Game News

Subscribe to Game News feed
The latest News from GameSpot
Updated: 57 min 30 sec ago

Razer Put RGB Lighting In A Gaming Chair, And Honestly, It Was Only A Matter Of Time

Fri, 06/26/2026 - 01:56

One of the running jokes with Razer is that the gaming company will put RGB lighting in any and all of its products eventually. For the last couple of years, its line of gaming chairs was seemingly exempt from that rule, but that's all about to change with the Razer Soma Chroma. It was inevitable, but for anyone who wants their shoulders to experience 16.8 million colors, this gamer chair will light up your back like a 2013 LAN party. The price for this illuminating throne? A cool $500 ahead of its launch in July.

Preorder at Razer Store

Razer describes the Soma Chroma as its first wireless RGB gaming chair, and it features reactive lighting at the top of the chair, situated around the shoulders and head. Currently, 300+ games can sync wirelessly over PC to the chair's RGB lighting--including Borderlands 4, Battlefield 6, and 007 First Light--and it also has 10 lighting presets. In case you're a little hesitant about having a swivel chair that's plugged into the wall, you can also run the fancy light effects through a standard power bank, as the seat has a built-in USB-C connection and pocket for the power supply to rest in. You can also fine-tune the illumination via an onboard control panel that switches lighting and brightness at the touch of a button.

Razer Soma Chroma gaming chair

As for the construction, it sounds like a solid throne for extended gaming sessions. The lumbar curve is meant to help you adopt a neutral sitting position, a reinforced steel frame gives the chair an added layer of durability, and it has a dual-density cold-cured foam seat cushion.

This week seems to be a big one for gamer furniture, as Virtuix also announced the "made for Meta" Omni One full-body movement system. It's a rig that holds you in place, and the omnidirectional treadmill should help you to physically walk, run, crouch, and jump in 360 degrees--without having to worry about knocking over a TV or tripping over a curious cat. Basically, it's the closest we've come to a replica of the Virtuosity VR rig.

To complement the Soma Chroma, you can also check out all the Prime Day deals on Razer. Amazon is currently offering some big discounts on various accessories, including mechanical keyboards, gaming mice, and headsets--and yes, most of them do have RGB lighting.

GTA 6 Is Not Releasing With A Disc, And That Just Makes Sense In 2026

Fri, 06/26/2026 - 01:51

Grand Theft Auto 6 is releasing on November 19, 2026 for $80, and people won't be able to get it on a disc. There is a physical version, but it comes with a code in the box. Why is GTA 6 releasing without a disc-based version? According to industry analysts, there are a number of reasons why, and releasing as a digital-exclusive is going to further enrich Rockstar and won't hurt the game's sales.

Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics said the "biggest and most obvious reason" for not shipping on a disc is to block the resale market.

"The whole value proposition of a physical disc, from the player’s side, is the pre-owned and rental markets: more control over your library, the ability to sell a game on or rent it cheaply. But more control for consumers means less control for the publisher," he said. "A disc can be resold or rented a hundred times, and Rockstar earns nothing after that first sale. So the entire second-hand and rental economy is value flowing to players and retailers instead of to Rockstar."

There will be no disc-based version of GTA 6.

GTA 6 launching as a code-in-the-box prevents the game from being resold or rented, and that's a better scenario for Rockstar and owner Take-Two from a sales perspective. There is enormous, unprecedented demand for GTA 6, but even so, some people might hold out for a discount. Pricing for physical, disc-based games is "more elastic" than digital, Elliott pointed out, but that won't matter for GTA 6 since the game does not ship on a disc. Rockstar may eventually choose to discount GTA 6 after a period of time, but it will decide when this occurs, and to what extent, not a retailer.

"Remove the disc and Rockstar and the platforms own the entire price curve, including how high they hold the price and how much (and when) they ever discount it," he said.

Another reason GTA 6 isn't releasing on a disc is to help prevent spoilers, Elliott said. "This is the most leak-averse studio in the industry by my count, and it won’t want physical copies 'falling off the back of a truck' ahead of the street date, which, as we know, has always been a risk with discs," he said. "I suspect that’s part of the calculus here."

