors) are all still 2D.

But as I watch more, it quickly begins to get unsettling. Since nearly every entity is still currently 2D, it only has one side to face the player, which means it all swivels to continue facing you no matter where you go. Everything: plants, decorations, furnaces, the mailbox, scarecrows, containers, all slowly turning as you walk by. As if alive. As if watching you. It's creeptastic.

This is temporary, of course: "Right now just about almost everything besides the terrain is billboarded sprites, but the plan is to over time give everything a unique 3D model," spacechase0 says.

I feel better again while watching spacechase0 harvest blueberries from the farm: it's delightful to look up instead of down at the plants, to be surrounded by them like you were really out there doing some gardening. But then I notice the house in the background. It, too, is swiveling to watch you, everywhere you go, like some sort of extremely nosy Baba Yaga's Hut. I'm glad the video doesn't show downtown Stardew. Just imagine those shops and houses all turning to watch as you walked around. Chilling!

This isn't shade on the modder, by the way: turning a 2D game into 3D is really impressive, and even this extremely early proof-of-concept looks great (except when it makes my skin crawl). The second half of the video is a demonstration of the 3D concept compatible with VR, which is amazing—though fighting off bats sure looks tricky.

The mod isn't available to try yet, which works for me: I think I'd be a little too creeped out with all those sprites slowly swiveling around to stare at me everywhere I went. If you want to play Stardew Valley in 3D or VR someday, though, this is one mod you should keep a close eye on.

The scale of Microsoft's brutal Xbox layoffs become clearer by the day. Among the studios that Xbox hasn't decided to dump from its portfolio entirely, we now know one of the outfits hit hardest by CEO Asha Sharma's "Xbox reset" was id Software.

The Doom studio, which just released a massive expansion for Doom: The Dark Ages this week, will lose 136 roles, according to WARN notices. It's a substantial downsizing that, according to laid-off VFX artist Derek Best (as spotted by VGC), has diminished the PC gaming institution to a "support studio size" overnight.

"I'm still in shock at how brutal the layoff cuts were," Best wrote on LinkedIn. "Collectively decades of knowledge was wiped out of the studio. The VFX team was eliminated down to one single artist with no lead or producer. The engine programmer responsible for the massive gains in VFX pipeline improvements (like all the particle editor work) was let go as well.

"Great job Microsoft. Nothing says business success like nuking a team into the dirt and relegating them to support studio size while also throwing out massive technological achievements."

It's a particularly painful pill to swallow around these parts, not just because the modern Doom series is the greatest singleplayer FPS effort happening at a large scale, but because the story of id Software is integral to PC gaming itself.

In a follow-up comment, Best says the "engine team was decimated," which could indicate Microsoft will no longer invest in idTech, the studio's in-house engine with roots in just about every FPS worth talking about.

"Writing on the wall is getting relegated to support studio size and moving to Unreal, based on internal email and the roles you can see clearly got impacted," Best wrote.

Todd Boyce, a lead VFX artist at id, also chimed in on the same thread.

"This is what insanity and despicable corporate greed looks like. What a complete disregard for people who spent months working unpaid overtime to make the DLC, and for an engine that has consistently been the industry standard for performance. It is pretty insulting how it was done, when it was done, and what it will do to the id brand and those who are still employed (for now.)"

PC Gamer has reached out to Bethesda for comment on id's future and will update if a reply comes in.

Bethesda Game Studios reportedly suffered "significant" cuts during this week's Xbox layoffs, which put 1,600 employees out of work across Microsoft's gaming division as the initial wave of a sweeping reorganization scheme aiming to achieve 3,800 layoffs by the end of the company's 2027 fiscal year.

In the aftermath of Xbox's bloodletting, the Bethesda Game Studios Union says staff at the studio's Rockville, Maryland office assembled a "Celebration of Service" display honoring their laid off colleagues—a display that employees were "almost immediately" forced to remove by the company's human resources department, the union says.

Unfortunately, HR made our office manager take this down almost immediately. They said because it's in a common area, it had to be removed. We've used common areas for many things as a team, including fan works, but HR seems to believe that a Celebration of Service is inappropriate.

— @bethesdaunion.bsky.social (@bethesdaunion.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-08T20:10:38.427Z

The BGSU first shared images of the Rockville display on Bluesky this morning, saying the Maryland office had been inspired by a similar display that had been organized by employees at Bethesda's Dallas offices. A follow-up post, however, indicated that the display had been short-lived.

