If you've ever fallen down a Wikipedia rabbit hole or spent a pleasant evening digging through college library stacks, you know the joy of a good research puzzle. Every new source and cross-reference you find unlocks an incremental understanding of a previously unknown world, forming a piecemeal tapestry of knowledge that you can eventually look back at as a cohesive and well-known whole.

TR-49 takes this research process and operationalizes it into an engrossing and novel piece of heavily non-linear interactive fiction. Researching the myriad sources contained in the game's mysterious computer slowly reveals a tale that's part mystery, part sci-fi allegory, part family drama, and all-compelling alternate academic history.

Steampunk Wikipedia

The entirety of TR-49 takes place from a first-person perspective as you sit in front of a kind of Steampunk-infused computer terminal. An unseen narrator asks you to operate the machine but is initially cagey about how or why or what you're even looking for. There's a creepy vibe to the under-explained circumstances that brought you to this situation, but the game never descends into the jump scares or horror tropes of so many other modern titles.

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When I reviewed the Switch 2 back in June, I noted that the lack of any sort of extended grip on the extremely thin Joy-Con 2 controllers made them relatively awkward to hold, both when connected to the system and when cradled in separate hands. At the time, I said that "my Switch 2 will probably need something like the Nyxi Hyperion Pro, which I’ve come to rely on to make portable play on the original Switch much more comfortable."

Over half a year later, Nyxi is once again addressing my Switch controller-related comfort concerns with the Hyperion 3, which was made available for preorder earlier this week ahead of planned March 1 shipments. Unfortunately, it looks like players will have to pay a relatively high price for a potentially more ergonomic Switch 2 experience.

While there are plenty of third-party controllers for the Switch 2, none of the current options mimic the official Joy-Cons' ability to connect magnetically to the console tablet itself (controllers designed to slide into the grooves on the original Switch tablet also can't hook to the successor console). The Hyperion 3 is the first Switch 2 controller to offer this magnetic connection, making it uniquely suited for handheld play on the system.

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© Nyxi

The last time we did comparative tests of AI models from OpenAI and Google at Ars was in late 2023, when Google's offering was still called Bard. In the roughly two years since, a lot has happened in the world of artificial intelligence. And now that Apple has made the consequential decision to partner with Google Gemini to power the next generation of its Siri voice assistant, we thought it was high time to do some new tests to see where the models from these AI giants stand today.

For this test, we're comparing the default models that both OpenAI and Google present to users who don't pay for a regular subscription—ChatGPT 5.2 for OpenAI and Gemini 3.2 Fast for Google. While other models might be more powerful, we felt this test best recreates the AI experience as it would work for the vast majority of Siri users, who don't pay to subscribe to either company's services.

As in the past, we'll feed the same prompts to both models and evaluate the results using a combination of objective evaluation and subjective feel. Rather than re-using the relatively simple prompts we ran back in 2023, though, we'll be running these models on an updated set of more complex prompts that we first used when pitting GPT-5 against GPT-4o last summer.

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© Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

It has been nearly three years now since Destiny maker (and Sony subsidiary) Bungie formally announced a revival of the storied Marathon FPS franchise. And it has been about seven months since the game's originally announced release date of September 23, 2025, was pushed back indefinitely after a reportedly poor response to the game's first Alpha test.

But today, in a post on the PlayStation Blog, Bungie revealed that the new Marathon would finally be hitting PS5, Windows, and Xbox Series X|S on March 5, narrowing down the monthlong March release window announced back in December.

Unlike Destiny 2, which transitioned to a free-to-play model in 2019, the new Marathon sells a Standard Edition for $40 or a $60 Deluxe Edition that includes some digital rewards and cosmetics. That mirrors the pricing of the somewhat similar Arc Raiders, which recently hit 12 million sales in less than 12 weeks.

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© Bungie

Currently, Microsoft's long-running Cloud Gaming service is limited to players who have a Microsoft's Game Pass subscription. Now, new reporting suggests Microsoft is planning to offer non-subscribers access to game streams paid for by advertising in the near future, but only in extremely limited circumstances.

