It is officially the fall season in the northern hemisphere, and that means that Halloween is approaching. Mobile game giant Scopely has announced how it's celebrating, and that includes crossovers with KPop Demon Hunters and Ghostbusters in the uber-popular mobile game Monopoly Go.

The "Monster Mash" season, as it's called, runs September 23-November 25. During the event, players can take part in themed minigames and "immersive adventures" featuring Huntr/X and the Saja Boys from KPop Demon Hunters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfx2VOlj4dg

Naturally, music is a big part of the crossover event, with Huntr/X's "Golden" and "How It's Done" appearing in Monopoly Go during the event. There will also be new items to buy from the Blocks Boutique shop, including themed collectibles based on the movie. The characters Rumi, Mira, and Zoey will appear as well.

As for the Ghostbusters crossover, there are Ghostbusters-themed vehicles coming to Monopoly Go, along with locations and characters that will be familiar to fans of the films. And before you even ask, yes, the Proton Blaster is in the update as well.

KPop Demon Hunters comes to Monopoly Go.

Beyond these licensed crossovers, Monopoly Go's Halloween event adds the Luck-O-Lanter, which players can fill with sweet treats they find on the game board. There is also a new "dice duel" feature where players can roll dice for the chance to trick or treat their opponent based on who rolls the higher number.

What's more, the Halloween update celebrates Monopoly Go's Discord community by allowing players to vote to determine which community-made token designs actually get to appear in the game. Also, player-created tokens can now be earned in the game.

Check out the spooky season trailer above to learn more.

StarCraft won't be an Xbox exclusive, though Blizzard isn't exactly making it clear what platforms the newly announced shooter will launch on.

Announced during BlizzCon 2026 with a 2030 release date, Blizzard's StarCraft reboot won't "be exclusive," according to Kotaku, who received a comment from a Blizzard spokesperson. 

What exactly that means, however, is still up for debate. When asked for clarification on whether that means StarCraft would be coming to PlayStation as well as Xbox and PC, Blizzard would only say that calling it an Xbox exclusive would be incorrect, according to Kotaku. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIu2tGCCKQw

Xbox owner Microsoft acquired Blizzard in 2023 as part of its nearly $75.4 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. In recent months, Xbox has pivoted away from its multiplatform release strategy that saw franchises like Forza and Halo make their debut on PS5 to one once again making games, like the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day, Xbox-console exclusives. Xbox announced more layoffs today following even larger cuts from this summer as part of CEO Asha Sharma's "reset." Blizzard has yet to be hit by these more recent layoffs, but reporter Jason Schreier indicated earlier this month it could be next.

Where that leaves Blizzard's various franchises is unclear. It seems safe to assume StarCraft will launch on PC, as that's where all previous StarCraft RTS games are playable. Blizzard is in many ways a PC-first developer, with a decades long history on PC across franchises like Diablo and Warcraft, and even operates its own PC launcher, Battle.net. 

In recent years, more and more Blizzard games have come to consoles. Diablo 4 launched on Switch 2 just last week. In a first for World of Warcraft, the upcoming WoW: Forever will have full controller support, something that is certainly making people think a console version of Blizzard's longrunning MMMORPG is in the cards.

Given Blizzard announced StarCraft so early, it's possible even Blizzard isn't entirely sure what platforms the game will be on. In 2030 there will likely be a new generation of both Xbox and PlayStation hardware, making the question more of whether or not StarCraft will also launch on our current (and by 2030, last-gen) hardware. 

There's still plenty we don't know about the StarCraft shooter, but Blizzard did share a few details in an interview with GameSpot. Creative director Dan Hay said StarCraft is "focusing on single player," that it will be third-person, and players can expect to encounter the Protoss as well as the Zerg. 

World of Warcraft: Forever is reinventing the classic version of Azeroth with all kinds of new content, and if Blizzard does its job, players won't be able to tell the difference between what's old and what's new. 

Announced during BlizzCon 2026, Forever introduces four new zones to Azeroth: the Riverglades, Mount Hjyal, Shen'dralas, and Zephras Isle. In an interview with GameSpot, WoW: Forever senior art director Jeff Parrott and senior game designer Josh Greenfield elaborated on how Blizzard approached developing these all-new zones so that they don't feel out of place in a 22-year old game, as well as how they tried to capture how players "remember" Azeroth looking.

Parrott said the team spent a lot of time looking back at the original, "vanilla" version of WoW and trying to understand how zones were designed back in 2004 when the game first released.

"The team did a great job of just digging in there," Parrott said. "Riverglades is a great example. I think that's a full new zone that we have, and really did a great job of leaning into that Vanilla-era kind of ethos for the design, the flow in the way everything kind of moves through the zone, the quests move you through the zone. It does feel extremely of that era, of that time. So it's really just understanding what we're aiming for and staying faithful to it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buBZRiQXl8U

He said the goal was for Forever's new zones to feel "familiar, but new." 

"It feels like going home," Parrott said. "It feels like a place you've been before. Like, 'Did this exist?' You know, if a player asks, 'Did this exist in the game?' then I think we're in a good spot."

Greenfield added, "Yeah, the temporary Mandela Effect. It's like, 'I'm pretty sure this was there.' It's like, 'No, it wasn't.' 'I'm pretty sure it was.' It's great."

