After the drama and negative press surrounding the recent Assassin's Creed Shadows delay, fans of the franchise might be happy to hear that, after more than a year on other platforms, Assassin's Creed Mirage has finally received a PC release date. Additionally, Ubisoft guarantees that Assassin's Creed Mirage will be playable on the Steam Deck at launch, even though it won't ship with the "Playable" logo.

According to the announcement, Assassin's Creed Mirage will launch on Steam on October 17, 2024. When the game launches on Steam, it will feature 50 in-game achievements that will "range from completing missions or ranking up, to performing specific actions." Despite having Steam achievements and Steam Deck compatibility at launch, AC Mirage players will still have to install UbiConnect, Ubisoft's first-party game store and launcher—a move that's unlikely to sit well with many gamers.

Motion Twin, of Dead Cells fame, has announced the early access release date for its next roguelite, Windblown, which looks to be a much more cheerful affair than the grim-dark Dead Cells, and it's designed for multiplayer, too. Windblown will feature many of the same gameplay elements as Dead Cells, though, including fast-paced hack-and-slash combat, platforming, and permanent death. This time, though, Motion Twin has gone for an isometric perspective, instead of the side-scroller style, and the pixel graphics are swapped out for a cutesy cartoon style and color palette somewhat reminiscent of the likes of Paladins. There also appear to be some nifty bullet-hell-style battles thrown into the mix.

As for the release date and playable demo, Motion Twin has not yet announced when the game will fully release, but a Windblown demo will launch on October 14 during the upcoming Steam Next Fest, and Steam Early Access for the full game arrives on October 24. Motion Twin also says that any progress and unlocks achieved during the playable demo will carry over once the full game launches, which is a nice touch.

Metal: Hellsinger is a first-person rhythm shooter featuring roguelike and boomer shooter elements and set to a heavy metal soundtrack with some of the metal world's biggest names. The game follows a mysterious protagonist, known simply as The Unknown, as she battles her way through the various levels of hell on a quest to regain her voice. Today, the rhythm shooter launches an additional VR version, with some interesting new VR-specific rhythm mechanics to spice things up.

Being a rhythm game, Metal: Hellsinger gives players bonuses for performing actions on-beat with the background music—which often gets quite challenging due to the fast pace and swarming enemies—but the VR version steps things up a notch, allowing you to aim the game's dual pistols individually, physically draw and release the crossbow, and actively reload the shotgun to the beat.

Intel's Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200 series CPUs have appeared in a number of leaks now, and some benchmarks of the new chips have even started appearing on sites like Geekbench, however, there are still some questions surrounding the launch date of the new CPUs. Previous leaks indicated that the original mid-October launch was pushed back to October 24, and new information from VideoCardz sheds more light on the exact specifics of the launch, with October 24 pegged as the day Arrow Lake reviews and sales will be available to the public.

According to the leak, Intel will host a private media briefing for a select few press outlets and influencers on October 7. This will be followed by the official public announcement on October 10 and the review embargo and official retail launch on October 24. The October 7 event will reportedly feature a keynote from both Robert Hallock, Intel's VP and general manager of Client AI and technical marketing, and Roger Chandler, vice president of enthusiast PC and workstation product marketing.

Amazon Games recently launched the long-awaited free-to-play MMORPG, Throne and Liberty, in early access, and the game appears to have gone down quite well with the community. On Thursday, mere moments after the launch, Throne and Liberty already had a peak player count of 53,884—a figure it likely earned during its advanced access period in South East Asia and Korea, where it has been available since as early as December 2023.

Since then, Throne and Liberty has continued its success, rising to as many as 54,720 concurrent players on Saturday, September 28. While this only places it in third place for current top sellers on Steam, this player count is in spite of the free-to-play game's early access pass costing a minimum of $40 on Steam. Throne and Liberty has also garnered its significant following despite only 60% of its Steam user reviews being positive, making its success even more anomalous.

There have been a slew of changes for the upcoming Assassin's Creed Shadows launch, and the latest announcement out of Ubisoft promises some serious changes to the game's launch strategy. Not only will the game be delayed by almost four months, but it will now launch on PC via Steam at the same time as PS5 and Xbox consoles, and Ubisoft is apparently ditching the season pass model that it previously resorted to for major game launches.

