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EA promises largest ever post-launch content for Battlefield 6, teases naval combat, and maybe even the return of the Little Bird
Game Reviews

EA promises largest ever post-launch content for Battlefield 6, teases naval combat, and maybe even the return of the Little Bird

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We’re mere days away now from the launch of one of the most-anticipated games of 2025. Battlefield 6 arrives this Friday to (hopefully) satiate excitement from longtime series fans, and anyone who checked out its wildly successful beta.

And to offer prospective buyers some assurance that the game is going to have a long tail, EA has started talking about what players can expect in the months following launch.

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The game’s first season was recently revealed to much praise from fans, and it arrives pretty quickly, too, just 18 days after launch. But there’s a lot more beyond that, which Battlefield Studios has officially started teasing.

In the latest Community Update, the developer mainly touched on data from the beta, as well as the various Battlefield Labs tests held before and since. After over 30 sessions and over 92 million hours of beta gameplay, the developer found that class pick rates were varied and had a healthy spread.

Whichever class was more popular essentially depended on the map, with more close-quarters maps favouring Support, and maps with longer ranges going towards Recon. Interestingly, Open and Closed Weapons playlists had barely any difference on class pick rates between them.

Another thing that the two playlists didn’t affect is kills per hour, though they saw a small variance in match length, with Closed Weapons playlists having slightly higher match durations.

Image credit: Battlefield Studios, EA.

Closed Weapons playlists also saw a 3% higher revive rate in Breakthrough, and 2% for Conquest, meaning players stuck to their roles regardless of the weapons they were using. In terms of time spent in combat, both playlists had about the same percentage.

Perhaps the most unsurprising reveal from the blog post, however, is that most players picked the weapons they wanted in Open Weapon playlists, rather than sticking with their class’ Signature Weapons and benefiting from the bonus that comes with that. Except for Recon players, who favoured sniper rifles regardless of playlist.

That said, the developer revealed that there was no dominant weapon archetype, which is a little surprising considering the versatility of some over others. Indeed, that is one thing that will undoubtedly change as the game evolves at launch and beyond.

It also sounds like players didn’t see the value of Open vs Closed Weapons playlists, as “the vast majority of players” stuck with the former after trying the latter. This is misleading, as Closed playlists were buried deeper in the menus and you had to know they a) existed, and b) where to find them.

Regardless, both playlist options will be in the launch build, and Closed Weapons will itself remain a modifier in Portal for custom experiences.

Watch on YouTube

Looking to the future, the developer said that Battlefield 6’s seasons “will have more content than ever before in a Battlefield game,” which is quite the claim. More details will apparently be revealed soon.

Finally, the post teased the return of naval warfare, as well as the Little Bird helicopter – two highly-requested additions that are strangely missing from the launch package. Platoons, essentially Battlefield’s clans feature, was also teased.

You can check out the full blog post at the link at the top for a recap of what the game’s day one patch is going to change. The Battlefield 6 pre-load is now available across all platforms, with the game to go live on October 10 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.



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97% of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 cheaters banned within 30-minutes, Activision claims
Game Reviews

97% of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 cheaters banned within 30-minutes, Activision claims

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With the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s open beta, countless FPS fans have dove eagerly into the fast-paced arcade shooter ahead of its full launch on the 25th October. Cheaters have been plaguing the experience as they tend to do, but Activision claim they’re being quickly dealt with.

In a post on X, the official Call of Duty updates account released a lengthy statement on the cheater problem. According to this post, 97 percent of Black Ops 7 beta cheaters are being banned within 30-minutes. Not only that, they claim fewer than 1 percent of cheating attempts reached a match, and those who did were removed within minutes.

Here’s the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 gameplay trailer. Watch on YouTube

This post also spotlights cheat providers themselves, claiming that many of them are now labeling their cheats as “unusable”. The post also goes on to claim that over 40 cheat developers have been shut down since the launch of Black Ops 6. The post also calls for players to stay diligent by reporting others they believe are using cheats in matches, to help keep the cheating problem at bay.

As Call of Duty fans will know, the back and forth battle between Activision and Call of Duty cheaters has been a long and arduous one. Activision’s proprietary Ricochet anti-cheat software is constantly tweaked and updated, but every now and again cheating software is updated to account for the latest version of Ricochet and the cheating problem rears its ugly head again.

It’s not just Call of Duty either. Battlefield 6 had its own cheating problem during the open beta. Both games require Secure Boot to be enabled on your PC to run, which has proven to be a step too far for some players (or their hardware).

It seems, if Activision is right about these impressive looking stats, that right now is a moment where the company has the upper hand in the war against cheating. Whether this remains true by the time Black Ops 7 launches later this month remains to be seen, but let’s hope things stay largely cheater free for the foreseeable future.



