[Crypto CEO behind $2.5B 'rug pull' arrested, faces 40,564 years in prison]

Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder and CEO of the now-defunct crypto exchange Thodex, has been arrested in the Albanian city of Vlorë. Özer fled following the collapse of Thodex in April 2021: he initially claimed a halt in trading was due to cyberattacks, and that investors' money was safe, before disappearing. Almost immediately afterwards, Turkish police arrested dozens of Thodex employees and seized the firm's computers.

It subsequently emerged that, in April 2021, Thodex had moved approximately $125 million worth of bitcoin to the established US crypto exchange Kraken. Given the number of investors in Thodex left with nothing, this looks like straightforward theft from a failing business.

It's not the whole story, either. Cryptocrime analysis firm Chainanalysis addressed Thorex specifically in its overview of 2021, in the wider context of a total $2.8 billion worth of crypto scams over this year being 'rug pulls': wherein a seemingly legitimate business is set up, operates as normal for a while, then suddenly all the money is gone. It's large-scale fraud.

"We should note that roughly 90% of the total value lost to rug pulls in 2021 can be attributed to one fraudulent centralized exchange, Thodex, whose CEO disappeared soon after the exchange halted users’ ability to withdraw funds," says the Chainanalysis report. That works out at an estimate of around $2.5 billion of crypto.

However, other estimates given by Turkish authorities are lower, and as with any crypto story it is hard to work out even approximately what the true value of money lost may have been. Some reports claim Özer fled with 'only' around $20 million worth of crypto and, whatever the total amount lost is, he is not the only Thodex employee accused of wrongdoing.

(Image credit: Getty - Zephry18)

Interpol had issued a red notice on Özer in April 2021, which basically means every police force in the world was asked to locate and arrest him. The Albanian minister for internal affairs, Bledar Chuchi, said that the fugitive's identity was confirmed post-arrest by biometric results: Özer had apparently shaved his head. The Turkish government adds that: "The extradition proceedings of Fatih Özer to Turkey were initiated by the Interpol Department of the General Directorate of Security."

Which is bad news for Özer, because this guy is probably going to spend the rest of his life in jail. Six people have already been jailed for their role in Thodex, including family members of Özer, while 20 other prosecutions are ongoing. The Turkish daily Harriyet reports that state prosecutors are out to set an example: "A prison sentence of 40,564 years is sought for each of these 21 people, including Özer, as over 2,000 people are included in the indictment as complainants."

Thodex was founded in 2017, and its initial success was largely down to the wider context of Turkey's state currency, the Turkish lira, undergoing a period of rapid inflation. This led to crypto acquiring mainstream traction in the country as an apparently more safe option than the fluctuating lira. This was particularly the case when it came to protecting savings, to the extent that the Turkish government is currently working on a bill to further regulate the industry, which is due to be passed in the very near future.

It's a sobering reminder that, behind the malfeasance and the big numbers of Yet Another Crypto Scam, this company was not just defrauding big-pocketed investors but ordinary people looking to safeguard their financial future. Now, at least, it looks like Özer and others will face the most serious of consequences.

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[The best survival games on PC]

Best of the best

(Image credit: Paradox)

2022 games: This year's launches
Best PC games: All-time favorites
Best free PC games: Freebie fest
Best laptop games: Low-specs 

The deep appeal of survival games is simple to understand. After all, fighting to stay alive is hard-coded into our DNA, so it's easy to see why we'd become engrossed in experiencing it in games. The best survival games on PC push players to their limits, presenting them with tough problems and challenging them to find creative solutions.

Beyond just a simple health bar, in survival games players need to manage their well being when it comes to elements like hunger, thirst, extreme temperatures, disease, and other threats. Exploring, gathering resources, crafting tools and gear, building shelters, and hunting, fishing, cooking, and farming are other common features in survival games. And some survival games aren't just about taking care of yourself but guiding a colony or settlement safely through extreme circumstances by managing resources, passing laws, and solving societal problems.

In such a popular genre, which games provide the best survival experiences? Below you'll find our favorite examples of simulated survival on PC, whether it's among the stars, deep underground, and in other dangerous environments packed with monsters, mutants, zombies, dinosaurs, or the deadliest enemy of all: other players. Here are the best survival games on PC. 

V Rising

(Image credit: Stunlock Studios)

In a sentence: Crafting, base building, and survival, plus you're a vampire.
Status: Released in Early Access on May 17, 2022
Link: Steam

Being immortal you wouldn't think vampires would need to worry about survival, but in V Rising your ancient bloodsucker will have their clawed hands full with resource gathering and management, base building, and staying out of direct sunlight. It does feel a little strange to be a vampire chopping down trees and operating a sawmill, but it all works wonderfully, and you can build your base into a might gothic castle, and enchant NPCs to become your loyal minions. Naturally there are all sorts of enjoyable vampire powers to unlock and use in combat, too. V Rising pulls off a nice blend of RPG action and survival systems.

Valheim

(Image credit: Iron Gate Studios)

In a sentence: Exploration and base-building in the Viking afterlife.
Status: Released in Early Access on February 2, 2021
Link: Official site

It didn't take long for Early Access co-op Viking survival game to draw a crowd, and it's easy to see why. A massive procedurally generated world, fearsome boss fights, and excellent base-building systems mesh wonderfully with survival elements like cooking and crafting. Solo play is great, but it really shines in co-op, and players can busy themselves with base construction or set out on perilous journeys across the sea to find dangerous new continents.

Further reading: Valheim is making me love survival games again

Subnautica

In a sentence: Survival, crafting, and building—underwater.
Status: Released January 23, 2018
Link: Offical site

Explore an alien, underwater world while piloting your hand-crafted submarine through mysterious submerged landscapes. From beautiful coral reefs to deep-sea caves and trenches, you'll gather resources and sustenance, build habitats and a fleet of subs, and craft new tech to help you survive the depths. It's hard not to compare it to Minecraft, yet developer Unknown Worlds has put their own unique stamp on the survival genre.

Further reading: Subnautica: Early impressions of Minecraft under the sea

Grounded

(Image credit: Obsidian Entertainment)

In a sentence: You're tiny and trying to survive in someone's back yard.
Status: In Early Access since July 28, 2020
Link: Offical site

Obsidian shrunk you down and dropped you in a normal backyard, but due to your size it might as well be a jungle. Surrounded by killer spiders, hungry birds, and annoying ants, you can build a base by chopping down blades of grass and forage for food and drink by roasting aphids and collecting drops of dew. It's a beautiful and somewhat wonderous environment from the perspective of a someone the size of a bug.

Further reading: Obsidian's Grounded has extreme spider horror and a few fun survival twists

Frostpunk

(Image credit: 11 bit studios)

In a sentence: Survival, city-building, and crisis management in a frozen world.
Status: Released April 24, 2018
Link: Official site 

Frostpunk is a blend of city-building, society simulation, and survival in a grim and frozen world. With a handful of cold, hungry, unhappy people, you'll need to construct a working city inside a snow-filled crater heated only by a massive coal furnace. Gather resources, hunt for food, and manage your citizens by giving them hope for the future. It's a harsh and beautiful survival game that confronts you with difficult choices at every turn.

Further reading:  Frostpunk review: an incredibly stylish and addictive survival management game.

Project Zomboid

(Image credit: The Indie Stone)

In a sentence: The deepest and most complex zombie survival game, period.
Status: Released Nov 8, 2013
Link: Steam

If you're looking deep and complex survival systems in a massive sandbox sim, there's only one game that truly fits the bill. There's a big learning curve in this zombie survival game but once you've got a handle on how the various systems work you'll find an unending and engrossing challenge in the harsh post-apocalyptic world. Loot buildings, craft gear, farm and fish, fight zombies (or better yet, avoid them) and struggle with everything from injuries to disease to boredom to how much noise you make while moving around. This is a brilliant zombie survival simulation like nothing else out there.

Escape from Tarkov

(Image credit: Battlestate Games)

In a sentence: A brutal and hyper-realistic shooter all about hoarding and managing loot.
Status: In beta
Link: Official site

Escape from Tarkov is a savage evolution of survival games with just a pinch of battle royale thrown in for flavor. Instead of playing in a persistent world, you spawn on a map with a few other players and several dozen enemy NPCs. To survive, you have to reach an exfiltration zone on the other end of the map, but you also get to keep anything you loot to sell on a player-driven marketplace or use in subsequent rounds. It's a lot like poker only way scarier. What really sells Tarkov, though, is it's hyper-realistic gunplay and ridiculously deep gun customization.

Further reading: How I became an arms dealer in Escape from Tarkov

Outward

In a sentence: A fantasy RPG with strong survival elements
Status: Released March 2019
Link: Official site

Sounds strange to say it, but this fantasy RPG where you can never actually die is one of the best recent survival games around. In Outward you're not only challenged by mystical monsters but the world itself, in which you must keep yourself fed, hydrated, and healthy. In the arid deserts heat will sap your endurance, in the marshy swamplands the water can poison you, and with no fast-travel or quest markers or even your own location shown on your map, each excursion is an exercise in preparation, patience, and survival.

Further reading: Fantasy RPG Outward is the survival game I've been looking for

RimWorld

In a sentence: Sci-fi colony management simulation inspired by Dwarf Fortress
Status: Released October 17, 2018
Link: Steam

It's been five years of Early Access, but RimWorld has finally reached version 1.0. In this management and survival sim you oversee a colony of randomly generated people stranded on a procedural alien planet. Expand the base, keep your colonists healthy and sane, and deal with disasters thrown your way by RimWorld's AI director, which can include anything from disease outbreaks to alien attacks to weather events. The toughest challenge may be just making your colonists simply get along with each other: each one has a distinct personality, desires, and moods.

Further reading: Making a clan of cannibals with RimWorld's scenario editor

Raft

In a sentence: Survive on a raft while building it into a floating fortress
Status: In Early Access
Link: Steam

It sounds almost idyllic, floating through the world serenely on a raft, building and expanding upon it as you fish flotsam from the ocean with a grappling hook. There are sharks, though. Hungry ones, and if they can't eat you they'll settle for eating your floating home. You'll need to somehow find food and fresh water while keeping your raft afloat and growing. Luckily, you can play co-op with a pal and double your chances for survival.

Further reading: How Raft conquered the seas of Steam

The Long Dark

In a sentence: Atmospheric survival in a Canadian post-apocalypse.
Status: Released August 1, 2017
Link: Official site

With a focus on atmosphere and environmental survival, The Long Dark stands out in an increasingly crowded genre. You play as a bush pilot stranded in the frozen wilderness after a mysterious global calamity. There are no zombies, no mutants, and no other players: it's just you fighting against the elements, the wildlife, and your own human fragility.

Further reading: Survival gets serious in The Long Dark

Oxygen Not Included

In a sentence: Keep a handful of 3D-printed colonists alive in a dangerous and expanding underground colony
Status: Released on July 30, 2019
Link: Official site

The best games are those that are easy to learn and difficult to master. Oxygen Not Included fits that bill: jumping into it and learning the basics is a snap, but fully understanding it takes a lot of time and effort. While it's adorable, the colony-builder is also deep and complex as it simulates its harsh subterranean environment. You'll need to manage your colonists hunger, happiness, cleanliness, and naturally their clean and breathable oxygen as they dig out caverns, gather resources, build machinery, and try to turn a harsh environment into a comfortable underground home.

Further reading: Oxygen Not Included is a deep and complex sim that's also easy to jump into 

Ark: Survival Evolved

In a sentence: Survival, crafting, and building—with dinosaurs.
Status: Released August 29, 2017
Link: Official site

Dropped nearly nude on an expansive map filled with dinosaurs, you'll have to contend with extreme heat and cold, starvation and dehydration, and fellow humans (though you can play solo as well). Craft weapons and gear, build a base, tame and ride dinosaurs, and join with (or battle) other players. Ark's free Primitive Plus DLC adds tons more depth to crafting and farming.

Further reading: Why Ark's best mount is a damn frog

Don't Starve

In a sentence: Survive a cartoon wilderness filled with beasts and monsters.
Status: Released April 13, 2013
Link: Offical Site

With charming artwork yet punishing gameplay, Don't Starve is an addictive challenge and one of the best survival experiences out there (and in a rare turn of events, one of the few games here to graduate from Early Access). The crafting is complex and satisfying as you attempt to survive busy days and deadly nights. Fight (and eat) animals, practice both science and magic, and keep an eye on your mental health so you don't go insane. The standalone expansion Don't Starve Together even lets you play with pals.

Further reading: Don't Starve: Shipwrecked is a breath of fresh... Nope, that's a hurricane.

Duskers

In a sentence: Real-time strategy roguelike in which you explore creepy abandoned spaceships using drones.
Status: Released May 18, 2016
Link: Steam Store

Duskers may not feel entirely like a survival game, given that it's a real-time strategy roguelike about steering a fleet of drones through spooky derelict spaceships. But the reason you're exploring is to scavenge parts, collect fuel, and repair and upgrade your drones so you can continue traveling through space in hopes of finding safety and an answer to the unexplained event that seems to have left the universe uninhabited (by humans, at least). Its a tense and nail-biting experience as you must keep moving through increasingly dangerous situations in hopes of gathering enough resources to survive.

Further reading: Duskers review

DayZ

In a sentence: Online zombie survival in the Eastern European countryside.
Status: Released (but still not finished) December 13, 2018
Link: Steam Store

Yes, it was a long road out of Early Access, DayZ's technically still isn't done. But the survival elements of DayZ are strong, with complex nutrition, hydration, and health systems that go beyond merely eating, drinking, and bandaging wounds. Scavenge a sprawling and decaying persistent open world, engage in tense interactions with other players, customize weapons and craft gear, and try not to die: if you do, you start again with nothing.

Further reading: DayZ Diaries: the one where Ben force-feeds Andy a rotten banana

Starbound

In a sentence: Terraria in space.
Status: Released July 22, 2016
Link: Steam Store

From visiting distant galaxies in your customized starship to building a home and farming crops, Starbound satisfies as both a sprawling survival adventure and a cozy pastime. The 2D pixelated sandbox is a joy to explore, and along the way you'll meet friendly alien NPCs and battle surprisingly tough bosses. There's a story-based campaign and side-quests, but no real feeling of pressure to complete them except at your leisure. You can also play with friends on dedicated servers or simply by inviting them into your game via Steam.

Further reading: Starbound review

Rust

(Image credit: Facepunch Studios)

In a sentence: Naked men running around hitting each other with rocks.
Status: Released February 8, 2018
Link: Official site

Join or battle other players—or attempt to go it alone—starting with primitive tools and weapons and advancing to firearms and massive bases. You'll have to contend with wild animals, hunger, and thirst, but this is a very PVP-intensive survival experience and your main threat will come from the dozens of other players on the servers. Rust left Early Access in Early 2018, but continues to add new features.

Further reading: Trick-or-treating in Rust went about as well as you might expect

Minecraft

In a sentence: Build things, destroy things, fight monsters.
Status: Released October 7, 2011
Link: Official site

You may have heard of it. There are many different ways to play Minecraft: alone, in creative mode, with friends and strangers, as an explorer, or with custom game modes on specialty servers. As a survival game, it's still excellent, with well-implemented hunger and thirst systems and incredibly robust crafting and building. Dive into its blocky and beautiful world and you may never want to leave.

Further reading: The 40 best Minecraft custom maps

The Forest

In a sentence: Plane crash survivor angers cannibal tribe.
Status: Released April 30, 2018
Link: Steam Store

After picking through the wreckage of the plane crash that stranded you here, you'll quickly discover you're not alone. You share a mysterious island with a tribe of terrifying cannibals, and while you struggle to stay fed and hydrated, build structures from simple tents to log homes, and construct traps to snare animals, you'll have to defend against the hungry and determined locals. The Forest is built in Unity 5, which provides stunning visuals and effects. There's even a VR version.

Further reading: The Forest review (Early Access)

Terraria

(Image credit: Re-Logic)

In a sentence: Side-scrolling Minecraft.
Status: Released May 16, 2011
Link: Offical site 

A wonderful, expansive, addictive, and not to mention inexpensive survival crafting sandbox. Explore randomly generated worlds, gather resources, and enjoy a simple yet satisfying crafting system. Tunnel through vast caverns, battle monsters, befriend NPCs, build yourself a palace, and play alone or with friends in co-op. Terraria has been around for years, but it's stood the test of time.

Further reading: Terraria review

This War of Mine

In a sentence: Struggle to survive in a war-torn city.
Status: Released November 14, 2014
Link: Offical site

Depicting war not from the perspective of an elite soldier but from that of a group of civilians simply trying to stay alive amidst the chaos, This War of Mine is a different and more desperate kind of survival game. You'll face tough choices as you manage your survivors' health, both physical and mental. Scrounging for food and supplies during the night is tense and harrowing, and no matter what you find it never seems to be enough. It's not just a survival game but a harsh and unblinking look at the reality of war.

Further reading: This War of Mine review

Unturned

In a sentence: A free-to-play multiplayer survival sandbox.
Status: Released July 7, 2017
Link: Steam store

It costs you nothing to play Unturned, but this isn't some slapped together free-to-play title. Its creator (a teenager) has released scores of updates to the zombie-based survival sandbox since 2014, which makes it easy to see why it's been downloaded by millions of players since its initial release. Despite Unturned's blocky visuals it contains deep and satisfying crafting, skill, and survival systems, plus there's a massive and exuberant community surrounding it.

Further reading: How a survival game made by a 16-year-old racked up 24 million downloads

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[Best gaming keyboards in 2022]

The best gaming keyboard is more than a dull plank of keys. For one, most of the best keyboards come plastered in RGB LEDs, so they're anything but dull. There's more to a great gaming keyboard than flashing lights, however, and the real key to success is excellent response. Most of the time that's mechanical, but hey we're in the camp that there are some times when a well-made membrane might be the best option on a budget.

Gaming keyboard preferences vary wildly and the number of options can be overwhelming. Media controls, volume wheels, keycaps, macro keys, and the actual switches used are just some of the things you need to consider. And keyboard switches come in such a cornucopia of colors and types that it's enough to make the layman cry. Read up on the best mechanical keyboard switches if you're feeling like a deep dive, but it basically boils down to three types: linear, clicky, and tactile.

