Valve's Steam platform has achieved a historic milestone. On Sunday, March 3, 2025, SteamDB reported a record-breaking 40,270,997 concurrent users online—marking the first time the service has surpassed 40 million simultaneous logins. This eclipses the previous peak of 39 million set just three months prior in December 2024, during the holiday season when gamers typically spend most resources on gaming. To showcase Steam's exponential growth over the past decade, in 2015, the platform's concurrent user count hovered below 9 million. Steam's influence extends far beyond daily engagement. According to PCGamer, the platform now boasts over 220 million monthly active users, a significant jump from its confirmed 132 million monthly users in 2021.

Steam's dominance is attributed to its vast game library and accessibility. In 2006, only 70 titles were released on the platform. By 2024, that figure skyrocketed to 18,920 games, catering to diverse player preferences. As a free service compatible with Windows, macOS, Linux, and mobile devices (via a 2012 app launch), Steam has become a ubiquitous hub for gamers. Its success is further fueled by seasonal sales, community features, and seamless updates, fostering loyalty among its user base. Valve even banned games that force users to watch ads, suggesting that game developers need a new monetization method instead of annoying ads. This latest record reflects broader trends in gaming, including increased global connectivity and the rise of PC gaming as a mainstream hobby. With Valve continuing to innovate—through hardware ventures like the Steam Deck and software enhancements—the platform's cultural and commercial footprint shows no signs of slowing.

Hey, Splitfam. We're doing an Open Alpha preview of the work we've done on Splitgate 2, available to everyone for four days from Feb. 27 to March 2. Come play with us! This is your first chance to check out our new Multi-Team Portal Warfare, 8v8v8 battles of colossal proportions set on a massive map. Plus, we've got new arena maps, new weapons, new gear, and hundreds of improvements based on community feedback. Anyone with a Steam account, a PS5, or an Xbox Series X|S can register and play—for free, as always. Read on for more details about what will be included in the Open Alpha.

Portals Change Everything
Portal into the action as an elite Ace in Splitgate 2, the only free-to-play shooter where you can teleport across the map to outsmart your opponents. Team up, customize weapons, and master portaling skills as you compete for glory in epic showdowns. This is the future of Splitgate, bringing fast-paced portal gunplay with objective-based game modes, distinctive new maps, and a wild collection of weapons. Dominate the competition with the ultimate tool: a portal gun. Flank your foes and turn the tide of combat by portaling across the map, or defy gravity to launch yourself for jaw-dropping aerial kills. Recruit your friends and compete for the respect of the entire galaxy. Take control of the Hotzone while your friends hold off enemies portaling in from all sides. Stand together and steamroll your opponents to win the match and claim victory.

EA has released the source code for four legacy Command & Conquer titles under the GPL license, making them freely available to the public on Github. This includes the original source code for Command & Conquer and Red Alert, as well as the SAGE-powered Command & Conquer: Renegade and Command & Conquer: Generals. While fan projects such as OpenRA and OpenSAGE have developed their own versions of these games' code, access to the original source code is a big plus for video game preservation and future development.

The restoration and release of the source code were made possible through the efforts of EA technical director Brian Barnes, Respawn producer Jim Vessella, and Luke Feenan, a long-time member of the Command & Conquer community. To accompany this announcement, EA has also released a 35-minute video featuring alpha gameplay and previously unseen archival footage from Command & Conquer: Generals and Renegade.

Hello gang! We heard you like Baldur's Gate 3 and breaking things. Well, we have good news for you: The Patch 8 Stress Test is now live and available to all Xbox Insiders who own the game! Not into breaking things but still want to know what this is all about? Read to the end to find out what's coming in Patch 8.

Patch 8 Stress Test
The final major patch for Baldur's Gate 3 is right around the corner, but with an update so packed full of bug fixes, new features, and additions, we're enlisting your help to go beyond our internal testing and help us catch things before release. Patch 8 is bringing cross-play to Baldur's Gate 3, allowing players on all platforms to join each other in multiplayer sessions! So grab your friends on other platforms and get ready to fight… over who will romance each companion.

