The Federal Trade Commission has filed an antitrust lawsuit in a bid to block Microsoft's planned $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. The FTC started looking into the deal and its potential impact on the video game market soon after it was announced in January. Evidently, the agency was concerned enough to pump the brakes on the buyout.
The FTC's commissioners voted in favor of the lawsuit along party lines. The commission's three Democratic approved it and the Republican Commissioner Christine S. Wilson voted against it.
While the lawsuit doesn't necessarily kill the deal, it's unlikely to be resolved by July, as Politico, which had reported that an FTC bid to block the merger was likely, recently noted. That was the deadline Microsoft and Activision set for closing the deal. If the acquisition hasn't closed by then, the companies will have to renegotiate the agreement or even walk away from the merger. Regulators in other jurisdictions have been taking a close look at the deal, including in the UK and the European Union (which should complete its investigation by late March).
Sony is the merger's most prominent opponent. It has expressed concern that Microsoft would make games such as Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox platforms (which could cost Sony hundreds of millions of dollars a year). However, Microsoft has said it wants to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation and it claims to have offered Sony a 10-year agreement to that effect.
Just ahead of the FTC's anticipated vote, Microsoft said it struck a deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty games to the company's systems if the merger closes. Call of Duty will also remain on Steam as part of a separate pact with Valve.
Microsoft and Activision have been downplaying the significance of the deal in an attempt to appease regulators and push it through. For one thing, Microsoft has claimed that Sony has more exclusive games, "many of which are better quality," in a filing with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). It also said Activision Blizzard doesn't have any "must-have" games, despite having some of the most popular titles in the world (including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft) under its umbrella.
That said, Microsoft has suggested that the acquisition the deal is more about gaining a foothold in the mobile gaming market, where Activision's King division is a major player. For instance, Candy Crush Saga has had more than 3 billion downloads.
About three hours into my preview of Diablo IV, I stumble upon the body of a dead priest. The discovery adds a quest to my journal to visit nearby Margrave. A short while later, I find a small village worn down by constant snowfall and all the monsters and bandits that lurk outside its palisade walls. Despite the town’s desperate state, there are signs of warmth and humanity everywhere.
By the south entrance, I find a woman praying for her deceased husband. She tells his gravestone how she can’t sleep now that no one is snoring at night. Nearby, a man tells his adopted son not to venture outside the town’s walls. I love these details. They remind me of some of my favorite moments playing Diablo II.
Whenever I went back over the years to revisit the action RPG on my own, I would listen to everything the non-playable characters had to say. The game doesn’t have much dialogue by modern standards, but if you pay attention, it says a lot with very little. Looking back at my time with Diablo III and, more recently, Diablo Immortal, what stands out is that those games rarely, if ever, slow down to take a breath.
Blizzard
Diablo IV feels different. It feels like a game that was designed by people who love the history of this franchise as much as I do. That might not seem like much, but it’s refreshing when you consider Diablo III’s original lead designer called his Diablo II predecessor a “loser.”
“Certainly, there are a lot of things about Diablo II that we think are really cool and need to be in Diablo IV, particularly when you look at the depth of systems and itemization… and, as you noted, there are things about Diablo III like the smooth and seamless combat that we wanted to bring forward to Diablo IV,” game director Joe Shely tells me during a roundtable interview. Shely took over leadership of the Diablo IV team in the fall of 2021 after the game’s previous director, Luis Barriga, left Blizzard when California’s fair employment agency accused the studio of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment. “We think Diablo IV can be a place that welcomes players from any previous Diablo game and people who have never played a Diablo game.”
Blizzard
Diablo IV existing as a project that takes all the best aspects of past entries in the series and iterates on them in meaningful ways is a theme Shely and his boss, Diablo franchise head Rod Fergusson, repeat early and often. At first, I dismissed it as marketing, but after playing the gamefor about a dozen hours, I started to believe them.
Take combat, for instance. Carrying over a change Blizzard made for the console release of Diablo III, each class comes with a dodge ability built into their kit. At first, you can only use your dodge once before it goes on cooldown, but as you level your character, you’ll find magical and rare boots that give you additional charges.
The potion system, meanwhile, represents a hybrid of the systems that existed in Diablo II and III. When you first start playing, your character can carry a maximum of five potions on them. There’s no cooldown after you use one, and you gain refills by slaying enemies or bringing a boss down to certain thresholds of their health. Walking over a potion when your character is at max health won’t automatically heal you as it did in Diablo III, so there’s more strategy involved. As you might have guessed, you can upgrade the potency of your potions and find ways to carry more as you progress through the game.