The download code inside GTA 6's physical edition allows people to preload the game starting November 12, but the game doesn't actually unlock until November 19. "So even a leaked physical copy reveals nothing before release," Elliott said.

"Commercially it just makes sense"

Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis told IGN, meanwhile that releasing GTA 6 without a disc version is a plain and simple business decision.

"Commercially it just makes sense in terms of cost of goods to go digital code only in a physical case – it’s the best of both worlds to an extent – get exposure to the retail buyer but at a lower cost," Harding-Rolls said. "I'm sure that will be disappointing for some players, but it's possible there will be a Collector's Edition to come nearer to launch."

No impact on sales

People have made a lot of noise about GTA 6 not shipping on a disc, but the reality on the ground will be that the game will perform incredibly well regardless. Rockstar opting for a digital-only release is also part of a trend that began years ago for code-in-the-box physical game releases.

“Grand Theft Auto 6 will be far from the first or only code in box on retail shelves,” Circana analyst Mat Piscatella told VGC. “It’s been a pretty common practice for several years now."

He added that PS5 and Xbox Series X|S software sales are already "heavily weighted" to digital already, and GTA 6 skipping a disc version is "just another step in a trend that has been ongoing since the early 2010s," Piscatella said.

Many people love physical media and disc-based games, and want to see it continue, but Piscatella said Rockstar's choice to make GTA 6 digital only will not have a "meaningful impact on sales potential."

"It’s Grand Theft Auto VI, after all," he said.

Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners, meanwhile, told Aftermath that digital adoption continues to grow, and publishers want to make more money, so skipping a disc version of GTA 6 only makes sense. He said GTA 6 may need to release on multiple discs, so the decision to go digital makes even more sense.

While digital adoption is growing, not every major game is bypassing discs. Insomniac Games recently confirmed that Marvel's Wolverine will include a disc in the box for its physical edition.

Rockstar and Take-Two are catching flak for releasing GTA 6 without a disc version, and Nintendo did as well when it debuted its Game-Key Card program that puts a code in a box for select Switch 2 games.

Data continues to show that game sales push further and further into digital. For example, Sony just recently announced a record-breaking high percentage of digital game sales.

Preorder GTA 6 at Amazon

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. GTA 6 preorders are finally open on both consoles, and you can choose the $80 standard edition or $100 ultimate edition.

Dead Or Alive 6 Last Round Makes Players Pay Again For DLC They Already Bought

Fri, 06/26/2026 - 01:37

Dead or Alive 6 Last Round launched on June 24 and is already receiving negative reviews on Steam for a lack of new content and for making players pay more for DLC they previously bought. We don't like it very much, either.

For the most part, players can transfer DLC purchased for the original version of Dead or Alive 6 to the new Last Round edition, which has both free and $40 versions. Unfortunately, even the $40 version of Dead or Alive 6 Last Round doesn't support any previous purchases relating to The King of Fighters crossover characters.

That means players who previously spent $8 on Mai Shiranui or Kula Diamond, and even more to buy their DLC costume packs, will have to purchase all that DLC again, no matter what. That stings even more because both Koei Tecmo has increased the price of both fighters and their costume DLC. The "Unlock Key" for each character now costs $11 rather than $8, while Mai and Kula's character and costume bundles now are $21 instead of $16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqKxb-CSR0Y

Even if you spend $40 on this new version of Dead or Alive, you'll still need to pay $42 more to access DLC you may have previously purchased. Obviously, that is not being well-received by the core community of this fighting game, although Koei Tecmo has not indicated any plans to bring Mai and Kula's prices down.

Dead or Alive 6 Last Round is now available for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. A new Dead or Alive game is also in development.

GTA 6 Has “Near-Instant” Load Times On PS5, And That’s A Bummer For Some People

Fri, 06/26/2026 - 00:59

A PlayStation Blog post co-authored by PlayStation and Rockstar Games said GTA 6 leverages the PS5's SSD to allow people to experience's the game's fictional version of Miami and wider Florida with "near-instant load times."

