Mortal Shell 2 features most of the familiar hallmarks of the souls-like genre: It's set in a dark fantasy world and incorporates gothic, medieval, and otherworldly themes into its aesthetic. Its combat is deep, challenging, satisfyingly hard-hitting, and will punish you for being overzealous. There are bonfires (called beacons) where you can rest and recover lost health at the expense of respawning enemies, and you also drop the level-up currency each time you die, forcing you to retrieve it in the next life or lose it completely. 

On the surface, Mortal Shell 2 might sound like your standard run-of-the-mill souls-like–quite possibly too derivative for its own good–yet developer Cold Symmetry's sequel is more than just a safe and simple copycat. It manages to stand out in an overcrowded genre by taking familiar aspects and transforming them in a multitude of meaningful ways. 

As someone who quickly bounced off the first game, I came into Mortal Shell 2 with no expectations and was left constantly thrilled by its unique approach, which essentially deconstructs core elements of the souls-like experience to make them feel fresh and exciting.

The most immediately obvious of these is the absence of a stamina meter. You're free to attack and dodge as many times as you want without needing to stop, catch your breath, and wait for a meter to replenish. This gives Mortal Shell 2's combat an aggressive cadence, whether you're on the attack or defending for your life. Rather than backing off after avoiding a flurry of enemy attacks, you can instantly launch into a barrage of offensive strikes yourself, or carve through weaker enemy mobs without gasping for air halfway through. 

This doesn't mean it's a mindless hack-and-slasher either. You can't cancel out of any attack animations, so each forward strike needs to be deliberate and considered to avoid overcommitting and leaving yourself wide open, especially when using slower weapons like the Great Martyr's Blade or Obsidian Hammer. 

The decision to forgo stamina makes a dynamic difference and is one of the most notable ways Mortal Shell 2 improves upon its predecessor's combat–which was often marred by gratingly sluggish battles. It's still not particularly fast-paced by any stretch, but the combat animations are much snappier without losing a sense of weight and visceral brutality.

The minutiae of stabbing, slicing, and bashing enemies to death with various melee weapons can best be described as "meaty," creating a satisfying crunch as you cleave through flesh and lop off heads, limbs, and non-human body parts amidst a torrent of crimson rain. It's great stuff, bolstered by a diverse variety of weapons and enemy types. From a large scythe and rangy spear to dual katanas that transform into an axe, each weapon type feels distinct, and there's plenty of joy to be found alternating between light and heavy attacks to fluidly launch into different combos. 

I only wish it were feasible to experiment with more weapons as your growing arsenal gradually expands. By the midway point in the game, I was drowning in upgrade materials but only ever had enough money to fully upgrade a single weapon. It would've been nice to use some of the others beyond just testing them out, but trading a weapon with multiple upgrades for one without any made no sense when I was never going to be able to improve it as much.

You're also equipped with a sidearm, starting out with a short-range shotgun before moving on to more experimental armaments, such as a miniature Gatling gun and a lute that causes enemies to fight amongst themselves after a forceful strum. Each shot costs Resolve, which is replenished by connecting with melee attacks, so sidearms are an intrinsic part of combat, adding to its dynamism with another gratifying way to dismantle enemies. 

Meanwhile, the enemies you'll face come in all shapes and sizes. There are armored knights–wielding either a sword or spear–fleet-footed assassins, religious fanatics, large bearded human skulls that scuttle around on four legs, insect-like creatures with deadly pincers, rock-throwing giants, and everything else in between. 

This variety does plateau a tad during the game's second half, as it introduces more variants of familiar enemies rather than entirely new ones, but there are so many different opponents to fight that repetition rarely rears its ugly head. They're not just visually distinct, either. Each enemy type is meaningfully diverse in how they approach you, typically mixing things up with multiple attack patterns and feints to throw you off. 

While you can always dodge incoming strikes, Mortal Shell 2 also gives you access to a few unique defensive maneuvers to suit different playstyles. The Harden mechanic from the first game returns–letting you calcify to absorb an enemy attack–only now it's tied to a specific Seal. Seals are new items in Mortal Shell 2; you can only equip one at a time, and each one contains what would normally be a standard souls-like mechanic.

Blocking, for instance, is tied to a Seal that also lets you parry, dealing break damage to eventually make them vulnerable to a powerful riposte. Another Seal removes the ability to block but tightens the parry window, introducing greater risk for a greater reward by dishing out more break damage if your timing is perfect.             

This opens up the game's build variety, especially when combined with the titular Mortal Shells. Similar to the first game, you play as a faceless husk known as the Harbinger, a relatively weak entity that has the power to inhabit fallen warriors. There are eight Shells in total, and each one can be found at their character's final resting place, whether that's hunched over and impaled on a greatsword, hastily stuffed into a shallow grave, or displayed in a mausoleum beneath the Royal Keep. 

Every Shell adheres to a rigid character archetype with predetermined stats that can be upgraded but not changed. This might sound restrictive, but it allows for tangible differences in how each Shell plays–especially when factoring in their unique abilities–with variety coming from your choice of weapons, Seals, and Tarstones. 

I mostly played as Eredrim, a knight with the ability to lunge at enemies with a devastating shoulder bash that deals significant break damage. He also has a passive ability aptly named Executioner, allowing you to instantly execute enemies who are at low health. By performing ripostes, this ability also stacks, with each stack raising the low-health threshold at which enemies can be executed. If you like playing on the front foot, Eredrim is particularly satisfying to use, but the other Shells are no less interesting. 

Tiel is a thief who can turn invisible for a short duration, lunging out of the shadows to strike with a dagger. While any Shell can equip the relevant Seal to parry attacks, Tiel excels as a nimble character, with perfectly timed dodges turning you invisible and dealing stagger damage to the enemy. 

Sariel, on the other hand, fires parasitic thorns that hunt down nearby foes, nullifying their next melee attack while also inflicting Pain on Sariel himself. Pain affects your health bar, adding a grey portion that can be lost in a single hit or cured by dishing out melee damage. When Sariel has no Pain, a huge 50% of incoming damage becomes Pain. However, reaching the Pain limit lets you dodge faster, putting you in the role of a masochistic character who excels when it hurts the most.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHQXkfdhk7E

Tarstones add another layer to the development of your build, unlocking everything from specific buffs to powerful special attacks. They can be found by exploring the world, completing dungeons, and defeating bosses, so once I had discovered enough, I eventually geared mine towards dishing out as much melee damage as humanly possible. With each Tarstone fully maxed out and upgraded, I increased my critical damage by 100%, raised my critical chance probability to 18%, and was guaranteed a critical hit every five attacks. It's an incredibly flexible system, creating a greater discrepancy between the usual strength or dexterity options and ensuring that build variety remains at the forefront of the game's ethos.