In a previous article, we detailed the delays to Assassin's Creed Shadows, but further information was revealed in a Ubisoft trading update (PDF):

We are departing from the traditional Season Pass model. All players will be able to enjoy the game at the same time on February 14 and those who preorder the game will be granted the first expansion for free.

AMD's Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" series desktop processors are expected to be released on July 31st. The Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" series notebooks will hit stores earlier, on July 15th. This information comes from product listings on various e-commerce sites, as reported by ITHome and Videocardz. Additionally, a BestBuy listing shows one ASUS laptop with a Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" CPU launching on July 15th, ahead of the desktop processor release.

ITHome also reported potential retail prices for the AMD Ryzen 9 series CPUs, at least for the Philippine market. Worldwide prices may be lower or higher depending on taxes in each region.

• Ryzen 9 9950X: $648
• Ryzen 9 9900X: $597
• Ryzen 7 9700X: $409
• Ryzen 5 9600X: $315

Techlusive India has reported an exclusive announcement—courtesy of ASUS India's Arnold Su—the interviewee bears an elaborate and long job title: Vice President of Consumer and Gaming PC System Business Group. The wider discussion explores the region's gaming market conditions, although Su dropped a bombshell when discussing his company's current generation handheld gaming computer. The ASUS ROG Ally rolled out midway through 2023, as one of the first mainstream Windows 11 handheld gaming PCs. Competition in this market segment has ramped up significantly since then—Lenovo's Legion Go arrived last autumn, Valve's Steam Deck OLED refresh followed two months later, and MSI unveiled its Intel Meteor Lake-powered Claw at CES 2024.

Valve is not rushing out a proper next generation Steam Deck anytime soon—an urgent or immediate response to a lot of new competition is not necessary. An MSI representative revealed to gaming news media outlets (at CES 2024) that a Claw 2 model is already in the development pipeline. ASUS appears ready to launch new handheld hardware within a relatively short period—ASUS India's VP stated: "we most likely will launch a second generation (ROG Ally) this year. We will still keep the Windows (11) features, but we will focus more on gaming." He also revealed that original Ally models have sold "around 70,000 - 80,000 units" since the launch date in India—Techlusive labels this as a promising and "kind" response. Su's analysis of recent regional sales figures shows a trend of gaming branded laptops outpacing traditional desktop, in terms of adoption rates.

Dear stalkers, last year, during Gamescom 2023, we finally had the chance to meet in person. We gathered around the campfire with you to share something valuable that we have been creating for you for all these years—a small part of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Publicly, for the first time ever. Our one-time initiative then transformed into a journey from campfire to campfire across France, Brazil, Singapore and other countries. Thousands of players were able to play the game themselves and give us the much-needed feedback afterwards. And as true friends always do, you shared your honest thoughts about the game. Both positive and negative, and we are thankful for that. From your insights, we figured out two key points: the one to celebrate and the one to consider seriously.

The first one: the Zone remains the Zone. In its true beauty and after our likeness. The game absolutely feels and plays like S.T.A.L.K.E.R, the atmosphere, hardcore style, harsh and unwelcoming environment are ready to cook, and we can't be more grateful for these words, as they basically sum up both the key intention and the main inspiration for the project from the very beginning at the same time. The second one was: the gear in the backpack should be checked one more time to be completely sure it will not fail us in the most needed moment. On the technical side of things—the game needs more time.

Today, Focus Entertainment and DON'T NOD are thrilled to announce that Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden will release on November 7. This poignant narrative action-RPG, in which you hunt and battle supernatural horrors to alter a tragic fate, is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Pre-orders are open in physical versions and on Steam, with a superb Collector's Edition available.

Prepare for impossible choices and dramatic consequences…
Experience a powerful and intimate narrative in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, where you play as Antea Duarte and Red mac Raith. You are lovers and Banishers—ghost-hunters who vowed to protect the living from the threat of lingering ghosts and specters. After Antea has tragically become one of the spirits she loathes, you take on a desperate search for a way to liberate her from her new plight.

Calling all heroes, Saturday Morning Cartoons are back! Deep in the land of Eldryth, a kingdom of magic and power, there's more that lies in wait than simple quests for our brave heroes. Beyond the castle ruins in the old forest, a vampire of blackest heart calls upon his sorceress, Hexstar, to raise the dead armies and ready them for war. Who will stand and face these perils? Who will claim victory over their foes… through the power of teamwork?

