This year's first Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) charity livestream has shown players a side of Mario Kart World that they may not have been aware of before. Free Roam mode lets fans explore the open world of the game, but someone at AGDQ has demonstrated how to turn that into your personal playground.

A speedrunner named Helix went through Mario Kart World's Free Roam mode to complete the All ? Panels category in under 30 minutes. The goal is to activate every single question mark block in the game. To pull that off, Helix needed to pull off a lot of tricks, as well as some lucky breaks, and judicious use of the game's rewind feature.

Helix clearly has a mastery of Mario Kart World's open world, as some of the question marks aren't easily accessible without knowing where they are or how to reach them with your chosen character. For this speedrun, Helix went with Para-Biddybud because his light weight and ability to stay in the air longer than most of the other racers. Helix also explained that this is best attempted with a fresh save file, or else Free Roam mode will drop players near the last course they completed.

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Even the most expensive advertising campaigns are nothing without a good Steam review score. A studio that manages to shift a game's review score from "Mixed" to "Very Positive" can as much as triple its chance of making a sale from a marketing campaign, a new games industry report has shown.

Games marketing firm Gamesight published the statistic in its latest Performance Marketing Playbook, as reported by GamesIndustry.biz. Gamesight charted the conversion rates of 30 premium games against their respective Steam review scores, showing that every game with a conversion rate over 2% boasted a Steam review rating over 80% positive.

The report also included a case study that followed a single unnamed game's 21-month marketing campaign, charting the campaign's success against its review score at the time. The game generally saw a higher conversion rate when its review score was higher, with the conversion rate peaking at over 7% when the game briefly achieved a rating of "Overwhelmingly Positive."

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This past weekend has seen a new spate of Pokémon TCG-related crimes, with over $300,000 worth of rare cards stolen in two seperate incidents in Southern California. In one, thieves broke into a trading card store and smashed display cases, while a second incident saw a collector held up at gunpoint for a briefcase of rare cards.

Trading card store Simi Sportscards in the Simi Valley was the target of a break-in early Sunday morning, KTLA reports, with CCTV footage showing a group of at least five thieves smashing display cases to steal the cards inside. Store owner Jake Miller says the group stole rare sports trading cards and valuable Pokémon TCG cards after sawing through the front door. He estimates the break-in will cost the store over $50,000 in repairs, lost merchandise, and security upgrades.

A second theft occurred on Sunday night shortly before 10pm, NBC reports, with police saying the two may be connected. The target of the second theft was a regular of card shop RWT Collective in Sawtelle, who was tailed and held up at gunpoint in the underground carpark. The group of thieves stole a briefcase from the collector containing cards valued around $300,000.

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Spoilers for this week's episode of Fallout to follow.

This week’s episode of Fallout was an explosive one. Between Lucy (Ella Purnell) and Cooper (Walton Goggins) finally arriving in New Vegas, Maximus (Aaron Moten) causing conflict within the Brotherhood of Steel, and Vault 31 struggling to survive without their waterchip, there was no shortage of exciting events. With exciting events come easter eggs and deeper ties to the Fallout video games that are a treat for new and returning fans. Let's take a look at some of this week’s easter eggs as the show arrives in the City of Sin.

Operation: AnchorageOperation: Anchorage in Fallout 3

This week’s episode began with a pre-war flashback depicting Cooper fighting on the Alaskan front. In Fallout lore, Alaska was occupied by Communist Chinese forces and fought the United States over control of Anchorage. The liberation of Anchorage was most famously depicted in the Operation: Anchorage DLC for Fallout 3, which saw the player character entering a simulation to relive the historical battle.

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Spoilers for this week's episode of Fallout to follow.

Last week's episode of Fallout gave longtime fans and new viewers an update on the factions running around in the Mojave Wasteland. From Caesar’s Legion and the divide they had, to the NCR’s loosened grip on the area, to Maximus’ (Aaron Moten) big mistake, there was no shortage of shakeups. As a result, the episode felt as if it sidelined its leads in favor of world building. That’s not the case with this week’s entry, however, as we finally see Lucy (Ella Purnell) and Cooper (Walton Goggins) arrive in the long anticipated New Vegas. Let’s dive into what went on in the Mojave Wasteland this week.

