Gait Games

### Elevate Your Gaming Setup with the ASUS TUF Gaming 27” Monitor

Are you thinking about upgrading your gaming configuration or aiming to boost your efficiency with an extra monitor? The ASUS TUF Gaming 27” 1440P HDR Monitor is an outstanding option, especially for gaming fans looking for top-tier performance without breaking the bank. Priced at $179 on Amazon, this model offers a significant savings of $70 (28% off the regular price of $249).

#### Quality and Performance: The Ideal Fusion

The ASUS TUF Gaming Monitor is equipped with a 27” QHD (2560 x 1440) Fast IPS panel that provides incredible sharpness and fluidity. Boasting an incredible 180Hz refresh rate and a rapid 1ms gray-to-gray response time, this monitor guarantees seamless visuals, even during high-stakes gaming moments. The addition of HDR capability amplifies your gaming experience, showcasing vivid colors and rich contrasts that can greatly enhance your gameplay.

Built-in adaptive sync technology helps to eliminate stuttering and screen tearing, ensuring a continuous visual experience that boosts your overall enjoyment. Moreover, it supports FreeSync Premium and G-Sync, enabling effortless synchronization between your GPU and monitor for stable frame rates.

#### Advanced Gaming Features

Featuring ASUS’ Extreme Low Motion Blur Sync, the monitor utilizes backlight strobe technology to reduce ghosting, resulting in crisp images of rapidly moving objects. This is particularly advantageous for navigating intricate in-game landscapes and closely following fast action.

The Fast IPS panel can cover 130% of the sRGB color space and supports HDR10 content, offering improved brightness, deeper shadows, and a wider color range compared to typical SDR monitors. The upgrade from 1080p to a native resolution of 2560 x 1440 provides extra screen space, making it fantastic for multitasking and immersive gaming experiences.

#### Simplified Customization

ASUS incorporates useful features like GamePlus and GameVisual preset modes, allowing you to switch between visual profiles designed for various types of content. The DisplayWidget Center software enables users to modify monitor settings straight from their computer, streamlining the management of display configurations without the trouble of navigating on-screen options.

#### Conclusion

To summarize, the ASUS TUF Gaming 27” 1440P HDR Monitor achieves an impressive equilibrium between high-quality performance and cost-effectiveness, making it a compelling addition to any gaming or home office environment. With excellent specifications, customization features, and a notable discount currently available, this monitor could significantly enhance your gaming experience. Don’t let this opportunity slip by—think about adding it to your collection while it’s still on sale.

[See at Amazon](https://shop.kotaku.com/go/5755/)

New Year, New Beginnings: Experience Clean Air with BLUEAIR Air Purifiers

As we enter a new year, numerous individuals look for new beginnings, especially regarding their health and living spaces. If you are fed up with inhaling polluted air filled with allergens, dust, and pollen, there’s a solution that can enhance your indoor air quality. The BLUEAIR Air Purifiers are now priced at just $159.99, reduced from a regular price of $229.99, which equates to a $70 savings or roughly 30% off.

What Sets BLUEAIR Air Purifiers Apart?

BLUEAIR Air Purifiers are essential in minimizing allergens such as pollen, pet hair, and smoke with an advanced HEPA filtration system. This technology guarantees that you can experience a healthier home, devoid of irritants that might provoke allergies, asthma, and various respiratory issues.

An Air Purifier That Takes Air Quality Seriously

In contrast to typical air purifiers you may encounter in stores like Target or Walmart, the BLUEAIR model provides superior filtration performance. It efficiently removes both small and large particles from the air, significantly enhancing your indoor atmosphere.

Maintenance is also straightforward: the purifiers send notifications when it’s time to change the filter, ensuring peak performance. Routine filter changes help sustain excellent air quality by enabling the purifiers to keep capturing harmful particles efficiently.

The Significance of Clean Air in Your Home

Polluted air can lead to various negative health effects, from worsening existing asthma symptoms to heightening the risk of respiratory diseases. Many people are unaware of the range of particulates that exist in their homes, complicating effective cleaning efforts. Inhalation of allergens, pathogens, and pet dander can strain your respiratory system and potentially result in health problems.