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Roborock Saros 10r Mop
Game Reviews

The 22,000 Pa Roborock With Mop Delivers Luxury Cleaning Power, Now at Its Lowest Price for Prime Members.

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Roborock launched the Saros 10R in June 2025 and introduced its latest flagship generation that redefines what premium robot vacuums can achieve. This is the most advanced model in Roborock’s entire lineup, and it delivers power and capabilities that dwarf every other robot vacuum currently sold on Amazon.

Now, for Prime Big Deal Days, this technological marvel has dropped to a new record low of $1,199, down from its usual $1,599. The reason people invest in premium robot vacuums like this is simple: they want their floors genuinely clean without lifting a finger, and cheaper models simply can’t deliver the thoroughness, intelligence, or convenience that justify the automation.

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22,000 Pa Suction Power Eradicates Dirt on Entire Surfaces

Conventional robot vacuums are 3.8 to 4 inches high due to the necessity for a raised LDS (Laser Distance Sensor) tower on top for mapping. Roborock Saros 10R features the StarSight Autonomous System 2.0 which eliminates the extending sensor unit and reduces the profile to a mere 3.14 inches high. The vacuum slides under beds, sofas, cabinets and coffee tables that stand in the way of chunkier rivals.

The 3D sensing capabilities accurately map rooms even under spindly-legged furniture and drop-down cabinets with the VertiBeam Lateral Obstacle Avoidance system avoiding obstructions such as cables and poly-legged furniture legs without getting stuck. The advanced algorithms identify and respond to 108 different types of obstructions, so the vacuum cleans your whole home without incessant supervision or rescue interventions.

The HyperForce suction system produces 22,000 pascals of vacuum pressure which is about double/triple what mid-range robot vacuums deliver. This brute strength removes ground-in dirt from carpet fibers, draws out debris from grout gaps between tiles, and sucks up fine dust particles from hardwood left behind by weaker robots. The Zero-Tangling DuoDivide main brush features a dual-sided design that keeps hair from tangling around the roller, automatically ejecting and depositing long hair and pet fur directly into the dustbin. The FlexiArm Riser side brush extends automatically when it senses corners and edging, sweeping out debris from baseboards and cramped corners that round robots almost universally ignore.

The first-of-its-type AdaptiLift Chassis adjusts the height of the robot dynamically, navigating through obstructions up to 4 cm high like door thresholds, area rug corners, and U-shaped chair leg furnishings that would cause lighter robots to stall. As soon as it senses carpet, the two rotating cleaning mops and their mounting bracket automatically lift up so you don’t wet your carpets, then lower when returning to hard floors.

The multifunctional dock 4.0 handles ten different maintenance tasks autonomously: It washes mops with 176-degree Fahrenheit hot water, dries them with 131-degree hot air to prevent mildew, empties the robot’s dustbin automatically with 60 days of capacity, refills the water tank, dispenses cleaning solution, and even cleans itself with hot water. The dock recharges the robot in 2.5 hours, and when it detects heavily soiled areas during cleaning, it triggers automatic re-wash and re-mop cycles for deep cleaning.

At $1,199 during Prime Big Deal Days, the Saros 10R costs less than several mid-range variants but delivers flagship performance for which full automation is justified.

See at Amazon



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"The role of the console is shifting" - are rising prices the end for games consoles as we know them?
Game Reviews

“The role of the console is shifting” – are rising prices the end for games consoles as we know them?

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We’re living in unprecedented times, and the future of consoles is in question. It’s because of their price. Five years after this generation began, the consoles have never been more expensive, and it’s not a pattern we’re used to. We’re used to prices going down – to manufacturing improvements shrinking both the physical size of the machines and their price. But not this time. This time, it’s different.

Today, it costs $150 more to buy a base Xbox Series X console in the United States than when the console launched (a price change came into effect there last week, on the 3rd October), and $100 more for an Xbox Series S. Meanwhile in the UK, it currently costs £50 more for an Xbox Series X, and £100 for an Xbox Series S, than it did at launch. And it’s not just an Xbox thing: PlayStation 5s have gone up in price as well, both in the US and in Europe. This is the first generation I know of where an early adopter could conceivably make money by selling a launch-bought machine.

Xbox has publicly committed to making a new generation of hardware, which will include a console of some form, and I expect Sony is well along on development of a new PlayStation, too. But how set and solid are these plans?Watch on YouTube

But is it just a blip? Could prices settle back down into a normal generational rhythm if the world calmed down a bit, and inflation and tariffs and other mitigating factors eased? Then again, what if they don’t – could this become the norm? Could prices even rise again? Who would be able to afford one? And if fewer people could afford them, does it make sense to keep producing them? Do the dominos begin to teeter and topple until we’re suddenly living in a world where no new console hardware is being produced?

