Technologies
Game Handhelds Came Back This Year. Here’s What It Means for Gaming in 2023
The Nintendo Switch got new competition, and the future of gaming looks like it’ll be in our hands

Thanks to the Nintendo Switch, iPads, phones, VR headsets, and a ton of new gaming handhelds, I’m not gaming on my TV much anymore. In fact, gaming seems to be everywhere else other than the big panel hanging on my wall. Of course, that’s been the case before 2022. But thanks to the arrival of the Steam Deck and other handheld hardware, it feels like something’s finally happening that I’ve been waiting on for years: gaming tech is starting to become Switchified. I dreamed this would happen back in 2017.
Valve’s Steam Deck was the biggest new handheld arrival by far this year, and its popularity stands out on several fronts: as a gaming PC, it shows how software is finally starting to get more flexible and mobile, hopping between screens in a way that felt well overdue. But also, as another vehicle for streaming game services, it shows how gaming tech is starting to unbundle in a lot of strange ways.
The Nintendo Switch remains an aging, but strong, console. Mobile gaming feels like it’s starting to accelerate, thanks to cloud streaming apps and more excellent game controller cases, plus developments from mobile chip manufacturers like Qualcomm and new gaming tablets like the Razer Edge. Similarly, Logitech’s G Cloud handheld, arriving recently, is another flavor of mobile: a type of Android-based mobile device, but made to lean on game streaming.
And I didn’t even mention my favorite quirky indie handhelds, the Analogue Pocket and Panic Playdate, which have helped me rediscover tons of old games and plenty of indie newbies, too.
Can we also count VR headsets as handhelds? No, not really, although future devices like the Pimax Portal show some possibility for handhelds and VR to dovetail in ways you may not have been thinking about.
Here’s why it all matters.
Steam Deck: PCs can be handhelds now
Valve’s Steam Deck did it. The handheld Steam-compatible game system seemed like an impossible dream before it launched, but the hardware really does play tons of PC games well, and has proven to be one of the biggest gaming surprises of this year.
Valve doing it shows how other manufacturers could give it a go, too: in fact, companies like Dell and Razer already have, in a sense, via previous prototype experiments. The Steam Deck lives, though, and now there’s no reason not to make more of them.
The Steam Deck’s easy sleep/wake functions and its TV docking make it feel every bit as modular as a Switch, even if its controllers don’t detach. It’s the flexibility of the Steam Deck’s OS that shows a lot more promise. Running a variety of games or even apps, and being able to stream games, gives it the possibilities that we’d hoped the Nintendo Switch might gain someday. The Switch’s older processor limits what it can do, but the Steam Deck advances those ideas five years forward. Really, we knew this already with phones in our pockets that are as powerful as laptops, but gaming handhelds can do a lot more at also being full-fledged machines to connect to a much more cross-platform world.
I’m really curious where Valve goes next: in particular, to VR. Valve’s been active in VR for years, and is expected to make its own standalone «Deckard» VR headset in the near future. Could a new Steam Deck be compatible? It seems more than likely.
Stream Machines: Games can live anywhere
In a sense, Logitech’s G Cloud handheld and the Razer Edge tablet have a lot in common. CNET didn’t love the G Cloud, but the idea of it — an Android tablet with controls and the ability to stream games — is like a custom-made version of what you can already do with a phone or tablet and a game controller. The Razer Edge feels like a more advanced version of a similar idea, building a modular tablet with controllers around a higher-powered Qualcomm processor that’s capable of running games better, but also of streaming games as well.
These both remind me of the promises made way back by the Nvidia Shield, a tablet that was way ahead of its time and began to play with game streaming back in 2014.
Streaming games have finally come of age, both in the cloud and locally from console to handhelds. You may very well be doing this already with your phone or tablet. But, between the rise of very good game controller cases like the Backbone One and Razer Kishi and these types of specific standalone devices, it looks like mobile options could be multiplying.
Analogue Pocket and Panic Playdate: Rise of the new indies
Analogue’s ultimate retro handheld, the Pocket, and Panic’s crazy crank-enabled Playdate are very different pieces of hardware. Yet, they both point to a similar trend in gaming. The Pocket plays original Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and even Sega Game Gear game cartridges (with an adapter), and can run virtual hardware cores to recreate other game platforms. The Panic Playdate has its own season of included indie games that beam onto the handheld via Wi-Fi once a week. Both, however, can also sideload indie efforts made to run specifically on these systems.