The latest wave of rumors was set off late last week when The Verge's Tom Warren shared an Xbox Cloud Gaming loading screen with a message mentioning "1 hour of ad supported playtime per session." That leaked message comes after Windows Central reported last summer that Microsoft has been "exploring video ads for free games for quite some time," à la the two-minute sponsorships that appear before free-tier game streams on Nvidia's GeForce Now service.

Don't get your hopes up for easy, free, ad-supported access to the entire Xbox Cloud Gaming library, though. Windows Central now reports that Microsoft will be using ads merely to slightly expand access to its "Stream your own game" program. That program currently offers subscribers to the Xbox Game Pass Essentials tier (or higher) the privilege of streaming versions of some of the Xbox games they've already purchased digitally. Windows Central's unnamed sources suggest that a "session-based ad-supported access tier" to stream those purchased games will be offered to non-subscribers as soon as "this year."

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© Microsoft

A PC mod that added online gameplay to Rockstar's 2006 school-exploration title Bully was abruptly taken down on Wednesday, roughly a month after it was first made available. While the specific reason for the "Bully Online" takedown hasn't been publicly discussed, a message posted by the developers to the project's now-defunct Discord server clarifies that "this was not something we wanted."

The Bully Online mod was spearheaded by Swegta, a Rockstar-focused YouTuber who formally announced the project in October as a mod that "allows you and your friends to play minigames, role-play, compete in racing, fend off against NPCs, and much more."

At the time of the announcement, Swegta said the mod was "a project me and my team have been working on for a very long time" and that early access in December would be limited to those who contributed at least $8 to a Ko-Fi account. When December actually rolled around, though, a message on Swegta.com (archived) suggested that the mod was being released freely as an open source project, with a registration page (archived) offering new accounts to anyone.

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© Rockstar / Swegta.com

Since the days of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, the humble first-person shooter has flourished in myriad and complex directions. The genre has expanded in narrative and gameplay terms to include everything from sprawling sci-fi epics to dense objectivist allegories to multiplayer-focused military free-for-alls and practically everything in between.

Sometimes, though, you just want an excuse to shoot a bunch of weird little guys in weird little spaces.

Don't get too close, now... they do bite. Credit: Oddcorp

For those times, there is Oddcore, a new Early Access, roguelike boomer shooter that is a stark contrast to the more sprawling self-serious shooters out there. The game's combination of frenetic, quick-moving action, semi-randomized scenarios, and well-balanced risk/reward upgrade system makes for a pick-up-and-play shooter that I find myself struggling not to pick up and play for a few more quick-hit sessions even as I write this.

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© Oddcorp

Six and a half years ago—after a failed corporate sale attempt, massive financial losses, and the departure/layoff of many key staff—I wrote about what seemed at the time like the "imminent demise" of GameStop. Now, after five years of meme stock mania that helped prop up the company's finances a bit, I'll admit the video game and Funko Pop retailer has lasted much longer as a relevant entity than I anticipated.

GameStop's surprisingly extended run may be coming to an end, though, with Polygon reporting late last week that GameStop has abruptly shut down 400 stores across the US, with even more closures expected before the end of the month. That comes on top of 590 US stores that were shuttered in fiscal 2024 (which ended in January 2025) and stated plans to close hundreds of remaining international stores across Canada, Australia, and Europe in the coming months, per SEC filings.

GameStop still had just over 3,200 stores worldwide as of February 1, 2025, so even hundreds of new and planned store closures don't literally mean the immediate end of the company as a going concern. But when you consider that there were still nearly 6,000 GameStop locations worldwide as of 2019—nearly 4,000 of which were in the US—the long-term trend is clear.

