A few weeks ago, we covered DarkSpectre, a threat actor responsible for running numerous spyware campaigns that, combined, infected a total of at least 8.8 million Google Chrome, Mozilla FireFox, and Microsoft Edge users. One of the key ways this was done was through malicious extensions, with the caveat that said extensions did have legitimate 
In a development that's no doubt going to send analysts and fans into a frenzy, Sony today announced that it's ceding majority control of its iconic Bravia TV and home entertainment business to Chinese electronics giant TCL. Under a new strategic partnership, the two companies will establish a joint venture where TCL holds a 51% controlling 
Smack dab in the Ring Nebula, astronomers have stumbled upon a massive bar-shaped structure of iron that had previously eluded prior observations, potentially revealing the ghost of a vaporized world.
Led by a team from University College London (UCL) and Cardiff University, the discovery essentially uncovered a feature hidden in plain 
Qualcomm continues to crank out new versions of its Snapdragon X silicon for PCs, and in doing so, there are opportunities to score enticing deals on last-gen releases. Now is one of those times. The caveat is that you're not getting the latest and greatest silicon, but if you're willing to go a generation back, you can save a wad a cash on 
Samsung has just released a pricing guide for its upcoming Galaxy Book 6 series and it shows Panther Lake-powered models hitting shelves with a price premium that's nearly 20% higher than its Lunar Lake predecessors. Can we thank the RAM-pocalypse for this?
The sticker shock comes directly from Samsung’s official countdown page (for South 
We're big fans of the Mac mini lineup around these parts (dating back to the M1 Mac mini we reviewed in 2020), particularly as Apple's in-house M-series silicon has come into its own. The latest version of the Mac mini sports a choice between the M4 or M4 Pro, both of which are powerful and efficient, making the tiny Mac a viable workhorse 
Thin is in when it comes to smartphone design, or so that's been the recent trend with devices like Apple's iPhone 17 Air and Samsung's Galaxy S25 Edge. Does the same slim design philosophy translate to gaming phones, though? It does as far as Redmagic is concerned, which has launched its Redmagic 11 Air gaming handset in China.
While not 
Though it's been quite some time since we last had a new entry in the series, the Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games franchise brought two of the most iconic mascots together to directly compete with one another in a bunch of fun mini-games based on the bi-annual sports event. Like Mario, it appears as though Nintendo has a bit of a competitive spirit, with developers revealing that in all of the games’ marketing Mario had to be beating Sonic.
In an interview with SEGA of Japan’s localisation producer ‘Ryoichi Hasegawa’, the developer revealed some of Nintendo’s mandates when making the ‘Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games’ series.
According to Hasegawa, when creating the promotional artwork for the games (which of course includes Sonic and Mario right at the front), “there was one small error and Sonic’s food was in front of Mario’s foot, and Nintendo demanded us to change the priority,” meaning that Mario needed to instead be ahead of Sonic – if ever so slightly.
Of course, while there was once a time many decades ago when Sonic was arguably a bigger mascot than Mario, history has proven the Italian plumber to be the more successful of the two financially.
This, alongside Nintendo’s known penchant for being highly protective of their IPs and it makes sense that they would want their own mascot to be perceived as better, subconsciously or not.
While we have not seen a new entry in the Sonic and Mario series for over half a decade now, SEGA did recently gain the rights back to work on games based on the Olympics, and so it will be interesting to see whether we do end up getting more Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games…and whether Mario will once again be ahead of the Blue Blur.
KitGuru says: What did you think of the Sonic and Mario series back in the day? Was this Nintendo being business-savvy or petty? Let us know your thoughts down below.
The post Nintendo mandated that Mario always beat Sonic in the Olympic Games, according to ex-developer first appeared on KitGuru.Ever since it first went live, Microsoft’s xCloud game streaming service has slowly but surely been expanded outwards with support for additional games, platforms and other ways to access the service. Following a recent pop-up which seems to suggest that Microsoft is working on an ad-supported tier for the service, insiders have now offered additional context.
2025 was a pretty big year for xCloud rumours, with Microsoft reportedly developing “next generation” Xbox cloud servers with a focus on “lower lag, improved bitrates, and higher resolution options” – alongside later leaks which claimed that the service would receive an overhaul in the future with 4 tiers in total.
Though Microsoft themselves have yet to unveil this overhaul, it seems the announcement might be imminent, with some Xbox Cloud Gaming users (as reported by Windows Central) noticing a pop-up with the message “1 hour of ad supported play time per session.”
According to known Xbox insider Jez Corden, Microsoft is indeed working on an ad-supported tier of sorts for xCloud, with the leaker stating: “seeking clarification about this message, it was confirmed to me that the ads will appear separately on Xbox Cloud Gaming, for those who have purchased Xbox games digitally, but don't have Xbox Game Pass.”
