Given that Sony holds the marketing rights for Grand Theft Auto 6, Microsoft has had to get creative to promote the open-world crime game for Xbox--and the company's latest effort in that department goes big.

Say Hello to the X-Bite, a playable Xbox Series X console that was designed to look like it was swallowed whole by one of Florida's millions of alligators. Microsoft only made one of these ornate consoles, and you have to win a contest to get it.

Microsoft's blog post doesn't mention GTA 6 or Rockstar Games, but Xbox marketing boss Josh Munsee said the system has "pure Miami vibes," and that's a pretty obvious reference to GTA 6 given the game takes place in a stand-in, Vice City, for the popular Florida city. The blog post says the winner of the console can play "some of the biggest games of the year" using it, and that's no doubt another nod to GTA 6.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJptn7J1xeI&t=1s

"This November, Xbox is heading to Florida--home to incredible wildlife, unforgettable places, and every now and then, stories you have to see to believe," Microsoft said in its announcement of the X-Bite.

The X-Bite is about five feet long, and the console itself sits inside the alligator, with the Nexus/Guide button illuminated through the gator's skin. The lucky winner will also get a custom Xbox controller with simulated bite marks on it.

The custom console was designed by creature animatronic specialist John Nolan Studio, which did work for The Witcher and Jurassic World Dominion.

Microsoft's fine print states that the gator console is a "custom fabrication" and wasn't made from a real alligator. "No actual alligators were used or harmed in the making of this console," Microsoft said. The estimated value of the console is $800, Microsoft said.

The X-Bite.

You can enter for a chance to win the X-Bite by following Xbox on X, Instagram, or TikTok, reposting the sweepstakes post, and then add #XbiteSweepstakes to your repost. You'll also need to have a public account.

The sweepstakes runs now through November 10. The winner, who will be chosen by a random draw, will have 48 hours to respond if they're selected. "Miss the window, and this gator makes a clean getaway," Microsoft said in yet another reference to GTA 6.

GTA 6 is getting special treatment for its PS5 edition, and this has so far included a limited-edition DualSense controller inspired by the game and trailers for GTA 6 that end by telling people the game "plays best" on PS5. The game's recent launch trailer does not include the Xbox logo, either.

GTA 6 is of course not exclusive to Xbox, and there is no evidence that it "plays best" on PS5.

According to Sensor Tower, GTA 6 has sold about 2 million copies so far on Xbox Series X|S, compared to 5.75 million on PS5. Xbox is not worried the PS5 version massively pacing ahead of Xbox, in part because the 74%/26% split in favor of PS5 over Xbox reflects Xbox's current share of the console market. GTA 6 is breaking records already for Xbox, the company has said.

Microsoft takes a 30% cut of games sold on the Xbox platform, so that could end up being a huge number when the game launches, even if it's far behind PS5. At about 2 million copies sold on Xbox so far, according to Sensor Tower, that's $192 million in gross revenue; Xbox's cut would be about $57.6 million. Sensor Tower has said the majority of GTA 6 preorders should come in the final week before release, and could reach 25 million.

If the split stays about where it is now, that would be about 6.5 million units on Xbox by launch, generating more than $170 million in platform fees paid to Xbox. Of course, these are just ballpark estimates, but it's a sure thing that GTA 6 is going to be a big deal for Xbox. Microsoft already alluded to this, as the company forecast major growth for Xbox content and services in the current quarter, and while management didn't attribute this to any particular title, the gargantuan release of GTA 6 is no doubt factored in.

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

World of Warcraft: Forever just received a massive batch of class-balance updates ahead of launch that have boosted power across the board, but one group of players isn't happy with the changes: Shamans.

Developer Blizzard recently released Forever's launch patch notes based on feedback and data accumulated during the beta, resulting in a power spike for all classes and major reworks for classes like Paladin and Rogue. Shamans, too, received some significant changes, most notably the removal of a key Elemental specialization ability, Lava Burst, along with any interactions other abilities had with it.

It's that change, and other changes to specialization-specific abilities like Restoration's Riptide and Enhancement's Maelstrom Weapon, that have resulted in the WoW Classic Shaman Discord going into lockdown in protest. The entire server, which has around 80,000 members, has been made read-only, with a message declaring the reason for why it took what it described as such a "drastic measure."

"Community feedback gets completely ignored and class fantasies are getting destroyed," the server declared. "With this we intend to give them [Blizzard] a sign and show them that the community is not [happy] with how they approached our beloved class. Give us back our class and spec identities and fantasies."

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/1xmovqz/classic_shaman_discord_server_just_went_full_ret/

While the protest is in regards to class changes in Forever specifically, the server is also home to Shaman discussions as they relate to other "classic" versions of the game as well, including WoW Classic and Mists of Pandaria Classic. As of writing, all of those channels are also locked and set to read-only. 

In a follow-up post, the server went into more detail about its complaints in regards to how Blizzard has approached Forever's Shaman design. It stated its complaints aren't about "damage output." It also made clear the server will re-open "regardless of the outcome," but that it felt like its feedback through "legitimate" channels were being ignored. 

The server then proceeded to list what it viewed as wrong with various ability changes for each Shaman specialization. It additionally called attention to what it called the "hybrid spell power issue," where spell power and intellect gear seems to be better for not only Elemental but also Enhancement, muddying the identity between the two specializations. 

https://youtu.be/Cb8r05IXiyI?si=BU3xZyfqeSL1qEb3

Blizzard has previously said it doesn't want "hybrid" classes that can deal damage and heal, like Shamans, to deal more damage than dedicated DPS classes. Players in the WoW community refer to this idea as the "hybrid tax," something those running the Shaman Discord said they are fine with if it means Shaman class design is improved.

"Truthfully, hybrid tax us all you want if the result is a cohesive class with strong class fantasy elements that are actually represented in our playstyles," it said. 

This isn't the first time a WoW class Discord shut down in protest of how class changes. As pointed out by Wowhead, back in August 2025, the modern WoW Paladin Discord was partially closed in protest of the Retribution specialization's raid performance. In that case, only Retribution-specific channels were locked, and the entire protest lasted less than 24 hours. Blizzard did announce Retribution Paladin buffs shortly after, though it's unclear if those changes came at least in part due to the server protest or not.

How long the WoW Classic Shaman Discord remains in lockdown remains to be seen, but Forever launches November 4. Blizzard recently said it doesn't expect to make any more major class changes for at least another month.

World of Warcraft: Forever is gearing up for launch with some major class balance changes, but don't expect any more for at least a month.

As detailed in Forever's launch patch notes, Blizzard is making some dramatic class changes, including major reworks to Rogue and Paladin talents, in time for release that will result in a big spike in player power. Blizzard said it has used all the data from the game's month-long beta to "get everything tuned to a reasonable place."

However, don't expect additional changes in the near future. Blizzard said it won't be making significant balance changes until sometime next month.

"With the exception of bugs and serious outliers, we don't plan on making big tuning changes between now and the opening of the raids next month," Blizzard wrote in its patch notes. "Once we have sufficient data from players leveling past 30 and engaging in a wide range of content, we expect that we will do a large tuning pass based on our data."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Wg46fwmb0&t

Forever's three launch raids will open December 9, meaning there will be a little over a month without class changes. But launch and its subsequent months will just be the beginning, Blizzard said.

"This is all merely a starting point for the classes in Forever, which will continue over the course of the months and years ahead just as they did following the original launch in 2004," Blizzard said. 

Blizzard is in it for the long haul with Forever, telling GameSpot in an interview it hopes the game will continue to receive updates for the next 10-20 years (or potentially forever). It recently announced its plans to release major Forever content updates every four months, as well as teased how its controller support will eventually lead to players being able to play the MMORPG on "whatever you want." 

WoW: Forever launches November 4, but you can make your character now. In other Forever news, Blizzards revealed it will be making major improvements to the game's divisive layering system, how it's avoiding the problem of "dead" servers, and announced big changes to racial abilities alongside its newly announced class changes.

Rockstar Games has confirmed more details about Grand Theft Auto 6's impending release on November 19, including more information about physical goodies. While the game itself won't be available on a disc, Rockstar is offering a printable physical GTA 6 cover art poster and a map of the game's setting, Leonida.

The poster and Leonida map will be available for free as digital downloads on GTA 6's official website on November 19. A double-sized physical version of the poster will be available "shortly after launch" from the Rockstar Store for 99 cents. Alternatively, it's free with any purchase from the Rockstar Store.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmKu9Uow-os

Back in the day, Rockstar used to include fold-out posters in the box for GTA games featuring the game's cover art and map. But GTA 6 is a digital-only game. Players can buy a physical GTA 6 box at retail stores, but it won't include a disc, only a code for a digital download. Rockstar hasn't said if it will include anything extra in the box.

Some retailers are apparently trying to sweeten the deal to encourage people to buy from them. It was recently reported that Walmart orders of GTA 6 will include some kind of "surprise." When the Switch 2 released, some Walmart orders for the console included "game-ready" snacks like soda and chips.

In other news, Rockstar just recently announced when GTA 6 preloading begins and when the game unlocks--players in the US will be among the last people in the world to get in.

World of Warcraft: Forever is changing in some major ways for launch, with Blizzard revealing classes across the board will deal more damage as it pursues design solutions that better fit in with Forever's combat.

In a lengthy developer note attached to Forever's launch patch notes, Blizzard outlined its philosophy for its latest version of WoW. It said during the game's nearly month-long beta that it was trying to keep player power in check. That meant every time it gave a class new tools and abilities, it had to tone down others to compensate. Blizzard now thinks that was the wrong approach.

"Those reductions left some iconic abilities feeling lackluster, and closed the door to other potentially exciting design options," Blizzard said. "So over the last two weeks, we've raised damage on classes across the game, and have increased the health of higher-level creatures to compensate."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Wg46fwmb0

In addition to classes simply doing more damage, classes themselves are changing in major ways. Elemental Shamans, for example, have had Lava Burst, a key part of their class during the beta, removed entirely. It's an example of what Blizzard said was the developer hastily "turning to Burning Crusade or Wrath-era solutions" rather than creating new ideas for how classes should play in Forever compared to previous versions of WoW.

