The God of War Laufey release date has been announced and, much like we anticipated, you won't have to wait too long before you can play Faye's story.

At San Diego Comic-Con 2026, Sony Santa Monica Studios officially announced that the God of War Laufey release date will be 16 February, 2027.

https://twitter.com/SonySantaMonica/status/2080831512820519253

Game director Cory Barlog also announced that the game will ship with physical discs. That announcement comes just weeks after Sony announced that it would be halting the production of physical discs entirely from 2028.

The release date announcement wasn't the only surprise, as Barlog also confirmed that the next God of War game will put players back in the boots of Kratos.

According to IGN, he said, "Everything we are doing in the Faye game is a continuation of what came before and to set up and expand what comes next. Phranque has been around since the beginning. It's interesting to see how to build this world out. Everything in the game is setting up for something so amazing."

While there are many theories about what, or who, Phranque could be, it sounds like we'll have plenty of time to get familiar with him throughout the future of God of War.

God of War Laufey was originally revealed with 20 minutes of gameplay during a Sony State of Play broadcast in June 2026. The game looked pretty polished then, so it's unsurprising that its release date is just seven short months away.

It also means that February 2027 is looking pretty stacked now, with God of War Laufey, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, Persona 4 Revival, Fable, and Metro 2039 all slated to release within two weeks of one another.

Jimothy, the short-spined raccoon who has captured the hearts of the internet, is coming to World of Warcraft.

Over the past few weeks, Jimothy the raccoon has gone absolutely viral, as Seattle locals share images and videos of the animal celebrity going about his daily life. He's hard to miss, as his unique spinal condition gives him a noticeably shortened torso and neck that makes him look like a goblin in raccoon form. 

Naturally, as Jimothy's popularity skyrocketed, so too did the brands begin to take notice, World of Warcraft included. Blizzard was quick to post a mock-up showing what Jimothy might look like in WoW, and the response was "overwhelming," according to Blizzard. Players desperately wanted Jimothy to be a real in-game companion. Now, that's becoming a reality.

https://twitter.com/Warcraft/status/2078495010475966556?s=20

Blizzard has now announced it managed  to "squeeze in" a functional version of the real-life cryptid as part of the MMO's upcoming 12.1 Curse of Ula'tek update. Jimothy will be an earnable pet companion players can acquire in-game, though Blizzard hasn't yet detailed what players will need to do to call Jimothy their own.

"Currently, Jimothy is being tested for visual and functional effects and is targeted to go live when Curse of Ula'tek launches," Blizzard said. "As always with in-development content, that may shift, but the team is excited to share their own version with the intention of making him an earnable companion pet for the community."

https://bsky.app/profile/worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/post/3mreamx2rw223

That's great timing, because patch 12.1 is the same patch that will see Blizzard add the ability for players to place pets from their collection in their virtual homes. By placing down a pet bed decor item, players can then assign a pet to that pet, with the system allowing for up to 10 pets inside and five pets outside. Indoor pets can be set to remain stationary or allowed to roam, while outdoor pets can only be set to stationary. 

While most pets will work with this new system, there are a few that can't. It seems safe to assume Jimothy will work with housing, though Blizzard has not explicitly confirmed it.

WoW's Curse of Ula'tek update still doesn't have an exact release date, but it's expected to be in the next few weeks. In addition to Jimothy, the update will introduce a whole host of new content, including a new zone, raid, dungeon, and delves. It will also add new housing features like blueprints as well as Discord and guild chat integration, and improvements to the game's ping system and cooldown manager. If a recent datamine is to be believed, the epilogue for the update may even reveal villain Xal'atath's true plans.

The newest trailer for the upcoming Resident Evil movie from Weapons director Zach Cregger has arrived, and the version of the trailer posted on the PlayStation YouTube page is full of jokes and references to Sony's controversial decision to end support for physical game discs in 2028.

The movie, which hails from Sony Pictures, doesn't have a heck of a lot to do with the PlayStation brand outside of the Sony connection, but since it was posted on PlayStation's YouTube page, people took the opportunity, and creatively, to boot, to voice their displeasure about the discs situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7SwoJsSb7w&rco=1

The video has nearly 2,000 comments at press time. Some of the top-ranked comments read, "He's transporting the last physical game copy in existence" and "I cannot wait to get the physical version of this." Other top comments say, "Luckily, there was an old typewriter upstairs, and he was able to save" and "Leon... where are the physical discs?"

