Despite its age, Valve's Steam Deck is still one of the best ways to play PC games away from your desk, with developers continuing to tweak their games specifically for the portable device. That involves some clever optimization, from launch and through post-release support, with Valve introducing new tools to ensure Verified games specifically retain this certification.

Detailed in a blog post, Valve has launched two new tools that developers can leverage to better gauge the current performance of a game on Steam Deck. The first collects frame rate data from all players that opted to allow data collection, showing a rolling 30-day average that can help identify if a recent patch or Proton update has negatively affected performance. This tool is only available to games that are already certified as Verified, but will open soon to those with the lower "Playable" certification, where is likely to be more useful to help clean up overall performance.

The second will give users who play more than 10 minutes of a game during a single session the ability to send feedback to a developer and Valve directly regarding a game's Verified certification. Users can dispute whether a game should be listed under that category, and leave critical feedback regarding issues that should necessitate a re-evaluation. This includes various factors, such as in-game text legibility, performance, stability, and more.

Final Fantasy XIV is joining forces with Evangelion to launch a 24-person raid series, Ghosts of Desire. Director Naoki Yoshida revealed the upcoming collaboration at the annual Final Fantasy XIV North American Fan Festival, as well as with several other game-changing announcements.

According to Yoshida, a self-reported “huge Evangelion-otaku,” Evangelion studio Khara Inc. will be heavily involved in the raid’s creation. While the studio shared a brief teaser trailer for the upcoming raid, full details and a release date remain under lock.

As part of Final Fantasy Fan Fest today, Square Enix's Naoki Yoshida reminded fans that the end is nigh for the PlayStation 4 version of the long-running online game Final Fantasy XIV, with Yoshida joking that people should start saving now for a PS5.

"While Sony has allowed us to 'limit break' certain requirements, we're quickly approaching the physical limit," Yoshida said on stage. "You have two years to save up for a PS5."

The PS5 just went up in price, rising all the way to $900 for a PS5 Pro for those who want the highest-end experience possible. The cheapest PS5 you can buy now is the $600 digital edition, and that's $200 more than what the system cost when it launched. Sony attributed the price hikes to the "global economic landscape."

Baldur's Gate 3 released nearly three years ago, but the fandom continues to be rabid for new stories featuring their favorite characters. As it turns out, they'll be getting exactly what they want very soon, as a new publishing program from Penguin Random House is bringing a number of Baldur's Gate 3 books to shelves this year and beyond.

By far the biggest of these is Baldur's Gate 3: Astarion, a prequel novel planned for release on September 29. The novel is written by T. Kingfisher (Hemlock & Silver, Swordheart), who worked in collaboration with game writer Stephen Rooney to ensure "authenticity within the game's world and lore," according to the official announcement. The story will see Astarion serving under Cazador Szarr prior to the events of Baldur's Gate 3, and if you've played the game, then you likely remember that name well. And you certainly remember Neil Newbon--Astarion's actor--who will narrate the audiobook version.

Prior to the launch of the Astarion book, we'll also get some other, very different books. Baldur's Gate 3: The Necromancy of Thay is a real-life version of the book from the game, and The Official Baldur's Gate 3 Coloring Book includes 40 images of different characters and settings from the game. The former arrives July 21, with the latter releasing on August 11.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has further discussed her thought process as it relates to exclusive games, saying in a new interview that she plans to be thoughtful in whatever decision she comes to.

Speaking to Game File, Sharma said she wants to make "the right decision, not the fastest decision" because such a decision has major ramifications. Whatever Sharma and the team land on in terms of exclusives will amount to "long-swinging decisions that have decade-long impact," she said.

So how will Sharma and her team decide if the company will change its policy around exclusive games? There isn't one specific approach that the company will take--whatever happens, it will be the result of taking multiple issues under consideration.

As soon as you crash land onto the unknown beach at the start of Windrose, there's a world of content just waiting for you to unveil. While you might be eager to breeze through the opening act to get your first ship and start sailing the open seas, there's plenty to do on land as well. This includes completing some side quests, and one of the first side quests you can find in Windrose is called "Fifteen Men On A Dead Man's Chest."