The other thing to consider is keyboard size. The option of a 60% gaming keyboard or going tenkeyless (TKL) will help you reclaim precious desk space, whereas a full-sized keyboard is more likely to come packed with media controls akin to a high-tech space station. If you're not caught up with the keyboard types, we can help determine what keyboard style is right for you, too.

Below we've compiled a list of the best gaming keyboards for every kind of gamer, whether you're a Cherry Red or a Razer Green person. These are all gaming keyboards each of us has tested vigorously, in our home and work life; our Alan's key presses alone are violent enough to check a board's integrity, for sure. And we've also tested out the best cheap gaming keyboards for anyone on a budget looking for further options than those budget boards listed below.

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(Image credit: Corsair)

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1. Corsair K100 RGB Optical

The best gaming keyboard

Switch: Corsair OPX | Size: Full size | Backlight: RGB | Passthrough: USB | Media Controls: Dedicated | Wristrest: Detachable | Keycaps: PBT double-shot

Responsive optical switches

All the RGB, all the time

Premium build quality

Lots of software

If you can forgo some extras you could buy a mechanical keyboard for much less

Let me start by saying that while I was impressed by Corsair's previous offering, the K95 RGB Platinum, I struggled with the price. Struggled. No matter how good it is, $200 is a lot for any keyboard. It really was a good keyboard, taking the top spot in our best gaming keyboard guide for the last few years. That's a brief bit of context for the K100, which costs even more than its predecessor. At $230, it is 15 percent pricier, but will you get the 15 percent more out of it? Possibly. Possibly even more.

The fundamental core of the K100 is very much like the K95, with the same premium quality throughout, the same overall design, the same macro keys down the left-hand side, the same metal roll in the top right corner, and the same media keys just below it, and the same double-shot keycaps. USB passthrough is easy to access and you get a comfortable wrist rest that snaps on magnetically just like before.

The K100 also has more of that lovely RGB lighting that Corsair knows we love so much. In total there are now 44 zones for you to throw light out of (it spills out of the sides as well as out of the back too). And having rippling, wavy patterns play off your keyboard can be every bit as distracting as you can imagine. 

The K100 RGB nails the basics, as well as including the fancy extras, and that's why it's top of the list.

As for the switches themselves, they are Corsair's new OPX optical-Mechanical switches. It's worth noting from the outset that the OPX switches are still digital units, not the variable analog type that can be found in the likes of the Wooting keyboards, which can detect how far down the key is pressed and respond by turning harder (for example). 

These switches feel great for typing, with a 1mm actuation point and 45g actuation force, bottoming out at 3.2mm. If those figures don't mean much to you, they're very sensitive. I found myself watching my fingers in games as I turned left and right without realizing I'd actually started pushing down on the keys. This is a sensitive keyboard and needs to be treated as such. After a week of use though, it feels incredible to work and play with.

At the backend you have Corsair Axon Hyper-Processing Technology doing the grunt work of actually keeping the keyboard up and running. This new engine supports a native polling rate of 4,000Hz, although the benefit of this isn't obvious, and by default, it is set at the more standard 1,000Hz anyway.

When it comes to software, Corsair Axon Hyper-Processing Technology supports a native polling rate of 4,000Hz, though it's set to 1,000Hz by default. You can even use the little iCue wheel on the top of the board to play around with the lighting.

All in all, you're looking at an excellent key response, a decent spread of keys for most hand sizes, a satisfying tactile click to each press, and wonderfully dimpled keys to help you rest your fingers when you're not actually pressing down. While this all seems quite obvious, it shows that the K100 RGB nails the basics, as well as including the fancy extras, and that's why it's top of the list. 

Read our full Corsair K100 RGB Optical review.

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(Image credit: Mountain)

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2. Mountain Everest Max

The best modular gaming keyboard

Switch: Cherry MX Red, Blue, Brown, Silver | Size: Full size or TKL | Backlight: Per-key RGB | Passthrough: USB 3.2 Gen1 | Media controls: Dedicated unit | Wristrest: Magnetic, plush | Keycaps: ABS

Fully modular

Simple, elegant style

Great hardware

Unsure about Base Camp software

A thoroughly TKL or 60% keyboard will likely be cheaper

Answer me this: why the hell has everyone been sticking the Numpad on the right-hand side of their gaming keyboards? The new Mountain Everest Max gaming keyboard means I can instead jam it onto the left-hand side, and that makes a whole lot more sense to me. It gives me all the benefits of a TKL keyboard design, but with the utility of a full-size board. And that also means this is now my new favorite slab. Especially in its fresh hot-pink trim. Gotta love those RGB LEDs.

You probably haven't heard of Mountain, a fresh-faced upstart in the cutthroat world of PC peripherals. After all, it's maybe not the most memorable of names for a keyboard and mouse manufacturer, but then it doesn't also have the offensive overtones of other PC gaming race-related nomenclatures. 

That comparison is important though because the Mountain Everest is a gaming keyboard aiming to take on the big boys, and most especially at the enthusiast level in which Glorious has been making a name for itself. Crafting completely modular gaming keyboards, which can house any hot-swappable mechanical switches you can buy, is something Glorious has been doing for years, bringing once-niche custom keyboard fun into the mainstream.

I'm still using my sample on a day-to-day basis as it totally suits how I game and work on my PC.

I've reviewed a whole lot of keyboards in my time as a tech journo, and I always know when I've found a good one because it doesn't get unplugged the instant I hit publish on the review and dropped atop the heap of discarded peripherals that now fills my house.

And the Mountain Everest Max is going to remain on my desktop for the foreseeable future. I'm probably going to play around with the keycaps (G.Skill's recent Crystal Crown pudding caps) have a strange draw to me) and I might even hook out the switches in the Logitech G Pro TKL keyboard for my 16-month-old son uses to emulate his dear ol' dad. 

Sure, modular keyboards are nothing new; Logitech's been in the game recently with hot-swappable switches, and Glorious' GMMK has been a quality option for years. Indeed removable numpads aren't either, though none have been able to be solid enough to look and function well on a high-end board. But, high pricing aside, the Everest Max has the edge on all of them for me and is going to be my keyboard of choice from here on.

Put the numpad on the left side of the board if you want. Nobody will stop you. (Image credit: Mountain)

I've had not a single issue with the Everest software either, not in use anyway, and I've been messing around with it a whole lot, from adding in new images and program-launching buttons, to customising the media dock with my own gurning DOOM face.

That said, updating the app and the Everest's firmware fills me with dread. The last Base Camp update failed for no given reason, and the latest firmware update has been sat at 100 percent for the past two hours. That's been ironed out now for the most part, and I'm still using my sample on a day-to-day basis as it totally suits how I game and work on my PC.

While you might not have heard of Mountain, a fresh-faced upstart in the cutthroat world of PC peripherals—it's maybe not the most memorable of names for a keyboard and mouse manufacturer—we've been impressed with the products it's produced so far. The Everest Max is just as excellent, too.

Read our full Mountain Everest Max review.

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3. G.Skill KM360

The most affordable mechanical keyboard

Switch: Cherry MX Red | Size: TKL | Backlight: White | Passthrough: None | Media Controls: Integrated | Wristrest: None | Keycaps: ABS

Affordable

Reliable Cherry MX switches 

Bright white LED

No RGB effects

There is a trend towards $200+ gaming keyboards in the market at the moment, but that doesn't mean there aren't quality mechanical switch boards available at a more reasonable price. Often you'll find these more budget oriented options offering cheap switches from other manufacturers, but the G.Skill KM360 comes featuring the classic Cherry MX Red linear switch out of the gate and doesn't cost a bomb.

To pick up legit Cherry switches you could run up quite a bill with the largest, most fully-featured gaming keyboards. The G.Skill does away with that, though. It's simple, mechanical, great for gaming and work, and still offers backlighting for better visibility in darker rooms.

This TKL board is basic, but what it does, it does very well.

If you can't cope without your gaming board being lit up like a rainbow then you may be disappointed with the single-colour option, but damn, the white LEDs on this G.Skill board are the brightest I've ever seen. Normally I like to keep at max brightness all day long, but the KM360 would burn out my retina if I did.

It is very bright, but at least the lack of rainbows has helped to keep the price at a more reasonable level.

This TKL board is basic, but what it does, it does very well. It's solid, well-built, reliable, and looks pretty decent too. I was a little disappointed at the lack of wrist rest, and the fact there's no passthrough, or media controls, but I'll happily give those a pass in favour of affordable functionality. The detachable USB Type-C is a real boon to the longevity of this board, too.

It's a simple and reliable option all-round.

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4. Logitech G915 Lightspeed

The best wireless gaming keyboard

Switch: Logitech GL low profile | Size: Full size | Backlight: RGB LED | Passthrough: None | Media Controls: Dedicated | Wristrest: None | Keycaps: ABS

Lag-free wireless

Great battery life

Low-profile mechanical switches

Macro key placement is odd to some

Requires semi-regular charging

If you've got your heart set on a wireless keyboard, then the Logitech G915 is a great example of the genre. It's not a peripheral we believe requires wireless functionality; we much prefer a wireless gaming mouse or wireless gaming headset. But there are a few moments when a wireless keyboard is helpful, like gaming on the couch or if you regularly move your keyboard between devices and locations.

There's a reason that I use this keyboard most days when I'm working from home.

You'll be required to spend that little bit more for wireless functionality than what we tend to see for wired mechanical keyboards with similar features—the Logitech G915 is $250 (£210). There's a slightly cheaper TKL version, but not so much so that we'd instantly recommend it over the full-size model.

What you get for that significant cash investment is a sleek and sturdy board plated in brushed aluminum. There are some smart media controls in the upper right-hand corner of the board, including a volume wheel that feels great to twizzle, and there's a handful of macro keys down the left side of the keyboard. These can be programmed to whatever you see fit on a per-app or per-game basis within the Logitech G software.

Macro functionality has been shifted to a secondary program of the Function keys, can be flipped via the Logitech G gaming software in order to prioritise macro functionality in which case the Fn key will revert F1-12 back to the original input.

Beneath that stylish exterior lies fantastically responsive Kailh-made GL key switches. You can pick from linear, tactile, or clicky, and we recommend the latter if you really want to make a racket.

It packs in all this without a massive overall footprint, too, coming in as one of the sleeker boards of the lot today. The wired Cherry MX 10.0 has it beat there, though, for better or worse.

Yet there's a reason that I use this keyboard most days when I'm working from home. It feels great to type on over the course of an entire day, and its low-profile standing takes some of the strain off my wrists. I don't feel the need for a wristrest when I'm leaning my wrists on the desk, either.

Read our full Logitech G915 TKL review (that's the slightly smaller version).

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5. Keychron K2 (Version 2)

The most affordable wireless keyboard

Switch: Gateron | Size: 84-key | Backlight: White LED | Passthrough: None | Media Controls: Function shortcuts | Wristrest: None | Keycaps: ABS

Well-priced

Great overall build quality

Seamless connectivity

Somewhat scratchy switches

The Keychron K2 redefines affordability for wireless gaming keyboards. It's marked itself out, in the eyes of generalists, as a marvelous entry-level keyboard that can act as a gateway into the wider world of mechanicals. Starting out at just $69, you get a decent-sized gaming keyboard with great wireless functionality and Gateron mechanical switches for your money.

Its design is simple with grey ABS keycaps and a slightly more compact 84 key layout that only skimps out on the numpad and offers a slightly squashed nav cluster. Whilst I’ve previously argued that 60% compact keyboards may be the way to go if you’re a space-savin' gamer, the Keychron K2’s 75% offering may just make me rethink that decision.

The Keychron K2 redefines affordability for wireless gaming keyboards.

You're also looking at decent overall build quality, and the triple device connectivity definitely makes short work of switching devices or locations through the working day. With that said though, sometimes it can feel like a cheap keyboard—the switches aren't the best around, but they're pretty impressive nonetheless at this price.

As for backlighting, there are four levels of lighting to choose from, and a load of standard lighting effects. It's nicely vibrant and crisp and offsets the darker keycap coloring nicely, but it's a little bit of a pain having to cycle through all the presets to get to the static lighting mode.

And with the battery at a 4000mAh capacity, the K2 can go the distance with or without backlighting. You’ll get 68 hours with full lighting and 240 hours without, meaning you can go weeks without touching the charging cable—that's USB Type-C in case you were wondering.

All in all though, if you’re looking for an entry-level mechanical keyboard, this is a good choice, especially if you’re working from home and using multiple devices. That's not even considering its wireless capability, which really feels like the icing on the cake of the already impressive Keychron K2.

Read our full Keychron K2 review.

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Ducky One 3

The best no-frills gaming keyboard

Switch: Cherry MX | Size: Full size | Backlight: None | Passthrough: None | Media Controls: Volume controls | Wristrest: None | Keycaps: PBT

Beautiful

Built to a very high standard

Will outlive most PC builds

Colour-matched cable

PBT keycaps

No Play/Pause/Skip keys

DIP switches don't work on mine

Look elsewhere for RGB backlighting

Ducky has one helluva reputation in the mechanical gaming keyboard world. Even in an age of dazzling keyboards plastered in flashing lights, it's kept up its no nonsense design philosophy (which it calls "Quack Mechanics"—no joke). But even dear ol' Ducky is also leaning into the weird and wonderful a little more; the Ducky One 3 Fuji is prime example of a more stylised and vibrant Ducky at its best.

Look no further than the One 3's wonderfully colourful design for proof. This is Ducky's latest flagship keyboard and it comes in many different colours and styles, but this one is called Fuji. Every key you see in my images of the One 3 is included in the standard Fuji design, which makes it feel like I've received a keyboard with a custom keycap set pre-installed.

Every keycap on the Ducky is made from strong PBT plastic. Unlike ABS plastic, PBT tends to last a little longer, reject stains, and keep its colour-matched legends from rubbing away.

The One 3 looks absolutely stunning and it's a dream to type on.

From the superb quality keycaps to the rest of the board the Ducky continues to impress. The blue underbelly of the Ducky contains cable runs for the included (and removable) braided USB Type-C to Type-A cable. The cable on the One 3 Fuji is a perfectly matched shade of pink to the rest of it, of course. 

There are also four DIP switches that offer a couple of hard-coded shortcuts for various keyboard modes, however, I couldn't get them to work. I tried unplugging and waiting a little while before trying again, but couldn't get them to do anything at all.

That aside, the One 3 is build like a tank and there's absolutely no flex to it whatsoever. Perhaps it wouldn't love a drop from a high place, but I don't dare to try it with this gorgeous review unit.

You have a wide choice of Cherry MX switches to choose from with the Ducky, depending on where you buy it from. I opted for Cherry MX Speed Silver switches, which are some of Cherry's finest for gaming. They offer a smooth press with only 1.2mm of travel before actuation and a total distance of 3.4mm. The swift actuation helps with the sort of snappy response I want while gaming, while the linear press without a tactile bump or click makes for moderately low-noise operation.

The Ducky barely rattles whatsoever as I'm tapping away at its positively pink caps. The spacebar and enter keys have a certain tell-tale thud to them, but beyond that the switches, including those with stabilisers, are impressively uniform in sound. There's a whole lot of sound dampening going on with the Ducky under the surface, and that satisfying mechanical thud as a result is amicable to my ears for a day's worth of constant typing, or gaming with a microphone nearby.

You can pluck switches out of the Ducky at will. (Image credit: Future)

But I haven't mentioned the best bit yet: the Ducky One 3 is hot-swappable. A key switch breaks? Swap it out for another. You bought some new key switches online because they looked nice even thought you'll never really see them once they're installed? Just pull the old ones out and slot the new ones in.

Plenty of gaming keyboards are hot-swappable nowadays, but this particular inclusion with the Ducky One 3 really feels like a win overall. You do have to forgo RGB lighting, or backlighting of any sort, with the Ducky. But honestly I don't mind that. The One 3 looks absolutely stunning and it's a dream to type on. Plus it's a bit cheaper than some other flagship boards of this high standard today.

Read our full Ducky One 3 review.

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7. Wooting Two HE

The best analog gaming keyboard

Switch: Lekker (Gateron) | Size: Full size | Backlight: RGB LED | Passthrough: None | Media Controls: Function shortcuts | Wristrest: Sold separately | Keycaps: PBT

Analogue switches

High reliability

Hot swappable switches

Adjustable actuation

Solid app with easy to navigate menus and features

Games don't always play nice with analogue switches

Analogue control takes some getting used to

The Wooting Two HE looks decent, but it doesn't appear all too different from the mechanical gaming keyboards we've come to know. In fact, it's a little more boring than most in appearance, with some nowadays taking 'extra' to a whole new level.

This one has a trick up its sleeve, though: analog action. What this means is if you depress a key, say the W key, rather than send a simple on/off signal to your PC, the keyboard will measure the full range of that key's motion. This is especially useful in games that blend gameplay that best suits both analog and digital inputs on a regular basis, such as Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA V, or Mass Effect.

The Wooting measures the entire key press. (Image credit: Wooting)

Wooting helped usher in the analog age of gaming keyboards, and it's still ruling the roost with every new keyboard it designs. The latest, the Wooting Two HE, uses magnets and the Hall effect to achieve what is an incredibly accurate analog movement across every key on the keyboard. And because every key is analog, you can use the analog functionality to your advantage in heaps of interesting ways.

The Wooting Two HE differs from the Wooting One and Wooting Two in how it measures analogue input, however. Where the older Wooting boards relied on optical Flaretech switches, the newer HE board uses the Lekker switch, made by Wooting with popular switch maker Gateron, and relies on the Hall effect (hence Wooting Two 'HE') to achieve analogue input.

In the Wootility v4 software (amazing), a game will need to register this switch actuation as either DirectInput or Xinput. That means you'll largely want to set your left analogue stick up, down, left, right to your WASD keys on the Wooting, in order to replicate the best bits of analogue controller movement.

Of all the peripheral-specific applications out there, and boy are there a lot of them, I don't mind the Wootility one bit, either. It's simple, well put together, and has only improved since I last used it. It puts some other larger manufacturers to shame with how easy and smart-looking it is, in fact.

If you want heaps of customisability, this is the gaming keyboard for you.

Do you want to have your entire moveset mapped to a single power key in-game? It's certainly possible. You could chain skills, moves, or spells in-game by applying them all to a single keypress. Or if you're really accurate, have a key do two different things depending on how far you press it.