I contacted a few experts to help me untangle this situation and figure out what it might mean. I spoke to US games industry analyst Mat Piscatella, who works for Circana Research; UK games industry analyst Piers Harding-Rolls, who works for Ampere Analysis; and respected Games Business journalist Chris Dring. And to start with the most dramatic suggestion first, that this could be a beginning of an end for consoles, each of them tells me the same thing: don’t panic.

“We’ve been here many times before in this industry,” says Chris Dring. “I remember when PC gaming was dead. I remember when handheld gaming was dead. Nobody is saying that today.” Piers Harding-Rolls adds: “The death of the console has been discussed for over almost two decades, but the business has continued to thrive.” And Mat Piscatella continues: “There will always be a market – at least for the foreseeable future – for shiny new consoles to play shiny new games locally on shiny new screens.” But there’s a but. Consoles aren’t out-and-out dead, but there’s enough going on that the business of selling them, and everything attached to it, is fundamentally changing. As Dring says, “The role of the console is shifting.”

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Before I dig into that remark, let’s take a quick look at why this is happening – why prices are rising. There’s been a lot of geopolitical instability in recent years. Wars, both real and trade wars, are driving up the price of making things up, and shipping them around the world. The most prevalent example is the high import tariffs US President Donald Trump is slapping on goods coming into the country, which means consoles or components manufactured outside of the US, as many are, have to absorb that extra cost.

But it’s not just a US thing. Everything is connected, and the general rise in inflation and the cost-of-living crisis has affected Europe and the rest of the world too. Microsoft, when announcing the 3rd October Xbox price rise, cited “changes in the macroeconomic environment” as the reason for it.

Sony pointed to “the backdrop of a challenging economic environment, including high inflation and fluctuating exchange rates” when it raised the European price of PlayStation consoles in May this year. And when Microsoft raised the worldwide prices of Xboxes in the same month, it pointed to “market conditions” as well. Undeniably, global economic conditions play a significant part.

But there’s also an element of choice here. Former Blizzard President Mike Ybarra made headlines recently when he said Microsoft was using the US tariff rises as an excuse. “Console price increases are not tariff issues, they are profit issues,” he said. “And the reason why profits are not where they should be is a far, far deeper issue vs. the tariff excuse.” No one is forcing Microsoft to put the price up, in other words.

“All of this is a choice,” agrees Dring. “Historically, platform holders have been willing to lose money on the hardware because they make it up in software sales, where the margins are made. But that equation doesn’t work as well in 2025.” Harding-Rolls expands on the same thought: “There is less appetite from the console companies to swallow the cost increases in the supply chain as there is more focus on profitability.”

In other words, when Microsoft began this generation with an extremely aggressively priced £250 Xbox Series S, and a £450 Xbox Series X, it was able to do it because it was sacrificing profit. It was taking a hit to its bottom line to tempt people into buying an Xbox, because the more people who did, the more people it could sell games (and subscriptions) to. But Microsoft struggled to sell Xbox Series consoles this generation – “some of the months this year, Xbox has been posting some of the lowest sales figures in its entire history,” Dring says – and couldn’t keep up with rival Sony and PlayStation 5. So it did the unthinkable and started publishing games on PlayStation 5 instead. After all, why not sell to that installed base as well?

It was another unprecedented move in a highly unpredictable era. “We’re not dealing with normalised market conditions at the moment,” Piscatella reminds me. All three experts readily accept that console prices could even rise again, in the US and beyond. “I would hope not, but I wouldn’t count it out,” says Harding-Rolls. But does that also mean prices could come down again? “I’d be reluctant to predict that in 2025,” says Dring.

Harding-Rolls isn’t sure we’ll ever go back. “I think there has been a sea-change in approach when it comes to delivering more profitable console hardware sales, which means I think the pricing lifecycle which used to see console prices at 50 percent of the launch price at the end of the lifecycle is a thing of the past. I don’t see prices coming down routinely now.”

I realise I’m painting a picture of a console market in disarray here, after reassuring you at the beginning it wasn’t doom and gloom. But there are, as all three experts point out, reasons to be cheerful. Nintendo Switch 2 is one of them. Switch 2 became the fastest-selling dedicated games machine ever this year, selling 3.5m consoles in a few days, and subscription services and microtransactions mean games companies are actually making more money, despite lower unit sales. “But there is a groundswell of concern from the industry,” says Dring.

