While 2026 has so far been packed with incredible PC games, The Blood of Dawnwalker was the one that I was looking forward to the most. Not only does it come from a game director with an incredible pedigree, but ever since system requirements were first revealed in February, I knew that this game would absolutely punish my PC – and I’m into that.

Luckily, Rebel Wolves has since lightened the system requirements a bit, now only recommending an RTX 4070 Ti for 4K 60 fps gameplay, rather than the RTX 5090 I thought it was going to require at the beginning of the year. And now that I’ve had a chance to play it, I’m pleasantly surprised at its performance, even if the visuals are a little mixed.

Just like a lot of RPGs of this scope, much of what makes The Blood of Dawnwalker so beautiful is its environments. Just walking through the town and the forest in the opening chapter is jaw-dropping, with realistic foliage and water. The character models don’t quite reach the same fidelity, but I’m ok with that when just walking through the world looks as good as it does.

The Blood of Dawnwalker PC Settings Explained

While The Blood of Dawnwalker is available on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, PC is where it truly shines. This game has pretty much every graphics option I’d like in a modern game, and avoids clumping a bunch of graphics techniques into one banner. The game is quite heavy to run maxed out, but there is genuinely enough room to dial it in for better performance, pretty much whichever hardware you’re playing it on.

Keep in mind, though, that The Blood of Dawnwalker is running on Unreal Engine 5. The game handily avoids the kinds of problems that have plagued Star Wars Zero Company and Halo: Campaign Evolved, but it is pretty heavy, especially on your CPU. The game will still run on a handheld, technically, but not particularly well. I played it a bit on the Lenovo Legion Go 2 at the lowest settings at 900p, and got around 24 fps indoors. So, I’d stick to your main tower for this one.

But even on a tower, Blood of Dawnwalker can be very demanding. At 4K with DLSS set to Quality and on the Ultra preset, the RTX 5090 gets anywhere from 70–90 fps before frame generation. It is incredibly smooth, but that’s the type of performance you’d expect from an RTX 5090.

Here's my list of recommended graphics settings, so you can spend less time wondering what each option does and more time living your best vampiric life.

Shadow Quality: This one’s pretty simple and just changes the resolution and accuracy of shadows. This game has a lot of dynamic lighting, though, and this is probably one of the first settings I’d turn down to improve performance. But, it is a game where shadows do add a lot to the atmosphere, so you’ll have to weigh the importance there. Mid-Range PC: High; Handheld: Low

Light Quality: It’s hard to tell from looking at this game’s gorgeous lighting, especially in the mornings and evenings, but there is no ray tracing on offer here. Still, this setting will change how detailed lights are, and the intensity of effects like global illumination and diffuse lighting. Turn it down if your performance is struggling. Mid-Range PC: High; Handheld: Low

Reflections Quality: I’ll admit that I’m only a couple of hours into this absolutely massive RPG, but at least in my time with it, there aren’t that many reflective surfaces. Still, this setting will change how detailed screen space reflections are, so turn it down if you start getting performance drops around water or other reflective surfaces. Mid-Range PC: Medium; Handheld: Low

Post-Processing Quality: You’ll be able to toggle individual post-processing features on or off further down in the settings, so this changes how good all of those effects look. I’d keep this up on higher settings if you like a cinematic aesthetic, but you can effectively turn it off if you don’t really care about bloom or motion blur. Mid-Range PC: High; Handheld: Low

Texture Quality: This mostly affects how much VRAM the game is going to eat up. I’ve spent most of my time in this game with this maxed out, and the game ate up about 10–12GB of VRAM. So I’d stick to Ultra on 16GB plus, High on anything from 8–12GB and medium or low if you have less than 8GB of VRAM. This should be one of the first things you turn down if you start running into stuttering.

Effects Quality: This mostly affects particle effects, and there are surprisingly a lot of them in this game. This is going to be heavier on your CPU than anything, so I’d turn this down if you’re getting bottlenecked there. Mid-Range PC: Ultra; Handheld: Low

Shading Quality: This is just another way to scale the lighting in Blood of Dawnwalker. I’d turn this down early if you’re struggling to hit 60 fps. Mid-Range PC: High; Handheld: Low

Foliage Quality: Simply put, foliage in this game is gorgeous, almost at the same level as something like Assassin’s Creed Shadows. But, if you notice your performance start to tank when you’re running around in the wilderness, you should probably drop this to a lower setting. But, really you should at least try running it a higher setting just to see what it looks like. Mid-Range PC: Medium or High; Handheld: Low

Detail Quality: Maybe it’s just me, but having the option to tweak “Detail Quality” feels a little like changing “Detail Details.” Regardless, this changes a lot of volumetric effects like fog, along with destructible objects. I’d turn this down if you’re running into CPU issues. Mid-Range PC: Medium; Handheld: Low

Volumetric Quality: This setting also changes volumetrics, but focuses more on their resolution. I’ll always turn volumetrics down before anything else, and that doesn’t change in Blood of Dawnwalker. Mid-Range PC: Medium; Handheld: Low

Upscaling Technology: Unlike a lot of other Unreal Engine 5 games, Blood of Dawnwalker doesn’t try and shove TSR down your throat. Instead, Blood of Dawnwalker supports all three major upscalers from GPU manufacturers and the one you should choose depends on which graphics card you’re using. Nvidia users should use DLSS, AMD users should use FSR and Intel users should use XeSS.

Upscaling Mode: Because this game is hard to run, I’d go with upscaling on performance mode if you’re struggling to hit 60 fps. However, keep in mind that performance mode will look pretty rough on lower resolutions, so you might want to lower lighting settings first.

Frame Generation: This uses AI to insert interpolated frames in between rendered frames. This will nearly double your frame rate, but will increase latency by a little bit. But because this isn’t a competitive game, and isn’t even that fast-paced, I’d recommend just turning this on, especially if you have a high-refresh rate gaming monitor.

Motion Blur: This is just a toggle to either enable or disable motion blur. I hate motion blur, you might love it. It’s really up to you. It won’t affect performance all that much either way.

Bloom: This is another toggle, but this time for Bloom. These are the little rays of light that you sometimes see coming off of the sun or something. This will affect performance a bit, so I’d turn it off if you’re playing on a low-end GPU. But for most people on a modern gaming PC, it probably won’t make that much of an impact.

Chromatic Aberration: This is an effect that tries to mimic a camera lens. I don’t notice much of a difference whether its enabled or not, so I’d try it each way and see what you prefer. This won’t affect performance much if at all.

Depth of Field: This will blur distant objects, especially in cutscenes. This is a nice effect, and I usually leave it on, but turn it off if you want everything to be crystal clear.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has suggested Project Helix will encompass more than one device, saying that Microsoft has been working on "a great family of devices."

As Microsoft attempts to navigate mass layoffs across its gaming branch, the company has mostly played its cards close to the chest when it comes to its mysterious next-gen Xbox console. Project Helix was formally announced with the promise of PC game-playing capabilities back in March of this year, and now Sharma may be teasing something more.

The Xbox CEO teased some of what's to come for Project Helix during an interview with the BBC at gamescom 2026. While Microsoft wants to stay tight-lipped, some of what she had to say suggested the gaming hardware might be more than a simple box release.

"We're not sharing more on Helix, I know you had to ask it," Sharma said when asked if Project Helix will be a "discless" console. "But look, we've been hard at work on a great next generation and a great family of devices for Helix, and we'll share more soon."

With so little to go on, Sharma's comment could mean a lot of things. This past generation, for example, saw the release of not one but two Xbox consoles with its Series X/S releases. The X, considered a more powerful device, features a disc drive, while the S is an all-digital device.

The mention of a "family of devices" for Project Helix doesn't exactly mean that there will be something like a Project Helix Series X/S, but it does suggest Microsoft may be preparing for a next-gen console that could be just as untraditional as the one it follows.

Despite Sharma suggesting in the past that Project Helix may be targeting a holiday 2027 release, we don't know exactly when the new gaming hardware will launch. In June, she acknowledged that a mass audience won't be willing to spend "thousands of dollars" on a "console generation," teasing that Microsoft will explore "new business models" as it looks to the future.

While we wait to see what exactly Project Helix and its family of devices are, you can see why we think the next-gen Xbox console needs to clearly communicate its strengths and be more than a simple Series sequel. While it's unclear if it will allow fans to use physical game discs in a traditional sense, what is clear is that Microsoft will soon allow Xbox fans to digitize their video games.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Nvidia debuted DLSS 5 back in March 2026, promising to bring neural rendering to games in order to make them look more realistic. While pretty much everyone hated it, it seems like Nvidia has continued to work on it behind the scenes: It's leaked in a build of the NBA 2K27 beta.

Twitter user @renan_maniero spotted the new DLSS file in the NBA 2K27 early access, called nvngx_dlssnr.dll. The 'nr' at the end there appears to stand for neural rendering. Just finding the file in the game's directory would be one thing, but it looks like some enterprising modders have been able to build it into some other existing games.

