Save the date(s): IGN is excited to bring you a whole new way to celebrate all of your favorite games, movies and TV series: IGN Fan Fest. On February 26 and 27, the free, two-day digital event will feature exciting first looks, exclusive gameplay, cast reunions, new details, and interviews from around the world, spotlighting some of the biggest and most anticipated entertainment and games of the year.

The virtual event will be streamed across IGN’s website, social and video platforms, apps and even on your Samsung TV (here’s a full list of how and where to watch IGN Fan Fest). And it’s not just about the news, exclusives, and sneak peeks – IGN Fan Fest is all about the fans. See which titles will be spotlighted and how you can submit fan questions for IGN Fan Fest below.

IGN Fan Fest 2021: Full Lineup and Schedule

IGN Fan Fest will bring you panels for some of the biggest upcoming games, movies, and TV series. Each panel will boast exclusive interviews with cast members and creative teams, as well as exciting new footage debuts and behind-the-scenes first looks.

Check out the full list of headliners below, and stay tuned for more exciting updates and schedule announcements about the IGN Fan Fest lineup in the coming weeks!

• Batman Beyond – Cast Reunion and Table Read
• Bethesda’s DEATHLOOP
• Amazon Prime Video’s Invincible
• Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy
• Netflix’s Shadow and Bone
• Zack Snyder’s Justice League
• & more surprises!

Keep reading for more information on each panel:

Batman Beyond: Cast Reunion and Table Read

Relive the beloved animated series in a whole new way with the cast reunion of Batman Beyond. Join stars Kevin Conroy and Will Friedle, casting and voice director Andrea Romano and more special guests as they perform a table read of a fan-favorite Batman Beyond episode.

About Batman Beyond: Batman Beyond recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with the release of Batman Beyond: The Complete Animated Series Limited Edition, a six-disc Blu-ray special edition featuring approximately 1,500 minutes of entertainment, including two new inside looks at the beloved television series, led by Nostalgic Tomorrow, a gathering of Batman Beyond production talent and cast led by executive producer Bruce Timm and actors Kevin Conroy and Will Friedle, the voices of Batman and Terry McGinnis, respectively. Batman Beyond made its anticipated debut on the WarnerMedia streaming series HBO Max in January 2020, where it is available to stream in its entirety.

An Inside Look at Bethesda’s DEATHLOOP

The developers behind DEATHLOOP, Game Director Dinga Bakaba and Art Director Sebastien Mitton, will take you deeper inside the innovative first-person shooter with an exclusive inside look at the new title from Arkane Lyon, the award-winning studio behind the critically acclaimed Dishonored franchise. DEATHLOOP will continue Arkane’s signature gameplay design, challenging gamers to play their own way.

About DEATHLOOP: As Colt, players are trapped in a time loop on the enigmatic island of Blackreef, doomed to repeat the same day for eternity. The only chance for escape is to break the loop by assassinating eight key targets before the day resets. However, lurking in the shadows is rival assassin Julianna, equipped with her own equally powerful abilities and weapons, on a mission to protect the loop by assassinating Colt, and restarting the cycle. DEATHLOOP is launching exclusively for PlayStation 5 and PC on May 21, 2021.

Amazon Prime Video’s Invincible: Extended Sneak Peek

Join creator Robert Kirkman and the stars of this superpowered lineup for a preview of Amazon Prime Video’s new, action-packed adult animation series, Invincible — plus, get an exclusive extended look at the first episode!

About Invincible: From The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, and based on the Skybound/Image comic of the same name by Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley, Invincible is an adult animated superhero show that revolves around seventeen-year-old Mark Grayson (Yeun), who’s just like every other guy his age — except that his father is the most powerful superhero on the planet, Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons). But as Mark develops powers of his own, he discovers that his father’s legacy may not be as heroic as it seems.