Console sales are falling. Sales of this generation of Xboxes and PlayStations are lagging behind previous generations, and in the US, console sales are dangerously close to lowest years we’ve had in recent memory – 2006 and 2013 – Piscatella says. And obviously unattractive price increases will only speed that rate of decline. Whether or not Switch 2’s success will offset some of that is sort of beside the point, because the bigger, more worrying point is this: consoles are a mature market – they’re not a growing one. “Are consoles dying? No,” Piscatella says. “But it’s also not a growth segment, which is why the console manufacturers are trying to extend their offerings and IP well beyond the consoles themselves.”

Which brings us back to this: “the role of the console is shifting”. As Dring explains: “When we grew up, consoles were the entry-level product into gaming (well, those and arcades). That’s where you started your gaming journey. Today, that’s mobile and tablets. Game consoles are now premium devices. And as a result, the age-group of players is going up. So for the likes of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, the questions become… How can we ‘upgrade’ players from phones to consoles? How can we best serve an ageing player base? And what separates a console from a PC?”

Devices like Valve’s Steam Deck (no doubt inspired by Switch) have already offered an answer, attempting to bridge the gap with a handheld PC gaming device. And there are more companies coming to market with similar ideas, including Microsoft, with its imminent, Xbox-branded ROG Ally X, which will leverage the Play Anywhere (buy once, play on multiple platforms) idea. But Microsoft is also working on new Xbox hardware for the future, which apparently includes console hardware.

We live in unprecedented times – it bears repeating. We’ve watched a pandemic lock the world down and lead to a gaming boom, then recede like the tide, leaving tens of thousands of developers without jobs. We’ve watched as the price of game development skyrocketed to unsustainable levels, and we’re seeing nearly every facet of the traditional gaming industry – large-scale development, gaming media, publishing – struggle to adapt. Times are hard. Perhaps console gaming is irrevocably changing. Perhaps it already has.



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Govee Floor Lamp Smart
Game Reviews

Amazon Clears Out Govee Smart Lamp Stock, Now Selling for Less Than a Basic Floor Lamp

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Your living room deserves smart lighting that doesn’t drain your wallet. Smart floor lamps have become incredibly popular for transforming spaces with dynamic colors and voice control but the price tags often make people think twice. Not anymore. Right now, the Govee RGBIC floor lamp has dropped to just $64 on Amazon, down from its usual $99 price. This Prime Big Deal Days offer marks an all-time low for one of the most popular smart lamps on the market.

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This is not another mood-decorating, color-changing lamp: The Govee floor lamp is 136cm high and produces 1000 lumens of light which means it genuinely functions as actual light for your room (rather than mood decoration). At that level of brightness, it places it on a par with standard floor lamps so you can employ it for reading, working or ambient room light when it’s day, then shift over to bright color modes when night falls.

What Makes This Smart Lamp Worth Your Money

The RGBIC tech (that IC means Independent Control) distinguishes this lamp from less expensive ones: Each of the light strip segments is capable of showing disparate colors at the same time which lets you have flowing rainbow effects or gradients or multi-color schemes that plain RGB lamps aren’t up for. At your fingertips, you’re looking at 16 million different available colors and 58 dynamic built-in scenes named Cheerful, Romantic, and the like. Want your lamp pulsing red and orange, like a campfire? Done. Want a chilly blue-to-purple gradient for a late gaming marathon? Easy. The range goes deep enough that you’ll be able to fine-tune your lamp with holiday decorations or a party theme or just your mood of the moment without ever using the same look twice.

Voice command with Alexa or Google Home allows you never to have to rummage for your phone. Simply ask your smart speaker to turn the lamp on, change the hue, or reduce the brightness while cooking, working, or already settled on the sofa. The Govee Home app (installable through QR code on the box) adds additional control features with scheduling, so your lamp automatically wakes you gently with morning hues or unwinds with warm hues at bedtime. The app interface makes it simple to create custom scenes, allowing you to set specific hues for varying segments of a scene and then save your favorite sets for instant recall.

With sync mode, this light springs to life at parties, movie nights, or when playing video games. Inner microphones detect sound in the room and translate it into dynamic, real-time changes in brightness. Thump-heavy tunes create pulsing results, dialogues stay gentle, and action scenes erupt with corresponding changes in color. This dynamic lighting delivers real immersion for entertainment without cluttered setup.

The physical build makes this lamp suitable for real homes: Aluminum construction makes it firm (non-wobbling, non-tipping) yet light enough for simple transport from one room to another. Sections on the base fasten immediately without tools. At 136cm tall, it comfortably inhabits a corner, behind a sofa or next to a desk without overwhelming your space.

Stock sells out fast on Prime Big Deal Days, so this all-time-low pricing won’t last indefinitely.

