Stadia might be dead, but Google isn't giving up on gaming. The company has rolled out Playground, a platform built around AI that "lets you create, play, and share custom games." It's browser-based and labeled as an "experiment" to start. There's also Unity Spark support, which will offer more development options for people who catch the creator bug. 

Google's pitch claims that this new platform makes game creation more democratic by ending gatekeeping to development. The company states that Playground "lowers the barriers to creation, so bringing game ideas to life can now be as easy as describing it through a few prompts--no coding experience required." The platform also feels like the company's attempt at taking a piece of the Roblox pie--something that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma reportedly wants with Minecraft, too. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxvrvfyicp0

However, the initial rollout feels pretty underwhelming. The most hilarious part of the Playground experience, so far, is realizing how misleading the cover art for games is after actually playing them. For example, we checked out Volcano Run. The key image shows a sports car racing around a road crumbling; meanwhile, the actual gameplay is a rudimentary rectangular motorcycle (we think) driving in a Tron-like environment. 

One of the Unity Spark highlights is called Horror Story, and the game starts with players following a ghost into a haunted house. How that ghost shuffles into the residence is one of the funnier animations we've witnessed in a game recently. 

The most promising experience we checked out was Steampunk Match, a match-3 puzzle game. Players need to create combos to stop a boiler from exploding. This game felt much better than others that attempted to take a swing at the action-RPG genre, such as Catacombs. 

If you are looking to make your own game for Playground, that opportunity is apparently rolling out to people "soon." However, Google says people can upgrade their Google One plan to get started immediately.

15 Best Free PC Games To Play In 2026 View Images

Rockstar boss Rob Nelson has stated that GTA 6 won't make players "all-powerful" like they were in GTA 5 and the games that came before it. For GTA 6, this means NPCs in the world will have impulses of their own, and could come after you.

Speaking to IGN, Nelson said, "The world will act upon you as well as you acting upon the world." In previous GTA games, except for the police, the player was the only one with an "invisible arsenal hidden away," and everyone in the world would run away in terror. "This world in GTA 6 is not like that," he said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vlzIPpyJR0

Nelson went on to say that GTA 6's story, which follows the partners in crime and lovers Jason and Lucia, is about "criminals on the run." However, the game's narrative is such that they are incentized to "do what they need to do while not drawing unnecessary attention."

"So if you're doing things on a mission that you are required to do--or you’re robbing places, or somebody comes and messes with you and you have to deal with them by smacking them down or whatever--that’s all fair game," he said. "It's when you go beyond what is necessary on a consistent basis or you do completely unnecessary stuff consistently that you may start to sway your criminal profile in a certain direction. Maybe you care about that as a player, maybe you don't. There is no right or wrong way to play this."

Nelson said being "overpowered" as a character compared to everyone else except the cops "can be fun but not as fun" as a world in which other people may have "impulses of their own and act upon you."

"You are still powerful and capable, but you are not the only one capable of violence or the only one with weapons or the only crazy person out there," he said. "It makes the world far more unpredictable and interesting. It's something that we started doing in Red Dead Redemption 2, where you are not the only dangerous person in the world. There are gangs that will attack you, things that will happen to you. The world will act upon you. That happens here a lot, and then when it does, you have a decision to make. How do you want to deal with it?"

In GTA 6, the cops are getting upgrades, too. A new "heat" system means the police now know what the player looks like and what they're wearing, so even if players put on a hat or glasses, the cops still know who they are until they change clothes.

GTA 6 releases on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and it's reportedly already sold close to 6 million copies. A recent report said the game might be available to stream in November, but that's apparently not the case.

After leaving the Xbox Game Studios portfolio, State of Decay 3 developer Undead Labs is now an independent, employee-owned studio. The developer had previously announced State of Decay 3 all the way back in 2020--partly to keep the project and the studio on Microsoft's radar--as the company embarked on an acquisition spree. Now one of several departures from Microsoft's gaming division following the bloody "Xbox reset" that has seen scores of jobs slashed throughout 2026, Undead Labs also had to cut staff as it entered a new era. But was there any behind-the-scenes drama that led to its exit from Xbox?

Speaking to The Game Business, studio boss Philip Holt said that ultimately, nothing went wrong. It was more a case of reading the room and making a proposal to Microsoft that the company accepted. "It was an accelerated period of time for Microsoft's divestiture," Holt explained. "We had a lot of interest. I also thought that because we were so close to being in revenue, the amount of capital that we needed to finish [State of Decay 3] was not an insurmountable amount that we couldn't go raise it ourselves. I knew other studios were doing management buyouts, so I submitted an offer for a management-led acquisition, and Microsoft thought that would be a good idea."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5--CgCpM7M

Holt also addressed why State of Decay 3 was originally announced so far in advance, as in the eight years that it was under the Xbox umbrella, it never released a single game--but it did drop 38 updates for the popular State of Decay 2. He explained that a small team had been working on the game since 2020--with development picking up a few years later--and that announcing the game so early helped the studio avoid being lost in the shuffle during Xbox's buying spree of publishers like Bethesda and Activision Blizzard.

"I didn’t think Microsoft was done being acquisitive, and I didn't think they'd continue buying small developers; I assumed they'd start buying big things. I was a little worried about getting swallowed up or divested before we had a chance to present to the world what we were working on. So, it was a bit of a marker on the table. I was saying, State of Decay 3, we're announcing it, the audience knows it’s in development, and here’s a trailer to demonstrate our vision."

