Earlier this summer, Netflix-owned developer Night School released Unhinged, a horror game that was playable on televisions/screens through the streaming app. Unhinged was met with acclaim by players, and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters recently called Unhinged one of "our two most successful cloud game debuts" during an investor call. Regardless, Night School has been shuttered by Netflix's latest round of cuts.

As reported by Game File, Night School and Moonloot are the latest gaming developers to be closed down by Netflix. According to the outlet, Netflix justified the closures by noting that the streamer is narrowing its focus to games for kids, party games, story-driven titles, or "games with mainstream hooks."

"We see an opportunity to be more focused in our execution, so we are making organizational changes to the business to match those priorities," said Netflix in a statement to Game File. "Games continue to be an opportunity for us to expand the variety of entertainment we offer Netflix members."

This isn't the first time that Netflix has made gaming cuts at one of its developers after praising its work. Earlier this month, Netflix laid off 85% of the staff of Refactor Games, the developer behind a FIFA World Cup title that Netflix identified as the other most-successful cloud game debut alongside Unhinged.

In July, Netflix boasted that its gaming engagement had gone up 600% from the previous year. While Netflix has previously shared its ambition for a larger stake in the gaming world, the company was notably uninterested in purchasing Warner Bros.' gaming assets before the proposed sale fell through and Paramount emerged as the winning suitor. Another report indicated that Netflix considered buying EA, one of the largest third-party gaming publishers. EA was later sold to a group that includes Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and taken private.

Pedro Pascal plays Joel in HBO's popular The Last of Us, based on the Naughty Dog game, and he has been praised for his performance. However, he wasn't the only actor in the mix for the role.

Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey revealed more details on the Happy Sad Confused podcast about why he didn't star on the show. The Last of Us "was really good but it wasn't for me at the time," the actor said.

He added that signing on to The Last of Us would have also meant committing himself to the project for potentially years on end. "In success, this is something you'll be doing for years and years and years," he said. At the time he was circling The Last of Us, McConaughey said he "wasn't really acting" and was focusing more on writing and leadership roles in filmmaking.

It would have been a reunion for McConaughey and HBO, as he previously starred on True Detective. That is an anthology series, and McConaughey appeared in the first season only, alongside Woody Harrelson.

https://youtu.be/peXOgVAUm40?si=iOBaVWIfRAm1mX3X&t=2364

Before this, The Last of Us showrunner and writer Craig Mazin said he had talked to McConaughey about playing Joel, but it was more of, "Hey, here's something we can talk about" as opposed to a definite thing was that happening.

"Look, Matthew McConaughey is an amazing actor. I’m sure it would’ve been great, but it would’ve been different and I like the one that we made," Mazin said.

The Last of Us Season 1 was released in January 2023 and it was a huge hit. Season 2 followed in 2025, and a third season is now coming in 2027. In addition to Pascal as Joel, the series stars Bella Ramsey as Ellie and Kaitlyn Dever as Abby.

As for the game series, it's rumored that Naughty Dog is working on The Last of Us: Part III, but this is not confirmed. What we do know is that Naughty Dog is making a new game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, though we have not seen it in some time.

Remakes and remasters are popular, but Benson Russell, a designer on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune at Naughty Dog, has said he's not interested in a new one for the 2007 game.

Speaking to FRVR, Russell said he's not against the idea of remakes and remasters generally, but he said Uncharted is "still in the zeitgeist" and available on modern platforms. "What's the point of remastering [or remaking] it?" he said.

Instead of a remake or a remaster, Russell said a better idea might be to do what fans have been clamoring for: make a new one. “Take the lessons of Uncharted 4 and make a new game ..." he said.

Russell went on to say a remake or remaster of the original Uncharted could feel "more like a cash grab" than something that people was thought was "necessary" to bring it up to modern standards. He would like to see Naughty Dog "take the spirit" of the franchise and make a new game.

Bloomberg previously reported that Sony considered remaking or remastering Uncharted, but decided against it because it would be "expensive and require too much added design work."

While Uncharted never got a remake or remaster, Naughty Dog's The Last of Us and The Last of Us 2 both had remastered versions. As for a new Uncharted game, a new entry in the series was reportedly planned some years ago and fans now believe Naughty Dog is teasing a new game.

The original Uncharted game is playable today on PS5 and PS4 via Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection--this also includes Uncharted 2 and 3. These include updated, remastered versions of those three games.

A lot of people embrace and enjoy remakes, while others say developers should instead spend more time and resources on entirely new games. Gaming legend Shigeru Miyamoto, for his part, defended remakes and remasters, saying they are good for a number of reasons, including to help younger generations experience games they might have missed. Additionally, money from remakes and remasters can fund future games, he said.

Wardogs, an upcoming large-scale, hardcore FPS inspired by games like Arma, is taking a unique approach with its marketing by listing 10 reasons why prospective players shouldn't buy it.

In an official video, developer Bulkhead revealed September 10 as Wardogs' Steam early access release date, but also laid the rest of its cards on the table. Point by point, it outlined all the main reasons why potential players might not want to take a chance on the shooter, ranging from its lack of content, high early-access price, visual fidelity, and even the failure of Bulkhead's previous shooter, Battalion: 1944. 

"Before the hype train gets out of control, we want to do something most AAA marketing teams would tell their dev teams to never do--give you 10 legitimate reasons why you should not buy Wardogs," Bulkhead said in the video.

Those reasons are as follows:

1. Lack of early-access content
2. Early-access pricing
3. Player count will decline
4. Monetization
5. Performance and visuals
6. Shifting early-access priorities
7. Battalion: 1944
8. VOIP
9. Controller support
10. Decisions and consequences

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugkuP4a3xk4

Some of those reasons are fairly self explanatory, like lack of content during the early-access period and its price. Wardogs will initially cost $40 in early access, a steep price for some. The price will go up over the course of development and will eventually sell for $60 at the end of early access.

"If the price sounds too high for an early-access game, please don't buy it yet," Bulkhead said.

Other reasons require a bit more explanation. Decisions and consequences refers to Wardog's more milsim-style gameplay, where death requires a long trek back to the frontlines and rebuying lost equipment. 

"If you're running in like you're playing Call of Duty or Battlefield, you will likely die to someone playing more cautiously," Bulkhead said. "If you're not willing to learn from those deaths, you're going to have a bad time."  

While Wardogs doesn't yet have any monetization like a battle pass or paid skins, there will eventually be some way for Bulkhead to make more money and continue funding the game's development. However, that will likely be years from now, as Bulkhead said it won't monetize the game during early access. Additionally, Bulkhead won't sell weapon camos or in-game currency, with players needing to earn them through play.

"It might seem strange to be talking about monetization years down the line, but we want you to be able to buy in knowing what you're buying into long term," Bulkhead said.

One of the most hard-hitting reasons is Bulkhead's track record. The team previously released Battalion: 1944, a 5v5 Call of Duty-inspired shooter that died almost immediately on release, having only ever reached between 50-200 concurrent players, Bulkhead said. The studio eventually saved enough funds from work-for-hire projects to stay afloat, offered refunds to players, and refunded Battalion: 1944's Kickstarter backers, but it understands why some players may be hesitant.

"It's these lessons and scars from Battalion that Wardogs has been built upon," Bulkhead said. "It's why we've been so cautious with our playtesting and why we've been so open with our marketing. To be really clear, we wouldn't have Wardogs without Battalion's failure, but if you still don't trust our studio because of Battalion: 1944, don't rush to buy Wardogs."

So far, Bulkhead's list of reasons don't seem to be slowing down Wardogs' sales. It's currently climbing up Steam top-seller charts.

A week has passed since Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls launched for PC and PS5, and the new fighting game is off to a solid start. According to new estimates by Alinea Analytics, the game has reportedly sold 485,000 units as of August 12, with PS5 being the dominant platform.

