Steam

If you've been holding out for a bargain before refreshing your keyboard, then it might be time to take advantage of this gaming keyboard deal, where you can save half the price on a Corsair K70 Pro Mini from Best Buy. This keyboard is discounted by a huge $90 right now, giving you a great 60% keyboard with hot-swappable switches and a light aluminum frame for a very reasonable price. As we found in our Corsair K70 Pro Mini review, the price was one of the biggest stumbling blocks for this wireless keyboard, while other aspects, such as the multi-wireless modes, gained praise, as did the superb build quality. However, that price criticism is now moot in this deal, making this Corsair model one of the best gaming keyboard options you can buy right now. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Save $120 on this fast 2TB Corsair gaming SSD, ideal for Steam Deck Grab this Corsair 32GB RGB DDR5 gaming RAM upgrade for its lowest price ever Best gaming mouse in 2025 View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Activision has addressed Call of Duty community complaints about cheating in ****** Ops 6 and Warzone, and confirmed plans to let console Ranked players disable crossplay with PC players. Cheating has become the hottest topic among hardcore Call of Duty fans following the release of Ranked Play in ****** Ops 6 and Warzone with the launch of Season 1 last year. The apparent prevalence of cheaters is considered by some to be ruining competitive multiplayer, and Activision had come under fire for failing to address the problem. Last month, Activision’s Team Ricochet, the division responsible for its Call of Duty anti-cheat tech, admitted not enough had been done to prevent cheating with the launch of Season 1. “After a series of updates our systems are in a better place today across all modes; however, we did not hit the mark for the integration of Ricochet Anti-Cheat at the launch of Season 01 — particularly for Ranked Play,” Activision said at the time. Now, in a new blog post, Activision outlined its plan to tackle cheating in Call of Duty in 2025, revealing it had issued over 136,000 Ranked Play account bans since the mode launched. Season 2, which begins soon, includes new and improved client and server-side detections and systems as well as a major kernel-level driver update, Activision said. The company promised “a multitude of new tech” for Season 3 and beyond, including a brand-new system to authenticate legit players and target cheaters. It didn’t want to go into detail on that now, however, so as not to give cheat developers “a peek behind the curtain.” In the shorter term, with the launch of Season 2, Activision will enable the ability to disable crossplay for console players who want to compete only against other console players in ****** Ops 6 and Warzone Ranked Play. It is believed that the majority of cheating in video games is on the PC side, and indeed Call of Duty players on console have for years now disabled crossplay as a matter of course for standard Multiplayer. Now, Ranked players will get the chance, too. “We'll be monitoring closely and will consider further changes to prioritize the integrity of the ecosystem, and we’ll have more details to share as we get closer to the launch of this feature,” Activision said. Most Activision anti-cheat updates are met with a healthy dose of scepticism from hardcore fans, and this latest one is no different. Cheating is not unique to Call of Duty of course, but it has become a significant reputation issue for Activision ever since the free-to-download battle royale Warzone exploded in popularity back in 2020. The mega publisher has spent millions of dollars developing its anti-cheat technology as well as pursuing cheat makers in the courts, with a number of recent high-profile successes. In October, ahead of the launch of ****** Ops 6, Activision said that it aimed to kick cheaters out of the game within one hour of them being in their first match. ****** Ops 6 launched with an updated version of Ricochet's kernel-level driver (this also applied to Warzone), with new machine-learning behavioral systems focused on speed of detection and the analysis of gameplay to combat aim bots in place. "The people behind cheats are organized, ******** groups that pick apart every piece of data within our games to look for some way to make cheating possible," Activision said at the time. "These bad guys are not just some script kiddies poking around with code they found online. They are a collective who profit from exploiting the hard work of game developers across the industry. "But cheat developers are flawed (clearly — they have to pretend to be good at video games). Every time they cheat, they leave breadcrumbs behind. We’re always looking for those breadcrumbs to find the bad actors and get them out of the game." Wesley is the *** News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article

