Pollock’s hat-trick powers England’s 11-try Nations Championship maul…

The idea of taking serious hardware horsepower on the go was always the dream of my misspent, console-gaming youth. Don't get me wrong, I've always loved how older handheld systems made a calling card out of their limitations (and in the case of Nintendo, offered a hardware gimmick or gaming experience you couldn't find anywhere else). The fact that now you can play many of the same games on a portable device that you can also play in your gamer den would've blown my younger self's mind.

Unfortunately, the dream-come-true of handheld gaming PCs feels like it is coming to an end.

Our Andy updates our handheld gaming PC deals each week and recently shared a shocking revelation: 'Somehow, the $1,000 Asus ROG Ally Xbox X is the best value gaming handheld I can think of right now.' If you've got the cash then, sure, the Asus ROG Ally Xbox X with its AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip, 24 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of onboard SSD storage makes sense for the asking price. But where does that leave you if you're on a much tighter budget?

The memory supply crisis has raised the pricing floor of all handhelds. Case in point, the device that we still rate as the best budget handheld gaming PC is the Steam Deck. The more affordable LCD models were quietly discontinued last year, leaving those looking to buy a Steam Deck new with only the very shiny OLED models to choose from. Years after release, the price for the base 512 GB OLED model has increased from $549 to $789. The 1 TB model has seen an almost 50% price increase, jumping from $649 to $949. The answer, then, to where that leaves the more budget-conscious? Without a paddle.

Despite this price hike (and the handheld's aged internals), both models of the Steam Deck sold out in North America shortly after the increase was announced back in May. The 1 TB model, which is going for £779 where I'm based in the UK, appears to be out of stock again at the time of writing. But I doubt this is a sustainable trend.

Let's zoom out a smidge. I update our best SSD deals every week, so I've not had the luxury of ignoring how storage prices have been climbing since the tail end of last year. Research suggests that memory prices are likely to rise as much as 50% in Q3 alone. Recent analysis by Bernstein suggests prices won't dip until 2028, when major manufacturers are expected to complete a number of capacity-increasing builds.

But here and now in 2026, it's not just gaming PC components that have seen price increases as a result of the memory supply crisis. For example, the Playstation 5 has seen three different price increases over the last six years and now costs a minimum of $650. I've written about it before but, despite buying a launch day PS5, it's becoming increasingly unlikely I'll pick up a PS6 day one. After all, if the PS5 Pro costs $900 today, how much more will the PS6 cost?

Hey, maybe Bernstein's predictions will bear out and hardware pricing will look a lot more sensible by the time Sony's next-gen console drops in 2028 or even 2029. But in the here and now, handheld gaming PCs remain in an arguably much more difficult position within the consumer market.

For those who don't already have a gaming PC, there's little doubt that a $650 base PS5 is going to look like the more economical option (particularly as Sony won't be bringing its handful of exclusives to PC in future, but maybe it's just me mourning the loss of, like, four games). If you already own a gaming PC, you'll likely want to save your pennies for increasingly expensive component upgrades. Where would a handheld feature in either budget?

The data suggests gamers generally are still willing to part with the cash for new hardware—though they aren't necessarily picking up a handheld gaming PC. A recent Circana report shared that the handheld of choice was overwhelmingly the Nintendo Switch 2, with the hybrid console largely credited for a year-over-year hardware spending increase that grew by 69%, climbing to $500 million this past March.

The Switch 2 saw its own price increase announced back in May, so it's worth pondering how much of this recent consumer clamour was motivated by a desire to scoop the console before it became more expensive. Even so, Nintendo's handheld is set to cost $500 from September 1 in the US.

There are plenty of PC gamers who have no interest in what the big N is doing these days, but a broad-view of today's gaming audience suggests a lot of gamers are more platform-agnostic. For instance, a 2023 Comscore report found 76% of gamers play across multiple platforms. Therefore, it's hard to ignore handheld gaming PC's most obvious competitor, even if the Switch 2 is underpowered compared to many of the available portable gaming options.