"Our aim in class design is not perfect numerical equality, but rather for every class to feel valuable to groups they join, with powerful, unforgettable moments brought on by mastering them," Blizzard said. "In Forever this is accomplished by doubling down on the strengths and differences that make each class unique, rather than overly unifying them."

Alongside Shaman, a number of other classes have received significant changes going into launch, particularly Paladin and Rogue, with much of their talent trees almost completely reworked. Every class has received some balance changes.

Though the patch notes are largely dedicated to class changes, there are some other adjustments coming for launch as well. There are a number of tweaks to the game's controller support and bug fixes for various quests. Blizzard stated it additionally increased enemy respawn rates in the world for launch, particularly in lower-level zones. Its goal isn't to completely remove contention for spawns but to make it so players aren't hitting hard bottlenecks.

"Once the initial launch surge of low-level characters has settled down, we will adjust the lower-level zones down to more typical rates," Blizzard said. 

You can find the full WoW: Forever launch patch notes below. WoW: Forever launches November 4. Ahead of launch, read up on the best WoW: Forever addons to install so you're ready on day one. In other news, Blizzard revealed its plans for how often players should expect Forever updates, as well how it's looking to avoid dead servers in the future.

WoW: Forever November 2 Launch Patch Notes

Bug Fixes

• Throw will now correctly use the 0.5 second windup timer (was incorrectly using the throwing weapon’s attack speed).
• Legacy Reward - Replica Ironforge Air Rifle can now correctly be used on allies that also have one equipped.
  • Duration of the quitter debuff reduced to 40 seconds (was 5 minutes).
  • Duration of the stun reduced to 2.5 seconds (was 3 seconds).
• All Races now have the correct amount of base stats. For example, Tauren Warriors now start with the correct +5 strength relative to Human Warriors (was incorrectly +2). This fix was also applied to High Order and Windshaper Skyborne base stats.
• Roots that occur from Procs now correctly have Diminishing Returns. Includes Frostbite, Entrapment, Improved Wing Clip, Counterattack, and Improved Hamstring.

