Skydance now owns Warner Bros.' game studios, the makers of Hogwarts Legacy and Mortal Kombat. The deal's written promises cover films, not games

The rest of the day

36 more stories on this beat.

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

1. 02

   Xbox's boss says the cuts are working

   Asha Sharma, head of Xbox, Microsoft's games business, told staff on 6 October that Xbox has 'started to return to growth' after 'an all-time low'. [10] She said the growth was '2 to 3 times what we were', but gave no figures for it. [24] She said Xbox's old plan for Game Pass, its games subscription, had sent the business into 'freefall'. [25] She also said Xbox's next machines will be a 'family of devices', some made by partners. [15]

   Why it matters — Xbox has cut nearly 2,000 jobs this year. [25] Hundreds more Xbox staff are still due to lose their jobs in the coming months. [10]

2. 03

   Xbox denies it alone will stream GTA 6

   The Verge reported on 6 October that Xbox had won the only right to stream Grand Theft Auto 6 from its servers at launch. [15] Streaming means the game runs on Xbox's computers and plays on a phone, TV or PC, with no console needed. [26] Hours later Matthew Ball, Xbox's strategy chief, called the report 'misreporting' and said the game 'will not be streaming exclusively or to PC'. [16] From November, Game Pass plans cap streaming at 5, 10 or 15 hours a month. [15]

   Essential5 hours

   Premium10 hours

   Ultimate15 hours

   Why it matters — Rockstar has not announced a PC version, so a stream would have been the only way to play GTA 6 on a PC at first. [15] The game comes out on consoles on 19 November. [16]

3. 04

   Dungeons & Dragons makers join a union

   The teams behind Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering at Wizards of the Coast, the games company owned by the toy maker Hasbro, said on 6 October they are joining a union. [27] It is the union that workers on Magic's online version won in a vote earlier this year. [21] They have asked the company to recognise it by 13 October. [21] Their demands include protection from layoffs, a written rule on AI and ownership of work they make in their own time. [27][21]

   Why it matters — Wizards did not recognise the first union by choice, so this one may also need a vote. [21] The union says bosses have pushed AI tools on teams 'without regard' for what the teams want. [21]

4. 05

   Eternal Strands studio lets staff go

   Yellow Brick Games, the studio behind the fantasy action game Eternal Strands, has let staff go, according to posts by workers on LinkedIn. [11] Mike Laidlaw, one of the creators of Dragon Age, founded it in 2020 with former Ubisoft developers. [11] Eternal Strands came out in January 2025 and is its only game. [11] The studio had 68 people in 2024, and it has not said how many lost their jobs. [11]

   Why it matters — It is the third studio in three days to cut staff, after Ninja Theory and Supermassive. [11] Yellow Brick paid for and sold Eternal Strands itself, so no publisher's money carries it to a next game. [11]

5. 06

   State of Decay's makers will own their studio

   Philip Holt, head of Undead Labs, said this week the studio will be owned by its staff, with shares handed out in the coming weeks. [28] Xbox let the studio go this year, and its managers bought it after a sale to another studio fell through. [28] Holt said Undead Labs showed State of Decay 3 in 2020, while its team was still small, so the public would know the game existed. [29] He feared the studio could be 'swallowed up or divested' first. [29]

   Why it matters — The studio cut a 'significant' number of jobs in September, and Holt says he warned staff early that cuts were coming. [30] It must now finish its zombie survival game on money its own games earn. [28]

6. 07

   A used PS5 Pro now costs $1,400

   GameStop, the US games shop, now sells a used PS5 Pro for $1,399.99, or $1,499.99 with a disc drive. [13] That is about $500 more than a new one. [12] New ones are sold out in Sony's own shop, and sellers on Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart raised their prices to match GameStop's. [13] The PS5 Pro launched at $699.99 in 2024, and its price has risen as memory chips got dearer. [13]

   Launch price, 2024$700

   New, now$900

   Used, at GameStop$1,400

   Why it matters — Game Developer links the jump to GTA 6, which is advertised as improved on the PS5 Pro. [13] People buying their first console of this generation now face a dearer market, not a cheaper one. [13]