Blizzard
On the surface, these are minor changes, but they add some much-needed tactical depth to Diablo’s combat, so you’re not just mindlessly clicking and spamming your skill rotation. Most larger enemies have a windup attack in their arsenal to stagger your character. Combine that with elite and champion variants of enemies that can use abilities like frost to trap you in place, and combat encounters feel more involved in Diablo IV than in past games. Playing on the game’s veteran world tier difficulty, I had the most success when I used my barbarian’s leap ability to close the distance quickly on ranged enemies and monsters like fallen shamans that could bring their comrades back from the dead.
All of that made for a fun and satisfying combat loop enhanced by how much the game encouraged me to experiment with my character’s build. Diablo IV sees the return of Diablo II’sskill trees, but this time around, you’re not limited to respecing your character once per difficulty. Instead, you can at any time refund a single skill point or all of them simultaneously to tweak your build. At first, doing so only costs a few gold coins, but the price increases as you level your character. The beauty of this system is that you’re free to experiment early before settling on the build that will take you through Diablo IV’s endgame activities.
Unfortunately, I only had enough time to play through the demo with the barbarian. The preview also came with access to the rogue and sorcerer classes. At launch, the final game will feature five classes, adding the druid and necromancer to the mix.
I wish I could write about the story, but Blizzard asked those of us taking part in the preview not to spoil anything. What I can say is that once you complete Diablo IV’s prologue, you can tackle its primary acts in any order you want. The preview build only came with access to act one and the Fractured Peaks zone where that part of the story takes place. When Blizzard revealed Diablo IV in 2019 by sharing the game’s gruesome “By Three They Come” intro cinematic, I was worried the story would end up being edgy instead of mature and dark.
The little I’ve seen of the plot has done a lot to address those concerns. Part of that has been thanks to the smart, restrained writing I saw and Diablo IV’s willingness to give its narrative time to breathe, but the thing I think that’s going to surprise a lot of people is how atmospheric Diablo IV can be in its best moments. All of the trailers Blizzard has released so far don’t do nearly enough justice to all the great work the art team has done with the environmental, lighting and particle effects in the game. When my barbarian first began his adventure on a mountain beset by a blizzard, I reached for a blanket.
One thing the demo didn’t include was a preview of Diablo IV’s monetization system. Blizzard provided an overview of those this past summer. The short version is that the game won’t include pay-to-win microtransactions. Instead, an in-game cosmetic shop will allow you to buy items you can use to customize the look of your characters further. Seasonal battle passes will allow you to earn additional cosmetics. From the moment you create your character, the customization systems are robust, offering you plenty of options to alter their physical appearance, including things like skin tone, head and facial hair, as well as jewelry.
Blizzard
Additionally, the way you can modify the appearance of items is as fleshed out. For instance, if you use the transmog system to make a piece of armor look different, and then an item with better stats drops for you, you can match it with your previous set directly from the character sheet. By level 10, my barbarian had already started to look menacing.
If there’s one worry I have about Diablo IV, it’s the same one I’ve had with every Blizzard game in the past decade or so: Can the studio stick the landing? To say Blizzard’s recent output has been all over the place would be an understatement. I’m still disappointed with how it handled remastering my favorite RTS of all time. The studio will have the chance to reassure fans in early 2023 when Diablo IV’s open beta begins ahead of the game’s official launch later in the year.
When Dead Island 2 remerged earlier this year after a lengthy absence, publisher Deep Silver announced it would be the first title to support Amazon’s Alexa Game Control, a feature that allows you to use your voice to play a game. On Tuesday, the company shared a trailer showcasing the functionality, albeit one that offers a staged view of things.
The trailer opens with a group of zombie apocalypse survivors finding a playable build of Dead Island 2. “What a weird coincidence,” says one of the characters, commenting on the meta-narrative. “What’s Alexa Game Control?” asks the leader of the group. As one of their friends goes outside for a smoke, the video shows how certain voice commands will trigger actions within the game. “Hey zombie,” for example, draws the attention of the nearest undead. You can also say, “get me my ax” to cause your character to, well, switch to their ax.
Not every voice command that’s in the game is shown off in the trailer. An Amazon spokesperson told The Verge you’ll be able to use your voice to do things like set waypoints and greet other characters. Alexa Voice Control doesn’t require an Echo device. All you need is a headset with a microphone. We’ll get a chance to see how well the voice commands work when Dead Island 2, after nearly a decade of development, finally arrives on April 28th.
Google’s interactive Doodle today celebrates the life and accomplishments of video game pioneer Gerald “Jerry” Lawson on what would have been his 82nd birthday. The Doodle lets you play five retro pixel-art platformers in your browser — with two even letting you play as Lawson. The Doodles’ creators want to inspire young people to follow in his footsteps, and it includes a built-in level editor and creator to nudge them on that path.
