The more than two decades since Half-Life 2‘s release have been filled with plenty of rumors and hints about Half-Life…
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Beyond Clicks Into Context
It’s official: Take a first look at the Switch 2
After months and years of rumors and official hints, Nintendo has finally pulled back the curtain on the Switch 2…
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Switch 2 sports ~7.9-inch screen, 33% bigger tablet surface—Ars video analysis
A scaled comparison between the Switch 2 and the Steam Deck OLED shows Nintendo’s system has a larger screen despite…
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Civilization VII preview: The most complete package since IV
Age transitions feel like starting a new game The most significant change compared to prior titles is the game’s completely…
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Intel Arc B570 review: At $219, the cheapest good graphics card
We do see a hint of extra improvement in Forza Horizon 5, a game where the 8GB Radeon RX 7600…
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Marvel Rivals lifts 100-year “cheating” bans on Mac and Steam Deck players
With Valve’s impressive work on the Proton tool for Linux and the Mac’s Game Porting Toolkit and CrossOver options, few…
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This PDF contains a playable copy of Doom
Here at Ars, we’re suckers for stories about hackers getting Doom running on everything from CAPTCHA robot checks and Windows’…
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Rumors say next-gen RTX 50 GPUs will come with big jumps in power requirements
Nvidia is reportedly gearing up to launch the first few cards in its RTX 50-series at CES next week, including…
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Meet the man keeping hope, and 70-year-old pinball machines, alive
It was about this time that something else began: The Pinball Resource. Becoming The Resource Young’s obsession with pinball dates…
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Report: After many leaks, Switch 2 announcement could come “this week”
Nintendo may be getting ready to make its Switch 2 console official. According to “industry whispers” collected by Eurogamer, as…
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2002’s Neverwinter Nights gets a patch in 2025 from “unpaid software engineers”
Neverwinter Nights came out in 2002 and received an enhanced edition in 2018. In 2025, that should really be it,…
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Ars readers gave over $39,000 in our 2024 Charity Drive
Last month, we asked readers to donate to a couple of good causes in our 2024 Charity Drive sweepstakes. And…
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AMD’s new Ryzen Z2 CPUs boost gaming handhelds, if you buy the best one
Nearly two years ago, AMD announced its first Ryzen Z1 processors. These were essentially the same silicon that AMD was…
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AMD launches new Ryzen 9000X3D CPUs for PCs that play games and work hard
AMD’s batch of CES announcements this year includes just two new products for desktop PC users: the new Ryzen 9…
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Switch 2 leaks point to controllers that work like computer mice
Here at Ars, we’re judicious about which of the many, many Switch 2 rumors we decide to highlight on this…
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New GeForce 50-series GPUs: There’s the $1,999 5090, and there’s everything else
Nvidia has good news and bad news for people building or buying gaming PCs. The good news is that three…
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Bye-bye Windows gaming? SteamOS officially expands past the Steam Deck.
Almost exactly a year ago, we were publicly yearning for the day when more portable gaming PC makers could ditch…
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New videos show off larger Nintendo Switch 2, snap-on Joy-Cons
Nintendo still isn’t ready to officially reveal any details about the Switch 2 (beyond a brief mention of backward compatibility…
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Of course Atari’s new handheld includes a trackball, spinner, and numpad
Of course Atari’s new handheld includes a trackball, spinner, and numpad – Ars Technica Tempest, Missile Command, etc.”,”image_url”:”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Atari-Gamestation-Go-500×500.jpeg”,”listing_image_url”:”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Atari-Gamestation-Go-768×432.jpeg”}”> Skip to…
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Gentrified Doom remake trades chainsaw for cheese knife
Just when you thought you had seen every possible Doom mod, two game developers released a free browser game that…
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Ars’ favorite games of 2024 that were not released in 2024
So here’s to you, Stardew Valley. You were one of the brightest parts of my 2024, and a game that…
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The quest to save the world’s largest CRT TV from destruction
At this point, any serious retro gamer knows that a bulky cathode ray tube (CRT) TV provides the most authentic,…
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Reminder: Donate to win swag in our annual Charity Drive sweepstakes
How it works Donating is easy. Simply donate to Child’s Play using a credit card or PayPal or donate to…
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Ars Technica’s top 20 video games of 2024
-Kevin Purdy Sixty Four Oleg Danilov; Windows, Mac I try not to think about, or write about, games in the…
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Horizon: Zero Dawn gets the graphical remaster a modern classic deserves
