Earlier this year, following a publicly playable alpha test, Bungie was forced to delay Marathon after an artist noticed that their work had been included in the game uncredited. Now months later and seemingly ahead of Marathon's re-reveal, the artist has confirmed that the dispute has been resolved.

In an update shared on social media, the artist, who goes by the online handle @4nt1r34l, confirmed that “the Marathon art issue has been resolved with Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment to my satisfaction”. The statement doesn't reveal any more than that, but we would assume that the artist got paid.

Bungie spent several months over the summer removing the offending assets from Marathon and only just recently resumed playtesting. With this dispute now resolved and the new assets implemented in the game, Bungie should be free to finally show Marathon publicly again.

Marathon is expected to launch in early 2026, though an exact date is not yet known. Bungie could make some announcements before the end of the month, perhaps around The Game Awards on December 11th.

KitGuru Says: Bungie can now move on from this fiasco. Chances are, the agreement between the artist and Bungie included an NDA and likely included a clause to announce publicly that the dispute is resolved, so we'll never know the true details of what was discussed behind closed doors, or how the stolen assets made their way into the game. 

Helldivers 2 has always had a significantly higher install size on PC compared to the console versions. At launch, players needed around 70GB of free space to install the game but after more than a year of updates, the PC version has ballooned to a 150GB file size. Now, thanks to some intricate optimisation work, the PC version has been dramatically reduced by over 130GB.

Helldivers 2 fans can rejoice and reclaim some SSD space. In a recent update, Arrowhead revealed that with some help from Sony's PC-focused studio, Nixxes, they have managed to reduce the PC install size of the game all the way down to just 23GB.

This is a massive 85 percent reduction in file size. It turns out that the PC version of the game was so big because it had a ton of duplicated assets within the game files. This duplication was originally implemented to improve load times for players using mechanical hard drives, but in practice most of the loading delays came from level generation rather than asset streaming. As a result, the duplicated data wasn’t providing meaningful benefits, yet it caused the install footprint to balloon far beyond the console versions.

After coming to this conclusion, Arrowhead and Nixxes worked together to create a ‘slim' build of the game. The end result was SSD users experiencing no difference in load times, while HDD users should only experience a few extra seconds of delay. This change not only makes the game more manageable to install and update, but also ensures parity with console versions, which were much smaller all along.

Arrowhead is still testing the slim version of the game, but PC players can opt in via Steam and get immediate access to the smaller version of the game, all without giving up access to the usual matchmaking queues and game content. If you do encounter an issue, you can quickly revert to the ‘legacy' build by going into the Steam menu and changing your beta participation status to ‘none'.

KitGuru Says: I would like to see more game developers focusing their efforts on reducing file sizes. Many titles nowadays have large 100GB+ install requirements, despite the game content not necessarily justifying the install size. 

Obsidian has been patching up Avowed with major updates every few months. Unfortunately, the Winter update, which contains new features like NewGame+ has been delayed at the last minute.

The Avowed Winter update was supposed to drop before the end of 2025, but the release date has now shifted to February 18th 2026 to coincide with the game's 1-year anniversary. It's not all bad news though, with the Winter update now transforming into an Anniversary update, Obsidian has also expanded the scope.

“If you've been following our Update Roadmap, you'll know we planned to release an update this fall. To break the bad news first: Avowed will not be receiving a fall update. The good news is that we're shifting our efforts toward a larger update coming next February, timed with the anniversary of the game's release.”

The new update will still include all of the features originally planned, like NG+ and Photo Mode, but with some added bonuses including more character customisation options, the ability to change appearance in the game world, a new weapon type and more.

We will learn more about the new additions to Avowed closer to the February 18th anniversary.

KitGuru Says: Out of the two games Obsidian released this year, Avowed edges out The Outer Worlds 2 for me, in large part thanks to the excellent combat. When it comes to dual-wielding and first-person spell casting, Avowed is in a class of its own.

