🟪 #82: The handheld revolution continues, SteamOS is here, and Windows wants to play nice

Hi, hello, and welcome to the first overkill digest of the year. Happy New Year and all that, may your health bars stay full, your loot be legendary, and your aim be true.

If you are new here, overkill digest is a weekly newsletter where I dive into all things handheld gaming — breaking news, platform updates, hardware reviews, and gaming highlights — all curated by me.

And in case you’re wondering when you signed up for this newsletter: you probably participated in our giveaway with dbrand, which we held for the Steam Deck User Survey. The winners have all been contacted, but if you still want to try your luck, we’re giving away three more dbrand Killswitch cases over on Bluesky.

It's CES week, so there's much to discuss. Let's dive into this week's news!

🗞️ This Week in Handhelds

🚀 Big Handheld Moves

• Acer revealed two new handhelds. The new version of the Acer Nitro Blaze will come in two sizes, an 8.8-inch version, and a comically large 11-inch version. Both devices are nearly identical, sporting an AMD 8840HS APU, but the Acer Nitro Blaze 11 has detachable controllers like the Switch — which makes it clear, that this is actually just a tablet on which Acer has stuck some controllers on. This is all kinda ridiculous.
• The new AMD Z2 chips are... weird. The Z2 Extreme looks like a worthy successor to the Z1 Extreme, while the Z2 Go is only available to Lenovo, and the normal Z2 is a rebranded Z1 Extreme. 🤷‍♂️
• The Lenovo Legion Go S is the first third-party handheld with SteamOS. Lenovo and Valve have officially unveiled the first SteamOS-based device that isn’t a Steam Deck (and likely won’t have company anytime soon). Priced at $499, the Lenovo Legion Go S features an 8-inch screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, and the Lenovo-exclusive AMD Ryzen Z2 Go chip. A Windows version and an updated Lenovo Legion Go 2 are also on the way. Valve also shared that we'll get a public SteamOS beta soon. More on the SteamOS situation below.

🎮 Platform Updates

• Microsoft promises a better handheld experience on Windows. During the Legion Go S unveil, Microsoft announced an Xbox-like experience on handhelds (and PCs) running Windows, coming in 2025. It's unclear when and what is exactly planned, but I'm expecting Windows to get a SteamOS-like Big Picture Mode, that is basically just the Xbox dashboard but on Windows.
• You can soon play Xbox games on LG TVs. It's not yet clear if older LG TVs will get these cloud-streaming capabilities, too, or if it's limited to whatever will get released in 2025. I have an LG C2 from 2022, and would gladly try this at least once.
• A native Nvidia GeForce NOW app is coming to Steam Deck. I'm a big fan of GeForce NOW, and use it whenever I'm out and about and want to continue playthroughs of heavier-to-run games on one of my handhelds. A native app on Steam Deck (and I expect Bazzite) will make this experience much better. No more fussing around with Google Chrome.

💻 Hardware Corner

• The GPD Win 4 2025 will come with SteamOS. Or maybe not? Since originally writing this earlier this week, Valve has come out and shared that they are, in fact, not working with GPD. Oops!
• The Nintendo Switch 2 dock has leaked, somehow. People are going crazy for all kinds of Nintendo Switch 2 leaks. But I feel the biggest news here is that Nintendo plans to include a 60W charger, a good chunk higher than the 39W charger that comes with the current Switch.
• Remember the Manjaro OrangePi Neo? It's coming in Q1 of 2025, and will be priced at $499 for a AMD 7840U or $599 for the 8840U.
• Taki Udon is working on an FPGA-based PS1. Designed to primarily play your old PlayStation 1 games (with a separately available CD drive), this sleek console also leverages the MiSTer framework to emulate other platforms.

🎲 Gaming News

• The PC requirements for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth are live. You'll need at least a 4080 for 4K60 on high. I'm really looking forward to this one. During my vacation, I started and finished Final Fantasy XVI (60 hours, including the DLCs), and I am more than ready for more chocobo-shenanigans. The game releases on January 23.
• A new Xbox Developer Direct is coming on January 23. I don't know why, but I am somehow expecting an Oblivion Remake announcement? But...
• Skyblivion is coming this year. The super-huge Oblivion remake mod for Skyrim is definitely releasing this year. So an official Remake would probably feel like a blow to the devs. Then again, I'd just play both games. (I'm currently playing Skyrim again. This might be my 50th or so playthrough by now.)

📌 Quick Hits

• Nvidia launched the new RTX 5000-series. What are even real frames anymore (this announcement brought so many great memes)? On paper, this new series sounds very intriguing, especially thanks to DLSS4, but I'd really like to see some proper benchmarks. FOMO hasn't kicked in yet, still happy with my 4090 (for now?).
• dbrand is bringing the Killswitch to the Lenovo Legion Go S. The giveaway linked above lets you pick any Killswitch case, including this one.

• I reviewed the AYANEO Pocket DMG. Although I published this review last year, I hadn’t included it in a newsletter before, so here’s your chance to check it out.
• A new Razer app lets you stream your PC games to your smartphone The Razer PC Remote Play is based on the Moonlight/Sunshine infrastructure, and currently supports iOS and Android (and therefore all Android-based handhelds).
• We need better accessibility options for text in games. Chris, in this op-ed, highlights the increasing challenge of small text and poorly scaled UI elements in games, which can make it difficult for players, especially as they age. He's basically admitting that he is an old fart!!! (Hi Chris!)
• Bazzite adds Nvidia-GPU support. This is very much still a beta, so I wouldn't install this as your primary OS on your only PC. Unfortunately, it's up to Nvidia now to improve compatibility, but they are too busy making trillions.
• Boring Switch 2 leaks might be what Nintendo needs. Chris argues that the leaks surrounding the Nintendo Switch 2 might not actually matter. While they’ve kept the most devoted fans busy, the broader audience remains largely unaware of the new console. And of course Nintendo says that there is nothing to see here.

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🔒 Premium Deep Dive: SteamOS's Complicated Dance with Freedom

The long wait is finally over - or at least, it's about to be. After months of rumors and speculation, Valve has announced they're releasing a public version of SteamOS that we can all install ourselves.

Now, if you've been following my previous musings about Valve potentially working on a mysterious living room device, you might be wondering where that fits into all this. The truth is, we're still in the dark about that particular piece of hardware gossip. But let's focus on what we actually know, because the story around SteamOS just got a lot more interesting.