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A new how-to guide recommends disabling Xbox Game Bar, switching Windows Search back to Classic indexing, and pausing OneDrive sync to free up system resources during PC gaming. The guide explains step-by-step navigation through Windows Settings to turn off these background features, arguing that tools like Steam already cover most gaming needs that Game Bar provides.
Jono, released on Steam by solo developer Tuomas Erikoinen under the name Part Time Monkey, lets only one player control its pixel-art hero at a time, with everyone else queuing for a one-minute turn. Deaths reset the character to the start of the current room and leave a gravestone marker, while waiting players watch a live feed and chat. Erikoinen says over 540 players sent more than 85,000 chat messages in 17 days while clearing roughly 5,000 of a planned one million procedurally generated rooms.
A Steam Frame user posted in Valve's forums asking for external optical drive support so they could watch movies and install older disc-based games. A Valve developer, gaberowe, responded the next day and pushed a kernel commit enabling the feature in under 10 minutes, adding it to the SteamOS ARM Linux kernel repository used for the device.
During a public panel, Valve audio designer Mike Morasky was recorded saying the internal codename 'HLX,' widely believed to refer to a next Half-Life project, prompting a joking reaction from colleague David Feise. The remark follows a year of unfulfilled predictions, including claims that Half-Life 3 would launch alongside Valve's Steam Machine, which did not materialize. Valve watcher Tyler McVicker now says he doesn't expect an announcement this year, though he notes increased internal coding activity at Valve.
A developer has shared Project Hedra, a procedurally generated, low-poly open-world RPG and custom game engine built largely alone, starting at age 15 to learn OpenGL. The codebase has grown to roughly 100,000 lines of code and now runs natively on Linux and Windows, with Steam integration and a CI pipeline for beta deployment.
A July 2026 Reddit report suggested Valve was discontinuing OEM batteries for the original Steam Deck LCD, after an iFixit staffer said Valve was 'sunsetting' the parts. Valve subsequently confirmed it would keep supplying batteries, though the replacement price rose from $80 to $130, while iFixit now sells an aftermarket version for $80. Other components, like thumbsticks, SSD and fans, remain relatively easy to self-repair, but Valve has made no long-term commitments on parts such as the screen.
During the current Steam Next Fest, players have noticed a sharp rise in demos featuring AI-generated art or code, prompting complaints on Reddit. One user, ScalesGhost, asked Valve to let players filter out games disclosed as containing AI-generated content and exclude specific tags like 'Incremental Games' from the Discovery Queue. Other users, including EmmaBooney and aesoprowwy, said the flood of 'AI slop' has made it harder to find human-made games and hope for lower engagement on such titles.
An AMD engineering sample bearing part number 100-000001930-12_Y has appeared on OpenBenchmarking, featuring a six-core, 12-thread CPU and 24GB of LPDDR5 memory running at 9,600 MT/s across four SK Hynix packages. The chip's microcode revision reportedly falls within AMD's range for Zen 6 processors, and reports from TechPowerUp and Notebookcheck link it to AMD's rumored Gainsborough chip family.
Developer Alliance Arts postponed a public Steam Next Fest demo for its game Drunken Goddess Reflex, citing worry that AI tools could let others quickly copy its presentation and gameplay before launch. The studio will instead show the demo only in closed sessions with streaming and posting restrictions. Other developers, including Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope and prototype designer Freya Holmér, have described similar concerns after seeing their early work or viral prototypes replicated by AI-assisted copies.
Valve's newest Steam Client Beta update converts the main Linux client binary from 32-bit to 64-bit, matching components like steamwebhelper that were already 64-bit. Linux users will still need some 32-bit libraries and graphics drivers, as Valve says pure 64-bit-only Linux distros aren't yet supported. The update also introduces the Steam Runtime container for consistency across distros and a new Steam Achievement Sets feature already live in games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Portal 2.
With pre-order early access to its campaign underway ahead of this week's full launch, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has earned a 94% positive rating across 4,068 Steam reviews, giving it a 'Very Positive' score. That's the best Steam reception for a mainline Call of Duty title since 2010's Black Ops, far outpacing recent entries like Black Ops 7 (38.7%), Black Ops 6 (45.7%) and Modern Warfare III (48.1%).
Rising memory and silicon costs have pushed graphics card prices well above launch prices, with the Nvidia RTX 5070 now selling for over $800 despite its $549 launch price. This has led to advice that owners should consider reselling or repurposing older GPUs rather than discarding them, citing eBay listings where used cards like the RTX 3060 and even the decade-old GTX 1060 still fetch significant resale value.