Eita, o acesso antecipado do jogo NBA 2K27 veio com uma DLL nova do DLSS.

DLSS-NR (Neural Rendering) 👀 pic.twitter.com/X15fYO92RU

— Renan Maniero (@renan_maniero) August 26, 2026

Some modders built a DLSS 5 mod and integrated it into Control, which was spotted by Gizmodo. In the initial post on X, you can see the modders manipulating some sliders to change the degree by which the neural renderer is changing the image. Things like auto skin mask, intensity and style are all customizable, which is something Nvidia said would be possible when it announced the technology earlier this year.

A YouTube video shows the mod in action, and from the moment neural rendering is enabled, the frame rate is cut nearly in half – from 95fps to 53. Keep in mind that right now the mod is limited to character models, and it really only has the effect of making Jessie look like she needs a nap.

Over on the Nvidia subreddit, some modders were able to work the tech into The Last of Us Part 2, and while most of the images with the tech enabled make the characters look downright weird, the response seems to be split down the middle. One user says the DLSS 5 "looks deep fried, I am not going to lie," which is probably where I'm sitting. Someone else says, "There's more detail and the characters look more photo realistic and less like Pixar characters."

Obviously, this technology is in its very early stages, and once game developers are able to actually work it into the game naturally and optimize it, there probably won't be such a pronounced performance impact. But it's hard to imagine that turning on DLSS 5 will in any way improve your frame rate, which makes it one of the first pieces of Nvidia's AI software suite that makes performance worse.

Either way, now that the DLL file that enables the technology is clearly out in the wild, it's only a matter of time before it actually makes its way to market. But if the RTX 5090 gets its performance cut in half, I don't know if I'd recommend anyone enable it until some future graphics card hits the market.

Because while the visual effect the tech has will probably be debated until the end of time, the performance impact is where PC gamers tend to decide whether or not tech is worth using. It took a few years for people to start actually turning ray tracing on, as it was a surefire way to halve your performance in its early days. I'll be testing the technology one way or another as soon as Nvidia actually releases it.

Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

I wasn't exactly surprised when I heard that Grand Theft Auto 6 would be coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X before it ever comes to PC; Rockstar took that same approach with GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Even though I've had to wait for those games to come to PC, they've always been better when you have the hardware to really push these games to another level, and I didn't expect GTA 6 to be any different.

Then I watched the Extended Look on Netflix, and it looks incredible. Even from from my couch, I could tell there were some incredible ray-traced global illumination, reflection, and shadow effects, which really make the game come alive. There were even moments — like when Jason and Lucia talk to someone behind a window — where the shadows dynamically move across the stranger's face that really make the game look like a technical masterpiece.

The only problem is that it was running on a base PS5. The game looks incredible regardless, but there were certainly moments where the frame rate slowed down considerably. I had already heard word that GTA 6 will only get a 60fps mode on the PS5 Pro, and now I can definitely see why. With all those lighting effects and the high-resolution textures, Grand Theft Auto 6 is really going to make the base consoles chug.

I have a hard time believing that GTA 6 will even be able to run at a steady 60fps on even the PS5 Pro, even though I know just how talented Rockstar's engineers are at making gorgeous games run on limited hardware. What I really want to do is take away those limits with an extemely powerful graphics card.

When Red Dead Redemption 2 finally made its way to PC, it was one my go-to games to test hardware with for years. I've only just recently dropped it from my testing rotation. The reason it stuck around so long was how scalable it was. Rockstar found a way to allow people to turn the settings down to a ridiculous degree, to be able to play it on PCs that frankly had no right trying to run it. Likewise, if you did have a beefy computer, there were dozens of things you could tweak that elevated the game far beyond how it looked on the PS4 and Xbox One. That game's PC port was a huge leap over GTA 5's port, too, and I suspect that when GTA 6 makes its way to PC (maybe sometime next year?), Rockstar is going to take those learnings even further.

There are already a couple things I'd like to see from the PC version. In a couple of moments in the extended trailer, reflections were quite noisy, particularly in the bodies of cars. It just so happens that Nvidia launched a new version of ray reconstruction just this week at Gamescom that would basically solve that issue.

At least until some new version of GTA Online comes out, this would be the perfect game to use frame generation, which will help smooth out some of the more noticeable frame drops — at least visually. I know that frame generation is controversial, but this is one of those games where I really want to see just how smooth I can make it, especially because the world looks so lived-in otherwise.

I'm sure there are plenty of folks out there that really just want to get their hands on the game immediately. And while I'll probably end up playing it at least a little bit when the game launches on consoles in November, I just know that I'm going to want to wait until the game launches on PC to really dive in.

Who knows, there may even be more powerful graphics hardware available when the PC version launches that will make the game look even better than what's possible right now. I don't know what the PC version of the game is going to look like yet, of course, but I know that once it finally comes out I'm going to put it through its paces to see just how good I can get it looking — maybe even with mods.

If it looks as good on PS5 as it the Netflix Extended Look made it seem, the inevitable PC port is going to be absolutely jaw-dropping. I already wanted that PC port, but now I need it.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

Panic's Playdate, a crank-powered handheld gaming system, launched all the way back in 2022, but last year it got hit with the same tariffs as many gaming products. Now that the Supreme Court has ordered the government to refund those fees, Panic is forwarding those refunds to the customers that actually paid them.

The company started sending out emails, spotted on LinkedIn and Reddit, informing customers that they'd be getting a tariff refund sent to their original payment method. The refund itself isn't much — the highest one I've seen is a $25 refund — but when it's attached to a handheld that costs $250 now and $179 at launch, it's a pretty decent percentage.

If you bought one of these fun little handhelds when the tariffs were active, you should be automatically getting an email notifying you of the refund. If not, you should be able to reach out to help@play.date to figure out what's going on.

Ideally, we'd see more companies refunding tariffs now that the refunds have started flowing from the governmen, but there are definitely companies that are holding on to those fees. Even Nintendo has refused to issue refunds to Switch 2 customers, arguing that gamers got exactly what they paid for. Hopefully, the Playdate manufacturers can set a decent example for other companies to follow.

After all, tarrifs aren't the only thing causing prices to go up lately. Since the beginning of 2026, the RAMpocalypse has had a much bigger impact on prices, and that probably won't let up any time soon. The way I see it, passing on at least some savings to customers now that prices are solidly out of control is the least manufacturers could do.

Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

Nvidia released its Q2 2027 earnings report yesterday, and while it's obvious the company is making a ton of money on data centers – up 106% from this time last year – the company didn't mention gaming once.

That shouldn't be too surprising. After all, Team Green dropped the gaming category from its earnings report last quarter, moving it into 'edge computing.' In that category this quarter, the only time 'RTX' shows up is when the RTX Spark, launched at Computex 2026, was mentioned. I've had the chance to play with the RTX Spark-equipped Surface a couple times at events since then, and while it's definitely capable of gaming, systems with that chipset are absolutely geared more toward local AI workloads than playing Alan Wake 2.

At least part of the reason gaming wasn't mentioned, I suspect, is because we're smack dab in the middle of a GPU generation right now. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 and the rest of the Blackwell GeForce lineup came out about a year and a half ago, so it makes sense that gaming is a bit quiet. But, with how much cash AI is making Nvidia, and with the RAM crisis – which Nvidia absolutely contributes to – driving graphics card prices through the roof, I can't help but wonder when we're going to actually see new GPUs.

I've seen rumors that the RTX 6080 likely won't be launching until the end of 2027 at the earliest, which, if true, would make this one of the longest graphics generations in memory. As early as February 2026, a report from The Information suggested the RTX 60 series would be delayed beyond 2027, and we still haven't got the mid-generation 'Super' refresh that we typically see halfway through each graphics generation.

Instead, most of the gaming news out of Nvidia this year has been around software. The company previewed the controversial DLSS 5 back in March, which will use gen AI to essentially re-draw games. But even beyond that, the company just released a new ray reconstruction model as part of DLSS 4.5, which is genuinely awesome, and there have been incremental upgrades to multi-frame generation throughout the year that have made that technology much less jarring.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure if it's a bad thing if new graphics cards take a while to actually come out. If there's one thing that rings true about pretty much every hardware launch this year, it's that they've been overpriced due to the RAM shortage. Nvidia's cards have carried a higher premium with every launch, so it's hard to imagine just how expensive a flagship graphics card launching in 2026 or 2027 would actually be.

My advice, then, would be to brace yourself for a few more years without an upgrade. Hopefully game developers will use this time to make sure games run a bit smoother on older hardware. The good news is that some of the best games this year have been successful there, like Crimson Desert and Forza Horizon 6, which run well on basically anything. But there are still games like Star Wars Zero Company and Halo: Campaign Evolved which all but demand newer GPUs. Hopefully, we see more of the former than the latter in the jam-packed second half of 2026.

Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

There are a few things that are inevitable every year, and one of those things is Apple hosting a big, flashy event in September to show off its newest iPhone. And now, Apple has announced a September 9 event that'll do just that.

The event will happen September 9 at 10am PST, and while the company hasn't shared exactly what's in store, it's not hard to guess that this is where all the latest iPhones are going to get showcased. As for which iPhones will be getting a refresh, its anyone's guess, but it's safe to assume that the iPhone 18 and its Pro version will be there, along with the latest Apple Watch.

But rumors have circled for ages that Apple has been toying with the idea of launching a foldable phone. It feels like this is something that I've been hearing for years now, but with how far foldables have come in the last two years, specifically, this could be the year that Apple finally brings its version to the masses – after all, it has named this iteration of the event "Surprise and Shine." A foldable iPhone would certainly be surprising, to say the least.

Back in July, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Quo predicted that the foldable iPhone would be coming sometime this year, but that it would be in limited supply, with "7–8 million units, with 3Q26 shipments at 0.5–1 million units, or about 10% of the total." He also predicted that if the foldable is real, it'd be quite expensive. That shouldn't be surprising, though, with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra costing $2,100 when it launched last month.

While that would mean Apple would be quite late to the foldable game, the company has a track record of taking technologies and launching them into the stratosphere. It's hard to imagine that a $2,000 phone is going to have mainstream success, but if any company could do it, it'd be Apple.

Beyond the rumored foldable, though, I don't suspect that the iPhone 18 and 18 Pro are going to be that different from the iPhone 17. The 17 Pro brought a new chassis, with a much better camera shelf, and I'd expect Apple to ride that chassis out for another year.

Whichever iPhones Apple elects to launch this year will probably come with a modest price bump, though. The RAM crisis does apply to phones, and the company has already raised prices on the rest of its product lineup. It wouldn't be surprising, then, that the new iPhone is going to have at least some price increase baked in. At least that would help the company avoid raising prices on older products.

Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

We got off to such a great start this year, with a ton of PC games that looked great and still ran well on pretty much any hardware. One of the common themes among games like Crimson Desert, Resident Evil Requiem, and Forza Horizon 6 was that none of them were running on Unreal Engine 5. And just like Halo: Campaign Evolved last month, Star Wars: Zero Company is a great example of why I'd love it if developers simply abandoned Epic's engine altogether.

I've spent about five hours in Zero Company so far, and while that means I'm still pretty early in the otherwise fantastic game, I've still run into more than my fair share of technical issues, across all types of hardware. When the game isn't bugging out in some way, I've been having a blast with it, and it's important to note that our reviewer Dan Stapleton hasn't had nearly the same depth of issues that I've had.

What's funny is that the technical problems are different on each of the systems I've tried the game on.

A Buggy Galaxy

I was on vacation last week, so the first laptop I tried the game on was my Razer Blade 16, with an RTX 5090 and a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. It got a decent average frame rate at 1600p, but it was plagued with microstutters, especially in cutscenes. I started getting driver crashes, where the game would just make my laptop restart whenever I tried to load the game up — something that doesn't happen with any other game right now.

I also spent some time playing the game on the Lenovo Legion Go 2, which I've installed Bazzite on. Anyone that's ever tried to play an Unreal Engine 5 game on a handheld probably won't be surprised, but it didn't run super well. In order to get a playable frame rate, I had to lower the resolution to 800p with the lowest settings, and I was still only getting about 25–30fps. But that by itself isn't necessarily a deal breaker with this type of game. It's turn based, so I can absolutely live with a 30fps experience here.

For some reason, the game loves to crash right at the end of a mission. The system will lock up, forcing me to do a hard restart, and lose all my progress. This happened a good four times before I just gave up. That one likely comes down to Linux. I had a similar problem on the Steam Machine, where the game would crash on the same level, only the Steam Machine actually gave me an error report that I could send to the developer.

Once I got home a couple of days ago, I had to see what would happen on a top-end rig with an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, 32GB of RAM ,and an RTX 5090. The performance, even with that level of hardware, wasn't great. I was only getting 70–80fps at 4K with Ultra settings with DLSS set to Quality and frame generation disabled. That's still very playable, mind you, but halfway through my first mission on that desktop, the game just froze in the middle of a turn.

Bit Reactor has already come out with a day-zero patch that fixes some problems, but even after installing it, I continue to run into crashes, freezes, and frame drops constantly. I have to imagine that the game will get to a more stable point eventually, and I'm looking forward to it. After all, Zero Company, along with Galactic Racer have been two of my most anticipated games this year.

I'm going to keep trudging along with Zero Company despite all my trials and tribulations with it. There's just something about the prequel era of Star Wars that just ensnares me, and the story definitely has its hooks in me. I just wish sitting down and playing the game wasn't such a recipe for headaches right now. Maybe some day.

Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

I’ve been an XCom fan for years, and while we haven’t got a new one in a while, Star Wars Zero Company seems like the perfect substitute. It’s in the Star Wars universe, which is awesome, and putting it in the middle of the Clone Wars makes it the perfect setting for a tactical game like this. And while I’ve been having a blast with it so far, it’s plagued with a lot of the same performance issues as Halo Campaign Evolved had about a month ago.

At the time of writing, my time with Zero Company has been a bit of a nightmare, filled with crashes and frame drops. I’m sure that, over time, the game will be patched to be a bit more stable, but right now, it doesn’t exactly play nice with low-to-mid-range hardware. I’ve even had some issues on an incredibly powerful RTX 5090 gaming PC.

Star Wars Zero Company PC Settings

While you can tune Zero Company to run a bit smoother most of the time, there are still issues with frame drops, particularly in cutscenes. Even if you get the game to run at a steady 60fps, there will be times when the game will run into hitches. One of the best ways around that is to have a PC with a decent processor.

When I tried to run the game on something like the Lenovo Legion Go 2, the CPU would be pinned at around 50–60% usage, while the GPU sat at 70–80%, which is just leaving performance on the table. Nvidia Reflex and AMD FSR Anti-Lag help a bit there, but most of the time you’re going to be limited by your CPU. Even on a desktop with a Ryzen 7 9850X3D and an RTX 5090, the game will occasionally spike CPU usage up to 50%, typically at the beginning of a mission.

Games using Unreal Engine 5 are hard to tune, but you can eke out some extra performance if you know where to cut. I’ll go through all the settings and what they change here, so you can tweak the game to your own specific PC. For example, if you have a weak CPU, you’re probably going to want to lower things like hidden objects and effect quality first.

Windowing Mode: This will change how the window is displayed when you’re playing the game. There are only three options. Fullscreen will make your computer only render the game, which could cause problems if you try to alt-tab. Borderless Window is what I like to call ‘fake fullscreen’ because it takes up your entire display while still rendering the Windows desktop beneath it. Then, Windowed mode just puts the game in a standard Window, where you can see the task bar. I’d choose Fullscreen if you’re on a single-monitor setup, and Borderless if you have multiple monitors or you alt-tab frequently.

Anti-Aliasing and Upscaling: Back in the day, there was a genuine debate over which type of upscaling folks should use, but these days, I’d just pick depending on who makes your graphics card. AMD users should use FSR, Nvidia users should use DLSS, and XeSS for Intel GPUs. This is a game where I’d recommend pretty much everyone to use some kind of upscaling to maximize performance.

Upscaling Quality: This changes the scale at which the game will be upscaled. Luckily, each GPU vendor uses the same scale, so I’d pick one depending on your native resolution. My rule of thumb is Performance for 4K, Balanced for 1440p, and Quality for 1080p.

Frame Generation: This uses AI to generate new frames and sandwiches them between natively rendered frames, which increases your frame rate. This does come at the cost of latency, but in a turn-based game like Star Wars Zero Company, that really doesn’t matter that much. Turn it on if you want a smoother image.

Nvidia Reflex/AMD Anti-Lag/XeSS LL: This setting will change depending on your GPU vendor but the underlying technology is similar across the board. These zero out your rendering queue, which lowers latency by only rendering frames as your CPU delivers them to your graphics card. Turn it on, there’s no reason not to.