For Day 3 of the KitGuru Advent Calendar, we have teamed up with Sudokoo to give FIVE lucky winners a cooling upgrade. The winners for this one will each get a Proteus 360 AIO liquid cooler and some extra Mach120 fans to go with it.

We reviewed the Sudokoo Proteus 360 AIO liquid cooler earlier this year and came away impressed by the cooler's thermal performance and the digital LCD display on the CPU block. With an extra Mach120 triple pack, you'll be able to pack your case with extra fans for more airflow.

How to Enter:

To enter this giveaway, all you have to do is head over to our competition announcement post on Facebook, HERE. In the comments, leave an answer to the following question – What CPU cooler are you currently running?

This competition is open Worldwide.

The winners will be picked randomly shortly after 11AM GMT December 4th, and a new competition will be announced for Day 4. The chosen winners have 48 hours to respond, if we do not hear from them, a new winner will be picked.

Terms and Conditions: This competition is open worldwide, starting at 11AM GMT on December 3rd and ending at 10:59AM GMT on December 4th. Due to the busy Christmas season, prize deliveries could take longer than usual, and some prizes may not ship until January. In compliance with GDPR, we will not collect or store any personal information as part of this competition. Once the winner has been contacted and their prize received, personal details will be deleted from our email servers. Your details will not be shared, we respect your privacy.

KitGuru Says: Good luck to all who enter, we'll be back tomorrow morning to announce a winner and turn the calendar over to Day 4!

This week Nvidia revealed DLSS upgrades for several titles, including a refresher on major updates coming to previously released DLSS-supported games. On top of that, Nvidia has announced that it is giving away a new RTX 5090 graphics card with a custom Arc Raiders decal across the GPU shroud.

The Arc Raiders RTX 5090 giveaway is running through Nvidia's own social channels, including Facebook, Instagram and X. You can quickly find all of those posts through this page if you would like to enter.

As for DLSS titles, Where winds Meet of the big headliner this week. The free-to-play action RPG has launched with full DLSS support, including the latest version, DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation, a feature that is exclusive to RTX 50 series graphics cards. If you have an RTX 40 GPU, you will still be able to activate standard Frame Generation. Another new game launching this month is Forest Doesn't Care, which is launching with regular DLSS Super Resolution, which is usable on all RTX series graphics cards.

HITMAN World of Assassination is an older title but it is still getting updates. Since launch, the game has been updated with DLSS 3 with Frame Generation, accessible on RTX 40 series GPUs and up. It is unclear if the game will eventually support the full DLSS 4 feature set, but the game just got its latest DLC, inviting players to take down Slim Shady, so there is a good chance the game gets future tech updates too.

Battlefield 6 is also entering the final part of its first season with the Winter Offensive content update. Battlefield 6 continues to support a wide range of Nvidia features, including DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation, DLAA, Reflex and more.

KitGuru Says: Have you tried Where Winds Meet since its launch late last month? 

As part of CD Projekt Red's earnings report recently, we learned that the teams behind both The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 have continued to grow. Now, the company has revealed a few more interesting details about its upcoming plans as part of a call with shareholders.

During CD Projekt Red's recent financial call, co-CEO, Michał Nowakowski, reaffirmed the idea that The Witcher 4 will not be coming out in 2026. However, he also noted that the studio plans to release the entirety of its new Witcher trilogy within a pretty short time span.

Here is the full quote via Eurogamer: “As we had stated before, our plan still is to launch the whole trilogy within a six-year period, so yes, that would mean we would plan to have a shorter development time between TW5 and TW6 and so on.”

There is still no word on when the first game in this new trilogy, The Witcher 4, will release. CD Projekt Red has spent the last couple of years rebuilding itself into a true multi-game studio and re-training its developers to use Unreal Engine 5 rather than its own in-house tools, in part due to the delays managing the internal engine caused during Cyberpunk 2077's development.