State of Decay 3 will still launch day-one through Game Pass, and Holt credited the subscription service with helping the horror franchise reach 25 million players. He also said that becoming an independent studio allowed Undead Labs to focus on serving an audience and being profitable. "We need to make a profit, we need to be sustainable, we need to pay ourselves and our partners--and it is a goal. This is not a charity. But it’s not the number-one most important objective."

Undead Labs joins Double Fine and Compulsion Games as former Xbox studios, but the future of Hellblade and DmC: Devil May Cry developer Ninja Theory is looking grim. After deals to acquire the studio fell through, it looks like the studio will soon be shut down.

A good puzzle game needs to constantly find new ways to challenge you, to walk you through skills and reward your observations, and to contain answers that make logical sense without being too obvious, or too obtuse. 

Order of the Sinking Star, the latest puzzler from developer Thekla Interactive and director Jonathan Blow, mostly hits those marks with impressive, cunning, and devious puzzle design. But even when it misses and gets frustrating, the game takes so many swings that it's easy to  head to another level and find another opportunity to bend your brain and stretch your smarts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMaW-V42Xwg

In fact, the best and worst part of Order of the Sinking Star is how expansive it is. Thekla touts over 1,000 puzzles to solve spread across an expansive overworld map that's full of discreet dungeon-like levels, mimicking the formula of 1987's The Legend of Zelda. And like the original Zelda, all of those puzzles involve pushing blocks around a grid, seen from a top-down perspective. Finding ways to keep the act of pushing blocks challenging, compelling, and unpredictable for hundreds of puzzles is Sinking Star's greatest feat, but that ingenuity can also make the game a little too sprawling and, at times, unwieldy.

All those puzzles are born of the many smart and intricate mechanics Order of the Sinking Star brings to bear on its simple underlying concept. The game finds you in what appears to be some kind of strange artificial garden facility, and you start by controlling a character who, after being plucked from some kind of battle, at first wonders if she's died and is now in the afterlife. But one assumes Valhalla or whatever would have more drinking and fewer brain teasers. As she sets about exploring, she discovers audio logs left behind by some other person who explored the place ahead of her and recorded his many findings.

Soon after, you enter a massive open overworld, where you can set out in four different directions, each representing a different set of mechanics. Those areas are each inspired by other, smaller puzzle games, and here those games' creators serve as level designers for their specific areas. From the overworld, you can enter different puzzle levels, activated from points on the ground like spaces on a game board. Completing those puzzles opens pathways forward to keep exploring the overworld.

What you soon discover is that each of these sections of the map, with its unique mechanics, represents a specific world in the multiverse sense. Each world has its own characters, whom you control within individual puzzle levels. The idea of different worlds and their denizens being pulled into this strange, ethereal place provides a story reason to include a ton of different mechanics, and then gives Order of the Sinking Star a handy excuse to combine them in fascinating and novel ways as the different worlds collide.

In the north, you run across levels inspired by the Heroes of Sokoban games, sporting traditional role-playing characters, like a Warrior, Mage, Thief, and so on. Each has their own capability: The Warrior can push multiple blocks at once as opposed to just one at a time, the Mage instantly swaps places with other characters or objects when he faces them, and the Thief can't push objects forward but can drag them behind her. The east draws its mechanics from the game Mirror Isles, where mirrors can teleport objects at right angles. The south, inspired by Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes, carries a series of puzzles that have to do with skipping stones across water to create pathways and divert currents, while the west builds on Promesst and is all about using special beams that let characters walk through walls, teleport long distances, destroy objects, and more.

Those individual areas work well as upgrades to and expansions on the original titles that inspired them, and present a wide array of different modes of thinking as you explore, thanks to the array of characters you control as you go. Several can't push things at all but can transform objects or carry them in a pocket. One guy wears a bulky contraption that means he needs empty space around him to turn, so you have to think differently about how he navigates levels than you do with other characters. All those elements make for strong, tough puzzles in their own right, but Order of the Sinking Star raises the bar significantly as it starts to mash the worlds and their mechanics together.

Sinking Star hits best when it's pushing you toward creative ways of thinking with combinations of all those different aspects, and the game deftly teaches you new concepts that build on old ones in mostly intuitive ways. The puzzle design all the way through is impressively tight, and you can always rely on the idea that if you're stumped, it's because you're missing something or you're not using all the included elements. Through my nearly 70 hours with the game, I encountered only one puzzle that could be solved in a way that didn't seem to be what the developers explicitly intended. Sinking Star produces a ton of "ah-ha!" moments as you realize what each puzzle is trying to show you, and you then extrapolate a leap that makes you feel extra smart.

One puzzle featured both a teleporting beam and the teleporting mirrors. Under the right circumstances, the mirrors can create copies of your character that you have to control all at once, and I quickly wound up with four characters to deal with--but this level had only one exit spot, so only one character could complete it. You can't kill any characters and still finish a level, so I had to find a way to zap these four copies back into a single guy, without using the mirrors. When I finally figured out how to fuse all those copies together like Brundlefly, it changed how I thought about all the elements and opened up new lines of thinking for puzzles I hadn't considered.

The drawback of four games' worth of good ideas mixing together is that you have to keep them all in your head at the same time, and things get very complicated the deeper you go. There are a few puzzles that cram so many things together that their challenge is derived from overwhelming you with rules and complexity, rather than forcing you to expand your thinking. 

There were also times when I stared at a puzzle for minutes or maybe hours, only to realize the solution was some simple but esoteric interaction of rules that I'd forgotten because there are so many to keep in mind. In one particularly vexing puzzle, I needed to use a pushing character, skipping stones, and the pulling character together, and figured out what I thought was the solution fairly quickly. But I found myself staring at the puzzle for hours, trying to figure out its second step. I realized much later that I did have the solution, but I'd wasted a bunch of time because I was misremembering a past rule about how the stones worked from puzzles I'd completed hours earlier.