WoW: Forever is adding major visual improvements to old Azeroth. Dramatic lighting upgrades and new water tech give zones a new look while still emphasizing their original feel. Duskwood is spookier than ever, for example, while night elf zones feel even more magical, as rays of sunlight peek through the canopy of the forest. Just like how Blizzard approached developing Forever's new zones, its goal was to invoke the memory of original WoW and how players remember it with the game's visual updates.

"I think one of our core pillars is 'world as the main character,'" Greenfield said. "So how do we make that feel important? We introduce new rendering tech that allows us to kind of better realize water, fog, you know, all that stuff. Just make the world feel alive, more immersive for the players…One of the things that Jeff always says that always really stuck with me is the idea of it not necessarily being WoW the way it actually looked, but the way you remember it.

"When you first see the pretty screenshots of the lighting and rendering and liquids and stuff, and you're like, 'Oh man, that's cool.' But once you're playing it, you really get that immersion that you felt when you first started playing World of Warcraft. And it does feel like, 'This is how I remember it.' Even though if you look at it side by side, it's not, but it feels like it."

WoW: Forever's closed beta is currently live, with the full game set to launch November 4. It will have over 1,000 new quests and full controller support, and while it will introduce plenty of class changes, don't expect Shaman or Warlock tanks anytime soon.

The organizational structure of Xbox has long been complex and unwieldy, and that hasn't changed after the latest wave of changes and layoffs as part of Xbox's "reset." But Microsoft's latest reshuffling of its studios and workforce does prompt the question of what the "Xbox Game Studios" brand even is now, with apparently only a few studios left under that banner.

The Xbox division (formerly named Microsoft Gaming) consists of Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media, and Activision Blizzard, but after some rearranging, Xbox Game Studios appears to only consist of the following companies:

• The Coalition (Gears of War)
• inXile Entertainment (Wasteland, Clockwork Revolution)
• Playground Games (Forza Horizon, Fable)

Not included is Mojang, the Minecraft studio that Microsoft has been leaning heavily on-- that studio now reports directly to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.

Graphics like this official Xbox Game Studios image from 2019 have aged poorly.

Former studios under the Xbox Game Studios brand include Rare and World's Edge, the developer of Age of Empires, but both now fall under Activision Blizzard. And while it's unclear if Halo Studios as an organization is now formally an Activision Blizzard entity, it's official that Activision is indeed making the next Halo game. Meanwhile, Xbox studio Obsidian Entertainment has jumped to Bethesda, and Turn 10 has merged with Playground Games.

ZeniMax now has the following studios:

• Bethesda Game Studios
• id Software
• Obsidian Entertainment
• MachineGames
• ZeniMax Online Studios

Save for King (which also reports directly to Sharma), a few Call of Duty support studios, and whichever team is making the next Halo game, the major teams at Activision Blizzard consist of:

• Beenox
• Blizzard Entertainment
• High Moon Studios
• Infinity Ward
• Raven Software
• Sledgehammer Games
• Rare
• Treyarch
• World's Edge

Technically, all of these development teams are still Xbox studios, and Xbox will continue to publish games from partners, like OD and Physint from Kojima Productions. But the state of "Xbox Game Studios" as its own publishing label is a curiosity.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that Microsoft is doing away with the branding altogether. Since mid-2025, the Xbox website has lacked any dedicated webpages or references to Xbox Game Studios. Contrast that with PlayStation Studios, which has its own page and lists 17 studios under Sony's umbrella.

At its largest, Xbox Game Studios consisted of at least a dozen studios, and now the publisher has been whittled down to just a handful after shutting down or divesting from most of them. The remaining three studios, The Coalition, inXile, and Playground, are all releasing a game within the next year (Gears of War: E-Day, Clockwork Revolution, and Fable, respectively).

Under Sharma's leadership, Xbox has highlighted its plan to strengthen its brand, with exclusive content as a core part of that initiative. But as its internal publisher shrinks and becomes deemphasized, what even makes an Xbox game an "Xbox game" anymore? Chances are that this distinction will remain hazy until Xbox finishes its brutal reset.

Microsoft's "reset" of the Xbox business entered its next chapter this week with the announcement of 268 more layoffs, along with other drastic organizational and operational changes for the gaming giant.

As part of the announcement, Xbox boss Matt Booty said this latest wave of restructuring, combined with the changes completed in July, brings the company up to "roughly three-quarters of the way through" the planned changes.

In essence, he’s saying that the Xbox “reset” effort isn't over yet, so further layoffs and other changes are expected.

Microsoft's "reset" of the Xbox business is not done yet.

In July, Xbox announced that it was laying off 1,600 people immediately, with a further 1,600 layoffs to come during Microsoft's fiscal year 2027, which ends June 30, 2027. With 1,600 cuts in July and 268 more today, that leaves 1,332 still to come. Even if that math isn't totally accurate given how microsoft tallies things, it's definitely true that many more staff reductions are coming.

According to comments from reporter Jason Schreier this month, layoffs at the Warcraft and Diablo company Blizzard are coming imminently. This would be just after Blizzard made a series of big announcements at BlizzCon.

GameSpot has contacted Microsoft seeking comment on the accounting details for the cuts so far and what could come next.

