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Articles by Hamid Murtaza
Ocarina of Time remake's blind auditions unexpectedly brought back an actor from the N64 original
After recently learning that Nintendo's upcoming Ocarina of Time remake reportedly needs 27GB of storage, making it the company's largest mainline Zelda download, we've now got even more insight into the development of the Switch 2 remake. With Ocarina of Time arriving on Switch 2 on November 5, Nintendo's latest Ask the Developer interviews reveal that at least one voice actor from the 1998 Nintendo 64 original has returned to play the same character.
Bend Studio's next game won't be Days Gone 2 but a co-op title targeting a 2027 release
According to a new report from MP1st, the PlayStation first-party studio is deep into development on a completely different project from Days Gone: a third-person co-op game planned for a 2027 launch. According to anonymous sources familiar with the studio's work, the game is "much further along in development" than most people would assume. That advanced state is what lets the team aim for a same-year announcement and release.
Phantom Blade Zero sells 4 million copies in just 3 days, following record-breaking Steam launch
S-GAME has confirmed that Phantom Blade Zero sold more than 4 million copies in its first 72 hours, marking a major milestone for the Chinese studio's first big-budget console and PC release. The announcement came through the game's official X account. As we reported earlier, Phantom Blade Zero had already made a strong impression on Steam, surpassing 700,000 concurrent players within 24 hours and becoming the platform's biggest single-player launch of 2026.
Valve's canceled Portal prequel F-Stop reconstructed nearly 20 years later using leaked Steam assets
F-Stop, Valve's highly anticipated Portal prequel, which was cancelled in 2007, has reportedly been reconstructed by several leakers and the Valve Cut Content team, according to Kotaku. The reconstruction reportedly combined three separate leaks of the game. Although access to the complete build remains somewhat limited, full playthroughs are beginning to surface on online platforms. In late August, approximately 12 TB of Steam depot data was leaked online.
EA reportedly canceled Mass Effect and shut down BioWare to prioritize a new Star Wars: Battlefront
Electronic Arts (EA) recently announced the closure of Canadian studio BioWare, ending its 30-year history and canceling early development on the next Mass Effect game. However, a new report suggests the decision may have been driven by a bigger plan, with EA reportedly choosing to prioritize a new Star Wars: Battlefront title over the upcoming Mass Effect installment.
Anthropic is going after the rise of vibe-coded game ports with new Claude Code restrictions
A user known as Chasm on X has spotted a new Claude Code rule that prohibits it from building recreations of existing games. People have put Claude's reverse-engineering capabilities to great use this year. We've seen developers use Claude to decompile games, optimize emulators, and port games to platforms they were never supposed to run on, such as Drive Club on PC.
Fan proposes over 5 million euros to revive Ubisoft's canceled The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake
According to a Reddit post on r/PrinceofPersia, one dedicated fan is willing to go to extreme lengths to get Ubisoft to finish The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake. Ubisoft worked on the game until 2025, but canceled the project because it "required more time and investment than we could responsibly commit," according to Ubisoft.
Arctic Fox's Super Mouse packs a touchscreen, voice dictation and more into a mouse
Arctic Fox has gone all out with its new Super Mouse, packing everything you could imagine and more into the device. The mouse was launched on October 26, with shipping expected to begin in February 2027. According to the company, computer mice have seen little change or development in their designs over the past several decades, and that is exactly what it aims to change with the Super Mouse.
Fake AnyPS5 and KytyPS5 repositories on GitHub are spreading password-stealing malware
The PS5 emulation scene has had a great run lately. KytyPS5 got GTA 5 running at up to 60 FPS on a high-end PC and took Demon's Souls Remake from unplayable to 30 FPS in days. Another developer ported it to an Xbox Series X, all while a jailbroken PS5 has become what modders are calling the gaming equivalent of the Infinity Gauntlet. However, where there is that much hype, there are people looking to cash in on it, and the latest report shows attackers doing exactly that.
Phantom Blade Zero tops 700,000 concurrent Steam players in 24 hours, biggest Single-Player launch this year
S-Game Studio's Phantom Blade Zero broke records immediately after its Steam release, reaching a peak concurrent player count of over 700,000 within just 24 hours. S-Game had primarily developed mobile games before this, making the RPG's massive success a huge win for the company. The game has secured its place as the 15th most-played game at launch in Steam's history, while also becoming the best-performing single-player game on Steam this year.
