Steam’s latest client beta update added more support for Sony’s new DualSense controller. You could use the DualSense with Steam before this update, but most of its features weren’t included when you synced the new controller up with your PC.
“Added additional support for the PS5 DualSense controller including LED, trackpad, rumble, and gyro functionality,” read the notes from the update. Support for the directional swipe feature was also included.
This is the Steam Client Beta, where Valve tests new additions to their platform, so it’s not available to Steam users who haven’t opted into the beta. We could see official support come to all users soon based off how quickly they’ve added support for the DualSense. Hopefully we’ll see support for the adaptive triggers soon as well.
You can connect a DualSense controller to your PC with either Bluetooth or the USB cable that comes packaged with the PS5. You’ll need to access the Beta Client by heading to the Steam Menu hitting “Settings,” then “Account” and then click “Change” under “Beta Participation.” You’ll then see the DualSense listed as a PS4 controller, which is the correct option. Valve will change that once they make a profile for the DualSense.
The DualSense is one of the best things about the next generations of consoles. It makes Demon’s Souls, a remake of a decade old game, feel like a next-gen experience. Read our full PS5 review for more information on the console and check out our PS5 order guide to learn how you can get one.
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According to Apple, you will be able to use Xbox Series X controllers on iPads, iPhones, Apple TVs, and Macs. Apple’s support page updated with a sentence, stating, “Microsoft and Apple are working together to bring compatibility for the Xbox Series X controller to customers in a future update.”
Apple currently supports Xbox Wireless controller, Xbox Elite Wireless Series 2 controller, Xbox Adaptive controller, and PlayStation DualShock 4 Wireless controller.
Getting Xbox Series X controllers to work on Apple devices will make it easier for Microsoft’s xCloud service–a feature that allows Xbox players to stream games to a screen of their choice–to gain greater traction. While xCloud only works on Android devices currently, Microsoft plans to extend the function to Apple devices in 2021. According to The Verge, Microsoft is working on getting xCloud on Apple products by creating a “direct browser-based solution.” xCloud is integrated with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Microsoft’s gaming subscription service, at no extra cost.
DualSense controller compatibility wasn’t mentioned on Apple’s support page, and it’s unknown when the device will be compatible with Apple products. However, according to Apple Insider, iOS 14.3 update included “behind-the-scenes support” for the DualSense controller. With that info and considering Apple’s past support for PlayStation’s DualShock 4 Wireless controller, we can reasonably expect DualSense controllers to work with Apple products at some point too.
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Tony Hawk games have been absent for several years now, following diminishing returns and some missteps. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 reminds players what they loved about the skateboarding series in the first place, thanks to a few enhancements that help the originals shine. It has remastered graphics and gameplay tweaks, but mostly it just feels like you remember from the early days of THPS.
With the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, AMD has been able to re-establish a footing in the conversation around high-end graphics processing. All that talk about RDNA 2 GPUs put the company in the spotlight, and its efforts amounted to some powerful next-generation gaming consoles. Both the Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 video cards bring the power of the RDNA 2 architecture to PC gaming and, based on our results, they make really strong cases for PC enthusiasts to consider AMD–which is something that we haven’t earnestly said in quite a long time.
It’s tricky, though. Nvidia has been breaking ground since 2018 with its RTX GPUs that integrate hardware-based solutions for ray tracing and AI-driven graphics tech. Over two years, we’ve seen developers gradually adopt real-time ray tracing in games for photorealistic lighting, shadows, global illumination, and reflections. The cut in performance while using these features can be significant but ray tracing has made strides since its introduction into mainstream gaming. The growing support for DLSS (deep learning supersampling) makes 4K image quality and ray tracing feasible while keeping frame rates high, too. In regards to innovation, Nvidia remained untouched. While AMD put out some solid mid-range cards with the RX 5000-series in that time, it wasn’t able to challenge Nvidia at the high-end.
The RX 6800 (top left) and RX 6800 XT (bottom right).
That changes with the launch of the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800. When it comes to raw performance metrics, AMD’s new cards are right up there with Nvidia’s best, trading blows depending on the game and graphics settings–finally, some good competition. When considering the RX 6800 XT’s suggested retail price of $650 USD (compared to the RTX 3080‘s price of $700), AMD really gives Nvidia a run for its money. And in many cases, the slightly cheaper Radeon RX 6800, which goes for $580 USD, comfortably positions itself between the Nvidia’s RTX 3080 and RTX 3070, even encroaching on Nvidia’s top-of-the-line card in rare instances. It’s an impressive showing and it’s exciting to see AMD make a comeback, but it also presents PC gamers with the tough question of how to spend that hard-earned video card money. Our benchmark tests should at least help with that.