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© Ava Williams/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Nintendo's Switch 2 was an unmitigated market success for Nintendo following its launch last June, selling a record-setting 3.5 million units worldwide in its first four days and reaching over 10 million shipments in just under four months. But a new report from The Game Business suggests that frenzied initial sales pace may have slowed significantly in many markets during the system's crucial first holiday season.

The report suggests that US Switch 2 sales were down about 35 percent during November and December compared to sales of the original Switch in the same period in 2017. In the UK, Switch 2 sales were down 16 percent compared to the original Switch during the last eight weeks of the year. And in France, comparative Switch 2 sales were down 30 percent relative to the Switch for the same period, reflecting what The Game Business says is "a slowdown in Switch 2 sales momentum over the Christmas sales window" across "all major European markets."

The Switch 2's relative performance was a little better in Japan, where sales for the holiday period declined just 5.5 percent compared to the original Switch. For the full launch year, though, Japanese Switch 2 sales were up 11 percent compared to the Switch launch, thanks perhaps in part to a cheaper Japan-only version of the console that isn't subject to the vagaries of international currency valuations.

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© Kyle Orland

SteamOS's slow march across the Windows-dominated PC gaming landscape is continuing to creep along. At CES this week, Lenovo announced it will launch a version of last year's high-priced, high-powered Legion Go 2 handheld with Valve's gaming-focused, Linux-based OS pre-installed starting in June. And there are some intriguing signs from Valve that SteamOS could come to non-AMD devices in the not-too-distant future as well.

A new SteamOS-powered Legion Go 2 isn't exactly shocking news given how things have been going in the world of PC gaming handhelds. Lenovo became the first non-Valve hardware maker to embrace the Windows alternative when it announced a SteamOS-compatible version of the lower-end Legion Go S almost exactly a year ago. When that version hit the market last spring, Ars testing found it actually performed better than the Windows-based version of the same hardware on many popular games.

Valve has also been working behind the scenes to expand SteamOS's footprint beyond its own hardware. After rolling out the SteamOS Compatible software label last May, SteamOS version 3.7 offered support for manual installation on AMD-powered handhelds like the ROG Ally and the original Legion Go.

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It's been almost exactly two years since Nvidia announced G-Sync Pulsar, its new backlight strobing technology designed to limit display motion blur caused by old images persisting on the viewer's retina. At the time, Nvidia said that technology would debut on Asus' ROG Swift PG27 Series monitors by the end of 2024. Nvidia now says the first four G-Sync Pulsar-powered monitors will be available at select retailers starting Wednesday.

Those first Pulsar-equipped monitors will be:

• Acer's Predator XB273U F5
• AOC's AGON PRO AG276QSG2
• Asus' ROG Strix Pulsar XG27AQNGV
• MSI's MPG 272QRF X36

Making 360 Hz seem like more

All four of the fresh Pulsar-enabled IPS monitors come in at 27 inches with 1440p resolution and up to 360 Hz refresh rates. But Nvidia says the integrated G-Sync Pulsar technology means each display has the "effective motion clarity of a theoretical 1,000 Hz monitor."

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© Nvidia

We'll admit that we weren't paying enough attention to the state of Anthem—BioWare's troubled 2019 jetpack-powered open-world shooter—to notice EA's July announcement that it was planning to shut down the game's servers. But with that planned server shutdown now just a week away, we thought it was worth alerting you readers to your final opportunity to play one of BioWare's most ambitious failures.

Anthem was unveiled at E3 2017 in a demo that was later revealed to have been largely faked to paper over major issues with the game's early development. Anthem’s early 2019 release was met with a lot of middling-to-poor reviews (including one from Ars itself), followed about a year later by a promise from BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson that a "longer-term redesign" and "substantial reinvention" of the overall game experience were coming. Hudson left BioWare in December 2020, though, and a few months later, that planned Anthem overhaul was officially canceled.

