Gaming

Can’t wait to see what people make using them. Hopefully some cool front plates?

Aftermath wrote about a rally on Wednesday at ZeniMax’s office in Rockville, MD. ZeniMax, which oversees studios like Bethesda, was hit with 379 cuts in the state of Maryland as part of the broader Xbox layoffs.

ETA PRIME tries to answer that question (while we’re revisiting our initial rating) with some benchmarking courtesy of the Windows drivers Valve released earlier this month. As Videocardz points out, on this unit with 64GB of RAM, the results were pretty close across the three games tested, with SteamOS winning in 1080p across Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Horizon Zero Dawn, but Windows moving a couple of frames per second ahead at 4K rendering.

The streamer announced its next TV game, called straightforwardly Netflix Minigolf, which is described as pinball meets minigolf, and features courses based on shows like Stranger Things and Squid Game. It launches on July 28th, and follows other recent experiments like the interactive horror game Unhinged.

CNC aluminum arms, built-in cord keeper, folds down for travel, adjustable tension, Allen wrench storage in the steel base. The best part is you can mount multiple extra items to its parallel arms using Mechanism’s other bits. $39 for the stand on July 17th.

379 positions were cut in the state, according to a WARN notice obtained by Game Developer’s Chris Kerr. The cuts include major layoffs in Rockville, where the Bethesda Game Studios HQ is located.

Applications open on July 22nd at 10AM ET, and you’ll need to have a Switch 2 and an active Nintendo Switch Online membership to participate. Applications will be accepted in “the order that they are received,” so if you want a chance to try it, be ready on this page that day.

On Pablo Torre Finds Out, comedian Dan Soder talks about the backlash that pushed EA to remove microtransaction paywalls it had added to single-player modes.

I love that we’ve got dueling MMO stories on The Verge this week. First, from Kallie, about the EverQuest revival: a wild comeback for one of the biggest and most important MMOs ever. Then, from Andrew, about the world’s tiniest MMO, called PointlessQuest. Are the quests endless or pointless? You decide.

That’s the word from Nvidia today. Sega was already on Nvidia’s big partner list in May — see below — but you can add Virtua Fighter Crossroads to the list alongside Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Fortnite, Pragmata, League of Legends, Valorant, PUBG, Naraka Bladepoint and Alan Wake II. We don’t know which are built natively for Arm.

Fanatical is hosting a build-your-own bundle of Resident Evil games for Steam that costs $6.50 per game, and gets slightly cheaper the more you add. For instance, Resident Evil Village and the Resident Evil 2 remake are $12.99 together. The site has every major game in the franchise, save for Requiem and a few remakes.

I enjoy plugging Xreal glasses into handhelds for a huge virtual desktop — but that’s no reason to make us buy the priciest version with a 240Hz mode handhelds have trouble powering. Plus, 240Hz halves resolution from 1080p to 540p, which felt weird and ugly in person. (120Hz was fine.) Good thing Asus will now sell the OLED Ally separately!

Riot is following in the footsteps of other big live-services titles like Fortnite, Overwatch, Apex Legends, and World of Warcraft in launching a mode built around days gone by.

As the World Cup nears its end, Apple Arcade is getting the surprise addition of Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition, which hits the service on August 6th. It’s part of a big sports-themed update for Arcade which will also include NFL Retro Bowl ’27 and Retro Bowl College+.

The RPG franchise will have a Saturday session and is mentioned in the first paragraph of a blog post about the event’s schedule. Perhaps we’ll finally get a Kingdom Hearts 4 release date?

If you catch just one run from Summer Games Done Quick, watch this all-timer Balatro run.

The id founder isn’t thrilled with the layoffs at the company he left in 2013. He says, “You can’t rule out the possibility that executives are idiots,” but says we shouldn’t jump to that conclusion before dropping what certainly seems like a list of things Microsoft could have done better.

Great run out of Summer Games Done Quick.

The fast-paced racing game is currently on sale for $50 (usually $70) at Amazon, although you’ll have to add it to your cart to see the price. Air Riders features extensive customization and sharing features, and surprising depth considering its light-hearted vibes. This deal’s worth taking advantage of if you’ve been put off by the game’s original price.

The studio, which was hit hard by this week’s Xbox layoffs, says that it still has “the crew we need to build the games and tech we’re known for.”

Game Developer reports the OneBGS union is holding the rally in support of laid off developers on July 15th at ZeniMax offices in Rockville, Austin, Dallas, and Montreal, as the union announced in an email to members:

First, there was a Stardew Valley cookbook that was just as much about the game’s characters as the ingredients you can pick up during the life sim adventure. In early 2027, there will be an official amigurumi crochet book launching, with 25 patterns to let you build the game’s little critters to put around your house. Sounds chill.