As Monster Hunter Wilds' February 28 release date nears, developer Capcom has said it's looking into lowering the recommended GPU requirements. Confirmation comes from the official ******* Monster Hunter X/Twitter account, which issued a follow-up statement that revealed Capcom is also exploring the possibility of releasing a standalone PC benchmarking tool. Capcom recommends an Nvidia GTX 1660 Super or AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT for 30 FPS at 1080p. This minimum requirement is also detailed as requiring an internal resolution of 720p, and upscaling the graphics using DLSS or FSR using the “lowest” graphics setting. Monster Hunter Wilds’ recommended settings also target 1080p and 60 FPS with upscaling and Frame Generation technologies enabled, using the examples of an RTX 2070 Super, RTX 4060, or AMD RX 6700 XT. Out of the three, only the RTX 4060 supports Nvidia Frame Generation, with the 2070 Super and 6700 XT instead having to rely on FSR 3 (which had ghosting artifacts in the previous Monster Hunter Wilds beta). Targeting 60 FPS with Frame Generation enabled isn’t the ideal use of the technology, with Digital Foundry recommending a baseline of 40 FPS in third-person titles. If a game runs at under 60 FPS with upscaling enabled, it may result in a much less responsive or tactile feeling due to latency. During the Monster Hunter Wilds open beta test, PC players with lower-end hardware struggled, even with mid-range graphics cards like the RTX 3060. In particular, players experienced a low-LOD bug where the game did not load the fully detailed textures of characters or monsters. Monster Hunter Wilds is built on the RE Engine, which first debuted in 2017’s Resident Evil 7. The engine was used in games like ****** May Cry 5, Monster Hunter Rise, and Street Fighter 6, with slick performance across all platforms. But, all that glitters is not gold for the RE Engine, as ******* open-world titles with more NPCs and enemies like Dragon’s Dogma 2 have suffered from performance woes on consoles and PC, setting a worrying portent for Monster Hunter Wilds. With the clock ticking towards an early February open beta and late February launch, Capcom’s claim of attempting to reduce GPU requirements could be key for the title’s success on PC. Sayem is a freelancer based in the ***, covering tech & hardware. You can get in touch with him at @sayem.zone on Bluesky. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Players may wonder if they should pull for Mydei in Honkai: Star Rail 3.1 if they already have access to Blade, thanks to leaks that highlight how the new character may operate in combat. Mydei, along with Tribbie, is confirmed to be a new playable unit arriving with Version 3.1. Mydei is a 5-star Imaginary character who follows the Path of the Destruction. This alone is enough to create speculations on his role as a possible DPS. However, the start of the Version 3.1 beta tests has also brought forth leaks, including details about Mydei’s kit in Honkai: Star Rail. View the full article

If you love Hades as much as I do, you owe it to yourself to keep an eye on Sworn. The upcoming action roguelike trades the Greek pantheon for medieval fantasy, and it's shaping up to be one of the best-looking entries in the genre this year. Set in a fallen Camelot where a corrupted King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table reign supreme, it's up to you to craft the best builds to take on the land's royalty. We really don't have long to wait either, as the early access launch and an open demo are mere weeks away. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: King Arthur inspired Hades rival Sworn is running a final playtest before launch Hades style King Arthur roguelike Sworn now has a free demo, but not for long King Arthur roguelike Sworn is essentially co-op Hades, and I'm hooked View the full article

A new McDonald’s Pokémon promotion is kicking off, providing fans with new cards to collect and add to their collection. If you don’t have experience with these promotions, you may wonder how the cards differ—and we’ve got an explanation. The latest McDonald’s Pokémon promotion begins on Jan. 21 in the United States, with a set featuring 15 cards in total—including seven holographic cards. With a fresh buzz in Pokémon following the release of Prismatic Evolutions, the urge to catch ’em all is sky-high. View the full article

Before we begin, Heroes of Hammerwater 2 console commands only appear to work in the demo, not the base game. The developers are working to add mod support to the game and even include Steam Workshop in the future. All the current console commands exist in both the demo and full game but aren’t useable at this time. View the full article

