Xbox boss Matty Booty has commented on the upcoming PC/console hybrid device currently in the works under the codename Project Helix. Appearing on the newest Xbox podcast, Booty--who was recently promoted to chief content officer at Xbox--said Microsoft stands apart from other "big publishers" because the company has both hardware and software divisions, and this is helping make Project Helix better.

It's true that not every publisher has hardware and software divisions, but Microsoft's biggest competitors--Sony and Nintendo--do. In any event, Booty said Xbox's hardware and software teams got involved with Project Helix "early on" to map out the vision and technical specs for Helix.

"We're there every step of the way as these things come along, so it's an exciting time. As we've done with many consoles before, those two teams will work hand-in-hand as we get that together," he said. "As the hardware comes online, our teams will be the first to get involved. There's already a lot of that already happening."

An elderly woman has been confirmed OK after police were called to her home for a welfare check, only to find her playing video games--and trying to break a personal record.

News 5 Cleveland reports that authorities were dispatched to the woman's home on April 9 after she did not answer a call from an automated welfare-check system. This was part of the city's use of the "Confirm OK" system, whereby people can agree to get calls for welfare checks.

The woman did not answer these calls, or a call from a police dispatcher. Authorities then called the woman's daughter to confirm that her mother should have been home at the time. Police then went to the home for a wellness check and initially "became more alarmed" because the woman did not answer their knock.

World of Warcraft: Midnight Season 1's Mythic+ dungeons will soon offer even more rewards for those looking to continue pushing higher and higher keys.

Mythic+ dungeons are one of the main endgame activities in Blizzard's MMORPG, allowing players to tackle increasingly difficult versions of dungeons to earn rewards on par with the game's most difficult raiding content. Usually, the goal of earning all of the season's Mythic+ achievements and claiming special seasonal rewards is one that lasts for weeks or months into a season.

That's not exactly the case in Midnight Season 1. This season's Mythic+ dungeons have been far easier than normal, with WoW-focused enthusiast site Icy Veins even calling it the easiest Mythic+ season ever (and offering up plenty of data from Raider.IO to support the point). More keys are being completed at a higher difficulty than in any previous Mythic+ season, meaning many players within the season's first two weeks have already claimed all the rewards for reaching certain Mythic+ rating thresholds.

Combat in Windrose focuses on two main weapons: swords and guns. During your travels, you'll stumble across different variations of these weapons, such as halberds, clubs, muskets, blunderbusses, etc., but your strategy with them remains largely the same throughout the game. While melee weapons require no additional items to use, guns are another story. You'll need both bullets and gunpowder to make your guns work in Windrose, and gunpowder is much more difficult to come by.

Gunpowder can be looted and crafted, but you'll find one of those methods is far simpler than the other. We'll explain more about how to get gunpowder in the guide below.

While gunpowder can be crafted, you'll have a much easier time looting it in the first several hours of Windrose. Crafting gunpowder requires advanced gear, a high level, and a large chunk of the map to be explored, so it's best to learn how to loot it for the early game.

Retailer Target has announced a collaboration with Pokemon for a range of new items going on sale soon, and included in the bunch is the return of Pokemon Pop-Tarts for the first time in 25 years.

Specifically, these are Pop-Tarts with the frosted vanilla cupcake flavor, featuring the legendary starter Pokemon Pikachu, Charmander, and Bulbasaur on the packaging. The Pop-Tarts come dusted with sprinkles meant to evoke the colors of those three creatures. They look very delicious.

The 12-pack of Pop-Tarts will go for $4 when it launches in stores on May 2 and online on May 3. Kellogg's originally released Pokemon-themed Pop-Tarts in the early 2000s, as a tie-in for the Pokemon 2000 movie. There were only limited Pokemon Pop-Tart releases thereafter for other product tie-ins.

One of the main social media accounts for the Fable reboot is no longer telling fans they can look forward to playing the game in 2026. This development came after a report said the game had been delayed internally and might not release this year as expected.

Since the Fable reboot had its proper unveiling in January, the game's X account had been engaging with fans on a regular basis, usually signing off with something like, "We're excited to welcome you to Albion in Autumn 2026!"

Those kinds of messages stopped after April 13, however. The last message from the Fable X account to include mention of a 2026 release came on the morning of Monday, April 13.

Hades 2 has made its way to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and this week has also seen a major post-launch patch released for the roguelite game. While the patch notes detail numerous game improvements and tweaks, the biggest addition to Hades 2 is barely mentioned. Developer Supergiant Games secretly added a new game mode, giving players the option to embark on a different series of clashes compared to the usual runs through the Underworld and Olympus.

Called Dream Drives (and spotted by PCGamesN), this mode is described as "a breezy alternative to your regular nightly routine," and it's designed to keep players guessing about what's next. Each Dream Dive run consists of a series of stages from four arenas, and there's no set pattern to which areas you'll jump into. Enemies are also tougher, but for each region you clear, you'll be rewarded with Shiny Stars. These can be exchanged for rewards once you finish your run.

To start a Dream Dive, you'll need to have first completed the quest to wake up Hypnos. Once that's done, head to the Training Grounds in the Crossroads and look for the new "dreamy bed" found there. Interact with it, and you'll start your first Dream Drive.

