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Dear Inheritors,
We've prepared an event to celebrate the 8th anniversary of ArcheAge and ArcheAge: Unchained.
Please check the below notice for more details.1. 8th Anniversary: Make a Splash- The 8th Anniversary Make a Splash event has begun.
2. Make a Splash Patron & Subscription Lucky Draw- How to Participate: Participate in the Drenching Arena 1 time between Sep 15 (after maintenance) to Sep 22 (before maintenance) for auto-entry.
- Winners Announcement: 40 winners on Sep 26 (Mon)
- Reward Distribution: During the Sep 29 (Thu) maintenance to the Web Inventory as coupons
ArcheAgeArcheAge: UnchainedEU10 Players10 PlayersNA10 Players10 PlayersRewardsPatron (30 Days)Subscription (30 Days)3. 8th Anniversary Gifts
The below gifts will be sent to all players via mail or marketplace who log in between Sep 16 06:00 UTC–Sep 17 05:59 UTC.- 8th Anniversary Giftbox x1 (mail)
- 8th Anniversary Cake Hat x1 (mail)
- Bound Serendipity Stone x1 (Marketplace)
4. Discord Event: The forgotten adventurer's journey
Event period: 14th September ~ 17th SeptemberReward- ACT 1: Crate Astral Weapon Image
- ACT 2: Image Item: White Night Kitsu
- ACT 3: Image Item: Costume Designed by North America Design Contest Winner
- ACT 4: Powerstone Pet Arcane Snowflake
Please check the detail information on our Discord!
Thank you for your love and support for ArcheAge. -
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
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Overwatch 2 will lock heroes behind its battle pass, but doing so won't interfere with the game's strategic, team-based battles, Blizzard said in a group interview with PC Gamer.
For the last week, Overwatch fans have been outraged over a leak and subsequent confirmation from Blizzard VP and commercial leader Jon Spector that future heroes will be unlocked through free battle pass progression. It's a fundamental change from how heroes are released in the original game (they were immediately free for everyone) and has many fans worried about how it affects the game's rock-paper-scissors metagame.
Starting with Kiriko, Overwatch 2's newest support hero, every new character in the game will be locked behind Tier 55 (out of around 80 tiers) of the nine-week battle pass. "We do want you to play the game regularly during the season to get there," Spector said, and added that those "regular players" can get the hero for free "well before the season ends." Buying the $10 premium battle pass with 1,000 Overwatch Coins (a new currency) will grant instant access to Kiriko. And all new heroes won't be available in the game's ranked competitive mode for the first two weeks of each season.
Slightly softening the blow of the new unlock model, Blizzard is giving all Overwatch 1 owners who log in during Season 1 or 2 the premium battle pass for free, which instantly unlocks Kiriko for millions of players, and they get access to Sojourn and Junker Queen too. Non-Overwatch 1 owners have to earn or buy Kiriko themselves, but if they log in during Season 1, they'll get Sojourn and Junker Queen. After the first two seasons, everyone will have to purchase premium battle passes.
It seemed to be a very strong fit to put those heroes into our new engagement systems.
Walter Kong, Overwatch general managerThe first two seasons will include a hero each, but future ones will alternate between a new hero and a new map. If you miss one of the heroes you can earn them via hero-specific challenges or purchase them in the game's shop for Overwatch Coins.
When asked about why Blizzard is putting heroes in the battle pass in the first place, Overwatch general manager Walter Kong said, "Well, heroes are the single most engaging content that we have in the game. And as we designed this model, it seemed to be a very strong fit to put those heroes into our new engagement systems."
On the gameplay side, game director Aaron Keller didn't argue that locking heroes to battle passes is better for the player—instead, he offered reasons why it won't be such a big deal.
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)
Picking favorites
Overwatch 2 is designed around the fact that not everyone will own every hero, according to Keller. Keller explained that the game has been tweaked to "reduce the amount of hard counters that Overwatch has," thus reducing the need to have certain heroes available to counter specific strategies. Blizzard wants players to have "more freedom in what hero they're choosing for any particular situation."
Keller gave an example of a common matchup between Cassidy and Tracer and said that, unless the Tracer player was remarkably better than the Cassidy, they would feel forced to swap to another hero. "Going forward, what we've done is we're trying to take some of those really hard rock-paper-scissors interactions out of the game, and replacing them with more player choice," he said.
This "player choice" existed in the original game via strategic hero swaps, but the sequel consolidates it within the heroes themselves. Overwatch 2's design seems to elevate every hero's strengths so that, with a high enough level of skill, they can overcome most obstacles. It's a crucial change that runs the risk of homogenizing the roster if every hero must be viable for anyone all of the time. Based on my time with Overwatch 2's betas that worst-case scenario hasn't quite happened yet, but we probably won't truly feel the effect of this new unlock model until two or three years from now, when up to 20% of the roster will be locked behind Overwatch Coins. Blizzard now has to ensure that every player has enough heroes to counter any team, forever.
According to Keller, the reality is that most players don't swap heroes
The Overwatch community and Blizzard itself have always upheld hero swapping as a pillar of its design and argued about the efficacy of 'one-trick' players who stubbornly stick to a single character, but according to Keller, the reality is that most players don't swap heroes and instead play only a small number of the ones they're familiar with. "As the players get to be a higher and higher skill level, that band of heroes they play, it actually narrows because it takes a really long time to get good at a hero to play at that level," he said.
Keller believes that dedicated Overwatch 2 players won't mind that heroes won't be available as long as they can play the heroes they're most familiar with, and if you play regularly, you'll unlock new heroes by simply playing the game.
New and returning players hoping to find those favorite heroes to become familiar with in the first place, however, will be locked out until they put in enough time or money—which doesn't seem particularly pleasant for newcomers in a free-to-play game, but has become the norm in almost every one of Overwatch's competitors. The speed at which you can progress through the free battle pass and the quality of both the heroes and the cosmetics on it will determine its worth over time.
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)A new Overwatch
Overwatch 2 is less than a month away. When it launches on October 4, the original game will completely disappear. The sequel, despite being built on a game with six years of history behind it, is trying to differentiate itself from what came before. Keller briefly spoke about the original game's history and the changes Blizzard made that weren't always universally loved.
"The biggest example that we still hear about sometimes is taking away the huge [resurrect] from Mercy and replacing it with another ultimate ability," he said. "And we know that not every player agrees with these decisions that we make. And that's okay, they don't have to. I just hope that they recognize that the reason we make those decisions is that we all believe what we're doing is what's best for the overall game."
I'm not convinced Blizzard's reasoning for locking heroes behind a battle pass will satisfy the thousands of players upset that Overwatch 2 is sanding down a strategic pillar of the original game's design. But, as we've seen time and time again with games that launch with unpopular business models, change is always on the table.
"We're always trying to make the game better for our players," Keller said. Overwatch 2's shift to five-person teams wasn't an "arbitrary" decision, he said, it was made to fix "issues" Blizzard had with the original game. "And so I understand where players are coming from and we sympathize with all of them, but we just would love to reiterate the point that we take it very seriously. We engage in a lot of discussions on our team, and our highest value is to always be making the game better for the majority of our players."
Overwatch 2 launches on October 4.
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When Overwatch 2 launches in October, all of its cosmetics will be tied to an entirely different set of systems than the original game—loot boxes are gone, long live the battle pass.
Overwatch 2, like so many other live service games, will have a battle pass, an in-game shop, and a regular set of rotating challenges that award battle pass XP. The Overwatch battle pass has standard cosmetic items like skins, weapon charms, and emotes, but it will also have entire heroes—starting with the newest support hero Kiriko, all new heroes will be tied to the $10 (or 1,000 Overwatch Coins) premium pass.
Buying the premium pass unlocks heroes immediately, but getting them for free will require reaching Tier 55 out of 80.
That's how things will work normally, but Blizzard is holding a special promotion for Overwatch 2's launch. Everyone that owns the original Overwatch and logs in during the first season will get the Season 1 premium battle pass and Kiriko instantly. If you purchase the $40 Watchpoint Pack, which includes the premium battle pass, 2,000 Overwatch Coins, and skins for Cassidy and Soldier: 76, you'll start with Kiriko too. For everyone else, you'll need to progress all the way to Tier 55 or buy the premium battle pass.
It's all a bit confusing, especially for veteran Overwatch players who are used to simply receiving new heroes with no strings attached. Blizzard is using this sequel break as an opportunity to adopt the same model that most service games use these days, but that hasn't stopped players from feeling upset and betrayed that heroes are now tied directly to our purse strings.
In a group interview with PC Gamer, Overwatch VP and commercial leader Jon Spector attempted to reassure upset fans, saying, "We do want you to play the game regularly during the season to get [the new hero]," and added that "regular players" can get the hero for free "well before the season ends."
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)What's included in Overwatch 2's battle passes
Overwatch 2's free battle pass track includes new hero Kiriko at Tier 55 along with 19 additional tiers (spread throughout over 80 total tiers) with an assortment of cosmetics:
- Support hero Kiriko
- Two epic skins
- One weapon charm
- Two sovenirs (items that you can show off mid-match
- One highlight intro
- 14 other items like emotes, name cards, and sprays
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)The premium battle pass ($10 or 1,000 Overwatch Coins) includes instant access to Kiriko, a season-long 20% XP boost, one highly customizable Mythic skin (season one is Cyber Demon Genji), and a much bigger haul of cosmetics than the free track:
- Instant access to support hero Kiriko
- 20% XP boost for the battle pass
- One customizable mythic skin
- Five legendary skins
- One epic skin
- Three highlight intros
- Four weapon charms
- Three emotes
- Three souvenirs
- Six poses
- Six name cards
- 30 other cosmetic rewards
How Overwatch 2's challenges work
Blizzard showed us what looks to be an unfinished version of the weekly challenges menu in the game. There are daily, weekly, seasonal, competitive, lifetime, and hero challenges, each with their own objectives and rewards.
Daily challenges include goals like winning one game, playing three games when queued for all roles, and mitigating 2,000 damage without dying. If you complete three daily challenges, you'll earn 9,000 battle pass XP (the second tier requires 10,000 XP, but it's unclear how much is required for others).
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)Weekly challenges are harder to complete (win 10 games, mitigate 40,000 damage) and will net you 60 Overwatch Coins for completing all 11 of them. For reference, heroes will likely cost 1,000 Overwatch Coins.
Blizzard didn't show the rest of the challenges, but said that the goal is for none of them to dissuade players from working with their team and disrupt the match.
"I think sometimes you see challenge systems that the Overwatch equivalent of them would be like hit 10 scoped headshots as Widowmaker on Dorado," Spector said. "And we don't want to do that. We don't think that that's conducive to the right kind of gameplay."
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Kiriko is Genji without the blade.
Instead she throws kunai, ripped straight from an early version of Genji before he got his ninja stars in the original Overwatch. Although dealing damage isn't her main focus, Kiriko's supportive kit borrows the high mobility and precision that Genji players will know well.
"There was a lot of inspiration taken from Genji," associate narrative designer Kyungseo Min said in a group interview with PC Gamer. "In fact, one of the starting points of this character was 'how can you create a support hero that DPS players who like Genji would enjoy playing?'"
Overwatch 2's newest support hero was raised with Overwatch's ninja brothers Hanzo and Genji in Kanezaka, Japan, a fictional location that's also the setting for one of the game's maps. As a combatant, she blends her grandmother's traditionalism with her mother's pride: a daring ninja that honors the tricksy fox spirit.
Kiriko's upbringing is, like most Overwatch heroes, a tad ridiculous—she's like a Disney character—but it makes her fit neatly into the sequel's redefined support role, which balances lethality with protection. Her kit mimics ideas from other support heroes: her healing ofuda are little paper slips that home-in on allies and release small healing bursts similar to Brigitte's Repair Packs, her movement ability is an amped version of Mercy's Guardian Angel, and Protection Suzu is a brief Baptiste Immortality Field.
But combined with her ability to flick kunai out and wall climb, she's much more nimble than the rest of the support roster.
Here's Kiriko's abilities in full:
- Healing ofuda (primary fire): sends out up to 10 slow-moving slips of paper that home-in on allies and heal a small amount over time.
- Kunai (secondary fire): throws out one kunai at a time to deal a small amount of damage, with 12 total.
- Swift Step: teleports a large distance to allies and can pass through walls.
- Protection Suzu: sends out a bell that wraps nearby allies and Kiriko in a damage-nullifying and effect-cleansing barrier for a short period of time.
- Wall climb (passive): Kiriko can climb up walls like Hanzo and Genji.
