Oliver Mackenzie
@oliemack.bsky.social
Video producer/writer, contributor at Digital Foundry. Past work at various news companies and nonprofits.
Reposted by Oliver Mackenzie
Welcome to 2026! We kick off the New Year with a mini DF Direct, looking back at the best hardware of 2025 and what we expect to see from 2026. Oh... and our first hands-on of the remarkable GPD Win 5 Strix Halo handheld: youtu.be/kDtgP4KltrU
January 1, 2026 at 3:11 PM
Welcome to 2026! We kick off the New Year with a mini DF Direct, looking back at the best hardware of 2025 and what we expect to see from 2026. Oh... and our first hands-on of the remarkable GPD Win 5 Strix Halo handheld: youtu.be/kDtgP4KltrU
P3R's latest Switch 2 patch greatly improves on a problematic port. But the T239 silicon is still underutilized, with odd visual settings choices and no DLSS.
Persona 3 Reload on Switch 2: patch 1.03 tested! The newly introduced 60fps performance mode is put through its paces - and it's good to see that 30fps frame-pacing problems are fixed. We also re-test the game's problematic input lag: youtu.be/RbakVeQAajE
December 30, 2025 at 5:38 PM
P3R's latest Switch 2 patch greatly improves on a problematic port. But the T239 silicon is still underutilized, with odd visual settings choices and no DLSS.
Bloober Team drops a Switch 2 holiday bombshell - 60fps ray tracing with UE5. But core tech enhancements are likely needed before other UE5 titles make the Switch 2 jump.
Layers of Fear on Switch 2 features Unreal Engine 5 Lumen ray tracing at 60fps. Is this a Christmas miracle?! youtu.be/OoMay8qSC88
December 25, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Bloober Team drops a Switch 2 holiday bombshell - 60fps ray tracing with UE5. But core tech enhancements are likely needed before other UE5 titles make the Switch 2 jump.
FF7 Remake on Switch 2 looks like a high quality port. Stable performance, solid image quality, and pleasing visual settings make this one of the most impressive Switch 2 games to date.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake's Switch 2 demo is the focus of today's video - and it's impressive stuff. youtu.be/wQoWX_Q94vs
December 19, 2025 at 3:46 PM
FF7 Remake on Switch 2 looks like a high quality port. Stable performance, solid image quality, and pleasing visual settings make this one of the most impressive Switch 2 games to date.
Reposted by Oliver Mackenzie
DF Direct Weekly #244 is out now, talking TGAs, the first PS3 emulator for PS4, Skyrim Switch 2 problems, FSR Redstone frame-pacing and much, much more: youtu.be/mq_JvcS9UZE
December 15, 2025 at 4:02 PM
DF Direct Weekly #244 is out now, talking TGAs, the first PS3 emulator for PS4, Skyrim Switch 2 problems, FSR Redstone frame-pacing and much, much more: youtu.be/mq_JvcS9UZE
My top music for 2025 from Apple Music Replay ! This is what gets me through many hundreds of hours of video edits every year. These days mostly pop music that is sort of hyperpop adjacent. About 69,000 minutes total.
December 11, 2025 at 7:44 AM
My top music for 2025 from Apple Music Replay ! This is what gets me through many hundreds of hours of video edits every year. These days mostly pop music that is sort of hyperpop adjacent. About 69,000 minutes total.
Shadows is an excellent new “impossible port” for Switch 2, packing solid visuals and decent image quality. But frame-pacing woes in the current version should be fixed for docked play.
Assassin's Creed Shadows on Switch 2 reviewed! It's quite remarkable to see this playing out so well in handheld mode, but major frame-pacing problems really need to be addressed in the docked experience: youtu.be/2U5h4_MqXaU
December 3, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Shadows is an excellent new “impossible port” for Switch 2, packing solid visuals and decent image quality. But frame-pacing woes in the current version should be fixed for docked play.
Kirby Air Riders is an entertaining racing game, and it provides a thorough workout for the brand new SOL-AVES engine. It's hard to fault this Switch 2 exclusive and its high-octane visuals.
Today on Digital Foundry, Kirby Air Riders on Switch 2 gets an extended review - an excellent game with new engine tech we had to take a closer look at. Oliver and John compare notes: youtu.be/EAp4jrKkp9w
November 27, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Kirby Air Riders is an entertaining racing game, and it provides a thorough workout for the brand new SOL-AVES engine. It's hard to fault this Switch 2 exclusive and its high-octane visuals.