With so many tools at your disposal, Mortal Shell 2 still manages to strike a decent balance with regard to its difficulty. For the most part, it's a challenging game, but one that hits the souls-like sweet spot where it rarely feels unfair. Deaths are typically your own fault, and there's always room to improve, both as a player and by upgrading your character. 

There are a couple of difficulty modifiers you can utilize as well, with a specific Seal making things easier at the cost of disabling Achievements, and another item that lets you increase the difficulty while also opening up a few areas that are otherwise locked. The fact that this isn't just a binary difficulty choice fits the genre, though disabling Achievements feels egregious, even if most of its contemporaries refuse to offer an easier alternative.

The game's default challenge comes saddled with a few caveats, too. While it mostly feels fair, falling to your death is too common for my tastes. The entire open-world map is suspended in the air, so there are numerous areas where you can slip off the map, particularly when a lot of attacks will knock you several feet backward. I can place some of the blame for this misfortune at my own feet, but there were still dozens of situations where toppling off the side of a cliff felt cheap and frustrating. Dying more to fall damage than the game's own bosses is a travesty.

This is partly due to the game's level design and partly because some of the bosses are overly simplistic in their attack patterns. It's a problem that afflicts mini-bosses more frequently than the game's headline foes, but it also doesn't help that the basic parry window is exceedingly generous. When you're fighting regular enemies, and typically dealing with more than one, this isn't much of an issue. It's just much more prominent when facing a mini-boss that's too predictable to be compelling.

Aside from the abundance of dangerous ledges, Mortal Shell 2's open world is a fascinating place to explore. It's not as expansive as something like Elden Ring's The Lands Between–you won't find any vast open fields, for instance–but it's densely packed. Each area feels like a dedicated level from a more linear game, except they're all interconnected with more than one way in and out. 

Its castles and murky swamps can feel a tad derivative, but there are typically more than a few visual flourishes that stand out in even the most familiar locales. There's an abbey where the colors are muted to the point of looking almost monochrome, yet the red leaves wrapping around its cold, stone walls create this striking burst of color. Elsewhere, you'll find unsettling human teeth carved into cave walls, monolithic structures that punctuate the horizon, and what was once a picturesque village now plagued by rabid cultists. Material rewards are available for those who deign to explore, but the sights themselves are often a reward of their own.

Mortal Shell 2 constantly surprised me, whether it was the mechanics behind a newly discovered Shell, the layered improvements to combat, a bulbous monstrosity of a boss fight that was more mouth than anything else, or the ways you can tinker with a build and make it wholly your own. It stumbles at times and could use some fine-tuning to really hone its balance issues, but even if it can be irritating or too simplistic at times, these moments are overshadowed by its unmistakable strengths.

2003's The Simpsons: Hit & Run is a cult-classic, GTA-inspired open-world game. Fans have been clamoring for a remake, remaster, sequel, or some kind of revival for years. It may finally actually be happening, as series creator Matt Groening offered a tantalizing tease at Disney's D23 event this weekend.

A fan in the audience said since Disney is producing a The Simpsons Movie sequel, might that also mean Hit & Run will get a follow-up? Groening, admitting he might be "speaking out of turn," teased, "I think the original game is coming back in some form."

This led to cheers from the audience. However, longtime series producer Matt Selman quickly chimed in with, "Or not."

The suggestion here is that Groening may indeed have spoken out of turn and shouldn't have said what he said. In any event, Selman agreed with fans that a new Hit & Run game "would certainly be a treat."

Also during the panel, Groening shared some history about an earlier The Simpsons game, 2001's Road Rage, saying he was told by higher-ups that calling a game "Road Rage" might lead to more road rage incidents in real life. After that game sold well and was received positively, no one had a problem with the Hit & Run title, Groening said.

Selman went on to say another issue that had to be sorted out was that Road Rage's concept was obviously inspired by Sega's Crazy Taxi series. Selman said an exchange of money fixed the problem.

"The lawyers of Crazy Taxi said, 'you can't rip off Crazy Taxi.' And, money changed hands," he said.

https://youtu.be/L0xCNt00gAE?si=D6sBvkR8ab1yGU24&t=1378

In March this year, Selman said he knows people love Hit & Run and the team has a "never say never" attitude about a possible revival of some sort.

He helped write the game, and admitted he had “no idea” it would become such an enduring success. In 2021, Selman told IGN that he would “love” to see a remaster of the game, but said such a project might be a challenge due to the “complicated corporate octopus.”

The original main cast of The Simpsons came back to voice their characters for Hit & Run, and it probably wouldn’t be cheap to have their voices either re-recorded or re-licensed for a potential remake/remaster project. And that’s just one consideration, as The Simpsons has different stakeholders and beneficiaries who would presumably need to sign off in some way. Another issue at play could be how Disney bought many of Fox’s entertainment assets, including The Simpsons, since Hit & Run was released.

The Simpsons: Hit & Run was developed by Radical Entertainment, a studio that closed in 2012. One of the studio’s founders, Ian Wilkinson, started a new company, New Radical Games, which offers services like work-for-hire and co-development for mobile and console projects. The studio’s website also states that it does porting and remastering.

The Simpsons: Hit & Run was originally released for PS2, GameCube, and Xbox, with a PC port following. Presumably, any new game would be released on modern platforms.

After Saber Interactive unveiled its upcoming title Rideshare Stimulater, former lead writer Stella Sacco came forward and said that she had been replaced by ChatGPT during development. Saber CEO Matthew Karch denied Sacco's allegation that she had been replaced by AI, but the company has now shared previously undisclosed details about Rideshare Stimulator's AI usage.

Rideshare Stimulator casts players as a driver who can pick up a seemingly infinite number of passengers and interact with them while getting them to their final destinations. According to the new disclosure on the game's Steam page, Rideshare Stimulator uses AI tools for "voice generation and some localization" and AI-generated passenger missions that can be skipped if players only want "human-written narrative content."

It also adds that the game will have radio stations with "human-made music and AI-generated music," with the latter being clearly labeled in-game. However, Saber flatly states that "the main campaign story, characters, and dialogue are written by a team of human writers."

