Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is making a few changes with how it releases the next game in its third-person action series. As revealed in its latest earnings report, Stellar Blade 2 won't be published by Sony, as the company is headed into self-publishing territory.

"Development of the next Stellar Blade title is progressing smoothly, on track to meet our targeted quality standards," the studio said in an update, confirming that details on the game will be revealed "within" this year. "Starting with this next title, Shift Up will transition to a first-party service model. This will allow us to lead marketing strategies that fully reflect the distinctive identity of the Stellar Blade IP, and we expect to communicate the unique appeal of its universe to players more directly and effectively."

Shift Up added that details on its next flagship title, Project Spirits, will also be revealed later this year. What does this mean for the sequel? It's worth noting that the first Stellar Blade was a timed exclusive for PS5 when it was released in 2024, and its PC port arrived in 2025. While the game sold well on PS5, PC is where Stellar Blade took off, selling 1 million units in just its first three days. It's estimated that 6.1 million copies have been sold as of January 2026, with more than half of the game's player base being based in China.

The popular mobile game Wordle is becoming a primetime TV show, with participants basically playing the game together in person with the hope of taking home a cash prize. The show will air on NBC, with popular Today Show broadcaster Savannah Guthrie serving as the host.

The Wordle TV show will film in Manchester, England and is set to premiere on NBC in prime time beginning in 2027, The New York Times--which owns Wordle--announced today. The New York Times will co-produce the half-hour show, which is said to feature the game's well-known typeface and color scheme. As rumored, NBC host Jimmy Fallon will be an executive producer on the Wordle show.

Production on the Wordle TV show was set to begin sooner but was delayed after Guthrie's 84-year-old mother, Nancy, disappeared in February this year. Guthrie returned to her Today Show hosting duties in April and her mother is still missing.

Confirming earlier rumors and reports, Microsoft and Discord announced a new partnership today that includes a new version of Xbox Game Pass called the Starter Edition.

Available to Discord Nitro members, the Starter Edition of Game Pass includes a library of 50+ console and PC games, and Discord Nitro is staying the same price, which is $10/month or $100/year. The Game Pass Starter Edition also includes 10 hours of cloud gaming access per month.

Some of the games included with the Game Pass Starter Edition include Fallout 4, Stardew Valley, DayZ, Deep Rock Galactic, Grounded, and Overcooked 2.

Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski has laid out a vision for a new game that he says is essentially "John Wick meets Carrie by way of Lovecraft Country."

Posting online, the retired game developer said he still wants to make this game, which he is calling "Hollow Point." The game would take place in a "rustic New England town" during the fall, and that's familiar ground for Bleszinski as he was born and raised in the area.

Hollow Point would be a two-player game. Player 1 would be an ex-Marine "with all the guns/boom stuff," while Player 2 would be a young woman with psychic/telekinesis powers.

Just days before it was scheduled to release, Forza Horizon 6 on PC has leaked. Reports have begun circulating online of the entire game being uploaded online as an unencrypted Steam preload, with various piracy websites moving quickly to make the entire 155GB file available to download via torrents.

How did this happen? It's speculated that the Forza Horizon 6 preload is the culprit here, as in the buildup to the game's release so that players can start touring Japan as soon as possible, Steam may have accidentally pushed a decryption update for the game files too early. Microsoft isn't sitting idly by while one of its biggest releases of the year is pirated, and it has already begun making moves with takedown notices on various sites.

It also remains to be seen just how playable the game is in offline mode, and these pirated versions will naturally be excluded from post-launch plans. To put this into perspective, Forza Horizon 5 is estimated to have sold between 7.2 million and 8.4 million units on Steam (according to Sensor Tower data), so pre-launch piracy will most certainly take a large bite out of any potential sales.

Nintendo's share price dropped almost 8% on Monday as investors respond to the company's overly pessimistic outlook for the Switch 2's second year of sales. The slump took Nintendo's share price to its lowest point in almost two years, after the company admitted it was feeling the squeeze from memory shortages and other market pressures.

On sales numbers alone the Switch 2 looks like a runaway success, but Nintendo isn't confident that the console can maintain its momentum, especially with a price hike on the way. In its earnings release, Nintendo said that hardware shortages and the strong first-year sales would result in Switch 2 sales declining in its second year--which would be unusual as consoles are generally expected to gain momentum in their second year on the market.

