Gaming

Lisa Su confirmed she’d launch the first RDNA 4 GPUs in “early 2025,” and now AMD graphics boss Jack Huynh will officially host a livestreamed press conference on January 6th at 11AM PT / 2PM ET. It will “discuss how AMD is expanding its leadership across PCs and gaming.”

The rumor mill is expecting the unannounced AMD RX 8800 XT:

Developer Amano has shared an update on how it’s creating the realistic physics for its upcoming Playdate pinball game, Devils on the Moon. It’s not launching until sometime in 2025, but the game will use the Playdate’s left D-pad and A buttons to trigger the flippers. As for the crank? The developers haven’t revealed how it will specifically be used.

Fortnite’s nostalgia trip continues, this time with the return of OG, which brings back the game’s very first chapter. It’ll be available as a permanent fixture staring on December 6th.

Following its excellent controller button keychain collections, Nintendo will soon fill the gashapon machines in its stores in Japan with collectible Zonai devices from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Six will be available for $4 each, including devices like rockets and flame emitters, and they’ll all double as magnets with an included attachment.

It’s a good time to be a Tetris fan. Digital Eclipse just released the excellent playable documentary Tetris Forever, and now Nintendo is making the NES version of the game available to Switch Online subscribers. It’ll be available on December 12th. In the meantime, Nintendo also just updated its music app with tracks from Splatoon 2.

Amazon has added games like Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Dredge, and Gunslinger: Call of Juarez to its list of free game downloads for Prime members.

That’s in addition to other freebies already offered, like Bioshock Remastered and the beautiful, H.R. Giger-inspired Scorn.

And in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Indy’s got plenty of both. To mark the game’s imminent release, Bethesda has shared its official launch trailer. From the trailer, expect lots of whip cracking, Nazi punching, one of Tony Todd’s last performances, and painting a bunch of red lines all over a world map. Great Circle releases on Xbox, PC, and PlayStation December 9th.

We don’t know exactly what it will look like, but Call of Duty will feature some kind of Squid Game collaboration in January that covers both Warzone and Black Ops 6. That’s right after season 2 of the show hits Netflix on December 26th.

Following McDonald’s in China releasing a Tetris-playing nugget last year, KFC in Spain has created a Tamagotchi-like digital pet called the Eduardochi. It was originally sold through KFC’s website and app, but starting on December 3rd it will be available through KFC’s restaurants across Spain for €3.99 (around $4.20) with many of them hopefully ending up on eBay.

Arcane’s final season featured one of the better examples of how universe-hopping really can bring some depth to a character’s story. And in a new interview with Polygon, writer / co-executive producer producer Amanda Overton explains how “making it feel like the fabric of that episode is absolutely interconnected to the rest of the season” was essential to making this multiverse work.

Following a record-breaking virtual concert, Fortnite’s sixth chapter kicks off tomorrow, which means it’s time for a new map. The Japanese-themed “Hunters” season will introduce locales like “Demon’s Dojo” and “Nightshift Forest,” and presumably at some point Godzilla will show up. Also, there’s a giant, ancient turtle. You can check out the full details on the new season right here.

Fortnite’s most recent virtual concert just wrapped up, and Epic Games already says that it was the biggest in the game’s history, with more than 14 million concurrent players. For comparison, more than 12 million concurrent players attended the Travis Scott event in 2020. If you missed it, the event will air again at 8PM ET tonight.

Since December 2021, I’ve never had to think about charging my Logitech wireless gaming mouse. It charges just by sitting atop this pricey mousepad. No alignment necessary. And now, that pricey mousepad is the best price it’s ever been: $87 at Amazon. That’s still cash, but seriously: I’ve never looked back.

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The Claw 8 AI Plus and Claw 7 AI Plus have appeared on Amazon for $899 and $799 respectively, and will ship Dec. 25th and Dec. 1st respectively, per Videocardz... but the listings seem to have been stripped of those crucial details now.

MSI already announced both handhelds in June as quick followups to the embarrassing original. Lunar Lake could bring better performance and battery, but apparently not pricing.

I have a hard time believing this OneGx2 could be comfortable to hold, but major kudos if OneXPlayer can figure it out! I’m currently toying with a similar GPD machine that hides its joysticks beneath little covers, but a split keyboard and sticks beneath a full keyboard is something else.

If you read my Lenovo Legion Go review and thought “that but less expensive and cumbersome,” Videocardz may have good news: the unannounced smaller “Legion Go S 8ARP1” now has a firmware update for its unannounced AMD Rembrandt APU. That’s a last-gen architecture that should be more affordable than AMD’s “Extreme” line.

Also, though: the original Legion Go is its best price ever right now.

Riot says it’ll punish creators who violate its ToS anywhere on the internet, not just within its games:

Though we aren’t going to proactively monitor everything that happens across social media, it is now within our rights to issue penalties in-game when that content is brought to our attention.

Examples: hateful slurs, social media posts that promote rulebreaking, stream sniping, and offers to buy and sell accounts. Also, Riot says it’ll now ban players across all its games at once.

Bilibil-kun, the Dealabs leaker who correctly revealed the design of the PlayStation 5 Pro, now says the currently white PS Portal will soon be available in black for the same $200 price.

While the PS Portal can only stream games, it recently got updated to stream some of them from the cloud. Meanwhile, Sony’s also reportedly working on a true Nintendo Switch / Steam Deck rival.

Ahead of Pac-Man’s 45th anniversary next year, Casio is launching a collection of four retro digital watches featuring the yellow dot chaser. The standouts include a yellow calculator watch with an inverted screen and a model that’s expected to have Bluetooth connectivity and step tracking. Pricing isn’t known, but availability is expected in December — at least in Japan.

Temporarily at least. Seven years after launch, Nintendo’s free-to-play mobile game Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp shut down today. But your campsites can live on, as players will be able to move their saves over to a paid version of the app that launches on December 3rd. Time to see how much more chill the game is without microtransactions.

Polaris Quest has announced Light of Motiram, which is described as a game set in “a world overrun by colossal machines” on its Steam page. It also looks remarkably like Sony’s own open-world blockbuster series full of mechanical creatures.