Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney dropped another hot take about Steam earlier this week, saying that Valve's online storefront "has held gaming back for years" by locking developers into Steamworks.

Sweeney's comment came amidst a conversation started by Kiaran Ritchie, a former principal animation programmer at Epic, who decried the 30% cut Valve takes from game sales on Steam. "You could vibe code a Steam alternative in a week," Ritchie wrote on X. "Cloudflare egress is basically free. The industry is in desperate need of a distribution platform that allows developers to keep their revenue.

"Networks effects and the fanatic obsession with 'muh Steam library' will make this very difficult. But if devs could actually keep their earnings, we'd have a greater selection of better games and far more financial success stories."

When another user called Ritchie's analysis into question and pointed out that the recent "vibe coded" Epic Games Store launcher had met with mixed results, Ritchie replied, "The client is basically irrelevant in this day and age. Anyone could build one better than Steam and it wouldn't even be hard. I only bring it up because it's what everyone talks about when defending Steam. Like it's still 2024 and these things are hard. Steam's only remaining value is its network."

Asking rhetorically why Valve doesn't offer Steamworks services on an a la carte basis so developers only pay for what they use, he concluded, "They won't. Because nobody would willingly pay anything close to 30% for it."

Which is where Sweeney came in: "Exactly this," he wrote in reply to Ritchie. "Valve has held gaming back for years by locking developers' PC games into Steamworks' social walled garden where players can't talk to other players on iOS, Android, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, or even other PC stores."

Sweeney's message was appended with a community note stating that "a lot of games use Steamworks only for authentication to allow for crossplay and do the rest themselves." Sweeney dismissed this as "fake," writing that "Steam Datagram relay isn't related to the things I cited: social, and players talking to each other across platforms."

The next day, he added another response to the community note, agreeing that Valve"doesn't kidnap you and force you to use Steamworks," but suggesting that it is impractical for developers not to use it. Epic offers its own free social and matchmaking framework called Epic Online Services, which uses Epic's account system, but can be used outside of the Epic Games Store.

There's potential for an interesting conversation here, because Sweeney does make some valid points and I wholeheartedly agree that Steam's 30% cut on many game sales—which has long been his number-one bugaboo—is extremely steep. But all of that runs headlong into the simple fact that Steam is tremendously successful, and while developers might grumble about its steep cut, they still choose to use it because it's far and away the dominant platform and storefront in PC gaming.

It's also interesting that Sweeney is arguing that Steam should change its ways while resolutely denouncing criticism of the AI-centric course he's plotted for Epic. So, on one hand we get the market realist argument that AI is inevitable and we should accept it, but on the other are told we should not accept what Steam has done and continues to do even though it's working well for Valve and has helped support a tidal wave of indie gaming over the past two decades—which, ironically, is now under threat by AI. It makes me wonder: Does he really believe Steam has held back gaming, or does he really just want it to do things his way?

The rise of AI slop is a real problem for Steam. Developers are growing wary of sharing their concepts and demos for fear of them being cloned, while Next Fest events meant to showcase upcoming games are being choked by literally thousands of demos hastily cranked out by 'developers' who are throwing everything imaginable at the wall in hopes that something will stick.

Speaking at the Steam Indie Connect event in Busan, South Korea, Valve's Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson acknowledged the problem, which as reported by Inven Global included at least one instance of a developer reporting extortion threats: "If you don't pay, we'll clone your game with AI and release it first." But the pair suggested that Valve isn't really in a position to do much about it, at least as far as regulating what is and isn't allowed on the platform. "We don't want to be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use," Giardino said.

Noting that games were being cloned long before AI came on the scene—just at a much slower pace—Giardino suggested that developers can protect their work by first building a strong community around it, and then focusing on continual improvements: "Rather than relying on a single mechanic that someone can easily copy, you need to keep growing your game by adding features, personality, and creativity that stem from your own perspective."

Valve's approach to the deluge of AI games flooding the Steam Next Fest is similar. Wilkinson said that during the first two days of the event, Steam users are shown games virtually randomly—but after that, the platform starts making personalized recommendations, showing users games they're more likely to enjoy. The goal of that early randomization, he explained, is to give every developer a fair shot at visibility, before drilling down into actual preferences.

"We recognize that the trade-off is some low-quality games get exposed," Wilkinson said. "We are fully aware of the situation, and a significant number of people are thinking about how to solve this problem."

It is a problem—this SteamDB chart of Steam game releases by year very clearly illustrates why:

Nearly 23,000 games have been released on Steam in 2026 alone, and it's not even November yet. Most of them are garbo, irrespective of the role AI played in their development, but it's still an incredible mass of videogames that users and developers alike have to wrestle with. It may not be an issue for major studios releasing big name games, but for the person plugging away on what might potentially be the next Animal Well, Balatro, or Vampire Survivors, the risk of being swept away in a flood of low-effort slop and clones is inescapable.

Israel Mallén of Digital Suns Games, which cancelled a planned Moonlighter demo on Steam over worries that it would be cloned, recently suggested that storefronts like Steam could help combat unethical game cloning by giving developers "more tools to vet who gets access [to pre-release builds], like account age, playtime or review history."

But while Valve is grappling with the problem, it doesn't sound like major changes of that sort are imminent: Giardino acknowledged that "there's plenty of room for improvement" but said, "Rather than limiting developer access, making Steam a smarter and more dynamic platform is the starting point of our philosophy."

Fans of horror or obscure liminal spaces have been eating exceptionally well this year, what with all the outstanding horror games and movies—one of which being Kane Parsons' silver screen debut, The Backrooms film. As a fan of Parsons' YouTube series I was pretty confident that this film would nail the Backrooms, and I was right. But now that's done, fans are left wondering what's next for Parsons.

There have been rumours of a Backrooms sequel swirling pretty much since the first screening of the film ended, but there's nothing concrete. Parsons, though, has since confirmed during an interview with The Kyle Buchanan Show that he's working "on three dream projects, currently". So if we assume The Backrooms sequel is one of them, what could the other two be? Well, it could have something to do with the Valve hoodie Parsons is wearing in the interview.

Parsons has shared stories about going to visit Valve HQ on his social media a couple of times, each one sparking new rumours of the potential collaboration that he could be cooking up. He's openly talked about how influential the Portal games have been on his creative journey, so most fans are betting on that as his adaptation of choice. But mum's the word: "They'd get me with their space lasers if I speak about it," Parsons says. "They can see through walls. They're very serious." Yup, sounds like Valve to me.

The most Parsons can talk about when it comes to Valve is just how nice they are. "They're lovely people over there," Parsons adds. "They work in experiments, and I like that because that tends to be how I work. I don't really have a desire to sensationalise anything I may or may not be talking to them about over there." He goes on to explain how there's not a whole lot to report back on: if anything is going on it's in the super early stages—mostly just figuring out whether there's something there and, if so, does it align with both creative visions.

"It's more like having an abstract creative conversation that could flow in 30 different directions," Parsons says. "If you just know the way Valve works I think they're looking to experiment internally more than anything that can be talked about. If something cool comes of it I'm sure somehow people will know."

For the most part it just seems like Parsons is trying to keep his options open and make deliberate moves that'll help his skills grow: "I'm trying to make sure that I'm not rushing into [things], I'm trying not to bite off more than I can chew. And I'm trying to pick things that will force me to learn about subjects that I think are foundational."

If you've ever wanted to know what it's like to be a bassist in a band, one Redditor has shared a video recording from their Steam Frame, and it turns out it's purple and filled with strange costumes. Yeah, bassists live strange lives.

Shared to the Steam Frame subreddit, user midtech took a 28-second clip of them playing Them Changes by Thundercat at a live gig. They reportedly wore Valve's latest VR headset for a full 45-minute show, with a power bank tucked into their left pocket to keep it charged.

Midtech says, "Interestingly, only one guy asked me about the Frame."

The bassist says it was a Halloween-themed gig, which probably explains why one member of the band appears to be wearing a onesie, and another is wearing wings. I suppose in that lineup, a Steam Frame on the head likely gives more of a Daft Punk vibe.

If you're wondering how midtech got colour passthrough on their Steam Frame, they have the Arcturus Vision Camera, a plug-and-play passthrough accessory attached to the headset. The Frame itself is in performance mode, with a 144 Hz refresh rate, and the camera is recording at full resolution at 60 fps.

Midtech says, "I really enjoyed how light the Frame was, I barely noticed it when I was playing. The FOV was great when recording my bandmates, but I did have to look down more to see the frets on my bass." They continue, "The Frame itself does get pretty warm while and after recording (but not uncomfortable)."

As for the purpose of taking a Frame onstage, they say, "I thought it was a neat way to document my band's performance, plus it was a lower stake gig." They say in a different comment that it also means they get to experience it spatially later.

Midtech also says they like the idea of having tabs, lyrics or a score on the display in the headset, "instead of flipping through them on a music stand (I definitely knocked my iPad off the stand too many times)".

I can't see this becoming a trend given the battery life of the Steam Frame, and the general uncomfortability of wearing a headset on stage, but it is a fun oddity, and a neat way of viewing life through the eyes of a bassist. We just have to see it from the crowd's point of view next.

Last week's Steam Next Fest had over 8,000 demos; now Valve has revealed the 50 most-played among them. The results aren't surprising: there's lots of friendsloppy casual co-op, incremental games continue to be popular, and players have by-and-large rejected games with overt generative AI use, with only four of the games among the 50 declaring AI use in development.

Here are some other factoids:

• 7 incremental games, including 10 Million Pixels and Unharvest
• 15 lighthearted or comedic co-op games (aka friendslop) including Dude, Trust Me, Oar'Some Adventures, and Banana Airways
• 3 survival games including Frostrail, Never Be Alone and Arctic Drive
• 3 games that self-describe as "cozy" including Loftia
• 1 MMO in ArchAge Chronicles
• 1 haystack slop game

Among all 50 of these games, the only entry published by a traditional "blockbuster" publisher was Tropico 7.

Teach My Little Sister How To Drive was one of the four games with AI disclosures. It leans heavily on an LLM-powered NPC which apparently cost its developer over $1,000 a day.

I'm not super surprised by the list, which you can find here, and which is topped by 1-6 player "asymmetric party game" Worst Class Ever. I'm not surprised because it really does capture the zeitgeist, but it's nevertheless pretty eye-opening when you compare it to the kinds of games that dominated the event only five years ago. For example, this Reddit thread lists highlights like Norco, Death Trash, Sable, Unpacking and The Inheritance of Crimson Manor, all of which people still talk about and play (though I am still waiting for Death Trash to enter 1.0).

It's hard not to see the outsize influence of Roblox and UGC in general on this list, which can sometimes be unappreciated by people who like to pay for games on Steam and read about them on PC Gamer. It's possible that the kids who were reared on cheap smartphone software are responsible for the surge in freewheeling online co-op games with simple graphics, but whatever the case, 2026 feels very, very different to 2021.

What a time to be alive. Gamers are starting to play Steam games locally on jailbroken PlayStation 5 consoles, thanks to several projects that aim to bring PC gaming to the Sony-loving masses. One such project is Playden for PS5, which was made publicly available earlier this month.

The program functions as a Steam launcher, but also creates a private Windows environment via prospero-win, a port of Wine for PlayStation 5 (via Videocardz). The software has support for up to Direct3D 11 through DXVK and Direct3D 12 games through VKD3D-Proton, and includes a separate runtime kit for the graphics drivers, along with specific app shells for the games themselves.

"It downloads a game, prepares it, and hands it to a separate PS5 app made for that game. That app starts Wine with the game's settings," says the readme on the project's GitHub page. "Because each game is its own app, it has its own tile on the PS5 Home screen, and it is isolated: its files, settings and crashes stay inside it."

Reddit user Cevap has posted a video of their jailbroken PS5 playing Portal locally. "Game runs as you expect," says Cevap. "Only issue being you can’t use a mouse cursor, nor can you press ESC to go to the options. Otherwise basic controls work. What an amazing project, thank you!"

In the case of Playden for PS5, the GitHub page stresses that the software is in an early alpha state, so it's probably best not to expect too much from it at this stage. The compatible games list is pretty chonky, though, including some pretty big hitters. Just be prepared for crashes if you give it a go yourself.

It must also be mentioned that, aside from the risks of jailbreaking a PS5 in the first place, users also need to log in to their official Steam accounts to use the software. "Valve does not support third-party clients," say the devs "We know of no account problems from this, but the risk is yours to accept."

It's also quite an involved process to get it working by the looks of things, so this is probably one for advanced users. Still, I guess I can chalk this up as "things I thought I'd never see." An increasingly long list in 2026, it seems.

You can truly never anticipate how one might use their tech. After a Steam Frame owner asked why the VR headset didn't work with their detachable disc drive, Valve developer gaberow said they were looking into it—and patched in kernel support mere minutes later.

As spotted by Tom's Hardware, AiodensGhost asked for the feature on October 18, gaberowe responded on October 19, then made the commit to the Steam Frame kernel in less than ten minutes.

If you're wondering why someone would want CD-ROM support, AiodensGhost says, "I wanted to use my Steam Frame to be able to watch a movie on the road, and thought it was no big deal to use the detachable disc drive I had on my computer."

They continue, "Turns out that the Frame cannot power the player and even if it could it lacks the drivers to read a disc. Valve, this not only killed my ability to watch a movie, IT KILLED MY ABILITY TO INSTALL MY ABANDONWARE FROM 2006. You don't sell NFS Carbon anymore."