Shadow Quality: If you’re GPU bound and struggling to get frames, Shadows are generally the first thing I cut. This will change how accurate shadows are, and even on low, they look halfway decent here (again, Unreal has a problem with scalability). Mid-Range PC: High, Handheld: Low

Global Illumination: This changes the quality of indirect lighting. This is another setting that mostly just affects your graphics card, so lower it if you’re GPU bound and looking for better performance. But if your graphics card isn’t even sitting at 100% utilization most of the time, this probably isn’t what’s causing your performance woes. Keep in mind though, that the High and Ultra settings here are using ray tracing, so going from medium to high will hit your GPU hard. Mid-Range PC: Medium; Handheld: Low

Reflections: Just like with GI, reflections are mostly a GPU-bound thing and Bit Reactor is using ray tracing here too. Just by virtue of this being a science-fiction game, there are a lot of reflective surfaces, so this can be pretty impactful to your performance, especially on a weaker GPU. Unless you have a high-end card, I’d keep this at medium. Mid-Range PC: Medium; Handheld: Low

Post Processing: I have a love-hate relationship with post-processing effects, and I’m not super happy that Bit Reactor rolled all of them into one setting. This will change everything from motion blur to bloom. This honestly won’t affect your performance that much, but if you hate motion blur, it might be worth turning this down just to save yourself a headache. Mid-Range PC: Your Choice; Handheld: Your Choice

Textures: This changes the resolution that textures are rendered at. This will mostly hit VRAM, so adjust accordingly. My tip would be to have a performance monitor up during one mission to see how much VRAM you’re using, and only lower this if you’re at the upper limit. Or, just turn it on Ultra if you have 10GB or more, and turn it to medium or low if you have less than 8GB.

Effect Quality: This will change how detailed visual effects are. This will affect everything from explosions to debris to lasers shooting through the sky. This is something that will hit your CPU, so if you’re being bottlenecked there, this is one of the settings you should cut. Mid-Range PC: High; Handheld: Low

Shading Quality: In this game, shading quality is essentially the same as mesh quality. It’ll change how detailed objects in the world are. Just like with textures, this is something I’d lower if you’re running out of VRAM. Mid-Range PC: High; Handheld: Low

View Distance: This is kind of a funny setting to even have in this game. This just changes how far out you can see details on objects from. But because of how small most of the arenas are, this is purely an aesthetic choice, and so I’m obliged to turn this down before most of the other settings. Mid-Range PC: Medium; Handheld: Low

Hidden Objects Detail: This changes how detailed objects that are currently hidden are. This will hit your CPU, so it’s something you should turn down if you are bottlenecked. Mid-Range PC: Simplified; Handheld: Simplified

Environment Geometry Detail: This is just a toggle that’ll change the geometry of models in the scene. Bit Reactor’s tooltip claims that newer GPUs won’t really see a performance benefit from turning it off, so I’d just leave it on unless you have an older PC – think more than 5years old. Mid-range PC: On; Handheld: Off

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

With Gamescom and the 25th anniversary translucent green Xbox Series X on the horizon (for those with the cash to nab one), perhaps it's time to start looking around for similarly see-through accessories. So, of course Razer has announced new Xbox 25th Anniversary Edition versions of its BlackWidow V4 75% Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, Basilisk V3 Pro 35K wireless gaming mouse, and Hammerhead V3 X Hyperspeed low-latency AirPods-like wireless earbuds.

These are the same devices we've come to know in the past. IGN called the BlackWidow V4 75 Razer's "most thoughtful" keyboard back in 2023; it's a less featureful version of the BlackWidow V4 75 Pro that sits on IGN's best gaming keyboards list.

Like the existing V4 75s, the Xbox 25th Anniversary Edition features RGB lighting and hot-swappable keys, only now it's got a see-through green shell and keys, as well as a Razer and Xbox 25 logo-emblazoned wrist rest. Also, at $210, it costs $20 more than plain black or white models, and $10 more than other versions, like the existing translucent, but slightly darker-colored Phantom Green.

Then there's the $180 Basilisk V3 Pro 35K mouse and the $120 Hammerhead V3 X Hyperspeed earbuds. The Basilisk V3 Pro 35K can work wired, but also works over Bluetooth and ships with a Razer HyperSpeed Wireless Dongle, and should be good for up to 210 hours of battery live via Bluetooth.

The Hammerhead V3 X Hyperspeed features 11mm drivers and a shape that's very reminiscent of the 3rd-gen AirPods Pro, only, you know, kind of a pukey, see-through green. Like their translucent keyboard cousin, they each come at a $20 premium compared to their black or white variants.

So, what say you? Do you like green mice and keebs?

Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.

If you're a fan of strange and unholy fast food concoctions, then you'll definitely want to see what the crazed scienticians at KFC and Nabisco have concocted. Fresh off the reveal of their fried chicken-flavored Oreo cookies in China, the two companies have reversed that fusion to create the Oreo Original Recipe Chicken Burger.

This bizarre collab was revealed by KFC China on Weibo (via Dexerto). It looks every bit as strange as it sounds. The sandwich starts off ordinarily enough, with a fried chicken patty and lettuce, but it's topped with brown mashed potatoes dusted in cookie crumbles and placed between two Oreo cookie-flavored buns.

Like any good fast food mash-up, we can't decide if we're grossed out by this creation or deeply intrigued. Either way, American foodies shouldn't count on being able to try the Oreo Original Recipe Chicken Burger anytime soon. The sandwich is currently limited to the Chinese market only, with no indication of when or if it might come to the US.

Will you devour an Oreo Chicken Sandwich if given the opportunity? Cast your vote in our poll below:

This is just the latest odd creation from the folks at Nabisco. Past Oreo cookie variants have included Post Malone Oreos, which featured swirled salted caramel and shortbread flavored cream squeezed between one golden and one chocolate Oreo wafer cookie, and Mario Oreos. And in perhaps the most unholy combination of them all, there's the Ritz Oreo.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.

The separation between PC and console gaming is hazier than ever thanks to soaring prices, scarce hardware, and PC ports of formerly exclusive games. Go into the average PC gamer’s home and you’re likely to find at least one console, and that’s exactly the crowd that Sony hopes to appease with its new PlayStation 27” gaming monitor. Designed to match the look of your PS5 or PS5 Pro perfectly, it packages a QHD resolution with high refresh rate gameplay, auto-HDR, and a foldaway charging dock for your DualSense controllers for $349.99. If you’re a PlayStation fan, it’ll make a great addition to a desk-based gaming setup. If you don’t care about its PS5 look, however, this really isn’t the monitor you’re looking for.

Design and Features

It only takes a second to see who the monitor is aimed at. Between the black stand and white back of the monitor itself, it’s a perfect match for the PS5. The branding is minimal: a simple PS logo that peeks out above the stand when viewed from the rear.

The monitor comes perilously close to looking boring from the front. It’s the usual profile we’ve seen on flat panel gaming displays for years, with vanishingly thin bezels that lend the display a feeling of spaciousness. There are no visible controls. Toggling settings in the OSD is done with a joystick in the back. In short: black rectangle.

That is, until you start using the display’s biggest console-specific feature: its DualSense charging hook. Centered behind the display is a flip-down charging dock to store and charge your DualSense and DualSense Edge controllers when not in use. It sounds small — it is small — but it’s exactly the kind of quality-of-life feature that PS5 players will appreciate. No more loose controllers or wires to clutter up your desk, just your neatly glowing DualSense under your now very PlayStation-looking monitor.

As the first real PlayStation-branded monitor (Sony Inzone also offers PC gaming monitors but is a separate line from PlayStation), I expected Sony to go big: OLED, high refresh rate, high peak brightness, and an even higher price. Instead, it went the opposite direction by offering something entirely more accessible to the average person.

Coming in at $350, it offers some pretty decent specs no matter which platform you choose. Within its slim frame, it features an IPS panel with a sharp 2560x1440 resolution. It’s built for everything from turn-based RPGs to twitch shooters, sporting a quick 240Hz refresh rate on PC and 120Hz on console (the PlayStation 5’s peak output). It also comes with Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support so your gameplay stays fluid. It’s technically AMD FreeSync, but worked well with Nvidia G-Sync too.

While it’s not OLED, its Fast IPS panel is a good example of why you should still be paying attention to this tech. The colors are vibrant and the viewing angles are wide. It features a 1ms gray-to-gray response time which won’t get you the exceptional motion clarity of OLED but is effective at keeping ghosting away. Sony also did a good job calibrating the display from the factory. Out of the box, I measured color accuracy to be just under the industry standard of Delta E < 2, so you could even use it for image or video editing.

Around the back, the monitor’s I/O is neatly tucked away. It comes with two HDMI 2.1 ports and a DisplayPort 1.4, and a couple of USB Type-A ports and one Type-C to support peripherals and accessories. The charging hook folds away just below this, so if you tend to keep your monitor low, you may need to raise it when the hook is in use.

The stand is disappointing for the price. It’s a flat metal slab and a vertical metal tube and that’s about it. You’re able to make the usual tilt and height adjustments and rotate it but you can’t pivot into a portrait orientation. It does support standard VESA 100x100 mounts, so finding a replacement isn’t difficult if it bothers you.

The monitor has a few other PlayStation-specific tricks up its sleeve, like Auto HDR Tone Mapping which automatically adjusts the console’s HDR settings to match on setup. Also, it has a built-in speaker so you can hear your games even if you don’t feel like plugging in a headset. That shouldn’t be novel, but it’s not a given anymore. Without the connection to PlayStation, it’s not a display that would have more than a headphone jack in most cases.