Introducing Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy

Ahead of the upcoming epic new superhero series Jupiter’s Legacy, comic creator Mark Millar and series star Josh Duhamel come together for the exclusive first interview about the highly anticipated project. In this exclusive conversation, we’ll get new details from Millar and Duhamel on how the expansive graphic novels jumped from page to screen in Netflix’s new series. New character details, new plot details and an Easter egg from Frank Quitely, we’re delivering answers on this superhero saga that has been years in the making.

About Jupiter’s Legacy: After nearly a century of keeping mankind safe, the world’s first generation of superheroes must look to their children to continue the legacy. But tensions rise as the young superheroes, hungry to prove their worth, struggle to live up to their parents’ legendary public reputations — and exacting personal standards. Based on the graphic novels by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, Jupiter’s Legacy is an epic superhero drama that spans decades and navigates the complex dynamics of family, power, and loyalty. From executive producers Mark Millar, Frank Quitely, Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, Dan McDermott, Steven S. DeKnight, James Middleton, Sang Kyu Kim, Jupiter’s Legacy stars Josh Duhamel, Leslie Bibb, Ben Daniels, Elena Kampouris, Andrew Horton, Mike Wade, Matt Lanter and Tenika Davis.

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone: Exclusive Cast Q&A and Sneak Peek

Prepare to enter the Grishaverse. We’re bringing the cast and creators of Netflix’s Shadow and Bone together for their first group appearance to offer an exclusive sneak peek at the epic fantasy series, discover how the show will adapt Leigh Bardugo’s ambitious novels for the screen, and will peel back the curtain on some of your most burning questions.

About Shadow and Bone: Based on Bardugo’s worldwide bestselling Grishaverse novels, Shadow and Bone finds us in a war-torn world where lowly soldier and orphan Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) has just unleashed an extraordinary power that could be the key to setting her country free. With the monstrous threat of the Shadow Fold looming, Alina is torn from everything she knows to train as part of an elite army of magical soldiers known as Grisha. But as she struggles to hone her power, she finds that allies and enemies can be one and the same and that nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. There are dangerous forces at play, including a crew of charismatic criminals, and it will take more than magic to survive.

Justice League: Inside the Snyder Cut with Zack Snyder

Zack Snyder will offer fans an inside look into the making of the Snyder Cut, answering all of our questions — and yours! — about the HBO Max release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

About Zack Snyder’s Justice League: In Zack Snyder’s Justice League, determined to ensure Superman’s (Henry Cavill) ultimate sacrifice was not in vain, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) aligns forces with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) with plans to recruit a team of metahumans to protect the world from an approaching threat of catastrophic proportions. The task proves more difficult than Bruce imagined, as each of the recruits must face the demons of their own pasts to transcend that which has held them back, allowing them to come together, finally forming an unprecedented league of heroes. Now united, Batman (Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) may be too late to save the planet from Steppenwolf, DeSaad and Darkseid and their dreadful intentions.

IGN Fan Fest is a virtual event where fans from all over the world can come together and celebrate their most anticipated games, movies, and TV shows. From Zack Snyder’s Justice league to Arkane’s Deathloop, we’re super excited to bring you exclusive content like interviews with cast members of upcoming shows, new gameplay from unreleased games, and first looks at some exciting projects coming later this year. If you don’t want to miss it, here’s everything you need to know to join in on the fun.

IGN Fan Fest 2021 Dates and Start Time

IGN Fan Fest 2021 will take place over the course of two days and will start on February 26 and run through February 27. We’re still locking in the details of our schedule, but we’ll add all the information here once the times are set.

We previously announced the lineup of IGN Fan Fest panels and teased there will be more surprises coming soon. Below, we’ve included a list of panels already confirmed for the event and we’ll continue to update this list as we learn more:

Panels confirmed for IGN Fan Fest:

• An Inside Look at Bethesda’s Deathloop
• Invincible: Extended Sneak Peek
• Introducing Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy
• Netflix’s Shadow and Bone: Exclusive Cast Q&A and Sneak Peek
• The Snyder Cut: In Conversation with Zack Snyder
• Batman Beyond Cast Reunion and Table Read

