Key Note Gaming

Halo: Combat Evolved sits in a pantheon alongside some of the best games ever made, so it wasn’t surprising that Microsoft would release a second remake of it eventually. However, instead of using a bespoke, in-house engine, this time around Halo Studios opted for Unreal 5,. And while that’s awesome for anyone with a high-end machine, it does mean it struggles to scale to lower-end and older hardware. That doesn’t mean the game doesn’t look good though. If you have the hardware to juice up the settings a bit, Halo: Campaign Evolved looks stunning, with excellent lighting and environmental detail. But unlike a lot of games that have come out this year, like Resident Evil Requiem and Crimson Desert , which are on much more flexible engines, the Halo remake isn’t well-optimized for lower-end hardware and turns into an ugly mess once you need to start turning down some of the settings. Unreal Engine 5 Ever since its debut back in 2022, Unreal 5 has had a bit of a reputation for being qu...

Double Fine, best known for creating the 2005 platform game Psychonauts, has laid off 25.6% of its staff three weeks after Xbox’s massive restructuring efforts were revealed. The studio announced the layoffs on July 28, 2026, confirming that this downsizing was a direct result of becoming an independent company after Xbox unloaded them as part of its own restructuring earlier this month. “As a small, tightly-knit team, these actions are not taken lightly,” a statement from Double Fine reads. “Only the survival of our studio would ever make us consider such a painful action. Our transition to becoming an independent company also means becoming a size that we can sustain. The people we are losing were all important. They all made an impact on our games and culture, and they will be missed. We are committed to supporting each affected person as best as we can, and we thank them for their hard work and commitment to the creative spirit we cherish here at Double Fine.” Xbox also released ...

Ubisoft is giving Xbox owners free access to some of their games on PC. Today, Ubisoft and Xbox revealed a new expansion to their ongoing partnership. Starting immediately, those who own the following games on Xbox will get them for free on PC through Ubisoft Connect by August 4th: Assassin’s Creed Mirage Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Far Cry 6 Immortals Fenyx Rising Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Riders Republic Skull and Bones The Crew 2 The Crew Motorfest Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege The games should appear in your Ubisoft Connect library by next week, so long as your accounts are linked. If you happen to purchase these games on Xbox later, you will get them on PC automatically. Unfortunately, this doesn't go both ways. If you buy one of these games on PC first, you will not get it on Xbox. If you're someone who previously played on console, but made the jump to PC, this is a great benefit. Additionally, Ubiso...

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is coming off a record-breaking open beta weekend, where two particular characters reigned supreme over the rest of the game’s cast. Despite some glaring issues that plagued PC users, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls still had a massively successful open beta, raking in more players on Steam than any other fighting game’s open beta before it. Specifically, Marvel Tokon attracted 33,233 players at its all-time peak, just under 500 more than Street Fighter 6’s famously packed beta back in 2023. For reference, that number was 32,787 , while, for comparison’s sake, Tekken 8’s open beta garnered 15,035 players later that same year. Of those players, a significant portion of them chose two characters more than any others. Those characters are Magick and Blade, respectively, with Magick being the consistent leader of the two. As seen in stats presented by the FGC’s resident data-compiler and infographic creator AlietteFaye, character usage in Vibranium ranks and ab...

Magic: The Gathering's Marvel Super Heroes Collector's Edition preconstructed Commander deck bundles are back in stock at Amazon, but I have to say, they're somehow even more expensive than before. You can pick up the four-deck bundle sold and shipped by Amazon for $638.88 , but the same bundle is also available on TCGPlayer for $522.97 , although it's sold by a smaller vendor compared to Amazon. Compare these prices to the regular Marvel Super Heroes Commander deck bundle , which is going for $209.95 (30% off) at Amazon, and I'm left wondering if the Collector's Editions are even worth it. Marvel Super Heroes - Collector's Edition Commander Deck Bundle Compared to the base Marvel Super Heroes Commander decks, the Collector's Editions are unchanged in terms of cards included. You'll still get the same 100-card decks featuring Commanders like the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Dr. Doomday, and Captain America, as well as the useful double-sided token...

Baldur’s Gate 3 might be three years old, but it’s still the subject of much debate — and many new mods. One mod in particular has gone viral, leading some fans to say developer Larian should keep it in mind for its future games. Others, though, believe using it to play Baldur’s Gate 3 essentially amounts to heresy. The mod in question is Relysia’s True Third-Person Camera, which was released on Nexus Mods earlier this month. It features a modern, over-the-shoulder third-person camera view where the camera stays closely attached to your character. There is a dynamic FOV when running, and smooth crouch transitions. In this over-the-shoulder mode, the camera stays at a fixed distance to retain a close perspective. During gameplay actions, such as spell targeting, jumping, or inspecting the camera temporarily switches back to the normal view and automatically returns to over-the-shoulder mode once finished. This is of course very different from the default Baldur’s Gate 3 camera, which ...