Lawson was known as the “father of the video game cartridge,” which he developed as Director of Engineering and Marketing at Fairchild Semiconductor. In 1976, the company released the Fairchild Channel F home console, with Lawson serving as lead developer. The Channel F (the “F” stood for “fun”) was the first system with interchangeable game cartridges, a novel concept in an era when games were permanently coded into hardware. Interchangeable ROM-based cartridges were a massive breakthrough that let users build entire libraries rather than playing one game ad nauseam.
Google
Today’s Doodle includes games from guest artists and game designers Davionne Gooden, Lauren Brown and Momo Pixel. “The concept starts with the player as a little Jerry Lawson,” explained Brown. “This takes us through anecdotes about Jerry’s life, parts of his journey that he went about to create the cartridge. Once you complete the level, you then get to create your own game with an editor that allows you to reimagine the level design and innovate like Jerry Lawson did.”
Along with the cartridge advancement, Lawson’s Channel F was the first console with an eight-way joystick and a pause menu. Although it wasn’t a commercial success, Channel F’s innovations would influence later systems that dominated home gaming over the following decades — it was a predecessor to platforms like the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo Entertainment System. Even in today’s world of always-online digital games, the top-selling console — the Nintendo Switch — still (optionally) uses a form of cartridges.
Lawson faced considerable challenges during his early years at Fairchild as an African-Amercan man in a field that wasn't known for being racially diverse. He noted that working as an engineer as a 6-foot-6-inch Black man would surprise people, with some reacting with “total shock” when they saw him for the first time. Additionally, he was one of only two Black members of the Homebrew Computing Club. This group included Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, along with other Silicon Valley pioneers.
The Estate of Jerry Lawson
After his innovations at Fairchild, Lawson left in 1980 to start his own company, VideoSoft, one of the first Black-owned video game development firms. VideoSoft closed five years later, and Lawson consulted engineering and video game companies for the rest of his career. He passed away in 2011 at 70 from diabetes complications.
“When people play this Doodle, I hope they’re inspired to be imaginative,” said Anderson Lawson, Jerry’s son. “And I hope that some little kid somewhere that looks like me wants to get into game development. Hearing about my father’s story makes them feel like they can.”
Valve's Steam Deck is a great way to get PC games out of your office and on to your couch, back patio, or anywhere. As we said in our review, it's worth having around even if you just play it a few times a month for a couple hours at a time. But I wound up using mine a little differently: I play the Steam Deck several times a day for just a few minutes per session.
And it's almost the only reason I play video games at all anymore.
I'm no less interested in games than I used to be, but since becoming a father, I've found I have a lot less time. For the first year of my daughter's life, setting aside an hour to play a game felt impossible. Then, Metroid Dread came out, and I found myself using the Nintendo Switch's sleep mode in short bursts. 5 minutes while the baby played with a new toy. 10 minutes as I waited for her to fall asleep.
Sean Buckley/Engadget
As I chipped away at Metroid Dread’s short 10-hour story, I found myself thinking about the Steam Deck. Not only was Valve’s gaming handheld a portable gaming system like the Switch, but it promised to give my Steam library something I had never experienced from PC gaming before: the ability to quickly suspend and resume a game. It’s a standard quality of life feature on home consoles, but trying to resume a game after putting a PC to sleep is hit or miss.
When my Steam Deck arrived four months later and the feature actually worked, it changed everything. I spent my first day with the handheld slowly playing through the Deck’s showcase demo: Valve’s Desk Job, casually picking the handheld up for just 5 minutes every few hours. When that worked, I got more ambitious — finishing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order over the course of two weeks.
I started using the Steam Deck to play games in the margins of my day. Picking it up for a few random battles in Final Fantasy IV after the baby fell asleep on my chest, doing a deep space cargo run in Rebel Galaxy Outlaw as I watched her nap on the baby monitor, or sneaking in a few puzzles in Baba is You before turning in for the night. Suddenly I was finishing games I never thought I would have time for.
The suspend trick even works with non-Steam games and older titles: I spent hours experimenting in Lutris, an alternative Linux game launcher, getting the year 2000’s Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force to run smoothly on Steam Deck. A week or two later, I finally finished a game I abandoned when I was 16 years old.
Engadget
That isn't to say I haven't had longer play sessions on Steam Deck. Online-only games like Final Fantasy XIV or Knockout City tend to disconnect the player when thrown into suspend mode — but I often still prefer playing them on Valve's portable than on my big gaming desktop. Yes, an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X with 64GB of RAM and a GTX 980 GPU can soundly outperform the Deck’s custom AMD APU. It runs games at higher resolution with better graphic settings, but it’s wasted power.