Earlier this week, Sacco said that she was replaced as the game's lead writer by AI "midway through development."

https://bsky.app/profile/antlervel.vet/post/3mssv7pyows2l

"They took me off the project to use ChatGPT to write the rest of the text, including planned live updates," Sacco told PC Gamer in a subsequent statement. "If they changed plans in the intervening years, that's great. But again: I was there, and it was my job to write the game, and then it wasn't once Matt Karch decided using ChatGPT would be great publicity for the game."

Karch released a statement of his own with This Week in Videogames that added greater controversy to the story by claiming that Stella "violated" her agreement with the company.

"Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalized the feature set. Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready."

Karch added his belief that "our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower-priced title, [will be a plus] for consumers." So far, the game's potential players don't appear to share that sentiment. The discussions page on Steam has several comments calling out Saber for its AI use on this game.

Rideshare Stimulator will be released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. This game doesn't currently have a release date.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is set to receive its first major patch next week, one that will give players more control over the game's visuals as well as make improvements to Jackals and Sgt. Johnson.

As outlined by the Halo Support X account, a patch coming sometime next week will fix a few pain points for players of Halo Studios' remake. The update should make graphics purists happy, as it will add the ability to disable the game's very noticeable film grain and chromatic aberration. The patch will also include "additional stability improvements across multiple platforms."

On the gameplay front, Jackals are receiving some changes so that they can be staggered more reliably when targeting their hands and feet, as has always been the case in Halo. Sgt Johnson is being updated so that he no longer blocks mission progress. This sounds like it will mostly affect the three new prequel missions included as part of the remake, where Johnson occasionally needs to hack open doors before Master Chief can proceed. Marines and Flood Marines will also correctly fire their Assault Rifles with the Magnified Skull turned on.

https://twitter.com/HaloSupport/status/2087947309334012346?s=20

It remains to be seen if the patch will address other issues players have spotted since release, including unresponsive enemy AI and cutscenes that lock up and fail to play properly. Halo Studios states there will be more details in the full patch notes when the update is released. It's also worth noting that any mid-mission saved progress will be lost upon downloading the new update, though unlocked missions and rally points will remain.

The launch of Halo: Campaign Evolved may not have gone as well as Halo Studios would have liked, with reports indicating the game is off to a slow start on PlayStation 5 and has sold a combined total of 1.2 million copies across all platforms so far. 

According to one analyst, Halo: Campaign Evolved's greatest competition, particularly on PC, might be Halo itself. The franchise's compilation package, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, released over a decade ago and contains almost the entirety of the Halo franchise, including online multiplayer, and can be bought for $40 at the high end or much cheaper when on sale. When compared to Halo: Campaign Evolved, which only features the first game's campaign, no multiplayer, and retails for $50, it's not hard to see why some players decided this was a fight that didn't need finishing. 

Given the remake's performance, it's unclear what is coming next for the franchise, though Halo: Campaign Evolved does seemingly tease a Halo 2 remake.

Deborah Ann Woll plays Faye in the upcoming PS5 game God of War Laufey, and she had quite a memorable first day on set. At San Diego Comic-Con recently, she shared a story about how, on her very first day, she broke a famous prop from The Last of Us due to her strength and tenacity--only she didn't know the significance at the time. And now, footage of the event has arrived.

"Unbeknownst to me, this was a very famous prop that they had used on The Last of Us," she said, going on to joke that it was "some sort of sporting equipment." It was actually a golf club prop, and you probably know what that means...

"They gave it to me and I was supposed to use it like an axe. And I broke it," Woll said.

Game director Ariel Lawrence added, "She swung it so hard, it cracked. And it echoed throughout the volume. And we were like, 'Hot damn, let's go.'"

https://twitter.com/SonySantaMonica/status/2088280064974635337

God of War: Laufey is in the works now for PS5, and it's arriving in February 2027. Starring alongside Woll is The Boys actor Jack Quaid, who plays a gelatinous cube named Phranque.

A new Kratos-led game is coming after that, and it will pick up where Laufey left off.

US Senators Josh Hawley and Dick Durbin have announced that Roblox will be the subject of a congressional investigation amid claims that the gaming platform is a threat to child safety.

"You trumpet Roblox as a safe digital playground for children as young as five," the pair wrote in an open letter. "But the public record raises serious questions about this promise of safety. Over the past decade, police have arrested numerous individuals for committing serious acts of violence and harm against children they met via Roblox, including grooming, sexual abuse, kidnapping, rape, and even murder. Roblox is being used to trade child sexual abuse material, participate in sexually explicit--and often violent--virtual 'experiences' with children, bribe and extort children into producing explicit content, and lure children into in-person meetings. It is heartbreaking."

"Roblox appears to prioritize revenue and engagement metrics over the safety and well-being of our children, and the alleged criminal activity on Roblox warrants congressional scrutiny. Let us be clear: children on your platform are hurting. Congress will not look the other way."

Roblox

Hawley (a Republican from Missouri) and Durbin (a Democrat from Illinois) added that Roblox reported 65,381 instances of suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2025, more than doubling what it reported in 2024. Headed by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, Roblox Corporation has been instructed to preserve its records and turn over certain documents by August 31.

The investigation will also require Roblox CEO David Baszucki to provide evidence as to how Roblox will better police itself.

"Roblox is built on the foundation of safety. We do not compromise on that commitment," Roblox’s chief safety officer Matt Kaufman said in a statement (via Politico). "We look forward to sharing the facts about how we protect children on the platform."

Roblox has been the subject of significant scrutiny recently. Australian lawmakers have it in their crosshairs over reports of grooming and sexual content, Florida’s Attorney General has described it as a breeding ground for predators, and the Attorney General of Texas sued The Roblox Corporation over child-exploitation accusations.

Earlier this year, Roblox Corporation agreed to pay more than $12 million to the state of Nevada as part of a move to create a safer environment for its young users, but other regions, such as the United Kingdom, have suggested drastic solutions to protect children online.

Activision has announced that the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta will have more than just multiplayer content. The MW4 beta will also include access to the campaign mission, Entrenched, along with the upcoming Warzone mode, Resurgence Zodiac.

Activision will show off some of this content during the Call of Duty: Next event on August 21. As announced previously, the beta begins with an early access period August 21-25 for people who preorder, before opening up to everyone to try August 28-September 1. The early-access beta will not be available on Switch 2, as preorders for the Switch 2 version don't begin until August 28.

