At CES 2026, we got to go hands on with the Dell Pro Max GB300 desktop. This is the big brother of the Dell Pro Max GB10, which as you could probably guess from the name, is essentially Dell's take on the NVIDIA DGX Spark concept. The GB300 carries something far more potent inside: a Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip.
(click for big)
IfHavn, the company behind cases such as the HS 420 and the more recent BF 360, has officially branched out into power delivery. Debuting at CES 2026, the Havn XR 1000W Platinum A++ is the manufacturer's first foray into the PSU space, and it appears to be aiming for the top of the enthusiast market. Built to the ATX 3.1 standard and featuring dual 12V-2×6 connectors, the XR Series is focused on high-performance stability and quiet acoustics.
Havn (via TechPowerUP) emphasised that the design was refined through extensive internal testing at its own lab to ensure the electrical performance meets the needs of next-gen hardware. The “A++” suffix in the name refers to its Cybenetics Lambda A++ acoustic rating, the highest possible certification for silence. The company claims the unit operates at under 15 dB(A) under typical loads, a feat achieved through a fully decoupled H Series cooling fan that borrows the vibration-dampening tech from Havn's H14 case fans.
The unit's industrial design is equally premium, featuring a monopart die-cast aluminium top that serves as both a structural element and an aerodynamic intake. This shroud is designed to guide airflow directly onto the internal components and fan blades with minimal turbulence, further reducing wind noise. Havn promises rock-solid 12V rail stability and superior transient response, ensuring that rapid power spikes characteristic of high-power GPUs are handled without triggering protections or inducing coil whine.
Moreover, the unit supports the Intel C6/C7 power states and a high-efficiency 5V standby (5VSB) rail for modern “Alternative Low Power” modes. Unfortunately, consumers will have to wait a few more months to get their hands on one, as the HAVN XR 1000W Platinum A++ is slated for a global release only in Q2/Q3 2026.
KitGuru says: Havn has already proven it can compete with the industry giants in the case market, so a move into premium PSUs is a logical next step. If the XR 1000W can truly deliver Platinum efficiency at sub-15 dB(A) noise levels, it will be a formidable rival to established “silent” flagships.
The post Havn enters the PSU market with XR 1000W Platinum A++ first appeared on KitGuru.Cherry Xtrfy has utilised its CES 2026 appearance to show what it has been working on. With the industry moving towards magnetic switches (Hall Effect, TMR, and inductive being the three most common), Cherry has decided to follow the trend. The German company has settled on TMR, which measures changes in electrical resistance rather than voltage shifts. These new sensors can detect key travel with 0.01 mm resolution while drawing significantly less power, increasing the battery life of magnetic keyboards.
The first Cherry keyboard to use this technology is the MX 8.2 Pro TMR Wireless, a tenkeyless (TKL) chassis with a premium aluminium top frame and double-shot PBT keycaps. This model implements an 8,000 Hz polling rate in both wired and 2.4 GHz wireless modes. The Cherry MK Crystal Magnetic switches used on this board provide a linear feel, but the board's “DualMaster” hot-swap sockets allow users to mix and match standard mechanical MX switches.
For enthusiasts who prefer a smaller footprint, the K5 Pro TMR delivers the same technological advantages in a 65% more compact layout. This wired model builds on the foundation of the popular K5 series, replacing the standard mechanical switches with MK Crystal TMR units. Beyond the switch upgrade, the K5 Pro received a polling rate increase from 1,000 Hz to 8,000 Hz to ensure parity with the flagship TKL model. Both keyboards are fully supported by the new Cherry MagCrate software, which enables advanced features such as Rapid Trigger, Dynamic Keystroke (assigning up to four actions to a single key based on depth), and SnapKey for SOCD-like movement prioritisation.
The MX 8.2 Pro TMR Wireless is scheduled to hit retail shelves on January 29th, 2026, for €229.99/$249.99. The more compact K5 Pro TMR is slated for a spring release, with pricing to be confirmed closer to the launch.
KitGuru says: The ability to hot-swap between mechanical and magnetic switches on a single board is interesting, but we wonder whether buyers would actually take advantage of it.
The post Cherry Xtrfy debuts TMR magnetic keyboards at CES 2026 first appeared on KitGuru.The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) has officially unveiled the finalists for the 29th annual DICE Awards. This year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Ghost of Yōtei are at the front of the pack, with both titles securing a staggering eight nominations each. Furthermore, Blue Prince received five nominations, while Death Stranding 2: On the Beach received four.