Classes

• Developer’s notes: Over the course of Beta, we came to the realization that trying to hold ourselves roughly to Classic power budgets for each class meant that every new element we added needed to come at the expense of something else. Those reductions left some iconic abilities feeling lackluster, and closed the door to other potentially exciting design options. So over the last two weeks, we’ve raised damage on classes across the game, and have increased the health of higher level creatures to compensate. This additional “headroom” has allowed us to tune things to a place that we hope feels better overall. Beyond that, some of this round of changes reflects areas where we were likely hasty in turning to Burning Crusade- or Wrath-era solutions rather than carving out new ones that better fit into the Forever combat model. Our aim in class design is not perfect numerical equality, but rather for every class to feel valuable to the groups they join, with powerful, unforgettable moments brought on by mastering them. In Forever this is accomplished by doubling down on the strengths and differences that make each class unique, rather than overly unifying them.
• Developers’ notes: We’ve used the data and feedback gathered during Beta testing to get everything tuned to a reasonable place. However, the only true test of that tuning is the game itself. With the exception of bugs and serious outliers, we don’t plan on making big tuning changes between now and the opening of the raids next month. Once we have sufficient data from players leveling past 30 and engaging in a wide range of content, we expect that we will do a large tuning pass based on our data. And this is all merely a starting point for the classes in Forever, which will continue to evolve over the course of the months and years ahead just as they did following the original launch in 2004.
• Various talents no longer have a penalty to their chance to trigger when casting spells of a low rank.
  • This penalty does still apply to Blizzard. Blizzard continues to have a reduced chance to trigger Arcane Concentration, Frostbite, and Fingers of Frost when casting a rank learned more than 12 levels lower than the caster’s current level.
• Learning new spells will no longer cause them to be automatically added to your action bars.
• Training costs on have been adjusted for all classes.
  • Most abilities learned at the same level have the same cost to train, with the exception of Priest race-specific abilities.
  • Total cost to train class abilities from 1-60 is now between 206 and 207 gold for all classes.
  • Warlocks costs are reduced by the expected costs of buying Grimoires for their pets.
• Druid
  • Lacerate is now a Feral talent and not learned by all Druids.
  • Ferocious Bite has a new Rank 1 at level 24. All the existing ranks were re-labeled one rank higher.
  • Bear Form and Dire Bear Form: Threat bonus increased from 50% to 115%. This is to compensate for Blessing of Salvation being removed.
  • Poised: New passive ability learned at level 32. “When you are not in combat and have your maximum Energy, you will gain Poised. Poised reduces the Energy cost of your next Energy ability by 10.”
  • Shred: Weapon damage percent increased to 200% from 155%.
  • Claw: Weapon damage percent increased to 140% from 110%.
  • Ravage: Weapon damage percent increased from 350% to 435%.
  • Rip: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.
  • Rake: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.
  • Ferocious Bite: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.
  • Pounce: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.
  • Starfire: Base damage points increased by about 40%.
  • Balance
    • Genesis: Now increases periodic damage and healing by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.
    • Moonkin Form: The critical strike bonus from this talent is again an increase to all types of critical strikes and is again exclusive with Leader of the Pack.
  • Feral
    • Heart of the Wild: The talent has moved to the Restoration tree, swapping with Furor.
    • Lacerate: This is now a 1-point talent on row 4, replacing Primal Bite. Lacerate has two new ranks added to accomodate being learned earlier.
    • Predatory Discipline: This is a new 1-point talent on row 4 in column 3, replacing Shifting Power. “Your Ferocious Bite ability no longer converts extra Energy into damage but still deals extra damage based on your excess Energy.” It has no pre-requisite talents.
    • Predatory Strikes: Moved to column 1 (was column 3).
    • Leader of the Pack: The critical strike bonus from this talent is again an increase to all types of critical strikes and is again exclusive with Moonkin Aura.
    • Natural Instinct: Moved to column 4 (was column 1).
    • Rend and Tear: Moved to column 1 (was column 3). Damage bonus increased to 3/6/9/12/15% (was 2/4/6/8/10%).
    • Berserk talent removed.
    • Primal Bite: Replaces Berserk as a 1-point talent on row 7, column 2, with Leader of the Pack as a pre-requisite. Number of ranks reduced to 3.
    • Shifting Power: Now a 1-point talent on row 7, with Predatory Discipline as a pre-requisite. Like row 4, we now have two different 31-point talents for Feral – one focused on Bear gameplay and one focused on Cat gameplay.
  • Restoration
    • Furor: This talent has moved to the Feral tree, swapping with Heart of the Wild.
    • Naturalist: Now increases all damage by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%. Now also reduces the cast time of Wild Growth by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds.
    • Reflection: This talent has moved to row 2 from row 3, swapping with Subtlety.
    • Subtlety: This talent has moved to row 3 from row 2, swapping with Reflection.
    • Gift of the Earthmother: This talent has been removed.
    • Bloom: New 1-point talent in 3rd row, replacing Gift of the Earthmother. “When your Rejuvenation or Regrowth spell expires due to its duration, the target is instantly healed for an amount equal to 100% of your Spirit. If either spell expires due to being dispelled, the target is healed for 50% of your Spirit instead.”
    • Swiftmend: Now requires the Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on the target to be one placed by the casting Druid.
    • Wild Growth: Now has a base casting time of 3 seconds.
• Hunter
  • Hunter’s Mark can no longer be applied to a target multiple times by using different ranks of the spell.
  • Fixed an issue where Rank 4 Hunter’s Mark was providing less Ranged Attack Power than Rank 3.
  • Fixed an issue with the wording of the Explosive Trap debuff.
  • All types of Hunter traps now have the same shared 30 second cooldown, instead of separate cooldowns for Fire-based and Frost-based traps.
  • Aimed Shot: Bonus damage on all ranks increased by ~110%.
  • Arcane Shot: Base damage on all ranks increased by ~30% and Attack Power coefficient raised from 0.1 to 0.15.
  • Serpent Sting: Attack Power coefficient per tick increased to 5% from 3%. Base damage on all ranks increased ~20%.
  • Aspect of the Hawk: Ranged Attack Power bonus increased on all ranks. New values: 20, 35, 50, 70, 90, 110 for ranks 1-6.
  • Hunter pets should no longer lose their innate Attack Speed passives when untraining them.
  • Beast Mastery
    • Pathfinding: This talent moved from 2nd row to 3rd row.
  • Marksmanship
    • Barrage: Damage increase raised to 5/10/15% from 3/7/10%.
    • Sniper Shot: Bonus damage on all ranks increased by 100%.
    • Trueshot Aura: Ranged Attack Power bonus increased on all ranks. New values: 20, 35, 50, 75, 100.
  • Survival
    • Lacerating Strikes: This effect will always overwrite an existing one from the same Hunter, even if the new effect is weaker damage per second.
    • Lightning Reflexes: Agility bonus increased to 3/6/9/12/15% from 2/4/6/8/10%.
• Mage
  • Imbue Iceknife’s visual has been changed to better convey that it is a Root and not a Stun.
  • Frost Blast: This spell has been removed.
  • Arcane
    • Missile Barrage is now correctly consumed at the start of the Mage’s Arcane Missiles channel (was consumed at the end).
    • Missile Barrage has been moved to the 2nd row from the 1st row.
    • Arcane Resilience has been moved to the 1st row from the 2nd row. It now allows up to 3 talent points to be spent for a maximum armor increase of 75% of Intellect.
    • Clearcasting is no longer consumed on Arcane Missiles if Missile Barrage is active at the same time.
    • Fixed an issue where Arcane Missles did not proc Clearcasting.
    • Arcane Focus: This talent has been removed, as it is now combined into the talent Precision in the Frost tree.
    • Arcane Blast: Mana cost increase per stack reduced to 100% from 175%. Percent of Intellect as Spell Damage reduced from 15% to 12% per stack. Duration increased to 18 seconds.
  • Fire
    • Fixed an issue where Ignite was not applying to Flamestrike damage past the initial instance.
    • Incineration: This talent now allows spending up to 5 talent points for 10% critical chance on affected spells, up from 3 talent points for 6%.
    • Improved Fireball: Renamed Accelerant. Now also reduces the cast time of Arcane Wrath by up to 0.5 seconds.
    • Critical Mass: This talent has been reverted to a maximum of 3 talent points, instead of 5, for a total of 6% critical strike chance increase, down from 10%.
    • Improved Fire Blast moved to 3rd row from 1st row.
  • Frost
    • The Piercing ice talent has been removed.
    • Ice Barrier now increases your Frost Damage dealt by 15% for 1minute when activated and grants an additional 5% Frost Damage while the barrier holds.
      • Developers’ notes: Removing Piercing Ice gives the player a few more talents to play around with early on in the tree, and empowering Ice Barrier gives the Mage a reason to go all the way down the tree for PvE.
    • Frost Warding increases the amount of damage your Ice Barrier and Frost Wards can absorb.
    • Frost Warding no longer has a chance to Reflect spells but instead has a chance to fully negate the damage of the spell without depleting the Frost Ward.
    • Elemental Precision has been renamed Precision and is back to being a 3-point talent, granting 2/4/6% chance to hit with all spells (was 1/2/3/4/5%).
    • Ice Lance now has an 8 second cooldown shared with Fire Blast. Bonsu damage to Frozen targets increased back to 300%.
    • Winter’s Chill: Bonus to Cone of Cold damage increased to 20% per stack.
• Paladin
  • Righteous Fury is now available to train at level 10 (was 16). This mirrors the level that other Tanks gain access to their tanking stance.
  • Salvation, Mass Salvation, and Revoke have been removed.
  • Righteous Fury now grants a 33% increase to all threat generated, and an additional 90% threat from Holy damage.
  • Blessing of Light has been removed.
  • Righteous Fury is now properly made free by the Legacy Talent, The Quick and the Dead.
  • Judgement of Fury’s duration reduced to 3 seconds (Was 4 seconds).
  • Holy
    • Spiritual Focus moved to Row 1 (Was Row 2). Changed to a 5-point talent (Was a 2-point talent). Max rank unchanged.
    • Improved Seals changed to a 5-point talent (Was a 3-point talent). Max rank unchanged.
    • Reverence moved to Row 2 (Was Row 3). Changed to a 2-point talent (Was a 3-point talent). Max rank unchanged.
    • Unyielding Faith moved to Retribution.
    • Purifying Power moved to Row 2 (Was Row 3).
    • Voice of Truth removed.
    • Divine Favor moved to Row 3 (Was Row 4).
    • Illumination moved to Row 3 (Was Row 4).
    • Holy Conduit moved
    • Divine Precision moved to Row 4 (Was Row 5). Changed to a 2-point talent granting 4/8% chance to hit with Holy spells (Was 6/12/18% chance to hit with Holy spells). Additionally, Divine Precision now also reduces the duration of Silence effects on you by 10/20%.
    • New Talent Oath of Light in Row 4. 40-yard range, 8% of Base Mana cost. No cooldown. Swear an Oath to protect target ally for 5 min, increasing the healing of your Holy Light, Flash of Light, and Holy Shock spells. Only one Oath of Light may be sworn by the Paladin at any one time. The amount of bonus healing increases with the player’s level.
    • New Talent Boundless Light in Row 5. Passive - Increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Shock spell by 15/30% when cast on allies not affected by your Oath of Light.
    • Holy Power changed to Increases the critical strike healing bonus of your Holy Spells by 10/20/30/40/50% (Was Increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Shock and Holy Strike spells by 3/6/9/12/15%, and all other spells by 1/2/3/4/5%).
    • Light’s Vigil is now only usable on friendly targets and has had its offensive capabilities removed. The tooltip has been reworded to reflect this.
  • Protection
    • Reckoning will now correctly perform its number of attacks based on stacks, and Reckoning will no longer gain stacks while sitting.
    • Divine Intellect moved to Row 1 of Protection (was Row 1 of Holy).
    • Sacred Duty moved to Row 2 (Was Row 3).
    • Sacred Duty no longer grants % increase to Stamina. In addition to its cooldown reduction on Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Templar’s Bulwark by 30sec/1min, it now also reduces the duration of your Forbearance effect by 5/10 seconds.
    • Improved Seal of Fury removed.
    • Templar’s Bulwark moved to Row 3 (Was Row 5).
    • Templar’s Bulwark is now a Magic effect and dispellable.
    • Improved Righteous Fury’s damage reduction changed to 3/6/9% (was 2/4/6%).
    • Shield Specialization changed to a 2-point talent granting 15/30% increased shield block value, and a 50/100% chance to grant 4% of your Maximum Mana. (Unchanged at max rank).
    • Toughness moved to Row 3 (Was Row 1).
    • Anticipation moved to Row 4 (Was Row 2).
    • Swift Judgement changed to instantly unleash your active Seal. Does not share a cooldown with Judgement (Was resets the cooldown of your Judgement ability).
    • One-Handed Weapon Specialization removed.