How to Watch IGN Fan Fest 2021

As a free and live virtual event, IGN Fan Fest will be streamed across IGN.com and all of our social channels. We’ll also be embedding the stream in this article, so feel free to bookmark this page for easy access. Here’s the full list of places we’ll be streaming IGN Fan Fest so you can watch it on your preferred platform:

• IGN.com (homepage)
• IGN’s Facebook Channel
• IGN’s Twitter
• IGN’s Twitch Channel
• IGN’s Youtube Channel
• IGN’s iOS App
• IGN’s Android App
• IGN’s PlayStation 4 App
• IGN’s Xbox One App
• Roku
• IGN App for Android TV
• IGN for Amazon Fire TV
• Apple TV
• IGN 1 on Samsung TV Plus
• Pluto TV
• Plex Live TV

IGN Fan Fest 2021 Schedule

Make sure to check back as we’ll be updating the official schedule below with the days and times of our IGN Fan Fest programming.

February 26

Schedule information coming soon.

February 27

Schedule information coming soon.

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Something really surreal about GAME cashing in on the meme stock stuff with a product that has a pastiche of their US opposite number’s logo all while enduring the same struggles GameStop is. Anyway. Wankers pic.twitter.com/ijTLo2iFcv

— Alex Donaldson (@APZonerunner) February 3, 2021

The ill-fated GoldenEye 007 Remaster for the Xbox 360 was canceled back in 2008, but a nearly-complete build of the project has now leaked online (thanks, VGC). Fans of the classic game are posting screenshots and footage of the unauthorized leak all over social media, and it looks quite impressive.

A video showing off the leaked build was posted online a few days ago, triggering a surge of interest in the cancelled game. Like other remasters such as Halo: The Master Chief Collection, it gives fans the option of switching between the revamped graphics and the N64 original. However, the online multiplayer mode that was supposed to be included isn’t in the build.

Despite its status as one of the most beloved console shooters of all time, GoldenEye 007 has never been officially remastered. GoldenEye composer Grant Kirkhope–who wasn’t involved in the project, but was at Rare during its development–told VGC last week that the Xbox remaster was cancelled due to the multiple stakeholders involved in the project, which include Activision, Microsoft, and Nintendo. A Wii reimagining of the game was released in 2010, but it changed almost every aspect of the game, including changing Bond from Pierce Brosnan to Daniel Craig.

Overwatch is once again celebrating the Chinese lunar new year, and that means a bevy of new skins coming for the event. This will be the Year of the Ox, and Blizzard has started debuting some of the new looks coming when the event launches on February 4.

So far we’ve gotten a detailed look at just one of the new skins, the Tiger Huntress for Ashe. It swaps out her usual Old West look for a Chinese huntress and gives her omnic assistant BOB a cool tiger look. A teaser for the Year of the Ox as a whole also showed D.Va debuting what may be a new intro, triggering fireworks by exploding her mech suit.

Blizzard usually doles out teasers for a handful of skins ahead of special events like this, leading up to release when we get to see them all. As always, you can obtain these special event skins and other cosmetics through randomized loot crates or purchasing them straight-up with your saved credits.

Last year’s Lunar New Year event also included a limited-time capture-the-flag mode. This event will overlap with BlizzCon Online, where Blizzard has promised more news on Overwatch 2. You can also pick up a special 30th anniversary pack with goodies from various Blizzard games including Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, and more.

EA Sports has released the results of its Madden Super Bowl 55 simulation, and it’s predicted that the Kansas Chief Chiefs will defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win the title with Patrick Mahomes taking home the MVP award. If this all sounds familiar, it’s because EA predicted last year that the Chiefs would win the Super Bowl with Mahomes getting the MVP award–that all turned out to be true.

For this year, EA’s prediction states that the Chiefs will beat the Bucs by a score of 37 to 27. Tampa Bay ultimately just won’t be able to contain Mahomes and the rest of the Chiefs, according to the simulation. Both Mahomes and Bucs QB Tom Brady will have big games, with Mahomes throwing for 422 yards and four touchdowns, with Brady lighting it up with 332 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception, according to the simulation.