I've grown to love having my library of PC games detached from the writing and video editing workstation that lives at my desk. You might say that’s what more powerful traditional game consoles are for, but the Deck’s Switch-like portability makes all the difference. Playing games on the couch, in bed, or while rocking the baby to sleep beats out having maxed out graphics settings every time. I’m not even sure if I’m going to upgrade that aging graphics card anymore. The Steam Deck may be less powerful, but at today’s GPU prices, it’s a far better value.
Not all of my games work smoothly on Steam Deck, but it turns out that's a plus for me as well. I love tinkering with gadgets and fiddling around with power user settings. So when I’m forced to drop into the Deck’s desktop mode to manually install a non-Steam game, which inevitably involves configuring alternative Wine compatibility layers, I enjoy the challenge almost as much as the game I’ll eventually play. And when I do get those games running, they almost always work with Steam OS' suspend and resume feature.
It feels a little silly to laud the Steam Deck for what’s an otherwise standard feature on most modern gaming devices, but I can’t help it. Sometimes one good feature can change everything. Before the Steam Deck, playing a game from my PC library was a chore that required sitting at a desk, booting up Windows, launching Steam and, finally, loading up a game. When you might only have minutes of free time during an entire day, that simply doesn’t work. Add in the possibility that a crying baby might call you away from that hard-earned game session at a moment’s notice, and you can start to see the appeal of a gaming device you can take anywhere, one that lets you instantly stop and start a high-end PC game with the touch of a single button.
Engadget
Suspend and resume had a rough start on the Xbox One and PS4, but eventually they became kind of an expected fare. Even so, it’s a killer feature that PC gamers have largely been missing out on. I never really appreciated how much of a game changer it could be until I really needed it. The Steam Deck brings that feature to the PC crowd in a natural, user-friendly package that we’ve never had before. And being a portable system is just the icing on the cake. The Steam Deck is certainly pricey, but being able to catch up on PC games with a baby in my arms is priceless.
Sony's December free games for PlayStation Plus Essential include Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. Subscribers can play remastered versions of the classic trilogy at no extra charge. The collection, released in May 2021, includes Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 with modernized 4K graphics and tighter gameplay.
Developer BioWare saved the biggest upgrades for the 15-year-old original. While the non-remastered version is nearly unplayable by modern standards, the remaster is friendlier for modern gamers with more consistent weapon accuracy, tighter camera controls, a dedicated melee button and snappier combat. BioWare also tweaked its handling of the trilogy’s endings, ditching the original approach that required a separate app download to get the best finale. In the new version, your final outcome is based exclusively on your decisions across all three titles.
Other free PS Plus Essential games for December include third-person platform fighter Divine Knockout: Founder's Edition and open-world RPG Biomutant. In addition to new free games added each month (yours to keep as long as you remain subscribed), PlayStation Plus Essential gives you access to online matchmaking in paid titles. The service costs $9.99 per month or $59.99 per year. It replaced the standard PS Plus earlier this year, when Sony added more expensive Extra and Premium tiers to compete with Xbox Game Pass.
It's Cyber Monday, which means it's still a good time to be in the market for new gaming gear, if you know where to look. That last part is where we can help: We've picked through the barrage of so-called gaming deals at Amazon, Walmart, GameStop and other retailers to find the ones that are actually worth your time. Below are some of the highlights, which include genuine deals on the Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch, several high-profile games, a range of recommended gaming peripherals and more.
Nintendo Switch + Mario Kart 8 Deluxe + Switch Online
Nintendo's chief holiday deal bundles the standard Switch console with a digital copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and a three-month subscription to the company's Switch Online service at no extra cost. Nintendo has offered this exact same promotion for the past few years, and given that the newer Switch OLED is a pretty firm upgrade over the base model, it's hard to call this a great deal. Still, if you're gifting someone their first Switch and you don't think they'll need the Switch OLED's bigger and more vibrant display, there's some value here. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still a great time and normally retails around $50, while three months of Switch Online typically cost another $8.
The Xbox Series S is down to $240 at Amazon, and if you use the code XBOX at checkout, the retailer will throw in another $40 in digital credit. That's effectively a $100 discount. At Target, meanwhile, the diminutive console is available for $250 and includes a $50 store gift card. Woot has the device available for $220 outright — albeit for an international model — and several other retailers have it for $240. Normally, the Series S retails for $300.
Either way, this is a good value for PlayStation or Switch users who want a cheaper way into the Xbox ecosystem. We gave the Series S a review score of 85 at launch: It isn't powerful enough for 4K gaming, lacks a disc drive and only has 512GB of built-in storage, but it can still play all the same games as the pricier Xbox Series X.