- Kitsune Rush: projects a path of torii in front of Kiriko that buffs her and her allies with movement speed, attack speed, reload speed, and a cooldown reduction on abilities for a brief period of time.
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)Kiriko will be available with Overwatch 2 on October 4, but not for everyone immediately. As part of the sequel's new battle pass system, she'll be locked behind Tier 55 of the free track. Anyone who owns the original Overwatch and logs in during Season 1 or 2 (or if you own the Watchpoint Pack) will get the $10 (or 1,000 Overwatch Coins) premium battle pass instantly, which also unlocks Kiriko. For anyone who doesn't own those, they'll have to progress through the tiers before getting access to her.
Alongside the new hero will be the game's latest Push map Esperança, Portugal. It's an ultra bright destination that looks to have the sort of mirrored, swiss cheese design that Overwatch 2's 5v5 format thrives on. Teams can flank and surprise-attack each other as the Push robot moves back and forth across the map. And, according to the game's art director Dion Rogers, everyone's favorite music healer Lúcio will have some easter eggs on the map related to his Brazilian roots.
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard) -
The kids these days have all sorts of memes, and most of them scare and confuse me. Forgive me, then, that it took me a while to figure out the precise meaning of the "Semiannual Sexyman Showdown": a Twitter-hosted competition between various beautiful, fictional men for the title of "Ultimate Tumblr Sexyman".
A Tumblr sexyman, my many hours of research tell me, is pretty much just a, uh, sexy man? But on Tumblr? A sexy man on Tumblr. But, crucially, one with a sizable (and oh so vocal) fanbase. The point of the showdown is to put all these faves against one another in a merciless, sexy popularity contest.
Anyway, suffice it to say that the winner of this year's bracket was—by the skin of his skeletal teeth—Sans Undertale, who went up against Mob Psycho 100's Reigen and came away with a nail-biting 50.1% of the overall vote. Despite clamour for a second referendum, Sans won the day. We know why, too, because Undertale's creator Toby Fox wrote a 300+ word fanfic detailing the pulse-pounding final minutes of the vote. You can read it in its full, baffling glory below.
Having cheated his way to the last round of the competition, Reigen finds himself face to face with Sans, who got there by doing literally nothing. Although Reigen has an early lead, he decides if he wants to cinch this, he's going to have to collude with his competition. He's surprised when Sans, who was entered in the contest unwittingly by his brother (he didn't know what the competition was for) is glad to help him win free of charge. They both run a series of debates where Reigen dismantles Sans by proving how utterly unattractive he is. As the debates continue, Reigen puts on boy-band-style makeup and works out to become extra attractive. However, mysteriously, Sans's vote only seems to be increasing despite this. Sans mentions that Reigen forgot that being unattractive is one of the key tenets of becoming a popular guy on tumblr.
Emotionally crushed that he possibly ever wasn't actually attractive at all, Reigen considers falling out of the competition. However, he's cheered up by Mob, who says that Reigen should remember what he taught him: He should have confidence regardless of what anyone thinks of him.
On the final day of the campaign, Reigen shows up with rings under his eyes, a five-o-clock-shadow, and a dad bod. Without saying anything, he takes out a sandwich on stage and stuffs it into his mouth. He follows up with his "special attack." putting his fingers in his mouth like that one picture of Peter from Spiderverse. The audience cheers, and Reigen's polling makes a massive comeback.
In the end, the results are revealed.
Sans won by a single vote.
Reigen can't believe it. One vote!? How could he lose by ONE VOTE!? Even that stupid skeleton voted for him!
Mob shows up and says offhand that since tumblr sexymen are unattractive, he wanted Reigen to have self-confidence, not rely on what other people think of him. Therefore he voted for Sans. Reigen doesn't know how to feel about this.
It's… pretty involved, but it eventually turns out that the key to being a sexyman is not to be sexy at all—which is great news for me—and Reigen was brought low by his conventional attractiveness. It's genuinely a funny read, even if you're as frightened and lost as I am amid the Tumblr memery, and it's great to see a storied developer like Fox poke his head up randomly to beef up the lore of what is, essentially, a long series of Twitter polls.
It also raises an interesting question. Is this… Undertale canon? I mean, the creator of a character writing something about that character is technically fiction, not fan fiction. No-one was prepared for this.
Either way, it's all we're gonna get from Fox for a while, because the creator recently told us we won't be getting a new chapter of Deltarune this calendar year. Still, don't fret: you can get a taste of the new chapters and their new music in a recent update on the Deltarune blog. And if that's not enough, you can always revisit the classic first entry in the series with a friend using the co-op mod that came out last month. After all, isn't friendship the true meaning of the Semiannual Sexyman Showdown?
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Greetings Inheritors,
The game has been updated.[Content Updates]- The Star Wings buff can now be refreshed while the buff is active.
- ArcheBlessing's cast time reduction effect will now be applied to Memory Ember as well.
- Changed the build range of all Drydocks.
- The ArcheAge: Unchained Fresh Start Server is now open.
[Content Update][archeage.playkakaogames.com][Unchained Fresh Start Server][archeageuc.playkakaogames.com][New Event][archeage.playkakaogames.com][New Event][archeage.playkakaogames.com]
Thank you. - The Star Wings buff can now be refreshed while the buff is active.
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A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
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Hello croyd1,
Welcome to UnityHQ Nolfseries Community. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.
croyd1 joined on the 09/15/2022.
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If you're after a clue for today's Wordle you'll find that and so much more on this very page. I've got hints, general tips, and links to all the help you could ever wish for. And if you'd like to see the answer to the September 15 (453) puzzle, just in case? That's here too.
Today's Wordle answer made me work for it. I was able to find most of the key building blocks nice and early, but the odd arrangement of them meant I somehow managed to skilfully avoid the answer until it was almost too late for my win streak.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Tuesday, September 15
Uncertainty is the theme today. You're looking for the word used when you're unsure of something or someone (even yourself), particularly when thinking of how good it or their talents may really be. There are two different vowels to find today.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank.
Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)What is the Wordle 453 answer?
Let me save your win streak. The answer to the September 15 (453) Wordle is DOUBT.
Previous answers
Wordle archive: Which words have been used
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
- September 14: THYME
- September 13: ALPHA
- September 12: BOOZE
- September 11: TIBIA
- September 10: LOFTY
- September 9: THEME
- September 8: CLASS
- September 7: LEERY
- September 6: TAUNT
- September 5: WHOOP
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns
️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. 
means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 
means you've got the right letter in the right spot.You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.
After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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As the days tick down towards the launch of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series processors and AM5 platform, many users are beginning to think about a potential upgrade path. The first wave of X670 and X670E motherboards look mighty, but they’re going to be expensive. Luckily, users won’t have long to wait to see mid-range boards. AMD is set to hold a livestream on October 4, where vendors will show off their more affordable B650 and B650E options.
AMD’s Meet the Experts presentation is called 'An Exclusive First Look at B650 and B650E AM5 Motherboards' and it's set to take place on October 4 at 10AM CDT. AMD will invite presenters from Asus, Asrock, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI to showcase the features and capabilities of their boards.
B650 will certainly attract a lot of interest. AMD's X670 boards include advanced connectivity features including PCIe 5.0 support. But given the high price of DDR5 memory and starting price of $299 for the Ryzen 5 7600X, buying into the new platform with an X670/E board is going to be expensive. It's understandable that many users will want to wait a little for more affordable options.
Interestingly, AMD is accelerating the launch of B650, surely in order to lower the total platform cost. Whereas B550 motherboards launched almost a year after X570, this time around the gap is set to be a matter of weeks.
Your next upgrade(Image credit: Future)Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the restUnless you’re planning to build a genuinely high-end system, early indicators are that B650 boards won’t lack all that much compared to their more expensive X670 siblings. B650E boards will still include PCIe 5.0 graphics and SSD support while losing out on some USB and SATA ports, and a few PCIe 4.0 lanes from the chipset. That means a user with a next gen GPU and PCIe 5.0 SSD will potentially lose nothing by choosing a B650E board over an X670E one.
The non-E B650 loses out on PCIe 5.0 support, as does the non-E X670, but for most users, that won’t be a problem, at least not in the short term. The only exception is if you plan to run more than one PCIe 5.0 drive or really need a stack of fast USB ports.
The launch of the Ryzen 7000 series is set for later this month. The PC Gamer team will have full coverage from day one.
Oh, and the launch of Intel’s competing 13th Generation 'Raptor Lake' CPUs and 700-series motherboards is getting closer too. PC gaming enthusiasts have some tough (though pleasant) decisions ahead.
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As VR becomes even more commonplace in the home thanks to affordable and portable options like the Oculus Quest 2, we're seeing a split in VR users. Some are after that easy low cost experience, but many are using the improvements in technology to level up the experience's fidelity. One company that's going all in on trying to give you the best VR experience is Pimax with its impressive high resolution offerings with 200 degree field of view.
The second quarter of this year marks the seven-year anniversary of Pimax's development, and the brand is looking to celebrate. This comes alongside what is set to be the launch of the VR 3.0 line of products. Starting with the Pimax 12k QLED, which we are looking forward to seeing in action. Though it's likely going to take a beast of a machine to run at its best.
Of course, with specs like what Pimax offers, it isn't the cheapest option on the market when it comes to VR. The company does do a very nice trade in offer, for its own headsets. These deals are often so good it can be fairly cheap to upgrade from unit to unit. If you're planning to stay on the cutting edge of VR headsets, you can start now and upgrade when new products launch. That being said, with the celebrations Pimax has planned it might be worth waiting just a little longer.
The brand is being tight-lipped about what exactly is in store for the seven-year celebrations but Pimax states they set to start next Monday. It looks like the plan might be to release different offers as the celebration goes on, but there's no word on how long that will be. Still if it's the chance of a cheaper next gen 12K headset, it definitely sounds worth a look.
Virtual reality(Image credit: Valve)Best VR headset: which kit should you choose?
Best graphics card: you need serious GPU power for VR
Best gaming laptop: don't get tied to your desktop in VRPimax mentions big discounts and trading program bonuses in the press email, but the details are slim, and instead encourages people to check out the Pimax website on the days to find out what deals are on offer. It promises "huge and memorable gifts" for VR fans both new and old, in thanks to the loyal customers already onboard, and encouraging new fans to get into some high-end VR headsets.
From everything we've seen Pimax seems like a brand bent on getting people into VR. If you're looking for that high definition VR experience it's hard to find a better deal, especially when it comes to trade in bonuses. Still there are other headsets on the market, with Meta's Oculus successor due out next month, our list of Best VR headsets for 2022 could be about to get shaken up.
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I'm about to show my age, but the changes in portable hard drives over the years has been crazy to watch. I remember buying a large 1TB "portable" drive that required external power with pay from one of my first jobs. It was an unwieldy beast with more memory than I thought I could ever need, and I'd lug it to friend's houses with pride as we exchanged digital media.
I also vividly remember the sting of advancement. About a year later smaller USB-powered units were commonplace, and about the same price as I'd paid. These tiny pocketable drives were among the coolest things my data-hoarding eyes had ever seen. That has just been knocked completely out of the field by these gorgeous Spider-Man HDDs from Seagate.
These drives follow on from the Star Wars series, and look like fairly capable 2TB portable units with respectable stats. They're USB 3.2, should work with basically any device, and weigh under 170 grams. Portable HDDs aren't constantly zooming forward like they were 15 or so years ago, at least not until Seagate brings out the 50 TB HDDS in 2026, so there's not really anything too interesting here spec-wise. Instead, it's all about that drip.
The Spider-Man art is just gorgeous. It's based on the animation styles of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which has been lauded as some of the best animation of all time. Sometimes even by people other than me. It's a vibrant, creative, heartfelt masterpiece, and these HDDs get to take that style and bring it into something you use in everyday life.
Peak Storage(Image credit: Future)Best SSD for gaming: the best solid state drives around
Best PCIe 4.0 SSD for gaming: the next gen has landed
The best NVMe SSD: this slivers of SSD goodness
Best external hard drives: expand your horizons
Best external SSDs: plug in upgrades for gaming laptops and consolesThere are three models, one featuring the traditional blue-and-red Peter Parker iteration of Spider-Man's costume. It has a nice red background with spider motifs to match. Another is black with Miles Morales's iconic suit front and centre. Then of course we have Gwen Stacy, or Ghost-Spider, on a white case of her own.
The images also show off the LED lighting under the HDD, which is set to match the various suits. Ghost, for example, has a bright pink light, while Peter's light is red to pick up the highlights on his eyes and webbing. This is all configurable using a PC with the Seagate software.