Another comment reads, "I love using my PlayStation 5 as a Blu-ray player," while another states, "This movie looks like it's going to get physical."

Sony's decision to end support for physical PlayStation game discs might make business sense, but it's not sitting well with fans. Hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition calling on Sony to change course, but experts believe Sony will no go back on its decision.

While Sony itself will stop supporting game discs in 2028, other companies are getting started sooner. Rockstar Games, for example, is charging $80 for GTA 6 and not releasing it on a disc. There will be physical boxes of the game sold at retail, but they only include a code, not a game disc. Even that code may not be worth anything forever, as people in Japan need to redeem it within 170 days.

As for the Resident Evil movie, the film arrives in theaters on September 18. It's coming to market behind a lot of hype, considering Cregger's last two movies, Barbarian and Weapons, were big hits.

A Blizzard employee who used developer tools to allegedly help a group of friends complete a challenging Mythic+ dungeon in World of Warcraft is no longer with the company, Blizzard has confirmed.

Earlier this week, a thread on Reddit called attention to a suspicious Mythic+ 23 dungeon run. A simple look at the key in question on Warcraftlogs, a site players use to track dungeon and raid performance, showed the dungeon shouldn't have been completed in time, as after the final boss the group still needed to kill more enemies from earlier in the dungeon.

However, by some miracle, the key was cleared in its final moments with a spell titled "Area Death (TEST)" that instantly killed all the remaining enemies.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1v2xfpr/blizzard_gm_death_touching_mobs_in_m23_for_their/

As you can probably assume, that's not a spell players have access to. It immediately became clear that if the log was legitimate and not edited in any way, a Blizzard employee, possibly a gamemaster (or GM for short), helped this particular Mythic+ dungeon group. Since high-level Mythic+ is competitive, with special titles, rewards, and bragging rights reserved for the highest-rated players, a major cheating scandal like this was rightfully cause for concern among the WoW community. 

Word quickly spread about the incident, and it wasn't long before a streamer by the name Yumytv aired an interview in which they reportedly talked to one member of the nefarious dungeon group in question. One of the group members claimed they called upon a GM friend who they were in voice chat with as an act of desperation upon realizing they weren't going to clear the key in time.

"I go to my GM friend and say 'can you do me a solid bro, can you please just one shot?" he said.

They continued by stating they "meant no harm" from it and if Blizzard wanted to revoke anything earned from the key, they were completely fine with it.

"I didn't expect him to do it," he said of their Blizzard employee friend. "In hindsight, he shouldn't have done it. He was just doing me a solid."

Blizzard, however, did find harm in it. After stating earlier in the week it was investigating the incident, it has now announced the Blizzard employee in question is no longer with the company and that it is taking action against the players involved as well.

"It has always been the case that a small number of Blizzard employees can use developer tools and spells on live servers: This lets us test and make urgent fixes to the live game when they're needed," Blizzard stated in a forum post. "Every use of these internal spells and commands on live realms is logged and shared with our Platform Security team to help ensure that the occasional use of this access is warranted. The use of development tools for anything other than development work is against company policy. It's because of the process we have in place around use of these tools that we're confident this incident was isolated to one individual."

Blizzard went on to thank the WoW community for their concern and response when it came to ensuring WoW's competitive integrity.

"We're grateful for the way we work alongside you all to protect the game and each other," Blizzard said.

The original Halo might not be the only entry in the series to get a full redo, with the secret ending of Halo: Campaign Evolved giving a wink and a nod to fans by hinting at a Halo 2 remake.

Spoilers for Halo: Campaign Evolved (and the 2001 original) follow.

Completing the campaign on Legendary difficulty adds a light-hearted sequence featuring Sergeant Johnson, who is relaxing on a makeshift beach chair on the shore while somehow viewing the original Legendary joke ending from Halo: Combat Evolved.

After realizing that the eponymous Halo is exploding (spoilers for the 2001 original, I guess), Johnson gets picked up by a Pelican, but not before turning to the camera, breaking the fourth wall, and declaring: "See you in the sequel." I don't know exactly why, but that final shot made it seem like "Don't You (Forget About Me)" was about to blare in the background to cap off the scene.

https://youtu.be/vbk_a53lAZo?si=sDO0jjJZBHrvmw77&t=158

Leakers have previously claimed that remakes of Halo 2 and 3--albeit, without multiplayer--are in active development. A report in May from Rebs Gaming purported that the two remakes are moving forward "regardless of how well Campaign Evolved does." Halo 2 got a remaster in the form of Halo 2 Anniversary, which was part of 2014's Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

Campaign Evolved is the first title from the rebranded Halo Studios. It's also believed by Rebs Gaming that the studio is building a Halo live-service game. It's easy to imagine Halo Studios working on a model similar to Capcom and the Resident Evil series, alternating between remakes and new titles.