    • New Talent Stoicism added to Row 5. Reduces the duration of Stun and Charm effects on you by 10/20%.
    • Holy Shield moved to Row 5 (Was Row 7).
    • Iron Creed changed to a 3-point talent (Was a 5-point talent) and increases the threat generated by Holy Strike by 10/20/30%, and grants 2/4/6% damage reduction for 6 seconds (was 5/10/15/20/25% increased threat, and 2/4/6/8/10% damage reduction).
    • New Talent Shieldsworn added to Row 7. Reduces the cooldown of your Holy Strike ability by 4 seconds. Additionally, Holy Strike now strikes with your shield, triggering all talents that activate when you block without consuming their charges or triggering their cooldowns, and allowing you to Block spells for 6 seconds.
  • Retribution
    • Holy Conduit moved to the 3rd Row of the Holy Tree (was 2nd Row of Retribution).
    • Sanctified Judgement has been moved to Row 2 (was Row 3).
    • Conviction moved to Row 2 (Was Row 3).
    • Conviction changed to grant 2/4/6% critical strike chance to all spells and attacks (Was 1/2/3/4/5% to just melee attacks).
    • Vindication no longer grants an increase to Attack Power (was 1/2/3% increased Attack Power.
    • Unyielding Faith moved to Row 3 of Retribution (was Row 2 of Holy).
    • Two-Handed Weapon Specialization moved to Row 4 (was Row 5).
    • Two-Handed Weapon Specialization changed to increase both Holy and Physical damage by 2/4/6% (Was just Physical damage).
    • Two-Handed Weapon Specialization changed to also reduce the Threat generated by the Paladin by 7/14/20% while wearing a two-handed melee weapon.
    • Instrument of Law Removed.
    • Champion of the Light changed to increasing the Paladin’s spell damage by 12/24/36/48/60% of their Intellect and also reduces the cast time of Hammer of Wrath by 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0 seconds.
    • Vengeance changed to stacking up to 5 times (Was stacking up to 3 times).
    • Vengeance now requires Seal of Command (was requiring Sanctified Judgement).
    • New Talent added to Row 5, Turn Evil - Reduces the cast time of your Turn Undead spell by 0.5/1.0 sec, its cooldown by 5/10 sec, and allows it to affect Demons.
    • Twist of Light removed.
    • Unsealed Wrath is the new 31st talent. Your melee attacks store a copy of your active Seal for 15 sec, stacking up to 3 times. Landing an attack with a different Seal consumes all stacks, giving the stored Seal its normal chance to activate once per stack.
    • Unsealed Wrath now requires Repentance.
• Priest
  • Power Word: Shield can now correctly be replaced by a Power Word: Shield of equal or greater rank.
  • Shadow Word: Death now causes 30% of maximum Health damage to the Priest if it fails to kill the target, up from 10%. Shadow Word: Death will no longer damage the Priest when the spell misses.
  • Fixed an issue causing Undead Priest’s Dark Sacrifice to still break crowd control effects.
  • Holy
    • Binding Heal removed.
    • New talent in Binding Heal’s slot: Holy Binding. When the Priest heals a target other than themselves with Flash Heal, 50% of the healing done by the Flash Heal is also done to the Priest. This healing generates no threat.
  • Shadow
    • Devouring Contagion no longer spreads Devouring Plague if it is spreading from a critter.
    • Vampiric Embrace Healing can no longer roll a critical effect.
    • Fixed an issue where Cure Disease and Abolish Disease would take the Priest out of Shadowform.
• Rogue
  • Casting Slice and Dice no longer causes the target to stand up if sitting.
  • Poised: New passive ability learned at level 18. “When you are not in combat and have your maximum Energy, you will gain Poised. Poised reduces the Energy cost of your next Energy ability by 10.”
  • New Spell Added: Shank. Learned at level 24. 5 Energy cost. 10 second cooldown. Melee range. Instantly strike with your off-hand weapon, dealing 50% weapon damage and generating 15 Energy. Shank cannot Miss. Rank 2 learned at level 44 and generates 25 Energy.
  • Deadly Poison Attack Power coefficient increased to 0.009 (Was 0.0045)
  • Instant Poison Attack Power coefficient increased to 0.01 (Was 0.005)
  • Assassination
    • The Ruthlessness talent activating no longer causes the target to stand up if sitting.
    • Improved Expose Armor moved to Row 2 (Was Row 3).
    • Murder has been removed.
    • Lethality changed to a 2-point talent granting 10/20% increased Critical Strike damage to the abilities listed (Was a 5-point talent granting 4/8/12/16/20%).
    • Vigor moved to Row 3 (Was Row 5).
    • New Talent: Blood Splatter. Passive. 1 point talent in Row 3. Increases the duration of your Rupture ability by 6 seconds and your Garrote ability by 9 seconds.
    • Relentless Strikes moved to Row 5 (was Row 3).
    • Relentless Strikes change to a 5-point talent granting a 4/8/12/16/20% chance per Combo Point to restore 25 Energy (was 1 point granting 20% per combo point).
    • Venom moved to Row 5 (was Row 7).
    • Venom is now a Passive that causes your Shank ability to increase your Poison damage by 30% and your chance to apply Poisons by 20% for 6 seconds.
    • Seal Fate changed to a 3-point talent granting your critical strikes from abilities that add Combo Points a 33/66/100% chance to add an additional Combo Point.
    • Mutilate moved to Row 7 (was Row 9).
    • Mutilates damage increased to 90% of weapon damage plus an additional amount that was also increased (was 75% weapon damage and a lower amount).
  • Combat
    • Improved Eviscerate has been renamed Coup de Grace, Increasing the damage done by your Eviscerate ability by 7/13/20%, and the damage and storage rate of your Death Mark ability by 7/13/20%.
    • Improved Sinister Strike renamed to Efficient Strikes and now reduces the Energy costs of Sinister Strike and Hemorrhage by 3/5 (was just Sinister Strike discounted).
    • Improved Sprint moved to Row 2 (was Row 3).
    • New Talent: Composure. Passive. 2-point talent in Row 3. Increases the Energy cost reduction of your Poised ability by 5/10.
    • Flawless Execution energy cost reduction increased to 15 (was 10).
    • Weapon Expertise moved to Row 4 (was Row 6).
    • Aggression moved to Row 4 (was Row 6).
    • Aggression changed to increasing the damage of Sinister Strike and Eviscerate by 5/10/15% (was Sinister Strike, Eviscerate, and Backstab by 2/4/6%).
    • Dual Wield Specialization moved to Row 5 (was Row 4).
    • Dual Wield Specialization changed to a 2-point talent granting 25/50% increased off-hand weapon damage (was 5 a points granting 5/10/15/20/25% off-hand weapon damage).
    • New Talent: Flash of Steel. Passive. 5-point talent in Row 6. Increases the energy generated by your Shank ability by 3/6/9/12/15 and reduces its cooldown by 0.4/0.8/1.2/1.6/2.0 seconds.
  • Subtlety
    • Fixed an issue where Hemorrhage and Ghostly Strike were dealing much more damage than intended when using a Dagger.
    • Setup moved to Row 1 (was Row 2).
    • Setup changed to a 15/30/45% chance to add a Combo Point to your target after Dodging their attack or fully resisting one of their spells (was 33/66/100% chance).
    • Opportunity changed to a 5-point talent granting 4/8/12/16/20% increased damage to Backstab, Garrote, Ambush, and Mutilate (was 2 points granting 5/10%).
    • Dirty Deeds moved to Row 2 (was Row 5).
    • Camouflage moved to Row 2 (was Row 1).
    • Camouflage changed to a 3-point talent granting 5/10/15% increased movement speed in stealth and reduces stealth’s cooldown by 2/4/6 seconds (was 5 points granting 3/6/9/12/15% and 2/3/4/5/6).
    • Premeditation moved to Row 3 (was Row 4).
    • Serrated Blades moved to Row 3 (was Row 4).
    • Elusiveness moved to Row 4 (was Row 2).
    • Ghostly Strike moved to Row 4 (was Row 3).
    • Ghostly Strike now also causes your next Ambush or Garrote cast within 7 seconds to not require Stealth.
    • Improved Distract removed.
    • New Talent: Quick Getaway. Passive. 2-point talent in Row 4. Increases the maximum number of targets you may have Sapped by 1/1 and increases your movement speed by 15/30% for 3 seconds after sapping a target.
    • Heightened Senses moved to Row 5 (was Row 4).
    • Hemorrhage changed to increase the damage of the caster’s Rupture and Garrote abilities by 15% (was only increasing Rupture by 15%).
    • Quietus has been removed.
    • Cutthroat has been removed.
    • New Talent: Boot Knife. Passive. 5-point talent in Row 6. Gives your Shank ability a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to add 2 Combo Points to the target.
    • Thousand Cuts has been removed.
    • New Talent: Death Mark. Active. 1 point talent in Row 7. 25 Energy cost. 20-yard range. 10 second cooldown. Curse. Finishing move that marks the target, storing a portion of the damage dealt by your attacks per Combo Point. Garrote and Rupture damage is stored at twice the rate. After 6 sec, the stored damage is dealt up to a maximum increased by Attack Power and Critical Strike chance.
• Shaman
  • Windfury Weapon now causes the Shaman to animate an additional weapon swing attack.
  • Windfury Totem now causes the player to animate an additional weapon swing attack.
  • Totemic Projection renamed Totemic Call. It now teleports the Shaman’s totems to the Shaman’s own location, and its cooldown is reduced to 30 seconds.
  • Lightning Bolt: Base damage of all ranks increased, with larger percentage increases on the higher ranks. Max rank was increased by 80%. Each rank’s new base damage is roughly 78% of the base damage as the Classic Era version (but cast time is lower than Classic Era).
  • Chain Lightning cast time increased to 2.5 seconds. Primary target base damage increased to approximately 145% of comparable rank Lightning Bolt base damage. Mana cost increased to approximately 225% of comparable rank Lightning Bolt Mana cost.
  • Shocks: All shock base damage reverted to match Classic Era values (higher than previous Forever Beta values).
  • Elemental
    • Lightning Overload: Talent now grants a 10/20/30% chance to trigger a duplicate spell, up from 3/7/10% chance.
    • Lava Burst: Removed. Replaced with Call of Thunder, which increases critical strike chance of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning by 5%. All references to Lava Burst removed.
    • Elemental Mastery renamed Lightning Mastery. Icon changed.
    • Elemental Reach no longer reduces the cooldown of Totemic Projection.
  • Enhancement
    • Improved Ghost Wolf moved from 2nd row to 4th row.
    • Maelstrom Weapon: Chance to trigger doubled.
    • Stormstrike: Now deals 150% normalized weapon damage, up from 100%. Cooldown reduced to 6 seconds from 8 seconds.
    • Mental Dexterity: Now increases the Shaman’s Attack Power by 50/100/150% of Intellect, up from 33/67/100%.
    • Flurry: Now increases attack speed by 6/12/18/24/30%, up from 5/10/15/20/25%.
  • Restoration
    • Riptide: Mana cost reduced by about 40%. Cooldown increased to 12 seconds from 6 seconds. Riptide no longer deals any initial healing, just healing over time.
• Warlock
  • Spellstones now correctly only increase Shadow damage (was increasing Shadow and Fire damage).
  • Pets now gain 2 Health per point of Master’s Stamina (was 7.5 Health per point of Master’s Stamina).
  • Bane of Agony now correctly dynamically updates its damage.
  • Drain Soul: This chance for this spell to grant a Soul Shard on dealing damage (not a kill) has been reduced significantly.
  • Affliction
    • Amplify Curse now correctly affects Curse of Exhaustion and Bane of Agony.
    • Improved Drains: Now increases Drain Mana’s amount of Mana drained but no longer increases Wrack damage.
    • Wrack: Spell damage coefficient doubled, to match the expected coefficient per cast time of 0.286 per second. Base damage per second now increases with each level by 2.5. Base damage per second at level 60 effectively increased from 36 to 86.
  • Destruction
    • Shadow and Flame: The damage bonuses from this talent now increase Fire or Shadow damage by 4/8/12/16/20%, up from 2/4/6/8/10%.
• Warrior
  • Fixed an issue with the tooltip of Victory Rush incorrectly displaying the amount of damage it would deal.
  • Defensive Stance: Threat bonus increased from 30% to 80%.
  • The cooldown of Slam has been reduced to 15 seconds (was 18 seconds).
  • Arms
    • Improved Tactical Mastery changed to a 3-point talent granting the ability to retain 5/10/15 additional Rage when changing stances (was a 5-point talent granting 3/6/9/12/15 Rage retention).
    • Two-Handed Weapon Specialization changed to grant 2/4/6% increased damage when using a two-handed melee weapon (was 1/2/3% increased damage).
    • Bloodthrill changed to a 2-point talent granting your Main Hand melee attacks against enemies afflicted by your Rend a 10/20% chance to allow an activation of Overpower (was a 5-point talent granting a 4/8/12/16/20% chance).
    • Improved Slam’s reduction to Slam’s cooldown changed to 2.5/5 seconds (was 3.0/3.0).
  • Fury
    • The Blood Craze and Gore Drinker talents no longer generate threat when restoring Health to the Warrior.
    • Blood Craze will no longer activate when sitting.
    • Booming voice now also reduces the Rage cost of Piercing Howl by 5/10/15/20/25%.
    • Enrage moved to Row 3 (was Row 4).
    • New Talent: Reckless Swings. Row 4. 1 Point. 15 second cooldown. Costs 25% of base health. Your next 4 melee attacks generate 5 additional Rage. Lasts 8 seconds.
    • Gore Drinker moved to Row 5 (was Row 6) and is connected to Blood Craze now instead of Enrage.
    • Death Wish is no longer required for Flurry.
    • Flurry changed to a 3-point granting 10/20/30% increased attack speed for 3 swings after a critical strike (was 5 points granting 5/10/15/20/25% increased attack speed).
    • New Talent: Improved Whirlwind. Row 6. 2 Point. Passive. Reduces the cooldown of your Whirlwind ability by 1/2 seconds and increases the damage it deals to the closest enemy by 15/30%.
    • Bloodthirst now has Death Wish as a required talent.
  • Protection
    • Defiance: Threat bonus increased to 7/13/20% from 5/10/15%.