As you might have seen in today's IGN x ID@Xbox Digital Showcase, we debuted a brand-new villain (Hexstar) and announced the inevitable release date of our upcoming title for September 12, 2023, for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. Inspired by beloved Saturday morning cartoons, MythForce unites swords and sorcery with gripping first-person combat in a new roguelike adventure.

An adventure across worlds within worlds. From Jeppe Carlsen, the lead gameplay designer of LIMBO and INSIDE—COCOON takes you on an adventure across worlds within worlds. Master world-leaping mechanics to unravel a cosmic mystery. Named "Most Anticipated Independent Game at Summer Game Fest 2023," COCOON launches on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC on September 29. Wishlist on Steam now.

Worlds within Worlds
COCOON is a unique take on the puzzle adventure genre, where each world exists within an orb that you can carry on your back. Wrap your head around the core mechanic of leaping between worlds—and combine, manipulate, and rearrange them to solve intricate puzzles

Electronic Arts has not included Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in its projected release schedule for the ongoing financial year (2023 to 2024) - industry insiders have previously suggested that the fourth entry in the series was marked down for a later-in-2023 launch. EA's day old financial report details a number of already announced games within a rundown that ends in April 2024. The schedule includes the recently released Star Wars Jedi: Survivor game, as well as Immortal of Aveum, a Lord of the Rings mobile title, F1 23, Madden '24, Sports FC (a FIFA successor) and extra content for Apex Legend and Sims 4. A mystery pair of games are due sometime after April 2024 - a mainline EA Sports title and an unnamed racing sim.

An in-progress Skate sequel joins Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in the far off fields of mid-2024 or beyond. Bioware started to hint about a potential fourth game in late 2018 - with vague promotional material popping up during the autumn Game Awards event. The Edmonton, Canada-based development team has been quietly working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf since then, with very little preview material issued in the interim - a non-gameplay teaser trailer was shown off way back in 2020. Gary McKay, general manager at BioWare, revealed last autumn that the game was fully playable from beginning to end, and recent information suggests that the Dreadwolf team has expanded in size to include Mass Effect series staffers. A former franchise and Bioware veteran, Mark Darrah, was added on as an external (expert) consultant on the project.

Hardware tipster harukaze5719 has once again spotted the registration of a new set of Gigabyte products - the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) has updated its registry with a slew of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards - these listings were created this morning, and harukaze5719 picked up on this information almost immediately. Gigabyte's very mid-range new lineup is formed of nine RTX 4060 Ti GPU models and only a pair of Radeon RX 7600 GPU custom design cards - the common pattern is an allocation of 8 GB VRAM.

Gigabyte's two Radeon RX 7600 cards (Gaming & Gaming OC) are likely set for a May 25 launch, according to a combination of official AMD material and rumors from the past week or two - the slightly beefier Radeon RX 7600 XT is rumored to arrive on the same day. Leaked embargo information from earlier on this week suggests that NVIDIA is launching its GeForce RTX 4060 Ti lineup at the end of May, so an almost direct clash between it and AMD's upcoming Radeon 7600 and 7600 XT cards is expected to occur during that time period.

Dear players - thank you for the tremendous support we received so far on Atlas Fallen! From your enthusiastic comments on our video teasers online and in person at PAX EAST to the positive previews from critics, we're grateful and honored to have you excited to play our game. Our goal has always been to create a memorable RPG experience in a unique setting, with exciting gameplay and the option for fully playable seamless co-op with a friend.

We'd love to give the game some extra time which will allow us to deliver the best possible version of Atlas Fallen. To achieve this, we have made the difficult decision to delay the worldwide launch of Atlas Fallen to AUGUST 10, 2023.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has reportedly set an ambitious end of the year launch window for the company's mixed reality headset. Operations Chief Jeff Williams has also pushed in favor of a late 2023 debut of the much delayed VR/AR hybrid product. According to anonymous insider sources who have divulged juicy details to the Financial Times, the decision to launch in 2023 has caused an internal clash with the Apple Design team at its Cupertino, California headquarters.