Outside of this however, it appears as though there may also be a session-based version of xCloud which this premature message was hinting at, with Corden adding: “Microsoft has hundreds of games available to buy via Xbox Cloud Gaming, but as of writing, you need at least one tier of Xbox Game Pass to access them. This session-based ad-supported access tier will change that.”
Given the timing of this message, it is highly likely that we will hear more officially on Microsoft’s xCloud plans during the upcoming Xbox Developer Direct showcase – which is set to go live on the 22nd of January. The console maker did state previously that the showcase will focus on 3 titles in particular, but Microsoft does typically like to throw in something about xCloud / Game Pass, and so it’s possible we will learn more officially then.
KitGuru says: Have you used xCloud at all? How does it compare to other game streaming services? Let us know down below.
The post Premature pop-up suggests xCloud game streaming service is getting an ad-supported tier first appeared on KitGuru.Capcom has long been a fan of remaking its classic titles, with the Resident Evil series in particular seeing various remakes/re-imaginings over the years. With RE4 being the latest entry in the series to receive the remake treatment, many fans have wondered which entry is next-in-line. According to a known Capcom insider, a remake for Resident Evil Code Veronica is currently in the works – with plans to officially announce it “later this year.”
Taking to Twitter, known Capcom leaker DuskGolem commented on recent rumours suggesting that following RE4, Resident Evil 5 will be next in line to be remade, writing:
“No, there is NOT a Resident Evil 5 Remake that's going to be announced this year. Instead, later this year a RE Remake that starts with ‘(C)’ & ends ‘(ode Veronica)’ is going to be announced, I promise you.”
As mentioned, DuskGolem has accurately leaked plenty of Capcom games in the past – especially Resident Evil – and so it is safe to assume that this is the publisher’s current plan.
Of course, things could change, but with Code Veronica being a PS2 generation title and RE5 originally releasing on the PS3 / Xbox 360, one would clearly benefit more from a remake when compared to the other.
That said, all eyes right now are on the upcoming Resident Evil Requiem, and so don’t expect to hear from this remake officially until RE9 is released at the very least.
KitGuru says: What are your thoughts on all the Resident Evil Remakes? Which entry would you like to see next? Should they re-remake the first RE game? Let us know your thoughts down below.
The post Leaker claims Resident Evil: Code Veronica Remake will be announced this year first appeared on KitGuru.Razer has officially unveiled the Blackpink x Razer collection, a collaboration that brings the aesthetic of the global K-pop sensation to a full suite of gaming peripherals and lifestyle accessories. Inspired by the group's “Deadline” World Tour, the collection features a bold pink-and-black colour scheme designed to appeal to both competitive gamers and the group's fanbase.
The collection includes several of Razer's most popular entry-level and mid-range peripherals with custom artwork and lighting. The lineup is led by the Razer Enki X gaming chair, which offers ergonomic support wrapped in signature tour-themed upholstery. There's also a Razer Ornata V3 tenkeyless keyboard variant featuring low-profile mecha-membrane switches and pink RGB zones. Additionally, the collection also includes a Razer DeathAdder Essential mouse and the Gigantus V2 Medium mouse mat, both with unique collaborative branding. These items are designed to meet Razer's gaming standards while serving as a statement of style for those who want their setups to reflect their passion for music and pop culture.
Fans will get their first look at the hardware during the collection's global debut on January 21, 2026, at a dedicated pop-up store in Hong Kong. This showcase will feature immersive displays inspired by the World Tour, along with photo zones, so visitors can experience the “Play in Pink” vision firsthand. Following this exclusive event, the whole collection is scheduled for worldwide availability in the second quarter of 2026 through Razer's official online store and global retailers.
Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.
KitGuru says: Are you a fan of Blackpink x Razer's gear? Interested in any particular item?
The post K-pop meets gaming with the new Blackpink x Razer collection first appeared on KitGuru.Bungie has officially announced that extraction shooter Marathon will launch on March 5th. The game is set for a simultaneous release on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, featuring full cross-play and cross-save support across all platforms.
Accompanying the release date news is a fresh gameplay trailer narrated by Gantry, an agent for the anti-establishment MIDA faction. This latest look at Tau Ceti IV showcases the extraction shooter's stylised, high-contrast world. It introduces players to the “Runner” shells they will inhabit as they scavenge the lost colony for survival.
The narrative of Marathon is deeply intertwined with its faction system, featuring six competing organisations. Players progress by completing contracts for these groups, which slowly reveal the identities, motivations, and rivalries that led to the colony's mysterious collapse. Storytelling is also handled through a “Codex” system, where players unlock audio logs, cryptic graffiti, and recovered text data found during their runs. This discoverable narrative allows players to piece together the history of Tau Ceti IV.
