After Bloomberg broke the news of BioWare's shutting down at the hands of Electronic Arts, I searched for one of my favorite video game pieces of all time, the fittingly named "An End Once And For All" from Mass Effect 3. The top comment, written by user Lellianna, broke my heart:

"Yes, we are here for the same reason."

As I scrolled down, many more BioWare faithful came to this YouTube video to leave their eulogies, like roses on a digital grave. Some were direct quotes, like user acbagel quoting the Citadel DLC: "Best times of my life were spent on that ship... It's been a damn good ride. The best." Others greeted the moment with dark humor, like M.A.R.Z_316 with "'I should go.' -Bioware, 2026." The more I scrolled, the more users came out of the woodwork to pay homage to the studio they loved.

The end of the Citadel DLC in Mass Effect 3.

Multiple videos I searched related to Mass Effect revealed the same thing. A clip of the Citadel DLC ending quoted earlier has a comment from madara992 saying, "Thank you BioWare. For Everything [sic]." An 18-year-old mashup of the four different versions of "Vigil," the song that plays on the title screen of the original Mass Effect now shows TobiTheNomad offer a simple message: "Thank you BioWare…RIP."

Internet forums, as they were once known, are gone. Now, places like YouTube and Reddit serve as the place to get instant, candid reactions like this. Today, they're filled with all five stages of grief.

"My heart is broken for the community and for the folks who worked hard on ME4… to have it all end so unceremoniously absolutely kills me. This is the true 'wrong ending'" says Reddit user Helloyesthisisbat on r/masseffect's megathread about the news. "Keelah Se'lai Bioware" says Ok_Focus1716 on the same thread, quoting the Quarian phrase, "By the homeworld I hope to see one day."

There are a selection of angry comments too, of course, mostly pointed at Electronic Arts. Others acknowledge the studio's troubles long before this closure, while still expressing sadness over the news. Others still are, well, the kind of comments one is warned about when they hear "never read the comments," but they're not worth the time.

What drew me to these comments, I think, is the realization that the commenters and I had the same reaction once we'd heard the news; we turned to the music. BioWare's music has been a calming, soothing force in my life ever since I first heard "Sanctuary" from Jade Empire.

The Mass Effect trilogy, in particular, is bursting with terrific music. I've mentioned An End Once And For All and Vigil, but there's also the action-packed "Suicide Mission" from ME2 and the somber "Leaving Earth" from ME3. Both of those videos have comments saying goodbye too.

Music is but one piece of the pie, though, and I think what endeared me most to BioWare's games was their characters. The three brothers at the center of Jade Empire. HK-47 from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Commander Shepard, Liara T'Soni, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, and the rest of the Normandy's crew. Heck, even Marauder Shields. These are creations I can revisit whenever I want, but I'll never know what they've been up to since.

That, to me, is what makes this so sad. I want to revisit these worlds, see these characters again, and have new adventures. I hoped Liara would be the star of the now-cancelled next Mass Effect. I wanted to head back to the Jade Empire someday and pick up where my Spirit Monk left off. Unless some other company swoops in and buys the IP--or if EA is even selling it--these worlds will be locked away forever, consigned to the dustbin of the gaming industry in the interest of shareholder value. What a world we live in now.

This may be the end once and for all for BioWare, but I, and many others, will continue to remember the studio through its games. Every time we boot one up, we will hold vigil.

Included in the shocking news of EA's restructuring, which includes layoffs and the closure of BioWare, is a mention from the publisher that Apex Legends studio Respawn Entertainment and Battlefield maker DICE are collaborating on a project. According to a report, that project is a long-awaited sequel set in a galaxy far, far away.

Per Variety, which cites "multiple sources," the DICE and Respawn project is Star Wars Battlefront 3. While EA itself did not confirm this, the company's memo about the restructuring says that the studios' title will contribute to EA's goal of delivering a "shooter portfolio that unlocks growth."

EA specifically states that learnings from Battlefield 6's launch and live service will further that goal, while also announcing that Apex Legends will be expanded with new "gameplay modes" and "other new experiences."

As for the purported existence of Star Wars Battlefront 3, the timing coincides with a recent rumor that Lucasfilm Games was seeking a development partner for a new Battlefront, and that DICE and Sony-owned studio Bungie were among the studios being considered.

DICE had made two Star Wars Battlefront games for EA, which were released in 2015 and 2017. Battlefront 2 attracted criticism over loot boxes (remember when that was the hot controversy of the day?), but the game still proved to be massively popular. Last year, Battlefront 2 suddenly had a resurgence in players, with many hoping that it would ignite talks of a third Battlefront.

Outside of Battlefront and shooters, the Star Wars franchise has gained two new popular entries this year alone, with strategy game Star Wars Zero Company (which Respawn co-developed) and racing title Star Wars: Galactic Racer enjoying critical success.

Microsoft has revealed how much it will charge people for using the Xbox Cloud Gaming service without a Game Pass membership. Right now, this is available only to Xbox Insiders, but that's a free program that anyone can join.

Also notable is that the prices below are described as "introductory launch pricing," and that wording suggests the prices may change in the future. Microsoft is calling these "cloud playtime packs."

Cloud playtime packs pricing:

• 10 hours for $4
• 25 hours for $8
• 50 hours for $12

Anyone who buys these cloud playtime packs will get access to cloud gaming without ads and with perks like shorter wait times and higher-quality streaming. These packs will be available to more people starting in November.

A version of Xbox cloud gaming with ads is also available to Xbox Insiders without a Game Pass membership.