NVIDIA's RTX 5080 follows the RTX 5090 out of its US Marketplace as a 24GB model looms
If you're looking to buy an NVIDIA graphics card right now, you'll find the RTX 5070 Ti might be the only available high-end option. That's because the GeForce RTX 5080 has disappeared from NVIDIA's official US Marketplace, joining the RTX 5090, which was pulled earlier this month. Various sites confirmed the change after Redditors first identified it. Partner cards using the RTX 5080 silicon are also missing from the listings.
AMD reportedly plans another Radeon price increase in November as GDDR6 memory costs rise
AMD is allegedly preparing another price increase for its Radeon GPU and GDDR6 memory bundles in November, putting more pressure on an already expensive graphics card market. The reported adjustment would follow an increase that took effect in October, with rising GDDR6 costs once again being framed as the primary reason. If correct, Radeon buyers could face another price hike just as the holiday shopping season gets underway.
GPD teases Win Mini Ultra with Intel Arc G3 Extreme, larger 8-inch screen incoming
GPD has confirmed that its upcoming Win Mini Ultra will run Intel's Arc G3 Extreme processor, marking a clear shift away from the AMD chips used in current Win Mini models. The company teased the move in a Weibo post that shared a Handhelds United podcast episode and indicated an official launch is coming soon. The Arc G3 Extreme is Intel's dedicated Panther Lake handheld SoC.
Xbox CEO claims there's 'more demand than consoles available' despite 14% hardware sales drop
Xbox hardware revenue fell 14% year over year in Microsoft's fiscal first quarter, and total Xbox revenue slipped to $5.38 billion. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma frames the hardware decline as a supply problem rather than a demand problem.
Valve developer adds Steam Frame CD-ROM support to Linux kernel in 10 minutes, but it isn't released yet
A Steam Frame user recently tried to connect an external CD drive to the headset to watch a movie stored on a disc. However, the headset did not support external optical drives, prompting the user to post about the issue on the Steam Community forums. Valve developer Gaberow responded, saying they were looking into it. According to the user, the Steam Frame cannot power the drive and, even if it could, it lacks the drivers needed to read a disc.
Epic Games is now using Claude Code and Codex to improve and debug Unreal Engine
Epic Games has recently become one of the most pro-AI video game companies, endorsing AI use in coding and game development. In a public announcement on X, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said the company would switch to an "AI-first" development model, adding that there would be no more human-written code and that all art would be generated through AI workflows.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan says he discussed a potential AMD partnership as he pushes foundry business
Intel and AMD are two of the world's largest processor manufacturers and have competed against each other for nearly 60 years. Their rivalry, however, hasn't stopped them from exploring collaboration and partnership opportunities that benefit both parties. Reportedly, the CEOs of both companies recently had a chat where potential areas of partnership were discussed.
Switch 2 exclusive Mario Kart World runs on iPhone 18 Pro just days after jailbreak
Nintendo's lawyers are currently facing a gargantuan task in the form of Switch 2 emulation. Just days after the ns2jb jailbreak made game dumps possible, developers are already showing exclusive titles running on devices like macOS, iPhone, and early PC builds. The clearest progress comes from developer Will Faust, who posted footage of Mario Kart World running on an iPhone 18 Pro using a private fork of nxnative.
Discord's public chats could soon appear in Google results
Discord is opening up content from its largest public communities to the wider internet. In a blog post published yesterday, the company revealed plans to make discussions from Discoverable Servers simpler to find through web search, with the initial changes coming next month. A Discoverable Server is Discord's most public space: servers with at least 1,000 members that admins have chosen to list in Server Discovery so anyone can join without an invite. There are more than 63,000 of them as of now.
ASUS unveils TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 XT Onimusha Special Edition with Oni Gauntlet-inspired design
ASUS has unveiled the TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 XT Onimusha Special Edition, a custom graphics card built in collaboration with AMD and Capcom, based on Onimusha: Way of the Sword. ASUS hasn't confirmed a price or a general availability date. The card features a blue-and-gold design inspired by the game's Oni Gauntlet, with samurai-inspired artwork on the shroud and backplate. This isn't the first time we've seen it.
