Hi, hello, and welcome to a new edition of the overkill digest newsletter.
I’ve been playing some Battlefield 6 these past few days, and man, I am inconsistent in that game. I have rounds where I down three times as many enemies as I am downed, and then I have rounds where I cannot connect any shots.
I've been enjoying BF6 quite a lot. I never truly liked the setting of Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V, and please, don't ask me about Battlefield 2042.
But 6 is much closer to the BF3 I loved and played with friends on Xbox (with a controller) years ago. Unfortunately, these people don't play the game anymore, so I am mostly playing on my own, which thankfully is pretty easy to do in BF6, unlike, say, Arc Raiders (which is the game my playing buddies are all waiting for).
There are now also rumors that the Battle Royale mode is dropping on Tuesday, and I'm particularly interested in that one. Though, unlike normal BF6 online games, this mode is apparently much more teamwork-based, so time to convince my friends to join up. Or find new friends (please apply here to become my gaming friend)!
Anyway, next Sunday I'll be away, so next week's newsletter might be shorter than usual. And now, let's get to this week's news:
🚀 Big Moves
The next Boox Palma supports 5G and has a colored screen. I've professed my love for the Boox Palma previously. And this new version sounds even more intriguing than the current model: Android 15, a faster chip, colored e-ink screen, pen support, and 5G connectivity (although it lacks the bands to make phone calls, but then again, WhatsApp calls are a thing that exist).
I am definitely planning to pick one up, add a sim card, and use this (for a while at least) as my daily driver and smartphone replacement. Thankfully, I don't get a lot of calls in the first place, so this should be doable.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is coming to… PS5. This is a remake of the first Halo title, all completely remade in Unreal Engine 5, and it's coming in 2026 to Xbox, PC, and yep, PlayStation 5.
The Verge went hands-on with an early version of the new game, and journalist Tom Warren left impressed by what he saw. It does look gorgeous, I gotta admit that.
🎮 Platform Updates
Oura redesigns app with expanded stress tracking. I'm currently not wearing my Oura anymore, because I'm a bit burned out on having to pay all different kinds of subscriptions. Cumulative stress tracking, however, does sound like a feature I might want to try out for a month or so.
Valve added a Release Calendar to Steam. This is a cool feature. The calendar uses recommendation to show games that you might like, which is probably the biggest differentiator to SteamDB's release calendar.
You can access your calendar using this link.
💻 Hardware & Software
How I transformed a mini-PC into a home-server. One of my recent weekend projects was transforming my AYANEO AM02 into a home-server running Ubuntu Server edition, and self-hosting a bunch of web-apps, like Immich, Pi-Hole, and more. It's a fun project that somehow made my interest for Linux flare up dramatically.
Maybe one of my next projects is trying to run Linux as my main operating system. And apparently now is a really good time to do so.
Microsoft's Sarah Bond confirms new Xbox hardware is coming. In an interview with Variety, Bond shared a few interesting tidbits.
- The steep price of the XBOX ROG Ally X is mostly because of ASUS. According to Bond, it was the Taiwanese manufacturer setting the price, since it's them making the hardware.
- There will definitely still be first-party hardware: “We have our next-gen hardware in development. We’ve been looking at prototyping, designing. We have a partnership we’ve announced with AMD around it, so that is coming. What we saw here was an opportunity to innovate in a new way and to bring gamers another choice, in addition to our next-gen hardware. We are always listening to what players and creators want. When there is demand for innovation, we’re going to build it.”
- Bond also gave an interview to Mashable, during which she basically said that exclusive games are outdated and players don't care about them anymore. Eeeeehhh, I'm not so sure about that.
I have a review unit of the XBOX ROG Ally X on its way to me. It should be here next week, and I have about 3 weeks to test it before it has to go back. So if you have any questions or anything you want me to check out, send questions my way so I'll add them to my testing.
Unfortunately, I don't have it long enough to test Bazzite on the device, since that apparently just makes the whole thing run better. If someone wants to gift me one to test that out, I'm not saying no!
On a related note: the reason Xbox is cancelling so many games and laying off so many people is, you guessed it, Microsoft: Microsoft pushes Xbox division to hit higher profit margins.
Retroid is teasing new hardware. Perhaps we'll be getting a Retroid Pocket 6 soon? Which would be a bit funny since I haven't set up my RP5 with the dual-screen add-on yet.
I'm currently playing with the AYN Thor, and to possibly spoil my review: it might be my new favorite handheld.
🎲 Playthings
My review of the Fuji X100 VI. I shared that I got a new camera previously, and now I finally published my review. I'd love for you to read the whole thing, but the gist basically is: this is the funnest camera I've ever owned.
Talking about cameras: Leica dropped the M EV1 this week, and Lomo made a promising-looking analog camera.
📌 Quick Hits
- iOS 26.1 beta 4 adds new setting to tone down Liquid Glass transparency. L O L! (I turned this on immediately.)
- ChatGPT launched their new browser, called Atlas. And I tested it for a few hours, and it's stupid. You need to really love using ChatGPT, because this browser really wants you to use ChatGPT. I couldn't even set DuckDuckGo as a search engine. I deleted it.
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🔮 Looking Ahead
- Obviously, Arc Raiders on October 30th.
- Death by Scrolling is a game I'm currently testing and made by Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island fame.
- The Outer Worlds 2 releases on October 29.
Ok, that's all. Thanks for reading!
See you,
Kevin