See at Amazon



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"It's kind of a sociological experiment" For Blizzard, World of Warcraft neighbourhoods, Azeroth NIMBYs, and curtain-twitching drama is all part of the plan
Game Reviews

“It’s kind of a sociological experiment” For Blizzard, World of Warcraft neighbourhoods, Azeroth NIMBYs, and curtain-twitching drama is all part of the plan

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If you’ve played World of Warcraft at any point during its modern era, after it crossed the threshold from Classic to the MMO monster that is ‘Retail WoW’, you’ll know it’s not the social experience it once was. Better raiding, new lands, vast new adventures, yes, but it’s also a game that has become less collaborative. Many players are an island, separated from their peers.

Enter the upcoming Midnight expansion and this may very well change. You can’t close Pandora’s box, of course, the days of summon stones and server-wide events are long gone. But through housing and neighbourhoods World of Warcraft might teach players how to be social again.

These neighbourhoods are large spaces filled with affordable plots of land where houses can be quickly bought and customised; perhaps World of Warcraft’s most fantastical addition in years. These neighbourhoods can be both private and public, allowing pre-existing Guilds and total strangers to form miniature communities together in a singular digital space.

Watch the World of Warcraft: Midnight gameplay reveal here.Watch on YouTube

“I think we always knew we wanted to have neighbourhoods, or at least from a very early point,” associate game director Paul Kubit told Eurogamer. “We didn’t want you to just be locked in your own house, doing your own stuff all the time. You can hang out there for a long time, for sure, but we wanted the game to nudge you like, ‘hey, if you want some cool rewards, step outside and interact with your neighbours’ and so on.

“I think one of the watershed moments for us is when we said ‘neighbourhoods should be guilds and guilds should be neighbourhoods’. We already have these strong social groups that people enjoy spending time in, and early on I don’t think we made that connection that they should be tied quite closely together. They don’t have to be, of course: you can have a charter neighbourhood, you can live in a public neighbourhood.

“If you are already in a guild of folks who are interacting with one another, this is a cool opportunity to take that relationship that might be focused on raids or PvP or whatever, and you’ll be able to cohabit a space. You’ll be able to see how I decorate my front yard, and it’ll add opportunities to roleplay where our game hasn’t always had lots of open invitations to roleplay. When you’re in a neighbourhood, it makes you want to [do more of that]!”

The question then is, well, what do neighbours actually do with each other? Once they set up their homes, what’s to stop them from teleporting in and out of their abode without so much as a /wave, or a /spit when someone puts up a gaudy fence the estate doesn’t like? The answer, per Blizzard, is Endeavors: monthly events that thrust an entire neighbourhood out into the world to complete events for a chance at that WoW catnip – sweet loot and unique rewards.

Kubit elaborates on the feature and its inspiration: “I think the trading post is a pretty good touchstone for the type of activities endeavours provide, and it’s a wide breadth of activities too. Is it casual, is it hardcore? It’s both!

“You can advance your neighbourhoods by doing simple things like questing, killing, gathering herbs. Most of this will take place in the old world (referring to older zones from previous expansions), or pretty much all of it! That content will scale to your level, and you’ll be able to hang out with NPCs there, kill creatures, hunt rares. Depending on where you go, the gameplay will differ, then you come back and get some cool items for your house.”

This all sounds lovely, but when you bring players together like this, you risk clashes. Like any real neighborhood, gripes bubble up. ‘I don’t like the way Grogmar’s house looks, why would he dye his table that way, gosh.’ How exactly will Blizzard deal with the newfound threat of Azeroth NIMBYs and neighbourhood drama?

“It’s kind of a sociological experiment, right? We do know a lot of folks want to make sure their neighbourhood looks one way or another” Kubit explains. “Ultimately, we’re giving players a lot of control to do what they want to do. This extends not only to how you customise your health, but also the neighbourhood you want to live in. With that power comes… We’ll see how players handle it. Obviously there’s the terms of service, so as long as players aren’t being jerks to each other… We’ll see.”



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Jackery Power Station
Game Reviews

This Power Station (1500W, 7 Outlets) Is Going for Pennies, as Amazon Drops the Price for a Second Time

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This weekend, Amazon dropped the Jackery Explorer 1000 (v2) to $429 for early Prime Big Deal Days access. Now the retailer has taken things even further by lowering the displayed price to $399, plus an additional 10% off at checkout for eligible buyers, bringing the final cost down to potentially $359 (down from $799). This is an absolute record low price for this power station, and here’s what makes it remarkable: no competitor offering a 1500W portable power station has ever come close to this pricing.

See at Amazon

You’re looking at half off the usual $799 retail price on a product that solves one of the most frustrating problems for campers, RV owners and anyone preparing for emergencies. Running out of power during outdoor adventures or losing electricity during storms creates genuine hardship, and the Jackery Explorer 1000 provides enough capacity and output to keep essential devices running for extended periods.