Daniel Vávra, co-founder of Warhorse Studios, has denied a recent rumor that Saudi Arabia had banned Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 over an unskippable gay cutscene. 2018’s Kingdom Come Deliverance is a story-driven action role-playing game set in the medieval Kingdom of Bohemia. It pitches itself as an historically accurate representation of the setting, but its lack of people of color became a talking point in the months following release. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, due out February 4, 2025, once again leans on historical accuracy for its return to medieval Bohemia, but players can expect a slightly different experience. Warhorse has said that, because protagonist Henry is embarking on a journey from the countryside to a relatively cosmopolitan city that is besieged and occupied by an invading king, he will encounter a wide range of ethnicities and characters this time around. The claim that Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 was banned in Saudi Arabia reportedly emerged from a tweet by a Saudi Arabian news outlet, and was picked up by western media and spread across social media and forums. Now, Vávra has taken to social media to deny the claim and provide clarification on how Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 works. Vávra tweeted to say it does not have unskippable cutscenes and was not and is not banned in any country, “at least not that we know of.” Vávra then pointed to the fact that the first Kingdom Come Deliverance had gay characters, and said players are responsible for their in-game decisions. “If you want Henry to try a same-sex adventure, feel free,” Vávra insisted. “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. All affairs are (and were in KCD1) purely optional. The characters are perfectly aware that it was a forbidden sin.” Following the Saudi Arabia ban rumor, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 became the latest video game to be singled out for being “woke” or including “forced diversity” — a growing online trend that some developers and publishers have felt the need to counter in recent months. In September 2024, Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot responded to a backlash against Assassin's Creed Shadows' ****** samurai protagonist to address "an important problem of perception that has been affecting the company's performance." "I want to reaffirm that we are an entertainment-first company, creating games for the broadest possible audience, and our goal is not to push any specific agenda,” Guillemot continued. “We remain committed to creating games for fans and players that everyone can enjoy." As part of his response to the online backlash against Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Vávra made it clear that he doesn’t like "forced diversity,” insisting “nobody was forcing us to do anything, and we are not forcing anyone to do certain things.” He then reiterated comments Warhorse had already made about why the sequel is more diverse than its predecessor. “The game takes place in one of the richest cities in Europe which was besieged by a massive foreign army,” he said. “That´s the reason why the life in such a city is more diverse than the life in villages which were featured in the first game. “Musa came to Bohemia with an invading army as a member of the royal court of King Sigismund, whom he met thanks to his engagement at the court of Sultan Bayezid. He's an educated noble and renaissance man from the Kingdom of Mali. “At the same time, Musa is a very unusual figure for the local Bohemian folk, and many of the situations around him in the game stem from this. So his presence makes sense and creates lots of interesting situations in the game. The way he talks and behaves has a reason. “Everything displayed corresponds to the morals and social norms of 1403 Bohemia and is only there to make an interesting story, and not at all to appeal to a ‘modern audience.'” “Modern audience” is a now common phrase used online to deride games that are perceived to be appealing to a diverse audience. In the ongoing culture war, “modern audience” has become a meme, and is referenced in the downfall of everything from Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to Concord. Vávra concluded his response by hitting back at the anti-woke brigade whose fears he had worked to assuage. “Some of them sadly turned into exactly the same narrative they pretend to be fighting against,” he said. “The amount of hateful behavior is really sad and it will damage any cause associated with it.” When contacted by IGN, Warhorse and publisher Plaion pointed to Vávra X/Twitter thread. Wesley is the *** News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article

Please excuse the eyeball jelly. I've just got done tearing my face away from the screen it was attached to by the glitter and amphetamine-infused superglue secreted by Mindwave's minigame barrage. The current Steam demo is a generous slice of a wonderful thing its developers describe as a "cerebral microgame frenzy". It's the sort of thing you play for five minutes before realising, not unpleasantly, that you are most definitely inside of it now. It has wrapped you all up, and it's going to be quite difficult to escape. Trailer below: Read more View the full article