The new ASUS ROG Astral graphics card design debuted last month, with the rollout of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 "Blackwell" GPUs. The flagship model—in overclocked form—is not a wallet-friendly prospect; as highlighted by W1zzard's in-depth evaluation. The "astronomically-priced" premium-tier quad-fan model is a hot property; in more ways than one—late last week, an unfortunate ownership experience was shared online. NVIDIA subreddit member—Impossible-Weight485—uploaded photo evidence, accompanied by a short story: "I was playing PC games this afternoon, and when I was done with the games, my PC suddenly shut down while I was browsing websites. When I restarted the PC, the GPU caught on fire, and smoke started coming out. When I took out the GPU, I saw burn marks on both the GPU and the motherboard." Post-absorption, initial community and press feedback posited that the problem originated with a Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitor (MLCC), located not far from the card's PCI-E interface.

High-profile figures soon swooped in, with different theories and offers. A Team Green subreddit moderator weighed in: "not adding this one to our GeForce RTX 50 Series 12VHPWR Megathread. This looks to be a blown power phase, and not melting power connector. The original poster provided additional photos of the cable, in addition to the GPU connector photo in the post. Both looks pristine...Yes, I watched Buildzoid's video (see below), hence updating this comment...Thanks to Buildzoid for the education!" The owner uploaded another interior shot, seemingly showing burn damage on their ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X870E HERO motherboard. The severity of this incident attracted the attention of Gamers Nexus—Lelldorianx (aka Stephen Burke) reached out to the damaged card's owner: "messaging you. We'd buy the board and GPU from you if you want to just take the cash and buy something else (or) skip the RMA process." Burke and his colleagues are actively investigating various GeForce RTX 50-series "pratfalls"—earlier this month, reports indicated that the team was already engaged in the sourcing of problematic units.

In nearly every corner of our lives, the buzz about AI is impossible to ignore. It's destined to revolutionize how we work, learn, and play. For those of us immersed in the world of gaming—whether as players or creators—the question isn't just how AI will change the game, but how it will ignite new possibilities.

At Xbox, we're all about using AI to make things better (and more fun!) for players and game creators. We want to bring more games to more people around the world and always stay true to the creative vision and artistry of game developers. We believe generative AI can boost this creativity and open up new possibilities. We're excited to announce a generative AI breakthrough, published today in the journal Nature and announced by Microsoft Research, that shows this potential to open up new possibilities—including the opportunity to make older games accessible to future generations of players across new devices and in new ways.

Days Gone Remastered rides onto PlayStation 5 and PC April 25, 2025! A game nearest and dearest to our hearts, with our good partners at Climax Studios, we strived to make this the definitive way to play Days Gone for new and returning players. Step into the dirt flecked shoes of former outlaw biker Deacon St. John and feel his desperate struggle for survival in a brutal open world ravaged by feral creatures known as Freakers. We at Bend Studio are very excited to share our first look at Days Gone Remastered with our announcement trailer, giving you a sneak peek of brand-new content to play!

Built for the PS5
Days Gone Remastered is brought to new life by the PlayStation 5 console featuring improved graphical fidelity, increased foliage draw distance, improved shadow and lighting quality, Tempest 3D Audio, VRR support and more. Select your preferred playing experience between Quality mode for increased resolution or Performance mode for improved framerates. And with the added power of the PS5 Pro, Days Gone has truly never looked better on PlayStation!

People are using AI more and more at home, at work, in school, and everywhere in between. According to the most recent Microsoft Global Online Safety Survey, there has been a global increase in active generative AI users. Our findings showed that in 2024, 51% of people are users or experimenters of generative AI compared to 38% in 2023. Generation Z continues to drive this adoption with 64% of young adults reporting ever using the technology. That means it's up to us - especially those of us who work in technology and gaming - to make sure that young people have the support they need to navigate the world of AI safely while also fostering their curiosity and creativity in exploring these new technologies.