RecompLauncher catalogs 200+ fan-made console ports for Windows, Linux, and macOS, with desktop app planned
Gamers have long waited for publishers to re-release their favorite retro games on modern hardware officially. With many of those requests left unanswered, modders have launched RecompLauncher, a new website that gathers more than 200 community-made console game ports in one place. The team behind RecompStore introduced RecompLauncher as a catalog of PC ports for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Silent Hill remake leak points to 2027 release, with two cast members reportedly confirmed
The original Silent Hill was confirmed for a remake late last year, and now we have some fresh details. A report from MP1ST says the game is set to release in 2027, likely in the fall, based on the previous three entries. We also have some cast information. Gabrielle Fritz, who previously appeared in Battlefield 2042 and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, will make her series debut alongside Jade Matthew, who has appeared in various British TV shows.
Hacker defends $50,000 Sony payout after reporting PS5 exploit that may have led to Andy Nguyen abandoning his Linux project
Sony paid a security researcher $50,000 through its HackerOne bug bounty program for reporting a crucial PlayStation 5 hypervisor exploit he found with the help of generative AI. The payout, confirmed by the researcher known as Jordy, has sparked strong backlash in the PS5 homebrew community. The vulnerability affects PS5 firmware versions 13.60 through 14.00 and grants the kind of kernel-level access needed to run unsigned code or boot Linux.
A24's Elden Ring movie reportedly costs $200 million, almost as much as a Marvel blockbuster
A24's live-action Elden Ring movie is set to cost approximately $200 million according to insider reports from The Wall Street Journal. This enormous figure is well above the earlier $100 million estimate reported in April. By June, The Wall Street Journal covered Google's $75 million investment in A24 and raised the figure to $175 million. And now, the Elden Ring live-action film is set to cost almost as much as a Marvel movie.
Sony's PS6 handheld may get an exclusive custom RDNA 5 chip from AMD
Sony's long-rumored PlayStation 6 handheld, still known in leaks as Project Canis, may become the only portable gaming device with a custom RDNA 5 graphics chip. The claim comes from Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter, who discussed it during a recent Patreon-only episode of Digital Foundry Direct.
The Vantex V1 puts a touchpad in the middle of a split mechanical keyboard
Vantex has launched a Kickstarter for the V1, a compact split mechanical keyboard that builds a proper touchpad right into the middle of the board. The idea here is to help keep your hands on the home row for typing and cursor control without sliding over to a separate mouse. The CNC-machined aluminum chassis measures roughly 31cm wide and weighs around 1.57 kg, with a gentle 7-degree rear incline.
Leaked footage shows Chinese factories stripping hundreds of RTX 5090s for AI use
We already know just how much of a troublemaker the RTX 5090 has been lately. Prices have skyrocketed on NVIDIA's flagship, and rumors say retailers will pull the card from shelves as soon as January. Between sky-high prices and discontinuation talk, a shortage sits in the middle. The best consumer GPU on the market has been a pain to get your hands on, and a good chunk of that comes down to AI. Footage shared by HKEPC shows why.
YouTube plans to introduce AV2 video codec in 2027 for more efficient 4K streaming
YouTube is planning to bring the AV2 video codec to its web player as early as early 2027, with the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) confirming new momentum just four months after the specification was finalized. Google has also demonstrated AV2 playback in Chrome, though it hasn't said when the codec will reach the public browser. AV2 is a royalty-free codec released in June 2026 and backed by Amazon, Apple, Google, Intel, Netflix and Samsung.
Creative Assembly says it didn't develop Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition after Sega pulls troubled release
Total War: Shogun 2, considered one of the best strategy games of all time, just received a remastered version called the Complete Edition. However, things went south almost immediately, forcing publisher Sega to pull it from digital storefronts and restore the original 2011 version.
YouTuber turns his MacBook desktop into a playable Terraria world that connects to other games
Remember the classic stickman animation videos by creator Alan Becker, where characters would break into a desktop PC to wage epic battles with guns, axes, and all sorts of weapons. The figures treated the operating system as their arsenal, stealing the Adobe drawing pencil to sketch weapons or using the eraser tool for mass deletion. They would also use desktop elements like the Windows XP taskbar for cover or shields.