But you should still use a headset. While it’s admirable that Sony included a speaker here, it feels like a “break glass in case of emergency” kind of addition instead of something I would actually recommend you use. The sound is thin and tinny, and I found it harsh to listen to for very long. It will work in a pinch, but even a cheap gaming headset will perform leagues better.

Though the PlayStation 27" gaming monitor doesn't feel cheap necessarily, there is a sense that Sony pared things back to make it as affordable as it is. The cheap stand is one example, but it shows through in other ways too.

The OSD, for example, is basic and feels too generic for a monitor like this. It's functional, but it doesn't carry the same premium touch as the hardware around it. There are a couple of neat things you can do, like displaying your frame rate in the corner or automatically changing color profiles to match the genre of the game you're playing, but beyond that, it's standard fare: brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness, inputs and outputs, volume, and so on. It gets the job done, but it won't wow anyone navigating through the menus. Unlike the Inzone monitors, there’s also no software to allow you to make adjustments with a mouse and keyboard.

Another is the same IPS panel I was praising earlier. While those pros are definitely there, there are some cons to be aware of too. There’s nothing special about this monitor’s contrast. It’s edge-lit, no full array local dimming, so blacks can be inconsistent across the display. No matter where you’re looking, black looks closer to dark gray and it earns its decidedly average 1000:1 contrast ratio.

Its average rated brightness, 350 nits, is decidedly middle of the road. It’s not bright enough to match the highlights and shadows of most TVs these days, but does find a balance between console and PC play. When you’re playing on your PS5, the auto HDR tone mapping allows the display to better represent highlights and shadows, offering more detail within the picture. On PC, there’s no automatic tone mapping but I did find that it was bright enough to use in a well lit room.

Performance

I was able to spend about a week with this monitor ahead of this review, and I hit it hard during that time. I set up the PS5 in one input and an RTX 5090 gaming laptop in another to see how it would handle switching between both platforms. Perhaps expectedly from a company well known for its displays, it performed well for both and a fair share of productivity in between.

While it might seem like a missed opportunity to go with QHD (1440p) resolution and not 4K, I think going QHD was the smart move. 1440p sits in a sweet spot where it looks crisp and detailed on 32” monitors or below but isn’t so demanding that you need the most expensive hardware to make the most of it. There aren’t many PCs capable of running many games at 240Hz without dramatically lowering settings — a major trade-off if you’ve already shelled out for a decent gaming PC and a new monitor. At QHD, that suddenly becomes much more attainable.

Playing on the PlayStation 5, I was impressed at how well the auto tone mapping feature worked. It's not HDR, but it’s better than SDR, and that alone is an improvement over the average gaming monitor at this price. My console had no trouble detecting the monitor and its capabilities, so enabling VRR and 120Hz only required a quick trip to the settings menu.

On PC, I felt the lack of quality HDR much more but gaming on it was still visually rich and a lot of fun. IPS colors are vivid and are perfectly capable of making games look great in SDR. VRR also worked well on both my Nvidia and AMD gaming laptops.

The charging hook also worked perfectly. It’s a simple system that allows you to quickly dock a controller without giving it much thought. Like other controller docks, it needs to work and get out of the way. This does that. Missed opportunity to give the hook a bit of accent lighting like the PS5 itself though, Sony.

Taken as a whole, the monitor delivers on its promises and does no more and no less. If you strip away all the PlayStation branding, what you’re left with is a decent monitor with a mediocre stand and cool charging hook. Plenty of monitors have USB ports and 1440p resolution. Plenty of monitors offer better brightness and better HDR with full array local dimming. Many of them cost under $350.

What the PlayStation monitor offers is a quiet guarantee that everything is going to work with a minimum of setup and fuss, especially with your PS5. It’s already going to blend in with part of your setup, and if you have your PS5 visible, you can count on them being a good looking pair.

The charging hook, as seemingly small and replaceable as it is, is probably the single most important feature for making it actually feel like a PlayStation monitor. Let’s be real here. You probably won’t be looking at the PS branded back of your monitor very often. Once you set it up with your PC, the auto tone mapping becomes something you don’t even think about shortly after. But the controller, pulsing with its little status light, is a constant reminder that you’re using a PlayStation accessory. And it’s useful to boot.

While everything seems to be going up in price lately due to an ongoing RAMageddon that doesn't seem to be letting up any time soon, Asus' handhelds have somehow avoided the price increases that are hitting everything in the category. The company's special anniversary version of the Xbox Ally X is a bit more expensive than the regular version, but it's not by much.

At gamescom, Asus revealed a bit more information about the upcoming gold-themed version of the Xbox Ally X to celebrate ROG's 20th anniversary, called, what else, the Xbox Ally X20. This is essentially the same system as the original Xbox Ally X, just with an OLED display, TMR joysticks, and a fancy new D-pad. Okay, well at least the innards remain the same, with the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme and 24GB of memory.

Back when Asus announced the X20, I was worried this was going to be a sneaky way to refresh the handheld with a couple new features to raise the price to the same degree as something like the Lenovo Legion Go 2 or the Steam Deck — especially since, back then, it was announced as only part of a bundle with the Asus ROG Xreal R1 glasses I reviewed a few weeks ago.

Luckily, Asus will be releasing the Xbox Ally X20 as a standalone handheld for $1,299, or as a bundle with the glasses for $2,499. That is more expensive than the existing Xbox Ally X, which you can get for about $999 right now. But, that extra $300 might be worth it just for the sake of having an OLED display.

The new handheld looks like it'll take some cues from the Xbox Elite controllers as well. The Xbox Ally X20 will have a transforming D-pad. Basically, you can rotate it to choose between either a concave D-pad or one with four prounounced cardinal directions. Basically, like you're able to do on the Xbox Elite controllers by swapping out the magnetic D-pad.

Of course, the handheld is going to look much fancier than the original. I haven't seen it in person yet, but from Asus' photos, it looks like it has a translucent chassis, with gold accents that really do make it look unique.

The elephant in the room, though, is the bundle. It costs twice as much, and includes the glasses and a few accessories. Everything does look nice, but you're essentially paying an extra $1,200 for a pair of XR glasses that you can buy seperately for $849 – and those were already overpriced. It's going to carry some weight for ROG faithfuls, but the standalone handheld is where it's at. The Xbox Ally X is one of the best Windows handhelds out there, and tacking on an OLED display really might be worth the extra $300, especially with every other handheld with similar specs being closer to $2,000 right now.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

I’m a privileged gamer. As a hardware reviewer, over the years I’ve been sent top-tier CPUs and graphics cards, letting me bounce from one flagship to the next. That’s made me lazy at game settings. I often just set the game at whatever the maximum “Ultra” setting is and get on with playing. But by doing so, I’ve just been playing into the marketing hype – and leaving a lot of performance on the table, it turns out.

Most games don’t actually need to be played at Ultra settings to look good. They don’t even need it to look great. The latest upscaling technologies are fantastically good at emulating higher resolutions, and often the difference between Ultra and High settings isn’t something I even really notice if pushed to look.

As an experiment, I turned down the settings in a bunch of great-looking games to see how much difference it really makes. Not only did I find it hard to spot any obvious visual difference in most of the games I tested, but performance went up dramatically and the smoother framerates were well worth the minimal sacrifice.

The system

I’ve been able to ignore graphics settings for so long due to a mix of low-demand game selection and high-end hardware. As I said, my current system is powerful, but I also mostly play older sim games and lighter indies.

With an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and PowerColor Red Devil RX 7900 XTX, I have one of the fastest gaming CPUs on the market and the fastest graphics card AMD has ever made. It’s not quite an RTX 5080 or RTX 5090, so it’s not really designed with Ultra Path Tracing in mind, but it’s not a million miles away either. It’s more than capable of running almost any game at Ultra settings, at 4K, and sometimes even with ray tracing enabled.

That’s especially true once you throw in FSR upscaling and a little frame generation to smooth things out.

My plan for this test is to run a bunch of games at their very highest settings that are functionally playable – at least 30 FPS – with upscaling at Quality or native, without frame generation, and grab a few example screenshots of it in action. Then do so again at maxed out settings but with Balanced upscaling, and then a final test with everything turned down just one notch. So High, if Ultra is the top option, Medium if High is the best, etc.

Now for the games

Cyberpunk 2077

Let’s jump in with what is arguably still one of the best looking games ever made, Cyberpunk 2077. If there’s one game that is guaranteed to bring my 7900XTX to its knees, it’s this one.

And yeah, Raytracing Overdrive Settings, 4K resolution, Path Tracing enabled, FSR set to Quality mode, it was a clunky slideshow mess. 20 FPS at best. But of course it looks incredible:

But you know what also looks incredible? Cyberpunk 2077 at those same settings with Balanced Upscaling. I just took these screenshots, and besides a few background details looking a little more lifelike and of-the-environment in the Quality screenshot, it’s very difficult to tell any difference.