The keyboard is solid, well-built, and comes with a two-year warranty. If a switch breaks, you can swap it out, as the board itself is hot-swappable. That's one benefit of there not really being all that many mechanical moving parts with a magnetic Lekker switch, and another is that there's less to break in the first place.

The Wooting Two HE is analog at its very best, and if you want heaps of customisability, this is the gaming keyboard for you.

Read our full Wooting Two HE review.

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8. Razer Cynosa Chroma

The best membrane gaming keyboard

Switch: Membrane (non-mechanical) | Size: Full size | Backlight: per-key RGB | Passthrough: None | Media Controls: Shortcuts | Wristrest: None | Keycaps: ABS

Best feeling membrane keys available

Affordable

Per key RGB lighting

Membrane doesn't live up to mechanical

If even mecha-membrane keys don't suit you, and you demand a full membrane typing/gaming experience for whatever reason (no judgement here), the Razer Cynosa is the deck for you. I know there are people out there who prefer the soft embrace of a pure membrane switch, and that's fine—each to their own.

The Cynosa has some of the best feeling, low profile membrane keys I've ever tested.

The Cynosa has some of the best feeling, low profile membrane keys I've ever tested, and at a retail price of $60, it is one of the most affordable gaming keyboards out there (well, past a certain threshold of quality). While it may lack some of the features several gaming boards pack in, stuff like a dedicated wrist rest or media controls, it does boast Razer's extensive RGB lighting, which can be programmed on a per-key basis or applied by zones.

Compared to a lot of membrane boards out there, the Cynosa Chroma is still pretty barebones, but coming from Razer you can bet it's heaps cooler than those ones you used to type on at school.

It's a solid, no-frills, nice-looking keyboard that's the best membrane option of a huge range that I've tested. There is a step-up version of the Cynosa available. Still, for $20 extra, the only real addition is under-glow RGB, so unless that kind of 'ground effects' package is massively appealing to you, I recommend you save your cash and invest in the base model.

Best gaming mouse | Best gaming chair | Best gaming PC
Best VR headset | Best wireless gaming mouse | Best gaming monitor

Best gaming keyboard FAQ

What is the big deal with mechanical switches?

We can talk for hours about the feel of mechanical switches versus membrane switches, but ultimately that's a personal choice. What makes mechanical switches objectively superior, however, is their far extended life span. They can take far more punishment and keep responding long after a membrane switch has collapsed in on itself.

What is the most important thing to look for in a mechanical gaming keyboard?

The switch type is arguably the most important choice to make when picking your new gaming keyboard. Cherry mechanical switches are the most common and most recognizable, but there are a host of alternatives on offer, as well a bunch of upmarket, specialist switches to choose from. 

Are dedicated media controls a deal-breaker?

Only you can make that call, but we would suggest that at least having the option to toggle the top row between function and media controls would be our choice. Having a discrete volume wheel can be super useful, however.

What size of keyboard do I need?

Keyboard size is absolutely a defining factor. Full-sized keyboards tend to offer the most features and a Numpad, but if you don't have space, then all of those extras you paid for will be useless. Tenkeyless boards (the ones with no number pad) and compact keyboards can be a great option, too, if you don't care about all the extra bells and whistles or you don't have any use for alt codes (how barbaric!).

Jargon buster - keyboard terminology

Actuation Point
The height to which a key needs to be pressed before it actuates and sends an input signal to a device.

Clicky
A switch that delivers an audible click every time it's pressed, generally right around the point of actuation.

Debounce
A technique to ensure that only one input registers every time a key is pressed.

Housing
The shell that surrounds the internal components of a switch.

Hysteresis
The result of the actuation point and reset point in a switch being misaligned. This generally means a key needs to be lifted off further than normal before it can be actuated again. 

Linear
A switch that moves directly up and down, generally delivering smooth keystrokes without noise or tactile feedback.

Mechanical Keyboard
A keyboard built around individual switches for each key rather than a membrane sheath mounted on a PCB.

Membrane Keyboard
A keyboard on which all the keycaps are mounted on a membrane sheath; when a key is pressed, a rubber dome depresses and pushes against the sheath and PCB beneath, actuating the key.

Stem
The component of a switch on which the keycaps are mounted on a mechanical keyboard.

Switch
The physical component of a mechanical keyboard beneath the keycaps on a mechanical keyboard. The switch determines how a key is actuated, whether or not it provides audible or tactile feedback with each press, and more.

Optical switch
This is a type of mechanical switch which instead of a physical metal contact switch uses light to measure when actuation takes place. These can be more configurable too, allowing for not just off and on states, but more analog designs, and even dual actions for a single key depending on how far the switch is pressed down.

Tactile
A switch that provides a 'bump' of feedback every time it's pushed.

Tenkeyless (TKL)
A keyboard that lacks the right-hand number pad.

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[How to get inside the Cuddle Team Leader head in Fortnite]

The giant Cuddle Team Leader head perched on the mountain above Rave Cave is one of the most recognisable landmarks on the current Fortnite island map—turns out a giant pink bear head surrounded by a rollercoaster isn't exactly subtle. But for one of Week 14's challenges, you're going to have to make your way inside it to emote for five seconds.

That said, actually getting inside the bear's noggin is rather tricky, and there are many different routes you can take. In this guide, I'll explain how to get inside the Cuddle Team Leader head so you can complete that weekly challenge.

How to get inside the Fortnite Cuddle Team Leader head 

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You can find Ballers inside the Rave Cave (Image credit: Epic)

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The zipline is located on the north side of the head (Image credit: Epic)

First-off, locating the Cuddle Team Leader head is pretty easy; it's a giant pink bear after all. If you select the week 14 quest for emoting inside the head, you'll also get a map marker that points you in the right direction.

There are a few different methods to find your way into that bear's brain, but one of the best—and most fun—is the Screwballer. This rollercoaster runs all the way around the Rave Cave before arriving at the Cuddle Team Leader's head. You can either run along the tracks, which is perhaps better since you can jump onto them higher up, or you can grab a Baller vehicle from inside the Rave Cave itself. These sphere-icles let you ride along the tracks with ease. 

If you want to get straight to the point and trust your aim, you can glide from the Battle Bus when you drop and land on the Cuddle Team Leader head. There are a variety of entrances, including on top, so you can easily get inside. Even if you miss, you'll be in a good position to jump on the tracks and run the last bit, though watch out for falling through them. 

Finally, there is a Zipline on the north side of the Cuddle Team Leader head that you can attach onto and it'll zoom you right up inside. Once there, use any Emote for five seconds and you'll get that 15,000 XP.

View the full article

[The best graphics cards in 2022]

The best graphics cards might not be the best for much longer, but on the plus side they are finally available at or around their MSRP. There are even a few that are not under MSRP, though these are usually the cards most likely to be replaced by something bigger and more performant in the near-future. That said, whether you're after a frame-munching behemoth, or perhaps a slightly more wallet-friendly, budget graphics card, you're much more likely to find it in stock now.

When it comes to the best graphics card for PC gaming, you're going to want one that's capable of beating the rest with silky-smooth frame rates at the highest graphics settings, even at more expansive resolutions. It should offer great value for money and be easy to find on the digital shelves. The latter hasn't been a thing for GPUs recently, but someone up there's hit the reset button, and things are finally returning to normal.

GPUs are in a great place right now. Both Nvidia and AMD have been squaring off for the crown, and that's likely to continue with the incoming next generation from both parties. Then there's Intel with its Arc Alchemist graphics card, though these haven't really arrived in earnest and barely compete with Nvidia and AMD's most entry-level cards.

It's important to note that the next generation of GPUs is coming soon. These GPUs are likely to offer a darn sight more performance for less, though the more budget-conscious GPUs like the RTX 3060 or RX 6600 XT aren't likely to be replaced by shiny new cards immediately. If you're after something a little more high-powered, however, maybe wait a minute before splashing out on a GPU.

Best graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

1. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 10GB

The best graphics card for PC gaming right now

CUDA cores: 8,704 | Base clock: 1,440MHz | Boost clock: 1,710MHz | TFLOPs: 29.76 | Memory: 10GB GDDR6X | Memory clock: 19GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 760GB/s

Incredible gen-on-gen performance

Makes 2080 Ti look mid-range

Ray tracing no longer a sacrifice

At launch it was one of the best deals in PC gaming history

Needs a beefy PSU

In high demand

There is a better 12GB model (though it is too expensive)

The RTX 3080 delivers the best performance per dollar for a high-end gaming PC. For a little while longer at least. And we're only talking about the 10GB one. At its original MSRP. There's also the 12GB RTX 3080, though that is even more expensive still.

I know, that is a lot of things to consider when buying a high-end GPU right now and that's largely because we're on the verge of a new GPU generation, following in the wake of a GPU shortage.

Though if you do pick up the RTX 3080 today it is a huge generational performance boost over the previous RTX 20-series. That's impressive when put up against either the RTX 2080 or 2080 Super, but when you consider that this nominally $699 card can not just match but massively outperform the $1,200 RTX 2080 Ti, it really hits home.

The thing which really stands out from our testing is the difference it makes to ray-tracing performance. The first generation of ray tracing-capable cards required such a huge frame rate sacrifice that most people shied away from turning it on, but that's no longer the case with this generation.

When you can now get ray-traced performance that exceeds the frame rates you'd get out of the top card of the RTX 20-series when running without it, you know that this is a whole different beast. And hey, the RTX 3080 can actually run Crysis.

The RTX 3080 represents a huge generational performance boost over the previous RTX 20-series.

Nvidia has managed this by adding a whole load more CUDA cores to the mix in this 8nm GPU and updated Tensor Cores (for extra DLSS goodness) and second-gen RT Cores to make with the ray-traced pretties.

The performance uplift you get over the previous generation is huge and pretty much unprecedented. Maybe we've become used to more iterative generational deltas, especially considering the slight difference between the GTX 1080 Ti and RTX 2080, for example. But we're going to continue beating the Ti drum because it bears repeating—the fact the $699 RTX 3080 absolutely smashes the $1,200 RTX 2080 Ti is still staggering.

The RTX 3080 may need a fair chunk more power, though—you'll want at least an 850W PSU.

If there was one bit of advice for buying a GeForce RTX 3080 it would be that it's worth trying to get your hands on the Founders Edition if at all possible. Pick your expletive, because the RTX 3080 Founders Edition is ****ing great. Far from just being the reference version of the 'flagship' Ampere graphics card, because of that cooler and redesigned PCB, it is the ultimate expression of the RTX 3080. And if you end up with another version of this fine-'donkey' GPU then I'm afraid you're likely to feel a little hard done by.

Chances are you're going to have to make do. The Founders Edition cards are not produced in the same volumes as the third-party versions from the likes of Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Palit, and Colorful, to name but a few.

Nvidia has gone big with the RTX 3080, and the result is an outstanding gaming card that sets a new benchmark for both high-end 4K gaming performance and for ray tracing. As I said at the top, it's the 10GB model we love more for its blend of performance and price, but the 12GB model is still a viable option. Just that much less affordable.

Read our full Nvidia RTX 3080 review (10GB Founders Edition).

(Image credit: Future)

2. AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT

AMD's RDNA 2 architecture at its best

RDNA cores: 4,608 | Base clock: 1,825MHz | Boost clock: 2,250MHz | TFLOPs: 20.74 | Memory: 16GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 16GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 512GB/s

4K excellence

Cheaper than an RTX 3080

Moderate ray tracing performance

Slower than the 3080 at 4K

As a red team alternative to Nvidia's high-end graphics cards, there have been few finer than the RX 6800 XT. A highly competitive card that comes so close to its rival, with a nominal performance differential to the RTX 3080, is truly an enthusiast card worth consideration for any PC gamer with 4K in their sights.

The RX 6800 XT was the first of AMD's RDNA 2 GPUs to enter the fray, and while we've had plenty of other cards since, this is the one that shines brighter than most and makes the most sense financially. At least it does if you consider its MSRP, and with AMD's GPUs returning to reasonable price levels quicker than Nvidia's, this could actually give the red team the edge in the short term.

We're big fans of what AMD has managed to accomplish with the RX 6800 XT.

A key battleground for Nvidia and AMD this generation has been on the memory front—covering both bandwidth and capacity. The RX 6800 XT comes with 16GB of GDDR6 across a 256-bit bus for a total bandwidth of 512GB/s. That means AMD has Nvidia's 10GB RTX 3080 on the ropes in terms of capacity but falls slightly behind in raw bandwidth to the RTX 3080's 760GB/s.

AMD has an ace up its sleeve in throughput terms in the form of its Infinity Cache, which bolsters the card's 'effective bandwidth' considerably. Some 1,664GB/s, by AMD's making—a 3.25x improvement over the RX 6800 XT's raw bandwidth. In gaming terms, it means you're looking at similar performance, despite the very different underlying technologies.

It's a tough call between the RX 6800 XT and the RTX 3080, but the latter pips AMD to the post with the final touches à la RTX. The RX 6800 XT is $50 cheaper, delivers high 4K performance, and a hefty VRAM increase over the RTX 3080. However, it's easy to argue that an extra $50 dropped on the RTX 3080 is money well spent: a small price to pay for greater 4K performance, much-improved ray tracing, and DLSS. All are available today and with years of developer support in the bank.

That said, AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution has gained considerable momentum among developers and offers solid upscaling that's worth enabling in supported games. The introduction of FSR 2.0 in Deathloop offers a tantalising glimpse of what the future holds too.

The RX 6800 XT leaves AMD in an incredibly strong position going forward, delivering what is required to get the entire industry to take notice, and with a strong proposition to offer gamers instantly at launch. And it's no surprise to hear the cooperation between Zen and RDNA engineers had a part to play in all this, too.

All of which is to say that AMD has evolved on what was already a promising architecture in RDNA and delivered it in a fantastic graphics card in the RX 6800 XT. And not the least bit impressive in just how swiftly it has achieved near performance parity with Nvidia. There's still some way to go to claw back market share from the green team, but step one on RTG's to-do list (build a high-end GPU) can be confidently checked off with the release of the RX 6800 XT.

We're big fans of what AMD has managed to accomplish with the RX 6800 XT, a return to form for the Radeon Technology Group that injects some much-needed competition into the GPU market and offers a worthy red team alternative for any high-end gaming PC build.

Read our full AMD RX 6800 XT review.

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3. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

More affordable Ampere

CUDA cores: 4,864 | Base clock: 1,410MHz | Boost clock: 1,665MHz | TFLOPs: 16.20 | Memory: 8GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 14GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 448GB/s

Finally! Something a little more affordable

2080 Super performance

Under $400

Chunkier GPU than RTX 3060

Not quite good enough for 4K in all instances

8GB VRAM is less than AMD offers

The best value Ampere to date, the RTX 3060 Ti is very closely related to the RTX 3070. Both utilize the same GA104 GPU (the RTX 3060 Ti has fewer SMs enabled), with the same 8GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus.

While 17% less capable in core count than its pricier sibling, the RTX 3060 Ti makes up for it with some judicious GPU Boost frequencies. That partially explains why the RTX 3060 Ti can be within 17% to just single digits off the pace of the RTX 3070, despite operating at a silicon disadvantage. Not bad for a $399 card (if you can find it for that price).

The RTX 3060 Ti delivers gaming performance that's rather stupendous.

If you haven't already done the maths: At $399, the RTX 3060 Ti is 20% cheaper than the RTX 3070, so performance per dollar is on the up with the diminutive graphics card. That's why we love it so; it's a great GPU for the full stack of resolutions and has decent ray tracing capability to boot, courtesy of second-generation RT Cores.

The RTX 3060 Ti delivers gaming performance that's rather stupendous when you look at generational gains over even the RTX 20-series—next to the GTX 10-series, it's quite frightening, actually. There's exceptional 1080p and 1440p performance in a tiny package here, the likes of which would've set you back something close to twice as much cash a couple of years ago. And that's pretty great.

This card is even capable of dabbling with high-fidelity 4K gaming, although you're going to have to massage some graphics settings in order to really crack a solid 60fps in more demanding games. And that's often just in terms of average framerates, to keep your GPU above 60fps requires a lot of tinkering. That can sometimes take the fun out of 4K gaming in the first place. It's a much smoother affair at 1440p, and at 1080p you can pretty much max everything out and just go.

The Nvidia extras can help here too—DLSS, Reflex, and even Nvidia Broadcast all add to the overall experience. There's a solid base of genuinely great features behind RTX and the Nvidia package that's only been improved upon with Ampere, none more so than the ray-tracing performance for that matter.

If the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 are out of reach, the RTX 3060 Ti certainly makes for a decent stand-in. Perhaps the most impressive demonstration of what this card has achieved is seeing how it stacks up to the 20-series generation: It topples the RTX 2080 Super in nearly every test. 

Read our full Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti review (Founders Edition).

(Image credit: Future)

4. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070

Finally, a reason for every 10-series gamer to upgrade

CUDA cores: 5,888 | Base clock: 1,500MHz | Boost clock: 1,725MHz | TFLOPs: 20.37 | Memory: 8GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 14GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 448GB/s

Turing-topping frame rates

Relatively low power

This FE card is smol

Often seen priced much higher than an RTX 3060 Ti, especially in pre-built PCs

Perhaps the only high-end Ampere that's anything close to reasonably affordable, the RTX 3070 is also impressive for its ability to match the top-string Turing graphics card, the RTX 2080 Ti, for less than half of its price tag. Sure, it's not exactly a cheap graphics card, but the RTX 3070 is bringing ultra-enthusiast gaming performance down into a far more palatable price point. And it's also making high-end ray tracing and 4K gaming relevant to a much wider sector of the audience too.

At $499, it's still a significant sum by any means—we're talking next-gen console equivalent pricing here—but it's hardly an exorbitant sum when compared to PC gaming's top graphics silicon today. In return, you're gifted a 4K-capable graphics card that doesn't require too much fiddling to reach playable, if not high, framerates. And it'll absolutely smash it at 1440p, no question about that.

The RTX 3070 Founders Edition is still sporting the 12-pin power connector of the RTX 3080, and therefore it comes with a single 8-pin to 12-pin adapter in the packaging. Nvidia has once more delivered a super-compact PCB with this FE card, however, which makes the whole shroud far smaller than the RTX 3080.

