Valve has clarified that its quiet switch of SSDs in the Steam Deck will have "no impact to performance" following concerns that the hardware had been downgraded.

Polygon reported that Valve had changed the Steam Deck specs, with some 256GB and 512GB models coming with a different SSD than what was initially advertised. A switch from the PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe SSD to the PCIe Gen 3 x2 NVMe SSD appeared to be a downgrade, but Valve has refuted this to IGN.

"Many Steam Deck components come from multiple suppliers for improved redundancy and production capacity," a Valve spokesperson said. "One of our SSD suppliers provides PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe SSDs, while another provides a x2 (2 lane) SSD. Our team has tested both components extensively, and determined that there is no impact to performance between the two models.

"SSD performance is currently gated by factors not related to PCIe bandwidth. In extremely uncommon cases, differences in read / write speed caps may minimally impact file transfer speeds, but OS performance, loading times, game performance, and game responsiveness are identical between the x2 and x4 drives."

The new strategy to improve production capacity appears to be working as earlier this week Valve announced that it will double the number of Steam Decks it will ship. The company has otherwise had a slow but steady rollout period for its handheld PC, that started in February with Valve boss Gabe Newell hand delivering them in Seattle.

The highly anticipated dock accessory hasn't had the same fate, however, as earlier in June Valve delayed its launch date again. The docking station – which allows players to plug their Steam Deck into a TV or monitor and play it like a more traditional PC – was previously meant to be a launch day accessory but was delayed to late spring and has now been delayed again.

In our 7/10 review of the hardware, IGN said: "When Steam Deck lives up to its promises, it's sublime, but when it falls short, it falls hard."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Taco Bell has become known for introducing a wide variety of bizarre but intriquing menu options over the years, so it's not exactly shocking when a strange new item shows up. However, its newest item – The Big Cheez-it Tostada – certainly ranks among the most unusual of the company's experiments.

The Big Cheez-It Tostada, priced at $2.49, is pretty much exactly what it sounds like – a massive Cheez-It cracker layered with ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and sour cream. Taco Bell calls it an "abundantly cheesy and nostalgic, yet magically modern, dining experience."

The tostada can also be found in the middle of the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme for $4.29, which contains the usual ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, nacho cheese sauce, and sour cream alongside the huge cracker in the center.

Unfortunately for Cheez-It superfans eager to give these new items a try, they're currently spending the next two weeks in the testing phase at a single restaurant in Irvine, California. Taco Bell commonly tests fresh ideas like this at a small selection of stores to gauge whether they're fit for widespread release.

This isn't the first time Taco Bell has partnered with a snack company for menu items, though. In 2012, the company introduced the Doritos Locos Taco, which garnered plenty of positive reception and has remained a popular choice among fans ever since. 2014 saw the Beefy Frito Burrito join the menu, though it has since been discontinued – to the chagrin of many.

In more recent months, Taco Bell added back the fan-favorite Mexican Pizza after having removed it in 2020, thanks in part to a little help from musical artist Doja Cat.

Billy Givens is a freelance writer at IGN.

The next Dragon Ball Super movie will premiere globally in August and a new trailer shows off the return of a classic villain.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is the 21st feature film in the venerable Dragon Ball series. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is set after the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga and stars Gohan and Piccolo as they team up against an old foe: Cell.

Dragon Ball Super: SUPER HERO FINAL TRAILER! pic.twitter.com/WD1ifw9ztf

— Rénaldo サイヤ人  (@Renaldo_Saiyan) June 28, 2022

Or at least a new version of Cell called Cell Max. Given that evolving into powerful new forms is sort of Cell's whole deal, it’s not a surprise to learn that Cell has found another new form to transform into.

But Cell isn’t the only leveling up. Piccolo is seen in the trailer with a new form himself, appropriately named Orange Piccolo. And Gohan also gets a new form, Final Gohan who can be seen briefly in the trailer with whit hair and red eyes.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero will be released in the US on August 19, 2022. Directed by Tetsuro Kodama, Super Hero features a 3D animated style, but still has the direct involvement of creator Akira Toriyama who also wrote the screenplay.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Paramount+ has announced that its South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 2 film will arrive on the streaming service on July 13 in the U.S.

A brand new trailer for Part 2 was also shared on South Park's Twitter (below) that shows Randy going "full nuclear Karen" as chaos takes over the town.

According to the official plot synopsis, "a drought has brought the town of South Park to the brink of disaster," and there're sure to be plenty more rowdy and ridiculous moments in the Paramount+ exclusive.

