NIS America says it is talking to Sony about the end of PlayStation discs. About 30 in 100 PS5 copies of Resident Evil Requiem were sold on disc

The rest of the day

13 more stories on this beat.

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

1. 02

   MindsEye's studio goes into administration

   Build A Rocket Boy, the studio founded by Grand Theft Auto veteran Leslie Benzies, has appointed administrators. [8][9] Administration is a UK process for a company that cannot pay its debts: the people it owes cannot sue while an outside firm tries to rescue it. [9][8] The studio confirmed Opus Advisory Group is acting as administrator. [8] Its last accounts, for the year to September 2025, show a 47.5 million pound operating loss and 61.8 million pounds owed to creditors. [8] Its first game, MindsEye, launched in June 2025 to bad reviews, and layoffs followed in several waves. [8][9]

   Why it matters — If the studio cannot be rescued, the administrator's job becomes getting creditors more back than a plain shutdown would. [9] NetEase Games, RedBird Capital Partners and Galaxy Interactive had invested in the studio, and their directors were removed from its board over the summer. [8]

2. 03

   Trophy Games buys Playrion from Paradox

   Trophy Games, a Danish studio, has bought Playrion, the Paris studio behind Airport Simulator: First Class, from Paradox Interactive. [10] Trophy pays 2.25 million euros up front, plus more over three years depending on Playrion's revenue. [10] Thirty Playrion staff move to Trophy, which calls it its largest purchase yet. [10] Paradox says it is focusing on strategy and management games, mainly for PC and consoles. [10] Trophy raised its 2026 revenue forecast to between 22.8 and 24.1 million euros. [10]

   Why it matters — Trophy says it has a recipe: take a game that has proved it has players and build a series around it, as it did after buying Airline Manager 4 in 2021. [10] Because part of the price depends on revenue, Paradox is paid more only if Playrion does well under its new owner. [10]

3. 04

   A discount and a film lift old Resident Evil games

   Capcom cut prices on several Resident Evil games eight to ten days before the new Resident Evil film reached cinemas, by two reports. [6][7] In the week after the film opened, PS5 sales of the Resident Evil 2 remake rose 64% and of the 2023 Resident Evil 4 remake 54%, by Alinea Analytics' estimate. [7] Daily players of the Resident Evil 2 remake rose from about 78,000 to about 116,000. [7] Requiem, the newest game, made about $271,000 a day on PS5 once discounted, down from $284,000. [6]

   Resident Evil 2 remake64%

   Resident Evil 4 remake54%

   Why it matters — The sale and the film overlapped, so the two reports read the same numbers differently: IGN's headline credits the film, while Eurogamer says the price cuts mattered more. [7][6] Alinea's Rhys Elliott says the discounts drove most of the rise before the film, and the film pushed sales further the week after. [7]

4. 05

   Ubisoft files trademarks for Motherbrain

   Ubisoft, which publishes Assassin's Creed and Far Cry, has filed trademarks for the name Motherbrain, the games newsletter Game File found. [12][11] One filing covers downloadable software that uses AI to create video games. [12][11] Game File reports that Ubisoft uses Motherbrain as an inside name for its AI projects, which it has not mentioned in public. [12] It shares its name with the villain computer in Nintendo's Metroid games. [12] Ubisoft has shown AI tools before, including Ghostwriter, which drafts background dialogue, in 2023. [11][12]

   Why it matters — Ubisoft closed studios, cancelled projects and cut jobs this year, and its chief executive, Yves Guillemot, has called generative AI a change as big as the move from 2D to 3D games. [11] A trademark filing is public, so the name came out before any announcement. [11]

5. 06

   NIS America wants Japan and the West to get games together

   Kenzo Saruhashi now runs both Nippon Ichi Software in Japan and its international arm, NIS America. [13] He told Kotaku he wants more of their games released around the world on the same day. [13] Ys X: Nordics, which NIS America publishes in the West, came out in Japan in September 2023 and in the US 13 months later. [13] Saruhashi says the two companies used to work almost separately, so neither could commit to a shared release date. [13]

   Sep 2023Out in Japan

   ↓→

   Oct 2024Out in the US

   Why it matters — Kotaku's writer says the gap meant the game felt old by the time it reached the US, after a year of seeing it discussed online in Japanese. [13] Saruhashi says Western players want Japanese games more than they used to. [13]

6. 07

   Double Fine dates its first game since Xbox

   Double Fine, the studio behind Psychonauts, will release Thank You Bus Driver on 14 October on Steam, GOG and Itch.io. [14][15] It is a comedy game about driving a town's bus on time and slapping passengers who break the rules. [14][15] It is Double Fine's first game since Microsoft spun it off from Xbox this summer, when the studio cut about a quarter of its staff. [14][15] It comes out under a new label, Double Fine Action Labs, for small, rough, cheap games. [15][14]

