A fan recreating Ocarina of Time has scrapped the project, citing fears of "Nintendo ninjas" following the official announcement of the Switch 2 remake.

According to IGN, YouTuber CryZENx pulled the plug on their The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time PC recreation after at least a decade of working on it. In a blog post on their official Patreon, CryZENx told their community that the "Ocarina of Time project [has] officially stopped." CryZENx didn't provide an exact reason for the cancellation, but in the comments, they explained that "it's better to just stop the project for now or I would [have] disappeared … because of Nintendo ninjas."

It's no secret that Nintendo is quite litigious when it comes to its IP. Just look at the lawsuit the company levied against Palworld developer Pocketpair, which appears to be nearing its end. The company also went after an alleged pirate in October 2025 for hosting piracy sites. And in May 2025, Nintendo threw its blue shell at the gaming accessory company Genki for "unauthorized" Switch 2 mockups, with that lawsuit getting settled in September of that year.

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

It would seem that CryZENx doesn't want anything to do with Nintendo's lawyers, hence why they're ending development. Their YouTube channel is filled with videos showcasing the project (which was being built in Unreal Engine), so it's entirely possible Nintendo may come a-knocking.

Despite fearing "Nintendo ninjas," CryZENx polled their community in that same Patreon blog, asking what other projects they should work on. The list is stacked with Nintendo IP, from Diddy Kong Racing to Twilight Princess to Metroid Prime Hunters.

Nintendo finally revealed The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake during its summer Nintendo Direct Showcase. The announcement was short and contained zero gameplay, but it generated millions of views--as well as concerns that it may smooth down the game's rougher edges. We'll find out when it lands on Nintendo Switch 2 sometime this year.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is one of Xbox's most-anticipated upcoming games, and game director Todd Howard has now said the studio must stick the landing.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Howard confirmed that the majority of the developers at Bethesda Game Studios are working on The Elder Scrolls 6 currently.

"We know we need to get it right and it's been a long time," he said.

Indeed it has been a long time. The game was announced more than eight years ago now, and to date, only one video has been released, and it was only a title reveal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFdqqyI8y4

The game did not show up at the Xbox Games Showcase earlier in June. Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty said this was because Microsoft was waiting for "the right moment" to show the game again.

"When you decide to show it, you want it to be the best you’ve got,” he said. “And also that when you show the game, you’re also giving them a promise of, 'Hey, it’s coming soon.'”

Howard has questioned whether it was the right call to announce The Elder Scrolls 6 so early. “I have asked myself that a lot,” he said. “I don’t know. I probably would’ve announced it more casually.”

He later said announcing The Elder Scrolls 6 in the way that Bethesda did was “not my preference,” but it happened anyway.

He went on to joke: “Just pretend we didn’t announce it. It doesn’t exist. No one has heard a word.”

Season 4 Reloaded arrives later this week, and award winning actor Nicolas Cage will join Call of Duty's growing list of operators for Black Ops 7 and Warzone. In addition to the Hollywood star, Season 4 Reloaded includes new weapons, limited-time events, and the Kowakujo Zombies map. The popular Black Ops Classic mode also becomes a permanent addition in Black Ops 7.

Season 4 Reloaded goes live on June 25, and this midseason refresh is themed as Call of Duty's Summer of Action update. All of the major announcements can be found below.

Limited-time events and new weapons

One of the main highlights of the midseason update are the new free weapons being introduced. Season 4 Reloaded will add the Executioner's Duet melee weapon and the classic AN-94 assault rifle from Black Ops 2 as the final weapons of the season.

Nick Cage event rewards

Nicolas Cage also highlights the Summer of Action update as a new operator. Cage is known for iconic action and adventure roles, such as National Treasure, Con Air, Gone in 60 Seconds, and most recently, Spider-Noir.

The actor arrives as part of Call of Duty's new "Nick Cage event." This works just like RoboCop and many other recent events with both free and paid event tracks. Call of Duty's paid event passes are usually priced at $10. Both tracks include cosmetics themed around Nicolas Cage, but the operator himself can only be unlocked in the paid pass.

More multiplayer maps and modes Remake of the Launch map from BO1

Two more maps and modes are added with Season 4 Reloaded. 

Zenith is a brand-new 6v6 map set within Karma's hidden cliffside manor. Launch is a remake of the Black Ops 1 map set at a rocket launch facility, and this is also a standard 6v6 map.

As for game modes, Team Blueprint Sharpshooter arrives as a 6v6 mode where weapon blueprints rotate every few seconds. Each weapon cycle swaps to the same new weapon for every player, and this continues until a team reaches the score limit. 