This is the Ampere card which represents a genuine performance upgrade for the vast majority of us, at a price that we can almost swallow.

Despite coming with two front-loaded fans the spinner at the tail of the card is there to amplify the airflow across the heatpipes and that does seem to aid the cooling performance of this smart little GPU.

The RTX 3070 also offers up Nvidia's reliable driver stack, the GeForce Experience app, ShadowPlay's recording, and the new Broadcast suite, the impressive Reflex latency-spiking setup, and the latent potential of RTX IO bringing the next-gen consoles' most potent feature to the PC. And of course, you have ray tracing and the ever-improving DLSS enhancements.

That's a lot to add onto the impressive raw performance that the RTX 3070 offers, and it does make a difference to a lot of people.

Nvidia's xx70 series of cards is often the real sweet spot for PC gamers, and the RTX 3070 is ever that. This is the Ampere card which represents a genuine performance upgrade for the vast majority of us, at a price that we can almost swallow. For all those people who sat on their GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti cards throughout the RTX 20-series, now really is the time to upgrade.

Read our full Nvidia RTX 3070 review (Founders Edition).

Best CPU for gaming | Best DDR4 RAM | Best gaming motherboards
Best SSD for gaming | Best gaming laptop | Best gaming monitors

(Image credit: Future)

5. AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT

If you've money to burn

RDNA cores: 5,120 | Base clock: 1,825MHz | Boost clock: 2,250MHz | TFLOPs: 23.04 | Memory: 16GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 16GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 512GB/s

Occasional RTX 3090 performance…

...but cheaper!

Can lag behind RTX 3080 at times

Mediocre ray tracing performance

The RTX 3090 may have sat unchallenged at the top rungs of graphics performance at launch, but it wouldn't be long until AMD rustled together a challenger in the RX 6900 XT, or 'Big Navi.' The RX 6900 XT hopes to knock Ampere's finest from its perch on high and send it spiralling back down to Earth. And it gets kind of close, too, with 4K performance a little off the pace of the RTX 3090—and all for one-third off the asking price.

For that reason, it's simply the better buy for any PC gamer without any ulterior motives of the pro-creator variety. But there's a reason it's not number one in our graphics card guide today, and that's simply due to the fact it's not that much better than an RTX 3080, and sometimes not at all. It's another $300 on top of the RTX 3080's recommended price tag, and you'd hope for higher performance in both rasterized and ray tracing workloads. Yet, inevitably its ray-tracing acceleration lags behind the competition.

For raw gaming alone, the RX 6900 XT is a cheaper alternative to the RTX 3090.

Even within AMD's line-up, there's no pressing argument to pick this up over more-affordable offerings. With a $350 price premium over the RX 6800 XT, the RX 6900 XT offers little return on your sizeable investment—the RX 6900 XT is 53% more expensive than the RX 6800 XT yet offers just 5.25% more performance in games.

That's why it's strange that AMD is making a point of the RX 6900 XT being a card built for 'gaming first'. Even Nvidia didn't make that mistake, billing the RTX 3090 as a pro-creator card with a substantial increase in memory capacity over the second-run gaming card below to help justify the cost.

It's far more difficult to justify the cost of the RX 6900 XT, sharing as many qualities with far cheaper cards as it does and with the slight performance gain it's able to deliver from its few upgrades.

While I'm a big fan of RDNA 2 and the leaps AMD RTG has made to get it to compete at this level in a short period of time are impressive, the RX 6900 XT is simply not its finest form. It's not the easiest card to recommend for the vast majority of gamers, even those that have their sights set on the high-end. For most, the RTX 3080 is still the card to beat.

But the RX 6900 XT does come with assurances that the RTX 3080 can't make, such as its 16GB of GDDR6 memory, which is a whole 6GB greater than the 10GB of (faster) GDDR6X memory on the green team card. With that in mind, for raw gaming alone, the RX 6900 XT is a cheaper alternative to the RTX 3090.

AMD has since released the RX 6950 XT to compete mano a mano with Nvidia's more recent RTX 3090 Ti. Both of these cards are extreme in performance, and price: demanding well over $1,000. The RX 6900 XT is generally slipping to MSRP or less at the moment, however, and that's why we prefer it as the high-end option today.

Read our full AMD RX 6900 XT review.

(Image credit: Future)

6. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti

The new king of GeForce gaming

CUDA cores: 10,240 | Base clock: 1,365MHz | Boost clock: 1,665MHz | TFLOPs: 34.10 | Memory: 12GB GDDR6X | Memory clock: 19GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 912.4GB/s

Superb 4K performance

Nearly an RTX 3090 for less cash

Excellent ray tracing capability

A lot pricier than the RTX 3080

Power hungry at 350W

Runs pretty hot

The RTX 3080 Ti isn't the mightiest GeForce graphics card that Nvidia makes. That accolade originally went to the RTX 3090, by a hair, and was more recently claimed by the RTX 3090 Ti. Though when all is said and benchmarked, it is the uber high-end RTX 3080 Ti that we'd recommend to any PC gamer looking to go all out on their next build.

The arrival of the Ampere generation did a lot to diminish the awkwardness or fiddly nature of 4K gaming, but the RTX 3080 Ti truly squashes it. Setting up for high performance 4K gaming remains a pricey investment, but you needn't be as cautious as we once had to be on a game-by-game basis. You can relatively comfortably set your game to high or ultra settings and get comfortable, even high, frame rates at 4K.

With performance close to the RTX 3090 at 4K, the RTX 3080 Ti is as much a gaming graphics card as its progenitor.

The last thing you want when gaming at 4K is to turn down graphics quality settings, and with the RTX 3080 Ti you shouldn't have to nearly as much as we've come to expect at 3840 x 2160. 

The RTX 3080 Ti tends to fall a little behind the RTX 3090, although it appears the more expensive card only sees marginal benefit for an increase in core counts and memory—the RTX 3080 Ti is only single percentage points off the pace.

With performance close to the RTX 3090 at 4K, the RTX 3080 Ti is as much a gaming graphics card as its progenitor. With a vast bounty of CUDA Cores and speedy GDDR6X memory, this card demolishes any game you can throw at it with relative ease. It's also more than capable of real-time ray tracing, courtesy of 80 RT Cores.

The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti remains an impressively powerful graphics card despite some inflexibility ingrained in the price—it will see some save a few pennies on ultra-high-end gaming PC builds and still claim top performance. The Ampere architecture is excellent, and stuffing more of it under that unassuming black and (polished) grey shroud simply makes for a great gaming chip.

It does, then, achieve what it set out to do: break the back of just about any game, API, or graphics-intensive task, even at 4K, and do so in a way that appeals directly to gamers' sensibilities. Though it's not quite the high-end price-to-performance champion the RTX 3080 is, the RTX 3080 Ti FE is in small part a better buy than an RTX 3090 FE.

The reason we don't rate this card higher up in our list of the best graphics cards, however, is down to its price. Launching at $1,200, it's only a stone's throw away from the $1,499 RTX 3090. Massively inflated pricing, or lack of stock, notwithstanding.

Read our full Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti review (Founders Edition).

(Image credit: Future)

7. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB

Nvidia's shot at a more affordable Ampere GPU

CUDA cores: 3,584 | Base clock: 1,320MHz | Boost clock: 1,777MHz | TFLOPs: 12.74 | Memory: 12GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 15GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 360GB/s

Ready for 60fps at 1440p or greater

Decent gen-on-gen performance improvement

More readily available to purchase in pre-built PCs

Not always massively faster than an RTX 2060

RTX 3060 Ti is a better buy at $399

The decision to load the RTX 3060 with 12GB of GDDR6 memory appeared a strange one at first, and in many ways it still is. It's more memory than the RTX 3080, after all, albeit slower stuff, and it tops out the RTX 3060 Ti too. However, the RTX 3060 wields it well, managing to dispatch the RTX 2060 by a large margin in most games, and by enough of a gap in the rest to make it worthwhile.

The RTX 3060 is a fine upgrade for a 10-series or older card, especially if at close to the MSRP.

And we're not going to turn our noses up at 12GB of VRAM when 6GB is the likely alternative.

Perhaps the most newsworthy shake-up for the Nvidia RTX 3060 came with the announcement of a hash rate limiter, which was designed to keep the card from operating at its full capability while mining Ethereum, the crypto of choice for GPU mining. Nvidia hoped that'd sway miners towards its new CMP line-up, built from off-cut GPUs not fit for gaming consumption, while supposedly leaving more GeForce cards for gamers. It didn't stop the card from selling out of course.

With a decent generation-on-generation improvement and plenty of speed at 1080p and 1440p, the RTX 3060 12GB is a graphics card easily argued for. 

It's also nominally cheaper than the RTX 2060 was on launch day, though it's not so easy to find it as a discrete number nowadays. That said, this card often crops up within pre-built gaming PCs, and for a decent price all-inclusive too.

The RTX 3060 Ti remains the mid-range champion. The Nvidia RTX 3060 strays a little too far from the pack of high-end Ampere to have the same impact generation on generation. But in that same breath, it must be said that the RTX 3060 is a fine upgrade for a 10-series or older card, especially if at close to the MSRP, and one that will likely see you confidently through the next few years of major game releases.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB review (Zotac Twin Edge).

(Image credit: Future)

8. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050

The best sub-$300 graphics card, in theory

CUDA cores: 2,560 | Base clock: 1,552MHz | Boost clock: 1,777MHz | TFLOPs: 9.098 | Memory: 8GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 14GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 224GB/s

DLSS and ray tracing support

Way faster than an RX 6500 XT

Should be at least RTX 2060 performance

Long term stock and pricing unknowable

There is no graphics card under $300 that we would recommend bar the GeForce RTX 3050. Though it didn't take much to defeat AMD's Radeon RX 6500 XT. The RTX 3050 is still a difficult GPU to recommend heartily, however, as it's neither readily available nor as cheap as it should be.

The RTX 3050 is a much smaller GPU than the RTX 3060 12GB, and like any good PC gamer, we would recommend the larger chip. That said, if you can't stretch your budget any further, the RTX 3050 will deliver GTX 1660 Ti performance with the benefit of DLSS.

As the basis of a prebuilt gaming PC, the RTX 3050 is the better option of what's out there on a tight budget.

That means you're getting a graphics card that can handle 1080p at decent settings most of the time, although some titles will push you well below the 60fps goal many of us aim for. And while this may be the most affordable Nvidia graphics card of this generation, it's still a hefty chunk of cash when you can't just whack everything on full and enjoy your game of choice the way it was meant to be played.

There's also support for ray tracing with the RTX 3050, though its weak-heart innards aren't going to stand for much of that.

Where we wanted at least RTX 2060 performance, we ended up with GTX 1660 Ti frame rates with a little RTX frosting on top. Sure, that's tasty where it sticks, but is another example of a card designed and priced within the limits of a pandemic and a GPU shortage, rather than showing off Nvidia's silicon wizardry to its fullest.

As the basis of a prebuilt gaming PC, the RTX 3050 is the better option of what's out there on a tight budget. That said, you can find really good RTX 3060 12GB PC deals fairly regularly, and with a little patience, you may be able to grab a much more capable graphics card.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 review (Gigabyte Eagle).

GPU benchmarks

Every new GPU generation offers new features and possibilities. But rasterized rendering is still the most important metric for general gaming performance across the PC gaming world. Sure, Nvidia GPUs might well be better at the ray tracing benchmarks they more or less instigated, but when it comes to standard gaming performance AMD's latest line up can certainly keep pace.

It's also worth noting that the previous generation of graphics cards do still have something to offer, with something like the GTX 1650 Super able to outpace a more modern RTX 3050 in most benchmarks.

We're not saying you should buy an older card in 2022, but it's worth knowing where your current GPU stacks up, or just knowing the lie of the land. But there is also the fact there will be gaming rigs on sale with older graphics cards over the next few days, and if they're cheap enough they may still be worth a punt as a cheap entry into PC gaming.

We've benchmarked all the latest GPUs of this generation, and have tracked their performance against the previous generation in terms of 3DMark Time Spy Extreme scores. Where we don't have the referential numbers for an older card we have used the average index score from the UL database. These figures track alongside an aggregated 1440p frame rate score from across our suite of benchmarks.

(Image credit: Future)

Graphics card FAQ

How do I get a GPU in the the graphics card shortage?

Prices are starting to drop down to normal levels, with stock levels returning in full force. The issue that remains is finding a graphics card without a massive markup, as we don't believe you should be overpaying for a GPU today, not with the next generation around the corner.

Which is better GTX or RTX?

The older GTX prefix is now used to denote older Nvidia graphics cards which don't have the extra AI and ray tracing silicon that the RTX-level cards do. This RTX prefix was introduced three years ago with the RTX 20-series, and highlights which cards have GPUs which sport both the Tensor Cores and RT Cores necessary for real-time ray tracing and Deep Learning Super Sampling.

Is ray tracing only for RTX cards?

The RTX prefix is only used to denote cards which house Nvidia GPUs with dedicated ray tracing hardware, but they are still using the same DirectX Raytracing API Microsoft has created, and which is used by AMD's RDNA 2 GPUs. These AMD GPUs are able to suport real-time ray tracing, though with a higher performance impact than on Nvidia's GPUs.

Intel's upcoming Xe-HPG GPUs, with the Alchemist graphics cards first to use them, will also support ray tracing using Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing API when they launch early next year, too.

Is SLI or CrossFire still a thing?

If you're looking for maximum performance, you used to run two cards in SLI or CrossFire. However, it's become increasingly common for major games to ignore multi-GPU users completely. That includes all DXR games. There's also the fact that fewer of the next-gen cards actually support the linking of two cards. On the Nvidia side, only the $1,500 RTX 3090 comes with NVLink connections, only for creative apps.

So, no. It's not a thing.

Do I need a 4K capable graphics card?

The obvious answer is: Only if you have a 4K gaming monitor. But there are other things to consider here, such as what kinds of games do you play? If frame rates are absolutely king for you, and you're into ultra-competitive shooters, then you want to be aiming for super high fps figures. And, right now, you're better placed to do that at either 1440p or 1080p resolutions.

That said, the more games, such as CoD: Warzone that incorporates DLSS, the more Nvidia cards will be capable of making a close approximation of 4K visuals on your 4K monitor, but at higher frame rates.

What's a Founders Edition graphics card?

The Founders Edition cards are simply Nvidia's in-house designs for its graphics cards, as opposed to those designed by its partners. These are usually reference cards, meaning they run at stock clocks. 

Briefly, for the RTX 20-series, Nvidia decided to offer Founders Editions with factory overclocks. These had made it a little difficult to compare cards, as Founders Edition cards give us a baseline for performance, but Nvidia has since returned to producing them as reference again.

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[UK watchdog announces in-depth investigation of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal]

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that, following an initial investigation, it is prepared to open an in-depth 'Phase 2' enquiry into Microsoft's $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard. The CMA is the UK's anti-trust regulator, responsible for maintaining the competitive integrity of the markets, and could be a significant hurdle for the acquisition if its concerns are not addressed.

The opening of the second stage of the investigation is not a done deal: the CMA may decide not to proceed if Microsoft and Activision Blizzard provide sufficient undertakings before the deadline of September 8. An undertaking is a legally binding agreement wherein Microsoft could choose to say to the CMA, for example, "Call of Duty will be available on PlayStation for the next 30 years."

That's the kind of thing that the CMA is thinking about. In a press release accompanying the full report the organisation says it is concerned that the deal "could harm rivals, including recent and future entrants into gaming, by refusing them access to Activision Blizzard games or providing access on much worse terms."

Another concern is adding Activision Blizzard to Microsoft's broader gaming ecosystem, meaning that incorporating its wide range of titles into, say, Game Pass or a streaming offer could be unfair to any smaller competitors. The CMA reckons this has the potential to "damage competition in the nascent market for cloud gaming services."

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard now have a short window in which to address the issues raised, and if they don't satisfy the regulator the deal will be referred for a Phase 2 investigation. This involves assembling an independent expert panel to probe the issues identified in the initial report. The panel will have statutory powers to gather internal documents and any other information it may want.

"Following our Phase 1 investigation, we are concerned that Microsoft could use its control over popular games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft post-merger to harm rivals, including recent and future rivals in multi-game subscription services and cloud gaming," said Sorcha O’Carroll, senior director of mergers at the CMA. "If our current concerns are not addressed, we plan to explore this deal in an in-depth Phase 2 investigation to reach a decision that works in the interests of UK gamers and businesses."

(Image credit: Davis Ramos (Getty))

The CMA's summary of phase one of the decision gives a brief overview of the videogames market as it exists in the UK, drawing distinctions primarily between the type of games prevalent on consoles and PC as opposed to mobile. It does go in-depth on the exclusivity issue, and Microsoft's recent acquisition of Zenimax comes up as a bit of a red flag: in particular, the fact that Bethesda's Starfield is not going to be on PlayStation.

Analysing the potential for Microsoft "using ABK’s content to foreclose rivals", the CMA goes on to note that "Microsoft has followed this approach in several past acquisitions of gaming studios, where it made future game releases from those studios exclusive in consoles to Xbox (such as the upcoming Starfield and, based on Microsoft’s public statements, Elder Scrolls VI from Bethesda, a studio Microsoft acquired as part of its USD 7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax in 2021)."

The CMA is especially concerned about the deal's impact on Sony, which it believes to be the closest competitor to Microsoft in terms of content, target audience, and console offerings. It notes drily that Nintendo focuses more on innovative ways of playing "and does not currently offer any Call of Duty games on the Nintendo Switch."

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick addressed the CMA's decision in an open letter to the company's employees and investors:

"As we said from the outset, this is a long process. With the number of government approvals required, we still believe the deal is most likely to close in Microsoft’s fiscal year ending June of next year. We are fortunate to have already received approvals from a couple of countries, and the process with all of the regulators is generally moving along as we expected," writes Kotick.

"This week we heard from the United Kingdom, where we have more employees than anywhere except North America. We have entered the second phase of our review there, and we will continue to fully cooperate with the regulators there, and everywhere approvals are required."

Microsoft's Phil Spencer also had an open letter ready to go, which of course addressed the Call of Duty issue upfront: "We will pursue a principled path," writes Spencer. "We’ve heard that this deal might take franchises like Call of Duty away from the places where people currently play them. That’s why, as we’ve said before, we are committed to making the same version of Call of Duty available on PlayStation on the same day the game launches elsewhere."