Pre-orders are now live, with the Standard Edition priced at £34.99/$39.99/€39.99 and the Deluxe Edition at £49.99/$59.99/€59.99. Those who purchase early will receive the Zero Step cosmetic bundle, which includes a tactical sidearm style, weapon charm and unique profile backgrounds. Additionally, pre-ordering unlocks a suite of themed rewards for Destiny 2, including a Ghost shell, ship, and Sparrow inspired by the UESC Marathon. The Deluxe Edition adds further value with a Premium Rewards Pass voucher, 200 Silk tokens, and the Midnight Decay cosmetic pack for weapons and Runner shells. Beyond the digital versions, a limited Collector's Edition is available through the Bungie Store, featuring a one-sixth scale Thief Runner shell statue with LED lights and various physical collectables.
If you're interested in playing Marathon on a PC, the system requirements can be found below:
MINIMUM
RECOMMENDED
Bungie also took this opportunity to reveal a star-studded English voice cast, including industry veterans such as Neil Newbon, Jennifer English, Ben Starr, and Roger Clark. A special Marathon-themed DualSense controller and Pulse Elite headset are also scheduled to launch alongside the game in March, rounding out the massive marketing push for Bungie's first non-Destiny project in over a decade.
Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.
KitGuru says: Are you picking up Marathon as soon as it launches, or will you be waiting for reviewers and other users to try it first before you decide?
The post Marathon releases March 5th, system requirements revealed first appeared on KitGuru.THQ Nordic and developer DigixArt have officially announced a delay for their upcoming sci-fi narrative adventure, Tides of Tomorrow. Originally set to make its debut on February 24th, the game is now scheduled to launch on April 22nd. The development team explained that the decision to push the release came after analysing feedback from the public playable demo and an ongoing closed beta.
According to the publisher, this extra time is essential for the studio to appropriately respond to player input and implement necessary technical and mechanical improvements to ensure the final product delivers the experience fans expect from the creators of Road 96.
For those who haven't been following the project, Tides of Tomorrow is an ambitious first-person adventure set on the flooded ocean planet of Elynd. The world is dying from a mysterious disease called Plastemia, which slowly turns living beings into plastic, and players take on the role of a Tidewalker tasked with finding a cure. The game's primary innovation is its “asynchronous narrative multiplayer” system, in which others' actions directly shape your story. At the start of a journey, you choose to follow a friend, a stranger, or even a favourite streamer, and their past decisions create “echoes” in your world. If the person you follow was hostile to a particular floating community, you might find that settlement abandoned or guarded when you arrive, forcing you to deal with the consequences of a journey you didn't even take.
The gameplay involves navigating open waters in a boat, exploring floating settlements, and managing resources. While the experience is primarily solo, the constant presence of other players' “visions” is designed to create a sense of community. NPCs react to you based on their memories of the player you are following, creating a unique branching narrative where no two playthroughs are the same. DigixArt noted that the complexity of this collaborative storytelling system makes the additional development time particularly important to ensure that these interconnected choices feel impactful to the player. Tides of Tomorrow will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.
Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.
KitGuru says: While a delay is never ideal for those eager to play a game, taking two months to polish the game based on user feedback is a smart move. Better late and good than quick and rushed.
The post Tides of Tomorrow launch has been rescheduled to implement player improvements first appeared on KitGuru.Billed as a large-scale VR sci-fi action game inspired by Starship Troopers, a title called Hivefall is available in Early Access through the Patreon of Memoreum’s director.
Access is granted via a Patreon page and SideQuest from Wim Buytaert, the director of Memoreum. Hivefall is the latest creation from the director focused around the concept of base defense. Each mission lets players prepare before a massive assault of alien bugs tears down their walls, culminating in a bombastic final wave with large bosses.
This early build is specifically made with the Quest 3 in mind, with a downloadable file sent to paying subscribers on Google Drive and installable by sideloading through the SideQuest app. The developer mentioned that the sci-fi action shooter is “inspired by everything I always wanted from Starship Troopers in VR.”
As the commander of an Earth-based military corporation, your terraforming efforts to colonize new planets end up waking up an alien organism hellbent on infecting other solar systems. The current build provides access to the first three missions of Hivefall and a fully functional progression tier system with skins. The solo developer aims to update the project every month with new content.
The first level of Hivefall, set on a colorful purple planet riddled with bugs.
After spending some time with this early build and going through the hassle of setting up SideQuest and uploading the files needed to work correctly, we’ll be curious to see how many people are willing to go through the sideloading process. Hivefall’s dev is basically investigating that very prospect with his offering. Distributing work in VR via Patreon is not unheard of, with Davigo's flat PC vs. VR game running a campaign. I can confirm the game runs in an early alpha state on Quest 3, but a considerable number of the planned pieces are still works in progress or missing. The bugs are still looking pretty pixelated to my eyes in the first build distributed for the game.
