US Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York City, announced today that he will introduce the "Power To The Players Act."

If it becomes law, the bill will see the US Federal Trade Commission create regulations that protect our "ability to own and play" purchased games, according to Torres' office.

"When you pay for a game, you should own it," says Torres. "Consumers must have the right to own, the right to play, and the right to transfer the games they buy. A game that can be taken away the moment a company pulls the plug is not a purchase. It is a rental disguised as a sale."

The game ownership issue is longstanding on PC, which moved to digital distribution a couple decades ago, but has recently come to the foreground of public consciousness as the consoles also transition away from discs. Earlier this year, Sony announced that it will end physical disc production in 2028.

The related problem of online games being decommissioned before players are done with them has also received more attention in recent years. The Stop Killing Games campaign in particular has raised the issue's profile, arguing that basic offline functionality should be expected when online games are retired. Founder Ross Scott and organizer Moritz Katzner gained an audience with the European Parliament earlier this year.

As one of its prime examples of the problem, Stop Killing Games has pointed to The Crew, a Ubisoft racing game which went offline in 2024, preventing those who purchased it from continuing to play even the singleplayer campaign.

The aim of the Power To The Players Act is to establish and enforce a more genuine ownership of purchased games, as opposed to the revocable licenses we currently buy, and to require that offline modes be made available before online games are shut down.

For DRM-free games, such as those purchased from GOG, ownership is a non-issue: Once you have the game files, you can back them up and use them for as long as you can find a PC that'll run them. Realistically, the FTC is not going to mandate the eradication of software copy protection, so if passed the bill would presumably arrive at a softer definition of ownership.

I've reached out to Rep Torres' office for more information on what enforcement of the bill is expected to look like, should it pass.

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.

Life comes at you fast, as the saying goes, and the folks at RuneScape developer Jagex can sure attest to that. Less than two weeks after announcing RuneScape Reignited—essentially a way for new and lapsed players to restart their adventures from fresh on separate, unique servers—the studio has decided to cancel it.

There was trouble with RuneScape Reignited almost right from the start, with complaints ranging from a potential community split to restrictions on character interactions and the need to pay for a separate subscription. Just a few days after the initial announcement, Jagex apologized for making veteran players feel like they were being shunted aside, and said it was "exploring a heavy set of revisions to Reignited based on your feedback."

A few days after that, it laid out a more specific list of intended alterations, and invited more feedback from players, "so we can follow up next week with more of our thoughts." With that feedback now received, it seems that Jagex has heard enough.

"It is clear that we missed the mark on this, and so we are not moving forward with it," Mod Ryan—associate creative director Ryan Philpott—said in a blog post announcing the cancellation. "Our goal is to see Runescape grow again, with returning players coming back and new players joining, but never at the expense of our existing community."

It's a very sudden about-face, but not unprecedented. In 2023, for instance, Jagex dropped a new RuneScape battle pass in the wake of massive player backlash; in 2025, the studio scrapped "Treasure Hunter" microtransactions, in what Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy said was "part of a wider transformation across Jagex, which is seeing a renewed commitment to delivering deeper value, greater fairness and long-term improvements for players."

It hasn't been entirely smooth sailing: Recent price hikes have not gone over well (no surprise there, though), and Jagex's cowardly decision to scrap in-game Pride Month events was allowed to stand despite players absolutely mauling the studio for it. But in terms of gameplay, at least, Jagex has demonstrated a willingness to react with relative haste when it's blown things sufficiently badly—and this definitely qualifies.

Despite the cancellation, Philpott invited new and returning players to jump into the game with a 10 day free trial beginning on December 2, which will offer full access to all worlds and content. The 2027 roadmap for RuneScape also remains in place:

"The future of RuneScape is still extremely bright," Philpott concluded. "RuneScape will always be built for and defined by its community. So please keep letting us know when you feel we're getting it wrong and shout with that same energy when you think we're getting it right too."

Attention fellow base-building ghouls and survival masochists, I've got good news and bad news. Starting with the good: Some of the best survival crafting games are no longer in early access, and have hit their 1.0 milestones. The bad news? Three of them piled into the same one-month window.

I've seen a million posts all asking the same advice: "Should I get Valheim, RuneScape Dragonwilds, or Enshrouded first?" And as someone who can't stop sinking hundreds of hours into mining the same three types of rock, I'm qualified enough to help you decide. I've also recruited my colleague, Chris Livingston, who is always up to in-game riffraff resulting in funny animal encounters or injuries like some sort of bizarre, survival-crafting Jeff Corwin.

Comparing Valheim, Dragonwilds, and Enshrouded

We've got our own opinions on who's who among the recent survival crafting 1.0 launches, but maybe you just need something to compare features before getting into recommendations. It's by no means everything included across all three games, but here's a quick comparison of the differences and similarities between features and default settings in Valheim, RuneScape: Dragonwilds, and Enshrouded.

Valheim vs Enshrouded vs RuneScape: Dragonwilds

Valheim vs Enshrouded vs Dragonwilds: Our picks

I had such high hopes for the Street Fighter movie: The trailers were so promising, the cast so charismatic, and it seemed to get the inherent ridiculousness of the franchise, playing it seriously without ever really taking it too seriously. I mean, you don't put a guy like David Dastmalchian in the role of M. Bison unless you expect him to do something with it, right?

Alas, it seems that this may be a real Tuesday, at least for my Street Fighter movie aspirations. The reviews are in, and they are not especially kind. Street Fighter isn't a complete catastrophe, according to the critical consensus, but I don't think JCVD has to worry about having to turn in his "Best Street Fighter Movie" trophy anytime soon, either.

Here's what they're saying:

"Dumber than a box of rocks, but have you ever thrown rocks at things? It can be pretty fun"

IGN: 6/10

The story is too thin to support its bloated roster, but IGN reckons the Street Fighter film is "all about landing as many punches as it can before the round timer hits zero. Even though there are plenty of misses, the ones it does manage to land hit hard."

"A garish and incoherent mess that amuses in fits and starts but barely improves on the Mortal Kombat movies before it"

The Guardian: 2/5

Fans might enjoy the new SF flick, and the performances are "likeable," but its repeated self-knowing acknowledgment of how silly it all is "would land better if the movie ever rose above the stuff it’s making fun of. Instead, Street Fighter is satisfied punching down on itself, and everything that’s cringe about the '90s, while happily being stuck there, in the past, so it could pretend that this is as good as it gets for videogame adaptations."

"Not a great adaptation of what is one of the most recognizable brands in all of gaming"

Collider: 6/10

"The movie is at its most fun when it truly locks in for those high-octane fights and the surprisingly beautiful and not-much-publicized animated sequences," Collider reviewer Aidan Kelley wrote. "Unfortunately, to get to those, you have to deal with a lot of exposition and unengaging character drama."

"One of the most overtly mixed bags of any movie this year"

ScreenRant: 7/10

Despite calling Street Fighter "a fundamentally flawed movie on an underlying storytelling level," ScreenRant's review is one of the more positive takes floating around out there: The film is "buoyed by the overall 'go for broke' tone" and director Kitao Sakurai's "great work helming the film, working with the cast and crew to deliver consistently entertaining fight scenes that are flush with personality and style."

"Like a trip to a ’90s mall arcade, Street Fighter’s pretty fun — for about 30 minutes"

ScreenCrush: 5/10

"The sheer absurdity and fevered intensity of the pacing, not to mention some very athletic fight choreography, is good enough to carry things along through the jittery first act," reviewer Matt Singer wrote for ScreenCrush. "But you can only mainline caffeine for so long before it starts to give you a headache."

"A campy '90s nostalgia ride and a complete mess"

Associated Press: 1/4

Street Fighter is a "very enthusiastic, weirdly convoluted and jumbled mess of a movie," Jake Coyle wrote for AP. As much as you might think a Street Fighter movie, good or bad, would at least offer up some bluntly entertaining hand-to-hand combat, it’s so messily plotted and chaotically conceived that it makes a game with six buttons seem comparatively artful."

"Dull fight scenes and tonal whiplash make this mostly forgettable videogame adaptation work only for superfans"

The Film Verdict

Street Fighter "is a little bit of everything that amounts to a lot of not-much," The Film Verdict declared, comparing it unfavorably to this year's Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil flicks: Street Fighter has all the elements that made those films successful, "but never lands on a formula than functions."

"I’m not sure Street Fighter meets any conventional standard of quality, but it’s undeniably its own thing"

The Wrap

This review takes a more holistic approach to Street Fighter, calling it "an action-packed, hyper-stylized, borderline-nonsensical fever dream with a central storyline that begs to be taken seriously" despite being goofy, horny, largely incoherent, and somehow "even weirder" than the 1990s movie. But hey, maybe that's your thing: As reviewer William Bibbiani wrote, "What even is a 'good movie' anyway?"

"A jumbled tonal mess that feels deadly serious one moment and like parody the next"

The Hollywood Reporter

"Featuring so many characters and elements from the games that non-aficionados are left desperately attempting to keep up, Street Fighter tries to thread the needle between fan service and welcoming the uninitiated," THR says. "The result is that neither camp is likely to be fully satisfied."