If CDPR is intended to release The Witcher 5 just 2 years or so after The Witcher 4, then it is highly unlikely we see any grand expansions, which was previously a hallmark of The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. However, the lack of DLC won't be too painful if the turnaround time is really that quick.

KitGuru Says: Few developers would be able to complete a whole trilogy in six years nowadays. The last successful series I can think of would be Mass Effect, where the first game released in late 2007, and wrapped up in March 2012 with the release of Mass Effect 3.

Microsoft has now revealed the next wave of titles coming to Game Pass over the next couple of weeks. This is likely to be the last major Game Pass update for the year, but the team has made the most of it with a large number of titles joining the library in quick succession.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is one of the headlining additions for the December Game Pass update. This is a new beat em' up, with a select roster of Marvel heroes each with their own move sets and special abilities. The game is made by the same people who worked on TMNT Shredder's Revenge, so they are veterans of the classic side-scroller genre.

Other major titles listed this month include Mortal Kombat 1, which is replacing Mortal Kombat 11 in the line-up, as well as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which is now joining Game Pass Premium. Previously, the game had only been available to Ultimate tier and PC game pass subscribers.

Here is the full list of games along with dates and supported platforms:

• Marvel Cosmic Invasion – Recent release (Cloud, Console, Handheld, PC)
• Total Chaos – Recent release (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S)
• Young Suns (Game Preview) – Recent release (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Lost Records: Bloom & Rage – December 2 (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S)
• Monster Train 2 – December 3 (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S)
• Spray Paint Simulator – December 3 (Cloud, Console, PC)
• 33 Immortals (Game Preview) – December 4 (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – December 4 (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S)
• Routine – December 4 (Cloud, Console, Handheld, PC)
• A Game About Digging A Hole – December 9 (Cloud, Handheld, PC, Xbox Series X|S)
• Death Howl – December 9 (Handheld, PC)
• Dome Keeper – December 9 (Cloud, Console, Handheld, PC)
• Mortal Kombat 1 – December 10 (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S)
• Bratz: Rhythm & Style – December 11 (Cloud, Console, PC)

KitGuru Says: What do you think of this month's Game Pass line-up?

Update: This competition is now CLOSED. Our winners today are Kristian Skoczek & Craig Malton! If you missed out this time then keep an eye out as we have a new giveaway each day through December. Today's new giveaway can be found HERE. 

For Day 2 of the KitGuru Advent Calendar, we have teamed up with Sharkoon to give TWO lucky winners a peripheral upgrade. The winners for this one will each get a high-end SGK50 S2 Wood mechanical keyboard, alongside an SGM50W RGB gaming mouse and an extra-large SGP35 desk mat to go with it. 

We reviewed the SGK50 Wood keyboard earlier this year and came away impressed by its design, build quality and typing experience, making it an excellent companion to any gaming set up. For our prizes today, we are also pairing the keyboard with Sharkoon's SGM50W wireless gaming mouse, which also has RGB accents for some extra visual flair, and each winner will also get an SGP35 D5 mouse mat, which should be big enough to cover your desk, giving you ample room for both your keyboard and mouse.

How to Enter:

To enter this giveaway, all you have to do is head over to our competition announcement post on Facebook, HERE. In the comments, leave an answer to the following question – What was your first ‘gaming' keyboard?

This competition is open in the UK and EU.

The winner will be picked randomly shortly after 11AM GMT December 3rd, and a new competition will be announced for Day 3. The chosen winner has 48 hours to respond, if we do not hear from them, a new winner will be picked.

Terms and Conditions: This competition is open in the UK and EU, starting at 11AM GMT on December 2nd and ending at 10:59AM GMT on December 3rd. Due to the busy Christmas season, prize deliveries could take longer than usual, and some prizes may not ship until January. In compliance with GDPR, we will not collect or store any personal information as part of this competition. Once the winner has been contacted and their prize received, personal details will be deleted from our email servers. Your details will not be shared, we respect your privacy.

KitGuru Says: Good luck to all who enter, we'll be back tomorrow morning to announce a winner and turn the calendar over to Day 3!