The AIAS jury for the DICE Awards provides a peer-voted counterpoint to the more commercial landscape of late 2025’s awards season. As such, it's expected to see some differences between the nominees and the award winners compared to the likes of TGA. Still, most of the time they do agree on the GOTY, with the exceptions being in 2015/2016 (TGA: The Witcher 3 vs D.I.C.E.: Fallout 4), 2019/2020 (TGA: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice vs D.I.C.E.: Untitled Goose Game) and 2020/2021 (TGA: The Last of Us Part II vs D.I.C.E.: Hades).
This year, in the DICE Game of the Year category, Expedition 33 and Ghost of Yōtei will contest the awards against games like Arc Raiders and the critically acclaimed indies Blue Prince and Dispatch. The complete list of nominees can be found below:
Game of the Year
Outstanding Achievement in Animation
Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction
Outstanding Achievement in Character
Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition
Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design
Outstanding Achievement in Story
Outstanding Technical Achievement
Action Game of the Year
Adventure Game of the Year
Family Game of the Year
Fighting Game of the Year
Racing Game of the Year
Role-Playing Game of the Year
Sports Game of the Year
Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year
Immersive Reality Technical Achievement
Immersive Reality Game of the Year
Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game
Mobile Game of the Year
Online Game of the Year
Outstanding Achievement in Game Design
Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
The winners will be revealed during the 29th Annual DICE Awards, which will take place at the Aria Resort in Las Vegas on February 12th at 8:00 PM PT (February 13th at 4:00 AM GMT).
KitGuru says: While Clair Obscur remains the favourite following its success, the sudden surge of Dispatch suggests that late-year releases shouldn’t be counted out just yet.
The post Clair Obscur and Ghost of Yōtei lead 2026 DICE Awards nominations first appeared on KitGuru.At CES this week, Geekom showcased multiple new laptop models, including what it claims to be the world's lightest all-metal laptop, weighing just 1kg and measuring in at just 0.23″ at its thinnest point.
The X14 Pro features a 2.8K OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, aiming to deliver strong colour accuracy and clarity for creative workloads. Inside, it pairs Intel’s Core Ultra 9‑185H processor with 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD, giving it enough headroom for demanding multitasking and content‑creation tasks. GEEKOM rates the system for up to 16 hours of battery life, positioning it as a genuine all‑day device. A limited‑time two‑year warranty is also included.
Alongside the 14‑inch model, GEEKOM introduced the GeekBook X16 Pro. It carries the same core specifications but scales up to a 16‑inch display for users who need more screen space for complex layouts or multi‑window workflows.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: Are you thinking about picking up a new laptop in 2026?
The post CES 2026: Geekom debuts ‘world’s lightest all-metal laptop’ first appeared on KitGuru.
At its CES 2026 presentation, Intel announced both its Core Ultra Series 3 processors (codenamed "Panther Lake") as well as a forthcoming reference platform for gaming handhelds based on the chips. Looking at the available configurations of the Core Ultra Series 3, it certainly seems like these parts are nearly tailor-made for the handheld
Wearable makers like Apple, Samsung, Garmin, and Google have long chased what might be the holy grail of health tech: non-invasive glucose monitoring. Recent developments suggest that Apple could be closer than ever to turning its decade-long ambition into a reality for the Apple Watch.
Blood sugar tracking has been long expected to beWhat entices someone to visit a virtual museum rather than a physical one? ArtQuest VR might have an answer.
ArtQuest VR is a museum app allowing users to visit halls of paintings presented in true scale. Pulling from collections of famous museums around the world, visitors can enjoy exhibits arranged by artist, movement, or preset collection.
Opening ArtQuest VR directs you to your first gallery and presents a menu for exhibit navigation. The museum has options for choosing what art you want to see, gallery customization, and movement.
You can change the color and materials of the main wall, floor, and frames of the art you're looking at. Adjustments can be made to frame thickness with a drop-down menu for framing styles. There is also an option for a text-to-speech voice to narrate each painting's description and information with five different voices offered.
Customizing the gallery
Moving around can either be done smoothly with the left joystick push or "blink" teleportation using the right joystick. The only turning option currently is snap turning. You can also use the menu to recalibrate your height so each painting is positioned at eye level.