As for those who do have a Game Pass membership, changes are coming to cloud gaming in November. Microsoft will put limits on how many hours per month people can use the service, and then allow people to pay more to unlock more time. Below is a breakdown of how many hours you’ll get included with the tier of Game Pass you’re subscribed to:

• Game Pass Ultimate: 15 hours
• Game Pass Premium: 10 hours
• Game Pass Essential: 5 hours

Microsoft said it understands this is a “meaningful change,” especially for those who use the cloud regularly for gaming. However, the company said it estimates that these changes will impact about 4% of Game Pass subscribers, though the company did not share any specifics on how it arrived at that projection.

In other Game Pass news, it was recently reported that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is considering a massive shakeup to the service to allow people to build their own Game Pass and choose which features they do and do not want.

When EA was acquired by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, many expected major changes at the gaming company, including layoffs and game cancellations, among other shakeups. Now, those have begun, with EA on October 21 confirming a series of significant changes impacting the people and teams that worked on many storied franchises.

EA also teased some of what's to come in the future, including a joint project between Respawn and DICE. Here's a rundown of all the big EA news today.

Layoffs

EA said in a statement that it made the "difficult" choice to lay off staff, and Bloomberg reported that the cuts will impact about 400 people. Affected staffers will be treated with "care and respect," EA said, and some impacted employees may have a chance to get a different job within EA.

BioWare closes and new Mass Effect axed

BioWare, the esteemed Canadian developer founded 30+ years ago, is shutting down. The studio employed fewer than 100 people, Bloomberg reported, and the team was working on the next Mass Effect. That game is now canceled.

"BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly," EA said.

Developers at BioWare had feared their jobs were at risk after PIF announced that it would buy EA. BioWare is known, in part, for making pro-diversity games featuring inclusive storytelling and characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg-Ctg6k_Ao

Longtime BioWare writer Patrick Weekes, who was laid off in 2025, speculated that EA’s new owners, including the PIF, might want to avoid “gay stuff” and politics that the PIF’s leadership does not agree with.

There has been an outpouring of support and thoughtful messages about BioWare in the wake of the news, from fans and industry professionals alike.

CD Projekt's Michal Nowakowski said his company first got to know BioWare when the studio did the work to localize Baldur's Gate games in Europe. Later, BioWare lent its game engine to CD Projekt for the first Witcher game.

"Very sad for the people affected, but also sad to see a legendary brand go down. Not a great day in the games industry," he said.

New The Sims game paused

Another game that's not going ahead at EA is Project Lotus, the codename for new game in The Sims franchise. Another The Sims game, codename Project Evergreen, is now the main focus for the developers working on The Sims. Exactly what this game is, however, remains a mystery, but The Sims is a juggernaut at EA and fans have been waiting for a new game for a long time.

Skate gets scaled back

EA's new Skate game, which was released in 2025, will remain online, but EA said it's "making changes to the studio," and that includes cutting staff to create a "more focused, smaller team." EA said this will help Skate have a "very clear roadmap" and one that can lead to a "healthier and more sustainable business."

EA Sports open-world football game

The EA Sports division, which is among the strongest at the company due in part to the lucrative loot boxes and microtransactions in Ultimate Team modes, continue to operate "from a position of strength," EA said. In addition to the usual annual sports games, EA said it has two new projects in the works, including a "brand-new, social-first open-world" football game in the works under the codename Project Gridiron. The other project is the next Fight Night, which is coming back after a 15-year hiatus.

Shooters

EA said Battlefield 6 was a "great success," and that the studio "learned a lot from the launch and live service." There will be future Battlefield games, as well as a new project to be collaboratively developed by Respawn and DICE. EA didn't say what this will be, but many believe it could be a new Star Wars: Battlefront, following recent rumors that DICE could make that game. Variety reported that yes, indeed, a new Battlefront game is coming. This would not be surprising at all, given DICE's two previous Battlefront games sold a combined 33 million+ copies.

As for Apex Legends, EA said it will continue to "invest heavily" in the franchise by adding new gameplay modes and "other new experiences."

Iron Man and Star Wars Jedi

While EA may have canceled its Black Panther game already, the company's other big Marvel game, Iron Man, remains in development. Additionally, the next Star Wars Jedi game is still on the way, EA confirmed.

"Beyond that, we will concentrate our efforts on fewer simultaneous, large-scale projects, ensuring that every game we build in this space is fully set up for success," EA said.

The biggest leveraged buyout of all time

The PIF, along with Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, took EA private in a $55 billion sale that was constructed as a leveraged buyout, or LBO. This was the largest LBO ever, not just in gaming, but in the history of all business. Since the acquisition was "leveraged," that means it comes with debt, and a lot of it, so many expected EA to make major cuts to help service that debt.

Prior to the deal closing, Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis said EA may look to “cut excess spending and rationalize the company’s workforce” to help bring in more money to address the debt. A report from Financial Times said EA might look to further bolster AI tools and technologies to help cut development costs and drive profitability.

Mat Piscatella of Circana told GI.biz that the companies being acquired in LBOs rarely fare well. “Leveraged buyouts have a certain history that generally hasn’t been great for the acquired companies,” he said.

Rayman Legends Retold is almost here, and as you'd expect from this remake, it's a pretty noticeable graphical glow-up of Rayman Legends and it includes a very French outfit for you to dress the phantom-limbed hero and his partner Barbara up in. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 fans, this is where you do the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme.

Even though Ubisoft doesn't mention Sandfall Interactive or Expedition 33 by name, it did confirm that the new baguette outfits are "a playful nod to a fellow game" created in Montpellier. "Conceived as a tribute from one French studio to another, these costumes celebrate the creativity, passion, and unmistakably French touch that continue to make the country's video game industry shine on the global stage," Ubisoft said in a press release. Sandfall Interactive is also headquartered in Montpellier.

The friendly homage is no doubt a tribute to Sandfall Interactive and its award-winning debut game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The Expedition 33 outfit features a white shirt with black pinstripes, black pants with black suspenders, a red beret, and a baguette kept inside a red-and-white plaid cloth, making it as Gallic as Groundskeeper Willie's introduction to the beautiful French language. Unlocking the outfit for each character in the hit RPG isn't easy, as players must defeat secret mime mini-bosses around the map.

The look isn't unique to either game, as the ensemble draws on 19th-century naval uniforms, Basque headwear, and "Onion Johnny" door-to-door traders. Over time, those fashion elements became synonymous with France, becoming a symbol of French elegance and casual style that artists like Pablo Picasso and fashion icon Jean Paul Gaultier adopted. You've probably also spotted people wearing these costumes at conventions, as Expedition 33's baguette outfits make for an easy, low-cost, and comfortable cosplay.

Ubisoft says the baguette costumes will be available to all players at launch, when the game launches for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2 on December 3. It's the second big remake from Ubisoft this year, following the release of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced in July.

I guess someone's gotta collect 'em all, and it appears that thieves are doing just that, as yet another high-stakes burglary in Southern California has resulted in just about $1 million worth of Pokemon cards being stolen from a FedEx truck.

According to a report by The New York Times' sports journalism department, The Athletic (via ABC News), a FedEx truck parked near the authenticating and grading business known as the Professional Sports Authenticator in Santa Ana, California, was robbed on October 13. The Santa Ana Police Department said in a statement to ABC News that hundreds of cards were stolen, with the robbery estimated at a value of $963,000.

"The pallets contained various trading cards, including, but not limited to, sports cards and Pokemon cards," the Santa Ana Police Department said in a statement. "However, the exact value of the stolen items has not yet been determined."

According to the Santa Ana Police Department, the thieves broke into the FedEx truck, stole two full pallets of cards, and tore through a third pallet for even more packaged goodies--all of which belonged to collectors from across the country who submitted their cards to the Professional Sports Authenticator to be authenticated and graded for collecting or reselling purposes.

Collectors, the parent company of the Professional Sports Authenticator, told ABC News that in the wake of the theft, it has deactivated the certificates for the missing cards and notified its other businesses in its marketplace to "be on the lookout" for the cards in case they turn up.

"We are aware of a theft involving a third-party shipping vehicle carrying PSA-graded items," the company said. "We are working closely with law enforcement and the carrier as the investigation continues. Our customer service team has contacted affected customers directly and is arranging compensation based on fair market value. We understand the impact this has on collectors involved, many of whom see these cards as far more than a financial asset."

FedEx is also aware of the burglary, telling ABC News that it's cooperating with police.

"The security of our customers' shipments is a top priority, and we are working with local law enforcement in their investigation," the corporation said. "Further questions should be referred to local investigators."

This seems to be a regular occurrence these days: people stealing tens of thousands of dollars worth of Pokemon cards, sometimes at gunpoint. What was once a fun hobby has become quite fraught as people battle each other to get their hands on cards. I don't know what happened because it wasn't like this 30 years ago, but soon, you may need a face just to buy Pokemon cards. Yikes.

One of the most annoying things about PC games is how long they can take to start, thanks to the traditional shader compilation a game goes through after installation or after getting new drivers. The silver bullet to this might be Microsoft's Advanced Shader Delivery, which was used in Gears of War: E-Day to drastically cut down on its initial launch, and Nvidia graphics card owners can also take advantage of this technology starting today with the release of the version 621.01 drivers. AMD has featured this technology for a while now, but with Nvidia included, ASD will be open to the vast majority of the PC gaming community.

Available for Nvidia RTX and RTX Spark graphics cards, ASD reduces shader compilation times by downloading precompiled shaders. For now, only two games support ASD--the new Gears of War prequel and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Combined with Nvidia's Automatic Shader Compilation, which is designed to prevent shaders from needing to be recompiled after you install new drivers, this should make for a pretty seamless approach to installing a game and playing it right away, something which console owners have enjoyed for years. This is down to consoles only having one configuration, whereeas PCs come in multiple configurations, thus requiring shader compilation to set a game up on that platform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM5tzrBuWFo

In my own testing, ASD proved to be very quick on both my desktop PC and my Asus ROG Ally X. After installing Gears of War: E-Day, I could start the game in under a minute on either platform, a marked improvement compared to how some games asked me to wait around 10-15 minutes so that they could get their shader ducks in a row. ASD works with multiple hardware configurations, including devices powered by AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm, although results may vary between systems.

On the console side, Sony recently announced Quick Spectral Super Resolution for base PS5 consoles, and AMD has announced that FSR 4.1 is coming to Xbox Series X|S in the future.

World of Warcraft: Forever will see players battling to become an ogre arena champion once more, this time in the new Riverglades zone.

Forever's launch is just a few weeks away on November 4, and every day it seems like Blizzard reveals new information about the game. In a new video titled "Your Leveling Journey Past 30," Blizzard goes into more detail about what to expect from the game's all-new Riverglades zone, diving into its Warcraft 2 lore roots and what players can expect to find there. The contested zone is divided up by multiple different factions, with the Brotherhood of the Horse representing the Alliance and the Boulder Rock ogre clan representing the Horde.

Blizzard makes a point to call out a new ogre arena in the trailer, deep within Boulder Rock territory. The Bloodmasters Ring is "a fighting ring where players will prove their strength against the ogres' best brawlers," Blizzard says in the trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTCBfrFZ2qU

That will likely sound awfully familiar to anyone who has played WoW in the last 20 years, as it's reminiscent of the iconic Ring of Blood quest chain from the game's first expansion, The Burning Crusade. It's one of TBC's most memorable quests, as players needed to put together a full group of players in Nagrand to battle boss after boss, eventually rising up the ranks to become champion. The chain also granted some great rewards that many players used early on in TBCs endgame.

It's a tradition that has continued in nearly every expansion since, with a similar quest chain, the Amphitheater of Anguish, in Wrath of the Lich King and again with Cataclysm's Crucible of Carnage. The Ring of Blood itself even made a second appearance during the game's Warlords of Draenor expansion. 

What kind of rewards players can expect from the Ring of Blood is still unknown, but WoW Classic is certainly no stranger to having quests grant significant and powerful rewards. Who knows? Maybe the Ring of Blood's original ringmasters, Gurgthock and Wodin, will even make an appearance. 

Blizzard additionally dropped new details about what players can expect from WoW: Forever's endgame raids. Like in WoW Classic, players will need to attune themselves for Onyxia's Lair and obtain the Drakefire Amulet. Blizzard additionally warns players will want to bring some fire resistance gear for the occasion. As for the game's two new raids at launch, the eight-boss Barrow Deeps raid will have multiple entrances in zones like Mount Hyjal, Winterspring, and Blackmaw Hold, while the massive Hyjal Summit raid will have 13 bosses to defeat. 

WoW: Forever is still seeing major changes two weeks before launch, with Blizzard recently changing the math on what race to play with a huge racial-ability overhaul. In an interview with GameSpot, Blizzard gave a glimpse into what WoW: Forever's future will look like and how it's approaching the MMOs endgame.

Publisher Electronic Arts is planning to shut down legendary RPG studio BioWare, laying off about 50 employees at the studio alongside 350 more elsewhere.

In a new Bloomberg report, a person familiar with the matter said a total of 3% of EA's overall company has been affected by this latest round of layoffs.

According to a staff letter sent out on Wednesday that Bloomberg viewed, EA chief operating officer David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber explained that the company took a "hard look" at its business over the last several months. This resulted in some projects getting canceled, including the next Mass Effect game--which was in early development at BioWare--as well as a planned game in The Sims franchise codenamed Project Lotus. Instead, the resources allocated to that title will be diverted to something else currently codenamed Project Evergreen.

Many of EA's currently released franchises will continue as expected. Full Circle will keep working on Skate, but EA said the team there would be downsized. Meanwhile, its myriad sports games, Apex Legends, Battlefield, the next Star Wars Jedi game, and a new game based on Iron Man will continue to be invested in.

"Across our portfolio, we're making deliberate choices to align talent and investments where we see the greatest opportunities for players and long-term growth," Tinson and Weber wrote in the letter sent out to staff on Wednesday.

This comes one year after EA agreed to a buyout by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund for $55 billion and two months after the company went private following the acquisition. The writing was on the wall, however, as EA told investors in March that it planned to save some $700 million after the massive leveraged buyout saddled the company with billions of dollars in debt.

The studio needs no introduction, but BioWare is quite the storied developer. Founded in February 1995, the Canadian studio is known for its many RPGs from Baldur's Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Things haven't been too successful for BioWare recently, though, with both 2019's Anthem and 2024's Dragon Age: The Veilguard failing to meet expectations. While Mass Effect 5 has been in development since at least February 2022, that project is dead ... and so is BioWare.

New details about Rockstar's GTA 6 continue to come to light ahead of the highly anticipated crime game's release in November. Reporter Jason Schreier published a video recently in which he discussed some of the new things about GTA 6 that he learned when interviewing Rockstar, including how the game will feature the next evolution of fine details like the horse testicle system in Rockstar's last game, Red Dead Redemption II, along with information about the game's roads and "dark" years of development on the project.

One of the details is that GTA 6's roads are narrower, generally, than what GTA 5 had--and that was on purpose. The roads are "significantly" narrower, Schreier said that Rockstar's Aaron Garbut told him, and players will have denser traffic scenarios to deal with. Anyone who's played GTA 5 knows that some of the roads are wide open, allowing players to zip around like an action movie.

GTA 6 is a big world full of fine details.

Players can do that in GTA 6 as well, but Schreier said Rockstar told him that the team planned on narrower roads from the onset of development, and this caused "ripple effects" for the game overall. "All these things come back to bite you later," Garbut said, referring to how narrower roads meant that the team had to create more buildings and generally more elements to accomodate this.

Also in the video, Schreier said Rockstar faced "dark" times between 2019-2022 due to not only COVID, but also because that was when Rockstar was determing how realistic they wanted to make GTA 6. Finding the balance between realism and the arcade-style fun that GTA is known for was a key point of discussion at Rockstar around this time, and it caused some tension internally, Schreier said.

Around this time, Rockstar's Rob Nelson told Schreier that the studio was thinking about making GTA 6's weapon system more realistic and only allowing players to hold a set number of weapons in their arsenal. Rockstar spent "months if not years" experimenting with different designs for a new system to evolve the traditional weapon wheel, or get rid of it entirely. However, after all that time, Rockstar decided to stick with the familiar weapon-wheel setup.

Another interesting fact from the video is that, according to Garbut, there is "no one person that has this whole thing in their head," referring to GTA 6 itself. Schreier said individual developers working on GTA 6 are given a level of autonomy that allows them to add small details that other colleagues might be totally unaware of.

Schreier pointed out how one of the granular details in Red Dead Redemption II was how your horse's testicles would shrink or expand based on the weather. That was never something that was on a "features list" for the game or an idea that a director asked for. Instead, someone, or a team of people, came up with this on their own and put it in the game. Schreier said GTA 6 will have its own version of this, with individual developers or teams inserting granular details that might otherwise go unnoticed.

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It's expected to be a huge hit commercially, and it's already tracking ahead of all the other big AAA games of recent times.

Everyone wants to play Rockstar Games' upcoming heist-'em-up Grand Theft Auto 6--so much so that some 1.5 million Americans are projected to call in sick to work on November 19 to play the game, which an economics professor estimates will set the country back roughly $1 billion.

According to an International Business Times report, economics professor José García Montalvo projected that the 1.5 million workers planning to play hooky to traipse around Leonida next month could cost America a boatload of money. If each worker has an annual salary of $70,000, Montalvo suggests that the math works out to $1 billion, with GTA 6 publisher Take-Two Interactive estimated to make that same amount on November 19.

That's the catch. The American economy isn't necessarily losing money; the bills are just changing hands, from the pockets of the country writ large to those of one multi-billion-dollar corporation. I'm sure you know the saying: The rich get richer.

It's worth noting, though, that this isn't an official forecast. Rather, Montalvo's estimation is a mere academic projection.

However, the phenomenon has a precedent in the hype surrounding Grand Theft Auto 5's launch in September 2013, when an IGN poll found that 46% of its nearly 11,000 respondents planned to take the day off work as a holiday for "GTA flu." That self-selected poll measured readers' intentions, not actual workplace absences across US cities like Los Angeles and New York. Still, it's evidence that Rockstar Games' games are a moment in pop culture, creating a monoculture we haven't had in a minute.

And some people are very serious about taking time off to play the game. Bud Burruss, a streamer and father of three, told the Wall Street Journal in September that he plans to take a five-day vacation. Others took to social media to share similar sentiments, with some couples drafting contracts and labeling the act of playing the game as "cheating." Even the military is offering some days off for its soldiers at Fort Stewart, Georgia, to play GTA 6, so you know the "GTA flu" is real.

The world of Diablo will expand over the next couple of years with a new video game and a Netflix animated series, but if you'd rather roll some dice, Diablo Unbound will offer an officially licensed tour of Sanctuary when it launches.

The new board game is billed as a highly replayable co-op (or solo) action game that spans several genres and gameplay mechanics to create what developer Glass Cannon Unplugged calls a "dungeon battler" experience. It'll enter the Gamefound crowdfunding platform in Q1 2027, and as you'd expect from one of these campaigns, it will offer a range of stretch goals, exclusive rewards, and additional content to unlock.

So how will Diablo: Unbound play? GCU says that the game consists of three acts, each one made up of three dungeon levels. An act involves exploring a dungeon, clearing all levels of enemies, and journeying toward the end where a powerful boss awaits players. Along the way, players collect gear and experience points before facing the boss. Loot is an essential part of the gameplay and it can be earned by opening chests, defeating elite enemies, completing side quests, and building up killstreaks. Bosses hold the best gear, but you never know what you'll get on your quest because drops are random.

A render for the Diablo Unbound board game.

In Diablo: Unbound, you can choose the fan-favorite Barbarian, Rogue, Paladin, and Sorceress classes, and they can face off against Khazra, Demons, and Undead monsters. Each dungeon session is designed to take 60 - 90 minutes to complete, while completing an act will take up to 4.5 hours to see through to the end. After completing a third act, there'll be an option to enter the Torment endgame mode, allowing a group to face any boss of their choosing, and in its ultimate form.

Between encounters, players can enter a Town Phase, to improve their skills, manage their loot, and respec their builds. "You get the high-stakes showdowns of a boss battler—and hordes of monsters that never let up. But you don’t crawl through dungeons. You battle your way down. That’s why we call it a dungeon battler," GCU CEO Jakub Wiśniewski said in a press statement. Anyone looking to get an early taste of the board game can try it out at the SPIEL Essen board game trade fair this week in Germany (October 22-25).

A new season of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is now on Netflix, and to celebrate, Cyberpunk 2077 is getting an update.  Developer CD Projekt Red announced Update 2.5 this week, teasing new items and features inspired by the anime spin-off's second season.

The update goes live on October 22 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. Switch 2 players will get it a few days later.

While you're here, you can read more about Edgerunners Season 2, including its punk rock sensibilities, how it mirrors the first season, and the Hideo Kojima cameo lurking in one of the episodes.

Cyberpunk 2077 is getting an Edgerunners prequel quest

CD Projekt Red didn't want to share many details about the new Cyberpunk 2077 quest, Clampdown, but it teased it as a prequel to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2. Several voice actors from the anime series will also reprise their roles in this mission.

You'll need to have completed The Heist and two gigs for Wakako before you can access it,

Edgerunners clothing: so hot right now

You can earn a new five-piece gear set that mimics the clothing King wears in Edgerunners Season 2.

Night City Tours

A new quest, Night City Tours, is a slice of digital tourism where Night City's founder, Richard Knight, gives you a guided tour of the metropolis. Described as a cozy mission with a mystery to solve, it's all about seeing Night City from a new angle--and there might be a few secrets you can discover as well.

Dual-wielding weapons isn't just viable; it's encouraged!

If you feel like unleashing your inner John Woo, you can use the new "Double Trouble" perk to wield a pair of revolvers or pistols in combat. Game director Pawel Sasko added that players can buy new skills and build a completely new playstyle. You can even strike a few new dual-wielding poses in Photo Mode.

Mod support is coming to consoles

CD Projekt Red says Cyberpunk 2077 mods on console will work similarly to The Witcher 3 Remastered, and the studio has teamed up with top modders to get this feature off the ground. On the main menu, players can download new mods from a curated list. The feature is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

FOV slider is finally coming to consoles

A highly requested feature is coming to Cyberpunk 2077 on console, at long last. A field-of-view slider is available in the main menu, just in case you need a wider view of Night City.

Cyberware is about to become fashionable

Want your chrome to look shinier and better before you head out in Night City? You can find five new Glamdoc vendors in the game who can help you customize your cyberware's look. There'll be 40 new cyberware looks in total, and each Glamdoc offers unique cyberware sets to choose from. You can also change cyberware colours, and each piece of gear is tied to the brand's identity.

Analogue fashion is also being updated

If you don't feel like replacing your flesh in Cyberpunk 2077, you can cover it up with some trendy new clothing and hairstyles. You can collect four separate clothing styles from various vendors in Night City. The ensemble includes several sets that were previously available as Twitch drops. Here's a breakdown on all this killer fashion:

• Maxiwear: available in Heywood, Arroyo, Little China
• Jinguji: available in City Center
• NetWatch: available in Kabuki, Japantown
• IconAmerica: available in Pacifica, Badlands, Northside
• The NUS Infiltrator clothing set can be now purchased from clothing vendors in Kabuki and Japantown.
• Four new Twintone skins for Quadra Turbo-R V-Tech are now available via Twitch Drops.

Photo mode is also being updated

Frames from the Cyberpunk Trading Card Game have been added to Photo Mode, allowing you to make your shots look like custom cards.

Your tarot deck is expanding

You can search Night City for 12 new Minor Arcana tarot cards. The Tarot menu also has separate sections for Major and Minor Arcana. The new tarot cards are part of a new side quest--an extension of Fool on the Hill--which activates after scanning any of the new cards. Collect all the cards and you'll earn a special reward.

Technical changes

Update 2 also adds several technical tweaks, changes, and quality-of-life upgrades. Here's a closer look at them:

Quality-of-life changes

• Saves in the “Load Game” menu are now grouped by separate playthroughs.
• Added item filters to apartment and vehicle stashes.
• Modded saves in the "Load Game" menu are now marked with a dedicated icon. Please note that achievements and trophies cannot be earned while playing on console from a modded save file.
• Added an FOV (Field Of View) slider on consoles.
• Updated the selection of AMD FSR options. FSR 3 upscaling is no longer included, while FSR 2.1, FSR 4, and FSR 3.1 Frame Generation remain available.
• Updated the CD PROJEKT RED Account connection, My Rewards and telemetry consent menus.

Technology

• Added support for DLSS 4.5, including up to 6X Multi Frame Generation or Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, and the 2nd Generation Transformer Model.
• Added support for glasses-free 3D effects on compatible Samsung Odyssey 3D monitors, along with a Motion Comfort setting that lets you balance 3D depth and viewing comfort.
• Added support for MetalFX Frame Interpolation and Denoising on Mac.
• Added a toggle in settings for FSR Anti-Lag 2.
• Introduced various performance optimizations, including improvements specifically for Ray Tracing and for PlayStation 5 Pro.
• Improved HDR rendering to provide more accurate colors, brightness, and contrast on compatible displays.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue on Nintendo Switch 2 where saving the game could result in a "Save failed - insufficient space" error.
• Fixed an issue where adjusting HDR settings on PlayStation 5 had no effect.
• Things Done Changed - Fixed an issue where the Delamain cab could get stuck after crashing into another vehicle, blocking quest progression.
• Fixed an issue where enabling Film Grain had no effect.
• Fixed an issue where tagging enemies while scanning could also cause V to crouch or stand up when using certain control schemes.
• Fixed an issue where controller settings for the Third-Person Camera were missing.
• Fixed several typos in various languages.
• Added various other fixes for features and content introduced since Patch 2.1.

We just got our strongest hint at what Xbox Labs might be "cooking up" for players, thanks to Xbox chief technology officer Scott Van Vliet. The executive posted a video on X that ends with Halo 3 booting up inside what appears to be the Microsoft Edge web browser. In fact, the option to play the beloved FPS with mouse and keyboard even appears as a prompt, too.

Van Vliet noted that he was working on "retro vibes" in the social media post, and he also tagged Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. Intriguingly, neither executive notes Halo 3 booting up inside the browser; instead, they focus on the return of the Xbox Blades dashboard. That user interface from roughly two decades ago is a fan-favorite.

https://twitter.com/scottvanvliet/status/2112671760131010982

Xbox Labs was unveiled last week, strongly implying a push into AI gaming without saying those exact words. In general, the past couple of months have seen a big wave of vibe-coded ports for browsers, such as The Simpsons: Hit & Run and old-school Grand Theft Auto titles. There even are remixes where people mash up Minecraft and Elden Ring, for instance. 

With that in mind, Xbox Labs focusing on past console libraries to bring to browsers makes a ton of sense. Being able to play your Xbox 360 games on a browser--especially if saves can transfer over via the cloud--would be a welcome benefit. Obviously, Van Vliet teases that we could even pick our preferred 360 dashboard to boot up those titles. 

Xbox isn't the only big-name company dipping its toes into vibe coding. Fortnite developer Epic Games is focused on "maximum AI acceleration," according to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney. The Unreal Engine maker even vibe-coded a new Epic Games Launcher earlier this month, complete with all sorts of problems.

Halo Games, Ranked – The Best Halo FPS Games View Images

Another day, another PS5 update, as Sony tweaks its system with another minor upgrade. It looks like business as usual for PS5 Update Version: 26.07-14.20.00, with Sony focusing on overall usage and message readability, but there are murmurs that the patch could also be quietly plugging a few jailbreak holes.

First, the actual update. "We've improved the messages and usability on some screens," Sony's succinct patch notes read.

For your average PS5 user, this won't mean much and downloading the new firmware is just part of the process before you can start playing a game. But people in the homebrew and PS5 jailbreaking scene will likely avoid an update just in case Sony fixes a vulnerability that pirates and modders have taken full advantage of. Recently, hackers released the "Relapse" exploit, which works on every PS5 firmware before the version 14.00.00 update that was released on September 16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd5-cvN7QX8

This meant most retail PS5s could be jailbroken to run pirated games, a nightmare scenario for Sony. With Grand Theft Auto 6 out on November 19, Sony will likely focus on further improving PS5 security as it enters an arms race against determined hackers. As users on the PS5 jailbreak subreddit have pointed out, Sony could make it mandatory for PS5s to be updated to version 14.20 to run the game.

In case you missed it, September's PS5 update was a pretty chunky one. It added a helpful new option for PS5 Pro owners, voice chat improvements, and tweaks to longstanding features.

EA Sports has announced that its Fight Night series of boxing games is coming back. Fans have been waiting a very long time, considering the last game in the series was 2011's Fight Night Champion for PS3 and Xbox 360.

The franchise debuted in 2004 with Fight Night 2004, and sequels were released in 2005, 2006, and 2009 before Champion came out in 2011.

"To everyone who stayed in our corner: Fight Night is coming back," EA Sports said.

https://twitter.com/EASPORTSFN/status/2112604926941471213

Beyond the statement and the teaser art, there is nothing more to go on, so we don't yet know when the game might release or what new features it could have.

While Fight Night has been dormant since 2011, EA's other combat-sports franchise--UFC--just had its newest release, UFC 6, in June this year.

Prior to Fight Night, EA developed boxing games with the Knockout Kings franchise, which debuted in 1998 and ran through 2002.

EA bringing back Fight Night is happening just after EA got acquired by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is reportedly plotting a "major overhaul" of the Xbox Game Pass service, beyond some of the big changes she's made already like dropping new Call of Duty game releases from the membership.

According to Fortune, Xbox could overhaul Game Pass to give players the ability to choose features à la carte. This would reportedly include things like cloud gaming, multiplayer, and "add-ons for console-only games." Game Pass would evolve to operate on a "tiered structure," the report said.

This reporting follows on from another Game Pass rumor in September that claimed Microsoft would offer tiers of the service with or without ads. The same report said Microsoft would no longer release any more of its games into Game Pass on day one, and that a Family Plan is coming as well, among other big shifts.

In April this year, it was reported that Microsoft was preparing to launch a "pick-your-own" version of Game Pass, which sounds like what the Fortune report is saying. Sharma herself has said she plans to "evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system."

Game Pass was a big bet that did not pay off, Sharma has said, so it makes sense to hear she may be planning to overhaul it. She's already undertaken efforts to change things up, including removing new Call of Duty titles from the program and lowering the price. Her team is also going to start charging people for more cloud-gaming time, and many are saying this will make Game Pass worse and more expensive.

In other news, the same Fortune story said Sharma was planning more layoffs at Xbox for this month, October, and January 2027. In total, she's planning to cut more than 3,000 jobs at Xbox as part of her bid to "reset" the business. The story also included details on Microsoft's plans to launch a new Xbox handheld in 2027 and a new console in 2028, reportedly at a price of up to $1,800.

What's more, the Fortune report said several people at Xbox have seen internal presentations regarding the possibility that Xbox gets sold or spun off.

Everything has a selling price, and in Xbox's case, Microsoft's gaming division could be worth at least $100 billion. That's according to a new report, which claims that several private equity firms mulled purchasing Xbox and were willing to go as high as $150 billion for Microsoft's gaming hub--enough cash to buy 15 billion rubber duckies, 50 billion McDouble Cheeseburgers, or 100 billion Costco Hot Dog combos. Or if you felt like wasting that cash, you could easily fund the production of 500 more Avatar movies from James Cameron.

According to The Information, the companies involved were merely exploring options and didn't start any negotiations with Microsoft. Fortune recently claimed that several people inside the company believe that it is being prepped for an "eventual sale, spin-off, outside investment, or conversion into a subsidiary," and that a high-level presentation exploring potential scenarios was made after Asha Sharma took over as Xbox CEO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gokyI6hHp2g&t=15s&pp=0gcJCSwMAYcqIYzv

It's also worth noting that Sharma has in the past dismissed claims that Xbox could be sold. "Xbox is not for sale," Sharma said. "We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model, and everything needed to achieve that."

Putting enough zeroes on the end of a paycheck could persuade Microsoft to get out of the gaming business. That corporate entity isn't made of stone!

The next Xbox console could cost as much as $1,800, depending on whether Microsoft decides to subsidize some of the cost. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella commented earlier this year that Xbox needs to start pulling its financial weight, as its accountability margins amount to only a 3% profit--not a good look, considering Microsoft has invested billions in its gaming ambitions over 25 years.

Since Sharma took over Xbox operations, the company has undergone a "reset" designed to get it back on track and profitable once again. Unfortunately, that has meant sweeping layoffs across multiple departments--with more to come--and the departure of several studios from the Xbox portfolio. Sharma has spoken about Microsoft's ambitious goal to substantially expand Xbox's reach across the world, and recently, new arms of the company have been set up. Xbox XP will be largely focused on non-gaming Xbox initiatives like its multimedia projects, while Xbox Labs appears to be an answer to the rise of vibe-coded web browser ports that have popping up lately.

The furore over Sony's decision to effectively kill physical games on its PlayStation platform appears to have died down (for now), and new data from Alinea Analytics shows how wide the split between physical and digital PS5 games is in 2026. As Alinea's head of market analysis, Rhys Elliott, notes, PlayStation's top new 2026 games by physical copies are mostly single-player AAA titles, with Resident Evil Requiem the best-seller.

