Gaming industry veteran Hideo Kojima has commented on the semi-recent trend of remote working in the video game business, saying it might not be the ideal way to work but forcing people back to the office isn't a good option either.

Speaking to The Guardian, Kojima said remote work is "almost like a fast food chain" in that people are "just concentrating on one thing instead of the whole project." The publication further reported that Kojima said working remotely as opposed to being in an office together with colleagues can be inefficient for a variety of reasons, including the lack of back-and-forth with people working at a desk next to each other.

"Only 1% of yourself is on show during [online] meetings," he said. "This is not like building a team. Think about football. You hire someone, he comes to your squad--but you can't play together remotely. So that person doesn't change the way they played before; they won't fit in."

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is set to have a full reveal later this year, but a new tease comes from a Treyarch developer who compares the upcoming Black Ops game to 2012's Black Ops 2. This includes a message for fans of competitive Call of Duty and maybe a hint of some of the maps arriving with Black Ops 7.

During the grand finals of the 2025 Call of Duty League Championship, Treyarch associate design director Lawrence Metten compared Black Ops 7 to Black Ops 2. "If you're a fan of Black Ops 2 back in the day, especially if you're a fan of Black Ops 2 competitive, you're going to have a good time with Black Ops 7."

Black Ops 2 is known for having some of the best competitive maps in Call of Duty history, such as Yemen, Raid, Standoff, and Slums. It's very possible Metten is teasing part of the map pool for Black Ops 7, especially as Treyarch is tasked with developing back-to-back Black Ops titles.

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Early previews for Donkey Kong Bananza have been positive so far, with some describing the game as a potential Super Mario Odyssey moment for the DK franchise. That just might be the most apt description possible, because Bananza is being developed by the same studio behind what is considered to one of the best Super Mario video game of all time--Super Mario Galaxy fans might beg to differ here--Nintendo EPD Tokyo.

Nintendo had previously confirmed this during one of its Treehouse presentations, but beyond that, the company is being secretive about who is leading development on the project or who some of the key staff members are. This would also explain why we haven't seen a new 3D Mario game since 2017--but we have seen numerous other Mario projects since then--if the studio has been focusing heavily on creating this ambitious new adventure for DK. GameSpot has reached out to Nintendo for clarification, and we'll update the post as soon as we hear back from the company.

As noted by VGC, development on modern 3D Mario games has been led creatively by Kenta Motokura, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and Koichi Hayahsida, but their names haven't been listed in new EPD-developed games since Odyssey in 2017. Several of these games were developed in conjunction with other Nintendo divisions, and it is worth noting that Nintendo has a much higher retention rate of employees compared to other studios and publishers across the world, where mass layoffs have sadly become very commonplace.

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Diablo 2 celebrated its 25th anniversary on June 29, and developer Blizzard celebrated the occasion with a cryptic tweet that has fans of the classic ARPG speculating wildly about what it could mean.

The tweet states, "Happy Birthday Diablo 2. Twenty-five years have passed since our first foray into the Burning Hells." It's the second part of the tweet, however, that has fans excited.

Happy Birthday Diablo 2.
25 years have passed since our first foray into the Burning Hells.
If you think you've seen and done it all, just wait for the chaos we've yet to unleash. pic.twitter.com/zqXTzc4mOL

— Diablo (@Diablo) June 28, 2025

"If you think you've seen and done it all, just wait for the chaos we've yet to unleash," the tweet concludes.

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Remasters and ports are big business, and when Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Master Crafted Edition was announced, hardcore fans who played the original 2011 version were excited. That excitement quickly turned to frustration as the PC release contained a number of bugs, and Sega is now offering refunds to everyone who bought it.

Over on Steam, there are almost 100 "mostly negative" reviews citing buggy loads, ugly UI changes, and constant crashing, leaving fans disappointed. "Decided to pick up a copy after the price was reduced for Anniversary Edition owners as some goodwill was returned," one player wrote. "Have played less than an hour and got sent into bugsplat just navigating the menus, all of which are a downgrade compared to the original. No idea why Relic have decided to fix what's not broken here."

Sega dropped the price to $20 for anyone who already owns the Anniversary Edition, and as Kotaku is reporting, letting fans who already purchased it on PC get a refund through July 10. Sega also laid out improvements that Patch 3 was to implement, including "fixed softlocks, graphical glitches, and input issues in various screens" and more technical fixes like moving local user profile data to a different location to prevent certain crashes.

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Mecha Break is the mecha shooter game by Kingsoft subsidiary Amazing Seasun Games. After initially being announced at The Game Awards 2023, the third-person shooter is finally in beta and open to the public, with Mecha Break cross-play enabled so you can play with your friends no matter the platform. While there have been Mecha Break codes available throughout the demo periods, we've got all you need to know on codes for the full release.

