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.

After a year that featured alternate realities, ninja turtles, superheroes, and hobbits, the final Magic: The Gathering expansion of 2026 is going where no Universes Beyond set has gone before, as Star Trek is scheduled to launch in November.

Today, Wizards of the Coast revealed the mechanics players can expect in the set, along with dozens of new cards from both the main set and the preconstructed Commander decks. We also got a glimpse at some of the set's special treatments, including the seven cards that will come signed by the people depicted on the artwork.

Here's everything revealed during today's Magic: The Gathering Star Trek debut.

The mechanics of MTG Star Trek

Seven new mechanics--two of them found only in the Commander cards--highlight the set, along with a eighth mechanic returning from 2024's Edge of Eternities.

OPen Communications

First is Beam Me Up, which allows you to cast certain spells from your graveyard by returning a creature you control to its owner's hand and paying a separate cost. The example card provided is Open Communications, which normally costs a single blue mana, but you can cast it again from your graveyard by returning a creature to its owner's hand and paying two generic and one blue mana.

Next is Face A Dilemma, which adds an additional wrinkle to a mechanic Magic fans are very familiar with. Basically, any time you have to choose a mode in a spell, you are "facing a dilemma," and there are cards in Star Trek that will give extra benefits simply because you made a choice. Seven of Nine, for example, lets you draw a card any time you have to make a choice on a modal spell.

Star Trek also introduces new modal spells, like the enchantment Kobayashi Maru Scenario. Every turn after casting this card, you must choose one of the four effects listed on the card, and you can't choose the same one twice--which means if you can't remove the enchantment after four turns, it's game over.

The next mechanic is Federation, which cares about the number of creature types among creatures you control that aren't the Borg (which makes sense, because the Federation and the Borg are like oil and water).

With Captain Jonathan Archer, by paying one green mana and tapping Archer, you can give another creature +X/+X until end of turn. As Archer is a Human Officer, and he creates a Dog token, that's at minimum +3/+3 on the first activation.

Starfleet Academy, meanwhile, allows you to pay five generic mana, tap it, and choose a color to add one mana of that color for every creature type among creatures you control. If you have a wide board of varied tokens, that could be a massive mana source.

Strange New Worlds is the next new mechanic, which cares about the lands you control. The more lands with different names you have on the board, the more effective these cards will be.

Deep Space Scan, for example, will let you draw a card for each differently named land on your side of the table. If you're playing a three-color deck, and you have an Island, a Mountain, and a Forest on the board, that's three cards coming to your hand.

Captain Pike, Fullness of Time, meanwhile, has his power and toughness determined by the number of differently named lands you control. If you're the type of person who likes to play different non-basic lands in your Commander deck, casting Captain Pike late in the game could result in a massive creature on the spot.

So far, we've focused on the good guy mechanics, now here's one for the baddies. Assimilate allows you to take any creature from a certain zone and add it to your battlefield, though it will become a Borg artifact creature instead of its other types.

Borg Cube lets you exile any creature on the board when it enters, and then when it attacks for the first time, you can add that exiled creature to your board as a Borg. Then, for every subsequent attack, you can repeat the process.

Borg Cube also shows off the major returning mechanic, Edge of Eternities' Spacecraft and Station mechanic. Multiple iconic spaceships from Star Trek's history appear on cards in the set, and they all have the Station mechanic, which allows a player to tap a creature in order to add charge counters to the Spacecraft equal to that creature's power. Once enough charge counters are added, the Spacecraft becomes an artifact creature and gains extra abilities.

For example, when three charge counters are added to D-7 Battle Cruiser, it will create a 2/1 Klingon Warrior creature token at the beginning of combat on your turn. When eight or more counters are added to it, it becomes a 3/3 flying creature.

Worf, Defiant Commander

The final two mechanics are exclusive to the Commander format, and only found on cards in the preconstructed commander decks. The first is Battlefront, which grants additional perks based on how many opponents you attack during a combat phase.