Update: This competition is now CLOSED. Our winner today is Sean Woolley! If you missed out this time then keep an eye out as we have many more daily giveaways left on the calendar. Our Day 2 giveaway is now live and can be found HERE.  

For Day 1 of the KitGuru Advent Calendar, we are kicking things off with Philips. Today's prize is a Philips Evnia 27M2N3501PA gaming monitor, offering QHD resolution and up to a 260Hz refresh rate!

We reviewed this monitor earlier in the year and came away impressed by its low latency, motion clarity and wide colour gamut. Overall, it scored a 9/10, so we are confident one of you will greatly appreciate it as an upgrade.

How to Enter:

To enter this giveaway, all you have to do is head over to our competition announcement post on Facebook, HERE. In the comments, leave an answer to the following question – What was your most played game this year?

This competition is open in the UK and EU.

The winner will be picked randomly shortly after 11AM GMT December 2nd, and a new competition will be announced for Day 2. The chosen winner has 48 hours to respond, if we do not hear from them, a new winner will be picked.

Terms and Conditions: This competition is open in the UK and EU, starting at 11AM GMT on December 1st and ending at 10:59AM GMT on December 2nd. Due to the busy Christmas season, prize deliveries could take longer than usual, and some prizes may not ship until January. In compliance with GDPR, we will not collect or store any personal information as part of this competition. Once the winner has been contacted and their prize received, personal details will be deleted from our email servers. Your details will not be shared, we respect your privacy.

KitGuru Says: Good luck to all who enter, we'll be back tomorrow morning to announce a winner and turn the calendar over to Day 2!

Valve has taken steps over the years to make releasing games on Steam easier. This has led to a massive influx of new titles launching on the platform, with the numbers growing each year. In 2025, around 18,000 new games released on Steam, although only a small handful made an impact. 

As shown by SteamDB, 18,000 games joined the Steam platform between the 1st of January 2025 and now. However, when we look at the number of reviews, it becomes quite clear that many of these titles didn't find a wide audience.

As pointed out by MP1st, around 6,600 of these titles garnered less than 10 user reviews on the store. A further 2,174 have no user reviews at all. In all, around 8,782 titles appeared to go completely unnoticed. That is close to half of all the games released this year.

While a majority of these titles are likely to be shovel ware, something that Steam gamers have become quite used to seeing over the years, there could well be a few hidden gems in there that just didn't find an audience.

It will become increasingly difficult for those hidden gems to find their footing on Steam as well, as more and more titles flood the store each year. In 2020, more than 10,000 games launched on Steam for the first time and now just five years later, that number has almost doubled.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says:  Have you spotted any hidden gem titles on Steam in the past year? Perhaps a game that has just a handful of reviews but deserves a bit more attention? 

Capcom's Dead Rising series has been on ice for a while. We did get a ‘Deluxe Remaster' of the first game back in 2024, but prior to that, the last new game in the series was Dead Rising 4 all the way back in 2016. As it turns out, Capcom may be planning a new game after all these years. 

According to MP1st, Capcom is currently working on a brand-new Dead Rising game, rather than another remaster or remake. While the game would be new, it would also bring original main character, Frank West, out of retirement.

Apparently, the game is in development under the codename ‘Rec' and has been planned since at least 2023. It is speculated that the game would be a direct sequel to the first game, rather than tying into any of the follow-ups. In fact, it may take place prior to the events of Dead Rising 2, which launched all the way back in 2010.

The Dead Rising games were a defining part of the Xbox 360-era, but popularity waned over the Xbox One / PS4 generation. It sounds like sales for the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster were promising, allowing a new entry to be greenlit after so many years.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Would you like to see a new Dead Rising game? Did you play the Deluxe Remaster when it came out last year? 

This year, Konami finally released the remake for Metal Gear Solid 3. However, there does not currently appear to be any new remakes on the horizon. According to the series' producer, Noriaki Okamura, that could change but certain titles will prove to be a major challenge.