The full results of the simulation, which you can see below, predict that the Bucs will score first with a field goal before Mahomes hits Clyde Edwards-Helaire for a five-yard TD to give the Chiefs a first quarter lead. After an exciting second quarter, the Chiefs go into the locker room with a 14-13 edge on Tampa Bay, and the third quarter sees a lot of action as well, with Mahomes hitting Tyreek Hill for a 63-yard touchdown, before Brady responds with a 17-yarder to Mike Evans.

The game stays tight in the fourth quarter, with Rob Gronkowski of the Bucs scoring a touchdown. But it wasn’t enough, as Mahomes takes it to the house himself for a running TD, with the victory later capped off with a field goal.

For more on the simulation, check out the video above and the breakdown posted below. The big game takes place this Sunday, February 7, so check back soon to see if EA got it right again this year.

In other news, Madden NFL 21’s Superstar Edition is currently 60% off to celebrate the Super Bowl, while the game itself just got a big title update–see the patch notes here.

Madden NFL 21 Super Bowl 55 Prediction Highlights

via EA

Q1: Tampa Bay scores first with a field goal from Ryan Succop, but Mahomes follows quickly with a 5-yard touchdown pass to running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

Q2: The quarterback battle ignites as Mahomes and Brady go back and forth. Brady finds Chris Goodwin on a 24-yard touchdown pass and Succop hammers another field goal from 46 yards. Mahomes bounces back, going to his favorite wide receiver Tyreek Hill for another Chief’s touchdown, keeping the game within one point with Kansas City out front 14-13.

Q3: Mahomes comes out hot in the second half with a 63-yard touchdown pass back to Hill, who, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, hits a top speed of 22 mph. However, Brady answers with a 17-yard touchdown pass to Mike Evans. Mahomes, resilient and determined to win, hits fellow Madden NFL “99 Club” member, Travis Kelce for a Chiefs touchdown to end the quarter.

Q4: With just one touchdown between the two teams, it all comes down to the game’s nail biting, final 15 minutes. The final quarter opens with Tampa Bay’s Rob Gronkowski, the G.O.A.T. tight end stepping up for his team with a touchdown. Mahomes responds by pushing his way into the endzone with a 12-yard run squarely putting the moment in Kansas City’s hands. To end the game, the Chiefs kick a final field goal before the clock runs out.

Creative Assembly has announced Total War: Warhammer 3, which will arrive in 2021 for PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store).

“In Total War: WARHAMMER III each choice you make will shape the reality-shattering conflict to come,” reads the trailer’s description, “from the mysterious Lands of the East to the daemon-infested Realms of Chaos. Will you conquer your daemons? Or command them?”

A trailer (below) shows a battle between the Kingdom of Kislev and a Khorne-aligned Chaos force, with teases for Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch Chaos forces, and a final peek at a Cathay faction:

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This will be the video game debut for Kislev and Cathay factions, and publisher Sega promises, “players will wage war with the most diverse array of legendary heroes, gargantuan monsters, flying creatures and magical powers that the series has ever seen.”

As for the new campaign, Sega says players will be tasked with “saving or exploiting the power of a dying god. Each race offers a unique journey through the nightmarish Chaos Realm, culminating in an endgame that will determine the fate of the world.”

“Our vision, from the start, was to create a series that felt like an incredible journey through this world we all loved.,” said game director, Ian Roxburgh in a press release. “The enormous support of our players in ensuring the success of the first two instalments has pushed our ambition to new heights, and we can’t wait for everyone to experience it.”

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We awarded Total War: Warhammer 2 a huge 9.1/10 review, saying, “The story and objective-driven campaign is a league above anything we’ve seen in the entire Total War series before in both design and presentation.”

We weren’t the only people to like it: Superman himself, Henry Cavill is a huge fan, and ended up becoming an Easter egg in his own favourite game.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Gaming laptops are, all too often, an exercise in frustrating compromises. Do you want a thin and light model that sacrifices in power, or struggles with heat? Or do you want a thick beast of a laptop that can handle the latest titles for 30 minutes before the battery dies? Asus’ ROG Flow X13 aims to give you both power and portability, without making huge sacrifices: you get a lightweight 2-in-1 touch screen laptop with midrange graphics for basic usage, and a compact external GPU for more top-tier gaming on-the-go.

