Gaming · Tuesday, 1 September 2026

01 Briefing what happened

Bit Reactor made the best-reviewed Star Wars game in 22 years. It stopped paying most of its staff before it came out.

Gaming 1 min 31 sources

The studio ran out of most of its money in the weeks before launch and put the majority of its people on unpaid leave. The reviews and the sales arrived afterwards, to a skeleton crew.

80%

of Bit Reactor's staff, put on unpaid leave before its first game shipped

the figure comes from people at the studio; the company confirmed the furloughs but not the number [2][3]

22 years

since a Star Wars game reviewed this well at launch - the last was Knights of the Old Republic II in 2004

those reviews landed after the team had already stopped being paid [2]

over $20m

in damages claimed by Bit Reactor's former operations chief, Alison Kelly

she says she was denied an equal share of the studio; the founder's side says she was let go for poor performance [1]

The lead story — what happened

Bit Reactor, a small US studio, stopped paying most of its staff in the weeks before its first game went on sale. [1]
The game is Star Wars Zero Company, a squad strategy game in the style of XCOM, published by Electronic Arts, one of the largest game publishers in the world. [2]
People at the studio told the games newsletter Game File that 80% of staff were furloughed - still employed on paper, but paid nothing. [2][3]
A representative of Bit Reactor confirmed the furloughs to Game File but would not say how many people were affected. [3]
The cause was reportedly that the studio had run out of most of its money just ahead of the launch. A skeleton crew stayed behind to fix problems after release. [1][2]
Bit Reactor said the decision was its own, and was not pushed by Electronic Arts or by Disney, which owns Star Wars. [1]
The game came out last week and scored higher at launch than any Star Wars game since Knights of the Old Republic II in 2004. [2]
Zachariah Scott, a senior technical artist the studio let go earlier this year, said people at the publisher and the studio posted public praise for the team while the furlough stayed quiet. [1][2][3]
Scott said money was tight throughout, and that developers who wanted more lightsaber animations were told the budget would not stretch to them. [1]
Bit Reactor says it hopes to bring furloughed workers back, and has tied that to the game selling well. Nobody has said how many copies that would take. [1][2]
A separate fight over who owns the studio is already in court. Former chief operating officer Alison Kelly says she was pushed out and denied a share and wants over $20m; the founder's lawyers call the claims groundless. [1][2]

Who is involved

Bit Reactor

a small US studio started by Greg Foertsch, a former director at strategy-game maker Firaxis; it built Star Wars Zero Company and furloughed most of its staff before launch
Electronic Arts

one of the biggest game publishers in the world; it paid for and released the game, and Bit Reactor says the furloughs were not its decision
Respawn Entertainment

a studio owned by Electronic Arts, known for the shooters Titanfall and Apex Legends; it built the game jointly with Bit Reactor
Zachariah Scott

a senior technical artist Bit Reactor let go earlier this year; he made the furloughs public on LinkedIn
Alison Kelly

Bit Reactor's former chief operating officer; she is suing the founder over whether she owns part of the studio

What is pushing on this

The studio running out of cash High↑

Bit Reactor is reported to have run out of most of its money before the game went on sale [1]

How well the game is selling Building↑

it sits at or near the top of Steam's best-seller chart in its first week [1][3]

Anger inside the studio Building↑

a former artist said the team was praised in public while the furlough was kept quiet [2][3]

The ownership fight Steady→

the case over who owns Bit Reactor is not due in court until 2027 [2]

How it unfolded

April 2021 a draft agreement proposes splitting Bit Reactor's shares between three founders. The founder's lawyers say it was never signed, which is the heart of the case. [1]
2024 Alison Kelly sues. Her filing refers to the studio furloughing workers and ending contractors' work. [1]
Weeks before launch most of Bit Reactor's staff are furloughed, reportedly because the studio had run out of most of its money. [1]
Late August 2026 Star Wars Zero Company goes on sale and reviews better at launch than any Star Wars game in 22 years. [2]
31 August 2026 a former artist posts about the furloughs on LinkedIn, and the studio confirms them. [2][3]

Where this points

Watch whether Bit Reactor names a date to put anyone back on full pay - it has tied that to sales, and nobody has said what number would be enough. [1][2]

The rest of the day

24 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
Housemarque's founder leaves after three decades

Ilari Kuittinen stepped down as head of Housemarque, the Finnish studio behind Returnal and Saros that Sony bought in 2021. He co-founded it in the mid-1990s and it is now the oldest working game studio in Finland. Sami Hakala took over on 1 July. Saros is reported to have sold about 300,000 copies in its first weeks. [4][5][6]