The MW4 beta approaches.

Activision also revealed all the maps, modes, and content in the beta. You can find the full details in GameSpot's rundown of the MW4 beta.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 releases on October 23 for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2, and preordering grants access to the campaign a week before launch. The game coming to Switch 2 is notable since the franchise hasn't appeared on a Nintendo platform since 2013's Call of Duty: Ghosts.

MW4 is also the first entry since Ghosts in 2013 to skip PS4 and Xbox One. Infinity Ward is leading development on the game, which comes after back-to-back Black Ops releases, the latter of which, 2025's Black Ops 7, had the worst sales ranking in the US since 2008.

Also noteworthy for Modern Warfare 4 is that it will not launch directly into Xbox Game Pass, as both Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 did.

Disney has outlined just how powerful and important video games are to the company's future. In a blog post ahead of D23--where Kingdom Hearts news is expected--the company's gaming boss, Sean Shoptaw, revealed that games are now a "fundamental part of the broader entertainment landscape."

He said Disney has reaped the rewards, with nine of its gaming franchises grossing more than $1 billion at retail so far. "So, it’s about telling truly original stories that really are unique to this medium, specifically," he said.

Some of these include Kingdom Hearts and Marvel Strike Force. Shoptaw added that more than half of the nine franchises have only appeared in the past 12 years. Disney runs multiple game outfits, including Disney Pixar Games, Marvel Games, Lucasfilm Games, and 20th Century Games, just to name a few, all of which live under the broader Disney Games banner.

Disney Games has reached about $3.5 billion in consumer spend annually for the past four years, exceeding $4 billion in the past fiscal year alone. Shoptaw said this helps hammer home how gaming will be a "key part of Disney's storytelling strategy in the present and the future."

He added that Disney isn't necessarily all that interested in doing things like movie tie-ins, which were popular in the '90s and early 2000s. Instead, he said Disney wants to create original games that tell new stories, with Shoptaw citing Marvel's Wolverine as a prime example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0llQ8tuYRU

One of Disney's biggest bets in gaming in recent years has been through its partnership with Epic Games and Fortnite. Disney has invested more than $1.5 billion into Epic Games, and Shoptaw said its partnership is a "really important one."

“Our partnership with Epic is a really important one,” Shoptaw said. “What Epic has built with Fortnite has really created one of the most important social entertainment platforms in the world, and certainly for us, we see a ton of opportunity to bring our great characters, stories, and worlds into that universe and build something truly unique to Disney.”

"Our ambition is to create something truly transformational. A space that people can come play, watch, and create, and a space that we bring all of Disney together in one connected universe."

Disney has brought many of its franchises to Fortnite already, and its Simpsons collaboration was particularly successful. Looking ahead, Disney is planning even more in Fortnite, reportedly including an Arc Raiders-style game.

Disney's new CEO, Josh D'Amaro, is a big believer in games and has suggested gaming could be Disney's next big growth-driver, after the company's stock price has been flat over the past decade. Some have theorized that Disney could buy Epic and Fortnite to help grow the business, but nothing has materialized as of yet.

Disney was, at one point in history, a developer of games itself with its Disney Interactive Studios label. This unit of the entertainment giant produced a number of games over the years, including the Disney Infinity "toys-to-life" series. However, Disney shuttered Disney Interactive Studios and now focuses more on licensing. Former CEO Bob Iger spoke candidly about Disney’s struggles making and publishing games internally, admitting, “We haven’t been particularly good…”

High on Life is coming to a new platform, as the irreverent first-person shooter with talking alien guns is getting a VR port. Announced during the VR Games Showcase, this new version of High on Life will launch for Meta Quest, PlayStation VR2, and SteamVR headsets in 2027.

Originally developed by Squanch Games, the VR port of High on Life is being handled by Flat2VR Studios. The developer says that it is essentially rebuilding the game so that it can take advantage of VR tech, allowing players to interact with their talking--and opinionated--guns. The trailer below shows off some of these new features, like being able to stroke your weapons and feed them, and we bet they'll have something to say about that.

"As we're adding all of these fun, manual VR interactions, it's really important that they make sense in gameplay and that they're maintaining the fast, fluid, and powerful feeling of combat," High on Life VR game director Emily O'Neil said in the reveal trailer.

https://youtu.be/EQziBgQgrJI

First released in 2022, High on Life saw players take on an alien cartel that invaded Earth and turned the populace into recreational drugs. As an up-and-coming bounty hunter armed with Gatliens--sentient guns that could be used to solve all kinds of problems--the game was a hit thanks to its weird sense of humor, fun gameplay, and an extremely Australian knife hellbent on stabbing everything. A sequel was released earlier this year, but reviews were lukewarm, thanks in part to various technical issues that hampered its launch.

VR fans can also look forward to a port of System Shock from Flat2VR Studios. Not much was revealed about this project, but the teaser trailer suggested that the VR version will be based on the superb 2023 remake of the cult-classic 1994 game.

Christian Allen, who was on the leadership team at Warner Bros. Games when 2011's The Lord of the Rings: War in the North came out, has commented on the recent re-release, saying he's happy the game is coming back because it didn't get a "fair shake" upon its original release. Why's that? He said he "argued vociferously" not to release it at the same time as Bethesda's iconic RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

"15 years ago I argued vociferously not to release this up against Skyrim, as it wouldn't get a fair shake. I got overruled," he said (via VGC). "Nice to see it get a proper release."

War in the North is back.

War in the North was originally released on November 1, 2011--just 10 days later, Bethesda released Skyrim. In addition to launching around the same time as Skyrim, War in the North launched on the same day as Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception and a week before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Allen did not work directly on War in the North in a development capacity, but he was on the studio leadership team. He said the developers at Snowblind, which has since shuttered, "deserve all the credit." He said when War in the North was originally released in 2011, it got "lost in the wash," while "every review just compared it to Skyrim (as I predicted they would)."

Allen went on to say War in the North had "hardly any marketing." He theorized that the executives either "wrote it off or thought hardcore Lord of the Rings fans would just know about it, somehow."

While not discussing War in the North's release date specifically, Allen theorized that higher-ups at publicly traded companies may be discouraged from shifting release dates because of how such changes could affect bonuses.