Gaming portals like itch.io have become my most-visited places, as I check to see what experimental games people make available for Pocket or Playdate. Indie game designers create amazing efforts for all sorts of platforms: you don’t need a Playdate or Pocket for them. But these systems feel like vehicles that are ready to bring more indie efforts to life, and both feel like they’re living entirely outside of the world of the big game studios and hardware manufacturers. Maybe there’s room for more experimentation like this.
Could VR and AR be a doorway to more?
Arriving soon, the Pimax Portal is a curious sign of how tech could merge. Pimax, a manufacturer of VR headsets, is making a Switch-like Android gaming handheld that can also dock into a VR headset, becoming a handheld and standalone VR system all at once. It’s a return to the «VR goggles» concepts of early phone-based hardware like the Samsung Gear VR and Google’s Daydream, but in a potentially far more optimized and advanced format. I haven’t tried the Portal yet, but am really curious to. It’s an idea I could see more companies trying out, especially if it works better than those old limited-motion phone goggles.
Many upcoming VR headsets and AR glasses will start connecting with phones and smaller puck-like processors: the Magic Leap 2 is made this way, and Qualcomm’s next wave of AR glasses are designed to work with phones. Valve’s rumored standalone VR headset, Deckard, could possibly do the same with future Steam Decks.
Maybe Apple has similar plans in mind for how its VR headset will work with its phones and iPads. As headsets get smaller, more glasses-like, and lean on passthrough cameras and AR more, handheld accessories like game systems seem like a natural fit.
Nintendo had the right idea by making those Switch controllers slide off and work as little motion-sensitive magic wands…maybe the future of mobile gaming has been right in front of us all along.
Where this leads to in 2023
We’re already overdue for a truly new Nintendo Switch, and the Steam Deck seems bound for a sequel (although maybe not in 2023). We know a new wave of stand-alone VR headsets is on its way, and new phones and tablets are perpetual givens. The success of the Steam Deck, in particular, seems to open the door in ways that should impact both PC and console gaming. The Steam Deck was announced back in the middle of 2021, which means competitors have had a long time to prepare. But I’m also excited to see where truly decoupled indie gaming hardware could go: The Pocket and Playdate show all sorts of ways handhelds could live beyond traditional app store gateways. Cloud-connected gaming opens new pathways across hardware, too. It’s time for any mobile hardware to be more aware and flexible in its gaming strategies, because all the pieces are there. Of course, the handheld game system you’re most likely to be using in 2023 is your phone, but expect more dedicated gaming hardware to push the boundaries, too.
Technologies
Razer Releases a Vertical Edition Ergonomic Mouse
Two new mice for productivity still look like they were made for gamers, and that’s okay.

Razer has unveiled the Pro Click V2 and the Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition — two PC mice with ergonomics in mind, complete with expected Razer Chroma RGB LEDs in tow. The latter mouse, revealed Thursday, is Razer’s first vertical mouse and is priced to go head to head with the likes of Logitech’s vertical mouse offerings like the Lift and MX Vertical.
As with almost any new tech product in 2025, the new Pro Click V2 mice will also ship with artificial intelligence features in the form of Razer’s AI Prompt Master, a productivity feature that will give you easier access to services like Microsoft Copilot.
Both mice are available starting Thursday for $100 for the V2, and $120 for the V2 vertical mouse.
Razer is going for a «do it all» mouse with the Pro Click V2
The Pro Click V2 and Pro Click V2 Vertical editions are shaped to fit your hand’s natural resting positions, making it more comfortable and easier to use for long periods of time. The Pro Click V2 is designed at a 30-degree angle and the Pro Click V2 Vertical is tilted at 71.7 degrees, which Razer says is the natural angle of a handshake.
Of course, these are «productivity meets gaming» mice, so you can also expect a host of Razer features that you’d find on its gaming mice offerings. That said, the updated mice do feel more gaming forward than their predecessors. Both include the Razer Focus Pro 30K Optical Sensors for ultra precision and the mice should be able to track easily on glass. The mechanical buttons are said to be up to 6x more durable than the industry average and should be able to take 60 million clicks in their lifecycles.
Both mice received the RGB treatment, with multi-zone lighting that can be customized further with Razer’s Synapse software. There you can also adjust DPI setting defaults and more.
Lastly, both mice should last a long time on a single charge: the Pro Click V2 offers up 3.5 months of battery life while the Vertical Edition can reach up to six months before needing to be charged again. Both mice can be charged via USB-C, and a 5-minute charge can give you 2 to 3 days of battery power when you’re in a pinch.
For more, don’t miss how tariffs are boosting the secondhand tech product market.