The latest wave of cuts at Xbox hit Halo Studios, other first-party game developers, and the Xbox Game Studios management and central functions teams. The impact at Halo Studios appears to be significant, as Booty confirmed that the next Halo game is being made at Activision, not Halo Studios.

Why is Microsoft doing this?

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who took over the job from Phil Spencer just this year, said the Xbox business was in an unhealthy place and needed to be overhauled.

She cited a number of reasons, including Microsoft's big bet on Game Pass simply not working out and the shift away from exclusives promoted by Spencer and Sarah Bond eating away at the overall Xbox business. At the same time that Microsoft spent more on teams, games, and services at Xbox, the company's "core business weakened," Sharma said. Not only that, but the gaming industry has been significantly affected by what Sharma called the "most severe hardware crisis in its history," referencing the memory and component shortages caused by the AI craze. Ironically, Microsoft itself directly and significantly contributed to this.

These factors contributed to a situation in which Sharma felt it was necessary to “reset” the Xbox business through drastic and painful changes. At the same time, part of what's to blame is the fact that Microsoft is a publicly traded company whose shareholders demand endless growth. Sharma said some of the investments and bets made by Spencer and Bond did indeed create "meaningful value," but the line did not go up as fast and far as is required under capitalism.

Microsoft is raking in the money

Microsoft is a gigantic company; it is currently the No. 4 most valuable company on Earth with a valuation of close to $4 trillion. To be sure, gaming is just one part of Microsoft's business, and it's nowhere close to the biggest one.

That being said, for Microsoft's latest quarter, the company brought in $90 billion in revenue and posted a net profit of close to $36 billion. Many have pointed out the seemingly cruel reality of Microsoft posting gigantic profits at the same time it makes drastic cuts.

Even Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has acknowledged the apparent incongruence of this reality, saying Microsoft is thriving by every objective measure but still cutting staff due to “the enigma of success.” Needless to say, his comments did not go over well, with one industry expert saying "catastrophic mismanagement" and AI gambits have contributed to the cuts at Xbox in recent times.

World of Warcraft: Forever is bringing big changes to the WoW Classic sandbox, but don't expect to see Shamans or Warlocks tanking, at least at launch.

New roles for classes, like the above-mentioned tanks, as well as Rogue tank and Mage healer, were something Blizzard experimented with in WoW: Classic Season of Discovery. It certainly helped solve the game's tank shortage problem, with more classes than ever before able to taunt enemies and effectively hold aggro.

In an interview with GameSpot, WoW: Forever senior game designer Josh Greenfield said that while the team learned many lessons with Season of Discovery and carried many of those forward into Forever, more "out there" changes like Warlock tank or Mage healer didn't make the jump.

“I think in spirit, a lot of the lessons we learned are carried over, but some of the more out-there things that weren’t originally in original WoW, we tone them back a little bit,” Greenfield said. “Because it’s one of those things…It’s in the name: It’s Forever. We can do a lot of things over years, but we wanted to kind of start from a place where the soul of the class is very coded and original-WoW-centric. But there’s still meaningful changes and really exciting kinds of ways to play, the existing ways to play your class and new ways to play your class. But some of [those], like Warlock tank, Shaman tank, not quite yet, but never say never."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buBZRiQXl8U

Currently in the WoW: Forever beta, the idea of a tank Shaman is much as it was in original WoW: something that is on the cusp of being viable, but is still held back by things like the lack of a true taunt and better damage mitigation. It wouldn't take too many changes for Shaman to become become a proper tank once again, though when or if that will actually happen is up in the air.

Some Season of Discovery content that has made its way into Forever. It's been confirmed that certain pieces of the experimental season, like new class quests, the Undermine Reals endgame currency, and even the hidden cozy-sleeping bag quest chain, have made the jump. However, bigger pieces of Season of Discovery-exclusive content, like the Scarlet Enclave raid and the Kharazan Crypts dungeon, won't be in Forever at launch. 

WoW: Forever is a big swing for Blizzard. We went hands-on with the new version of WoW at BlizzCon 2026, and came away impressed at the exciting new changes coming to the classic vision of Azeroth. We even played WoW: Forever on controller, which could be a major game-changer for the MMORPG.

The WoW: Forever beta is currently ongoing for those who preorder the game's new Skyborne elf race, with the game's full release set for November 4. 

As Xbox continues its reset and lays off nearly 300 staff, the company announced that some of its subsidiaries have been shaken up as well. This includes Obsidian Entertainment, which will now operate under Bethesda Softworks.

On September 22, Xbox chief content officer and executive vice president Matt Booty posted on Xbox's website, outlining a new structure that sees the Bethesda business unit now include Obsidian.

"Bethesda will expand its remit to include Obsidian, which will continue its current projects, including Grounded, as well as the new Fallout project made in collaboration with Bethesda Game Studios," Booty wrote on Xbox Wire.

This language doesn't appear to suggest that Bethesda gobbled up Obsidian to take ownership over the studio or anything. Instead, it sounds a little closer to the working relationship Bethesda--or rather, the studio's parent company, ZeniMax Media--has with Doom maker id Software.