That's why, for Safer Internet Day 2025, Minecraft Education is releasing a new installment in the CyberSafe series where players can explore the risks and opportunities of AI use through fun, game-based challenges. In each instance, players are tasked with articulating guidelines for how to use AI safely and responsibly. Welcome to CyberSafe AI: Dig Deeper, available free on the Minecraft Marketplace and in Minecraft Education!

In a world where most of us work, communicate, play, explore, and make purchases online nearly every day, cybersecurity is more important than ever. Yet it's also a world where it's increasingly hard to know who to trust. Perhaps you've seen recent news reports that call into question the security practices of companies that you might rely on for the network for your home or small business. At ASUS, we're working to show you that not every networking company has the same level of commitment to cybersecurity. Recently, we joined FIRST, a longstanding and renowned organization that brings together a variety of computer security incident response teams from around the world. Our membership in FIRST enables us to take enterprise-level experience, security protocols, and incident response tactics and integrate them into the consumer market.

35 years of coordinating responses against cyberattacks
When you're the victim of a cyberattack, your priority is to re-secure your own hardware, data, and account access. But the incident response teams dedicated to cybersecurity have to take a larger view. What vulnerability made the cyberattack possible? What other systems could be affected? How quickly can a fix be deployed, and how might this fix affect other vital systems and functions? Answering these questions in today's connected world requires not just on-the-ground incident response teams, but international communication and coordination between these groups. Since 1990, this layer of coordination has been provided by FIRST—the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams. Consisting of members from government agencies, educational institutions, military divisions, and the private sector, FIRST works to ensure a safe internet for everyone by creating channels for incident response and security teams across the globe to work together.

Unlucky owners of problematic GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards have posted feedback across various online community sites. Press outlets started to take notice of these documented issues soon after the launch of NVIDIA's debut wave of "Blackwell" GPUs. PC Gamer has "kept track" of reports relating to black screens and miscellaneous failures—the site published an investigative article late last week, following user feedback "hitting critical mass" across Reddit and Team Green's own forum. A request for comment was sent over to NVIDIA HQ; PC Gamer received a brief response. A company spokesperson confirmed that their team is: "investigating the reported issues with the RTX 50-series."

Several PC hardware community members have documented their troubleshooting experiences—the most common suggestion involves downshifting from a PCIe 5.0 connection to 4.0, on the PEG-16 graphics port. Unfortunately, this step did not resolve black screen issues for certain owners—a member of the buildapc subreddit explored a wide array of troubleshooting channels. They re-installed Windows 11 (23H2), adjusted BIOS settings, experimented with monitor connections, and played around with drivers. Best results were produced by connecting a single monitor to their MSI GeForce RTX 5090 GAMING TRIO OC's DisplayPort, with nothing else hooked up to the other ports (DP and HDMI). They suspect that Team Green's GPU drivers could be the source of frustrations; corroborated by a recent VideoCardz news piece. In addition, the 572.16 driver is reportedly affecting "certain GeForce RTX 40-series." A smaller number of owners have discussed a "bricking" of cards; VideoCardz believes that China-exclusive GeForce RTX 5090D models are suffering the most. Manli will be analyzing a "bricked" unit at its service center, in the near future. Colorful did not reply with a comment on the situation.

Like the first part, Chernobylite 2 is a story of people who try to accomplish an impossible mission and survive in the sinister Chornobyl Zone. Chernobylite 2 will be released on Steam in Early Access on March 6th, similar to the first part in 2019, which was awarded the Top Early Access Platinum Graduate on Steam. Cole Grey, a former military and security guard, lives in a reality where the economy and industry are based entirely on a substance called Chernobylite. With its help, people have made a real leap in civilization. However, the construction of the utopia has been paid for by massive unemployment, pushing people like Cole to the margins of society. Due to severe financial problems, he joins the mysterious "Planewalker" initiative to provide for his family.