Days of Power, Not Hours

The 1070 watt-hour capacity provides robust energy storage translating to real-world usage most users are familiar with. You’ll be able to charge a laptop around 10 times, run a mini-fridge for approximately 15 hours, support LED lights for a few days or run a CPAP unit for a number of evenings. The LiFePO4 battery chemistry is a step up from lithium-ion batteries employed for lower-end power stations: LiFePO4 batteries last for approximately 4,000 charge cycles until capacity dips at 80%, for reference, standard lithium-ion batteries last for around 500 to 1,000 cycles at the 80% level.

The majority of portable power stations have a peak output of between 300W and 500W which makes for charging small devices like cell phones or a mini portable fan at once. The 1500W of continuous output with a 3000W surge delivers sufficient power for actual household devices like microwaves, electric kettles, power tools, or a small air conditioner unit. The surge amount addresses the starting burst of power when starting motors which is relevant for devices like refrigerators that consume several multiples of their-rated wattage for a number of seconds at starting time. The unit contains everyday AC outlets which accept typical three-prong plugs, and a 100W USB-C Power Delivery outlet for quick charging a laptop or tablet without bulky AC adapters.

The fast charging for one hour allows you to go from zero to full battery in 60 minutes via a common wall outlet which is extremely fast for a battery of this size. Most rival power stations need 6-8 hours for a full recharge. This quick turnaround is priceless on multi-day camping trips when you may have shore power available for a few hours here or there, or when there are rolling blackouts when you have a quick top-off between outages. The unit also has solar charging capabilities with optional solar panels, allowing you to have power on tap indefinitely off-grid when you harness energy from the sun during the day.

The Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 currently the highest-rated best-seller on Amazon for generators for outdoors, with over 4,000 units sold this month alone and a 4.6-star overall rating out of nearly 3,000 reviews. At $359 using the checkout discount on Prime Big Deal Days, you pay less than some 500Wh power centers with half the capacity and a much lower lifespan.

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Metal Hellsinger studio closing as part of Funcom layoffs
Game Reviews

Metal Hellsinger studio closing as part of Funcom layoffs

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The Outsiders (AKA Funcom Stockholm) – responsible for Metal Hellsingers and Metal Hellsingers VR – has been impacted by layoffs. As a result, the studio will be closing. The studio consisted of roughly 60 staff according to the official Funcom website.

Through a social media statement posted by The Outsiders founder David Goldfarb, the closure was announced. It reads: “I have not had much time to process the news but all of us at The Outsiders and Funcom Stockholm have been affected by the layoffs at Funcom and our 10 year old studio will be closing.

“Many of us had survived a near-death studio experience years back when Darkborn was cancelled and because of the team’s loyalty and refusal to quit, Metal: Hellslinger was born. It will always be a high point for me personally and I will be forever grateful we got to make it and for the wonderful team and partnerships that made it happen.”

Watch the Metal Hellsinger launch trailer here!Watch on YouTube

Goldfarb stated the studio hoped to create something even better, and that the impacted developers want to try to “continue on in some new form”. He then requested help, be it through business leads, placement for affected employees, and more.

This comes shortly after Funcom announced layoffs last week, as the studio declared its intention to focus on Dune: Awakening’s ongoing live service support. The full scope of how many employees have been laid off across the full repertoire of Funcom offices remains unclear.



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Monks appear at Grog Hill.
Game Reviews

Players Are Getting Jump-Scared By One OfFinal Fantasy Tactics’ Most Iconic Battles All Over Again

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There’s a special battle in Final Fantasy Tactics that’s been punishing unsuspecting players for generations. Thanks to The Ivalice Chronicles remaster, fresh recruits can witness the joy and terror of randomly getting jumped by 11 monks in one of the strategy RPG’s lesser-known endgame challenges.

Every spot on the map in Final Fantasy Tactics comes with an array of random encounters the game can pull from depending on which side you enter from and how far along you are in the story. Once you hit Chapter 4, the game’s “rare” random encounters become accessible. These special battles are weird, hard, and memorable. None more so than the 11-Monk brawl on Grogh Heights (known in the original PS1 version as Grog Hill). They hit hard and have great range thanks to the Monk’s versatile Martial Arts abilities. God help you if you accidentally drop into the battle while trying to train your squad up on weaker jobs they don’t have many abilities for.

Fans on the Final Fantasy Tactics subreddit have been posting about these Monks for years. Every so often, someone new to the game takes a photo, uploads it in a thread, and writes something to the effect of “WTF?” Community hero Kronikle has been cataloging every instance and posting each of them under every new thread. This happened again over the weekend.