I examined a painting by Wassily Kandinsky titled "Picture With A Black Arch".
The height offset feature in ArtQuest allows visitors to elevate their stance, as if borrowing a ladder to view paintings from a higher vantage. I floated upwards along the canvas and examined the painting. "Picture With A Black Arch" is awash with quick brushstrokes and geometric shapes. What made the artist paint this? What did the accompanying description of "musical counterpoint" mean here?
I pantomimed painting in the air along with the artist himself, tracing my hand over the dark outlines first. I'm a painter myself, so I recognized thick brushstrokes meant a pause, or applied pressure on the canvas. Thinner strokes meant a more delicate hand. Short, harsh, lines meant faster application, especially several in a group at once. These particular brushstrokes all lean left, indicating Kandinsky painted with his right hand. I traced the marks in the air while listening to my favorite orchestral music.
What I found were hand movements that seemed to dance in the air with purposeful direction. It felt just like someone directing an orchestra while painting on a canvas. Checking a Google cultural site later that listed more information about the artwork, I remain pretty convinced that's what Kandinsky was doing.
Virtual museums can be hard to build. You immediately discover the architecture surrounding the art relates to the pieces within. These digital spaces benefit from thoughtful immersive design. That means ambient sounds and building for how someone will walk around the space you've designed. How about a lobby to pause and reflect on what's been seen? Neither ambient audio nor lobby are present in ArtQuest VR, and I'd love to see these added.
The advantage of ArtQuest VR, though a bit lonely without other visitors and plain in presentation, is that I can go and see a near-entire collection of Van Gogh or Matisse, and I don't have to download gigabytes of information to do it nor compete with anyone else for the perfect spot. The app has the feel of a spatial website and a functioning museum with an exclusive collection of work.
Accessing the collection menu
ArtQuest VR's architecture is simple with a slight neoclassical style and descriptions that appear sourced from Wikipedia. The neoclassical architecture matches Wikipedia's site design, but it still feels like something is missing without the ambient sound. You simply pop into the gallery once the app is open. At least one art collection featured missing textures. As I browsed the contemporary art wing, a recent Banksy piece returned an ugly floating pink square to indicate the sourced artwork was no longer there. A picture featuring a mural by Shepard Fairey rotated itself in the wrong direction after sitting right-side-up for a few seconds.
I noted some additional bugs attempting to access my Quest menu and teleporting too far into the wall moving between galleries. The most notable issue, perhaps, is when paintings don't appear at high resolution until your face is practically centimeters from the artwork. Also, sometimes, there are duplicate paintings that appear in a gallery with no explanation why.
It's a well-held myth that art is about perfection and not the journey it takes to get there. If this were true, museums wouldn't show the early work of artists they feature. Viewing famous paintings chronologically in an app such as ArtQuest VR can show how art is just as much about failure as it is about success. Each artist has their own story in how they reach that success, and it's up to each visitor to reflect on that and how they can adapt this lesson to their lives.
How can ArtQuest VR keep building on this? Every museum visitor is looking for something when they visit. Can VR bring them the very human effort of outdoing oneself through practice, improvement and sudden inspiration? That's not always present in the room with us in a physical museum. Seeing things from new angles is precisely VR's power, and there's an opportunity for an app like ArtQuest to help see more context around a specific piece of art each time someone walks through the front door.
Astronomers peering through images from the Vera C. Rubin Obervatory have discovered an unusual asteroid spinning so fast that it's broken the record for how space rocks of its size are supposed to behave.
Designated 2025 MN45, the asteroid was identified by the international team of researchers using data from the recently-commissioned
Razer has made a habit of unveiling concept projects at CES each year, some of which end up becoming shipping products, and others that don't. One that has a better-than-decent shot of falling into the former category is Project Madison. What's hidden behind that project designation is an immersive gaming chair that aims to bombard your sensesWhile 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is beloved by many for a plethora of reasons, one of the game’ shining hallmarks is its excellent DLC, with the Blood and Wine expansion in particular considered by many to be worth the price of a full game on its own. Following surprise rumours in recent weeks stating that The Witcher 3 is set to get a 3rd expansion over a decade on from launch, additional insiders have corroborated the claims.
Following the surprise report from analysts ‘Noble Securities’ claiming that The Witcher 3 will be getting a 3rd expansion in the lead-up to the in-development Witcher 4, additional sources have corroborated the rumours.