The mention of Need for Speed Carbon is interesting here, as it suggests one might opt to boot up a game on the Steam Frame from a CD-ROM drive, rather than streaming one from a library. Carbon is not officially on Steam (or any legal digital storefronts as far as I can see), so the only way to legally play some games on the Steam Frame would be via an old disc.

The Steam Frame does seem primarily built for use in VR games, but given its comfort and screen, it would make sense why one might enjoy it for 2D games and movies. CD-ROM support would make the device a little more versatile.

One thing that is worth noting here is that kernel-level support doesn't mean that all Steam Frame units will officially gain the feature. It means Valve could implement the change in a future Steam Frame update should it want to. Given the public reply from a developer and the kernel change, my money is on official support arriving in the future, but Valve could always opt not to do so.

Should you want to add it yourself, you can install the kernel on your device via the 'Deckard Linux no oopsies' repo, instead of waiting for any sort of official update. But I'd hazard a guess that those looking for disc drive support are fairly few in the first place.

If you're having trouble logging into Steam today, you're not alone: Significant numbers of users are reporting that they're stuck on a "loading user data" screen that's keeping them from logging into the platform.

Despite the issue persisting for several hours now, it's not clear what the problem actually is. SteamDB's Steam Status page indicates that Steam is green across the board. Down Detector, on the other hand, shows that reports of trouble began rolling in around 6 am ET, and continue to grow. Threads on the Steam Support subreddit point to the same.

Some redditors say they've been able to resolve the issue by closing Steam when the "loading user data" screen is displayed, then running it as an administrator; others say they've had no luck with that approach, however.

A theory that the problem may be connected to purchasing and downloading games does seem solid, though: I was able to log in and out of Steam without issue on my own account until I bought and started installing a game for testing purposes. I appeared to be stuck, but after letting it sit for nearly five minutes, Steam did eventually load. My game downloads also appear to be working too. So maybe that's another strategy: have patience?

I've reached out to Valve for more information and will update if I receive a reply, or when Steam starts working again, whichever comes first. In the meantime, if you run into the "loading user data" problem, let us know (along with, ideally, where you are and whether you're using a VPN), and if figure out a better solution to it than 'wait and hope for the best,' fill us in on that too.

Valve's mandatory AI disclosures are once again at the centre of the discourse, mostly thanks to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, who has long been vocally against them. The debate has been reheated in the same month Epic Games proudly announced it will pivot to "AI first" development on its forthcoming Star Wars and Marvel crossover. Then it announced an AI game jam, before walking back its requirement for AI to be used.

But the true battleground has been on Elon Musk's X, where Sweeney's refocused his reticule on Steam. One of his most repeated notions this time around is that forcing developers to disclose AI use is inherently political.

"Forcing developers to write a political statement to be used against them by the hate mob they're [Valve is] helping organize is abhorrent," he wrote on October 24 in response to some AI loving guy who works at an AI company.

Later, to another user: "These AI statements are just as partisan as mandatory political essays or forcing developers to list their voting history to drive cancel campaigns and public struggle sessions."

And then: "There is a real economic cost to Valve’s foray into forced political disclosures. Besides taking 30%, they’re also taking a potentially even larger fraction of developers’ revenue and livelihood by undermining their business with these AI hate campaigns."

(Later, when a user wrote this is a "big opening for Epic if Valve doesn't figure this out", Sweeney replied "Yep!")

On October 25: "They [Valve] are burning down the businesses of good developers to enforce their politics. A year from now they’ll all be using AI, games will be better and made faster, and they’ll pretend their hate mob posting the death threats wasn’t wrong but merely misunderstood."

In Valve's defence—and I rise in Valve's defence trepidatiously—the AI disclosure was initially imposed due to a seeming uncertainty with how use of this "legally murky" technology was unfolding in the game dev space. "Today's changes are the result of us improving our understanding of the landscape and risks in this space, as well as talking to game developers using AI, and those building AI tools," Valve wrote at the time. "This will allow us to be much more open to releasing games using AI technology on Steam."

"We'll continue to learn from the games being submitted to Steam, and the legal progress around AI, and will revisit this decision when necessary."

Why didn't Epic Games Store do the same? I'm not taking a swipe at EGS here, easy as it may be, but Epic Games' shopfront publishes a tiny slither of what Valve's does. In 2024, 1,100 games were released on EGS. Steam's figure was 18,433. Given that volume and the "legally murky" environment, the AI disclosure starts to look a whole lot more sensible.

Leaving aside whether insisting on AI disclosures in 2026 is inherently political—and I'm not denying it is, if inadvertently—Sweeney's posts on X do labour to imply that Valve is an anti-AI company taking a steadfast anti-AI stance, which, manifestly, it is not. Gabe Newell himself was an enthusiastic supporter of OpenAI in its infancy, donating $20 million to the then nonprofit enterprise. His most recent public comments on AI are not unlike those made by very many other enthusiastic tech billionaires, albeit less hyperbolic. That Valve will refresh its AI disclosure requirement in the medium to long term future seems inevitable to me.

But I do wonder what Sweeney dislikes more: anti-AI sentiment, or Steam?

It's an unusual time for him to revive this debate with such vigor. We are living through peak slop. The majority of games that release on Steam every week are irredeemable. The latest Claude model is facilitating the rapid thieving of game concepts and even code. Graphical assets, in-game music, in-game voices, generated using AI, immediately signal their provenance and are ugly as hell.

I don't doubt AI use in game dev will increase, but it will probably need to tend sharply away from the sensorial. Optimistically, most serious developers will realise that the vast majority of us don't want to see or hear that shit. I suspect that for most people, anti-AI sentiment, at least where games are concerned, isn't principled: it's a visceral emotional response.

Top Steam games by revenue (October 13 - 20)

Modern Warfare 4's official release date was October 23: its placement here is thanks to a pre-order incentive granting early access to the campaign. It's not a bad result, obviously, but I'm surprised it didn't topple PUBG. COD games do seem more spiritually at home on console, I guess.

Enshrouded hit 1.0 after a stint in early access, hence its reappearance here. Of particular note is something not shown in the above list: Over the Hill, the chillaxed offroading sim by the creators of Art of Rally, hit number 11 on the revenue charts for this period. That's a damn good result, and well deserved.

To provide a little bit more (slightly random) context: the new Castlevania game, which released on the same day as Over the Hill, came in at number 15. It's surprising that an offroading game would outperform a new entry in one of the medium's most beloved series. But then: the Snowrunner and Mudrunner games are extremely popular.

Last week's Steam deep cuts

Get ready to start talking about Half-Life 3 again, folks, because it's that time of year: Winter is closing in, The Game Awards are coming, and somebody at Valve said "HLX."

HLX, for those who haven't been following along, is a rumored codename for Half-Life 3, or Half-Life something, the near-mythical new Half-Life game that Valve may or may not be working on.

It first appeared in early 2024 as part of a data string inside a Counter-Strike 2 update that bore a very strong resemblance to "HLVR," Valve's codename for Half-Life: Alyx—a revelation that had PC Gamer contributor Rick Lane "vibrating with excitement."

Sadly for Rick, nothing came of it: No new Half-Life game, 3 or otherwise, followed, and HLX was filed away with all the other myriad Half-Life 3 rumors, hoaxes, and leaks. That is, until Valve composer and audio artist Mike Morasky brought it up completely out of the blue during a GameSoundCon panel on "Valve's Approach to an Open and Flexible Audio Engine."

In response to a question about managing voice counts—essentially the maximum number of sounds that can play simultaneously—Morasky touched on some of the variables involved, before mentioning the role played by Valve's HDR system in optimizing audio. "Deadlock has their own version of HDR," Morasky says. "HLX has its own version, and so on and so forth."

Adding fuel to the fire, co-panelist David Feise, seated next to Morasky, immediately turned to him after the HLX comment and whispered "nice work," or possibly "nice one," obviously suggesting, hey man, you're not supposed to talk about that. Feise then quickly puts an end to the answer as Morasky laughs nervously, saying Groups, which Morasky had been talking about leading up to the HLX remark, "is its own one-hour talk, so come talk to us about that afterwards."

There's no question that Morasky said HLX, and that Feise reacted. In fact, at the end of the panel Feise leaned in and said, "Good job, you only said HLX once." Because this isn't the first time he's done it: Morasky appeared oh-so-close to saying "HLX" in 2025, although he was able to catch himself midway and shift gears, awkwardly, to "Alyx."

So HLX does seem to be a thing, but exactly what type of thing is anyone's guess. Maybe he's tripping over Half-Life: Alyx, or referring to some bit of internal tech, or maybe the whole thing is all just a put-on—Valve devs having a little fun with us. Or maybe it really is Half-Life 3! Nobody knows.

It is interesting, though, that PC Gamer editor Tyler Wilde—a man who does not indulge in the frivolity of baseless rumor and speculation—said in 2025, as the previous round of Half-Life 3 rumors was heating up, that he does think Valve is working on a new Half-Life game (although not necessary Half-Life 3), and that "it's not unreasonable to believe that a new Half-Life game will be announced within the next year or so." Here we are, a year later—and a year closer? We'll see.

"Valve's Approach to an Open and Flexible Audio Engine" panel can be seen in full on Vimeo.

Deadlock's most recent round of hero voting amid the City Never Sleeps release has finally come to an end. First we had the one and only Rat King, then Baba, Solomon, Deadman Danny, Violet, and finally, Nurse Harrow, a support with some unorthodox methods.

From the very beginning I've seen some pretty hardcore Nurse Harrow fans, so I was quite surprised to see her take last place, but Valve has revealed that it wasn't actually that close. 110 million votes were cast in total throughout the entire event with just 22,194 players exclusively voting for Nurse Harrow, however, "one player cast exactly 1,000 votes for her", which shows some real dedication.

But Nurse Harrow fans have something that no one else in Deadlock has: skill. "Nurse Harrow voters consistently proved to have a higher win rate over all other hero voters." Well I didn't vote for Nurse Harrow and they've read me like a book, so that seems pretty accurate I guess.

Other interesting tidbits concerning the City Never Sleeps voting round include how the closest contest was Baba vs Solomon for second place. I personally voted for Solomon but I wasn't too disappointed seeing how Baba has ridiculously good mobility, melee, and can turn enemies into pigeons. I really love that last one.

It also turns out that I am one of the 36,236 players who voted in every round and never once picked that round's winner, not including Nurse Harrow at the end because she was the last option left. What can I say? I'm just not like other Deadlock players. In my defence, though, only 847 players managed to vote in every single round and pick that round's eventual winner, so the number of oracles that play among us is almost next to none.

I have to admit, seeing the voting come to a close leaves me a little melancholic. Community events like this are massively fun and really well orchestrated in Deadlock, and who knows when we'll get another one. Valve likes to work at their own pace so your guess is as good as mine.

As a PlayStation VR2 player previously, I've been admiring the wireless ways of Valve's Stream Frame from afar ever since it launched back in September. I don't know about you but the $1,059 starting price still puts the VR headset a bit outside of my budget. However, Reddit user Kebakent just shared a short video of a small project they're working on that may soften that blow.

It's a Windows screensaver, but hear me out on my vision at least. The understated project features artwork of the Steam Frame headset and its two controllers bouncing around the screen (though so far I've not spotted any of these perfectly hitting the corners).

So here's my broke girl vision: If I click on the short video in the Reddit post, make it fullscreen, and get real close to my monitor, I can pretend I already have a Steam Frame, but I'm choosing not to actively play with it. As I watch the headset twirl around the void, I can instead pretend my good poltergeist friend is having the time of their afterlife.

Okay, fine—I admit that's not going to fool any Steam Frame-less VR head. Still, it's never not neat to see the Valve hardware community bring its homebrew energy (I'm still very partial to this custom Steam Deck boot animation styled after the Scrubs intro). If you are a so-called Steam Frame subreddit 'Sooner', you can download this Windows screensaver yourself from GitHub here.

"Object size, movement speed, rotation speed, and brightness are configurable," Kebakent writes, "It's free and open source (MIT), with a ready-to-run .scr file included [in the repo]."

To be clear, the Redditor doesn't own the lovely hardware art bouncing around this screensaver. They explain, "Valve confirmed I have permission to use the artwork for this non-commercial project."

That's fairly par for the course with Valve. For instance last week, Valve dropped the CAD files for the Steam Frame under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike license. That means you can create whatever hardware nightmares you like based on the Steam Frame, just so long as you don't then try to sell them. You're also free to tinker with the CAD files for the Steam Controller and its Puck too under the same Creative Commons License.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to keep looking for a screensaver that will convince me I don't need to shell out over a grand for a new VR headset.

Here's one for all you achievement addicts out there; you can now customise your Steam Deck achievement pop ups to match your PlayStation, Nintendo, or Xbox pop-ups. Yes, you can now unify that little achievement endorphin rush across your gaming platforms thanks to a new Decky plugin for your wee SteamOS handheld.

Actually it's a bit wider than that, because you're not locked into imitating the achievement pop-ups of existing platforms, you can customise the pop-ups however you want via this Achievement Customizer. And, as a Decky plugin, it should also work on any SteamOS-like Linux environment, such as Bazzite.

In the Reddit thread, the creator notes that they could also try to make it compatible with the Steam Machine, too. For the dozens of people actually gaming on those micro machines.

Though it's not in the Decky store as yet, the creator has detailed how to get it installed on your device using Developer Mode and it's all very straightforward. Put Decky into the Developer Mode and then install the plugin from the listed URL. Easy.