In this mode, players earn power-ups instead of scorestreaks for achieving elimination streaks. The bonuses are as follows: 

• 1-Streak: Faster movement speed
• 2 -Streak: Faster reload speed
• 3-Streak: Faster sprint recovery
• 4-Streak: Faster aim-down-sights speed
• 5-Streak: Double score

The second mode is called Knife Fight, which is a melee-only variant of the fan-favorite Gunfight mode.

Black Ops Classic update

The Black Ops Classic playlist features movement and gameplay inspired by older games in the series, which removes Black Ops 7's advancing omnimovement and various equipment. Due to the mode's popularity, Treyarch has made the playlist permanent in Black Ops 7.

This mode only features the game's remastered maps from the older Black Ops games, but a few more throwbacks are being added into the rotation in Season 4 Reloaded. This list includes Launch, Fringe, Hacienda, and Gridlock.

New Zombies map and Wonder Weapon New Oni enemy type

Season 4 Reloaded introduces a brand-new Zombies map called Kowakujo. This map's story revolves around Takeo, and the setting takes place at his family’s castle in Japan. The main story quest will go live with the big update, where players are tasked with fighting Nyxara's army, liberating the Shadowsmith, and uncovering the curse that holds Takeo's soul.

The map features the new Oni enemy type. Oni are armored enemies with the power of electricity, and they also wield melee weapons.

The Wonder Weapon for this map remains "redacted," and Treyarch says players will need to discover it as they play.

Endgame

A new act of missions arrives in Endgame called Operation King Killer. Additionally, Season 4 Reloaded adds the new Guardian skill track, described as a skill that allows players to withstand more damage, support teammates, and punish attackers. The Psych Grenade is also added as a new minor ability.

Warzone Map Update for Rebirth Island Rebirth Island gets a makeover

Warzone's Rebirth Island Resurgence map is getting a seasonal new look for the midseason update. The snow has melted around the prison, and Rebirth Island gains a colorful new setting with updates to the grass and trees on the island.

New Warzone modes

The midseason update adds Squad Gun to Warzone. This mode is played on the smaller Resurgence maps. It’s basically Call of Duty's Gun Game mode in Warzone, for the first time ever. Squads will drop into matches with the objective of being the first to cycle through a pre-determined number of weapons, eliminating enemy targets to progress to the next weapon. The first squad to cycle through every weapon wins the match.

From July 9 through 13, players can jump into limited-time matches of Warzone's Buy Back Quads mode. This is a returning mode where players want to acquire as much cash as they can, as eliminated players with at least $4,000 will automatically redeploy.

One World of Warcraft player has created their own private version of Azeroth, populated not by other players, but with AI-powered bots. 

As detailed on the wowservers subreddit, user Mr-Nilsson_85 explained how they created a "proof of concept" of what a Wrath of the Lich King-era WoW server played entirely by bots looks like, turning one of the world's premier MMORPGs into what is essentially a single-player game. The server hosts 1,800 bot "players" that go about playing the game as real players normally would--completing quests, leveling professions, killing monsters, and equipping better gear.

Despite being against the game's terms-of-service, bots aren't exactly anything new in WoW, having existed almost as long as the game has been around. They usually come in the gold-farming variety, completing repetitive tasks like mining and vendoring ore over and over again. But these bots are different, as their ability to chat with each other and potential real players is powered by DeepSeek AI. As Mr-Nilsson_85 explains, the bots have predefined "topics" to talk about among themselves, "but they do respond to each other, and they do respond to the player."

At first glance, these AI conversations can look fairly legitimate. But upon closer inspection, many of them seem to be monologuing into the void of the game's general chat, like one that proudly declares "Grinding Ravenholdt rep all day!" or another exclaiming "Man, Ulduar's my jam!"

https://www.reddit.com/r/wowservers/comments/1u8k6lm/private_server_with_1800_bots_ai_chat_deepseek/

One interesting wrinkle is that the AI-powered chat for these bots isn't attached to the actual scripts controlling their gameplay, so there is no way to currently influence their actions. That means a real player can't ask a particular bot to pull a specific enemy, trade an item, or wait for mana. That might make grouping up with these bots a challenge, but for those who prefer to play MMORPGs like WoW solo, with other players largely serving as set dressing, it's an interesting concept. 