If you need a spare gamepad for your Xbox or PC, Microsoft's wireless Xbox Series X/S controller is available for $35 at Lenovo when you use the code GAMERSAVER at checkout. That's a rare discount and about $15 below the controller's usual going rate. If stock runs dry at Lenovo, it's also down to $40 at several other retailers. Those sales apply to multiple finishes, though some colors are priced at $45. Just note that these pads still rely on AA batteries by default; if you want one rechargeable battery, that'll cost you another $25.
Sony's DualSense controllers for the PlayStation 5, meanwhile, are down to $49 in several finishes. That matches the lowest price we've seen, and depending on what color you choose, comes in either $20 or $25 below the pad's usual price. In general, the DualSense is heavier and harder to hook up with a PC than its Xbox counterpart, but its D-pad isn't as clicky, it doesn't rely on AA batteries and its haptic feedback system is much more nuanced.
One of the most acclaimed and popular games of 2022, Elden Ringis a mammoth, haunting and challenging open-world game from the developers behind the Souls series of action-RPGs. It's currently on sale for $35 at Walmart, which is the lowest price we've tracked and $15 below the usual going rate for a physical copy. Like its spiritual predecessors, Elden Ring can sometimes feel punishing, overwhelming and overly cryptic, but its dark-fantasy world is refreshingly honest, letting you discover — or completely miss — its many secrets at your own pace.
If you're need something new to play on your Switch, a handful of well-regarded first-party Nintendo games are still on sale for lower-than-usual prices (though the selection isn't quite as strong as it was on Black Friday):
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, another recently released hack-and-slasher, is priced a bit higher than it was on Black Friday but is still $25 off.
The engrossing action-RPG Monster Hunter Riseis available for a new low of $20.
Note that, on Amazon, some of these deals aren't visible until checkout. Nintendo also has several other titles discounted as part of a Cyber Week sale at its online eShop.
Horizon Forbidden West and other PS5 exclusive games
If you're looking to build out your PS5 library, meanwhile, several exclusives for Sony's console are also at or near their lowest prices to date:
One of our favorite sequels of the year, the robot-battling open-world game Horizon Forbidden West, is down to a new low of $35. You can also pay $29 for a PS4 copy, which includes a free upgrade to the PS5 version.
If you primarily game on the PC, Steam's annual Autumn Sale is still kicking as well, bringing the usual truckload of discounts until November 29. Some highlights here include the biting RPG Disco Elysiumand the supernatural shooter Controlfor $10 apiece, the impressive VR game Half-Life: Alyxand the cyberpunk cat game Strayfor $24 each and a 22-pack of classic Valve games for just $7. There are hundreds more games from across eras beyond that, but remember that a fair chunk of these prices are likely to be replicated on PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox's respective storefronts as well.
PlayStation Plus
If you need to top up your PlayStation Plus subscription, Sony has dropped the price of 12-month memberships to that service by 25 percent. The deal applies to all three PS Plus tiers, so the basic "Essential" tier is down to $45, the "Extra" tier is down to $75, and the "Premium" tier is down to $90.
As a refresher, the Essential tier should be enough for most: It gets you broad access to online multiplayer, an allotment of cloud storage for backing up game saves and a handful of free game downloads each month. The Extra tier adds an on-demand library with a few hundred games, while the Premium tier provides cloud game streaming and an additional selection of "classic" PlayStation games on top of that.
Meta's Quest 2 headset is a couple years old at this point, but its wire-free design, competent performance and (relative) comfort have kept it the best option for most people looking to give virtual reality a try. For Cyber Monday, Meta is still selling a bundle that pairs the 128GB Quest 2 with two of its better games, the classic horror-shooter Resident Evil 4and the energetic rhythm game Beat Saber, for $350. That's a roughly $50 discount. If you need more storage, a bundle with the 256GB variant is on sale for $429.
Now, we're using the term "discount" loosely here, since the Quest 2 used to start at $299 until Meta jacked the price up by another $100 earlier this year. Still, this is the best deal we've seen since that price hike — and if nothing else, this is a much better value than the Meta Quest Pro. We gave the device formerly known as the Oculus Quest 2 a review score of 89 when it launched back in 2020.
The Backbone One is a clever and well-built mobile game controller that we've recommend in previous buying guides. The iPhone version of the device is currently down to a new low of $75 in both its standard and PlayStation-branded finishes. This isn't as good as the deal we saw on Black Friday, when Amazon had the device as low as $64, but it's still a good $25 off the controller's normal going rate.
Regardless of which style you pick, the One should make playing gamepad-compatible iOS games — or cloud-streamed console and PC games — feel much more natural than a touchscreen. The main complaints are that its face buttons are on the clicky side and that you'll need an adapter to get it to work with certain iPhones.