As outlined by Alinea Analytics’ head of market analysis, Rhys Elliott, the PS5 accounted for 74% of sales, and Steam 26%. That's not too surprising, as the game experienced technical issues on PC. Developer Arc System Works released a patch for Marvel Tokon earlier this week, aiming to address multiple performance issues on PC.

Those sales account for an estimated $33 million in revenue, and Elliott also noted that only 15.1% of the units sold on PS5 were physical copies, which is surprisingly low for a new PlayStation game. Further analysis showed that Marvel Tokon attracted a crowd of hardcore fighting game fans, as 52% of people had previously played Arc's Dragon Ball FighterZ, 39% had played Street Fighter 6, and 41% had played Mortal Kombat 1.

Image credit: Alinea Analytics

Marvel fans also helped drive sales, as there's a strong crossover here with people who had previously played games like Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man titles and NetEase's Marvel Rivals. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day doing blockbuster numbers at cinemas, it's not too hard to imagine having Spider-Man in a new fighting game would also attarct potential customers--or boost sales, like in the case of Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Being close to 500,000 sales might not sound that impressive, but as Elliott explained, fighting games are still a niche genre. What they do have going for them are passionate fanbases, giving these games long legs over time.

To give you an idea, Street Fighter 6 has cleared 7 million lifetime sales as of June 30, 2026. The game first launched in 2023 and is easily the fighting game of the current generation, so Marvel Tokon has its work cut out for it if it wants to dethrones Capcom popular brawler.

The brand recognition of Marvel certainly helps, and the developers of Marvel Tokon have an ambitious goal to keep this 4v4 fighting game in the spotlight for the next decade.

"Marvel heroes and villains are once again beating each other up in tag-based battles, and I am loving the experience of jumping in and figuring out new strategies," Jason Fanelli wrote in GameSpot's Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls review. "Rather than lean on old tropes, Arc System Works elected to put its own spin on the idea, and what they've cooked up sets a new bar for future tag fighters. Once the technical issues for PC are ironed out, there's a bright future ahead. With Marvel Tokon, Arc System Works has created the next foundational title for modern fighting games."

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Roster – Every Character Revealed (So Far) View Images

Look, it's no surprise to anyone for me to admit that I like South of Midnight. I've written about it being a love letter to the American Deep South, noted how it was one of the best Xbox games of 2025, and talked about how much the game's story, characters, and setting have meant to me on video podcasts for both GameSpot and IGN. I want everyone to play this game, and there's never been a better time to do so on Steam.

As noticed by Respec, Xbox is no longer listed as the publisher for South of Midnight on Steam. Instead, the game is noted as being self-published by Compulsion Games, reflecting the studio's independence following another round of severe layoffs and restructuring from Xbox.

While Compulsion Games hasn't confirmed whether this is the case--who knows what type of strange and awful backroom clauses might be in place to ensure Xbox keeps getting a slice of this particular pie--this does seem to indicate that all future sales of South of Midnight on Steam will benefit Compulsion, not Compulsion and Xbox. 

So if you want to play South of Midnight, but you were concerned about continuing to line Xbox's pockets, this seems like the golden opportunity to finally give the action-adventure platformer a go.

And you should play it! The game is so good! South of Midnight's selling point is certainly its atmosphere. The sound design and orchestral score are tied into the gameplay and story to put you right into the midst of its gothic fantasy, transforming the trauma of a resilient and multifaceted culture into the backbone of one of the most affecting video games I've ever played. Its combat and platforming aren't exactly wow-worthy, leaning on tried-and-true PlayStation 2-era mechanics without pushing them forward in any meaningful way, but those shortcomings are overshadowed by memorable characters, catchy tunes, and incredible visuals.

Like I said in my South of Midnight review, "Compulsion Games hasn’t made a direct sequel to any of its games yet, but it needs to make an exception here." South of Midnight is just that great. Compulsion Games has a real winner here, and you should support the studio by buying and playing South of Midnight, and then joining me in celebrating this gaming accomplishment.

Unlike its work on the Spider-Man games, Insomniac won't be throwing players into an open-world environment with Marvel's Wolverine. It's an old-school single-player game that focuses on pushing the story from Point A to Point B, but that doesn't mean that you can't take a detour or two. This will allow players to spend some extra time with Logan, as Insomniac says that players can hunt down resources for new suits and take part in combat trials that'll test their skills.

"It is a story-driven adventure," senior project director Jess Reiner-Reed said to IGN. "Logan is pulled through uncovering these mysteries of his past. But you can go off the beaten path."

Logan is known for enjoying his hard liquor, and as you'd expect, you can grab bottles of whiskey hidden away in stages. Collecting these will help Wolverine power up, while material crates hold raw materials that can be used to acquire new suits--similar to Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Fun fact: Logan's healing factor allows him to knock back an incredible amount of alcohol and not stay drunk, due to his regenerative abilities burning through those toxins almost instantly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i247qa_YL_A&pp=0gcJCfkLAYcqIYzv

The other activity, Nightmare Doors, will take players into Logan's psyche. Described as "manifestations of the horrible things" in his head, each Nightmare Door offers its own unique trials for Logan to overcome, and again, this sounds vaguely similar to the Mysterio challenges in Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Finally, players who roll credits on Marvel's Wolverine can replay the game in New Game Plus, bringing their entire loadout and progression with them.

Insomniac says that "some fun things" happen here, and there'll be sections that are either more challenging or allow Logan to really cut loose with all of his upgrades. "It’s undeniable that Insomniac’s take on Logan is firmly planted in familiar game design, but Wolverine is clearly doing more than just fitting a typical story of the character in it," managing editor Tamoor Hussain wrote in GameSpot's Wolverine preview.

The game launches soon for PS5, on September 15. To celebrate the release, Sony has also announced a limited-edition Marvel's Wolverine PS5 bundle, console covers, and a new DualSense controller inspired by the game.

Every Upcoming Superhero Game To Look Out For In 2026 And Beyond View Images

GTA 6 preorders began in late June, and, as expected, there was enormous demand for the game. Take-Two said GTA 6 had unprecedented preorder numbers, but the company is not disclosing a specific figure to avoid misleading investors. Sensor Tower, a research and analytics company for gaming, is, however, estimating where they may land.

Karl Kontus, the SVP and GM of video game insights at Sensor Tower, told GI.biz that preorders for GTA 6 could be in the area of 25 million when the game releases, which would amount to "unprecedented preorder performance."

Kontus said 25 million preorders would work out to around $2 billion in revenue. That would cover GTA 6's development cost and the majority of marketing spend, he estimated. To be sure, Rockstar has not disclosed a production or marketing budget for GTA 6, but the game was no doubt very costly to produce.

The analyst pointed out that GTA 6's proper marketing campaign has not begun yet--fans can expect it to kick off with the August 27 trailer on Netflix. Kontus said the majority of preorders for GTA 6 will come in the last week or so before launch.

Kontus went on to say that while early preorder data may skew toward the game's $100 edition, as Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick recently said, the final figures may be closer to 50/50 between the $80 and $100 editions.

The analyst also discussed how Take-Two and Rockstar were smart to pack the $100 Ultimate Edition with a lot of exclusive items to encourage people to spend more.

"Sometimes the premium SKUs are just filler content to justify a higher price, but the GTA 6 premium SKU comes with a meaningful amount of vehicles, weapons, and even a custom mod shop that you wouldn't get otherwise," Kontus said. "For a lot of people, this is the one 'must-buy' game this year, and they will want to make the most of it. I'm actually kind of surprised they didn't do a $150 SKU – feels like money left on the table (but also fewer players being angry as a result)."

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It’s expected to be 2026’s biggest game, and it could get another jolt when the next evolution of GTA Online launches.