Worf, Defiant Commander is the face card of the Klingon Fury precon deck, and his Battlefront ability lets you exile a number of cards from the top of your library equal to the number of opponents you attacked. Until your next turn, you can play those cards as if they were in your hand.

Now, this ability only cares about players you actively attack. Abilities like myriad, which add tokens to the board already attacking, will not count toward a Battlefront ability, so choose wisely.

Jean-Luc Picard, Luminary

Seek Out is the other Commander-only mechanic, and it gives an added perk whenever you draw your second card in a turn, even if the permanent with the ability wasn't on the field when you drew your first card. Jean-Luc Picard, Luminary is the example card, as he gives a +1/+1 counter to a creature and two charge counters to a Spacecraft every time you draw your second card in a turn.

Booster Fun treatments

The Star Trek set will feature many themed treatments across its suite of products, and all of those were shown off during the stream as well.

First up are the seven Headliner Signature cards, which feature seven prominent faces from across Star Trek's history. Each of these cards will come with the authentic signature of the actor who portrayed the character; which means you could pull a Levar Burton, Patrick Stewart, Kate Mulgrew, or William Shatner autograph out of a Collector Booster pack, among others.

First up are the seven Headliner Signature cards, which feature seven prominent faces from across Star Trek's history. Each of these cards will come with the authentic signature of the actor who portrayed the character; which means you could pull a Levar Burton, Patrick Stewart, Kate Mulgrew, or William Shatner autograph out of a Collector Booster pack, among others.

Next is the LCARS Showcase treatment, designed to look like an entry from the U.S.S. Enterprise's Library Computer Access and Retrieval System, or LCARS. Q, Stacking The Deck, Resistance Is Futile, and Seven of Nine, Unassimilated were among the cards shown off in the LCARS frame.

Next is the LCARS Showcase treatment, designed to look like an entry from the U.S.S. Enterprise's Library Computer Access and Retrieval System, or LCARS. Q, Stacking The Deck, Resistance Is Futile, and Seven of Nine, Unassimilated were among the cards shown off in the LCARS frame.

The Classic Enterprise frame is next up, with frames designed to invoke the classic posters from Star Trek's distant past. Captain James T. Kirk, Nyota Uhura, Communications, and Mr. Spock, Science Officer are among the familiar faces featured in these frames.

The Classic Enterprise frame is next up, with frames designed to invoke the classic posters from Star Trek's distant past. Captain James T. Kirk, Nyota Uhura, Communications, and Mr. Spock, Science Officer are among the familiar faces featured in these frames.

The warrior race of the cosmos will also receive its own special treatment with the Klingon Showcase frames. Each Klingon Showcase card can also appear written in Klingon, so it may be time to brush up on the iconic language.

The warrior race of the cosmos will also receive its own special treatment with the Klingon Showcase frames. Each Klingon Showcase card can also appear written in Klingon, so it may be time to brush up on the iconic language.

The limited Beam Me Up Bundle will feature the Spacecraft of the Star Trek set in special Schematic framing. Each bundle will include two of a possible eight Schematic frame cards.

The limited Beam Me Up Bundle will feature the Spacecraft of the Star Trek set in special Schematic framing. Each bundle will include two of a possible eight Schematic frame cards.

Finally, the Stardates bonus sheet will feature powerful cards from Magic's past re-imagined within the lens of the Star Trek universe. Four Stardates cards were revealed during the livestream, including the following:

• General Picard, Earth Warlord as Kenrith, The Returned King
• Leonard McCoy, Country Doctor as Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
• Spock, Mirror Malefactor as Prosper, Tome-Bound
• Academy on the Bay as Minamo, School at Water's Edge

Magic: The Gathering's Star Trek expansion launches November 13 in local game stores and big-box retailers. Prerelease events at local game stores are set to begin one week prior, on November 6.