So to some degree, the breadth of Sinking Star's mechanics can work against it, and the game can seem enormous for the sake of enormity. On the other hand, the game is so large that you can always just wander off and make headway elsewhere, because there's always something else to solve.

Sinking Star is also merciful in how easy it makes experimenting with different solutions to a puzzle and undoing your mistakes. An instant undo button dials you back one action, and an action includes moving a character by one grid square. It's extremely easy to just zap back in time to one step before you accidentally shoved some essential item off a cliff or trapped yourself in a corner. There's also a dedicated button for instantly restarting a puzzle with no loading. You can slow down and speed up time at a whim, making it easier to complete puzzles with tricky timing, or to skip the boring parts when you're stuck waiting for something to happen. Sinking Star's highly forgiving nature makes it very convenient to mess around and test ideas, without wasting any more of your time than you already are by being a little dense. More puzzlers should take a page from that design approach when they're able.

While overall, Sinking Star's puzzle design is great and the game is full of inventive challenges and fascinating interactions, it does wear on. The plot elements that are meant to provide you with an overarching drive to explore wind up being pretty thin--at least through the many tens of hours that I played. 

Each character has their own personality, agenda, and motivations, and all get waylaid by stumbling into this strange puzzle world. But the tidbits of story you find for each are never particularly satisfying. The RPG heroes from the north are chasing some evil magistrate, but he's little more than a disembodied voice, if he's present at all. The scavenger from the beam world wants to collect gems for research and personal profit, and I didn't really get what that would be good for. Those mirrors are part of some kind of series of trials and the mirror character failed them at some point in his past; so what? 

All the stories are told in tiny, spread-out tidbits, and mostly feel like they exist as a veneer to justify new puzzle ideas, which makes them more confusing than compelling. And the larger mystery of uncovering what this puzzle place is, why it exists, and who created it, is just as obtuse. There are answers here, that much is obvious, but they require an even bigger investment in plumbing Sinking Star's secrets. After hitting the first of the game's endings with little but more questions and a lot of hanging plot threads, it became clear that the motivation for continuing on in Sinking Star has to come from enjoying the discovery of what new and interesting challenges the developers have in store for you, and not uncovering the narrative that surrounds them.

Often, though, the challenges are enough. I loved realizing I'd learned something that could help me uncover a solution on the overworld, only to open up a whole new area with a bunch of puzzles working with fresh takes on what had already been established--and those takes never seem to run out or get stale. Order of the Sinking Star might work better had it been a bit more curated in deploying its massive pile of puzzles, but the occasional frustration and overcomplication is an affordable price of admission to play around with so many fun ideas.

With Paramount's $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery in the bag, details on what this merger means for the Warner Bros. game division have finally been revealed. Warner Bros. Interactive will merge with the newly formed Paramount Games Studio, and it'll oversee projects based on Skydance's rich--and newly acquired-library of IP. That lineup includes Avatar: The Last Airbender, South Park, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, and Star Trek--and that's not even mentioning the treasure trove of DC Comics IP that the company now owns.

The new division will be overseen by Tony Driscoll, president of games and experiences at Skydance, and one of the executives leading corporate strategy and development at the company. Driscoll had previously described video games as a "core pillar" of entertainment, alongside film and TV.

SpongeBob Mortal Kombat crossover when?

"We’re investing in our future growth engines alongside our core ambitions in TV, film and direct-to-consumer: Games, experiences, consumer products, and publishing," Gordon wrote in a staff memo (via Variety). "These are core pillars of our strategy to build engagement and fandom in both the physical and digital worlds. We want to meet consumers where they watch, play, and engage."

It's still unclear what the future plans are for the growing Skydance gaming division, or how hard it'll be hit by looming layoffs. This branch of Skydance will now be the home to some big WBI developers like Avalanche Software (Hogwarts Legacy), NetherRealm Studios (Mortal Kombat), Rocksteady Studios (Batman: Arkham Series and one Suicide Squad game I don't want to talk about), and TT Games (Various Lego games).

Former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has also joined the board of directors, and Skydance is also producing the Call of Duty movie with Activision, which is scheduled to hit theaters in 2028.

Resident Evil Requiem is one of this year's biggest hits, and Capcom plans to build on that success with new story DLC. While it hasn't yet revealed when it'll be out or what it's about, one of the game's writers, Haris Orkin, recently teased that the DLC will shed new light on Oswell E. Spencer, one of the biggest villains in the Resident Evil series.

"I think villains honestly are really fun to write, because I usually see every villain as a hero of their own story. So the villain is like in their mind they're a hero," Orkin said in an interview with the Distance Nerding podcast. I mean, Victor Gideon thinks he's going to save the world in Requiem. We have an arc for Spencer in Requiem. "Where you understand that more. And then in the DLC you will understand that even further. I probably shouldn't say that, but yeah."

https://youtu.be/gaTmFHQdLlo

Resident Evil Requiem spoilers below

Compared to his appearances in previous Resident Evil games, Oswell E. Spencer is more sympathetic, harboring genuine regret for his role in establishing the Umbrella Corporation, his research on the Progenitor Virus, and his ambitious goal of remaking the world with his bioweapons. As revealed in Requiem--and spoilers if you haven't played it yet--Spencer adopted a baby girl called Grace in 2001, and he successfully developed the powerful antiviral Elpis so that he could eliminate all Progenitor-based viral weapons, as part of his mission to atone for his sins.

