There's been a lot of changes in the emulation scene. Plus, I look at the Steam Deck's current biggest problem.
Hi, hello, and good morning. Welcome to a new edition of the overkill digest newsletter, your go-to source for everything handheld gaming (and then some, sometimes I write about Magic: The Gathering, too.)
Before we start this week's newsletter: Tomorrow, we'll launch our yearly State of Steam Deck User Survey. Since the introduction of the Steam Deck (and the overkill website), we've been running an annual survey to see what users think of Valve's handheld. (Here are last year's results.) We'd appreciate if you participate!
Let's get to this week's news!
What happened this week
- Ryujinx might be back, somehow, maybe. A new fork appeared earlier this week, and while there have been many changes, it still needs to be seen just how long this project will survive.
- A new Nintendo 3DS emulator is in the works. After the demise of Citra, two forks — Lime3ds and Citra "PabloMK7 fork" — took over development. But the two dev teams decided to stop working on their respective projects and instead work on one common emulator to rule them all.
- PS4 emulation is making steady progress. And in other emulation news: shadPS4 reached version 0.4, with 29 games now considered playable.
- Steam games must now disclose when a game has kernel-level anti-cheat. This will especially be helpful for Steam Deck owners and Linux users, as these games usually don't work via Proton. One recent example is EA blocking Apex Legends from running on Linux. But more on that in this week's premium comment below.
- Someone broke the Super Mario 64 World Record. 1 hour, and 35 minutes to collect all 120 stars. Insane!
- The best games under $10 in the Steam Scream Halloween Sale. One more day left in the Halloween Sale.
- Chris commented on the madness of multiple game launchers. It doesn't matter if you buy games on Steam, more and more games require you to still connect to a secondary launcher, to the annoyance of many users.
- AYANEO is teasing their next flagship handheld. The AYANEO 3 is the successor to the AYANEO 2s I quite liked. Not much is known so far, except that internally, the Chinese manufacturer calls it REVO. I'm expecting big things and a steep price.
- The best settings for Red Dead Redemption on Steam Deck. Timo looked at the PC port (finally) of Red Dead Redemption to find the best settings for the Steam Deck. He opted for a rock-solid 30 FPS.
- The Monster Hunter Wilds beta doesn't like the Steam Deck. Chris meanwhile tested the Monster Hunter Wilds beta on the Deck, and he's not impressed. But half a million players have tried the beta somewhere already.
- Bazzite 41 launches with better handheld support. I love alt-OS Bazzite (I shared as much here), so I'm quite happy to see better support for some of the handhelds I own like the ROG Ally and the AYANEO Flip KB.
- On the topic of Bazzite: Russ perfected the ASUS ROG Ally X. Amongst other things, by installing Bazzite (and he even linked to overkill.)
- And on the topic of Retro Game Corps: Sean Hollister at The Verge wrote about Nintendo's crusade against Russ.
- Sony closed Concord developer Firewalk Studios. I can't say I'm surprised. Unfortunately, over 200 jobs are affected. But I can't wait for someone to write a book about this.
- The Pokémon TCG launched on mobile. I'm sorry, but I need to share my addiction. I was never that much in Pokémon TCG (I'm a Magic guy, after all), but somehow this game scratches an itch, I didn't know I had. I hope Wizards of the Coast (that's the people who make Magic) don't get any ideas. You can add me via
9924648786598019. Also, Nintendo released a music app. Yeah, I don't get it either. - Chris reviewed Caravan SandWitch on the Deck. It's a post-apocalyptic adventure game with a surprising amount of soul. There's a video review too if you'd rather watch.
- Microsoft's gaming revenue goes up while hardware sales go down. It looks like Microsoft's strategy to release their games on competing platforms is paying off: the Xbox gaming revenue climbed by 61% this last quarter, while hardware sales went down by 29 percent.
Anti-cheat might be Valve's biggest problem right now
The bad news have just been piling up recently.