"Not even close to coherent, but it does have some good fight scenes"

Gizmodo

Gizmodo's review says the Street Fighter film is a bit like its portrayal of Ken Masters, an oafish clown who can actually fight: "The editing choices, scene transitions, and even the basic plot are frequently baffling. And yet, it can throw a punch when it wants to."

"The closest any filmmaker has come to bringing the franchise’s signature verve and bombast to the big screen"

Inverse

In another relatively positive review, Inverse declares that "Street Fighter might not be a film that sticks in your brain for days afterwards, but while you’re in your seat it feels like a shot of adrenaline to the arm, the kind that you might get from hearing the coveted 'You Win' announcement after the end of a hard-fought match."

"Something goes terribly awry in its back half, hinting at either a troubled production, or one that was doomed from the start"

Variety

Variety was impressed by Street Fighter's strong start, but says the wheels come off in the second half: "It’s a film at war with itself, in which a straightforward narrative about strained brotherhood is spread far too thin across unconnected snippets of action and comedy that grow increasingly disparate."

So there you have it: Not a disaster, but definitely a mess. We'll hopefully have our own critical take on the Street Fighter film up eventually, if we can ever talk Mollie Taylor into going to see it; in the meantime, if you've seen it, let us know what you think.

The developers of World of Warcraft: Forever, the venerable MMO's newest 'Classic+' flavor, say that even though the level cap is staying at 60, there will always be new gear to chase, and lower level gear has never been more powerful.

Blizzard Entertainment developers are wary of the drastic increases in power in WoW's modern version, including the recent Midnight expansion, which render previous seasons of gear irrelevant, require massive resets between expansions and lead to periodic stat "squishes" to avoid players becoming omnipotent gods.

"Classic wasn't far off from this," vice president and senior game director Ion Hazzikostas said of Forever's approach in a recent PC Gamer interview. "It's gradual. Going from [Classic raids] Blackwing Lair to Ahn'Qiraj that's actually only a couple of item levels higher. Those two largely coexist. C'thun drops are probably better than anything in Blackwing Lair, but that's like one or two items per player. This is a system that can last for a long, long time."

Associate production director Clay Stone says that's part of what makes gear in Forever—and Classic—meaningful.

"Your best-in-slot that you pick up from a previous raid tier may continue to be your best in slot for a long time. It's very much our intention to try wherever we can to not invalidate old content."

Then again, a long time isn't expected to be literally forever, Hazzikostas says.

"At some point, if you're running the Barrow Deeps raid that's coming out in December, you're going to have all the items that you want. That's fine. You're done with it."

Forever players will see gear progress at level 60: those modest item level increases, gear that's good in specific niche situations, and rare "chase" pieces should keep people hunting, Forever developers say.

An item might be especially powerful when fighting in a desert, or against a dragon, for example, making it particularly good in one especially tough fight.

(And yes, players, developers are aware that this means bag space will be at a premium. "We're already thinking about that," principal designer Kris Zierhut says, mentioning the ideas of more bank space, trinket bags or even garment bags to hold the excess.)

Un-solving the game

Forever launches on November 4, and so far players have seen few of the pieces that will entice them at the end game. The current level cap in the beta is 30, and future items have been hidden from view and datamining to keep them guessing.

"We resurrected some old tech that keeps item stats and properties and tooltips secret, unknown to the client, until the item has actually been obtained by someone on the server," Hazzikostas says. "That's something we can use in modern WoW if we want."

Essentially a flag on items determines whether they are known, making them visible in the game's data. It trips when someone discovers an item for the first time, making sure that if the player links the item to others, it doesn't cause bugs

But until that moment, players can't get a sneak peek at what the piece of gear does. It's one reason why Forever doesn't have an Adventure Guide for dungeons; developers want the game to keep its secrets.

"Every single boss in our raids has some items that are very low percentage drop chase items, kind of like the Dragonspine Trophy was in Gruul's Lair—but for every boss," says Zierhut. "It might be three weeks, four weeks before somebody sees that item drop, and the whole meta is torn up again."

The goal is to keep the magic of exploration alive, he says.

"The goal is to un-solve the game, so players have to figure out again what's the best path," Zierhut says. "They don't know what the best items are. They don't know what to get. It's back to 2004 and nobody knows anything and figuring it out all over again."

Hand-crafted power

To add a layer of complexity—and, again, keep players from gaining power too quickly—items deliberately aren't optimized for players' preferred classes and stats. "Our items are much more idiosyncratic, and you don't get exactly what you want," he says, noting that knowing your class and choosing between gear sets will be one way players express skill in Forever. "None of the gear is perfect."

That's an old strategy—there are oft-discussed items from WoW's original launch that put strength on cloth gear, for example—but what is new is how much power items can have at a relatively low level.

Both low-level drops and crafted gear are powerful early, and that's on purpose, developers say.

"A lot of times tradeskills felt like an afterthought in Classic. Like, 'Oh, I could craft this item, but it's too much work and I'm about to out-level it anyway. Skip it. I'll level up my tailor when I get to level 60,' " Zierhut says. "I made a deliberate effort to make more crafting recipes worthwhile to craft while you are leveling up, including lowering the skill requirement to craft them.

"The typical item from tailoring, leatherworking, blacksmithing requires 25 fewer skill points than it used to. So you'll be able to craft that item right around the time it's your best-in-slot at that level and get the real value out of doing it."

Much of the tuning done so far to gear in Forever's beta has been to keep that idea of modest but steady progression across the whole leveling process.

"It's just a slightly different gradient in terms of power level," lead game designer Tim Jones says.

Remedy announced today that Control Resonant has surpassed one million copies sold, moving past Alan Wake 2 to become "the fastest-selling game in Remedy Entertainment's 31-year history."

Thank you for the support ❤️ For playing, sharing, and being a part of the community.#CONTROLResonant

— @remedygames.com (@remedygames.com.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T18:14:33.049Z

Three weeks to a million copies isn't exactly a blistering pace by conventional videogame standards: The Blood of Dawnwalker hit the mark in three days, Wardogs did it in one, and Subnautica 2 put out twice that number in just 12 hours.

But despite producing a string of unique, memorable, and critically acclaimed games, Remedy has never really smashed a massive home run in the sales department. Even Alan Wake 2, which won numerous awards for narrative and art direction in 2023 (and would have claimed so many more if not for the Baldur's Gate 3 behemoth) took two months to sell a million copies, significantly outpacing the original Control and making it the studio's fastest-selling game at that time.

Remedy's more pressing problem, though, is profit: It took more than a year, and two million copies sold, before Alan Wake 2 actually started making money for Remedy. Addressing that shortcoming was the top priority for Jean-Charles Gaudechon, who took over as the company's new CEO in February: Remedy chairman Henri Österlund said at the time that Gaudechon's appointment was intended "to lead Remedy into a phase of profitable growth."

So far, Gaudechon seems to like what he sees from Control Resonant, calling the million-sold mark "a very strong start."

"Control Resonant is Remedy's first self-published release of this scale, launched into one of the most competitive windows in years alongside the industry's biggest names. The game is unmistakably Remedy, with the bold ideas and distinctive style our players have come to expect from us," Gaudechon said. "A huge thank you goes to our players and to the team, who have made Control Resonant the incredible game that it is.

"We have always believed Control deserved an even bigger audience, and this launch shows what's possible: we see the game connecting with long-time fans while bringing a significant number of new players into the world of Control, which strengthens its long-term potential. With Control and Alan Wake, we now have two established franchises. Our focus is to build on what makes them special, support them, and grow them even further. There is a lot more to come from these worlds."

We'll get a closer look on how Control Resonant's success has impacted Remedy's bottom line in Remedy's Q3 business review, which takes place on November 3.

World War 2 Canadian air force pilot John Gillespie Magee Jr once wrote, in his poem High Flight:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things

He was talking about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, his favourite game and an icon of the PS2 generation of consoles. In San Andreas, tucked away in the Verdant Meadows Airstrip, the player could locate a jetpack, and tumble through the skies of Las Venturas like a glorious errant star. GTA 5? No jetpack. This is why it's an inferior game.

Until now. I have installed Aerowing - Wearable Jet Pack & Weapon System. Or, well, I installed it, tried to launch the game, crashed my PC, rebooted, tried to launch the game, crashed the game, rebooted, then launched the game.

It's a strangely lavish mod, I'll give it that. You don't just tap F and sort of limply ascend, which is mostly how it went in San Andreas. No, you get a whole animation, the camera circles your guy as he does a possibly-copyrighted Iron Man pose and launches himself skywards.

Then off you go, a speedometer in the corner measuring your courage as you glide along, launching one of three weapons: SMG, plasma, and "tube," which I'm pretty sure is just SMG again.

It's a rollocking good time, and it'll be even better once I find a way to proc it that doesn't also proc my street golfing mod. Until then, with silent lifting mind I'll tread the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand, and touch the face of God.

For a company that has made the best mouse I've ever laid my hands on, it sure seems to be doing its darndest to destroy that mystique. That is, assuming the latest images from Razer on Chinese site Billibilli of a Pokemon-themed Viper V4 Pro come to fruition (via Jakeu). You can see it in the Tweet above, in all its glory—what do you think?