That sounds good and exciting, but it's also bumming people out. The original version of GTA 5 that came out in 2013 for PS3 and Xbox 360 was known for its lengthy load times when booting the game up that could be minutes long.

Nice artwork from GTA 5 would cycle through as the game loaded, and in cases where the loading took longer than expected, people might see character or environment art they hadn't before.

For the 2022 launch of GTA 5's PS5 and Xbox Series X|S edition, load times were improved. The loading screens have always been a distinct element of the GTA series.

GTA 6 artwork.

People online are saying they will miss this if GTA 6 does indeed have "near-instant" load times. That being said, this is all based off one line in a blog post, so it's unclear what "near-instant" even means or if it even pertains to the main loading page when the game boots up each time or something else.

A lot of the GTA 6 artwork hosted on the game's website bears a resemblance stylistically to the art from GTA 5's loading screens, so you can at least look at it there or download for yourself. But, again, that's not the same as sitting on your couch or in your chair looking at the artwork as the game loads.

Preorder GTA 6 at Amazon

The PlayStation Blog post is titled "GTA 6 plays best on PS5," a claim that has not been independently verified and comes as part of Sony's marketing arrangement with Rockstar, which is seeking to associate the game with PlayStation first and foremost.

The game is also coming to Xbox Series X, which has similar technical capabilities to the PS5, along with the relatively less powerful Xbox Series S. GTA 6 will also play on the PS5 Pro, but Rockstar has yet to confirm any specific enhancements.

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. GTA 6 preorders are finally, at long last, open on both consoles, and you can choose the $80 standard edition or $100 ultimate edition.

Bungie Confirms Layoffs, “Most” Of Destiny Team Let Go

Fri, 06/26/2026 - 00:41

One month after a report revealed plans to lay off a "significant" number of employees, Bungie has confirmed these intentions as part of a company-wide reorganization.

In a June 25 X post, the Destiny developer announced a "reduction in force" that will have a "profound impact on the people affected, their families, friends, and teammates." PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst posted a lengthy blog post about the situation, confirming that "most of the Destiny team" is gone, as well as "some" members of the Marathon team and the Sony Interactive Entertainment teams that supported Bungie’s operations. Shortly after these posts went live, it was reported that Bungie studio head Justin Truman will also be leaving the studio.

https://twitter.com/Bungie/status/2070149689127973265

"As the leaders of Bungie, past and present, we recognize Destiny 2 fell short of expectations these past several years," the studio wrote. "Following our final content update to Destiny 2, and with our future projects still in early incubation, we unfortunately could not continue operating at our previous size."

In his June 25 post, Hulst said Bungie's latest project, the PvEvP extraction shooter Marathon, "remains an important part" of PlayStation's portfolio. The company will continue supporting Bungie as it works on new content for the game and incubates its "future projects," which Hulst said are "too early to discuss."

Hulst continued, admitting how "painful" this news was to deliver, particularly after the "extensive discussion and careful consideration" PlayStation went through before arriving at this workforce reduction.

"Over the past several months, together with Bungie leadership, we reviewed the studio’s long-term direction, development priorities, resource needs, and role within our broader portfolio strategy," Hulst wrote. "We explored multiple alternatives before concluding that a reduction was necessary to align the studio’s resources with its current priorities and long-term goals."

On X, Bungie said it will share more about the company's future, just not today.

"Today, we wish to extend our gratitude and compassion to every member of the Bungie team who has been impacted and to those who remain," Bungie wrote. "We hope you will do the same."

Despite indications that this news might be coming, it's a stunning reality to see play out for the Destiny team, which was responsible for creating one of the most influential games ever. It also highlights ongoing issues at Sony, which acquired Bungie in 2022 for $3.6 billion amidst the publisher's emphasis on live-service games, which Bungie had ample expertise in. That live-service push at Sony has seemingly been slowed, with multiple projects canceled and several studios shut down.