That version of Spencer is narratively at odds with the version we see in Resident Evil 5, as before his death in 2006 at the hands of Albert Wesker, he was a bit of a bastard who apparently still harbored delusions of grandeur and had started work on a new virus to help him become immortal.

Then again, Capcom has been rewriting Resident Evil lore with its remakes, and this new version of Spencer is arguably more fascinating than a stereotypical mustache-twirling villain. While we don't know if Capcom plans to eventually make Resident Evil 5--one of the more controversial entries in the series--it'll be interesting to see if Spencer succumbs to his ambitions once again before Wesker finishes him off.

Since its launch, Capcom has updated Resident Evil Requiem with some photography tools and a new "Leon Must Die" mode. Resident Evil producer Jun Takeuchi also spoke about the meaning behind the title, adding to the confusion. Following the blockbuster success of Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie, the next entry in the video game series is out soon. The remake of Resident Evil: Code Veronica launches in 2027.

PC players hoping to find a way to play GTA 6 when it launches on consoles next month must be feeling pretty disappointed, as Microsoft has clarified that Grand Theft Auto 6 will not be available to stream to PC via Xbox Cloud Gaming. The news follows an earlier report claiming Xbox had secured exclusive streaming rights to Rockstar's highly anticipated game.

The clarification came from Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball, who addressed The Verge's report. Ball said the excitement surrounding GTA 6 and Xbox had resulted in some inaccurate reporting.

His full statement read, "While the excitement for GTA 6 and Xbox is great to see, it has also led to some misreporting. We are looking forward to launching GTA 6 on Xbox November 19, though the game will not be streaming exclusively or to PC."

That means, sadly for PC players, that you shouldn't expect to fire up Xbox Cloud Gaming on November 19 and find yourself wandering around Vice City without a console.

https://twitter.com/ballmatthew/status/2107667069797802443?s=20

The original report from The Verge claimed that Microsoft had secured exclusive game-streaming rights for GTA 6, citing sources familiar with the company's plans. The report followed comments from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who apparently told employees that Microsoft was preparing to do something with GTA 6 that "no other platform holder is doing."

The report suggested the arrangement could have been significant for PC players, who as of yet don't know when they'll be able to get their hands on the game.

Rockstar has yet to announce a PC version of GTA 6, which is officially confirmed for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. A streaming arrangement could have offered PC players a way to play the game at launch without waiting for the GTA 6 PC release date.

The confusion arrives at a pretty interesting time for Xbox Cloud Gaming. Microsoft is making significant changes to the service in November, including introducing a pay-as-you-go option and changing the amount of cloud gaming time available across Game Pass tiers.

Out of nowhere, Netflix and Until Dawn developer Supermassive Games announced a new The Conjuring game, and it's out next week.

The Conjuring: Unspoken releases on October 13 through Netflix, so you don't need any dedicated hardware or controller to play it.

The game is an "interactive paranormal investigation" experience where players decide how the story progresses based on the dialogue options they choose. Players use their phone to walk through the fictional Red Lion Inn to search for clues about "things that go bump in the night," Netflix said.

You play as demonologist Francesca Noakes, and you'll use an electromagnetic field reader, an infrared camera, and spirit box to hunt for ghosts.

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

Netflix said you don't need to know anything about The Conjuring to enjoy Unspoken, but people familiar with the series will get "a lot more from the experience."

"There are a few familiar faces that pop up in the game, and knowing the backstory adds to the overall impact," Netflix said.

Unspoken will be available on Netflix on October 13. It was made in partnership with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, whose parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, was just acquired by Paramount/Skydance.

During a town hall meeting today, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma spoke to staff to help reassure them following mass layoffs and studio closures related to the "reset" of the business.

Windows Central reports that Sharma told staff that Xbox is "making the right decisions" and that "after an all time low, we've started to return to growth," though she did not share any specifics. She added that Gears of War: E-Day, Minecraft Dungeons 2, and World of Warcraft: Forever had "strong" starts, though she did not share any specifics.

Sharma said, "We've started to return to growth, more than 2 to 3 times what we were, and we expect that continue." She did not share any specifics about what "2 to 3 times" actually means, though.

Sharma also told staff that Xbox's "Gen-10" platform--AKA Project Helix--will be, as rumored, a "family of devices" because "there is no one device that fits all."

She said it's important for Xbox to have a "great console first," but there will also be options for players who are "on the go." Sharma went on to say that Microsoft will manufacture some of these devices, and others Microsoft will find partners for.

"So, we will be sharing more about that as our plans develop. The operating system is starting to look really good. We're very excited about this," she said.

Sharma didn't get into specifics about its next console or portable devices, but they're in the works amidst a very challenging time given the AI-fueled demand for memory and components. The global macroeconomic environment that has driven up oil prices has also rocked markets. Not only this, but in the US, the Federal Reserve recently raised rates, impacting borrowing costs with the effects trickling through various market categories, including gaming.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella praised Sharma for making such deep and extensive cuts at Xbox. This has so far included 1,600 layoffs in July, close to 300 more in September, and additional job losses to come. Microsoft also closed or divested of a number of studios, including Double Fine and Ninja Theory.

Some theorized Sharma was streamlining Xbox to make it more attractive to a prospective buyer, but she recently insisted that Xbox is not for sale. A lot of people don't believe her, though, pointing back to her comments about how "the plan's the plan until it's not the plan."

Beyond these moves, Sharma also oversaw a massive restructuring of the Xbox business that included Activision taking over the Halo series and Bethesda's remit expanding to also cover Obsidian.