I think it looks bloody awful. There's just something about that peculiar mix of grey, yellow, and green that seems very uncoordinated. That, and the fact that the pixel art and yellow Poke-circle on the body of the mouse seem about as seamless as your average in-game graffiti emote. Just slapped on there without a care in the world.

I'm being harsh, but to be fair, this is right off the back of hearing about another potential version of the Viper V4 Pro that might cost $300. At least, if the currency conversion is relevant and it is indeed listed for sale in the Chinese market, as is claimed.

Why can't a good thing be left alone? The Viper V4 Pro is fantastic, and that's in part because it looks sleek and simple, and because it's cheaper than other top-end gaming mice from big brands.

There's a chair, too, and a keyboard, which my colleague James says he prefers the look of to the mouse. I think I agree, but I still think the the grey clashes too much with the green.

Back to the Viper, though, there could have been a chance here to make a proper red-and-white, pokeball-themed version, but instead we get this grey-and-whatever-else monstrosity.

I'll just keep hold of the white one, thank you very much.

Many of tech's heaviest hitters have seen their share prices decrease significantly this week. For instance, Nvidia has seen a decrease of about 8% over the last five days—and this AI company is far from the only one seeing such a dip.

Over the last five days, we've seen share prices fall by 13% for AMD, and nearly 15% for Intel. Looking more broadly across the AI and semiconductor industries, CNBC reports 20 of the most valuable players have shed more than $1 trillion in value as investors sell off stock.

The bigger picture doesn't look any better: over the last five days, Samsung Electronics has seen its share price decrease by nearly 20%, SK hynix is down 18%, and Micron has seen a dip of over 15%.

A combination of factors have likely triggered this big chip stock sell off, including concerns that the memory supply crisis may actually reverse into oversupply come 2029, according to a recent column in South Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper.

There's more going on than just the CEO of Acer insisting "It's impossible for the shortage to last until 2030!" We also know that many chip manufacturers have already been working to boost their production capacity, though TSMC's next-gen Arizona fab is fully booked before it has even been built.

Chinese manufacturer CXMT is also growing, which is likely to go at least some way towards putting a dampener on the western market's aspirations. It's been stocking up on western DUV machines and is estimated to match Micron in terms of DRAM manufacturing capabilities this year. The chip manufacturer also recently claimed it had created breakthrough chip architecture that increases memory density. Make no mistake, CXMT is one to watch.

On top of that, The CEOs of both Intel and Broadcom recently claimed that financing could become a bigger hurdle to overcome for the AI industry than even securing memory or electricity supply. The uptick in interest rates means that investors may feel the balance between borrowing and the return on investment for big tech's data centre build out is looking increasingly lopsided.

So, is the AI bubble finally popping? Even as air is clearly escaping, it's still hard to say. The resulting lower share prices from this widespread stock sell-off may inspire some investors to buy, for one thing.

Despite the high price of these infrastructure projects, the demand for AI computing remains robust according to tech analyst Dan Ives for merchant bank Yorkville Ives. Ives told CNBC, "What would change our view is a demand signal, not [an increased interest] rate signal."

As such, big tech likely won't be ditching data centres any time soon, and the AI bubble may once again reach for something more party-balloon shaped in the future.

Just two days after the disastrous release of Total War: Shogun 2 - Complete Edition, Sega says it is removing the game from sale and putting the original back until it gets things sorted out.

WHAT HAPPENED:

• In September, Sega announced a remaster of Total War: Shogun 2, set to launch just a month later. Sean Martin, PC Gamer's number one shogunner, was very excited.
• In October, Shogun Sean took the remastered version for a test run and was not entirely impressed: "Any reason to return to Shogun 2 in 2026 is something to be celebrated, but I just wish Complete Edition felt more extensive and essential versus leaving so much undone."
• The next day, Shogun 2 Complete Edition launched on Steam, and it was ugly: Thousands of negative user reviews spurred by old bugs, ignored quality of life complaints, and maybe worst of all, accusations—thus far unconfirmed—of undisclosed generative AI use.
• Adding insult to injury, before the Compete Edition launched, Sega pulled the original from sale.

Which brings us to now: After two days of silence, Sega has finally made a move: It says "the current experience is not where it needs to be," and is thus "working with platform holders to remove the game from sale and to reinstate the original game while we investigate the issues."

Anyone who purchased Shogun 2 - Complete Edition will still have access to it, but how (or if) Sega will enable them to go back to playing the original version wasn't clarified.

Pulling Shogun 2 - Complete Edition from sale and restoring the original is obviously the right move, and today's message promises improvements to the game to bring it more in-line with expectations, so hopefully we'll see some of the more glaring bugs and QoL issues resolved.

But all of this is still a very bad look for Creative Assembly, which has had something of an up-and-down history with its games and players over the years. It's a particular shame coming so soon after the company's successful launch of the Lords of the End Times expansion for Total War: Warhammer, which has been widely praised.

The announcement of Total War: Warhammer 40k also has a lot of RTS fans, and WH40K sickos, very excited, and nonsense like this really takes the wind out of those sails: If Shogun 2 - Complete Edition allowed out the door in this condition, how are fans supposed to expect better in the future?

A few fans have also pointed out that in 2024, Sega's Aegis-CWA union accused the company of outsourcing Q&A and some localization services, resulting in the layoffs of 61 people.

As I write this, Shogun 2 - Complete Edition remains available for purchase on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store—Sega has not specified when it will be removed. It has also not yet responded to the accusations of gen AI usage in Shogun 2 - Complete Edition—I've reached out to ask about that and will update if I receive a reply.

Last week, I asked whether Razer's "Perfect 180" feature on its new Basilisk V4 Pro gaming mouse counts as cheating. For the unaware, said feature allows a near-instant 180-degree spin to be mapped within the software to a single mouse button. In other words, one click, one insta-turn to face whatever (or whoever) is behind you.

316 of you responded to the poll (where were the rest, asleep?), and the results are... unsurprising. 79% of respondents said yes, while 21% said no, it's totally fine.

Does Razer's "Perfect 180" gaming mouse feature count as cheating?

Out of 316 poll respondents, here are the results expressed as percentages:

Votes (%)

Yes

79

No

21

Votes (%) Data

Product	Value
Yes	79
No	21

Or just "no." I'm adding a bit of flavour to that one. Looking through the comments, many seemed to echo the sentiments of TrexLaser, who says: "Anything that moves the mouse for you is cheating."

However, some took a more nuanced approach. Terito697174 says the real issue might be in the determination of cheaters, as overly snappy aiming is often the only way for another player to reasonably assess whether they're up against an opponent with an unfair advantage.

Salvador Pardiñas makes a good point: "I can sort of understand it as an accessibility option for people who can't normally do a 180 by themselves, but other than that it's just plain cheating."

Certainly, those with differing abilities might find a 180 turn on a mouse button a very useful thing indeed. However, that doesn't seem to be the way Razer is currently pitching it, as the feature blurb on the Basilisk V4 Pro product page describes it as "built for low-sensitivity gaming," rather than as an accessibility option.

Commenter Fojacko brings up a real blast from the past: "Welcome to the 2000s, Razer. The Intellipoint software says hi."

I'd forgotten all about Microsoft's SideWinder gaming mice from back in the day, which, via the Intellipoint mouse software, could reassign a side button to perform 180-degree or full 360-degree turns. "Quick turn never took off back then for a reason," says Fojacko. Erm, I'm not quite sure why. Was it not as useful as we might think?

Anyway, the feelings of the majority have been made clear. I doubt Razer will rescind the feature regardless, but I will definitely be looking out for insta-turning players in multiplayer games from now on.

"I know what mouse you use," I'll think to myself. Also, "How on earth am I supposed to compete with that?"

With little sign of new and exciting GPUs, and with rising memory prices affecting just about everything in a less than positive manner, it's new CPUs that I'll be keeping my optimistic eyes peeled for. That's doubly so now that we're getting wind of the specs for Intel's upcoming Nova Lake generation.

According to tech leaker Laurent's Choice on X, we can expect a range of next-gen Intel CPUs to use a 4000-series naming scheme—though still following Core Ultra nomenclature—and three of these will be 'BFC' chips featuring bLLC ('big last-level cache'). 'BFC' presumably means 'big friendly cache' or... something to that, err, effect. I'll let you fill in the blanks.

This will be Intel's answer to the 3D V-Cache we see in AMD X3D chips such as the current best CPU on the market, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Games love chomping through cache, so the more merrier. Intel's bLLC, however, is said to be built into the die rather than slapped on top or underneath like AMD's 3D V-Cache solution. It's about time we see sign of this, too, if you ask me, given we've had AMD X3D chips since 2022 and no equivalent from Intel.

We've seen rumoured specs similar to these earlier in the year, but there are some extra models here, plus the naming to go with it. Apparently the top-end model will be the Core Ultra 9 4970K BFC, and this will run down to the Core Ultra 5 4650KF.

The most interesting of the supposed bunch, and one we hadn't seen before, is the Core Ultra 9 4900 BFC (note the lack of a 'K'). This will apparently have two fewer P-Cores and run with a base TDP of 65 W, compared to the 125 W of the rest of the line-up, but it will still have the big cache.