When it comes to the RDNA 2 architecture, the advancement in performance boils down to efficiency. At least with the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, the focus is on operating frequency to get more out of the GPU on a per-watt basis–basically, high clock speeds while having more efficient compute units are the key to how AMD’s new cards achieve high performance. This approach also allows GPUs in the RDNA 2 family to scale easily (not unlike what you see between the Xbox Series X and the less-powerful Xbox Series S).
Another major advancement in the new Radeon video cards is the AMD Infinity Cache–it’s a bit tough to explain, but it’s basically how RDNA 2 GPUs achieve high performance memory bandwidth efficiently and as a way to complement traditional GDDR6 video memory. As AMD puts it, the Infinity Cache “allows fast data access and acts as a massive bandwidth amplifier.” What you need to know is that this results in performance that previous AMD cards couldn’t achieve.
AMD’s solution to real-time ray tracing also differs a bit from Nvidia’s. On AMD’s RDNA 2 cards, each of its compute units are paired with ray accelerators, which pick up the workload for DirectX ray tracing (DXR) tasks. Nvidia’s RTX cards, meanwhile, have dedicated RT Cores that solely focus on taking care of ray tracing tasks–it’s a somewhat different means (and label) to the same end.
What AMD doesn’t have is hardware-based AI processing like the Tensor core found in Nvidia’s RTX cards. These cores are responsible for DLSS, a feature that creates native resolution image quality while using a lower base resolution to keep frame rates high and games looking sharp. It’s a perk that only Nvidia offers and it’s a boon at 4K. Although support for it is growing, only a handful of games can use DLSS. There isn’t an AMD parallel right now, but it does have something in development that could be a similar solution. We simply don’t know it’ll pan out just yet.
There are AMD-only perks to consider, though. The most notable one is Smart Access Memory (SAM). If you pair an AMD Ryzen 5000-series CPU with a Radeon RX 6000-series GPU on a X570 or B550 motherboard with PCI-e 4.0, you can enable this feature. It’s essentially a whole AMD ecosystem that fully utilizes the GPU memory and reduces system bottlenecks. Unfortunately, we’re not equipped to test SAM ourselves, but AMD claims around an average of 6% increases in performance across different games. This is important for new system builders and current owners of Ryzen 5000-series CPUs–it’s free frames-per-second. Though results will vary, this is value added for using AMD’s ecosystem and an interesting perk to consider.
As for the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 designs, both come with one HDMI 2.1 port, two DisplayPort 1.4 outputs, and one USB-C port. The 6800 XT is, of course, the beefier GPU of the two–it has more computer units, higher clock speeds, is physically bigger as a 2.5-slot card, and is rated for a 300-watt TDP. The RX 6800 is essentially a scaled-down version in all respects (although they both require two 8-pin power connectors). You can see the basic specs in the table below.
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
AMD Radeon RX 6800
Compute Units
72 CUs
60 CUs
Stream Processors
4608
3840
“Game” Clock Speed
2015 MHz
1815 MHz
Boost Clock Speed
2250 MHz
2105 MHz
VRAM (GDDR6)
16GB (+128MB Infinity Cache)
16GB (+128MB Infinity Cache)
TFLOPs
18.6 TFLOPs
13.9 TFLOPs
TDP
300 W
250 W
Size
10.5 inches, 2.5-slot
10.5 inches, 2-slot
Price (MSRP)
$650 USD
$580 USD
Methodology And Test Bench
For the purposes of this review, we used the same test bench as we’ve been using for the Nvidia RTX 30-series reviews. Although we’ve had access to limited resources given our working conditions, our setup represents a fairly high-end build that gives these video cards the opportunity to flex their stuff and using the same setup also keeps things consistent across our performance metrics.
MSI Mag Z490 Tomahawk motherboard
Intel Core i7-10700 (non-K) 8-core/16-thread CPU clocked at 4.7GHz
We included two video cards from each manufacturer in our tests to compare and contrast their differences in performance: AMD’s RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, and Nvidia’s RTX 3080 and RTX 3070. For drivers, we used the beta version of Radeon Adrenalin 20.45.01.12 for AMD and Game Ready 457.30 for Nvidia.
The RX 6800 XT running in our test bench.
With AMD in the mix, we had to change up our benchmarking a little bit. Our previous tests also included the Nvidia-exclusive DLSS, which we can’t use for comparative purposes (and we explain the impact in the following results). But to paint a clear picture of where AMD stands in regards to DirectX ray tracing, we used two major games: Metro Exodus and Control. We also used seven games with in-game benchmark tools to get basic performance metrics: Godfall, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Red Dead Redemption 2, Dirt 5, Final Fantasy XIV, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Forza Horizon 4–contemporary games that represent the range of performance demands of PC games today. Our results focused on the average frames-per-second output, and since we’re working with high-end video cards here, we used 4K and 1440p resolutions and maximum in-game graphics quality settings.
Benchmark Results
Everybody Loves Ray Tracing
To measure DXR performance for the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, we used both Metro Exodus and Control with and without ray tracing enabled. These are two very demanding games, especially with the suite of ray tracing features cranked to the max. (Remember that you can always turn graphics settings down for better performance in real gameplay scenarios.)
Metro Exodus
When you max out every graphics setting, Metro Exodus really pushes video cards to their limit. With ray tracing set to “Ultra” and overall quality settings on “Extreme” (which isn’t entirely realistic for gameplay purposes), top-end video cards will still struggle at 4K, but benchmarks do show off their capabilities.
Generally, what you see is that Nvidia’s RTX cards hold a steady lead over AMD when it comes to ray tracing. While AMD’s new cards are certainly capable of putting out decent performance with ray tracing enabled, they struggle to keep pace as they aren’t as well-equipped to do it. It’s evident in the performance numbers when you disable ray tracing–here, AMD closes the gap, big time.
Without ray tracing, the RX 6800 XT is just behind the RTX 3080 by a slight margin, while the RX 6800 overtakes the RTX 3070–and these differences scale accordingly between 4K and 1440p. When you consider the price differences between all these cards, where they land in performance tiers makes sense.
Control
Control is another game that can push video cards to their limits with a full suite of ray tracing features. With every graphics option set to maximum (except MSAA) and all ray tracing options enabled, even the best hardware might not be enough. However, benchmarking the game does produce interesting results.
Like Metro Exodus, you see the Nvidia RTX cards pull ahead in Control with ray tracing features enabled. The RX 6800 XT lags behind the RTX 3080 by a significant margin in both 4K and 1440p, and the RX 6800 trails the RTX 3070 as well but to a lesser extent. Again, Nvidia is better equipped for ray tracing it would seem–but like in Metro Exodus, the gap closes when ray tracing is turned off.
With all quality settings still at their maximum but with ray tracing disabled, the AMD pulls up–the RX 6800 XT is basically neck-and-neck with the RTX 3080, and the RX 6800 overtakes the RTX 3070. This generally aligns with price-performance tiers of each card.
The Thing About Nvidia: DLSS
There is one major caveat to the cases of Metro Exodus and Control, however. Both games feature DLSS, and as previously mentioned, it’s a specific advantage for Nvidia RTX video cards. DLSS is sort of the great equalizer when paired with ray tracing, helping boost frame rate to offset the demands of ray tracing while producing native resolution image quality. Based on our tests, DLSS boosts frame rate by roughly between 45% to 54% at 4K–needless to say that these are huge gains.
Games with Nvidia-supported ray tracing will often include DLSS, so if you have an RTX card, it’s often the case that you could use them simultaneously–recent examples being Watch Dogs: Legion and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, not to mention the highly-anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 as well. So while the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 are able to go toe-to-toe with their competition when DLSS and ray tracing are both out of the picture, Nvidia simply has this advanced (and advantageous) tech on lock for now.
Raw Performance
Support has been growing for ray tracing, but the majority of current games have yet to adopt it, as is the case with the following games used as benchmark tests. In these cases, the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 assert themselves as powerful cards, sometimes overtaking their Nvidia equivalents.
Godfall
Regardless of where you stand on the overall quality of Godfall, there’s no denying that it’s visually impressive–one of the truly new-gen games from a graphical standpoint. It’s a console exclusive to the PS5 and its PC version makes for a good benchmark for a new era of video cards.
This is a game that’s optimized for Radeon cards, and you can see in our results that the Radeon 6800 XT pulls ahead of the RTX 3080 at 4K by a slight margin, but significantly widens the performance gap at 1440p. The same can be said about the RX 6800 when compared to the RTX 3070. But there’s something to note here with the RX 6800–its performance at 4K is positioned as you would expect, but at 1440p, it starts to shine and comes really close to the RTX 3080.
Editor’s Note: Godfall received a patch on November 18, 2020 that added DXR ray tracing options. Our testing took place before the patch was released.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
As the first entry in the Ubisoft franchise for next-gen hardware, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla can be a really impressive visual showcase. Using the PC benchmark and everything set to “Ultra High,” you see results favor AMD cards even more so than in Godfall.
At 4K, the RX 6800 XT comes out on top and hits an average of 60fps while the RTX 3080 trails behind with 55fps. Even the RX 6800 comes close to Nvidia’s high-end card and stays well-ahead of the RTX 3070 at this resolution. At 1440p, AMD sails right past Nvidia in a big way–the RX 6800 XT has a 22.4% increase over the RTX 3080, and even the RX 6800 outclasses Nvidia’s best by 7.9%. AMD is unmatched at 1440p here.
Red Dead Redemption 2
We reconfigured our Read Dead Redemption 2 benchmark from previous tests, now using the maximum preset graphics settings in the menu (which still leaves out some features, but it’s fine because the game still looks stunning).
In simple terms, our results show each card falling in line with their expected price-performance tier. At 4K, the RTX 3080 comes out on top quite easily (surpassing a 60fps average) with the RX 6800 XT trailing by a noticeable margin and the RX 6800 barely holding a lead over the RTX 3070. However, AMD has a stronger showing at 1440p again–the RX 6800 XT performs almost on par with the RTX 3080, and the RX 6800 increases its lead on the RTX 3070.
Dirt 5
Dirt 5 is another game that’s part of the next-gen console push, and in the PC version, you see it can be quite graphically demanding. With every option set to “Ultra High” using native resolutions, the benchmark results heavily favor AMD, which makes sense as it’s an AMD optimized game.
It doesn’t need much explaining but the RX 6800 XT earns a significant 23.2% lead over the RTX 3080, and even the RX 6800 maintains a small 3.8% lead over Nvidia’s top-end card. At 1440p, the gap in AMD’s leads widened with both new cards leaving the RTX cards in the dust–the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 have 40% and 14% gains over the RTX 3080, respectively. Not bad for cheaper video cards.
The Shadowbringers benchmark brings things back down to earth as each video card sort of falls within their price-performance tier. At 4K, the RTX 3080 maintains a noticeable lead with the RX 6800 XT following suit. The RX 6800 also only has a very minor lead on the cheaper RTX 3070. The results scale accordingly going to 1440p, but at that point, the game becomes much more CPU-bound.
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Zero Dawn can be a great looking game (aside from its handful of bugs on PC) and its benchmark is a good test for straight performance.
At 4K, the results again show each card lining up the way you’d expect, and both the RX 6800 XT and RTX 3080 are able to break a 60fps average. But the results at 1440p are much more interesting–the RX 6800 XT pulls ahead of the RTX 3080 by a decent margin, and the RX 6800 isn’t too far behind.
Forza Horizon 4
Forza Horizon 4 is still a tremendous-looking game, especially when you crank all of its graphics options to their maximum. The detailed benchmark tool is a nice test, and here, it’s results share similarities to what you see in Horizon Zero Dawn.
There’s nothing too surprising at 4K, with the RTX 3080 slightly ahead of the RX 6800 XT, but oddly the RX 6800 and RTX 3070 are identical. At 1440p, the tables turn again with the RX 6800 XT overtaking its Nvidia counterpart–however, at these frame rates, the differences may not be that noticeable.
Verdict
It’s been a while since we could seriously recommend an AMD video card for high-end PC gaming. The RX 5000 series and the RX 500 series offered solid mid-range options during their time, but AMD sort of conceded the high-end to Nvidia.
Nvidia is ahead of the game with ray tracing, which is as expected given they’ve had two generations to iterate on its RTX platform. It’s good to see AMD hold its own with DirectX ray tracing, but the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 are simply outclassed in this regard. Not to mention that Nvidia’s DLSS is one of the most impactful features we’ve seen in graphics tech in a long time–it’s what basically makes games playable at 4K with ray tracing enabled. More games are adopting these features as developers become more familiar with them, and hopefully AMD can provide their own equivalent in due time.
But for AMD’s comeback to high-end GPUs, it’s showing a lot of promise by making a strong statement in raw performance metrics. In many cases, the RX 6800 XT is suitable for full native 4K gaming, either just trailing slightly behind the RTX 3080 or exceeding it, depending on the game. And at 1440p, we see both AMD cards scale their performance better than the Nvidia cards do. That makes the RX 6800 an appealing card, too–although it’s more expensive than the RTX 3070, it can even stand up to the RTX 3080 in a handful of games.
Choosing a video card comes down to what you expect out of your gaming PC. If ray tracing is appealing to you, alongside the prospect of using DLSS (which should excite you if you have a 4K display), Nvidia has you covered with the RTX 3080 or RTX 3070 at $700 and $500 MSRP, respectively. But if you simply want high frame rates at 4K, or 1440p especially, with maxed out graphics settings, the RX 6800 XT looks really nice at $650 MSRP. The RX 6800 at $580 MSRP isn’t so bad either, but if you have room to spend a little extra, you’ll want to go with the XT version. Those with Ryzen 5000-series CPUs or are looking to build a Ryzen-based PC, keep in mind that AMD’s Smart Access Memory may offer some meaningful performance boosts.
Finally, there’s some good competition in the GPU space for high-end PC gaming. And it’s not just about AMD keeping Nvidia honest, there’s a real choice to ponder if you’re in a position to consider spending $500 or more on a video card, which sure is a lot of money these days. Either way, in this price range, you’ll be getting great performance for PC games.
More broadly, the Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, and the RDNA 2 architecture they’re built on, prove that AMD is actually back.
One Mass Effect fan has gone all in on the PS5. They’ve customized their newly purchased PS5 by painting it black with a red strip with the sci-fi adventure’s signature N7 logo. It looks quite nice.
“I received PS5 yesterday,” said Redditor Thirteenera on the gaming subreddit. “Instead of playing games like a normal person, I spent most of the day mask-taping and airbrushing it…I love the result though!”
A number of PS5 owners have customized their PS5s since the new console launched earlier this month. Some have made simple changes, like coating the entire console in a different color of paint, while others have gone more in-depth like this Mass Effect fan.
A company offering replacement PS5 plates had to canceled orders after being threatened with a lawsuit by Sony. The company, originally known as PlateStation5, also had to change its name to Customize My Plates after Sony claimed that it was infringing on their trademarks.
A remaster of the Mass Effect trilogy was also announced earlier this month. It’ll feature all three games, all additional content like DLC, and improved visuals when it launches for PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2021. It will also be playable on the PS5 and Xbox Series X–which is perfect as this custom Mass Effect console is the perfect machine to play it on.
Read our full PS5 review for more information on the console and check out our PS5 order guide to learn how you can get one.
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Sony’s PlayStation 5 is an impressive console–one that brings with it not only a new generation of games to play on your TV screen, but also a new way to experience them. Games such as Astro’s Playroom, Demon’s Souls, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales all use the DualSense controller to deliver more immersive haptic feedback.
One feature that the DualSense doesn’t have though, is perfectly aligned branding. While it’s not a game-breaking flaw, the Sony branding under the USB-C port on the controller isn’t perfectly centered. Far Cry 6 game design director Ted Timmins discovered that on his controller, the Sony logo was slightly out of place and had a minor angle to its orientation.
This PS5 controller has the SONY branding ~1mm off-centre to the left, and at a ~1 degree slant and it bothers me way more than it should. I’m also available for dinner parties and can provide further great conversation like this. pic.twitter.com/0fQV1LocGu
On other controllers the placement, is notably worse, like on mine for instance:
Literally unplayable.
Will this graphic design blunder make a difference to your PS5 gaming experience? It’s highly unlikely, and the issue will probably be rectified when new controllers are produced and arrive in new color formats.
In his PS5 review, critic Mat Paget wrote that using the DualSense is a “pleasant experience” and that it “creates tactile experiences that enhance games in a surprisingly meaningful way.”
If you’re looking to see where you can find a PS5 for yourself, check out our PS5 order guide to see when it will be back in stock.
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Robert Patrick has joined The Walking Dead’s extended 10th season, which is now scheduled to return in February 2021.
AMC has announced that the first of the six new episodes will premiere on Sunday, February 28, with each new episode debuting earlier on the AMC+ streaming service. Subscribers of that service will gain access to the new episodes every Thursday before their linear premiere on Sunday nights, which means that the first of the six new episodes will be available to stream via AMC+ on Thursday, February 25.