There are over 70 bosses for you to fight in Crimson Desert, and many of them will serve you a beating. One in particular has been terrorizing the community for a while now, igniting a conversation around boss design in Pearl Abyss' hottest action-adventure RPG. The consensus seems mixed, but the root appears to be the same: Maybe it's not the bosses, but the combat itself.

Kliff battles a mechanical fire-spewing Beyblade called Storm Crusher in Chapter 11. This spinning tank deals extremely serious damage at close range, often killing you in one hit by ramming its mechabody into you. And it targets you at long range with homing projectiles that can stunlock you. It's a nuisance of a boss, according to a number of players frustrated by the fight.

Now that millions of players have begun exploring Pywell across consoles and PC, new players are encountering the Storm Crusher, too, and they're getting crushed.

It's that time of the month once again, as PlayStation has revealed the April lineup of games coming to the Game Catalog for PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium subscribers. All of these games will be available to play starting April 21:

• Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered (PS5, PS4)
• The Crew Motorfest (PS5, PS4)
• Football Manager 26 Console (PS5)
• Warriors Abyss (PS5, PS4)
• Squirrel With a Gun (PS5)
• The Casting of Frank Stone (PS5)
• Monster Train (PS5)
• Wild Arms 4 (PS5, PS4) | PS Plus Premium required

This month has several high-profile releases, starting with Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. The first entry in the series from developer Guerrilla Games, this version of the open-world adventure is a massive technical upgrade that brings it on par with its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West. One thing to note is that PS5 owners will get the remastered edition, while PS4 owners can download the Complete Edition.

While Forza Horizon 6 won't be coming to PS5 on launch day next month, The Crew Motorfest is a decent alternative. Set in Hawaii, Honolulu, the game features hundreds of fast cars and plenty of events to race them in. Football Manager 26 will let you savor the glory of running your dream soccer team, while Koei Tecmo's action roguelite, Warriors: Abyss, features over 100 heroes to choose from and endless hordes of monsters to battle.

Police had to get involved at a Costco in Mississauga, Ontario after a chaotic scene unfolded following an early morning release of highly anticipated Pokemon cards.

As IGN reported, an Instagram video posted by PokeStreetz showed a crowd of people groaning over soiled and trampled Pokemon cards on April 10. Local news outlet 905Hub shared the video on X on April 13, detailing the messy situation as police intervened.

"A crowd of 30–40 people had lined up for a Prismatic Evolutions drop around 6:45 a.m. when someone threw coffee on a cart full of boxes, a car struck the cart sending packs flying, then drove over them before speeding off," according to 905Hub. "Police were already on site and reportedly towed the vehicle."

Sony Pictures recently announced an R-rated Bloodborne movie, with YouTuber and gamer Seán McLoughlin, who goes by the name JackSepticEye, is on board as a producer. He's now discussed more of his involvement in the project and this enthusiasm for it, saying he will "put everything I have" into making it the best film it can be.

In a video, JackSepticEye said working on the Bloodborne animated movie with Sony and Lyrical Animation has "literally a dream come true for me."

"I live and breathe FromSoftware games, but Bloodborne specifically is my top tier, highest echelon of game. I have a tattoo of the Hunter's Mark on my body," he added (via IGN). "Bloodborne is like the thing that I wake up and play video games for. It is the top of the top."

Delisted is the final frontier unfortunately for Star Trek: Resurgence. The adventure title from former Telltale Games employees is no longer available to purchase digitally on Steam or Xbox, though it is still up on the Epic Games Store, Nintendo eShop and PlayStation Store at the time of publication.

On Steam, a new message appeared from publisher Bruner House and developer Dramatic Labs stating that Star Trek: Resurgence would "no longer be offered for sale." Licensing rights were cited as the reason behind delisting the narrative-focused game. However, anyone who has purchased the title can still access it through their store libraries, according to the post.

Star Trek: Resurgence isn't even three years old, releasing originally May 23, 2023, on the Epic Games Store. The game arrived exactly a year later on Steam, followed by PlayStation in late 2024 and only hit Nintendo Switch in August 2025.

Allbirds, the struggling footwear company that has seen its stock price slide by about 50% over the past year, announced a dramatic shift in its business today centered around AI and GPUs. The company's share value jumped by more than 100% after Allbirds made the announcement today.

As part of the plan, Allbirds has sold its Allbirds brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group, while the previous iteration of Allbirds--going forward to be known as NewBird AI--will "pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure." The company said its long-term vision is to become a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-service and AI-native cloud solutions provider."

What makes a former shoe company believe it can compete in the AI space? That isn't clear, but the company has secured millions of dollars in funding to help make it happen.

The Switch 2 edition of Overwatch--the recently rebranded version of Overwatch 2--launched this week alongside the launch of Season 2: Summit, but as players have discovered, the game leaves a lot to be desired on Nintendo hardware. Blizzard originally pitched this updated version of the hero shooter as having improved visuals and up to 60fps in both docked and handheld mode, but there are numerous complaints online claiming that the game is running in a less-than-optimal state currently, with the janky frame rate being a particularly sore point for players.