Meanwhile, the performance difference meant it was actually playable.

Although Cyberpunk with ray tracing does look stunning, and its path tracing even more so in the right settings, I’d even argue switching it down to a mere Ultra settings without ray tracing looks almost as good.

It’s definitely more stylized than the real-time lighting effects of ray tracing, but CD Projekt Red did a fantastic job making Night City look real and alive, even with baked in lighting. I’d very happily play the whole game like this.

Alane Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 is far from the glitz and ray-traced glamour of Night City, but it’s just as good looking in its own, dark, dirty way. It also eviscerated my system’s performance with everything absolutely turned up the nines. We’re talking 1-3 FPS. Unplayable. But gorgeous:

But it can very easily be both. Switching over to FSR Balanced, where it’s basically cutting the 4K resolution in half, the performance jumped up to perfectly playable for this type of more sedate game play. I genuinely can’t tell the difference, even when running around. It’s really impressive how far upscaling has come over the years.

I’d be tempted to leave it there, but there is additional performance to be had and not much in the way of a visual downgrade from trimming the fat even more. Switching everything to one notch down (High or Medium, depending on what the setting peaks at) and no ray tracing, gets you an almost-as-good-looking Alan Wake 2 experience.

Performance jumped enormously here, and this is where you want to play if you value smoother animation over pristine visuals. Especially since I still had to look close to spot the real differences. During actual game play, though? With a darker game like this where concealment and shadow is the game’s vibe, I don’t think many would notice.

Hogwarts Legacy

How about a getting-older but a goodie? Hogwarts Legacy isn’t photo-realistic, but it is incredibly immersive. Making sure the game looks good is a huge part of the experience. Fortunately, you can get away with steering clear of ray tracing with this one. If you enable it, the experience is beautiful:

But I’d argue it’s just as beautiful with Balanced upscaling – notching an extra 15% fps for my trouble, and nudging over a more-comfortable 40 FPS.

Switching to more modest settings and dropping the RT entirely looks amazing too. This game doesn’t make enough use of the fancy-lighting technique to be worth it, I’d argue. Despite its prevalence in the graphics menu, this game looks phenomenal on more modest settings. Don’t fear dropping them down a notch or two.

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is not as pretty as the other games, but it’s one that uses an outsized quantity of VRAM. Fortunately, the 24GB on the 7900XTX had no trouble with it even pushed to the limit. But then, why would you bother?

Dropping to Balanced and cutting the rendering resolution by 40% didn’t appear to make much of a difference to how the game looked. There isn’t any more obvious aliasing on background elements, even the thinner pipes. Texture details remain.

Dropping everything to Medium/High setting depending does make more of an impact, but even then it’s something I had to actively look for, and when in motion it’s even less apparent.

It’s not nothing, but I don’t think it’s worth it

If your hardware supports it, playing games at their prettiest is lovely. It’s simple, it’s easy, and it looks great. Especially in static screenshots, or in the ideal circumstances. But so do games with heavier-handed upscaling, and even lowering the settings a little doesn’t strip them of their charm, or immersion. That also gives you extra performance and a smoother game, which I think is way more impactful than getting a few extra pixels, or slightly nicer lighting.

The point I’m trying to make with these comparisons isn’t that there’s no benefit to turning all the settings up to their maximum, but that the performance loss really isn’t worth it. Ultimately, it feels like those settings are a way to get better looking screenshots for the marketing campaign, and to give gamers something to aspire to. A dragon that we’ll forever be chasing, until the next game comes along.

Ultimately, if all you can game on is something lower than the maximum – which is almost all of us – then you really aren’t missing out on much.

Don’t look on in envy at the people spending $5,000 on a graphics card in 2026. They’re getting a very-slightly-better looking gaming experience for the money. As prices continue to be ridiculous, I think lower settings are perfectly fine.

Genki, maker of some of our favorite accessories for the Switch 2 and Switch, has launched a Kickstarter for what might be the most over-engineered controller I’ve ever seen – and for $279, it better be. The Genki Manta packs in the kind of cutting edge features found on the best controllers out there, like TMR sticks, adjustable triggers, and advanced haptics, as well as even more advanced tech like a full-blown operating system, complete with digital display, built into the controller itself.

Now, I’m all for hardware and peripherals that incorporate new tech and push their categories forward, but I’m not quite sure why anyone would need a controller this advanced. It’s undeniably well-designed – I appreciate the screen centered below the thumbsticks, instead of above like on the Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra, and how the tension of the thumbsticks can be dialed in (literally) on the fly by twisting the stick itself. But at some point you have to ask if we’re approaching the point of overkill.

Genki is taking a bit of a kitchen sink approach with the Mantra. “We refused to cut corners,” the Kickstarter reads. “It is, frankly, a spec monster.”

Compatible with PC via USB-C wired or 2.4 GHz wireless (via USB dongle) as well as Switch 1 and 2, mobile, and other devices via Bluetooth, the Manta has a standard Xbox-style layout with offset sticks and all your standard inputs. It has a 2,400 mAh user-replaceable battery, but there’s no mention on the Kickstarter page of an estimated usage time between charges. Blessedly, it can remotely wake a paired Switch 2.

The face buttons are “Analog Pulse Buttons” that track through their entire travel when pressed, not just when they bottom out, allowing users to adjust their actuation point anywhere between a quick rapid-reset for burst inputs and a deeper one that calls for a deliberate press. Similarly, the triggers have three distinct modes: Digital, which offers a short travel and crisp click, Rapid, which is fully analog but with a short, smooth travel, and Analog, which offers a full, smooth travel and proportional control.

Other features include “maglev haptics” (better than traditional rumble, apparently), a nine-axis gyroscope/accelerometer/compass for motion controls, six extra inputs (two buttons tucked up top next to the right and left bumpers, two integrated back buttons, and two removable back paddles), and a D-pad that can swap between a traditional cardinal layout and an eight-point satellite dish design.

And that’s not even mentioning the operating system built into the controller. MantaOS uses the controller’s built-in color display to handle all the configuration settings that would normally be handled by driver software or a companion app – stuff like swapping profiles, setting up macros, adjusting inputs, and customizing RGB lighting – right there on the controller.

But it does more than that too – and this is the part where, in the writing of this story, my thinking started to shift from “this is unnecessarily over-engineered” to “wait, that’s actually awesome.” There’s a small button next to the right thumbstick that pulls up an “On-the-Fly KBM” when pressed, turning the screen into a QWERTY or Compass Quick Type keyboard; or hold the button to turn the whole controller into a gyro-controlled mouse input. This is immensely useful for navigating the Windows desktop and bypassing login screens or game launchers. It’s the same sort of thing that makes the Steam Deck and Steam Machine more user-friendly than a handheld or PC running windows, except the solution is handled controller-side instead of by SteamOS.

MantaOS has some other neat tricks, like a macro action timeline that goes beyond recording a series of inputs and delays to fully tracking analog stick paths, trigger pressure, and more, meaning you can record a full gameplay sequence to repeat, such as a difficult boss runback (I’m looking at you, Bilewater). The screen also has a variety of customizable dashboards to display stuff like your active profile, polling rate, battery, and connection status.

There’s even a programmable layer, running on a dual-core Raspberry Pi RP2350, that can load external apps onto the controller’s 16 MB of internal storage. The Kickstarter shows a clip of a side-scrolling space shooter playing on the built-in screen, and mentions the possibility of developing a “Genki Forge” for users to develop and share homebrewed apps for MantaOS. I have no doubt that someone will get Doom running on it in no time.

The Genki Manta Kickstarter is live now, and as of this writing has around 1,800 backers and more than $400,000 pledged – four times its $100,000 goal. The controller will eventually be priced at $279, but a Super Early Bird pledge tier drops the price down to $189, which puts it in conversation with other high-end controllers like the DualSense Edge. That’s still nearly double the excellent Steam Controller, which has its own set of unique tricks, but at $100 also lacks a great deal of the advanced tech found here.

Genki hopes to start shipping the Manta to backers this coming January, but conservatively estimates the delivery window to January through April 2027. We’ll be testing the Mantra as soon as we can go hands-on, so be sure to look out for our review as we get closer to that launch date.

Bo Moore is IGN's Senior Manager of Tech. You can find him online @usebomswisely.

It seems like Valve may be gearing up to launch the Steam Frame, the third and final piece of hardware it showed us last year, alongside the Steam Machine and Steam Controller. Earlier today, a number of unboxing, setup and other how-to videos for Valve's upcoming next-generation VR headset leaked online via an update to the ARM Steam Client. Valve quickly pulled them down, but not before they were grabbed and re-uploaded by users.

Instead of pitching a fit – I'm sure the company was not psyched to have these videos leak before originally intended – Valve put the videos back up, and while it hasn't officially pushed them out yet, they're easily found in the Steam backend and can be found via the links collected here.