This quest doesn't seem overly complicated on the surface, but it's not a simple fetch quest either. To see how to complete Fifteen Men On A Dead Man's Chest, take a look at the full walkthrough below.

For starters, you can start this side quest by searching through shipwreck salvage along the beach as soon as you crash land onto the island after the opening sequence of the game. One of the shipwrecks has a chest that contains a letter, which starts the Fifteen Men On A Dead Man's Chest quest. You can view the quest in your journal by pressing "J."

After multiple attempts by major studios to make a Battlefield TV show failed to pan out, a Battlefield movie is now said to be in the works with major names attached. This is coming to light not long after Paramount announced a Call of Duty movie for 2028, with big names signed on for it.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible series) will write, direct, and produce a Battlefield movie, with Oscar-winner Michael B. Jordan (Sinners) producing as well, and possibly starring in it, depending on how a deal may come together.

The report said the Battlefield movie was pitched to Apple and Sony this week, with other meetings taking place today, April 24. A theatrical release is being prioritized, the report said, so it's unclear if Netflix could be in the mix for the bidding process. McQuarrie has a working relationship with Paramount with the Mission: Impossible series, but it's unknown of Paramount will take a meeting for the potential Battlefield movie.

Final Fantasy XIV’s annual North American Fan Festival showcase kicked off with the announcement of the MMO’s next expansion, Evercold. Following the reveal, Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida explained the upcoming adventure continues a new saga first started by the game’s previous expansion, Dawntrail. The ongoing story arc has officially been named the Godless Realms Saga.

Based on the teaser trailer, Evercold will see the Warrior of Light reunite with old allies to prevent an encroaching ice storm from consuming the Fourth, a new reflection ripe for exploration--so long as it’s not frozen over, that is. The upcoming expansion will include two new classes, one tank and one physical ranged, though neither class was revealed at the showcase. Though the team refrained from sharing too much about Evercold’s story, Yoshida explained next week’s patch 7.5 will set up the events to come.

Yoshida then dived into the various technical changes coming to the game, the most notable being a new battle system, a major UI overhaul, same-region player matching, and a pivot away from the current daily system in favor of a weekly system.

So, maybe you got tired of regular-degular Crimson Desert and want to see the world of Pywel from a different perspective. Maybe you want to play Pearl Abyss' hot new action-adventure game more like an isometric RPG akin to something like Diablo IV. Well, you're in luck, as a player has discovered the perfect camera-setting options to turn Crimson Desert into Diablo IV. Sort of.

X user Ninjago9101 posted on April 24 a look at the new camera options Pearl Abyss added as part of Crimson Desert's latest update. It's a sneaky change, as you have to navigate to the "Accessibility" tab in the "Settings" tile, which is located under the "Others" tab. But once there, you'll see five Camera options--Camera Shake Intensity, Camera Visual Range, Camera Distance, Camera Vertical Offset, and Camera Horizontal Offset--four of which totally transform Crimson Desert's look.

They Added Diablo Style Gameplay For Crimson Desert.
Now this setting lets you play with an isometric camera in Crimson Desert. pic.twitter.com/sLF6AhPcs1

According to Ninjago9101 in a follow-up post, you'll want to set the Camera Visual Range to 0 (default 50), the Camera Distance to 100 (default 50), the Camera Vertical Offset to 0 (default 50), and the Camera Horizontal Offset to 0 (default 50)--and viola! You've effectively turned Crimson Desert into an isometric RPG.

Far Cry is one of several video game adaptations headed to TV in the future, but don't expect this series to be a straight-up recreation of the games, like HBO's The Last of Us. Showrunner Noah Hawley had previously mentioned how he envisions the show as an anthology series, and in a new interview, he mentioned that he won't be "specifically adapting" any of the games in the first-person shooter series.

Speaking to Deadline, Hawley explained that he wants to bring his idea of what a Far Cry story is to TV. "I'm not specifically adapting any of the games that they've put out," Hawley said. "I'm saying much as I did with the Coens or X-Men, or Alien, 'let me have a dialog with this franchise, because this is what I think a Far Cry story is.' We can have a larger conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of adapting video games, specifically because games are built in a way that doesn't make for the best drama."