The creator of the plugin says they hand-drew the pixel art used in the customiser, and they designed the themes themselves, but they have used AI coding tools during the actual development of the of the plugin. That code is open source on Github for anyone to take a look through, if they're concerned about what they might be jamming onto their handheld.

I will admit that I don't totally understand the whole thing with achievements. I don't think there's been a game made that I felt I needed to 100% the whole thing, but I do understand that achievement hunting is almost a thing unto itself. And if you're going to get even more of a boost from tailoring that little achievement ping exactly how you want, then all power to you, my friend.

We are drowning in shit. Steam Next Fest, which kicks off tomorrow, currently has 8,011 matches on its press preview landing page. That's roughly double the amount of demos featured in Steam's June 2026 Next Fest. In June 2022, Next Fest boasted just over a thousand demos.

The vast majority of these demos will be meritless slop. And I daresay many of them—though I have no way to confirm—didn't exist as concepts before October.

If you use social media, especially X, you've probably noticed an explosion of terrible clones and vibe coded mash-ups this month. You can largely thank Anthropic's new 5.5 update to its Claude Opus model for that, which offers massive efficiency gains for vibe coders. It's also been widely used to decompile commercial games and, maybe most famously, jailbreak the PS5.

It definitely feels like we've crossed a threshold this month. On October 10, the creator of Escape the Walls, an incremental punching game which itself uses AI to "increase the speed of creating the game", posted in-progress footage from the game on X.

Prophetically, a user replied: "You have exactly 7 hours before someone makes this on Roblox and gets 20x your revenue".

Right now, on October 19, there are at least seven Roblox clones of Escape the Walls. A competing studio had the audacity to tweet their own clone to the original game's creator. "Our Steam page is live too!" they posted. "Nothing wrong with friendly competition!"

Leaving aside the fact that Escape the Walls is itself pretty crappy looking, the situation highlights the perils of marketing independent games in an age where a clone can be turned around in hours. To wit: as Rick Lane has already reported, the creators of Drunken Goddess Reflux, a "Russian roulette drinking survival" game, has announced it will no longer publish its demo on Steam as planned.

"We are concerned that, based on the content of the demo, works imitating or replicating this game's presentation and gameplay could be quickly produced using AI or other tools and released ahead of the game's launch," a spokesperson for studio Alliance Arts Inc. wrote. The studio will instead hold closed environment play sessions for people who read and agree to a series of "participation requirements".

Elsewhere NoGlyph, the creator of Needle In A Haystack, which is itself a rapid clone of Needle In A Haystack Simulator (see: haystack slop), has accused yet another studio of copying their code in their own clone. "Yesterday, on October 16 a game called A Game About Needle In A Haystack by Little Field Studios came out on Steam," NoGlyph wrote. "It contains code copied from our game. To be clear, this is about our actual code, not a similar idea or similar mechanics."

NoGlyph moves on to offer further proof that the offending studio pulled code directly from their game. "The haystack in our game, meaning how it's drawn, how you dig into it and how gold, lapis and diamond hay work, is something that took a long time to get working properly. When we looked through their game's files, we found 13 of our classes inside it with the exact same names. More than half of the functions in that part match ours exactly. Some of our own error messages are still in there word for word, including one that points to a shader from our project that doesn't exist in their game."

NoGlyph has filed a copyright notice with Valve.

Damn, it sure would be a shame if independent studios stopped releasing demos, or were prevented from marketing their games, because talentless bottom feeders were quickly flipping their ideas into monetizable slop!

Many have made the argument that AI is "good" because it democratises specialised skills and art forms like music, writing, coding, art, and videogame development (which deploys all of the aforementioned). But where videogames are concerned it hasn't democratised anything: it has just emboldened hacks, philistines and scam merchants. Vibe coding a 20 minute blockbuster-looking videogame that resembles the Marvel / Star Wars / Fortnite universes, or vibe coding a Roblox clone of a viral indie, doesn't make you a videogame developer: if anything, it demonstrates why you aren't.

Forgive me, but I don't think someone who hasn't committed time and thought to mastering those pursuits has much hope in producing something valuable with the assistance of AI. You may be able to make something that looks like something else, but you probably don't have ideas. Spending years and years thinking about your craft, being a practitioner, is what generates ideas. Without ideas, you are just playing with the most expensive toy ever built.

Anyone who has made that moronic "democratising" claim has only to look at Roblox and the great piles of worthless slop on Steam to see the actual reality. Steam's discoverability algorithm will probably keep the vast majority of the 8,000+ Next Fest demos out of the public eye, but for those that do go viral, or find an enthusiastic audience, there are hordes of leeches ready to rob you blind, utilising the same technology that's turning PC gaming into a rich person's hobby.

Top Steam games by revenue (October 6 - 13)

You know it's a very boring week on Steam when Dota 2 takes first spot in the revenue chart. So nothing very interesting released, then?

Well, Star Wars: Galactic Racer did, right on October 6, and came in at number four. Given how positive reviews were, and that it's Star Wars, I did kinda expect it to come in at number one.

Gears of War managed to latch onto a top ten position after ranking sixth last week during its first week on sale (it was available as a pre-order before that). Risk of Rain 2 got an actually-decent update and expansion, hence its appearance, and Steam Deck reanimates at number six: there must have been a stock replenishment.

As for Aion 2, people continue to not really like it, based on Steam user reviews, but it's still making bank for NC anyway.

Last week's Steam deep cuts

In contrast, Epic's store "always feels sterile to me—you can complain about the Steam comments all you want … but, what they also do is they give the player a place in that world. They give the player actual agency and import and power inside of that ecosystem." Yeah, that tracks. The Steam forum is basically a replication of the horrors (and hilarity) of Barrens Chat, just with a few less Chuck Norris jokes.

Appealing to vibe coders, then, is a bizarre move, since "they have nothing" for people who just want a platform where they can play videogames. "It's nothing about community … And this is your store that you're complaining that Valve is unfairly competing against!

"When you fumble your announcement this badly, and you fumble what this is this badly, and you're gonna blame it on Gabe, like this is Gabe's fault? That you decided to make a jab at him and talk about vibe-coding and say that 'making a store is hard!'

"It's just bizarre to me, man. And I know a bunch of people I used to know there that were really smart about how to communicate and talk about this kind of thing, [they're] gone. And I think they're gone 'cause of little Timmy [whispering]: 'Make sure you make a jab at Gabe. Where should we put it, first paragraph? No. Second. Second, we'll be subtle. We'll be subtle. No-one will catch it."

To be honest, given how tumultuous the topic of AI has been in video gaming, it does smack as strange that Sweeney has gone so heavily in on it. Sentiment's not the same everywhere in the world, mind, but a good portion of gamers and developers both are a little exhausted by having an otherwise interesting bit of technology crammed into every single nook that'll fit it.

Valve has pushed a new update to its Steam client beta introducing big changes to how achievements work and how they're displayed. Developers can now create sets of achievements customized to their game, like mastering a specific character class or finishing a singleplayer campaign. Sets also distinguish base game achievements from separate DLC and seasonal sets.

Previously if you unlocked all achievements for a game you'd see a nice 'n' tidy 100% in your achievements list. But if that game got DLC with new achievements, that 100% would drop accordingly. I can understand why achievement heads would be annoyed by this: what if you have no intention of playing the DLC, but want to retain 100% completion bragging rights? This update fixes that, assuming devs use it.

It's a similar situation for seasonal achievements, which I can see working well with battle passes. The example Valve uses is a set called "Halloween Event Achievements" which are valid for a certain period and don't affect the achievement count of the base game. In other words: if you have the completionist itch but skip a season, it won't affect your base game stats.

All these changes have prompted a refresh of the achievements page. Most achievements info is now displayed on a single page: your progress towards overall completion, and your progress towards unlocking individual achievements.

I especially like that you can now directly compare achievements with up to three friends at once, which is what's being displayed at the bottom of the above image. This has been a feature on PlayStation consoles for a while, and so has separate sets for DLC achievements. It's nice that Valve has caught up.

Naturally, not every game on Steam will have implemented this new system yet, but the following games have:

• Against the Storm
• Age of Wonders 4
• American Truck Simulator
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4
• Crusader Kings III
• DREDGE
• Euro Truck Simulator 2
• Forza Horizon 5
• Flock Around
• He is Coming
• LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Portal 2
• PowerWash Simulator
• PowerWash Simulator 2
• Team Fortress 2
• Victoria 3

This system is still in beta, but you can sign up for the Client Beta or just wait: as we saw with Steam's new screensaver feature, betas normally only last around a month.

Catching a glimpse of my screen is often a stressful experience for my colleagues. Besides my mess of desktop icons and all the browser tabs I have open at any given time, you don't want to know how many things I have set to launch on startup. Among these are, of course, the Steam and Epic Games Store clients and let me tell ya, not all launchers are created equal.

Earlier this week, Epic shared on X that it had "vibe coded the Epic Games Launcher to be faster than the other guy." On the same day, Valve released a Steam Client update that "Improved Steam Client startup performance." Well, there's only one thing for it: I've got to benchmark these bad boys to determine once and for all whose launcher is actually faster.

For my basic benchmarks, I timed how quickly each client loaded into their respective storefronts (with all images displaying properly) after I opened them from the system tray (for those curious, my rig is this iBuyPower prebuilt with an RTX 4070 Super). I ran three tests on each and then took the average result. The Steam client loaded in 9.32 seconds on average, while the Epic Games Launcher loaded in 5.98 seconds for me.

Others have demonstrated Steam launching into the library in less time, but the Epic launcher is faster by seconds as far as my rig is concerned. That said, Steam remains my client of choice.

For instance, the first thing I noticed during my tests was that one does not simply 'exit' the Epic Games Launcher like you can with Steam. In Valve's client, you click 'Steam' in the top-left corner, then simply select 'exit' from the drop-down menu. A quick check of Task Manager shows it's not secretly running in the background.

It's not as straightforward for Epic. You can either click the 'x' or right-click the icon in your system tray and then select 'Close window'. But for my benchmarks, I opted to 'end task' the Epic launcher each time, as just closing the window doesn't stop it from running in the background. On each of my tests, I had to do this twice as the launcher opened itself after I ended the task the first time.

This small, very specific gripe aside, there are other features on Steam I personally appreciate. The recent Big Art update has really spruced up my game library, and I've been making liberal use of the 'personal calendar' feature (Steam has already spotlighted a number of upcoming cosy and horror games, much to my wallet's chagrin).

As we've seen from my benchmarks, the Steam client is by no means perfect. For instance, Valve keeps saying it has fixed local game transfer quirks, though the experience can still be plenty quirky. I'm also not really a fan of the bouncing logo screensaver, either. And to be fair, even the features I like arguably make the client's store page look a bit cluttered. Still, I generally prefer that mess to the Epic Games Launcher's austere look myself.

Only a month out from the launch of the Steam Frame, an OLED version is already the talk of the town. Moreover, us humans seem to have very short memories, as while this amounts to nothing more than a couple of lines in the Steam Frame source code—perhaps nothing more than someone at Valve messing around to see what happens—some Reddit users are already wondering whether this is worth waiting for instead of buying a Frame today. Oh, you lot…

In the Steam Frame source code, SteamFrameHub spotted various references to "deckard-oled" and "deckard-plano". Deckard is the codename given to the Steam Frame, so the deckard-oled branch (last edited in February) and the deckard-plano branch (last edited a few weeks ago) are some sorta version of the Steam Frame that Valve's playing around with.

I've had a quick look around the repo and, yep, deckard-oled and deckard-plano are in there. That's a very exciting prospect, as the Steam Frame's LCD displays are definitely lacking compared to VR headsets with Micro-OLED.

This excitement is not lost on some over on Reddit, who have responded to the news with various japes and bits about ditching their reservation for the existing model and instead re-enlisting for another excruciatingly long wait for the OLED model.

"Waitlist 2: Electric Boogaloo," says brantrix in a thread over at r/SteamFrame.

"Absolutely panic and cancel your reservations. Everyone knows how lightning fast Valve moves fast with development," says Runaway42.

Truth is, we're not likely to see a Steam Frame OLED for a very long time—or ever. There are the trifling matters of hardware, resolution, power, cooling, battery life, and performance all to consider. It's more than a matter of just swapping the optics in the core module—the main bit of the Steam Frame containing the displays, SoC, cooling, sensors, and more—with a couple of OLED panels.

Here's big VR fan and regular update spotter Brad Lynch on the whole thing:

That said, the Steam Frame is a modular thing. We should expect, or at least hope for, its modularity to develop into a bit more of an ecosystem of parts. We've used the Arcturus Vision RGB Camera, and we know Valve is working on an updated strap with off-ear speakers and swappable batteries, but there could be more in future. For now, we have the CAD files to make our own upgrades.

And if you're wondering if these mentions in the source files are some sort of viral marketing stunt or secret message intended to build hype once again for a future product, here's what Valve's engineers told me at their office last year.

"Everybody assumes that we have some sort of like grand plan with our leaks," Valve employee Gabe Rowe said, "and it's literally just somebody fat fingering something."

"Usually we all look around like, 'who leaked?'," Josh Hudman said.

I wonder who accidentally pressed the button this time?

Steam's Big Picture Mode just got a big visual overhaul that puts game art in the spotlight, and my living room setup has never looked better.

The new mode is rolling out of beta with the latest Steam client release. If you're all up-to-date, you can enable it within Big Picture Mode. Just head to Settings, then Home. It's called Big Art Mode.