The Apple Park design team has called for additional development time, this would push the headset's launch back by several years. Insiders claim that the design team would prefer to have more time to refine the product's aesthetics and functionality, with emphasis on creating a sleek and more lightweight visor. Doubts about the efficacy of the headset's proposed internal technology were also expressed, the designers would prefer to delay until Augmented Reality development reaches a satisfying level of maturity.

Today, during the Ubisoft Forward digital conference, Ubisoft announced that the next installment in the Assassin's Creed franchise, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, will release worldwide November 17, 2020, on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft Store on Windows PC, as well as on UPLAY+, the Ubisoft subscription service and Stadia.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla will also release on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 upon the launch of the consoles. Players who purchase Assassin's Creed Valhalla on Xbox One or PlayStation 4 will be able to upgrade their game to the next-gen version (Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5) at no additional cost. Brand-new gameplay shown at the digital conference illustrates new features that players can enjoy, including dual-wielding, raiding, assaults and open world activities. Raids will be more action-packed and brutal than anything Assassin's Creed has seen before, with players able to take advantage of a new visceral combat system that lets players bash, dismember and decapitate foes. Eivor will be able to dual-wield axes, swords and even shields against the greatest variety of enemy types ever seen in an Assassin's Creed. Additionally, the return of the Hidden Blade allows Eivor to assassinate targets with deadly precision.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon was one of last week's game reveals via Microsoft's Xbox 20/20 program, which aims to provide monthly digital events leading up to the Xbox Series X's release in "Holiday 2020". Up to now, the new console release was expected somewhere around November. However, a retail listing of Yakuza: Like a Dragon has set an October 23rd release date for the title. And since it was announced as being an Xbox Series X day one title, that places the new Xbox console's launch right alongside it. The Yakuza: Like a Dragon listing has been posted by a small Finnish retailer, who apparently only posts release dates when they have been all but confirmed.

Previous rumors had already put forth a PS5 release in October, due to a job listing for one of its collaborators mentioning that month as the release window. However, Sony has already come public saying that the expected October release date is not an official stance on the matter, thus killing our aspirations. However and whenever these consoles launch, it's bound to be an interesting back-and-forth between the two companies as they jockey for position amongst consumers' wallets - both with their respective release dates and launch pricing. Look after the break for the official trailer for Yakuza: Like a Dragon.

UL Benchmarks released more information on pricing and availability of its upcoming addition to the 3DMark benchmark suite, named "Port Royal." The company revealed that the benchmark will officially launch on January 8, 2019. The Port Royal upgrade will cost existing 3DMark paid (Advanced and Professional) users USD $2.99. 3DMark Advanced purchased from January 8th onward at $29.99 will include Port Royal. 3DMark Port Royal is an extreme-segment 3D graphics benchmark leveraging DirectX 12 and DirectX Raytracing (DXR). UL Benchmarks stated that Port Royal was developed with inputs from industry giants including NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and Microsoft.

It's time to soldier up because Black Ops is back! The series which has become the most played in Call of Duty history as well as a cultural phenomenon around the globe returns October 12th with the release of Call of Duty : Black Ops 4, a gritty, grounded, all-out combat experience. Black Ops 4 raises the bar for Multiplayer mode that increases tactical gameplay and player choice, along with the biggest Zombies offering ever with three full experiences at launch, and Blackout, where the Black Ops universe comes to life in a massive battle royale experience featuring iconic characters and locations from all four Black Ops games in a one-of-a-kind offering that is uniquely Black Ops. Published by Activision and developed by award-winning studio Treyarch, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 transforms the established universe played by hundreds of millions of fans with the largest gameplay experience ever created in the series.

"Black Ops 4 gives our community more ways to have fun with their friends than anything Treyarch has ever created and introduces meaningful innovations to every element of the game, including next level tactical team-based multiplayer, the biggest zombies offering yet and Blackout, where the largest map in Call of Duty history brings together the rich universe of Black Ops," said Rob Kostich, EVP and GM, Call of Duty. "More than 200 million players have called Black Ops home, and they've played for more than 15 billion hours. This is an incredible community that has inspired the development team to take their innovative gameplay design to new heights."

Konami revealed a first look at the single-player campaign for METAL GEAR SURVIVE through a new gameplay video with producer commentary via Konami's official YouTube channel. The video introduces basic survival and gameplay mechanics while showing key action sequences.

