2022 will be the year of the Steam Deck

May 19's Steam OS 3.2 Beta Patch notes for the Steam Deck speak of a much improved fan curve, among other practical updates to the device's HUD, audio, and other game specific fixes. It comes alongside yet more updates to Valve's Proton Experimental, which is slowly increasing compatibility with a boatload of games for the Linux-based handheld gaming device.

A new Hearthstone balance patch brings a number of changes to Blizzard's long-running CCG, most notably to Drek'Thar, which has been nerfed considerably: Its battlecry now summons just one minion from a player's deck, instead of two. It's a notable change not just because of the reduction in power, but because it includes the card that Blizzard was selling by itself for $25 in April.

Are you, like me, still lost in Steam Deck pre order purgatory? Is "after Q3 2022" an infinite void swallowing up the future, with the promise of PC gaming on the go seemingly never to arrive? This video from DIY YouTube channel JerryRigEverything of one getting bent, burned, and stabbed may give you some catharsis.

There are thousands of games on Steam, and so any list of the best ones is, in a way, just a list of good PC games in general. However, we think there are two good reasons to list our favorite Steam games to play right now. Best of the best.

It’s a dance we’ve all done. A PC only has so much storage, and games are only getting bigger. A day inevitably comes where installing a new game demands some hard drive triage. For one to enter, something must leave. But which mighty storage hog do you uninstall? Is that liveservice game worth the eighty gigs? Will your friends ever even want to play that triple-A shooter that’s eating half your SSD?

I have not watched the Halo television show on Paramount+, so I have no opinions on it. Former Halo art director Marcus Lehto has seen it, however, and he does have opinions—and he hasn't been shy about sharing them on Twitter. Lehto was with Bungie from the early days,...

In 2021, a remarkable financial story emerged from r/wallstreetbets—one that saw the subreddit's stonk memes eventually turning into the GameStop stock surge. It was such a spike, and caused such huge losses for some, that the event has been the subject of Congressional hearings. Now, one of the hedge funds most impacted by GameStop's surge in value has told its investors it's shutting down.

The best G-Sync monitors make playing games smooth like butter. They link your graphics card up to your monitor and the result is an experience that will ruin any attempt to try to play on another setup. Since 2013, this Nvidia tech has eradicated screen tearing and stuttering from games.

We check over 250 million products every day for the best prices. Many moons ago, Corsair released the HS50 budget gaming headset, and I was pretty impressed with the value on offer and decent audio quality. Now I've been trying out its new and improved version, the Corsair HS55, and they're similarly impressive for a $60 pair of cans. Though they also face sterner competition.

AMD's AM5 platform is set to erupt onto the desktop in the fall, and not only can we expect X670 and B650 motherboards to arrive with the company's Zen 4 processors at that time, but also a brand new X670E (the 'E' stands for 'Extreme') chipset. This chipset will find its way into the biggest and baddest motherboards from AMD; delivering maximum overclockability, massive VRMs, and PCIe 5.0 all over.

The best cheap gaming chair is tricky to find. There are so many options out there and it takes a lot of effort to comb through the details and find out if they're legit or not. You can pick up any old gaming chair for a low price, but it could fall apart within a few years or not provide you any needed support. Our favorite gaming chairs ramp up in price, so if you're trying to find something in a different range, you have to look extra carefully.

The new Corsair Voyager isn't just another USB stick to add to the long-running storage family, it's the first ever Corsair gaming laptop and it's AMD-exclusive. In fact, it's not just a gaming laptop, either, it's being touted as the first gaming/streaming laptop, with AMD's Frank Azor touting it as a "truly mobile streaming solution" at the Computex keynote.

We're at the point with Rainbow Six Siege where just about everything has been done. There are a lot of operators, arguably too many, who can breach a wall, pilot a camera, or lay a trap. But with plans to add 4 new operators every year, Ubisoft is looking outward to create interesting new characters. Sens, Siege's newest attacker, feels like the product of one popular shooter in particular: Valorant.

AMD's wheeling out what looks like a modified version of the Steam Deck's Aerith APU to power a new range of budget gaming laptops it's codenamed AMD Mendocino. The Mendocino program, introduced during AMD's Computex keynote, is designed to create a new class of notebooks in the $399 - $599 category with unprecedented power and battery life.

Following its delay due to ongoing lockdowns in Shanghai, Genshin Impact's 2.7 update has a name, date and a trailer, confirming Kuki Shinobu and Yelan are the new characters and it will be set in the recently-added Chasm area. The highlight of this trailer definitely comes at the end, when a man's voice booms out with comic villainy: "I lured you here to this underground space because I've found your weakness! Die here with me!"

Shadow has finally taken the lid off a streaming service upgrade first promised way back in 2019. But that was before the company sadly filed for bankruptcy and was subsequently reborn. We are now getting an RTX 3070 level PC in the cloud, however, but it's been a long time coming. And I certainly have concerns, not necessarily for the staying power of the company under new ownership, but for the value proposition it's now offering.

The best light gaming mouse turns one of the most used parts of your gaming setup into one of the slickest experiences. Normal gaming mice have their place, but light gaming mice can have a huge impact on how fast it takes you to swing your camera or crosshair around on screen. For fast-paced games, that's a boon. Light gaming mice prioritize precision and speed over everything else.

If you're serious about competitive gaming, then there's a good chance you've been lusting after a high-refresh monitor for a while now. Such screens tend to cost a pretty penny though. At least they do normally. Right now you can save a big wad of cash on one of the fastest screens around, the 360Hz Alienware AW2521H can be yours for just $400. Dell says that this is a massive $510 saving on the normal price of $910, although it generally sells elsewhere for around $730, which is still a great saving.

Jump straight to the deals you want... The Memorial Day sales will be coming hard and fast with bargains in every category this year. And although a Memorial Day 2022 PC gaming deal might not have been where you initially thought you'd spend your cash, you can bet retailers have been branching out from the BBQs and garden furniture sets we're used to seeing on sale. Many are now taking the opportunity to provide discounts on a range of products.

One of the most exciting announcements during E3 in 2021 wasn't for a new game but a mod for an existing one. Fallout: London is a DLC-sized mod for Fallout 4 that takes the famously unchanging nature of war and airmails it to jolly old England in the year 2237.