"Unfortunately, HR made our office manager take this down almost immediately," the BGS Union said. "They said because it's in a common area, it had to be removed."

According to the union, staff had previously used common areas like the one hosting the memorial display without issue for purposes like displaying fan works, "but HR seems to believe that a Celebration of Service is inappropriate."

Now—while I'd never suggest that you have to hand it to the HR department of a Microsoft subsidiary—I will admit that the framed photos and solemn floral arrangement shown in the union's images did lend the display a certain funereal air. But if HR didn't allow staff an opportunity to alter the display to look less like it was mourning a more permanent sort of tragedy, tamping down on employee commiseration after watching hundreds of colleagues and peers lose their livelihoods isn't a great look.

The extent of the layoffs is striking: Among those who lost their jobs this week were Bethesda Games Studios staff like Christiane Meister, a senior character artist who oversaw character art asset creation from every Elder Scrolls game from Morrowind to Skyrim during her 27-year tenure at the studio.

"We lost dozens of programmers, artists, designers, and testers. Many of whom worked at BGS for decades," the BGS Union said in another Bluesky post earlier this week. "If Bethesda fans are worried this will harm the quality of future games, like The Elder Scrolls 6, let Microsoft know!"

PC Gamer has contacted Bethesda for comment and will update this story if we receive a response.

A Bloomberg report says Obsidian Entertainment, which was recently hit hard by mass layoffs at Xbox, has cancelled projects including a sequel to Avowed and will instead begin working on a new Fallout game.

The plans are "in flux" and could change, according to the report.

A California WARN report shared by GameFile says 52 employees at Obsidian were let go in the layoffs, which Bloomberg says represents roughly a quarter of the studio's workforce. The sequel to Avowed, the outstanding 2025 first-person RPG set in the studio's Pillars of Eternity universe, is one of multiple unannounced games in development that have been cancelled amidst the bloodletting.

Instead of that, a new Fallout game is reportedly being headed up by Obsidian design director Josh Sawyer. Sawyer has an enviable record of RPG credits to his name, most notably in this moment as the lead designer and director of Fallout: New Vegas.

Still, I'll be the first to say it, in this story at least: This sucks. I'm as down for a new Fallout as much as the next guy, but I could also really go for more Pillars, or whatever non-Fallout RPG Sawyer was reportedly directing before his attention was diverted to this.

I also can't help wondering how the circumstances will impact what ultimately comes out of this. Sawyer has previously said he'd head up a new Fallout game if Microsoft asked, if he could do it on his own terms, but I doubt his terms would ever have included seeing a quarter of the studio put out of work, or that the mood among those who remain is going to contribute positively to the project.

I've reached out to Obsidian for comment on the report and will update if I receive a reply. In the meantime, if you want to see what Sawyer and Obsidian can do when they don't have shareholder-obsessed overlords breathing down their necks, I would urge you to check out Pentiment, an astonishingly good slow-burn journey through 16th century Bavaria. It's currently on sale for $10/£7.49/€10—that's half-price—in the Steam Summer Sale. (Also, a bit of advice: Don't spoil it for yourself.)

Less than three years after it went live on Steam, Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis is calling it quits. Square Enix said in an end-of-service announcement that the sale of Red Crystal in-game currency has already been halted, and the game itself will be taken offline on October 6.

Square Enix apologized for any disappointment in its shutdown announcement, saying that it has "worked to provide the best possible experience for our players" since the game went live in 2023. However, for reasons unspecified, "we have determined that it will be difficult to continue doing so and have made the decision to end service."

A tepid response to the game may be a big part of the issue. Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis holds a "mixed" rating on Steam, and its player numbers have been in a slow, bumpy, but overall steady decline since it launched on that platform. Android and iOS versions of the game have considerably better ratings, but player numbers aren't known.

PC Gamer Final Fantasy fan Mollie Taylor described Ever Crisis as "a retelling of Final Fantasy 7's overarching story, offering the narrative from the original game, the movie Advent Children, and spin-off games Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus," which seems to me like a lot of Final Fantasy. She seemed a little bit dubious about its gacha game mechanics, though (or maybe just tired of it as a concept), and that can be seen in the Steam reviews too, many of which complain about its monetization and relentless grind.

In-game events will continue to run until Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis shuts down—Square Enix dropped a final roadmap leading into the closure that you can check out below. It also makes clear that once the servers close, it is over: "To protect users' personal information, account information will be deleted once all procedures associated with the end of the service have been completed."