Sony isn't the only company introducing new upscaling technology to its flagship PlayStation 5, as Microsoft and AMD have announced that FSR 4.1 is coming to more devices--including Xbox Series X|S consoles--in the future.

Similar to Sony's hardware-accelerated upscaling solutions for PS5 and PS5 Pro, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 4.1 is an advanced, machine-learning-based temporal image upscaling and reconstruction technology that can render a game at a lower resolution and then upscale it to a higher resolution.

While it's highly doubtful that Xbox Series X|S consoles will start offering PS5 Pro-like graphics (both consoles lack dedicated hardware for machine-learning algorithms), this should still give owners a noticeable bump in graphical quality and performance if implemented properly.

"At Xbox, we're building a gaming platform designed to meet players where they are and make it easier for creators to reach them," Xbox chief technology officer Scott Van Vliet said in the announcement video. "AMD has been an important partner in that journey for more than two decades. Together, our teams have been pushing gaming forward, across Xbox and Windows, from the silicon at the heart of our consoles and handhelds to technologies like DirectX, Advanced Shader Delivery, and Auto SR that help developers get more from the hardware and deliver better experiences for our players. Today, we're excited to take another step forward together, with FSR 4.1 coming to Xbox."

Van Vliet added that FSR 4.1 will come to Xbox Series X|S "soon," and that Microsoft and AMD are working to bring the tech to the next-gen Xbox console, Project Helix.

https://youtu.be/fT6TIXnmv-s

Beyond that, AMD didn't share any more details on FSR 4.1 for Xbox Series X|S. FSR 1 and FSR 2 relied primarily on spatial algorithms or basic temporal accumulation to upscale games, and questions remain about who will adopt the technology and add support.

Just because the latest version of FSR is out doesn't mean a game will automatically use it. For example, Capcom built the console versions of Pragmata around FSR 1, scaling up from 720p on Xbox Series S and 1080p on Xbox Series X. FSR integration requires manual developer work and testing, so results may vary. We're already seeing signs of this on PS5 with Quick Spectral Super Resolution; for now, only Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei will support the new AI upscaling upgrade on base PS5 consoles.

Essentially, developers will have to actually patch their games to use it; AMD FSR 4.1 will not automatically upgrade every older game overnight. The announcement comes just weeks before the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6, and while Rockstar hasn't confirmed if its open-world game will utilize any upscaling technology like PSSR, QSSR, FSR 4.1, we could be looking at a current-gen arms race to find the best console to play the biggest game of the year on.

Beyond Xbox hardware, AMD FSR 4.1 will also be supported in Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards, Gorgon Halo and Strix Halo Ryzen 9 laptops, and mobile gaming PC handhelds like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally devices that use Z2 Extreme and Z2A chipsets.

Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick and Sony's top boss, Hiroki Totoki, commented on the future of gaming today at the Paley International Summit. Naturally, the topic of AI came up, and Totoki believes AI technologies will not replace humans in game development, in part because of the creativity required.

"Creativity is for humans, not AI,” Totoki said, as reported by IGN. “How to use the technology profile is important. Of course, I encourage my people to use AI in a certain manner, but at [the] same time we try to keep the rights and rights holders and creators and artists.”

For his part, Zelnick said it's his belief that AI itself will not replace a developer, but instead, people who don't embrace AI might be replaced by people who do.

"I’m fond of saying AI is a collection of datasets, compute, and large language models. That’s what it is. And datasets, by definition, are backward-looking. That’s all they are. And creativity, at its best, is forward-looking," he said.

Zelnick said ideas that are "completely unexpected" don't come from algorithms--they come from creative people making surprising, original choices. To make his point, Zelnick said when he was an executive at Fox, he oversaw the release of Home Alone, a movie that no one expected to be a success.

"It turned out to be the highest-grossing comedy of all time. So if hits are unexpected, data sets aren’t gonna get you there, no matter how fluent they are," he said.