Gears of War: E-Day reportedly had a whopping $500 million production budget
The Coalition Studio's most recent release, Gears of War: E-Day, reportedly had a $500 million production budget, according to multiple sources. Both Kotaku and Chris Dring of The Game Business reported this figure. Kotaku's report cited an insider "familiar with Xbox business" and added that the figure doesn't include marketing costs. Another source, Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson, claimed earlier on a podcast that the budget exceeded $400 million.
This fan-made project lets you run Xbox One games on your iPhone or iPad
Utsuro is a new GitHub project that lets you run Xbox games on iOS and iPadOS. This isn't an emulation-based project. Instead, the GitHub page says it's a translation layer originally designed for macOS. Right now, the developer, Levi, notes that games like Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, Rocket League, and Sonic Mania run without issues on Macs. On iPhones, Minecraft: Xbox One Edition and Rocket League run with few issues, with the developer sharing a gameplay video on X.
Epic Games' 2026 AI MegaJam offers $65,000 in prizes, but the AI requirements are confusing
Epic Games is running another game jam, and this one leans hard into the current AI hype. The 2026 Epic AI MegaJam starts November 12 and gives participants just four days to build a playable game in either Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN). Teams can have up to five members plus unlimited AI agents.
Sony Japan discontinues its last standalone 4K Blu-ray player
Sony Japan recently announced the discontinuation of its latest Blu-ray player, the UBP-X700/K, which was launched on May 17th of this year. All shipments and physical sales of the player have been wrapped up as of October 22nd, and online stores have marked the item as permanently out of stock. The move doesn't come as a surprise, as the company publicly announced in February this year that it was shipping its last order of Blu-ray recorders.
Microsoft's cheaper 12-inch Surface Laptop could use AMD's Arm-based Sound Wave APU
Microsoft reportedly plans to cut costs on its entry-level 12-inch Surface device, and AMD could make an unexpected return to the lineup. According to a new report from DigiTimes, the company is reevaluating its hardware strategy as Apple's MacBook Neo puts pressure on the affordable laptop market and rising component costs make it increasingly difficult to keep prices low.
Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 2.5 adds dual-wield pistols, Edgerunners 2 quests, and cross-platform mods
Cyberpunk 2077's Edgerunners 2 Update is finally out. Patch 2.5 is live on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with the Nintendo Switch 2 and Mac App Store update coming in a few days. The headline addition for many players will be dual-wielding. A new Cool-tree perk called Double Trouble, along with four supporting perks, allows V to roam around Night City with a revolver or pistol in each hand.
Capcom data breach exposes account details for over 11 million users
The major Japanese video game developer and publisher Capcom suffered a massive data breach, detected on 19th October and confirmed by the company in a public announcement on 22nd October. After first noticing suspicious activity on 19th October, the company blocked access and started investigating the leak. On 20th October, an internal emergency response task force was formed to audit the extent of the damage.
Super Flower's new GPU protection cable joins the long list of attempts to stop RTX 50 series GPUs from melting
Super Flower is now part of a growing list of companies offering another accessory designed to stop high-end graphics cards from melting their own power connectors. The new VGA 12+4 pin OCP Dongle sits between your GPU and the 12V-2x6 cable, monitors current on each power pin, and alerts you if things look dangerous. If any pin hits between 9.5A and 12A, the dongle lights up orange and starts an intermittent buzz. Cross 12A and it turns red with a continuous alarm.
Developer runs macOS 27 on ASUS Zenbook A16 with Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and GPU acceleration
Developer Miguel C has shared fresh progress on Snapintosh, a project bringing Apple's macOS to Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. The latest update shows macOS 27 Golden Gate running on an ASUS Zenbook A16 (UX3607OA) powered by the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (X2E-96-100). The project has come a long way since September, when macOS needed extensive patching just to boot.
Microsoft is offering Xbox owners up to $375 to trade in their unused Series X|S consoles
Xbox is addressing its console stock problem by asking owners who've stopped playing to sell back their Series X|S. Microsoft is reportedly emailing US owners of Xbox Series X|S consoles who haven't used them in a while, nudging them to trade in their hardware at Best Buy.