"Quarterly revenue motivations drive more decisions than people realize. It's a big challenge with stock-price driven organizations," he said. "Must be hard to be an exec and go 'Well, this game will do better if we hold it until March, but my bonus will take a 50% hit,'" he said.

Aspyr Media licensed War in the North from WB and re-released the game this week in the Legacy Edition. The publisher is planning to re-release more Lord of the Rings games in the future.

After spending time in the US military, Allen joined Red Storm Entertainment in 2002, where he became the creative director and design director for the Ghost Recon games. He then moved to Bungie, where he was the design lead on Halo: Reach. In 2009, he joined WB Games as design director. He later started his own company, Serellan, before joining Epic Games to become its lead Unreal Engine evangelist. He's now the design director at Project Zomboid developer The Indie Store.

2K Games has announced the formation of Small Axe Studios, a new developer that it says will be focused on building a new "blockbuster" sports franchise. While the publisher--which is owned by Take-Two Interactive--has commented which sport will be joining its other franchises, it looks like 2K might be taking on EA's annual soccer series, EA Sports FC.

Currently, Small Axe Studios includes several former EA developers, with Aaron McHardy as studio head. McHardy had previously been in charge of EA's FIFA franchise for 15 years, and other notable names include Gary Peterson as Small Axe's head of design, Tom Pan as head of operations, technical art director John Cruz, and engineering lead Mike Thompson--all EA veterans.

Small Axe Studios logo

Another clue that 2K Games will be making its own soccer game is the Small Axe logo, which resembles a soccer club badge on a shirt. While EA has dominated the soccer genre on console and PC--forging its own path forward after it split with FIFA in 2023 and transitioned to EA Sports FC. There hasn't been a new AAA FIFA game since then, but the international soccer body has kept the brand active with mobile games and a World Cup game on Netflix.

Now is also a good time to strike while the proverbial iron is hot, as following the recent FIFA World Cup, soccer got a huge visibility boost as record numbers of people tuned in to watch the tournament.

Small Axe Studios joins a roster of game studios at 2K that focus on specific sports and have proven to be very popular over the years. NBA 2K, PGA Tour 2K, and WWE 2K have all been big hits for Take-Two Interactive, drawing in revenue not just from launch sales but from various microtransactions as well. Both Take-Two Interactive and EA have been criticized for how aggressively they monetize their games, with fans accusing them of pushing pay-to-win mechanics.

Earlier this summer, Netflix-owned developer Night School released Unhinged, a horror game that was playable on televisions/screens through the streaming app. Unhinged was met with acclaim by players, and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters recently called Unhinged one of "our two most successful cloud game debuts" during an investor call. Regardless, Night School has been shuttered by Netflix's latest round of cuts.

As reported by Game File, Night School and Moonloot are the latest gaming developers to be closed down by Netflix. According to the outlet, Netflix justified the closures by noting that the streamer is narrowing its focus to games for kids, party games, story-driven titles, or "games with mainstream hooks."

"We see an opportunity to be more focused in our execution, so we are making organizational changes to the business to match those priorities," said Netflix in a statement to Game File. "Games continue to be an opportunity for us to expand the variety of entertainment we offer Netflix members."

This isn't the first time that Netflix has made gaming cuts at one of its developers after praising its work. Earlier this month, Netflix laid off 85% of the staff of Refactor Games, the developer behind a FIFA World Cup title that Netflix identified as the other most-successful cloud game debut alongside Unhinged.

In July, Netflix boasted that its gaming engagement had gone up 600% from the previous year. While Netflix has previously shared its ambition for a larger stake in the gaming world, the company was notably uninterested in purchasing Warner Bros.' gaming assets before the proposed sale fell through and Paramount emerged as the winning suitor. Another report indicated that Netflix considered buying EA, one of the largest third-party gaming publishers. EA was later sold to a group that includes Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and taken private.

Pedro Pascal plays Joel in HBO's popular The Last of Us, based on the Naughty Dog game, and he has been praised for his performance. However, he wasn't the only actor in the mix for the role.

Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey revealed more details on the Happy Sad Confused podcast about why he didn't star on the show. The Last of Us "was really good but it wasn't for me at the time," the actor said.

He added that signing on to The Last of Us would have also meant committing himself to the project for potentially years on end. "In success, this is something you'll be doing for years and years and years," he said. At the time he was circling The Last of Us, McConaughey said he "wasn't really acting" and was focusing more on writing and leadership roles in filmmaking.

It would have been a reunion for McConaughey and HBO, as he previously starred on True Detective. That is an anthology series, and McConaughey appeared in the first season only, alongside Woody Harrelson.

https://youtu.be/peXOgVAUm40?si=iOBaVWIfRAm1mX3X&t=2364

Before this, The Last of Us showrunner and writer Craig Mazin said he had talked to McConaughey about playing Joel, but it was more of, "Hey, here's something we can talk about" as opposed to a definite thing was that happening.

"Look, Matthew McConaughey is an amazing actor. I’m sure it would’ve been great, but it would’ve been different and I like the one that we made," Mazin said.

The Last of Us Season 1 was released in January 2023 and it was a huge hit. Season 2 followed in 2025, and a third season is now coming in 2027. In addition to Pascal as Joel, the series stars Bella Ramsey as Ellie and Kaitlyn Dever as Abby.

As for the game series, it's rumored that Naughty Dog is working on The Last of Us: Part III, but this is not confirmed. What we do know is that Naughty Dog is making a new game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, though we have not seen it in some time.

Remakes and remasters are popular, but Benson Russell, a designer on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune at Naughty Dog, has said he's not interested in a new one for the 2007 game.

Speaking to FRVR, Russell said he's not against the idea of remakes and remasters generally, but he said Uncharted is "still in the zeitgeist" and available on modern platforms. "What's the point of remastering [or remaking] it?" he said.

Instead of a remake or a remaster, Russell said a better idea might be to do what fans have been clamoring for: make a new one. “Take the lessons of Uncharted 4 and make a new game ..." he said.

Russell went on to say a remake or remaster of the original Uncharted could feel "more like a cash grab" than something that people was thought was "necessary" to bring it up to modern standards. He would like to see Naughty Dog "take the spirit" of the franchise and make a new game.

Bloomberg previously reported that Sony considered remaking or remastering Uncharted, but decided against it because it would be "expensive and require too much added design work."

While Uncharted never got a remake or remaster, Naughty Dog's The Last of Us and The Last of Us 2 both had remastered versions. As for a new Uncharted game, a new entry in the series was reportedly planned some years ago and fans now believe Naughty Dog is teasing a new game.