Obsidian Entertainment--which developed copious RPGs from Neverwinter Nights 2 to Pillars of Eternity to Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords to The Outer Worlds--lost 25% of its staff in July after Xbox's first major reset. This resulted in the Avowed sequel being killed and the acclaimed RPG studio shifting its focus to the Fallout franchise, with a new game in development. It's unclear if this project is Fallout 5 or some spin-off of the long-running series, but alongside whatever Obsidian Entertainment is working on, there are at least three Fallout pies in the oven now.

This isn't the only reshuffling happening at Xbox. Booty also announced that Activision will develop the next Halo, Hellblade developer Ninja Theory will likely close, and the two Forza studios have hit the fusion dance to become one. There's more to come, too, with more layoffs reportedly planned before June 2027.

Big changes are afoot at Microsoft, as the company announced a massive reorganization of its Xbox gaming division. While Activision and Bethesda will expand their remit, adding several studios to their portfolio, Forza series developers Playground and Turn 10 won't be included in the consolidation. Instead, the two developers are joining forces, merging into one developer after years of tag-teaming on games like Forza Horizon and Fable.

"These two studios have been creative and franchise partners for over a decade, and today’s changes will formally move their work into one team," Xbox chief creative officer Matt Booty wrote in a letter to employees. What the letter doesn't precisely mention is if there'll be layoffs at these studios, but we do know that 268 positions at Xbox are being made redundant as part of a previously announced second wave of job cuts. Mergers typically see several roles overlap, so it won't be too surprising to see people let go from both studios as they start the process of becoming a single team.

Playground Games has a storied career, having developed the first Forza Horizon game, released in 2012. Since then, the studio has developed each entry in the franchise, which slowly overtook the main Forza Motorsport series to become one of Xbox's tentpole franchises. Forza Horizon 6 was released earlier this year to positive reviews, and next year will bring a new chapter in the Fable series. Turn 10 Studios is an even older developer, having been established in 2001 to develop racing games for Microsoft Game Studios.

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

Working solely on the Forza Motorsport series--which offered a higher degree of sim-racing realism compared to Playground's arcade-inspired Forza Horizon games--the studio developed eight games in the series. Forza Motorsport launched in 2023 and was envisioned as a new live-service era for the racing game series, but it never really took off. Following massive layoffs in July 2025, Turn 10 Studios announced that it was ending development of new content for Forza Motorsport and began working as a support studio for Playground.

Former Forza Motorsport content coordinator Fred Russell didn't mince his words following those layoffs, saying the team was "no more" and that the studio had been effectively shuttered.

When the R-rated Bloodborne movie was officially announced with YouTuber Seán McLoughlin AKA JackSepticEye signed on as a producer, many wondered what, exactly, his involvement might be. Now, we have a better idea.

Appearing on 100 Questions with Tom Simons (via GamesRadar), McLoughlin said you can think of his role as a producer as a "vibe-checker" for the movie. In essence, McLoughlin said that when he's on calls with stakeholders discussing key elements of the "vetting process" and hiring, he speaks up and helps make decisions.

"I say that my role is that I'm the one being like, 'This is a good idea, this is a bad idea, we shouldn't do this.' But also I'm the one greenlighting who gets hired, and who we work with to make sure that vetting process is good," he said. "You don't want to bring on anyone who has no idea what Bloodborne is. In simpler terms, I'm sort of the vibe-checker to be like, 'Yeah, not that.'"

He went on to say that he's not trying to shepherd the Bloodborne movie to become "the game," or a movie that tries to "one up the game" or compete with it. Instead, McLoughlin said his ambition is to "honor the universe that's there and tell as good a story as I can within it."

Before this, McLoughlin said he's not trying to make a quick buck with the Bloodborne movie, though if the movie is a success, it stands to reason that he would participate in that given his status as a producer. He has spoken about his extreme passion for the franchise, saying he believes working on the Bloodborne movie is what he was put on this Earth to do.

Bloodborne is not the only From Software game getting a film adaptation, as a live-action Elden Ring is on the way from director Alex Garland and A24.

In the wake of the latest round of reshuffles and retrenchments, Microsoft has confirmed that State of Decay 3 developer, Undead Labs, has reached an agreement with a new publisher that will keep the game alive.

Undead Labs will now continue working on State of Decay 3, with Microsoft confirming that the game will still launch on Xbox Game Pass day-one when its ready. The studio confirmed the news in an announcement of its own, confirming that it is now a completely "independent, employee-owned game development studio."

"We're enormously grateful for our years as part of XBOX and for everything that relationship has made possible," says Philip Holt, Studio Head of Undead Labs. "Microsoft has been part of the State of Decay story from the very beginning, and we’re proud of everything we’ve accomplished together."

Undead Labs was just one of several studios that Microsoft has offloaded in recent months, with Double Fine and Compulsion Games similarly finding futures away from the Xbox publishing arm. Ninja Theory has been less successful; however, the studio now on the brink of closure.

This news comes in the wake of a massive restructure across Microsoft Game Studios, with several studios now moving under new stewardship. Halo will now be developed under the guidance of Activision, with Rare and its current title, Sea of Thieves, following. Obsidian, which is working on a new Fallout, will now report to Bethesda, while Playground Games and Turn 10 are being merged for the future of the Forza franchise.