DIY brick phone designed to fight smartphone addiction needs an iPhone to work
Smartphones have become so hard to put down that one designer has answered with a 3D-printed relic from the 1980s. Cologne-based designer and maker Kevin Noki has built the ADHD ONE, a brick phone whose name stands for Anti Distraction Handset Device. Most people think of the Nokia 3210 when they picture an old-school brick phone, but the ADHD ONE takes its cues from the first handheld mobile phones. It has a physical 19-key keypad, a small OLED display, a chunky silhouette, and a top antenna.
Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.5 drops October 22 with Edgerunners 2 content
CD Projekt RED is wasting no time celebrating the arrival of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2. All ten episodes of the new anime dropped on Netflix today, and the studio has already confirmed that a free Cyberpunk 2077 update inspired by the series is heading to players on October 22. Update 2.5, officially called the Edgerunners 2 Update, will launch on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with the Nintendo Switch 2 version following shortly after.
ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent order NVIDIA RTX PRO 5500 chips worth over $35 billion
Chinese tech giants ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have ordered more than 3 million NVIDIA RTX PRO 5500 graphics cards, according to a Reuters exclusive citing people familiar with the matter. At approximately $11,400 each, the combined sticker price tops $35 billion. The RTX PRO 5500 is a workstation GPU made to comply with current U.S. export laws.
Dell monitor prices are reportedly going up 3 to 5%, right after reviewers praised it for being affordable
Dell's monitor division is reportedly set to raise prices by 3 to 5 percent starting October 2026, according to an insider report from ChannelGate cited by IT Home. The information surfaced through Chinese distribution channels, and Dell has not confirmed the hike or disclosed which models will be affected. According to the report, Dell notified partners via an internal notice.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 campaign earns the series' best Steam rating in over a decade
The single-player campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has landed far more warmly than anyone expected after the rough beta. On Steam, the early-access build currently has a Very Positive rating of 92% based on more than 3,400 total user reviews. This puts it above every major Call of Duty release on the platform in over a decade. The campaign became available for digital pre-order customers on Friday, October 16, a week before the full launch on October 23.
Nintendo Switch 2 revised teardown reveals the handheld uses the same LCD screen as the original
A teardown of Nintendo's revised Switch 2 verifies what many hoped against. The display hasn't changed. Polish technician @Modyfikator89 on X opened up a European V2 unit and compared it directly with the original hardware, and the results were simple. Nintendo used the same screen for the revamped Switch 2 as they did for the original. The updated console is marked OSM-CPU-01 on the motherboard, versus the original BEE-CPU-01, bringing a few practical adjustments.
Driveclub now runs natively on PC without emulation, with DLAA and FSR support
The PS4 modding scene has been on fire lately, with GitHub filling up with native PC projects for PS4 exclusives like Bloodborne and Uncharted. Driveclub was already playable around two and a half months ago through the shadPS4 emulator, but it now has a native PC port. A fan project called DriveClub Recomp, released on GitHub by OverKillLabs3, lets the game's original x86-64 code run directly on Windows without CPU emulation.
SEGA removes Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition from sale after complaints about bugs and AI visuals
SEGA is removing Total War: Shogun 2 - Complete Edition from sale just days after launch, following a wave of complaints about bugs, performance, and suspicious AI-enhanced visuals. SEGA and developer Creative Assembly acknowledged that the re-release didn't meet fans' expectations, and said the two are working with platform holders to pull it from sale while they restore the original game.
MSI's RTX 5080 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Edition features Ghost and a custom-painted heatsink
MSI has partnered with Activision to announce a limited-edition GeForce RTX 5080 built around Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. It starts shipping on October 23, the same day as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, in selected countries through specific reseller partners and MSI's E-SHOP. The card is based on MSI's Gaming Trio design, but swaps the standard look for a black-and-yellow scheme inspired by the game.
Steam now boots in 5.23 seconds, beating Epic's new vibe-coded launcher in an early test
Valve has pushed a Steam Client update that improves startup performance, arriving within a day of Epic Games boasting that its rebuilt launcher is drastically faster than Steam. The changelog simply states, "Improved Steam Client startup performance," without providing specific figures, but early community tests suggest a noticeable reduction in load times.
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