Player versus Player

• In the Darkspear Islands battleground, dropping the flag no longer places the “Recently Dropped Flag” debuff on the player who dropped it.

Races

• Dwarf
  • Earth Fury (2% increased critical strike damage and healing) removed.
  • Added: Artisan’s Precision - Increases hit chance with spells and attacks by 1%.
• Human
  • Ruthless now increases critical chance by 1% (was 2%).
  • Human Spirit now increases Spirit by 10% (was 5%).
• Orc
  • Savage removed (1% increased critical strike chance).
  • Command re-added, increasing Warlock and Hunter pet damage by 5%.
  • Blood Fury’s cooldown reduced to 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).
• Skyborne
  • Wind-Blessed Haste bonus reduced to 2% (was 3%).
  • Read Leyline now increases Mana and Health regeneration by 50% (was 100%), with a 15-second duration. This ability cannot be used while Innervate is active, and will be replaced by Innervate as a more powerful effect.
  • Using Read Leyline at a Ley Line now also grants “Attuned” for 1 hour. While Attuned, the benefit of Read Leyline is increased to 100% regeneration increase. Attuned persists through death, and is removed upon entering a raid.
  • Skysight is now a 15% increased movement speed (was 10%), with a 15-second duration.
  • Using Skysight at an elemental convergence now also grants “Charged” for 1 hour. While Charged, the benefit of Skysight is a 30% movement speed increase. Charged persists through death, and is removed upon entering a raid.
• Tauren
  • Plainsrunning now grants 2% movement speed per stack (was 1%), for a total max increase of 60% (was 30%).
  • Plainsrunning no longer increases mounted movement speed.
  • Endurance no longer provides any modifiers beyond 5% increased Health (no hit chance or critical damage modifiers).
• Troll
  • Berserking duration increased to 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).
• Undead
  • Cannibalize can once again be used while immune to Physical damage.
  • Fixed an issue where Touch of the Grave was not activating frequently enough.
  • Fixed an issue where Touch of the Grave was leaving a beam visual behind.
  • Touch of the Grave internal cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (was 25 seconds).

Gamepad Support

• Gamepad Support has entered a complete functional state.
  • In World of Warcraft: Forever, all major gameplay and core user interface experiences can be played with a controller, including movement, spells, interactions, UI navigation, etc.
  • Gamepad settings can be customized through Edit Mode and the Options menu.
• Action Bars
  • AoE items bound to the Gamepad Action Bar can now be used and placed at a targeted location.
    • Press the Action Bar button again to confirm placement, consistent with ground-targeted AoE spells.
  • Fixed an issue where changing the current keyboard and mouse Action Bar page would cause Gamepad Action Bar buttons to be offset.
  • Fixed an issue where Gamepad Action Bar settings were not immediately reflected while in Edit Mode.
• Add-ons
  • Improved Gamepad UI compatibility with user-created add-ons to reduce the likelihood of add-on conflicts causing interface issues.
• Bags and Inventory
  • Fixed an issue where Gamepad focus could move away from the inventory after confirming or canceling the destruction of an item.
  • Fixed an issue where horizontal Gamepad navigation could behave incorrectly when moving between bag columns of different heights.
  • Fixed an issue where navigating the inventory with a Gamepad during a trade could cause a Lua error.
  • Fixed an issue where opening individual bags with the keyboard and mouse UI could cause a Lua error after switching from the Gamepad UI.
  • Improved bag management when using a Gamepad.
  • Improved the Gamepad Bag UI.
    • Added updated visuals and clearer bag states.
    • Added remaining bag space and ammo count indicators.
    • Improved bag prompts and interactions.
    • Improved Keyring navigation and highlighting.
    • Improved the inventory search layout.
• Character Select & Ruleset Selection
  • Added Gamepad support for navigating and interacting with ruleset selection screens.
  • Fixed an issue where newly created characters were not automatically selected when returning to the Character Select screen while using a Gamepad.
• Cinematics
  • Added Gamepad support for skipping or exiting cinematics.
• Combat and Targeting
  • Added Gamepad support for targeting a previously assigned Focus Target.
    • LB + RB + Face Down can be used to select your Focus Target.
    • The target context menu displays Clear Focus when your current target is also your Focus Target.
  • Friendly corpses can now be targeted with a Gamepad.
    • Friendly Analog Targeting can target friendly corpses.
    • Friendly Tab Targeting can target friendly corpses.
  • Improved Gamepad targeting for critters.
    • Hostile Analog Targeting can target critters.
    • Soft Targeting can target critters.
  • Improved Gamepad targeting of enemy players.
    • Enemy players can no longer be selected by Friendly Analog Targeting.
    • Enemy players can be selected by Hostile Analog Targeting regardless of PvP flag status.
  • Units behind the player can now be selected with Analog Targeting when they remain visible on screen.
  • Feign Death units that remain attackable can now be targeted if and only if the Gamepad reticle is positioned over them.
  • Fixed an issue where certain attackable enemies could incorrectly display an Interact icon when using a Gamepad.
  • Fixed an issue where looting or closing the loot window could leave a corpse incorrectly locked as the player’s target.
• Flight Paths
  • Added Gamepad support for ending a flight path early using the Back/Cancel action.
    • Players will dismount at the next available flight point.
• Navigation and Focus
  • Fixed an issue where Gamepad focus could be lost from the Options panel after closing a graphics settings confirmation dialog.
  • Updated popup behavior so non-user-initiated popups no longer automatically steal Gamepad focus.
    • These popups can be explicitly focused using the View/Select action or equivalent controller input.
  • Updated Gamepad navigation prompts to use LT and RT button indicators when navigating between supported UI panels.
• Pets
  • Added Gamepad support for the Pet Move command.
    • Pet placement can be confirmed using the Interact button or by activating the ability again.
• Professions
  • Fixed an issue where Gamepad users could not use the Train action at Profession Trainers when a skill upgrade was the only available option.
  • Fixed an issue where the Gamepad prompt for removing a Profession did not indicate that the button needed to be held.
• Quests
  • Fixed an issue where viewing quest details in a different map region with a Gamepad could cause a Lua error.
• Swing Timers
  • Fixed an issue where the Off-Hand Swing Timer could fail to appear after logging in on dual-wielding characters.
• Tooltips and UI
  • Added Gamepad support for adjusting opacity in the Color Picker.
  • Fixed an issue where Gamepad LB and RB prompts could incorrectly appear in the Equipment Manager while using the keyboard and mouse UI.
  • Updated Gamepad tooltips to remain visible rather than allowing them to be toggled on or off with the controller.

Items

• Bags
  • Bags will no longer automatically equip into available bag slots and must now be manually equipped by the player.

Quests and World

• Adjusted respawn rates for many different areas in the world.
  • Developers’ notes: Our goal with these adjustments is to properly support large player volumes at launch, so that players aren’t hitting hard bottlenecks and can continue to enjoy the game. Some contention for spawns is expected and part of the experience - it is not our goal to remove that. These adjusted rates are generally on the faster side in lower-level zones - with starting zones being the fastest - and gradually fall to slower rates as you level up, consistent with when players naturally spread out across the many zones available in WoW Forever. Once the initial launch surge of low-level characters has settled down, we will adjust the lower-level zones down to more typical rates.
• Adjusted experience values on various quests.
• Adjusted pre-requisites and level settings on some quests to improve flow across the world.
• Added mouseover tooltips for objectives on various quests.
• Added missing point-of-interest markers and adjusted incorrect ones on various quests.
• Fixed incorrect zone sorts in the quest log on various quests.
• Fixed various quests where destroying the associated item would not abandon the quest, and vice versa.
• Fixed an issue where some satyr were classified as humanoids instead of demons. They are now 100% more scared of Paladins.
• Alterac Mountains
  • Fixed an issue where Dalaran Summoners were really amazingly good at summoning and would summon until their little hearts couldn’t summon anymore. And then they’d summon some more anyway.
• Barrens
  • You can now speak to Rethgar Deathgate to begin the event for “Counterattack!” if it is not currently active.
  • The Alliance Outrunners now spawn in random locations.
• Darkshore
  • The quest “Holy Diver” now gives an XP reward.
• Mulgore
  • Gloomrise Hatchlings now give lower XP, commensurate with their lower health values.
• Orgrimmar
  • Fixed an issue during “Hidden Enemies” where the Lieutenant’s Insignia would remain in inventory after quest completion.
• Ruins of Lordaeron
  • Ruins of Lordaeron dungeon quests now consistently require a minimum of level 15 to start (was a mix of 15 and 16), and some pre-requisites have been adjusted.
• Teldrassil
  • The Cleft - There are now slightly fewer spiders in this area for the quest “Twisted Hatred”.
• Wetlands
  • Fixed an issue where Carnage reset near the end of the fight for the quest “Carnage”.
  • Fixed an issue during “Destruction in Deadmines” where Alba Fairmoon would become unavailable to turn-in the quest.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Xbox this year, Microsoft has launched a "25 Years of Xbox" digital game bundle. It includes 25 games for $570.

That works out to about $23/game, but it's more nuanced than that, as some of the games are bundles themselves. For example, one of the games in the bundle, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, includes Halo 1, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4. There are Gears of War and Age of Empire bundles, too.

Some of the games in the bundle are for both Xbox and PC, and some are just for Xbox or just for PC. Additionally, many of the games in the pricy bundle are currently on Xbox Game Pass.

Given all of that, you may want to check your library and do some quick math before spending hundreds of dollars on this anniversary bundle.

2026 is the 25th anniversary of Xbox, and Microsoft wanted it to be a significant celebratory event for fans and employees alike, but the year has been terrible for the Xbox brand. After Microsoft named Asha Sharma the new Xbox CEO in February, she gutted Xbox as part of a "reset" that included mass layoffs, studio divestitures, and game cancellations. Sharma said these moves were necessary because Xbox was in such an unhealthy place in terms of its finances.