The HyperX Cloud Alpha is down to $50 at HyperX's online store when you use the code HOLIDAY at checkout. That's about $20 below the headset's usual going rate and one of the best prices we've tracked. If stock runs out there, the device is also available for $55 at various other retailers. In any event, this is a sturdy, no-frills gaming headset that's comfortable to wear for hours at a time. A good set of non-gaming headphones will sound better for the price, but the profile here is still relatively well-balanced, and the included mic is perfectly fine for everyday party chats.
If you'd prefer a wireless headset, SteelSeries' Arctis 7+ is worth a look at $99, which is a new low and roughly $50 off its usual price. That one isn't as universally comfortable, but it has a decent, hyped-up sound and some 60 hours of battery life per charge.
Logitech G Pro X Superlight, plus more gaming accessories
Logitech's G Pro X Superlight is a high-performing gaming mouse we like for both work and play, and right now it's down to a new low of $100, or about $35 off its usual street price. You should see the full discount at checkout. That's still not cheap, but the G Pro X Superlight stands out for being exceptionally light (at about 63 grams), quick to glide, and consistently responsive in faster-paced games. Just note that you only get a couple of customizable shortcut buttons, and that the whole thing connects over a USB dongle, not Bluetooth.
This is just one of a plethora of low or near-low prices on gaming accessories we like, though:
Razer has since replaced the Viper Ultimate, but at $57 it's still worth considering as an ultralight alternative to the G Pro X Superlight. It's a more ambidextrous mouse than the Logitech model, with a pair of shortcut buttons on either side, though its shape is a bit flatter.
If you don't mind going wired, Razer's Viper 8KHz is another responsive option for FPS games. It's a great value at its current deal price of $40, which is an all-time low.
We've previously recommended Razer's Huntsman Mini for those who want a fast gaming keyboard in an ultracompact form factor. It's currently within $5 of its all-time low at $70.
Corsair's Scimitar RGB Elite is an soft-feeling, comfortable-sized and full-featured mouse for MMO gaming, and it's within a dollar of its Black Friday price at $50. Razer's Naga Trinity is a solid alternative that has swappable side plates; that one is within $2 of its all-time low at $57.
Logitech's G29 is technically an older-generation model now, but it remains a fine value for those looking to get their first racing wheel at $200.
Logitech's G915 TKL is a comfortable wireless keyboard for those who prefer a low-profile feel. It's down to $160, which is $10 more than its all-time low but $25 off its usual price.
The latest version of Asus' ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop is down to $1,300 for a model with a Ryzen 9 6900HS CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, a 14-inch 120 Hz display and a Radeon RX 6700S GPU. That's $350 off MSRP and one of the better prices we've seen. The Zephyrus G14 is the top pick in our guide to the best gaming laptops: Its chassis is impressively light at 3.64 pounds, but this configuration still packs enough power to play just about any modern game at a 1440p resolution relatively smoothly.
If you want to save some cash, you can get a previous-gen Zephyrus G14 with a Ryzen 7 5800HS processor, a 512GB SSD, a 144Hz 1080p display and an RTX 3060 GPU for $900. That's still a decent value despite the drop in power, but be aware that this older model doesn't include a built-in webcam.
A configuration of Razer's Blade 14 with an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX chip, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and an RTX 3070 Ti GPU is currently down to $2,000 at Amazon. That's about $350 off its average street price and tied for the best price we've tracked. A variant with a slightly slower Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU and a slightly more powerful RTX 3080 GPU is also on sale for $100 more.
We gave the Blade 14 a review score of 84 last year, and we've recommended the similar Blade 15 in recent buying guides and gift guides. It can run hot, and you can still get similarly powerful gaming laptops for less cash, but the Blade still packs enough power to play demanding games at higher settings in a slim and slick-feeling design that weighs less than four pounds.
Sony has more exclusive games than Xbox does, according to Microsoft, which claims that many of its rival's first-party titles "are better quality." Lest you believe Microsoft is dunking on its own game studios for no reason, the company made the assertion in a filing with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is conducting an in-depth review of the planned Activision Blizzard acquisition. Although the filing is dated October 31st, Eurogamer notes that the document has just been made publicly available.
"In addition to being the dominant console provider, Sony is also a powerful game publisher," Microsoft wrote in its response to the CMA. "Sony is roughly equivalent in size to Activision and nearly double the size of Microsoft's game publishing business." The company added that "there were over 280 exclusive first- and third-party titles on PlayStation in 2021, nearly five times as many as on Xbox."