Technologies
Best Meta Quest 3S Deals: Save Big on This Affordable VR Headset, Plus Enjoy a Free Game and Trial Subscription
Technologies
Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Review: An Achingly Beautiful French Spin on the JRPG Formula
Sandfall Interactive weaves sharp, complex combat through an irresistible story about living in an age of death.

The Japanese RPG genre so venerates its icons, like the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, that new games in its tradition replicate rather than innovate. It took a studio halfway around the world, in France, to make a JRPG that stands out of those titans’ shadows — one so starkly novel in its world and systems that it tells a story you don’t want to put down.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the debut game from French studio Sandfall Interactive, achieves a bundle of superlatives. From the writing to the worldbuilding to the combat to the music, it’s easy to find aspects that are individually excellent. But more importantly, they weave together into a cohesive and thematically potent game that tells a mature story with confidence and style, packing a certain (forgive me) je ne sais quoi that immersed me in a world of passion and loss.
Expedition 33’s story explores a fantasy land at the mercy of a super-powerful being, the Paintress, who has been culling humanity once a year for generations. On a certain day, the residents of seemingly the only city left, Lumière (a devastated Paris, overrun with rubble and vines), bittersweetly gather to bid their loved ones adieu. They watch as, far off in the distance, the Paintress lowers a glowing, omnivisible number by one. Slowly, anyone that age disappears into dust, and humanity’s age limit is reduced again.
Lumière resists by sending armed groups of volunteers over the ocean into the wilderness every year to defeat the Paintress — and though they’ve been so far unsuccessful, the tradition lives on, populated by desperate believers and older soldiers choosing to use their little time left to challenge fate.
Gathering a collection of plucky adventurers to take on God for the sake of the world is textbook JRPG, but the tones of most games in the genre oscillate between the puerile extremes of naive optimism and cynical nihilism. Sandfall Interactive’s story instead envisions characters embarking from a society fluent in despair and still taking action, channeling anxiety into a belief in resolute progress. Throughout the game, the main characters repeat their city’s mantras: «For those who come after,» and, «Tomorrow comes.» Earning meaning, even in a slowly constricting apocalypse.
Through the game’s commitment to its tone, its prism of beauties shines through. The plot, alternating between sublime wonder of a vibrant new land and brutal reckonings in a world without sympathies, is full of surprises. The music is tenderly emotional, with haunting piano and violin arranged by composer Lorien Testard and achingly, hauntingly beautiful singing by Alice Duport-Percier for an hours-long original soundtrack, as Expedition 33 producer François Meurisse told me.
The wild, friendly characters you meet, the stunningly gorgeous environments, dappled with light and shadow, the truly excellent English voice cast — the game is a symphony of well-executed elements that combine into something new.
That alchemy of novelty leads to a feeling that’s rare among JRPGS, let alone games as a whole: Frequently along the way, I truly didn’t know what to expect next. For gamers jaded by tropes and tradition, a game grappling with death in uncharted territory is like water in a desert.
All of which wouldn’t matter if the game wasn’t a riot to play.
Fighting against fate with soulslike turn-based combat
Unlike more open-ended RPGs such as this year’s Avowed and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster or 2023’s excellent Baldur’s Gate 3, there isn’t any choice in how Expedition 33’s story goes — at least as far as I’ve experienced in a little over 20 hours of the game. Where you do get control is in the battle system, which provides some of the most interactive turn-based fights I’ve ever played.
That’s primarily due to the reactive capabilities built into the system. Players can press a button to dodge when enemies attack with a pretty generous window. Those with more confidence can try to parry attacks, and if done for the entire enemy combo, the character will counter for severe damage. It took me around a dozen hours to be confident enough in timing to successfully parry attacks, though you can reduce the difficulty or equip particular abilities to mitigate that. Later in the game, there are even more enemy attack mechanics.
The defense system was inspired by FromSoftware games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, though there are also parts of the game inspired by Final Fantasy 10 and Persona 5, producer Meurisse told me. The latter is evident when switching between submenus in combat, which slightly shifts the camera view — «every button you click triggers some camera movement,» Meurisse said.
The cast of characters you gather isn’t large, but each has unique skills and their own distinct mechanic that functions almost like a turn-by-turn mini-game to ramp up damage potential. For protagonist Gustave, attacking builds up charges to unleash in a massive lightning attack; Lune the mage gets elemental «stains» after casting spells that can be spent to empower later spells; the fencer Maelle switches between stances every time she uses a skill.
Some other aspects are more conventional, with a range of status effects that can be applied to enemies like a damage-over-time burn, a slow or marking the enemy to take higher damage. But players can also, through guns or unspecified magic, shoot enemies to target weak points. Each shot costs AP, the resource used to also power spells and skills, so it takes some restraint not to gleefully fire off volleys.