As Nintendo stock continues its downward slide, Sony is up 10% following an earnings release that showed a drop in sales but a rise in profit. While Sony's hardware sales are also feeling the impact of memory shortages, strong digital sales are carrying the company's gaming segment.

Grand Theft Auto 6 could be one of the most expensive games ever in terms of its budget, and this kind of investment may only be sustainable for a small group of games, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said in an interview.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Zelnick giant investments only make sense for "massive blockbusters," and "that's super hard to do." Of course, GTA 6 is expected to be one of those games, but the industry overall is in for even tougher times ahead if production costs keep ramping up.

"We certainly can't deal with exponential growth--we probably can't even deal with linear growth--in production costs," he said. "So everyone puts pressure on everyone, ourselves included. But on balance, we want to make bigger hits, and we're prepared to take appropriate risks to do so."

“ARCADE IS DEAD,” developer Housemarque abruptly decreed in all caps on its blog shortly after Matterfall’s release in 2017.

This candid manifesto explained how the team saw no future developing the arcadey games it had specialized in for over two decades and was moving onto different genres. Returnal was the result of this shift in focus, taking the aesthetics and chaos inherent to Housemarque’s house style and throwing it all into a roguelike third-person shooter. It was a cult hit that saw critical acclaim, but Saros, Returnal’s spiritual sequel, seems to rebuke that glorious foundation by shunning the very genre with which Housemarque had just found great success. By paring back its roguelike elements in an effort to broaden its appeal, Saros becomes a discordant game that seems ambivalent towards what came before it.

Given its suite of levels that cycle in various threats, randomized weapons, resources, and perks, Saros is technically a roguelike, even if Housemarque talks around genre specifics. When speaking to Game Informer, art director Simone Silvestri said labels were "ephemeral" and it was “hard for [him] to categorize Saros” because Housemarque “didn't set out to be in a genre or defy a genre.” Creative director Gregory Louden was similarly elusive in that same interview, while admitting it had “rogue elements.”

Season 3 of Battlefield 6 and Redsec arrives on May 12, and Battlefield Studios has released the patch notes ahead of the big update. In addition to the new content, this season's update includes a variety of improvements to the game's netcode, vehicles, gadgets, gameplay, and more.

Content-wise, players can expect a brand-new battle pass, three new guns, and a reimagining of Battlefield 4's popular Golmud Railway map, which will serve as the Battlefield 6's largest map to date. Redsec also receives a competitive Ranked mode for battle royale, allowing players to compete for rank, leaderboard status, and unique cosmetic rewards.

The Season 3 patch notes reveal several improvements designed to give Battlefield 6 a more polished feel. One notable change is a broad balance and handling pass for all vehicles. This includes better tracked-vehicle mobility, improved repair behavior, and updated damage and regeneration system for tanks. It also corrects an issue where a rider would previously be kicked off the dirt bike when doing a flip, so players can now go back to doing tricks mid-battle.

In the wake of Saudi Arabia's leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts for $55 billion, gamers upset by the takeover are planning to protest the publisher's Redwood, California, headquarters on May 11 in cosplay.

A movement known as the Players Alliance HQ has announced its intent to "raid" EA's headquarters on May 11 at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET. The goal is to denounce Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) buyout of the publisher, with cosplaying gamers planning to unravel a 50-foot scroll of over 70,000 petition signatures on the Madden football field at the center of the campus. There appears to be a whole performance involved in the protest as well, with gamers dressing in suits and top hats portraying the "corporate villains" behind the deal. Further, a giant health bar prop will slowly deplete as supporters digitally engage with the protest, and a loot-box demonstration will reveal a range of prizes like mass layoffs, studio closures, and aggressive monetization.

According to the press release, Players Alliance HQ fears that, should the $55 billion deal go through (which would saddle EA with $20 billion in debt), the company could face pressure to cut jobs, replace employees with AI, and institute price hikes to recoup the losses of the buyout.

Mortal Kombat 2 is out now in theaters, and it made millions before its official wide release. The movie picked up $5.2 million in preview screenings in North America on May 7 ahead of its wider release today, May 8, according to Variety.

The video game movie is projected by independent tracking data to earn between $40 million and $45 million over the Friday-Sunday period, while Warner Bros. is expecting a more conservative $35 million. Studios often make safer predictions in part so they can say the final numbers surpassed expectations.