The horde of new guest stars that will be featured in the extended season 10 episodes include Terminator 2: Judgment Day star Robert Patrick as Mays and Cobra Kai alum Okea Eme-Akwari as a new character called Elijah. Together, they are joining previously announced new cast member Hilarie Burton Morgan, who is going to be starring as Negan’s late wife, Lucille.
AMC also released the individual titles and plot synopses for all six episodes, which follow directly below:
EPISODE 1017 – “Home Sweet Home”
Director: David Boyd | Writers: Kevin Deiboldt & Corey Reed
Maggie (Lauren Cohan) has returned with a story she is not ready to share, even when her past catches up to her. Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan,) safety is at stake again. Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Maggie fight an unseen and unknown threat.
EPISODE 1018 – “Find Me”
Director: David Boyd | Writer: Nicole Mirante-Matthews
An adventure for Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride) turns sideways when they come across an old cabin. It takes Daryl back to the years when he left the group after Rick disappeared as he relives a time that only the apocalypse could manifest.
EPISODE 1019 – “One More”
Director: Laura Belsey | Writers: Erik Mountain & Jim Barnes
Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Aaron (Ross Marquand) search for food and supplies to bring back to Alexandria. Small tragedies lead to bigger tragedies as faith is broken and optimism is fragmented when they are put to the ultimate test.
EPISODE 1020 – “Splinter”
Director: Laura Belsey | Writers: Julia Ruchman & Vivian Tse
Eugene (Josh McDermitt), Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), and Princess (Paola Lázaro) are captured and separated. Princess struggles with memories of her traumatic past and tries to escape one way or another with the help of Ezekiel.
EPISODE 1021 – “Diverged”
Director: David Boyd | Writer: Heather Bellson
Daryl and Carol come to a fork in the road and head their separate ways. Each going into their own type of survival mode, the easiest of challenges become much harder. Will their individual journeys be the tipping point needed to mend their friendship or is the distance between them permanent?
EPISODE 1022 – “Here’s Negan”
Director: Laura Belsey | Writer: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick
Carol takes Negan on a journey, hoping to minimize the increasing tension. Negan reflects on the events that led him to this point and comes to a conclusion about his future.
These final six episodes will follow up on the events of The Walking Dead Season 10, Episode 16, “A Certain Doom,” which was originally intended to be the season finale. In our review, we credited the episode for having “solid thrills and appropriately tense moments,” though we felt that it “faltered when it came to larger, memorable story beats,” which made some scenes feel “underwhelming.”
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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.
Nintendo Switch games tend to have somewhat underwhelming discounts compared to PlayStation and Xbox games, but that’s not the case for Black Friday 2020. Some of the best Black Friday game deals we’re seeing this year are for the Switch, and that includes one of the best games of 2019: Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The turn-based tactics game will be on sale for just $27 in GameStop’s Black Friday sale, which kicks off next Wednesday, November 25, at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET. This is the cheapest we can recall seeing Three Houses since it launched, so if you’re looking for a new Switch game to pick up before the holidays, this is a great deal to take advantage of.
Three Houses is arguably the best entry we’ve seen in the Fire Emblem series since Awakening, earning a 9/10 in GameSpot’s Fire Emblem: Three Houses review. In Three Houses, you take the role of a professor (whom you can play as male or female) in charge of a group of students at a military academy called Garreg Mach Monastery. Once you’ve chosen which house you want to align with–there are three, of course–you’ll give combat lessons to your students, form relationships with them, and lead them into battle. In addition to the series’ traditional turn-based grid battle system, Three Houses lets you openly explore the monastery, and there are numerous activities to do in your free time, from cooking with your students to fishing and even relaxing in the sauna.
Black Friday is quickly approaching, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait for sales. Right now Amazon is throwing a “Buy 3 For The Price Of 2” sale, which includes tons of great video games, including games for Nintendo Switch and the brand-new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
While the game boxes may read “PS4” or “Xbox One,” quite a few of these games qualify for free next-gen upgrades, meaning you’ll get the best version while saving some serious cash.
Some of the most notable games included in this deal are:
Joe, Dale and Jesse are back and have a variety of opinions of The Mandalorian so far, leading us down a rabbit hole of obscure Star Wars lore like Darth Vader’s boots being too small. We’re also joined by a special guest, IGN’s UK Social Commercial Editor, Robert to regale us in all of his PS5 launch day adventures, and the team share some more next-gen thoughts as well.
We have another (not as exciting) edition of The Endless Search and respond to some of your lovely feedback. Remember, if you want to get in touch with the podcast, please do: [email protected].