Ahead of its release in November, the marketing for Grand Theft Auto 6 has begun to take over Miami's Kaseya Center. As part of the campaign, developer Rockstar Games and publisher Take-Two Interactive are decking out the stadium in giant GTA 6 letters that will spell out "Welcome to Vice City" once they're fully installed. It's a big task, and one that requires aerial support, as one chopper has been steadily airlifting them up to their designated spot. Onlookers have been documenting the process and posting clips online of it:

https://twitter.com/SourceVI/status/2102190668479140216 https://twitter.com/DavidVergel97/status/2102385075006353442 https://twitter.com/OfficialJoelF/status/2102383683806347447 https://twitter.com/OfficialJoelF/status/2102367371222770015 https://twitter.com/videotech/status/2102383223838048471

The advertising campaign is reportedly valued at almost $1 million for Miami-Dade County (via WLRN), and the funds will go toward developing a plot of land behind the stadium for community use. The deal has been criticized by the county Sheriff’s Office, with Commissioner Bermudez proposing that the funds instead go toward funding gaps in the law division's budget.

Alongside Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz, Bermudez also criticized GTA 6 for glorifying crime and the killing of police officers. While you can commit those acts in GTA 6, it looks like getting away with literal murder will be more challenging, as the game's new Wanted and Honor systems will make cops a lot smarter and more persistent when compared to previous games in the series.

Rockstar Games has also officially announced Grand Theft Auto 6: The Album. This is a 34-song collection of original music from performers like Keith Richards, Yung Lean, and Morgan Wallen, and it also includes several licensed tracks. Unlike the game, a physical edition is available to preorder, and it'll be released on November 19, the same day as GTA 6.

In more GTA 6 news, we recently got confirmation that Milton from Office Space is in the game, the limited-edition GTA 6 DualSense controllers are selling fast, and unsurprisingly, a lot of people are planning to take time off of work to play the game when it launches.

It's yet another sad day in the games industry as Xbox's continued gutting of its subsidiaries gets worse, with acclaimed action game studio Ninja Theory headed for the chopping block.

Xbox's chief content officer and executive vice president Matt Booty took to the official Xbox website on September 22 to announce that the Hellblade studio will go forward with the proposed closure.

"Unfortunately, two separate agreements for Ninja Theory fell through," Booty wrote. "We will now begin consultation with employees on a proposed closure while continuing to explore other paths forward."

Ninja Theory has developed several games since its founding in March 2000. You might know the studio for Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, DmC: Devil May Cry, or Bleeding Edge. The studio is now best known for the Hellblade series, with Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 launching in 2024. There's a third entry in the works planned for 2027, but that may be up in the air with considering the studio's fate.

Although Booty seems to suggest there may be "other paths forward" for Ninja Theory, it appears the plan is to shutter the Hellblade developer--maybe unless another buyer steps forward.

There was a buyer previously, as Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said in July 2026 that Ninja Theory--along with State of Decay 3 developer Undead Labs--had "entered terms to join new ownership with funding."

It's worth noting, though, that the language Xbox is using here doesn't explicitly mean Ninja Theory is closing right this second. Instead, the "consultation with employees" and "continuing to explore other paths forward" are likely in reference to UK law, which requires employers to establish at least a 30-day consultancy period. In that time period, measures to avoid redundancies are to be discussed while giving affected staff time to find new jobs.

At the same time Xbox moves forward with the proposed plan to shutter Ninja Theory, the company continues its reset and further shakes up its subsidiaries. Activision will develop the next Halo, Playground Games and Turn 10 Studios have merged, and Obsidian will operate under Bethesda Game Studios. The aftermath of this latest layoff will see Microsoft cut at least 268 staff after it already laid off 1,600 employees in July.

Microsoft's "reset" of the Xbox business continued today with the announcement of another giant wave of changes and restructuring to help the business become more successful in the future, or at least that's the plan. The major moves included more layoffs, the planned closure of another developer, and a significant shakeup for the Halo franchise, among others.

These major changes were announced just before Microsoft's fiscal Q1 ends on September 30. Here's everything we learned:

Layoffs

To begin with, Xbox boss Matt Booty said there will be a further 268 layoffs that affect Halo Studios, other first-party developers, and the Xbox Game Studios management and central functions team.

This latest round of cuts comes after Microsoft laid off 1,600 Xbox developers in July, including the studios it divested of. With these cuts, Microsoft is now about 3/4 of the way through its planned restructuring of Xbox, so more changes are still to come.

"I am deeply grateful for what our colleagues have built, and I know how difficult today will be for those leaving and the teams around them," Booty said.

Halo goes to Activision

Another major change is that Activision is expanding its remit to now cover developers Rare and World's Edge. Additionally, Activision is making the next Halo game, and it's being made by a "new, purpose-built team." This is separate from Activision's ongoing plans for annual Call of Duty games.

Going forward, only a "small team" at Halo Studios will continue, focusing on "supporting the Halo community and games in-market," Booty said.

Xbox's "reset" continues. Bethesda expands

Another big piece of news is that Bethesda is growing its footprint and will now cover Obsidian. That team's in-development projects will continue, including Grounded and a new Fallout game in production alongside Bethesda Game Studios.

King's kingdom grows

King, the developer of the juggernaut Candy Crush, will now cover Microsoft Casual Games. This will unite two of Microsoft's "global leaders in casual game design and live operations," Booty said.