In SOUTH PARK THE STREAMING WARS PART 2, a drought has brought the town of South Park to the brink of disaster. The sequel premieres exclusively on Paramount+ on July 13 in the US and Canada. pic.twitter.com/tEJhU0Hg5c

— South Park (@SouthPark) June 29, 2022

While the runtime wasn't revealed, the sequel will likely be a similar length to the first Streaming Wars, which clocked in at around 48 minutes.

Audiences outside the U.S. will likely to have to wait a little longer to watch the film, though it's unclear how long as Paramount+ only said it would be rolled out to international markets after, with no specific mention of timings.

The original was announced in May and premiered on Paramount+ on June 1, parodying the "streaming wars" that the new service had entered against Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, and so on.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

One of the biggest rumors heading into the week was potential information surrounding God of War: Ragnarok, possibly even a release date. But with June almost over and no mention of the next God of War game, Santa Monica Studio’s Cory Barlog is asking fans to keep the faith.

“If it were up to me I would share all the information hen I know about it. But it is not up to me,” Barlog tweeted. “So please, be patient.”

dear all,

if it were up to me I would share all the information when I know about it. but it is not up to me.

so please, be patient.

I promise things will be shared at the earliest possible moment they can be.

we make games for you. we get to make games because of you. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/aw7dje5XxF

— cory barlog (@corybarlog) June 29, 2022

Barlog also added that information “will be shared at the earliest possible moment they can be,” meaning any information, or lack of is for a reason.

For the past week, there have been rumors that there will be some kind of announcement for God of War Ragnarok on June 30 after reports from Bloomberg suggested Ragnarok is slated for a November 2022 launch.

But without any announcement, it looks like God of War Ragnarok could skip June altogether, though there are rumblings that any news could be surprise dropped tomorrow.

In other God of War news, Sony is reportedly developing a God of War series for Amazon, to go along with its other series productions like the Horizon series on Netflix and The Last of Us for HBO.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Sometimes you need to take a break and escape everyday life, and there's no better escape than placing a pin in the infinite interstellar map and taking a trip to outer space.

Space tourism has finally become a reality and although the ticket to ride is still at a premium for most, the cost of booking a galactic getaway is gradually falling as companies find new and innovative ways to make space travelling technology more efficient to reduce the prices for inquisitive citizen explorers.

So, whether it's something you could consider now or perhaps way off into the future, we have a rundown of everything you need to know before journeying beyond our planet. Click through our slideshow or scroll through the celestial catalogue below for all of the information you need about the services and packages currently on offer.

Modes of Transport

Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX are three companies that have been at the forefront of the race to space, having already made headlines for their various crewed spaceflights. However, more and more companies are now gearing up to offer suborbital jaunts to space… or at least to the very edge of it.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin shared news of its fourth successful space tourism mission in March 2022. That trip saw five paying customers board the company's New Shepard capsule to travel past the Kármán line – the internationally recognized boundary of space – before floating weightlessly for several minutes to take in the surrounding sights.

According to the Blue Origin website, there are reclining seats in the pressurized crew capsule, with room to take up to six people on a suborbital spaceflight. Each passenger gets their own window seat, and those windows take up over one-third of the capsule's surface area, giving every occupant a spectacular view of the Earth as they depart it.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson achieved his dream and reached the edge of space aboard the SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane in July 2021. Following the success of that mission, the company reopened ticket sales to the general public for its commercial spaceflights. Those flights are due to start departing sometime in 2023, per SpaceNews.

Branson's company promises a "first-of-its-kind flight" that begins with a smooth runaway take-off, much like a regular plane lifting off from one destination to travel to another. The Virgin Galactic spaceship, however, is attached to a mothership and will climb to approximately 50,000 ft before being released and propelled towards the stars.

SpaceX launched its first commercial orbital crew spaceflight in May 2020, successfully transporting NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. More than a year later, it was reported that Elon Musk had sent four private passengers into orbit for a three-day flight, marking the company's first mission to space with an all-civilian crew.

NASA is using the Boeing Starliner spacecraft and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for its tourism missions. The Dragon spacecraft can carry up to 7 passengers to Earth orbit and beyond. The official site for Elon Musk's SpaceX shows the practicality of the capsule, with a row of seats, control displays, and storage space filling the quarters.