Presumably this will be for specific professional workloads in smaller machines, given the lower TDP. Or perhaps for SFF gaming rigs. Unless it's just that there's a mix-up in the specs here, and the 65 W should be for another CPU in the line-up.

Early in the year we heard rumour that some hefty Nova Lake chips could consume up to 700 W of power, but only as a kind of theoretical limit on a many-cored processor. This was corroborated by further rumour a few months later that the PL2 limit—sustained power limit—will be double current Intel CPU limits and will require an extra 8-pin connector to power the processor.

This was only said to be the case for the rumoured big boi, two-tiled, 44- and 52-core Nova Lake chips, however, not the regular Core Ultra ones that will feature in our gaming PCs. Which tracks here, given this latest rumour has all but one of the listed models running at a 125 W (PL1) TDP just like current-gen, where a similar 250 W PL2 will also be likely.

At any rate, it's exciting to see more mention of upcoming cache-heavy processors. That's most certainly where it's at for gaming. We're expecting the processors to launch at the start of next year, so hopefully there won't be long to wait.

Pumpkin month is here and it has brought us bountiful PC tech, too. Along with the launch of the new Nvidia RTX Spark platform—bringing us all-Nvidia powered laptops and mini PCs for a pretty penny—we've also now got the latest update to DLSS 5, or DLSS Neural Rendering, or DLSS NR. I'm still not 100% sure how we should be referring to this, but I'm certainly not convinced by the whole '3D-guided Neural Rendering' moniker.

Whatever, we've got a new model to play with in the one game that has been officially released with the tech inside it: NBA 2K27. And, almost definitely from now on in any of the myriad modding platforms that have baked DLSS 5 into any game you could imagine, on any GPU architecture.

The new model is promising to be half as demanding of your hardware than the previous model—so a nominal 30% hit rather than 60%—and Nvidia says it has done this by refining the training data and reducing the model size itself down to around 118 million parameters, which makes it roughly 24% smaller. In terms of its impact on your GPU's VRAM, Nvidia gives the example of a reduction in VRAM usage at 4K of 20%.

NBA 2K27 running on the Nvidia RTX Spark with the DLSS 5 Oct update

Which is all well and good for Nvidia's numbers, but what happens in the real world? I've got hold of a preview version of the .dll files, specifically created for the RTX Spark hardware I'm testing right now (probably so we couldn't drop the files onto a repo somewhere and have the new model leaked early), and have been playing around with NBA 2K27 once more on the Asus ProArt P16.

DLSS 5 October Update

Testing the new DLSS 5 model in NBA 2K27. Using DLSS Balanced and 4x Multi Frame Gen.

NBA 2K27 (1080p High)NBA 2K27 (1440p High)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

PC Latency (ms)

DLSS 5 Off

227

93

68

DLSS 5 On (original)

143

63

88

DLSS On (Oct update)

168

61

85

NBA 2K27 (1080p High) Data

Product	Value
DLSS 5 Off	227 Avg FPS, 93 1% Low FPS, 68 PC Latency (ms)
DLSS 5 On (original)	143 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS, 88 PC Latency (ms)
DLSS On (Oct update)	168 Avg FPS, 61 1% Low FPS, 85 PC Latency (ms)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

PC Latency (ms)

DLSS 5 Off

200

61

76

DLSS 5 On (original)

107

47

117

DLSS On (Oct update)

134

51

92

NBA 2K27 (1440p High) Data

Product	Value
DLSS 5 Off	200 Avg FPS, 61 1% Low FPS, 76 PC Latency (ms)
DLSS 5 On (original)	107 Avg FPS, 47 1% Low FPS, 117 PC Latency (ms)
DLSS On (Oct update)	134 Avg FPS, 51 1% Low FPS, 92 PC Latency (ms)

And the results are pretty impressive to be honest. First, that I can get this RTX Spark machine to run at over 200 fps anyways, but also that at 1080p it still sits around the 170 fps mark with DLSS 5 enabled.

Looking at the more intensive 1440p result, you can see what a massive hit the original model delivered to the game when DLSS 5 and Neural Rendering were enabled. Going from a healthy 200 fps down to effectively half that is a brutal performance hit that no-one is going to be happy with.

Especially when, in all honesty, the extra lighting and tonal improvements are only really visible during the game's many cutscenes. When you're zoomed out, actually playing the game, then the extra fidelity doesn't really add a whole lot to the experience, as you can see in the video above.

DLSS 5 October Update

Showing the difference between DLSS 5 off and on with the new October update model.

DLSS 5 off

DLSS 5 Oct Update

It's still quite a hit going from 200 fps down to 134 fps—a 33% drop in performance—but that's in line with what Nvidia has been suggesting would be the case with this updated model. And when you're still getting that sort of frame rate at 1440p on a relatively thin and light laptop (running an Arm CPU, too) then I'll admit I'm impressed with the technical achievements all round here.

Of course we are running all the Nvidia bells and whistly things here, so I've got 4x MFG enabled and DLSS Super Resolution running on Balanced mode, but I'd still say the motion looks grand on the small screen of this Asus ProArt P16 laptop.

Though it really didn't before I disabled VSync. That was enabled by default when I first booted the game, dragging performance down to 60 fps despite the 120 Hz refresh rate of the OLED panel. And, oh boy, the Frame Gen artifacting was nuts. That all went away once I disabled it and the frame rate shot up, but it sure wasn't pretty...

DLSS 5 October Update

Showing the difference between DLSS 5 off and on with the new October update model.

DLSS 5 off

DLSS 5 October update

But while this is the showpiece for DLSS Neural Rendering right now, NBA 2K27 is absolutely not the game that's going to show the tech off to its best. Sure, it has a lot of cutscenes, but for the most part you're watching the game from high above where the extra lighting pretties don't matter one jot. So really, why would you turn it on?

At least now, when it appears in new games—and when this updated model goes into the DLSS 5 modding tools—it's not going to have the same sort of performance hit that made it a struggle before. But there does need to be some sort of positive 'wow' moment for the feature.

Fingers crossed they can keep pushing the model further to bring that performance hit down even further, and fingers crossed some engaged devs get on board to make something impressive.

Autumn is here in Forza Horizon 6's Horizon Meets series and that means a new Treasure Hunt to track down for some season points. These points will let you earn the new seasonal cars that are currently on offer.

This week's chest is in the east of the Takashiro region, at a rest area surrounded by long pampas grass southeast of Soni Circuit, pictured on the map above. To reach this chest, you need to:

1. When passing the entrance to Soni Circuit going west to east, turn right down the winding road.
2. Take a left down the road into the fields of long pampas grass.
3. Keep an eye out for the rest area on your left side close to the pool on the map.

You could also look for the brown spot on the map with the pond in east Takashiro (which marks the long grass) to find it.

Smash the chest to get 100,000 credits, 5,000 XP, and three Season Progress. Also make sure to complete the new photo challenge, too, if you're looking for extra points.

What do you add to the game that has everything? We named Caves of Qud the best roguelike of 2024 due in part to its sheer density of simulated, deep-future, science-fantasy stuff: You can begin a playthrough as a fairly normal guy, and by the end of your run could be playing a clone of yourself who later became a psionic four-armed turtle man wielding a gun that uses blood for ammo and fires vacuum pulses that eat life.

With a tapestry of potential interactions already so profoundly, magnificently weird, what could Caves of Qud possibly be adding in Diaspora, an expansion that will be entering early access in December? Well, playable trees is a good start.

According to publisher Kitfox, Diaspora "includes several new feature arcs centered around the influx of riotous life and culture into marsh-moated ruins of Qud." Chief among them is the ability to start a playthrough as a mutated animal or plant. Those among you with Qud experience might be thinking, 'Aren't there already animal- and plant-themed mutations?'

And there are. But where before you could begin as a human and mutate into beast-shape or plant-form, now—in a sort of beautiful symmetry—you can begin as a tree and mutate into a man. Or, you know, a progressively weirder tree. A tree with wings. And a scorpion tail, maybe. Who can say?

Alongside the new mutant animal and plant stocks—and an accompanying expansion to the catalog of potential player mutations—Diaspora's early access launch will also seed new creatures and artifacts throughout Qud. These will surely bring with them their own new and exciting forms of existential peril. The camelfolk trade caravans are getting some love, too—and their saltback tortoise steeds will, for the first time, be mountable.

As it's an early access launch, those are just the initial offerings. Throughout the course of its continuing development—expected to last "on the order of one year"—Qud's creators plan on adding a new multi-step questline, new factions and underground villages, "roaming, seasonal mega-caravans," more items, creatures, mutant stocks, and (take a deep breath) new fungal infections.

If that last bit doesn't sound exciting to you, you've clearly never enjoyed hosting a sentient skin infection of tiny mouths which occasionally "harmonizes into sensible speech" to reveal a secret about the in-game world. You can see why I'm excited, right? Hello?

Caves of Qud: Diaspora launches in early access on Steam on December 9.