Alongside IGN Poland, the publication PPE.PL (who have leaked unannounced projects in the past) confirmed the unexpected rumours, writing (as translated): “Our own sources tipped us off about a new Wild Hunt project a year ago. In the first half of 2025, we were explicitly told that The Witcher 3 would receive massive new content that fans “’will absolutely love.’”
Though PPE did not have any further details on exactly what this project will entail, it seems clear that a 3rd Witcher 3 expansion is in the works. Though purely speculation, it’s possible that as with Cyberpunk’s recent updates, this Witcher DLC could be being developed by an external studio.
With whispers suggesting that a release could be as soon as this year, here’s to hoping we won’t have to wait long to find out.
KitGuru says: Are you surprised that The Witcher 3 is said to be getting more content? Have you played the game since its ray-tracing update? Let us know down below.
The post Multiple leakers corroborate surprise Witcher 3 expansion claims first appeared on KitGuru.Lian Li brought a broad selection of new hardware to CES this year, expanding several of its most recognisable product lines with updated cases, cooling hardware and even desks. In our latest video, we break it all down and give you a first-hand look.
Timestamps:
00:00 DK 07 Wood
01:27 DK B
02:43 Vector V 150 / SLC 360 LCD AIO
04:37 LanCool 4 – with Lian Li Boss Jameson
08:18 Flex fans updates
08:44 011 Vision M
10:16 B4-mATX Chassis
14:08 V2000
On the case side, Lian Li showcased new additions across its LANCOOL, O11 and Vector families. The LANCOOL 4, which was announced shortly before the event, appeared in its final form with the curved front panel and triple‑fan intake layout. The O11 Vision M also made a physical debut, presenting a wider internal layout and a revised chamber structure aimed at improving component clearance and airflow. Lian Li also displayed the Vector V150, a compact chassis with a hybrid mesh‑and‑glass front panel.
Cooling hardware was another major part of the booth, with new UniFan models drawing significant attention. Lian Li demonstrated its latest FLEX‑series fans, including versions equipped with LCD hubs and updated interlocking mechanisms designed to simplify cable management. These new models build on the UniFan concept with more flexible configurations and expanded visual options, giving builders additional ways to customise both airflow and aesthetics. The company also displayed the HydroShift II LCD CURVED 360 AIO, featuring a movable curved display integrated into the pump housing — a notable evolution of the HydroShift concept that was previewed late last year.
Lian Li’s desk‑style chassis also returned in updated form. The DK‑07 Wood and DK‑B models were shown with revised layouts, including sliding or retractable system compartments and integrated display elements.
KitGuru Says: What did you think of Lian Li's line-up for CES this year?
The post CES 2026: Lian Li launches Lancool 4, new desks and more first appeared on KitGuru.Obsidian Entertainment is perhaps one of the busiest studios under Microsoft, with the Fallout: New Vegas maker having worked on 6 different games since being purchased by the console maker back in 2018. Despite having just released Avowed; Grounded 2 (in Early Access) and The Outer Worlds 2 last year, Obsidian is reportedly working on 4 different unannounced projects right now.
In a report by known Xbox insider Jez Corden discussing the future of Microsoft’s console throughout 2026 and beyond, the leaker claimed that Obsidian Entertainment is currently working on “four new projects, some big some small.”
As mentioned, Obsidian Entertainment has been one of Xbox’s most consistent studios, having released 3 games just last year: Avowed in February; Grounded 2’s Early Access in July and The Outer Worlds 2 this past October.
While they are unlikely to match that output in 2026, its possible we could see two projects from the team between now and December – one of which being a tiny Pentiment-styled affair and the other perhaps being the recently rumoured Fallout: New Vegas remaster (though that is likely being handled by an external studio).
Regardless, it is exciting to see that Obsidian has plenty more currently cooking in the oven. While none of their recent releases have managed to reach the heights of New Vegas, it is nice to have a team which can produce solid products at a consistent rate.
KitGuru says: What do you think of Obsidian post-Microsoft? Will they ever be able to surpass Fallout: New Vegas? What do you think these 4 projects are? Let us know down below.