"We will continue to engage with regulators with a spirit of transparency and openness as they review this acquisition. We respect and welcome the hard questions that are being asked. The gaming industry today is robust and dynamic. Industry leaders, including Tencent and Sony, continue to expand their deep and extensive libraries of games as well as other entertainment brands and franchises, which are enjoyed by players everywhere."

That's an interesting reminder that, even should this acquisition go through, Microsoft still won't be as big as Tencent. But it doesn't seem like this decision has Microsoft or Activision Blizzard unduly worried. The CMA is being more aggressive than one would perhaps expect, but the areas it's identified can be (and are already being) addressed by the suits. If Microsoft has to put a promise about Call of Duty in writing to get this deal through, then it will certainly do so.

The CMA will announce next week whether the Phase 2 investigation will proceed, or whether it's been given sufficient assurances about its concerns.

Activision Blizzard's shareholders have long since approved the deal, but due to its sheer size it's attracting regulatory attention worldwide. The US Federal Trade Commission is among those looking into it, though for what it's worth, we spoke to a lawyer who generally leaned towards the deal eventually being waved through.

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[Enough with the Cities: Skylines DLC, give us a sequel already]

I'll always have a soft spot for Cities: Skylines. Seven years after its initial release it still stands as one of the most comprehensive city builders of all time. And while I'm still enamoured with its endless detailing, horky borky intersections, and traffic flow brainbusters, it's about time Colossal Order brought us a Cities: Skylines sequel.

Every year I go through a rotation of my favourite games; when I get the urge to manage traffic and lay pipes under the roads (right where they belong), Cities: Skylines always pushes itself back into my life, for better or worse. With Colossal Order's recent announcement of the Plazas & Promenades DLC, I've been hearing the distant chirp once again. 

"Start a new city," it seems to whisper from the annals of my Steam library. What can I say? I like the feeling of defacing a fresh map, rather than ruining my previous creations with feverish addendums each time a new DLC rocks up.

But even with all $250 worth of Cities DLC sitting at my fingertips (not obsessed, just enthusiastic), I'm getting antsy for something new. Something no DLC or workshop item can deliver, however brightly coloured or pedestrian-focussed. Starting the same game over and over will only amuse me for so long—and I only discovered the game about three years ago. I can only imagine how the Cities: Skylines veterans feel.

For the longest time, we've been convinced Cities had scared off all the other urban city builders. But with deep and comprehensive indie games like Urbek City Builder taking stage now, Cities is starting to look a little drab. There's just so much potential here for a new game; a better game, one with less annoying sound samples on a two second loop when you zoom in.

Think about what the devs could do with what they've learned from making Cities: Skylines, the incredible features they could integrate that their dedicated modding community has so lovingly designed. A proper traffic management system, anarchy from the get-go, the ability to rezone, or swap normal roads for bridges wherever I damn well please. Is it so much to ask?

(Image credit: Paradox)

Packing all these features up under a whole new aesthetic would be the dream, but even if Colossal Order brought us something collated, and optimised it enough that it won't eat through 32GB of RAM on loading, it would make my year.

I understand that a Cities: Skylines sequel might draw a lot of traffic away from the current mods and their Patreon links, but it'll also present modders with a new and exciting challenge to undertake in their spare time. 

Anyway, after seven years surely enough is enough. You can't expect games to stay the same forever. Isn't that what Cities: Skylines is all about? Adapt, evolve, expand… respect the topography? Alright so my metaphors may not be hitting, but it can't just be me having this urge for a new king of all the city builders.

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[This brutal open world survival game just got its biggest free update in 4 years]

Survival game Conan Exiles arrived in early access in 2017 with a mix of crafting, base building, brutal multiplayer PvP, and perhaps most notably an endowment slider and full genital physics. Since then the survival sandbox has continued to draw thousands of players with floppy dongs and bouncy ballbags to clash with each other in the harsh world of Conan's Hyborian Age.

That world is about to change. Age of Sorcery is the biggest free update to hit Conan Exiles since it left early access in 2018, and it's just gone live. The patch will allow players to finally become the natural rival of the barbarian: the magic-user. New powers will let players summon demons and undead minions, perform ritual blood sacrifices on captives, conjure lightning strikes, turn day into night, and even become invisible.

There's also a new feature that's both a little cool and a little funny: the ability to travel through the air by hanging onto the ankles of giant demon bats. I'm not sure exactly why I find that amusing as a means of transport. I think it's the fact that when you're dangling from something, rather than riding something, it makes it seem a little less than fearsome. Even if that thing is a giant demon bat.

Magic comes with a cost, however. As in another survival game, Outward, if you want to practice magic you'll have to sacrifice a portion of your maximum health and stamina. The more magic you want to wield, the less hearty and barbaric and more gaunt and withered you'll have to become. Makes sense, really.

Along with the update, Conan Exiles is getting a battle pass. The pass will consist strictly of cosmetic items, which include not just armor and weapons but building pieces and mounts. Funcom has designed the pass to ensure no real advantage is given to players who claim the items, and "any weapons or armor you see in the Battle Pass rewards will give you the recipe to craft it, not the weapon itself, and will have a base game equivalent in terms of stats."

"There are also no experience boosts or anything that gives you an advantage in PvP," says Funcom.

(Image credit: Funcom)

All the changes in Age of Sorcery, especially a revamped attributes and perks system, makes me think this will be a good time to start an entirely new character from scratch. Plus, it'll give you the chance to fiddle with those genital customization sliders again, if need be.

If you're interested in trying out Conan Exiles for the first time, you can do it this week at no cost. From now until September 8, Conan Exiles is free to play. You'll find it here on Steam. 

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[AMD predicts DDR5 could hit DDR4 pricing levels by mid-2023]

Since launch, DDR5 has been an incredibly expensive part of the PC building puzzle, but AMD believes we could see pricing drop considerably compared with DDR4 into next year and "potentially cross over as we get into the middle of next year," says David McAfee.

AMD announced its new Ryzen 7000-series processors this week, with a whole new AM5 platform built to support both PCIe 5.0 and DDR5. Like most new technology recently, the new memory kits have either been impossible to find, or are hugely expensive, far more so than the established DDR4 modules.

Intel was the first to offer support for the latest memory standard with its Alder Lake CPUs, but built in backwards compatibility with DDR4 in order to still be able to offer a more affordable way into the platform. That was necessary given the prohibitive pricing, and lack of stock of DDR5 memory modules around Intel's last launch.

AMD, however, isn't giving itself a way out of DDR5 support with its AM5 platform, and is going all-in right from the outset. A year down the line from Intel's Alder Lake launch and that decision's making more sense. For one it means AMD doesn't have to waste resources providing compatibility for an outgoing hardware specification, but also pricing and availability have changed a lot in the past three months or so.

AMD isn't relying on the work Intel has done with its XMP features for DDR5, either. It has been working with memory manufacturers to create a new open standard for overclocking memory profiles, called EXPO. 

"It's clear that DDR5 is the right choice today," says McAfee at the Ryzen 7000 announcement event in Austin, "and one that is built for the future as the technology continues to mature over time. 

"And we know that Ryzen enthusiasts love to overclock their memory, to ensure they're getting the fastest data rates and the lowest memory latencies to maximise game performance. And that's why the AM5 platform is also being introduced with AMD EXPO technology for extended profiles for overclocking."

(Image credit: AMD)

At launch there will be around 15 different EXPO kits available that will be completely compatible with the new AMD platform. And if anyone remembers what a nightmare it was getting the original Ryzen to run with different DDR4 memory kits, that will be a welcome start for AM5.

EXPO will allow for one-click overclocking from the JEDEC standard of DDR5-5200 all the way up to DDR5-6400. And AMD is already seeing up to 11% higher gaming frame rates from flipping on that EXPO BIOS switch.

AM5 motherboards will, however, continue to support Intel's own XMP standard in the same way that the long-lived AM4 platform has been. 

"We will support out-of-the-box overclocking with XMP memory kits as well," explains McAfee. "I expect it will be a little bit better tuned on EXPO DIMM kits than it is XMP profile kits, but certainly those Expo kits are optimised to work on the AMD AM5 platform."

Moar RAM

(Image credit: Future)

Best DDR5 RAM: the latest and greatest
Best DDR4 RAM: affordable and fast

But that will count for little if those high-end DDR5 memory kits continue to be so extravagantly priced as they have been.

"What we expect to see even in the remainder of this calendar year," says McAfee, "is more aggressive movement from the memory partners to accelerate pricing declines, get DDR5 pricing closer to DDR4 pricing. And, I think as we go into 2023, we'll see that gap narrow even further, potentially crossover as we get into the middle of next year."

The pricing crossover event will be an important one for DDR5, effectively making it the de facto standard for PC RAM. AMD's prediction of mid-2023 is, however, still going to be a guess, however educated, and the actual timing of this pricing inflection point may well end up being much later into 2023.

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[Your next Steam Deck could be a streaming device]

Valve has been pretty candid about their plans for the Steam Deck, especially around the device's recent release in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The company even produced a neat little booklet to formally introduce itself in new territories where Valve isn't a (specific kind of) household name, filled with tidbits and goodies about the Deck's development and future.

Well, that trend is set to continue, because in a recent interview with Famitsu Weekly, Valve designer Greg Coomer let slip a bit of the company's thinking when it comes to new Steam Decks. Most surprisingly, he indicated that one possibility for a "next generation" Steam Deck was that it "might even become a streaming machine," presumably taking advantage of the Steam Link technology that Valve has already poured a lot of time into.

It makes sense. During the interview, Coomer identified plenty of parts of the Steam Decks that could be up for revision, but he says that battery life is at the top of Valve's list of things to improve. A Deck that lets some other machine—whether it's your own PC or a Valve server—do the hard work of rendering your game would probably hammer its battery quite a bit less than the version we have today. You'd hope that such a device would also be able to cut down on the stuff it needs stuffed inside it, potentially making it a bit smaller, too.

But if you're as streaming-averse as I am, you shouldn't fear. It's unlikely that a hypothetical future streaming Steam Deck would be your only option. Valve has a tendency to talk about the Steam Deck as a "category" of devices, rather than a single, console-like machine that gets iterated on every few years (though they will be improving the current version too). So while the company might one day put out something with a Steam Deck logo on it that plays games by streaming them, it'll probably be accompanied by all sorts of other peculiar handheld PC gaming boxes, one of which will hopefully meet your needs.

Thanks, VideoGamesChronicle.

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[The best Genshin Impact characters]

Explore Sumeru these Genshin Impact 3.0 guides

(Image credit: miHoYo)

Genshin Impact Sumeru: How to get there
Genshin Impact Dendroculus: Where to find them
Genshin Impact End of the Line: Get the fish-bow
Genshin Impact Rukkhashava: Collei's mushrooms
Genshin Impact Nilotpala Lotus: Tighnari's flowers

The best Genshin Impact characters are those that you choose. Seriously, it's a game all about picking companions that you like and investing time and effort building them with strong weapons and artifacts. Investing in a character in Genshin is never a minor thing, especially if you get into the nitty gritty of artifact farming and either wishing for five-star weapons, or getting the best no-spend alternative you can through quests.

That said, it's handy to know what each character's strength is, especially if you're just starting out. There are a lot of characters arriving all the time as with Collei, Tighnari, and Dori, and now Sumeru's released, it's likely that we're going to get lots more. If you know how characters compare to each other in terms of strength and versatility, it makes creating a decent party that little bit simpler, especially as you're never going to have every single character in the game. Unless you bankrupt yourself that is.

In this Genshin Impact characters list, I'll go through every potential party member, rank them, and talk a little bit about what makes each of them unique. Lower down I'll also explain about upcoming characters, how banner Pity works, and who you can grab for free simply by completing various quests.

Here are the best Genshin Impact characters

Tier	Characters
S	Ganyu, Hu Tao, Raiden Shogun, Venti, Ayato, Arataki Itto, Bennett, Xingqiu, Zhongli, Albedo, Ayaka, Jean, Eula, Kazuha
A	Tighnari, Heizou, Yae Miko, Shenhe, Yun Jin, Gorou, Klee, Diluc, Kokomi, Yoimiya, Aloy, Yanfei, Mona, Tartaglia, Xiao, Diona, Sucrose, Keqing, Ningguang, Razor, Fischl, Noelle, Xiangling, Kuki
B	Collei, Thoma, Aloy, Barbara, Sara, Sayu, Beidou, Chongyun, Kaeya, Rosaria, Qiqi, Xinyan
C	Lisa, Traveller (all elements), Amber

Genshin Impact tier list

S-tier

A-tier

(Image credit: miHoYo)

B-tier

(Image credit: miHoYo)

C-tier

(Image credit: MiHoYo)

New characters

(Image credit: miHoYo)

Who are the new Genshin Impact characters?

The new Genshin Impact characters are Tighnari and Collei; both Dendro bow-users who arrived in version 3.0.

Tighari is a five-star whose playstyle centres around firing off arrows that split into multiple homing projectiles, while Collei, a four-star, is all about supporting your party with Dendro reactions through her boomerang skill and AoE burst. You can actually get Collei for free in version 3.0, too, so be sure to grab her if you're curious about Dendro.

Around September 14, Dori will arrive; a four-star Electro claymore-user who features on Ganyu and Kokomi's rerun banners. Dori is a support character who can attach a tether between her djinni and the active character to heal them and regen energy, so she'll be a useful energy support if you don't have the Raiden Shogun.

Looking even further into the future, Cyno, Nilou, and Candace have all been previewed on the official Genshin Impact twitter, meaning they are likely to arrive in version 3.1 around October 5. Cyno is a five-star Electro polearm-user, Nilou is a five-star Hydro sword-user, and Candace is a four-star Hydro polearm user.

We'll also undoubtedly get Dehya and Alhaitham at some stage, since they both featured in the Archon quest, and Nahida, too, considering she's the vessel of the Dendro Archon. Unlike Inazuma, the Sumeru Archon quest is set to run up until version 3.2, so we'll likely see them arrive then.

How banners work

(Image credit: miHoYo)

What is Pity in Genshin Impact?

To get Genshin Impact characters, you have to use the game's gacha system to 'Wish' on a banner. You use Genshin Impact Primogems to purchase Intertwined Fate or Acquaint Fate that amount to a single wish and can be used individually or in sets of ten for a guaranteed four star hero. 

Different banners feature different characters and boosted pull rates, so if you want a specific character and don't want to spend money, it's better to save up your Primogems and wait for them to be featured. The Genshin Impact pity and soft pity systems are also important to understand:

• After nine wishes without a four star, the tenth wish is guaranteed to be four star.
• After 89 wishes without a five star, the 90th is guaranteed to be a five star. From 75 wishes onwards the chance to pull a five-star is increased every wish until it hits 100% on the 90th.
• After 79 wishes on a weapon banner without a five star, the 80th is guaranteed to be five star. From 65 wishes onwards the chance to pull a five-star is increased every wish until it hits 100% on the 80th.

If you pull someone you already have, they are converted into an item that lets you unlock a Constellation upgrade for your current version of the character.

Free characters

(Image credit: miHoYo)

Who are the free characters in Genshin Impact?

Genshin Impact also gives you five free characters (and one who is technically free) for completing various story quests and challenges. Here's how to get them and the order they are available in:

• Amber: Complete the quest "Wind-Riding Knight"
• Noelle: Use ten of your free starting wishes on the beginner banner
• Kaeya: Complete the quest "Crash Course"
• Lisa: Complete the quest "Spark Amongst the Pages"
• Barbara: Complete the 'Song of the Dragon and Freedom' quest
• Xiangling: Clear floor three, chamber three in the Spiral Abyss

You can purchase further characters from a rotating pool at Paimon's Bargains with Masterless Starglitter, a resource you accumulate through wishes. It's lesser twin, Masterless Stardust, is also earned through wishes and can be used to buy both kinds of Fate for use in wishing.

It's worth keeping an eye out for free four-star seasonal characters as well, like Fischl in the upcoming Summertime Odyssey event in version 2.8.

Frequently asked questions

(Image credit: miHoYo)

How many Genshin Impact characters are there?

As of version 3.0 there are 52 characters, though with Sumeru now out, this number is likely to rise pretty sharpish. These characters are split between:

- 27 four-stars
- 25 five-stars
- Eight Anemo
- Seven Geo
- Nine Electro
- Two Dendro
- Seven Hydro
- Ten Pyro
- Ten Cryo

You can view every character in the archive in your in-game menu.

Who is the strongest Genshin Impact character?

I think the strongest Genshin Impact character is Zhongli. While it's a hard question to answer given that different characters have different roles, the five-star Geo Archon provides so much value in terms of his shields, and he's incredibly simple to build.

All you need to do is get him as much HP as possible, then have him whack down a Geo pillar to give your party almost unbreakable defense. When it disappears, simply use the skill again and you'll almost never take damage. He can also pop in and occasionally drop a meteor that decimates shields and turns enemies to stone.

Who is the most meta character in Genshin?

The most meta character in Genshin Impact is Bennett. While Genshin doesn't feature a meta in the same way a lot of games do, since it isn't PvP, Bennett and his Fantastic Voyage burst consistently appear in high damage parties.

That's because he pairs exceptionally well with everyone; you just plant his AoE burst for the attack boost, then do whatever else you're going to do. It's essentially a flat increase to the party's damage output, and that's never not useful. As a four-star, he's also easy to get, and his burst's attack boost scales with his own attack, so he can still pack a punch while providing that support value.

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[Jet Set Radio spiritual successor Bomb Rush Cyberfunk hit with another delay]

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, the Jet-Set-Radio-alike skating game from the devs behind Lethal League, has been delayed until summer next year.

We've been waiting on this one for a while now. When we were getting excited about it all the way back in the halcyon days of 2020, we were expecting it to come out the following year. Then the development updates started saying 2022, and now here we are, eyes still fixed on a receding horizon as a tweet from Team Reptile sends the game sliding back to summer 2023.

If you've not been following Bomb Rush Cyberfunk's development, it's a very deliberate spiritual successor to beloved Dreamcast classic Jet Set Radio. The game sees players freerun, skateboard, and BMX around a cel-shaded city in order to cover it in graffiti and challenge rival crews for turf. You can use your personal boostpack (which everyone apparently has in this gleaming vision of the future) to pull off Tony Hawk-style tricks and, most tantalisingly, the game promises that you will "encounter a lot of weirdos". Just like real life.

