In just under two months since its release, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has emerged as one of the most unexpected hits of 2025, with more than 3.3 million copies sold since late April. Now, developer Sandfall Interactive has shared a new patch for the game that gives players another chance to fight Simon, one of the most difficult bosses in the game.

Simon is an optional boss who can be found in The Abyss, and he has very few weaknesses. As part of the 1.3.0 patch, players can now get a rematch with Simon after beating him the first time. Assuming they can beat him, of course. It's not an easy fight by any stretch, and this undead warrior is a challenge even for veteran players.

Sandfall notes that the current patch addresses nearly 300 bugs that were found in the game, although it only lists a handful in the notes. According to the devs, a "general polish" was added across collisions, terrain, and scripting. The cutscenes should also scale properly across non-standard resolutions after this patch.

Many third-party studios are offering their titles as Game Key Cards on the new Switch 2 console, and according to Capcom, it considers this format to be a digital sale.

During a Q&A session following its most-recent financial results meeting (via NintendoLife), Capcom had a succinct answer to a question about these Nintendo cartridges, as it simply replied that Game Key Cards "are recorded as digital sales" by them. That's Capcom's classification for the storage medium, but it's not known if other publishers and studios share this opinion.

The general mood over Game Key Cards has also been less than enthusiastic, as game preservationists have cited concerns around the format. Game Key Cards are essentially authentication keys for games, as users will still need to download the full game to their Switch 2 console when it's inserted. These cartridges aren't locked to a system, so if you decide to sell your game, it still holds resale value. Most third-party games on the Switch 2 are sold as Game Key Cards--likely due to the Switch 2 cartridge only offering 64GB of storage capacity--and only a handful of developers offer the full game on a cartridge alongside Nintendo's own first-party releases.

Dune: Awakening is finally officially released on PC after five days of premium early access for those willing to pay more for the privilege. The game briefly went offline after launch for patch 1.1.0.11 to be applied, mainly targeting improvements to servers and stability.

Despite requiring downtime, the 1.1.0.11 patch notes are brief. The changes detailed include "another set of changes to further improve the game server and client stability," and "more localization." The patch also fixes a handful of minor, but annoying, bugs.

Dune: Awakening has seen big numbers on Steam so far--even in its paid early-access period. At the time of writing, now that the game is officially released for all players, Awakening is the 10th-most-played game on the Steam Charts, with a 24-hour peak of 142,000 players. The game also has very positive reviews on Steam, though even the positive reviews note a bit of wonkiness with the game's current state, especially when it comes to performance.

During Summer Game Fest, Microsoft opened the final day with an Xbox Games Showcase that threw the spotlight on titles coming to Xbox Series X|S either this year or next. Following the presentation, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer briefly addressed the challenges of "running a good business" while remaining accountable to Microsoft's expectations for the division.

"Our jobs inside the company is to run a good business," said Spencer during his appearance on the official Xbox podcast. "We're accountable to Microsoft for running a good business--a healthy business that continues to grow at both top line and bottom line. That's kind of a foundation for us. And what that does is it allows us to continue to invest in Xbox for our community of players and creators and that we're doing. It does mean we have to make tradeoffs through the year on things that we're going to invest more in. [And] things that we're not going to invest as much in, because we are the business that we are. But the business is having really good success."

Spencer touted Game Pass as "having an amazing year" and praised Xbox's first-party games for their performance in 2025. It's worth noting that Spencer has used similar language about running "a sustainable business" to explain the closures of studios like Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. The latter was successfully revived by its new owner, Krafton, but other studios weren't as lucky and numerous devs lost their jobs.

Gamers may have noticed a recent email about instructions for getting their share of a legal settlement with GameStop. While people are right to be suspicious about emails promising money, this settlement is legitimate. And if you've purchased something online from GameStop in the last five years, then the company may owe you some money.

Following a class-action settlement filed earlier this year, GameStop has put forth $4.5 million to resolve the issue of whether the company improperly disclosed customers' personal information to Facebook via the Facebook Tracking Pixel (now Meta Pixel) without their permission.

There are two primary criteria for getting a share this settlement. Recipients are only eligible if they purchased a video game from GameStop's site between August 18, 2020 and April 17, 2025. Players also need to have maintained a public Facebook profile with their real names at the time the purchase was made.

Next year will be the 25th anniversary of the original Xbox, the system that marked Microsoft's entrance into the console wars. While Microsoft has yet to elaborate on how the company will celebrate that milestone, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has indicated that 2026 will be "really special" for Xbox fans with returning franchises.

"When you think about Fable, when you think about Gears, when you think about Forza, I mean, these are franchises that have been really part of what makes Xbox what it is today," said Spencer on the official Xbox podcast following the Xbox Games Showcase. "And it's going to be a nice lineup next year. I love the games that we've launched so far in [2025]. I think, as you already went through, we have a strong finish to 2025. And then when I look at [2026] and our 25th anniversary and the franchises that we're going to launch in that year, I think it's going to be a really special year for Xbox next year."

Gears of War: E-Day is one of the Xbox titles expected to arrive in 2026 alongside Fable and a new Forza game. Last fall, Microsoft shared ambitious plans for the Halo franchise, but it's unknown if a new title in the franchise will arrive in 2026. It's possible that another remake or remaster of the original Halo will be released next year.