In what has become CPU tradition, AMD have announced a new fastest-ever gaming processor to replace their last fastest-ever gaming processor. The newcomer, detailed at CES 2026, is the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, which actually shares the same architecture, socket, core and thread counts, and power usage rating as the erstwhile big dog, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It’s mainly a quicker maximum boost clock, up from 5.2GHz to 5.6GHz, that grants it a performance edge.
Plushies for all.
If you’re keen to bag a physical copy of Pokémon Pokopia (despite its Game-Key Card status), then you might want to head to the official Pokémon Center site.
All pre-orders via Pokémon Center will come with a Ditto Sitting Cuties Plush which, as indicated on a separate store page, is worth $9.99 and comes in at 4¾ In. The game itself is priced at $69.99 via the US site and £58.99 for those in the UK.
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NetEase and developer Everstone Studio have outlined its January roadmap for the open-world action-RPG, Where Winds Meet, which includes new modes, campaign missions, quests, puzzles, and bosses.
The developer is set to push out the newly-announced Version 1.2 update on January 9. We can expect updates every week of the month, including the final chapter in the Kaifeng campaign — described as “the most formidable challenge yet” — and a competitive Guild Battle Pre-Season (more on that below).
You can also partake in limited-time festivities via the Jianghu Martial Games, and visit the Nine Mortal Ways Camp and mysterious puzzle cave, Mistveil Prison. “Hidden in the Ghost Market beneath Kaifeng, the Nine Mortal Ways Camp Serves as a gathering place for sect members with diverse personalities, full of intrigging encounters, secret treasures, and bustling fun — but beware of the scams!” the team teases.
Version 1.2 also ushers in “large-scale, coordinated multiplayer combat” with the arrival of the Guild Battle Pre-Season. You’ll be able to test guild strategies across six “intense” matches, which will be allocated to distinct Guild Regions based on country/region to “ensure broader accessibility for guild members worldwide.” Crucially, this means each Guild Region will launch matches “simultaneously according to its local time.”
“This pre-season is crucial for us to gather player feedback and refine the core Guild Battle mechanics,” the development team explained. “We encourage all guilds to rally their members, hone their tactics, and prepare for the even more expansive guild content planned in upcoming updates.”
Here’s the full roadmap of what else to expect:
IGN’s Where Winds Meet review returned a 6/10. We said: “Where Winds Meet has a great understanding of what makes wuxia such a compelling genre, but its attempt to shove so many different things into one game only ensures that none of those elements reach their full potential.”
The Wuxia open-world action-adventure RPG set in ancient China only debuted on PC and PlayStation 5 on November 14, yet it had topped 9 million players in just two weeks. The mobile version released on December 12.
It didn’t take long for players to find creative — and highly amusing — ways to make use of the game’s chatbot NPCs, including taking a novel approach to solving riddles by… simply telling the game’s AI-powered chatbot NPCs that they have solved the game’s riddles.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Grab your dragons and don’t forget those quests, as a Dragon Quest VII Reimagined demo is set to pop up on Steam this week. It’ll offer a taster of the revamped RPG ahead of full release next month, and any progress you make in the demo’ll transfer right over, so you don’t have to worry about sprinting through early game sections again.
CES 2026 is underway in Las Vegas, and while Nvidia have passed on the opportunity to announce any new RTX 50 Super graphics cards – perhaps in the knowledge that they’d be hurled directly into the raging vortex of an ongoing component pricing snafu – the tech show has yielded some interesting GeForce news. Namely, there’s a new version of Nvidia DLSS, 4.5, launching today, that promises to sharpen up and boost performance on any RTX GPU.
Back to business.
Nintendo is regularly renewing its video game trademarks, and with this in mind, some trademarks have apparently been spotted for The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes and Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash.
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Hundred Line team says it will “consider” it.
One Switch release we didn’t think enough people spoke about in 2025 was The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy. Fortunately, there might be a chance of it returning to the spotlight in the future.
In a recent interview with RPGSite, the title’s co-director Kazutaka Kodaka mentioned how the team at Too Kyo Games would definitely consider a Switch 2 Edition upgrade, similar to what fans saw with SHUTEN ORDER in November. Here’s the full exchange:
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Rumours suggest it could power the new Pokémon sets.
Lego has officially announced a new 2×4 “smart brick” at CES 2026 this week. It’s apparently the “most significant evolution” in the Lego system since the release of the Minifigure in 1978 and is part of the company’s “smart play” initiatives.
This brick, which will be featured in new Star Wars sets launching this March, is reportedly expanding to other sets, and there are already rumours it will be included in the upcoming Pokémon line, due out this year. So, what’s all the fuss about?
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The funny thing about games is that while making them, if you put something in them, it’s quite hard to take that thing back out again. Who knows what that might break! Which can of course lead to people finding things that were never meant to be seen, like cut parts of a game, which is pretty much exactly what has happened to Resident Evil 4 Remake through the discovery of a level all about Ashley.
Gloomwood opened the year not with a whimper, but with a town – a Hightown! Right on January 1st, a fresh update and new area (The Hightown District) arrived in the early access stealth game. This new district is very vaguely described as the game’s “most vertical open area” yet, and it certainly looks as suitably gloomy as the rest of the game.
