Ars Technica Gaming

1. Switch 2 pub backs off Game Key Cards after leaking lower-cost cartridge options

   Inin suggests new low-cost options allowed it to "recalculate production" for full cartridge.

2. Riot Games is making an anti-cheat change that could be rough on older PCs

   BIOS checks will only affect a limited subset of Valorant players for now.

3. We asked four AI coding agents to rebuild Minesweeper—the results were explosive

   How do four modern LLMs do at re-creating a simple Windows gaming classic?

4. Reminder: Donate to win swag in our annual Charity Drive sweepstakes

   Help increase our charity haul of nearly $18,000 in just over a week.

5. RAM and SSD prices are still climbing—here’s our best advice for PC builders

   I would avoid building a PC right now, but if you can't, here's our best advice.

6. Reporter suggests Half-Life 3 will be a Steam Machine launch title

   "Everybody I've talked to are still adamant," even after previous rumors didn't pan out.

7. Microsoft takes down mod that re-created Halo 3 in Counter-Strike 2

   Project Misriah creator vows to use new experience "to cook up something else."

8. Reminder: Donate to win swag in our annual Charity Drive sweepstakes

   Help raise a charity haul that's already past $11,000 in just a couple of days.

9. Apple loses its appeal of a scathing contempt ruling in iOS payments case

   But Sweeney warns iOS devs are still afraid of "totally illegal" retaliation by Apple.

10. Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic announced as a KOTOR spiritual successor

    Original KOTOR director Casey Hudson returns to Star Wars with new studio Arcanaut.

11. Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles for you

    Preview: Order of the Sinking Star started small but became a "combinatoric explosion."

12. Instead of fixing WoW’s new floating house exploit, Blizzard makes it official

    "We all kinda immediately agreed this was way too cool to change."

13. AMD’s next-gen “FSR Redstone” brings big gains, as long as you’re using a new GPU

    "Redstone" is a promising mix of old and new ideas, but Nvidia is years ahead.

14. Win hardware, collectibles, and more in the 2025 Ars Technica Charity Drive

    Help yourself to prizes by helping us raise money for good causes.

15. Please send help. I can’t stop playing these roguelikes.

    2025 was a very good year for my favorite genre.

16. SteamOS tested on dedicated GPUs: No, it’s not always faster than Windows

    Ars testing shows SteamOS fares better on iGPUs than powerful graphics cards.

17. Why won’t Steam Machine support HDMI 2.1? Digging in on the display standard drama.

    Valve tells Ars its "trying to unblock" limits caused by open source driver issues.

18. Testing shows why the Steam Machine’s 8GB of graphics RAM could be a problem

    Valve has work to do on the software side—but some fixes are coming.

19. “Players are selfish”: Fallout 2’s Chris Avellone describes his game design philosophy

    Avellone recaps his journey from learning on a TRS-80 to today.

20. After a Witcher-free decade, CDPR still promises three sequels in six years

    CD Projekt Red says shift to Unreal Engine allows for more rapid development.