Razer has officially revealed the next entry in its line of high-end gaming controllers, the Wolverine V4 for Xbox and PC. Geared toward competitive gamers--not that there's anything stopping you from using it to play Vampire Survivors--and it focuses primarily on polling performance and thumbstick sensor architecture.

One of the biggest changes is Razer choosing capacitive contactless sensors backed by a 16-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for the thumbsticks, rather than the usual Hall Effect magnetic sensor. While Hall Effect thumbsticks are popular for their durability and for essentially eliminating stick drift, they can be prone to magnetic interference. Not a dealbreaker if you're playing at home, but in a competitive scene where victory is measured in fractions of a second, this can be an issue. In comparison, Razer is aiming to offer the same drift resistance, finer granularity, and smoother signal tracking with capacitive sensing.

Then there's the polling rate, which is absurdly high. For example, a DualSense Edge is capable of offering up to 1,000Hz (1 ms to 8 ms input latency), but the Wolverine V4 pushes that number up to 8,000Hz in both its wired and wireless configurations when used on PC, which, in theory, should put that on par with high-end esports mice and keyboards. This isn't the first Razer controller to feature an 8,000Hz polling rate, as the Wolverine V3 Pro was also equipped to reach those numbers.

Just don't expect to reach those levels on Xbox Series X|S, as hardware limitations cap the refresh rate at 250Hz, meaning the 8,000Hz benefit is strictly for PC competitive gaming.

The controller also offers four removable magnetic back buttons and two top claw-grip bumpers, with a modular magnetic design that lets players quickly swap components out, stripping the controller of unused buttons and extra weight. First-person shooter players can also use a back-mounted physical toggle switch with software-tunable actuation points, allowing them to fine-tune the hair-trigger click threshold.

That makes for a solid controller on paper, even if you don't need all of its features. The wireless model has an MSRP of $200, making it a little bit more expensive than the Xbox Elite Series 2 wireless controller and on par with the DualSense Edge (which can also be used on PC). If you'd prefer a wired option, the Wolverine V4 wired version will set you back $100.

Another controller worth keeping an eye on is the recently revealed Genki Manta. Genki launched a Kickstarter campaign for it, raising over $1.1 million for a peripheral that combines high customizability with an OLED display. The company aims to launch it next year, with an MSRP of $279.

Veteran video game actor Nolan North has addressed his future in the Call of Duty series, saying he hopes to reprise his character Dr. Edward Richtofen from Black Ops' popular Zombies mode.

If this does happen, it probably won't be soon. That's because, North said he believes 2027's Call of Duty game might be developed by Sledgehammer. Given that, a new Black Ops game might not come until 2028 at the soonest, but this is just conjecture.

Speaking at Gamergy in Puerto Rico (via DomTheBomb), North said he hopes Richtofen's story continues in a future Black Ops game, whenever that might be.

"I always like when they leave things open for the next one. I know that Infinity Ward and I think Sledgehammer has the next two before there is another Black Ops. I just don't want it to be the end of Richtofen, and I don't think it is," he said.

North clarified that he does not know for sure that Richotfen's story will continue, so he hoped people wouldn't think he had some inside knowledge apart from his own hope and belief. Whatever the case, North said Richotofen is one of his favorite characters to voice, and he hopes to reprise him someday.

North first appeared as Richtofen in 2008's World at War, and has reprised the role many times over in subsequent games from developer Treyarch. He's a fan-favorite character in the fan-favorite Zombies mode, with the story taking numerous twists and turns over the years.

"It's been such a pleasure getting to work with my friends for so long, just like Uncharted was," he said.

On the subject of Uncharted, North said he hopes to come back to play Nathan Drake once more. As it happens, rumors are swirling that Naughty Dog is working on Uncharted 5 and that Drake might have a role in it.

Regarding North's statement that Sledgehammer is working on the 2027 Call of Duty game, that's not confirmed, but doesn't seem outrageous given this has been reported since 2024. The studio's last game where it served as lead developer was 2023's Modern Warfare 3, so it might be time for Sledgehammer to take the lead again in 2027. Intriguingly, it's also been reported that Activision's new ownership of the Halo franchise could include Sledgehammer, or at least a division inside the developer, working on a Halo game.

This year's Call of Duty game is Modern Warfare 4, and Infinity Ward is leading development. The game releases on October 23 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC.

Being a haunted doll must be difficult. You're missing an eyeball, and your lipstick makes you look more like a cannibal than a cherub. People make faces of disgust at you in the antique mall, and you want to tell them you're actually the unblemished soul of a 19th century nun named Eunice, but they speed away before you can. But if you were a haunted doll, you'd at least have solo developer Steelkrill Studio on your side, as its upcoming survival horror game Where Dolls Hang features real-life creepy dolls looking proudly injured. 

The dolls of Mexico's Isla de las Muñecas, the Island of the Dolls, have been through a lot over the past 80 years. Folklore suggests the bald dolls cobwebbed and nailed to the island's trees contain the spirit of a drowned little girl, who caretaker Don Julian Santana may or may not have made up. In any case, he spent much of his life fishing plastic Barbies and babies out of the water near his home to honor her spirit. So Where Dolls Hang, which was featured in the Horror Game Awards' recent showcase this past summer, is a tribute, too--it honors the fact that our real world is often freakier than fiction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwPGsK7yWA4

"Some of the doll models you'll find were created using real photographs," developer Steelkrill explains on Twitter. "The photographs can also be found around in the game." An accompanying clip of first-person gameplay footage demonstrates with an image of a doll head coated completely in dirt and little pimples from raindrops. The Where Dolls Hang player then drops the photo and stares ahead; the same pimply doll head is sticking from a pike right in front of them. 