The original Uncharted game is playable today on PS5 and PS4 via Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection--this also includes Uncharted 2 and 3. These include updated, remastered versions of those three games.

A lot of people embrace and enjoy remakes, while others say developers should instead spend more time and resources on entirely new games. Gaming legend Shigeru Miyamoto, for his part, defended remakes and remasters, saying they are good for a number of reasons, including to help younger generations experience games they might have missed. Additionally, money from remakes and remasters can fund future games, he said.

Wardogs, an upcoming large-scale, hardcore FPS inspired by games like Arma, is taking a unique approach with its marketing by listing 10 reasons why prospective players shouldn't buy it.

In an official video, developer Bulkhead revealed September 10 as Wardogs' Steam early access release date, but also laid the rest of its cards on the table. Point by point, it outlined all the main reasons why potential players might not want to take a chance on the shooter, ranging from its lack of content, high early-access price, visual fidelity, and even the failure of Bulkhead's previous shooter, Battalion: 1944. 

"Before the hype train gets out of control, we want to do something most AAA marketing teams would tell their dev teams to never do--give you 10 legitimate reasons why you should not buy Wardogs," Bulkhead said in the video.

Those reasons are as follows:

1. Lack of early-access content
2. Early-access pricing
3. Player count will decline
4. Monetization
5. Performance and visuals
6. Shifting early-access priorities
7. Battalion: 1944
8. VOIP
9. Controller support
10. Decisions and consequences

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugkuP4a3xk4

Some of those reasons are fairly self explanatory, like lack of content during the early-access period and its price. Wardogs will initially cost $40 in early access, a steep price for some. The price will go up over the course of development and will eventually sell for $60 at the end of early access.

"If the price sounds too high for an early-access game, please don't buy it yet," Bulkhead said.

Other reasons require a bit more explanation. Decisions and consequences refers to Wardog's more milsim-style gameplay, where death requires a long trek back to the frontlines and rebuying lost equipment. 

"If you're running in like you're playing Call of Duty or Battlefield, you will likely die to someone playing more cautiously," Bulkhead said. "If you're not willing to learn from those deaths, you're going to have a bad time."  

While Wardogs doesn't yet have any monetization like a battle pass or paid skins, there will eventually be some way for Bulkhead to make more money and continue funding the game's development. However, that will likely be years from now, as Bulkhead said it won't monetize the game during early access. Additionally, Bulkhead won't sell weapon camos or in-game currency, with players needing to earn them through play.

"It might seem strange to be talking about monetization years down the line, but we want you to be able to buy in knowing what you're buying into long term," Bulkhead said.

One of the most hard-hitting reasons is Bulkhead's track record. The team previously released Battalion: 1944, a 5v5 Call of Duty-inspired shooter that died almost immediately on release, having only ever reached between 50-200 concurrent players, Bulkhead said. The studio eventually saved enough funds from work-for-hire projects to stay afloat, offered refunds to players, and refunded Battalion: 1944's Kickstarter backers, but it understands why some players may be hesitant.

"It's these lessons and scars from Battalion that Wardogs has been built upon," Bulkhead said. "It's why we've been so cautious with our playtesting and why we've been so open with our marketing. To be really clear, we wouldn't have Wardogs without Battalion's failure, but if you still don't trust our studio because of Battalion: 1944, don't rush to buy Wardogs."

So far, Bulkhead's list of reasons don't seem to be slowing down Wardogs' sales. It's currently climbing up Steam top-seller charts.

A week has passed since Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls launched for PC and PS5, and the new fighting game is off to a solid start. According to new estimates by Alinea Analytics, the game has reportedly sold 485,000 units as of August 12, with PS5 being the dominant platform.

As outlined by Alinea Analytics’ head of market analysis, Rhys Elliott, the PS5 accounted for 74% of sales, and Steam 26%. That's not too surprising, as the game experienced technical issues on PC. Developer Arc System Works released a patch for Marvel Tokon earlier this week, aiming to address multiple performance issues on PC.

Those sales account for an estimated $33 million in revenue, and Elliott also noted that only 15.1% of the units sold on PS5 were physical copies, which is surprisingly low for a new PlayStation game. Further analysis showed that Marvel Tokon attracted a crowd of hardcore fighting game fans, as 52% of people had previously played Arc's Dragon Ball FighterZ, 39% had played Street Fighter 6, and 41% had played Mortal Kombat 1.

Image credit: Alinea Analytics

Marvel fans also helped drive sales, as there's a strong crossover here with people who had previously played games like Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man titles and NetEase's Marvel Rivals. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day doing blockbuster numbers at cinemas, it's not too hard to imagine having Spider-Man in a new fighting game would also attarct potential customers--or boost sales, like in the case of Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Being close to 500,000 sales might not sound that impressive, but as Elliott explained, fighting games are still a niche genre. What they do have going for them are passionate fanbases, giving these games long legs over time.

To give you an idea, Street Fighter 6 has cleared 7 million lifetime sales as of June 30, 2026. The game first launched in 2023 and is easily the fighting game of the current generation, so Marvel Tokon has its work cut out for it if it wants to dethrones Capcom popular brawler.

The brand recognition of Marvel certainly helps, and the developers of Marvel Tokon have an ambitious goal to keep this 4v4 fighting game in the spotlight for the next decade.

"Marvel heroes and villains are once again beating each other up in tag-based battles, and I am loving the experience of jumping in and figuring out new strategies," Jason Fanelli wrote in GameSpot's Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls review. "Rather than lean on old tropes, Arc System Works elected to put its own spin on the idea, and what they've cooked up sets a new bar for future tag fighters. Once the technical issues for PC are ironed out, there's a bright future ahead. With Marvel Tokon, Arc System Works has created the next foundational title for modern fighting games."

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Roster – Every Character Revealed (So Far) View Images

For many fighting game fans, It's impossible to look at Marvel Tokon and not think of Marvel Vs. Capcom. 

The crossover series defined the crossover tag genre, from X-Men Vs. Street Fighter in 1996 to Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 in 2011. For some who didn't read comics as a kid, myself included, these games were the introduction to the X-Men, Avengers, and other Marvel faces that fought alongside Capcom's top characters.

With MvC dormant outside of a recent collection, Arc System Works has swooped in with Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, its own take on the Marvel tag fighter idea. The result is a wonderful fighting system and flashy new look that quickly establishes its own identity, one that is worthy of standing with the giants of the past--although the PC version isn't as super as the heroes in the game.

