Gaming

There are very few unexplored frontiers for the iconic first-person shooter. Microsoft Word, an Ikea smart lightbulb, even tractors are fair game. But this is the first time I’ve seen Doom running on a modular synthesizer. Don’t be fooled by the laptop, it’s just streaming video from the synth.

The latest entry in the series was given a firm release date at Comic Con 2026, after being revealed during a Sony State of Play showcase in early June. Unlike previous God of War titles, this one won’t focus on angry dad Kratos, instead following the more dexterous mom Laufey.

Amazon’s games head Jeffrey Gattis confirmed to The Game Business that the title won’t arrive in 2027 as originally expected.

How could anyone have known that LeBron James would choose Philadelphia as his next NBA team? Well, there were signs.

After Microsoft brought four original Xbox games to PC earlier this week, a reverse engineer found that the company is powering them with Xenon Fusion — the same emulator that enabled backward compatibility on the Xbox 360. This might be laying the groundwork for Xbox 360 games on PC, as the XWine1 account on X figured out how to get some 360 titles running with “varying degrees of success.”

In ReStory you’re tasked with growing your “quaint electronics repair shop in mid-2000s Tokyo” by dismantling, repairing, cleaning, and restoring devices like cellphones, consoles, and cameras. Developed by Mandragora Studio the game launches on Steam on August 6th

The new $149.99 VelocityOne Flightstick II upgrades the original with a new full color screen at the top of the joystick, 38 mappable inputs, and Hall effect sensors. It’s joined by the $149.99 VelocityOne Dual Throttle featuring two levers with adjustable tension, 35 programmable inputs, and an LED throttle indicator.

The internet’s favorite dictionary just dropped a new word game, Tagline — and, surprisingly, there’s not a definition in sight. The game consists of three increasingly difficult clues with hangman-style answers to guess. The twist is that all the solutions are made up entirely from the same seven letters.

That’s the sound of the Splatoon series exploring a new genre with Splatoon Raiders, which is Nintendo’s take on looter shooters. I quite enjoyed my time with the game, but you can check it out for yourself now, as it launches today on the Switch 2.

Mattel’s older Mega line of building sets included a couple of Halo sets featuring the Warthog, but Amazon Australia leaked a larger and more detailed 935-piece buildable UNSC M12 Warthog that’s part of Mattel’s recent Brick Shop line. There’s no pricing, but the model includes working independent suspension and customizable detailing.

The OneBGS union said in a post that Bethesda laid off some of its Canadian employees on July 17th, weeks sooner than employees were warned the layoffs would happen, PC Gamer reports. That same day, Bethesda announced it’s working on Fallout 5.

As GamesRadar+ reports, you can now create custom categories for your wishlist, like “buy when on sale,” which could make organization easier for those of us with giant Steam wishlists (myself included). You can filter your wishlist by category and set custom notifications for specific categories.

Valve has made improvements to its gifting processes in Steam, particularly for guest shoppers without an account. You can buy games, not just gift cards or hardware. You can also gift games to an email address, even if it’s not associated with the giftee’s account. Easier cross-region gifting, too. Good stuff.

The colorful platformer Poinpy, which comes from the developer behind Downwell, was one of the titles that Netflix cut loose when it moved on from indie games. But now it has been resurrected with a new version for both iOS and Android that’s not only free, but available right now.

As Microsoft continues its Xbox “reset,” the pared-down Game Pass bundle that arrived recently as a benefit for Discord Nitro is now also included in the 7.99 monthly / $59.99 annually Quest subscription. The starter edition also includes 10 hours of cloud gaming access to try some of the 50-plus games it unlocks before downloading them.

Last year’s RG34XXSP added a pair of thumbsticks but Anbernic’s new RG SP looks like an update to 2024’s RG35XXSP that more closely matched the GBA SP. The new model has a “refined tactile button feel,” a smaller screen bezel, and a body that’s about 10 percent thinner

The Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition Draco Epic marks MSI’s 40th anniversary by maxing out the already-pricey Titan with a flashy dragon design, 96GB of DDR5 RAM, an Nvidia RTX 5090, and an Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus. At least the $6,999 price tag also includes a bundled copy of LEGO Batman.

The Feinmann F01 Noctua Edition is made in collaboration with peripheral maker Pulsar Gaming Gears, and like other fan-equipped mice, is designed to cool sweaty palms during intense gaming sessions. It’s available starting today for $179.95, providing customizable fan speeds and a 8,000Hz polling rate.

PC Gamer spotted a listing for the Next 2 on Ayaneo’s website with a top configuration priced at $5,299. The same configuration, with 128GB of RAM and 2TB of storage, was already pricey at $4,299 earlier this year, before Ayaneo suspended preorders, saying the handheld was “unsustainable” due to skyrocketing RAM costs.

Dbrand’s Companion Cube case is not going to happen, but you can 3D print a detailed replica of it for your Steam Machine using files shared by Printables user Jaron. A multicolor printer will make the process much easier, and they’ve shared a list of all the additional parts you’ll need like screws and magnets to assemble it.

“Up to” 32 staffers have been served redundancy or at-risk notices, ZA/UM says. The studio has been the subject of a lot of controversy following the launch of Disco Elysium, and it released a new game this year, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. However, the Zero Parades’ “commercial performance has not enabled us to sustain a studio of our current size.“

Software makes up “less than 12 percent of the business,” while collectibles are “over half,” Ryan Cohen said in a Bloomberg interview. “So it’s totally, totally irrelevant.”

Bungie’s online extraction shooter, Marathon, is having a leadership change as game director Joe Ziegler announced on X that today is his final day with the company. Ziegler, former game director of Valorant, took on the role following former Marathon director Chris Barrett’s firing in August 2024.