Both PlayStation and Take-Two have embraced AI, with PlayStation heavily leveraging the technology in its game-development processes. As for Take-Two, the publisher is utilizing the technology for its workflows, but there is no AI in GTA 6.

There has been significant pushback for AI in game development from developers and players alike, with many expressing concerns about job security, legal issues, and simply the further "enshi**ification" of everything they love.

It's now been a full decade since Nintendo announced the first Switch, which is almost hard to believe, given how fresh that reveal trailer still feels in our heads. Heaps of hype and a lack of information from Nintendo about its Wii U successor, codenamed "NX," led to the company's fanbase becoming increasingly restless.

Reports and rumors pointed to the NX as a console-handheld hybrid, but Nintendo didn't fully unveil the Switch until October 20, 2016 (an announcement preluded by a photo of Mario being a creep). The three-and-a-half-minute video made it clear how Nintendo wanted players to interact with the Switch, showing several scenarios where people take their games on the go.

Rewatching that trailer today, it's amusing to look back at how Nintendo foresaw the social impact of the Switch. Some moments from the trailer manifested in reality, while others were hilariously exaggerated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS-1tDfLxRQ

You have a guy taking his dog (and his copy of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) out on a walk, a traveler playing Skyrim on a plane and putting the game on his television upon his arrival home, and professional Splatoon players practicing before their big moment on stage.

And then, there's "Nintendo Karen." The most-talked-about moment in the trailer centered on a woman playing Super Mario Odyssey before being prompted to join friends for a rooftop party (a typical gathering of millennials, as people would joke back then), during which she breaks out the Switch, pulls out that dinky little kickstand, and plays a game with a friend as onlookers holding red Solo cups watch with indifference. Fans branded this commercial character as "Karen" and debated the social implications of bringing a Switch to such a function.

The Nintendo Switch reveal trailer remains a striking piece of marketing, with its upbeat vibe and extra emphasis on the Switch's branding (much needed, after the Wii U's marketing failures). In the years since the Switch's release, I’ve seen Switches out in the wild, just as Nintendo imagined, though I've yet to go to a rooftop party like the one Karen attended.

While the Switch 2 continues to sell well, there's a notion that its reveal was a bit cold and lacking in fanfare compared to the original Switch. Even so, Nintendo still hasn't lost its charm and quirk, even though the company will probably never use that hilarious picture of Mario behind the curtain ever again.

Right on schedule, the second wave of games coming to Xbox Game Pass has been revealed. After the first batch, which included Gears of War: E-Day, Battlefield 6, and more, the rest of the month will add games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake and The Seance of Blake Manor to the subscription service. We've also gotten a sneak peek at what's coming in November, so there's plenty to play over the next couple of weeks.

As a reminder, several games are also leaving Xbox Game Pass this month, including a pair of Double Fine classics and one massive Star Wars Lego game.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade is the headline act in this new wave of arrivals, right on time for anyone looking to experience the saga from its first chapter. The Intergrade version includes the original game and its Yuffie-centric expansion, but you'll have to wait until October 29 to embark on the Unknown Journey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yHoR2I9PrE

Before then, you can grab the Game Preview edition of Sandustry on PC starting October 21. A game about exploration and automation, it's a tempting download for anyone who enjoys assembly-line video games. You can also get Dodo Duckie on October 22, a reality-bending odyssey where you'll get to outsmart aliens and solve puzzles while wielding duck powers, and October 26 will see the MMO-lite action RPG Scramble Knights Online make its day-one debut on Game Pass.

The Séance of Blake Manor was one of GameSpot's favorite games of 2025, and you can check out this supernatural detective mystery for yourself when it's added to the Game Pass library on October 27. Starting October 29, you can explore Midgar in the aforementioned Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, play classic Plants vs. Zombies in HD, and the horror-parkour game Terrible Lizards is another day-one release to round out the month.