The post Obsidian Entertainment reportedly has 4 projects in the works first appeared on KitGuru.Nintendo made a killing with the Switch’s Joy-Cons, not only due to their tendency to drift leading fans to purchase additional units, but also thanks to the console maker’s release of countless different controller colours allowing a degree of customisation when playing in handheld. Nintendo appears to be continuing the practice with Switch 2 – though with admittedly much duller offerings so far.
As shared to their Nintendo Today news app, the console maker officially unveiled their first new set of Joy-Con 2 colours for the Switch 2.
Said to be made available from the 12th of February for £74.99 a pair, fans will soon be able to get their hands on Light Purple / Light Green Joy-Cons to go alongside the default Red and Blue.
Unfortunately, as with the base Joy-Cons, the colours are limited to the dome under the thumbsticks and the magnetic rail – meaning the colours will be hardly noticeable when in handheld.
In addition, these Joy-Cons will not match the Switch 2’s siderail colours as they were based on the original Red and Blue – though this too is hardly noticeable (for the better this time).
Regardless, having more colour options is welcome to see, even if the current crop do little to make the console look different. Hopefully future releases include more all-encompassing colouring.
KitGuru says: What do you think of these new Joy-Cons? Has Nintendo kept things too low-key with the Switch 2? Will we get more vibrant options in the future? Let us know your thoughts down below.
The post Nintendo unveils first set of new Joy-Con 2 colours first appeared on KitGuru.At CES this week, we stopped by the Endorfy booth to get a look at new peripherals hitting the market early this year, including new keyboards and mice, a new PC chassis and more.
Timestamps:
If you’ve used Endorfy keyboards before and felt the RGB wasn’t quite bright enough, the upcoming Thock V2 addresses that with brighter LEDs, along with magnetic switches for even faster response times and greater control over actuation points, making it an ideal choice for gaming desks around the world. Endorfy is also expanding its mouse range with new LIV mice, with a new grey colour option hitting the market. A new LIV mouse built with magnesium alloy is also coming out, which sheds weight even further while retaining rigidity, despite all of the cut-outs across the mouse shell to keep weight to a minimum.
Another product Endorfy is showing is the Aquarius 8000. The “8000” refers to the height class, and a smaller 6000 model is also on the way. The case ships with ARGB fans and supports Project Zero‑style back‑to‑front builds. This chassis also addresses the airflow complaints of previous ‘fishtank' style cases by putting mesh vents all along the bottom of the case, with more perforations along the back panel and roof. Availability is expected toward the end of Q1, with pricing around €139.
Endorfy also has two new wireless Viro headsets. One of the models we saw on show has a battery life of around 24 hours, which is pretty strong and more than enough to get you through a day of gaming. However, the second headset pushes for a 120-hour battery life, which could potentially get you through many gaming sessions over the course of a week without needing to reach for a charging cable. We expect to see these headsets again later in Q1 once they are ready to hit retail.
Endorfy has a wide range of Solum branded microphones on the market but this year, we are getting the Solum 2 and the Solum 2 Pro. These are standalone microphones, featuring a twist dial at the base that switches between volume and gain, so you'll be able to make adjustments on the fly without diving into any software. These are expected to enter full production soon, with availability between March and April. Pricing is around €99 for the Pro, €85 for the standard model, and roughly €70 for the entry‑level ‘Core' version. USB and 3.5mm connectivity is provided on the rear.
Finally, Endorfy has new Supremo Gold PSUs hitting the market, offering fully modular cabling at decent price points to make them more accessible to PC builders on tighter budgets.
KitGuru Says: We look forward to getting a more in-depth look at Endorfy's new peripherals and hardware in the coming months.
The post CES 2026: Endorfy launches new cases, wireless peripherals and more first appeared on KitGuru.COUGAR has outlined its 2026 lineup at CES, presenting a range of new PC cases, power supplies and an updated ergonomic gaming chair.
The new case lineup includes the CFV235‑G, a special‑edition variant of the CFV235 series featuring a full glass front panel and graffiti‑style branding. It retains the Central Floating Ventilation structure, a suspended partition between the PSU and main chamber that converts unused internal space into an active intake path, with glass side panels maintaining a panoramic view of the system. The MX600 Max continues the series’ airflow‑focused design, using square perforations and a refined dual‑curve airflow ramp to direct air from its front‑mounted 200mm ARGB PWM fans. A modular I/O panel allows flexible case orientation, and a detachable top cover simplifies installation.