Two alternative options come by way of World View and Space Perspective. Both companies have designed space tourism solutions that will allow curious travellers to explore new perspectives from the "edge of space," with their Balloon capsules reaching a peak altitude of 100,000 feet (almost 20 miles), above 99% of Earth's atmosphere.

World View's Explorer capsule is equipped with eight reclining seats, personal monitors, and large viewing ports for passengers to gaze upon the curvature of Earth and the darkness of space, while Space Perspective operates a state-of-the-art, customizable Space Lounge with chairs, tables, couches, and even a bathroom that has a skylight.

Experiences

Companies such as World View and Space Perspective might not be able to thrust their passengers into the far reaches of space like Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX, but they are offering a luxury experience to make their trips beyond the blue marble as memorable as possible for the passengers aboard their space balloons.

The seats in World View's hexagon-shaped pods are comparable to the level of luxury that a passenger would experience in business class on a standard commercial flight. According to Dezeen, each seat is accompanied by "a cocktail table, a screen providing educational materials and activities, a central console, personal storage and a beverage holder."

There's also a concierge service on board to ensure that all guests are catered to during their six-hour trip at altitude. Flyers will be offered "a gourmet meal as well as drinks" as part of their fare and will be able to "stream and use their mobile phones from the capsule," though the capsule's two-metre-high elliptical windows might make for better viewing.

Space Perspective's virtual tour of Spaceship Neptune reveals the luxury interior of its Space Lounge, complete with comfortable lounge chairs, mood lighting, and even plants and herbs that can be used in food and drink prep. The vessel also has its very own cocktail menu because, after all, it's five o'clock somewhere down on the Earth below.

The experience aboard Spaceship Neptune is fully customizable for those explorers looking to book a full capsule. "From the menu and cocktails onboard, to the soundtrack and lighting, your individual preferences can be incorporated into your journey to create your definitive ultimate adventure," the company's official website notes.

Prices

While space travel has opened up to the public, it's only possible for those who can afford it and prices vary from company to company. For example, a suborbital trip with Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic will typically cost between $250,000 to $500,000 while SpaceX is considerably more – a reported $55 million each for those that travelled to the Space Station.

Companies offering balloon rides over rocket launches can offer space tourism experiences at lower prices. A voyage with World View will cost $50,000 a ticket and they have "flexible financing" options available for curious space explorers. Meanwhile, Space Perspective is asking $125,000 per ticket with a $1,000 refundable deposit to reserve a seat.

Launch Dates

Booking a galactic getaway is just a few clicks away and most of the companies mentioned in this article are already up and running with their space tourism ventures. Reuters reports that Blue Origin completed its fifth crewed flight in June and the company currently remains open to bookings for flights in 2022 right the way through to 2025 and beyond.

Virgin Galactic opened its ticket sales back up in February and is still taking spaceflight reservations now. The company aims to have about three launches per month when operations start in 2023, according to SpaceNews. Likewise, SpaceX welcomes people to start planning their journeys now, though it's unclear when those flights will actually launch.

World View is taking bookings and deposits for its commercial spaceflights, which are scheduled to begin from the Grand Canyon and Great Barrier Reef in 2024, with more locations opening up in the future. And Space Perspective's first flights have sold out for 2024 but the company is still accepting reservations for its spaceflight experiences.

Before you start exploring space for yourself, you might want to learn a little more about it. After all, there are over 5,000 planets outside our solar system and there are a lot of weird and wonderful ones. There are also heaps of noteworthy stars to write home about, including one named after a Tolkien character and another that is the farthest star ever detected.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Thumbnail image credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman.

Sometimes you need to take a break and escape everyday life, and there's no better escape than placing a pin in the infinite interstellar map and taking a trip to outer space.

Space tourism has finally become a reality and although the ticket to ride is still at a premium for most, the cost of booking a galactic getaway is gradually falling as companies find new and innovative ways to make space travelling technology more efficient to reduce the prices for inquisitive citizen explorers.

So, whether it's something you could consider now or perhaps way off into the future, we have a rundown of everything you need to know before journeying beyond our planet. Click through our slideshow or scroll through the celestial catalogue below for all of the information you need about the services and packages currently on offer.

Modes of Transport

Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX are three companies that have been at the forefront of the race to space, having already made headlines for their various crewed spaceflights. However, more and more companies are now gearing up to offer suborbital jaunts to space… or at least to the very edge of it.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin shared news of its fourth successful space tourism mission in March 2022. That trip saw five paying customers board the company's New Shepard capsule to travel past the Kármán line – the internationally recognized boundary of space – before floating weightlessly for several minutes to take in the surrounding sights.