I use my Razer Wolverine V3 Pro several times a week. It's become my go-to wireless controller (among many different options on my shelves), thanks to its shape, stickfeel, and build quality. It's plenty quick to react, it's got excellent triggers and face buttons, and is one of my favourite bits of gaming gear. Ever, in fact.

Then came the Wolverine V3 Pro 8K, and I wasn't too fussed. Sure, 8K polling is a nice thing to have, but it wasn't enough to sway me towards spending $200 on another controller. Now, however, I have a Wolverine V4 Pro review sample in my hands, and I have to admit—I'm sorely tempted to upgrade.

Razer hasn't messed with the core recipe that made the V3 Pro great. It's still got the same comfortable chassis shape, fantastic heavyweight, dual-action triggers, and all the right controls in all the right places. What it has done, though, is upgrade the hardware underneath, while adding a heavy sprinkle of customisation options that improve the experience considerably.

I thought I wouldn't get on with the slightly lighter stickfeel compared to the previous model, but I was wrong. It's still got a highly-controllable resistance, now combined with superb snap-motion accuracy from the new contactless sensors.

It feels sharper, without losing its smooth, slightly weighty movement. The battery life has been upped to a maximum of 27 hours. You can pull off the rear buttons and block the holes off with flush-fit magnetic plates. And you get 8K polling support, complete with wrist-shaking haptic rumble. Individually, these might seem like small changes. Together, they make one of the best controllers I've ever used… well, even better.

We do need to talk about the price. $200/£200 is an awful lot to ask for a gaming controller, especially when there are so many good options on the market for fractions of that sum. But the Wolverine V4 Pro has a kitchen sink-worthy list of features, all of which combine to create a brilliant gaming device—even if your bank account may disagree.

Razer Wolverine V4 Pro features

Take a deep breath, because there's a whole lot to go through here. At its core, the Razer Wolverine V4 Pro is an asymmetrical, Xbox-style controller with 2.4 GHz wireless and USB Type-C wired connectivity, alongside a maximum 8K polling rate over both wireless and wired connections. Razer says the Wolverine V4 Pro achieves sub-1 ms response times, thanks in part to the speedy polling.

Beyond the usual controls, there are also two extra configurable buttons between the bumpers and the triggers on the top side, alongside four extra "mouse click" paddle buttons on the underside. The triggers can also be locked with two toggle switches on the back, which means they can be switched between a full-throw action and a precise click on the fly.

On the front, you get a set of PBT face buttons with clicky, mecha-tactile switches underneath, which have a slightly shorter action than those found on the bog-standard V3 Pro. Diagonally opposite sits a very clicky D-pad.

Then there are the new thumbsticks. These feel slightly lighter and snappier than the V3 Pro's versions, although they still have a touch of weight to the action. Razer has imbued these sticks with what it calls "next-generation" capacitive sensors, which represent "the next step in contactless sensor design."

According to the company, these sensors offer superior resolution and are more resistant to magnetic interference when compared to the TMR and Hall effect models found in other high-spec controllers, while still avoiding stick drift. When paired with the 16-bit ADC chip inside, the new tracking results in around 3,000 steps of movement tracking per sensor.

Still with me? Good, because I haven't got to the customisation options yet. The front faceplate of the V4 Pro is now magnetic, and can be removed by wedging your fingernails underneath a hidden groove on the topside and giving it a sharp pull. Razer says more faceplate options are coming soon—so prepare yourself for the inevitable Minecraft tie-in, I guess.

You also get six interchangeable thumbstick caps to choose from. By default, it comes with your standard short concave models installed, but there are also a pair of taller versions, and a pair of convex replacements for weirdos. I mean, those who prefer a totally different thumbstick experience.

The rear paddle buttons are also removable, and the holes can be filled in with magnetic-locking plates that fit flush with the frame. All of these magnetic additions explain the switch to interference-resistant capacitive thumbstick sensors, that's for sure. You can also switch between software profiles on the fly with an assigned button combo. Phew.

What's left? Oh yes, the battery life. Razer reckons you'll get a maximum of 27 hours out of the V4 Pro, a seven-hour improvement over the old model. That depends on polling rate and haptic settings, though. Charging from empty to full is quoted at three hours via the USB Type-C connection.

The last change is a pronounced lip around the USB Type-C port on the rear. This is to prevent a flexed cable from damaging the port over time, although my old V3 Pro sits on charge regularly and has never had an issue. The raised section is a bit… over-pronounced, if you ask me. The lip stands out on what is otherwise a seamless design. Still, I appreciate the concession towards durability, if nothing else.

Razer Wolverine V4 Pro ergonomics

I've been holding the V4 Pro up against my V3 model for some time now, and it looks (and feels) like exactly the same chassis shape to me. This is a very good thing. If I look ever so closely, I would say the textured grip on the rear of the V4 Pro is slightly finer, although this could be down to wear on my older version.

It's the differing textures underneath the various controls that stand out, though. The triggers still have a weighty resistance to them, with a deliciously smooth action. The main bumpers click with precision, whereas the taller macro buttons underneath them have a longer, "snippier" sort of click. You won't mix them up easily while staring at a screen, I've found.

The matte-finish PBT used on face buttons is plenty grippy under the fingertips, and while the switches underneath feel roughly the same, there does seem to be a slightly faster action when placing them side-by-side with my V3 Pro. Again, that could be down to wear on my used model, but there's definitely an improvement under my right thumb here that I appreciate.

And as for the snappier thumbsticks, I didn't think they were much of an improvement when I tried them out in a Gamescom booth earlier this year. However, having now spent some quality time with them, the lighter stick resistance really does make a difference to my aiming speed. There's still a little bit of aim-steadying pushback, alongside a quicker snap back to center.

Speaking of the sticks, I can't help but be impressed by the robustness of the V4 Pro's customisation system. The thumbsticks themselves can be pulled off with a reasonable amount of force, and pressed back on firmly without incident. The faceplate is similarly secure, but it's still easy enough to remove once you know where to put your fingernail.

You don't have to remove the faceplate to replace the sticks, but I thought I'd try both together to see if I could disassemble the front of the controller with one hand:

And yes, I can. But the biggest boon to customisation happens round the back, where any (or all) of the rear paddle buttons can be removed and replaced with magnetic-locking plates. These snap into place to create a remarkably flush fit, which makes the plates practically disappear underneath my fingers.

I've got used to resting my ring and pinky digits on the rear paddles of my V3, but if you're not using them all the time, they can feel a little obstructive.

No such worries here. Block them all off individually, or keep one or two around for specific tasks if you so wish.

Despite all these modular features, the V4 Pro feels like a rock solid, totally finished product. There are no rattles, no rough edges, no fiddly bits of cheap plastic. It might be expensive, but this controller really does feel like you've bought a ticket to the executive lounge.

Razer Wolverine V4 Pro performance

To test the Wolverine V4 Pro, I booted up three controller-favouring games from my Steam library: Elden Ring, Crimson Desert, and Control Resonant. I have many hours in each, much of which has been spent with either the V3 Pro, or the standard Xbox Wireless controller. I also had a knock around in Apex Legends to test its shooter capabilities.

And to my genuine surprise, I could feel the difference immediately. Control Resonant in particular, a game with much target switching and button juggling, actually feels a touch easier with the new Wolverine. The snappier thumbsticks make a real difference to fast direction changes, and while I'm no expert judge of 8K polling and sub-1ms latency times, the V4 Pro definitely feels quicker to respond.

The haptic responses are also super-powerful. So much so, I think most people will probably turn them down—but vibration fans are in for a buzz. Turning this controller on for the first time actually made me jump, as it jiggled my desk with such force.

The face buttons are quick to press and slightly more positive, too, which adds to the feeling of snappy responsiveness. And I really enjoy the heavyweight triggers, which make firing an arrow in Crimson Desert feel more purposeful than most. My Elden Ring performance has also felt the benefit, although I still suck at it overall. No fancy controller is going to change that.

And while I'd personally never pick a controller over keyboard and mouse controls in a shooter, the Wolverine V4 Pro is plenty responsive in Apex Legends, too. If I had to use my thumbs for precision shooting? I'll take one of these, please. It's better than any other controller I've tried for speedy first-person aiming, put it that way.

There's a feeling of extra precision to the Wolverine V4 Pro that I didn't realise the previous version lacked. It's subtle, but very much there. One feels like a luxury item with a touch of padding, while the other is sharper, lighter under the fingertips, and slightly more eager.

Plus, being able to individually remove the rear paddles (I quite like dropping them down to two, ring fingers only) makes for a more comfortable gaming experience.

I'd expected to forget about the internal upgrades once my brain was focussed on a game, but I was wrong. It's easy to tell that improvements have been made. And switching back to a standard Xbox Wireless controller afterwards definitely feels like a major downgrade. Still, you can pick one up for around a quarter of the price—so I can't knock it too badly.

Razer Wolverine V4 Pro aesthetics

Razer has ditched the RGB-lit lettering on the front of the new Wolverine, but I doubt many will miss it. I've turned mine off on the older model, as while it looks good in photos, it can be a touch distracting. Instead, what you get here is a stealthed out, grown-up-looking device.