GameStop CEO Came Up With Plan To Buy eBay On The Toilet, Wants It To Become Re-Seller Of Digital Gaming Items

Thu, 06/25/2026 - 23:49

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen is trying to buy the popular auction site eBay for $56 billion. He's now laid out a new angle of his vision, and it involves video games. In a recent interview, Cohen said one previously unannounced part of his plan to help eBay return to growth--if he can successfully take it over-is by creating a marketplace for digital gaming items. eBay has already flatly rejected Cohen's proposal to buy the company, saying it was "neither credible nor attractive."

He said on the All-In Interview podcast that eBay is currently a market-leader for physical collectibles, but not digital ones. He said he's identified a gap in the market, and he believes the returns could be massive.

"I would extend that into digital collectibles. If you look at all of these in-game items from AAA titles that people are accumulating--skins, weapons, all of these things--taking eBay and building a marketplace where you can provide liquidity for in-game digital items," he said. "Essentially, it's what NFTs could have ... people thought they were. But ultimately they had no real utility. In-game items actually have real utility."

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PeNclyAl9N4

He said physical collectibles like art and trading cards are "ego" plays. The markets for these items are massive, he said, but the items have no utility beyond telling people that you have them and owning something rare.

Video game in-game items, meanwhile, have real utility, he said.

"There is no marketplace that is providing liquidity for them. I would use eBay to provide liquidity for in-game digital items. I believe that addressable market could be much larger than eBay's marketplace on physical items. No one is doing it. This should already exist. It's crazy that it doesn't exist," he said.

Existing marketplaces like Player Auctions and Gameflip offer some of these services, but eBay has significantly larger scale and brand recognition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j9RPGLENNI

Counter-Strike skins are known to sell for huge premiums online. Meanwhile, people have been selling their high-level World of Warcraft gaming accounts on eBay for a long time already, but Cohen is seemingly talking about something else here. In the case of Counter-Strike skins, these are sold within Steam (where Valve gets a cut). If Cohen is proposing something like a marketplace where people can sell Call of Duty or Fortnite skins, that would no doubt require developers to provide permission and infrastructure to support such a thing.

Cohen did not get into specifics regarding his plan to pull this off, but there does appear to be a significant market for digital skins. The state of New York sued Valve earlier this year, and in its case, it claimed the market for Counter-Strike skins was beyond $4 billion as of 2025. The lawsuit also brought up the very kind of idea that Cohen wants to address, as New York Attorney General Letitia James specifically called out the "ease of liquidating items through third-party marketplaces."

The other two parts of Cohen's plan for eBay, should he successfully take it over, is to cut costs massively to immediately improve earnings (like he did at GameStop) and to expand further into "live commerce." Popular in Asia and on TikTok, live commerce is the term for video where a content creator or store hosts a livestream to sell their products, giving viewers the ability to purchase items without leaving the video. eBay already owns and operates eBay Live, which does some of this, but Cohen said eBay has not properly managed or invested in it.

Also in the interview, Cohen said he came up with the idea to buy eBay while he was on the toilet (he did not elaborate further) and said buying GameStop was a bad idea in hindsight. Cohen said his original strategy for growing GameStop was to make it more like his previous company, the pet food company Chewy that he sold to Petsmart for $3.35 billion.

"That was the wrong strategy," he said, noting that when he became CEO, he changed plans and went into "maniacal cost-cutting mode" and doubling down on pre-owned and collectibles.

In other news, Cohen recently canceled his $35 billion pay plan to focus on the eBay takeover. Also in the interview, Cohen revealed that he's pouring $500 million of his own money into his bid for eBay.

Xbox Layoffs Appear To Be Starting With South Of Midnight Dev Compulsion

Thu, 06/25/2026 - 23:24

It looks like layoffs at Xbox have started, with a number of developers at South of Midnight developer Compulsion Games now looking for new opportunities. The layoffs come as part of a massive shakeup at Xbox under new CEO Asha Sharma, which will reportedly see multiple Xbox Game Studios either closed or going independent once more.

The fate of Compulsion as a studio is still unclear. Reports from earlier in June suggested that Xbox was preparing to close the studio, though Compulsion leadership was said to be in discussions with Xbox over potentially spinning the studio off on its own.