It quickly becomes apparent that there is a shortage of Chernobylite in Cole's universe, and the solution is the morally questionable initiative that involves traveling to parallel worlds in search of the mineral and obtaining it by any means possible. In addition, the Planewalker service requires appropriate genetic modifications. Cole must, therefore, physically absorb the essence of chernobylite and, to increase his physical and intellectual capabilities, lose a part of his humanity. However, seeing no other options for himself, he agrees to the bloody and dangerous service, which results in him ending up trapped in the most sinister place in the world: the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. There, he meets a Black Stalker, the Zone's dark guide and silent ruler.

Ride like a lord, not a common stable hand. Join PROS and claim the Lord of Skalitz Caparison as your welcome reward. What is PROS? PROS is our optional account system, allowing us to create a community program which you can sign up to in order to get the latest news and rewards from Deep Silver.

What can I get for signing up to PROS for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II?
As a welcome reward for joining the program, all players will receive the Lord of Skalitz caparison. There will be additional rewards and Twitch drops over the next few months, so keep an eye on the in-game message of the day, follow us on social, and/or sign up to our community emails for more info.

Where can I access my PROS items?
PROS rewards can be found in your shared stash after completing the mission "Laboratores." These shared stashed can be found when purchasing lodging that includes shared stash in selected taverns; or by following the main quest line, where they can be found in your shared stash, which is in the room the local miller and blacksmith let you use after you complete the first part of their quests.

We know how much you've been waiting for this moment, we're thrilled to unveil the gameplay trailer for RoadCraft! Just imagine stepping into a world where you're the one turning disaster zones into thriving landscapes with cutting-edge technology and teamwork to make it happen. Sounds like a dream, doesn't it? In RoadCraft, you're at the helm of a disaster recovery company specializing in restoring areas devastated by natural calamities. With advanced simulation powered by Saber Interactive's new engine, every material, vehicle, and terrain reacts with realistic physics, making each task feel immersive and rewarding.

Launching May 20th, 2025
This first look showcases breathtaking environments brought to life with stunning visuals and realistic physics. Whether you're clearing debris, rebuilding roads, or restoring vital infrastructure, you've got everything you need to tackle challenges with creativity and precision. And with co-op gameplay for up to four players, it's all about coming together and rebuilding as a team.

Our next Developer Livestream is now confirmed for Wednesday, February 5 at 10:30am PST (18:30 UTC). Follow our official Twitch channel to receive a notification when our panel of Jorg, Seb, and Martial go live to discuss the future development plans for Microsoft Flight Simulator and answer the most frequently asked questions the community submitted to our web form over the past few weeks. As always, the panel will also answer live questions from Twitch viewers, so be sure to tune in if you didn't have a chance to pre-submit a question!

Thank you to everyone who has downloaded the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Sim Update 1 pre-release beta test build! Since its launch in January, our team has been very carefully reading your feedback and bug reports on the forums. A new pre-release build with more fixes and improvements is coming soon for beta testers. If you would like to enroll in the beta to help test the next major release of MSFS 2024, you can find instructions (for PC-MS Store, PC-Steam, and Xbox Series X|S) here.

Last week, important figures from the PC hardware community posted photo and video evidence of damaged GPU interfaces—seemingly inflicted by the ASUS PCIe Q-Release Slim system. Reports suggest that scratches and scrapes—on PCIe connectors—are the result of frequent engagement and disengagement. For example, the owner of a ROG Strix B850-A Gaming Wi-Fi S motherboard model performed sixty quick release cycles—eventually chipping away at the physical interface present on their GALAX RTX 4070 Ti HOF OC LAB card. The most vocal of critics believe that ASUS did not fully test its latest quick release mechanism—reserved mainly for inclusion on high-end motherboards. Feedback posted on Bilibili prompted Tony Wu—general manager at the company's China office—to look into the matter. In the meantime, his colleagues in North America have responded to Western news reports.

