Author: Trafficblast

The PC version of Monster Hunter: World will quickly catch up to its console counterparts in regards to new content, in-game events, and title updates. Capcom has shared a roadmap for the Iceborne expansion, outlining everything coming to the game over the next few months.

The exciting news for PC players is the fact that PC and console update schedules will finally sync up beginning in April. The PC version has lagged behind in this regard ever since it launched seven months after the initial console release back in January 2018. As such, content updates and in-game events occurred on a PC-specific schedule, with the belated PC release of Iceborne facing the same situation. This will be a thing of the past come April, as every platform is set to achieve update parity.

Before then, however, Capcom has a swathe of new content coming to both the PC and console versions of Monster Hunter: World. The Grand Appreciation Fest kicks off simultaneously across all platforms on January 24 to February 13, celebrating the game’s second anniversary with an opportunity for players to attain new layered armor and unique gear. February 6 sees the first title update for PC, which introduces the fearsome Rajang along with adding the Volcanic Region to the Guiding Lands endgame area. The limited-time event, Racoon City Collaboration, also arrives on PC in February, letting you craft Leon and Claire armor from Resident Evil 2. The Holiday Joy Fest event occurs in February for PC players, too, with yet more layered armor to earn.

March 12 marks the release of the second title update on PC, introducing the Stygian Zinogre and Safi’jiiva to the game. The Guiding Lands will also be expanded even further with the addition of the Tundra Region. In April, PC players will be getting the console version’s March updates, as well as a third major title update. This will include two new monster variants, and Arch-Tempered and Master Rank versions of existing monsters, marking the point when both PC and console schedules sync up. After this, May sees the return of a fan-favorite monster, while new monsters and updates are planned for June and beyond.

Monster Hunter: World is far and away Capcom’s most successful game in history, surpassing 15 million copies shipped worldwide, while Iceborne itself has climbed to 4 million copies. Capcom is even working with Hollywood to produce a new Monster Hunter film starring Milla Jovovich coming this September.

During last month’s Game Awards, Gearbox Software revealed that it will publish upcoming “looter-slasher” Godfall, which is being developed by Counterplay Studios. Set for release Holiday 2020, the third-person action-RPG is the first game officially confirmed for the PlayStation 5, Sony’s upcoming next-gen console–also set to arrive Holiday 2020.

A brief snippet of gameplay footage for Godfall has now leaked online. The small clip initially appeared on Reddit and appears to be taken from an internal trailer at Counterplay Games that was shown at the beginning of 2019. This could be the first six seconds of PS5 footage we’ve seen, or it might simply be captured from the PC version of the game. Either way, the use of flashy effects and impressive lighting certainly look the part, and it offers a hint of Godfall’s presumably weighty melee combat. You can watch the footage here.

The announcement trailer shown off during The Game Awards didn’t reveal much else about the upcoming next-gen title, but the developers have since let slip a few more details. Godfall takes place in a fantasy setting and sees you step into the shoes of a member of the exalted Knight’s Order, who are tasked with holding back the apocalypse. You can play the game solo or team up with groups of up to three players and battle across the realms of Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Spirit, slashing through enemy combatants and gathering loot to create a formidable warrior.

Crisis on Infinite Earths has just ended (read our full crossover review here), but Arrowverse fans have another big event to look forward to in January. Arrow is set to wrap up its eighth and final season on January 28. And somehow, the series will have to do so without its lead hero: Oliver Queen sacrificed his life to end the Crisis, leaving his friends and family to mourn the hero who saved Star City and the entire multiverse.

We recently chatted with executive producer Marc Guggenheim about the epic conclusion to Crisis and how it will change the Arrowverse. During that chat, we also touched on Arrow’s series finale and the challenge of wrapping up the show in the wake of Crisis.

We were curious how Guggenheim and showrunner Beth Schwartz tackled the challenge of following up Crisis and wrapping up Oliver Queen’s journey after the character has already died (twice) in Crisis. Does Arrow even necessarily need a separate finale at this point? Even Guggenheim admitted that the final episode was a difficult nut to crack.

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“We always had a plan in that we knew that [during] Crisis, Oliver would die,” he said. “We knew that the series finale would be essentially like a coda… a sort of an epilogue. We knew a variety of different elements to the finale, but one thing we didn’t have was what I called a central theme. We didn’t have this principle that would tie together all the elements that we had already planned upon.”