Reactions to Mr-Nilsson_85's creation on Reddit are mixed. Some players seem legitimately impressed and excited about the possibilities of an AI-powered MMO that could turn online worlds into single-player experiences. Others point to it as evidence of the "dead internet theory," the idea that most online content and interactions are now generated by AI, in action. Some mostly just seem depressed by the idea, with one user calling the AI server "dystopian." 

The idea of a "single-player MMORPG" powered by NPCs masquerading as players isn't entirely unheard of. Erenshor, an indie game released in 2025, is built around that same idea.

In other WoW news, developer Blizzard recently sued the makers of yet another WoW private server, accusing them of "large scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement" of Blizzard's intellectual property. It's the third WoW Classic private server takedown in recent months, leading some fans to believe Blizzard is preparing for a major announcement related to the old-school version of the MMO.

Ahead of its launch on June 30, reviews and impressions on Valve's Steam Machine have arrived. Designed to be a living room PC, the compact unit is launching during an expensive time for gamers, as the ongoing memory and storage crisis, coupled with AI data center demands, has seen an explosive surge in hardware prices. Is the Steam Machine worth its price?

According to impressions from various outlets, Valve has managed to cram an impressive amount of hardware into the small PC gaming cube, but that focus on portability (or avoiding even more exorbitant prices) has had an impact on its graphical capabilities. The Verge calls it a gaming PC that punches above its weight but still "isn't ready for the console wars" just yet.

Steam Machine and Steam Controller

"While you won’t be able to run the most intensive games at a true 4K resolution because you’ll run out of video memory and graphical power too quickly, I found the Steam Machine’s frame rate is incredibly stable and pairs well with TVs that support variable refresh rate (VRR)," The Verge wrote in its review. "There’s just enough horsepower to, say, play Indiana Jones or Returnal at 1440p medium spec, or Forza Horizon 6 at 1440p high spec, or Cyberpunk 2077 at upscaled 4K with high spec, or Shadow of the Tomb Raider at true 4K and medium."

But how does the Steam Machine compare to established devices like the PS5 or Xbox Series X|S consoles? Not too well, from a financial standpoint.

"At $1,049, the Steam Machine is unlikely to win over the hearts and minds of PlayStation and Xbox faithfuls, but it is easily the best living room PC I’ve ever used, despite being a bit weaker than either of the base consoles," IGN explained. "That price probably disqualifies Valve’s new mini gaming PC in the eyes of many console faithfuls, but it makes a lot more sense for its intended purpose as an entry-level gaming PC."

Where the Steam Machine does shine is as a PC gaming unit that takes up very little space and is very quiet when running games. "The Steam Machine is quiet. I mean, really, really quiet. The single, geometry-optimized 120 mm fan at the back does an admirable job of moving large amounts of air at whisper-like levels, so much so that I don't think you'd notice it at full pelt over any other ambient noise," PC Gamer wrote.

If you're interested in grabbing one, preorders for the Steam Machine will officially open on June 25 ahead of its June 30 shipping date. Prices start at $1,049 for the 512GB model with no controller, and go up to $1,428 for a 2TB Steam Machine with a controller and swap-out face-plates. You can also join the waitlist now to be notified when preorders are live.

Xbox is going full steam ahead with a slate of films and TV shows, which now includes a live-action adaptation of Rare's 2018 pirate-filled, social-sim adventure game, Sea of Thieves.

According to a June 22 Entertainment Weekly report, Xbox has "over a dozen adaptations in the works." Some of these projects are already known--Death Stranding is getting a film, Netflix is fully supporting an animated and live-action Gears movie, Fallout has a new season, and Minecraft is getting a sequel film.

But one that may come as a surprise is that Sea of Thieves will get the live-action treatment, too, with American filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton (Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) producing. No director has been attached to the project just yet, though.

Matt Booty, Xbox's newly minted chief content officer and executive vice president, teased to Entertainment Weekly what the film's story would be about.

"The main character of a Sea of Thieves game is actually the player and the community," Booty said. "So if you sit down to think about Sea of Thieves, it's not, 'Who are the main characters? What's the plot?' It's a super social game, but there's a tone to Sea of Thieves. It's built on a very cooperative community, so you can start to sense what that's going to be like."

Developed by Rare Limited and published by Xbox Game Studios, Sea of Thieves is an open-world pirate action-adventure game that launched on Xbox consoles in 2018. You create a pirate, helm a ship, and sail the seven seas in search of bodies to shoot and booty to plunder. While you can play solo, the game was built with multiplayer in mind, so it'll be curious to see how Hollywood brings a live-action adaptation of a primarily social game to life.