In short, the most performant handheld gaming PCs ask a price that's far too rich for my blood, and the best budget option is arguably not quite as compelling as Nintendo's offering (even after the price hike comes into effect later this year).

To paraphrase Andy's point, there's a chance gaming handhelds eventually revert to occupying a boutique niche for gamers with especially deep pockets. That's how they were in the before times prior to the Steam Deck's launch, with smaller Chinese outfits, such as OneXPlayer, releasing expensive, weak, poorly optimised devices. That's not really the future I want for handheld gaming PCs, but it's a strong possibility. However, given the state of, well, everything, I find myself taking a bleaker outlook.

In the longer term, it doesn't feel like handheld gaming PCs are the most economical proposition for brands or manufacturers either. For example, back in March Ayaneo suspended pre-orders for its uber-powerful Next 2 gaming handheld after costs approached 'twice the price we originally set'. To be clear, I strongly doubt Valve is going to pack it in with the Steam Deck any time soon. However, smaller companies with a much less diverse portfolio than, say, the company behind one of the largest storefronts for digital games, are likely to struggle.

What seems certain is that prices will continue to rise and meaningful chunks of the devices' audience will be priced out. My concern is that the maths may simply no longer math, and hardware companies will increasingly decide that handheld gaming PCs specifically just aren't worth it. For my wide-eyed younger self, I hope I'm wrong.

I've developed a bit of a reputation among my coworkers for loving niche, lo-fi indie games that make you feel bad and gross and weird on the inside. I'm flattered to stand out in such a way, but I also don't ever want to be typecast. Anyway, Brno Transit is a game about being trapped underground with your nasty, weirdly sexual boss and neurotic coworkers as reality disintegrates around you.

I loved developer Spytihněv's previous game, the Soviet boomer shooter Hrot, so I've been eagerly awaiting his next project. Much like fellow FPS designer David Szymanski (Dusk, Iron Lung), Spytihněv zigged rather than zagging, following up Hrot with a short narrative horror game rather than another shooter.

You're a novice train conductor learning the ropes under Brno, the second city of the Czech Republic. It's "the dampest subway east of anything that matters," according to Spytihněv, and I think it helps set the tone out of the gate to know that Brno does not have a subway system in real life.

What follows is a surreal, scatological (a Spytihněv signature), and homoerotic (that's new!) delve into guys being dudes on the job. For me, it called to mind Szymanski's Iron Lung (but more fleshy, sexual, and human) or 2024's breakout Mouthwashing (but not as character driven, and somehow even less life-affirming). The controversial Horses also sprang to mind, but with less explicitly harrowing subject matter⁠—and more explicit full-frontal nudity, let's go boys.

Even more than Mouthwashing, which portrays one of the most evil fictional workplaces I've ever seen, Brno Transit captured the feeling of starting a job where you matter so little as to want to die, while the apathy and neglect of your coworkers is somehow even worse than if they actively hated you.

This game runs on surprise, so I'll try to talk around the real zinger moments, but it's one long sequence of "Go here, do this. Why did you do that? Now you have to fix it. Embarrassing." If you've ever talked to a coworker at a shit job and felt like they were a space alien playing a prank on you with how they think and view the world, Brno Transit will speak to you on some level.

Your first day ends with you eating a tainted hot dog that gives you the runs and the voms, sending you scrambling for a bathroom as gurgles and whines fill your headphones. The doorless, exposed toilet in the employee area is indefinitely occupied when you reach it, while the bathroom in the station above is out of order. I don't know if there's another way of finishing this bit, but I had to take the train to another station to find an open commode. I haven't shared this exact stress dream or level of gastrointestinal distress, but it was still incredibly gnarly and relatable in the moment.

You black out and wake up on a dirty floor mattress in the conductors' area, with splotches of feces and a trail of brown footprints trailing backwards from your resting place. Out in the depot, an entire train is covered in crap, and the first order of the day is to hose it off, Powerwash Simulator-style. How could this have all been you?