Better a delayed game than a bad one, of course, but hopefully this is the last delay Bomb Rush Cyberfunk needs before it's ready to go. In screenshots and videos the game already looks very Jet Set indeed, and the involvement of JSR's original composer, Hideki Naganuma, has my JSRF-weaned brain clapping along like a baby seal to the soundtrack. But Team Reptile says that releasing the game this year "will not take it to a level" that the devs "would be personally satisfied with". Next year it is, then.

If you want to wait impatiently with the rest of us, you can find the game's Steam page (which still proclaims a now-incorrect release date of 2022 at time of writing) right here.

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[Today's Wordle 439 answer and hint: Thursday, September 1]

If you need some help with today's Wordle then you've come to the right place—I've got all the clues and hints you need, as well as the answer to the September 1 (439) puzzle, waiting just below. And if you don't? You're still in the right place. From Wordle starter guides to help with perfecting your openers, it's all here.

I know Wordle doesn't do themes but as the weather begins to change I can't help but try a few appropriately seasonal guesses: LEAFY, COATS, CRISP and all the other words that make me think of the enjoyably bright and chilly mornings to come.

Wordle hint

Today's Wordle: A hint for Thursday, September 1

Mushrooms and yeast are tasty examples of today's word, with toadstools and spore-producing moulds representing the category's less palatable side. You'll need to use the plural form to get the answer and find two different vowels along the way. 

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 439 answer?

Let's make sure you start the month with a win. The answer to the September 1 (439) Wordle is FUNGI.

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:

• August 31: PRIZE
• August 30: ONSET
• August 29: CHIEF
• August 28: GAUZE
• August 27: RUDER
• August 26: IRONY
• August 25: CLOWN
• August 24: NEEDY
• August 23: WOVEN
• August 22: MERIT

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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[Starfield: Everything we know about Bethesda's next RPG]

When Starfield launches in 2023, it'll be Bethesda's first original RPG in the past 25 years. No wonder fans are excited. First teased back in 2018, we waited for years with only the tiniest tidbits of information being released about the game. But as the release date draws closer, we're finally developing a bigger picture of what Starfield is all about.

Although Bethesda originally announced a 2022 launch, Starfield has been delayed into 2023. Despite the extra wait, we'll continue collecting information about Starfield's story, factions, characters, locations, systems, and spaceships right here. Here's everything we know so far about Bethesda's next RPG.

What's the latest Starfield news?

There's hasn't been a whole lot of new information lately. We didn't get specific release date when the delay to 2023 was announced, and an appearance at Gamescom turned out to just be by the game's robot companion, Vasco, for photo-ops.

The lack of news doesn't mean fans have been idle. Prospective modders have already begun organizing to produce a fan patch, something they've done for other Bethesda RPGs like Skyrim and Fallout 4. In the past these unofficial patches have fixed hundreds of different (mostly minor) bugs and glitches. I guess everyone's expecting Starfield to be a bit, well, sloppy.

Fans are also busy digging into Starfield's map, or what little we've seen of it, hoping to figure out where in the galaxy the action takes place. Only a few stars are known for sure (including our own sun, Alpha Centauri, and Porrima), but some clever Starfield astronomers think they've also identified Altair, Barnard and Sirius.

The last really big occurrence (besides the delay) was when Starfield showed up at the Xbox and Bethesda showcase in June and brought quite a bit of gameplay to show. We've pored through the Starfield footage (you can watch it above) and here's the newest of new things we've learned about it:

• How big is it? There are 1,000 planets.
• Character creation: It looks pretty detailed.
• Traits: You have a lot of choices, from Empath to Alien DNA.
• Skills: "Rank" your skills by using them. Remember Oblivion?
• Ship customization: Change the look, layout, and crew.
• Ship flight: Yes, you will be getting in the cockpit.
• Crafting: Create weapon mods and conduct research projects.
• Outposts: Build your own and hire characters to work there.
• Lockpicking: Yes, it's back. Even in space.
• Voice acting: No voice for your protagonist, sorry Fallout 4 fans.
• Worshipping a giant space serpent: Confirmed.

What is the release date?

What is the Starfield release date?

Starfield is launching in the first half of 2023. Its original release date was planned for November 11, 2022. Bethesda announced the delay in May 2022, saying that "The teams at Arkane Austin (Redfall) and Bethesda Game Studios (Starfield) have incredible ambitions for their games, and we want to ensure that you receive the best, most polished versions of them."

Meanwhile, impatient fans have tried to figure out the exact date before it's announced. Right now, a theory is that Starfield will be released on March 23, 2023, but that's really just a guess based on some numbers shown in the trailer that may relate to the patent filed by the Wright Brothers for their flying machine back in 1906.

3-23-23 feels like a nice date for a Bethesda RPG launch (Skyrim was 11-11-11), but there's no real evidence for it. Hopefully we'll find out the actual date from Bethesda sometime soon.

Watch the Starfield trailers

Here's the first Starfield trailer from E3 2021

You can watch the Starfield E3 trailer above. It's a cinematic showing an astronaut climbing into a spaceship while a robot tromps around on the surface. We get a nice look at the ship while a voice over says "What you've found is the key to unlocking... everything," and "We've come to the beginning of humanity's final journey." The pilot sits at a console, flips a bunch of switches, and the trailer ends with rockets firing and the ship about to take off.

You can also watch the YouTube series called Into the Starfield, which breaks down their inspirations, shows off new concept art (including some gorgeous animated ones), and talks about the game. The second episode talks about factions and shows off some dialogue.

Starfield's gameplay and skills

(Image credit: Bethesda Game Studios)

Here's our first look at Starfield gameplay in 2022

The 2022 Xbox & Bethesda showcase gave us our long-awaited first look at real Starfield gameplay, and Todd Howard brought plenty to show the class. On a desolate sulphurous moon called Kreet, we get our introduction to an interstellar Bethesda open world, which gives way to gunplay against space bandits. Clips of NPC conversations give us a sense of the player's overarching goal, and the factions they can join throughout their explorations.

We get a glimpse of character creation, which Howard calls Bethesda's "most flexible yet." There's a skill system, where skills chosen with each level-up can gain additional ranks as they're used to provide more benefits. A crafting system will let players modify and customize their space guns. Players will be able to establish outposts as they explore alien worlds, using mechanics that seem more elaborate and fully-implemented than the base-building in Fallout 4.

Then, Todd brings the big guns and unveils Starfield's ship customization. Players completely customizing their look, layout and performance of their spacecraft, down to individual modules from different manufacturers. The gameplay reveal closes out with an explanation of Starfield's scale. Players can land and explore anywhere they choose, on any planet, in over 100 star systems—meaning a fully-explorable galaxy of over 1,000 planets.

Starfield will have more handcrafted content than any other Bethesda game

In an interview with IGN, Todd Howard addressed concerns that followed the news of Starfield's 1000 planets, and whether the procedural generation they'd involve would mean a dearth of polished game to play. While Howard made a point that procedural content was nothing knew for Bethesda games, noting Skyrim's procedural Radiant quest engine, he said that Starfall would have more handmade content than any of the studio's other games.

Howard quantified the amount of handcrafted content with some numbers, saying the game's at "over 200,000 lines of dialogue." Elsewhere in that interview, Howard estimates the length of Starfield's main story as being around 20% longer than the main quests in Skyrim and Fallout 4.

Starfield's character creation, skills, and traits

(Image credit: Bethesda)

We got a pretty good look at creating and leveling a character during the June Xbox & Bethesda showcase. We saw some templates, body shapes and sizes, skin tones, and hairstyles for your character's physical appearance, though not the details of their faces.

You'll choose a background—options like combat medic, bouncer, professor, or homesteader, which all come with three starting skills. Character skills are things you'll recognize as Bethesda RPG staples: medicine, lasers, persuasion, bargaining, and the like. 

As for leveling those skills, Todd Howard says that Starfield's system "combines the best from our previous games" meaning that you'll unlock new skills as you level up and then upgrade those skills by using them or "completing challenges".

If that's not enough roleplaying, Starfield also has traits, another system familiar from past games. These are optional choices for your character that come with pros and cons. "Spaced" gives you increased health and endurance while in space but decreased on the surface, for instance. 

And different religions, including one that includes the worship of a space serpent, are present in Starfield. These are chosen during character creation and have a couple traits linked to them. "Raised Universal" is a trait that gives you a discount at "the church store" but means you can't use "the Enlightened store." The Enlightened may be another religion or perhaps a group of space-atheists, we're not sure yet. Either way, choosing one religion seems to put you in opposition to the others.

Starfield's ship combat is inspired by FTL and MechWarrior

In an interview with IGN, Todd Howard described Starfield's ship combat as having a slower tempo—think gunships hurling munitions at each other more than nimble starfighters. Howard made explicit call-outs to games like FTL and the MechWarrior series, indicating that combat will involve switching power between your ship-board systems.

In practice, this might look something like shifting power from your ship's shields to your weapons, ensuring you can score a finishing blow against an enemy ship on its last legs. Or if you're in a tough spot, maybe you'd move all your ship's available energy to its thrusters, to give you a better chance of outrunning hostiles.

Worth noting is that, if you do manage to disable an enemy ship, you can take it for yourself. Bethesda's Pete Hines confirmed that it's possible to board other spaceships and fly off with them (after you've dealt with the crew inside, presumably).

You have a robot companion called Vasco

(Image credit: Bethesda)

In a recent video Bethesda showed off Vasco for the first time. This expeditionary robot for constellation will presumably be Starfield's default companion, similar to Dogmeat in Fallout 4. Originally built by Lunar Robotics, Vasco was refurbished to handle the rigors of expeditionary space travel, and while he still has some weapons, it sounds like he's more of a workhorse, with storage capacity and a variety of gear to aid you in exploration.

In the same video, lead artist Istvan Pely calls Vasco one of the team's "favorite companions". It seemed safe to assume there would be a handful of exploration partners to choose from in Starfield (like in Skyrim or Fallout 4) but now we can count on it for sure.

"Something we really leaned into on this game is how those other characters felt about you," Todd Howard said in one of Bethesda's videos. Companion characters will also comment on your surroundings or things happening around you.

There's a persuasion minigame, but not quite Oblivion's

In its Into the Starfield episode 2, Bethesda gets to talking about a persuasion system in Starfield. That may bring to mind the funny dialogue pie system from Oblivion, which wasn't originally intended as an evolution of Oblivion's system "but there are a couple of beats there," says lead quest designer Will Shen. "You have to think about 'what's my risk here?' We didn't want it to be a system where there's definitely a right thing to say." 

"It feels like you're having a conversation where you're actually trying to persuade somebody of something," Todd Howard adds. "As far as new systems in dialogue, I think it's definitely one of the most successful ones that we've had."

Bethesda is taking pages from older hardcore RPGs

In the second episode of the development diary 'Into the Starfield' that released recently, Todd Howard talked about Starfield. Covering a variety of subjects—from different factions to Starfield's dialogue system—he also focused in on the depth of character backstory and creation: "...some things we didn't do [in older games]: the backgrounds, the traits, defining your character, all of those stats". Starfield's aiming for "a lot of the things that older hardcore RPGs, something we used to do, doing those again in a new way."

Starfield setting and locations

What we know about the major Starfield locations

(Image credit: Bethesda)

One of the recent trailers breaks down the region of space known as the 'Settled Systems', a 50 light year radius around our own solar system where humanity has spread out. It's divided up between two major factions—the United Colonies and the Freestar Collective—who are at an uneasy peace after a recent war. It also touches on some of the other threats the player might face: "Ecliptic mercenaries, pirates of the Crimson Fleet, violent Spacers, or even the fanatical religious zealots of House Va'Ruun."

In the short videos called "Location Insights", design director Emil Pagliarulo introduced some of the settlements you'll be visiting in Starfield. Each video is less than a minute long and is just Pagliarulo giving a quick summary over some concept art, so they're not much to go on. That said, one of them does seem interesting. Neon was originally built as a fishing platform on an aquatic world, but was retooled as a pleasure city by its owner, the Xenofresh corporation, when they discovered an alien fish with valuable psychotropic qualities. This literal dopefish is now only legal on Neon.

The other videos introduce New Atlantis, the capital of the United Colonies, and Akila City, the capital of the Freestar Collective, which is walled to keep out "alien predators that are a cross between a wolf and a velociraptor."

Starfield also has factions

Space is a dangerous place, so it's no surprise that the Settled Systems will have any number of groups angling to meet their own ends. We don't know anything about Starfield's main story yet, but there are definitely going to be factions at play in the world like other major Bethesda RPGs. 

We don't know much yet, but we have heard the names and brief descriptions of a few groups that we may meet or hear about along the way. That alone was enough for Lauren Morton to decide which faction she plans to join. Have you made up your mind yet?

• United Colonies: "the future space republic, idealized."
• Freestar Collective: "space western fantasy, people out there on the frontier."
• Ryujin Industries: A mega-corp, one of the possible starting factions.
• Crimson Fleet: A group of pirates that you can either join or betray.
• House Va'Ruun: A group of fanatical religious zealots.

Starfield has more than double Skyrim's dialog 

During the Tokyo Game Show, Howard told the audience that Starfield will launch with a complete Japanese localization and that it has over 150,000 lines of dialog. As Nibellion pointed out on Twitter, that's more than twice as many lines as Skyrim, which had 60,000 of them. It's more than Fallout 4's 111,000 lines of dialog as well. This is going to be one chatty RPG.

Starfield's inspirations

The art style was called "NASA-Punk" internally

"Early on in this project when we were trying to establish the overall aesthetic of this game, we sort of coined the term 'NASA-Punk' to describe a sci-fi universe that’'s a little more grounded and relatable," Starfield lead artist Istvan Pely told Xbox Wire. "We wanted a very realistic take. You can draw a line from current-day space technology and extrapolate from there into the future so it's believable and relatable."

It may sound like a silly name, but it caught on with the team as a useful shorthand for Starfield's rough-hewn and gritty depiction of the future. "What's really interesting is how much we all latched onto that concept," said lead animator Rick Vicens. "When you said NASA-Punk, the Art team could instantly take those two words and make them work. It was just the perfect term for our art direction and keeping everyone in same flow and working with a consistent style."

Starfield is "like Skyrim in space," says Todd Howard

We don't know a whole lot about Starfield's story yet. Speaking to The Washington Post, Todd Howard said Starfield is "like Skyrim in space," and will feature factions, with Constellation, a group of human explorers, being the main one.

"It's like NASA meets Indiana Jones meets the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a group of people that are still searching for answers," Howard said.

"There are a lot of factions in the game but [Constellation is] the main one that you'll become a part of. It’s kind of like Skyrim in terms of the structure of the game, where you're going to be who you want to be, and then there's different factions that you can join, and really carve your own path."

Also like Skyrim and Bethesda's Fallout games, Starfield will be playable both in first and third-person perspectives.

(Image credit: Bethesda Game Studios)

Todd Howard traveled to SpaceX to bring 'authenticity' to Starfield

In the same E3 chat between Howard and Musk mentioned above, Howard said that he toured Musk's company SpaceX for Starfield research and inspiration. It's not clear how this inspiration will manifest, but Howard did mention that Helium 3—a speculative fuel for nuclear fusion—could be the isotope used to fuel Starfield's ships, or at least is something to be debated.

The look of the ship in the trailer shows futuristic yet still recognizable tech. Lots of buttons and switches like the cockpits we have today, as opposed to super-exotic technology we see in games like Mass Effect.

Starfield has been in development for years

Back in 2018 Todd Howard said that the project had moved out of pre-production and was currently in a playable state internally. The teaser shown at E3 2018 was mostly designed to give us a sense of the game's atmosphere. In an interview with The Guardian, Howard says, "We’ve been talking about it for a decade, we started putting things on paper five, six years ago, and active development was from when we finished Fallout 4, so two and a half, three years.”

Even more Starfield details

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Starfield is built in Creation Engine 2

The trailer begins with the words "Alpha in-game footage | Creation Engine 2" showing on the screen. Bethesda confirmed that Starfield is the first game to be built in the new engine.

We don't know much about Creation Engine 2, or how much it differs from the engine Bethesda has been using and updating for years for everything from Skyrim to Fallout 76. Since Bethesda's RPGs have been highly moddable, we sure hope Creation Engine 2 continues the tradition.

There's a brief making-of feature you can watch below that shows lots of interesting concept art.

What other tidbits have come down about Starfield?

In November at the Skyrim 10th Anniversary Concert, we got a surprise look and listen at some of the music of Starfield and a bunch of new concept art. It's worth a look at both the relevant part of the concert and new images of Starfield concept art.

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[Sons of the Forest delayed again, but new gameplay footage sure looks nice]

Sons of the Forest, the sequel to the deliciously hectic survival gem The Forest, won't release in October as planned. Instead, Endnight Games has announced that it will now release on February 23, 2023. This is the game's second delay—it was originally meant to release in May.

"Due to the scope of our new game Sons Of The Forest, it has been hard to pinpoint an exact release date, and today we have to delay one last time," the studio tweeted. "Giving us time to complete the polish we feel is needed, we will release Feb 23, 20233, priced at $29.99USD."

It's sad news if, like me, Sons of the Forest is at the top of your most anticipated list. For my money, the first game is the best singleplayer survival game. It had all the usual survival ingredients—eating, drinking, tree punching, base building—but the horror component was genuinely terrifying. Some of the beasties are unbelievably ghastly.

And that body horror tradition is present in this sequel too, if a new 12-second collage of gameplay footage is anything to go by. We see what can only be described as a mouth-with-legs approaching the player-character (thankfully, they're armed with a chainsaw), the usual lightning quick sprinters (one of them cops an arrow in the head), and because that is all a bit stressful, some footage of logs flowing down a river.

Hey Everyone,Due to the scope of our new game Sons Of The Forest, it has been hard to pinpoint an exact release date, and today we have to delay one last time.Giving us time to complete the polish we feel is needed, we will release Feb 23, 2023, priced at $29.99USD. pic.twitter.com/9SmeLelmj6August 31, 2022

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As Andy noted back when Sons of the Forest was announced, this sequel definitely looks like a more narrative-driven affair than the original. Which is exciting, because those who persevered with The Forest will have discovered that the first had some quite breathtaking narrative beats up its sleeve.