You'll take on the role of a mech pilot dealing with the fallout of a dystopian catastrophe in the year 2082, which led to an energy crisis on earth. You'll deal with polluted areas known as Fading Zones, where only mechs can operate. Throughout these zones, mech pilots need to clear the pollution.

Working in teams, you'll blast through different game modes. There are several different mech roles to take on: Attacker, Defender, Supporter, Brawler, and Sniper. Of course, the inclusion of Mecha Break codes is invaluable in a free-to-play game, so we've got all of them listed here, as well as how to find more codes, and other free rewards including free Corite and more.

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Red Dead Online, the multiplayer mode for Red Dead Redemption II, just got a big update that adds a series of "Strange Tales from the West" missions, including ones where you fight zombies and weird little robot guys.

The "Strange Tales of the Plague" mission has players fighting against "shambling undead" who have been affected by a mysterious malady infecting the people of Armadillo. Players must take them down and retrieve their corpses and return them for scientific research to find out what happened.

The "Strange Tales of Modern Science" mission, meanwhile, has players investigating a nearby "man of science" who claims he created artificial life near Braithwaite Manor. "Bring the strange experiment to life by discovering its secrets and destroying any automata that put up a fight," reads a line from the mission's description.

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System Shock 2's 25th-anniversary remaster recently launched for PC, and console owners won't have to wait too much longer to get their hands on it. Developer Nightdive Studios has announced that it'll land on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Switch on July 10, following its short delay for those platforms.

First released in 1999, Nightdive first teased that it was remastering System Shock 2 back in 2019. Since then, the first System Shock got a massive remake that blended the aesthetics and gameplay of the '90s with modern design features, creating a unique blend of old-school gaming with high-definition visuals. Essentially, it was System Shock almost exactly as you remembered it, but with sharper visuals, better sound, and some nice tweaks under the hood.

Nightdive's remaster of System Shock 2--previously known as System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition--proved to be a challenging project. The developer didn't have access to the game's complete source code, and piecing everything back together required "extensive reverse-engineering," the studio said.

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Earlier this month, developers Surgent Studios and publisher Pocketpair shared an early look at the upcoming first-person psychological-horror game Dead Take. Now, Surgent and Pocketpair have revealed that the game will incorporate live-action footage and announced the first two members of the cast, both of whom are award-winning video game voice actors.

Baldur’s Gate 3 and Resident Evil Village's Neil Newbon will play Vinny Monroe, while Final Fantasy XVI and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Ben Starr will step into the part of Chase Lowrey. In the game, Vinny and Chase are actors, and the teaser video announcement mysteriously indicates that both of them are playing a character named Willie.

At the beginning of the game, Vinny has gone missing after attending a decadent party in Hollywood. Players assume the role of Vinny's friend and fellow actor as they explore the mysteriously abandoned Hollywood Hills mansion that was booming with life the night before.

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Dead Take is not at all what I was expecting from the sophomore effort from Surgent Studios, the developer behind Tales of Kenzera: Zau. Whereas the studio's first title was a great search-action game with an emotional tale about grief set in a Bantu myth-inspired world, Dead Take is a first-person psychological horror game that delves into the untold stories and disconcerting truths that actors face day-to-day in the entertainment industry.

"So, to give you an idea of what this kind of game is, it's a psychological horror escape room, but it's like a reverse escape room. It's not necessarily [about] coming out of the space, but going in," Dead Take creative director Abubakar Salim told me. "[And] the deeper you go, the further in [protagonist Chase] goes into this mansion, the more the secrets are unwrapped and the darker reality [gets]. And that's sort of where I'm playing into [the horror]. There is almost a sense of understanding, but also a sense of disgust."

"[Dead Take is a reaction to] just things that are happening within the industry and what I've kind of experienced, what I've gone through. [While] also pulling from friends' experiences in the industry and talking about it," he continued. "This shift [in genre] is really a reaction, not only tied to what's going on in the world and in the industry, but also with the conversations I've been having with other actors, with other people in the world, both in film as well as in games, and being like, 'Yeah, let's tell this story. Let's do something here. I love horror, we love luring people down a rabbit hole. We flexed that muscle a bit with the Sabulana storyline [in] Zau and so we were like, 'Let's just go full force [in the next game].'"

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It's been nearly six years since Borderlands 3 debuted during the previous console generation. This fall, Borderlands 4 is taking advantage of the power of the current consoles by thrusting players into a large "seamless world" that doesn't need many loading screens during the long hours it will take to explore it all. That's a major improvement over Borderlands 3's Pandora, which had enough loading screens to test the players' patience.

While speaking with Game Informer, senior project producer Anthony Nicholson noted that the Borderlands 4 team didn't initially set out to make Kairos an open-world environment. However, the power of Unreal Engine 5 "gave us other advantages to be able to do things and kind of went into being able to make a seamless world and things of that nature."