The Magic: The Gathering card Grinding Station has risen in price slowly but steadily over the past month. Priced at $11.40 on December 20, 2024, it has since climbed to $30, and shows no signs of stopping. That's a pretty significant increase of 163%, and a nice bit of value added to the card. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Pokémon Pocket makes me wish MTG Arena was more generous MTG found the perfect way to make fans pay $40 for ten basic lands The best MTG planeswalker cards View the full article

Choosing between Arlecchino and Clorinde in Genshin Impact 5.3’s rerun banners may be a difficult choice, not only because both of them are superb DPS units but also because of the limitations involved in obtaining F2P (free-to-play) Primogems. Arlecchino, the Fourth of the Fatui Harbingers, was introduced as a playable character in Version 4.6. The 5-star character excels at consistently dealing Elemental DMG by applying Bond of Life to herself and, in turn, imbuing her Normal, Charged, and Plunging Attacks with Pyro. Arlecchino’s best build in Genshin Impact can easily transform her into one of the strongest Pyro DPS units. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

The Magic: The Gathering card Grinding Station has risen in price slowly but steadily over the past month. Priced at $11.40 on December 20, 2024, it has since climbed to $30, and shows no signs of stopping. That's a pretty significant increase of 163%, and a nice bit of value added to the card. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Pokémon Pocket makes me wish MTG Arena was more generous MTG found the perfect way to make fans pay $40 for ten basic lands The best MTG planeswalker cards View the full article

Elon Musk has made headlines again, but this time, it’s not for launching rockets or naming his next child after a cryptic formula. Instead, he’s admitted to something many gamers suspected all along—he’s been relying on account sharing and real money trading (RMT) to climb the ranks in Path of Exile 2 and Diablo 4. The confession came after a series of odd moments during a livestream where Musk showcased his so-called gaming prowess. YouTuber Quin69TV broke down the fiasco, highlighting some head-scratching moments. At one point, Musk struggled with the Endgame map—a feature any seasoned player would be familiar with—and made the baffling comment, “My staff is only level 62,” when, in reality, it was one of the best in the game. Spoiler alert: it’s not the staff that’s low-level here. View the full article

Isn't Straftat a pleasing word to say? Straftat. It almost demands an angry bark, an accusatory finger. Straftat! The bite-sized two-player shooter was one of our favourite games of last year, summoning the fast-paced killthrills of ancient Quake servers as much as the quickfire 1v1 scraps of the gulag in Call of Duty: Warzone. And now it has a bunch of new maps. Not content with making the powerful pew-pew 'em up completely free (WHAT), the developers have added new weapons, features and a further 30 bullet-pocked arenas. And look, an icy and divisive fan-made map of ye olde Counter-Strike appears among them. Read more View the full article

An unlockable Gallery Card in Marvel Rivals may have shown off unreleased skins for ****** Panther, Winter Soldier, and Psylocke. Marvel Rivals is currently in the beginning of its first full-length season, which will add every member of The Fantastic Four over the span of three months. The developers recently stated that fans can expect to see new characters added to the game every six weeks for the foreseeable future. View the full article