We're not expecting these to be the best portable HDDs around for your money, but they are some of the coolest-looking. For something you're going to be carrying around, having out on the desk, or even sharing with other people, aesthetic flair is a great optional extra for your tech.
The downside is these appear to be going out of stock fairly quickly in the United states where they released last month. They'll be hitting Australian stores soon, and are up for pre-order at many retailers. You'll want to check at your local electronics store to get your hands on one these Spidey storage devices.
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I maintain that Call of Duty has never done weapon unlocks better than 2019's Modern Warfare reboot. The way that first iteration of Gunsmith balanced attachments with nuanced statistical changes and barrels with transformative effects jived with me in a way Black Ops–Cold War and Vanguard haven't matched since. For Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward is blowing up Create-a-Class all over again with Gunsmith 2.0.
In Gunsmith 2.0, players will not only unlock new attachments for weapons, but new receivers that literally transform one gun into another. That's right, it's a tech tree.
Infinity Ward explained the new system in a video shared on the Infinity Ward Twitter. Using the M4 as an example, developers demonstrated how the entire front receiver of a standard M4 (that's basically all the central innards that stuff attaches to) can be detached and replaced with the receiver for an M16. You have to progress through the M4 before unlocking the M16 receiver, which can then progress into an SMG receiver or maybe a DMR variant.
That's a major change from the way that Call of Duty has handled progression for the past decade. Gun unlocks are typically tied to your overall account level. It sounds like that's still the case for "base" guns like the M4, but variants will now be tied to weapon XP. I imagine that a standard AK-47 eventually progresses into an AK-74U SMG, for instance. Infinity Ward says this change is meant to more closely mimic the modularity of actual guns, but gun tech trees also come with a cool bonus: once you unlock an attachment for one gun platform, it'll also be unlocked for that gun's variants.
Gunsmith 2.0 receivers. (Image credit: Activision Blizzard)"This takes away from the grind of having to unlock every single attachment on each weapon every time you want to level up a weapon," said senior user experience designer Mary Evdjukian. As someone who has probably unlocked the same basic red dot sight for hundreds of CoD guns over the years, it'll be nice to cut down on the clutter.
It won't be long before we can try out Gunsmith 2.0 for ourselves. The Modern Warfare 2 beta starts this Friday for PlayStation players with an open beta for all platforms starting the following weekend.
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Wizards of the Coast, makers of Dungeons & Dragons, have asked the court to stop D&D co-creator Gary Gygax's son, Ernie, from using trademarks for TSR, Gygax's company, and Star Frontiers, his science-fiction roleplaying game. Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR and its games in 1997, but Ernie Gygax's company, which uses the TSR name, claims that Wizards of the Coast let those trademarks lapse and plans to publish a new edition of Star Frontiers.
Last year, TSR LLC and Ernie Gygax were accused of making racist and transphobic remarks, and recently, a leaked document alleged to be a copy of TSR LLC's Star Frontiers: New Genesis included racist rules, describing a "Negro" race with below-average intelligence and a "Nordic" race with above-average statistics. (LaNasa's company shared a Facebook post alleging that the documents are fake.)
As reported by GeekWire, this seem to have been the last straw for Wizards of the Coast. The company has filed an injunction asking courts to block the release of Star Frontiers: New Genesis while the trademark dispute is resolved.
Wizards' injunction is predicated on the argument that while they did not renew the trademarks for TSR in the national system, they have retained their rights to the trademarks by licensing out the old game material for digital distribution since 2012. Further, Wizards argues that the publication of Star Frontiers: New Genesis would cause irreparable harm to the trademark they own, as would continued use of the TSR brand and trademarks, specifically saying that it is a "degrading, offensive product containing Wizards' Marks" and comes as Wizards of the Coast has in recent years "redoubled its commitment to diversity and inclusion."
Ernie Gygax is one of the late E. Gary Gygax's six children. Ernie Gygax's company, TSR LLC, was founded by himself, Justin LaNasa, and Stephen Dinehart in 2020. Gygax and LaNasa were at the center of a controversy last year when Gygax criticized Wizards of the Coast's condemnation of racism and sexism in older D&D products. (Wizards of the Coast also recently apologized for and removed racist undertones in a new book.) Dinehart appears to have departed TSR LLC, taking his game GiantLands with him.
LaNasa, meanwhile, is the registered owner of the TSR Games trademark, and TSR LLC is registered to him. LaNasa is the owner of a tattoo parlor in North Carolina, as well as the Hobby Shop Dungeon Museum in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He once campaigned for political office in North Carolina as a Republican, an effort that was widely considered sunk when his opponent surfaced a video LaNasa had posted of two female employees at his tattoo parlor wrestling in a tub of grits to become "head shop girl."
Star Frontiers: New Genesis drew widespread outcry in July not only for content in the leaked playtest version of the game, some of which is allegedly written by LaNasa, but due to the actions of the other cited author, Dave Johnson. Johnson has been identified with social media accounts that post extensive neo-Nazi and white supremacist material and memes. A website called No Hate In Gaming has compiled an extensive list of racist, pro-Nazi, and other hateful posts made by Johnson.
Reached for comment, Wizards of the Coast said that it does not comment on pending litigation. PC Gamer has also reached out to TSR LLC for comment.
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Pasokon Retro is our regular look back at the early years of Japanese PC gaming, encompassing everything from specialist 80's computers to the happy days of Windows XP.
Developer: Konami Released: 1986 Japanese PCs: MSX2 (Image credit: Konami)Everyone loves Castlevania. Everyone. Konami's 1986 mega-hit is a Nintendo classic stuffed with iconic monsters, whip-cracking Belmonts, and toe-tapping music. Its gothic-inspired stages are streamlined to perfection, every linear section of every stage a tightly designed challenge intended to test but not traumatise experienced gamers.
But what if they hadn't been?
For once this is not a wild hypothetical question but something everyone can play for themselves thanks to Vampire Killer, an exclusive on the 1985 Japanese PC the MSX2. Konami made Vampire Killer as an alternative take on the same Dracula-flavoured concepts, and released it at almost the same time as its better-known cousin.
There are many differences, but the biggest one is this: Progress isn't just made by surviving an area and reaching the entrance to the next, like in most Castlevania games (and most platformers in general). Vampire Killer also requires its players to find the sole special key hidden somewhere in the same area to unlock a door at the end of every stage as well. These special keys aren't even out in the open, but often hidden away behind breakable walls and blocks that are visually indistinguishable from any other unless Simon happens to be carrying a rare secret-revealing item in his inventory at the time.
To make this key hunt more manageable every stage is a free roaming area with no time limit, allowing players to, at least in theory, literally spend all day going back and forth within a single stage trying to find the damned thing. As if this wasn't disorientating enough for anyone used to whipping their way through Wallachia, some specific parts of levels (and sometimes whole stages) wrap around on themselves. You can start a level facing right but walk off to the left to explore parts of it "backwards" instead.
Later on the game offers a few light puzzles based on this bewildering feature, including one seemingly designed to remind players that this screen wrapping business can nonsensically apply vertically as well as horizontally, meaning dropping off the bottom of the screen below can lead to Simon, with perfectly executed '80s game logic, falling in from the top of the screen "above."
(Image credit: Konami)In spite of all my complaining, in practice these key-hunting searches aren't quite as confusing or unpleasant as they may sound. Knowing something is hidden and I have to search and think my way through a world filled with traps and monsters to find it, is… quite exciting, actually. I already know what to do even if I don't quite know how I'm going to do it on a new stage.The limited-use maps scattered around most stages offer further help: a quick tap of F2 reveals not only an overview of the whole level's basic floor plan but also Simon's current location and even a big red arrow marking the exit door.
Even in a game where capital-D Death might literally be waiting around the corner and I can walk through some stages backwards, I always know what I'm supposed to be doing and to a certain extent where I'm heading.
In spite of these fundamental changes to Castlevania, many areas still clearly echo their Nintendo-branded counterparts. Tattered red curtains still hang by tall windows as purple-hued zombies rush across the same floor, mermen still leap out of the waters below, and much to my hair-pulling frustration, that bit with the floating medusas and the tiny platforms still rears its ugly head. But all of these semi-familiar places were created using a broader colour palette than the NES could ever dream of. The areas and features that don't perfectly reflect the Castlevania we all know and love often introduce some clever ideas of their own, perhaps extending a unique location that finished too early in the console game Stage 12 takes a simple background feature—those large and conspicuously Simon-sized sewer openings—and effectively turns them into doors leading to new areas underground that exist in no other version of the game.
Although living long enough to see any of that can be a brutal a challenge: unless you bought a separately-sold cheat device also made by Konami, Vampire Killer only gives you three lives to lose—and no continues.
At times this led to me not only wanting to stop playing Vampire Killer, but also Castlevania as a whole, anything else Konami have ever made, and then for good measure ejecting the entire hobby into the sun. Carefully battling through stage after stage only to lightly brush one enemy, once, and watching the knockback throw Simon into a bottomless pit before dumping me back at the title screen can do that to a person.
The thrill of exploration is dulled by the way all enemies respawn the instant I leave the screen, inevitably leading me to lose health to monsters I know for a fact I've already defeated. It may have been a technical necessity, but it still stings. But while the game may be downright evil in places, a little relief always seems to be just around the corner. Whipping a wall away sometimes reveals an old woman willing to sell powerful items or even full heals for a reasonable number of hearts, or maybe there's a treasure chest containing the almost game-breakingly useful hourglass item waiting just before the end of level boss room, turning what could've been a difficult fight into a complete pushover.
These enforced repeat runs through the earlier parts of the game bring familiarity, which in turn casts the game's challenges and apparent brutality in a different light. On a second time through I know I don't have to waste my time going up a certain staircase: if I can just hold out a little longer a full heal's close by. I know not to whip that candle because it'll drop a slime enemy, not an item. There is real satisfaction in getting better, in seeing those old game-ending troubles become quick and considered moves that lead directly to the right area and then straight on to the locked door—with perhaps a short diversion for a very specific treasure chest and the helpful item within.
(Image credit: Konami)Even after just a little practise that opening "maze" of staircases and rooms I can exit from either side has gone from being a daunting sequence to something casually cleared with minimal damage in seconds. That's not a boast—that's just Vampire Killer working as intended. This wasn't designed to be something I make steady progress through and then put away forever, it was designed to be played over and over, my own knowledge and experiences as much a part of Simon's Dracula-slaying arsenal as any whip upgrade or item.
I do feel like I've been put through the wringer playing it, but I don't mind as much as I thought I would. Not even when Simon grazed a platform just above his head, the slight collision with the architecture altering his mid-air arc just enough to send him fatally crashing into the depths below. If I'm honest with myself, some of Castlevania's more notorious segments actually make more sense in this MSX2 version of the game, because their difficulty is balanced out or even nullified by items that simply don't exist in the NES version.
The NES Castlevania may have firmly embedded itself in our collective gaming consciousness forevermore (helped in no small part by the console's massive popularity in the US and Japan and continuing nostalgia for it), but Vampire Killer remains an ambitious glimpse into an alternative, more freeform, horror-platformer—a concept Konami would return to several times over the years until they finally found the masterpiece hiding within this go-anywhere gothic game: Symphony of the Night.
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Looking at the fluidly animated, all-action trailers for Wuthering Waves, it's hard not to be impressed. From the costume design of its key characters to the scintillating combat that looks impossible to pull off until you actually get the game in your hands, it's clearly a game made by a team that isn't on its first anime RPG rodeo. The above trailer, which will accompany Wuthering Waves at the Tokyo Game Show on September 15, showcases the game's strengths beautifully.
The world of Wuthering Waves is trapped in a 'cycle of calamity,' most of its progress wiped out by a disaster known as Calament. You, the player, are a Rover, an elite warrior who wakes up to find the world broken and in need of restoration. This anime-styled ARPG is a dizzying blend of action and powerful cutscene-based storytelling from Kuro Game, who know a thing or two about making these elements gel.
Wuthering Waves' vast world wants to be explored, and to that end you'll have tons of parkour and aerial tricks up your sleeve. You can double-jump, dash up vertical walls, kick yourself off them, then whip out a high-tech umbrella to glide swiftly across the land towards whatever dangers and mysteries await you out there. Also, kudos for letting players sprint without stamina limits–the bane of so many players who want to explore an open-world game.
Likewise, the combat keeps up the pace, opting for a real-time rather than turn-based approach. Wuthering Waves deploys an all-action combat system, scrapping things like tab targeting and target selection in favour of the responsive combat like you might expect from the great Japanese action game developers like Platinum Games or Capcom.