"It creates an unusual connection between the game's horrors and reality: something disturbing hanging in a room or sitting in the darkness may not have been designed entirely from imagination," a press release says. "Somewhere in the world, there may be a real photograph behind it." Intriguingly, that makes Where Dolls Hang a rare game that is based on a true story, since life is unknowable without art to make sense of it. 

Where Dolls Hang is scheduled for a 2026 release date, and it's available to wishlist now on Steam.

Sticker shock might be underselling it with GameStop's new used pricing for Sony's most powerful system. Starting today, the video game store is listing pre-owned PS5 Pros for $1,400, though GameStop Pro members only need to dish out $1,330. Basically, it's a $500 surcharge over a brand-new PS5 Pro and capitalizing on the fact that those are stock-constrained currently.

A generous take on GameStop's new strategy for used PS5 Pros is that the company's conditioning us ahead of the possibility that the PS6 could cost $1,000 or more. Obviously, Sony isn't the only one increasing hardware pricing and consoles probably aren't getting cheaper anytime soon--mainly because of the ongoing chip shortage from AI development. 

A more cynical take is that GameStop is taking advantage of the situation similar to what scalpers do with the launch of new video game consoles. I'm also curious how many people now trade in a PS5 Pro at GameStop when they see how much the company is then reselling it for. Wouldn't an easier option just be to undercut them on Facebook Marketplace or eBay by $100? 

Similar pricing for used PS5 Pro systems can be seen on Amazon and Best Buy's storefronts. One key difference here is that those are third-party sellers, such as this RYTEK example at Best Buy. GameStop is officially behind the pre-owned pricing on its own website.

Sony raised pricing for PS5, PS5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal in April. The PS5 Pro was $750 previously and now retails for $900, if you can find one. When PS5 Pro originally launched in November 2024, the system cost $700. Meanwhile, the Xbox lineup also saw another round of price hikes in August, with the cheapest option being an Xbox Series S for $500. This is the first generation of video game systems to increase in price dramatically over the years, instead of getting much cheaper. 

Every PS5 Pro Enhanced Game (So Far) View Images

The next Survivors-like game--or Survivaton, as Vampire Survivors developer Poncle refers to them--is out soon, and it's threatening to cut into GTA 6 playtime. Warhammer Survivors launches November 10 on PC, consoles, and mobile devices, and you can also grab a new demo on PC via Steam right now.

Set in the grim (and dark) 41st millennium of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, Warhammer Survivors sticks to the Vampire Survivors playbook: You'll fight all manner of Tyranid enemies that threaten the Imperium of Man, evolve your weapons, and die a lot before you're strong enough to start easily tanking the waves of heretical creatures. Extremis bosses will push your builds to the limit, and when it launches, the game will feature over 40 playable characters and an arsenal of 70 weapons to collect.

https://youtu.be/XvvWBS2uMw8

Warhammer Survivors will release on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and Switch next month, and it'll also be available via Xbox Game Pass. The new demo will give you a fresh taste of the carnage, featuring the heroes Lyssa Revenya and the Legend of Catachan.

It's one of the few November games willing to take a risk and launch close to November 19, as many publishers and developers have opted to avoid the GTA 6-sized elephant in the room. Only a few games are standing their ground, including one that features the king of the monsters, Godzilla.

This isn't the only Survivaton on the way, as Poncle is also working on Jujutsu Kaisen Rumble. Like Vampire Survivors and Warhammer Survivors, it features the same bullet-heaven gameplay, but it draws from the manga and anime series' Culling Games storyline to shift the focus toward a "survivors royal" experience. The goal is to exorcise cursed spirits, grow your power, and outscore your opponents to be the last player standing. Originally scheduled to launch this year, the release date was shifted to 2027.

If you're looking for GTA 6's $100 Ultimate Edition but don't want to pay that much, there is a way to get it for $80--if you meet a few requirements.

Costco has rolled out a nice new deal where you can get four $25 PlayStation Store gift cards for $80. Or you can buy two $75 gift cards for $120. These offers are good through October 11 or while supplies last, so act fast.

While Costco does not require people to have a membership ($65/year) to shop online, the deals for these PlayStation gift cards are listed as "members only."

While GTA 6's $80 edition will be sold in stores via a code in a box, GTA 6's $100 edition will seemingly not be sold in stores. This makes the $100 edition even more profitable for Rockstar and Take-Two because digital games have better margins than games sold in stores.

The $100 Ultimate Edition of GTA 6 comes with many digital extras, including special weapon variants, a retro-inspired car, a boat, and special clothing. Additionally, the premium edition is the only way you can get access to a range of in-game stores and locations, including Rideout Customs for updating your car, Sara's Unisex Salon for getting a new haircut, and Electric Fang Tattoo for getting some ink.

These outfits are only for people who pay $100 for GTA 6.

It remains to be seen what will happen for those who buy the $80 edition with regard to these shops. Are the doors of these stores locked? Is there a literal paywall where you have to fork over extra cash to get in? Do they not even appear in the world for $80 players? Rockstar and Take-Two are well-versed in microtransactions, and the game's ESRB rating says these will be in the game, but we don't know yet how it will work in practice.

GTA 6 becomes available to preload beginning November 12, and that applies to the game's digital and physical versions sold at retailers. The game unlocks to play on November 19 across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Paramount has officially completed its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, but the company's announcement of the deal closing did not contain a single mention of video games. That's notable because Warner Bros. Discovery is heavily invested in video games, and many may wonder what's coming next.