The Duoair supports both mesh‑front and glass‑front configurations, with the PSU compartment moved to the front to create a recessed intake channel feeding angled bottom fans, enabling support for GPUs up to 410mm and shipping with dual 140mm ARGB PWM fans. Rounding out the cases, the FV130 adopts a compact dual‑chamber layout with the PSU relocated to the secondary chamber, opening space for an angled bottom fan intended to eliminate dead‑air pockets while still supporting 410mm GPUs and reverse‑connector motherboards.
COUGAR is also updating its gaming chair lineup with the Terminator Air, which introduces a mechanical Dynamic Adaptive Support system built around the company’s “Second Spine” design. The chair adjusts its alignment automatically as the user shifts posture, with manual controls for backrest height and seat depth, weight‑balanced tilt control and 3D rotating armrests.
The power‑supply range expands with three updated series. The Polar V2 line (1200/1000/850) is fully modular and 80 PLUS Platinum certified, exceeding ATX3.1 requirements with a 300% power‑excursion tolerance for dual‑GPU systems. It uses Japanese capacitors, eight protection circuits and a 130mm FDB fan inside a 150mm chassis. The PV series (1200/1000/850) also carries 80 PLUS Platinum certification with up to 92% efficiency, native PCIe 5.1 support and Japanese capacitors cooled by a 140mm FDB fan. The GQ series (850/750) targets compact builds with an 80 PLUS Gold rating, up to 90% efficiency, ATX3.1 compliance and native PCIe 5.1 support, built in a 140mm‑deep form factor and cooled by a 120mm rifle‑bearing fan.
KitGuru Says: The new Cougar chair looks particularly nice.
The post CES 2026: Cougar launches new self-adjusting chair, PSUs, cases and more first appeared on KitGuru.
An eyewear breakthrough by an Amazon-backed Finnish startup, IXI, is promising to end the era of clunky bifocals and the "head-tilt" struggle of progressive lenses, replacing them with a pair of glasses that focus as naturally as the human eye.
Revealed in its latest prototype at CES 2026, the IXI autofocusing glasses specifically target
NVIDIA announced some cool tech at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, including upgrades to both its GeForce NOW cloud gaming service and DLSS upscaling with DLSS 4.5 bringing Dynamic Multi-Frame Generation and a newer transformer model. There was other stuff by NVIDIA as well, though no mention of a GeForce RTX 50 Super series refresh.Meta is rolling out the Conversation Focus feature to the Early Access program of its smart glasses in the US & Canada.
Announced at Connect 2025 back in September, Conversation Focus is an accessibility feature that amplifies the voice of the person in front of you.
It's the result of more than six years of research into “perceptual superpowers” at Meta. Unlike the hearing aid feature of devices like Apple's AirPods Pro 2, Meta's Conversation Focus is designed to be highly directional, amplifying only the voice directly in front of you.
Conversation Focus on Meta smart glasses.
Conversation Focus is available in Early Access on Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN glasses in the US and Canada.
To join the Early Access program, visit this URL in the US or Canada.
Once your glasses have the feature, you can activate it at any time using “Hey Meta, start conversation focus,” or (perhaps more practically) you can assign it as the long-press action for the touchpad on the side of the glasses.
Acer is gearing up to launch several gaming handhelds under its Nitro banner, including a supersized Nitro Blaze 11 with a 10.95-inch IPS display and detachable controllers. Or is it? All of the handhelds Acer previously announced were a no-show at CES this week, raising the question of whether they've been delayed or outright canceled. So,At the tail-end of last year, Microsoft casually confirmed that they would be hosting another edition of their annual Xbox Developer Direct this January. With January 2026 here, the console maker has now made the announcement official – confirming that Fable, Forza Horizon 6 and more will be shown off.
Making the announcement via their Xbox Wire blog, Editor-in-Chief Joe Skrebels officially confirmed the premiere date for their 2026 Developer Direct, writing: “2026 is going to be an incredible year for Xbox players – you might even call it a… fabled year. To celebrate, we’re kicking it off with the fourth installment of our Developer_Direct broadcast on January 22, bringing you news, new gameplay, and insights directly from the incredible teams working on titles coming this year.”
As with previous Directs, Microsoft is choosing to focus on a select number of titles, with this year’s headliners being:
Playground Games’ Forza Horizon 6 was previously announced to be present at this event and so its inclusion is not too shocking. That said, the fact that we will get to see more Fable is somewhat of a surprise given that it too is being developed at Playground Games (albeit by a different team).