So when Sony put out the recent “remaster” of Zero Dawn, I was cautiously optimistic. Any sort of non-half-assed PS5…
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Nvidia partners leak next-gen RTX 50-series GPUs, including a 32GB 5090
Rumors have suggested that Nvidia will be taking the wraps off of some next-generation RTX 50-series graphics cards at CES…
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Stalker 2 has been enjoyable jank, but it’s also getting rapidly fixed
When the impossibly punctuated S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl released on November 20, after many delays (that included the Russian…
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The $700 price tag isn’t hurting PS5 Pro’s early sales
When Sony revealed the PlayStation 5 Pro a few months ago, some wondered just how many people would be willing…
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The Backbone One would be an ideal game controller—if the iPhone had more games
In theory, it ought to be as good a time as ever to be a gamer on the iPhone. Classic…
Read MoreReminder: Donate to win swag in our annual Charity Drive sweepstakes
How it works Donating is easy. Simply donate to Child’s Play using a credit card or PayPal or donate to…
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Nvidia’s new app is causing large frame rate dips in many games
When Nvidia replaced the longstanding GeForce Experience App with a new, unified Nvidia App last month, most GPU owners probably…
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PS Placeable: The adorable mod that turns a PlayStation Portable into a console
When Sony launched the PlayStation Portable almost exactly 20 years ago, the value proposition was right there in the name:…
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Intel Arc B580 review: A $249 RTX 4060 killer, one-and-a-half years later
GPU power consumption numbers under load. Credit: Andrew Cunningham Power consumption is another place where the Battlemage GPU plays a…
Read MoreReminder: Donate to win swag in our annual Charity Drive sweepstakes
If you’ve been too busy punching virtual Nazis to take part in this year’s Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don’t…
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The Talos Principle: Reawakened adds new engine, looks, and content to a classic
Are humans just squishy machines? Can an artificially intelligent robot create a true moral compass for itself? Is there a…
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Itch.io platform briefly goes down due to “AI-driven” anti-phishing report
The itch.io domain was back up and running by 7 am Eastern, according to media reports, “after the registrant finally…
Read MoreWin hardware, collectibles, and more in the 2024 Ars Technica Charity Drive
It’s once again that special time of year when we give you a chance to do well by doing good.…
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Google’s Genie 2 “world model” reveal leaves more questions than answers
As podcaster Ryan Zhao put it on Bluesky, “The design process has gone wrong when what you need to prototype…
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The return of Steam Machines? Valve rolls out new “Powered by SteamOS” branding.
Steam Machines 2.0? While there hasn’t been any wider official rollout for the Powered by SteamOS program yet, any move…
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Category: Gaming – Ars Technica
Ars Technica has been separating the signal from the noise for over 25 years. With our unique combination of technical…
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The Raspberry Pi 5 now works as a smaller, faster kind of Steam Link
The Steam Link was a little box ahead of its time. It streamed games from a PC to a TV,…
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Intel’s second-generation Arc B580 GPU beats Nvidia’s RTX 4060 for $249
Turnover at the top of the company isn’t stopping Intel from launching new products: Today the company is announcing the…
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Blizzard’s pulling of Warcraft I & II tests GOG’s new Preservation Program
When an updated, remastered, or otherwise spiffed-up version of a game is released, nobody—not long-time fans, not archivists, not anybody,…
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The Atari 7800+ is a no-frills glimpse into a forgotten gaming era
There are better versions of these games The VIP package Atari sent me, along with a selection of cartridges. Credit:…
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Sony is reportedly working on a PS5 portable
Bloomberg reports that Sony is “in the early stages” of work on a fully portable console that can play PlayStation…
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Obsidian’s Avowed is the cure for “Souls-like” action-RPG fatigue
The bow is a bit too effective at taking out early enemies from afar Credit: Obsidian / Microsoft The tedium…
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Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 arrives with a “full digital twin” of Earth
You’re getting pretty close to the ground there, chief. But the good news is, you’re generating terrain for other players.…
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Valve developers discuss why Half Life 2: Episode 3 was abandoned
Despite the new weapons and mechanics that were already in the works for Episode 3, many developers quoted in the…
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These are the lasting things that Half-Life 2 gave us, besides headcrabs and crowbars
It’s Half-Life 2 week at Ars Technica! This Saturday, November 16, is the 20th anniversary of the release of Half-Life…