Why it matters — He is the fourth founder or studio head to leave a Sony-owned studio in recent years, after those at Insomniac Games, Sucker Punch and Naughty Dog. [4]
03
GameStop expects sales down by about a fifth

The US game shop chain told investors it expects quarterly sales of $780m to $800m, against $972.2m a year earlier, after closing stores and selling its French business. Its shares still rose 5% before the market opened, because it will pay about 27% of a $1.4bn debt swap in cash rather than new shares. [7]

Why it matters — Fewer shops is the shape of a business built on selling and re-selling discs, in an industry that is dropping discs.
04
Squadron 42 delayed to 2027 to dodge GTA 6

Cloud Imperium pushed its space game Squadron 42 out of 2026. The studio said it would not launch a game with twelve years of work in it against Grand Theft Auto 6, because outlets and streamers would be covering Rockstar instead. [8]

Why it matters — One release is now bending the calendar of every other studio.
05
September is crowded with games avoiding GTA 6

September brings a new Onimusha from Capcom, The Blood of Dawnwalker from former Witcher developers, and a solo Wolverine game, as studios clear out of the later part of the year. [30]

Why it matters — The pile-up is the other half of the Squadron 42 decision: everyone is dodging the same weeks.
06
Rockstar built a team just for background characters

Rockstar set up a Los Angeles team of writers, directors and producers to design the people who fill Grand Theft Auto 6. The game has over 600,000 animations for background characters, against 300,000 in Red Dead Redemption 2 and 55,000 in GTA 5. Rockstar says it will carry no generative AI and no paid extras. [9] It has also dropped the one-button car theft the series is named for. [10]

Why it matters — It shows what money at the top of the industry now buys: detail nobody is required to notice.
07
Rockstar says it is heartbroken by GTA 6 leaks

After days of leaked footage spreading online, Rockstar broke its silence to say it was heartbroken, and apologised for how long everything has taken. The game is still not finished. [16]

Why it matters — A studio that says almost nothing in public was pushed into speaking by material it did not release.
08
13TB of old Steam files spilled online

About 13 terabytes of files uploaded to Steam between 2003 and 2013 were published. They include early versions of Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2, and test builds of other publishers' games such as Dragon Age: Origins and Batman: Arkham Asylum. The person who found them says nothing was hacked and the files sat on a server anyone could reach. [11]

Why it matters — Other publishers now have to work out what of theirs was sitting in a decade-old pile they did not control.
09
EU names Roblox a very large platform

The European Commission said Roblox, Reddit and ChatGPT each reach at least 45 million monthly users in the EU, which puts them in the strictest tier of the bloc's Digital Services Act. They have four months to comply, including assessing the harm their platforms do to children. [12]

Why it matters — Roblox now has a European regulator that can investigate how its systems work rather than only ask it questions.
10
Roblox restricts games that pay you to keep watching

Roblox banned games in its children's tiers that combine an endless video feed with rewards for watching it. The move follows a pet game, Steal an Egg, being taken down for rewarding players who watched a running feed while on a virtual treadmill. [13]

Why it matters — The company is now policing a design that its own reward system made worth building.
11
Ubisoft's Barcelona mobile staff strike

A Spanish union called strikes at Ubisoft's Barcelona mobile studio on 1, 2, 3, 16, 17 and 18 September over an order to return to the office. The union says worker representatives are still waiting for a reply, and that Ubisoft only delayed the order from October to January 2027. [14]

Why it matters — The union says an extra office day was already imposed in 2025 by negotiating with each worker one at a time. [14]
12
Playdate maker returns tariff money to buyers

Panic charged US buyers of its Playdate handheld a separate tariff line at checkout. The US government refunded those tariffs, and Panic is automatically passing the money back to everyone who paid it. [15][16]

Why it matters — Nintendo received about $300m in the same refunds and has said buyers have no legal claim to it. [16]
13
Gamescom organisers tell developers to insure their kit

At least four thefts hit developer booths at Gamescom in Cologne, taking laptops and Steam Decks that one studio said held personal and company files. Organisers said attendees are advised to insure equipment against theft. CD Projekt Red offered replacement hardware to one of those robbed. [17][18]

Why it matters — The trade show's answer puts the cost on the smallest exhibitors, who are the ones being hit.
14
Saudi broadcaster MBC starts a game studio

MBC, a large Saudi-owned television and media group, is building a game called 1001 Threads of Mizan, begun around 2023 and shown at Gamescom. Saudi Arabia's state investment fund bought 54% of MBC in 2025. The studio says it has a policy against using generative AI. [19]