The episode opens with one of the most exciting pre-war flashbacks to be depicted in the series, showing Cooper Howard on the Alaskan front during the liberation of Anchorage from occupying Chinese forces. Him and a squadmate are on a combat patrol sporting West-Tek’s T-45 Power Armor for the first time in combat and things aren’t going as expected. His squadmate’s armor keeps malfunctioning, locking his arm into place. Frustrated, Cooper opts to disobey orders from his commanding officer and sends the soldier back to base to continue his combat patrol alone. This plan backfires, as he’s soon ambushed by a platoon of Chinese soldiers who cause his armor to malfunction and send him straight to the floor. Just as all hope seems lost and they prepare to kill him for his armor, a terrifying roar is let out. Shortly after, a Deathclaw appears and massacres the platoon in gory fashion. The deathclaw examines Cooper and leaves him thinking he’s dead; meanwhile on the radio, his commanding officer lets him know that the liberation of Anchorage was successful.

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Splitgate developer 1047 Games has reacted to the online commentary regarding the recent re-launch of the shooter Splitgate: Arena Reloaded. The game arrived in mid-December 2025 and hasn't gotten close to the Steam numbers that Splitgate 2 or Splitgate 1 reached, prompting online commenters to wonder if the game will be able to stay online.

The developer said in a statement, "Steam charts don't measure fun," adding that Steam player numbers only show "one number, on one platform, at one given moment." Steam numbers do no show the "full picture or what it feels like to actually play, and they definitely don't capture the community that's actively helping shape what Arena Reloaded is becoming."

1047 Games re-launched Splitgate 2 under the name Splitgate: Arena Reloaded on December 17, and Steam numbers spiked to about 2,300 concurrents at launch. In the past 24 hours, the game reached a peak of 952 players on Steam.

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Balatro and Hollow Knight: Silksong "shouldn't exist," according to industry analyst Joost van Dreunen. He elaborated that, "They don't make rational sense financially, and yet somehow they are deeply loved." Their commercial viability is an undeniable fact. However, the scale of their success baffles industry conventional wisdom.

Van Drunen is professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and a strategic advisor for the community development agency ELO. In an interview with GameIndustry.biz, van Dreunen discussed how the shifting macroeconomics of video games is creating space for smaller projects to become massive successes. He compares the shift to the way television challenged the Hollywood business model. Free-to-play games like Candy Crush compete with, and even undermine, big-budget blockbusters like GTA or Call of Duty. Yet, there are an increasing number of games that skirt outside either model, such as Silksong.

The lower-tech production values of some indie games may also be a big asset. Van Dreunen said, "I'm a big fan of the idea that low tech is a much more interesting design factor than high tech. I think, demonstrably, whenever new technology comes out, what studios tend to do is just increase the final product. They make it more complex, and therefore they negate the productivity gains." Perhaps Balatro and Silksong can be impressive with smaller budgets and development teams because they leverage the productivity shifts bigger studios would use to expand their efforts.

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Season 1 Reloaded arrives in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Warzone this week, and Activision has already revealed many details for this midseason update. Season 1 Reloaded includes more weapons to unlock, additional maps for multiplayer, and a crossover with the Fallout TV show.

Call of Duty Season 1 Reloaded start times

The Season 1 Reloaded update arrives to Black Ops 7 and Warzone on January 8. Call of Duty's updates usually go live at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET / 5 PM BST across all platforms.

Season 1 Reloaded's Fallout collab

Call of Duty has teased a crossover with Amazon Prime Video's Fallout TV show, which seemingly includes operator skins for Lucy, The Ghoul, and Maximus. Call of Duty's big IP collaborations are also usually paired with in-game events for players to participate in. However, it's uncertain if these Fallout skins will be included in an event pass or as shop bundles for purchase. Notably, both Fallout and Call of Duty are owned by Microsoft.

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Mistborn fans may be able to take to the virtual streets of Luthadel eventually, but not for a while. As part of the yearly "State of the Sanderson" blog post, author Brandon Sanderson shared that he has been in conversations with multiple AAA developers about a potential Mistborn project. If the project does come to fruition, it will be years away.

Sanderson seems to be optimistic about the project's chances. He wrote, "I feel I’m finally getting established enough that we can make a Mistborn game happen. ... This is at Step One only, but it’s an encouraging One." Though he doesn't name any names, he does claim that he has been chatting with big players in the industry, including ones he is a fan of himself. Sanderson is also seeking maintain his rights to video game adaptations of Mistborn.