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[Wrath of the Lich King Classic's new group finder tool is a mess]

Wrath of the Lich King Classic's most controversial feature is one that didn't exist in the original, 14-year-old expansion.

World of Warcraft Classic received its preparatory Wrath pre-patch this week, which includes early access to the Death Knight class, the new Inscription profession, and the game's unique group finder tool.

The new LFG tool was supposed to help you find and group up with other players and to clean up the spam in the global LFG chat channel, but its clumsy implementation and what many believe to be a major bug have flubbed its original purpose.

Many people on Reddit and the game's forums report that the tool is wrongly assigning the tank role to players who submit their entry into the LFG list, regardless of the role they actually play. Healers and DPS are struggling to find groups under the wrong tag and groups are forming with tanks that can't tank.

There's an option to choose your role within your specialization menu, but that too is inexplicably getting swapped to tank. Additionally, if you've selected tank as your desired role there, it reportedly changes the UI layout for raids—a serious issue for healers who need to see everyone's health bars.

When detailing the new system back in June, the developers said they kept the role options open—regardless of your class—to encourage communication. But now in the live game it's opened the door for not only this disruptive bug, but dishonest players who want to waste people's time.

(Image credit: WillE / Blizzard)

The LFG chat spammer problem isn't fully solved either given that the tool is the easiest and most popular way to find groups. Once you've added your entry into the list, you'll gain access to the channel, and players report that some people are doing that solely to spam again.

"It doesn't do anything to actually improve the process."

Reddit user ZGaidin

Many of the system's other issues were discussed during the expansion's two-month-long testing period, and it seems that almost nothing was changed for the live version: The LFG list doesn't distinguish solo players from existing groups, it doesn't automatically refresh, and it allows players with the wrong role to spam invites to groups that need a different one.

"The new LFG tool is just a prettier but less customizable LFG Bulletin Board," Reddit user ZGaidin wrote of their experience on the PTR in July, referencing a popular user-created addon. "It doesn't do anything to actually improve the process and experience of forming, finding, joining, or leading groups over what we have in The Burning Crusade Classic."

In a video on the topic, YouTuber WillE criticized the LFG tool and also compared it to LFG Bulletin Board, which many players have been using for the entirety of The Burning Crusade Classic. "The LFG tool, in its current state, is not better than the Bulletin Board addon. It's a competitor to it, not strictly an upgrade," WillE said.

In the announcement video for Wrath classic, the developers described the original implementation of Dungeon Finder as "the first step that may have eroded some of that social fabric" in the old game. They decided to cut it from the remake of Wrath to encourage players to connect with each other through the in-game LFG and guild chats or on services outside it, like Discord.

The LFG tool is, as is common in WoW's history, a flimsy replacement for something that was better in an addon, and has failed to solve the problem it was trying to fix in the first place. Patches will likely improve its functionality, but right now it's a mess.

"This is a completely new feature to WoW yet it seems like it’s been lifted straight from 2005," Reddit user Principle_Real wrote.

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[Lady Gaga may soon be holding a virtual concert in Fortnite]

It's starting to look very much like Lady Gaga, she of the Poker Face who was Born This Way, could soon be coming to Fortnite, possibly for a virtual concert of her own.

The most recent (and convincing) bit of evidence pointing at an online Gaga show comes from the Fortnite Leaks and Info account on Twitter, which recently dug up a "collaborative emote" called Jug Band that sounds very similar to the mega-hit Poker Face when four players take part in it. Shortly afterward, the Lady Gaga Now fan site posted a clip of the emote in action:

A new "synced emote" featuring Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" will be added to FORTNITE in the upcoming patch. pic.twitter.com/ie9VNEaswNAugust 30, 2022

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Yeah, that's definitely it. I'm not even what you'd call a casual Lady Gaga fan and there's not a doubt in my mind, that's P-p-p-poker Face. (Here's the original—dare to compare.) And that's not all: In July, "concert stage" assets for Fortnite Island including scaffolding and stacks leaked, leading to immediate excitement and speculation about who's coming to town.

It's possible that the upcoming emote is unrelated to a virtual visit from the Mother Monster. Epic Games announced earlier today that Lady Gaga is one of the artists, along with Janelle Monáe, Lil Nas X, Todrick Hall, King Princess, Kim Petras, and others, who will be heard on in-game radios during the Rainbow Royale festival celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community, which begins on September 8. 

But the likelihood of something bigger was actually hinted at more than a year ago in court documents submitted as part of Epic's ongoing beef with Apple. One of the slides in those documents has images of J Balvin, Ariana Grande, and Lady Gaga side by side, with months next to their names: Balvin and Grande have both taken part in virtual performances in Fortnite already, and it seems clear that at the very least, Epic was far enough along in negotiations for a Gaga appearance at one point that it was willing to commit to it on paper.

(Image credit: Epic Games)

And lest anyone (who isn't paying attention to Fortnite) think this sort of thing would be slumming for Lady Gaga, recall that Travis Scott earned a reported $20 million from his Fortnite show, and that was two years ago. That's an awfully good reason to show up for a one-off online concert—even if you're not entirely sure what Fortnite is.

What’s fortnightOctober 15, 2019

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[Nostalgia replays have become my go-to escape from pandemic stress]

Though the pandemic is not over yet, I'm pretty sure one of my strongest memories from it will be the experience of replaying Command & Conquer and Red Alert—102 combined hours so far. I started in late 2020, aka the First Year. On some nights when I couldn't sleep, instead of dwelling on the awfulness of everything I'd shuffle off to my game room (which had overnight become my home office) and play a mission or two until I was tired enough to stop thinking.

Over the next year and a half I followed C&C with WarCraft 2, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max Hit the Road, and Halo 1 & 2. No new PC games for this player, just old favorites. I mean, it didn't stop me from buying new games—I'm still a sucker for a Steam sale—but my installs of Disco Elysium and Ghostwire: Tokyo are stuck watching from digital limbo. I may not be stuck in quarantine anymore, but I can't tear myself away from revisiting these old familiar places.

I know I'm not alone with these nostalgia binges. People talk about TV shows they've been compulsively rewatching, books and comics from their younger years they're rereading, and sometimes even larger nostalgia purchases. My pandemic brain even led me to buy a classic Macintosh. More than usual, it feels like this retreat backwards provides a mental safe space in a time full of fear and uncertainty and sadness and loss. And there's certainly no shortage of bad news going on in the world right now.

Now, "nostalgia experts" (yep, there is such a thing) like to point out that basking in nostalgia is not always a positive thing. For example, Svetlana Boym's The Future of Nostalgia discussed two types of nostalgia. One can lead people to get stuck in the past with a fear of giving it up—sometimes even a past that never was, as in the case of longing for romanticized "good old days" The other kind (the kind I hope I'm practicing) is a more positive savoring of what once was without an unhealthy attachment to it. 

(Image credit: Blizzard)

A focus on nostalgia can also lead to creative stagnation as game developers (or movie producers, or TV writers, or novelists) lean too much on the past. This can be from their attempts to capitalize on customer nostalgia, or even from designers' own nostalgia. In either case, this can result in derivative designs, sequels upon sequels, and a glut of stuff that values a formula that worked in the past over creative new ideas.

On the other hand, nostalgic gaming can be a positive tool in helping us get through some crappy times. In addition to the nostalgic warm-fuzzies I get from my old faves, I feel a sense of accomplishment from finishing a game I never finished before—either because I "got gud" or because now it's easier to find online guides and videos to help me where I might have been stuck decades ago. I keep adding new games to my "to play" pile while I mark others off the bucket list. It helps that being a PC gamer makes nostalgia replays trivially easy. No other platform lets you run just about any game going back decades.

Next-gen nostalgia

(Image credit: Steve Purcell)

My 19-year-old son recently told me that he has nostalgia for games from his childhood, which was only 5-10 years ago. I would have thought "recent nostalgia" was an oxymoron, but apparently not. It hadn't occurred to me how much nostalgia can differ for different ages—I mean, I can be nostalgic over parachute pants, Star Wars, Wham!, In Living Color, dial-up modems, Betamax, and New Coke. What's my kid got… Angry Birds and Twlight?

I kid, he's got much more than that. The bulk of my son's nostalgia replay time since the pandemic has gone into Minecraft, Terraria, and Garry's Mod, the games he cut his teeth on as a wee PC gamer. These all feel like recent games to me, but checking a calendar, um, they are not. During the pandemic he and I spent some long evening binges replaying PixelJunk Shooter and Halo 1 and 2, toggling between original and remastered graphics in the Master Chief Collection.

For him, nostalgia's soothing power goes beyond playing the same game for the nth time. He says that sometimes playing an older game he hasn't played before gives him a nostalgic feeling, that it brings him back to a time he never experienced and a different style of game than what's common today.

Currently he's working his way through '90s first-person shooters. I'm not sure if this counts as nostalgia for him, but it's helped us bond over shared stories of old games as I watch him experience moments that wowed me when I was his age. As he played through the entirety of Doom, I got to tell him about the shareware distribution model, and how my first PC could barely handle the game when more than a few enemies were on screen—all while watching my son annihilate the hordes of Hell on a higher difficulty than I ever managed.

Not entirely rose-colored

While I highly recommend nostalgia gaming as a way to either have a good time or endure a bad one, I do want to suggest that we all exercise caution in our binging. I may have spent more time than I care to admit playing my mental-health-support games when I could have been getting something productive done. Tragically, my neglect of recent popular games sometimes hurts my comprehension of modern memes—can anyone explain why dogs in Elden Ring look so weird?

Also, I don't want game publishers to think most customers only want old games, or they may continue creating more and more remakes and remasters at the cost of original ideas. I mean, buy what you want, of course, but maybe take a look at a review or two first—because not every remake is worthy of your memories. Some try to tickle our nostalgia center ("Hey, remember this favorite character? Wasn't this catchphrase funny?") without providing much substance.

Anyway, speaking of substance—that reminds me I recently re-purchased the Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. I'm gonna go use it to do some social distancing.

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[Bethesda forced Arkane to call its game Prey, which studio founder says was 'very, very hurtful']

I like Arkane's 2017 immersive sim Prey a lot—even more than I liked Human Head's 2006 FPS of the same name. (Which, for the record, I liked quite a lot too.) But I was always baffled by the decision to reuse the title. Developer Arkane was explicit that its game was not a sequel or a remake, and had "no tie with the original," and it's not as though the 2006 game was such a smash hit that it carried immutable PR value.

It was a fairly widespread point of confusion, in fact, and not just among gamers but also at Arkane. In fact, studio founder Raphael Colantonio, who left Arkane in 2017, said in a recent Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences interview that Bethesda's insistence on using the name "was very, very hurtful," and ultimately helped convince him that it was time to go.

"I did not want to call this game Prey," Colantonio said. "I had to say I wanted to anyway in front of journalists, which is not my pleasure. I hate to lie. And those are sales lies, it's not like a personal lie or whatever, but it still felt bad that I had to support a message I did not want. Not only me, but nobody in the team wanted to call this game Prey. Our game had nothing to do with Prey.

"I'm grateful that a company will give me the means to make a game and trust my ability with so many millions of dollars, I'm grateful of that—but there is a bit of the artistic, creative side that is insulted when you tell this artist, 'Your game is going to be called Prey.' You go like, I don't think it should, I think it's a mistake. It's a sales mistake, because we're going to get the backfires from the [original Prey fans], these ones are not going to be happy, then the ones who didn't like Prey, they're not even going to look for our game, they're not going to find our game."

"So that was part of, ah, I gotta go at this point, because I'm not in control of my own boat at this point."

Colantonio also called the decision "a kick in the face" of the developers of the original game, and said he's often wanted to apologize to the team for doing it. "It never was our intention to steal their IP and make it ours," he said. "I was like, it's gross, that's not what I wanted to do. And so everybody lost. And the sales were horrible, by the way, of Prey. It was not a good decision."

It was also a kick in the face to fans of the original who were looking forward to a proper sequel. Bethesda actually announced one in 2011 with a very cool cinematic trailer, but pulled the plug several years later, saying that "it wasn't up to our quality standard." Interest in the cancelled sequel has persisted in the years since then, though, reflecting some real enthusiasm for what might have been.

Arkane's Prey famously did not sell well, despite being an outstanding immersive sim, and the confusion surrounding the title and connection to the original game (or lack thereof) no doubt did not help. But in a 2021 interview with MinnMax, Colantonio reflected on other marketing challenges facing the game, and immersive sims in general, which despite being widely regarded as cornerstone games remain a relatively niche interest.

"I think we did a great job at selling this game to people who would naturally like this game," he said. "It's very 'inside baseball' kind of thing, almost. If you look at it and you know what immersive sims are you totally see it, and you know that you're going to love it. But I don't think as a company—and I'm talking like between Bethesda and Arkane—I don't think we did a good job at really selling it to a bigger number of people."

"If you've never had amazing oysters, for example, it's really hard to sell that to anyone. I could sell amazing oysters to someone who's already had them because you know what is special about them, but otherwise people are gonna go, 'well that's just like a clam to me'."

But in that interview too, he was critical of the choice of title. "The choice of name was probably a mistake, obviously," he said. "Because I think it turned down the fans of the original. It also turned down the ones that did not like the original. Because why would they play Prey 2 if they didn't like the original? So that was kind of a weird thing."

Interestingly, while Arkane has moved away from immersive sims since Colantonio's departure, releasing more accessible (but less interesting) games like Wolfenstein: Youngblood, Deathloop, and Redfall (which won't actually be out until 2023, so judgments on that one are reserved for now), Colantonio has embraced the form from a very different perspective with Weird West, with largely successful results. Weird West's 1.04 patch is expected to go live in September.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

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[Valve bans Steam curators suspected of scamming developers for free games]

Earlier this  week, indie developer Cowcat accused several Steam curators of trying to scam it out of free codes for its game, Brok the InvestiGator, and then publishing negative reviews after realizing the codes were actually for a free demo.

This 'review revenge' tactic appears to have backfired. Three days after a Twitter thread and Reddit post calling attention to the seemingly bogus reviews gained traction, all of the curators in question have been banned by Valve.

Reddit user darklinkpower, the author of the illuminating post which tied the reviews of nine suspicious curator pages to one admin account, published a follow-up noting that all of the curator pages they investigated are now offline. Clicking a direct link to any of the curator pages now redirects to the same message: "This group has been removed for violating the Steam Community Rules and Guidelines."

In addition to the nine pages that posted negative Brok reviews, darklinkpower also noticed 11 more curators caught in this ban wave. Most of these pages banned had pretty generic names like One To Ten Reviews, Just Review It, Quality Detector, and my personal favorite, Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit. It's possible that more fraudulent curators were banned last night, but it's hard to tell unless you already know which pages to check up on. When Valve bans a curator, they're no longer searchable on Steam.

The scale of this apparent curator scamming problem is unclear. If it's apparently this easy to artificially inflate your follower count (possibly with bots), use your following as leverage to score free game codes and then sell them online, just how many pages are posting reviews for games they haven't even played?

I trust that the most popular curator pages on Steam are legit (PC Gamer's curator page is among them), and you know what you're getting from funny gimmick curators like Commander Shepherd calling everything his "favorite game on Steam," but Valve's silent action here has me curious how often it hands out similar bans and how many more scammers are out there.

Valve has made no official comment about the curator bans. I've reached out for more information and will update if we hear anything back.

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[I love that 'horror fishing game' is becoming a genre]

There's something inherently spooky about fishing. You're often alone on a boat, sometimes far out at sea. You're casting a line into deep, murky waters and feeling an unknown, unseen creature suddenly sink its teeth into your bait and begin to pull. You're a hunter with nothing but a string on a stick in an environment almost entirely hidden from view, one you can't survive in for long should anything go wrong. It's the perfect canvas for creeping dread and big scares.

So I'm glad to see more and more fishing games embracing the potential for horror, like the announcement trailer for Dredge (above). The "sinister fishing adventure" from Team 17 and Black Salt Games casts you as a fisherman marooned on a mysterious island populated with peculiar characters. To earn enough to repair your ship you'll have to trawl the island's dark waters for fish and whatever odd curios you manage to pull from the waves.

In this 20-minute gameplay video from GamesRadar you can see a lot more of Dredge. While it reminds me of another fishing game I played not long ago, Moonglow Bay, Dredge definitely doesn't have a cozy, comfy feel to it. There are mysterious notes in bottles to find drifting in the waves that hint at some unsettling events. When the darkness and fog settles over the sea your 'panic' meter will grow and you'll need to seek out light to stave off the encroaching fear.

Apart from the horror, the fishing itself looks like a fun minigame, and you can upgrade your ship's hull, nets, and engine, and there's the added enjoyment of what I'll call 'fish inventory tetris' as you stack and shuffle your catches in your boat's limited cargo space. It looks excellent and I'm eager to play it when it comes out next year.

Dredge isn't the only horror fishing game on the horizon, either. There are a few other fishing-themed horror games that will try to lure you in. Fish Cymophis, out later this year looks like a throwback arcade fishing sim with a healthy dose of horror and dread:

Motor around Cradle Lake in your boat, catch a variety of fish using different rods, lures, and fishing techniques, and occasionally flee for your life as terrifying creatures emerge from the depths and try to swallow you up. It looks like a fun, scary time.

There are several great  fishing horror games you can play right now, too. First there's Lure, which is not only free and only takes about five minutes to play, but somehow manages to be both genuinely scary and legitimately funny. I highly recommend it. Experimental indie game A Wonderful Day for Fishing is a serene but unsettling experience: you play a smiling man on a boat at sea hauling in strange fish (and other things) and occasionally eating them, which can have some pretty disturbing results. He never loses that peaceful smile, though. Totally zen.

(Image credit: Nick Lives)

There's also a game called Horror Fish Simulator, which I haven't played and judging from the handful of reviews on Steam isn't particularly good. 

On the plus side, it just so happens to be 51% off at the moment, so you can get it for a mere 49 cents. 

And why not try Fishing Vacation! It's a bright and delightful retro Game Boy-style fishing sim, and the excitable exclamation point in the title signifies nothing horrible could ever happen, probably! There's catchy, chipper music, fun fishing, a comfy secluded cabin to relax in, nothing… nothing horrible. Or scary. Or weird. Nope. Not at all.