Not very Razer, is it? Still, I'm definitely a fan of the all-black aesthetic. The matte finish on the PBT face buttons doesn't just feel good, but looks the part, too. I suppose it's not the best controller for beginners, or those who still hunt for the Y button in a panic during a QTE event. There are no multi-coloured buttons or white letters to help you out here.

My major bugbear, though, is the protruding USB Type-C cable port, which sticks out more than I'd like and makes for an ugly blemish on what is otherwise a very refined design. At least it's round the back, ey?

Razer Wolverine V4 Pro software

The Wolverine V4 Pro is configured via Razer Synapse, which will be a benefit for those of you with Razer devices already—and perhaps a downside for those who don't. Still, Synapse is very workable these days, and the menu system for this particular controller is pretty straightforward.

Alongside the profile switching options at the top (which can also be cycled using on-controller button combos) there are five main tabs: Customize, Triggers, Thumbsticks, Power, and Calibration. The first gives you the most useful settings, these being polling rate, haptic intensity, and communication switching modes, alongside button configurations.

There are also options for the SOCD feature, which allow you to configure what happens when you press and hold two opposite directions at once.

You can adjust the trigger ranges in the second tab, and fiddle with the sensitivity and dead zones of the thumbsticks in the third. Honestly, I feel like a lot of these options could be boiled down to a single page, but at least it's not a labyrinth of poorly worded menus like some others I could name.

A case in point is the fourth tab, Power, which has exactly one thing you can adjust—the length of time the controller stays on when inactive. And the fifth tab handles individual control calibration, which I guess is worthy of its own section. Overall, though, the software is perfectly acceptable. Better than most, even.

Razer Wolverine V4 Pro

Razer quotes a 27-hour battery life for the new Wolverine, although I'd imagine that's at lower-than-8K polling rates. What I can say from my own testing, though, is that my review sample came out of the box with a 65% charge and I've only just plugged it in. That's after several days of on/off gaming.

Those weren't 24-hour sessions, of course. But several eight-hour sprints without reaching for the USB cable certainly seem possible. I'm still old-school enough to want to plug my controller in after I've finished, but it's a habit I'm starting to break.

What would be nice though, for the cash, would be an included charging stand. It's something we're starting to see more often these days—even with some of the more affordable controllers, like the EasySMX D05. Food for thought, Razer?

Razer Wolverine V4 Pro value

Do we have to talk money? I'm afraid so. The Wolverine V4 Pro is expensive, and there's no getting around it. When the GameSir G7 Pro Tri-Mode costs $80, the $200 price tag of Razer's new baby looks more than a little excessive.

The G7 Pro also has customisation options similar to the Razer, with its removable faceplate and swappable controls. You can't get rid of the rear paddle buttons, though, a feature I find most handy on the new Wolverine. The GameSir model also has TMR thumbsticks, which should be in the same ballpark as the Razer's. They won't stick drift, put it that way.

In terms of value, it's clear that the GameSir G7 Pro Tri-Mode wins the day. It's less than half the price, for goodness sake, and it comes with a charging cradle. But I don't think the heavyweight price tag spoils the Wolverine V4 Pro, either.

Yes, it's a lot of money to pay for a controller. But if you're the sort of gamer who sits for hours every weekend with one in your hands, the Razer really does feel like the final boss. It's got pretty much every feature you really need (and many extra niceties you might not expect), alongside a smorgasbord of delicious controls and switches that feel like the cat's pyjamas. And when it comes to speedy inputs? Fuggedaboutit.

Plus, being able to individually block off those rear paddle buttons and swap out thumbsticks on the fly makes more difference than you think. Whatever your setup, whatever your odd combination of control preferences, the Razer is likely ready for you. And it's even managed to avoid any overblown gamer flair while it's at it. This is a grown-up device for adults, not an RGB-covered piece of frippery.

Pricey? You bet, and I wish it was significantly cheaper. But, in the same way I'd happily recommend spending a lot of money on something brilliant you're going to use all the time, like a great gaming chair, TV, or headset, I do think the Wolverine V4 Pro makes a very good case for justifying the expense.

We won't get to play Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches for consoles on November 19, but they can't stop us from watching the Grand Theft Auto 6 launch trailer! So, let's do that.

It's definitely a trailer for a GTA game, but this one feels a bit more restrained to me than what we've seen in the past—or maybe more focused is a better way to put it, with a greater emphasis on character and narrative than the chaos of the previous games, or even the previous GTA 6 trailers. There's definitely a cinematic flair to it—makes me feel like I'm settling in for the season-ending two-parter of a Michael Mann series from a decade or so ago.

So what's cooking in our newest trip to Leonida?

"Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them. But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida — forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive."

The musical choice is interesting: Rather than the licensed music of the first two trailers (Tom Petty's Love is a Long Road in trailer one, The Pointer Sisters doing Hot Together in trailer two), this tune is a new track from Justice, an electronic duo who composed the GTA 6 score. If you dig it, here's the full version—it's pretty good!

We still don't have a release date, or even an official announcement, for the PC version of GTA 6, although there's no doubt one is coming—it always happens, sooner or later. A recently floated rumor said it'll be out sometime in early 2027, just a few months after the console debut, but I'm not buying it.

Well, here it is, Nvidia's all-in-one silicon, the RTX Spark. This is an SoC that's being promoted as the everything chip; the processor that can be all things to all people. It's a creator's chip, it's an AI-lover's chip, and it's a gamer's chip.

But all three of those kinds of people do need to have one thing in common: they need to be rather well off, because this is also an expensive chip. I spoke about it when the pricing first came to light last week, while I was at the launch event for this Windows-based tech. Even the cheapest of the RTX Spark machines coming our way will cost $2,700, and that will only get you the weaker cores, a paltry 24 GB of unified memory, and a 512 GB SSD.

That is certainly a limitation, but also completely expected in a time where all things PC cost a ludicrous amount of money, especially devices which are locked into requiring a colossal amount of memory to do their main task. Which, let's be honest here, is AI.

The unified memory architecture (UMA) of the RTX Spark is perfectly suited to providing a ton of memory for system resources, but also to be able to switch that over to supporting the GPU when it comes to smashing through local AI workloads which fill up the GPU's memory pool. It's the perfect time for Nvidia to release something like this, because local AI is set for a bit of an explosion in popularity (especially when the cloud services start charging real money for their services), but it's also the worst time because this sort of memory-heavy hardware is expensive.

But here it is in front of me, an RTX Spark laptop that looks for all the world like the slimline MacBook-esque Razer Blade machines I've loved for years. But this is no Blade, this is an Asus ProArt P16 and it's a stunner. Thinner than the Zephyrus G16 with a sleek aluminium body and a 64 GB, 20-core RTX Spark N1X chip inside it.

I've only been using it a short time, and there is so much to it and so much that is going to change over the next few months that I'm only really going to scratch the surface here. But today I'm going to go over the architecture and the gaming performance, and maybe I'll give you a little bit about my adventures in agentic AI as a palate cleanser later on.

Yet, even having spent under a week with an RTX Spark as my daily driver, I think from the get-go I can probably say that this is not a platform I can really recommend to the average PC gamer. It's too expensive and we're better served by the gaming laptops already on the market. But, it is an absolutely fascinating, and genuinely impressive platform, and could be a real glimpse at the future of PCs and laptops as a whole.

Nvidia RTX Spark - architecture

I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. The promise of an all-Nvidia gaming laptop has been a tantalising prospect for years now; even before the company tried to buy Arm itself there were rumours of an SoC that would combine Arm cores with Nvidia's powerful GPU silicon.

AMD's had its own APUs for the longest time, and Intel has been running every facet of a laptop since the dark ages. So it's no surprise Nvidia wanted a piece of that pie.

And with Qualcomm taking the initial Windows-on-Arm hit with its Snapdragon Elite and Plus chips, letting the OS evolve around the early teething troubles, the time is now ripe for Nvidia's platform to come to fruition.

Actually, there is no Windows-on-Arm anymore as Microsoft is ditching the suffix and just calling it Windows, because Microsoft is all-in here, too. To be honest, I think that's largely down to the push for local AI and the fact Linux is generally where that lives right now—including the DGX Spark, which was the first desktop home of the N1X chip that's running the RTX Spark. But Microsoft is also helping on the gaming side, making the Prism emulation layer more robust on an Arm platform and also committing to bringing all the anti-cheat apps over that Linux currently doesn't have.

Though Epic is working on the Linux side of that right now.

The Nvidia RTX Spark SoC packs in all the Nvidia good stuff alongside a whole slew of, what appear to be, relatively off-the-shelf Arm cores. This is all packed in alongside up to 128 GB of unified LPDDR5X-9400 memory.

First the GPU side. This is exactly the same as we've already seen drop in the DGX Spark machine launched around this time last year; it's an RTX Blackwell-based chip, sporting 6144 CUDA cores across 48 SMs. Effectively, that's the same core configuration as the desktop RTX 5070 GPU, the GB205, although with a chunk less L2 cache, and a necessarily slower clock speed.

This is one of the reasons that, despite having the same configuration as the desktop RTX 5070, Nvidia is tempering performance expectations by suggesting it will be more akin to the performance of the mobile RTX 5070 (which has fewer SM) in actual gaming performance.

