ALGS Online Open 2026 Watch Parties Revealed
Electronic Arts unveiled a slate of nine creators, casters and channels that will host watch parties for the Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) Online Open 2026, which kicks off on February 28. The Americas will feature two streams – a joint broadcast by NiceWigg and Greek, plus a separate Twitch partner stream by Valekhan. EMEA, APAC North and APAC South each have dedicated co‑casters, including former French caster oraxe, streamer Berbatow, coach assiikun and Thai caster PMKz. The Open runs across four weekends, awarding points that determine Pro League qualification and Championship eligibility.
Valve Steam Frame Hands-On : Plays Half-Life Alyx Standalone at 40–50 FPS
Valve’s Steam Frame is a standalone VR headset that also supports wireless PCVR. In hands‑on testing it ran Half‑Life Alyx at 40‑50 FPS on low settings, aided by dynamic foveated rendering and eye‑tracking. The device offers a high‑resolution display, lightweight ergonomics,...
AMD’s RDNA 5 “AT0”: Enthusiast GPU with the Handbrake On?
AMD is rumored to be developing a high‑end RDNA 5 GPU codenamed AT0, featuring up to 96 compute units, a 512‑bit memory interface, and possibly 32 GB of VRAM. The chip would mark a return to the $1,500‑plus enthusiast segment that AMD...
NVIDIA Withdraws GeForce Driver 595.59; Black Screens, Crashes, and Fan Bugs Cause Damage to Trust
NVIDIA pulled the GeForce Game Ready Driver 595.59 after users reported black screens, system crashes, unstable clock speeds, and fan‑control failures, especially on RTX 50 series GPUs. The driver was intended to optimize Resident Evil Requiem and embed DLSS 4 MFG and Ray...
Microsoft Updates DirectX Shader Compiler With Improved Vulkan Driver Interoperability
Microsoft released DirectX Shader Compiler version 1.9, adding production support for Shader Model 6.9. The update focuses on substantial SPIR‑V backend enhancements, including improved layout, ABI correctness, expanded type‑system support, and more reliable code generation. These changes tighten interoperability with Vulkan...
Lenovo Legion Go Fold Concept Is a Portable Gaming PC with a Foldable Display
Lenovo unveiled a Legion Go Fold concept at Mobile World Congress, featuring a foldable pOLED screen that measures 7.7 inches when closed and expands to 11.6 inches unfolded. The device runs on an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor with 32 GB LPDDR5x memory and integrated Arc 140V...
Ultimate Game Development & 3D Artist Tool Humble Bundles
Humble has launched two new bundles aimed at game developers and 3D artists: the Ultimate Game Development Courses Bundle and the JRO 3D Artist Tools Bundle. The courses tier ranges from a $2 entry level covering Blender basics to a...
Chess.com Global Championship Renamed to Chess.com Open
Chess.com has rebranded its Global Championship as the Chess.com Open, positioning it as the largest open chess tournament of 2026. The event runs from March 14 to April 26, featuring a $250,000 prize pool and three direct berths to the...
ESL Pro League Season 23 Preview: Teams, Format, Schedule and More
ESL Pro League Season 23 runs March 1‑15, 2026, featuring 24 Counter‑Strike 2 teams in online Swiss stages followed by LAN playoffs in Stockholm’s Annexet. The tournament offers a $275,000 prize pool, with the champion earning $100,000 and a spot...
“The Price Is Ridiculous”: CS2 Fans Slam PGL Singapore Major Ticket Prices
Tickets for the PGL Major Singapore 2026, scheduled Dec 10‑13 at Singapore Indoor Stadium, were released on Feb 25 and have drawn sharp criticism for steep pricing. Single‑day tickets start at $144 and rise to $369 for the final day,...
Unstoppable Domains and SuperVerse Launch On-Chain Domain .super
Unstoppable Domains and SuperVerse have launched the .super on‑chain domain, designed for the SuperVerse gaming ecosystem. The .super name serves as a unified digital identity across games, marketplaces, creators, and community initiatives, replacing wallet addresses with human‑readable names. Each domain...