“Homie really pulled up with the receipts,” wrote one fan in response. “Dude replies this every time and adds to it. It’s my most favorite thing ever on this subreddit,” wrote another. A third chimed in, “gotta respect the dedication.”

While the Monks are arguably the game’s most absurd rare battle, there’s close to a dozen others scattered across the map, each with a chance of occurring when you walk to that specific point from the right direction. A small army of Calculators can spawn at Lenalia Plateau, Yuguo Woods can spawn seven Samurai, and Germinas Peak can spawn a group of Chemists and Orators with powerful guns worth stealing. Certain rare monsters like Tiamats can only spawn in the Bariaus Valley rare battle.

Some players seek these fights out in order to farm abilities off the crystals the enemies drop. Others just like the added challenge and variety. Most story battles in Final Fantasy Tactics only draw from a very limited pool of Jobs, making the rare battles extra fun. Fortunately, with the Enhanced mode’s ability to retry and flee battles, you’ll never have to worry about seeing hours of progress get wiped out this way.



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Tools of the trade: I upgraded my gaming PC with a 420mm Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 AiO and vertical GPU mount, and now it looks incredible
Game Reviews

Tools of the trade: I upgraded my gaming PC with a 420mm Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 AiO and vertical GPU mount, and now it looks incredible

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With Battlefield 6 on the horizon – plus plenty of Borderlands 4, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries and Hades 2 to play – I wanted to upgrade my AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and RTX 4090 Founders Edition gaming PC to better cope with these demanding titles.

The goal here is to improve temperatures, reduce fan noise and maybe make things look a little nicer, so I’ll be swapping the (admittedly chonky) 240mm AiO liquid cooler I currently have installed for a massive 420mm unit from Arctic. With more surface area and larger fans, I should be able to run the fans at lower speeds while still achieving much better cooling performance in these and other CPU-heavy games.

I set aside Friday morning to make the swap, and the results exceeded my expectations. I’ll share what I learned, why I made the choices I did, and also discuss the titanic Havn HS 420 VGPU case that I’ve been using for the past six months.

Part one: Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 Pro RGB install and mini review

I’ve been relatively happy with the Hyte Thicc Q60 240mm AiO CPU cooler I’ve been using for the past few months, with its pleasant black/white colour scheme and surprisingly good thermal performance for its size, but it does have some flaws. First, the display screen attached to the CPU block made it impossible for me to vertically mount my graphics card, as it hung down too far below the CPU socket.

More critically though, despite its incredibly thick radiators, it’s still limited by its dual 120mm fans, which need to spin relatively fast to push enough air through the thick rad. By replacing this unit with a (remarkably, around $100 cheaper) 420mm Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 Pro RGB AiO with three wider 140mm fans, I ought to be able to hit similar or even lower temperatures while running the fans significantly slower, cutting down on noise.

Here’s how my work PC looked before I started this project, with the Hyte Thicc Q60 240mm AiO installed. I dig the white/black colour scheme, but fan noise was relatively high. | Image credit: Eurogamer

Removing the Thicc Q60 was straightforward in the Havn HS 420 VGPU, as the case provides easy access to both sides of the computer and has clearly marked apertures for cable routing. The Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 Pro RGB (hereafter “new CPU cooler”) also has a relatively thick 38mm radiator, so rather than mounting it on the side access panel as I did with the Q60, I’ll be installing it at the top of the case and replacing the storage covers to cover the empty gap. A top placement also ensures that the pump on the CPU block is below the level of the radiator, which is generally good practice.

Installing the Arctic cooler was easy, with the fans installed on the block out of the box in the top-exhaust configuration that I wanted. The only real struggle I had with the new CPU cooler was deciding on which way up it should go. Initially, I wanted to install it with the Arctic logo on the included magnetically-attached CPU block fan the right way up, but this meant that the tubes were at the bottom and they interfered with the vertical GPU mount. In the end, I decided to sacrifice the aesthetics and live with the upside-down wordmark.

Here’s the Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 Pro A-RGB install, starting with the CPU block installed the right way up, then later upside-down to accommodate the vertical GPU mount. | Image credit: Eurogamer

With the new CPU cooler installed, I noted significantly lower CPU and GPU temperatures, with both sitting around 60 degrees celsius in Borderlands 4 (with around 50 percent load on the 9800X3D and 95 percent load on the RTX 4090), versus around 65-70 celsius CPU temperatures with the old setup. Even at maximum load – eg compiling shaders in Borderlands 4, a heavy all-core task that can last several minutes – the fans never ramped up to their maximum speed as they did before.