As Hawley put it, the traditional gameplay structure of a video game--gameplay and skippable cutscenes--doesn't make for a compelling story. "That makes the human drama kind of irrelevant to the storyline. That is death for a show," he said. Far Cry games typically revolve around a protagonist being dropped into hostile territory and having to fight back against a charismatic antagonist--a formula that was cemented in 2012's Far Cry 3.

Open worlds are difficult to craft. Make them huge and fill them with enough content to justify the space, and the result can become repetitive or tedious to explore. Lean too heavily on guiding the player toward carefully handcrafted moments, and the world stops feeling open in the first place. It’s a balancing act between freedom and structure that defines the genre, and one Sucker Punch has been iterating on from Ghost of Tsushima to Ghost of Yotei.

At GDC, developers from the studio described how Yotei pushes further into that tension with a more system-driven philosophy. Instead of relying solely on authored encounters sprinkled across the map, the team built what they describe as a dungeon master layer beneath the world--a system designed to react to player behavior and shape the experience moment to moment.

"Our dungeon master is called the event deck. It’s an invisible hand that guides your exploration," said Sucker Punch Productions lead gameplay engineer Samuel Holley. "Like a good dungeon master, it has a linear plan that it adapts to each player’s nonlinear journey, empowering player freedom while making sure you still have a good time."

A new Titanfall game may never come to fruition, but that doesn't mean the franchise's DNA can't live in another exoskeleton. It appears an indie team is doing what EA won't and reviving the series' human-mech combat in a vibrant FPS, but don't start clearing storage space just yet--it won't launch until sometime in 2027.

Developer Tetra Studios is working on "a multiplayer parkour FPS" called ShatterRush. Launching on Steam Early Access in "Q3 2027," with an open pre-alpha demo available to download right now, ShatterRush is giving The Finals meets Titanfall with a dash of Battlefield in all the right ways. We're talking poppy colors, destructible environments, and parkour galore--all while you summon a giant mech from the sky to battle other giant mechs.

This is pretty awesome to see. The Titanfall series, which originally started on Xbox in March 2014, has been on ice for over a decade now. Developer Respawn Entertainment has sworn that no new Titanfall was in development for forever, apparently going as far as shelving an unannounced FPS in March 2025 and cancelling an extraction shooter set within the universe in April 2025. Vince Zampella, the late founder of Respawn Entertainment who died in a December 2025 car crash, said in April 2023 that if Titanfall 3 were to ever be a thing, it would have to be the "right thing" to make sense.

The upcoming Fable reboot from Forza Horizon developer Playground features a morality scale, but the game does away with the morality-based "morphing" system from previous games. In older Fable players, the physical appearance of player characters would change depending on moral alignments, and players who were evil enough would even sprout horns.

Peter Molyneux, who created the Fable series and designed many of its trademark elements, told IGN that it's a "real shame" that the Fable reboot is ditching this system. "I don't know why they've done that," he said. It might come down to the work involved, Molyneux theorized.

"To do that and to allow different genders, that doubles and triples your work. But I wonder if there is going to be a little bit of evil alignment and good alignment in there. I hope so," he said. "It's hard to do that because to do it well in today's incredibly high-definition world just makes it more tricky."

Despite being a pirate game focused on navigating the open seas with your ship and crew, Windrose features some surprisingly difficult combat. In the opening hours of your playthrough, you'll likely die to more than a few boars or dodo birds. Luckily, you can eventually stop dying to meager enemies once you equip some more advanced armor in Windrose.

Armor goes well beyond the basic rags you start out with, but it's not easily obtainable in the lands around Tortuga. To see all of the available armor sets you can acquire and equip in Windrose, keep reading the guide below.

• All armor sets in Windrose

In total, there are seven armor sets available to acquire in Windrose. Here's what those armor sets are:

Grand Theft Auto 6 is 2026's most-anticipated game and possibly the most heavily hyped game ever, so it's only natural that people obsess over every little detail and search for clues about when more information will be released ahead of launch.

The latest chapter in that story unfolded this week. Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two, announced when it will hold its next quarterly earnings briefing, a date that fans are now circling on their calendars with much interest. The Take-Two report will be released on Thursday, May 21, and this will cover Take-Two's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2026 results, because Take-Two's fiscal year ends March 31.

