Key Note Gaming

From ARC Raiders to Escape From Duckov , extraction shooters seem to be enjoying something of a renaissance right now, to the delight of FPS fans like myself. But of all the newcomers to that space, none have captured my attention more than Marathon since I first played its early alpha over a year ago. Even through some of Bungie’s recent lows, the notion of taking the high-stakes looting deathmatch that is an extraction shooter and combining it with the unparalleled shooting for which the studio is known has always been an awesome idea. Now, having sweated it out for over 65 hours in Marathon’s most unforgiving maps and game modes, that rad concept turned out exactly as well as I was hoping it would, with absolutely stellar gunplay, a shocking amount of compelling lore to dive into, and a loot grind so hard to step away from that I’ve had trouble finding time to finalize my thoughts in between runs. There’s still plenty of room for tweaking – whether it’s balancing some of the play...

Darwin's Paradox! really taps into the joy and simplicity of a fun cartoon for its quirky alien invasion adventure. With a simple setup of an octopus clumsily trying to survive on land, it gives way to some wacky, slapstick platforming encounters that totally capture the fun, charming vibe of a Saturday morning cartoon. Developer ZDT Studio offers up a plucky puzzle-platformer that carries a lot of energy, but it often struggles to maintain those good times when it gets hung up on overly long, clunky encounters that drag down this otherwise fun jaunt. Set in a stylized cartoon world that feels in step with Pixar's Finding Nemo, Darwin's Paradox! follows a clever and oddly lucky octopus who is thrust into increasingly zany encounters. After a mysterious, otherworldly presence encroaches upon their underwater home, Darwin and their octopus friend are whisked away to the surface and separated. But it's not enough that Darwin has to figure out how to survive on the surfa...

Crimson Desert has hit a new Steam concurrent player peak during its second weekend, after another game-changing update brought a raft of improvements to the open world action adventure. Developer Pearl Abyss released update 1.01.00 (patch notes, courtesy of Steam , are below) this morning, sparking excitement within the Crimson Desert community as a number of significant changes kicked into gear. For example, the patch added five summonable mounts ( the lack of summonable mounts was a big criticism in the wake of the game’s release ), decreased loading times for fast travel and revival, and improved the controls further. But these are just a few examples of the positive changes — the patch includes a long list of pretty meaningful tweaks that combine to make a big impact on the overall Crimson Desert experience. Pearl Abyss has pumped out these big updates remarkably quickly. Crimson Desert hasn’t even hit the two weeks on-sale mark, and already a series of patches have helped tu...

A new weekend has arrived, and today, you can save big on Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, Code Vein II, My Hero Academia: All's Justice, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, LEGO R2-D2, and more. Check out our top picks for Sunday, March 29, below. Amazon's Big Spring Sale is also live this weekend, so check out our full roundup for even more deals. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach for $29.99 Death Stranding 2: On the Beach for the PlayStation 5 just dropped to $29.99 as part of the Amazon Spring Sale. Previously, the lowest we've seen physical PS5 copies was $49.99, so this marks a new low price. DS2 has hundreds of hours of content with an incredible narrative, extensive gameplay mechanics, and much more. Enter Australia as Sam Porter Bridges and connect the world once more. My Hero Academia: All's Justice for $39.99 My Hero Academia: All's Justice covers the epic conclusion of MHA, featuring the climactic final battle of Deku and Class 1-A versus Shigarak...

Heads up: Death Stranding 2: On the Beach for the PlayStation 5 just dropped to $29.99. This is the best video game deal right now during the Amazon Spring Sale and beats out the $49.99 price I saw during Black Friday. I played and beat DS2 right after it came out. It might not appeal to everyone, but this was my top #2 game of 2025. From the "nonsensical" story to the "grind" of delivery packages - I loved every minute of it. Update: If Amazon is out of stock, you can get it for the same price at Best Buy. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach for PS5 Death Stranding 2 resumes the story of Sam Porter in his ongoing mission to deliver packages for a greater good while taking care of his newly adopted kid, Lou. The epic story is absolutely over-the-top ridiculous and is anchored by incredible visuals. The voice acting and motion capture draws from an ensemble celebrity cast that includes Norman Reedus, Elle Fanning, Troy Baker, Léa Seydoux, Shioli Kutsuna (Yukio i...

A classic Nintendo handheld turned 25 this week amidst an ongoing bust-up about the very future of graphics tech, an anniversary that reminds us how hollow the pursuit of ever increasing graphical fidelity is when all the post-processed path tracing in the world can’t make the driving in Cyberpunk 2077 feel as good as V-Rally 3 on the Game Boy Advance. Look at it. Squeezing every bit of horsepower out of the GBA’s dinky 16MHz processor, a system explicitly designed to run sprite-based 2D games, V-Rally 3 represents an incredible feat of software engineering: a fully 3D racer conjured from textured polygons, clever art direction, and three entire volts of copper-topped power. This was damn close to PS1 quality gaming you could enjoy on a bus (at a time when the PS1 was still very much a going concern), making the GBA a very early taste of what would be possible decades later, where any lingering distinction between a handheld game and a home console or PC game has been utterly oblite...

