Free-to-play has a credibility problem. Years of games that offered a free entry point and then charged for everything that mattered have made players understandably cautious. The titles below earned inclusion by offering a complete experience at no cost, with any paid elements limited to cosmetics or optional convenience. None require spending money to be … Read more
Sony Interactive Entertainment confirmed on June 25 that it is laying off a significant portion of Bungie’s workforce, affecting most of the Destiny team and some Marathon staff. The studio, which Sony acquired for $3.6 billion in 2022, will simultaneously end all live content updates for Destiny 2. The game will remain playable, but no … Read more
Hollow Knight: Silksong launched in September 2025, crashed every major digital storefront on day one, sold seven million copies, and won awards at the Golden Joysticks, The Game Awards, and the Steam Awards. That part of the story is settled. What is new is what comes next — and there is enough of it to … Read more
Building a gaming PC on a budget in 2026 costs more than it did even a year ago, and it is worth saying that plainly before getting into specific parts. RAM prices have roughly doubled since late 2025 due to an AI-driven DRAM shortage, and GPU prices remain above MSRP across most of the market. … Read more
The Steam Summer Sale runs June 25 through July 9, 2026, opening at 10am Pacific and closing at the same time two weeks later. It is Valve’s biggest discount event of the year, and one mechanic matters more than usual this time: prices lock on day one. There are no flash deals, no daily rotations, … Read more
The Esports World Cup opens in Paris on July 6, and it is not where anyone expected it to be six months ago. The event relocated from Riyadh after regional tensions stemming from the Iran-United States conflict made the original Saudi Arabia venue impractical, a decision announced less than 50 days before the opening match. … Read more
The standard couples gaming problem is well known among people who actually try it: one partner already plays games, the other does not, and most “co-op” games turn out to require one player to carry most of the difficulty while the other watches, frustrated, until the controller quietly goes back in the drawer. Genuinely cooperative … Read more
Counter-Strike 2 paid out more in tournament prizes in 2025 than League of Legends, despite League having a vastly larger global viewership and a much bigger overall esports economy. Dota 2’s single annual tournament has historically dwarfed the total prize money of entire other esports scenes combined. If you only looked at prize pool numbers, … Read more
Xbox has had a turbulent twelve months. Phil Spencer, who led Microsoft Gaming since 2014 and defined Xbox’s strategy through two console generations, the Activision Blizzard acquisition, and the pivot to Game Pass, retired as Microsoft Gaming CEO in February 2026. Xbox president Sarah Bond stepped down alongside him. Their replacement, Asha Sharma, came not … Read more
Minecraft came out in 2011. It is 2026. The game has over 212 million monthly active players and has sold more than 350 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling video game in history. Monthly active players peaked at 222.5 million in June 2025, driven partly by the release of A Minecraft Movie — the … Read more