CEO David Ellison says he is a big gamer himself, but whether or not that means anything for the future of games at the new company, now known as Skydance, is unknown. Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, courted controversy due to his family's dealings with Donald Trump and the current administration, with some industry observers believing the close relationship helped get the deal through the regulatory process.

Netflix originally secured the top bid for WBD and believed its deal would close, but Paramount swooped in with more money and a contract to buy the whole company, not just parts of it like Netflix was planning. For its part, Netflix executives spent time with Trump and his team as well. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos recently praised Trump for believing in and supporting the entertainment industry.

Skydance's press release announcing the closing of the deal hypes up Ellison's stated plans to put a minimum of 30 "high-quality" movies in theaters annually, and touts its "creative-first, audience-focused, tech-forward, and globally scaled" setup, but doesn't mention video games at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2hu5UML3NI

The news release does mention that the combined companies will offer content for people "across every entertainment vertical," and that would seemingly include video games. But the brief does not include any specifics. GameSpot has followed up with Skydance seeking more information.

For what it's worth, when Netflix was planning to buy WBD, the streaming giant was similarly quiet on its plans for video games, saying it did not factor in video games very much. This came despite how 2023's Hogwarts Legacy was a bonafide juggernaut, selling more than 30 million copies.

While the release doesn't mention video games specifically, it does call out scary and tough times ahead for the people who work there. One of the main bullet points in the release was that Skydance is planning at least $6 billion in "run-rate syngeries within three years," which is likely a forecast for layoffs and cuts. Skydance's official word, however, is that the savings will "primarily" come from "technology, integration and procurement, marketing and real estate rationalization."

When big companies combine, layoffs often happen--it was the case for Microsoft, too, when it bought Activision Blizzard, with the company slashing thousands of jobs.

Skydance recently rolled out Paramount Games Studio, a team that folded in Skydance Interactive and Skydance New Media. Projects in the works at those studios are continuing, including Marvel 1943: Rise of Hyrdra and a new Star Wars game with Lucasfilm from Amy Hennig, now under the Paramount Games Studio banner.

With Skydance now running the show, the company takes ownership of numerous big gaming properties, including Hogwarts Legacy developer Avalanche Software and its publishing label, Portkey Games; Mortal Kombat and its developer, NetherRealm; and Batman: Arkham studio Rocksteady. Skydance is also now in charge of Lego developer TT Games, and numerous other developers, including WB Games Boston, WB Games Montreal, WB Games New York, WB Games San Francisco, and numerous other studios.

Beyond developing games themselves, Skydance is making the Call of Duty movie with Activision, which is due for release in 2028.

Time flies by fast, especially if you're Sega's blue mascot, as 2026 marks the 35th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. While Sega has various plans to commemorate the milestone, one of the most elegant is a hand-painted porcelain sculpture that is both graceful and expensive. Even if you can afford to shell out big bucks for this Blue Blur pottery, you'll still need luck on your side, as only 50 of these pieces are being made.

Sculpted by the artisans of the Japanese studio YOYOYO, this ornate piece costs a whopping $7,000. It comes with a certificate of authenticity, a wooden stand, and a wooden box, but you'll need to enter a lottery to have a chance to buy it.

So what makes this piece so special? To realize the idea of Sonic being the "world's fastest blue," the studio incorporated gosu, a cobalt-blue underglaze pigment that results in a color that never fades. This created an "eternal blue" finish, and the artisans also designed this sculpture to have a shelf-life of at least 100 years.

https://youtu.be/DzCJw-H7Xfo

For the base, durable Amakusa porcelain stone was chosen, as its white surface lets colors shine through, and the artists used techniques like delicate underglaze painting to create Seigaiha and Shippo patterns. This requires incredible skill and concentration to pull off successfully, as the patterns are ornate and hard to keep uniform. This is time-consuming, back-breaking work to do once, let alone 50 times, but the neat thing is that each piece will be unique up close, so you can appreciate the subtle details of the craft.

The red is also special, as it's applied to the partner piece that expresses the an endless infinity trail. According to the artists, glossy red carries motion and heat, and they also change expression with the viewing angle.

Other neat details include the other blue hues chosen for this project, with the Yagasuri shade featuring a stylized arrow-feather pattern to symbolize strong forward motion. You can take a closer look at how this work of Sonic the Hedgehog art was put together in the video above, which features a detailed (and enjoyably soothing) look at the artistry involved.

It might be a major anniversary year for Sonic the Hedgehog, but strangely, there's no game tie-in to mark the occasion. Sonic has had a consistent run of releases throughout the 2020s--with titles like Sonic Colors: Ultimate (2021), Sonic Frontiers (2022), Sonic Superstars (2023), Sonic X Shadow Generations (2024), and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (2025)--but it looks like the franchise is taking a break in 2026. While work continues on the next mainline game, Sega is leaning into updates for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds alongside merchandise and community events to celebrate the decades-spanning career of its icon.

The virtual reality market has grown over the years, and depending on your budget, there's probably a VR headset out there for you. But can your VR gaming budget stretch to over $1,000 for the entry-level Steam Frame headset, and is it even worthwhile? That's the question GameSpot's senior video producer Kurt Indovina set out to answer, and after spending some time with it, his main takeaway was that it's the best VR headset he's ever used, and possibly the last one he'll ever own.

https://youtu.be/NcypRmYfP5s

"Having used this solid piece of tech for a couple of weeks now, it's been great to replay things like Half-Life: Alyx or booting up Ghost Town, or fiddling around in Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades," Indovina explained. "It's also been a time of reflection for VR as a whole, from where it started, where it went, and where it currently sits now. I've been an advocate for VR for a while. I've made plenty of videos about VR. In fact, the first GameSpot video I ever appeared in was for Five Nights at Freddy's VR."