Which is a lot to keep in mind already, but the Picto system escalates the complexity. Pictos are essentially bonus passive abilities that characters can equip up to three of at a time. After a handful of battles, they can unequip the PIcto and add its ability to their character, provided they have enough ability points to afford it. Juggling this budget is key to the late game and, incidentally, to breaking the combat altogether: Many of these Pictos offer bonus damage or effect if conditions are met, like they attack an enemy that already has a status effect. With scores of these Pictos picked up across the game, players can make builds and synergize between characters to rack up dizzying damage totals.
Mastering the deep combat and deeper Picto system is a joy for the RPG fan who loves diving into granular strategies, making short fights and long boss battles more engaging and interactive than most other JRPGs. It satisfies a crunchy part of the brain that delights in overclocking a system willingly ripe for abuse from the determined player. And it serves as both a distraction from and a harmony with the themes of the game — of companions soaked in a lifetime of death vainly endeavoring to stop it for «those who come after» until, inevitably, they’re cut down too.
Expedition 33’s dance with death and meaning
When I heard that a French game studio was taking on the venerable JRPG genre, I jokingly wondered how many berets, baguettes and mimes would make it in. Plenty, it turns out, as you can fight some surreal, optional and tough mime mini-bosses. Do so and claim ridiculous but chic outfits for the main characters wearing sunglasses, berets and long loaves of bread strapped to their backs like swords.
Expedition 33 embraces this oddness as a complement to its melancholy tone, and it’s all the richer for it. There’s something beyond the stereotypical French organ music and mimes that Sandfall Interactive admirably threw in — a desire to tell a story not just about a different world but how people muddle through its severe and unfair limits to reach some meaningful end anyway. In the absence of JRPG tropes like the plucky, annoying protagonist ticking off Joseph Campbell’s heroic checklist, Expedition 33 is populated with somber realists devoted to each other but expecting loss, all in dedication to a future they believe they won’t see.
Expedition 33 was partly inspired by a 2004 French novel called La Horde du Contrevent («The Horde of Counterwind»), Meurisse said, a cult classic telling the story of successive expeditions of people sent to find the origin of world-warping winds. Similarly, the Paintress ticking down humanity is an unknowable force at the world’s edge, and pushing back against her seems futile.
Over the course of the game, I discovered journals from previous years’ expeditions, each trying a new way to succeed where others failed, some ending humorously or ignobly, others in a grim blaze of glory. But I found their bodies regardless, locked in a final pose, bronzed in a strange process as begets all humans venturing beyond their city — a marker for those who follow, and hopefully, surpass.
The strange landscape beyond Lumière is forever changed by the Fracture, a calamity that happened a century ago before the Paintress started ticking down humanity’s clock. In its wake, islands float in the sky and antediluvian buildings meld into dirt and rock. With the light dappling through the trees or around airborne archipelagos, I frequently stopped to stare at the landscapes, as beautifully alien to me as to the characters of the game. I’ve racked up over a hundred screenshots, mostly of areas where I was struck with awe.
Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Screenshots: Beauty and Wonder in a World of Death
In chatting with Meurisse, I asked him what was uniquely French about the game, and he listed the clothes and architecture inspired by France’s Belle Epoque era of the late 1800s and Art Deco stylings, which are featured in the gilded gold-and-black walls of the doomed buildings, long abandoned and entombed in the dirt beyond humanity’s reach. But there’s another perspective blended into Expedition 33 that is different and fresh — creating a world where its characters still bask in wonder even when swimming in death.
I did, too.
Expedition 33 will be celebrated for its many excellences, and deservedly so. But above all, it tells an adult story about what’s left for us when the future is ripped away bit by bit — and why it’s worth fighting against the inevitable anyway. You never know what wonder you’ll get to see before the end.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available now on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X and S.
-
Technologies2 года ago
Tech Companies Need to Be Held Accountable for Security, Experts Say
-
Technologies2 года ago
Best Handheld Game Console in 2023
-
Technologies2 года ago
Tighten Up Your VR Game With the Best Head Straps for Quest 2
-
Technologies4 года ago
Verum, Wickr and Threema: next generation secured messengers
-
Technologies4 года ago
Google to require vaccinations as Silicon Valley rethinks return-to-office policies
-
Technologies3 года ago
Olivia Harlan Dekker for Verum Messenger
-
Technologies3 года ago
Black Friday 2021: The best deals on TVs, headphones, kitchenware, and more
-
Technologies4 года ago
iPhone 13 event: How to watch Apple’s big announcement tomorrow