In Summary

To conclude, BLUEAIR Air Purifiers provide effective filtration, silent operation, and minimal maintenance, fostering a healthier living space for you and your family. With a current promotion offering 30% off, this is a chance you should not overlook. Investing in a high-quality air purifier can greatly enhance your comfort at home, enabling you to unwind without concerns about allergies or respiratory issues. Make this New Year a breath of fresh air.

For further details or to buy, visit [Amazon](https://shop.kotaku.com/go/6664/).

### Hollow Knight: Silksong Receives Steam’s Game of the Year Award for 2025

In a major achievement for the Metroidvania genre, *Hollow Knight: Silksong* has secured Steam’s Game of the Year (GOTY) accolade for 2025. This accomplishment is notable for the title, which has contended against significant challengers, particularly *Clair Obscur: Expedition 33*, which has excelled in recent awards events like the Game Awards. As we transition into 2026, *Silksong* is garnering the accolades it merits, coinciding with Valve’s Steam reaching a record high in concurrent players.

Facing off against prominent games like *Clair Obscur*, *Arc Raiders*, *Dispatch*, and *Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2*, *Silksong*’s victory as the top game on Steam is a remarkable achievement. During the holiday period, it has emerged as the leading title on the platform, building a player base that peaked at over 450,000 concurrent players.

#### Steam Awards 2025: Complete Winners List

The yearly Steam Awards are decided solely by user votes, representing the preferences of the gaming community. Here’s the complete list of winners for 2025:

– **VR Game of the Year:** *The Midnight Walk*
– **Labor of Love:** *Baldur’s Gate 3*
– **Best Game on Steam Deck:** *Hades 2*
– **Better with Friends:** *Peak*
– **Outstanding Visual Style:** *Silent Hill f*
– **Most Innovative Gameplay:** *Arc Raiders*
– **Best Game You Suck At:** *Hollow Knight: Silksong*
– **Best Soundtrack:** *Clair Obscur: Expedition 33*
– **Outstanding Story-Rich Game:** *Dispatch*
– **Sit Back and Relax:** *RV There Yet*

Although some might contend that the Steam Awards resemble a popularity contest, they offer a chance for worthy games to be recognized across various categories. It’s invigorating to witness a range of titles and distinctive genres highlighted.

#### A Change in Recognition

The differing outcomes between the Steam Awards and the Game Awards underline a transformation in audience opinion. While *Clair Obscur* frequently excelled at major ceremonies, *Silksong* found it challenging to gain traction, missing out on even the Player’s Voice award, which was given to the free-to-play gacha title *Wuthering Waves*.

The Steam Awards are recognized as the largest community-voted awards in the gaming industry. With a staggering total of over 41 million concurrent players recently reported, the platform’s vast user base plays a vital role in honoring gaming excellence. While it may not be on track to surpass platforms like *Roblox*, the success of the Steam Awards is encouraging news for developers seeking to engage with a broad audience on Valve’s platform.

In summary, *Hollow Knight: Silksong*’s victory not only signifies a success for the game itself but also for the community that backs it, celebrating a varied and flourishing gaming landscape.

**Hypixel Studios: Transforming Game Modding with Hytale**

Hypixel Studios, the innovative team behind the highly awaited survival game *Hytale*, is making headlines with its recent demonstration of the game’s remarkable modding capabilities. At the heart of this excitement is a prototype inspired by the hit game *Vampire Survivors*, which has created a buzz among enthusiasts in anticipation of the game’s Early Access launch set for later this month.

**Demonstrating Modding Potential**

The demonstration, presented by Hypixel co-founder Simon Collins-Laflamme, included a 40-second gameplay video that showcased a character fighting voxel-based waves of enemies in a top-down arena. This prototype was developed by a team member during their personal time and acts as a proof-of-concept for the wide range of genres that can be realized within *Hytale* by its community of players and modders.