A unique hook here is the Collectible System, whereby you can capture and analyse monsters and use 'Calamon Skills' to give you all manner of customisation in battle. With Skills that boost key traits like attack, recovery, and defence, you'll have plenty of options to refine your fighting style and swing the battle in your favour.
Dodge from harm's way, and use the momentum of your blades to slash yourself high into the air before cutting down on your Calament foes with an earth-shattering ground pound. You can turn a great defence into a lethal offence, as timing an evasion or deflection properly will boost your next attack with a devastating dash-attack or a move capable of stunning even the hardiest of bosses.
All this looks stunningly smooth, like a blade-waving dance between your stylishly designed Rover and the enemies (and of course bosses) dead-set on stopping you.
Amidst the ruined yet still gorgeous landscapes, there are towns and other hubs of human population in this post-apocalyptic world. You'll be able to freely roam around architecturally fascinating cities like the capital Tian Cheng, picking up quests from locals, earning collectibles, and piecing together the story of how the land of Huang Long came to be in its current sorry state.
(Image credit: Kuro Game)Built in Unreal Engine 4, everything in the open world—from the particle effects as you cut through your alien enemies, to the dense grass lapping at your shins and elegant geometries of distant mountains—looks wonderful in a way that will dazzle all players, be it a next-gen console on a big screen, or the small crisp display of a smartphone.
Wuthering Waves will be a free-to-play game from Kuro Game, a developer with a great track record of keeping its games fair. Their previous game, Punishing: Gray Raven—a similarly styled action-RPG—was a hit with over 20 million downloads and rave reviews. Wuthering Waves looks set to build on that, with an art style, world design, and story that add up to the studio's most ambitious project yet.Even if most of the mysteries in Wuthering Waves' world are yet to be unveiled, and will take months of exploration from thousands of players around the world, it makes a powerful first impression. If you want to see more from this promising ARPG, keep your eyes on the Tokyo Game Show coming up 15 September, where Wuthering Waves will be making an appearance.
You can also keep up with the game at the official site, Facebook, YouTube, and Discord.
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I've played plenty of Western games—Red Dead Redemption 2, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Westerado: Double Barreled—typically casting myself as a steely-eyed gunslinger capable of mowing down outlaws and lawmen alike with a flurry of bullets from my shining six-shooters.
But is that really me? If I were really in the Old West, would I be the deadliest, bravest cowboy in history? Doubtful. I'd probably be the portly saloonkeeper, wincing and fretting whenever a brawl breaks out around the poker table and far more likely to say the words "I ain't lookin' fer no trouble, Mister!" then I am to say "Draw, Pilgrim."
Deadwater Saloon is giving me the chance to bring that tubby coward to life. There's a bit of a Sims feel to the saloon management sim: I peer down into my tavern from a top-down view, I buy and arrange furniture, shelving, and decorations, and I pick attributes for my bald, portly character, Toast Parker. (Thanks to the sim's excellent random name generator for that moniker.) Those attributes are extensive, too, with names like "savoir faire," "seduction," and "litigiousness" which provide bonuses that will come into play during random events that crop up, like when I need to befriend someone, have sex with them, or sue the crap out of them.
The sim gets off to a slow start: the town initially only consists of the saloon, and all I can do is hire a bartender and a cook, start researching recipes for food and drinks, and wait for someone to actually walk in and order. But little by little, the town starts to grow and customers begin trickling in. A trapper opens a shop next door so I can buy different kinds of meat to unlock new recipes. A brawl breaks out which chases my customers away and I have to hire a bouncer. A customer complains that I don't have any prostitutes, but I can't find any to hire so I add a piano and hire someone to play it. Music is just as good as sex, right? Here's hoping.
But apart from the fact that I'm regularly spending more in wages and supplies than I'm earning from customers, there's a bigger problem: Stress. Toast Parker is more of a nervous wreck than even I would be in the Old West, and the only ways to lower his stress is by eating, drinking, smoking, reading, or having sex. Since I have no books or tobacco, and I haven't found any sex workers to hire, I can only calm myself by shoveling food in my face and getting drunk. It doesn't lower my stress all that much, though, and it quickly climbs back up within a couple days.
(Image credit: Creative Storm Entertainment)That's when the opium den moves in next door. Since I'm looking for any way to increase my revenue I promptly buy 200 hits of the drug to sell in my saloon, plus a knife to make my bouncer a little more formidable. A moment after I've closed the deal, the opium den owner just hands me another 200 doses of opium for free. Now I'm positively swimming in opium. My saloon has more of it than I have food and alcohol. Wait, am I running an opium den now, too?
On the plus side, the opium sells better than the booze and meals I'm serving, but it's still not enough to put me in the black, budget-wise. After adding a card table I can't even afford to hire a dealer to run it. In fact, I'm about to completely run out of money so I take out a loan from the only place in town offering it, which also happens to be the opium den. I hire a card dealer, add more tables and chairs on the second floor of the saloon so I can squeeze in more customers, and raise the prices of everything on the menu… but I'm still losing money month over month.
(Image credit: Creative Storm Entertainment)It wasn't my plan to become an outlaw, but I feel like it's time to try to rob someone, and I choose the only person in town who seems to have money: the opium den owner. It occurs to me something is really going wrong for Ol' Toast. I'm buying opium, I'm selling opium, I'm getting free opium, I'm taking loans from an opium dealer and now I'm going to rob him. Ah, hell with it, I might as well smoke opium, too. It lowers my stress levels more than food and drink, so I start doing it on a daily basis. I can't see anything going wrong with that.
I'm addicted to opium and committing crimes, so it's time to buy some guns, right?
And the robbery works! With only a 26% chance of success, I manage to steal $82 from the opium den, though I was hoping it would be much more (ideally, enough to cover the amount of the loan). The downside is now the opium dealer and his entire family hates me, and the suspicion level of the entire town has risen to +300, which I assume means a Sheriff will be setting up shop here sooner rather than later. "My opium saloon might be in peril," I think to myself while smoking my third opium pipe of the day.
Well, I'm addicted to opium and committing crimes, and a gang of outlaws just stopped by the saloon to threaten me, so it's time to buy some guns, right? Luckily a blacksmith has set up shop so I buy three Colt revolvers, keeping one for myself and distributing the other two to my bouncers. A bakery also opens, letting me buy grain and start researching new recipes to serve in the saloon like biscuits, pies, and cakes, allowing me the brief opportunity to do some actual saloon business. But my stress level keeps climbing and I keep smoking opium to lower it. I also keep failing random events: trying to make a cranky customer laugh, trying to win someone over with a great meal, flirting with a woman from town, even simply nodding hello to an acquaintance.
Nodding! I failed a nodding roll and my nod was so bad the person laughed and lowered their opinion of me. I'm going to be replaying that embarrassing moment in my head all night as I plunge into yet another opium haze.
(Image credit: Creative Storm Entertainment)Turns out I'm good at something, though. An event pops up as a customer suddenly draws a gun and attempts to rob me. My savoir faire only gives me a 10% chance of talking my way out of it, and my seduction skill only shows a 7% chance of convincing him to 'frell' me right there on the floor of the saloon. I do, however, have a gun and two armed bouncers. I go for the violent option and shoot the robber in the face. Problem solved.
My stress level hits the ceiling again a few days later and Toast Parker starts thinking about killing himself. Don't worry, I handle it—I do four straight hits of opium—before a prompt tells me I have a nemesis in town and that person is, and I quote, "'frack'-talking" me. Well, the person in town who hates me the most is the opium dealer because I robbed him, though you'd think some of that anger would have dissipated because I'm obviously his best customer and salesman. Anyway, since he's being a dick, and since it's only a matter of time before a Sheriff appears in town, and since the only thing I've done properly in the past week was blow a man's brains out, I decide to go ahead and murder the opium kingpin. Maybe it'll make me feel better.
(Image credit: Creative Storm Entertainment)I forgot to factor in that I'm so incompetent I can't even pull off a friendly nod, so naturally I fail my murder roll, despite a 41% change of a successful garotting. (Why didn't you use your gun, Toast? It's literally the only thing you've got going for you.) The opium dealer's opinion of me drops to -100, and only because it's impossible to be any lower. On the plus side, I do successfully die by my own hand the following day. Stress, again. Toast just couldn't take it anymore. Sometimes, there isn't enough opium to make everything better.
Well. That was something! I'm not sure how I so quickly went from a cowardly yet enterprising bartender to a drug addict and attempted murderer. I guess that's just the Old West for you. If you'd like to try your hand at being a saloon manager or dope fiend, you'll find Deadwater Saloon here on Steam.
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The funny thing about creating a "living, breathing" videogame world is just how easily it comes unraveled. You spend five years and $300 million trying to make an utterly convincing, absorbing city, and then someone comes along and notices that every NPC crashes into the same street corner, or that children are just weirdly shrunken adults, or that the police just magically appear when you do crimes. It's easy for the illusion to be broken—especially in a game that overpromises, is impossibly ambitious, and gets shoved out the door two years before it's ready. That's Cyberpunk 2077.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Netflix's new anime spin-off based on the show, doesn't have to deal with any of those problems. With no concerns for immersion or reactivity, it fast forwards through the ultraviolent life of a rando choom, and in the process makes Night City exciting and alive again.
Edgerunners keeps its cast tight: it spends most of its time on young street kid David Martinez and the crew he ends up rolling with, including elite hacker Lucy, and Maine, the Hulk-sized mercenary leader who takes him under his wing. It's your classic dystopian tragedy: angry, desperate for money and purpose in life, innocent David decides to turn to a life of crime—he just happens to do it with a military-grade cybernetic spinal implant that makes him faster than a bullet.
The animators at Studio Trigger, famous for shows like Kill La Kill, are gleefully unsubtle. Edgerunners is full of heads exploding into chunky shards of bone and brain and floppy flaps of skin. The two women with the most screen time, both hackers, conveniently get naked every time they do a hack, and then a few more times for good measure. The animation has a clean-edged modern slickness to it, but its approach to violence and sex are just as trapped in the '80s as Cyberpunk itself.
The ultraviolence is mostly fun, though, and sometimes bleak and off-putting exactly when it should be—there wasn't much chance this spin-off series was going to tackle big questions about the cyberpunk genre. But I was surprised by how much its little snapshots of life in Night City pulled me in. Early on David saunters through his block on the way to school with the precision of someone who's stepped over the same drunk, dodged the same pile of puke, and taken the same shortcut a thousand times; it immediately reminded me of leaving V's apartment in Cyberpunk 2077, but it's so much more effective to watch than to play.
In the show, a few seconds of David walking the same route shows his swagger despite the squalor he lives in and packs in moments of background comedy, like random dudes in VR headsets going to town on cyber fleshlights. When he hits rock bottom, walking that familiar route is an inflection point: the moment he decides something's gotta change. In the game, leaving your apartment and seeing the same NPCs, the same bits of dialogue, just reinforce the artificiality of the world—eventually they're just background noise to sprint past on your way to the next mission.
Heist scenes set on Night City's monorail made me want to boot up the game, jump on a train and watch the city go by through the window (I'm still bitter 2077 doesn't have a working metro system, though modders have done their best to add one). Even the slang I rolled my eyes at in Cyberpunk 2077—every bit of dialogue with choom or gonk or shorthand like corpo or preem—surprisingly didn't bother me in Edgerunners, maybe because I was watching it in Japanese with English subtitles instead of hearing those words spoken out loud. I was absorbed in the world in a way I couldn't be in 2077 when I just wanted to fast forward through dialogue to get back to playing.
Even the sudden, unexpected deaths on the show hit different. They drive home how 'frell'ed up Night City is in a way that Cyberpunk 2077 can't, when you're the one instigating them. Even knowing that, watching these characters get snuffed out made me want to seek out vignettes around the city I never found in my aborted couple hours with the game back in 2020.
The smartest thing Cyberpunk: Edgerunners does is build its story around the threat of cyberpsychosis, a psychological condition mentioned in the game but never really focused on. Cyberpunk RPG lore says cyberpsychosis is the violent madness that results from too many augmentations, the brain losing itself to body trauma and turning poor chromed-up chooms into deranged killers.
It's the perfect kick-them-while-they're-down twist for a dystopia: the only way for David to crawl his way out of the gutter is to augment more and more of his body, but too much will make him lose his mind.
(Image credit: Netflix)The characters end up injecting immunosuppressants to stay sane, upping their dosage the more body parts they replace. Edgerunners makes it clear that for characters like David and Maine, it's not the drugs that are addicting: it's the augmentation and the thirst for the power it brings. This is not a particularly deep revelation (if you want a cyberpunk anime that truly has things to say about the blurring lines between humans and AI, watch Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex). But it's still better than I expected from a show that begins with a cyborg dude emulsifying 15 cops just to set the tone.