Looking ahead, November will kick off with Pit of Goblin, an online horror co-op adventure in which you play as a scrappy goblin.

Xbox Game Pass October Wave 2 Games October 21

• Sandustry (PC via Game Preview) - Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass

October 22

• Dodo Duckie (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) - Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass

October 26

• Scramble Knights Online (Game Preview for Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) - Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

October 27

• The Séance of Blake Manor (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) - Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass

October 29

• Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) - Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
• Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted (Cloud, Console, and PC) - Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
• Terrible Lizards (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) - Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

November 3

• Pit of Goblin (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) - Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass

Earlier this year, a new trading card game based on the hit Cyberpunk franchise hit Kickstarter and became the highest-funded game in Kickstarter's entire history. With the launch set now out in the wild, WeirdCo is ready to announce the game's first expansion, Edgerunners: Burn Bright, which is scheduled to launch in Spring 2027.

Edgerunners: Burn Bright will introduce multiple characters, locations, and moments from the popular Netflix anime into the card game, along with new mechanics which will be revealed closer to the set's release date. The set will also introduce a new chase rarity, though WeirdCo did not share further details.

We have an exclusive reveal of the artwork for one of the characters joining the Cyberpunk TCG through the Edgerunners: Burn Bright set, as well as his trusty firearm. Here's the artwork for Zhou, Maine's Answer!

Zhou, Maine's Answer

Zhou, or the L-69 Zhuo, is the two-handed shotgun wielded by Maine, the leader of the crew David Martinez joins in the first season of Edgerunners. While we don't know what Zhou's abilities are yet, we expect it will be a powerful Gear card that will enhance whoever it's equipped to. Perhaps it will even give an additional bonus to Maine himself, but we won't know for sure until we see what the card can do..

The Cyberpunk TCG's second expansion, Edgerunners: Burn Bright, launches Spring 2027 in both local game stores and big-box retailers.

Netflix has undertaken efforts over the years to increase its footprint in the world of video games, but it's been a bumpy road, and new data suggests that the company is falling short of its targets.

According to a Netflix memo seen by The Wall Street Journal, only 3.5% of Netflix's subscribers play games monthly. That's 10% behind Netflix's 2026 target for "reach and engagement" for games, the memo said. In 2022, it was reported that fewer than 1% of Netflix subscribers played games on Netflix.

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

Getting deeper into games is part of Netflix's effort to increase engagement, and it's not the only measure that Netflix has undertaken. The company has also expanded to live sports and podcasts.

Netflix's priorities for gaming have bounced around over the years. At one point in time, Netflix was planning to create AAA games and hired big-name talent. However, Netflix later backtracked, and today the company focuses more on mobile and social games.

Recently, co-CEO Ted Sarandos was asked if Netflix will abandon gaming entirely in the future, and he doesn't think the company will, at least not soon. Sarandos said gaming is appealing to Netflix because, for example, someone who just finished a Netflix show can stay engaged with the brand through Netflix's tie-in games connected to those franchises. Beyond tie-in games for Netflix properties like Stranger Things and Love is Blind, Netflix commissions new games like Unhinged and The Conjuring: Unspoken.

The streaming giant also made a big play in gaming this year by hosting the GTA 6 Extended Look trailer, and it worked to get people to sign up for Netflix and watch on the platform. Netflix previously worked with Take-Two to bring GTA games to the platform. Red Dead Redemption from Take-Two's Rockstar division remains available to play on Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lsV9I2NDO8

These new details about Netflix's efforts in gaming come amidst a big shakeup at the company--a number of top executives were let go, or left, earlier this week ahead of Netflix's latest earnings report today, October 20. Netflix's stock price is down 23% this year and 43% over the past 12 months, and investors called on management to make changes to help the stock go back up.

Beyond the executive departures, Netflix laid off 1,000+ people recently, which worked out to about 6% of the company's total workforce; this was the largest round of layoffs in Netflix's history.