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[Elden Ring is the new Skyrim]

A group of developers who previously worked on some of the most monumental open world games of the last 15 years are trying to make their next one more like Elden Ring. FromSoftware's unique action-RPGs have had a strong grip on the games industry since 2011's Dark Souls, but Elden Ring's massive success is the start of a new wave of projects inspired by its staggeringly creative open world design.

Jeff Gardiner, who previously worked as a producer on Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Fallout: 76, told PC Gamer that Elden Ring was a "huge inspiration" for its new game Wyrdsong, which was announced at Gamescom last week. He said he wasn't interested in FromSoftware's Souls games at first, but eventually came around when he realized that it's not a series about punishing the player, but about rewarding patience instead.

Any long-time Souls fan knows what Gardiner means. The Souls series (including Bloodborne and Sekiro) are difficult games. Skirmishes with the weakest enemies can send your flayed corpse back to a checkpoint for the smallest of errors; the deliberate combat demands you to respect every encounter, no matter how easy it might initially look. But they're also games where that hostility fades the longer you play, and the design ethos then starts to take shape. All of the puzzle pieces are there, you just need to take the time to learn how they fit together. 

FromSoftware's games are built on a fundamental principle that all of their marketing and their dubiously hostile fans can't articulate: they want you to finish them.

Elden Ring is the new Skyrim, gaming's go-to massive fantasy playground.

Elden Ring is the clearest refinement of that core principle, and the most approachable Souls game because its open world structure allows the developer to ease you into learning the language the series has been speaking for the past 13 years. From your first step into The Lands Between you have so many directions to go in the world, with your character, with the story, and with your approach to combat; you're given the space to learn the game in the most comfortable way for you. This has always been the underlying thesis to Souls, but Elden Ring's scale, and the gradual difficulty curve that comes with it, makes it more legible than ever before.

Elden Ring is the new Skyrim, gaming's go-to massive fantasy playground. You're a little character in a big world where you stumble into a bunch of gods and monsters that don't think you should be there. Despite gaming's obsession with selling skins and battle passes right now, Elden Ring is a game that only wants you to pay attention and share that experience with others online. Obviously Elden Ring owes Skyrim for cultivating the framework for this particular sort of fantasy epic and the rampant desire it cultivated for open world games that let you off the leash—it wouldn't have hit the same way without Skyrim blazing that trail.

But now it's FromSoftware's turn to take the lead.

(Image credit: Tyler C. / FromSoftware)

Our Soulslike future 

It's been clear for years that FromSoftware's games aren't just a "niche," but even still Skyrim seems like the more "mainstream," widely popular game. But Elden Ring really is Skyrim Big: Bethesda's RPG sold 20 million copies in its first two years of life, while Elden Ring is already at the 17 million mark after six months. It took The Witcher 3 about a year to sell 10 million copies. With this kind of success, Elden Ring and FromSoftware's general creative blueprint will be a major inspiration for many game designers in the future, whether they aspire to literally imitate its systems or design open worlds that step back and let you find your path through them.

Souls games, and Elden Ring especially, hinge on spaces that are designed to lead your eye. They're meticulously crafted to pull you in some direction, whether it's safe or not. Tough enemies, valuable items, and stunning vistas are tucked into the game world waiting for you to find. Quest objectives and markers don't exist in the framework of a Souls game; you set every goal and chase it until something intercepts you.

Everything else that's so endearing about Souls games trickles down from there. They are games that can't be weighed down by endless experience bars, talent trees, or the many other ways modern RPGs like to remind you that you're gaining power and progressing through the game. Souls games are full of stats and upgrades, but the order and speed you accumulate power depends entirely on your path through the game. Prior open world games like Skyrim, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, and even Genshin Impact gate entire areas with tough enemies or will scale their difficulty up as you level to maintain a challenge.

Elden Ring's extremely player-driven experience is something open world games have lost.

Parts of Elden Ring vary in difficulty too, but it's largely dependent on what sort of character you've built. An early game spellcaster can sweep through Stormveil Castle where a greatsword wielder can't, but in Raya Lucaria, where the sorcerer enemies buckle against aggressive melee attackers, the sword user will come out on top. This open approach, with almost no restrictions, is why people have managed to beat Elden Ring with one hand or in under four minutes.

That extremely player-driven experience is something open world games have lost as publishers found it much easier to mutate them into service games where much of the direction is given to you. The modern open world game isn't an adventure—it's a treadmill. Open world games sprinkle useful abilities and stunning armor just outside of your reach. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey requires you to repeatedly invest points in a talent tree to be able to fully eliminate an enemy with a surprise attack from the shadows, a technique that you'd think would be mastered by a character in a series about assassins.

Even Halo Infinite doesn't let you repeatedly use its single best tool, the Grappleshot, until you upgrade it. Open world games hold their strongest parts back until you earn them, replacing the thrill of engaging with well-designed systems with the anticipation of eventually doing that. This year's Dying Light 2 is another prime example. Open world games are about getting dazzled by a restaurant menu, picking out what you want to order and waiting—sometimes 20-30 hours—for the meal to arrive.

(Image credit: Tyler C. / FromSoftware)

Elden Ring is a reminder that people are inherently curious and you can design a game to nurture a motivation as simple as that, and then do almost anything with it. Open world games don't need to track all of the NPCs you've talked to; if they're interesting, you'll remember them. Combat encounters don't need to be mindless friction before tougher enemies show up; every fight can challenge your familiarity with the rhythm of battle and offer clever players ways to subvert it. And their worlds don't need to explain themselves through dialogue and journal entries alone: characters and environmental design can flesh out the world too.

Elden Ring will hopefully spark designers to favor more moments where you stumble into the devastatingly powerful Sword of Night and Flame instead of spending a hundred hours working up to something of similar power at the end of a skill tree. Open world games would benefit from giving you room to have influence over the world, separated from the constraints of where the play-tested path wants you to be. Even the mighty Sword of Night and Flame wasn't an easy solution for Elden Ring's hardest boss. Considered open world design lets you have your fun discovering something that feels like you shouldn't have it yet, and incorporates that into the broader construction of the game.

Even if Elden Ring's influence works its way into some of the inevitable sequels and remakes that get the green light every year, one big success might convince those publishers that trading on purely familiar features isn't the only way to grab people's attention—that we're all ready to be broken out of our routines and taught something new, even if we don't know it.

Oh, Elden Ring 

Once you spend enough time in a FromSoftware game, it ruins everything else. This is why Souls fans are annoying about their love for the developer's games. All of my friends have come to accept I will never stop talking about how prescient the item description of Dark Souls 2's Dull Ember is—if you know, you know. Over 17 million people have bought Elden Ring, with a surprising 50% of PC players making it to the mid-way point of the game. And even if you didn't make it that far, all of the discussions and memes that surrounded its release helped unearth what FromSoftware's persistent fans have been drooling over for years. Finally, it feels like everyone is on the same page.

FromSoftware has widened the genre it created and sent it soaring out into culture outside of gaming.

Right now gaming and popular media at large are inundated with remakes, remasters, and retreads. Elden Ring itself might be a recontextualization of what FromSoftware has been doing since Demon's Souls (which pulls from games like Zelda), and inevitably it'll spawn some derivative works. But it's an invitation—maybe a challenge—for other creators to push a little harder, dream a little bigger.

FromSoftware has widened the genre it created and sent it soaring out into culture outside of gaming. Its impact on social media, especially TikTok and YouTube, is seared into the memories of far more people than Dark Souls ever was. Elden Ring isn't only a tremendous game; it's a moment in pop culture that grabbed the attention of millions of people, people who will want to play more games like it and who might go on to make things inspired by it.

The games that follow Elden Ring will continue its argument for making worlds that require unraveling, where dream logic and characterization aren't spelled out in a quest log, and where the developer's imagination blends with yours.

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[Control robots and play retro games with one handy device]

Reddit user, Leoneq wanted to build a wireless remote for controlling his robotic headcrab (been there, buddy). So, he made the iNap Malinka. A handheld radio controller that also works well as a handheld retro gaming console.

The Malinka uses a Raspberry Pi-based NRF24L01 transmitter which can be used to control all sorts of radio-controlled doohickies. It has an LCD touchscreen, an HDMI port, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a headphone jack, and, more importantly, Nintendo Switch-styled gamepad controls and joysticks.

Leoneq points out that you can easily install RetroPie or Lakka turning the Malinka into a cell-phone sized retro gaming device. Yeah, it's no Nintendo Switch, but the size (only six inches wide and a half-inch thick) is excellent for someone looking for something significantly smaller than a Steam Deck to play classic console games through emulation.

Leoneq put together a handy little Wiki on Github to get you up and running if you want to build one yourself. The shell and buttons are 3D printed, though the joysticks are borrowed from replacement Nintendo Switch parts. Assembly doesn't seem overly complicated, but it looks like you should take extra care when getting to the soldering and screen mounting portions of the project. 

There's even a version you can 3D print that doesn't have an antenna hole in case you're just looking to build a cute retro gaming handheld instead of a robot and toy car remote. 

Thanks, Tom's Hardware.

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[Everywhere isn't a metaverse, it's Roblox for grown-ups]

Sam Houser, one of the driving forces behind the rise of the Grand Theft Auto series and Rockstar North, has a battle cry. Or at least he used to. When things were going wrong, when one of Rockstar's big projects was running into trouble or a problem was particularly intractable, Houser would send up an internal batsignal and plead: "bring me the Benz!"

The Benz being one Leslie Benzies, who began his career at the legendary DMA Design before becoming perhaps the most key figure in the history of Grand Theft Auto. Benzies assembled the team that would make Grand Theft Auto 3 and would go on to direct and produce every single Grand Theft Auto up to and including Grand Theft Auto 5 (and Online), as well as serving as president of Rockstar North. He may not have the name recognition of a Hideo Kojima or Shigeru Miyamoto, but Leslie Benzies is one of the key creative forces in videogame history.

Benzies left Rockstar North in 2014, initially on sabbatical, before his departure was officially announced in early 2016. He ended up in a lawsuit with Take Two over unpaid royalties, settled in 2019, and established several companies including Build A Rocket Boy, the developer of Everywhere. I've focused on Benzies, but Everywhere began development with other senior ex-Rockstar North types.

That doesn't mean Everywhere is an inevitable masterpiece—you can't credit Grand Theft Auto's brilliance to a handful of individuals—but the brains behind Everywhere do have one of the most impressive track records in the industry, and the last project they worked on remains the most successful entertainment product of all time.

Everywhere's development began in 2016, years before the word 'metaverse' became a personal obsession of tech CEOs everywhere and the blockchain began to infest the fringes of entertainment. A lot's changed since Everywhere was just a mysterious name.

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Gaming the meta

Two years ago, Everywhere probably wouldn't have been received as another groan-worthy attempt to build the metaverse. And the thing is, Everywhere doesn't really seem like the many other metaverse plays going on, so much as a grown-up take on Roblox. We've all heard of Roblox now, even if we don't know much about it, but for most of its history Roblox was fairly obscure. It first left beta in 2006 and did well enough to be a going concern, but it didn't acquire widespread traction until the early 2010s, becoming a genuine hit by the middle of the decade.

Roblox is a game creation platform and therein lies the appeal: it's endless, ever-changing, and can constantly surprise its users. There's legitimate criticism of the ecosystem Roblox Corporation has built around the platform, which some claim exploits its young user-creators with an unfair revenue split, and more worryingly has been linked to events such as the kidnapping of a 13 year-old girl. It's also recently been in the news in an absurd argument with, of all people, Kim Kardashian.

The company is now trying to position Roblox as having a growing adult audience, pushing back against the perception it's 'just for kids'. It kind of is though, and every time I've dabbled in Roblox the players around me and the kind of games they make seem to suggest that the community remains overwhelmingly on the young side. I can't ever see Roblox as it is becoming a global entertainment platform for adults, and if it does I'll happily eat my words.

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Mass effect

Everywhere could be a platform with open elements, in the sense of allowing users to import assets as well as create from pre-existing ones.

This is why Everywhere's pitch makes so much sense to me. The 'user-created and curated entertainment platform for adults' niche, which is so big that niche may be underselling it, is currently woefully underserved. Probably the closest thing that currently exists is the PlayStation exclusive Dreams, which is both a remarkable piece of generative software and also fatally undercut by its limited distribution.

Even were Dreams to come to PC, however, it is an 'artsy' take on what a creation platform should be. It's beautiful and ethereal and people can create the most incredible miniature worlds in there.

But Everywhere is announcing itself with guns and cars and science fiction cities for the same reason that videogame magazines always had those things on the cover. Everywhere doesn't want to appeal to a limited group of creators and experimenters with outstanding aesthetic taste. It dreams of total mass market saturation, aiming to hit that critical mass of player-creators that will make the platform a self-perpetuating destination.

One of the especially interesting aspects of this is how wildly different the art styles showcased in the teaser are. It ends on some typically detailed Unreal Engine 5 faces, allowing you to admire the pores and wrinkles, but the various scenes it showcases look like both different games and that they're built using distinct aesthetics that can clearly be as simplistic or as detailed as desired. I think these art shifts are trying to hint at something very big, which is that Everywhere could be a platform with open elements, in the sense of allowing users to import assets as well as create from pre-existing ones.

This may also explain a recent minor controversy about Everywhere, which came from Build a Rocket Boy advertising some jobs that required knowledge of the blockchain. This led to speculation that tied it to crypto or NFT elements.

"We’re seeing some conversation on NFTs/Cryptos that are prompted by some of our open positions on our website," a representative for the studio wrote on the game's subreddit. "These are research positions, as we do not like dismissing new technologies only because others haven’t found a solution for them yet. We are building Everywhere on Unreal Engine 5, not the blockchain. We are creating a new world for players, where we come together to play, watch, create, share, and so much more!

"We hope this helps clarify some of the speculations around this topic."

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Crypt-no?

Hmm. First off: any association with these technologies is at the moment largely toxic for games. Everywhere has been kept under-wraps for so long, and there's been such mystery about it, but it's notable how quickly the studio addressed this concern. Secondly, it can be true that Everywhere isn't being built with blockchain technology at its core, but that it may allow creators to integrate such technologies if they want to.

Sometimes it's interesting to note what a developer isn't saying, as much as it is. Everywhere is obviously going to be a highly social experience with a large multiplayer element. It's also going to be a platform that won't function offline. But the label that its developers won't put on it is MMO—because that would suggest a coherence and a more unified experience that I don't think Everywhere was ever looking to deliver.

Put a gun to my head and I'd guess Everywhere is going to be an incredibly flexible creation platform that arrives feature-rich and with a tonne of assets: but then operates, within certain limits, as an open platform. It'll have a contiguous way of taking small groups of players through different experiences, and briefly crossing them over with over groups in a non-obnoxious manner. Roblox seemed like the more obvious comparison but, now I'm spitballing, I'm imagining a user journey closer to a youtube binge.

The Everywhere site currently has a neat little 3D logo which you can manipulate with your cursor, and a brief FAQ that says it's looking to release in 2023. The official description says it "seamlessly blends gameplay, adventure, creation and discovery." We'll find out soon enough what some of the industry's greatest design talents have been dreaming up all this time, and don't be surprised if, a few years down the line, this thing really is everywhere.

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[Ubisoft pauses 'decommissioning' of old games, reverses course on DLC deactivation]

Ubisoft's shambolic "decommissioning" of more than a dozen older games took an unexpected turn today with a surprise announcement that the process—well, most of it—has been delayed to give people one final chance to snag the content that's going away.

The whole thing began in early July when Ubisoft announced that the online features of some older games—including one-time biggies like Far Cry 3, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, and a bunch of Assassin's Creeds—were being shut down, so Ubisoft could "focus [its] resources on delivering great experiences for players who are playing newer or more popular titles."

Reasonable enough, I suppose, except that the shutdown meant the loss of access to DLC for the impacted games. There was also an implication that at least two of the games on the chopping block—Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD and Silent Hunter 5—would be rendered unplayable even for current owners, although Ubisoft quickly clarified that this would not be the case. 

Adding fuel to the fires of confusion, Ubisoft Mainz basically said "nope" and went to work upgrading Anno 2070's online services infrastructure so people could keep on playing even after Ubisoft pulled the plug.

It was not the smoothest road to shutdown ever, in other words, and today Ubisoft acknowledged the botch with word that it's putting the planned closures on hold for a month.

"Decommissioning online services for older games is something we don't take lightly, but it's also a necessity as the technology that drove those services becomes obsolete," Ubisoft said. "We want our players to enjoy optimal gameplay experiences without things breaking, potentially subjecting players to crashes and security breaches. At the same time, we want to make this process as seamless as possible for our players. Over the last month, our teams have been hard at work exploring what is possible to reduce disruption."

So here's what's happening now: The decommissioning has been moved from September 1 to October 1, and until that date any singleplayer DLC for Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed 3, Far Cry 3, and Splinter Cell Blacklist will be available to download and keep: As long as you activate it before October 1, you can continue to access and play the add-on content without interruption. Singleplayer DLC on console versions of those games won't be impacted, and will continue to be available to access and play past the October 1 deadline.

Ubisoft also confirmed that Anno 2070 will be getting an update that will enable the game to operate, in single or multiplayer mode, beyond the shutdown date. 

"In fact, your experience should even be a bit smoother now than before," the Anno 2070 team said in a separate post. "We ported the game to 64-bit, which enables the game to address all your PC’s memory. Additionally, the new online services should make for a nicer matchmaking experience. And you can still use the in-game friends list to set up matches."

The only game that will go down on September 1 as originally scheduled is the multiplayer-only Space Junkies, which will be shuttered on schedule, and will no longer be accessible at all.

Letting players retain DLC access is a smart move by Ubisoft, but frankly it's baffling that it had to blunder around so much before reaching this point. Did nobody foresee the backlash to the initial "we're taking your stuff away" announcement? And given that Ubisoft was able to change course in this relatively short span of time, why didn't it just go straight to that rather than annoying (and confusing) everyone first? Better late than never, but even better than that is to avoid tripping over your own feet in the first place.

The updated breakdown of all games impacted by the closure, and what exactly they're going to lose, is up at ubisoft.com.

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