It seems like every few weeks , we're finding out about another developer using generative AI to create assets for their games, or at least strongly considering it. So I'm pretty intrigued at the latest interview from the dev team behind Pragmata, wherein they said they're hand-crafting one of the levels in the game to look like it was AI-generated, despite it being fully made by humans. This comes from an interview published by 4Gamer and translated by Automaton , which has director Cho Yonghee and producer Naoto Oyama from Capcom talking about Pragmata's New York City-like stage, which was designed intentionally to feel AI-generated to the player. (You can see some snippets of this stage in the trailer below.) “For Pragmata, we set the premise as ‘a fake New York generated by AI,’” said Cho. “When familiar locations appear, players can relate more easily. On top of that, to make it clear that this isn’t the real New York, we wanted something slightly distor...

On March 26, a female store clerk at Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo in Japan was fatally stabbed by a man, who then turned the weapon on himself. Both died of their injuries in hospital later that evening . Today, Japanese news outlets have revealed that the perpetrator was the victim’s former boyfriend, and had previously been arrested for stalking her. An employee at the Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo, Moe Harukawa (21) was stabbed multiple times by Daiki Hirokawa (26) at 7.20pm on Thursday, after which the perpetrator stabbed himself in the neck. Subsequent reports by TBS News Dig and others revealed that Hirokawa was Harukawa’s former boyfriend. According to Asahi News , they were in a relationship up until around July 2025. After the break-up, the victim reported to the police that she was being stalked by Hirokawa, and that he would lie in wait outside her home and also secretly film her. Later that same day, Hirokawa turned up outside her residence again and was arrested under Japan’...

All of Forza Horizon 5’s remaining time-limited bonus cars have today been added to its store, where they can be purchased with in-game vouchers. Forza Horizon 5’s Festival Playlist system previously added new, free cars to the game every week since the game’s Xbox and PC launch in November 2021. However, while the cars were free, they were admittedly only ever available for a limited time – and required players to complete a series of events or challenges over the course of a week (or month) to earn. The themed, monthly Festival Playlists began to be repeated in early 2025, giving us a chance to collect cars we may have missed previously. We’ve also been able to unlock some of them from a curated selection of rare cars voted for by players by exchanging vouchers that can be redeemed or earned each week. However, today all of the remaining cars that had not already made it into the ‘Horizon Backstage’ store have been made available. Players will now be able to complete their car ...

Game engine maker Unity, whose tech powers many games, from 2025 hits like Hollow Knight: Silksong and Peak to anticipated 2026 offerings like Mouse: P.I. for Hire and Replaced (both of which are due out next month), announced its preliminary Q1 financial results today. The company expects to beat forecasts, with revenue anticipated to be between $505m and $508m, above the $480m-$490m guidance. Adjusted EBITDA, meanwhile (which is a measure of profitability), is expected to land in the $130m-$135m range, above the guided figure of $105m-$110m. This amounts to 58% year-over-year growth. According to SteamDB , more than 8500 games powered by Unity were published to Steam in each of the past two years. Recent notable games that have been built using Unity include LEGO Voyagers , PowerWash Simulator 2 , and Terminator 2D: No Fate . The impressive results come just two years after the company navigated choppy waters, watching then-CEO John Riccitiello retire after his controversial ...

There's a whole bunch of great Pokémon TCG deals available right now online as part of Amazon's 2026 Spring Sale . As part of the 30th Anniversary celebrations ongoing throughout the year, you can expect to see plenty of special offers ongoing in sale events like this. Amazon has recently gone through another massive restocking mission as part of its new sale, with several sets back available, and even discounted a few as well. Most notable in the sale right now is the Perfect Order Booster Box , including 36 packs, for $239.75. It's a little over market price from somewhere like TCGplayer right now (averaging about $225). But, if Amazon is your preferred retailer, say you want the boosters promptly, or maybe even have some gift cards to spend, then the option is there. There's also the remarkably popular 151 Booster Bundle , which is now back, albeit for an eye-watering $195. That's around $7 over market price, but still worth mentioning for the same reasons ...

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying that Crimson Desert has suffered something of a rocky launch. Its vast open world, full of opportunity and flexible inventive systems, is impressive, but its awkward controls, punishing difficulty spikes, and baffling approach to inventory management burst the bubble of immense hype that had been built over years, resulting in “mixed” Steam reviews and an equally mixed critical reception . But there’s also no denying developer Pearl Abyss’ dedication to making things right. Its response to player feedback has been extraordinary, delivering some of the most extensive initial patch work that we’ve seen this generation within days of launch. It’s unclear if the development team has had to break their backs to do this, but their work has already paid dividends: user reviews on Steam have shifted into “very positive” territory, and the company’s stock price – which plummeted in the wake of uneven critic scores – has begun to bounce back . All this...