Esports to Make Its Medal Debut at Gay Games Valencia 2026
Esports will make its medal debut at the Gay Games Valencia 2026, featuring Overwatch and EA Sports FC 26 in both individual and team tournaments. The competitions run on July 3rd in an open format that does not separate participants by gender, guaranteeing...
Geekay Esports Returns to R6 Europe MENA League as a Partner Team
Saudi‑based Geekay Esports announced its return to the Rainbow Six Siege Europe MENA League as a BLAST affiliate for the 2026 season, after a dominant 2025 campaign in the Tier‑2 European circuit. The organization captured three Tier‑2 titles – Saudi eLeague...
ZETA DIVISION Returns to Apex Legends with YukaF Signing
Japanese esports powerhouse ZETA DIVISION announced the revival of its Apex Legends roster for the 2026 season, entering the APAC North region’s Online Open on February 28. The new line‑up features former Fnatic star YukaF, alongside veterans Mike and satuki,...
Dplus KIA Extends Lucid’s Contract Days After LCK Playoffs Victory Against T1
Choi “Lucid” Yong‑hyeok has re‑signed with Dplus KIA, extending his contract through the 2027 season. The renewal follows Dplus KIA’s dramatic reverse sweep of T1 in the LCK Cup playoffs, where Lucid earned series MVP honors. Lucid, a main‑roster jungler...
7 Reasons the Virtual Boy on Switch Online Works
Nintendo revived its notorious Virtual Boy by adding seven titles to the Switch Online + Expansion Pack on Feb 17 2026. The lineup includes the Japan‑only horror game *Mansion of Innsmouth*, a full‑featured *Wario Land* platformer, and other experimental titles like *Red Alarm* and...
OptiScaler Activates FSR 4 Under Vulkan Before AMD Itself Delivers
OptiScaler’s test build 0.9.0‑pre10 adds FSR 4 support to Vulkan games by routing the upscaler through a DirectX 12 bridge, effectively bypassing AMD’s official limitation to RDNA 4 GPUs and DX12 titles. The community‑driven implementation works in titles such as Doom: The Dark...
Dual Screen Laptops Stopped Being a Gimmick
ASUS unveiled the 2026 ROG Zephyrus Duo, the first dual‑screen gaming laptop designed for practical use rather than a novelty. It features two 16‑inch 3K OLED panels with 120 Hz refresh, an RTX 5090 GPU running at 135 W, and a five‑mode hinge...
Supercell Unveils New Rewards for Brawl Stars Championship
Supercell announced a new tiered reward system for the Brawl Stars Championship 2026, featuring Chaos Drops, Legendary Drops and exclusive LAN titles. Players earn Chaos Drops every third win in the Championship Challenge and through each round of the Monthly...
D7VK 1.4 Released With More Improvements For Old Direct3D On Vulkan Under Linux
D7VK 1.4 has been released, extending the open‑source layer that translates Direct3D 5‑7 calls to Vulkan on Linux. The update introduces depth write‑back support, color‑key transparency, and a consolidated legacy DDraw interoperability path. Compatibility for older Direct3D 5 and 6 titles has been...
IRacing Opens Trials for eNASCAR College iRacing Series
iRacing has opened time‑attack trials for the fourth‑season eNASCAR College iRacing Series, running February 24 to March 5 on the virtual Martinsville Speedway. The fastest collegiate racers will qualify for the Old Dominion Classic tournament, where 120 drivers compete for a share...
The Unity HDRP Is Dead
Unity announced a strategic shift in its graphics architecture, deprecating the Built‑in Render Pipeline in Unity 6.5 and effectively ending active development of the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP). The company will concentrate on the Universal Render Pipeline (URP), promising faster...
Sportradar Integrity Report Flags 34 Suspicious Esports Matches in 2025
Sportradar’s 2025 Integrity in Action report monitored roughly 100,000 esports matches and flagged 34 as suspicious due to abnormal betting patterns, lowering the suspicion rate to 0.03%. This represents a 17% decline from 2024 and makes esports one of the...
The Post-Scale Media Model Is Taking Shape in Gaming Journalism
Gaming journalism is pivoting from large, ad‑driven operations to lean, subscription‑focused models. Mothership reached 2,000 paying subscribers within a week of launch, while worker‑owned sites like Jank and Aftermath are gaining traction with modest fees. The contraction of legacy outlets...