It’s far from the first laptop we’ve seen that relies on an external box, but since Asus’ XG Mobile eGPU uses the mobile version of Nvidia’s RTX 3080, it’s incredibly compact, meaning you can bring it with you when you want it – or leave it at home when you don’t. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that, despite its high price tag of $3,000, it’s one of the most exciting gaming laptops I’ve seen in a while.

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We’re reviewing a model with the following specs:

• Model: Asus ROG GV301QH-DS96
• Display: 13.4-inch IPS 120Hz at 1920×1200
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS (16M cache, up to 4.5GHz)
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 1650 4GB with Max-Q and ROG Boost (internal), and Nvidia RTX 3080 mobile (external)
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR4X
• OS: Windows 10 Home
• Storage: 1TB NVMe SSD
• Webcam: 720p
• Ports: 1x Docking Station port for XG Mobile, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C with Power Delivery and DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI 2.0b, 1 x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack. XG Mobile docking station adds 4 x USB Type-A, 1 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x Ethernet, and 1 x A/C power
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.1
• Battery: 62Wh
• Dimensions: 11.8″ x 8.7″ x 0.6″
• Weight: 2.9 lbs
• Price (as tested): $2,999.99

The ROG Flow X13 will also be available in a “Supernova” configuration with an upgraded AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS processor that boosts up to 4.8GHz , 32GB RAM, a 3840×2400 60Hz display – though no price is listed at this time.

Design and Features

On its own, it might be easy to mistake the Flow X13 for your typical thin and light laptop. It’s clean design belies the gaming prowess it’s capable of, with a typical black square shape sporting a few small “gaming” flourishes, like the texture on the lid and the font on the backlit keyboard. There’s no RGB, no extended “forehead” like you see on some Max-Q laptops – just a really well-built Ultrabook-sized notebook you can toss in your bag without a second thought.

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Granted, that’s because out of the box, this laptop isn’t going to blow away any gaming benchmarks. The GTX 1650 inside is no slouch – it’ll play casual or lower-fidelity games without skipping a beat – but if you want to do some more serious gaming, you’ll need to plug in the ROG XG Mobile docking station, which connects with a proprietary PCIe/USB-C combo connector. (Right now, the XG Mobile is only listed as compatible with the Flow X13 – but it’s possible that Asus could release other compatible laptops in the future.)

When you hook it up, you’ll get a popup on the laptop asking whether you want to enable the higher-end graphics, and after clicking OK, you’ll wait a few seconds while it switches over. Your user needs to be an administrator for it to work, but that shouldn’t be a hurdle for most people.

The docking station not only swaps your graphics for an RTX 3080 Mobile, but it also adds four more USB ports, HDMI and DisplayPort for an external monitor, and Ethernet for more stable online multiplayer (which is nice, because the port selection on the laptop itself is rather slim). In other words, you can bring your laptop home, dock it, and turn it into a compact gaming PC – or bring the XG Mobile with you, put the laptop in tent mode with its 360-degree hinge, and play with a gamepad. It’s incredibly versatile, and you can really adapt it to whatever the situation calls for. Note, though, that the 1920×1200 display – while bright and colorful – is not G-Sync compatible, despite being labeled as “Adaptive Sync” on the product page (Asus tells me VRR would work with the integrated AMD graphics on the CPU, but who would want to use those?)

Everything else on the laptop is incredibly well-made. The trackpad is smooth and accurate, and the keyboard has deeper travel than many modern thin-and-lights (it’s no ThinkPad, but it’s more than good enough for longer typing and gaming sessions.) The touch screen is handy, and while I don’t consider the included stylus super necessary for a gaming laptop, it’s a nice inclusion nonetheless. Oh, and the power button doubles as a fingerprint sensor for quick logins, which is a must-have on any modern machine. The webcam isn’t compatible with face unlock, but hey – it has a webcam, which is more than I can say for some of Asus’ other gaming laptops.