Approximately eighteen hours ago, the "ASUS_MKTLeeM" account posted a lengthy and highly comprehensive public service announcement (PSA) on NVIDIA's subreddit. The ASUS USA rep stated: "we know that many of you have ASUS products including our GeForce graphics cards and motherboards and likely saw the news recently regarding usage marks on a couple graphics cards that were installed in one of our motherboards featuring the new PCIe Q-Release Slim feature." They noted that they would welcome feedback from users on Reddit—through comments or private messages. The company messenger pointed out that the reported problems stemmed from unique user cases—professional reviewers (of expensive graphics cards) will not enjoy reading this response: "in our internal testing and evaluation of the extremely small number of cases reported, we found no damage to the motherboard or graphics card that would affect functionality and/or performance....However, it is important to emphasize that any type of PCIe add-in card will exhibit signs of usage and wear marking after 60 continuous insertions and removals."

UK-based games publisher Kwalee and independent developer Galaxy Grove are thrilled to announce their new game, Town to City. The game is releasing on PC via Steam in 2025. Town to City is a charming city-building game where players can build an idyllic 19th century Mediterranean town and help it flourish into a prosperous society. They can freely place and customise each element to create the perfect home for their growing population in this cosy city builder from the creators of Station to Station. Kwalee and Galaxy Grove are excited to unveil an announcement trailer giving players a glimpse of what to expect from the game.

"We're thrilled to partner with Kwalee as our publisher! From the very beginning, they shared our passion for reimagining the city-builder genre with a fresh twist. Their belief in our vision and their unparalleled in-house publishing expertise have been instrumental in bringing this project to life. Today, we're excited to share our announcement trailer and can't wait to continue this journey together as we bring our game to completion!", said Joost van Dongen, Founder of Galaxy Grove

A happy owner of Sniper Elite: Resistance sent out a cheery message via the game's Steam discussion section—Denuvo Anti-Cheat seems to be an optional element when setting up Rebellion's latest tactical shooter. The user's public announcement read as follows: "I almost couldn't believe it when the setup dialog appeared...'Do you want to install Denuvo? YES or NO.' Now the drawback to skipping it is the fact that it's required for multi-player. But as a single campaign player myself, I was glad to have the choice to not install it. I wish more games would give us single players this option! For many a PC gamer, this sense of choice will be celebrated—at least on a surface level—as Irdeto's software is no stranger to controversy. Despite widespread deployment across many popular games and adding of "exciting new features," development teams and publishers have—on occasion—removed Denuvo protection systems from their products, even pre-launch.

Further community discussion—regarding Sniper Elite: Resistance's dropping of anti-tamper technology—focused on the benefits of not having a "kernel infesting, performance nerfing malware/spyware" package interfering with a gamer's solo experience. Unfortunately, Anti-Cheat seems to be an essential aspect for folks who want to indulge in multiplayer—be it co-op, invasion or a traditional PvP mode. Additional feedback points to Irdeto's digital rights management (DRM) system being a compulsory component. One commenter stated: "Denuvo is NOT optional, Resistance has two forms of Denuvo. The first kind it uses is Denuvo Anti-Tamper. This serves to protect the game from piracy, and validation of ownership...you can't get away from Denuvo Anti-Tamper, the game files are wrapped in it. The second kind is the Denuvo anti cheat, which is only needed for multiplayer. Every Sniper Elite game since no. 4 has used Denuvo Anti-Tamper, Resistance is no exception." Late last year, Irdeto staffers attempted to reach out to the gaming community, but responses were largely negative—a Denuvo product manager reckoned that most of this "toxicity" was generated by piracy groups. At the time, Irdeto's representative stated that his team's "solution simply works" and licensees (game developers) should do better in communicating these benefits (of Denuvo) to their audiences.