Reposted by Oliver Mackenzie
DF Direct Weekly #241 is now available, discussing Steam Machine's PC-adjacent pricing news, Proton FSR 4, the return of Red Dead Redemption, the brilliant Sektori, Windows perf issues, Horizon Steel Frontiers and much more: youtu.be/NOEGamg6nf8
November 24, 2025 at 5:55 PM
DF Direct Weekly #241 is now available, discussing Steam Machine's PC-adjacent pricing news, Proton FSR 4, the return of Red Dead Redemption, the brilliant Sektori, Windows perf issues, Horizon Steel Frontiers and much more: youtu.be/NOEGamg6nf8
What’s the most you would pay for a Steam Machine? There isn’t really anything like it out so I’m curious to hear what people think. If it’s indeed priced more like a similar PC ($700 to $800) is that too much?
November 23, 2025 at 10:08 AM
What’s the most you would pay for a Steam Machine? There isn’t really anything like it out so I’m curious to hear what people think. If it’s indeed priced more like a similar PC ($700 to $800) is that too much?
STALKER 2 had a rough launch, but its performance level has increased greatly in patch 1.7, despite little notice from the developer - and the apparent absence of a major Unreal Engine version update.
Today on Digital Foundry, it's time to take a look at STALKER 2 on PS5 and PS5 Pro. It's a great port which benefits from the past year of updates, including the excellent patch 1.7. We also retest PC and Xbox Series X: youtu.be/aA7Q7Duh5S0
November 21, 2025 at 8:40 PM
STALKER 2 had a rough launch, but its performance level has increased greatly in patch 1.7, despite little notice from the developer - and the apparent absence of a major Unreal Engine version update.
Reposted by Oliver Mackenzie
DF Direct Weekly #240 is out now, focusing on last week's big Valve news. We discuss potential Steam Machine prices and positioning and we go into more depth on specs, while answering a wide range of Supporter questions: youtu.be/K0jaDAG_jc8
November 17, 2025 at 4:03 PM
DF Direct Weekly #240 is out now, focusing on last week's big Valve news. We discuss potential Steam Machine prices and positioning and we go into more depth on specs, while answering a wide range of Supporter questions: youtu.be/K0jaDAG_jc8
Valve’s Steam Frame is a multifaceted streaming/standalone VR headset that should provide a best-in-class gaming experience.
Today's Valve coverage continues with a new video covering hands-on impressions of Steam Frame. Lots to discuss here: the headset, the technology, the x86 to ARM translation layer and much, much more: youtu.be/TmTvmKxl20U
November 12, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Valve’s Steam Frame is a multifaceted streaming/standalone VR headset that should provide a best-in-class gaming experience.
Valve's overhauled 2026 Steam Machine is a polished, finely crafted console-like PC system. It's a great little home entertainment box - and it should give Microsoft a lot to worry about.
We went hands-on with Valve's Steam Machine and Steam Frame. Two videos in the pipeline, kicking off right now with this detailed discussion on Valve's beautiful PC/console hybrid - and the new Steam Controller: youtu.be/2rv83LgXiN0
November 12, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Valve's overhauled 2026 Steam Machine is a polished, finely crafted console-like PC system. It's a great little home entertainment box - and it should give Microsoft a lot to worry about.
The PS5 Pro has had a mixed first year, with plenty of games that impress - and plenty that don't.
It's been one year to the day since the launch of PlayStation 5 Pro, so... was it worth it? John, Tom and Oliver discuss the best, the worst and the middling of Pro software and look ahead to 2026: youtu.be/7MJ6bnJ0WmI
November 7, 2025 at 5:44 PM
The PS5 Pro has had a mixed first year, with plenty of games that impress - and plenty that don't.
Not a big surprise. Launching during the fall is going to suffocate adjacent releases though during a very busy period, and I'm curious to see how publishers handle it.
BREAKING: Rockstar has delayed Grand Theft Auto VI again, pushing the highly anticipated game from May to November 19, 2026. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ Is Postponed Again — to November 2026
The release date for the game had previously slipped to May 2026 from fall 2025
www.bloomberg.com
November 6, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Not a big surprise. Launching during the fall is going to suffocate adjacent releases though during a very busy period, and I'm curious to see how publishers handle it.
Please check out the brand-new Digital Foundry website at www.digitalfoundry.net! Some interesting features already from @samred.com and the team, along with forums and links to everything we do.
Digital Foundry
Digital Foundry was founded in 2004 and specialises in technical analysis of video games and hardware, using our own bespoke tools for frame-rate analysis – covering everything from console, PC and be...
www.digitalfoundry.net
November 6, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Please check out the brand-new Digital Foundry website at www.digitalfoundry.net! Some interesting features already from @samred.com and the team, along with forums and links to everything we do.