STEAM FRAME UPDATE:

The ARM Steam Client had an update this morning that contained these videos. It was quickly pulled after that, but of course people managed to grab them. These are videos that detail the unboxing, sign-in, and setup of the Steam Frame. pic.twitter.com/AAFk5D69eJ

— Steam Hardware Updates (@HardwareSteam) August 19, 2026

The videos detail how to set up and sign in to the device, which will require a Steam account to use. As a reminder, Steam Frame can be used as a standalone VR headset, or wirelessly connected to a PC running Steam. Other videos that leaked include things like how to install the head strap and light blockers, as well as one detailing the wireless adapter and a number of ergonomic accessories.

In his hands-on with the device last year, my colleague Michael Higham noted how Steam Frame gets you the same interface and quality-of-life features as the Steam Deck and Steam Machine, and noted how much he enjoyed using the device as a virtual theater to play non-VR games.

"This kind of experience isn't new," he said, "but the seamless integration through SteamOS also makes it very easy to use, and the super fast wireless tech means you can play PC games with the full strength of your system at low latency."

With these setup videos leaking, it seems likely that Valve is planning to launch the Steam Frame soon, which lines up with the plan to have it in customers' hands before the end of Summer 2026. That said, we still don't know how much the Steam Frame will cost, but if the price of the Steam Machine (and hardware prices in general) is any indication, it will likely end up being more expensive than Valve originally hoped.

For more on Steam Frame, check out our Q&A with Valve about why it's going back to VR, how the tech has evolved since the groundbreaking Index VR headset, and how it got wireless streaming to work so well.

Bo Moore is IGN's Senior Manager of Tech. You can find him online @usebomswisely.

Editor's Note: This article is sponsored by IFA 2026. It has been updated with key points on August 18.

IFA 2026 is coming back soon and is set to take the world by storm. The event will highlight how “the future is now” in the realms of AI, smart homes, digital health, robotics, and much more. At IFA 2024, IGN was excited to see Acer announce the Nitro Blaze 7, its own contender to Steam Deck OLED and the Asus ROG Ally X. And in 2025, we saw a ton of home tech reveals from the likes of Eufy and Anker, with Eufy's new MarsWalker robot vacs and UV printers, and Anker's new Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro not-so-portable high-end projector. (It comes on wheels and boasts 3,500 ANSI lumens versus its portable Nebula Capsule that hits a max of 300 lumens, with Dolby surround sound to boot.)

That said, there is a lot of excitement in store for IFA this year, and this guide will share exactly what you can expect from the event so far.

What Is IFA About?

IFA is the world’s biggest home and consumer tech event. Happening in Berlin, it hosts some of the world's leading innovative tech brands like Samsung, Acer, Anker, Eufy, Hisense and more, all gathering in one place to show off tons of cool, new, and interesting consumer gadgets and products. There's everything from gaming tech to home tech, and something exciting at every corner, no matter what you're into.

What to Expect at IFA 2026

“Artificial intelligence is no longer just a promise,” says Leif Lindner, CEO of IFA Management. “Smart homes are no longer a vision. Digital health is becoming part of everyday life… The future is not waiting somewhere five or 10 years away. It is already in our homes, in our pockets, in our cars, in our health routines.”

AI and digital health is the theme of this year’s IFA, and the show promises to show more of how AI has “stopped being its own category and started becoming the connective tissue underneath everything else.” And yes, this also includes beauty, preventative health tools, connected fitness, wellness tech, and beauty devices, which signal consumers are looking for tech that “supports a more personalized, healthier daily routine.”

Why IFA is so exciting for consumers

Speaking of personalization, last year's event brought in new robots that were very popular amongst attendees, including the KATA Friend AI pet shown below. There are new, impressive robots that people have never seen before at every show, and in nearly every category you can think of. Some are cute like this advanced digital pet, and others are more practical for every day routines and activities, including a stair-climbing robot vacuum or the Acemate Tennis Robot, the world's first AI-powered robot capable of true, real-time play.

Those in attendance or following along will be able to see these shifts and changes from the lens of a global CEO, a retailer, a startup founder, a content creator, a journalist, and a consumer, and it’s one of the few places that allows for these interactions to happen under one roof.

Furthermore, IFA will be more than just a showfloor, as it plans to utilize Sommergarter, the show’s open-air venue, to host BUNT’s electronic set on September 3, Luciano’s rap/hip-hop mix on September 4, Ikkimel & Friends bringing trap, techno, and Berlin club energy on September 5, and live podcast recordings from Mord auf Ex and Wine Wednesday on September 6.

The ICC Berlin, a protected 1979 landmark that has been closed for over a decade, will also reopen for IFA 2026, providing even more ways for attendees to engage and make the most of the opportunities the event offers.

Who Can Attend?

You! But seriously, tech enthusiasts and general shoppers are welcome to attend. The event will have everybody from global owners to creators to startups to retailers in attendance. For more information, check out IFA 2026’s website, as well as the ticket information for BUNT, Luciano, and Ikkimel & Friends.

IGN will be in attendance at IFA 2026 next week and we look forward to seeing what new gadgets will go viral this year.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Google has rolled out its latest line of Pixel phones with the Pixel 11 family. The Pixel 11 Pro sits at the middle, offering the same smaller footprint of the Pixel 11 while getting the extra features and cameras of the Pro models. Unsurprising for 2026, it comes with a price hike over last year’s model, bringing the starting price to $1,099 while coming with less memory, though it does have a higher base storage. Let’s dig into what the new Android flagship has going for it.

Pixel 11 Pro – Design and Features

The Pixel 11 Pro is a fairly standard year-on-year refresh of the Pixel 10 Pro, which was itself a pretty tame refresh of the Pixel 9 Pro. Like those models, the Pixel 11 Pro is pleasantly compact and comfortable to hold. Its physical differences from the Pixel 10 Pro are measured on the tenth-of-a-millimeter scale, and at just three grams heavier, you’d be hard-pressed to feel any difference in the hand. Its camera bar is also still a considerable protrusion (adding 4.1mm to the 8.2mm thick phone), but at least it keeps the phone from wobbling when set on a table.

There are some fresh colors. The model sent to me for testing is the Canyon colorway, a bold salmon-like orange-pink with a gorgeous copper-colored aluminum frame. There’s also a pleasant-looking Olive green colorway. The faint, minty Fog color and matte black Obsidian look quite bland, though.

The Pixel 11 Pro sticks with largely the same materials for durability, with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on both sides and an aluminum frame. It should be pretty sturdy, but I wouldn’t consider it even remotely hard to damage, having damaged plenty of phones quite easily over the years. There’s a new coating on the display to boost scratch resistance, and seeing scratches on the back from my short time testing but none of the front makes me think it might be helping. The Pixel 11 Pro still trods out the same IP68 protection against dust and water ingress, which should be plenty sufficient for most, though still lags behind the IP69 that the now-belly-up OnePlus had been offering on its even cheaper flagship.

Of the phone’s marquee features, the “new” HiLight feature is perhaps the lamest of all. It doubles as a camera flash and replaces the temperature sensor (even though that sensor happily sat alongside the flash in prior models). HiLight is also simply a case of Google digging up the dead and trodding them out in worse fashion. My first Android phone was a Sharp Aquos SH-01D in 2012, and it had a notification indicator light that I could set up to display different colors depending on the app giving me a notification. In 2012, the customization was already more granular than what Google is offering on its premium handset in 2026.

HiLight only lets you see a light while you’re talking to Gemini or when favorited contacts call you through the default phone app – tough luck if you use WhatsApp, Signal, or anything else as your default communication method, or if want HiLight to glow for texts from favorited contacts, too. With only five colors (if you count white as a color) to choose from to help identify specific contacts, you’ll run into a wall as soon as you have a lot of favorited contacts, and the purpose of HiLight could quickly be undermined.

The Nothing Phone has a similar feature with its customizable dot matrix animations that I find far more compelling. Never mind that with OLED displays, a similar feature could be made to run in Do Not Disturb mode such that small calling cards for favorite contacts or important apps could appear unobtrusively to have the same effect without needing a special piece of added hardware that will probably just get dumped two generations down the line anyway.

The display on the Pixel 11 Pro is hardly anything new, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s still a gorgeous 6.3-inch OLED capable of variable refresh rates from 1 to 120Hz and a new peak brightness up to 3,600 nits. That’s a minor improvement on last year’s model and not likely to make a meaningful difference, especially as you won’t be seeing those over-3000-nit brightness levels in day-to-day use unless you love to have the screen facing the sun.

The speakers aren’t a great match for the display. While the bottom speaker puts out a good deal of volume, the earpiece speaker is so much weaker that the stereo sound hardly feels like stereo. There’s enough volume to listen to a podcast or video while poking around a small room, but that’s about the extent of it.

The phone still offers a fingerprint sensor baked into the display as well as facial recognition. I’ve found both quick and reliable for unlocking the phone.