Palworld released in Early Access one year ago today and, to celebrate, developer Pocketpair has revealed its 2025 roadmap includes crossplay, a final boss, and more. An X/Twitter post revealed the "future roadmap" and then asked fans to continue supporting Palworld in its second year, suggesting all of this will arrive in 2025 (and perhaps the first three weeks of 2026). "We've been updating the game since the start of Early Access, and we'll continue to update Palworld as we prepare for the official release," Pocketpair said. Alongside cooperative crossplay and a final boss and "ending scenario," Pocketpair revealed "world transfers for Pals," further ways to strengthen and improve Pals, "various new content such as new Pals and technologies," and game collaborations such as the one with Terraria. Also coming are improvements to world object placements, improvements to base Pals, improvements to optimization, and improvements to the user experience. Pocketpair obviously didn't mention what could be its biggest event of 2025 — the conclusion of its legal battle with The Pokémon Company and Nintendo. Palworld, an open-world, multiplayer survival game dubbed "Pokémon with guns" by some, gained a staggering 25 million players in one month when it launched last year. Many drew further comparisons between it and Pokémon upon release, claiming various Pal designs were practically direct copies of official pocket monsters. The Pokémon Company said in January 2024 that it intended "to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights" but went quiet for months after. Finally, however, in September 2024, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company announced it had launched a patent lawsuit against Pocketpair. The developer didn't appear particularly deterred by the lawsuit, initially saying "we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon" before going on to release Palworld on different platforms afterwords, and even release one of its older games on Nintendo Switch. It later revealed the lawsuit was directed at patents that involve a catching mechanic: Pokémon are famously captured with Pokéballs, and Palworld are caught with a spherical object called a Pal Sphere. Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day. View the full article

Desperate to play Resident Evil 6 on modern consoles? No? Well, a new rating suggests you might be able to anyway. Read more View the full article

Marvel Rivals Showdown Twitch Rivals was one of the first tournaments for the game. If you missed the action, here’s everything you need to know to catch up. The event gathered a few of the most renowned streamers from North America and put them against each other in an exciting format. Besides earning the glory of winning the prestigious Marvel Rivals tournament, there was also an impressive prize pool. View the full article

Reddit user OyeDiego claims to have spotted two MySims games on the EA app that have not been announced yet — Action Bundle and Beacon Bay. View the full article

Uh oh, Helldivers 2's latest Major Order is looking like it's gonna be a tough task to score a W in at this point, even though J.O.E.L's recently given the divers a helping hand by intervening with a friendly blizzard. Some of them aren't happy with it though, mainly because it's come about due to lots of players electing to go bug-diving rather than fight The Illuminate. Read more View the full article

Season Starfall added three new weapons to Delta Force, including the QJB201 light machine gun. Every weapon has its own unlock method, and getting QJB201 isn’t as obvious as you might expect since there’s no event or an Armory challenge. Here’s how you can get your hands on the QJB201 light machine gun in Delta Force. View the full article

Capcom just seemingly confirmed that a Monster Hunter Wilds PC benchmark tool is on the way, only to quickly rescind the statement and instead clarify that it's simply looking into the possibility of one. So if you've been hoping to test your rig's hardware against Wilds ahead of time, you're still going to have to hold out hope that Capcom releases the tool before launch. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Monster Hunter Wilds Sword and Shield overview - moveset and how to use Monster Hunter Wilds Hammer overview - moveset and how to use Monster Hunter Wilds Hunting ***** overview - moveset and how to use View the full article

Heroes of Hammerwatch 2 developer Crackshell has released a second patch for the roguelike action RPG just a few days after its first update since release. Heroes of Hammerwatch 2’s first patch deployed Build 115 on January 15, fixing a wide array of niche issues and supplying added features and adjustments based on player feedback. The team also highlighted they were working on fixing more serious bugs as soon as possible, but the first patch was designed to fix some of the simpler things first. View the full article

The Secret Banana in Fisch is a rare fish that can be obtained randomly by fishing. However, the chances of stumbling upon this elusive fish are somewhat tricky. Roblox’s Fisch has multiple fish you can catch, but the developer has now added three Secret Fish that are hard to find in the wild. While some Secret Fish have a set place where they spawn, others can spawn anywhere in the ocean, making adding it to your inventory extremely difficult. But if you’re looking for the Secret Banana, we’ve got you covered. View the full article

A lucky Pokémon collector was surprised when a booster pack they opened contained cards from a set that is still two months from releasing—providing hits they could never have dreamed of. The Pokémon TCG has recently seen a surge in popularity, with Prismatic Evolutions selling like hotcakes and Costco stores in the United States turning into a Royal Rumble as people scramble for the 151 Blooming Waters Collection Box. View the full article