Why it matters — Saudi state money keeps arriving in games from a new direction each time, this one through television.
15
State of Decay 3 survives its studio being sold

Undead Labs promised a closed test of State of Decay 3 this year and a 2027 release. It is the studio's first announcement since Microsoft cut 1,600 jobs across its games division and split from four of its own developers, Undead Labs included. The new owner still has not been named. [20]

Why it matters — A game keeps going while nobody outside knows who owns the people making it.
16
Xbox teases a family of next consoles

Xbox chief executive Asha Sharma told the BBC its next machine, codenamed Project Helix, will be a family of devices rather than one box, and spoke about the industry needing to improve affordability. A 25th-anniversary Series X went on preorder at around $900 and is already being resold for thousands. [21]

Why it matters — The affordability line sits awkwardly beside the price of the console it is selling right now.
17
Game Pass hit the number it promised

Xbox said in October 2025, when it raised its top subscription to $30 a month, that the service would carry over 75 games on their release day each year. A count of every title added shows it reached the goal on 27 August. [22]

Why it matters — It is a rare promise from that year that survived, in a year Xbox cut thousands of jobs.
18
The Long Dark's studio goes back to its old game

Hinterland moved developers off Blackfrost, the sequel it announced two years ago, and back onto The Long Dark to make new add-ons for a nine-year-old game. The studio said whole business models have been thrown into chaos since it started the sequel. [23]

Why it matters — Adding to an old game is cheaper and more certain than launching a new one, and it is becoming the common answer.
19
Manor Lords passes 4 million copies

The medieval town-building game has sold over 4 million copies across all shops and shipped a large update adding cattle breeding, cider, mead and cheesemongers. [24]

Why it matters — A game still being added to years after release is the opposite of the launch-and-move-on pattern in most of this week's stories.
20
Limbic kept its games when Bandai Namco sold it

German studio Limbic was sold by Japanese publisher Bandai Namco to a private investor in December 2025, three years after Bandai bought most of it. Limbic kept the rights to everything it had made, including its new game Corsair Cove, and says German state support has helped. [25]

Why it matters — Holding the rights is what lets it keep earning from Corsair Cove instead of starting from nothing. [25]
21
India picks 15 studios for its first support scheme

The Game Developer Association of India chose 15 studios for a three-month programme run with Tencent and several advertising and app-store partners, offering mentors, publishers and investors. The association represents more than 200 studios and wants to reach 25,000 students. [26]

Why it matters — It is a country trying to build a games industry through an organisation rather than waiting for a hit.
22
1666: Amsterdam says the AI is now fully out

Patrice Desilets, co-creator of Assassin's Creed, said his studio Panache has removed generative AI from its work entirely and will not use it again. Players had spotted AI-made art in a free preview, and the studio apologised and promised to strip it before the early access launch, which happened last week. [27]

Why it matters — It moved from promising to remove the pictures to dropping the tool, which is much harder to quietly reverse.
23
Sony has stopped pushing the PlayStation 5

Sony chief executive Hiroki Totoki said the company is in the back half of the console's life and does not need to sell it aggressively any more, and is focused on making money from people already subscribed. PlayStation Plus has more than 125 million monthly users. [28]

Why it matters — The console is now a way to reach a subscription, rather than the thing being sold.
24
European battery rules end original Switch sales in 2027

Nintendo will stop supplying the original Switch to European shops in mid-February 2027, because of EU rules requiring batteries that users can replace themselves. It has sold 156.59 million of them, its best-selling console ever, and still sold 660,000 between April and June this year. [29]

Why it matters — A repair rule, not a sales decision, sets the date the console leaves European shelves.
25
Ubisoft asks players to test its unfinished games

Ubisoft launched a Player Council at Gamescom, inviting players to sign up and try early concepts, prototypes and running games before release. It opened with four projects. [31]

Why it matters — It comes while Ubisoft is cutting costs and closing or shrinking internal studios. [14]

02 Lesson why it matters

A company is poorest the day its work is finished

Spending peaks in the last weeks before a game ships and the money arrives months after, so the gap between them is where studios die.

The twist

A studio is rarely killed by a bad game. It is killed in the weeks between its last wage bill and its first payment, and a good game does not shorten that gap by a day.