Aside from the cache difference, and the overall difference in attached system memory (LPDDR5X not GDDR7) we can assume that the layout of the Blackwell SM remains the same as it has done since the architecture first launched. There are still 128 CUDA cores per SM and I would expect 192 fifth gen Tensor Cores and 48 fourth gen RT Cores, as there are in the DGX Spark's chip.

The 256-bit memory interface and slower memory means you're getting 300 GB/s of memory bandwidth, against the 672 GB/s the desktop RTX 5070 configuration can offer on its 192-bit bus. But these are slightly apples vs. oranges comparisons because of the platform the RTX Spark is sitting in, the unified memory architecture (UMA) it's surrounded by, and the CPU companion it has.

Which, although Nvidia is calling it a Grace CPU, and custom-made with MediaTek, does still just sport some off-the-shelf Arm cores. But a lot of them, to be fair. There are 10 'performance' Arm Cortex-X925 cores and 10 'efficient' Arm Cortex-A725 cores and they mark the peak of Arm's 2024 lineup.

As far as we know, however, there hasn't been any additional work done with these cores to help bolster the necessary emulation to be able to run the x86-focused workloads that are going to be thrown their way. This is the step Apple has taken with its own Arm cores, making sure they're designed from the ground up to take care of such things.

There is also a second, cut-down RTX Spark SoC. That comes with 5120 CUDA cores across 40 SMs (so a commensurate reduction in Tensor cores and RT cores, too) and with 18 Arm CPU cores, meaning one less of each of the performance and efficient cores.

Nvidia RTX Spark - Gaming performance

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1080p gaming performance

Testing the relative gaming performance of different laptops across multiple games.

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra)Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (1080p High)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

36

27

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W

43

33

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

45

28

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	36 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W	43 Avg FPS, 33 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	45 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

42

24

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W

69

41

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

65

38

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	42 Avg FPS, 24 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W	69 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	65 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

66

42

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W

64

55

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

65

56

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (1080p High) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	66 Avg FPS, 42 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W	64 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	65 Avg FPS, 56 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

75

29

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W

82

51

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

84

50

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	75 Avg FPS, 29 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W	82 Avg FPS, 51 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	84 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS

Native gaming performance

Testing the relative gaming performance across multiple games at the laptop screen's native resolution.

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra)Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark | 1880p

18

13

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W | 1600p

18

8

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W | 1800p

7

3

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark | 1880p	18 Avg FPS, 13 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W | 1600p	18 Avg FPS, 8 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W | 1800p	7 Avg FPS, 3 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark | 1880p

36

22

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W | 1600p

67

37

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W | 1800p

61

30

Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark | 1880p	36 Avg FPS, 22 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W | 1600p	67 Avg FPS, 37 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W | 1800p	61 Avg FPS, 30 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark | 1880p

38

26

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W | 1600p

72

62

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W | 1800p

63

55

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark | 1880p	38 Avg FPS, 26 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W | 1600p	72 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W | 1800p	63 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark | 1880p

46

17

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W | 1600p

54

39

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W | 1800p

49

35

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark | 1880p	46 Avg FPS, 17 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W | 1600p	54 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W | 1800p	49 Avg FPS, 35 1% Low FPS

Upscaled gaming performance

Testing the relative gaming performance of different laptops across multiple games.

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%))

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

54

34

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W

75

58

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

62

43

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	54 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W	75 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	62 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

62

37

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W

72

62

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

63

55

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%)) Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	62 Avg FPS, 37 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W	72 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	63 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS

The performance I've been getting out of this slim little gaming laptop has been impressive. Especially when you consider the power it's drawing to get mighty close to (and sometimes matching) the performance of gaming laptops whose GPUs alone are running to 115 W of power.

The Metro Exodus Enhanced benchmark is the one we've been consistently using for gaming performance metrics because we can easily loop the test runs to provide a more long-term understanding of what happens over a gaming session. And, looking at the numbers the RTX Spark in this Asus ProArt P16 laptop is demonstrating, you can see what an efficient piece of silicon this is.

We ran a triple loop of the Metro Exodus Enhanced benchmark at top 1080p settings and while the RTX Spark machine was demonstrably slower than the other RTX 5070 systems I'm comparing it against, it's running at a fraction of the power draw. At 75 fps it is behind the 115 W RTX 5070 in the Blade 14 at 84 fps, but the chip is running almost 700 MHz slower and drawing down an average of 43 W over that run compared to 97 W for the Razer laptop.

System performance

Measuring the relative performance of the different laptop chips in terms of power and thermals.

GPU statsGaming temperatures

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU power (W)

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

1906

43

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W

2421

77

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

2589

97

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	1906 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 43 Avg GPU power (W)
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W	2421 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 77 Avg GPU power (W)
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	2589 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 97 Avg GPU power (W)

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

Avg GPU (°C)

Max GPU (°C)

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

75

83

67

70

Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W

65

73

68

71

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

79

85

78

81

Gaming temperatures Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	75 Avg CPU (°C), 83 Max CPU (°C), 67 Avg GPU (°C), 70 Max GPU (°C)
Framework 16 | RTX 5070 100 W	65 Avg CPU (°C), 73 Max CPU (°C), 68 Avg GPU (°C), 71 Max GPU (°C)
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	79 Avg CPU (°C), 85 Max CPU (°C), 78 Avg GPU (°C), 81 Max GPU (°C)

The other side of that is that, because it's such an efficient setup pulling the plug out of the side of the thing isn't going to slam the frame rate. You're still going to get within a percentage point of the same performance whether you're plugged into the wall or not.

Keep this thing in Performance mode and I've seen the frame rate change by maybe a couple of fps, but nothing that's really more than could be explained by statistical variance. Nvidia says that you will get around 99% of the performance from the battery you get from the plug, and that bears out.

But even on Balanced power mode, in the ProArt Creator Hub (a reskinned Armoury Crate), while the power draw drops to 30 W and the GPU clock speed to 1572 MHz, I only saw Metro's benchmark drop by maybe five frames per second on average.

That's not to say there aren't issues here, because at full power you're still not going to be gaming for hours. I measured under an hour and a half running the Fire Strike benchmark on loop via the PCMark 10 CLI. Which is not really what I'd hoped to see from an efficient Arm-based system.

This is still a gaming laptop that wants to be plugged in for the most part, maybe not for performance but definitely for longevity.

Battery life

Testing gaming battery life using PCMark 10's dedicate gaming battery life test.

PCMark 10

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

86

Framework 16

131

Razer Blade 14 (2025)

134

037.575112.5150

Battery life (minutes)

PCMark 10 Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	86
Framework 16	131
Razer Blade 14 (2025)	134

The other inevitable issues surround emulation. This is not an x86 system and while Microsoft's Prism layer is very good for the most part, there are problems with running games on an Arm system that will be familiar to anyone who's spent any time playing games on Linux. Yes, the hoary ol' chestnut of anti-cheat.

The good news is that Microsoft is working hard on this, presumably with the aim of stopping defectors from entering the sunny uplands of Linux gaming, and a ton of anti-cheat providers are already running on RTX Spark and Windows (formerly on Arm). From everybody's favourite, Denuvo, to BattlEye and EAC, a host of multiplayer games can be played from day one.

But there are still some notable exceptions, the main one for me being EA's Javelin. I like me some Battlefield, and I've been playing a lot of FC27 recently, too, for I am a football-liker. These are currently games not compatible with RTX Spark, nor is the F1 24 benchmark we run across our gaming laptop suite, either. Javelin is expected to be updated and added to the list of supported anti-cheats next year, but for right now, you're out of luck.

CPU performance

Testing the straight CPU performance of the relative laptop silicon.

Cinebench 20247zip 24.07Procyon

Multi-core index score

Single-core index score

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

1018

72

Framework 16 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

1158

105

MSI Crosshair 16 HX | Core Ultra 9 275HX

1320

134

Razer Blade 14 | Ryzen AI 9 365

1054

115

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	1018 Multi-core index score, 72 Single-core index score
Framework 16 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	1158 Multi-core index score, 105 Single-core index score
MSI Crosshair 16 HX | Core Ultra 9 275HX	1320 Multi-core index score, 134 Single-core index score
Razer Blade 14 | Ryzen AI 9 365	1054 Multi-core index score, 115 Single-core index score

Compressing (GIPS)

Decompressing (GIPS)

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

156.362

135.541

Framework 16 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

108.822

128.355

MSI Crosshair 16 HX | Core Ultra 9 275HX

121.787

130.822

Razer Blade 14 | Ryzen AI 9 365

103.17

107.975

7zip 24.07 Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	156.362 Compressing (GIPS), 135.541 Decompressing (GIPS)
Framework 16 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	108.822 Compressing (GIPS), 128.355 Decompressing (GIPS)
MSI Crosshair 16 HX | Core Ultra 9 275HX	121.787 Compressing (GIPS), 130.822 Decompressing (GIPS)
Razer Blade 14 | Ryzen AI 9 365	103.17 Compressing (GIPS), 107.975 Decompressing (GIPS)

Overall index score

Duration (Sec)

Sec/image

Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark

1505

66.404

4.15

Framework 16 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

1789

55.9

3.49

MSI Crosshair 16 HX | Core Ultra 9 275HX

1508

66.27

4.14

Razer Blade 14 | Ryzen AI 9 365

1704

58.67

3.67

Procyon Data

Product	Value
Asus ProArt P16 | RTX Spark	1505 Overall index score, 66.404 Duration (Sec), 4.15 Sec/image
Framework 16 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	1789 Overall index score, 55.9 Duration (Sec), 3.49 Sec/image
MSI Crosshair 16 HX | Core Ultra 9 275HX	1508 Overall index score, 66.27 Duration (Sec), 4.14 Sec/image
Razer Blade 14 | Ryzen AI 9 365	1704 Overall index score, 58.67 Duration (Sec), 3.67 Sec/image

The other issue is also CPU related, though not 100% emulation based. Those Arm cores, even the X925 'performance' cores are not the same as the x86 chips from AMD and Intel right now. Multithreading is fine, but the real problem is single core performance. Take a look at the Cinebench scores and you'll see what I mean.