The new Big Art Mode sticks a massive, full-size version of the game's key art behind the usual large art icon.

Steam Big Art Mode on/off

The new mode offers a surprisingly big visual overhaul.

Big Art Mode

Standard

The update is also mentioned in the Steam Deck update notes, too.

My mini PC lives in Big Picture Mode. It's the closest thing to using SteamOS without actually installing SteamOS. Nothing against the OS—I just play some games that aren't best suited to Linux. My PC is hooked up to my TV in my living room, and whenever I boot it up, I only have to grab my Steam Controller, double-tap the Steam button, and choose which game to play—all without touching a keyboard.

The new Big Art Mode feels much better suited to this laid-back gaming experience. Big visuals, less UI, and a more appealing vibe. A lovely look on a big ol' OLED TV.

The Steam client got a major new update today, with Big Picture Mode receiving the brunt of the attention. Most exciting, I guess, is that the previously beta-only screensaver feature for Big Picture Mode is now live for the general public. In its default mode the screensaver will display art from recently played games, as well as any recent screenshots you've taken. But you can add your own custom screensavers too, which is nice.

Valve also has "a retro inspired bouncing logo screensaver" which you can select in the new dropdown menu found under Settings / Customization. As the name implies, the Steam logo bounces around a black screen, changing color every time it hits an edge. Valve has not made this screensaver the default screensaver, and it's lucky that it didn't: it's a work of diabolical cruelty. It will drive you to despair.

The screensaver references the ye olde screensaver built into DVD players in the late '90s and early '00s. If you're too young to remember it firsthand you've probably heard of it: a DVD Video logo bounces around a black screen, changing color every time it hits an edge. This unassuming but actually-quite-psychologically-damaging display has gone viral several times over the last decade or so, to the extent that, if you Google it, the Google logo will bounce around the search results page. It even has a Wikipedia page.

Why? Everyone subjected to it in the pre-social media era seems to have experienced the same intense desire for that DVD Video logo to perfectly hit the corner of the television's display. And how often does that happen? Extremely rarely.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's essential that you watch this ten hour video of the DVD Video screensaver:

People say smartphone screens are ruining our lives, undermining our attention, destroying literacy etcetera, and I mostly agree. But at least they've saved us from the hypnotic tyranny of the goddamned bouncing DVD logo screensaver. Screw that thing.

Anyway, Valve has its own version now, and after watching it—mostly against my will—for about half-an-hour while I ate my lunch, I'm pretty sure this abhorrent thing never pays out with a perfect corner-hitting moment.

My suggestion? Don't even think about it. Don't even turn it on as a joke. You may never re-emerge.

Back on topic, though, this Steam client update is genuinely huge compared to the norm. Startup performance has been "improved" to some unspecified degree, for example. A new experimental video codec, Pyrowave, has been added to Remote Play which apparently "allows high bandwidth, low latency video streaming". Linux users get a whole bunch of tweaks and fixes too. But the focus is very much on minor improvements to Big Picture Mode, which is good news for Steam Machine and Deck users.

The update notes in their voluminous glory are here. And I repeat: don't go near the bouncing logo screensaver.

With the recently launched Steam Frame superseding the Index VR headset, Valve has heavily discounted remaining stock of the latter. The Index VR headset launched in 2019 for $499, but now you can get one for $399.20.

Keep in mind that the Index VR headset doesn't come with controllers or a base station. A package bundling those used to cost $999, but that option is no longer available and thus, there's no associated discount.

Left controller replacements and replacement tethers are going for $119.20 and $103.20 respectively. No, there aren't any right controller replacements listed. It seems that if you want controllers for your Index VR, you'll probably need to buy them elsewhere. The same goes for base stations.

"Valve Index is no longer being produced," reads a Steam news item published earlier today. "Remaining Index headsets, controllers, and accessories are still available at the new prices below while supplies last."

That "while supplies last" is crucial: obviously Valve won't be making any more, and they've given no sense of how many they have lying around. If you really want one, perhaps as a collectible, I'd probably act fast.

Valve designer Lawrence Yang indicated that Index VR was no longer being manufactured last year, but this is the first official word from Valve on the matter.

The Index was a tidy piece of kit when it launched in April 2019. Our review called it the best VR headset available, while falling short of a 2.0 approach to VR. Nowadays the thought of being tethered to a PC while using VR is a bit dated, but back then it was still the norm despite the original Meta Quest—then known as Oculus Quest—popularising cord-free VR a few months later.

Valve has released the CAD files for the Steam Frame, allowing modders the perfect opportunity to get to work on their own creations for the VR headset.

The light blocker—the bit that sits between the bridge of your nose and the headset—is primed for user replacement, as are the head strap, battery housing, facial interface and more. This CAD release includes the lot, along with the core module and controllers.

Valve has confirmed it is working on an upgraded head strap with interchangeable batteries and off-ear speakers for the Steam Frame. That's "coming soon". With this CAD release, perhaps we'll see more options for third parties in future, too.

The docs also detail how to interface with the expansion port, or auxiliary port as Valve calls it. This sits just to the front of the user's nose and is a way for a user to add in powered accessories, ie the Arcturus Vision RGB camera—I've been playing around with that for a couple of weeks and it's a pretty wicked upgrade. With one Gen4 PCIe lane alongside power and camera functionality, all laid out in the docs, there's a bunch more that could be done with the port. I'm just hoping someone runs with it.

With this release, Valve has a full sweep of CAD files available for all of its most recent products. There's the Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and now Steam Frame. That's how it should be done, people.

Wonder Boy in Monster Land released in Japanese arcades in 1987 and for the Sega Master System the following year. Its success led to numerous ports, including to ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Atari ST. Oddly, it never received an official PC port, though that long absence appeared to have come to an end on September 28.

Did fans rejoice? Not really.

The Steam listing for Wonderboy in Monster Land raises one immediate red flag: note the rookie error of "Wonderboy" versus Wonder Boy. The developer and publisher is Retro Maniac, whose only other Steam game is Street Hoop, or Street Slam, an old Data East arcade game from 1994.

To bring you up to speed: LAT Corp owns all IP and assets once belonging to Westone Bit Entertainment, the creators of the original Wonder Boy games. But at the same time Sega, confusingly, owns the Wonder Boy trademark. In other words: LAT Corp owns the games, Sega owns the name. Both parties would need to OK any Wonder Boy re-release bearing the Wonder Boy name.

While the "Wonderboy" misspelling is damning, a Wonder Boy game appearing on Steam without SEGA or LAT Corp prominently displayed isn't unusual. Wonder Boy Returns Remix, which is a "remake" of the original Wonder Boy, lists CFK Co., Ltd as developer and publisher. Not only was it officially licensed, but series creator Ryuichi Nishizawa was involved. Meanwhile, Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is a thorough remake of the 1989 Master System original, developed by Lizardcube and published by Dotemu. It's also officially licensed. Each listing discloses as much in the Steam page fine print which appears under system requirements.

There's also the wider confusion around the name Wonder Boy itself, which reared its head with the release of Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom in 2019. Since rights to Wonder Boy games are split between LAT Corp and Sega it's necessary to get an OK from both to publish a Wonder Boy game with a Wonder Boy name. But what if you can only get the blessing of one? This dynamic was in play with Monster Boy, which is definitely, spiritually a Wonder Boy game—it had Nishizawa's handprints all over it—though publisher FDG Entertainment didn't license the Wonder Boy name from Sega, hence the name.

To confuse matters even more, the original arcade version of Wonder Boy released as Adventure Island in the United States, spawning a parallel line of unrelated follow-ups.

So what is a Wonder Boy game, then? Very few but diehards know off the top of their head, and if this new arcade "port" is illegitimate, it's probably released with full knowledge that this confusion will help it fly under the radar.

I wouldn't have thought twice about it if it weren't for the Wonder Boy Universe fan account on X, which raised the alarm on September 28. Composer on the original game, Shinichi Sakamoto, also weighed in, agreeing that the Retro Maniac port is illegitimate while pointing out that it's not available in Japan. (Sakamoto also claims it's been downloaded 10,000 times on Steam, though I don't know where he got that figure).

Against my better judgement I bought and downloaded the alleged illegitimate version of Wonderboy in Monster Land, and can confirm it's simply a ROM running in the MAME arcade emulator (I've since requested a refund, which was issued promptly). The one obvious change is that a splash screen bearing the Sega logo has been removed.

(There's another variation depicted here, only Monster Land is in English rather than Japanese. The SEGA logo remains).

I reached out to Valve about the listing but didn't hear back. I also reached out to Sega several times but received no response. The Wonder Boy Universe X account claims the Retro Maniacs listing is "in the process of being DMCA'd by officials". Presumably they have a direct line to Sega or LAT that I don't have, because only Sega or LAT can file a DMCA. According to Valve's own documentation a DMCA complaint is processed in a maximum of 72 hours but can take longer if the situation is more complex.

Complex or not, Valve's documentation also shows what happens if your listing has a DMCA filed against it. Importantly, a public-facing notice will appear on the Steam page reading "A DMCA takedown notice has been filed on this item". That is yet to happen with Retro Maniac's listing.

This kind of thing happens a lot on mobile storefronts, especially for abandonware. But Wonder Boy in Monster Land isn't, at least strictly speaking, abandonware. I can't say I'm especially worried for Sega or LAT: it's obviously legally wrong for Retro Maniac to upload and profit from a game it didn't make or license—assuming that is the case—but Sega and LAT do themselves no favours by not having legitimate versions of Wonder Boy games easily available on Steam. Monster Lair and Monster World (but not Monster Land) used to be available as part of the SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics collection, but that was removed from Steam in 2024.

Still, it's pretty funny how easily one can simply upload a rip off Wonder Boy game on Steam in 2026. A fortnight after its initial launch, Wonderboy in Monster Land is still officially available, and enthusiasts continue to wonder whether they should support it or not.

Top Steam games by revenue (September 29 - October 6)

That an effortful-looking MMORPG should hit number one in its launch week is unsurprising if you've been following PC gaming for the last quarter century. Also unsurprising is that it's currently sitting on "mixed" reviews. MMOs rarely or never launch to near-unanimous customer satisfaction, and the case against Aion 2 seems to be that it's structured like a free-to-play mobile game. The monetisation is apparently deep-rooted and endlessly distracting.

(I also wonder if NCSOFT will bother employing a proper artist to replace Aion 2's AI-generated assets. Surely you've got the cash?)

It's noteworthy that Minecraft Dungeons 2 only reached number ten during its first full week on sale. It's a Minecraft game, after all. It did launch onto Xbox Games Pass, and it's probably a better performer on console, but it still feels like a humble showing for an offshoot of one of the biggest games in the world.

I also expected Nivalis Nights to factor higher in the list: it came in 27th, though this chart doesn't paint the full picture since the game released on September 30 and thus is handicapped by a day.

Last week's Steam deep cuts

Deadlock isn't technically out yet—but it's pretty easy to get into, with invites to its beta being generously granted by Valve and obtainable in plenty of Discord communities if you don't have other mates who're into MOBAs. And boy howdy, have I not regretted a single one of my 350 hours over the past couple years "testing" this game.

I've plenty of glowing words for Deadlock, but its latest update, City Never Sleeps, is like seeing one of the last few hammer-blows of a masterpiece. The entire map's been completely overhauled, with new neutral monsters and a richly-textured remake of its areas, though "remake" doesn't seem like the right word.

Rather than taking what was present in the old map and scrapping it, the new Cursed Apple feels like a deepening of what was already there, adding texture and quirks in the nooks and crannies. The already-bustling centre lane of Broadway has become a glowing neon metropolis full of buzzing signs and advertisements, a miniature rendition of a 1950s times square at its heart.

Greenwich, which was already overgrown with foliage, has been turned into a spooky occult rendition of Central Park, with a university and an arboreal garden. Meanwhile, York, which previously just hinted at industriality, has had its walker arenas turned into a stock exchange and a grit-slathered factory ground.

It's all very, very pretty.

But it's not just the lanes that've been overhauled—the midway points, "districts", have been reinvented with their own flavours, too. Previously these were just extensions of the lanes themselves, but they now each have distinct characters (and neutral monsters, or "creeps", to match).

You've got a theater district full of creepy dolls piloted by phantom hands, floating festival spirits and haunted cabbage pots lurking in Chinatown, a plaza with an ominous demonic Atlas holding a glowing sphere—an Ixian embassy, perhaps?—plagued by decrepit souls and gutter ghouls.

My favourite areas in this map are the library and the haunted lot, especially. The former because it's filled with "past dues", little book goblins that literally attack you with late return stamps. And the latter because it has barrel mimics, my new favourite little guys. They're lurking there with tire irons like an actual organised criminal gang.

This rehash of the Cursed Apple really properly establishes just how supernaturally doused Valve's idea of a 1950s occult New York is. The entire thing is just teeming with creative and inventive design, bursting at the bloody seams with character. I am astonished that the map—which is by all accounts actually relatively small, able to be crossed in a minute or two of efficient movement—manages to feel so sprawling and varied.

All of this is buoyed by two things: Its new characters, and the heap of new dialogue.

Deadlock's character designs are all delightful—but the new roster of heroes is legitimately some of Valve's best work yet. It's kinda telling that the least interesting character, an art student named Violet, is still super charming, with paint smudges on her legs tying the whole aesthetic together.