7. 08

   The Resident Evil film lifts the games

   Daily players across five Resident Evil games rose from 500,000 on 30 August to 750,000 on 20 September, the research firm Sensor Tower told GamesIndustry.biz. [31] Copies sold each day rose from 34,000 to nearly 80,000 over the same weeks. [31] The new Resident Evil film opened on 18 September. [31] Capcom, which makes the games, also cut their prices from 8 September, and that alone lifted daily players by 21%. [31]

   30 August34,000

   20 September80,000

   Why it matters — Analysts at Sensor Tower and Ampere Analysis say the jump is small next to the games' sales over a whole year. [31] They say Capcom's real gain is keeping the name known before its next games come out. [31]

8. 09

   Prime members get Galactic Racer on day one

   Star Wars: Galactic Racer, a $60 racing game, came out on 6 October. [32] Amazon's Prime members can stream its story mode from day one on Luna, Amazon's cloud gaming service, without paying anything more. [17][32] Jeff Gattis, Amazon's head of games, said it is the first time Luna players get a new game on its launch day. [17] Prime members can also claim ten PC games to keep this month, including Doom from 2016. [33]

   Why it matters — The game came out on PC, PS5 and Xbox the same day, so Prime members can try it without buying it. [17]

9. 10

   Netflix announces a Conjuring game

   Netflix announced The Conjuring: Unspoken, a horror game set in the world of The Conjuring films, coming only to Netflix on 13 October. [34] It was made by Supermassive Games, the British studio behind Until Dawn, which recently announced layoffs. [35][34] Players use their phone as the controller and the TV as the screen. [34] They hunt ghosts with tools such as an infrared camera and a spirit box. [34]

   Why it matters — Netflix says players who know the films will 'get a lot more' from it, so the game leans on a film series people already watch. [35] It needs no console, only the phone in the player's hand. [35]

10. 11

    Two unannounced PlayStation devices appear

    The Wi-Fi Alliance, a body that certifies wireless gadgets, listed two unannounced PlayStation devices. [36] Their model numbers follow the PlayStation Portal, Sony's handheld that streams games instead of running them. [36] Both run Android 15, as the Portal does. [36] A leaker said earlier this year that Sony was making a Portal with an OLED screen. [36]

    Why it matters — Sony said in June that streaming needs very little memory, which makes such devices cheap to build while memory prices rise. [36] Sony did not immediately reply to The Verge's request for comment. [36]

11. 12

    Xbox's own website leaks its next pro controller

    A Reddit user found details of the Xbox Elite Series 3 controller in the back end of Xbox Design Lab, Microsoft's site for ordering custom controllers. [37] The files listed sticks that sense movement with magnets, which avoids the wear that makes old sticks drift. [38] They also showed better rumble, an audio wheel and four versions to buy. [37] The files were later removed, and Microsoft has not announced the controller. [37]

    Why it matters — The current Elite controller came out seven years ago, and its sticks can drift. [37] Magnetic sticks have no parts rubbing together, so they should not wear out the same way. [38]

12. 13

    Sega keeps AI out of making its games

    Tsuyoshi Saito, a senior executive at Sega, the Japanese maker of Sonic, told the newspaper Nikkei that Sega is 'not entrusting the creative aspects of games to AI'. [23] He said Sega does use AI to save time in publishing and office work, and to come up with business ideas. [23] Sega set up a committee on generative AI last year, with a team that builds its own AI tools. [23] Earlier this year it emerged that AI was used for background art in Crazy Taxi: World Tour. [23]

    Why it matters — The same committee answers game stores that now ask makers to say how they used AI. [23]

13. 14

    Warhorse's co-founder doubts AI can replace staff

    Martin Klima, co-founder of Warhorse Studios, which makes the Kingdom Come: Deliverance games, told PC Gamer that AI 'is not a get out of jail free card'. [22] He said laying off half a team and replacing it with AI is a 'fundamentally flawed idea'. [22] He said bosses have a 'simplified mental model' of what AI can do in games. [22] He still expects AI to become hard to avoid while saving money stays the main goal. [22]