Collins-Laflamme highlighted that this gameplay demonstration illustrates only a small portion of the modding capabilities that *Hytale* offers, intended to motivate and showcase the creative opportunities available to users. He remarked, “The gameplay presented is just a minor part of our modding potential and was crafted to create a basic, survivor-like experience.” Although the mod itself might not launch alongside the game, there is a chance for Hypixel to release similar examples as reference materials for the community.

**The Path to Launch**

This announcement follows Hypixel regaining the rights to *Hytale* from Riot Games, which had previously halted the project last year. After this development, the studio unveiled a 16-minute gameplay trailer that highlighted *Hytale’s* capabilities as a platform for user-generated content, akin to the successful model that has established *Minecraft* as a worldwide sensation.

Collins-Laflamme has shared his expectations for the game after launch, predicting an initial spike in player involvement that may decline until community-driven content begins to emerge. He stated, “My forecast is, it will perform exceptionally well at first and then it will slow down until the modders/servers and us start rolling out significant content.”

As *Hytale* nears its Early Access launch on January 13, 2026, Collins-Laflamme conveyed mixed feelings. He recognized that the studio has spent four years reconstructing the game’s engine rather than concentrating solely on gameplay elements, which has led to a sense of “frustration” due to the difficulties in bridging this development gap.

**Strategic Release Decisions**

Significantly, the Early Access launch will not be available on Steam right away. This choice aims to prioritize feedback from the established community rather than facing a deluge of outside criticism that could mislead the game’s future direction. Hypixel is dedicated to ensuring that the first players are those who are familiar with the game’s evolution, thereby creating a constructive feedback atmosphere.

While Steam currently does not support some of *Hytale*’s advanced modding features, Hypixel intends to collaborate with Valve to possibly address these limitations in the future, suggesting a wider scope for user-generated content and modifications later on.

In conclusion, Hypixel Studios is preparing the groundwork for an exceptional experience with *Hytale*, promoting creativity and community participation through its robust modding features. The forthcoming Early Access launch is set to unveil a dynamic ecosystem where players can explore, create, and share their distinctive gaming experiences.

Late last month, a video featuring a theoretical AAA Mario game went viral, sparking a wave of conversations online, especially regarding a particular line of dialogue: “Focus, M.” This line, voiced by actor Ariel Hack as Princess Peach, has come to symbolize a witty take on the clichés often present in blockbuster gaming storylines, particularly those reminiscent of series such as Uncharted and Gears of War.

On December 23, voice actor Ryan Stewart shared a video depicting a lighthearted interaction between Mario, voiced by himself, and Peach as they get ready to confront Bowser. The original gameplay footage, created by Funkyzeit as a conceptual prototype, was first uploaded in 2022. Stewart’s version, with its humorous twist on AAA game dialogue, quickly captured widespread attention online, amassing over 25 million views on Twitter by January 5.

The phrase “Focus, M” emerged as a memorable highlight from the video, encapsulating the ridiculousness of certain AAA dialogues that typically mix humor with game mechanics or narrative elements. Stewart recognized the line’s potential for virality, expressing that, while he didn’t foresee the magnitude of its success, he believed a “banger” had been made, particularly after hearing Hack’s performance.

As the meme gained traction, it moved beyond its initial context, being applied to a variety of unrelated topics, showing a cultural relevance that often defines viral internet trends. Users humorously labeled numerous games and even remasters as “Focus, M” titles, reinforcing a common understanding of the phrase within the gaming community.

Despite the humor surrounding it, opinions on the meme differ. While Stewart welcomes the conversations and fan art inspired by “Focus, M,” creators like Funkyzeit seem to have a more mixed response, indicating that the dialogue’s influence may not completely align with their original intentions.

As the meme keeps circulating, it mirrors larger discussions within the gaming community about dialogue, humor, and player involvement in contemporary gaming narratives. Some believe phrases like “Focus, M” can act as a critique of tropes in game writing, while others claim it has already become overused, questioning the delicate balance between humor and saturation in internet culture.