Additionally, METAL GEAR SURVIVE will be holding a beta from January 18th-21st, 2018. Players will have a chance to jump into co-op mode to build, defend and fight alongside friends online. The Beta will be available to download for PS4 and Xbox One players. Participants will also receive an in-game bonus redeemable with the purchase of the full game. Bonus items include a FOX HOUND name plate, an accessory Metal Gear REX Head and Accessory bandana.

EVGA's product manager Jacob Freeman has just confirmed the launch day of EVGA's upcoming end-all-be-all GTX 1080 Ti Hybrid FTW3 video card: it's now a relatively set in stone July 10th. Expect immediate availability for the video card on that day, though for now, not even Freeman has an idea if it will be available for ordering outside of EVGA's own online website.

The GTX 1080 Ti Hybrid FTW3 makes use of a hybrid, air and water-cooling solution. The GPU die itself is cooled by an Asetek all-in-one closed-loop liquid cooler, while memory and VRM make do with a traditional heatsink and fan combination. This provides the benefit of liquid cooling on the GPU core without the added expense of a full-cover waterblock, thus bringing the pricing a little lower than full-coverage waterblocks, but with increased performance over a purely air-cooled part. The GTX 1080 Ti HYBRID FTW3 shares the same specs as the 1080 Ti SC2 HYBRID, Hydro Copper, and Hydro Copper SC2 graphics cards, with a 1,556 MHz base and 1,670 MHz boost clock, 11 Gbps GDDR5X memory and 2x 8-pin power connectors. Pricing or overclocking headroom weren't detailed at all.

Microsoft Windows 10 will launch on the 29th of July, 2015. This is when existing users of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 will be able to upgrade to their applicable variant of Windows 10 for free; PC makers ship desktops and notebooks with the OS pre-installed; and when you will be able to buy Windows 10 copies off the shelf.

Microsoft is expecting at least 350 million users of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 to freely upgrade to Windows 10 by the end of the year, many of which could upgrade on day-one, clogging Microsoft Update. To mitigate that, Microsoft launched a "reservation" system. Current users of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, woke up to a curious Windows logo in their system-tray, which launches a tiny app that lets you "reserve" your upgrade (a position in the queue to upgrade). When your time comes, Windows will fetch the Windows 10 upgrade image from Microsoft Update. The actual upgrade process will be similar to that of Windows 7 to Windows 8. You can choose a clean install, or upgrade over an existing installation. Once installed, your Windows 10 license is tied to the machine forever.

MSI posted a reveal trailer (yeah, we have those for graphics cards now) for its flagship GeForce GTX 780 Lightning graphics card. In addition to the highest factory-overclock among MSI's ranks (currently held by the GTX 780 Gaming Series), the card reportedly features redundant BIOS, and a feature that lifts various BIOS-level limits, protections, or fail-safes. If we understand this correctly, the GTX 780 Lightning should be among the first GK110-based graphics cards to feature over-voltage beyond NVIDIA's limits. Very little is known about the card's design, but given that MSI's new TwinFrozr IV cooling solution leaves GTX 780 Gaming Series with overclocking headroom, and runs cool enough, it wouldn't surprise us if MSI sticks to that cooler, albeit paint it yellow. As for the release date, MSI plans to launch the card on the 7th of August, 2013.The reveal trailer follows.

A presentation slide, allegedly by AMD, leaked by a Japanese distributor confirmed specifications of AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 7790 graphics card. According to the slide, the HD 7790 is indeed based on a brand new silicon, with a transistor count of 2.08 billion. Compare that, to the 1.5 billion TC of "Cape Verde," and 2.80 billion of "Pitcairn." The silicon is built on the 28 nanometer silicon fab process.

The clock speed mentioned in the slide could be core, which is clocked at 1.00 GHz. Next up is the stream processor count, which stands at 896. The HD 7790 is mentioned to feature a primitive rate of 2 prim/clk, suggesting that its component hierarchy is more similar to "Tahiti" than "Cape Verde," which could mean double the tessellation processing power. All said and done, the HD 7790 belts out 1.79 TFLOPs of floating-point performance. The source goes on to mention in its text that the card features a 128-bit wide memory interface, memory clock speed of 6.00 GHz (96 GB/s), a TDP of 85W, and a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. It is expected to launch no later than tomorrow (22/03).