In addition to releasing its earnings details, Take-Two management will answer questions during a conference call that is set to begin May 21 at 1:30 PM PT / 4:30 PM ET. But should you get excited for a big GTA 6 reveal to come? In short, probably not--but you never know.

World of Warcraft got a huge update on April 21 that introduced some new modes and gameplay features, but everything didn't go according to plan, with players leaving more frustrated than elated. Blizzard understands this "justified frustration" and has openly apologized, saying it's working on fixing the issues with patch 12.0.5 while committing to greater transparency.

In an X post on April 23 from the official World of Warcraft account, Blizzard addressed the concerns regarding the launch of the MMORPG's latest patch. The studio expressed remorse about how the botched release "disrupted your time," explaining that everyone is "working around the clock" to stabilize the game and fix the issues currently plaguing World of Warcraft.

"The team is taking lessons learned from this launch to help ensure this doesn't happen again," Blizzard wrote on X. "We will also work harder to communicate openly, early, and often when a launch doesn't go as expected: the known issues we're working on, fixes as they roll out, and any other information that would be useful to our community as problems are worked on and solved. We care deeply about this game, and we play it right alongside you. We will do better."

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was released one year ago today, and to mark the anniversary, developer Sandfall Interactive announced that the game has reached 8 million units sold and released a free game update that gives players the ability to get an "Anniversary haircut" for each playable character.

In addition to 8 million sales, Expedition 33 was praised by fans and won many awards, including taking home GameSpot's Game of the Year for 2025. In fact, Expedition 33 won more Game of the Year awards than any other game ever, surpassing Elden Ring's record.

As for the free update, players can access the new Anniversary haircut styles by purchasing them from Gestral merchants. Gustave's haircut is available from the merchant near Stone Wave Cliffs, while the haircuts for Verso, Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and Monoco can be found at the merchant near Grosse Tête. You can get a peek at the new haircut styles in the image below.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag's upcoming remake, Resynced, got its first trailer recently, and fans noticed it was lacking blood. For a game mainly focused on stabbing people with pointy objects, that omission stood out. But you needn't worry, as the game will indeed be bloody, just like the 2013 original.

Producer Justin Ng said on social media, "There WILL be blood in the final game." He also joked that you won't have to pay extra for the sanguine fluid. "It will not be a paid DLC," Ng wrote.

Like the original, Resynced is rated M for Mature by the ESRB, with its content description warning people about blood and violence.

Microsoft and Discord are teaming up for a new Game Pass offering, and now it's seemingly been leaked early. Discord Previews discovered that an upcoming perk for Discord Nitro members will be access to a new version of Game Pass called the Starter Edition.

This new version of Game Pass will include 50+ games from the game Pass library, along with an allotment of 10 hours per month for Xbox Cloud streaming. Members will also be able to accrue Xbox Rewards points for playing games, according to the leak.

The full list of games was not confirmed, but leaked art shows titles like Stardew Valley, Gears 5, Dishonored 2, Overcooked 2, Fallout 4, and Grounded, among others. It's unclear if Game Pass Starter Edition will be available for anyone, or only existing Discord Nitro members. Also unknown is if this would replace any current tier or if it would become a fourth tier of Game Pass.

After several months of leaks and rumors, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced was finally shown off officially this week, and it's sailing onto PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S in July. One platform that's absent from the list? Nintendo's Switch 2 console, which has been home to several of Ubisoft's biggest ports recently.

The FAQ for Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced makes no mention of a Switch 2 release, mentioning only PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. That doesn't rule out a Switch 2 release entirely, as the Nintendo system should be capable of playing the game. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced is built on the same Anvil Engine technology as last year's Assassin's Creed Shadows--one of Ubisoft's best-looking games--and it was later ported to Switch 2 consoles.

We also got a Switch 2 version of Star Wars Outlaws, another visually impressive title from the Ubisoft library. Both games are massive open-world experiences--especially Assassin's Creed Shadows with its replica of feudal Japan--and they ran surprisingly well on Switch 2 once they received post-launch patches. In their current form, both games offer a mostly stable level of performance, whether in TV or Docked mode.