Fantastic four

Marvel Tokon's four-on-four gameplay is its most radical change to the tag format, but not for the reasons I first expected. Previous experience would suggest that each player would choose four fighters, each with their own life bar, and the first player to knock out all four of the opposing player's team members would win. That's not how Tokon works; instead, each of the four heroes shares a single life bar, and the first player to win three-out-of-five rounds takes the match. 

This is a fundamental and ingenious shift in how the player interacts with their team; one player could choose to keep their best fighter on point and select their assisting heroes to fit that fighter's style, or they could decide to learn four characters and incorporate tags into their strategy. It allows newer fighting game players to ease into the tag format, while entrenched players can immediately lean into the more advanced elements of the system. For a genre that sometimes struggles to find the balance in catering to new and veteran players alike, Arc System Works nailed it with Tokon's fighting scheme.

Marvel Tokon

Both approaches are impacted by another interesting design choice. Though you choose four fighters before a match, you only start the match with two active: a point character and one assist character. The other two assists have to be unlocked during the match, either by initiating a wall break (a move which slams an opponent into the boundary, "breaking" it and sending the character to another arena) and "assembling" your fighters in other parts of the stage, or by losing a round and gaining a hero as the next round begins. 

While "not having access to all selected fighters" sounds like it could be detrimental to the experience, Tokon once again exceeds my expectations. Limiting heroes is a form of balancing each match; Round 3 could start with one player up 2-0 with only two characters and the other down 0-2 with a full team. Giving the 0-2 player access to all four assists allows them to be more versatile in their approach and perhaps stage a comeback. However, in doing so, that player with the early lead slowly assembles their team, and if the match becomes 2-2, it's a full-strength slugfest in the final round. Every match is different, yet equally thrilling; I am astounded at what Arc was able to do here. 

Controlling each fighter is simplified too, as executing special moves adapts the Super Smash Bros. "button press and directional input" approach. There are some more advanced inputs for those who care to learn them, but the first time you pick up a controller, two buttons will let you perform a unique move. 

Assists work the same way, but by holding L2 when the assist emerges, you can switch to that character immediately and continue the combo. I feel like the words "easy to learn, hard to master" were plastered all over Arc System Works's Yokohama office, because that's the prevailing sense I get from every aspect of Tokon's approach, and it's tremendously successful at it. 

Choose your fighter

The initial roster features 20 characters, which is small by tag fighter standards--Ultimate Marvel 3, for example, had 50 playable fighters out of the box--but it's a number that further contributes to that aforementioned balance. New players have a more manageable pool of character matchups to learn, while veteran players can find their favorites more quickly and move on to honing their skills. 

The roster is a mix of expected fan favorites and few interesting pulls, though I would say very few of the selections are truly unexpected. Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Magneto, and Doctor Doom are all here, while Carnage, Star-Lord, Blade, and Loki make their Marvel fighting game debut. The most obscure pull, if I had to choose, is Danger--I didn't even know the X-Men's training facility became sentient, so Marvel fighting games continue to introduce me to new characters. 

Deadpool deserves a paragraph all to himself. While his inclusion is not a surprise due to his massive popularity, the way Arc System Works has incorporated his fourth-wall-breaking nature is a master class. The character is a tribute to fighting game history in character form, and every match has me pointing at the screen like a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood meme. Some of the references are obvious--yes, that's Scorpion's spear from Mortal Kombat, everyone knows that--but I was amazed at just how deep the well of references goes. I doubt many newer players know what Kaiser Knuckle is, but if they see that one Deadpool pose and look it up, then mission accomplished, Arc System Works. 

My personal favorite characters are Peni Parker, as I really enjoy her ability to fill the arena with drones as a distraction before moving in for big damage, and Ms. Marvel, whose Dhalsim-like stretchy appendages mean that my opponent is never truly safe anywhere on the screen. Black Panther (the Shuri version this time; sorry, T'Challa) has also proven to be fun, but the one fighter I can't figure out is Green Goblin; I know the glider is a big part of his approach, but I haven't yet unlocked the best ways to do that. I suspect I'll learn the hard way from some player online soon enough. 

Rules of battle

Tokon offers a lot of ways to play, in both single-player and online multiplayer, and while mode selection at first seems a bit limited, Arc System Works once again avoids a regular fighting game pitfall by packing these modes with enough activities that they don't feel shallow. Episodes mode tells five different stories, one for each of the four teams featured in Tokon's trailers, and each one animated by a different artist. I didn't need more than an hour to complete each one, and they tell the overarching story of Tokon in fun ways. 

The other main single-player offering is All-Star Arena, which is split into two sections: Arena and Survival. Arena is the closest Tokon gets to offering a traditional "arcade" experience: You'll choose a team, choose a path, and then battle against random teams before getting to the end of your chosen path. Survival is a gauntlet of up to 100 battles, with health regeneration between each match and superpowered "boss" fighters at certain milestones. Both of these are fine ways to hone your skills against CPU teams of varying difficulty, but there isn't anything here that reinvents the wheel. 

Marvel Tokon

Arcadia Rumble takes a different approach, as it mixes standard matches with a small arena-style challenge where players roam around a small area, collecting items to earn points and power up their characters for normal battles, and whoever has the most points wins. It's enjoyable enough in small bursts, and it makes for a cool party-style experience when a group wants something different from the ordinary online experience, but it didn't grab me as much as I'd hoped. I'd rather skip right to the fighting; the item-searching part just feels extraneous. 

The online experience also checks the usual boxes, with ranked matches, casual matches, and custom private lobbies all on offer. There's also an Open Lobby, where you explore a chibi-style version of Tokon's world with customizable avatars and arcade machines where you challenge other players. Exploring the open lobby is neat, as there are some little minigames to find outside of the normal Tokon matches, but the real thrill is matching up with another player and throwing down on one of the open arcade machines. Technically, all of the machines could fill up, but I have yet to see that myself. 

I played a handful of matches in each offering, joining up with some friends in a custom room, challenged random players in ranked and casual matches, and explored the Open Lobby. Online connections were strong thanks to the rollback netcode under the hood, and I rarely saw any technical hiccups at all while playing on PlayStation 5. 