Along with Sony's own franchises — such as The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War and Spider-Man — the company signs deals with third-party publishers for exclusive rights to games. Microsoft cites Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Bloodborne, as well as the upcomingFinal Fantasy XVI and Silent Hill 2 remake as major titles that aren't or won't be available on Xbox.
Console exclusives account for a higher percentage of global game sales for Sony than Microsoft, the latter claimed (Sony just revealed that it sold 5.1 million copies of God of War Ragnarok in the game's launch week). However, many Xbox players opt to access Microsoft's exclusives through Game Pass instead of buying them outright — a point that Microsoft doesn't touch on while discussing the companies' sales proportions for their exclusive games.
In addition, Microsoft pointed to review scores for PlayStation and Xbox games. "The average Metacritic score for Sony’s top 20 exclusive games in 2021 was 87/100, against 80/100 for Xbox," Microsoft claimed.
Microsoft is spotlighting these factors because game exclusivity and competition concerns are important considerations that regulators reviewing the proposed Activision buyout are exploring. From Sony's perspective, one of the key sticking points of the Activision merger is the possibility that Microsoft will make the Call of Duty franchise (said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to PlayStation) exclusive to Xbox. Microsoft said it offered Sony a 10-year deal to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation earlier this month. Nevertheless, Microsoft claimed in the filing "it is implausible that Sony, the leading console with a more than 2-to-1 lead, would be foreclosed as a result of not having access to a single franchise."
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer suggested on The Verge's Decoder podcast last week that the Activision deal was largely about scooping up mobile gaming giant King. Mobile "is a place where if we don’t gain relevancy as a gaming brand, over time the business will become untenable," Spencer said. (Xbox Cloud Gaming runs on phones and tablets as well.)
Microsoft doubled down on the mobile side of the deal in its CMA filing. "As it stands, Xbox has no material presence in mobile and its ability to reach gamers on mobile is impeded by Apple and Google’s effective duopoly in the provision of mobile app stores. The acquisition of Activision provides Xbox with capabilities and content on mobile, which it currently lacks, while creating new distribution options for game developers outside of the mobile app stores." Of note, the CMA said this week it's investigating Apple and Google's "stranglehold over operating systems, app stores and web browsers on mobile devices."
Within less than a couple of months, you'll no longer be able to access Deus Ex Go, the turn-based puzzle game entry in the cyberpunk-dystopian franchise. Deus Ex Go was developed by Square Enix Montreal, which was acquired by Swedish game company Embracer Group back in May. While Embracer rebranded the studio to Onoma in October, reports came out less than a month later that it was going to shut down the mobile games developer. Now, Onoma has announced on Twitter that Deus Ex Go, Arena Battle Champions, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows and Space Invaders: Hidden Heroes will no longer be accessible after January 4th, 2023.
Further, they will be removed from Google Play and the Apple App Store on December 1st, and you can only play them until their final day if you already have them on your device. If you fire up any of those games, you'll find that in-game purchases are no longer available, as well. You also won't be getting any refunds if you don't use any in-game purchases you still have before the games shut down.
The then-Square Enix Montreal studio released Deus Ex Go back in 2016. To play, you'll have to move series protagonist Adam Jensen between the nodes on a hexagonal grid and have him hack computers or activate his augmentations. Shortly after it was released, Square Enix released an update that allowed you to create your own puzzles and challenges. It's a pretty old game by this point, but as Kotaku says, it was perhaps one of the best entries in the franchise.
While the Embracer acquisition has led to the death of Deus Ex Go, it might also give rise to a new mainline Deus Ex title. The game publisher, which has been snapping up studios and IPs left and right over the past couple of years, also purchased Eidos Montreal as part of the same deal that gave it ownership of Square Enix Montreal. Eidos said it plans to revive the Deus Ex series when the deal was announced, and more recent reports said a game is now in very early development.
Let’s face it, buying a gift for someone who loves gaming is tough. Almost every day brings with it a handful of new releases, and everyone has different tastes. Plus, if they’re a fan of a particular style or genre of game, there’s a good chance they’re already bought the new hotness. To save you that trouble, here are some gifts that are a bit different but should be appreciated all the same. You may also find something that will pique your interest.
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
Engadget
Blood, Sweat, and Pixelsis a must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in video games. Across 268 captivating pages, Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier shares how some of the most influential games of the past decade were made. Featuring interviews with the people who were there – including The Last of Us director Neil Druckmann and Eric Barone, the creator of Stardew Valley – the stories that populate Blood, Sweat, and Pixels shed a light on just how fraught the process of creating a game can be during even the best of times. It’s riveting reading for anyone who wants a more informed perspective on the craft.