Whether that's the case or not, Halo: Campaign Evolved at least serves as proof of concept on what the franchise could look like going forward. GameSpot's Halo: Campaign Evolved review said that it "feels like the new gold standard for playing through the first Halo." The game releases on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC on July 28, but those who bought the premium edition were granted access starting yesterday (though Xbox and PC players ran into some snags).

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

We're about four months from the launch of the biggest game of the year: Grand Theft Auto 6. The hype is no doubt through the roof, but if you're in Japan, you'll need to turn that excitement into immediate action because you'll have a limited amount of time to redeem the code that comes in the game box.

As outlined in a June 24 FAQ on Rockstar Games' support page, Japanese gamers will have 170 days to use the code, or it'll expire. The official wording is as follows:

Product codes in Japan will expire 170 days after the issuance date, which is the launch date (November 19, 2026), due to regional regulations.

This means that, from the time you buy the game, you'll have just shy of six months to redeem the code if you live in Japan. Otherwise, like opened condiments and pantry-stored brown rice, your code will go bad and straight-up expire. It's not necessarily shocking, since most digital codes don't tend to be redeemable forever, but it is odd that Japan is the only region with this sort of stipulation thus far.

170 days isn't even that long, either! Here are some other things that are about as long as or last longer than six months:

• This Redditor's sobriety from three years ago. (Congratulations, BTW.)
• The tourist season, as seasonal resort locations tend to open their doors for about five or six months.
• Academic school years in certain parts of the United States.
• This random TikTok, which is apparently 170 days of Thanksgiving.
• Honey (because it outlasts everything).
• Cockroaches (because they can outlast just about everything).
• Welsh actor Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins' sanity after 170 days in quarantine.
• Renowned environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk stayed in Ladakh jail for only 170 days in 2025.
• If your passport has less than six months of validity, some foreign nations may deny your entry.
• Butter, which can last up to six months in the freezer.
• Bleach essentially becomes water if it sits in your home for six months. (Please don't drink it, I beg of you.)

I could go on. Again, this only applies to Japan (for now), but it's funny to think of GTA 6 as having a best-before date. We've reached out to Rockstar for clarification and will update this post if and when we get a response.

Anyway, Grand Theft Auto 6 may be just a code in a box, but you may have noticed that it isn't launching on PC. This is customary for Rockstar Games, and one former employee explained that the console-first approach allowed the team to produce a far better PC port. The lack of a PC release probably won't impact the sales of the game, as predictors suggest that the highly anticipated crime could generate between $3.3 billion and $5.2 billion in global sales after its first week.

No one really loves Sony's decision to kill physical PlayStation discs in January 2028, but there is data that backs up the company's plan. Sega's president understands the choice and the numbers, but he says the company remains committed to producing physical media despite the push to an all-digital future.

In a recent interview with Famitsu (that was translated by Eurogamer), Sega president Shuji Utsumi spoke about how the company needs to be "more digitally conscious and become more global." For Sega, "digitalization" is an important part of the company's business going forward.

"When it comes to titles we call 'full games' for consoles and PCs, we believe that a digital shift is crucial," Utsumi told Famitsu. "Of course, consoles are important, but the proportion of people who play on PCs is steadily increasing. Even in areas where consoles are not widely available, there are many people who say, 'I can play it on PC.' In order to cultivate that market, we believe it is important to strengthen our digitalization."

In admitting that an all-digital future is seemingly inevitable, Utsumi acknowledged that physical media is still a vital aspect of the games industry and something he hopes Sega can balance.

"We were originally a platform provider, and of course, we still value the culture of physical media," Utsumi continued. "Rather than completely abandoning that, we are currently challenging ourselves to shift so that we can think about and act on the important aspects of digital media in parallel."

This is a somewhat stark contrast to what Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot recently said about Sony's decision. In a recent VGC interview, Guillemot remarked that the end of PlayStation disc production won't "disturb" the industry too much.

The industry this decision will impact, though, is brick-and-mortar stores. Although GameStop's Ryan Cohen isn't concerned with the impact of Sony sunsetting physical PlayStation discs, an analyst believes game retail stores are doomed. The decision has riled up hundreds of thousands of people to sign a petition urging Sony to reverse course.