As well as the boost to performance, I appreciated the lack of a display on the CPU block, as it meant that the entire system only requires a single fan header and a single A-RGB header to run four fans. The last few high-end AiOs I’ve used from Hyte, Asus and NZXT have included displays, requiring a PCIe or SATA power connector and USB 2.0 connections, so going back to a simpler system was an unexpected relief.

Part two: vertical GPU swap

Moving from a traditional horizontal GPU mount to a vertical one provides a bit of an aesthetic boost, and for a large GPU like the RTX 4090 FE I’m using here, an extra sense of stability as well.

There’s plenty of space here between the RTX 4090 FE and the side of the case, which is always a worry for vertical GPU setups. | Image credit: Eurogamer

The Havn HS 420 VGPU case is designed for this, and therefore includes an extra assembly that replaces the usual PCIe slots and provides a PCIe 4.0 riser cable. The downside is a more complicated install process and blocking access to your extra PCIe ports, but given the rarity of second graphics cards or other add-in cards, that’s probably a trade most builders would be quite happy to make.

I found it easiest to install the 4090 into the vertical assembly first, then install the whole deal into the case. That makes pushing in the PCIe riser cable a tad tricky, but means that the graphics card itself doesn’t risk being damaged when you’re trying to pop it into the PCIe socket. Here, the bracket is secured with two thumb screws quite close to the glass window, so it’s easy enough to hold the assembly in place with one hand and secure it with the other.

The goal with vertical GPU placement is to make sure there’s a good amount of space between the card and the glass, so that hot air leaving the card has a chance to be directed away (in this case, by the three fans below). There’s a good two or three inches between the GPU and the side glass here, so that’s good enough for me.

I’m probably still paying a slight performance penalty for using a vertical GPU orientation, but one that I’m happy enough with given the very modest temperatures at full burn in-game.

Part three: Havn HS 420 VGPU long-term review

The £200/$230 Havn HS 420 is a fascinating high-end PC case that offers quite unusual features and a plethora of fan setups, and I’ve found it every bit as performant and sensibly arranged as the Corsair 9000D I was using before. You have more than enough space here for a full-size ATX board with a huge amount of SATA storage and a 420mm AiO, and this ought to hold it in good stead for custom water cooling as well. There’s even a bit of extra glass included in the box to virtually divide the CPU and GPU areas of the case, though I didn’t end up using it.

I particularly like the aesthetics of the case, with the rounded motif replicated across the top I/O (USB-C, two USB-A, 3.5mm) and power button, the various air inlets in the base and lid, the unusual circular rear fan mounts and so on. The white case works well with the white RAM, white Arctic P14 Pro fans and white Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 Pro A-RGB AiO cooler, and I only wish that I had a white motherboard and graphics card to complete the look.

A great-looking case, with plenty of well-designed space in the rear for accommodating cable clutter, removable frames for AiO installation and a consistent rounded aesthetic for various elements. | Image credit: Eurogamer

The curved glass used for the front and side of the case is also truly impressive, with a well-engineered system that slides it out before releasing it. I’m not such a huge fan of the small screws used to secure each side, as there’s no good place to store these if you want to leave the system in a state where it’s easy to pull apart for maintenance, upgrades or cleaning, and consequently I’ve lost them. However, at least with them removed, it’s easy enough to access each of the dust filters.

In terms of cable routing, the rear of the case provides a useful amount of space, all cable routes are clearly labelled, and there’s a surplus of tie points and so on. Installing fans and radiators is also made easier by the fact that each of the main sections (top, side, bottom) have removable frames, so you can install the rads/fans onto the frame outside of the case, then re-insert the frames.

Overall, it’s not the quietest or coolest case that I’ve ever used – I suspect that I may want to explore alternative fan arrangements, reduce fan RPMs further and/or use extra fans in the side intake to keep CPU temperatures even lower – but that’s OK. The Havn HS 420 VGPU is still comfortably the best-designed PC case I’ve tested, with great aesthetics and streamlined build experience, and I’d happily recommend it.

What I’ve learned, and what’s next

I’m happy with my redesigned gaming PC for now, but it’ll be interesting to see how it fares with next-gen graphics cards when they arrive down the line – especially if they again see an uptick in power consumption and therefore waste heat production. For the more imminent future, I’m planning to upgrade to a 9950X3D, which ought to produce a little more heat on the CPU side and therefore allow me to fully tune the fans to deal with worst-case scenarios.

I’m also curious to hear your comments and suggestions – should I turn around one of the rear fans as an exhaust, as I’ve seen elsewhere online? Add side intake fans? Get in touch with a company that will supply a white graphics card and motherboard? Clean up my cable mess? Some of these are possible, so do get in touch via the comments below or via Bluesky.

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