The PC is one of the most popular gaming platforms in the world, and one that’s constantly changing. Here at The Verge we cover every aspect, including the latest hardware developments from companies like Nvidia and Logitech, massively popular games like Fortnite and Overwatch, and hugely influential digital platforms like Steam and itch.io.
PM Keir Starmer was asked about the firings at Rockstar Games in a Prime Minister’s Questions session on Wednesday, as reported by Kotaku.
Starmer called the situation “deeply concerning,” saying, “Our ministers will look into the particular case the member raises and will keep him updated.”
Microsoft seems to have gotten the message that Linux is becoming real competition and that the Xbox Ally needs more work! “[W]e will continue refining system behaviors that matter most to gaming: background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations, and updated drivers,” the company writes.
[Windows Experience Blog]
The mobile version of the Cozy Grove-inspired life sim MMO, currently in alpha playtesting, will continue to be available through Netflix, but now there’s also a PC version coming in 2026. Its Steam page arrives less than a week after Netflix sold Spry Fox back to the studio’s original owners.
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Price hikes related to the memory shortage aren’t just coming for PC gamers; smartphones, laptops, and storage drives could soon get increases, too.
Last week, Arrowhead Game Studios announced that they are drastically reducing the file size of the PC version of Helldivers 2, bringing it down to just 23GB (from 154GB).
Testing by Digital Foundry shows that this “slim” version doesn’t have any noticeable performance drawbacks. Even on an HDD, it only took 6.3 seconds longer to load into a tutorial compared to the original version.
[Digital Foundry]
Horses, the indie narrative horror game that’s been banned not only on Steam, but on Epic Game Store as well, is back for sale on Humble after a brief delisting. Here’s a quote from Santa Ragione explaining the situation courtesy of IGN:
“In short, their team saw the press coverage and temporarily delisted Horses to reevaluate it. After a full review they determined that while the content is heavy, nothing in the game warrants removal from their store.”
The name Lepton appeared on Steam and SteamDB just a few weeks after Valve unveiled the Steam Frame headset, which will be able to run Android apps.
In our new interview with Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais, he mentioned the Frame uses “a similar compatibility layer as Proton, just targeted at Android.”
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Wooting has done a great job improving the sound and feel of its popular keyboard.
I knew RAM was being sold at market prices just like a catch-of-the-day at a seafood restaurant, but in the UK they must love really expensive lobster or something. One retailer, Curry’s Business, is selling 8GB of DDR4 for £120,000 ($159,000). If you add the UK’s VAT tax on it’s £144,000 ($190,000). I’ll take two, please.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney thinks rival storefront Steam should stop flagging when games are made with AI, because it’s going to be ubiquitous. In a sense he’s not wrong, but is there a difference between using AI for coding compared to creativity?
indieman:
AI code is different from AI art and writing. Every developer uses autocomplete (which is a form of AI, even before LLMs) and it would be dumb to have disclaimers for that. What people don’t want is AI slop in the games, and that comes from outsourcing artwork and scripts to gen AI.
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It is known that flash storage isn’t forever — but now’s the time to spread the word. Don’t just leave ‘em in a drawer!
Before, most SSDs you’d pull out of an old PC weren’t big enough to use as long-term storage, and they probably had lower-density cells (SLC, MLC) less likely to corrupt. That has changed. Don’t do it.
Now we’re playing Doom on... receipts. This has gone on long enough.
google_was_my_idea:
At this point, Doom might as well replace Hello World as the default launch code for everything.
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At least, according to a new trove of benchmark data collected by Gamers Nexus, which compares game performance on one of the most popular gaming Linux distributions.
They tested several different GPUs, too, so you can get an idea of how your PC might perform if you leave Windows behind.
The AI boom has now turned its baleful eye on RAM, driving prices up so high — and so fast — that stores are resorting to selling at “market price” to keep up. Of course, selling RAM like lobster opens up a whole world of possibilities.
CuriousToaster:
I don’t see how covering RAM in butter is going to help.
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It’s not going to be a sort of subsidized device, like Valve is not going into this thinking we’re going to eat a big loss on this so that we can group market share or category or anything like that, correct?
Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais:
No, it’s more in line with what you might expect from the current PC market. Obviously our goal is for it to be a good deal at that level of performance, and then you have features that are really hard to build if you are making your own gaming PC from parts.
And with RAM prices soaring... it might be a console, but not priced like one.
A story about a time-traveling, game-breaking Half-Life 2 door bug is as good a reminder as any that programming is neither an art, nor a science, but one of the deep magicks.
Sly Mr. Fox:
This kind of thing is why good programmers are paranoid and superstitious.
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Yesterday Microsoft announced it’s making the classic Zork games open-source, and apparently some folks have gotten a little excited about it.
alectrem:
no need to fork zork when you can uncork zork straight from the zork zource, its like the opposite of zork divorce in zork court due to a zork tort
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