Guggenheim continued, “I was in the editing room one day; I’m watching the latest cut, and of course, it begins as almost all the Arrow episodes do, and for the umpteenth bajillionth the time, I hear Stephen [Amell] say, ‘I returned home with only one goal, to save my city,’ and it just all clicked for me in that moment. I realized, oh, that’s the central principle of the finale: Oliver achieves his mission. He saved the city. He actually saved the universe. Once Beth and I had that, that was the central rubric to organize the whole finale around. It’s an unconventional finale because we kill off our protagonist two episodes before the actual finale, but at the end of the day, it felt just really appropriate.”

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Guggenheim even revealed a new detail about “Fadeout,” telling us the episode will bring back the flashback scenes one last time and explore a previously untold story set during the early days of Season 1. While it’s unclear how or even if Oliver will appear in the present, at least the flashbacks will give Amell one final opportunity to explore his character’s journey in the Arrowverse.

“We’re going to honor the flashback convention of the show by flashing back to events in very early in Season 1, and what’s nice about that is it brings everything full circle,” said Guggenheim. “I’m really proud of it. It was a really enjoyable script to write, for Beth and I to write. James Bamford just killed it, and all the actors brought their A-game. I’m looking forward to everyone checking it out.”

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For more on the epic Crisis finale, check out our review for the final two episodes, learn more about the new Earth-Prime and see what Amell thought of the ending. Arrow’s series finale, “Fadeout,” airs January 28 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

The Keanu Reeves renaissance (Keanussance?) is upon us, and we are here for it. Keanu has been kicking butt in action movies for decades now but it seems like he’s more ubiquitous than ever these days. Outside of your John Wicks, he’s popped up in Toy Story 4 as Duke Caboom (Canada’s greatest daredevil and stuntman) and played an insufferable parody of himself in Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe. But Keanu’s biggest surprise appearance was at E3 2019, when he not only took the stage to reveal Cyberpunk 2077’s release date, but also the that he was playing a major character in the game: the literally-named Rockerboy Johnny Silverhand.

And so, not just in anticipation of Cyberpunk 2077, but in celebration of a beloved actor who keeps so busy he might as well live on our screens permanently… or just for the hell of it, really, let’s take a look back at a brief history of every one of Keanu Reeves’ many, many video game appearances.

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Click through the gallery above or scroll down for the full list!

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure(s)

Way back in 1989, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was first adapted into a PC adventure game, and we got our first glimpse of a digitized Keanu as Ted “Theodore” Logan and his counterpart Bill S. Preston, Esq. as they traveled through time on various adventures and accidentally learning things in the process.

In 1991, Bill & Ted’s adventures continued with the release of new video games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Atari Lynx – each one a totally unique experience. While the latter two took cues from the Bill & Ted animated series, the NES version was very clearly an 8-bit rendition of real-life Keanu Reeves. Pay attention to these characters because this goofy time-traveling buddy comedy franchise is actually getting a new sequel this year in Bill and Ted Face the Music… which probably won’t be getting a video game adaptation, which is totally bogus – but it would be most excellent if it did.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Following the success of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola adaptation of the classic vampire novel, official video game tie-ins were released for a whopping nine platforms between 1993 and 1995. All of these starred Keanu’s character from the film, Jonathan Harker, though Keanu’s likness varied wildly between titles. The lower-resolution renditions of Keanu looked more like Han Solo (or, in some cases, Aladdin), while the SEGA CD had full-motion video clips ripped straight from the film.

Thankfully, Jonathan Harker’s costume of “white shirt and dark vest” was reminiscent of Ted Theodore Logan’s iconic attire, which helped reinforce the fact that players were looking at a small version of Keanu Reeves. Especially when re-enacting their favorite moments from the movie, like when Keanu roundhouse-kicked all those zombies.

Johnny Mnemonic: The Interactive Action Movie

This entry is actually more of a PSA – if you’re watching this video looking for Keanu Reeves games, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. 1995 saw the release of an interactive FMV adventure game based on Johnny Mnemonic, the William Gibson short story that inspired the Keanu Reeves movie with the same name, but it didn’t star Keanu Reeves. The role of Johnny Mnemonic was instead played by Christopher Gartin, who could probably play Keanu at bat mitzvahs, but is best known for replacing Kevin Bacon in Tremors 2: Aftershocks.