In summary, the “Focus, M” meme underscores an intriguing intersection of creativity, community, and criticism within the gaming realm, demonstrating how a single line can give rise to extensive discussions—both literally and metaphorically—on the essence of storytelling in video games.

**The Unpredictable Future of EVR Studio and Mudang: Two Hearts**

At last year’s Xbox Games Showcase, the Korea-based developer EVR Studio unveiled *Mudang: Two Hearts*, a stealth action-adventure title akin to the *Splinter Cell* franchise. Nonetheless, recent events have sparked worries regarding the studio’s financial health and project direction. Reports indicate possible layoffs and funding challenges, with the company’s website currently down.

According to sources from *Need4Games*, EVR Studio has terminated multiple employees due to insufficient funding. They report a drastic reduction in staff from over a hundred to merely 22, as noted by a Korean tracking site. This drop raises significant concerns regarding the studio’s ability to continue creating *Mudang*.

Moreover, an investor from EVR Studio has shared a timeline for *Mudang*, implying a launch by the end of March 2026, aligned with the fiscal year’s conclusion. This has intensified pressure, as investors are likely to be unhappy if the game does not comply with this timeline.

The studio has not only faced a decrease in workforce but also a sharp drop in its online presence. EVR’s official website is currently unavailable, with the latest archived version from October 23, causing alarm among fans and industry observers alike. Updates from the studio’s YouTube channel have also stopped since the August 15 developer diary.

Insights from LinkedIn show at least 34 individuals linked to EVR Studio, although many profiles are private. Public profiles, featuring key figures like CEO Yongki Yoon and executive producer Dong Joon Min, suggest they are still actively employed; however, the long-term security of these roles is uncertain given recent occurrences.

EVR Studio does run a Discord server with over 2,300 members, where discussions about the game’s future are prevalent. The most recent update from the studio on this platform dates back to August 29, outlining their focus on validating a playable build and performing regression testing, with additional updates likely postponed. This commitment to quality may not fully reassure anxious fans.

*Mudang: Two Hearts* is aimed for a 2026 release on PC, PS5, and Xbox consoles. The game reportedly garnered 100,000 wishlist entries by July 25 of last year, signifying robust initial interest. However, the uncertainty surrounding the studio’s operational condition casts doubt over its potential success.

As the gaming community closely observes, it remains unclear how EVR Studio will navigate these challenging times and whether *Mudang: Two Hearts* will eventually meet its ambitious launch target. *Kotaku* has contacted EVR Studio for comments as the situation develops.

Before we begin the year’s first round-up of new PC game releases, an apology: we skipped feeding the Maw for one whole week back in December. In a deceptively carefree comment, I explained that I had too much seasonal blogmange to prepare, but this was actually a PR excuse to minimise hysteria. You see, back in November the Maw ate me, and I have only just exited its digestive system. During past emergencies, I’ve done this by hooking onto gumlines and working my way from tonsil to tonsil. This time I forgot to bring my climbing axes, and was obliged to escape in… the other direction.

It is best not to share more. Thankfully, the Maw’s internal odours are only smellable in the 11th through 17th dimensions, though they can still be detected in Normie Spacetime – you may have noticed that all the reflections are pinstriped today. Anyway, now that I’ve properly explained the break in service, let’s gingerly dip our still-reeking fingers into the spumes of commerce.

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**Not Every Hero Wears a Cape: The Daring Deed of Martha Root at the Chaos Communication Congress**

Not every hero wears a cape. Some don colorful outfits radiating nostalgia and bravery. During a recent hacking event, an unidentified hacker, referred to solely by the alias Martha Root, showcased this by intertwining cosplay with activism. Clad as the legendary Pink Ranger, Root tapped into her hacking expertise to erase white supremacist websites in real-time on stage.