For the uninitiated, Beast of Reincarnation is an impressive-looking action-RPG from GameFreak – the studio behind the Pokemon series. Looking unlike anything else the team has worked on previously, Beast of Reincarnation showcases what Game Freak is capable of, and so it will be highly interesting to learn more about this somewhat mysterious project.
Though only 3 titles were officially confirmed for the showcase, just like last year it seems a surprise game is planned to be shown off, with insider Shinobi602 stating “There's a ‘secret' fourth game.”
Regardless of whether there is a secret game or not, it will be exciting to learn more about Forza Horizon 6, Fable and Beast of Reincarnation in just a couple weeks’ time. The Xbox Developer Direct will go live on the 22nd of January at 6PM GMT.
KitGuru says: Are you looking forward to the Developer Direct? What did you think of previous years’ showings? What do you think this secret 4th game will be? Let us know down below.
The post 2026 Xbox Developer Direct will include Fable, Forza and more first appeared on KitGuru.My final moments at Valve headquarters for the reveal of Steam Frame last year were spent snapping the photos you see sprinkled throughout this article.
Right before that, overwhelmed by my desire to spend more time in Valve's upcoming headset, I uttered my final question to their engineers.
Can you explain to "an idiot who doesn't understand how the Internet works what the difference is between Flatpaks and APKs?"
"It's pretty much the same thing," a Valve representative answered. "Flatpak is for the Linux desktop. APK is for Android, but it's similar. It's a package that contains everything you need to run, that's gonna run in a sandbox that you can uninstall later. So it's an application package."
I quickly recapped for the Valve VR team my formative experience with Windows circa 1995 or 1996. I was granted access to a Windows PC my dad brought home from work and shown a games folder full of a bunch of fun and simple 2D games to play. I also was shown how to get into DOS, and what command to type to launch games like Doom. Soon I was looking up cheat codes online and I quickly filled up the storage inside the PC with more games to play. One day, to make more space, I simply dragged the game files to the recycle bin and hit empty.
I can't remember the exact sequence of events that followed but I remember a lot of crying accompanying intense fear of my father's return from work at 5 p.m. The actions of a 10-year-old adding and deleting games left our family PC, meant just for business and school, bootable only in safe mode.
"We have those two tiers on Steam Deck. People that want to go set the OS to read/write mode and change system files, they can do that. But for folks that are just distributing apps that are prepackaged between themselves – the flatpak distribution format, which is similar to the sandbox we run games in, is pretty safe. Like it guarantees that if you remove it, your system is in the same state [as] before you installed it. So it really aims to provide an initial way to engage with a device that is more like an appliance..."
Thirty years have passed since my first direct interactions with the Internet and personal computers. As a father now in the 2020s, I found myself over Christmas break explaining to my teenager the difference between a Mac and a Steam Deck, and why some games they love run on one system and not the other. Our conversation revealed a spectrum of openness in computing with different amounts of power for physics and graphics. Some developers haven't been paid to do the work to put a particular game on a specific system and make it run really well there.
I got that part across just fine. What I had trouble conveying is why openness and offline computing matter. I want an appliance that's both hard to break and easy to use, and I want a playground for everyone at least as big as the one I had to explore in 1995.
I believe Valve is trying to make that happen in SteamOS with Linux.
A kid's first computer is often an Internet-connected device like iPhone, iPad, Android, or a school-issued Chromebook, with all of them requiring an online account to operate. Caregivers prepare those accounts for the children and, over the last few years, platform companies providing online services have worked steadily to enable more stuff for kids and teens to do on these managed accounts.
After a very short time with the Steam Frame on my head I kicked off my shoes, reclined comfortably on a couch, and started searching the open Web using a browser in the Linux desktop with my voice. I have no idea what account was logged into the headset and it didn't matter – I was doing whatever I wanted inside SteamOS and Linux.
I didn't have time to try it at their offices, but the moment Valve sends out review units I'm going to click play on a great number of games in Steam loaded up on a 2 terabyte microSD card to see how they run.