Starting next week, it's going to be totally acceptable to eat Pokemon. That's because Krispy Kreme on August 18 will launch a limited-time Pokemon Doughnut Collection, featuring tasty-looking pastries based on five beloved pocket monsters. 

You can take a bite of a Pikachu doughnut, filled with lemon creme and topped with "electrifying drizzle" as well as a Pikachu piece. Meanwhile, there's a Charmander doughnut containing a chocolate and toasted marshmallow filling. Other options include original glazed doughnuts but customized for Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Jigglypuff, and even the Poke Ball. A special-edition dozen looks to retail for about $21 in the US. 

The collaboration doesn't stop there, either. For starters, Krispy Kreme says that anyone who wears Pokemon threads to one of its locations on August 22 will receive a free basic glazed doughnut. There will also be five different Pokemon cups to collect, with each one housing 10 glazed gold dots. 

Hilariously enough, you can actually preorder the Pokemon doughnuts right now from Krispy Kreme's website. The Pokemon cups are going for about $8, or you can bundle one of those with the dozen collection for around $29. That's not really offering any additional savings, though. 

By the way, this isn't the first Pokemon food collaboration of the year. Target has Pokemon Pop-Tarts available, which originally came out back in 2000. The original anime also strongly hinted that people ate Pokemon. Last month, a sex toy shop launched unofficial items like the Bulbypulse to help you Pokemoan. 

25 Pokemon That, Frankly, Look Delicious View Images

Revealed during PlayStation's State of Play earlier this year, The Lost Wild is a first-person horror game that combines the awe of walking amongst dinosaurs, such as in Jurassic Park, with the terror of being hunted by a creature you can't defeat, à la Alien: Isolation. For Great Ape Games CEO Nick Gregory, it's a lot more than that; it's the culmination of an idea he's had in his mind since childhood. 

GameSpot recently caught up with Gregory via email to discuss the more than 20-year journey from boyhood dream to a Steam wishlist darling. He spoke to his team's growth as the project shifted to a full-time job, The Lost Wild's humble origins before he even knew how to really make games, and the subtleties of depicting dinosaurs as "animals, not monsters."

GameSpot: As I understand it, this game began as a Crysis mod. Can you talk about the long journey from that to where it is today?

Nick Gregory: Believe it or not, this actually goes back even further than the Crysis mod.

I was a teenager living with my mum, over two decades ago now. I was lucky enough to get a PC at that age, and it opened the door for me not only to gaming, but to tinkering too. It was not quite the proverbial garden shed, but it changed the course of my life all the same. 

I first started tinkering with a game called Operation Flashpoint, a military sandbox game that shipped with a mission editor and extensive modding tools. I began with simple things like placing units, creating waypoints and setting up event logic, then gradually moved into custom mission scripts and assets. That period exposed me to a whole lot, learning how to model, script, keyframe, and design. None of it was remotely close to shippable quality, but it was an honest, naive, and practical crash course, driven entirely by passion and curiosity. 

A few years later, I went through the same process with Crysis and CryEngine. The technology felt like a huge leap forward. Crysis shipped with its editor, and being able to load the game, fly around the world, and change things in real time felt extraordinary. It's easy to take that kind of workflow for granted nowadays, but at the time it was transformative.

I joined the Crymod forums and became fascinated by what people were making with the SDK: maps, models, skins, full conversions. I would come home and see what everyone had created, and eventually I stopped wanting simply to observe it. I wanted to be part of it. 

So I decided to find out what a dinosaur might look like in CryEngine. I wanted to know what it might feel like to walk alongside one in a natural environment, where it behaved like an animal rather than a mindless monster. That was the original vision, and it grew from there.

The first dinosaur looked surprisingly good, so I began posting work-in-progress images online. Those posts gradually attracted people who believed in the idea, and before long we'd assembled a volunteer team of around 15 developers: artists, level designers, programmers and sound designers. Several of them now hold senior positions across the games industry. One of those people was Tim, who joined us straight out of university, believed deeply in the project and is now a fellow co-founder and Creative Director. 

I was never the strongest developer. I was very much a kitbasher and generalist, but I discovered that I had an ability to establish a vision and a clear “why,” find talented people, bring them together, and articulate why an idea was worth pursuing. That has stayed with me throughout my career and still shapes how I run the studio today.

We improvised constantly. At one point, we retrofitted Crytek's chicken AI to make one of our dinosaurs semi-functional. We were a million miles from producing a complete game, but the journey mattered far more than the destination for me. We formed lifelong friendships, learned an enormous amount, and eventually had the mod featured in a full-page article in PC Gamer, which was an incredible moment for a group of people building something from their bedrooms.

Looking back, I think of that work less as an early version of the game and more as a piece of interactive 3D concept art. It proved there was something compelling at the heart of the idea, and it established the relationships and conviction that would eventually make the game possible. The idea stayed with me for nearly two decades, until we finally had the experience, technology, and opportunity to return to it and execute on it with a lot more knowledge and know-how. 

So the journey from that mod to The Lost Wild was anything but a straight line. Looking back, it is surreal that a simple idea I had as a teenager could stay with me for so long and directly or indirectly shape so many of the decisions that followed. We still talk about how wild it is to this day. 

The Lost Wild has taken Nick Gregory 20+ years to bring to life, but it's now nearly here.

When, if ever, did The Lost Wild become your main focus/full-time job? 

For several years, The Lost Wild was something we built around full-time jobs and other responsibilities. We spent our evenings and weekends developing a vertical slice because we felt it was important to show the game itself, rather than rely on a polished presentation and promises about what it might eventually become if everything went to plan.

It was not easy. There were a lot of late nights, missed weekends, and personal savings poured into something with no guarantee that it would ever become more than an idea. It required a real sacrifice that, in hindsight, was now absolutely worth it.

The major turning point came when we signed with Annapurna. Since then, The Lost Wild has been the studio’s full-time focus. Their support allowed us to grow the team, move into full production, and take the project from that early vertical slice towards the game we are now preparing to release. 

So it was a gradual journey rather than a single overnight moment, but signing with Annapurna absolutely made this dream possible. 

What's the size of the team making the game today, and how has that differed from its earliest version?

When we first began working on the game full time, the core team consisted of just four people: myself, my co-founders Tim and David, and Dennis, a very talented freelance programmer at the time, who eventually joined us full time and is still with the studio today. 

Today, the team has grown considerably. We now have eighteen staff based in the UK and a further nine full-time, salaried team members working internationally. We also collaborate with a number of co-development partners and contractors whose contributions are equally important to the game.

Including everyone actively involved in development, the entire effort currently sits at around 30 people. It is a significant change from those earliest days, but we have tried to grow carefully and build the team around the specific needs of both the game and the studio, while also thinking about what comes next.

Why dinosaurs? What is it that made you want to make such a game?

I grew up on films like Jurassic Park, Jaws, Alien, and E.T. are just a few of them. I loved movies, and still do, so I probably had no choice but to be shaped by them. But I was always a gamer at heart, and I think that naturally made me want to take those feelings and turn them into something you could inhabit rather than simply watch.

For me, dinosaurs occupy a fascinating space between the familiar and the unknowable. Everyone recognizes them, but our understanding of how these extinct animals actually moved, behaved, and interacted can only ever be reconstructed from the evidence they left behind. Paleontology can tell us an enormous amount, yet there are still gaps in our understanding, and those gaps leave room for imagination and curiosity. 

The appeal was never simply about wanting to see a dinosaur up close. I wanted to experience them as animals. I wanted to see them moving through a natural environment, hunting, reacting, and existing without behaving like monsters.

At the same time, I wanted to capture the reverence and natural horror that might come from actually encountering one in the wild. There is something very primal about that idea. It is a mixture of fascination, awe, and fear. You are looking at something extraordinary and beautiful, but also something powerful, unpredictable, and completely indifferent to you. Of course, it is all hypothetical, but it became a scratch I needed to itch. 

In many ways, the game is my attempt to try and recreate the feelings those films gave me as a kid, but in a form where you are no longer sitting safely on the other side of the screen, but interacting with something instead. 

How scary do you want the game to be?

My hope is for The Lost Wild to be genuinely frightening, but not relentlessly so. The horror comes through observation, instinct, and restraint. It comes from feeling vulnerable, sharing an environment with powerful animals and never being entirely certain how they will respond. If every dinosaur simply attacked on sight, it would stop feeling like an animal and become a conventional monster. 

Just as importantly, the fear has to sit alongside awe, fascination and respect. We want anticipation and uncertainty to do as much work as the encounters themselves. Ideally, players never feel completely in control, but there is still space to appreciate the animals and the world they inhabit and genuinely be fascinated by them - even when one may be trying to eat you. 

What was it like designing the main character and who she is? What did you find important about creating this character?

Saskia was important to us from very early on, because the entire experience is filtered through her. She is not a soldier or a scientist or a hero; she is an ordinary person thrown into an extraordinary situation. She wakes up on the island after a car crash and gradually realizes that dinosaurs are real, that the island belongs to a mysterious company called Idehama, and that she has no idea how she got there or how she is going to get out. That ordinariness was the whole point. The question we kept coming back to was simply, “if I were there, what would I do?”, and Saskia is our way of putting the player inside that question.

The challenge was finding the balance between giving her enough personality to what we hope feels like a real, defined person while still leaving enough space for the player to inhabit her decisions. She is capable and resourceful, but she is not combat-trained. 

We also wanted her story to be something you uncover rather than something we force upon you. Saskia’s journey is shared with the player’s, and is the grounding rod in the game. 

Today, publisher Annapurna is revealing a new poster for The Lost Wild.

Do you find it odd how relatively few dinosaur games there are? We see other enemy themes like zombies, raiders, or aliens so often. Why do you think we have so few dino games?

This is such a great question because it’s so close to home for me. On the face of it, I have always wished there were more dinosaur games in general, particularly when you consider how universally loved dinosaurs are. Almost everyone has a dinosaur phase at some point, so it seems like an obvious subject for games. But I think the scarcity tells you something about how genuinely difficult they are to get right. 

There are, of course, dinosaur games, but they are also technically difficult and hard to make convincing in my opinion.  For us, that difficulty was part of the appeal. We wanted the freedom to build our own world and explore our own “what if,” rather than simply imitate what had come before. 

Where other people might see challenges, we saw it as a chance to do something on our own terms.

If I recall rightly, the folks at the Summer Game Fest demo said the dinosaurs in The Lost Wild are “animals, not monsters.” I found this to be a really interesting nuance. What do you feel is the important distinction, given the game does feature the dinos sniffing you out and hunting you down?

The distinction is really about motivation rather than danger. A monster exists to menace the player. It notices you the instant you enter the room, it fixates on you, and everything it does is built around threatening the person holding the controller. An animal does not care that you are the protagonist. You are simply another thing moving through its world.

The fact that it might hunt you does not make it a monster; it makes it a predator behaving as a predator might. We were very deliberate about not reducing those encounters to conventional combat puzzles with obvious weak points

You watch where an animal is looking before you move. You learn how it responds to sound, how it occupies a space, and when its attention may have shifted elsewhere. You are not equipped to kill the dinosaurs, but you can find non-lethal tools that help you create distractions, deter an approach or buy enough time to escape. Survival comes from evading, hiding, and using the environment rather than overpowering them. 

And crucially, that framing is what leaves room for awe. If every dinosaur charged you on sight, you would only ever feel hunted. Because they behave like animals, there are moments where you can watch one and feel genuine wonder before the fear sets back in. They are not villains; they are creatures behaving as they should, and that produces a more complicated emotional response, one that blends fear with fascination and respect, I think. The danger is a consequence of what they are, not the entire reason they exist.

I've likened the game to Alien: Isolation. Do you feel that was an inspiration? Any other inspirations you'd call out, especially those that may not be so obvious?

It is a very fair comparison, and in our case it runs deeper than a surface resemblance. Our game director, Gary Napper, worked on Alien: Isolation, so there is first-hand experience within the team of how powerful vulnerability, restraint and anticipation can be. Knowing when to show a creature, when to hold back and when to let the player’s imagination do the work are all things we think about very carefully.

That said, we are not trying to replace the xenomorph with a dinosaur. Our animals have their own behaviors, and their presence has to leave room for exploration, fascination, and awe as well as fear. 

Beyond games, a lot of our influence comes from the natural world. The original Jurassic Park is a clear example for reverence and scale, but Jaws matters to me just as much because so much of its terror lives in what you do not see, and in the anticipation of the threat rather than the threat itself.

The less obvious inspiration is wildlife filmmaking and real predator behavior. The patience, observation, and respect for an animal as an animal are things we think about constantly, because grounded behavior is what makes the whole experience convincing. We’ve watched all the dinosaur documentaries and YouTube videos, and are deep down dinosaur nerds at heart. 

Alien: Isolation is a useful reference for the feeling of being hunted. Nature is the reference for how we want the hunter to feel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-frigam660

The Lost Wild seemed to capture a lot of wishlists on Steam after its reveal. What effect does that have on the team this far out from launch? Is it purely an emotional boost or does it have other benefits, too?

It is absolutely an emotional boost, and I do not want to downplay that because it matters enormously. For a project that began with a small group of us working during evenings and weekends, seeing that level of interest is deeply validating. It tells us that the thing we believed in for so long resonates with people we have never met, and that is a wonderful feeling to have.

But it is far more than a morale lift. Wishlists are a real signal, both to us and to our publisher. They are one of the clearest indications we have that the premise and presentation are connecting with an audience.

Every wishlist is effectively someone saying, “You have my attention.” Our job is to earn the rest.

Does the team have any policy or opinions on generative AI?

Our position is straightforward. No generative AI content has been used in The Lost Wild. The art, writing, performances, audio, and other creative work in the game are the work of our team and development partners. We want the game to reflect the craft and authorship of the people making it.

The Lost Wild is due out in 2027 on PlayStation 5 and PC.

One of the best systems for getting your hands on rare Pokemon is set to close down in a few months, as Pokemon Bank will stop working next year. According to Serebii, the shutdown date has been penciled in for February 27, 2027.

This will effectively end the 3DS era of Pokemon, although the writing has been on the wall for a long time. Following the closure of the 3DS eShop in March 2023, 3DS owners were no longer able to download the app. Nintendo had already launched a replacement program for Switch, iOS, and Android a few years earlier, which served as a beefier upgrade when compared to Pokemon Bank.

The 3DS program still had value, as you could bring plenty of rare Pokemon from older DS--using a separate Pokemon app--Pokemon games to 3DS, and then move those Pokemon to Switch games in the series. There were a few limitations in place, but if you were looking to quickly complete a National Pokedex in recent Pokemon games, then having a 3DS and a menagerie of Pokemon in Pokemon Bank was the way to go. Games like Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are especially good, thanks to how easy it is to encounter Legendary-class Pokemon in the endgame.

Beyond those two examples, this will impact on a lot of great Pokemon games from over the years. From Nintendo DS classics like Pokemon Black/White to later 3DS adventures such as Pokemon X/Y and Pokemon Sun/Moon, the Pokemon in those games will remain locked within their respective cartridges.

https://bsky.app/profile/serebii.bsky.social/post/3msxpo2gnjc2a

It's worth noting that Pokemon Bank is also free to use, whereas Pokemon Home requires a monthly or annual subscription to house all of your pocket monsters. You're also required to have a Pokemon Home subscription to link to Pokemon Bank for when you want to transfer your pocket monsters over. While you can store up to 30 of them for free in the app, that's not nearly enough space to keep your entire collection in case you've been invested in the series for multiple generations.

There are over 1,000 Pokemon to collect--with more on the way when Pokemon Winds and Waves launches next year--so that free box can become cramped very quickly. You can also keep Pokemon in boxes in the Switch games, but being able to only move a few at a time from them to Pokemon Home and then to a new game can be an arduous process.

The Switch versions of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen will also receive Pokemon Home functionality in October 2026, allowing you to bring Generation One Pokemon over to newer games. Of course, each game costs $20, and any Pokemon taken from them to Pokemon Home cannot be deposited back into FireRed and LeafGreen.

Pokemon’s Most Disturbing Pokedex Entries View Images

Recently, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma saw a demo of The Elder Scrolls 6 and cryptically suggested the game's full name will have an eight-character subtitle.

That remains to be seen, but Elder Scrolls fans took the morsel of news and ran with it, offering many theories as to what the game could be called. One possibility is a reference found in Bethesda's last big game, Starfield.

Fans have suggested subtitles like Dominion, Starfall, Orsinium, Covenant, and, most intriguingly, Sentinel. That’s the name of a city in Hammerfell, a province in the world of The Elder Scrolls, and a top fan theory for where The Elder Scrolls 6 might take place.

As for the connection to Starfield, people on Reddit went back to the game's character-creator tool and found a 16-digit employee number that, as it turns out, spells "Sentinel" when dividing the numbers into pairs and associating that with letters of the alphabet. This was actually first discovered years ago, but the translation to Sentinel is gaining more steam now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TESVI/comments/1vmh7ze/by_the_way_sentinel_was_already_teased_in/?utm_source=embedv2&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_content=post_title&embed_host_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.reddit.com%2Fembed

Right now, these are just fan theories. It's entirely possible that Sharma's post with the asterisks meant nothing at all. The Elder Scrolls 6 is indeed likely to have a subtitle, as all previous games in the main series also did. These include The Elder Scrolls: Arena, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

The news about The Elder Scrolls 6 comes amidst upheaval at parent company Xbox as part of a "reset" of the business. The layoffs affected Bethesda as well, and studio staff said they fear further delays for The Elder Scrolls 6 and expressed concerns about the “crushing effect on morale” from the layoffs.

When Sharma came to visit the Bethesda offices in Maryland this week, protestors installed a Scabby the rat inflatable and planted fans in the ground for every developer laid off.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is one of multiple new games in the works at Bethesda and its supporting teams. Some of the others include remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, while Obsidian is working on some other new Fallout game. Fallout 5 is also in the works.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced has been a welcome hit for Ubisoft, and several weeks after the game launched for PC and console, new stats about it have been revealed. Mind you, these stats lean toward more esoteric data points, so if you've been curious about which Caribbean couture has been the most popular or just how shattered Edward Kenway's back must be after doing a dangerous amount of crouching, then these infographics are for you.

Kicking things off with a look at Kenway's threads. Ubisoft revealed that the subdued greys of the Privateer outfit is the most popular with players so far. Kenway's ship, the Jackdaw, has also traveled over 40 million kilometers thanks to the collective efforts of players, a distance that equates to 1,000 trips around the world at full sail. When it comes to weapons, Le Bourgeys Blades are the favorite of many a swashbuckler, and players have a 47% win rate against Legendary-class ships so far.

Can you pet the exotic animals in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced? You absolutely can, and the game has logged 28.29 million animals being petted--with cats naturally being at the top of the list. Finally, players have spent over 8 million hours crouched in the game--great for stealth, terrible for your lower back. Crouching effectively makes up 10% of the total playtime for the average player. While it's not listed in the original post, Ubisoft recently celebrated an unusual milestone for the game: the popularity of foot fetish pics taken using the game's photo mode.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Db4FjNCIFz0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

While Ubisoft hasn't posted any additional sales numbers recently, the Black Flag remake reached an impressive figure of 3 million units sold in its first week. The game also reached 99,451 concurrent players on Steam on launch day, setting a record for an Assassin’s Creed game on Steam.

The Amazon-owned streaming site Twitch is now using channels to train generative AI systems, and the company's top product boss knows it's a controversial piece of news that most people won't like.

By default, Twitch channels are now used to train generative AI models across Amazon, and users need to opt-out. Opting-out isn't enough, though, as any chats on a channel that hasn't opted out will still be used for training.

During a livestream, Twitch chief product officer Mike Minton said that if the model training was on an opt-in basis, no one would do it.

"We know many of you will opt out. Why is it not opt-in? 'Let me opt-in versus making me opt-out.' Well, there is an honest answer, and I think most of you can appreciate this. If it was opt-in, nobody would opt-in. That's honestly the answer. So it's going to be on by default," he said. "Almost every content service in the world is on by default. I think the thing that we are doing here that is unique and different is respecting your wishes to opt-out of model training. I know this is not a fan-favorite. I know it's very upsetting to the community. But this is where we are."

On the Twitch website, the company said the new model-training feature uses channel content to train generative AI content models, including streams, VODs, clips, stream chats, and pictures and text broadcast to the channel. Opting-out stops Twitch from doing this on your channel, but as mentioned above, chatting on someone else's stream will still leverage the model-training if that person has not opted out.

Additionally, anyone who opts-out to this new feature will still be part of model-training, as Twitch uses AI and machine learning for its AutoMod community-safety service and for AI-supported features like automatically generated captions. It is not possible to opt-out of these offerings, though Twitch said it does not retain user data for other types of model training.

You can't opt-out of all of Twitch's AI uses because some AI-supported features are not individual settings, but platform offerings, Twitch said.

"Some of it runs the service itself, the same way our servers and our code do. Some of it keeps the service secure. And some of it, like AutoMod, protects the whole community. Turning those off for one person would weaken safety and security for everyone else on the platform, so they are not individual settings," Twitch explained.

Twitch's own head of community, GameSpot alum Mary Kish, said she is opting-out of the new AI-training features in part because some of her community members would not join her streams if she opted-in.

Twitch's announcement drew a lot of responses. Popular streamer PaladinAmber joked that she is going to "start doing makeup that distorts my face and speak in really cryptic terms" and "f**k with the stream" so much that whatever the AI learns will be so bad it needs to be thrown out.

People are raising other issues, like what happens if a creator streams your game and has opted-in. Or what happens for union-backed voice actors who lobbied for protections against AI usage.

The push for further AI training on Twitch is not a big surprise, as its parent company, Amazon, is heavily invested in various pillars of AI. In May this year, the company said it was investing more than $200 billion into its AI buildout in 2026 alone. Amazon is also partnered with AI juggernaut Anthropic.

Rumors continue to swirl about who may play the British super-spy James Bond in the next movie. The latest name in the mix is Jack Lowden, the 36-year-old known in the video game world for playing T.E. Lawrence AKA Lawrence of Arabia in Battlefield 1.

TV presenter Richard Osman said on his podcast, The Rest Is Entertainment, that he heard from "someone" that Lowden is being considered for the role. He said his source told him "for definite" that Lowden is in the mix, though nothing is confirmed at this stage.

Jack Lowden played T.E. Lawrence in Battlefield 1.

Lowden's one and only video game credit is Battlefield 1. On TV, he's known for playing River on Slow Horses and will appear as Mr. Darcy in Netflix's upcoming Pride and Prejudice TV show. Lowden also played Forodwaith Sauron in an episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. In film, Lowden appeared in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk and voiced Gunnar in this year's Rogue Trooper movie.

In May this year, Bond movie production company Amazon MGM Studios said the search for the next James Bond actor was underway and that the film studio would not comment on the casting process.

Lowden is Scottish, and he would become just the second Scottish person to play James Bond, following Sean Connery. The character James Bond from the Ian Fleming book series is also Scottish.

Other actors said to be in the running to play James Bond include Callum Turner, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jacob Elordi, Theo James, Tom Francis, and Josh O'Connor, among others.

Fans have been waiting a long time for the next James Bond movie, as the latest entry, No Time To Die, was released in 2021. However, it was expected to release much sooner, but had three delays due in part to COVID.

Daniel Craig played James Bond in five 007 films, and wrapped up his run with No Time To Die. Amazon MGM Studios bought the franchise and reportedly paid a lot of money to take back creative control from the longtime series stewards Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson.

The new James Bond movie will be directed by Denis Villeneuve, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker known for the Dune franchise. He's also directed the movies Prisoners, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049, and Arrival.

After a story trailer got Bully fans excited for the spiritual successor Agefield High: Rock The School last year, the game has officially released on PC. Unfortunately, first impressions from players aren't so kind, so you may want to temper your expectations that it could match the high bar Rockstar set so long ago.

Set in the early 2000s and inspired by the humor of movies like American Pie, Agefield High's developers warn on the Steam page that this humor isn't for everyone. However, the complaints from players seem to be more with how the game runs on a basic level. Numerous Steam reviews mention the characters' very stiff animations, crashing issues, sluggish and imprecise combat, and lag, even when on very low PC settings.

The last thing you see before you die

Our own Jean-Luc Seipke has spent some time with Agefield High, as well, and they echo many of these same complaints, as well as the writing, so those who just want to experience the story might not have a great time either. At the very least, however, there isn't AI-generated art in it.

It appears developer/publisher Refugium Games may have acknowledged these rough edges in a Steam post. Written in-character as Principal Carpenter, it says, "Please be gentle with the walls. The paint is still fresh."

Perhaps everything will work more as expected once that paint has dried, but for now, it sounds like you'd have a better time just tracking down a used copy of Bully and not spending nearly $30 for Agefield High.

Helldivers 2's massive 7.0 update, Devoid of Liberty, is live now, and it brings some huge changes to the game's loveable SEAF soldiers.

These NPCs are basically the equivalent of UNSC marines in Halo--fun to have around, but not particularly good at their job. Previously in Helldivers 2, SEAF soldiers could be recruited to follow players around and occasionally shoot at enemies, but were mostly good at being accidentally (or maybe not?) blown to bits by friendly fire.

In the Devoid of Liberty update, the SEAF soldiers can now appear as a planet modifier, joining Helldivers in their battles. Dropships will routinely deliver SEAF soldiers into the fray, and they are more equipped for battle than ever before. Each SEAF squad will have a squad leader, a rifleman, a heavy weapon-wielding specialist, and a medic capable of stimming wounded Helldivers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLTltwbS4KY

Better yet, SEAF soldiers will now interact with players in new ways. They're now capable of interacting with emotes, meaning they can shake hands, play rock, paper, scissors, or even give a hug to a Helldiver in need.

The SEAF changes are just one piece of the latest Helldivers 2 update. Devoid of Liberty additionally adds two new terrifying Illuminate enemy types. One, the Wretch, looks to have been ripped straight out of EA's Dead Space franchise, with developer Arrowhead Studios advising players to aim for its limbs in order to stop its relentless pursuit. Another new enemy, the Crusher, is a walking giant capable of regenerating rapidly, meaning Helldivers will need to focus their fire and keep up the pressure in order to keep them down. 

On the quality-of-life front, the update massively increased Helldivers 2's level cap (from 150 to 300, with new ranks and rewards to earn). There's also plenty of balance changes, including making stims more responsive, faster recovery time after a heavy landing, and buffs to short magazines and secondary weapons. To coincide with new Void-based horrors, the game's long-awaited Warhammer 40K crossover Warbond is also available now. You can find the full Helldivers 2 Devoid of Liberty patch notes below.

For those who haven't yet made the call to defend Super Earth and spread Managed Democracy, Helldivers 2 is one of this month's free PlayStation Plus Extra/Premium games.

Helldivers 2 Devoid Of Liberty Update Patch Notes

New Illuminate Enemies

A new biome full of fresh horrors awaits, the void warps everything it touches and your foes have taken new hideous forms.

• The Crusher is on a deathmarch capable of regenerating while taking heavy damage and needs to be worn down quickly and consistently without a moment of pause.
• The Wretch is a relentless and nimble enemy that requires quick trigger fingers and focused aim as they are able to dodge and leap at the player while advancing to quickly dismantle its weapons along with their will to live.
• SEAF Support 

SEAF have entered the battle! 

Super Earth Armed Forces (SEAF) can now appear as a planet modifier, joining you in battle in your missions and enhancing your combat capabilities with a range of new tools (Stim pistols, Heavy Machine guns and more)

• The SEAF take to the stars. Super Earth High Command has mandated the SEAF be deployed directly to the frontlines of the Galactic Campaign for Democracy. Helldivers will be able to be supported by friendly SEAF NPC troops, with new and improved behavior, weaponry and updated visuals

Level Cap Increased

We've expanded the Helldiver rank system beyond Level 150, adding 15 new ranks and titles that carry Helldivers all the way up to Level 300. Each new rank comes with its own unique title and icon to recognize the most dedicated defenders of Managed Democracy. Super Earth thanks you for your continued service, the fight never ends, and neither does your potential.

Expanded Emote Slots

Helldivers, you now have twice as many ways to express yourself on the battlefield! The emote wheel capacity has been raised from 4 to 8 emotes.

CASTELLAN'S CREED Warbond

Channel the formidable battle prowess of the Astra Militarum’s finest in the HELLDIVERS™ 2 x Warhammer 40,000: Castellan’s Creed Legendary Warbond.

Community Feedback Changes

We’re trying out a new section to shout out some of the fixes and changes that are high up on the community’s wishlist!

GATER Upgrades
Super Earth engineers have replaced the engine and transmission in the GATER in favor of a much more powerful Super V48 Interceptor engine, this has improved its speed and handling.

The Constitution

… has stripper clips!

Assisted Reload Rework

Problem we want to solve: 

• The original intent was a tactical action that needed collaboration with a designated reloader that carries the backpack
• We have reevaluated how this works and with how the game has evolved since launch we got to the conclusion that the assisted reload action require too much coordination which lead to it rarely happening

Intent and expectation with the change:

• We want to reduce the complexity with assisted reloading to promote using it more.
• Allow players to keep their backpack and reload whenever you need, while also allows a teammate to easily help you if the opportunity arises. 

The change we made:

• Helldivers can now assist reload as long as one of the wielder and/or reloader of the weapon has the correct backpack

Balancing  Updated icons for backpack weapons and expendable weapons

Problem we want to solve: 

• Find a specific weapon in the loadout can be hard to do with all the new weapons added to the arsenal
• It can be hard to know if a support weapon needs a backpack or can not be reloaded when only looking at the icon.

Intent and expectation with the change:

• We want to make it easier to find specific weapons and to plan your loadout. 
• It should be easier to know when a weapon needs a backpack or can not be reloaded when only looking at the icon.

The change we made:

• Stratagem Weapons that require a backpack now have a backpack icon included on their loadout icons 
• Stratagem Weapons that can not be reloaded now have a drop weapon icon included on their loadout icons .

Decreased heavy landing duration

Problem we want to solve: 

• The original intent was to make the heavy landing to feel like you recovered from a high fall.
• The player lost control for a long time when landing on the feet from a higher fall.

Intent and expectation with the change:

• We wanted to make it smoother to recover from the heavy landing state and not remove the control for too long.
• While still make it feel like a heavy landing recovery

The change we made:

• Decreased the duration for the heavy landing animation with around 40%

Stim action input smoothing

Problem we want to solve: 

• Players can experience dead input when trying to stim when the stim action was not allowed.

Intent and expectation with the change:

• We want to lessen the feeling of dead input when using the stim action.

The change we made:

• We changed so the stim input is remembered for a short duration when the action is not allowed and will be executed if the stim action is allowed within that duration. 
• This works similar to how the reload input action changes from the last patch.

Ammo re-balance for Short magazines attachments and Secondaries 

Problem we want to solve: 

• The benefits of the short magazines are too few compared to drum magazines.
• The benefits of some of the anti personnel side arms do not have enough benefits compared to other side arm options.

Intent and expectation with the change:

• Give more benefits to short magazines to make the items more useful compared to drum magazines for the same weapon.
• Give more benefits to some of the lesser used anti personnel side arms to make the items more useful

The change we made:

• Short magazines got more max spare and starting magazines.
• Some of the anti personnel sidearms got more max spare and starting magazines.

Primaries

R-2124 Constitution

Added a full stripper clip reload when reloading if the magazine is empty.

Primaries attachments

Short magazines for:

AR-23 Liberator

AR-23P Liberator Penetrator

AR-23C Liberator Concussive

AR-23A Liberator Carbine 

AR-59 Suppressor

Increased spare magazines 12 to 16

Increased starting magazines 7 to 9

Short magazines for:

SMG-37 Defender 

SMG-72 Pummeler

Increased spare magazines 9 to 12

Increased starting magazines 6 to 8

Short magazines for:

SMG/FLAM-34 Stoker 

Increased spare magazines 10 to 13

Increased starting magazines 6 to 7

Decreased reload duration 2.8 sec to 2.3 sec 

Short magazines for:

SG-225 Breaker

SG-225IE Breaker Incendiary

Increased magazines spare magazines 9 to 11

Increased magazines starting magazines 6 to 7

Short magazines for:

SG-225SP Breaker Spray&Pray

Increased spare magazines 16 to 20

Increased starting magazines 11 to 12

Secondaries

P-113 Verdict

Increased max spare magazines from 8 to 10

Increased starting magazines from 4 to 6

M6C/SOCOM Pistol

Increased max spare magazines from 8 to 10

Increased starting magazines from 5 to 6

P-19 Redeemer

Increased spare magazines from 4 to 6

Stratagems 

Eagle Napalm Airstrike

Problem we want to solve: 

• The Eagle napalm did not feel as effective compared to other Eagle stratagems and napalm stratagems

Intent and expectation with the change:

• Create a larger area of effect for the napalms fire
• Make it more effective compared to other napalm stratagems

The change we made:

• Increased explosion radius 8 to 10m
• More spread out bomb pattern to cover a larger area

MD-17 Anti-Tank Mines

Problem we want to solve: 

• The explosion of the mines looks like they can destroy larger things

Intent and expectation with the change:

• The effect of the explosion match should match the visuals better
• Make the mines work in more situations like destroying colony walls and bug holes from the outside

The change we made:

• Increased Demolition strength from 30 to 40

Enemies Terminids Hunters

Problem we want to solve: 

• Hunters and their variants were unable to attack FRVs consistently 
• They could only use their tongue to attack, and struggle to find a proper position to launch it

Intent and expectation with the change:

• When Helldivers enter a FRV, Hunters should be able to attack the vehicle more naturally 

The change we made:

• We allowed one melee attack to be correctly triggered against FRVs 

Illuminate Veracitor 

Problem we want to solve: 

• When the Helldiver got attacked by a Veracitor while holding a ballistic shield it could created clipping issue where the arm of the Veracitor could merge with the body of the Helldiver and sometime resulting in sending the Helldiver at high speed in the air

Intent and expectation with the change:

• Fighting an exomech with a ballistic shield still protects against damage, but Helldivers will now ragdoll when blocking an attack
• Helldivers won’t be sent to low orbit anymore after blocking an attack with ballistic shield.

Ballistic shield will break after around 15 direct hits

The change we made:

• Increased Exomech melee’s force strength from 25 to 40
• Conformed Exomech melee’s attack armor penetration to all correctly be Anti tank

Fixes Crash Fixes

• Fixed rare crash that could happen when dropping down the core drill
• Fixed a crash which could occur when spreading fire
• Fixed a very rare crash which could occur when mortar sentries update their targeting aim
• Fixed a crash that could happen sometimes when dropping in on CR7+ missions on Cyberstan
• Fixed a rare UI crash on shutdown
• Fixed a crash when using multiple monitors with different DPI scales in Windows 

Weapons & Stratagem Fixes

• Sway and reload weapon stats now display decimals for better accuracy
• Stratagem Weapons that require a backpack now have a backpack icon included on their loadout icons 
• Stratagem Weapons that cannot be reloaded now have a drop weapon icon included on their loadout icons 
• You can now assist reload a Helldiver, using ammo from their backpack
• Fixed glitch where Veto pistol would receive one extra round (translating to one extra 6 bullet reload!) from the Siege-Ready armor passive.
  • Also corrects a few other weapons which also received one erroneous extra round, magazine or heat-coil. We continue to round partial bonus rounds/mags/coils up in favor of the player. 
• Fixed a bug where the camera clipped through the R-36 Eruptor with 2x Tube Red Dot equipped when inserting the next bullet in ADS at max FoV
• Enemies will no longer spontaneously attack the GATER unless the Helldiver is inside it or unless they are drilling. Enemies famously hate the democratic extraction of natural resources.
• Weapons will no longer lock onto the tank of the GATER
• Increased GATER ammo capacity, health, knockback and impact damage. Also made it harder to roll sideways
• Increased the speed and responsiveness of the GATER
• Fixed an issue where the first person animation of the LAS-58 Talon overloading would make the weapon clip with the SH-20 Ballistic Shield Backpack
• Fixed an issue where the Helldiver would cancel draw animations if they tried to enter the aim state while switching weapons. This would cause the Helldiver to look ready to fire, while still preparing the weapon
• The Ministry of Defence user experience department have made improvements to the TD-220 Bastion Mk.XVI munitions system Heads Up Display. This should make it clearer the main canon can be reloaded manually.
• Orbital Laser will no longer occasionally get stuck after targeting a flying enemy
• Exosuits will no longer get stuck in trees when being dropped off
• Throwable items are now being visible to other players when the Helldiver is carrying them
• Fixed a bug where the EXO-55 Breakthrough Exosuit would sometimes have the shield arm damage zones protrude through the shield, resulting in the arm taking damage that the shield should have protected
• Fixed case where the Breaker Drill could get stuck on the roof in certain hive world missions
• M-104 Incinerator FRV's mounted flamethrower now shows the correct icon and name

Enemies

• Fixed an issue where the Gatekeeper's weapons clipped into each other when their target was too close
• Fixed an issue where visually removing the armor of the Impaler didn't match the gameplay experience
• Impaler close melee attack now has a damage shockwave
• Hunters are now able to attack FRVs more consistently
• Fixed a bug where enemies would disappear when the Helldiver died, thus not being able to know what just killed the Helldiver
• Fixed enemy navigation issues in one of the Take Down Overship locations
• Fixed a bug where the Veracitor's melee attack could clip through Helldivers holding a SH-20 Ballistic Shield Backpack
• Fixed issue where Watchers and Obtruders were not attacking players while mounted behind a Grenadier Battlement
• Fixed an issue where sometimes the Hive Lord scales would not visually break properly (did not affect gameplay behavior)
• Obtruder will now collide correctly with Helldivers
• Reduced clipping between Obtruder and Helldivers' vehicles
• Veracitors now guard outposts
• Fixed an issue where the Veracitor clipped through buildings and obstacles while charging. It should now destroy anything in its path and stop when hitting a wall
• Fixed an issue where the Veracitor clipped through buildings and obstacles while charging. It should now destroy anything in its path and stop when hitting a wall
• Gatekeeper spawnrate has been increased to closely match Veracitor in Encounters
• Fixed a bug for Gatekeeper sometimes appearing to turn in place without moving their legs
• Fixed bug which would on rare occasions cause enemies to not be able to move into the correct attack range
• SEAFs can destroy enemy spawners
• Enemies have learned how to climb stairs during the Establish Communication Uplink missions

Miscellaneous Fixes

• Fixed several mission HUD inconsistencies on certain Hiveworld missions
• Fixed visible holes in the terrain in one of the Disrupt Shield Generator locations
• Fixed a bug where the factory building facade was inverted
• Updated the sounds for picking up medals, requisition slips and super credits one of the missions
• Fixed a bug where the Recoil Simulator was showing all ammo being fired at once
• Vehicle delivery shuttles will no longer get stuck endlessly looking for a place to drop off their deliveries when deployed in dense cities between tall buildings
• Helldivers will no longer ride the victory elevator with their hands in the air like some kind of rollercoaster
• Helldivers how have a chance to find super credits in Factory Worlds
• Fixed an issue in the tutorial where the incoming timer for the Orbital Precision Strike could display an incorrect duration
• Optimized various gameplay VFX across the game
• Prevented hit-markers being displayed for hits from indirect explosive damage, damage from your sentries and damage from your orbitals/airstrikes. Melee weapons, laser weapons and flame weapons will now display their hit markers correctly
• Fixed an issue with ragdolling causing invisible collision issues
• Exo Storms of class 2 and 3 will now spawn tornadoes of varying sizes, depending on the intensity of the storm.
• If your Helldiver cannot stim at the exact moment when the stim button is pressed, they will automatically stim as soon as they are able to (up to 2 seconds later)
• Fixed a bug where planting the CQC-1 One True Flag would break animations for other melee weapons.
• Fixed a bug where the CQC-1 One True Flag would be planted at the Helldivers feet instead of being planted in front of the Helldiver
• Fixed an issue where the player could see through the Destroyer ship while in a cutscene
• Decreased the Helldivers heavy land animation from 1.32 sec to 0.8 sec
• Scrolling to the bottom of the Bindings menu with a controller now correctly stops at the last available option instead of disappearing
• Fixed possible graphical artifacts in the Control Center
• Fixed a bug where Network Desync can cause SEAF Artillery shells to not be inserted properly, causing a soft lock
• Fixed a visual bug where the Oil Rig was displaying both destroyed and non-destroyed visual states
• Clothes on the upper body of civilian industrial corpses in cities now have the correct textures
• Optimized tree VFX materials
• Fixed an issue where network problems caused collision errors with enemy corpses.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Super Credits from spawning in Factory Cities
• Additional improvements to image quality when using upscaling
• Reduced ghosting around the edges of the screen when using NVIDIA DLSS upscaling
• Fixed blocky artifacts on nebula effects, especially visible on lower render scales

Amazon Game Studios looks to be getting out of the MMO business entirely, handing Western operations of Throne and Liberty and Lost Ark back to their respective developers. 

In two blog posts, Amazon Game Studios outlined its plans to transition both games to their South Korean creators in the coming months. For Throne and Liberty, that transition will happen in Q4 2026 as NC (formerly NCSoft) takes over, while Lost Ark's transition will happen in early 2027 and see Smilegate fully take the reins. 

While Amazon didn't develop the two games directly, it did publish both titles and handled live-service operations and customer support in the West. Both free-to-play games found success at launch (Lost Ark in particular saw huge numbers on Steam), but have seen player counts dwindle over time.

It doesn't sound like much will change in the near term. Both games will likely experience some downtime as Amazon hands over the keys, but the two games will each continue to operate in the West. Most player data and character progress made in the two games will also carry forward. In the case of Throne and Liberty, cross-progression will no longer work between Steam and consoles after the transition. 

For those who don't want to hand over all of their data, there will be an option to opt out of the transition. Doing so naturally means characters, items, and other progress won't be transferred, and players will essentially need to start again from scratch. For everyone else, the data transfer will essentially be seamless, with no action needed on the part of players aside from needing to accept a new terms of service upon logging in for the first time.

Amazon just a few years ago looked to be establishing itself as a major player in the MMO space. It released its own MMO, New World, in 2021 to huge initial numbers on Steam, even if it didn't hold on to that momentum for long. It then followed up that success in 2022 by publishing and operating Lost Ark in the West, with Throne and Liberty following a similar playbook in 2024. There were also plans for Amazon to publish the anime MMO Blue Protocol, though the game's Western release was instead canceled entirely.

Flash forward to now and the house of Bezos has completely washed its hands of the genre. Amazon announced earlier this year that New World's servers will go offline in early 2027, following a console release in 2024 and a string of well-received updates that had players optimistic for the future prior to the shutdown announcement. The creators of New World were also working on a Lord of the Rings MMO, only for that to be reportedly canceled amidst layoffs at Amazon Game Studios.

The live-action adaptation of God of War is on the way, but the voice of the iconic god-killer Kratos, Christopher Judge, has a bone to pick with the people behind game adaptations. As the actor explained, he's annoyed that these projects fail to hire anyone from the source material to work on them, as they tend to ignore the talent behind the success of those games.

"My problem with all game adaptations is you have this pre-existing, successful property, and the first thing you do is not hire anyone associated with it," Judge said during a Fan Expo panel (via Reddit), using HBO's The Last of Us as an example. "The Last of Us--loved Pedro [Pascal]--were they better than the game cast? I saw a stage reading they did. It was unreal. I have no idea why you don't just take that cast, those writers, especially when you're going to do [episodes] that are shot-for-shot remakes of the game!"

God of War Ragnarok

The voice actors of The Last of Us have often been praised for elevating the story with their performances, and it's not too much of a stretch to imagine Baker playing the live-action version of Joel Miller. Of course, it's not that easy, as you have various factors to consider, like availability for a shoot and contract negotiations, as well as the fact that Pascal is a bigger star in comparison to Baker--Pascal is a household name who can draw audiences to watch the series based on the recognition factor alone. Baker did appear in the series, making a cameo as a villain named James.

Writing for video games and TV are also two vastly different things, but it wouldn't hurt to have some of those creatives around to assist with an adaptation in the writer's room. As Judge explained, if you're going to adapt games and do "shot-for-shot" remakes of them, hiring the writers behind them would be a smart move. "What are you thinking? These guys have been immersed in this world for 20 years, but someone's gonna know better?" Judge said about Amazon's God of War project.

That show ran into trouble recently, as the original actor cast to play Kratos, Ryan Hurst, suffered a bicep tear during filming. Forced to vacate the role, former WWE star Dave Bautista is now rumored to be in talks to replace Hurst, who showed off just how shredded he got to play Kratos.

Pearl Abyss has announced that Crimson Desert is planned to come out on Switch 2 in 2027. In fact, the developer behind the huge hit--which has sold over 4 million copies on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S--has a rough release window sometime between January and June. 

The open-world action game heading to Switch 2 had previously been discussed by Pearl Abyss, but the company's latest earnings letter confirms Crimson Desert for the hybrid system. "In the case of Switch 2, the game has reached a playable baseline, and we are currently conducting technical reviews regarding performance optimization and quality standard compliance, targeting a release in the first half of next year," the financial briefing states. 

Switch 2 is the only system listed for platform expansion of Crimson Desert, with Pearl Abyss adding that no mobile version is currently planned. How the game translates to the hybrid system will be fascinating, since it offers such a ridiculous sandbox to play with. The developer is also "currently conducting extensive research from both technical and gameplay perspectives" regarding multiplayer for the game. However, the company is clear that introducing multiplayer is a "complex" endeavor.

Crimson Desert made over $180 million for Pearl Abyss earlier this year, and it's been one of the best-selling games in the US for 2026. The game also has one of the best companions for your character: a fat, lazy cat. For more, check out GameSpot's Crimson Desert review. 

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