25 Years of Xbox Bundle:

Buy here at Xbox

• Halo 3: ODST
• Halo 4
• Halo 3
• Halo 2: Anniversary
• Halo: Combat Anniversary
• Halo: Reach
• Minecraft Dungeons for Windows + Launcher
• The Elder Scrolls Online: Standard Edition
• Gears Tactics
• Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition
• Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
• Minecraft Dungeons Ultimate Edition for Windows
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection
• Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition - The Complete History
• Age of Empires: Definitive Edition
• Age of Mythology: Retold Premium Edition
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition (PC)
• Fallout 76: Deathclaw Pet Deluxe Edition (PC)
• The Elder Scrolls Online: Deluxe Edition
• Gears Triple Bundle (containing Gears 5, Gears 5: Hivebusters, and Gears Tactics)
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition (PC) + Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition (PC) Bundle
• Doom Anthology (containing Doom: The Dark Ages, Doom Eternal, Doom, Doom 3, Doom 64, and Doom + Doom II)
• Age of Empires 25th Anniversary Collection (containing Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition, Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, Age of Empires Definitive Edition)

Indie game storefront Itch.io has announced it removed "a couple terabytes of AI slop" and has begun taking steps to combat the deluge of AI-created games appearing on the platform. "Just because you can upload 10 terabytes of poorly optimized AI-generated models doesn't mean you should upload 10 terabytes of poorly optimized AI-generated models," Itch wrote in a social media post.

The platform had already noted that the number of game pages being created per day had doubled from 3,000 to 6,000 over the last two months, with reports of users flooding the game uploads page with dozens of AI-created game spams. Going forward, Itch says that these sorts of bulk uploads will result in that spam being de-indexed, and filtering for generative AI disclosure will be added more sections of the site, including the search results page.

This doesn't mean Itch is outright banning AI-generated content, but it is taking a harder line against people who spam the site with it. In its official terms and conditions, Itch states that if the use of AI in a game is "clearly stated" and if "it adds substantial value" to the user experience, then that's okay. But if you're uploading something iterative, that'll be against the platform's rules.

https://twitter.com/itchio/status/2117477402469351462 https://twitter.com/itchio/status/2117465932511744390

Essentially, if you don't want to see AI-built games when you search Itch, the new filter will keep them out of your search results. This is a far stronger response than Valve's, as Steam's approach to AI slop has been very hands-off so far. While Valve has vaguely suggested it's considering how to address the influx of AI spam following the disastrous October edition of Next Fest, its response to developers fearful of AI-cloned projects has left much to be desired.

According to several developers, AI slop is a much bigger problem than Steam realizes.

Valve said that developers should focus on building a community and more unique features into their games to help stand out, which does nothing to address the issue of their projects being cloned the second they share progress online--although one of the big drivers behind cloned games, Anthropic's Claude, may have had its copycat abilities throttled recently.

Confirming a recent report, Bethesda has confirmed the subtitle of the next Elder Scrolls game as The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel. This was shared as part of a 40-year-anniversary video recapping many of Bethesda's highlights over the year.

Unfortunately, that's all that was shared about the game, though we did get a (very familiar-looking) title card showing the game's name in the classic Elder Scrolls font.

The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel

The one hint of what might await in the game was a quote that follows the screen above. It's attributed to Yazar, Moth Priest of High Queen Iradne of Hammerfell in 4E 206: "The scroll offered only a shimmer, a veil thinly lifted to my eyes. A future lost. A victory undone. Sands of time scattered by fate."

Two details stick out there: the reference to a scroll and Hammerfell. A recent report from The Verge stated that Elder Scrolls VI will be set in Hammerfell and focus on the history of the titular Elder Scrolls and discovering their secrets. You can see how this quote might hint at that being the case, though these details remain unconfirmed for now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvcfI8RPZYc

The Elder Scrolls VI was announced way back in 2018, at a time that Bethesda boss Todd Howard later admitted was not his preference. Virtually nothing has been shared about the game since that debut trailer, including any imagery, hence the reason we've all seen that mountain range countless times in the eight-plus years since.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the majority of Bethesda Game Studios staff are at work on the game, with Howard saying, “We know we need to get it right and it’s been a long time." The last core entry in the series, Skyrim, released in 2011, meaning it will be more than a 15-year gap between new games.

No release date or platforms for The Elder Scrolls VI have been announced, although Bethesda's parent company, Xbox, has faced renewed pressure to turn its business around. In part, that will involve focusing on its biggest franchises, with Fallout 5 also in the works, though Bethesda devs are said to fear further layoffs.

Self-made millionaire Mark Tilbury has shared some advice for how buying GTA 6 can actually save you $5,000. Just don't take this too seriously.

Here's how he arrived at that number: If the game costs $100 (for the Ultimate Edition) and it takes 80 hours to complete, that works out to $1.25/hour of "fun." After adding on side missions and simply exploring GTA 6's map, investing in the game seems like an even better deal at just 50 cents of fun per hour.

If you play for four hours every evening, that's 50 nights of entertainment. Tilbury said people should compare this to a night out where they could easily spend $100 in a night.

"That's why buying GTA 6 actually saves you $5,000," Tilbury says.

https://twitter.com/marktilbury/status/2117255688917499923

Even if it's not a full $100, Tilbury is spot-on that going out to do most things today costs a pretty penny. So staying in to play GTA 6 may indeed "save" you some money you might have spent elsewhere. You may also play a lot of GTA 6 and continue to go out and spend money on other things.

His math also might be conservative, as people are no doubt going to play GTA 6 for far more than 50 days, especially when GTA Online 2.0 releases in 2027, as expected.

Clearly, though, Tilbury is being cheeky here and created the clip for virality and for people to send to their friends and partners to justify how much they are going to play GTA 6.

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and a PC edition is expected to be released in 2027.

Xbox funded and published 2025's South of Midnight, a highly acclaimed action-adventure game set in the American Deep South. The game's creative director, David Sears, said he believes South of Midnight is a "generational" game that he hopes people discover and play for a long time and one that he thought would help elevate the "prestige" of Xbox.

At the same time, Sears said he wasn't sure Microsoft's spending spree under the previous leaders Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond--which is how Sears' studio Compulsion got the funding to make South of Midnight--was going to work out long term.

"I literally told people, I was like, 'Yeah, wow, this could be terrible.' Because somebody is going to say, someday, 'The money tap ... we're closing those floodgates.' And that's going to have really traumatic results downstream," he told Ben Hanson on MinnMax.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=815z1trpMdQ

Microsoft spent billions and billions of dollars to buy studios and franchises to help get Xbox Game Pass off the ground. The bet did not work out, and now Spencer and Bond are out. The new Xbox CEO is Asha Sharma, and one of her first moves was to cut costs dramatically with layoffs, studio divestures--including Compulsion--and game cancellations. Sharma also talked about how Game Pass needs to evolve into something that's "more enticing to a broader range of customers.”

Asked directly if he had been in control of the Xbox funding at the time, would Sears have stopped writing checks for games like South of Midnight? "Yeah, probably," he answered (via Kotaku).

"I wanted to make it. No doubt. Obviously. Because we made it. Would I have turned off someone else’s money flow before South of Midnight? Yeah. Because I’m not completely selfless. It just seems like, in hindsight at least, it was unsustainable," Sears said.

A lot of people said Microsoft's spending on Xbox Game Pass was unsustainable and ultimately going to lead to pain and turmoil. Raphael Colantonio, the co-founder of Arkane, said Game Pass is unsustainable and "increasingly damaging" to the industry. Game Pass has been propped up by Microsoft's "infinite money," Colantonio said.

Raccoon Logic studio head Alex Hutchinson spoke out about Game Pass devaluing games earlier this year after his game Revenge of the Savage Planet was a day-one title on Xbox Game Pass. Conversely, Rebellion touted the launch of Atomfall on Game Pass as a huge success for the company.

With Microsoft's big bets not panning out in the way the company envisioned, the Xbox business struggled, and the ensuing Xbox "reset" has been painful for the people, teams, and fans of Xbox. Sears said hindsight is 20/20, but he always had a feeling that things just weren't right and that the bottom could fall out one day in terms of Xbox's spending spree.

"Of course it was going to have a 'shocking' outcome. It’s easy to dissect it now. But at the time ... I would talk to other directors and [they’d] be like, 'How is this happening? How did we get so lucky? Is this a golden era?' And I would always be like ... 'For now,'" he said. "And there’s always a night when Rome burns. I didn’t know exactly when it would be, but I was always worried about it."

Sears went on to say the Microsoft of today is "much more humane" than the company was in the '90s and 2000s, something he said is "remarkable and commendable."

Sears said it's a good thing that Microsoft is allowing studios it wants to let go of get spun out instead of shutting them down outright. Compulsion, for its part, was among the studios that got spun out, and is now operating independently and seeking new projects and funding sources.

South of Midnight originally launched for Xbox and PC in April 2025, later coming to PS5 and Switch 2 in March 2026. Now that Compulsion is independent, buying the game supports the studio directly, and not Xbox.

Throughout all of the downturns at Xbox, Microsoft continues to make gigantic sums of money, in part because Xbox represents just a tiny sliver of the company's overall business. For the latest quarter, Microsoft made $92.3 billion in revenue (up 19%) and a profit of $36.6 billion (up 32%). Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has praised Sharma for gutting the Xbox business so heavily.

Following the September release of Control Resonant, business is boomin' for developer Remedy Entertainment. The studio reported that its third-quarter revenue surged 226% to €39.6 million / $44.3 million after the game's release, following the financial review period on October 15, a feat CEO Jean-Charles Gaudechon called "a defining milestone" for Remedy.

In terms of operating profit, Remedy said it made €0.6 million / $670,794, and while that may not sound like much, it's still better than the €16.4 million / $18.3 million loss the studio posted in the same quarter last year. Control Resonant has sold over 1 million units, making it Remedy's fastest-selling title to date, with most sales coming from the US. The game has also been popular in the US and the UK, and Remedy says that half of the players were new to the franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1LEHPr8e_o&pp=0gcJCSsMAYcqIYzv

"Reaching new players was a key goal for this game, and these early results indicate a growing audience for the franchise and for Remedy," Gaudechon said, adding that the developer is looking to get the game into the hands of more people. Control Resonant's predecessor, Control, also saw increased sales, and that financial runway will help Remedy as it continues working on other projects, like its Max Payne 1 & 2 remake. Gaudechon also noted that Control Resonant is currently on 2.4 million wishlists, which could provide a "substantial potential audience" for the future.