According to the Blue Origin website, there are reclining seats in the pressurized crew capsule, with room to take up to six people on a suborbital spaceflight. Each passenger gets their own window seat, and those windows take up over one-third of the capsule's surface area, giving every occupant a spectacular view of the Earth as they depart it.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson achieved his dream and reached the edge of space aboard the SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane in July 2021. Following the success of that mission, the company reopened ticket sales to the general public for its commercial spaceflights. Those flights are due to start departing sometime in 2023, per SpaceNews.

Branson's company promises a "first-of-its-kind flight" that begins with a smooth runaway take-off, much like a regular plane lifting off from one destination to travel to another. The Virgin Galactic spaceship, however, is attached to a mothership and will climb to approximately 50,000 ft before being released and propelled towards the stars.

SpaceX launched its first commercial orbital crew spaceflight in May 2020, successfully transporting NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. More than a year later, it was reported that Elon Musk had sent four private passengers into orbit for a three-day flight, marking the company's first mission to space with an all-civilian crew.

NASA is using the Boeing Starliner spacecraft and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for its tourism missions. The Dragon spacecraft can carry up to 7 passengers to Earth orbit and beyond. The official site for Elon Musk's SpaceX shows the practicality of the capsule, with a row of seats, control displays, and storage space filling the quarters.

Two alternative options come by way of World View and Space Perspective. Both companies have designed space tourism solutions that will allow curious travellers to explore new perspectives from the "edge of space," with their Balloon capsules reaching a peak altitude of 100,000 feet (almost 20 miles), above 99% of Earth's atmosphere.

World View's Explorer capsule is equipped with eight reclining seats, personal monitors, and large viewing ports for passengers to gaze upon the curvature of Earth and the darkness of space, while Space Perspective operates a state-of-the-art, customizable Space Lounge with chairs, tables, couches, and even a bathroom that has a skylight.

Experiences

Companies such as World View and Space Perspective might not be able to thrust their passengers into the far reaches of space like Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX, but they are offering a luxury experience to make their trips beyond the blue marble as memorable as possible for the passengers aboard their space balloons.

The seats in World View's hexagon-shaped pods are comparable to the level of luxury that a passenger would experience in business class on a standard commercial flight. According to Dezeen, each seat is accompanied by "a cocktail table, a screen providing educational materials and activities, a central console, personal storage and a beverage holder."

There's also a concierge service on board to ensure that all guests are catered to during their six-hour trip at altitude. Flyers will be offered "a gourmet meal as well as drinks" as part of their fare and will be able to "stream and use their mobile phones from the capsule," though the capsule's two-metre-high elliptical windows might make for better viewing.

Space Perspective's virtual tour of Spaceship Neptune reveals the luxury interior of its Space Lounge, complete with comfortable lounge chairs, mood lighting, and even plants and herbs that can be used in food and drink prep. The vessel also has its very own cocktail menu because, after all, it's five o'clock somewhere down on the Earth below.

The experience aboard Spaceship Neptune is fully customizable for those explorers looking to book a full capsule. "From the menu and cocktails onboard, to the soundtrack and lighting, your individual preferences can be incorporated into your journey to create your definitive ultimate adventure," the company's official website notes.

Prices

While space travel has opened up to the public, it's only possible for those who can afford it and prices vary from company to company. For example, a suborbital trip with Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic will typically cost between $250,000 to $500,000 while SpaceX is considerably more – a reported $55 million each for those that travelled to the Space Station.

Companies offering balloon rides over rocket launches can offer space tourism experiences at lower prices. A voyage with World View will cost $50,000 a ticket and they have "flexible financing" options available for curious space explorers. Meanwhile, Space Perspective is asking $125,000 per ticket with a $1,000 refundable deposit to reserve a seat.

Launch Dates

Booking a galactic getaway is just a few clicks away and most of the companies mentioned in this article are already up and running with their space tourism ventures. Reuters reports that Blue Origin completed its fifth crewed flight in June and the company currently remains open to bookings for flights in 2022 right the way through to 2025 and beyond.

Virgin Galactic opened its ticket sales back up in February and is still taking spaceflight reservations now. The company aims to have about three launches per month when operations start in 2023, according to SpaceNews. Likewise, SpaceX welcomes people to start planning their journeys now, though it's unclear when those flights will actually launch.