But these other characters are just delightful. Deadman Danny's a willing skeletal crash test dummy/salesman for Fairfax Industries' weapons, Nurse Harrow is either a lovecraftian entity or a biblically accurate angel wrapped up in a severe, mature nurse that all of my friends are being entirely normal about, and there's the Rat King. Who has over 100 bespoke voicelines entirely calling out his subject's names.

My favourite two designs by far, however, are torn straight from New York's park culture: Solomon, a chess-loving old man who appears to've gained some supernatural powers via all his hours in Central Park, and Baba.

I cannot tell you how much I love Baba. Taking the myth of the Baba Yaga—a witch that traditionally occupies a chicken-legged hut—and reinventing her as an old grandma who feeds pigeons, riding around on a bird-legged park bench? It's just so, so good.

And the already-existing cast has been expanded horizontally, too. The update poured in dozens upon dozens of new conversations and voice lines between the crew, fleshing out characters, hinting at new lore, and—in the case of Pocket and Mina—breaking my bleeding romantic heart.

All of this combined has made Deadlock's Cursed Apple one of my new favourite videogame settings basically ever—so appealing and interesting to me that I almost wish it wasn't wrapped up in a MOBA. However, even if you aren't going to devote the hundreds of hours of masochism required to understand this unassailable genre, I still recommend you check Deadlock out and just soak in its vibes. It's an unfinished masterwork that's almost taken shape.

Valve's latest MOBA might still technically be conducting an invite-only test, but it's nevertheless one of the most popular games of its ilk. Yesterday, right as the game added the latest in its current batch of six new democratically released heroes, its concurrent player-count hit a new screaming high: 262,145 simultaneous players, according to SteamDB.

While that's pretty impressive on its face, it'll be especially noteworthy to long-time fans of Valve's games that this surge of activity brought Deadlock past Team Fortress 2's all-time concurrent player count peak of 253,997.

Though this doesn't include the player numbers TF2 saw on the Xbox 360 and PS3 as part of The Orange Box, which I'm sure were positively through the roof, it's still conceivably its genuine peak given that it was just three years ago. As for how TF2's history of botting issues and idle servers might have affected that number, I can't say.

It's not a one-to-one—PC gaming was a smaller phenomenon overall when TF2 was at the height of its popularity, and its Quake-descended slapstick arguably appeals to a smaller crowd than a hero shooter-MOBA hybrid does today—but it's an impressive showing for Deadlock given that the MOBA space is notoriously hard to break into.

I guess that's the power of having a digital storefront so massive that you can afford to perform mad science experiments on a game for multiple years without making a single cent off of it directly. Not that things always go this way for Valve; remember Artifact?

Regardless, let's all remember that it was specifically the latest hero, the chess mage Solomon, who got the game to this point. His gun is a chess board which players are reporting recreates a different historic game state every time you reload depending on how many bullets you have to load the field with (I'll have to defer to the chess-heads in the crowd on the veracity of that). That sort of novelty certainly plays a role in the test's momentum, which has only seemed to pick up since it first leaked two years ago.

Deadlock is one of the most delightful things happening in videogame art direction. It's a festival of phenomenal vibes: a striking setting, an all-timer aesthetic that bleeds into every scrap of environmental art and UI element, and—crucially—a roster of instantly charming occult character designs.

That roster, however, is missing something—a few somethings, in fact. While Deadlock's heroes cover a broad spectrum of the spooky and supernatural, it's got some glaring gaps where foundational elements of cryptozoology and occult lore are sorely overlooked. But don't fret, Valve designers: I've done your next round of ideation for you. I've prepared some promising character concepts that, I think we'll all agree, will realize the Cursed Apple's untapped potential. Let's begin:

The Summer Mummy (from Heathcliff)

Deadlock's already got draculas. It's got werewolves. It's got a Frankenstein. When you're already this deep in monster mash territory, a mummy's a layup. It's Spooky Stuff 101. The problem, however, is that it's not enough to be just a mummy in New York. New York is where they make cool people. If you're going to hang with the Cursed Apple's finest, you're going to need style.

Enter the Summer Mummy, a character first introduced in Heathcliff—the comic strip about the orange cat who isn't Garfield—on August 17, 2023. The Summer Mummy is much like your typical bandaged revenant, except chill and fun. He wears floral boardshorts. He has sunglasses. He eats ice cream (the Summer Mummy gets the sand flavor). He's an instant crowd pleaser, and it's an incredible cross-promotional opportunity. Everyone's trying to tap the lucrative Heathcliff brand.

A minotaur who plays baseball professionally

Just to be clear: No, I didn't come up with this one because "bullpen" is a baseball thing. I just thought a minotaur in an old-timey baseball uniform would look sick. I only realized the bullpen bit afterwards—but as far as I'm concerned, that was me getting a thumbs up from an angel for my very good work.

What was the labyrinth if not the most mythological bullpen of them all? The minotaur might've been warming up his pitching arm down there. Gotta pass the time somehow. Oh! He could throw a curveball that follows a nonsense, labyrinthine path through the air. Call it a Daedalian Knuckleball or something. Give him a bull rush ability called "charge the mound." Stuff writes itself. Put my check in the mail.

The Loch Ness Monster's precocious preteen child

There's a lot to love about this one: First, Nessie is already confirmed Deadlock canon, having arrived on Earth through the Bermuda Triangle astral gate. Second, there's never a bad time for more Scottish accents. Third, they could be buddies with Rem, Deadlock's adorable sleepspace creature.

But what really makes Nessie Jr. (legally, that name might be taken) a winner is the microtransaction potential: Give this kid a character lunchbox, and once Deadlock starts rolling out purchasable skins, people will pay whatever you ask just to see different fictional licensed properties slapped on there. It's infinite money.

Three gnomes in a trench coat

I'll confess: I don't have a lot to flesh this entry out with. Mostly, I just think it would be neat for all of them to have little guns under there. Maybe they're in the mob? A gnome mafia. The Cosa Gnomestra. I don't know. Do your best.

A haunted suit of armor (who is a boxer)

Everyone loves an animated suit of armor. Much like with the Summer Mummy, however, there's some aesthetic work that needs to be done to bring the image in line with Deadlock's aesthetic theme. And much like with the Summer Mummy, I've identified a shorts-centric solution—boxing shorts, in this case. And boxing gloves. A plate armor prize fighter who could play like the third-person MOBA-shooter equivalent of Little Mac.

Now, you might ask, does Deadlock need yet another prize fighter when it already has Lash and Bebop? And to that I'd say: Neither of them has cartoonishly big shorts, do they? It's like you're not even paying attention.

Big spider

There was, admittedly, already an unreleased spider-themed hero during Deadlock's Hero Labs days, but frankly, why half-ass it? Just go full spider. Let it walk on all the surfaces. Give it eight weapons for each of its eight limbs. Is it really a videogame if there isn't a large enemy spider in there somewhere?

Big spider (sexy)

I can't take credit for this one:

Humpty Dumpty

We all know the deal: on wall, great fall, horses and men prove inadequate at reconstructive surgery, etc. But I'm imagining this is the Humpty Dumpty that's had to go on living knowing the world failed him in his darkest moment—a sort of Punished "Venom" Dumpty situation. He's fighting in the Ritual not to restore his own broken form, but to create a world for other shattered eggs like himself. It's the kind of grim antihero that audiences crave.

And he could, like, roll around to attack sometimes, maybe. That's fun.

The rest of the monkey that the Monkey's Paw came off of

That thing had to come from somewhere, right? If the Paw can grant wishes, imagine what all the other parts of the enchanted monkey must be capable of. Surely, it must have been severed from the limb of a sort of simian arch-sorcerer, who possessed a command over magicks so profound as to reconfigure the flow of fate itself.

What I'm saying is he could shoot energy balls from his stump like it was a Mega Man arm cannon and it would rule. And maybe he does street magic in Times Square. For walking around money.

North Pole elf labor rights activist

I think we've all known it for a long time: There's something untoward about the whole Santa Claus operation. We're meant to believe that an entire society is content with knowing no life beyond the ceaseless churn of toy production under the rule of a treat-crazed overlord? Really?

I don't buy it—and that's exactly why there's a hero who's ventured to New York to foster awareness and support for the plight of their fellows still trapped toiling at the Kringle company town up north. They could create a bunch of nutcracker soldiers as their ult, but they'd be nutcracker soldiers of the revolution.

One of the deer from Staten Island, but it was turned into a sapient anthropoid by some sort of cursed amulet and is struggling to adjust to city life on account of antlers making it hard to get into buildings

Label sorta says it all, really.

Bigfoot (he is running for mayor)

It just makes sense. He's a compelling figure. He's all-American. He's privacy conscious and likely has a sensible platform regarding municipal walkability. He's been around long enough that he probably knows a few spells, and he's big enough that he could handle a Lewis gun like an airsoft rifle.

He'd have my vote, is what I'm saying. And the best part is: You'd be able to listen to the other heroes grill Bigfoot about his political stances. That's videogames to me.

Have you ever clicked on a Steam Deck Verified game, attempted to boot it up, and realised it probably shouldn't have been verified? Well, Steam's new system should help developers give a more accurate understanding of how their games run on the Steam Deck.

As of October 1 (via TechPowerUp), Valve has given developers access to frame rate data as reported by Steam Deck users. A developer can see the frame rate that users are playing at as a percentage of sessions, meaning they can see if it runs well (at the Steam Deck's usual 60/90 fps cap) or not (users are generally lowering the fps limit).

That does mean it's only data willingly shared, and there are some caveats. The LCD Steam Deck has a max refresh rate of 60, while the OLED model goes up to 90. As games are often capped for fps to save resources, that will shape the stats somewhat. In addition, it can't guarantee how Steam Deck owners use their devices.

That being said, giving access to a high enough volume of data means that the fps averages should balance out in a bell curve, assuming enough players opt in. Valve claims "a majority of Steam Deck players have opted in".

The major benefit of this update is that developers can see how their games run on a mass of Steam Decks, and therefore adjust graphical options. This could be particularly valuable in games like Cyberpunk 2077 that have a dedicated Steam Deck mode. If developers notice those on handhelds aren't getting 60 fps or can't hit a smooth 30 average fps, they might tweak the settings a tad.

Valve has even explained that Steam Deck data is just a "starting point for iteration as we learn what sorts of data and presentation are useful."

That means, if successful, other devices could get the same data grouping. If enough Legion Go S users submit their data, or sales of the Steam Machine are high enough, it could get valuable data to developers.

This is, however, assuming that developers will tweak games for these devices. It only works for verified games, so it can't be used as part of the verification process as of right now.

Still, if mass reports of poor performance on Steam Deck start coming in for verified games, this means devs can really dig into the numbers to see what the average player is experiencing. Devs can then see in real time where updates positively or negatively impact performance. More data is always a good thing in my book.

You could say Pimax is copying Valve's homework with its new mini PC, the Spation. Though the Steam Machine is merely a black box, so you could say it also copied any number of other miscellaneous black rectangles itself; the Xbox Series X among them. Nevertheless, this is one similar-looking living room machine, and Pimax is even pitching it with SteamOS.

Pimax's machine is a mini PC with a whole bunch of power behind it. Pimax says it comes with either an RX 9070 XT or RTX 5070 Ti, and a Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

It packs in 32 GB of DDR5, a 1 TB SSD, and a 1000 W SFX PSU. It also supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and comes with 2x DisplayPort 2.1, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x USB4, and 6x USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports.

So, it's much more capable than Valve's li'l box, though I shudder at the thought of the price. Pimax has not yet announced a price or launch date.

You can see how it all slots together under the removable rear panel in the render provided by Pimax below.

Most of the I/O is accessible at the back of the device. Slightly above and behind that is what looks to be a Mini-ITX motherboard with two DIMMs installed, presumably with some sort of solution to shift the rear I/O. Above that, the power supply, with a fan mounted above it. The GPU sits flat on the reverse of the unit, using a PCIe riser cable.

My only concern is how well that graphics card can breathe in there, and more broadly for temps, but there may be yet more fans within the unit. The front panel looks to be removeable—just like the Steam Machine—with some venting in there for the GPU.

It looks like a pretty smart layout, and not totally dissimilar to a Fractal Terra—the case I use for my own mini PC—sat upright. Pimax plans to offer a barebones kit that will require a user to install their own GPU, storage, and memory, which means at least parts of it are set to be pretty standardised.

The idea behind the Spation is to be more powerful than a gaming laptop to power high-end PC VR, in a smaller size than your average PC. Thereby easier to shift besides your TV unit for a spot of virtual reality in the evening. There is a bit of a gap in the market for this sorta thing—beyond simply building your own Mini-ITX gaming PC—as the real Steam Machine has been known to struggle with VR due to its Arch-based SteamOS.

Though that might also be the case for the Spation. Pimax is pitching it with both Windows and SteamOS support. It is just a regular PC, after all, so there's nothing stopping you from loading SteamOS onto anything with compatible hardware—namely AMD's gear, as Nvidia GPU support is an ongoing process in SteamOS. Which you choose should probably depend on whether you are planning to use it for VR or not. Even though the Steam Frame has shown what Linux can do in VR, and Pimax says it's bringing Pimax Play to Linux as a dedicated client, it does feel like Windows remains the easiest option.

Ignore the section tag for this article, because while Deadlock may technically have the DNA of a MOBA or a third-person shooter, it is actually a horror game, and a bloody scary one at that.

How did I come to this hypothesis, you ask? Well, a few reasons come to mind, including one huge one that loves pizza. You see, I predominantly play Rem, and one of Rem's perks is that he can run around the maze of tunnels beneath the map, farming souls and just generally getting up to no good. Until recently I was largely left alone in said tunnels; I hardly ever play against a Calico and Mo and Krill rarely use them.

And then came Deadlock's latest major update City Never Sleeps, which brought six new heroes, the first of which being the Rat King. Ironically I actually voted for the Rat King, and that decision haunts me.

Picture this. I'm skedaddling around the tunnels minding my own business when, in the corner of my eye I see something staring at me from the end of one of the adjacent tunnels. It's the Rat King, he's seen me, and he's running my way.

I throw everything I have at the rat but that still isn't enough to defeat him. I decide my only option is to turn tail and run, the only problem with that is that when you're locked in combat the map closes down the exits and entrances to the tunnels, something I forgot until I ran head first into a grated exit. Needless to say I died in that cold dark tunnel, and there wasn't much I could've done about it.

I have been jumpscared by that bloody giant rat more times than I care to admit. Each time I enter the tunnels now my blood runs cold, marred by memories of him hunting me down and throwing Miguel, Jacques, or Abbie with an I at me.

But the horror isn't restricted to the tunnels. Just the other night I was walking through one of the new districts, Chinatown, and accidentally crossed paths with the enemy Abrams. At first I thought that he might not have seen me. I was wrong. I looked back just once to see him right behind me, before I knew it I'd been shoved into the wall and the enemy Seven appeared out of thin air to solo ult me for some ungodly reason.

Perhaps I'm too horror-coded for my own good, and thanks to this I managed to find myself in terrifying scenarios no matter what game I play. But I'm also of the mindset that any online multiplayer game is inherently scary simply because of the fact that people are unpredictable and are almost always out for blood.

The Cursed Apple, wherein Valve’s latest MOBA Deadlock takes place, is ‘an urban fantasy setting’ in the same way that Limp Bizkit is ‘an American rock band.’ Sure, the label is accurate, but Deadlock is unmistakably, crucially, and specifically New York the same way Fred Durst is sort of like the living avatar of Jacksonville, Florida.

The latest batch of new heroes just unveiled as part of the City Never Sleeps embraces this aspect of the game and takes it to new heights. Almost all the new characters are the sights and sounds of New York City: old man playing chess in the park? That’s Solomon, a chessboard-wielding wizard. A grandma on a park bench, feeding pigeons? That’s Baba, a cheeky twist on Slavic folklore. What about those giant, slimy rats always gnawing on floor pizza? Enter the literal Rat King, who makes all of da rules.

Just look at this fan concept for a Chinese immigrant and construction worker reimagined as Sun Wukong (who natural law mandates must appear as a playable character in every MOBA). Deadlock’s online community is always abuzz with ruminations about what comes next the same way you can find with games like Heroes of the Storm or Smash Bros., but their enthusiasm isn’t for games they’ve already played or stories that have already been told. It’s for the winding alleyways and wild card denizens of the real-life NYC, pulled through a prism of macabre magic.

Maybe that sounds like a gimmick, but the game is never content to leave these characters without dimension. Vyper isn’t just a slithering sewer lizard with a firearm, she’s a chronic flirt and a dismal career criminal. Seven may be a cackling pulp serial villain, but mark his tender memories of friendly wight Kelvin and his affinity for the naive, almost childlike goo monster Viscous.

It's refreshing because a lot of MOBA heroes are basically action figures: emphatic, unsubtle, function-first designs where narrative is a secondary priority at best. It’s obvious why this is if you know the genre’s history—MOBA progenitor DotA's designs all came from Warcraft, and its successors haven't been able to fully get away from that. Sure, Dota 2’s Disruptor has a unique backstory, and he’s an oglodi rather than an orc, but no amount of reverse-engineering will erase the truth from my memory: he is Thrall, but red.

League isn't too far off from that, taking generic character concepts with rough DotA counterparts and retooling them for a standalone game—one with a narrative that wouldn’t be figured out for years. Heroes of the Storm's Smash Bros. grab bag of Blizzard favorites has its own charm, but it certainly isn't cohesive. Smite draws from a different well, but real-world mythology is even more archetypal and constrained by prior assumptions than Blizzard's fantasy cast.

That’s not to say you can’t tell a good story with ‘Thrall, but red.' Dota 2 actually has a lot of fun storytelling if you look for it. But Deadlock breaks new ground for MOBA-pilled lore fiends simply because it's not so beholden to its forebears.

Deadlock is the rare MOBA with both an original story to tell and the blank canvas necessary to tell it best. Valve has seized this opportunity with apparent relish, and you can see the results of that in the oodles of fan art pouring out for each of the newest six characters, only one of whom is even out at this point. Every time the community gets its hands on unique names for over 100 of the Rat King's unique rat citizens or Valve patches in "over 10,000 non-ping voice lines" in a single pre-release update, playtest enthusiasm renews all over again (it just hit a new all-time concurrent player count peak yesterday, according to SteamDB).

Deadlock's specific emphasis on New Yorkian archetypes also begs the question, what’s next? I need a ghostly muckraker journalist. A witch with a hot dog cart. A greedy, monstrous landlord who charges his enemies soul rent! I’m giddy for what’s to come the same way I am with a crossover fighting game, but there’s not that latent stench of knowing it all doubles as advertising for other products. For every bit it’s a pulpy fantasy world, Deadlock is a celebration of the real one outside. And where other MOBAs are sketching in familiar margins, it still feels fresh two years into its "private" playtest.

Gaming's worst-kept secret Deadlock received a humongous update earlier this week, one that redecorated its entire town and added six new classes for players to sink their teeth into. On the subject of teeth, one of these classes is a tank called Rat King, a giant humanoid rodent who started out as a fan concept before becoming part of Deadlock's official roster.

Rat King loves two things in life: rats, and throwing rats at his enemies. In fact, he enjoys rat tossing so much that he has more than 100 voice lines dedicated to his calling.

According to Deadlock voice line viewer (yes, that is a site that exists) Rat King entered the fray with a grand total of 1534 individual utterances, a similar number to most other Deadlock heroes. Of those lines, 126 of them are dedicated to his power "Rat Swarm", whereby Rat King unleashes a swarm of rodents from beneath his resplendent cape—which leap onto enemies and deal spirit damage over time.

Why so many voice lines for a single power? Well, I suppose the short answer is "because Valve can". But the longer answer is that, although some of the lines are generic power callouts (such as "I got a whole lotta rats, baby!") many of them refer to individual rats by name.

Rat King clearly likes to express support for his subjects, so will yell phrases like "Get 'em Lou!" or "My boy Widget is gonna chew you up!" or "Rabies Ronnie has a gift for ya. Surprise, it's rabies!" Sometimes Rat King will refer to named groups of rats, implying there are whole factions residing beneath his cloak. Rat King's group-based callouts include "The Pantegana boys say hello!" and "Say hello to the McMullen gang!" and my personal favourite—"I brought Gumdrop's whole polycule!"

It's a great example of the huge injection of personality Deadlock received from the City Never Sleeps update (which is not to say the game was short of it before). It's worth noting that Rat King is not the only character to become much more talkative. Alongside the newly introduced heroes, Valve has doubled the number of voice lines for all existing characters in the game.

It's this kind of colour and attention to detail that has made Deadlock so popular despite players having to be invited to the game in order to experience it. How much longer Valve will keep Deadlock (theoretically) under wraps is uncertain, but let's face it, there isn't exactly a pressing financial need for Valve to push the game out of the door.

To most, the highlight of this week's big Deadlock patch is the snazzy map makeover, new heroes, and tons of quality-of-life additions. To me, it's all about the patch notes.

I spend a lot of waking hours reading white-text-on-black-background changelogs in this line of work, so when a page comes along that was specifically designed to be pleasant and exciting, it deserves to be rewarded. Valve has a long history of designing beautiful, bespoke webpages to introduce meaningful changes to its games, but the graphics department is really going ballistic with Deadlock.

The City Never Sleeps patch notes are styled like a tourism brochure for Deadlock's refreshed New York City, walking readers through scenic stops across the four major districts (Chinatown, Theater, Haunted Lot, and Plaza). Descriptions weave between in-world storytelling and technical explanation where it makes sense, with Valve's splashes of humor reminding readers not to take any of this too seriously.

Dotted lines draw the reader to new points of interest as they scroll while furthering the map motif, and the page is stuffed with custom artwork for new items and mechanics that might only exist there. Valve did such an annoyingly good job with presenting the next era of Deadlock that I'm almost tempted to play a MOBA (but only almost).

Finally, some good food. Welcome back, Valve patch notes.

Valve's golden age of patch notes

It cannot be understated that Valve pioneered storytelling in multiplayer shooters with Team Fortress 2, arguably kicking off with the 2009 WAR! Update, aka "Soldier vs. Demo." This was before the concept of multiplayer games having seasons, before League of Legends had a TV show, before "live service" was even a thing—Valve had created a cast of nine lovable weirdos and new updates that weren't just dropping items, but telling stories that put the characters in conflict with one another and added context to the multiplayer maps we'd already been fighting in for two years.

It was weird in the first place for an FPS to receive so many free post-launch additions, and it was even weirder for a developer to treat the arrival of new weapons, modes, and hats as worthy of dedicated splash pages with accompanying comic books.

TF2 was the gold standard for post-launch support, and its patch notes drew massive interest, often dropping late on a Thursday or Friday, Pacific time, hinting that Valve may have been polishing until the last minute. Valve's blog posts were never the same month-to-month, often adopting new color schemes, layouts, and original elements for the occasion.

There was no single template they stuck to. The Engineer update introduced his advanced Gunslinger gauntlet and Wrangler as blueprints with hand-written notes, while Scout's update debuted the Force-A-Nature scattergun in a department store catalog. I especially love announcing the Mac version of TF2 with a white, sanitized home page complete with symmetrical boxes and tiny text in the style of Apple circa 2002.

Poring over the "history" section of the TF2 website in 2026 is like uncovering one of those lost civilizations that invented a ton of sophisticated things before everyone else.

We're in an era marked by formulaic seasons, videogames as advertisement platforms, and teams scrambling to alter plans when they're not immediately popular. And yet 15 years ago, Valve had so much confidence in its direction that it could decide to wage a war between Soldier and Demoman one day (live-tracking the kills between both classes—Soldier narrowly won with 6.40M kills to the collective Demomen's 6.37M), introduce a crafting system the next, and then rebrand as Scream Fortress for October.

It wasn't exclusively good vibes—Valve caught flak for its (now quaint) paid hats, paid loot boxes, and speculative marketplace that became a fixture of updates. In a move that I would be surprised to see a studio make today, Valve made fun of itself at the time with a subsequent "Hatless Update".

Deadlock's blogs are practically retro, it feels weird to say. I wonder what inspired Valve to go this hard again. Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2's changelogs do not share the same sense of theater. Their patch notes are comparatively regular, functional bullet lists—perhaps in line with how often those games are updated. Valve does occasionally produce unique web pages for major CS2 announcements or Dota 2 events, but we're far from the days when an incremental Mann VS Machine update was announced with a lavish movie poster in the style of kaiju cinema.

TF2's exceptional, ever-changing patch notes were a reflection of the game they promoted. Valve leveraged the flexibility of an arena shooter and imagined a world where Red and Blu were real factions locked in stupid conflicts. You never really knew what elaborate scenarios Valve would think up next for its over-the-top action figures, and that filled TF2 fans with a sense of wonder that very few games have pulled off since. Maybe it's no coincidence that the only example of innovative multiplayer storytelling in recent years, Helldivers 2, is another over-the-top war game that finds comedy in the futility of endless violence.

Valve is tapping into that dormant TF2 energy in small ways with Deadlock, and it's great, though I wonder if, being a MOBA, the game's inherent sweat level will eventually lead to a regimented, low-nonsense future that's more focused on the minutiae of balance. Whatever Deadlock is up to years from now, I'll be keeping up with the patch notes.

The votes are in—the first of Deadlock's six new heroes just dropped. The Rat King is here, and one of his abilities lets you throw a bunch of rats at people, like that Eminem meme.

If you ask me, Deadlock's new update is going great, except for the small fact that last night I got jumpscared while running away from a Drifter because I accidentally slid into this here troll. Take a look at this scary guy. What is he doing here? Will we have to fight him in the future? Will he scare me again? The answer's: hell if I know, I hope not, and yes—yes he will.

Valve has pushed yet another update for SteamOS on the Steam Frame. It includes power efficiency improvements, eye tracking accessibility, and improved streaming reliability. Also something about grabbing handles?

• Improved power efficiency and battery lifetime during both streaming and local gameplay, with gains of up to 12%. Note: Result vary depending on framerate and content.
• Added accessibility option for users who want to limit eye tracking to a single eye. VR Settings -> General -> Track Dominant Eye Only. (requires enabling "show advanced settings")
• Fixed an issue that prevented controller bindings from loading for certain games, including Google Earth VR and Thumper.
• Improved focus behavior when interacting with grab/resize handles
• Further VR streaming reliability improvements, including additional fixes for “Error 17.” Note: On the PC, you must also opt into SteamVR 2.18.2 or later to reduce “Error 17” connection issues. At the time of this release, SteamVR 2.18.2 is available on the SteamVR [beta] branch.
• Fixed steam frame wireless adapter connectivity issues that affected users in some countries.

It's the battery life improvements that most will feel the benefit of. A 12% improvement is pretty impressive for a single software update—the Steam Frame runs for around two hours while streaming, so you're looking at another 15 minutes or so from that bump alone. Though, as Valve notes, that's dependent on what you're playing and the power setting.