As I create a mental picture of how much space I have to play inside Steam Frame in standalone, and before I connect the headset to another PC for what Valve itself describes as a streaming-first device, I'm going to open the Linux desktop and see what mischief I can manage. I'm looking to install apps like VLC for watching videos and Discord for chatting with friends, RetroArch for playing classic games, and Spotify for streaming music. That's a lot I expect to find right out of the box in Flathub, described as the "Linux App Store".
The key takeaway here is that I expect to install more stuff to the Steam Frame headset using Linux directly on day one than I did in four days with Android XR. And I expect to be able to install a lot more to the headset overall than I have been able to in years of ownership of Vision Pro or Quest. Am I going to install my own operating system? Probably not. But am I going to personally screw up my installation of Linux so bad the system is going to need to restore me to factory settings? After this many years messing with computers, that's probably my goal and I'm going to enjoy doing it.
Decades after my incident in 1990s Windows, as I was explaining what Mac and Steam Deck can do for a teenager, I found myself overwhelming them. My effort to make personal computing seem less daunting than it was for my forefathers was not going well. I told my eldest that if they break a Steam Deck by installing too many games and modding the system with software, I would be impressed.
Back in 2019, Facebook set up a call with me to discuss their "console-like curation strategy" for the Quest ecosystem, and today leadership at Meta has abandoned that strategy entirely for a policy of openness, as a great many developers struggle for sales inside of an ecosystem flush now with low quality projects. Meta seems to have meant for Horizon Worlds to be the floor of the Quest ecosystem, but requiring a Meta account and giving developers a cut of subscriptions is not providing stable footing to keep developers afloat, nor must-have reasons to put on a headset.
Now consider the game Valve is playing in comparison to that and the space their engineers are making for experimentation. Valve funded faceless developers worldwide to work on a series of key open source projects for the last decade forming the basis of SteamOS all trying to make it easier to play games with computers.
"A lot of what you're experiencing here when you wear that and play a game is gonna be powered by a ton of the open source work we've been doing for the last decade or so, just ranging from SteamOS itself, which has elements dating all the way from the first version of SteamOS in 2013," a Valve representative explained. "The way we're running desktop games in this, the way we're doing things like the graphics driver, it's all open source. Proton is all open source. That's been hundreds of people for a decade working on that stuff. And of course, SteamOS is based on Arch Linux. The desktop here is powered by Plasma, so it's KDE Plasma, which is one of the major two desktops available on Linux. For the better part of a decade, we've been actually working directly with Plasma developers and funding them so they can improve the desktop with just gaming use cases in mind."
"If folks on an experience that's more curated and more closed off are having a good experience, that's fine. But in general, we see people that are trying to experience a variety of games in different ways. There's a bunch of stuff that they might wanna do that we haven't thought of," the Valve representative said. "And what we always observe is that there's a ton of value that is usually distributed laterally in the community, where users between themselves will share stuff that will make the experience better. And that is only possible in an open platform. We don't want all the value in a platform like that to be flowing up and down through us, and for us to be determining what's a good experience or not on behalf of all those users that might have different opinions and different aspirations. So it's really important for us to keep that open because it creates those kinds of effects that eventually leads to a better experience. Also anyone that's using this stuff can also go and contribute patches and develop on it. And so we're excited to be able to have stuff get even better because people now want to contribute to it."
"In fact, a lot of the developers that are working on open source have started because they were users and they just want to improve a specific aspect and they go deep into it. The lines between user and developer has always been very blurry for us. We've always come from a world where some of our most popular game properties actually started out as mods. And modding on PC was always like a strong thing that we were always trying to support. Because so many good concepts and new game genres, free to play, MOBAs, all that stuff came through mods, initially, right? If you look at the history of video games–different genres, different ways to experience games, different peripherals–a lot of it came from PC because PC was an open platform where different companies could innovate in different ways, but also users could mod. And people that created closed off platforms based on some of those concepts, they're gonna take some of those concepts and kind of freeze them in time. And then PC's gonna keep moving forward because it's open and we have all this value. And we are just applying PC to VR, so it's nothing new for us. We've always applied PC to VR. Some folks have opted to like branch it off in different directions, but I think we're just doing the same thing as we've always been doing."
There is something special about the 1TB version of the Samsung 9100 Pro, for contrary to your expectations it tends to run faster on an ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E APEX than it…
Over the last couple of years display technology has been fun to follow as it is continually evolving. QD-OLEDs have become more robust and less fuzzy, refresh rates have soared and coatings,…
Connexion