Mortal Kombat 2's main competition this weekend in theaters is a film that's totally unlike it: The Devil Wears Prada 2. The movie is projected to earn between $38 million and $42 million over its second weekend in North America after taking in $77 million for its first weekend.

A Nintendo legend is about to call it a day, as veteran game designer and director Takashi Tezuka will leave the company later this year. Nintendo noted in its investor briefing today that the 65-year-old Tezuka will depart on June 26, closing the book on over four decades of work at the gaming giant.

Tezuka first began his career at Nintendo in 1984, joining as a part-time employee while he was still studying at university. Starting with Punch-Out, Tezuka would then go on to frequently work alongside another Nintendo legend, Shigeru Miyamoto, teaming up with him on several projects. It wasn't long before Tezuka was hired as a full-time Nintendo employee, serving as the assistant director and designer on 1985's Super Mario Bros. and then going on to direct the first The Legend of Zelda game.

Over the years, he has worked on multiple Mario games and several other big Nintendo IP like Pikmin and Animal Crossing. In the modern era, Tezuka has served as a producer and supervisor on titles like Super Mario 3D World and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

One of the new creative directors at Kingdom Come studio Warhorse, Prokop Jirsa, has commented on the hot-button issue of using artificial intelligence in game development. His comments come at a time when Warhorse was accused a firing a translator to help save costs.

Jirsa told PC Gamer that he understands why people hate when art is generated with AI, and that's because he hates it, too. While using AI to generate art that would be released to the public is not something Jirsa is interested in, he said the technology can be "really helpful" during development in other ways. That includes AI-assisted programming efforts and coming up with concept art with genAI.

"Even if you're not a programmer, for example, you can code little things that help you. Not necessarily something that will be used in the game, but, for example, you'll be able to access some information in a more comprehensible way … or, for example, quick generation of some concept art, so you can actually communicate better to concept artists what you need," he said.

Nintendo has shared the financial results for the fiscal year ending in March 2026, and while the company expects the Switch 2 to sell fewer units during its second year of life, not all things look bad for Nintendo. The company announced that its social life simulator, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, is doing gangbusters numbers, selling nearly 4 million units in just two weeks.

In a series of slides posted to the company's official website, Nintendo shared the sales figures for Living the Dream. For a game that released on April 16, Nintendo confirmed that the "global cumulative sell-through in [two] weeks after release [was] over 3.8 million units." This was the only mention of the game in the 29 slides, but it's still an impressive figure for a franchise that hasn't seen a new entry since 2013's Tomodachi Life.

The sales figure makes sense when you look at the attention surrounding Living the Dream. A cursory glance at Nintendo's official YouTube channel demonstrates just how popular the game would likely become when it launched, with many of the videos garnering hundreds of thousands to millions of views. And the same is true on Reddit, where the game's two primary subreddits--r/tomodachilife and r/TomodachilifeLivingTD--have 1.7 million and 290,000 weekly visitors, respectively. It appears players are living the dream in Living the Dream.

As you progress through Outbound you'll find four landmarks to visit with mini puzzles attached to them. The third one is the windmill, but to reach it you'll face difficulty as it's up a steep slope. In order for your vehicle to go up slopes, you'll need to upgrade your motor. This requires researching the motor upgrade and then crafting it, but it's not immediately obvious how to do this.

After searching for a while you might be losing hope, but there's a simple solution. You'll need to drive to as many signal towers as possible and use download coupons at each of them until the option to download the vehicle research station becomes available. For us, this was 12 signal towers, but it may vary for you based on the other options you've chosen at signal towers beforehand.

Once you've downloaded the vehicle research station blueprint, head back to your camper and enter building mode. Place the vehicle research station on a counter in your van, and from there you'll see branching options with multiple upgrade choices. For the motor upgrade, you'll need 10 bolts. These can be crafted out of scrap metal at the bolt press machine.

As you progress through Outbound's main story quest in your cozy camper, you'll encounter several landmarks. The third of these is a windmill, and its occupant, Lilly, has left a note pinned to a fence near the front door advising that she's out of town at the festival. She says you can have a poke around and use the terminal on the windmill's lower floor, but the door to the terminal is powered by the windmill, which just so happens to be broken. To fix it, you'll need to follow a few steps.