Blizzard has acknowledged Overwatch's Switch 2 issues, and it says a hotfix is on the way. "We are aware of an issue with the FPS limit on the Nintendo Switch 2 being lower than intended. We are working on a patch to resolve this issue," Blizzard wrote in a forum post.

As noted on the Overwatch subreddit, many feel that the game currently handles worse than the original Switch version, which is surprising given that the Switch 2 is capable of running fairly demanding titles on its modest hardware. Several recent Capcom releases like Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata offer a stable level of performance, in comparison.

The PlayStation 5 had a strong sales week recently, with weekly sales of Sony's platform reaching new heights for the year so far. What caused the uptick in PS5 sales for the week that ended April 4?

The growth in sales no doubt was attributable, at least in part, to the fact that Sony raised the price of the PS5 on April 2, so it seems people were motivated to buy a console before prices went up.

Circana's Mat Piscatella shared this information, saying the surge in sales for the PS5 came "as price increases loomed." The increased spending on PS5 help drive weekly hardware sales overall in the US--covering all platforms--to double compared to the same week a year ago.

In a pirate game like Windrose, your character's life revolves around your ship. It's the primary way you navigate the world, allows you to engage in naval combat for rare loot, and serves as a constant form of progression. However, at the start of Windrose, you're a captain who's left without a ship, forcing you to survive without one for some time.

As you might expect, the game's story involves you acquiring a ship, but it doesn't happen automatically. Find out more about how to get your first ship and start upgrading it in Windrose in the guide below.

Technically, you can actually get your first ship fairly early on in the main story. After you complete the tutorial mission, you'll find Dr. Galen, whom you met in the opening minutes of the game, at your base. He survived the boarding of your previous ship and found his way back to you in the hopes of getting a crew together to go after the pirates who shot you.

A new update arrived for Animal Crossing: New Horizons on April 14 for both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. With this game patch, Nintendo is celebrating the franchise's 25th anniversary and providing a few bug fixes as well. Players who download the update will receive an anniversary gift and special letter from Nintendo.

Downloading the version 3.0.2 update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons gifts players with a new item called the Leaf Statue. This statue is designed as Animal Crossing's iconic leaf icon. In terms of size, this is a villager-size decorative item, and it even lights up. Players will just need to check their in-game mailbox to receive the Leaf Statue, and there's even a thank-you note from Nintendo.

The letter thanks players for 25 years of the franchise. The design of the in-game letter also pays homage to the very first game with a stamp of the Nintendo 64 logo, which is the platform of the very first Animal Crossing game released on April 14, 2001.

Crimson Desert is, in many ways, exactly the type of game I've been waiting for.

It's got the enormous, sprawling setting of, say, an Assassin's Creed title, minus the laundry list of quests that often cause me to burn out on Ubisoft's massive open-world games. It encourages freedom and experimentation much in the same way as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but with a more consistent narrative drip-feed that keeps me coming back for more. Sure, it starts off a bit slow, but so far, it's largely been a fun ride. In fact, Crimson Desert is probably the best game I've played so far in 2026. Or it would be, if it weren't for the little twinge of doubt in the back of my mind that tingles every time I load up the game and leaves me wondering, "Is this AI?"

A large part of the discourse surrounding Crimson Desert has been a fairly black-and-white discussion about whether the game is "good." If all gaming discourse took place in a vacuum, I'd say it's a pretty solid 7/10 RPG. But we don't live in a vacuum. We live in a world where studios are increasingly outsourcing their work to generative AI and refusing to disclose it. Developer Pearl Abyss did just that with Crimson Desert, releasing the game on March 19, despite the fact that it was unpolished and featured a frustrating storage system, a bizarre control setup, and blurry graphics on PlayStation 5. Oh, and a load of AI-generated "placeholder" art that was "unintentionally" left in the game.

Windrose is a new pirate survival game that allows you to tackle the pirate world as a lone captain or with a crew of your friends in online co-op. Multiplayer is fully supported, but there are some rules and restrictions that you'll want to know about before you attempt to play with your friends.

Below, we'll go into everything you need to know about co-op multiplayer in Windrose.

For starters, Windrose only supports online co-op, meaning that there is no option for local split-screen co-op. You can only invite players to a world if they join on a different PC and they're connected to the internet.

The Metro game series has never shied away from dark, disturbing subject matter, with warring factions fighting for control over what's left of a devastated post-nuclear-apocalypse Moscow. Despite this, series author Dmitry Glukhovsky says Metro 2039 is shaping up to be even darker.

Writing on Twitter (via PC Gamer), Glukhovsky made a very bold statement: "This Metro game will be darker than anything you've seen before."

This Metro game will be darker than anything you’ve seen before

This is a series that has seen the absolute plight of humanity, as well as the mysterious Dark Ones, all while enormous, mutated animal creatures reign supreme above the metro station. It's a series where you're often given two choices, both of which are dark and disturbing, and must determine which one is the least horrible. Death is just around the corner for nearly any character, and there is very slim hope for the future. If Glukhovsky is this confident about 2039, then it might be best to alternate with something a little more cheerful when it eventually releases.