World-building director Jason Reiss added that there are "a lot more 360 combat areas where players can enter into spaces from any direction, including from the air--and we have to account for that now with all these crazy movement abilities. It's been all about, 'Let's create a large, dynamic, awesome place where players can feel like badasses.'"

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It's almost the first weekend in July, and as has now become tradition, this marks the start of another week-long speedrunning marathon in the form of Summer Games Done Quick. There are plenty of exciting runs on the table, all in the name of charity, so here's how to watch it, and some highlights we've found in the schedule.

How to watch Summer Games Done Quick 2025

SGDQ, which is livestreamed 24 hours a day on the GDQ Twitch channel, will be hosted in Minneapolis. While you can watch live at any point through the marathon, the GDQ Youtube channel will regularly upload each run shortly after its completion, for any that you might miss.

Summer Games Done Quick will start on July 6 at 8:30AM PT / 11:30AM CT / 12:30PM ET, and kicks off with the pre-show, which introduces the event, its goals, and highlights prizes and incentives for viewers.

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The Alters developer 11 Bit Studios has found itself in hot water after players discovered evidence of generative AI in the game. The studio has now released a statement to explain why AI chatbot prompts can be found in multiple parts of the introspective survival game.

After The Alters was released in mid-June, screenshots started to emerge on social media showing evidence that certain content had been generated by AI chatbots--despite the game lacking the AI disclosure that Steam now requires from developers.

One Reddit user shared an image of an in-game data screen where the text appears to have an AI prompt included, reading: "Sure, here's a revised version focusing purely on scientific and astronomical data." Another player posted a more egregious example where the chatbot prompt agreeing to translate text to Brazilian Portugese was left visible in the subtitles.

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Wizards of the Coast is banning a whopping seven cards in Magic: The Gathering Standard as part of its mid-year banned and restricted update for 2025, setting the format up for a dramatic change. While one dominant card tops the list, another six have been banned for fear of them taking a similar role.

The main offender being banned is Cori-Steel Cutter, a card that has become so dominant in the Standard meta that Wizards says the card would meet the threshold for banning even outside its once-per-year window for Standard. The card made up the backbone of the Izzet Prowess deck, which has noticeably dominated the metagame since the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm in April, making up a whopping 40% of Standard play at the recent Pro Tour MTG--Final Fantasy tournament.

While Cori-Steel Cutter is a no-brainer for the ban list, Wizards explains that it is trying to avoid seeing another card rise up and take its place at the top, which is why there are six other cards joining it on the ban list.

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ININ is coming in hot with the 3rd Volume of our iconic IREM Collection! The arcade gems featured in IREM Collection Vol. 3: Mr. Heli, Mystic Riders, and Dragon Breed. This collection is a continued celebration of IREM’s rich gaming legacy, honoring their status as pioneers in the gaming industry.

Mecha BREAK is a multiplayer mech game that allows players to choose from diverse mechs, customize appearances, and battle colossal war machines on treacherous terrain. Get ready for the ultimate showdown - blitz, brawl, blaze! Discover an array of assault, melee, sniper, reconnaissance, and support mechs, each with unique playstyles. Engage in immersive aerial and ground combat, employing strategic tactics for close and long-range encounters. Unleash devastating firepower, scorch foes with precision beams, and rain missiles upon the battlefield. Prepare for adrenaline-pumping battles, lightning-fast maneuvers, and explosive firepower. Experience the essence of speed, power, and thrilling controls. Unleash the power of an imposing battle-ax, unyielding halberd, or agile laser sword in epic brawls. Navigate intense bombardments, penetrate enemy defenses, and execute stealthy ambushes. Precisely block close-range strikes and deliver lethal parries. Customize your mech down to its individual parts with precision. Personalize every detail, from full-body paint jobs to unique hues for armor, internal framework, and weaponry. Choose from a variety of colors, wear levels, glosses, and metallic finishes to showcase your unique style. Enhance your mech further with patterns and decals to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. Explore the tales of a lone wolf warrior, fearless noble girl, seasoned veteran, and more. Each pilot possesses a unique story, driven to break free and forge a new path alongside you. Join squads of 3 or 6, showcasing exceptional piloting skills to conquer foes and strategically coordinate victories. Take full control and turn the tides of battle. Immerse yourself in intense, up to 60-player battle royale combat, where you'll face ambushes and confront hostile mechs. Evade pulse storms, outmaneuver rivals, and seize the spoils of victory now!

Dash, shoot and strike in this lightning-paced hack n' slash roguelike set in a gothic, undying world! Focused on movement abilities, split-second decision-making and stylish strings of attacks, Bloodrush encourages a creative approach to combat, combining abilities to demolish your foes! Delve into Death's domain in multiple runs, unlocking the Stranger's vast arsenal of 6 weapons, 10+ combos, 20+ upgrades, and more. Uncover insights into Death's imprisonment, progressively learning more of her captors' motivations and philosophies at every run.