It appears that these discussions are in the earliest possible stage. "These rights were tied up with the film rights for the last... oh, six-seven years," Sanderson wrote, "so I didn’t get to test the market on them until recently." Sanderson concluded that any studio or publisher interested in developing a Mistborn or Stormlight project should get in touch with his representatives.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons made a huge impact on the world of cozy gaming back in 2020, and it's about to make a big resurgence. With the game now available on both the original Switch and the Switch 2 (with an even more upgraded Switch 2 Edition landing January 15), Nintendo's flagship cozy game is back. Whether you've been playing consistently since launch, or want to dive back in and see what your villagers have been up to over the past few years, you may be looking to make your grand entrance on a shiny new Switch 2. Doing so, though, will require you to first move your island to Nintendo's newest console. Here's how to do so using the Animal Crossing island transfer tool.

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• How to transfer your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island to Switch 2

How to transfer your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island to Switch 2

When setting up your Switch 2 for the first time, you can use the onboard system transfer to move most of your save files to your new console, but New Horizons is an exception that requires a special process. For New Horizons, you'll need the island transfer tool, which is a free download in the Nintendo eShop. You'll also need the Switch console that your island save data was previously on.

The Island Transfer Tool is required to move your save file to a Switch 2.

To get started transferring your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island, you'll have to head to the eShop and download the Animal Crossing Island Transfer Tool on your Switch and Switch 2. When the transfer tool has been downloaded on both consoles, you'll be able to begin.

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Amazon 4K Blu-ray Sale: 3 Movies for $33

Ends January 19

Browse sale at Amazon

One of Amazon's best 4K Blu-ray promotions has returned. Over 100 popular 4K Blu-rays are available for $11 each when you buy three. This is Amazon's first 3 for $33 movie sale since last April, so physical media enthusiasts should take advantage of this awesome offer while they can. The catalog of eligible 4K Blu-rays features some of the most popular movies of 2025, including Weapons, F1 The Movie, Superman, Sinners, and Jurassic World Rebirth.

Amazon's 3 for $33 movie sale runs through January 19. The retailer often adds movies to these types of promotions while it's running, so it's worth checking back to see if there's anything new you want. Amazon also tends to remove movies from its 4K Blu-ray sales, so if you see a movie you want, grab it while you can. Newer movies and all-time classics frequently sell out during 3 for $33 promotions.

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It's a new year, and that means more free games for Amazon Prime members. Amazon has now announced the 10 games that subscribers can grab on PC and 13 via the cloud for a total of 23 freebies.

One of the biggest free games for January is EA's Madden NFL 26, which is the newest entry in the professional football series. It's coming to Luna for cloud streaming on January 10 just in time for the start of the NFL Playoffs, which begin with Wild Card matchups the same day. This is also the day that Prime will host the Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers game, so it's all very synergistic.

Other notable freebies for January include Sid Meier's Civilization VII and The Jackbox Party Pack 3. You can see the full rundown of free games for Prime members below, spread between downloadable PC games and titles that can be streamed via the cloud on Amazon Luna.

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Unbeatable introduces itself with a simple, yet punchy premise: we find a group of teens in a band, on the run from and getting into fights with the local authority. The twist? Instead of playing out as a traditional story-driven game, the beating drum of the experience is structured around rhythm-based gameplay.

Sequences such as dreams and combat encounters are all guided by Unbeatable's take on the classic Guitar Hero notes-on-a-fretboard style gameplay, in which prompts tell you which buttons to press in time with the music. Here, it's only two buttons: up and down. And while there are more traditional gameplay moments--like minigames where you must memorize movement patterns and react to the beat of different tempos--in a similar fashion to Rhythm Heaven, it's the harmonious intersection with all the game's other sections, which would normally play out as mere cutscenes, that makes Unbeatable stand out.

A decade ago, right around the time that Rock Band and Guitar Hero launched their respective swansongs marking the decline of the domestic rhythm game era, it would have been novel to see a studio blend rhythm game mechanics into a narrative adventure. But Unbeatable is just one example of this approach; dozens of studios have been toying with the intersection of music games with other genres. Now, 10 years after the rhythm game heyday, they're basking in a renewed appreciation of those elements.

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If you're working your way through Stella Montis, Arc Raiders' first post-launch map, you may have the Snap and Salvage quest. This multi-step quest requires you to find multiple spots of interaction, as well as recover some specific pieces of loot. It can take some time to figure all of this out on your own, so we've put together a step-by-step process to get you through it.

Note that each part of this quest can be completed across multiple runs, so there's no need to wrap it all up in a single raid. That being said, you'll need to extract with the Magnetron and Flow Controller items once you find them, so it's probably best to bring in an augment that has a safe pocket or two to ensure you don't accidentally lose these precious items if you find them during your raid.