Software

Asus’ Armory Crate software is necessary for the eGPU to do its job, but for the most part, you rarely have to interact with it if you don’t want to. It allows you to switch between different power profiles, see statistics like CPU usage and temperature, and sync lighting with other Asus Aura products. It’s a bit feature-bloated, to be honest, and the power profiles cause more confusion than they solve. But its background services don’t take up much in terms of resources, so you can feel free to leave it closed and forget about it. Also annoyingly, the external GPU’s blinding red light doesn’t sync with AURA, so there doesn’t seem to be a way to dim or turn it off.

The MyAsus app is strangely similar, though clearly built with Asus’ wider laptop selection in mind, not just the gaming models. It provides some diagnosis tools if you encounter problems, a driver updater, and power management tools – I’m not sure why both of these tools are necessary, but they’re there if you want them. I don’t consider them a huge pro or con, and most users probably won’t need to mess with them much.

The McAfee trial, on the other hand, I’d uninstall as soon as you get the laptop. It absolutely doesn’t belong on a $3,000 machine, and shame on Asus for including garbage like this on such a premium device.

Performance and Gaming

Since the ROG Flow X13 is kind of like two machines in one, I ran each of our PC and gaming benchmarks twice: once with the laptop operating standalone using the GTX 1650, and another plugged into the included XG Mobile external GPU.

	Acer Predator Triton 500	Asus ROG Flow X13	Asus ROG Flow X13 (with XG Mobile)	Razer Blade 15 Advanced
Price as tested	$2,499	$1,499.99	$2,999.99	$2,799
CPU	Intel Core i7-10750H	AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS	AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS	Intel Core i7-10875H
GPU	Nvidia RTX 2080 Super	NVIDIA GTX 1650	NVIDIA RTX 3080	Nvidia RTX 2080 Super
3DMark Time Spy	7874	3223	10146	7680
3DMark Fire Strike	17857	7563	23079	16593
3DMark Night Raid	38254	26721	44307	35805
Total War: Three Kingdoms	65.93	31.6	80.0	64
Borderlands 3	66.61	24.18	87.56	65
Metro Exodus	51.15	22.67	64.86	48.98
Unigine Heaven 4.0	107.1	37.8	135.7	103
PCMark 10	6369	5493	6823	5467
PCMark 10 Battery Test	3:58	9:05	N/A	6:14

Gaming tests run at 1920 x 1080 with Ultra settings, best scores bolded.

We haven’t had a chance to test any other 3000-series laptops yet, but you can see how it performs against other more portable gaming laptops running 2000-series cards above. As you’d expect, standalone mode can’t hold a candle to all-in-one gaming laptops, but once you connect the XG Mobile, it stomps anything from last generation in every benchmark. We’ll see how it compares to other 3080-based laptops soon – these mobile chips can vary a lot from machine to machine – but it’s clear this is a high-end gaming notebook.

That performance translates well to actual games, too. Playing the Battlefield V campaign left me with no hiccups to speak of, easily hitting the high refresh rates needed to make use of the laptop’s built-in display. Its response time isn’t super fast, so you might see some ghosting in dark scenes, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary for a laptop like this, and I hardly found it a burden. The keyboard was comfortable the whole way through, and the W key has a small bump on it so you can easily find your way back to WASD when gaming – one of those small touches I love to see.

Of course, if you’re doing serious gaming, you’ll probably want an external gaming mouse of some sort, as trackpads – even trackpads as good as this one – don’t give you the control you really need in a fast-twitch first-person shooter like this. If you do game with the trackpad, you’ll need to set Windows’ touchpad sensitivity to maximum to ensure the best tracking in-game. But seriously, get a small wireless mouse if you don’t have one. For other games, like Rocket League, I liked to swivel the display into tent mode and use an Xbox controller.