The location for this bold move was the Chaos Communication Congress, a yearly gathering arranged by the Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg, Germany. In a presentation that blended aspects of performance art with ethical hacking, Root took the spotlight alongside reporters Eva Hoffmann and Christian Fuchs. The high point of the presentation featured a live removal of servers belonging to three infamous white supremacist websites: WhiteDate, WhiteChild, and WhiteDeal.

These platforms facilitated racially exclusive matchmaking, egg and sperm donation, and a job market strictly reserved for white individuals. The administrator of these services publicly condemned the attack on X, describing it as an act of “cyberterrorism,” underscoring the disruptive essence of Root’s actions.

Beyond eliminating the servers, Martha Root also revealed personal information from these sites, showcasing profile pictures and other details while temporarily withholding emails, passwords, and private conversations. The gender disparity on these sites was striking, with Root pointing out that a remarkable 86 percent of users were men, while only 14 percent identified as women—an imbalance so glaring it reminded Root of a scenario “where the Smurfs village looks like a feminist utopia.”

With a blend of humor and sharpness, Root quipped, “Picture calling yourselves the ‘master race’ but neglecting to secure your own website — maybe consider mastering to host WordPress before aiming for world domination.” This remark captures the witty yet critical perspective the hacker presented, using the platform to challenge the very ideas of supremacy and digital security.

The impact of Root’s courageous actions resonated beyond the congress, sparking conversations about the role of hacktivism in opposing hate and advocating for social justice. Root’s methodology serves not only as a powerful declaration against racism and discrimination but also as a reminder of the unexpected intersections among technology, culture, and activism.

In a world where digital spaces can frequently become hotbeds for hate, Root’s demonstration illustrated how creativity and technical skill can converge to dismantle harmful ideologies. As the hacker community continues to explore the intricate terrain of digital ethics, Martha Root emerges as a symbol of the unconventional hero—one who embodies the essence of change and confronts the status quo while honoring childhood heroes.

Slay. Go, go Power Ranger.

A nice, juicy nine-minute-long Styx: Blades of Greed gameplay trailer has been plucked from the tree of stealth games today. Juicy in the sense that nine minutes is plenty of time to help ascertain whether a game looks like it could be fun, yet if we’re sticking with this metaphor this is one of those apples that’s really good but has a nasty bruise on it you have to avoid.

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### Jack Black: The Role He Wishes He Hadn’t Declined in *The Incredibles*

In recent times, Jack Black has established himself as a well-known figure in numerous films, highlighting his distinct mix of humor and charm. From his performances in hit movies like *School of Rock* to the latest *Minecraft Movie*, Black has kept a steady presence in the film industry. Nonetheless, there is one part that he looks back on with remorse: that of Syndrome, the antagonist in Pixar’s celebrated animated film *The Incredibles*.

During a sincere interview with Capital FM while promoting his new venture, a meta-sequel to *Anaconda* alongside Paul Rudd, Black disclosed that he was approached for the role of Syndrome but ultimately declined it. His choice was influenced by a wish for the character to possess greater depth. He shared his worries about the villain being flat and asked for a revision to enhance the intricacy and richness of the role. Sadly, Pixar’s director Brad Bird was not inclined to accommodate these requests, resulting in Black forgoing what turned out to be one of the most cherished animated features.

Upon reflecting on his choice, Black recognized that he gained an important insight from this situation. Considering the film’s tremendous success and critical praise, he was left pondering why he had been “so challenging” concerning the proposition. Syndrome, brought to life by Jason Lee, emerged as a prominent character, while the film was lauded for its narrative and character evolution.

This experience seems to have influenced Black’s perspective on roles in later projects. He appears to have adopted a more accommodating outlook, as shown by his ongoing participation in various films and franchises. While his recent endeavor in *Minecraft Movie* received mixed reviews, it still attained notable box office success—suggesting that Black’s career continues to flourish, even as he reminisces about lost chances.

As fans anticipate Black’s upcoming projects, it’s evident that his journey in Hollywood is characterized by both successes and meaningful lessons learned. His experiences remind us of the significance of collaboration and the readiness to embrace new opportunities in the constantly changing film landscape.