Illustration by Marsh Davies

Steam Machines and virtual realities, 4K monitors and fiber Internet—these are a few of the techno-ingredients coming together to form the exciting future of PC gaming. We've been thinking hard about where PC hardware and Internet technologies and eSports are going over the next few years, and all week we'll be posting our research and predictions about PC gaming's future.

Sit back, imagine you're strapping on an Oculus Rift, and get ready for a sneak peek at what the future holds. We think it'll look a little something like this...

Monday: The future of the living room — Will Steam Machines emerge victorious against the PS4 and Xbox One in a bloody war for the living room? Will the Steam Controller actually work as a keyboard/mouse substitute? Is Valve preparing Steam to move beyond gaming?

Tuesday: The future of online gaming — Will broadband bandwidth caps make Steam downloads an expensive burden? How will Twitch.tv grow as eSports become more and more popular? What will be the next big competitive game?

Wednesday: The future of virtual reality — The Oculus Rift is coming. Will the consumer release arrive in 2014? Will VR pave the way for entirely new types of games?

Thursday: The future of PC hardware — 4K monitors will house ungodly numbers of pixels. Will high-end GPUs be able to keep up? And will we be sacrificing framerate for resolution?

Friday: Bold predictions from the PC Gamer staff — The PC Gamer staff looks further ahead to make foolishly bold claims about our favorite game genres. How will Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm dethrone League of Legends? Is Half-Life 3 actually going to come out? Is it time for space sims to make their big comeback?