“This project may realistically be my final venture in the VR industry if it does not become financially sustainable. That said, VR remains my true passion and the space where I most want to create and innovate,” the developer wrote over email. “This project represents not only a game, but years of experience, dedication, and belief in immersive technology.”
Last year’s survival horror Memoreum from the dev received praise for its ambitious goals while falling short of expectations in other areas, as we said in our review, “there's going to be someone out there who will love Memoreum, even with its rough spots, and they'll have a sizable experience to dig into.”
Regular episodic campaigns and the possibility of an online co-op mode may be in the cards for the game depending on the support it receives.
Hivefall is available now for Quest 3 via Patreon.
Palmer Luckey thinks Meta closing its VR game studios is "a good thing for the long-term health of the industry", and that the narrative of it "abandoning" VR is "obviously false".
If you somehow missed it: last week Meta shut down three of its acquired studios – Twisted Pixel Games (Deadpool VR), Sanzaru Games (Asgard's Wrath), and Armature Studio (Resident Evil 4 VR) – and conducted significant layoffs at a fourth: Camouflaj (Batman: Arkham Shadow).
The closures are part of Meta's wider strategy of, in its own words, "shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward AI glasses and Wearables", and the layoffs have affected around 10% of Meta's Reality Labs division, around 1500 people.
UploadVRDavid Heaney
This strategy shift has led some in the industry to speculate that Meta is abandoning VR entirely. But Oculus founder Palmer Luckey doesn't agree.
In a post on X, Luckey argued that last week's events were "not a disaster", pointing out that Meta still employs more people working on VR than any other company "by about an order of magnitude".
Further, Luckey explains that "crowding out the rest of the entire ecosystem" by forcing third-party developers to compete with blockbusters like Batman and Deadpool games that cost more to make than they would ever return "doesn't make sense", suggesting that the end of this strategy will be "a good thing for the long-term health of the industry".
He further notes that while some of these titles are received well, others fail, revealing that Rock Band VR, a 2017 Oculus Rift exclusive, sold just 700 copies.
Here's Palmer Luckey's full statement:
"I have an opinion on the Meta layoffs that is contrary with most of the VR industry and much of the media, but strongly held.
This is not a disaster. They still employ the largest team working on VR by about an order of magnitude. Nobody else is even close. The "Meta is abandoning VR" narrative is obviously false, 10% layoffs is basically six months of normal churn concentrated into 60 days, strictly numbers wise.
The majority of the 1,500 jobs cut in Reality Labs (out of 15,000) were roles working on first-party content, internally developed games that competed directly with third party developers. I think this is a good decision, and I thought the same back when I was still at Oculus.
Change always sucks because people lose their jobs in the process, but in a world of limited resources, Meta heavily subsidizing their own (with money, marketing, placement, etc) at the expense of core technical progress and platform stability doesn't make sense. Crowding out the rest of the entire ecosystem, even less so. Every developer big and small, even the hyper-efficient ones, have had an extremely hard time competing with games developed by Meta-owned teams with budgets and teams that spend vastly in excess of earning potential. People will point out that these teams did an awesome job and got awesome reviews from critics and customers alike - yes, and fucked up though it is, that makes the problem even worse!
Some people will say "they should have just funded those developers as external studios rather than acquiring them, then!". Yes, I agree, but hindsight is 20/20. Do you think Oculus expected to only sell 700 copies of Rock Band VR after spending eight figures to make sure it was ready and awesome for Rift CV1 launch, to the point of bundling the guitar adapter with every single headset? Of course not, but sometimes you learn what the world actually wants from you the hard way.
TL;DR, I feel really bad for the people impacted, but this is a good thing thing for the long-term health of the industry, especially the ongoing incentives.
(Nobody at Meta knows I am making this post)"
UploadVRDavid Heaney
After being fired from Oculus by Facebook in 2017, Luckey founded Anduril, a defense firm that makes and sells drones, loitering munitions, interceptors, cruise missiles, sentry towers, and even unmanned submarines, as well as a software system that integrates them and other assets into a unified view of the battlespace. It was most recently valued at over $30 billion.
In 2024, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth publicly apologized to Luckey, an apology which he also publicly accepted. And last year, Anduril and Meta announced a partnership to build XR products for US and allied militaries, starting with the EagleEye AR/VR helmet.
"The people acting like I am some stooge who will obviously agree with everything Meta does need to read a history book or something, jfc
Oculus had a strong internal mandate to NOT be Nintendo and instead build things that build the ecosystem. Returning to that is good."
In response to the idea that he was "stooge who will obviously agree with everything Meta does", Luckey suggests those under that belief read a history book.
When it rains it pours, and Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, is currently enduring a deluge. The company’s latest releases, which include its long running Assassin’s Creed franchise and tie-ins with popular IP such as Star Wars, have failed to make the splash it hoped for. Now, Ubisoft is facing a legal battle with 
Connexion