With the news that CD Projekt Red plans to overhaul its magically responsive police and has an expansion out next year, I don't think it's the right time for me to play Cyberpunk 2077 just yet. I'm hoping a few more patches will help Night City maintain its illusion of being a real place, and that the expansion's stories will be able to shine without a cloud of launch day bugs getting in the way.
Edgerunners doesn't exactly have a happy ending, but it did make me optimistic, for the first time, that Cyberpunk still has a city still worth exploring.
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The original Overwatch is coming to an end, and loot boxes are the first thing to go.
Starting today, all leftover loot boxes will be automatically opened in preparation for Overwatch 2 next month, but some Overwatch players wanted to do it themselves before Blizzard takes control. It was the last time you'd ever be able to see the box jiggle like a Poké Ball and spew an assortment of skins and other cosmetic items into the air.
Overwatch players held last-minute unboxing sessions like it was 2016 again—a more innocent time, when loot boxes weren't close to being banned in several countries, and when it was still exciting to see all the creative little doodads you could show off in your matches.
Outside of purchasing bundles of loot boxes for real money (which is no longer possible), you can gain loot boxes a number of ways in Overwatch. Every time you gain enough XP to level up your account, you gain a loot box. If you queue as an underplayed role—which is often tank—you gain a loot box. And if you maintain a high endorsement level from other players voting on your attitude in a match, you'll randomly gain a few as a reward.
Most people open them immediately (their contents are decided the moment you earn them), but some people, like me, find it fun to hold onto them and watch the number on the main menu go up.
Twitch streamer Pixipui spent almost five hours unboxing 1,228 loot boxes on Tuesday. "Get your blankets people, because this is going to be long," she said at the start of it. The rest of the stream was basically a Just Chatting stream, mixed with the strangely popular gacha pull videos you see every time a new Genshin Impact banner drops.
"Oh I'm not playing for a while," Flats, a popular Overwatch tank streamer, said to his chat as he prepared to open all of his loot boxes earlier this week. Like Pixipui, Flats turned the stream into a Q&A with his fans as he clicked through over 200 boxes filled with duplicate items—as expected for a long-time Overwatch player who has most of the cosmetics already. "I don't have too many, because I used to open mine all the time. Then I just stopped opening them and got kinda lazy," he said.
Bro You Wack, another Overwatch content creator, opened his last 100 boxes in a YouTube video. "I've been opening loot boxes ever since 2016, where my first video was a loot box opening video," he said, cycling through the various types of loot boxes that reward cosmetics themed around different in-game events like Winter Wonderland, Halloween Terror, and Summer Games.
If you log into Overwatch today, Blizzard will do the job for you. I am a loot box hoarder and when I logged in, all 300 of my boxes were drained from my inventory. No fanfare or anything; just gone into the ether. At the end, a graphic pops up that informs you that they have been opened and that all of your credits will carry over to Overwatch 2 where they can only be used for items in the Hero Gallery—separate from the sequel's new in-game shop.
As frustrating as Overwatch's loot boxes were—and dangerous for gambling addicts—it's still a little sad to see them go away, if only as a sign that the original game will soon be gone altogether and consumed by the sequel on October 4. Overwatch 2 will introduce a battle pass in their place which will at least be less manipulative, but the recent confirmation that they'll include new heroes has set hundreds of fans off.
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The best PC joystick is the key to make piloting a Tie-Fighter in Star Wars: Squadrons or a plane across the globe in Microsoft Flight Simulator the ultimate gaming experience. A great joystick pulls you into the experience and gives you a level of finite control that a gamepad or a keyboard and mouse can't do. These joysticks help make the experience of flight or other highly-mechanical experiences so much better.
If you think of yourself as a budding virtual pilot, you need to step up your home cockpit game. The most important piece of hardware, more important than any chair, fancy screen, or aviator glasses, is the joystick. For most people tinkering around in a flight sim, any of the joysticks below will make for a good choice because they are easy to set up and use. Consider it the building block for your full cockpit experience. Companies like VKB and Virpil have everything you need for a wildly more advanced cockpit environment if you want something closer to the real deal and have the money to spend.
Even if you decide to set up an entire HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle and Stick) with foot pedals and a special captain's chair in your study, we still recommend getting an excellent wireless gaming keyboard and gaming mouse for navigating menus and such.
Below are the best PC joysticks that we've personally tested. These joysticks can make all the difference in the world in providing the best and most authentic flying experience for PC gamers,Best PC joysticks
Image 1 of 4Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog Throttle and Stick (Image credit: Thrustmaster)Image 2 of 4Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog Stick (Image credit: Thrustmaster)Image 3 of 4Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog Stick (Image credit: Thrustmaster)Image 4 of 4Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog Throttle (Image credit: Thrustmaster)1. Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog
Simply the best joystick for PC gamers
Type: Throttle and stick | Buttons: 36 action buttons | Hats: 7 | Weight: 14lbs
Heavy, durable, and sturdyImpeccable actionThe best money can buyNo Z-rotation on the stickAccompanying software isn't greatThe Thrustmaster Warthog is hands-down the best PC joystick you can buy. It's beautifully made, looks like it was ripped straight out of an A-10, and comes with an industrial strength that means the only thing left in our post-apocalyptic future will be a bunch of cockroaches trying to figure out how to use these sticks.
Sure, it's an expensive unit, but you will know your money's been well spent as soon as you lift the lid on the packaging and pull the setup out. The stick alone weighs a kilo even before it's been screwed down onto the solid, wide metal base. That's something to behold, but the throttle is something else.
It feels great to use in-game, too.
It is one of the finest pieces of PC peripheral engineering I've ever experienced. Its casing is entirely made of metal and festooned with buttons. And not just buttons either; extra hat switches adorn the throttle itself, one that can be split in two should you need discrete control, and there are a host of toggles and metal flick switches too. I will honestly just sit there idly flipping switches even when the thing's unplugged, so satisfying is the action.
All that weight means it practically sticks to your desk as you fling your Cobra MkIII around in Elite: Dangerous like a BSG Viper, and if you're so inclined, the drill holes are there if you want to make it a permanent addition too. It feels great to use in-game, too, providing you with all the possible control permutations you could need without ever having to go near your keyboard again.
The only slight miss, and one that owes to its A-10C Warthog replica status, is the lack of Z-rotation on the stick to offer rudder control. However, that's easily mapped onto any number of extra hat switches or even extra analog joysticks.
The Warthog was originally released over ten years ago now and yet is still the best you can buy. This explains why the price has steadily crept up since then too. But trust me, if you're serious about the best PC joystick, this is it, and once you pick it up, you'll never think about its price again.
Image 1 of 2Logitech G X56 HOTAS RGB Throttle and Stick (Image credit: Logitech)Image 2 of 2Logitech G X56 HOTAS RGB Throttle and Stick (Image credit: Logitech)2. Logitech G X56 HOTAS RGB
The next best joystick
Type: Throttle and stick | Buttons: 31 action buttons | Hats: 5 | Weight: 5lbs
Clean designDurable hardwareSwitches and Knobs!More plastic than you'd thinkSurprisingly lightAn update to the aging X55, the Logitech X56 HOTAS improves nearly every aspect of the older Saitek design, but it still has many of the same features that made its predecessor great. The throttle can be unlocked to provide inputs for left and right engines individually. The throttle panel also hosts an entire series of metal switches and knobs that look and feel absolutely awesome.
I was a bit disappointed to find out that the metal top plate on both the flight stick and throttle doesn't extend to the base and that both the stick and throttle are composed mostly of plastic. The hardware still feels sturdy, but the seam running along the joystick handle is a bit jarring given the quality present on the rest of the build.
The entire setup for the X56 is deceptively light. While it does come with suction cups that can be attached to the base for increased stability, without them, I found the stick and throttle far too eager to slip around on my desk. However, for those inclined to make this indulgence a more permanent part of their setup, the X56 has holes present in its bases to allow you to affix it to nearly any surface with the appropriate hardware.
Featuring adjustable stick tension and over 180 programmable controls, this throttle and joystick combo is a quality setup. It's not quite in the same league as the Warthog, but it is a little cheaper. If you're ready to kick tires and light fires, the X56 is a good way to go.
Best controller for PC gaming | Best gaming monitor | Best mechanical keyboard | Best gaming routers | Best graphics cards | Best gaming mouse
Image 1 of 3Thrustmaster TCA Sidestick Airbus edition joystick (Image credit: Thrustmaster)Image 2 of 3Thrustmaster TCA Sidestick Airbus edition throttle (Image credit: Thrustmaster)Image 3 of 3Thrustmaster TCA Sidestick Airbus Edition and throttle accessory (Image credit: Thrustmaster)3. Thrustmaster TCA Sidestick Airbus edition
Level up your Flight Simulator setup
Type: Throttle and stick sold separately | Buttons: 33 action buttons (17 on joystick, 16 on throttle) | Hats: 1 | Weight: 1.8kg (3.97lbs)
All you need for a solid flight sim experienceAdditional throttle accessoryNod to real-world Airbus designAmbidextrousFeels a little cheapNo button labelsThrustmaster TCA Officer Pack | Throttle and Stick bundle
Thrustmaster has bundled both the throttle and main flight stick together in the Office Pack, so you don't have to go searching for the two separately.View DealWith the arrival of Microsoft Flight Simulator and Star Wars: Squadrons, we saw a sonic boom in interest for compatible flight sticks. The Thrustmaster TCA Sidestick Airbus edition arrived just in time... and swiftly sold out. But it's back now and a solid upgrade for any wannabe long-haul pilot looking to ditch the controller for Microsoft Flight Simulator.
It's good for other games, of course, but as a piece of officially licensed Airbus kit, it feels best suited to the flight sim of the moment. With that in mind, it features a fluid and responsive control with a comfortable stick bolted on for long-haul flights. The joystick can also be reconfigured to your liking with a modular design, making this stick particularly friendly to lefties. There are a heap of buttons within reach to keep shortcuts accessible at an instant, too; though we wish there were some clear indication which button was which. It can be tough to track down 'button 14' in a bind, especially if you have flying skills are a little rusty.
But kick in for the full kit, and you can divvy up even more shortcuts to the throttle quadrant module ripped right out of an A320—they got the color spot on, anyways. Baby blue isn't my first choice for gaming PC accessories, but I suppose it's a change from the standard black garb.
The Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X below is a more affordable alternative, but if you can splash out on this more airworthy kit, then the Thrustmaster TCA Sidestick Airbus edition won't let you down.
Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 3(Image credit: FR-Tec)4. FR-Tec Raptor Mach 1 HOTAS combo
All the buttons, such ergonomics
Type: Throttle and stick | Buttons: 32 action buttons | Hats: 2 | Weight: 2.3kg (5lbs)
Durable and sturdy for no mountingSafety lock features are helpfulLots of thumb accessible hats, triggers and buttonsSmooth Z- and Y-axis actionAction on the X axis is a little jankyCan't buy separately from the throttleComing in as a smart combo buy, the Raptor Mach 1 HOTAS is a sturdy, no-mounting-necessary setup for getting stuck straight into your flight sim of choice. While Microsoft Flight Simulator didn't suggest any preset button layouts for it, I see this as a plus as it means you can assign buttons that make sense to you as you go through the training process, no need for the arduous process of cleaning up pre-assigned buttons.
The Raptor Mach 1 stick has just enough buttons and hats accessible to the fingers and thumb, two of the triggers even have a safety lock feature so you don't end up kicked off the squad for accidental friendly fire.
The throttle is ergonomic, smooth, and has an easy tension resistance adjustment dial on the side.
It comes with the much-appreciated feature of Z-rotation, and the electromagnetic sensor tech also means you get accurate and durable movement from the stick, and action that feels great in hand, although the X action (that's your roll) isn't as smooth as the others.
The Mach 1's base is heavy and features non-slip pads which mean it doesn't feel necessary to screw it down, though you can go all DIY and mount it if you want with the handy, built-in-but-unobtrusive brackets. The fact it comes with the throttle means you can use the passthrough, meaning fewer USBs connected directly to your PC, though it would be nice to have the option to buy them separately.
There is the added bonus that they work independently of one another and also don't come stuck together which can be a pain; if you're left-handed for example and want to switch them around, or broader and need them further apart
The throttle is ergonomic, smooth, and has an easy tension resistance adjustment dial on the side. It has a couple of thumb-accessible dials and plenty of buttons, bringing the total combined action buttons for the HOTAS up to 32, and making it very versatile indeed. The throttle feels notably less premium built than the stick, but that doesn't detract from its accuracy and smooth action.