Don’t let the Logitech G305’s affordable $40 price fool you, it’s a gaming mouse almost any gamer would happily add to their collection. At 99 grams, it’s one of the lighter mice in Logitech’s stable, and you can program all six buttons to your liking. It also includes the company’s fast and responsive Hero optical sensor and Lightspeed wireless technology for “wired-like” performance. A single AA battery provides the G305 with up to 250 hours of life, and you can get as much as nine months of use with some tweaking. Best of all, the G305 is available in a few different colors, including a handful of cheerful pastels. There’s even a K/DA version for fans of Riot’s virtual K-pop group. That versatility makes a perfect gift for a PC gamer.
If you’re buying a gift for someone who primarily plays games on their phone, consider treating them to the best mobile gamepad on the market. At $100, the Backbone One is pricey, but it easily surpasses competitors like the Razer Kishi in build quality. It also comes with a surprisingly robust companion app that makes capturing screenshots and clips from your play sessions a breeze. Each new Backbone One controller also comes with complimentary access to services like Xbox GamePass, giving owners a few different ways to add to their game library.
As Supergiant’s staff composer, Darren Korb has written some of the most memorable video game soundtracks in recent memory, but his work on Hades may be his best yet. From start to finish, the Hades Original Soundtrack is filled with tunes like ”Out of Tartarus” and “The Unseen Ones” that will make you stand up and shred an air guitar. It’s the perfect gift for fans of Hades (and there are many of those), but you can also give it to someone who hasn’t experienced the game yet. It might just convince them to play one of the best indies of the last few years.
With the popularity of multiplayer games, you may want to consider gifting your friend or family member a gaming headset. For an affordable option that features a clean sound signature that’s tuned for first-person shooters, it’s hard to go wrong with the Drop and Epos PC38X.
You may not be familiar with Epos, but you’ve definitely heard of Sennheiser. The historic audio brand founded Sennheiser Communications as a joint venture in 2003. In 2020, the subsidiary rebranded to Epos and went on to take over Sennheiser’s gaming portfolio. That history should tell you what to expect from the PC38X. It’s a headset that has more in common with classic headphones like the HD600 than its gaming peers. An open-back design helps the PC38X produce an immersive sound stage that can give you an edge in games like Valorant and Modern Warfare II. The built-in microphone is one of the best ones you’ll find on a gaming headset at this price, producing warm and natural tones when you speak into it. It’s a wired headset too, meaning you don’t have to worry about battery life and compatibility. Best of all, Drop frequently discounts the PC38X below its usual $169 price.
Okay, I lied. We do have one straightforward recommendation: Hollow Knight. Team Cherry’s debut title is one of the best games made in the past five years. It combines the exploration of a 2D Metroid-like title with a challenging combat system that is reminiscent of FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series. Add to that a beautiful soundtrack, art style and story, and it’s easy to see why so many people are eagerly waiting for Hollow Knight’s upcoming sequel, Silksong. While we’re here, go the extra mile and gift your friend or loved one a physical copy of the game. It comes with a beautiful map of Hollow Knight’s world.
It’s not creative, but if you want a safe option, it’s hard to go wrong with a gift card. We’re highlighting Steam here, but all the major gaming platforms offer their own take on the format, including Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, and do so in amounts that should fit any budget. Some of those same companies offer digital versions of their gift cards, making it easy to ensure your friend or family member can enjoy them, even if you can’t see them in person.
Another option if you’re buying for someone with an Xbox or PC is a one- or three-month Game Pass gift card. Microsoft’s subscription service is widely considered one of the best deals in gaming and is a great way to discover new titles to check out.
This gift will only appeal to fans of FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series, but let me tell you, if the person you’re buying for falls in that group, they will love you for it. Laudate Luna is a beautiful 12- by 36-inch print of Lordran, the setting where the first game takes place. Anyone who has fond memories of Dark Souls will be able to retrace their journey to Anor Lando and find all the places where they died repeatedly trying to conquer the game’s punishing combat.
If buying a gift for someone who enjoys gaming on their Nintendo Switch, there’s a good chance they’ll appreciate it if you get them more storage. The beauty of microSD cards is that they’re affordable. A company like SanDisk offers 512GB models for less than $100. That’s enough to install about 20 to 30 games. SanDisk sells Switch-specific models, but any UHS-1 compatible microSD card that offers transfer speeds of at least 60 MB/s will do.
After more than two decades of iteration, it’s hard to find a fault with Microsoft’s Xbox controllers. The latest Series X/S version refines a design that was already excellent with the Xbox One, but what it lacks is customization. That’s something you can get with Microsoft’s Elite Wireless controller. The Series 2 model comes with six different thumbsticks, four separate paddles and a set of two d-pads. With all those components included, even the most discerning players should be able to tune the controller to their liking.