Events only get stranger and grosser from there, and I was hooked. Brno Transit shares a brown, desolate, hopeless world with the preceding Hrot, despite being set closer to the modern day. It's a new standout of the mundane or on the job horror subgenre. I want these awful subway stations to get love like the Backrooms or Exit 8.

Model trains

Brno Transit is a medley of nastiness punctuated with surreal hilarity, and while much of the humor is front-and-center in the scripted story, one of my favorite moments was emergent: I had to do a double take out of the corner of my eye to notice a passenger randomly hanging off the end of a train as it left the station. The simulated little world of Brno Transit, which exists whether you're paying attention to it or not, is what really takes it to the next level.

Undergirding the scripted story stuff is a continuous simulation of a small subway system with two lines, one counter- and the other clockwise. It feels like zooming into someone's model train set, and does a superb job of evoking a much larger world than what's just in front of you.

A diverse array of NPCs mill about the stations or wander on and off the trains. They have this sense of anonymity and guarded hostility that really nailed the feeling of making eye contact with strangers on the subway⁠. You don't matter to them, don't bother them.

This effect, plus the the shifting and jostling of the train cars, the way the lighting changes as you pass through tunnels, as well as Spytihněv's excellent sound, music, and foley work add up to this uncanny feel of actually riding the subway. I was reminded of how no one's done nighttime better than Thief or Thief 2, even with their aged graphics. These three games are punching well above their weight in art and atmosphere.

You have to ride the train to start, but you quickly take control of your own engine, carefully adjusting your acceleration to avoid hitting stops too late or too early, doing your best to slot seamlessly into the pre-existing schedule of trains constantly running on this loop. It's a simplified approximation of a whole-hog train sim like Densha de Go!

A free ride mode unlocks after completing the story, and I feel like there's all kinds of weirdness left to discover under Brno. At one point in the story, I stumbled into a skull-filled catacomb attached to one of the stations, with unnerving music, a confusing, switchback layout, and a bumbling tourist snapping photos. I thought for sure this was part of the critical path, but it was just there. What other odd shit is waiting for me at all the stops I never explored on the critical path?

Brno Transit would have been an easy recommendation for me at $9 if it was just the standout surreal horror narrative adventure, but the fact that it's built on top of this little model train world truly sets it apart. I love this freaky little game, I love a Spytihněv joint, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

Looking back on the infamously buggy Assassin's Creed Unity after 12 years, Ubisoft veteran Jean Guesdon admits "this opus maybe pushed too many things at once."

As part of a new feature about Assassin's Creed in a new issue of Retro Gamer – on sale now, by the way – Guesdon offers a sense that ambition is largely behind the game's tricky release.

"Sadly, Unity's launch was a huge challenge because of several reasons," he says. "Like AC3 with AnvilNext, Unity's development was impacted by the incredible new tech allowing for 1:1 scale, interiors, massive crowds, a brand-new parkour system and an integrated multiplayer component. Pushing content and tech at the same time is always very demanding, and this opus maybe pushed too many things at once."

"[AC Unity] is one of the most underestimated games in the series," he says.

If you care for a history lesson, one of the big pitches behind Assassin's Creed Unity was the ability to play co-op with three of your friends online. Sounds neat, doesn't it? Four players sneaking around to assassinate targets and work together to achieve a common objective attracted the interest of many.

As you might have figured by now, though, Assassin's Creed Unity wasn't really able to handle it, among other things. Not long after launch, the interest was awash with clips of various graphical issues and bugs, leading to an apology from Ubisoft and a free expansion to make up for the bother.

Despite the bumps, Assassin's Creed Unity ultimately sold well, but Ubisoft certainly had to learn a lesson or two about matching ambition to what's deliverable.

"This is not how I imagined it would end": Ubisoft to lay off Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced devs at its Barcelona studio, with one calling the remake's release "bittersweet."