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I played Half-Life 2 for the first time this year—here’s how it went
It’s Half-Life 2 week at Ars Technica! This Saturday, November 16, is the 20th anniversary of the release of Half-Life…
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard and the choices you make while saving the world
In a field packed with quality roleplaying game developers, this is where BioWare has historically shined: making me have big…
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Half-Life 2 pushed Steam on the gaming masses… and the masses pushed back
It’s Half-Life 2 week at Ars Technica! This Saturday, November 16, is the 20th anniversary of the release of Half-Life…
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GOG’s Preservation Program is the DRM-free store refocusing on the classics
The classic PC games market is “in a sorry state,” according to DRM-free and classic-minded storefront GOG. Small games that…
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How Valve made Half-Life 2 and set a new standard for future games
And Half-Life 2’s gravity gun, which dramatically built on past games’ physics mechanics, is in many ways a concept that…
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Spotify’s Car Thing, due for bricking, is getting an open source second life
Spotify has lost all enthusiasm for the little music devices it sold for just half a year. Firmware hackers, as…
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Sega is delisting 60 classic games from Steam, so now’s the time to grab them
Sega has put dozens of its Master System, Genesis, Saturn, and other console titles onto modern game stores over the…
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Amazon’s Mass Effect TV series is actually going to be made
Confirming previous rumors, Variety reports that Amazon will be moving ahead with producing a TV series based on the popular…
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The PS5 Pro’s biggest problem is that the PS5 is already very good
In many ways, the timing of Sony’s 2016 launch of the PS4 Pro couldn’t have been better. The slightly upgraded…
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Nintendo confirms Switch 2 will play original Switch games
As US states were busy counting votes to confirm who would be the next president Tuesday night, Nintendo’s Japanese Twitter…
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Metal Slug Tactics gives turn-based strategy a hyper-stylized shot of adrenaline
Metal Slug Tactics pushes hard on the boundaries of the vaunted run-and-gun arcade series. You can run when it’s your…
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iPod fans evade Apple’s DRM to preserve 54 lost clickwheel-era games
Even the bad clickwheel iPod games—like Sega’s nearly impossible-to-control Sonic the Hedgehog port—might find their own quirky audience among gaming…
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Dystopika is a beautiful cyberpunk city builder without the ugly details
Some of my favorite games deny me the thing I think I want most. Elden Ring refuses to provide manageable…
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Will the new Nintendo Music app lead to more DMCA takedowns from Nintendo?
Last night, Nintendo pulled off a surprise launch of a new Nintendo Music smartphone app, offering many of the company’s…
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 accounted for 19% of Comcast Internet traffic last week
You might think that since Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (which was released last Friday) is the 21st game…
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Apple silicon Macs will get their ultimate gaming test with Cyberpunk 2077 release
Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most graphically demanding and visually impressive games in recent years, will soon get a Mac…
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Apple is turning The Oregon Trail into a movie
Apple will adapt the classic educational game The Oregon Trail into a big-budget movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter (THR).…
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Video game libraries lose legal appeal to emulate physical game collections online
In an odd footnote, the Register also notes that emulation of classic game consoles, while not infringing in its own…
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Fallout: London is a huge Fallout 4 mod that is now playable—and worth playing
The UK equivalent of a Pip-Boy 3000, which is nice to see after so many hours with the wrist-mounted one.…
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Meta Quest 3S is a disappointing half-step to Carmack’s low-cost VR vision
It’s been just over two years now since soon-to-depart CTO John Carmack told a Meta Connect audience about his vision…
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Squadron 42’s new 2026 launch date will miss its original target by 11 years
Arena Commander was revealed to the public at PAX East in April 2014. From our perch in the press balcony,…
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MechWarrior 5: Clans is supposed to be newbie-friendly, and I put it to the test
There are multiple layers to a Clans battle. There is your actual movement, which can take getting used to, with…
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$250 Analogue 3D will play all your N64 cartridges in 4K early next year
It’s been exactly one year since the initial announcement of the Analogue 3D, an HD-upscaled, FPGA-powered Nintendo 64 in the…
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Sunderfolk is a couch co-op tactical RPG you play with a phone. No, really.