"Excellent player reviews, penetration in all our target markets and a substantial outstanding wishlist base give a solid foundation for the game’s longer-term sales potential, supported by both organic visibility as well as our targeted marketing activities," said Gaudechon. As for the other games in the Remedy catalog, Gaudechon said that most people are playing FBC: Firebreak through subscription services like Game Pass or PlayStation Plus, and in its second year, it is making less money. The Alan Wake franchise had a quieter quarter, but the Alan Wake 2 capitalized development costs were fully depreciated during Q3.

For more on Control Resonant, read up on how different it is from its predecessor, why you have to watch out for scary buses, and the cool little details lurking in the background.

The Borderlands franchise has reached a new sales milestone, as developer Gearbox Software announced that Borderlands 4 had pushed the series over the 100 million units sold mark. Celebrating the achievement, the studio also took time to reveal what's next for Borderlands 4 as it enters its second year, as well as plans it's busy cooking up for the IP.

"We just wrapped our Year 1 roadmap, and the team is cooking hard on more Borderlands 4 content for next year," Gearbox wrote in a blog post, adding that weekly activity refreshes and Community Challenges will continue in the game. So what's next for Borderlands? Gearbox says that it's "a bigger look at the franchise as a whole," and it's also listening to fans to gauge which characters they want to spend more time with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbS1fqf-Yb8

Don't expect Gearbox to drop a Borderlands 5 announcement anytime soon, as the developer said it needs time and space to work on future projects. "Big plans take time, and we need some room to work. You can trust that we’ll talk more when the time is right," Gearbox added. Thirteen months ago, Gearbox Software boss Randy Pitchford had predicted that Borderlands 4 would continue to sell millions of copies and would help the franchise cross the 100 million units sold line eventually. "We will break 100 million units with this launch, easily, all in, with the franchise," Pitchford said at the time.

To put that in perspective, the Borderlands franchise had sold 94 million units through August 2025, meaning Borderlands 4 would move at least 6 million copies. Historically, Borderlands 2 is the franchise's top seller, with 31 million units sold, while Borderlands 3 is second with 23 million sales to date. It's worth noting that these games have also gone on sale regularly--with Borderlands 3 once being sold for just $3 on PC via Steam--and Borderlands 4 has also received a few discounts since launch. Gearbox and publisher Take-Two Interactive haven't revealed sales figures for Borderlands 4 yet, so it's hard to know where it currently fits on the Borderlands sales chart.

The game didn't have a smooth launch either, as various technical hurdles required multiple rounds of patching, and the oft-delayed Switch 2 edition was eventually paused so that Gearbox could focus on the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S editions of the game.

While PlayStation 5 console owners are preparing for a discless future, PC gamers have been living in all-digital world for decades now. The advent of Steam and cheaper broadband internet helped end physical PC game sales in the early 2000s, but GOG is dreaming up a future where these games can thrive once again--if it can get past a few obstacles that stand in its way.

Speaking to GamesRadar, Marcin Paczynski, GOG's senior business development and partnerships manager, laid out a dream scenario in which a consumer can browse GOG, select a game, and have a physical copy delivered to their home. "Ideally, my dream would be to be able to buy physical versions of those games on GOG," Paczynski said. "You go to your shelf on GOG, you click on the game that you would like to receive a physical copy of, you order it, and it gets to you. That would be a perfect scenario."

While that sounds ideal, it's easier said than done, as Paczynski noted that selling physical goods is a logistical challenge when compared to running a digital storefront. Physical media requires organizing storage, delivery, and additional publisher approvals, but Paczynski hopes to see it realized one day.

It's worth noting that the GOG Preservation Program did recently create high-resolution scans for five classic games--Myst, Descent, Hitman: Codename 47, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, and Armikrog--and turned them into 3D models that you can view on your PC--as well as printable files for anyone looking for a papercraft project. It's similar to the work done by another site, Big Box Collection, which offers a far larger library of classic PC boxes to admire in 3D.

GOG isn't the only company nostalgic for the big boxes of a bygone era; several sites have popped up in recent years to offer curated collections of physical PC and console games. From Limited Run Games to Special Reserve Games, there's still an appetite for owning something with a tangible quality.

Helen Chiang, the veteran Xbox staffer who got promoted in July and left the company amid mysterious circumstances just recently, has shared her side of the story--but her response doesn't close the book on this saga.

In a LinkedIn post titled "Clarity is Kindess," which itself is a reference to her former boss (and Xbox CEO) Asha Sharma's much-ridiculed and cringey mantra, said it's "not accurate" that she was "fired for a policy violation" as multiple reports said.

Chiang said she will not "turn this into a play-by-play" and reveal the specifics, but she wanted to speak out to dispel rumors. "What has been said about my departure, and what has been left unsaid, has created a picture of me that I hardly recognize."

Xbox is undergoing a "reset" currently.

She went on to "set the record straight" by claiming she did not leak confidential company information to the press as some had speculated. "I have never communicated with any journalist outside the limited, company-authorized interviews I’ve done as part of my job," she said, adding that this includes having no contact with any journalist who reached out to her before today to ask for her side of the story.

Chiang went on to say she did not leave Xbox to join a competitor. "You don’t spend two decades somewhere without developing a deep loyalty to the people, teams, and businesses you’ve helped build," she said

"Xbox was never just another stop in my career. My end game was always to keep building here," she said.  

That may all be true, but it's also unquestionable that people regularly spend lengthy periods of their career at one company, in high-level positions, and then move to other companies.

Third, Chiang said she "did not engage in discrimination, bullying, harassment, insider trading, embezzlement, or other fraudulent activity."

"I stand by my record: both the results I delivered and the way I have treated people throughout my career. I won’t let speculation define my character or erase that record," she said.

Chiang added that she did not leave Xbox because she was "passed over for a bigger role." She said that since having children, she became more "intentional about how I define ambition and success." She said she has purposefully not sought out bigger roles or jobs with more responsibilities; she said she hadn't interviewed for a job since 2011.

"My reputation and results paved the way for the opportunities that followed. I went where the company believed I was needed and where I could have the greatest impact," she said, adding that she did not ask to become Xbox's first-ever COO.

"I believe in fairness, accountability, and holding ourselves to the standards we expect of others. Those standards only mean something when they’re applied consistently," she said.

Chiang said she has "serious concerns" about how those standards were applied in her case, and she said those concerns "deserve to be taken seriously."

"I share this because I don’t want my departure reduced to an inaccurate story about incompetence, ambition for the next big job, or a Nelson-level scandal. My story is about staying true to your core values, especially when it is hard," she said. "That’s the legacy I hope to leave behind."

Chiang's statement doesn't spell out the specific nature surrounding her departure from Xbox, so many will naturally want more answers. Those could come in time, as Chiang said this is "not the whole story."

Another former Xbox executive, Shannon Loftis, commented on Chiang's post to say she is "Team Helen all the way." Loftis said she wonders who may have leaked the "false information" about Chiang and what their motivations may have been. In any event, she says it shows a "loss of moral character and 'clarity' in leadership at Xbox."

"A real leadership team would have relentlessly pursued the 'leaker' and taken appropriate action because 'confidential personnel matters' actually are bases for defamation lawsuits," she said. "It's a clownshow up in there and I feel terrible for anyone that still has to deal with it."

A spokesperson for Microsoft told Windows Central that the company does not “discuss individual personnel matters.”

According to a source speaking to Eurogamer, Chiang was “terminated for policy violations.” The Verge’s Tom Warren backed this up, saying Chiang was cut loose due to a “policy violation,” but the exact nature of that is unknown.

In July, Sharma announced that Chiang would become Xbox’s first-ever COO, with “end-to-end” responsibility for the financial future of Xbox’s content, hardware, platform, and services.

Chiang had worked at Microsoft for 20 years, in that time playing a key role in the creation of Xbox Live and later shepherding Mojang and the lucrative Minecraft franchise. As COO, Chiang was expected to “bring our businesses together under one operating model, making sure we make clear investment decisions, learn from our successes and failures, and hold ourselves accountable for results,” Sharma said.

For her part, Sharma said she will have an update to share on the COO position at Xbox at some point, but she didn’t divulge more.

The Xbox business was “not healthy” when Sharma took over, she said, and Chiang no doubt had a challenging road ahead of her. As for now, however, people can only speculate as to the real reason she left Xbox.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie crushed it at the box office, banking more than $400 million globally to become the most successful entry in the series ever. When will the film be available to watch at home, though?

According to Fandango, the home video release is set for November 3. That's apparently when people can buy the movie outright or rent it digitally, with a physical edition for Blu-ray coming at some point later. It will also presumably come to streaming at some point, and it should hit Netflix given the multi-billion-dollar Pay-1 deal the two companies have in place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNd1gb19A-c

While we wait, Netflix just announced that director Paul W.S. Anderson's original Resident Evil, along with its follow-up, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, are now available to stream.

They join the other Resident Evil movies already on Netflix, including Resident Evil: Afterlife, Resident Evil: Retribution, Resident Evil: Extinction, and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. The 2022 Resident Evil TV show is also currently streaming on Netflix.

While the new Resident Evil movie may be coming to home video on November 3, it's also staying in theaters. In fact, it was just announced that the movie is returning to IMAX and other premium large format (PLF) screens.

Cregger, who co-wrote and directed the new Resident Evil movie, recently discussed the backlash from the hardcore gamer community. He said he should have known better that fans of the games wouldn't embrace him and his ideas. After the movie came out and got great reviews and made tons of money, Cregger said he felt "gratified."