How it works

A game costs money for years and earns nothing
Wages come out of a budget fixed before anyone knew the real cost
Spending peaks at the very end - testing, marketing, the whole team at once
Money from sales arrives weeks or months after release
So the emptiest the account ever gets is just before the work goes on sale

Where you've seen this

Farming

seed and fuel are paid for in spring, and the crop is only sold in autumn

Film

the crew is paid during the shoot, and ticket money arrives a year later

Building a house

the builder buys materials and pays the trades, then gets paid on completion

New medicines

a company spends for a decade on trials before it can sell a single dose

The catch

The gap only kills you if nobody will lend against the finished thing - money staged to arrive at launch, or a bank that accepts the crop as security, turns a cliff into a cost.

And the whole of it

The artist who asked for more lightsaber animations was told the budget would not stretch, not how little was left. Most people inside a project can see their own part of the schedule and not the balance that decides it.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

A studio that spent every pound it had making a good game stopped paying the people who made it in the weeks before anyone could buy it, and the praise went out on schedule anyway.

Why it works on us — Reviews and sales charts are the only numbers the public ever sees from a game, and they all arrive after launch, so a studio can be publicly succeeding and privately out of money on the same day.

Who gains

Electronic Arts — It has the best-reviewed Star Wars game in 22 years without carrying the wage bill for the people who made it. Bit Reactor says the furloughs were its own decision, not the publisher's. [1][2]
Greg Foertsch, Bit Reactor's founder — If the court accepts that the 2021 draft agreement was never signed, he owns the studio alone - a studio that now has a well-reviewed, well-selling game and almost nobody on the payroll. [1][2]
Buyers of the Playdate handheld — Panic passed on the US tariff refunds automatically. Nintendo received about $300m in the same refunds and has said buyers have no legal claim to it. [15][16]
Studios that hold their own rights — Limbic kept everything it made when Bandai Namco sold it, so its new game Corsair Cove keeps paying the studio rather than a former owner. [25]
Rockstar's rivals in September — Every studio that moved out of Grand Theft Auto 6's way has left September unusually crowded, which is a month of attention that Rockstar is not competing for. [8][30]

Who pays

The furloughed staff at Bit Reactor — They are still employed and earning nothing, watching their own game sell. A former colleague says the ones he spoke to doubt they will all get their jobs back. [1][2]
Ubisoft's Barcelona mobile staff — They are giving up six days of pay in September to fight an order to return to the office that was decided without them. [14]
Small exhibitors at Gamescom — At least four booths were robbed of laptops and Steam Decks holding company files, and the organisers' answer was that attendees should insure their equipment. [17][18]
GameStop's closed shops and its French business — The expected fall from $972.2m to around $790m in quarterly sales is the result of shutting stores and selling the French operation. [7]
Players waiting on games that were announced — Squadron 42 slipped another year, Hinterland moved developers off its sequel and back onto a nine-year-old game, and Sony says it is now working the PlayStation 5 for subscription money rather than pushing console sales. [8][23][28]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

How many people at Bit Reactor are actually unpaid.

People at the studio told Game File it was 80% of staff. The studio confirmed the furloughs to the same reporter but would not give a number, and has not published one since. [1][2][3]
02

What Star Wars Zero Company would have to sell for anyone to be paid again.

Bit Reactor has tied bringing workers back to the launch going well, and named no figure. Nobody outside knows what it costs to run the studio for a month. [1][2]
03

Whether the game is first or second on Steam's chart.

GamesIndustry.biz reported it ranked second on Steam's top sellers and PC Gamer reported it as the top selling game, on the same day. No sales figure has been published at all. [1][2][3]
04

Which day the game actually came out.

Kotaku puts the launch on 27 August and PC Gamer on 28 August. It is a small thing, and it is also the only fixed date in a story about timing. [2][3]
05

How much data was in the Steam leak, and whose it was.

Game Developer reports 13 terabytes, while the Ars Technica report it links to is headlined 12. It is also unclear whether the files came from Valve at all or from a third-party server holding earlier leaks. [11]
06

Who now owns Undead Labs.

Microsoft said it had found a buyer when it separated from the studio, and the name has still not been announced. The studio is publicly promising a test and a 2027 release under an owner nobody can identify. [20]
07

Whether the Ubisoft Barcelona strike changes anything.

The union says it told the company in early August and has had no reply to its representatives. Ubisoft has not said publicly what it will do beyond delaying the office order to January 2027. [14]
08

How many copies Saros sold.

The 300,000 figure is a report circulating in the industry, not a Sony number, and it is being used to explain a leadership change it may have had nothing to do with. [5]

04 Hope carry this

Panic charged American buyers of its Playdate handheld a separate tariff fee at the checkout. When the US government refunded those tariffs, Panic sent the money on to the people who had paid it.