Forza United

Microsoft's Forza developers, Playground and Turn 10, are now merging to become one studio that will focus on the Forza and Fable franchises. "These two studios have been creative and franchise partners for over a decade, and today’s changes will formally move their work into one team," Booty said.

State of Decay 3

Microsoft also confirmed that Undead Labs, the developer of State of Decay 3, found a "new publisher" and the game will launch into Xbox Game Pass on day one whenever it's released. The identity of the publisher remains a mystery.

Ninja Theory could close

Booty confirmed that "two separate agreements" for UK-based developer Ninja Theory to be sold "fell through." As a result, Microsoft is now entering the UK-mandated consultation period with Ninja Theory regarding the proposed closure of the studio. At the same time, Booty said Microsoft hasn't given up on its attempts to keep Ninja Theory alive in some form, saying it continues to "explore other paths forward."

Arkane remains in consultation

Arkane Lyon, the French developer behind the Dishonored series, remains under consulation pursuant to French labor laws. This process is expected to "continue through the end of the year," but there is no word on what could happen next.

Next update in October

Finally, Booty said there will be an internal town hall event at Xbox on October 6, during which Microsoft will "reflect on our progress." He also said Microsoft has one of the "strongest game lineups" in Xbox history, but did not divulge any specifics.

All of this is happening under the leadership of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who took over that job from Phil Spencer earlier this year. She made drastic changes right out of the gate in a variety of ways, including cutting the price of Xbox Game Pass and removing new Call of Duty games from the service. She also discussed plans for a return to exclusivity for big games. She also outlined her plan to "reset" Xbox, including mass layoffs, game cancellations, and studio closures.

Microsoft has officially announced a major change to its Halo franchise, as Activision will develop the next game in the series with a new, purpose-built team. A small team at Halo Studios will continue to support the Halo community and existing games. The new studio will also exist separately from the group of developers that work on the annual Call of Duty series.

“For Halo, our goal is clear: make the greatest Halo game ever, worthy of its universe and legacy, while staying true to what made players love it in the first place," Activision president Rob Kostich said in a statement. "It is a bold ambition, one that this franchise deserves. We have already begun assembling a purpose-built team, unique in capability and talent, ready and excited to deliver this next chapter with the community.”

Unfortunately, it's bad news for Halo Studios, as Microsoft has confirmed that it will be impacted by a new wave of layoffs that it had previously announced. In total, 268 people will be laid off across Halo Studios, other Xbox developers, and Xbox Game Studios management. As reported earlier today, studios are also being reorganized under Microsoft's biggest acquisitions, Bethesda and Activision Blizzard.

"The goal is to strengthen our franchises and games by operating fewer business units, aligning groups that already work closely together, and focusing our publishing expertise," Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty wrote in a letter sent to Xbox employees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LimYD3Ycwo

Alongside Halo Studios, World's Edge (Age of Empires series) and Rare (Sea of Thieves) will also fall under the Activision umbrella. Obsidian Entertainment and its projects--including a new Fallout game--will fall under Bethesda's remit, while Playground and Turn 10 will merge into a single studio after years of being creative partners on games like Forza and the upcoming Fable.

Rumors of Activision Blizzard being enlisted to help out on Halo began circulating earlier this year, when it was claimed that Call of Duty studio Sledgehammer Games had begun working on a Halo multiplayer prototype in June, but it was reportedly canceled in July.

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen has executed a gigantic trade, buying more than 1.1 million shares of his own company's stock and spending more than $26.4 million in the process. He now owns more than 40 million shares of the company, according to an SEC filing. He bought the shares at around $23/share.

Since the purchase was made public in a regulatory filing on September 21, GameStop's shares shot up, rising more than 3%.

This was just the latest massive share purchase by Cohen, as he bought 1 million shares of GameStop earlier in September, when the stock price was lower. Some of GameStop's directors also bought up shares this month.

The share-purchase disclosures filed with the SEC do not provide any details on why Cohen or the GameStop directors bought shares. There could be many reasons, but a CEO buying back shares of their own company is often taken as a signal that management is bullish on the company's outlook. Anthony Noto, the CEO of online banking company SoFi, bought back his own company's stock three times so far this year as the price fell.

When companies buy back their own shares, this can lead to an immediate boost in the overall share price, as fewer shares are available on the open market.

For his part, Cohen now owns about 9% of GameStop through his various buybacks.

GameStop and Cohen have been in the news a lot lately, as Cohen has pitched an ambitious bid to buy eBay. However, more recently, Cohen has seemingly cooled off. Bloomberg reported that Cohen was weighing his options going forward, including pulling the $56 billion bid for eBay entirely or partnering with the company instead of trying to buy it outright.

Cohen came up with the idea to buy eBay while he was on the toilet. He has also discussed an idea for re-selling digital game items, but has not explained how that could actually work in practice.

GameStop's business today is booming, though it's no thanks to video games. The company now earns the bulk of its revenue from collectibles, and that would be obvious to anyone who has set foot in one of their stores recently.

GameStop has turned its business around through its new focus on collectibles, as well as employee layoffs and store closures. However, GameStop recently announced that it is reopening some stores

Just what has NetherRealm Studios been up to since Mortal Kombat 1? All signs currently suggest that Injustice 3 is in development at the Mortal Kombat developer, and to add more fuel to the rumor-fire, a stuntworker's resume has indicated that they worked on the yet-to-be-announced game.