Asus says performance should be 5-10% better when using an external gaming monitor (due to more efficient usage of PCIe bandwidth) as well. I did find that I got a few more frames per second in some of our benchmarks when outputting exclusively to an external display, but your mileage may vary (depending on the game, the resolution, and the refresh rate). It’s nothing to write home about, and anyone using an external monitor will do so because of the improved ergonomics and immersion anyway – not for a 5-10% performance boost.

That said, while I expect most people would use this laptop for docked gaming, the built-in GTX 1650 makes for a decent on-the-go machine for casual sessions, too. I had to turn settings down in most titles to get decent framerates (Borderlands 3 on Very Low hovered around 60, for example), but it’ll do the trick in a pinch.

Ultimately, It’s hard to compare the ROG Flow X13 directly to other gaming laptops, specifically because it’s so unique and versatile. You pay for that versatility with a hefty price tag – the laptop isn’t currently available separate from the XG Mobile bundle yet, so you currently have to buy the whole package for $3,000. Asus has said the laptop will be available standalone in the future, with a listing on their site for $1,499.99.

The XG Mobile is the biggest selling point here, but frankly I like the laptop so much I could see owning one without the docking station too – it’s just that good. I consider myself pretty picky when it comes to trackpads, keyboards, and displays, and using this laptop for everyday work was, frankly, a joy. Add on the external GPU, and you have exactly the kind of gaming laptop I’ve wished for all these years.

It isn’t 100% seamless, though. Every time you plug the laptop into the charger or XG Mobile, the screen will flash black for a second before bringing you back to what you were doing. And when you want to remove the docking station, you have to disconnect it from an icon in the system tray first – which takes about 20 seconds of waiting in front of a progress bar before you can pull the plug. I even had one or two situations where the dock jiggled out of place just enough to disconnect, necessitating a re-connection – despite the “lock” switch supposedly keeping it in place. (Though this was mostly due to me using the laptop in too cramped a space, and bending the cord too tightly.) These are small nuisances, but they’re there.

Of course, as with all high-powered laptops in a small chassis, the Flow X13 does get warm during those gaming sessions. In my 23° C office, the CPU got all the way up to 91° C during that Battlefield V game, and I clocked the external GPU at a maximum of 75° C. Neither thermal throttled, though, which has become all too common among thin and light laptops. That said, it’s a bit of an unfair comparison given that the external GPU has its own enclosure and (rather loud) fan, so heat can be distributed across more surface area. Temperatures were similar when gaming on the internal GTX 1650.

Opening up the laptop only requires the removal of 11 easily accessible screws from the bottom case. You can upgrade the NVMe storage if you need more space down the line, or replace the battery if it wears down and can’t keep a charge – but the RAM is soldered on to the motherboard, so make sure you buy as much as you think you’ll ever need for the life of the laptop. As for the XG Mobile, don’t expect to be upgrading your graphics as the RTX 3080 ages either – its compact form factor is both boon and bane, since you can’t swap in a new GPU like you can with larger Thunderbolt enclosures. But you may find that a worthy tradeoff, given its portable size.

Battery Life

Gaming laptops aren’t generally known for incredible battery life, but the ROG Flow X13 holds its own well thanks to the lower-powered GTX 1650. In PCMark’s battery life test, the Flow stayed alive for just above 9 hours, which is fantastic if you’re looking to get through a workday without an outlet. Switching to the integrated AMD graphics didn’t make an appreciable difference, unfortunately – so there’s rarely a reason to change this setting.

You won’t be able to game with the RTX 3080 unless the docking station is plugged in to the wall, but the GTX 1650 is up to some tasks on its own, so if you plan on gaming with it on-the-go, be prepared for battery life to shrink a bit. I found the Flow could handle a little under two hours of gaming disconnected from power, which again, isn’t bad. And I love that it comes with two chargers: one built in to the docking station, and a smaller USB-C charger when you don’t want to bring the dock with you. If you have a battery pack capable of USB Power Delivery, that’ll work too.

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Purchasing Guide

The Asus ROG Flow X13 with a Nvidia RTX 3080 eqipped ROG XG Mobile is available for $2,999 directly from Asus.

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