The Outer Worlds 2 is a strong technical experience for RPG fans, and it’s fine enough across the consoles. But if you have a choice between console systems, I’d pick Series X.
Today on Digital Foundry, it's our review for The Outer Worlds 2 - technically solid with good performance on Xbox consoles, but PlayStation needs some work. PC review with optimised settings coming soon: youtu.be/zkhp-FUuC7s
October 23, 2025 at 4:37 PM
The Outer Worlds 2 is a strong technical experience for RPG fans, and it’s fine enough across the consoles. But if you have a choice between console systems, I’d pick Series X.
Reposted by Oliver Mackenzie
DF Direct Weekly #236 is live, discussing experiences with the ROG Xbox Ally X, Black Myth Wukong's performance mode changes on PS5, the PS5 Pro mini-refresh and much, much more: youtu.be/WhQ5289lBWY
October 21, 2025 at 5:22 PM
DF Direct Weekly #236 is live, discussing experiences with the ROG Xbox Ally X, Black Myth Wukong's performance mode changes on PS5, the PS5 Pro mini-refresh and much, much more: youtu.be/WhQ5289lBWY
With good image quality and excellent performance, there are few faults in the console versions of Battlefield 6.
Battlefield 6 - Oliver delivers an in-depth breakdown of every game mode running on every console version: PS5, Pro, Xbox Series X and Series S - youtu.be/cSHXPw5afmg
October 15, 2025 at 9:44 PM
With good image quality and excellent performance, there are few faults in the console versions of Battlefield 6.
Reposted by Oliver Mackenzie
DF Direct Weekly #235 "drops" today ahead of schedule, talking Microsoft reconfirming next-gen Xbox consoles, Yooka Re-Playlee impressions and more rumours of a current-gen/Switch 2 Red Dead Redemption 2 remaster: youtu.be/1TkdxhLRxdc
October 12, 2025 at 2:06 PM
DF Direct Weekly #235 "drops" today ahead of schedule, talking Microsoft reconfirming next-gen Xbox consoles, Yooka Re-Playlee impressions and more rumours of a current-gen/Switch 2 Red Dead Redemption 2 remaster: youtu.be/1TkdxhLRxdc
Reposted by Oliver Mackenzie
Today on Digital Foundry, a DF Direct Special talking about the new technologies discussed in the recent Project Amethyst update, along with answers to our questions from Mark Cerny himself. Exciting times ahead! youtu.be/Ru7dK_X5tnc
October 11, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Today on Digital Foundry, a DF Direct Special talking about the new technologies discussed in the recent Project Amethyst update, along with answers to our questions from Mark Cerny himself. Exciting times ahead! youtu.be/Ru7dK_X5tnc
Battlefield 6 is a strong technical effort on PS5. It's not aiming for ray-traced perfection, but it looks good and runs at a blistering clip.
Battlefield 6! We've got lots to say about this and we'll need more than one video to do that - but for now, general thoughts about the game and a focus on the PlayStation 5 version, courtesy of Oliver: youtu.be/B8EuSu_n9b4
October 9, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Battlefield 6 is a strong technical effort on PS5. It's not aiming for ray-traced perfection, but it looks good and runs at a blistering clip.
Reposted by Oliver Mackenzie
DF Direct Weekly #234 is now live, talking Xbox Game Pass price rises, Austin Evans' new PS5 Slim teardown, remarkable perf boosts in Baldur's Gate 3's native Linux Steam Deck version and much, much more: youtu.be/Sj5TyrHDspU
October 6, 2025 at 2:36 PM
DF Direct Weekly #234 is now live, talking Xbox Game Pass price rises, Austin Evans' new PS5 Slim teardown, remarkable perf boosts in Baldur's Gate 3's native Linux Steam Deck version and much, much more: youtu.be/Sj5TyrHDspU
In this post-Moore’s Law age, I think the latest Pro iPhone is a relative triumph, as a great all-round phone with excellent tech. And it blasts through our suite of AAA iOS games with ease.
iPhone 17 Pro - Oliver reviews Apple's latest flagship, with a range of benchmarks and some genuinely impressive boosts to gaming performance versus prior models: youtu.be/M3w-j7Wtbvo
October 5, 2025 at 4:31 PM
In this post-Moore’s Law age, I think the latest Pro iPhone is a relative triumph, as a great all-round phone with excellent tech. And it blasts through our suite of AAA iOS games with ease.