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Enter The Matrix

The Matrix seems like it should’ve spawned countless video games, but somehow, it only got three official tie-ins and, bafflingly, only one of them focuses on Keanu’s character Neo. 2003’s Enter The Matrix was directed by The Wachowskis, featured some of the stars from The Matrix Reloaded, and directly intersected with the events of the films, but didn’t actually allow players to play as Neo – much to the chagrin of fans who wanted to reenact their favorite action scenes starring the six-foot-one Lebanese Hollywood dreamboat roundhousing a bunch of Hugo Weavings and creepy albino twins.

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Fans finally got to wear the mantle of the One True Keanu in 2005’s The Path of Neo, which was the straightforward Matrix game that people had been waiting for since the movie came out.

Constantine

The hockey-loving thespian portrayed the DC comics demon hunter on the big screen, which of course then got digitized onto all of our small screens in Constantine: The Video Game. The game itself was as okay as you’d expect, just like Keanu’s spiky-haired mess of a character model.

John Wick

Tragically, Keanu stopped appearing in video games and we were forced to play hundreds of games that didn’t star the world’s sexiest motorcycle riding action star until 2014, when Pay Day 2 DLC introduced John Wick as a playable character, the first of many of Keanu’s in-game appearances as the infamous vengeful dog widower.

Later, in 2017, gamers got a chance to get inside the action star’s head, literally, when The John Wick Chronicles put the Johnny Mnemonic star in a virtual reality adventure – a VirKeanual Reeves-ality simulator if you will. No? Okay.

Next, Fortnite got an unofficial John Wick skin in 2018, known as “The Reaper,” which Epic Games tried to pretend was not Keanu Reeves, in spite of everyone knowing it was very clearly Keanu Reeves.

A year later, probably to prove that they weren’t ripping off Keanu Reeves and/or to make more money, Epic Games released an official John Wick skin, revealed with a trailer in which the actual licensed Keanu Reeves skin squared off against his unlicensed doppleganger.

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Then, last year, 2019, lovingly known as the year of The Keanu, Keanu’s adventures took a turn for the turn-based in John Wick: Hex, an action-strategy game developed by Mike Bithell, the indie developer of Thomas Was Alone, which was a game that starred rectangles (presumably because Keanu was unavailable).

Cyberpunk 2077

And, now, in 2020, we’re getting Cyberpunk 2077 — an AAAA open-world RPG that lets players live out their ultimate fantasies of having a crazy futuristic adventure while the cybernetic ghost of Keanu Reeves is embedded in their brains.

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We got a chance to talk to Keanu about his role in CD Projekt Red’s upcoming sci-fi epic, or you can check out what happened to his character in the years between the tabletop Cyberpunk 2020 and the digital world of 2077.

Developer Techland has announced that it has delayed the launch of Dying Light 2. The zombie survival game was originally due to release Spring 2020, and Techland has offered no indication as to when it now plans to release the game.

Hey Survivors!
Here’s the Dying Light 2 Development Update. pic.twitter.com/CKMkAe2eD7

— Dying Light (@DyingLightGame) January 20, 2020

Posted on Twitter, a statement from CEO Paweł Marchewka said: “We were initially aiming for a Spring 2020 release with Dying Light 2, but unfortunately, we need more development time to fulfill our vision. We will have more details to share in the coming months, and will get back to you as soon as we have more information.

Dying Light 2 had never been given a firm release date, but the Spring 2020 window was fast approaching. By not providing an updated release date or window, Techland has freed itself from time constraint and, in theory, given itself indefinite time in order to bring Dying Light 2 to the standards that the team is chasing. While internally things are no doubt more complicated, it’s clear that the team has decided more time is required to work on the project.

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This is the fifth game to be delayed within under a week; the last few days have seen slips from Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Iron Man VR, Marvel’s Avengers, and Cyberpunk 2077, the latter two having being delayed a few months beyond their initial planned dates.

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Dying Light 2 is still looking promising, despite the delay. When we last saw it at E3 2019 we discovered that its branching story may mean you only see 50% of its content in your first playthrough.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

HBO has officially cancelled Confederate, the next series from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

Speaking to TVLine, HBO president Casey Bloys confirmed that the network would not be moving forward with the controversial TV show, described as a drama that “chronicles the events leading up to the Third American Civil War.”

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Confederate was pitched as a series that would present an alternate timeline for history, in which the southern states successfully seceded from the Union and created a nation where slavery “evolved into a modern institution.” The show received strong backlash following its original announcement.

Amid growing criticism, HBO stepped in to defend the show, though Bloys admitted that the initial announcement had been “misguided” and they “could have done a better job with the press rollout” in light of the sensitive subject. A short while later, the project was seemingly put on the back burner.

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In the meantime, Benioff and Weiss have moved on to several other projects, as the in-demand duo stepped down from their planned Star Wars trilogy to follow-up on a number of new commitments in their schedule after signing a “historic deal with Netflix.”

As for the Game of Thrones universe, there are still a whole bunch of spinoffs and series’ currently in the works, including a prequel series called House of the Dragon, based on George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood fantasy novel, though we might have some time to wait for that release.

For more, check out our explainer on when House of the Dragon takes place and some of the events we might see in the prequel.

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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

A dad spent a weekend building a custom pad for the Xbox Adaptive Controller so his daughter could use it to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Nintendo Switch.

Rory Steel, who is the head of Jersey Digital Academy, tweeted his progress as he created a custom rig attached to the controller that Microsoft designed to “meet the needs of gamers with limited mobility.”

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His plan was to build a controller that made playing the Nintendo Switch accessible to his daughter, who Steel told Channel 103 has “fine motor neurone issues.”

He started with some electronic parts purchased from eBay and the Xbox Adaptive Controller.

This weekends project. Make a @Nintendo #switch accessibility controller for my daughter using @Microsoft #adaptiveController and some @eBay parts. pic.twitter.com/YHN38SG9dZ

— Rory Steel (@JerseyITGuy) January 18, 2020

He added a solid base for all the electronic parts that sits above the Xbox Adaptive Controller. That base holds two joysticks: one moving the playable character, the other moving the camera.

Controller success! Buttons tomorrow as I need a slightly larger drill bit than standard. Off the @BandQ then trials being in the morning. #accessibility @Nintendo #switch @Microsoft #adaptiveController pic.twitter.com/gxQPjZlP20

— Rory Steel (@JerseyITGuy) January 18, 2020

After getting more parts from a hardware shop, Steel added 16 buttons that go around the outside of the base, each with a different function.

That’s enough for tonight. Some serious soldering and wire management tomorrow morning for some game testing in the afternoon. My daughter is desperate to try but we’ve kept it a secret from her brother who’s been itching to play #ZeldaBreathoftheWild. @Nintendo @Microsoft pic.twitter.com/bgIC9h9aH3

— Rory Steel (@JerseyITGuy) January 18, 2020

After some “serious soldering and wire management,” Steel moved onto testing and then filmed his daughter’s reaction as she finally got to play Breath of the Wild.

Finished! Ava gives my homemade #accessibility controller V1.0 the thumbs up. She can play @Nintendo #BreathoftheWild on her #switch like her friends now. All thanks to @Microsoft #adaptiveController #XAC @brycej @ArranDyslexia @shanselman pic.twitter.com/dOhGnUFZa0

— Rory Steel (@JerseyITGuy) January 19, 2020

Steel’s weekend project has been noticed by head of Xbox Phil Spencer, who tweeted in response, “Incredible. And what a smile.”

He’s since been approached by Microsoft and Logitech, who want to help him build a higher-tech version 2.0 of his custom controller that could be used by other people with mobility impairments.

Steel told Channel 103 that he’s going to take the companies up on their offers, but adds “the project was always supposed to be something that anyone across the world could use. What I still want to do is a low-tech version, so people at home can have a go.”

We named the Xbox Adaptive Controller the most innovative piece of tech in 2018. Microsoft even went so far as to ensure the packaging it comes in is accessible for people with limited mobility.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Falcon Northwest, one of the most enduring names in custom-built gaming PCs, is celebrating. 2019 marked the 20th anniversary of its Talon mid-tower desktop, and the company released a new take on the design to make sure everyone knows it’s still looking good even after all these years. The 2019 Talon, which launched last November, is a pristine and powerful reminder that custom pre-built desktops can look sharp and deliver sharp performance.

Of course, that may be because the build I tested had more power than even the most intense gamer really needs, including AMD’s Ryzen 3950X processor and a pair of Nvidia GTX 2080 Super GPUs. Even configured with something more reasonable, though, the system’s design and build quality are undeniable across the board. For a novice PC builder like me, the 2019 Talon is a reminder that, with the high price tag, elite custom systems deliver a level of hardware polish most of us can only dream of.

Before I start, I want to give you a short outline of the specific system I tested.

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-core (3.49GHz)
• Graphics: 2 Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super Founder’s Edition GPUs connected with an Nvidia GeForce 3-slot NV Link bridge
• Memory: 32GB Gskill 3200 MHZ RGB DDR4
• OS: Windows 10 Pro
• Storage: 2 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 Drives
• Rear Ports (Motherboard): 7 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 4 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, 1 x 1Gb Ethernet, 1 x 2.5Gb Ethernet, 1 x Optical, five 3.5mm audio ports
• Top Ports (Case): 2 x USB-A 3.0, 1 x USB-C 3.1, audio out.
• Connectivity: 802.11ax (via Motherboard), Bluetooth
• Dimensions: 8.75” x 15.5” x 17.25”
• Price: $5,228 (Before shipping)

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Design & Features

The Talon is, by definition, an ATX mid-tower design. At 8.75” wide x 15.5” deep x 17.25” high, it skews slightly to the smaller side of the spectrum, but still requires a decent amount of space. Its size will catch you by surprise during set-up, though, as it’s surprisingly heavy.

To be the big differentiating factor for the Talon is the design of the mid tower PC case. The clean front panel is angled on either side to avoid too much boxiness. The black aluminum on the top and front – also the sides if you prefer metal panels to glass – looks clean and should match well with most desk setups and gear.

Speaking of the top panel, the Talon has four ports on top: Two USB 3.0, a USB-C 3.1 port, and the usual 3.5mm audio out. It’s all pretty standard, except for a small eccentricity: One of the USB ports was extremely tight, to the point where some cables and dongles could feel stuck, and required a lot of force to remove. As someone who’s constantly swapping things out of those ports, it was a little unnerving.

The more interesting (and practical) design magic happens when you start looking to the inside. The side panels, which you can swap between aluminum and tinted glass, open fully on both sides to provide full access to the interior. The doors are held shut magnetically, so it’s quick and easy to open a panel and get inside.

If you opt for glass, you’ll be treated to a fanciful, but understated light show. In this system, the Talon had nearly the maximum amount of RGB flash possible: Three RGB fans, Two RGB DDR4 DIMMs, plus the falcon logo on the cooling system. In a PC Gaming space where everything lights up, the lighting has a chill, subdued vibe rather than a red alert battlestation assault on the senses, especially when looking at it through tinted glass. As someone who both likes RGBs and thinks they can get a little gaudy, this struck a fine balance for me.

Once you open it up, you can see that it’s a bit of a full house in there. All the components – two GPUs, motherboard, two Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 drives, plus fans and cooling – are all neatly laid out in a very precise manner. The memory mirrors the logo on the Asus Crosshair VIII motherboard to create an aesthetically pleasing symmetry. That said, the space looks smaller than it is because of the PSU shroud, which also helps hide a lot of the cables and keeps a tight focus on the most interesting parts of the system.

No matter what configuration you choose, the Talon is built around its Asetek 680LS liquid cooling system, which, as I mentioned, sits front and center over the CPU. Asetek, a company that helps OEMs design their liquid coolers, doesn’t sell its parts directly to consumers, so while it is an off-the-shelf part, it isn’t something you or I would have access to when building at home. In general, the cooling works phenomenally well, keeping the heat down in almost every circumstance.

Let’s talk about configurability, post-build. While removing and replacing the cooler is easy enough, there isn’t much need to think about swapping out the motherboard or CPU, as doing so is tantamount to building a new PC in the same case. That said, the easy access afforded by the magnetic doors makes it incredibly easy to replace anything else – particularly the RAM or graphics card. If you’re building a more modest system – putting in 3.5” SSDs instead of M.2 drives, adding cards to PCIe slots, etc. – it should be relatively simple to get in and out without much hassle. Of course, if you start messing with Falcon’s cable management, there’s no guarantee that your system will ever look as good again. Just sayin’. (Clearly I’m telling on myself, here.)

When looking at pre-builts, no matter what’s inside – but especially with high-end systems – there’s always the nagging wonder if you could build it yourself for cheaper.  Even if you have the building skills to replicate what Falcon does here, the answer is not as clear as one might think. A cursory inventory of the off-the-shelf parts, not including a case or cooler, since those parts are bespoke, came out to $3,912. Assuming you buy similarly high-end parts, and you’re probably looking at a roughly $4,500 machine. So do custom parts, a three-year warranty, and high-quality labor make up the difference? If you’re already reaching that high a spend, I think it does.

Software

Like other custom-builders, Falcon Northwest doesn’t weigh its PCs down with much in the way of bespoke software. Because this system featured an Asus ROG motherboard, it came with Aura Sync, Asus’ RGB config software, which allows you to customize the lighting in your system. FalconNW set up the software in advance so all of the components were synced on first boot, which is very convenient.

Less exciting is Asus’ audio mixing program, RealTek audio control. While it does provide some advanced mixing options, it can be finicky and make simple things like plugging in a pair of headphones needlessly complicated. This isn’t really the fault of the system, of course, but it’s something to think about when choosing a motherboard.

Gaming

This Talon 20th Anniversary Edition has some of the best components that money can buy. So how do they stack up against the competition? Here’s what we found.
Benchmarks

• Price (as tested): $5,228.00
• GPU: RTX 2080 Super Founder’s Edition x 2
• Unigine Heaven 4.0: 8,153
• Far Cry 5: 107
• Hitman (2016): 108
• Rise of the Tomb Raider: 152
• 3DMark Time Spy: 20,167
• 3DMark Fire Strike: 33,541
• PCMark 8: 5,355

Given the price, it makes sense that the Talon delivers strong numbers in every test we tried. As I mentioned, in this configuration, this should be about as powerful a PC as you can jam into a mid-tower. I’m not 100 percent sure it clears that bar, but I’ve been very happy with the result of every performance challenge I put it through.

Some might argue that a PC this powerful really isn’t necessary for gaming. That you may make better use of its full powers if you’re streaming or editing video. On paper, there is some truth to that, but with next-gen consoles coming and obscenely demanding games like Red Dead Redemption 2 already here, I say that today’s “overpowered” is going to seem more like “Ultra-capable” 12-18 months.

Beyond the benchmark tests, I played a variety of games of all shapes and sizes to get a sense of how this rig handles different types of gaming. These are just some of the games I played:

• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
• Control
• The Witcher 3
• XCOM 2
• Teamfight Tactics

In every case, I played these games with all the graphics sliders turned all the way up, and still found myself getting high frame rates at both 1080p and 1440p. Modern Warfare runs at a locked 60 frames per second in both campaign and multiplayer, even with Ray Tracing on. The powerhouse, Control, ran at a surprisingly stable frame rate between 85-90fps at Ultra settings in DirectX11, and oscillated between 30-40fps in DirectX12 at the “high” ray tracing setting. (It held a much more pleasant 60fps if you dropped the ray tracing effects down to “medium.”)

It ran my Esport game of choice, Teamfight Tactics, at a 120-125fps for multiple games, without breaking a sweat.

Though I don’t have a proper 4K display to fully push the system to its limits, I’m confident based on the testing that the Talon will be able to run pretty much any game in 4K that’s properly optimized. (Though who knows what will happen if you jack up all the sliders on Red Dead Redemption 2 at that resolution and ride into the sunset.)

The Talon runs fairly cool and quiet under most circumstances. Other than when booting up or launching a game, I rarely noticed more than a small hum from the fans. Though it runs within a normal range, temperature-wise, I did notice the system getting very hot to the touch when playing a resource-intensive game for long stretches. I could feel the heat radiating off the glass panel sides after playing for a few hours, but there was never an issue with the PC overheating to the point where it impacted performance

Purchasing Guide

The Falcon Northwest Talon 20th Anniversary Edition is available now through the Falcon Northwest website. As I mentioned, getting one with the same specs as the one I used for this review will run you back a hefty $5,228. However, since Falcon machines are custom-built, you can create many, many configurations to fit your budget, the absolute cheapest of which starts at $2,298 with an Intel 4-core i3-9100 4.2 GHz processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB graphics card.

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