The filmmaker has said he has ideas for more Resident Evil movies, but he's not going to pursue them; instead, he's only going to make original, non-franchise movies going forward. His next movie, The Flood, is a sci-fi film starring Jennifer Lawrence.

Developer S-Game's action-RPG Phantom Blade Zero launched on October 29 and had a massive start across PC and PS5.

The game sold more than 4 million copies over its first 72 hours. That works out to 926 units sold per minute or about 15.4 per second over the first three days.

"Thank you everyone from the bottom of our hearts for all the love and support," the studio said in a social media post.

https://twitter.com/pbzero_official/status/2117074929594298758

The 4 million figure counts copies sold across both PC and PS5--the game is not available on Xbox. The game reached a record of 833,921 peak concurrent users on Steam on November 1.

The game's developer is based in China, and the majority of preorders for the game came from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Phantom Blade Zero's sales out of the gate are strong, but do not come close to another hit game from the Chinese game developer scene, Black Myth: Wukong. That game sold 10 million copies over its first three days. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, meanwhile, sold 10 million copies in three days as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhzva8rV9Q4

If you’re looking to get started, you can check out our Phantom Blade Zero guides hub for many walkthroughs on increasing your power and finding rare items.

“S-Game’s Wuxia-inspired combat puts you in the middle of a Chinese action movie,” Richard Wakeling wrote in GameSpot’s Phantom Blade Zero review.

The start of the month is a good time to be an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, as that's when Microsoft reveals the next batch of games coming to the service. November is frontloaded with new game releases before November 19--we can't imagine why--and several of them are day-one releases. Once more games are revealed, we'll update this post.

A few games have already been revealed for November, and usually, the first wave is the biggest one for Game Pass. Kicking things off is the online horror co-op game Pit of Goblin. This has been in early access since 2024, and November 3 marks its 1.0 release.

Warhammer Survivors

Next up is Escape Academy 2: Back to School on November 5. This is a day-one release, and it's all about exploring a campus, escaping life-threatening puzzle rooms, and uncovering a deadly conspiracy. November 10 will be a big day for Warhammer fans, as Warhammer Survivors launches. It's Vampire Survivors with a grimdark spin, so expect dozens of characters and weapons to master in this bullet-heaven game.

Hope in the City launches on November 11, and this stylish game follows a young girl as she searches for her parents in Shenyang's seedy underbelly.

As a reminder, more games will leave Game Pass this month, with 14 titles heading out in the first wave of departures.

Xbox Game Pass November Wave 1 Games November 3

• Pit of Goblin

November 5

• Escape Academy 2: Back to School

November 10

• Warhammer Survivors

November 11

• Hope in the City

Rockstar's GTA 6 finally releases on November 19, and if you're looking to play the game, you'll also need a console--and those are more expensive than ever. Here's a quick buying guide to help you understand what you need and how much the items will cost. 

A console

First, you'll need a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S console. The least expensive option for buying a new system outright is the Xbox Series S, which costs $500. Unfortunately, that's $200 more expensive than the system cost at launch in 2020--there are a number macroeconomic and AI factors that drove prices up significantly.

A new Xbox Series X, meanwhile, costs $750 for a system with no disc drive, or $800 for a console with a disc drive. GTA 6 is not available on a disc, but having a disc drive may still be important to you for other games and media like DVDs and Blu-rays. 

Switching to PlayStation, the least expensive system on Sony's side is the $600 digital edition, scaling up to $900 for a PS5 Pro (with a disc drive). PS5 Pro, as the most powerful of these options, is likely to provide the best experience from a technical and graphical standpoint, although the gameplay itself should be identical across all platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FatSqS3VYY

These are all prices for brand-new units, but Sony offers certified refurbished PS5 consoles starting at $500. A certified refurbished Xbox Series S, meanwhile, goes for $400. These are the prices from Sony and Microsoft directly, but you can find secondhand consoles at a variety of other retailers, along with places like eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist. As usual, check your local or preferred retailer to see the latest prices.

New and certified refurbished consoles come with everything you need--including the system, controller, and power cords. You will need a TV or monitor, but the odds are good that if you're looking to play GTA 6, you probably already have one. 

People on platforms outside PlayStation and Xbox are out of luck, as GTA 6 has not been announced for Switch 2 or PC. A PC edition is expected to release in early 2027, but there is no word on a Switch 2 version. 

The game

To play GTA 6 you will need to buy GTA 6. The game's standard edition goes for $80, with its Ultimate Edition selling for $100. As mentioned, the game is not available on a disc. That being said, retailers are selling the $80 edition in stores, though you only get a code in the box. The $100 edition appears to be exclusive to digital storefronts.

The $100 Ultimate Edition includes loads of extras, including a variety of cosmetics and even in-game shops that people who buy the $80 edition cannot access. Since GTA 6 is a digital-exclusive game, there is no reason to worry about units selling out, but if you do want to preorder, you get the Vintage Vice City Pack and a free month of GTA+.

GTA 5 launched at $60 back in 2013--adjusted for inflation, that's about $85 today.

You will also need an internet connection to install GTA 6, since it's a digital only game. It's a beefy one, too, weighing in at a reported 201GB. Thankfully, preloading begins on November 12, a full week before the game launches. That means you'll be able to begin downloading it early in the hopes of being ready to go on November 19.

November 12 is also when GTA 6's code-in-a-box copies will be available to buy at physical stores. You're not getting a week of early access, though, as the game does not unlock fully until November 19.

Do you need PS Plus or Game Pass?

GTA 6 is a strictly single-player game, and as such, you likely will not need PlayStation Plus or Xbox Game Pass to play. Rockstar has yet to confirm this, however. 

Rockstar is surely going to release a new version of GTA Online at some point--some believe that will happen in early 2027. And at that point, you'll likely need a membership. But for launch, there is no online or multiplayer support, so we don't think a subscription to PS Plus or Game Pass would be required. 

Why no disc?

Neither Rockstar nor studio owner Take-Two have provided a reason for GTA 6 being a digital exclusive, but the answer seems pretty obvious: It's all about money. Rockstar makes more money from digital game sales, and having no disc eliminates the secondhand market. 

“A disc can be resold or rented a hundred times, and Rockstar earns nothing after that first sale," Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics said. 

GTA 6 is almost here.

The code-in-a-box strategy for physical games has been around for a long time already, and while people might complain online about the lack of a physical edition of GTA 6, the game is going to sell phenomenally no matter what, Mat Piscatella of Circana says.

Beyond these factors, consumer spending patterns have trended increasingly toward digital since the early 2010s. GTA 6 is such a large game in terms of its file size, so making it digital-exclusive also saves Rockstar and Take-Two money by not needing to print a second disc, if one was ever needed.

AI clones and vibe-coded copycat games have become a huge headache for developers recently, but it looks like an update to Anthropic's Claude Code's "rules" has been pushed out. Listed under "tengu_heron_brook," the tweak to the AI now directs it not to copy games and assets, and users cannot disable this setting.

Spotted by Chasm on X (via Game Developer), the full rule reads, "Do build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user’s own designs and assets. Don't build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original". Anthropic's Addy Osmani added that "two sentences" were added to Claude Code's prompt on Opus 5.5, to steer it away from recreating someone else's specific game, as "using Claude to infringe IP " is against the company's policy. "Original games, genre games, and games built from your own designs and assets are meant to keep working. We'll continue to iterate to ensure we're striking the right balance."

https://twitter.com/chasmmmmmmmmmmm/status/2116062991686721968

AI clones have been running rampant for months now, as the tools have let pretty much anyone crank out copies of successful games in surprisingly little time compared to traditional methods of cloning a successful piece of work. This all came to a head during Steam Next Fest last month, when the demo showcase was flooded with low-effort games and AI slop. This has also led several developers to cancel demos outright, fearing bad actors could take the code, whip up a copy in Claude, and release it before their game ships.

Valve has vaguely mentioned that it's "aware of the situation" and that "a significant number of people are thinking about how to solve" the problem. At the same time, Valve has encouraged developers to focus on building communities and support for games, which isn't exactly an ideal solution. Creating a community around a game takes time, whereas AI slop clones can be generated fast enough to capitalize on virality, and in an ideal situation, make a quick buck for the prompter on the other end--just look at all the video games about needles in haystacks that have popped up recently, copying the viral success of Needle in a Haystack Simulator, which isn't out yet.

The rampant reverse-engineering got so bad that the creator behind Needle in a Haystack Simulator, NasNakarus, poked fun at it by teasing a joke mode for the game where players will have to sift through piles of cloned games to find the original.

https://twitter.com/NasNakarus/status/2115146693889183955

While tweaking Claude is good news, it doesn't mean developers are out of the woods yet. Claude prompters will likely look for ways to work around the new restrictions, and if they're unsuccessful, other AI agents are available without the same safeguards.

Doom developer id Software was among the numerous Microsoft-owned game studios that cut staff recently as part of the big Xbox "reset." What's the vibe like internally at the studio in the wake of that? Studio co-director Marty Stratton said in a recent interview, "We're doing great."

He said he wasn't trying to "handwave" the layoffs, and isn't shying away from acknowledging that "half of our studio" was laid off, IGN reported. Stratton said the layoffs were part of a "deliberate effort" to ensure id Software would succeed.

Stratton is an executive at id Software, and his perspective on the situation no doubt differs from other people at the studio. He didn't share any commentary on what the vibes are like internally at id currently for other people who survived the layoffs.

Stratton also mentioned how the shift brought id and MachineGames closer together--the two studios had always been "very close," but now the pair are working closer "than ever."

"We're at a point with technology development that both teams are incredibly talented and have incredibly talented engineers and we're really on an amazing path that had started pre-[layoffs]. We'd kicked this off earlier this year. We're really excited about that. We're both really really bullish on what we have ahead," he said.

The studio's latest release was 2025's Doom: The Dark Ages, while MachineGames released Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in 2024. It's rumored that MachineGames is now making a new Wolfenstein game.