As spotted by MP1st, the stuntworker listed "Injustice 3" after performing motion capture sessions for two characters: Supergirl and Batwoman. Those two names make a lot of sense within the Injustice lore, as Supergirl played a big role in stopping Brainiac's invasion in Injustice 2. Batwoman is more of a mystery at this stage, as the character met a grisly fate in the pages of the Injustice comic book, which officially tied into the overall narrative of the fighting game series.

This alternate-Earth version of Batwoman--Katherine "Kate" Kane under the cowl and red wig--worked with Batman against Superman's regime, but in the fifth year of the rebellion, she sacrificed herself to manually activate a dimensional transporter that brought the DC Universe's Justice League heroes to the darker dimension. The Regime Superman apparently incinerated her with his heat vision at the last moment, seemingly killing her, but as any comic book reader will know, no one stays dead for long in that medium.

The last Injustice game was released back in 2017, and since then, NetherRealm ended the mainline Mortal Kombat universe with the superb Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019, and then gave it a soft reset with Mortal Kombat 1 in 2023. The recent entry in the fighting game universe received mostly lukewarm reviews upon release, and post-launch support ended in 2025 following the release of the game's Khaos Reigns expansion.

At the time, NetherRealm said that it needed to "shift focus" to its next game. The studio could also have new owners soon if Paramount's plan to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery goes through.

The second wave of Xbox layoffs could be imminent, as new reports claim that Microsoft is also looking to further restructure its gaming division by consolidating several of its studios. This would tie into previously announced plans by Xbox boss Asha Sharma to cut 3,200 roles from the division, which started with 1,600 mass layoffs in July.

According to The Information--which says that a Microsoft source briefed it on the company's plans--the second wave of 1,600 job cuts will start soon. Prolific leaker NateTheHate has also claimed that the Halo franchise is being moved to Activision Blizzard, and similar reorganizations will happen across the division.

If true, then 2026 will mark a year of major changes for Xbox. Since Sharma stepped in to run the division, the goal has been to make it more profitable as part of a "reset" initiative that has seen scores of jobs slashed over the last couple of months.

Xbox has also seen several of its first-party studios depart from the organization, with Double Fine Productions and Compulsion Games becoming independent studios again. State of Decay 3 developer Undead Labs and Senua's Blade studio Ninja Theory have also been sold off, while Arkane Lyon is also looking to divest itself from Microsoft once it finishes a mandatory consultation period with the French Local Works Council.

Xbox is now focused on its biggest franchises, with Bethesda recently confirming that Fallout 5 and remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are in the works. At the same time, various studios like id Software and Zenimax Online have been hit hard by layoffs, as part of Microsoft's plans to shed approximately 20% of its Xbox workforce.

With the new Minecraft update now live, players have been eagerly looking forward to the next Minecraft Live to learn what comes next for the sandbox game. We now know that the next stream will be this weekend. The Minecraft Live broadcast will begin on September 26, 2026 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET / 6 PM GMT / 7 PM CEST. It hasn't been communicated how long that broadcast will run for, but we have a tiny hint of an idea around what could be coming next.

The Minecraft Live broadcast date was revealed at the end of Tubbo's stream, after the Blue Creeper Battle concluded. This promotional event started on September 17, 2026 in person at the Tokyo Game Show, online through YouTube, and in-game in Bedrock Edition worlds.

The event saw the Illager High Council open rifts to the real world from the Sift--a new dimension being introduced in the upcoming Minecraft Dungeons 2. Soul-corrupted mobs poured in through those rifts to attack, and at TGS that included a huge Blue Creeper. To celebrate, 1 million Corrupted Creeper Cape codes were awarded to participating players, or to those watching via Twitch in the form of Twitch Drops.

The Minecraft Live announcement came at the end of Tubbo's stream.

After a showdown that saw players finally take down the Blue Creeper, a short cinematic played thanking players for taking part. That cinematic teased the Illagers finding a portal to the Sift. While we already know that the Sift is coming to Minecraft Dungeons 2, many are speculating that it could also be coming to the Minecraft base game, marking the first new dimension in Mojang's blocky sandbox since 2011's addition of The End.

If true, the next Minecraft update could be its biggest in 15 years. To find out, tune in to Minecraft Live this Saturday, September 26. You can watch the broadcast on the Minecraft Twitch channel, YouTube, or directly on the Minecraft Live website.

With Friday the 13th, Halloween, and other horror franchises getting video game adaptations in recent years, you might wonder when it'll be Freddy Krueger's turn, but according to Illfonic, the team behind those games, the task is harder than you might think. To do it right, one aspect of the films creates a big roadblock.

"There are plenty of IPs that people are like, 'Why aren't you doing this?' and 'Why aren't you doing that?' As much as I love Elm Street, [those movies are] about these big over-the-top kills," Illfonic's chief creative officer Jared Gerritzen told me in a Zoom call. "Same with Terrifier, where it's like these big, over-the-top kills that you would expect that you would have to do [in order] to do it right. That's the most costly thing, in some cases. You'd have to do hundreds of those to build that basis. You'd have to do all these other layers, and then it just becomes like, 'Well, shit.' Like, there are all these quagmires that we can't go into, and so for us, we're very diligent about the IPs that we choose."