Dreamhaven Studios provided a round-trip train from Washington, D.C. to New York and accommodation for one night so that Ars…
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Xbox plans to set up shop on Android devices if court order holds
After a US court ruled earlier this week that Google must open its Play Store to allow for third-party app…
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Steam adds the harsh truth that you’re buying “a license,” not the game itself
There comes a point in most experienced Steam shoppers’ lives where they wonder what would happen if their account was…
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Asahi Linux’s bespoke GPU driver is running Windows games on Apple Silicon Macs
A few years ago, the idea of running PC games on a Mac, in Linux, or on Arm processors would…
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The true cost of game piracy: 20 percent of revenue, according to a new study
The longer a game’s DRM lasts, the fewer new sales are left to be affected by piracy. The longer a…
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Nintendo’s new clock tracks your movement in bed
The motion detectors reportedly work with various bed sizes, from twin to king. As users shift position, the clock’s display…
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Meta’s $300 Quest 3S trades a worse display for a lower price
Internally, the Quest 3S sports the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR Gen 2 processor as the Quest 3, meaning it should…
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Meta’s new lightweight AR prototype shows a future beyond bulky VR headsets
As with smartphones, it will probably take a while for developers to really figure out what to do with this…
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There’s never been a better time to play Diablo IV
When we reviewed Diablo IV, the latest installment in the long-running action roleplaying game series last year, we said it…
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Alleged Switch modder takes on Nintendo’s legal might without a lawyer
When faced with a legal threat from Nintendo, most alleged modders, ROM pirates, and/or emulator makers will simply give in…
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Teen achieves first NES Tetris “rebirth,” proves endless play is possible
Months ago, 13-year-old Willis “Blue Scuti” Gibson became the first person to “beat” NES Tetris, crashing the game after a…
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Alien: Isolation sequel bursts into existence, 10 years after original
Crafting in Alien: Isolation has a lot more purpose than in most first-person games. Credit: Sega Unlike almost any other…
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Assassin’s Creed Shadows delayed after poor Star Wars Outlaws reception
Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the long-anticipated next major release in the popular historical open-world game franchise, has been moved back from…
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Legendary Mario creator on AI: Nintendo is “going the opposite direction”
In the last few years, large swaths of the game industry have embraced generative AI, both on the development side…
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The Last of Us season 2 trailer: Viewers are probably not prepared for this
The Last of Us season 2 trailer. Today marks the debut of the first full trailer for the second season…
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RTS classics StarCraft, StarCraft II make their way to PC Game Pass
Phil Spencer’s Tokyo Game Show update. Beloved real-time strategy classics StarCraft and StarCraft II will soon be available in Microsoft’s…
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Steam doesn’t want to pay arbitration fees, tells gamers to sue instead
Valve sued lawyers behind arbitration claims Valve used to prefer arbitration because few consumers brought claims and the process kept…
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Halls of Torment is Diablo cranked up to 50,000 kills/hour
Your first Halls of Torment run starts with a basic warrior, but new classes quickly unlock, each with their own…
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Epic lawsuit says Samsung “coordinated” with Google to get around trial verdict
The new suit makes heavy reference to arguments from the Epic v. Google case alleging that an informal agreement between…
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Bazzite is the next best thing to SteamOS while we wait on Valve
I was on vacation last week, the kind of vacation in which entire days had no particular plan. I had…
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“So aggravating”: Outdated ads start appearing on PS5 home screen
Update, September 30, 2024, 6:34 p.m. ET: It seems that the new home screen experience that users reported today was…
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Switch emulator Ryujinx shuts down development after “contact by Nintendo”
In the wake of those legal efforts against other Switch emulator developers, the Ryujinx developers posted an automated message on…
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Switch emulator Ryujinx shuts down development after “contact by Nintendo”
Enlarge / These copyrighted Switch games shown on Ryujinx’s former GitHub page probably didn’t curry any favor with Nintendo. Popular…
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Epic lawsuit says Samsung “coordinated” with Google to get around trial verdict
Enlarge / Installing the Epic Games Store on Galaxy phones is impossible with the “Auto Blocker” feature turned on. Getty…
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“So aggravating”: Outdated ads start appearing on PS5 home screen
Getty PlayStation 5 owners are reporting advertisements on the device’s home screen. Frustratingly, the ads seem to be rather difficult…
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Meta’s new lightweight AR prototype shows a future beyond bulky VR headsets
Enlarge / The future’s so bright, Mark Zuckerberg’s gotta wear shades. Thus far, Meta’s heavily money-losing Reality Labs division has…