World View is taking bookings and deposits for its commercial spaceflights, which are scheduled to begin from the Grand Canyon and Great Barrier Reef in 2024, with more locations opening up in the future. And Space Perspective's first flights have sold out for 2024 but the company is still accepting reservations for its spaceflight experiences.

Before you start exploring space for yourself, you might want to learn a little more about it. After all, there are over 5,000 planets outside our solar system and there are a lot of weird and wonderful ones. There are also heaps of noteworthy stars to write home about, including one named after a Tolkien character and another that is the farthest star ever detected.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Thumbnail image credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman.

After yesterday’s Nintendo Direct Mini, Valve released Portal: Companion Collection, a bundle of Portal and Portal 2 for the Nintendo Switch. Within 24 hours, hackers have already found out that this bundle essentially contains a hidden game within its code, and it’s none other than Half-Life 2.

Yesterday, Twitter user @OatmealDome shared that they had found Half-Life 2 in its entirety (save for a few things like maps and music) within the game’s files.

[Portal 1]

The Source Engine debuts on the Switch!

- Likely based on the NVIDIA Shield port, with a little Xbox 360 sprinkled in
- The entirety of Half-Life 2 (minus maps and music) is present in the ROM(!?), might be leftovers from Shield version
- Uses OpenGL for rendering

— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) June 29, 2022

@OatmealDome pointed out that Portal having bits and pieces of Half-Life 2 is expected because “Portal 1 is just a fancy mod of Half-Life 2.” However, they also found larger chunks like NPCs and voice clips that don’t have any correlation to Portal.

In fact, there are so many pieces that they were able to fully mod Half-Life 2 onto Switch using the fragments hidden within Portal.

Of course, the version of Half-Life 2 they constructed via Portal isn’t quite up to par with its PC predecessor — @OatmealDome noted that they edited out load times and built a bypass for crashes. That being said, it runs impressively smoothly for a mod constructed out of another game.

Aside from Portal: Companion Collection (and its hidden Half-Life 2 chunks), yesterday's Nintendo Direct Mini also gave way to other announcements like Persona on Switch.

Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.

Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle had a lot of aspects worth celebrating, including its soundtrack by Grant Kirkhope of Donkey Kong, Banjo-Kazooie, and Perfect Dark fame. We already knew he was returning for Sparks of Hope, but today we learned he’s being joined by two other incredibly talented game composers: Gareth Coker and Yoko Shimomura.

If you don’t recognize those names, you’ve definitely heard their work. Coker has won numerous awards for his work on Ori and the Blind Forest and later for its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps. He also composed the music for Ark: Survival Evolved and Immortals Fenyx Rising, and a number of tracks in multiple Minecraft expansion packs, Dota 2, and Halo Infinite.

As for Shimomura, she’s best known for her work on all the Kingdom Hearts games, but has racked up numerous credits going back to the 1980s. She composed music for Street Fighter 2, Breath of Fire, Live a Live, Super Mario RPG, Legend of Mana, multiple Mario & Luigi games, Xenoblade Chronicles, Radiant Historia, and Final Fantasy 15, among many other games. With her joining Coker and Kirkhope, it’s truly a music power trio.

We learned much more about Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope during both yesterday’s Nintendo Direct and today’s presentation including its release date of October 20, 2022, and a ton more details about its combat and characters that you can read about in our roundup of all the new news.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Square Enix and Tri-Ace have announced that Star Ocean: The Divine Force will launch on October 27 globally for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. We also got two new trailers for the game.

Star Ocean: The Divine Force follows two protagonists, Raymond Lawrence and Laeticia Aucerius Raymond’s merchant transport vessel, the Ydas, gets gunned down by a Federation battleship and he crashlands on an underdeveloped planet. Laeticia is the crown princess of the Kingdom of Aucerius on the planet.

Players will have the choice to pick between the two characters and gain unique perspectives from both. Raymond is on the search for his lost crew while Laeticia is trying to save her homeland from an unknown threat.

The battle system seems to have gone through an overhaul. Instead of the long-range and short-range attack assignments seen in the previous three Star Ocean games, characters now expend AP to perform special attacks. The transition from the field into a battle is seamless. Four characters can participate in battle at any time, which is actually a decrease from seven in the previous entry, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness.

The game now utilizes a Chain Combo system where players can assign different battle skills in any specific order to the controller’s face buttons. Certain actions during battle can temporarily increase max AP in order to execute more battle skills in a row.

Star Ocean: The Divine Force also has a more open-world structure and characters will be able to glide across landscapes and jump between roofs of buildings. More details about the game will be revealed later.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey