High on Life has been a big hit since it first launched in 2022, thanks to its bizarre sense of humor, motor-mouthed guns, and polished gameplay. But can it succeed as a virtual reality port? That's the question Flat2VR is aiming to answer, as the team behind several VR games is now working with Squanch Games to bring High on Life to Meta Quest 3 and 3S headsets. 

While it's still early days for the project, I took the time to chat to High on Life VR game director Emily O'Neal and Eric Masher, co-founder and chief operating officer for Impact Reality and Flat2VR Studios, about this project and the challenges involved in adapting it for a new platform.

And yes, Knifey did make his way into the conversation.

https://youtu.be/U9Kcs-XALBA

So why VR? High on Life has been available on PC and console for several years now, but it is considered a smaller, niche platform--or so you'd think, as Masher explained that the VR user base has grown considerably over the years. "VR is a smaller market; it doesn't mean that it's a small market," Masher said. "You know, we're looking at numbers now of Quest headsets being in the 30-million to 40-million range. Those are not numbers to take lightly. A game like Gorilla Tag--which is a free-to-play game--has done over $100 million in revenue. We do see that audience that has been playing Gorilla Tag starting to grow up. They started when they were younger kids, and now they're getting older and have disposable income. What are they going to want to play next?"

"We want to bring them those high-quality games like High on Life, that [have] more teeth, more depth, and more playability as an actual game. We're not here just for a short snapshot in time; we're here to help grow this industry to where it will be in three to five years from now. Our job and our mission at Flat2VR is to bring the immersive, amazing games that you love playing right now on your console and PC, but bring it to another platform that makes a whole bunch of sense and that feels completely different but still the same.”

Bringing High on Life to VR isn't an easy task either, as you can't just press a "Convert to VR" button for a project of this scale. As O'Neal explained, the original game is massive, and the team is looking to make it run as smoothly as possible on a VR headset.

"There are a ton of animations and wildly different worlds, so even getting that much data to fit on a standalone platform is a big challenge," O'Neal explained. "You have to load it all in a decent amount of time and run it in real time, ideally at 72 frames per second. All of that optimization represents a cluster of problems our tech-art teams are chipping away at from many angles. A huge part of our technical challenge has been upgrading the game to a more modern version of Unreal Engine. Modernizing our toolsets allows us to perform the optimizations needed to get these massive, gorgeous, colorful worlds running on Meta Quest. That covers the core issue: the sheer scale of the game and optimizing it to fit on the headset while maintaining frame rate."

O'Neal added that the team wants players to poke and prod the Gatlian firearms they collect in the game, and they represent an incredible design challenge thanks to their expressive facial details and complex skeletons used to make them emote. "The Gatlians are without a doubt my favorite part of the game. When defining the mission statement for the VR adaptation, they are 100% the centerpiece. The core question we continually return to with every feature is: Do you feel like you're holding a living creature in your hand, and when they speak to you, do you feel like you're truly interacting with them? Because the Gatlians are the main characters, they are our highest priority."

"A huge part of that focus goes into the gunplay since they serve as your weapons. With any VR first-person shooter, how you handle reloading is vital--whether that's a realistic manual reload, a simple button press, bringing the weapon to your hip, or providing options for all of the above. While our design team has built reload mechanics many times before, designing them for the Gatlians has been uniquely fun because of their distinct body shapes and personalities. We look at the unique physical traits of each alien, considering not just function, but how players can fidget and interact with them while listening to in-game dialogue. Ultimately, the Gatlians are the defining feature of the VR port because they are in your hands the entire time."

Out of all the Gatlians, Knifey is arguably the breakout star of the High on Life arsenal. A sentient blade with an unmatched bloodthirst, O'Neal teased that the murder-happy melee tool is a big focus of the team. "Yes, Knifey is 100% getting the most treatment out of the whole cast," O'Neal said. "There's a huge gap between pressing a button to trigger a knife slash versus making that motion yourself, so some of the biggest new systems we're building are specifically for Knifey.

"His whole personality revolves around pure bloodlust—he's constantly begging you to use him and stab things—so we're leaning hard into that. We're building new VR-specific systems to capture that visceral feeling of stabbing Knifey into flesh. It's not a gory game and won't feel like one; we're maintaining the same comedy and humor with all of Knifey's interactions, but leaning into mechanics you can only achieve with a knife in VR. Most importantly, we want a Knifey-first strategy to be a genuinely viable way to play the entire game, so we're spending a lot of time with him."

One of the other challenges with virtual reality, especially games with a variety of fast-paced movement systems like High on Life, is the looming spectre of motion sickness. Some people don't suffer from it; others are ready to hurl chunks after a few minutes of Pistol Whip. But as Masher explained, the High on Life VR team is going all out on providing options that help players fine-tune the game to their tastes.

"We take comfort super seriously. The real power fantasy lies in the traversal abilities you get with the bounty suit, so we don't want to sacrifice or remove any of that from the game, but we do want it to be approachable to anyone who wants to play," Masher explained. "The first piece of that is performance: It has to be stable, responsive, and hit its target frame rate. That's the foundational element to ensure people don't get motion sick. Beyond that, we're going all out on options. As a team of people who love and play VR in our free time, we offer the full suite of accessibility settings you'd expect in a VR title--from snap turn and smooth turn to custom smooth turning speeds--so players can tune the experience to whatever feels comfortable for their body. The goal is to let players dial in their preferences to minimize the discomfort that can come from smooth movement and turning."

Masher also added that motion sickness was something we could hear much less about in the future, as, thanks to a generation of young users growing up with VR headsets, the immersive nature of games on that hardware was something they'd become accustomed to. "What's nice about motion sickness is that we're starting to see it become less prominent, especially with younger players. Years ago, VR was a niche hobby where you were probably 20 or 30 years old before putting on your first headset. That's no longer the case--kids are growing up in VR headsets now, with games like Gorilla Tag introducing kids as young as 10 or 11 to the platform.

"They know nothing but gaming inside a VR headset, so by the time they grow up, it's completely normal for them. It's almost like we're breeding motion sickness out of the audience. You're either susceptible or you're not, but if VR is all you've ever known, motion sickness just isn't an issue. So I'm hopeful it becomes a thing of the past. Plus, as Emily noted, hardware getting better and making higher frame rates easier to hit makes a massive difference."

High on Life VR doesn’t have a release date yet, but you can preorder it now through the Meta Horizon Store.

When Arc Raiders' next major update, Frozen Trail, goes live on October 8, it'll introduce lots of changes and additions, and while the update itself will be free, the new battle pass system that comes with it won't be--at least not entirely.

To date, Arc Raiders has featured three battle pass-like Raider Decks in the game. Players could complete dailies to unlock Creds that then got them rewards like new cosmetics and in-game items. With Frozen Trail, Embark Studios' new Reward Pass is replacing this system with one quite like it, only it'll also have a paid premium track for unlocking additional rewards.

Anyone who owns the game gets the Free Pass, naturally, while the paid track will cost 1,150 Raider Tokens, or about $10 USD. Thankfully, Embark is taking the opportunity to sort the rewards responsibly, with the Premium Pass offering only cosmetic items. Players will get gameplay-altering items, like new weapons and gear, exclusively through the Free Pass. This approach avoids any type of pay-to-win debacle.

Maybe the best feature of the newly priced Reward Pass is that if you buy access to the Premium Pass, you'll earn back more than you spent on it, pocketing 1,350 Raider Tokens for completing the pass, 200 of which are found in the Free Pass. Of course, your time isn't free either, but since Arc Raiders was my Game of the Year last year, I'm happy to see that sort of player-friendly exchange rate debut in Arc Raiders, especially after it recently left my other live-service favorite, Fortnite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMznEoW78dA

Along with the new Reward Pass, Frozen Trail seems poised to reset Arc Raiders in a major way, with the frosty Pendola Pass map adding a lot to both gameplay and lore, taking raiders where they've never dwelled before and stumbling upon several new Arc threats: the Bully, Skulker, and Hydra. 

The Frigate is a new airborne carrier and raid-like event that's designed to take several players most of a round to overcome through combat and puzzles. Aboard the Frigate, the Hydra awaits, capable of downing multiple players at a time and even respawning once it's defeated. 

Weapon amplification will give players new ways to customize their weapons, disrupting the meta and challenging players to try new loadouts, while stencils act like weapon skins, offering new cosmetic changes to guns. 

As for gameplay items, Frozen Trail adds the banjo and harmonica instruments, a camera, and a grappling hook, which is sure to be a new community favorite.

Of course, another big Arc Raiders update means more quests, and now they'll offer optional objectives for added rewards. Skill trees are also being overhauled to both add new skills and alter existing ones.

The update also adds Outposts, new customizable areas for raiders to call their own. As for an explorable Speranza, Embark's Aleksander Grondal said that it's still something the team is looking into, though no such addition will be available with the Frozen Trail launch.

"So that's been a question we have been asked a few times, and it's something that we have looked at and discussed a number of times," Grondal said during a roundtable interview. "And at the moment, there is none of that, but we could see a future where you could invite your friends into your Outposts, for instance, as something that we want to try. We see the need for a place to socialize and kind of hang out between the raids, but we really haven't settled on exactly how we want to execute against that need yet; it's something that is [at the] top of our list when we think about where to take Arc Raiders next."

Pendola Pass is said to be the game's most challenging map to date, which is notable given how tough Riven Tides is.

Grondal confirmed the team is still working on the idea of major updates roughly every six months, though the next big update following Frozen Trail doesn't have a set date yet. In May, Grondal told me that some on the team were "a little bit uncomfortable" about the pivot to a new roadmap. I asked him how the team is feeling now that Frozen Trail is nearly here. He explained that it brings up a mix of emotions.

"If you take a look at where we were when we did the monthly updates and where we are today, we feel a lot better about what we're putting out [and the] quality we're putting into the updates. So I think the team feels good about that. Of course, it's scary every time we do a big update. To me, the best way to describe it is that it almost feels like we're shipping the game again, because I get flashbacks to last year when we were in this very same position trying to make the game complete.

"So it becomes almost scarier in a way because the updates are larger and, of course, more complicated to execute. I think, overall, the team is pretty happy and excited to share what we've been working on basically since May of this year, and yeah, I'm also excited."

Frozen Trail comes to Arc Raiders on October 8 as a free update on all platforms. When it goes live, the new Frozen Trail Collector Set shop bundle will include a new outfit, weapon stencil, hairstyle, and 2,400 Raider Tokens, plus instant access to the Premium Pass.

Contrary to comic book science, you don't need to enroll in a shadowy Canadian black-ops program and undergo excruciating pain to get a set of Wolverine's signature claws. Instead, it's much easier--and less traumatic--to simply hire some blacksmiths to craft you a set, which is exactly what PlayStation did to celebrate the launch of Marvel's Wolverine. Choosing Fiedlero Knives for the job, PlayStation tasked the blacksmith with creating a custom set of Wolverine-inspired claws, and unsurprisingly, the end result looks downright lethal.

https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/2102782668060475678

They may not be made of indestructible adamantium, but these blades made short work of some fresh produce when tested. And best of all, you don't need a mutant healing factor to wield these--although it would be advisable, just in case you equip them and accidentally trip. Similar to the practical props used by Hugh Jackman, these claws are attached to a handle that makes the blades look like they're really coming out of your hands. Plenty of knock-offs are available online, including plastic versions that are slightly safer than the metal ones.

Marvel's Wolverine launched earlier this month, but the reception has been lukewarm at best. The game has been criticized for its restrictive level design, excessive hand-holding, and repetitive combat, but developer Insomniac Games is aiming to address these complaints. A new patch for the game recently went live, toning down the intrusive scent trails and audio cues that lead to collectibles within the various levels.

"At best, it’s a fun but forgettable experience that’ll entertain you for a few hours. At worst, it shows that just because you can make really good superhero games with one character, that doesn’t mean you can make really good superhero games with any character," Tamoor Hussain wrote in GameSpot's Marvel's Wolverine review.

While that set of custom Wolverine claws aren't for sale, you can get your hands on a sixth-scale replica of the unstoppable mutant from Hot Toys. It comes with several sets of smaller claws to equip him with, as well as an impressive amount of accurate body hair on his beefy silicone arms.

Aspyr Media is on a mission to re-release more The Lord of the Rings games, and now the latest titles have been revealed.

The publisher announced on September 22--the shared birthday of Frodo and Bilbo--that Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's Game of the Year edition and Middle-earth: Shadow of War's definitive edition are coming to Switch 2 soon.

The games are releasing on Switch 2 in what's called the Middle-earth: Shadow Bundle, which releases on September 30 for $70. However, the bundle is half off--bringing it down to $35--through October 6 at 2:59 AM ET.

The Switch 2 is getting more The Lord of the Rings games.

Aspyr did not detail any technical specifics for the Switch 2 versions. They do come with a range of extra content from each game's DLC model, though, including story missions, skins, weapons, and gear sets.

Aspyr's first The Lord of the Rings re-release was the Legacy Edition of 2011's The Lord of the Rings: War in the North back in August. At the time, Aspyr said it planned to re-release even more older The Lord of the Rings games.

Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War were developed by Monolith Productions--people wanted a third game, but Warner Bros. Games shuttered the studio in 2025.

In addition to the re-releases of older games, brand-new The Lord of the Rings games are coming, including a “deeply immersive” RPG from Kingdom Come developer Warhorse.  Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics is said to be developing one as well.

Outside of the games, Warner Bros. recently released photos from the next The Lord of the Rings movie, The Hunt for Gollum, showing Elijah Wood once again dressed up in costume as Frodo. The movie releases in December 2027.

Star Wars Zero Company released in late August, and the game has evidently found an audience, as market-data firm Alinea Analytics estimates that the game has sold 1 million units.

Writing on Twitter, analyst Rhys Elliott shared the estimate, which heavily favors PC. Roughly 70% of sales were on PC--unsurprising given the turn-based-tactics genre--with PlayStation following at roughly 20% and Xbox at about 10%. Elliott called its performance thus far "respectable for the genre and during such a crowded period" that also saw the launch of games like Onimusha: Way of the Sword and The Blood of Dawnwalker.

Elliott also noted, however, that Zero Company's appeal is almost entirely to Western audiences, with less than 5% of the game's players being in Asia.

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

The news comes weeks after developer Bit Reactor furloughed a large portion of its staff, and it isn't yet clear when or if they will be able to resume their work at the studio. Having Zero Company perform well commercially would presumably make publisher EA more interested in a sequel, but it also comes at a very strange time for the company, which was just taken private as part of a deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.

Regardless, Star Wars Zero Company is definitely worth playing if you're a fan of XCOM-style games. In our 8/10 Star Wars Zero Company review, Steve Watts said, "Developer Bit Reactor set higher ambitions than simply slapping a Star Wars skin on a template," praising its tweaks to the XCOM formula.

Zach Cregger, the director of the newly released Resident Evil movie, has revealed his top four favorite video games, and he made some solid choices.

Before he listed off his top four to Regal, Cregger said they came "off the top of my head," so if he had more time, he might have chosen other games. Or he may not have. In any event, here are the games that Cregger singled out as his four faves:

• The Binding Of Isaac
• Dark Souls 3
• Resident Evil 4
• The Last of Us 2

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Xdpkc_h1kLM

People are saying that Cregger earned his "gamer cred" for these specific choices (via GamesRadar). His Dark Souls 3 pick was not surprising given Cregger was known to stream the game on Twitch over the years. It's also not surprising that he called out Resident Evil 4, as he borrowed from that game for his movie. In the same interview, Resident Evil actor Austin Abrams, who plays Bryan, said Cregger asked him to play Resident Evil 2, 4, and 7 to prepare for the movie.

Cregger received a lot of backlash from core fans of the Resident Evil series over the direcion he took the movie and how it didn't feature any stories or characters from the games. He said he was naive to think fans would embrace his ideas. Things seemed to work out for Cregger in the end, as Resident Evil scored fantastic reviews and had a gigantic opening weekend at the box office.

Steven Adams of the NBA's Houston Rockets has predicted that all the major professional sports leagues will experience a dip in quality this November because top athletes will be too focused on GTA 6.

Speaking to press, Adams said, "Look at the NFL, look at all the leagues, and watch them plummet. Just for the month of November, performance is gonna go down."

He went on to say things should get back to normal after athletes finish the game. "It should come back up though; most of the boys will get it done. Hopefully they finish the game," he said.

Adams went on to say that other aspects of professional sports leagues will suffer, too, including coaching and scouting efforts that he said will be "horrendous," but "just for November."

Adams is obviously not being totally serious here, but GTA 6 is indeed one of the most highly anticipated game releases ever, and a lot of people--including pro athletes--are going to play it. We'll have to check back in November to see if athletes playing the game had any adverse effect on stats, however.

Before this, an NFL player blamed his on-field struggles on video games, while NFL QB Kyler Murray is known for playing too much Call of Duty.

https://twitter.com/gta6_premium/status/2102476846902415849?s=46

Adams has previously discussed his interest in video games, singling out titles like Dota 2 and Smite as some of his favorites. "I'm more of a nerd," he told TMZ.

GTA 6 releases on November 19. The Rockets do not play that day, but there are four games that day across the NBA. November 19 is also a Week 11 Thursday Night Football day.

Nintendo is officially 137 years old today, and while that's an odd number to celebrate, it's certainly an impressive one. While it's a leading producer of video games and gaming hardware, the company originally started life as a maker of hanafuda playing cards in 1889, evolving with the times to eventually become a gaming powerhouse. But to put its age into perspective, it's worth looking at things that Nintendo predates.

That makes for a long list, but the biggest surprise, as pointed out online, is that Nintendo is literally older than sliced bread. Technically, this would make sliced bread the best thing since Nintendo, and for double-technicality points, we're referring to commercial pre-sliced bread. According to the history books, pre-sliced bread made its commercial debut 38 years later, on July 7, 1928, when the Missouri-based Chillicothe Baking Company began using Otto Frederick Rohwedder's bread-slicing machine to deliver tasty portions of the household staple to customers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhw8BfVO_EY

Historically, Nintendo also beat the public opening of the Eiffel Tower (June 1893) and the Wright Brothers' first flight (1903), and it outlasted the Ottoman Empire. It also has a big lead on the invention of penicillin (1928), chocolate chip cookies (1938), bubble wrap (1957), and the greatest movie of all time, Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim (2013). If there's anything that equals the historical significance of Nintendo, that would be Vincent Van Gogh's iconic Starry Night painting, which was created the same year that Nintendo was formed.

Today, Nintendo is worth many billions of dollars thanks to the release of several highly successful consoles, including the Wii and the Switch. In recent years, it has also intensified its efforts to be more than just a video game company, launching new theme parks and slowly releasing more feature film adaptations based on its original IP.

The two Super Mario Bros. movies developed by Illumination have each grossed north of $1 billion at the box office, and the next project is a live-action Legend of Zelda movie.

Microsoft is overhauling its Xbox business in a big--and painful--way. Part of the effort to "reset" Xbox involves enlisting Call of Duty publisher Activision to make the next Halo game. This isn't a spin-off or some kind of other extension of the iconic sci-fi series, but instead the next entry in the main series following 2021's disappointing Halo Infinite. 

Here's what we know about Activision's Halo game, and what comes next for Halo Studios.

What's the new game?

The biggest question is what is the new Halo game from Activision? The announcement from Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty didn't reveal any specifics, but a story from The Hollywood Reporter said it is a "full-feature, mainline installment" in the long-running series.

Activision boss Rob Kostich said in a statement to Game File that Activision is trying to make the "greatest Halo game ever." He said the ambition is to make a game that is "worthy of its universe and legacy, while staying true to what made players love it in the first place."

"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," he added.

Who is developing the new Halo game?

Booty said Microsoft is putting together a "new, purpose-built team" to make the new Halo game at Activision. He also clarified that efforts to make the new Halo game at Activision are "separate from ongoing development and plans for Call of Duty." 

Despite years of speculation that a Call of Duty studio could be assigned to Halo, a new team is being spun up. It remains to be seen if Activision's development of a new Halo game will have any impact on the Call of Duty franchise in terms of its established annual release schedule or if any key individuals will move from CoD development to Halo. 

When can we expect the new Halo game from Activision?

Given the comments from Kostich about assembling a team to make a new Halo game at Activision, it appears it's extremely early days for the game. As such, no one should expect to play it any time soon. Blizzard recently announced a new StarCraft shooter coming in 2030, while Bethesda revealed the unreleased Elder Scrolls 6 in 2018, showing that Xbox as a whole is not averse to confirming plans for games that could be a half decade or more away.

What's happening to Halo Studios and its other games?

According to Booty, a "small team" at Halo Studios will "continue supporting the Halo community and games in-market." Halo Studios is winding down significantly, with numerous staffers losing their jobs.

This is a major shift. People may recall that in October 2024, Microsoft announced that Halo developer 343 changed its name to Halo Studios and outlined plans for multiple new games. Additionally, Halo Studios confirmed that it would develop new Halo games with the Unreal Engine going forward, as opposed to its own proprietary Slipspace game development engine. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDgR1FRJnF8

At the time, many Halo fans saw this as an exciting opportunity for Microsoft to help Halo regain some of its former glory after Halo Infinite missed the mark for many. Microsoft also installed new leadership at Halo Studios, following reports of management issues internally. 

Halo Studios released its first game under that name, Halo: Campaign Evolved, in July 2026, but it was reportedly a commercial disappointment. People were also bewildered by the fact that a remake of the iconic first game had no multiplayer support. To date, it's the one and only release from Halo Studios. 

Given what Booty said about Halo Studios and its new charter, it seems likely that its in-development projects are dead. As for the shift to the Unreal Engine, Activision's Call of Duty games are made with proprietary engines, so those plans could be over as well. 

Some of the games said to have been in the works at Halo Studios included a new live-service game described as being "like Fortnite" and remakes of Halo 2 and Halo 3.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment on the future of Halo Studios when approached by GameSpot. 

Xbox CEO said making Halo popular again is a priority

At Gamescom this year, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said the Halo franchise remains "very key" to Xbox and that the company was taking a long-term view about reviving it. "It represents a very key memory structure and way that people want to play,” she told the BBC. “I am focused on that. We’ll have more news to share on Halo going forward.”

Not everyone believes Microsoft can succeed at reviving Halo, including Halo's own co-creator and the designer of Master Chief. Marcus Lehto recently said--prior to the news that Activision is making the next Halo game--that a “big concern” he foresees about reviving Halo is how much it might cost. He said Microsoft making a “fully featured Halo” game would likely cost between $600 and $800 million, and take four or more years to make. 

Halo Infinite.

Lehto, who hasn’t worked on Halo in a long time, said he does not anticipate Microsoft spending that much or taking that much time. Lehto also said a large corporation like Microsoft is a “terribly inefficient machine.” He added that a “smaller indie team driven by seasoned devs, filled with a good mix of newer hungry talent as well, and minimal management layers is probably the only viable way to make a great Halo again.”

Following the announcement that Halo is getting taken over by Activision, Lehto said he was "shocked but not entirely surprised."

https://twitter.com/game_fabricator/status/2102659182944047297 The human impact

Microsoft assigning Halo to Activision has led to pain for the people at Halo Studios. As mentioned, only a "small team" will remain at Halo Studios going forward to support Halo games already in the market. Other people are getting let go, including Halo's esports producer and cinematic director Josh Daniels (who had just been promoted in the past week). Beyond Halo Studios, the 268 layoffs at Xbox this week hit other teams, including Gears of War developer The Coalition, and other parts of the Xbox team. Looking ahead, more Xbox layoffs are coming, and it's prompted people to wonder: "What is Xbox Game Studios at this point?"

Xbox is focusing on franchises

Halo might not be as popular as it once was, but it carries brand recognition and is synonymous with Xbox. Microsoft was unlikely to abandon it completely, and in fact, the company reportedly already--some time ago--assigned Call of Duty developer Sledgehammer to conduct experiments with Halo. That effort has now graduated to Microsoft deciding to make a brand-new Halo game at Activision, so clearly the company sees potential. 

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.

Earlier this year, Sharma said one of the big bets that Microsoft made to help grow Xbox was developing a "broader portfolio of content." That did not pay off in the way Microsoft expected, and Sharma made the decision to scale back significantly by laying people off, closing or divesting of studios, and cancelling a variety of games. This was all being done to "focus on higher-priority projects," Sharma said, and clearly Halo is one of those, alongside Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, Minecraft, Fable, and Forza, to name a few.

Diablo 5 won't be out until 2029, but Blizzard is already sharing plenty of details on the game following its reveal at BlizzCon earlier this month. The power fantasy of being a demon-slaying warrior is one aspect of the Diablo experience that Blizzard wants to overhaul. Compared to Diablo 4, the developer wants you to feel the might of your newly earned power on the battlefield.

Speaking to PC Gamer, game director Joe Shely explained how players should feel and look more powerful as they level up. "Diablo is a game that, in many ways, is about your character getting stronger and when the monsters get stronger at the same time, especially outside of your control," game director Joe Shely said. "You've filled the experience bar, you get stronger, you should feel awesome now, a wave of light pulses out from you, a bunch of monsters die."

"That's wonderful, but then you're going to go hit some more monsters, and you should feel powerful. And sometimes automatic scaling can get in the way of that feeling, which is so core to it, and that's why this is a really important question. And so, we're going to take a somewhat different approach to that in Diablo 5."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USLXXyEv5ag

In Diablo 4, the game was criticized for having an aggressive layer of level-scaling for enemies. Even if you'd optimized your loadout and equipped optimal skills, there was always that friction between the player and the world, with players pointing out that the diminishing returns on Paragon points and fewer gear upgrades resulted in a frustrating bottleneck for them.

Because of the open-world scaling at launch, there was effectively no area where you could safely farm better gear to help you survive in tougher zones. Blizzard would eventually adjust the system to make Diablo 4 feel less like an uphill treadmill.

How Blizzard plans to properly implement these systems remains to be seen, but you can expect more updates about Diablo 5 to start rolling out next year. Combat is also under the Blizzard microscope as it aims to make it feel better than ever, and the return of set items should also help feed into the game's power fantasy. 

Gears of War: E-Day officially went gold several days ago--indicating that the game is ready to hit its October launch date--but sadly, story director Juan Vaca was caught up in the latest wave of Xbox "reset" layoffs. After posting about the game hittings its new milestone, Vaca revealed that he was one of over 260 people who was impacted by job cuts at Xbox.

"I am part of this round of Microsoft Layoffs and am open to new opportunities in games/film/TV," Vaca wrote on LinkedIn. "If your team needs a director/storyteller please reach out."

Vanca spent over four years at Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition, working as a story director. He'd previously interned at Marvel Studios, worked as a narrative designer at Telltale Games, and was employed at Netflix for three years, where he worked on several series. As mentioned above, he's one of hundreds of people affected by the continued reorganization of Xbox, as this week saw further consolidation of its various studios under Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, and King.

The fresh round of layoffs has hit first-party developers, management, and central functions teams at Xbox Game Studios, and they come in the wake of 1,600 people being made redundant back in July. They also aren't over yet, as Xbox boss Matt Booty says that Microsoft is only three-quarters of the way done so far and Blizzard is expected to face cuts next.

Another high-profile layoff was that of Halo Studios' cinematic director, Josh Daniels, just a day after he received a promotion. The studio has been heavily impacted by cuts, leaving a small team to focus on supporting current games in the series and the Halo community. As for the next Halo game, it'll be developed by a new team at Activision.

Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6.

The Halo franchise has a new home at Activision, as Microsoft announced sweeping changes to its Xbox games division this week. As various Xbox studios are being consolidated under new branches of the company, Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto has commented on the series' move to Activision.

"Shocked but not entirely surprised by the news of the Halo Studios closure and moving the franchise to an Activision team," Lehto wrote online. "Wishing the best for all the developers who were affected by this decision. I, as well as you all, am eager to learn more about what’s next."

While it's still early days, Activision has confirmed that its Halo game will be developed by a "new, purpose-built team," separate from its army of studios responsible for annual Call of Duty games. Halo Studios will still exist, but in a reduced capacity following a fresh wave of layoffs. Going forward, the studio will be focused on supporting the Halo games that have already been released and the wider Halo community.

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

The Halo franchise has had several ups and downs, with 2026 also marking the series' 25th anniversary. Previously, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma had commented on how Microsoft wants to revive Halo as a tentpole franchise, while Lehto spoke about just how expensive it would be to pull off that resurrection. Lehto also called out the Halo: Combat Evolved remake for being "too heavy-handed–pandering to a new era of players with 0% attention span," and he suggested that remaking Halo would require a radical fresh start.

As the former Halo developer put it, the lore around the game has become "too convoluted," and he believes his idea for a "darker" and "more grounded" Halo game would be the right way to reboot the series, even if it ends up alienating some players. "PvP would be the brains, PvE the heart and soul. It would not be 'everyone's' Halo," Lehto wrote online in August.

In other news related to the latest happenings of the "Xbox reset," Playground Games and Turn 10 Studios have merged; things are looking dire for Ninja Theory; and State of Decay 3 developer Undead Labs has found a new publisher--while also being forced to start layoffs.

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.