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Legendary Mario creator on AI: Nintendo is “going the opposite direction”
Artist’s conception of Miyamoto preparing to fend off investors eager for more generative AI integration. In the last few years,…
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Steam doesn’t want to pay arbitration fees, tells gamers to sue instead
Valve Corporation, tired of paying arbitration fees, has removed a mandatory arbitration clause from Steam’s subscriber agreement. Valve told gamers…
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The Last of Us season 2 trailer: Viewers are probably not prepared for this
The Last of Us season 2 trailer. Today marks the debut of the first full trailer for the second season…
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RTS classics StarCraft, StarCraft II make their way to PC Game Pass
Phil Spencer’s Tokyo Game Show update. Beloved real-time strategy classics StarCraft and StarCraft II will soon be available in Microsoft’s…
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Assassin’s Creed Shadows delayed after poor Star Wars Outlaws reception
Enlarge / The dual protagonists of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the long-anticipated next major release in the…
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Meta’s $300 Quest 3S trades a worse display for a lower price
Enlarge / Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announces the Meta Quest 3 headset. At a Connect conference keynote today, Meta officially unveiled…
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Ghost of Yōtei: The acclaimed Ghost of Tsushima is getting a sequel
Sony’s <em>Ghost of Yotei</em> trailer. If you’ve been sleeping on the Akira Kurosawa-inspired, Assassin’s Creed-esque samurai game Ghost of Tsushima,…
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PC modder removes annoying PSN account requirement for God of War Ragnarök
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of angry PC gamers launching an attack on PSN sign-in requirements. Sony Sony’s decision to require…
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Fake AI “podcasters” are reviewing my book and it’s freaking me out
Enlarge / Hey, welcome back to “Talkin’Minesweeper,” the podcast where AI hosts discuss a book about Minesweeper! Aurich Lawson |…
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Age of Mythology: Retold is surprisingly playable with a controller
Enlarge / I hope you like radial menus, because you’ll be looking at a lot of them. Age of Mythology:…
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After 20 years, World of Warcraft will now let players do solo raids
Enlarge / The final boss of the new WoW raid, who will now be beatable as a solo player in…
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Frostpunk 2 goes wider and more political but keeps the gritty, stressful joy
Enlarge / Frostpunk 2 has you planning and building districts, rather than individual buildings or roads. You make plans, and…
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Anti-cheat update leaves GTA Online’s Steam Deck players out in the cold.
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of what used to be possible, before BattlEye ruined things. Last week, Rockstar added BattlEye support…
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30th-anniversary limited-run PS5 and PS5 Pro bring back mid-’90s gray plastic
The PS5 Pro version of the 30th anniversary bundle comes with both varieties of DualSense controller, a plate for an…
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Nintendo, The Pokemon Company sue Palworld maker Pocketpair
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Pocketpair lawyers establishing a defensive position against Nintendo’s coming legal onslaught. Pocketpair Nintendo and The…
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No “offensive or inappropriate” Final Fantasy XVI mods, producer pleads
Enlarge / This screenshot of a “Cloud in a dress” mod is being used in place of some other Final…
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How crypto bros wrested Flappy Bird from its creator
Enlarge / Imagine owning one of those funky birds as an NFT! Fans of ultra-viral mobile gaming hit Flappy Bird…
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UFO 50 is the best retro-gaming homage I’ve ever played
Enlarge / Just some of the inventive character designs included in UFO 50. Mossmouth If you’ve spent any time with…
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Unity is dropping its unpopular per-install Runtime Fee
Unity Unity, maker of a popular cross-platform engine and toolkit, will not pursue a broadly unpopular Runtime Fee that would…
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Reported Dreamcast addict Tim Walz is now an unofficial Crazy Taxi character
Enlarge / The “VP” on the cab light is a nice touch. Last month, in a profile of newly named…
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The PS5 Pro brings the game console’s disc drive era to an end
Enlarge / Notice anything missing from the one and only model of the PS5 Pro? Sony Here at Ars, we’ve…
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No one wanted these PS5 Concord discs until Sony stopped making them
If you paid $40 for the physical edition of Concord, you can make a lot more than that back on…
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Satisfactory is officially released, officially a scary wonderful time sink
Enlarge / Where are the gentle creatures and native plants you first saw when you landed? More importantly, could this…
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Sony announces PS5 Pro, a $700 graphical upgrade available Nov. 7
Enlarge / The cool racing stripe means it’s faster. Sony today announced the PlayStation 5 Pro, a mid-generation hardware upgrade…
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Roblox announces AI tool for generating 3D game worlds from text
On Friday, Roblox announced plans to introduce an open source generative AI tool that will allow game creators to build…