First, make sure you've got 20 scrap metal on you--this is heavy so you'll want to leave the rest of your possessions in the van. Then, head upstairs inside the windmill where you'll see two levers. Use these and look up to line up the pile of boxes and wooden planks with the switch on the wall. Head up the ladder and flick the switch to drop another ladder down from the upper floor.

Afterwards, head back down one floor and use the levers to move the ladder to an accessible position. Then, climb up and use your 20 scrap metal to fix the mechanism of the windmill. Activate the brake lever to get the windmill's sails turning. This will open the door on the ground floor and make the terminal accessible.

While all eyes are on the Switch 2 console following the release of Nintendo's financial results briefing today, its predecessor has continued to cement itself as Nintendo's best-selling console of all time with 155.92 million consoles sold as of March 31, 2026. That puts the Switch within spitting distance of Sony's PlayStation 2--currently the best-selling console of all time, with 160 million units sold as of March 31, 2024.

To put all of this into perspective, 19.86 million Switch 2 consoles have been sold as of March 31, and the Switch has long surpassed the 154 million lifetime sales of the Nintendo DS. Nintendo is predicting that it'll sell fewer Switch 2 consoles in its second year on the market--around 16.5 million units according to its estimates--due to a wide variety of global factors.

Sony's PS2 figure was revised back in 2024 when the Nintendo console began closing the distance. The sales record stood at 155 million PS2s sold to 143.42 million Switch consoles sold in August that year, with the number eventually being revised after the final PS2 unit was manufactured.

Nintendo foresees Switch 2 hardware sales declining during the system's second year of availability--an unusual development for successful games systems. This comes as the hybrid console has already sold almost 20 million units in 10 months, but with a price hike waiting in the wings.

The company behind Mario explained why fiscal 2027's (April 1-March 31, 2027) forecast sees a reduction in Switch 2 sales, with the current estimate at 16.5 million units sold. Nintendo offered the following reasons for the reduction: "In light of the strong sales performance in the first year following launch and price adjustments, we expect unit sales for the fiscal year ending March 2027 to decline year-over-year. That said, we view this as a healthy level of sales for Nintendo Switch 2 in its second year after launch, and we continue to anticipate further growth in its installed base."

Intriguingly, the major launch-year success for Switch 2 caught Nintendo a bit off-guard. The company even admitted that the system's sales "reached a level we had not experienced with any of our previous hardware systems."

As part of Sony's latest earnings briefing, the company revealed that PlayStation 5 sales are down massively year-over-year, while management discussed what it believes will be a rosy future for the company thanks to AI-driven efficiencies.

In terms of PS5 sales, Sony reported that it had sold 46% fewer PS5 units during its fiscal Q4 than it did during the same quarter last year. More specifically, Sony sold 1.5 million PS5 units worldwide during the quarter, down from 2.8 million during the same period the year prior. The PS5 has now sold 93.7 million units worldwide.

Downward trends are expected for the PS5, as the system is now in its sixth year on the market. The PS5 is also more expensive than ever before, as Sony has raised the price of the console by $200 for its cheapest version since the system launched in 2020. During the earnings briefing, Sony blamed the latest downturn on "continued pressures in the global economic landscape."

Video games have featured famous faces for decades now, but they've often suffered from a stigma of providing subpar entertainment when compared to movies and TV. Things are changing lately, thanks to games like The Last of Us, and last year's smash-hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 making a strong case for how actors can still deliver emotional performances through this digital medium. One of the Expedition 33's stars, Andy Serkis, has spoken about how there has been a shift in attitudes from actors, with a new generation of thespians wanting to appear in video games.

"I don't see any difference in that or acting in films, on stage, or TV," Serkis said to Variety. "It's exactly the same; you approach and build a character the same way. My first engagement with video games was with a company called Ninja Theory, and we made a game called Heavenly Sword for PS3. At that point, actors looked down on video games as like, 'I wouldn't get involved in a video game'. Now, young actors coming out of drama schools, and they're like, I really want to be in a video game. There has always been that snobbery about video games not being anywhere near filmmaking. But that's all changing and certainly looking into the future when we have more immersive storytelling, which is what's happening."

Serkis has had a long career in video games, starting in 2002's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers game, where he reprised his role as Gollum, and continuing through the official King Kong video game, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, several Lego games, and the aforementioned Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Like several of his fellow actors, Serkis' performance as Renoir received high praise for being nuanced and charismatic.