Next Patch Wishlist
Community feedback highlights that the Mageslayer component of Bloodthorn has become overly dominant in late‑game scenarios, granting excessive magic resist to carries. This power spike penalizes heroes such as Sand King, Leshrac, and Death Prophet, while also providing an outsized...
HP Omen Max 16 Gaming Laptop You Either Love It or Hate It
HP’s Omen Max 16 launches with three GPU options—RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090—and two CPU choices, Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX or AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375. Priced from $2,099, the Intel‑based RTX 5080 configuration garners the most praise for its OLED 2.5K 240 Hz display and effective Tempest...
Best CS2 Settings for Low-End PCs: Boost FPS and Optimize Performance
The article outlines a step‑by‑step guide for squeezing maximum FPS out of Counter‑Strike 2 on low‑end PCs. It recommends lowering resolution, switching to fullscreen, and setting every graphics option to low while disabling ambient occlusion and HDR. Additional tweaks include turning...
Team Vitality Reaffirms Commitment to Sim Racing
Team Vitality announced it will exit the RENNSPORT R1 series and shift its sim‑racing focus to the upcoming ERL VCO championship while building a dedicated division. The French esports group retained R8G Esports as manager and added three drivers—Kaj de Bruin,...
NSE Names Vita Student as Headline Partner
National Student Esports (NSE) has named student‑accommodation provider Vita Student its headline partner for 2026. The partnership will back the British University Esports Championship and enable NSE to deliver more content, competitive events and enhanced player experiences throughout the academic...
“It’s a Step Too Far”: Rocket League Community Reacts to Teased Boost Timer Update
Epic Games announced Rocket League Season 22 for March 11, 2026, and the teaser trailer displayed a potential boost‑timer UI that counts down pad respawns. The visual cue shows a pad shifting from white to gold with a ‘3, 2,...
Gigaverse Launches GIGABIT to Power Rewards with Fixed Model
Gigaverse introduced GIGABIT, a new in‑game currency that anchors its first‑generation ecosystem, Gigaverse 1.0. The token operates on a fixed 100 GIGABIT‑to‑$1 exchange rate, with a redemption value of 0.80 USDC, and allocates 0.15 USDC per transaction to a rewards pool. GIGABIT supports...
Apex Legends Pro Effect Leaves Alliance to Join Aurora Gaming
Professional Apex Legends player Miron "Effect" Novikov has transferred from Alliance to Aurora Gaming. He will compete in ALGS Year 6 events alongside former world champion Hiarka and returning player ojrein. Effect spent four years with Alliance, winning the 2024 Esports...
NRG Brawk Manged Latest ASUS ROG Ambassador
ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) has named VALORANT 2025 Champions MVP Brock “brawk” Somerhalder as its newest brand ambassador, positioning him to promote the ROG Ace esports hardware line. The move follows ROG’s earlier partnership with CS2 star ZywOo and...
AMD Seemingly Stops Driver Updates for Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor
AMD has apparently ceased driver updates for its 2023‑era Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU used in handheld consoles, leaving devices like the ASUS ROG Ally on drivers dating back to August 2025. The pause affects OEMs such as Lenovo and ASUS, which must validate drivers against...
AOC Q27G4ZD Expands Gaming Series with 280 Hz QD-OLED and up to 1000 Nits Peak Brightness
The episode reviews AOC's new Q27G4ZD gaming monitor, a 27‑inch QD‑OLED panel that sits between the brand's 240 Hz and 360 Hz models with a 280 Hz refresh rate and QHD (2560×1440) resolution. It highlights the third‑generation QD‑OLED technology delivering 0.03 ms response, up...
Embark Studios Pauses The Finals Esports Efforts Following Conduct Concerns
Embark Studios announced a temporary halt to its outbound esports activities for The Finals after community concerns about player conduct surfaced. The studio said it consulted external legal counsel and concluded its actions were appropriate, but chose to pause to...
FC Online Named an Official Event at Korea’s National Youth Sports Festival
FC Online has been chosen as the sole title for the esports medal event at Korea’s 55th National Youth Sports Festival, scheduled for May 23‑24 at Busan Esports Stadium. This marks the first time esports will award medals at the...