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New AI model “learns” how to simulate Super Mario Bros. from video footage
At first glance, these AI-generated Super Mario Bros. videos are pretty impressive. The more you watch, though, the more glitches…
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Balatro arrives on phones Sept. 26, so plan your “sick” days accordingly
LocalThunk, the pseudonymous lead developer of the surprise smash hit deckbuilding/roguelike/poker-math-simulation game Balatro, has long given the impression that he…
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Jack Black stars as expert crafter Steve in A Minecraft Movie teaser
Jason Momoa and Jack Black star in A Minecraft Movie. Minecraft is among the most successful and influential games of…
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Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is serious heavy-metal shooting and slashing
Enlarge / There are different types of Space Marines. Some of them are traitors. All of them weigh as much…
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Sony is shutting down Concord, refunding players after just two weeks
Enlarge / This team-based FPS combat scene was apparently too familiar to attract all that many players to Concord. Sony…
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Peglin is the roguelike Peggle RPG we didn’t know we needed
Enlarge / The feeling when you know your ball is just gonna get buried in there is so satisfying! Red…
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Asus ROG Ally X review: Better performance and feel in a pricey package
Enlarge / It’s hard to fit the perfomance-minded but pricey ROG Ally X into a simple product category. It’s also…
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EmuDeck coder pivots to hardware with Linux-based “EmuDeck Machines”
Enlarge / Any resemblance to the Dreamcast is completely coincidental, we’re sure. If you’re familiar with the name EmuDeck, you’re…
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New AI model can hallucinate a game of 1993’s Doom in real time
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images On Tuesday, researchers from Google and Tel Aviv University unveiled GameNGen, a new AI model…
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Tetris Forever includes 15 classic versions alongside documentary footage
Tetris Forever includes several versions of the game that had been released over the years. Nintendo There’s also a new…
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Return to Moria arrives on Steam with mining, crafting, and a “Golden Update”
Enlarge / It’s hard work, survival crafting, but there are moments for song, dance, and tankards. North Beach Games The…
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Valve’s worst-kept secret is no longer a secret
Enlarge / Look! A wild Valve game appears! Valve If you read Ars Technica regularly, you’ve known since May that…
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Gearbox founder says Epic Games Store hopes were “misplaced or overly optimistic”
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Randy Pitchford surveying the Epic Games Store landscape years after Borderlands 3‘s exclusive launch there.…
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Nvidia is ditching dedicated G-Sync modules to push back against FreeSync’s ubiquity
Nvidia Back in 2013, Nvidia introduced a new technology called G-Sync to eliminate screen tearing and stuttering effects and reduce…
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Tactical Breach Wizards weaves engaging tactics with lively dialogue
Enlarge / The player has a lot of agency in this game to choose exactly how snappy their responses will…
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The Great Circle is Indiana Jones for a post-Uncharted world
Enlarge / A time traveler with a flashlight would blow Indiana Jones’ mind. At first glance, Wolfenstein: The New Order…
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“We run a business”—why Microsoft’s Indiana Jones will be on PS5
Enlarge / So I’m not stuck on Xbox, eh? Bethesda Bethesda’s Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is the latest…
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Peter Molyneux is back with yet another new take on the “god game”
Welcome back to Albion. 22cans When gods play with Legos, they use building-sized pieces. 22cans Crank up that tilt-shift filter,…
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Civilization VII hands-on: This strategy sequel rethinks the long game
Enlarge / Firaxis has upped the ante on presentation for the cities. It’s still a bit abstract and removed, but…
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Your 10-year-old graphics card can run Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Enlarge / At this rate, it might be the only graphics card you’ll ever need? When Dragon Age: Inquisition came…
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Saudi man earns world record for 444 game consoles hooked to one TV
Those of us who collect classic game consoles and computers (here’s looking at you, AI reporter Benj Edwards) know the…
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The Crimson Diamond is a wonderful EGA-like graphic adventure game for 2024
In my mind, this image is slowly drawing into place, with the text arriving last. Julia Minamata A text parser?…
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Epic Games Store and Fortnite arrive on EU iPhones
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Epic dodging harm from Apple’s decisions (and perhaps its own). It’s been four years since…
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Mysterious “Black Mesa” website says it’s “not secretly working on Half Life 3”
Enlarge / Kind of a weird image to post if you’re trying to convince people you’re not involved in a…
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Behold, Diablo is fully playable in your browser
Enlarge / Diablo running in Firefox on macOS. Samuel Axon You can now play the original Diablo (and its expansion,…
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Valve’s bespoke Steam Deck OS will be officially available on Asus’ ROG Ally