Hello, Engineers! The day has come—Space Engineers 2 Alpha has officially launched on Steam Early Access! After months of anticipation and hard work, we're excited to take this first step together. The thrilling journey of Space Engineers 2 starts now, and we invite you all to be part of it. The release of the Alpha and Vertical Slice1: Creative Mode is just the beginning—there's so much more ahead!

We're taking a unique approach to developing Space Engineers 2 with our Vertical Slice strategy. A Vertical Slice is a fully playable portion of the game that showcases specific core features and improvements implemented at production quality. It serves as a milestone in the game's development, allowing us to focus on delivering polished gameplay in stages while more features are added in subsequent slices.

HXL/9550pro and HardwareLuxx's Andreas Schilling shared evidence of the ASUS PCIe Q-Release Slim—the manufacturer's latest ejection mechanism—causing damage to graphics card PCIe connectors. Recent feedback suggests that repeated usage can scrape or grind off material present on a card's interface. HXL gathered critiques from multiple sources (owners of Intel 800 and AMD 800 series boards), and linked a relevant Bilibili video. The footage presents a damaged GALAX RTX 4070 Ti HOF OC LAB model, following sixty quick release cycles—paired with a ROG Strix B850-A Gaming Wi-Fi S motherboard. Tony Wu, ASUS China's general manager, eventually weighed in on community discussions—stating that he will investigate this matter and report back with his findings.

Schilling expressed similar frustrations—his chosen platform is producing unwanted results: "I'm not happy with the solution either. We use the Strix X870E-E Gaming for testing the graphics cards. So I have had to remove graphics cards from the slot a few dozen times. This didn't always go smoothly and very often the (GeForce RTX 5090) card got stuck in the slot. First damage visible." Press outlets have picked up on the recent surge in Q-Release Slim user feedback—several publications have gathered additional examples of the new mechanism inflicting damage on a variety of graphics card models.

Hey everyone, I've got some sad news today to ring in 2025. Late last month, Noel and I made the difficult decision to cancel Earthblade. Yes, we are opening the year with a huge, heartbreaking, and yet relieving failure. I want to outline in this post what lead to this decision, and what it means for the future of EXOK.

Before I get into it however, I want to acknowledge that this news will likely come as a shock to fans who have been eagerly anticipating the game. We made this decision in December and felt it best to wait until now to announce it. For us on the inside we've had some time to process, grieve, and work toward accepting this, although that process is nonlinear and still ongoing. For those only reading this now who might be emotionally invested in this project, we're sorry to disappoint you.

At yesterday's J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference NVIDIA announced new partnerships to transform the $10 trillion healthcare and life sciences industry by accelerating drug discovery, enhancing genomic research and pioneering advanced healthcare services with agentic and generative AI. The convergence of AI, accelerated computing and biological data is turning healthcare into the largest technology industry. Healthcare leaders IQVIA, Illumina and Mayo Clinic, as well as Arc Institute, are using the latest NVIDIA technologies to develop solutions that will help advance human health.

These solutions include AI agents that can speed clinical trials by reducing administrative burden, AI models that learn from biology instruments to advance drug discovery and digital pathology, and physical AI robots for surgery, patient monitoring and operations. AI agents, AI instruments and AI robots will help address the $3 trillion of operations dedicated to supporting industry growth and create an AI factory opportunity in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the launch of Supporters of Chromium-Based Bowsers. This initiative aims to fund open development and enhance projects within the Chromium ecosystem, ensuring broad support and sustainability for open source contributions that will drive technological advancement.

"With the launch of the Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers, we are taking another step forward in empowering the open source community," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "This project will provide much-needed funding and development support for open development of projects within the Chromium ecosystem."