Intel Hiring More Linux Developers - Including For GPU Drivers / Linux Gaming Stack
Intel announced six new engineering openings focused on its Linux graphics stack, including three GPU software development engineers tasked with enhancing Mesa, DRM kernel drivers, and the Linux gaming ecosystem such as Wine and Proton. Additional hires include middleware engineers...
KESPA Highlights the Economic Power of Esports Events in South Korea
South Korea’s Korea e‑Sports Association released a study quantifying the economic impact of esports events using its new Multi‑layered Esports Economic Impact (MEEI) model. The analysis shows the 2023 League of Legends World Championship generated a production inducement effect of...
Immutable Gamers Race for Bigger $60K Weekly Rewards After Dynamic Tier Upgrade
Immutable has upgraded its $60,000 Weekly Rewards program with a dynamic tier system that recalculates player rankings each week based on quest completion and points earned. The new five‑tier structure—Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary—directly determines each participant's share of the...
VALORANT Joins 2026 Esports Nations Cup Line-Up
The Esports World Cup Foundation announced that VALORANT will be part of the inaugural 2026 Esports Nations Cup, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from November 8‑15. The tournament will feature 32 national teams, with 16 receiving direct invitations through a new...
VALORANT Player Xiesta Signs a Four-Year Contract with Gen.G
Gen.G Esports has secured 15‑year‑old prodigy Jung “Xiesta” Si‑hwan on a historic four‑year contract, the longest the South Korean organization has ever signed with a player. Xiesta, a Radiant‑ranked VALORANT talent currently 31st in APAC, earned his reputation through the...
League of Legends Patch 26.4 Sets the Stage for First Stand
Patch 26.4 is Riot Games’ final balance update before the First Stand international event, aiming to smooth the competitive meta. The patch tones down burst and late‑game scaling on dominant picks such as Aphelios, Gwen, and Syndra while giving modest...
Epic Games Release Final Free Quixel Mixer
Epic Games announced the final offline release of Quixel Mixer, version 2023.1.0, marking the end of updates for the once‑free texturing app. The package includes over 800 free asset packs totaling more than 30 GB and will continue to work offline. Existing...
France Authorises Three-Year Trial Decree for Games with Monetisable Digital Objects
France has enacted a three‑year experimental decree authorising games with monetisable digital objects (JONUM) under the oversight of the Autorité Nationale des Jeux. The framework mandates full identity verification, weekly spending and playtime caps, and mandatory self‑exclusion tools. It also...
Australian Esports League Joins Forces with Australian Grand Prix for Esports Tournament
The Australian Esports League has teamed up with the Australian Grand Prix Corporation to launch the Victorian Virtual Grand Prix, a student‑focused esports tournament. Primary school pupils will race in‑person on February 28 at Kingsville Primary, while secondary students compete online...
How Different Types of Technology Have Built the New Casino Floor
Advances in live‑streaming, mobile‑first design, and random number generators have reshaped online casino experiences. High‑resolution 4K cameras, OCR and AR enable seamless live dealer games from providers like Evolution and Playtech. HTML5‑optimized mobile apps, now exceeding 30 in New Jersey,...
MOUZ vs The MongolZ Headline Opening BLAST Open Rotterdam Matches
BLAST has released the opening schedule for BLAST Open Rotterdam, kicking off on March 18 and running through March 29. The first eight matches feature MOUZ versus The MongolZ on March 19, alongside matchups such as Team Falcons vs NRG...
Fnatic Issues Statement Following Recent Online Player Abuse
Fnatic issued a public statement reaffirming its zero‑tolerance stance toward online abuse targeting its players, after a spike in personal attacks and death threats. The organization unveiled an action plan that includes reporting threats to authorities and imposing bans on...
League of Legends Americas Cup 2026 Format and Schedule Revealed
Riot Games unveiled the inaugural League of Legends Americas Cup, slated for March 4‑8 in São Paulo. The tournament pits the second‑ and third‑place teams from the LCS Lock‑In and CBLOL Cup in a double‑elimination bracket, with opening best‑of‑three matches followed by...