Enlarge / Getting this photo took a lot of effort with unofficial ISOs that won’t be necessary in the future.…
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The 5,200+ day wait for Red Dead Redemption’s PC port may soon be over
Enlarge / He’s gesturing towards a PC port that’s just out of frame. Trust me. Rockstar Games Rockstar Games fans…
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Classic PC game emulation is back on the iPhone with iDOS 3 release
Enlarge / The start of any journey in MS-DOS. Samuel Axon After a 14-year journey of various states of availability…
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Doom + Doom II is a great excuse to jump back into Hell, for free or for $10
Enlarge / I don’t know what this flame crossbow (?) is from the Legacy of Rust campaign, but I am…
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Metropolis 1998 lets you design every building in an isometric, pixel-art city
Enlarge / There is something so wonderfully obscene about having a town with hundreds of people living their lives, running…
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NZXT wants you to pay up to $169/month to rent a gaming PC
Enlarge / NZXT’s subscription program charges $169/month for this build. NZXT, which sells gaming PCs, components, and peripherals, has a…
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Legendary ROM hacking site shutting down after almost 20 years
Enlarge / A thing that exists through ROM hacking, and ROMHacking.net: Super Mario Land 2, in color. Nintendo/Toruzz If there…
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Xbox console sales continue to crater with massive 42% revenue drop
Enlarge / The tumbling continues. Microsoft’s revenue from Xbox console sales was down a whopping 42 percent on a year-over-year…
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Is Palworld a “dead game”? Who cares, says the game’s developer
Enlarge / If you enjoyed taking out adorable, if dangerous, widdle cweatures with an assault rifle after a while, Palworld‘s…
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Union game performers strike over AI voice and motion-capture training
Enlarge / One day, using pixellated fonts and images to represent that something is a video game will not be…
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Lego’s newest retro art piece is a 1,215-piece Super Mario World homage
The Lego Mario & Yoshi set is an homage to 1990’s Super Mario World. The Lego Group From the front,…
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FTC attacks Microsoft’s post-merger Game Pass price increases
Enlarge / Access to first-party games on launch day remains a major selling point for the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate…
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Switch 2 is around the corner, but Nintendo announces a new Switch accessory anyway
Nintendo’s Joy-Con Charging Stand (Two-Way) seems useful, but it’s coming out at a strange time in the console’s lifecycle. Nintendo…
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Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition gave me new respect for gaming speedrunners
Enlarge / Get ready to repeat this ~25-second slice of Mario over and over… and over… and over. If you’ve…
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Valve runs its massive PC gaming ecosystem with only about 350 employees
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Valve’s micro-employees hard at work inside your Steam installation. Getty Images As a private and…
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Full dev build of Space Marine 2 leaks, and players are already leveling up
Enlarge / Heresy must be punished. Focus Entertainment How badly do you want to play the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Space…
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PC emulator comes to iOS, but Apple’s restrictions hamper performance
Enlarge / Space Cadet Pinball has never been so portable… or so tiny! One month after PC emulator UTM was…
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“Superhuman” Go AIs still have trouble defending against these simple exploits
Enlarge / Man vs. machine in a sea of stones. Getty Images In the ancient Chinese game of Go, state-of-the-art…
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$500 aluminum version of the Analogue Pocket looks like the Game Boy’s final form
Enlarge / Analogue is launching another limited edition version of its Pocket console, this time with an anodized aluminum body…
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Arm tweaks AMD’s FSR to bring battery-saving GPU upscaling to phones and tablets
Enlarge / An Arm sample image meant to show off its new “Accuracy Super Resolution” upscaling tech. Arm Some of…
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Latest Apple Arcade additions show Apple is looking backward, not forward
Enlarge / Vampire Survivors on the iPhone. It doesn’t look like much, but it sure is addictive. Samuel Axon Apple…
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Microsoft asks many Game Pass subscribers to pay more for less
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Microsoft executives after today’s Game Pass pricing announcements. Getty Images For years now, Microsoft’s Xbox…
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Fallout: London devs will “downgrade” Fallout 4 to save their massive mod
Fallout: London as it looked back in December, when its planned April 23 release was announced. After years of work,…
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Why 1994’s Lair of Squid was the weirdest pack-in game of all time
Enlarge / Artist’s impression of a squid jumping forth from an HP 200LX. Aurich Lawson / HP In 1994, Hewlett-Packard…
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After two rejections, Apple approves Epic Games Store app for iOS
Enlarge / Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney. It’s been a whirlwind journey of stops and starts, but AppleInsider…
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The new Riven remake is even better than Myst