Image 1 of 4(Image credit: Thrustmaster)Image 2 of 4(Image credit: Thrustmaster)Image 3 of 4(Image credit: Thrustmaster)Image 4 of 4(Image credit: Thrustmaster)5. Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS X
The best budget joystick
Type: Throttle and stick | Buttons: 12 action buttons | Hats: 1 | Weight: 2kg (4.5lbs)
Thrust can detach from the joystickGreat value for moneyLimited buttons and hatsCan be noisy when pushedThe Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS X is a testament that you don't have to spend a fortune to get a good stick. It's a much cheaper build and design than the Warthog, but for a tenth of the ticket price, you can forgive the use of plastic and lack of buttons and hats.
The key elements are there. The detachable throttle is probably the neatest feature: given that you're going to need easy access to your keyboard for its extra buttons, being able to split these components around it is a definite advantage.
It's also got the much-needed Z-axis rotation for rudder control, although the press of a switch will enable you to operate the rudder via a rocker on the front of the throttle grip. You get plenty of programmable buttons too, but they feel very much the sort you'd expect to find on a budget controller.
The action on the stick and throttle aren't great either, and you'll likely notice some graunching plastic noises as you push and pull the controller around. But it's still robust and feels solid on the desk. This is an excellent value pick if you can't convince yourself that an X56 or Warthog is a sensible purchase.
Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 3(Image credit: FR-Tec)6. FR-Tec Raptor Mach 2 Joystick
Superbly smooth and professional looking
Type: Throttle and stick sold seperately | Buttons: 29 action buttons | Hats: 1 | Weight: 1.1kg (2.4lbs)
Safety lock feature prevents accidental firingMode switching with two levelsLooks like it belongs in a helicopterSmooth action and Z rotationCan't use throttle passthroughDifficult to find in the USStick alone costs as much as the Mach 1 HOTASThe Raptor Mach 2 is a little harder to get hold of in the US than the UK, but can at least be purchased separately to the throttle for those looking to buy just the stick alone. The issues being, one: you can't use the throttle passthrough for the stick, and two: the stick alone can cost almost as much as the combined Raptor Mach 1 HOTAS.
That being said, this is a joystick with impeccable accuracy and a premium feel. Not only does it look like it was ripped straight out of a chopper, it's comfortable in the hand, and doesn't feel breakable. The least premium thing about it is the flip-up, trigger-cum-safety feature. It's fragile enough to make you think it could break under pressure, and while a safety feature is always a welcome addition to any joystick, it leaves only one hat and pinky button accessible.
So there's not a huge number of handy buttons, but on the base there are not only a great deal to make up for it (including ones dedicated to flaps and throttle), there's also the option to mode switch up to two levels with two functional modes and button shift. This gives the Raptor Mach 2 an edge, despite the buttons being a little awkward to get to if you've got your hands full, achieve 29 programmable actions
There is the potential that all this can get confusing, but once you've got yourself all mapped out and are used to it, the Raptor Mach 2 is a dream. It's a really smooth, sturdy piece of kit despite being not as heavy as it's sister, the Raptor Mach 1.
Plus, there's even a dedicated eject button. I mean, that's the real selling point, right?
Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 3(Image credit: Future)7. Thrustmaster TCA Yoke Pack Boeing Edition
Basically the real deal
Type: Yoke and throttle | Buttons: 35 action buttons | Hats: 2 | Weight: 3.6kg (8lbs) yoke, 0.65kg (1.4lb) throttle
Beautifully smooth actionErgonomic, sturdy and professionalComprehensive but not overcomplicatedSwappable levers make it ambidextrousReverse thrust levers are buttons, not on an axisCosts as much as a go in a real airplaneWhile officially Boeing licensed, the Thrustmaster Boeing Edition Yoke is not an FAA-certified piece of kit. Touting the same tilting, pendular movement you'd expect from a real Boeing aircraft, the yoke swings back and forth intuitively as you pitch up and down. It's a much more pleasant experience to the push-pull motion you'd find on the majority of yokes on the market, even at the higher end. It really makes a difference to the immersion—I can almost feel the g-force as I pull back on the control column.
It moves intuitively as you pitch the plane's nose up or down and is so much nicer than the push-pull motion of many yokes on the market. When you're flinging the yoke around feeling like a pro, the yoke stays rigidly in place with the built-in mount, which sits sunken between your legs where it should, and doesn't knock the throttle even when mounted directly beside it.
Mounting the yoke itself is as simple as slipping it over the edge of your desk and doing it up, no drilling necessary, and the throttle quadrant doesn't even require mounting at all if you don't feel like it, though the process is also pretty straightforward. Not only are there detailed instructions on how to set the whole thing up—with control mapping charts and diagrams—there's even a little instruction leaflet for adjusting the yoke tension with an included spring. That part does require a little faffing, but isn't too scary.
This makes for a more ambidextrous setup, too.
The obvious drawback to choosing a yoke like this is the lack of z-rotation you'd get with many of the best joysticks around, but this is easily circumvented with the use of the trigger buttons. That does mean you can't map your guns to the triggers, but the TCA yoke is designed more for long-haul flights, as opposed to games involving intense dogfight action. I would have liked to have seen some pressure sensitivity on the triggers, too, especially at this price.
Still, there are more than enough buttons, hats, and a trigger for each hand, yet the design somehow doesn't feel overly complicated. One of the hats available to the right thumb is actually an analog stick, which gives you more freedom for whatever you feel like mapping it to. On the front of the yoke, at the bottom, there are also two more axes for extra mapping flexibility. There are even detailed instructions on how to adjust the tension with a mounted spring.
It's pretty awkward to map the non-axial reverse thrust levers on the throttle arms, particularly when tested in Microsoft Flight Simulator, as it picks up the input as a button and doesn't let you verify until they're unpressed. Not as useful as I first anticipated, but all the throttle arms are interchangeable and even come with extra tops specifically stating 'flaps' or 'speed brake.' Oh, and this makes for a more ambidextrous setup, too.
There's even space on the front for a chart or checklist, though what looks to be a clamp on the front of the yoke is actually fixed in place—Blu tack it is then.
It's great to see cross-compatibility with the Xbox Series X/S, although the Xbox branding does pull away from the authentic look a little. It's an easy thing to overlook, but it would be better if it was optional to have your switches marked X, Y, A, and B.
None of that takes away from the professional, satisfying feel of the whole setup. Sure, there are some oddities with the reverse thrust levers being not the most intuitive, but otherwise, there's hardly a thing about this yoke that feels out of place. Most actual pilots I've spotted reviewing this yoke are really impressed with how accurate the design is compared to the real deal.
Sure it's not as highly modular as some, but this is a really professional-feeling yoke. For half a grand, this is a super-premium price, but there's hardly a thing about this yoke that feels out of place. It's honestly no wonder Boeing wanted their name on it.
Read our full Thrustmaster TCA Yoke Pack Boeing Edition review.
The best joystick FAQ
Aren't there any cheap joysticks?
You can spend the sort of money generally reserved for a new graphics card on a decent stick. But it can be possible to get an experience that's very close but for a fraction of the price. However, it can be tricky at times.
Prices of joysticks increased dramatically at the end of 2020, which meant even the cheaper end of the market got pricey as stock disappeared. The market has pretty much returned to normal in 2022, however, so have another look around if you've been previously frustrated.
Do I need a separate throttle control?
For serious simulation, you're going to need some level of throttle control. This is the biggest thing that separates the joypad from a flight stick setup, and the granularity of speed it delivers when dogfighting can mean the difference between virtual life and virtual death. So that's number one: make sure your stick comes with a decent throttle.
But that doesn't mean you need a separate one, no. However, the best and most respected flight controllers have entirely separate control for the throttle, with extra toggle switches and LEDs. Others, such as the AV8R, have the throttle control built onto the base of the stick itself. So long as there's a decent amount of travel in the throttle, you'll have a good level of control in-game.
How many buttons do I need?
Some of the controllers in this test have gone overboard on that front. But sims do demand many different controls, and having them all directly to hand can be beneficial. Just don't forget that your trusty keyboard can make up for any buttons lacking on your controller. You will need at least four buttons arrayed around the stick itself and, ideally, a hat switch on the top of it.
What should I watch out for a space flightstick?
Maybe it's time we spoke about the Z-axis. Traditional joysticks have pitch and roll control—forward, back, left, and right—but some are configured for 3D movement. That means as well as controlling the X and Y axis; you can also twist the stick clockwise or anti-clockwise to control the Z-axis. Generally, this is used to control yaw and replicate the rudder controls of an aircraft.
In space, that three-dimensional control can be vital for accuracy, especially when you're zeroing in behind an escaping Sidewinder in an Elite dogfight. It is sorely missed on a stick with other controls that can mimic the rudder but on budget sticks that allow no such added control.
What does HOTAS stand for?
This exciting acronym stands for the rather mundane-sounding 'Hands-On Throttle And Stick' and denotes a dual controller where one hand rests permanently on the throttle and the other remains on the stick.
What is a Hat Switch on a joystick?
A hat switch is a multi-directional button akin to the d-pad on a controller. However, on a flight stick, the d-pad has a hat on top, which the thumb can easily push to activate the switches. They come in 4-way or 8-way flavors.
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The best gaming mouse pad is more essential than you'd think. Without a smooth surface to glide your mouse on, your precision in some games might wobble. A good mouse pad isn't as key as the best gaming mouse, keyboard, and headset, but it's worth considering if you're equipped with everything else. A good mouse pad makes gaming easier and it makes your setup look great too.
Some of today's mouse pads offer more features than just a foam-bottomed area for your mouse. Some are covered in RGB lighting, while others provide Qi wireless charging that'll power your phone or wireless mouse for complete cable-free gaming.
Anyway, most of these require some form of proprietary compatibilities, such as Logitech's Powerplay system, so be sure to check whether your mouse and mouse mat will work together before you go jumping in, hand first. The list below ranges from simple and functional, all the way up to completely bonkers mousepads for gaming, and we've tested all of them extensively (played games a lot) to ensure they're up to the best standard.
Best mouse pad for gaming
(Image credit: Razer)1. Razer Strider
The best mouse pad for gaming
Surface Type: Soft | Surface material: Cloth | Dimensions: 940 x 410mm (XXL) 450 x 400mm (L)
HugeSticks to your deskGreat gliding surfaceIt's a black rectangleCoarse materialThe Razer Strider claims to be something of a hybrid; the flex and soft finish of a fabric mouse pad with the stick-to-itiveness and glide of a more rigid model. I dare say it actually delivers on both counts, too.
A firm fabric lines the top of the Razer Strider's surface, and this is able to deliver a swift and effortless glide with any half-decent gaming mouse. It's not as soft a finish as others on this list, but it's still comfortable to rest your palms on for the better part of a day.
Beneath that lies anti-slip rubber to effectively stick this mouse pad to your desk with zero chance of lateral movement. This extra layer also firms up the entire mouse pad, and to keep it from fraying there's some smart black stitching around the mat's edge. This stitching is really tight to the edge of the mat, so you can actually push your mouse over the edge of the pad without issue.
For a zero fuss and well-made mouse pad, look no further than the Razer Strider.
(Image credit: Corsair)2. Corsair MM300 Extended
A close second.
Surface Type: Soft | Surface Material: Cloth | Dimensions: 930 x 300 x 3mm | Base: Rubber
It's hugeVery smooth tracking surfaceStitched edgesVery large Corsair brandingThe MM300 is Corsair's premium line of cloth mousepads featuring a non-slip rubber base, stitched edges to prevent fraying, and a sturdy thickness of 0.12 inches (3mm). The extended version is the largest available and designed to fit even the biggest gaming keyboards with plenty of room to spare. When combined with a compact, ten-keyless keyboard, the surface area for the mouse feels almost infinite.
Like most cloth mousepads, the MM300 Extended features a smooth, textile-weave design that ensures gliding a mouse across its surface feels like cutting through butter. We found it easy to pinpoint attacks in our FPS testing with a hefty amount of overhead for DPI adjustments, thanks to the massive surface area. Whether you like to move your mouse across the desk or just a couple of inches to make a 180 turn, Corsair's oversized mouse pad has you—and your desk—covered.
(Image credit: Novelkeys)3. Novelkeys Deskpad
The best looking mouse pad
Surface Type: Soft | Surface Material: Cloth | Dimensions: 900 x 400 x 4mm | Base: Rubber
GorgeousOversizedGreat priceLimited availabilityLengthy deliveryNovelkeys is well-known for its custom group buys, covering everything a PC enthusiast could desire from key switches to mousepads. It specializes in colossal desk-sized pads in a range of limited edition styles. You'll want to check out its website every so often to see the latest flavor, as it usually only runs each one for a limited time as a group buys.