Capcom's hit Resident Evil game is estimated to have sold 1.3 million units on PS5, and it's also estimated to be the only game on the list to have broken the 1 million sales milestone. Other games like 007 First Light (873,000) and Marvel's Wolverine have come close (799,000), but overall, digital currently has a 70/30 sales lead.

Top PlayStation games by physical copies sold and revenues

• Resident Evil Requiem -- 1.3 million units sold
• 007 First Light -- 873K units sold
• Marvel's Wolverine -- 799K units sold
• EA Sports FC 27 -- 705K units sold
• Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced -- 613K units sold
• Crimson Desert -- 511K units sold
• Pragmata -- 442K units sold
• Onimusha: Way of the Sword -- 423K units sold

As Elliott explained, PlayStation first-party and Japan-centric games typically shift more physical units, with sales of Capcom games like Pragmata and Onimusha: Way of the Sword almost split evenly between physical and digital this year. Physical sales accounted for 44.0% of Pragmata's copies sold so far and 44.1% of Onimusha's copies sold, thanks to Capcom's home market in Japan.

"Our estimates show that Japan accounts for 12% of Onimusha‘s copies sold on PlayStation, and 11% for Pragmata‘s. While digital shares are on the up in Japan, Japanese consumers still have a penchant for physical copies, more so than any Western market. It’s ingrained in the culture," Elliott wrote. "Our estimates show that Japan accounts for 12% of Onimusha‘s copies sold on PlayStation, and 11% for Pragmata‘s. While digital shares are on the up in Japan, Japanese consumers still have a penchant for physical copies, more so than any Western market. It’s ingrained in the culture."

Onimusha: Way of the Sword

Other games like Silent Hill: Townfall, Beast of Reincarnation, Yakuza Kiwami 3, and the Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly remake have also seen their sales split down the middle between physical and digital in Japan, but Sony is attempting to subtly persuade that market to go digital. The company recently released a digital-only PS5 exclusively in that region, at the tempting price of $350.

While Japan is something of an outlier when it comes to game medium preference, the rest of the world is a different story. Sports games are some of the best-sellers of any given year, and as Elliott pointed out, five of the top 10 games in 2026's new PlayStation games by revenue were all sports games. Only 8.9% of EA Sports FC 27 games sold this year were physical, while sales of NBA 2K27, Madden 27, College Football 27, and MLB The Show 26 also heavily favored digital sales.

Publishers have slowly nudged their audiences toward digital editions over the years, offering early access and other perks to encourage them. In comparison, the prestige single-player games that Sony became known for, are still popular with physical game collectors. It's easy to see why Sony wants to squeeze as much revenue juice out of its consumers as possible, as it loses out on extra potential cash with each physical sale. It has to hand a portion of sales over to retailers, fork over cash for various distribution costs, and the company probably isn't happy about it can't extract any cash from the second-hand game sales market.

EA Sports FC 27

Compare that to digital and third-party sports games, and you can see how Sony takes a 30% cut from a massive number of games sold on its marketplace, in a genre that is nearly all-digital.

"It's doubly ironic, given the whole move is about squeezing more revenue per player, and a lot of the highest revenue users are some of the people Sony's pissing off," Elliott concluded. "But no, PlayStation won't necessarily lose much revenue by switching to digital-only. Some players will walk, but most will move over to digital. The economics are sound. That wasn’t ever the issue (in my view, anyway). The issue’s been with messaging and giving players a proper off-ramp from physical. Sony is usually quiet and doesn’t talk much, which can sometimes be a strength. It hasn’t been a strength here."

A new report sheds more details on Microsoft's plans for new Xbox hardware, including a new handheld device and console, and one of the biggest takeaways is the alleged price.

According to Fortune, the Project Helix console could cost between $1,200 and $1,800, unless Microsoft opts to subsidize the cost. The system could launch in 2028, the report said.

It's not uncommon for platform-holders to eat some of the cost of a new console and make up the difference with software and services. When the Xbox Series X and S platforms launched in 2020, then-Xbox CEO Phil Spencer said Microsoft was losing as much as $200 on every console it sold.

Project Helix might be very expensive.

Part of what might be driving up the price for new consoles is the ongoing AI-fueled memory and component shortages. Microsoft itself is one of the biggest proponents of the build-out of all things AI, so its own efforts are contributing to an environment where the next Xbox could be incredibly expensive. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma reacted to this irony, saying it's "wonderful" that GPUs have use beyong gaming.

Richer households already made up the majority of console-buyers today, and that trend is expected to continue

Additionally, the report said Microsoft might release a "next-generation handheld device" for Xbox by the end of 2027, though there were no details on pricing or anything else.

Project Helix is the name for Microsoft's efforts for a "family of devices," so that would seemingly span both console and handheld.

The report added that Microsoft's Xbox and Windows teams reportedly battled over what software should run Project Helix, with the Windows team wanting the handheld to use a "trimmed-down" version of Windows Home. The Xbox team, meanwhile, reportedly pushed to build its own dedicated software.

An unnamed "senior Xbox executive" was said to have threatened to pull the plug on the entire handheld device rather than use Windows. Going forward, Xbox is "largely controlling the direction" of the handheld's OS, but Sharma told the site that the two teams work together. "We can't build Helix on our own," she said.

Sharma took over as Xbox CEO in February this year, immediately declaring that Xbox was in an unhealthy place and taking drastic measures that she believes may right the ship, including laying off staff, closing studios, and cancelling games. The layoffs, which have included about 2,000 people so far, are not done yet, as the Fortune story says more Xbox layoffs are coming this month, in November, and then again in January 2027.

Sharma also made major organizational changes, including handing Halo over to Activision for the future.