Valve also recently improved charging on the Steam Frame, allowing it to fast charge even when the headset is turned off. That dramatically decreases charging times in my testing.

SteamOS for Steam Frame is a whole new project for Valve. A version of its Arch-based Linux distro, used on the Steam Machine and Steam Deck, except built for virtual reality and Arm-based processors. Specifically, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the Frame, though laying the foundations for any further Arm-powered projects. I'd love to see an Arm-powered Steam Deck, though a recent rumour suggests the Steam Deck 2 will use another AMD chip instead.

Nobody likes scalpers, man—it's already hard enough to get the latest and greatest hardware, let alone with some enterprising bad actor and their bots buying up all the available stock, and then charging an even greater fortune for sought-after bits of kit. That said, I'm not really a big fan of the anti-scalper measures many vendors are now deploying either.

For instance, Sony Japan has rolled out an anti-scalper lottery system for PS5 Pro orders. To be in with even a chance of picking up the pricey console, you'll need a Sony account registered in Japan that has logged at least 60 hours or more of gaming, either on a PS4, a PS5, or both (via Tom's Hardware). In theory, that should be enough of a faff to deter scalpers and an easy enough hurdle for PlayStation fans to overcome. In practice, I'm not loving the weird precedent of locking my potential hardware purchases behind a dystopian brand loyalty test.

Obviously, it's not just Sony that's up to such silliness. Most recently, Valve implemented a reservation system for the launch of the Steam Frame. To sign up, the FAQ says, "You must have a Steam account in good standing," and that "You must have made a purchase on Steam prior to April 27th 2026."

To be fair to Valve, I did see reports of the Steam Machine being scalped for over $3,000. But 'In good standing'? What does that even mean? I couldn't find a precise definition from Valve itself; an account 'in good standing' could mean one not subject to a ban or any community restrictions, or it could mean an account that has made a purchase within a recent timeframe, or it could mean whatever suits Valve at any given moment. I'm still a little unclear on this finer point.

I've already written about how it's been genuinely cheaper for me to fly internationally to either QuakeCon or PAX West earlier this year, and pick up an RTX 5090 for MSRP at either of those in-person events. The latter scheme was described as 'Verified Priority Access IRL'. For those who don't recall, VPA was the draw system Nvidia used to offer the chance to pay full price for RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics cards last year (Newegg's Shuffle lottery system also did a similar thing).

Zotac even attempted to beat those dastardly GPU scalpers by selling RTX 50-series graphics cards to actual gamers via Discord last year. And like Nvidia, Zotac likely knew it could sell every card it offered up through such a direct (not to mention exclusive) channel.

I hate this trend, even if it is all meant to deter scalpers. I firmly believe gaming, and PC gaming especially, should be for everyone, though I'll acknowledge it rarely lives up to that ideal. Brand loyalty tests like this, plus the runaway pricing caused by the ongoing memory supply crisis, mean those without deep reserves of both cash and time are still stuck on the outside looking in. Bottom line, though scalpers may be mostly closed out of the loop by reservation systems with set qualifying criteria, I'm not convinced this is the best deal for hardware consumers.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time.

You know the drill. Deep discounts up the wazoo, stickers to earn, and new stuff in the Points Shop, all of it adding up to Valve-powered seasonal trauma inflicted on your personal finances.

And I know what you're thinking: Are there really more than 44,000 games for under $5 in the Autumn Sale? And the answer is "yes," according to SteamDB anyway: The "sales" option on the site lets you filter games by a range of options, including price—cap the list at five bucks and that's what comes out.

In any event, it's a whole lotta deals, and the sheer volume of discounts on Steam means that some of these deeply-cheap games—maybe even a lot of 'em—probably aren't top-tier stuff. You might therefore want to apply more filters: You can set genre and feature tags, release dates, a minimum user rating or number of reviews, and all sorts of other things to winnow it out a bit. I like browsing as much as the next guy, but 2,105 games is a lot to dig through.

Alternate idea: PC Gamer's Ted Litchfield previously put together a list of 31 must-play games going for $5 or less in the Steam Summer Sale, and I'm going to see if I can bully him into doing it again. No promises, but Ted's a pretty good guy, and his taste in games is solid too. (Just please don't get him talking about Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.)

The 2026 Steam Autumn Sale is a one-weeker, meaning it comes to an end on October 8.

The original Steam Deck went on sale about four and a half years ago. And there hasn't been any clear indication that a true second-gen handheld from Valve is imminent. Until now, that is.

YouTube channel Moore's Law is Dead has a new video explaining how a rumoured AMD APU known as Gainsborough is likely to be the chip that powers the next-gen Steam Deck 2 handheld.

The MLID channel is admittedly not everyone's cup of tea, but has had some notable hits over the years when it comes to leaks and rumours. With that caveat covered off, what do we know about Gainsborough?

First, the codename does actually make sense. The OG Deck's APU was known as Aerith, as in the character from Final Fantasy 7. And Aerith's second same is, of course, Gainsborough.

In terms of the technicalities, there isn't a huge amount of information. However, one critical tidbit is that it will be built on TSMC's N3P node. That's TSMC's fanciest, most advanced and most efficient version of its N3 family of chip production nodes. That matters because it should make for a more efficient chip for a handheld where battery life is critical.

The immediate question is whether this makes sense given what Valve has said about a next-gen Deck. Late last year, Valve explained how it wanted the Deck 2 to be a really major leap forward over the first-gen handheld, not just an incremental step.

"We're not interested in getting to a point where it's 20 or 30 or even 50% more performance at the same battery life. We want something a little bit more demarcated than that," Steam Deck designer Pierre-Loup Griffais said at the time.

With that in mind, you might wonder whether any TSMC N3 node is advanced enough. After all, Apple has just released its new A20 Pro and M6 chips on TSMC's latest N2 silicon. Could N3 actually be too old hat for the Deck 2?

It's worth bearing in the mind that the OG Aerith chip for the Steam Deck was built on TSMC 7 nm silicon. That's two full node generations behind TSMC N3.

As for the rest of the specs, MLID reckons Gainsborough will jump on the AMD Zen 6 and RDNA 5 bandwagons. Those are AMD's next-gen CPU and GPU architectures, respectively, and also the technologies expected to be used for both Microsoft and Sony's next-gen consoles. Oh, and AMD's next-gen PC hardware, of course, including a new generation of graphics cards that could begin to appear next year.

One reference point here is the AMD "Canis" APU, which is the rumoured chip for the upcoming Sony PS6 handheld. That is said to pack four Zen 6c CPU cores, two Zen 6 low power cores cores, 16 RDNA 5 GPU CUs, plus a 192-bit memory bus. The Deck 2 could well sport a similar specification.

Aerith in the OG Deck (and indeed the slightly revised Sephiroth APU in the Steam Deck OLED) has eight RDNA 2-spec CUs. When you consider that RDNA 5 should deliver CUs that are significantly more performant than those in RDNA 2, then factor in a doubling of the CU count, plus no doubt higher clock speeds, well, you arrive at a mobile GPU that seems likely to deliver on Valve's demands for that true step change in performance.

As for when any of this might translate into a Steam Deck 2 you can actually buy, MLID says the Gainsborough chip itself should be ready late next year or early 2028. We suspect Valve probably isn't in a major hurry, what with the ongoing AI-fuelled RAMpocalyse and the carnage that has already inflicted on its other recent hardware launches, most notably the Steam machine.

In many ways, then, the later Valve launches the Deck 2 the better, at least in terms of giving the computer chip and memory markets a chance to recover from all the AI madness. But maybe late 2028 now looks like a reasonable expectation. Here's hoping it happens and if it does that memory prices have normalised by then.

Don't mind me: I'm just seething over not being able to actually hang out in Deadlock's occult New York for real. As Elie noted earlier today, Deadlock's latest update made its map even more arresting, fleshing out Valve's accursed big apple with new district stylings and reworked lanes.

Deadlock's world is so refreshingly flavorful that not being able to explore it in person almost feels like an injustice. I want to watch the advertised dimensional chess tournament. I want to browse the selection at Salt & Chalk Ritual Supplies. I want to ask the Umbria University librarian about the claw-handed man in the portrait. I want to hang out here, man.

It's almost enough to make me a MOBA guy. Almost.

Deadlock's massive new update isn't a sign of an imminent public release, according to the MOBA's first proper development update. The invite-only game continues to grow in scope and polish, but Valve says there's still a lot of work to do.

"We think building a multiplayer game is very hard and risky, and the best way to minimize that risk [is] to make sure that we are able to have it in players' hands from an early state to help us shape it and tell us what is fun and what isn't," Valve says at the top of the update.

Six new heroes and a ton of visual overhauls came to Deadlock earlier this year in the Old Gods, New Blood update. While not everything in the game was touched, the breadth of the update made it seem like Deadlock was entering the next stage in its development. The level of polish in the map and many of the game's systems reached a point where it was hard to call it "unfinished" as far as early access games typically go.

But Valve can and will do whatever it wants, and in this case that doesn't involve releasing the game to a wider audience. Looking back at that update in this new post, Valve says "there was still a good amount of work we wanted to do on the core game itself before we moved onto more polish phases of the game development (like updating older hero artwork)."

Valve says the Deadlock team shifted away from focusing on specific areas of the game and started working on many things in parallel this year. Most of those things are in the new City Never Sleeps update, like the redesigned map and items, but some are still on their way: "This even includes things like progression and hero/hideout customizations, as we feel those are features we want to be able to adjust and significantly change based on feedback before the game is fully released."

"There are also other things we've been working on recently that are more speculative (as in we aren't 100% sure if they will be released or not based on how playtesting goes, though results so far have been promising) like large item redesigns/additions and alternative game modes that expand the scope of the game," Valve says. The new game modes could include the rumored PvE mode created by former Risk of Rain developers.

Visual updates for older heroes were originally planned to happen "towards the end of early development," Valve says, but it will "likely be gradually working on them in the near future for inclusion in upcoming updates alongside other work."

I'd love to know what prompted the team to move those up in the list because it doesn't sound like Deadlock's "early development" is over yet—or is it? Valve's update doesn't provide any clear indicators for when it expects it to feel finished enough to enter the polish phase.

Right now, it seems like the only sign of that happening will be whenever a bunch of heroes start getting attention. And even then, we don't know if Valve plans to release Deadlock to the public before every inch of it is perfect. If you want a peek at its spooky map or cast of weirdo heroes, you'd better find someone to beg for an invite because I don't think Valve's letting it out of the cage anytime soon.

Deadlock players are eating just about better than anyone else right now, as Valve has finally dropped the huge update we'd been promised and oh boy, it's a doozy.

City Never Sleeps has brought six new characters who are waiting to be unlocked by community vote, a bunch of UI reworks, more voicelines, and a sweeping visual update to the map. The bases of the Hidden King and Arch Mother are unchanged (00:13) but they're still very cool nevertheless. The real fun, however, lies outside, within the three reworked lanes and four new districts.

Here's a look at the new locations.

First up we have York. This may seem pretty familiar as it's kept the industrial vibes of the last map iteration, but it's been polished with vast open spaces, while keeping the griminess so core to Deadlock. It even has the New York Stock Exchange towards the Archmother's base, so if you're feeling particularly evil, head on over there.

Then we have Broadway, the central lane which has had a massive facelift, now being the busiest hub of the map complete with a highway, neon signs, and towering skyscrapers. There are even steam vents which can hide and heal you for a short while. This was the first thing I saw when coming into the updated map, and it sure did surprise me in the best way possible, never did I think this map could look this cool.

Finally we've got Greenwich, my personal favourite. This lane is the prettiest with its earthy witchy vibes, complete with a massive overhanging tree in the centre lane, which you can climb atop for a better view of your enemy or to just admire your surroundings (I will just be admiring my surroundings).

But the best part of the map is no longer on the lanes, it lies between them inside the four districts. Here's the Theatre, Chinatown, Haunted Lot, and Plaza lie in all their glory, and with all their updated Haunts:

I'm a sucker for a pretty map and this Deadlock update did not disappoint—it just keeps getting better.

The City Never Sleeps update is here for Deadlock, which means one thing: It's time to get tribalistic about which strange critter will be making it to the Cursed Apple next. Personally, all of my bones are on Baba. I'm obsessed with her design. Making the Baba Yaga's chicken-legged hut a New York park bench? Incredible work.

I kinda wish Deadlock wasn't a MOBA—not because I don't play MOBAs, you understand. I have a misspent youth of over 2,400 hours in Dota 2 and 340 of the suckers in Deadlock itself. I know ball. Rather, I think Deadlock's universe and characters are so damn charming that I'd love for more people to know about them, and the MOBA genre is kinda unassailable.

And while the recent major Deadlock update has me kicking my feet and squealing at the gorgeous new environments—and I am very excited for Baba—there's one thing that makes me even happier: The voice lines. Not only does the update bring a voice line viewer into the game, it also… well, let me just let the official site speak for itself:

"Pre-match conversations between new and existing heroes increased from over 700 to 1500." It's Christmas, baby. Here are some of my favourites I've found so far:

These samples—the Drifter discovering a Lovecraftian god, Mina and Pocket being the most divorced couple in NYC, Celeste bargaining for her life, and Rem being a freaky little freak—are just some of the excellent conversations I've been flipping through since the update was released. Honestly, I've been digging into them for more time than I've been playing actual matches.