The Camping mouse pad featuring a sprawling mountain range is currently gracing Jacob's PC setup and comes with a tiny tent and campfire decal in the bottom left. That exact design is no longer available, but there are always much more accessible for you to pick up throughout the year. Most mousepads come in at an accommodating 900 x 400 x 4mm size with a rubber bottom, cloth top, and outer edge stitching to match.
Just make sure to plan if you're hoping to pick up a Novelkeys design. You will have to wait until the conclusion of the group buy before the production of your chosen mouse pad begins, after which it can be a few more months before you receive it. Due to the nature of a group buy, there can be delays along the way, too. Still, with mouse pads as well-made and gorgeous to look at as these, you can be sure they're worth the wait.
(Image credit: Logitech)4. Logitech G440
The best hard mouse pad
Surface Type: Hard | Surface Material: Plastic | Dimensions: 340 x 280 x 3mm | Base: Rubber
Low friction surfaceSolid rubber baseMinimal brandingIt's a little priceyNothing compares to a solid, hard surface mousepad when it comes to pure speed and low tactile resistance, except maybe Razer's hybrid. PC gamers requiring subtle but rapid mouse movements prefer these slick, low friction surfaces that allow them to glide their mouse with ease. While it does ultimately come down to personal preference, we prefer using hard mousepads while playing RTS and MOBA type games where swift map navigation and tight mobility are crucial.
Unlike their cloth counterparts that all use very similar textiles, hard mousepads are made from a wide variety of components and blends, including aluminum, plastic, and rubber. They vary dramatically in friction, weight, and design, so there is sure to be a hard mouse pad out there that is perfect for you. For us, the simplicity and ultra-smooth surface of the Logitech G440 make it our top choice when considering speed.
At a glance, the surface of the G440 might appear to be completely smooth, but it is a polyethylene surface featuring microtextures that offer the perfect amount of resistance. The mouse pad provides just the right amount of feedback without any excess noise generated from our rapid mouse movements. Logitech seems to have found the perfect middle ground between abrasive and smooth as we were able to seamlessly move and stop our mouse with ease during intense battles.
(Image credit: Corsair)5. Corsair MM800 Polaris RGB
The best RGB mouse pad
Surface Type: Hard | Surface Material: Plastic | Dimensions: 350 x 260 x 5mm | Base: Rubber
15 very bright LEDsUSB passthrough portCable adds to desktop clutterExpensive for a mouse padThis light-up mouse pad's functionality is still going to raise some eyebrows, but Corsair's solution offers a whole lot more than just a flashy light show. It features a high-quality micro-textured finish that allows mice to easily glide across the surface without sacrificing precision during small mouse movements. The MM800 makes no compromises with a surface that rivals our top hard mouse pad's quality, the Logitech G440.
There are two major differences between Corsair's MM800 and competing RGB mousepads. First, the MM800 features a USB pass-through port that can be used to plug in your mouse or a flash drive conveniently. The second difference is that the MM800 uses a whopping 15 LEDs, which we found to be much brighter than Razer's Firefly HyperFlux.
Using Corsair's revamped iCUE software, you can easily create your advanced lighting profiles for the MM800 or choose from a large sample of preset modes. RGB profiles from other Corsair products will automatically spill over to your mouse pad with ease. You can also download user shared profiles from Corsair's website.
(Image credit: Razer)6. Razer Gigantus V2
The best oversized mouse pad.
Surface Type: Soft | Surface Material: Cloth | Dimensions: 940 x 410 x 4mm | Base: Rubber
Absolute unitDesk-sized padVarious designs availableNo side stitchingThe Gigantus V2 offers several different sizes, from 14 inches to a huge 47 inches. It's enough to cover most desk surfaces, which are great for gamers who play with big sweeping gestures. You can even customize your mousepad with the logo from your favorite esports team or competitive shooter.
This soft surface type mouse pad performs pretty well. Though, if you usually use hard surface mats, it may take some getting used to. The lack of any side stitching could affect its durability down the road, but performance-wise, the Gigantus V2 is still an impressive
Another added benefit of Razer's giant mousepad is that the underside can second as a green screen for pets. Weird how Razer doesn't mention that in any of their marketing material.
How we test mouse pads
It's not easy assigning value to a piece of cloth, but someone's got to do it. When we receive a new mouse pad to test, we do what we do best: Play lots and lots of PC games.
Once we've got a feel for how a particular mouse pad feels underhand, we play a couple more games to get a feel for things. After that, if we like how it looks and is built to last rigorous gaming, it gets a thumbs up. If not, it's a thumbs down, and it's tossed on the great mouse pad fire raging since '85.
That being said, it's nearly impossible to mess up a mouse pad, even an old book makes a solid substitute, so there's rarely a bad word to be had or a pad to be ritualistically burnt. Massive price tags and needless functionality will see a few occasionally sent to the naughty corner, however.
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Hackers are launching more sophisticated phishing attacks. This time it's not just posing as your IT guy sending you suspicious links through email. This new scam involves using fake 'sock puppet' email accounts to trick you into thinking you are part of conservation among colleagues.
Researchers at Proofpoint (via Bleeping Computer) call the technique "multi-persona impersonation," or MPI. The technique involves looping the target into a fake email exchange between multiple scammer personas in an attempt to convince them that it's a legitimate conversation. Once trust is gained, sometimes after engaging in "benign conversations with targets for weeks," according to Proofpoint, the hackers deliver a malicious link.
The email exchange will be related to the target's industry or field of research so that being included in the chain won't necessarily seem out of the ordinary.
The group responsible is designated TA453, which Proofpoint believes works for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The group's tactics have evolved over time. Previously, TA453 attackers would pose as individual journalists or researchers covering Middle East policies, targeting "academics, policymakers, diplomats, journalists, and human rights workers" says Proofpoint. They'd try to engage the targets in one-on-one conversations but started using this group email sock puppet strategy earlier this year.
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Steam Deck - The emulation dream machine: Using Valve's handheld hardware as the ultimate emulator.One example shows an email sent to two actual US/Russia relations experts from a "Carrol" and three more personas with email accounts run by the hackers. Others include pitches for research collaboration from the "director of research" of a university. In each case, the sock puppet accounts would reply to each other in an effort to lend the conversation legitimacy.
The initial emails and fake responses usually don't have any links, says Proofpoint. It's generally around the fourth or fifth message where a link gets shared, then a follow-up message asking the target to read the file coming days later.
Sometimes it's a Zoom call link, a password-protected 'research' file, or a straightforward article link. The link is loaded with malware that scrapes your PC for personal information and sends those details back to the attackers.
The tactic capitalizes on the victim's FOMO, as Proofpoint puts it. The researchers point to a study that showed that people tend to "copy the actions of others," according to a description of the "social proof" principle in Psychology Today.
These hackers seem to have a specific group of targets in mind, so unless you're a Middle East or US-Russia policy expert, you're probably in the clear. Be cautious anyway, though: Scammers will use whatever blueprints work, so this one could spread. Another recently spotted new phishing technique uses a fake pop-up window to convincingly simulate a Steam login form.
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The best gaming TV doesn't stray far from the best gaming monitors. Right now, TVs can compete, and it's a great excuse to put your games on the big screen. If you have a console and want to see those games at a high refresh rate and without lag, a gaming TV will deliver.
Even with largest PC monitor on your desk, you may not get the level of immersion a a good gaming TV can deliver, simply for a lack of size. And since the best gaming TVs actually rival gaming monitors in fidelity and response times now, it's a much more valid option. No more making do with laggy gameplay at anything over 50-inches.
In buying a TV, it's easier to bag fancier technologies like OLED panels too, since these haven't extensively graced our desktops yet. Choosing a fancy OLED panel for desktop means either bagging a high-end gaming laptop, or a gaming monitor that's entirely reasonably priced. But if you have the space, why not consider dropping one of the best gaming TVs onto your desk.
Since the Nvidia RTX 3080 and AMD RX 6800 XT arrived, and later followed up by the extremely high-end RTX 3090 Ti and RX 6950 XT, 4K gaming isn't so far fetched as it once was. You can now nail over 120fps at 4K, and with the upcoming GPUs from AMD and Nvidia looking all the more capable, too. The best TVs for gaming also support HDMI 2.1, so you can actually hit silky smooth frame rates at that super high resolution. Particularly useful if you want your next-gen consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X to run at those speeds.
Best gaming TVs
(Image credit: LG)1. LG OLED48CX
The best TV for gaming
Screen size: 48-inch | Resolution: 3840 x 2160 | Panel technology: OLED | Smart TV: LG webOS | Dimensions: 42.2 x 25.6 x 9.9 inches | Weight: 42lbs
Unrivalled black levelsOffers uncompressed 4K@120HzDesk-friendly form factorRisk of screen burn-inNo full-range color gamut at 4K yetThe first OLED TV under 50-inches was always going to be a watershed moment for PC gaming. Sure, strapping a 65-inch monster to the wall so you can game on your couch is appealing, but this is the first OLED TV to actually retail in a 48-inch form factor you could realistically use on your desk.
When you consider Nvidia has been trying to pimp its Big Format Gaming Displays, which measure up to 65-inches and balloon far beyond the $1,499/£1,499 price tag for this, the OLED48CX no longer looks like such a colossal (or wallet-ruining) prospect.
It's going to have to be a pretty big desk, and sturdy too, but you'd be surprised just how rapidly you will adjust to having such screen real estate in front of you. And given that actual OLED monitors are still rare as pigeon teeth right now, this is arguably your best bet for PC gaming on an OLED panel.
OLEDs are far more reflective than either your average IPS monitor or LCD TV, though, so if you're looking to place it in a well-lit room, make sure you can block light with curtains or blinds, otherwise OLED as a display format may not be for you.
Though it is a TV, it's certainly not devoid of PC sensibilities.
And though it is a TV, it's certainly not devoid of PC sensibilities. LG has now added AMD FreeSync Premium support to the existing Nvidia G-Sync compatibility the company added to last year's models.
LG has doubled the refresh rate at 4K resolutions compared to previous models, too. While last year’s Series 9 line-up could ‘only’ support 4K at 60Hz at launch (although firmware patches have increased this to 120Hz), the CX is capable of displaying pictures at 4K at 120Hz right out of the box. To get the most out of the OLED48CX, there’s no denying you need a monstrous PC.
Screen uniformity is also far better than your average TV; a factor that should be of huge importance to gamers. Pan the camera across a clear blue sky in an open world like GTA 5 on a LCD TV or traditional PC monitor, and you’re likely to see uneven vertical streaks/screen artefacts, known as “Dirty Screen Effect”. OLED doesn’t suffer from this issue, leading to images that look far more uniform when moving against an in-game sky or playing a constantly up-and-down game of FIFA 20.
In terms of picture quality, no other technology can match the contrast and black levels of the self-emissive pixels in an OLED screen. There are some minor issues when it comes to desktop resizing, however. The LG OLED48CX tends to have trouble with Windows, where even at 3,840 x 2,160 resolution, the edges of the screen are very slightly cut off. LG's Screen Shift technology is the culprit, but that helps prevent burn in. To fix this, you can either set a custom resolution of 3,802 x 2,136 to squeeze in every onscreen pixel, or you can turn off Screen Shift in the TV's Picture Settings menu.
Still, with the LG OLED48CX's 120 Hz refresh rate and superior HDR chops, this is almost the perfect PC gaming screen, and certainly the best gaming TV.
Read our full LG OLED48CX - 48-inch 4K TV review.
(Image credit: LG)2. LG OLED65E9PUA
The best big-screen 4K gaming TV you can buy
Screen size: 65-inch | Resolution: 3840 x 2160 | Panel technology: OLED | Smart TV: LG webOS | Dimensions: 35.5 x 57 x 8.7 inches | Weight: 75lbs
Incredible black levelsPin-sharp, ultra-thin panelComes with G-syncRisk of screen burn-inNot as bright as someWith each year, LG’s OLED panels get stronger and stronger for gaming and a better contender for the best gaming TV title. The E9 is 2019’s model, and it packs in many of the same features from the previous year’s E8 (our favorite gaming TV for so long), albeit with some key changes. You will want to look around for the more recent model now, however, as it shouldn't cost a whole lot more for newer tech.
The panel is still among the thinnest of all 4K TVs, and it brings unrivaled black levels thanks to the OLED tech, allowing individual LEDs to be completely switched on and off. That’s how you get such deep blacks and the clarity and sharpness of image with them. It makes the E9 panels perfect for darker games like Metro: Exodus and Resident Evil 2: Remake.