In a recent interview with Real Sound (via VGC), Okamura says that Konami is still deciding whether or not to pursue another Metal Gear Solid remake: “Right now, we’re still in the stage of thinking about what to make next. Since Metal Gear has given us a chance to reach a new audience, I’d like to keep building on that momentum. That said, the actual content of what we’ll make is still undecided. It could be another remake, or we might take on something entirely new.”

Specifically, when it comes to remakes, Okamura says that the Metal Gear series is “a history of video games in itself”, which means that the ‘best way' to reinterpret each title “differs greatly”. Konami has “no intention” of applying the same methodology used for Metal Gear Solid Delta to every game. In particular, Metal Gear Solid 4 would present “a real challenge”, as the game made use of “unconventional” code to get the game running well on the PS3.

With that in mind, it doesn't seem like Metal Gear Solid will be going down a similar route to Resident Evil, where we get a new remake every few years to bring the entire series up to modern standards. Instead, Metal Gear Solid will be handled on a case-by-case basis and the team may just decide to make something new entirely, rather than revisit an older entry again.

In the meantime, fans can still expect the MGS Master Collection Vol 2, which aim to get all of the classic games in the series running on modern hardware. Volume 1 included Meta Gear, Metal Gear 2 and the first three MGS games. Volume 2 would target MGS 4, which has never been playable outside of the PlayStation 3 platform, as well as MGS 5 and its small prequel title, Ground Zero. Potentially, games like Peace Walker and Portable Ops could also be included.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: There has a huge lack of 3D stealth games on the market presently. Metal Gear could fill that gap perfectly, whether its through new titles or by remakes of older games.

There has been a lot of speculation around the cost of Valve's upcoming hardware devices, with most of it centred on the Steam Machine after learning that it will be priced . As it turns out, the device might be a bit more competitive with current console pricing than initially thought. 

After a couple of price hikes in recent years, the PS5 Standard edition now costs $549.99 and an Xbox Series X costs a bit more at $649.99. The PS5 Pro goes a step further and is currently priced at $749.99 outside of holiday sales periods like Black Friday.

In a new video, LinusTechTips crunches the numbers and discovers that building a comparable PC to the Steam Machine could cost as little as $600, however, when taking into account recent rises in retail costs for components like RAM and SSDs, the current price falls between $800 and $900, as the AI boom has caused a supply and demand issue impacting even consumer electronics.

When taking into account the cost, Valve's direct-to-consumer model and lack of need for significant profit margins on the device, due to the company's cut of every sale on the Steam Store, they estimate that the Steam Machine will target a $699.99 introductory price point. This is a lot closer to current console prices than initially thought.

Of course, this price point assumes there are no further changes in the market. Right now, the fluctuation in the memory and SSD markets is believed to be the primary reason Valve has not yet announced a finalised price tag for the Steam Machine. It is hard to finalise a price on something when the goal posts are being moved on a day-to-day basis.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: If the Steam Machine can beat the PS5 Pro in price, then it stands a much better chance of appealing to an enthusiast gaming audience.

We've known for quite some time that Ubisoft is working with Netflix on a new live-action adaptation of Assassin's Creed. Since then, little about the cast or production plans has been revealed. According to recent leaks though, we now know which time period this new Assassin's Creed series will be set in. 

Each of the Assassin's Creed games have targeted a different period of history. We've seen Ancient Egypt, 1800s London, Civil War-era America and many more. For the new Netflix series, it looks like the writers will be targeting a time period never featured before in the games.

According to Nexus Point News (via IG), the Netflix Assassin's Creed series will be taking place in Ancient Rome, during the same time period that Emperor Nero ruled. This means we will be getting a very different look at Italy compared to Assassin's Creed 2, which was set during the Renaissance era.

It is still unclear when the Netflix Assassin's Creed series will release but filming is due to begin in Italy next year, so we should get more news over the next 12 months.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Are you looking forward to the Netflix Assassin's Creed series?