And the new cast of five heroes is only bound to add more excellent dynamics to Deadlock's roster—I can't, for instance, wait to see how the prolifically sassy capital punishment survivor Seven and park bench witch Baba interact, or how the "Be Not Afraid" doctor Nurse Harrow might interact with The Doorman, who could be a lovecraftian kindred spirit, for all we know.

These are just the pre-match conversation voicelines—"over 10,000 non-ping voice lines" have been added, too. It's a tremendous amount of work added to Valve's excellent MOBA, and I can't wait to see the Cursed Apple's final form… whenever that may be.

The cursed city where Deadlock's battles take place just got even spookier than it already was in the City Never Sleeps update. Valve's second major overhaul for the invite-only MOBA marks another major step in its pseudo-early access development, giving it a much stronger visual identity than it had before, six striking new heroes, and a massive list of tweaks to how it plays.

Deadlock's entire map has been redecorated into three distinct themes: a bright city center, a haunted university, and a shadowy stock exchange. All the buildings and creeps that inhabit each street have been redesigned to fit in. There are pickle jars with hands growing out of them lurking in the heart of the map, sentient stacks of books in the right lane, and slimy trashbag monsters in the left lane.

Squeezed between it all are four districts with their own identities, like a theater district infested with literal stage hands pulling the strings on steampunk-style automatons. Atop the Chinatown district is a bell tower where teams can fight over a fountain of souls to try to get a currency advantage in a tight match. Even the wooden crates that players smash for resources are now padlocked and bolted shut.

It's a whole new playground that will take some time for players to fully figure out. In the meantime, Valve has prepared six new heroes who will be released based on a player voting system, just like the previous set. My money's on the Rat King taking the lead because, well, he's the Rat King, a crowned rodent that began as a fan concept a year ago and quickly became a meme in the community.

Don't get me wrong, though, the others look great, too. Valve made a nurse who holds a needle like a gun, a Chess master who seems to float like Overwatch's Zenyatta, a skeleton who found a rocket launcher, a cozy old witch who I do not trust, and a young artist who wields a paintbrush. Two heroes will drop each week with the first making their debut on Friday.

Here's some other big changes I see on the update page:

• Player health bars are bolder and more readable than before
• There are now small indicators to help you see where nearby teammates are
• The kill feed is considerably more clear when it comes to seeing who took out who
• The entire shop interface is way more intuitive and includes filters for finding what you need fast
• There are several new ways to ping locations and objects on the map
• Characters have double the amount of voice lines as before and you can listen to them in a new menu
• New tools let you create bots to practice on and there's a more comprehensive breakdown of combat details for the nerds out there
• There are new accessibility options, like custom UI colors, subtitles, and options to automatically move, mantle, and shoot

All of this is only a fraction of the things Valve has added to the game, some of which it's intentionally keeping a secret so players can discover them on their own. Despite the size of the update, Valve hasn't removed the need for an invite to play Deadlock. One has to wonder how many of these it will take before the game is finally released to the public so everyone can get a taste of what Valve's been cooking up.

More changes are coming to the way you buy games on Steam.

WHAT IT MEANS

Steam's Discounts and Events page is, as the name suggests, basically a collection of discounted games and special events: The Nier Franchise Sale, Game Devs of Color Expo, some lifts from your wishlist, and some that just match up with stuff you've done in the past. But all of them are "curated placements," which means they're scheduled by either developers or publishers themselves, or by Steam.

But Steam, as we all know, is always looking to refine the online game shopping experience, which is where these "dynamic and personalized" recommendations come in: "More discounted games or sale events will have the chance to be visible on the homepage and elsewhere on Steam, rather than be limited by a small, fixed number of slots."

Valve continues: "We have confidence this approach is better aligned with our goal, and results in a better experience for customers and developers. The constraint of a manually managed calendar doesn't make as much sense with such diverse customer tastes and so many relevant deals for customers available at any given time."

There was a bit of early confusion about what exactly Valve is doing here, and concerns that Valve would be pursuing the practice of dynamic pricing—that is, adjusting prices on the fly to reflect the demands of the moment. But it's the recommendations that are going dynamic, not the prices, so—assuming there are no unpleasant surprises in store—it's what you'll see that will be changing, not what you'll pay.

SEEMS FINE THEN?

At this early stage, yeah. Look, I'm a little tired of dancing to the tune of algorithms, and I wonder too if some people won't wind up missing out on cool stuff that maybe falls outside their usual areas of interest if they're only presented with what Steam knows they're likely to buy.

On the whole, though—and acknowledging that we don't have any details on how it will actually work just yet—it seems fine to me. Finding visibility on Steam is a never-ending challenge for indie developers, and if this puts more games in front of more eyeballs, it's hard not to see it as at least a small win.

None of this will be happening for a while, to be clear: A hard rollout date hasn't been set but Valve expects to start the process in early 2027.

Taking some time here on the PC Gamer Hyperfeed™ to praise my favorite hardware purchase of the past year and go-to gamepad for the foreseeable future, the Steam Controller.

I love its responsiveness, ergonomics, looks, ease of use, battery life, all of it. I'm not usually much of a paddle button user, but being able to map screenshot to R4 has been a real game-changer for me. Goose not included with purchase of Steam Controller.

Clones have been a fixture in the games industry forever. For every Mario Bros there's a Giana Sisters, for every Stardew Valley there's a Fields of Mistria, and for every Needle In A Haystack Simulator there's a A Needle In a Haystack, or Needle in a Haystack, or Needle In A Haystack, or Needle In A Haystack - A Time For Goats, or Story of The Needle In a Haystack.

The total slopification of Steam continues apace and the recent spray of haystack games is the purest manifestation of this phenomenon. The first—as far as I can tell—was Needle In A Haystack Simulator, which is scheduled for release in Q4 2026. According to developers Studio Bitdot, a playtest in August attracted around 23,000 players, which is an astonishing figure for a game about finding a needle in a haystack.

I'm not surprised that Needle In A Haystack Simulator is popular, mind you. Games about meaningless and repetitive labour are all the rage. Needle In A Haystack Simulator hybridises sorting and incremental games: the player must manually sift through hay to find the needle, but sifting will also unearth items that can be sold for profit, all the better to invest in more efficient hay sorting technology. It sounds arduous and annoying, but there is, regrettably, a market for it.

At least two needle in a haystack games have beaten Studio Bitdot to release. Needle In A Haystack - A Time For Goats released on September 19 and, according to developer Red Key Games, had sold a thousand copies by September 26. Upon release, the studio wrote in an update that it was aware of the sudden onslaught of needle in haystack games. "We decided to set out and make this game and are very aware that since then, multiple hay games have surfaced and tweets have gotten super popular," the studio wrote.

"We want to let everyone know that this is a crazy coincidence and not us copying ideas. We were already months into production when this all happened". The studio goes on to share its SteamDB data as proof. Then, just yesterday, the studio added a bizarre new first-person shooter endgame, presumably to differentiate it from other haystack games. ("Dude, what are you thinking??" wrote user djcassar in response to this free expansion. "It is a completely different play style to what people are buying the game are intending to experience. Get rid of it!")

The other already-released haystack game came out on September 25 and is called, creatively, A Needle In A Haystack: Sorting Game. According to Steam reviews it is a substandard piece of software and I am not surprised.

But Needle In A Haystack Simulator has very many other competitors on the horizon: the demo for Needle In A Haystack, which releases in full on September 30, apparently attracted 20,000 players. Elsewhere, Story of The Needle In a Haystack is scheduled to release on November 28 and has a live demo.

Here's a list, which I doubt is exhaustive:

In response to a viral X post surfacing the haystack slop phenomenon, the creator of Needle in the Haystack Simulator, going by the name Nas, offered their apologies. "As the dev of the one that went viral, i would like to formally apologise to the steam storefront," they wrote. When someone expressed sympathy, Nas didn't welcome it: "Don't feel bad, it's the ultimate slop game. I have no complaints."

The creator does seem to approach the whole affair with a modicum of humor (they used their game to spoof Wolverine, for instance). But the copycats, it's wise to assume, are in it for the cold hard cash. It's not rare for joke games to spawn unjokeful clones—A Game About Digging A Hole had countless copycats, as did Banana—but the haystack game dovetails so neatly with the sort slop boom that there's every possibility one, two or several of these haystack games will make a tidy profit for the shovelware merchants responsible for them.

And, I mean, I can pretend to be polite and open minded about this, but… finding a needle in a haystack? I can understand wanting to take every opportunity to dissociate from the reality of 2026, but there are over 100,000 games on Steam.

But whether the game sucks or not, it does highlight the risk of showing off your bizarre new indie game on social media: if it goes viral, or people take to it, the churn industry will be paying attention.

Top Steam games by revenue (September 15 - 22)

Wardogs' dominance continues: according to Bulkhead the game has sold three million copies since preorders opened on August 11. Considering how difficult it is to launch a live service multiplayer game in 2026—countless have tried and gone out of business—it's a big win for the UK studio.

FC 27 comes in at number two but do note this is for preorders only: the chart takes in September 15—22 and EA's latest football sim didn't release until September 25. In other words, expect it to hit number one next week.

Amusingly, considering how popular and lucrative the FC (formerly FIFA series) is, EA Canada and EA Romania have employed generative AI during development: "Generative AI may have been used in creating pre-rendered or live-generated content for this game," the disclosure reads. "All such content is the result of a human-led artistic and creative process."

The only real surprise this week is how well Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter has done: I know this series has its audience but I didn't expect PC gamers to show up so strongly for it. It's currently sitting on over a thousand "overwhelmingly positive" reviews. PC Gamer's Sean Martin dug it.

Last week's Steam deep cuts

The Steam Deck 2 remains a glimmer in Greg Coomer and Lawrence Yang's eyes, and the AI-driven RAMpocalypse makes it feel further away now than when the original Deck launched in 2022. But by god, I'll still wishcast about it.

The rogue's gallery of $1,000+ hot slab handheld PCs that have come to market since left me feeling cold. They share the problems of all handheld PCs, even most gaming laptops from before the Deck: Too expensive, too big, too janky, fans blasting like a jet engine, like 45 minutes of battery life at full tilt. Oh, and most of them run Windows—that's a compromise on my desktop these days, let alone a handheld.

I've never liked my Deck for facilitating a stepped-on version of the cutting edge games I could play at home. To me, it is a machine for indies and PS4 era or older games—even emulation. To that end, I think my ideal Steam Deck 2 would be the same level of horsepower, but with better battery life and, crucially, it would be pocketable—or as close to it as Valve could manage without sacrificing ergonomics.

Have you beheld a PSP or Game Boy Advance in person recently? Handhelds used to be so tiny. I think part of the pivot to Switch-sized devices was to help differentiate consoles from smartphones, but I hate that we've relinquished this entire weight class to those awful little unrepairable glass rectangles that spy on us. A PSP-sized Steam Deck 2 would make my heart sing.

Like many people, I'm a big fan of quickfire submarine horror adventure Iron Lung. Yet despite receiving rave reviews and spawning a film adaptation by Markiplier, surprisingly few games have picked up its baton of vehicular terror. There are other submarine horror games like Barotrauma, as well as job-based horror games like Klekta and Shift at Midnight. But the former has quite a different vibe, while the latter pair seem more inspired by Lethal Company than David Szymanski's 2022 horror.

Which is why I'm so intrigued by The Temple, an upcoming Half-Life 2 total conversion that likewise lets players pilot a terror submarine. But the temple ups the ante by adapting the scares into two other forms of transportation, taking players out of the depths all the way up into space.

The Temple is set on an aquatic planet dotted by strange, concrete megastructures, which you're tasked with exploring using three separate vehicles. One, as mentioned, is a submarine that will take you into the depths of its ocean. The others are an airship for exploring its skies and abandoned towers, and a space shuttle that lets you travel to asteroidal moons that orbit the planet.

The Temple was originally released as a pair of maps for MapLabs, a mod that collects together maps from various Source engine modding competitions. While that initial version was fairly short—around 20 minutes in length—the total conversion will revamp and expand those two existing maps, while also adding a third map for over two hours of exploration-based sci-fi horror.

There's a trailer for the mod that you can watch above, which shows all three of its vehicles in action. For a short Half-Life 2 mod, it looks pretty accomplished, with a real eye for colossal structures. The mod also features Amnesia: The Dark Descent-style invisible water monsters, and a talking crow (or at least, a crow whose corvid language you can understand), which will help guide you through the experience.

That alone is sufficient to convince me to check The Temple out. While there's no specific release date for The Temple yet, its creator, who goes by Klems, says that it will launch "very soon, possibly next month".

We do a lot of thinking about digital storefronts here at PCG, and a great struggle is that we don't want to demonstrate too much bias in favor of Steam. But Valve's platform just does it better.

It's not perfect: Uneven moderation has rightly come under the most scrutiny in recent years, and I find those stories about how hyperprofitable Valve is a little hard to stomach in the face of its flat 30% revenue cut—it would probably continue to be one of the most profitable enterprises in human history with a more relaxed or graduated system.

But our hobby would be so much more worse off without Steam, and I generally trust Valve as a steward of PC Gaming, certainly more than any other company.

One thing that always shocks me is comparing it to any other service, marketplace, or social media platform of the same vintage—going on 20+ years now, depending on whether you set the start date at its literal inception, or when it started to be recognizably Steam.

There are vanishingly few products, pieces of software, anything digital that have been around this long and not been enshittified beyond belief. Whatever Steam's issues, I've never felt like Valve is operating in bad faith or treating me like cattle to be monetized, and I think that goes a long way toward explaining its enduring popularity.