It's here where the PC version of Tokon must be mentioned, as its launch has been, to put it lightly, disastrous. Connection issues, choppy play both online and offline, and other issues have plagued PC players since the game's launch, and while patches have been released that are beginning to alleviate the issues, the troubles they experienced cannot be discounted. As mentioned, I reviewed the game on PS5, so I did not experience those problems for myself, but until those issues are fully resolved, PC players will continue to have a much different experience than I did. If Arc System Works can turn it around, the wait will have been worth it. 

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls feels like a homecoming. Marvel heroes and villains are once again beating each other up in tag-based battles, and I am loving the experience of jumping in and figuring out new strategies. Rather than lean on old tropes, Arc System Works elected to put its own spin on the idea, and what they've cooked up sets a new bar for future tag fighters. Once the technical issues for PC are ironed out, there's a bright future ahead. With Marvel Tokon, Arc System Works has created the next foundational title for modern fighting games.

Look, it's no surprise to anyone for me to admit that I like South of Midnight. I've written about it being a love letter to the American Deep South, noted how it was one of the best Xbox games of 2025, and talked about how much the game's story, characters, and setting have meant to me on video podcasts for both GameSpot and IGN. I want everyone to play this game, and there's never been a better time to do so on Steam.

As noticed by Respec, Xbox is no longer listed as the publisher for South of Midnight on Steam. Instead, the game is noted as being self-published by Compulsion Games, reflecting the studio's independence following another round of severe layoffs and restructuring from Xbox.

While Compulsion Games hasn't confirmed whether this is the case--who knows what type of strange and awful backroom clauses might be in place to ensure Xbox keeps getting a slice of this particular pie--this does seem to indicate that all future sales of South of Midnight on Steam will benefit Compulsion, not Compulsion and Xbox. 

So if you want to play South of Midnight, but you were concerned about continuing to line Xbox's pockets, this seems like the golden opportunity to finally give the action-adventure platformer a go.

And you should play it! The game is so good! South of Midnight's selling point is certainly its atmosphere. The sound design and orchestral score are tied into the gameplay and story to put you right into the midst of its gothic fantasy, transforming the trauma of a resilient and multifaceted culture into the backbone of one of the most affecting video games I've ever played. Its combat and platforming aren't exactly wow-worthy, leaning on tried-and-true PlayStation 2-era mechanics without pushing them forward in any meaningful way, but those shortcomings are overshadowed by memorable characters, catchy tunes, and incredible visuals.

Like I said in my South of Midnight review, "Compulsion Games hasn’t made a direct sequel to any of its games yet, but it needs to make an exception here." South of Midnight is just that great. Compulsion Games has a real winner here, and you should support the studio by buying and playing South of Midnight, and then joining me in celebrating this gaming accomplishment.

Unlike its work on the Spider-Man games, Insomniac won't be throwing players into an open-world environment with Marvel's Wolverine. It's an old-school single-player game that focuses on pushing the story from Point A to Point B, but that doesn't mean that you can't take a detour or two. This will allow players to spend some extra time with Logan, as Insomniac says that players can hunt down resources for new suits and take part in combat trials that'll test their skills.

"It is a story-driven adventure," senior project director Jess Reiner-Reed said to IGN. "Logan is pulled through uncovering these mysteries of his past. But you can go off the beaten path."

Logan is known for enjoying his hard liquor, and as you'd expect, you can grab bottles of whiskey hidden away in stages. Collecting these will help Wolverine power up, while material crates hold raw materials that can be used to acquire new suits--similar to Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Fun fact: Logan's healing factor allows him to knock back an incredible amount of alcohol and not stay drunk, due to his regenerative abilities burning through those toxins almost instantly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i247qa_YL_A&pp=0gcJCfkLAYcqIYzv

The other activity, Nightmare Doors, will take players into Logan's psyche. Described as "manifestations of the horrible things" in his head, each Nightmare Door offers its own unique trials for Logan to overcome, and again, this sounds vaguely similar to the Mysterio challenges in Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Finally, players who roll credits on Marvel's Wolverine can replay the game in New Game Plus, bringing their entire loadout and progression with them.

Insomniac says that "some fun things" happen here, and there'll be sections that are either more challenging or allow Logan to really cut loose with all of his upgrades. "It’s undeniable that Insomniac’s take on Logan is firmly planted in familiar game design, but Wolverine is clearly doing more than just fitting a typical story of the character in it," managing editor Tamoor Hussain wrote in GameSpot's Wolverine preview.

The game launches soon for PS5, on September 15. To celebrate the release, Sony has also announced a limited-edition Marvel's Wolverine PS5 bundle, console covers, and a new DualSense controller inspired by the game.

Every Upcoming Superhero Game To Look Out For In 2026 And Beyond View Images

GTA 6 preorders began in late June, and, as expected, there was enormous demand for the game. Take-Two said GTA 6 had unprecedented preorder numbers, but the company is not disclosing a specific figure to avoid misleading investors. Sensor Tower, a research and analytics company for gaming, is, however, estimating where they may land.

Karl Kontus, the SVP and GM of video game insights at Sensor Tower, told GI.biz that preorders for GTA 6 could be in the area of 25 million when the game releases, which would amount to "unprecedented preorder performance."

Kontus said 25 million preorders would work out to around $2 billion in revenue. That would cover GTA 6's development cost and the majority of marketing spend, he estimated. To be sure, Rockstar has not disclosed a production or marketing budget for GTA 6, but the game was no doubt very costly to produce.

The analyst pointed out that GTA 6's proper marketing campaign has not begun yet--fans can expect it to kick off with the August 27 trailer on Netflix. Kontus said the majority of preorders for GTA 6 will come in the last week or so before launch.

Kontus went on to say that while early preorder data may skew toward the game's $100 edition, as Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick recently said, the final figures may be closer to 50/50 between the $80 and $100 editions.

The analyst also discussed how Take-Two and Rockstar were smart to pack the $100 Ultimate Edition with a lot of exclusive items to encourage people to spend more.

"Sometimes the premium SKUs are just filler content to justify a higher price, but the GTA 6 premium SKU comes with a meaningful amount of vehicles, weapons, and even a custom mod shop that you wouldn't get otherwise," Kontus said. "For a lot of people, this is the one 'must-buy' game this year, and they will want to make the most of it. I'm actually kind of surprised they didn't do a $150 SKU – feels like money left on the table (but also fewer players being angry as a result)."

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It’s expected to be 2026’s biggest game, and it could get another jolt when the next evolution of GTA Online launches.