Ubisoft announced earlier this month that it would be sunsetting its free-to-play first-person shooter, XDefiant, on June 3, 2025, after dwindling player counts made it unfeasible to continue supporting the live-service game. Despite the game being shut down by Ubisoft, the game's development team at Ubisoft San Francisco apparently still wanted to follow through with some of the content it had in the game's pipeline. In an announcement on X, the game's executive producer clarifies that much of the content that is being delivered in what he calls the last patch contains all the content that was planned for Season 3 along with some content from future seasons of the game, including Season 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Some major highlights in the new patch, are 13 new maps, three new factions, including the Assassins—from Assassin's Creed—six new weapons, and five new game modes. Along with the slew of new content, XDefiant received a handful of gameplay and QoL fixes for both competitive and casual play. The new maps consist of eight new arena maps, four new linear maps, and one new tactical map. XDefiant also got a new progression system that allows players to unlock cosmetics, badges, and other rewards for character progression. The developer also introduced daily rewards and "Credits," the game's new in-game currency that allows players to buy skins and other items from previous seasons.

Dauntless's recent Steam launch proved disastrous, thanks to some changes the developer made to the core gameplay, which we covered in more detail here. Phoenix Labs responded shortly after the controversy, but that original statement was largely seen as dismissive by the community. Now, Phoenix Labs has put out yet another response, this time responding to individual criticisms and laying out a detailed plan for the future of Dauntless.

In the response, Phoenix Labs starts off by apologizing to the community for the lost progression and disastrous Awakening update. Throughout the rest of the statement, the developer breaks down how it plans to address each of the criticisms, including the progression reset, monetization, and core gameplay changes. The most interesting take-away from Phoenix Labs's response is that the returning players will be rewarded with additional in-game resources—300,000 Rams and 5,000 Combat Merits as well as Peerless Aetherite, scaling based on how many weapons players had crafted before the update—to get them back up to speed in the new system. As of Update 2.2.0, dropping "early next year," players will also no longer have to re-do quests they had already previously completed in order to unlock all game modes and regions. Various challenges and monsters have also received reward drop buffs to speed up progression. Monetization changes include making the free battle pass for future seasons more rewarding, and Phoenix Labs also promised to re-evaluate the monetization strategy in future updates "to balance sustainability with fairness while remaining rewarding for players." As for core gameplay changes, Phoenix Labs has already implemented changes to armor perks, shield caps, and weapon buffs based on feedback, and it says that it will continue to find more ways to add diversity and depth to player builds in future updates.

With the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 all but a given, much has been said about the new handheld gaming console in leaks and rumors. Now, a new set of supposed leaks from Decky Wizard on X have caused a bit of consternation among the Switch community, given the seemingly random mix of upgrades and perceived downgrades coming to the next-gen Switch. Minor details include larger buttons, a redesigned dock, and three colorways at launch, however, details around the new display and controls are more significant. For starters, the leaks suggest that the Switch 2 will have larger buttons and Hall-effect joysticks, both of which would likely be a massive upgrade in the eyes of most gamers, however it also seems as though the Switch 2 will use an LCD, as opposed to an OLED display, for the base model.

It seems as though most Switch fans were expecting an OLED panel right out the gate, given the Nintendo Switch OLED has been available for quite some time, now. Hall-effect joysticks will also likely solve one of the community's biggest complaints about the Switch controls—that being stick drift—but Nintendo would have to also provide a calibration tool in the Switch software to correct for wear and tear on the joysticks. Larger buttons may also be a welcome change for most Switch gamers, since cramped controls are a fairly common criticism of the original Switch. In addition to the news of the physical and technical specifications, Decky Wizard also claims that the Switch 2 will be lighter than the Steam Deck and be launched as soon as January 2025. In a subsequent post, Decky Wizard uploaded leaked images of the new Switch 2, showing off not only a fresh looking chassis with smaller screen bezels and a new built-in kickstand design, but also the design of the new first-party dock and two new, larger Joycon release buttons on the backs of each Joycon.