Here's how to complete Snap and Salvage in Arc Raiders.

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Prolific video game voice actor Troy Baker said he believes the generative AI revolution is a "good thing," in that it will push people to seek out "authentic" experiences made by artists as opposed to AI "gruel."

In an interview with The Game Business, Baker said there is no doubt "AI can make content way better than humans" and can "crank it out no problem." It is important to remember, however, that what AI makes is merely content, not art, Baker said.

"AI can create content but it cannot create art," Baker said. "And the reason why is because that invariably requires the human experience.

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This year marks the 15th anniversary of Fallout: New Vegas, the beloved spin-off that was developed by Obsidian Entertainment. Bethesda hasn't entrusted the franchise to many other developers, and according to studio boss Todd Howard, Obsidian was the only choice to take on New Vegas.

"They were the only choice," Howard told Game Informer (via GamesRadar). "They had done something similar with [Star Wars] Knights of the Old Republic 2, and we knew them really well. We knew we were going onto Skyrim, the franchise was back, but we knew there was going to be a long break until Fallout 4--how can we keep this going?"

Obsidian was founded by ex-Interplay and Black Isle Studios devs who previously worked on the original Fallout as well as a canceled version of Fallout 3. That made the studio a natural home for New Vegas. Howard also said that the only note Bethesda had ahead of development was to focus on the game's warring factions and the players' ability to choose between them.

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Dungeons & Dragons is one of the main throughlines in the Netflix sci-fi hit Stranger Things, but the show's finale found inspiration from the acclaimed D&D game Baldur's Gate 3, according to one of the show's creators.

Spoilers for the Stranger Things finale follow.

Stranger Things co-creator Matt Duffer mentioned to Variety that he was playing the Larian Studios-developed title while working on the final season. Duffer implied that the climactic showdown with Vecna and the Mind Flayer shared themes and elements with both D&D and Baldur's Gate 3.

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Highlighting an ongoing trend, the most popular games on PlayStation and Xbox are multiplayer, online, live-service titles that aren't necessarily "new," at least not in the traditional sense.

Circana's Mat Piscatella revealed that 2025's top five most-played games for PlayStation and Xbox in the US were the same as 2024's, and in the case of PS5, the ranking was exactly the same.

On PS5, the top five most-played games in the US were Fortnite, Call of Duty, GTA V, Roblox, and Minecraft, ranked in that order. That was the same as 2024, according to Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, which is ranked by an "active panel" of players.

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There are few guarantees in life, such as death, taxes, and how rare Pokemon cards can be more valuable than any collectible out there. WWE performer and social media influencer Logan Paul is auctioning off his rare PSA 10 Pikachu artist edition. Paul took the card to Goldin Auctions and initially asked $1.3 million--the auction has already reached $1.45 million and still has 40 days to go.

"The Pokemon craze was in full swing in 1997. With the blockbuster Game Boy games, a primetime animated series, and now record-setting TCG, Japan was abuzz with excitement about what was in store for Pokemon," the official listing reads as it explains why the card is so rare. "In November 1997, a contest ... called 'Pokemon Card Game Illust Artist Contest,' challenged readers to draw their own Pokémon card and send it to the magazine. The following January issue of CoroCoro Comic announced the three winners, who each received 20 Pokemon cards featuring their own illustrations along with one copy of the Pikachu Illustrator card."

Image Credit: Goldin Auctions

Paul took to Twitter and said the card will also come with the customized chain he had made, valued at $75,000, and he would personally deliver it to the winner.

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A lot of interesting technology has been revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show 2026 this week, but one of the strangest might be Razer's Project Ava, an AI-powered desktop companion. Razer envisions the device as a "dynamic personality" that can interact with its owners as a 3D hologram, and it'll have several animated personalities to choose from, including one based on the prominent League of Legends esports player, Faker.

Razer claims that Ava uses human-like vision and audio-sensing for full contextual awareness, and that it can converse with people, consult on work tasks, and motivate you to engage in self-care routines. The company says it can also assist you in your work with "two-way conversation" features, and for gaming, it can fulfill multiple roles and deliver real-time hype.

As for the other personalities, Ava's default personality is a fusion of HAL 9000 and the original Xbox boot-up screen, Kira is an anime waifu, Zane is designed to be your gaming wingman, and Sao looks like she's ready for a day at the office. Razer says these characters are rendered in real time on a 5.5-inch holographic display and feature "high-fidelity motion, eye-tracking, and facial expressions" to help them engage with users.

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