Enlarge / The same gorgeous vistas return in the Riven remake. Samuel Axon A remake of Riven: The Sequel to…
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Patent document showcases the cloud-only streaming Xbox console that never was
The streaming-only Xbox would have looked like a smaller, squarer relative of the Series S. Microsoft The console had cutouts…
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Apple rejects PC emulators on the iOS App Store
Enlarge / Don’t get your hopes up—this iOS version of Doom was ported from open source code, not run via…
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The math on unplayed Steam “shame” is way off—and no cause for guilt
Enlarge / Blast away all the guilt you want in PowerWash Simulator, but there’s no need to feel dirty in…
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Decades later, John Romero looks back at the birth of the first-person shooter
John Romero remembers the moment he realized what the future of gaming would look like. In late 1991, Romero and…
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Apple Intelligence and other features won’t launch in the EU this year
Enlarge / Features like Image Playground won’t arrive in Europe at the same time as other regions. Apple Three major…
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Shadow of the Erdtree has ground me into dust, which is why I recommend it
Bandai Elden Ring was my first leap into FromSoftware titles (and Dark-Souls-like games generally), and I fell in deep. Over…
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From Infocom to 80 Days: An oral history of text games and interactive fiction
Enlarge / Zork running on an Amiga at the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin, Germany. You are standing at the end of…
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Why Interplay’s original “Fallout 3” was canceled 20+ years ago
Enlarge / What could have been. PC gamers of a certain vintage will remember tales of Project Van Buren, a…
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Seven years later, Nintendo proves Metroid Prime 4 still exists
It has now been almost exactly seven years since Nintendo first announced Metroid Prime 4 and over five years since…
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Star Citizen still hasn’t launched, but it’s already banning cheaters
Enlarge / For an unreleased game, Star Citizen still has some really pretty ships… RSI At this point in Star…
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Gaming historians preserve what’s likely Nintendo’s first US commercial
Enlarge / “So slim you can play it anywhere.” Gamers of a certain age may remember Nintendo’s Game & Watch…
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Are Diablo fans getting too old for the old-school item grind?
Enlarge / Do you have a few hundred hours to hear the good news about our lord and savior, Diablo?…
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Retired engineer discovers 55-year-old bug in Lunar Lander computer game code
Enlarge / Illustration of the Apollo lunar lander Eagle over the Moon. On Friday, a retired software engineer named Martin…
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The rent is too dang high in Cities: Skylines 2, so the devs nuked the landlords
Enlarge / Remember, folks inside those polygons: If your housing feels too expensive, spend less money on resource consumption. It’s…
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Civilization-like Ara blurs lines between hot-seat and play-by-mail multiplayer
Much of the time, the game looks a lot like Civilization, like in this city view. Microsoft Sometimes it diverges…
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Microsoft reveals first disc-less Xbox Series X
Enlarge / Looking more like a refrigerator than ever before. A new version of Microsoft’s top-end Xbox Series X will…
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Microsoft Gaming CEO: “I think we should have a handheld, too”
Enlarge / The “Xbox Series V” was a social media hoax, but the idea of a portable Xbox seems to…
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Marvel’s Midnight Suns is free right now, and you should grab it (even on Epic)
Enlarge / All these goons are targeting Captain America, as shown in icons above their heads. Good. That’s just how…
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New Steam Deck competitor lets you easily swap in more RAM, storage
Enlarge / A slide-up screen is just one of the novel features for Adata’s Steam Deck clone. For PC gamers…
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Civilization VII looks like 2K’s next big game announcement
2K / Imgur 2K Games is expected to show the first trailer footage of the upcoming Civilization VII as part…
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You can inherit a dead relative’s GOG account—if you have a court order
Enlarge / At least my son will be able to use my copy of Fallout: New Vegas to distract him…
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Sony removes still-unmet “8K” promise from PS5 packaging
The new PS5 packaging, as seen on the PlayStation Direct online store, is missing the “8K” label in the corner.…
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Ridiculous, inventive party pack Sportsfriends is now free on PC and PlayStation
Enlarge / How well do you know your friends and family? Can you smack a 2010-era controller in their hands…
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What kind of bug would make machine learning suddenly 40% worse at NetHack?
Aurich Lawson Members of the Legendary Computer Bugs Tribunal, honored guests, if I may have your attention? I would, humbly,…
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PlayStation VR2’s PC adapter hits this August, with missing features
Enlarge / Sony’s marketing image for PSVR2 on PC. Sony It doesn’t seem like PlayStation VR2 is having quite the…
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11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5
Enlarge / After nearly four years of the PS5, a lot of people are still using their old PS4s. If…
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