With a single core score of 72 it's well behind the other chips in the test. Those this benchmark will, of course, be emulated and that is going to impact the outcome, but it highlights where the limitations lie with Nvidia's approach to the SoC. Translate that into gaming terms and the Baldur's Gate 3 benchmark above highlights this perfectly.

This is a game we use to benchmark the gaming performance of a system's CPU because the end-game in the city really demands a lot from your processor. That's why you'll see the MSI Crosshair 16 HX topping the benchmarks here, with its grunty Intel processor. And down the bottom is the RTX Spark with its Arm cores chugging along some 43% slower in terms of frame rate.

Nvidia RTX Spark - Early impressions

I can't really give a solid verdict on the RTX Spark having only had it in my hands for less than a week. But I can certainly give you my first impressions. And they are that the platform delivers a really great device. The Asus ProArt P16 is an absolute delight to use, and the performance it delivers is genuinely impressive.

If this were the same price, or even slightly more than an RTX 5070 gaming laptop, then it would be an easy thing to call this the future of mobile gaming machines. It comes in a thoroughly enjoyable form factor, performs admirably, and it would be a real toss-up for me as to whether I would rather this or the Razer Blade 14.

But it's not. This is a $4,400 machine, and while you can't currently pick up Blade 14 right now, you can get really lovely RTX 5070 gaming laptops for a lot lot less.

So, it can't be a solid recommendation for a dedicated PC gamer.

For less than the price of this middle-range RTX Spark laptop, you can pick up a very well-specced RTX 5090 laptop that comes with 24 GB of very fast GDDR7 VRAM. And that will really do the business when it comes to local AI. Yes, you can go and buy a 24 GB RTX Spark for $2,700, but that would be the same overall memory pool as a standard 16 GB laptop with an RTX 5070. Or even RTX 5060 for that matter. That's not going to get you real access to good local AI models to take advantage of what makes the RTX Spark special.

And there are things that do make it special. If you could stretch to the 64 GB version I have here, and you do far more than game on your device, it does become almost that do-everything laptop. You absolutely can play games on this at high frame rates when you're done doing serious work things, but you can also slam through beefy local AI models, but you also have both the GPU and memory power to run through practically any creative task you put your mind to. And Windows (formerly 'on Arm') is now so transparent that almost every application you might use to do that is fully supported on the OS.

This is my daily driver now, and I'll be spending a lot more time with it to give a more considered take down the line, combined with a whole lot more gaming benchmarks. But for now, and for a very specific audience, this is a hell of a machine. For the rest of us? Well, it's a glimpse into a future where the x86 hegemony of hardware has well and truly been put to rest.

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.

We all know the tale of Civilization 7. It came, it saw, it had you choose a new civ at the dawn of each age and that annoyed quite a lot of people indeed. Sic transit gloria Meier-i.

So I was a bit surprised when Amplitude sat us down for a look at Humankind 2 and focused so much on its culture system, reworked from the first game, but a big part of which is selecting new cultures to embrace as the eras chug along—Egyptians becoming Berbers, or Romans, or even English (a dreadful fate) if circumstances conspire to allow it in the game's sandbox.

But I liked what I saw. The other big talking point of the hands-off demo I got was on climate and biome, and how that intersects with and shapes culture. Humankind 2's vision of history is a dialectical one, where a culture is shaped by a biome which is changed by a culture which is influenced by a biome which… you get the idea. Climate isn't static, either. Just like real life, it'll undergo natural and unnatural disruptions depending on chance and player/NPC activity.

So it all feels like an intricate and natural take on (a type of) materialist history. Just, you know, a materialist history where the Egyptians might find themselves waking up to snow one day.

The white sun of the desert

Our demo started us off looking at a map of the world—as in Earth, the actual world—dotted with numerous tribes. The interplay of environment and culture kicks off immediately: each tribe gets a "First Tale" linked to the territory in which they begin, the founding myths that act as the kernels for the full-fledged cultures that will eventually develop. They provide buffs (+X Authority, +Y Learning, and so on) and changes to tiles and citizen roles.

These are the things that, from the jump, make you just a little bit better at existing in your chosen environment than the other guys on the map, and that are meant to make your faction feel less like it emerged, fully-formed, from nowhere at all. We ended up with a tribe in the general vicinity of modern-day Egypt whose First Tale, appropriate enough for the banks of the Nile, was "Flood Tamer"—the upshot being that they consumed less water and were better at putting water and its generation to positive uses than average.

Amplitude says that Humankind 2's different starting biomes will have a dramatic impact on the shape of your game, especially as you start drilling down past the broad bonuses of your selected First Tale and into the more specific trees of "Adaptations" you can make to deepen your culture's affinity for its chosen biome. As Ancient Egypt, sweating in the sun of the North African desert, we could spend culture points to unlock adaptations like mudbricks, camel herding, heat endurance, and so on—various ways to adapt to the sweltering heat and scarce water of your chosen home.

Our culture and selected adaptations let us actually scrounge up some water in the African desert, but Amplitude noted that this was no reason to rest on our laurels. Climate shifts, like the actual Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age, can occur, turning biomes more arid or humid. Your carefully selected adaptations can be blunted by mother nature, though that's not to say it's impossible to adapt to radical change: toward the end of the demo we leapt into a save which saw Egyptian civilisation blanketed in snow, sheets of ice climbing the sides of the pyramids. Its adaptations now focused on warmth, whaling, and the long-term preservation of scarce resources.

The goal of all this is very Amplitude: factions that feel distinguished by more than a different aesthetic and a set of starting bonuses, and that feel uniquely tied to, and shaped by, the world around them. Having only really seen Ancient Egypt in action, I can't make any declarations as to its success, but I struggle to imagine a player starting in the Tundra, Taiga, Forest, or Brush biomes making the same moves our demo did.

Likewise, if our desert-adapted Egyptians suddenly marched into the Jungle, I get the sense they would find themselves at a serious disadvantage compared to the environment's native inhabitants. This is something you could feasibly exploit, one day. Amplitude suggested that, if you had a culture that was incredibly good at handling arid environments, you might willingly trigger some sort of nuclear apocalypse to render the whole Earth that way. Great news for you, bad news for your enemies who grew up in the snow (and for the billions of vaporised people, I suppose).

Culture shock

Amplitude is trying to move away from what it called "monolithic" cultures in Humankind 1—consisting of "a unity, a building, and a bonus, basically"—into something more skill-tree-based in the second game.

Every culture has a set of customs you can unlock, divided by tier, and which you equip and activate in a limited number of bonus slots. They do pretty much what you'd expect—Egypt can opt into a pharaonic tradition to buff its authority generation, or get better at wringing water from the desert sand—but it's another way the studio is trying to make each faction feel unique, tailored, and adapted specifically to its material conditions.

As the eras pass by, your culture will approach "Crossroads" points, where you can decide to diverge based on either common history, shared land, or foreign contact (the first being free, the second costing culture points, and the third costing even more culture points). New cultures unlock new customs, new city aesthetics, and new roles (Humankind 2's take on a pop and job system for your cities). There are 70 cultures total, said the studio.

This did not, in the small example I was shown, seem quite as jarring as Civ 7's implementation of its own similar concept, rather it was just one way in which Amplitude is trying to make each of your sessions in the game feel different. "With Humankind 2 you will make really unique cities that won't just be the same template over and over," pledged the studio, in contrast to the first game.

Also a contrast to the first game: production values. Amplitude touted its new effects and animations as it played—wonders now assemble themselves bit-by-bit in dramatic fashion when completed, for instance—and talked up the game's load times even on ageing rigs. It's not the most important thing, maybe, but it does look quite nice, and makes the game feel like more of a genuine competitor to Civ, with all that series' lavishly rendered cutscenes and wonder animations.

I certainly didn't see enough of Humankind 2 to make any sweeping declarations about it or its upcoming place in the 4X canon, but I'll tell you this: I'm intrigued. Amplitude seems to be taking a lot of good lessons from both its own back catalogue and the general 4X space for Humankind 2, and I'm eager to see how they all come together when the game releases next year.