The Pixel 11 Pro also continues to operate using eSIM exclusively. It’s a minor bugbear, as I find eSIM a convenient option, but it becomes limiting to only have eSIM.

The phone’s connectivity is solid with the typical 5G alongside Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0, keeping up with the times. It also supports satellite connections when you’re remote and don’t have a terrestrial signal. The USB-C port handles charging, 10Gbps data, and can link out to displays to run a desktop mode. Oddly, the phone doesn’t automatically bring up a trackpad to navigate the desktop environment, leaving me to find a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard to get up and running.

Pixel 11 Pro – Software

The Pixel 11 Pro comes running Android 17 and will get 7 years of software and security updates. This has been Google’s promise for a few generations now, and it’s paired with assurances that the phones will get better over time thanks to special feature updates. I’ve known too many people who’ve had the power buttons fall off their Pixel phones within a couple years of ownership to think much of this promise anymore, never mind that the performance of the Pixel phones tends to lag behind flagship rivals and will be sorely wanting as time passes and the demands of modern software increase.

One of the new features of the Pixel 11 line is Google Keyboard's Rambler feature, a beefed-up version of speech-to-text that is designed to let you just kind of talk at it, tidying up the speech and letting you make revisions on the fly. One downside is that it doesn't show live output, so you have to wait until it's done processing to see what it's done, which can make checking it more of a chore. In testing it proved fairly reliable even as I stumbled over some of my speech. Unfortunately, this feature uses online processing for full functionality, which becomes a double shame when considering that Google could likely have made it an Android-wide feature instead of a Pixel 11 series exclusive.

Another feature Google has implemented is its Camera Looks feature. These let you snap photos with several different preset looks that handle photo processing differently, and you can make fine-tuned adjustments to each of the looks. Having an option like this certainly seems like a fine addition, though at a certain point simply shooting RAW and having the option to make whatever adjustments you want afterward might be the most sensible thing. And for casual photographers, this feature will probably feel like nothing more than simple filters.

The final big feature is Magic Capture, which basically lets you record a video carelessly and then will automatically scan through it and pull out photos (the idea being that you can then pay more attention to the real world and less to the phone). It appeared to do what it promised and served as a good way of grabbing a selfie with the rear sensor, too.

Pixel 11 Pro – Gaming and Performance

Google isn’t out here making a name for itself where raw performance is concerned. Its Tensor chips are not in that game, and the Tensor G6 is no exception. For raw speed and gaming performance, it’s much better to turn to something like the OnePlus 15 or RedMagic 11 Pro. The Pixel 11 Pro has plenty of muscle for day-to-day operation and doesn’t feel slow in general use. Gaming is another matter.

The Pixel 11 Pro got pretty toasty compiling shaders for Neverness to Everness over the course of about 10 minutes. From there, running the game at Balanced settings, it managed generally smooth visuals but had frequent hitches, especially in combat when using special moves or switching characters. With the game's Cinematic settings, hitches were even more frequent while simply wandering the game world. From a cold start, the game still hitched a bit while playing, and after 10 minutes, the phone had gotten a bit hot to hold and was hitching even more in gameplay.

Frankly, I was surprised it ran the game at Cinematic settings at all. The phone is still using a PowerVR GPU, which in last year’s model was a huge step backward for the phone’s performance. This go-around, it’s still certainly not a great gaming phone, but it’s passable.

Google finally bumped up the base storage of the phone to 256GB, though where all of the Pixel 10 Pro models had 16GB of memory, the Pixel 11 Pro starts out with just 12GB. It’s a shortcoming you probably won’t feel in practice, but it may start to hurt down the line.

The Pixel 11 Pro wields an unimpressive 4850mAh battery, which is a hair smaller than the prior phone’s 4870mAh. It’s still good for all-day use, but two full days may be a stretch depending on how heavy a user you are. The phone tops up at 30W over a wired connection, but can also use Wireless Qi2 charging at 25W, which is a solid step up over the 15W of the Pixel 10 Pro.

Unfortunately, during the initial testing period, my usual suite of benchmarks was unavailable for the phone, so I’ll have to circle back with results. That said, based on the gaming performance and history of Tensor chips, it's a safe bet that results will fall well behind phones running the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

Pixel 11 Pro – Cameras

The Pixel 11 Pro made a few tweaks to the Pixel 10 Pro’s camera system, opting for slightly larger sensors in a few cases but sticking to the same resolutions and apertures all around. The biggest change was in the telephoto sensor, which got a much bigger sensor that’s a boon for shooting in darker conditions and contending with its already narrow aperture. Here’s what the Pixel 11 Pro packs:

• 50MP Wide, 1/1.3" sensor, f/1.68, Laser AF, OIS, EIS
• 48MP ultrawide, 1/2.51" sensor, f/1.7, 123-degree FOV
• 48MP telephoto, 1/1.95" sensor, f/2.8, 5x optical, OIS, EIS
• 42MP Selfie, f/2.2, 103-degree FOV

Unsurprisingly, the camera system is an all around potent mix. Up close, the main sensor is happy to capture a ton of detail with natural colors and a satisfying background blur. The tele sensor can step in for close ups as well and makes for some crisp details on subjects that might not usually make it easy to get so close.

For larger subjects, the main and ultra-wide work well together. Colors are consistent between the two, making different shots of the same subject appear like a cohesive set. The wide aperture of the ultra-wide also helps avoid running into too much noise when shooting in darker environments.

The telephoto sensor proves a fairly powerful tool, but not nearly as capable as the marketing claims. Out to 10x, the zoom still looks great and gets in pretty close on far off subjects. After that, it starts to show softness and heavy digital correction, so 30x starts to look flat and beyond that becomes simply artificial. This is made perfectly apparent by zooming into far off signage. Looking at a parking sign far enough to require the max zoom level showed me reimagined visuals and an alien script. The phone saves both the original snap and the enhanced versions at this distance, and though the originals can be quite blurry, they can still have better detail than what the enhancement invents. One car license plate in my shot clearly had a “9” showing in the original photo, but the enhanced version obliterated it.

Selfies look decent, but I found them a little bit softer than I would have expected from a 42MP sensor. The focus seemed soft, and the fine detail of my facial hair was simply blurred together rather than standing out.

Mark Knapp is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything electronics and gaming hardware. He has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry with bylines at PCMag, Reviewed, CNET, and more. Find Mark on Twitter @Techn0Mark or BlueSky at @Techn0Mark.

Google has announced this year’s crop of Pixel phones, the Pixel 11 line, and they’re more powerful, more expensive, and of course, your old Pixel 10 or earlier cases may not fit them. Even if they do, the buttons might not line up or your old case might be a little worse for the wear these days. So, it’s time to hunt for a new outer shell for your phone.

Right after a phone launches is usually the hardest time to get a case that you can count on – most third-party case makers haven’t gotten their hands on the phones, and even if they kept an eye on leaks, there’s the chance that what they make won’t really fit right.

It’s different with Google, which seems to be a little looser with its phones’ designs. The company has partnered with some of the most well-known third-party manufacturers and is already selling their cases on the Google Store. As such, all of my preferred cases come straight from there, this time.

The Best Pixel 11 Phone Cases Right Now

Best Google Pixel 11 Case

Google Pixelsnap Case

Most Fashionable Pixel 11 Case

Dbrand Pixelsnap Grip Case

Most Rugged Pixel 11 Case

OtterBox Commuter Series Case

Best Leather Pixel 11 Case

Bellroy Leather Case

Best Clear Pixel 11 Case

Dbrand Ghost Case

Best Case for Pixel 11 Pro Fold

Google Pixelsnap Case for Pixel 11 Pro Fold

Drakong, a sub-brand of Hyperkin, today announced the PixelByte controller range, a new line of collectible controllers themed after Attack on Titan. These cute, keychain-sized controllers look a bit like a pixelated NES controller paired with one of several characters from Attack on Titan, and will be available via a somewhat unconventional manner: a blind box.

Despite their size, layout, and distribution method, the PixelByte controllers are fully functional, compatible with PC, Switch 1 and 2, iOS, Android, and other Bluetooth devices. They offer approximately 12 hours of wireless gameplay, and are rechargeable via USB-C.

Each PixelByte blind box contains one of seven possible variants, pairing a unique colorway with a chibi charm of Attack on Titan characters like Eren, Mikasa, Levi, and Hange. There's also one rare chase variant that's found at a lower rate than the rest.

I can't say that a blind box is the most idea way to buy a controller, so I doubt the PixelByte line will make our list of the best controllers for PC or Switch, but I could see the appeal from the collectible side of things. I'm personally not one for blind boxes, but my Pokémon card collection will attest that I'm very familiar with the concept of cracking open physical loot boxes at the prospect of scoring something rare and shiny.

The PixelByte controllers are available for pre-order now for $24.99 per box.

Bo Moore is IGN's Senior Manager of Tech. You can find him online @usebomswisely.