With Freddy's dream world seeming like a great fit for a game, I'd long envisioned Elm Street as an obvious candidate for an asymmetrical multiplayer horror game akin to Illfonic's other titles, but listening to Gerritzen speak on the pitfalls, it occurred to me that he's right.

It's hard to imagine a game creating enough elaborate set-piece kills to keep them feeling fresh for players who may play for dozens or hundreds of hours, but neither does it make sense to rinse and repeat the same standout moments like Tina's nightmare that saw her crawling on the ceiling, or the way Glen's bed swallows him whole and erupts with a geyser of blood. 

Freddy doesn't usually catch up to someone and finish them off with his iconic glove in a way that maps well onto multiplayer. He makes a meal out of them, and that's hard to translate into a game built on replayability.

Gerritzen explained that his team has worked on so many games of this sort that, by now, it gives them something like a running start.

"We've been through this so much that when we start on a game, we already know what the pitfalls are. [...] And so we start off with a pretty good skeleton, and then we add those layers of the project that we love. We turn down a lot of stuff because it's just like, 'Hey, to do this, it doesn't make sense in a video game form.'"

Beyond those gameplay pitfalls, there seems to be a broader rights issue tying up the Elm Street franchise, too. Though Gerritzen didn't comment on that aspect, it's recently been reported that competing Elm Street movies may soon be in the works--one for US audiences and one for international audiences--because the ownership of the intellectual property is currently split. That sort of rights quagmire probably scares off some creators, following what happened to Friday the 13th.

Does this mean we'll never get a Freddy game? I don't think that's what Gerritzen meant, though it may mean a team other than Illfonic is the one to make it, or it could be that Illfonic finds a way to make it work in the future. 

For now, the team is focused on supporting Halloween, which launched on September 8 and has surpassed a million copies sold, alongside its cabinet of other asymmetrical multiplayer games, Predator: Hunting Grounds, Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

For more on the team behind Halloween, here's what Illfonic said about why comparisons to Dead by Daylight are inherently flawed.

30 Best Horror Games To Play In The Dark In 2026 View Images

Halloween is the latest in a long line of asymmetrical multiplayer horror games to release over the past decade, and like all the others, it's faced lots of comparisons to Dead by Daylight (DBD), the decade-long leader in the genre. It's an "easy" comparison to draw, Illfonic chief creative officer Jared Gerritzen said, but ultimately it's inherently flawed.

"It's literally cricket versus baseball. It's so easy to see an image of cricket and say it's exactly like baseball; it's like, really, is it? No, it's not. Like, here are all these differences," Gerritzen told me in a Zoom call. Illfonic is no stranger to this space, having made Friday the 13th,  Predator: Hunting Grounds, Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space all before Halloween. 

"We make a game bespoke for that franchise, for that group of horror fans, and for the people who love that monster."

Gerritzen said that "others" make something more like "mixtapes," which have their own merits, but the projects are too different to directly compare, as some players do.

"And it's like, how could you not want something that is built purely for Halloween? Like, if you're a horror fan, if you're a Halloween fan, how would you just be okay with it being a secondary piece? We build things for that love of that movie, and I feel like they deserve it. 

"I feel like when we choose IPs, we choose the things that we love, and that we feel could be something amazing, and it's cool that other games exist that put characters in as playable, but we don't want to make it [only] playable. We want to make it Haddonfield. We want to make it Michael [Myers]. We want to make Michael's abilities and put all these characters that were beloved into it."

Gerritzen's words hit on something I've been grappling with recently, when I tried to explain how very different DBD is from the field of bespoke, licensed, multiplayer horror games. I love DBD, but I love Halloween, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and most of the others that have filled this space, too. Though there's only so much time in the day, and sometimes one game of this sort does have to beat out another for my free time, I keep them all in my rotation. 

"If you're a horror fan, you should consume everything, you know?" Gerritzen added, imagining a similar sentiment in horror movies to prove how silly he thinks it sounds. "'Oh, I'm just gonna watch only movies from this director.' It's like, 'Come on. No, you're not. You're gonna watch everything.'"

As for the people who wrote Halloween's obituary before it had even been released, Gerritzen reminded players of Illfonic's track record. 

"How many Illfonic-published games [have shut down]?" he asked rhetorically. The answer is none, as he confidently implied. Friday the 13th was shuttered due to a rights issue, but Illfonic didn't publish it, and it remains a unique case in this space anyway. Meanwhile, the team's other games in this genre are still running today. 

Gerritzen explained how this talking point has become a refrain for players in this space, and how the team blocks out the noise.

"As soon as we started doing Predator, people were asking about it," he recalled. "Same in Ghostbusters, same in Killer Klowns, same in [Halloween], and it's like, cool. All we have to do is prove you wrong. Predator has 30-some-odd predators right now. You know, we're talking about doing some really cool stuff with that. Klowns has all this great stuff. Like, we slow things down for sure. But it's not like Illfonic has ever shut a server down [or] closed down shop. Halloween has a lot of really long legs, and we've got a lot of stuff ready, you know, and it's exciting. So we can only prove them wrong. That's literally all we can do."

Halloween: The Game is out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. For more from Illfonic, here's why A Nightmare on Elm Street game hasn't happened yet.

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