News of the Compulsion layoffs comes from individual developers' posts on LinkedIn announcing that they are no longer with the studio, as compiled by reporter Mr Rebs.

https://twitter.com/mr_rebs_/status/2069959570877812839?s=46

Compulsion is based in Montreal and was founded in 2009. After developing Contrast and being at work on We Happy Few, it was acquired by Microsoft in 2018 as part of a flurry of studio purchases.

The Compulsion layoffs may be only the start for Xbox, with CEO Asha Sharma lining up big changes in an attempt to get Xbox "healthy" again, promising a "reset" on the business. Bloomberg reported that layoffs would likely occur after June 30, after the end of Microsoft's fiscal year.

Alongside Compulsion, multiple other studios including Double Fine and Ninja Theory are also reportedly in negotiations with Xbox to get their studios out from under Microsoft's ownership to avoid complete closure. There's been no recent update on how those talks are going--other than a single, not-so-promising emoji posted to Double Fine's X account.

Deltarune Chapter 5 Is Going Off On Steam

Thu, 06/25/2026 - 23:19

After being announced in a Nintendo Direct two weeks ago, Deltarune Chapter 5 is live now and pushing Toby Fox's episodic RPG to new levels of hype. The update saw Deltarune's Steam concurrent player count jump to 291,816, more than double the game's previous peak.

As fans check out the new chapter, Deltarune has jumped into the top 10 most played games on Steam--an unusual feat for a single-player RPG with concurrent players normally in the low five figures. The game's previous all-time peak was 133,930 players last June, when the first four chapters were released as a paid game on Steam. The jump in popularity around the Chapter 5 release has also seen Deltarune reach number 13 on Steam's top sellers list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5y22LUfetA

Of course the Steam numbers only give part of the story--Deltarune is also available on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2, meaning there's probably a whole lot more players getting stuck into the new chapter right now.

Deltarune's fanbase is going off on social media, as fans have been waiting a year for the new content to share their theories, secrets, guides and more. Plenty of players have also shared their praise of the new chapter through Steam reviews, where Deltarune enjoys a 98% positive rating.

Deltarune's first chapter was released for free back in 2018, with intermittent releases of new chapters in the years since. With just over a year since Chapter 3 and 4's joint release, the wait for Chapter 5 has been the shortest yet.

Toby Fox still has more chapters to release to complete Deltarune's story, signing off Chapter 5's release announcement with a promise that the team will return to to working on the next chapter. According to the game's Steam page, Chapter 6 is currently planned for a 2027 release.

Breaking Down Our New Look At GTA 6

Thu, 06/25/2026 - 10:01

Rockstar has officially announced the pricing and preorder information for Grand Theft Auto 6, and alongside this news, the studio has also shared plenty of new screenshots and artwork from the game. GameSpot's Jake Dekker broke it all down, and though Rockstar likely didn't intend to offer too much concrete information about about the Leonida setting or its story, we did uncover several tidbits.

Two of the weapons available in the $100 Ultimate Edition are the Hawk & Little Morgan Revolvers. They're "his and hers" revolvers, each etched with the name of their owner, so Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval will each get their own. The "Morgan" part of the name could very possibly be an Easter egg referring to Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2, as well.

Speaking of Red Dead Redemption, President Hardin--who previously served in office and also appeared on a $100 bill in GTA Online--is visible in one of the images, once again on some cash.

It remains to be seen what the gameplay dynamic will be between Lucia and Jason, but we noticed the two are together in a screenshot showing off the Shitzu Squalo watercraft. Presumably you'll be able to switch between them as freely as you could between Michael, Trevor, and Franklin in GTA 5, so this may be showing a story-centric moment.

One bit tucked away in the description for the '67 Vapid Dominator Buggy mentions that the Paradise Garage location features "a secure place to deposit stolen goods to be fenced." This would be a departure from past games, which don't really focus on stealing anything but cash--could the cops break down your door and find your collection of stolen cars? We can only hope so.

For even more nitty-gritty details, check out the full video above. Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19.

Pages