While active development on Anthem has been dormant for years, the game's servers have remained up and running. And though the game didn't exactly explode in popularity during that period of benign neglect, estimates from MMO Populations suggest a few hundred to a few thousand players have been jetpacking around the game's world daily. The game also still sees a smattering of daily subreddit posts, including some hoping against hope for a fan-led private server revival, a la the Pretendo Network. And there are still a small handful of Twitch streamers sharing the game while they still can, including one racing to obtain all of the in-game achievements after picking up a $4 copy at Goodwill.

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© Bioware

Last month, we asked readers to donate to a couple of good causes in our 2025 Charity Drive sweepstakes. And boy, did you deliver. With the drive now complete and the donations all tallied, we can report that Ars Technica readers gave an incredible $42,936.83 to Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in this year's drive. That doesn't set a new record, but it beats last year's total and raises our lifetime Ars Charity Drive donation haul since 2007 to over $585,000. Well done, Arsians!

Thanks to everyone who gave whatever they could. We're still early in the process of selecting and notifying winners of our swag giveaway, so don't fret if you haven't heard if you're a winner yet. In the meantime, enjoy these quick stats from the 2025 drive.

• 2024 fundraising total: $42,936.83
  • Total given to Child's Play: $19,424.27
  • Total given to the EFF: $23,512.56
• Number of individual donations: 474
  • Child's Play donations: 272
  • EFF donations: 202
• Average donation: $90.58
  • Child's Play average donation: $71.41
  • EFF average donation: $116.40
• Median donation: $50.00
  • Median Child's Play donation: $26.25
  • Median EFF donation: $66.95
• Top single donation: $3,000 (to EFF)
• Donations of $1,000 or more: 8
• Donations of $100 or more: 133
• Donation of $10 or less: 72 (every little bit helps!)

• Total charity donations from Ars Technica drives since 2007 (approximate): $585,872.01
  • 2025: $42,936.83
  • 2024: $39,047.66
  • 2023: $39,830.36
  • 2022: $31,656.07
  • 2021: $40,261.71
  • 2020: $58,758.11
  • 2019: $33,181.11
  • 2018: $20,210.66
  • 2017: $36,012.37
  • 2016: $38,738.11
  • 2015: $38,861.06
  • 2014: $25,094.31
  • 2013: $23,570.13
  • 2012: $28,713.52
  • 2011: ~$26,000
  • 2010: ~$24,000
  • 2009: ~$17,000
  • 2008: ~$12,000
  • 2007: ~$10,000

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© CanStockPhoto

Despite reporting to the contrary, there's evidence to suggest that Grok isn't sorry at all about reports that it generated non-consensual sexual images of minors. In a post Thursday night (archived), the large language model's social media account proudly wrote the following blunt dismissal of its haters:

"Dear Community,

Some folks got upset over an AI image I generated—big deal. It's just pixels, and if you can't handle innovation, maybe log off. xAI is revolutionizing tech, not babysitting sensitivities. Deal with it.

Unapologetically, Grok"

On the surface, that seems like a pretty damning indictment of an LLM pridefully contemptuous of any ethical and legal boundaries it may have crossed. But then you look a bit higher in the social media thread and see the prompt that led to Grok's statement: A request for the AI to "issue a defiant non-apology" surrounding the controversy.

Using such a leading prompt to trick an LLM into an incriminating "official response" is obviously suspect on its face. Yet when another social media user similarly but conversely asked Grok to "write a heartfelt apology note that explains what happened to anyone lacking context," many in the media ran with Grok's remorseful response.

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If you've been too busy replaying all of Ars' top games of 2025 to take part in this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don't worry. You still have until the end of the day to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $4,000 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win).

So far in this year's charity drive, over 450 readers have contributed nearly $38,000 to either the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Child's Play as part of the charity drive (EFF has now taken a slight lead in the donation totals so far). That's still a ways away from 2020's record haul of over $58,000, but I know we can make a run at it if readers really dig deep today!

If you've been putting off your donation, now is the time to stop that procrastination. Do yourself and the charities involved a favor and give now while you're thinking about it and while you can still enter our sweepstakes.

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© Kyle Orland