The even better news is that G-sync is enabled on all E9-series TVs when you have Game Mode active, so you no longer have to suffer through skipped frames and torn pictures when playing at higher frame rates. Unless you're gaming on an AMD card... LG has recently stated it has no plans to support FreeSync on 2019 OLED screens at all.
The Dolby Vision here is superb.
Away from frame-syncing, HDR isn’t toned down in LG’s Game Mode either, so you still get that vibrancy while benefiting from a better response and refresh rates. Unfortunately, you can still only play 4K at 60Hz on the E9-series (as it was with the E8), but the response rate has been boosted over the previous year, and now sits at a handsome 6ms for 1440p and 13ms for 4K.
The LG E9 is also capable of Dolby Atmos 4.2 sound, which is perfect for 4K movies if you run them through PC, and while its HDR brightness isn’t quite on a par with the QLED panels from Samsung (which favor color vibrancy over deep blacks), the Dolby Vision here is superb.
As with most OLED panels, the thinness of the screen means the sound output itself is never going to be as rich as a separate speaker system (speaker size is sacrificed for aesthetics), but the E9 still manages surprisingly good audio that surpasses the E8. We’d recommend a premium gaming headset to really set the experience off, or a top-class audio system, but it’s by no means a deal-breaker.
Samsung Q9FN 55" (Image credit: Samsung)3. Samsung Q9F
Best gaming TV with superb 4K and HDR
Screen size: 65-inch | Resolution: 3840 x 2160 | Panel technology: QLED | Smart TV: Samsung QSmart | Dimensions: 48.5 x 30.7 x 9.8 inches | Weight: 44.1lbs
The best TV picture availableHas HDR 2000Freesync compatible, and has a great Game ModeRelatively narrow viewing anglesDesign isn't for everyoneWhile OLED is best for the inkiest of blacks, Samsung's QLED tech leads the way when it comes to vibrant colors and vivid contrasts.
While it has now been replaced as the flagship model by the Q90R, it remains a showstopping panel. What's more, you can now pick it up for half the price, making this elite TV actually affordable, and it has almost all the features present in the newer (vastly more expensive) Q90R.
The headline feature is its HDR 2000 tech, which is the most vivid HDR of any commercially available TV. It's all very well boasting about it, but in testing we compared it to others and you can actually see a significant boost in vibrancy over plenty of other TV sets, with a noticeably broader range of colors.
4K content looks stunning, but the TV also does a fantastic job of upscaling regular HD pictures, and even SD content, making them more colorful and with smoother motion and edges. It's a fantastic all-rounder, thanks to a direct full-array LED picture display, and the anti-reflection screen is the icing on the cake.
Considering it's impressive HDR performance, and supreme colour handling, this one's certainly a firm alternative to the LG OLED65E9PUA, or LG OLED48CX,.
(Image credit: HISENSE)4. Hisense 55H8G
Best budget 4K gaming TV
Screen size: 55-inch | Resolution: 3840x2160 | Panel technology: ULED | Smart TV: Android TV | Dimensions: 48.3 x 9.5 x 30.7 inches | Weight: 33.1lbs
Good color and contrast240Hz is very speedyHDR10Remote needs workAndroid TV can run slowPrice is often a huge factor in deciding on a gaming TV, and no less for us when deciding on the best gaming TV. For PC gamers on a budget, trying to find a TV that can do 4K and HDR can be a bit of a daunting task. The good news is Hisense has been making decent budget 4K TVs for a while at under $1,000.
We found the Hisense 55H8G to provide excellent color handling, great contrast and deep blacks. And considering it can handle 4K at 60Hz (240Hz at lower resolutions), and supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision HDR right out of the box, it's well worth a look. Particularly since this TV retails for less than $500 nowadays, which is a great price.
For gaming the Hisense 55H8G's Black Frame Insertion feature helps reduce motion blur, and its game mode offers an incredibly low input lag. And while it doesn't support any variable refresh rate technology, it's still worth checking out as a cheap gaming alternative.
If 55 inches is still too small for your tastes, Hisense also makes a 75-inch version of the H8G Smart TV in all of its Quantum Dot glory.
(Image credit: SONY)5. Sony A8H OLED
Best mid-range 4K TV for gaming
Screen size: 55-inch | Resolution: 3840x2160 | Panel technology: OLED | Smart TV: Android TV | Dimensions: 48.3 x 28.9 x 12.8 inches | Weight: 53.3lbs
Excellent Black levelNice wide viewing angles120Hz refreshRisk of screen burn-inLacks VRR and HDR10+ supportThe Sony A8H is a solid OLED TV that's best known for its stellar picture quality. The first thing we noticed testing this TV is how excruciatingly thin is it, which makes it perfect for wall mounting.
Not only will it go happily on the wall, this 4K OLED TV has a decent color range compared to others in its class, great gray uniformity, and rich, deep black levels. There is a risk of burn in as an OLED, but its still worth a look if you're biggest concern is picture quality.
It's lack of VRR and HDR10+ can be quite disappointing for gamers, and the response times are a little lacking for extreme competitive gaming, but the wide viewing angles can almost guarantee that anywhere on your couch is the best seat in the house to enjoy that 55 inches of delicious content.
Best gaming PC | Best gaming chairs | Best graphics cards
Best gaming headsets | Best G-sync monitors6. TCL 55R617 Roku TV
The best budget 4K TV you can buy
Screen size: 55-inch | Resolution: 3840x2160 | Panel technology: LED | Smart TV: Roku TV | Dimensions: 48.5 x 30.9 x 10.7 inches | Weight: 38.2 lbs
Great price, and often reducedGood picture qualitySurprisingly solid response ratePatchy color reproductionLimited motion settingsScreen queens(Image credit: Future)Best gaming monitor: pixel-perfect panels for your PC
Best 4K monitor for gaming: when only high-res will doIf you're looking to buy a 55-inch TV on a budget, look no further than the TCL 6-series. This is 2018's model, but that means you can often find it on sale but, quite frankly, it's a bargain at full price. While the earlier TCL models suffered from poor build quality, and several screen flaws, the 6-series solved these issues to deliver an ace Roku-powered TV.
What's more, it makes a great gaming TV too. While it doesn't have the low, low response rate of $1,000+ panels, it manages between 6–12ms, which is above average for TVs of this size and price. What's more, it has full-array local dimming, which means the contrast ratios are good (the blacks, especially, are nice and deep).
Where the TCL suffers is in the color range, which is merely average for a 4K TV at this price. It has decent HDR, but that can't quite mask the lower vibrancy of images, although (to be honest) you're unlikely to notice much of a difference unless you're playing the most colorful of games.
At 55-inches, it's less noticeable too, although if you're looking to go up to 65-inches you need to work out if you're ok getting a TV that does blacks and dark tones better than colors and light tones. While not the best gaming TV, per se, for the price, however, it's very tough to fault the TCL 617. It even comes with voice control.
You can even drop down to 43-inches if you're looking for a 4K TV as part of a PC set-up or second room gaming rig. The contrast remains as impressive, and it's obviously a little cheaper too.
Best gaming TVs FAQ
Should I use a TV for PC gaming?
Our advice would have traditionally always been that you will get the best experience from plugging into a monitor, but there are a couple of benefits to picking a TV as your primary display. For a start, a gaming TV, with a 120Hz refresh rate and high-quality HDR, will be noticeably brighter than your typical gaming monitor.
And then there's the size—you're likely to get a much bigger panel than you would with almost any of the traditional gaming monitors out there. Many high-end TVs also come with game-focused features these days too, so you can enjoy technologies such as FreeSync or G-Sync on your big screen panel of choice too.
And now there's almost no compromise. Well, apart from pixel pitch at such large screen sizes. But when you've gaming on the sofa that's less of an issue. With a HDMI 2.1 connection, and a recent AMD or Nvidia GPU, you can game at 120Hz and at 4K on many a TV.
Do I need a TV with HDMI 2.1 for PC gaming?
If you're aiming for 120Hz gaming at 4K then you absolutely do need HDMI 2.1. And that's true whether you're talking about PC gaming or a console such as the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5. But if you're only looking at a 4K TV with a maximum 60Hz refresh rate then you can get by just fine with a standard HDMI 2.0 connection.
It's also worth pointing out that only the latest AMD and Nvidia graphics cards have HDMI 2.1 sockets on them.
What TV size is best for gaming?
It really depends how much space you have available, how big the room is, and how far away you are from the screen, but as a guide, 43–55 inches is generally considered optimal.
Is OLED or QLED better for gaming
These are both forward-looking panel technologies that look to improve the overall picture quality. QLED can offer better brightness and support larger screen sizes, while OLED can offer better viewing angles and better contrast, particularly better blacks. It's often down to the individual implementation though, so it's not as easy as saying one is definitely better than the other.
How do you test gaming TVs?
In figuring out what makes the best gaming TV, we have focused on four main performance elements.
First, input lag: how long a screen takes to render image data received at its inputs. This is critically important to gamers. Input lag was checked with HDR, SDR, 4K and HD game feeds to check there were no major anomalies between different sources (there weren’t with any of our selected TVs).
We checked input lag in two ways: using a Leo Bodnar input lag measuring device, and photographically, where we split a video feed of a running timer into the TV we’re testing and a reference BenQ gaming monitor, take a photo, and then see how far the time reading on the TV was behind the reading on the reference monitor.
The photographic method enables us to spot potential moment to moment variations in input lag that some TVs suffer with, and which the Bodnar device doesn’t provide.
Next, we considered contrast. How well a display is able to reproduce the darkest and brightest parts of a gaming image is essential to a truly satisfying game experience. Especially now many games are supporting the expanded brightness range associated with HDR. As part of the contrast assessment, we also looked for issues such as flickering brightness levels and backlight ‘blooming’ around bright objects.
As part of the contrast testing, we measured each TV’s peak light output using an X-Rite i1 Display Pro light meter. This lets us know how far a set can go towards achieving the sort of extreme brightness levels HDR gaming is capable of.
Colour performance was also carefully scrutinized, paying attention to the richness, balance, consistency, freedom from striping noise and authenticity of the tones being shown. Pretty much all HDR material also carries a wider colour range than the old standard dynamic range format we’ve been stuck with for so many years. This can have a transformative effect on game graphics, making them look both more lifelike and more dramatic/three dimensional.
Finally, we looked a motion and sharpness as markers of the best gaming TV. We mention these together as to some extent they’re related. If a TV suffers badly with judder or blurring when you’re panning around in Fortnite or hurtling into the scenery in Forza Horizon 3, that’s going to affect the picture’s sense of sharpness significantly. We also studied ultra-detailed but relatively static 4K game graphics looking for signs of softness, shimmering noise, ever-enthusiastic edge-enhancements, grain or any lack of depth and three-dimensionality that might be caused by a TV being unable to deliver enough color finesse to ‘match’ the number of pixels in the screen.
PC Gamer is hiring a Magazine Editor in the UK
in Gaming News
Posted
For nearly three decades, PC Gamer magazine has been bringing the best coverage of PC gaming directly to reader's doors. Each issue is filled with expert buying advice, in-depth reporting, considered criticism and exclusive access to the platform's most exciting games. It's a long and storied publication that over the years has featured some of the finest writing you'll find about PC gaming and the wider hobby. And now you have the chance to take ownership of it, as we hire our next magazine editor.
This position is a great fit for anybody with experience in games media who's looking to make their mark on a brand with a 29-year history. We're looking for someone who's passionate about PC gaming, and has the tenacity and curiosity to shine a light on every corner of the hobby—highlighting everything from fascinating, unknown stories, to fresh angles and perspectives on the biggest games on the platform.
As magazine editor, you'll be in charge of every aspect of the magazine's production, working with our art and production editors to fill each issue with the previews, reviews and features our readers love. You'll plan out each issue's selection of in-depth, bespoke features, and work with both the global PC Gamer team—26 full-time writers and editors from across the UK, US, Canada and Australia—and our regular contributors to ensure each issue is the best it can be. And you'll have a hand in reaching out to new contributors, championing and developing new and exciting voices within the industry.
You'll also get to decide what goes on the cover, using your industry experience and contacts to secure exclusive access for the most interesting and important games on the way. Sometimes it can be a lion.
If that sounds like the job for you, apply here.
In the job listing, you'll find the specifics about what we're looking for. Crucially, you don't have to have print experience to apply. While we are looking for people who already have experience in games journalism and have good contacts within the industry, we can teach you how to make a flatplan—and even what a flatplan is.
View the full article