"But for all of the love I've given VR, my gripes with it seem to be never-ending. I've been very vocal about how companies have stunted the growth of VR and are trying to chokehold the market with their product. Meta putting out the most affordable and accessible headset only to commit, for lack of a better term, public suicide by investing everything into the metaverse, favoring a dystopian weird social life and alienating people who just want to play games."

But if you look at the Steam Frame in a vacuum? "It rules," Indovina said. "I'm sure this thing will get support for a lot of other cool games. It's great."

The Steam Frame isn't the first time that Valve has launched VR hardware, but compared to 2019's Valve Index, this standalone wireless headset is a major leap forward. It offers inside-out tracking, improved streaming support, onboard processing, and Android compatibility, but it is one of the pricier models on the market right now. It's still cheaper than Meta's next foray into virtual reality, as the Facebook parent company recently unveiled its new $1,300 Meta VR Glasses, with a flashy trailer that didn't even mention VR gaming.

But if you've got the cash to flash and you're purely interested in gaming, the Steam Frame is worth considering, if you can get your hands on one, since they've sold out surprisingly fast. If you wear glasses, you'll also want to double-check your frame and avoid making an expensive purchase for high-tech VR gear you can't use.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is finally out, and so far, it might just be one of the best Star Wars games ever made. The new racing game has an attractive MSRP of $60, but if you're looking to grab it for the low price of nothing, you can play it for free through Amazon Luna starting today.

Amazon has announced that Prime members can stream the single-player campaign for free through Amazon Luna. "We've always believed Luna players deserve to be in the action from day one, and Star Wars: Galactic Racer makes that a reality for the first time,” Jeff Gattis, Head of Gaming at Amazon, said in a blog post. "Luna players can jump into the single-player campaign today without needing to own a console or wait for a lengthy download. It's exactly the kind of experience we want to deliver on Luna, and we think players are going to love it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA3BrR245mo

If you're unfamiliar with it, Amazon Luna is a cloud gaming service and platform available to Prime members. A rotating selection of games appears every month through Luna, and members can also claim several downloadable PC games. These can be redeemed through storefronts like the Epic Games Store and GOG. Last month was particularly good, as members could claim several of Id Software's critically acclaimed Doom games, including the 2016 reboot and Doom Eternal.

Set early during the era of the New Republic, Star Wars: Galactic Racer follows players as they take part in the Galactic League, a high-stakes underground racing circuit. What sets the game apart from other racing titles is its roguelike gameplay mechanics, which evolve the standard racing formula into a dynamic experience. Developed by Fuse Games--a studio founded by racing veterans from the Burnout and Need for Speed franchises--Star Wars: Galactic Racer currently has a metascore of 88 on GameSpot's sister site Metacritic.

"Galactic Racer is those absolutely perfect 10 minutes expanded into a full game. Every moment feels joyfully fast," Jordan Ramée wrote in GameSpot's Star Wars: Galactic Racer review. "Every decision carries the weight of tension. And every run is a rewarding chance to learn, improve, tinker, and adapt, whether it ends in success or failure. I can’t wait to keep playing what’s been my favorite racing game in years."

Halloween's first paid DLC is coming on October 27 in the form of a new skin for the game's killer, Michael Myers, and it's pulling from a source you might not expect: Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. A free update on the same day will also add a fifth map, The Tower Farm, inspired by a location in the same film. 

It may seem odd to jump to the fifth movie for the game's first DLC, but it's not the only piece of new content coming that day. There's also a second skin coming for Big Mike, borrowing from his look in the legacy sequel Halloween (2018). Each skin will run you $10.

Survivor mains also have new things to look forward to, including two new characters, Michelle and Eugene, as well as Civilian Costumes Pack 1, which includes 14 outfits--one for each survivor character--and 42 colorings, or "tints." The new survivors will also go for $10, though that's for the pair, not for each of them, while the new styles and colors will be--you guessed it--$10 for the set. This content drop is the first of several coming to the game in its first year, development studio Illfonic said. 

With 13 movies in the series, there's still plenty of ground to cover for Halloween, which makes kicking off its post-launch roadmap with Halloween 5 such an interesting choice. The appropriately autumnal farm map is more open than the game's earlier maps, making it harder to break line of sight from Haddonfield's boogeyman. I suppose that moody setting was too picturesque to pass up as an update just days before October 31. 

Just days before Halloween, Halloween will look more like, uh, Halloween.

As much as I love the 1978 original, I'm not particularly fond of most of the Halloween sequels, though Halloween H20 is probably dearest to me; I fondly recall seeing it on the big screen as a horror-obsessed nine-year-old, so I look forward to seeing that one reflected in the game down the line.

In any event, I don't think the sequels' quality ought to keep the development team from bringing them into the game like this. Illfonic's game should be a museum to all things Halloween, and watching it become that over the next few years is an exciting prospect. I hope the licensing deal extends to the series' more oddball entries, like Rob Zombie's reboot duology and Halloween 3--the one movie in the series that doesn't involve Michael Myers. If the game follows the roadmap I've built in my mind, we'll see every version of The Shape on the character select screen one day.

In GameSpot's Halloween review, I wrote that it gives players "a vibes-heavy experience befitting the timeless film, while also offering a unique hook that keeps the game from feeling like a rehash of the many horror multiplayer games that came before it."