   Why it matters — Tim Schafer, who runs Double Fine, says the label tells players this is not Psychonauts 3, so they expect a short game, not a big one. [15] He also says he likes Game Pass, Xbox's subscription, because it lets people try strange games without paying $70 first. [14]

7. 08

   Developers can now claim their MobyGames credits

   MobyGames, a database of video games and the people who made them, is owned by the games company Atari. [16] Its paid service, MobyGames Professional, announced in June and now in test, lets developers claim their profile pages and add portfolios. [16] Product manager Reece Denzel says thousands of developers have claimed pages. [16] GamesIndustry.biz says it could let people left off a game's credits show their work, and MobyGames checks each person's identity by hand. [16] A full version is due this autumn. [16]

   Why it matters — Denzel says studios get thousands of applicants for a single job, and a checked work history helps a candidate stand out. [16] Much of the credits data was gathered by volunteers, often from screenshots of games' end credits. [16]

8. 09

   UK museum asks who holds old game material

   The National Videogame Museum in Sheffield has opened a UK-wide survey called Behind the Screens. [17] It asks developers, publishers, former staff and collectors what they hold, from design papers and artwork to old hardware, adverts and company archives. [17] Ukie, the UK games trade body, is a partner, and the British Film Institute's Screen Heritage Fund is paying for it. [17] The museum opened in 2018, holds close to 5,000 objects and says it has had more than 350,000 visitors. [17]

   Why it matters — The museum says it first needs to know what already exists, and warns that much of the UK's game history could be lost if nobody keeps it. [17] The results will show where studios could work together to protect material at risk. [17]

9. 10

   Ireland's game fund will not pay for AI-made art

   The Irish Game Makers Association and Screen Ireland have relaunched the Irish Games Fund with three strands for different stages of making a game. [18] The first, the Development Fund, is offering 50,000 euros to four teams whose games are past the prototype stage. [18] Applicants must declare any use of generative AI. [18] The fund will not back games that plan to ship with art, audio or writing mostly made by AI, citing unsettled copyright risks. [18] Expressions of interest close on 8 October. [18]

   Why it matters — A studio that wants this money must replace any AI-made art, sound or writing before release. [18] Ubisoft, whose trademark filings for AI game-making software came out days later, is moving the other way. [11]

10. 11

    Wardogs passes 3 million as its boss explains his crunch remarks

    Wardogs, a military shooter, has sold more than 3 million copies in its first 18 days. [19] It is made by Bulkhead, a studio that split from the Chinese tech company Tencent in December 2025. [19] Bulkhead's chief executive, Joe Brammer, had said the studio would not hire people who constantly post against crunch, the long stretches of overtime before a deadline. [19] He now says he is not pro crunch but pro hard work. [19]

    Why it matters — In a statement to Eurogamer, Brammer said his staff worked two extra hours a week, Monday to Thursday, for four weeks, on a four-day week. [19] He argues a new game on new technology cannot always be delayed by a month when something breaks. [19]

11. 12

    Bungie reshapes Marathon beyond its first idea

    Bungie, the studio behind Destiny, has set out big changes to Marathon, its shooter whose player numbers on PC keep falling. [20] Marathon was built as an extraction shooter, where players normally bring their own gear into each match. [20] An October update adds a free permanent rewards pass and matches where players get free gear instead of risking their own. [20] December brings a bigger push for Symbiosis, a mode against computer enemies, and a test Team Deathmatch mode. [20] Bigger changes, including a new start for beginners, are due in March. [20]

    Why it matters — Bungie says it wants to keep the tense original mode for players who like it, while adding gentler ways in for everyone else. [20] Eurogamer says the original proved too daunting for many players. [20]

12. 13

    Sony files a patent for an AI that writes PlayStation fixes

    Sony has filed a patent for an AI that would watch a PlayStation for problems. [21] It would use a large language model, the kind of AI behind chatbots, to write a fix or send a report to Sony's engineers. [21] The patent itself says repair orders sent to a device in someone's living room need careful limits, so a small problem does not become a bigger one. [21] IGN says it is not clear when, or whether, Sony will build it. [21]

    Why it matters — To spot every problem, the AI would need access to everything processed on the console. [21] IGN guesses such a feature would arrive with Sony's next console, which it expects to need a constant internet connection. [21]

13. 14

    The Bloody Baron's writer returns to CD Projekt

    Karolina Stachyra wrote the dialogue and scenes of Family Matters, The Witcher 3's quest about the Bloody Baron. [22] She is back at CD Projekt, the studio behind The Witcher, after a decade away that included narrative director jobs at Techland and GSC Game World. [22] Her LinkedIn profile shows she consulted for the studio from February and rejoined as a full-time writer in August. [22] CD Projekt confirmed her return but would not say what she is working on. [22]

    Why it matters — The Witcher 3's remaster comes out on 29 September. [23] PC Gamer notes that Ciri, the lead of the coming Witcher 4, was central to the Bloody Baron quest, though nothing yet links Stachyra to that game. [22]