    Why it matters — AI has been named as one reason for this year's long run of layoffs, PC Gamer notes. [22]

14. 15

    Brazil aims for the top five in games

    Rodrigo Terra, head of Abragames, the trade group for Brazil's game makers, told GamesIndustry.biz he wants Brazil among the world's top five game producers within ten years. [39] He wants games to spread Brazil's culture the way The Witcher made a Polish way of telling stories known. [39] Patricia Sato, who runs Brazil Games, an export programme, said people elsewhere mostly link Brazil with football, samba and carnival. [39] She pointed to Hell Clock, a game about a war in Brazil's history, the War of Canudos. [39]

    Why it matters — Terra said soft power, a country winning influence through its culture, is part of the plan. [39] On the same day the Australian state of South Australia doubled its fund for local game makers. [40]

15. 16

    South Australia doubles its games fund

    The South Australian Film Corporation, the state's screen agency, doubled its Digital Games Fund to $1 million. [40] Its first round, last October, gave $500,000 to 11 studios. [40] Studios can now get up to $30,000 for early work, $150,000 to finish a game and $50,000 after release. [40] Applications open on 21 October, and a new scheme will pay part of the wages of early-career staff placed in local studios. [40]

    First round, 2025$500,000

    This round$1,000,000

    Why it matters — It is the state government's largest single investment in game making. [40] The first round drew more than 50 applications. [40]

16. 17

    A hacked PlayStation account comes back, with help

    RealRadec, a well-known PlayStation fan, said hackers took his PlayStation Network account at the weekend and changed its email address. [41] He said Sony's support phone line was offline. [41] He got the account back after Colin Moriarty, a podcaster whose own account was stolen this summer, asked his contacts at Sony for help. [41] RealRadec said it was fixed fast 'because of the position I'm in'. [41]

    Why it matters — Moriarty reported in May that hackers can get past two-step login by giving support staff ordinary facts such as purchase dates and birthdays. [41] Stolen accounts are resold online for hundreds of dollars, with the owner's games inside. [41]

17. 18

    A GTA V that ran in a browser is pulled

    An unofficial version of GTA V that ran inside a web browser went live on 6 October and was gone within hours. [20] Alex St. Louis, founder of Wonder Interactive, shared a clip and said it had been converted with the help of AI. [20] It is not clear who took it down. [20] Take-Two, which owns GTA's maker Rockstar, has shut down a similar browser copy of GTA: Vice City before. [20]

    Why it matters — Rockstar lets players make mods, but its rules forbid uses like this even when nobody is charged. [20]

18. 19

    Gears of War squeezes extra memory from a drive

    The Coalition, the Xbox studio that made Gears of War: E-Day, found a way to fit the game on the weaker Xbox Series S. [14] The Series S has 10GB of memory, against 16GB in the Series X. [42] The studio uses part of the console's fast storage drive as extra memory, moving data in and out as it is needed. [14][42] Giving up a couple of gigabytes of storage frees about one gigabyte of memory. [14]

    Why it matters — Most games handle the gap by making the Series S version look worse. [42] Eurogamer says other Xbox games could probably use the same trick. [14]

19. 20

    Sony patents AI characters that learn from players

    Sony has filed a US patent for AI that changes a game's computer-controlled characters using data from how people play. [43] It could change a character's look and how it fights, not only what it says. [43] Sony writes that believable characters now take a lot of scripting and money to make. [43] A patent claims an idea, and there is no guarantee this one becomes a product. [43]

    Why it matters — Sony and Microsoft are both working AI features into their next consoles, IGN notes. [43]

20. 21

    Twitch tests a shopping channel

    Twitch, Amazon's live-streaming site, has added a Shopping category in the US, where presenters sell products with links to Amazon. [44] It puts the category on its front page and in its top menu. [44] When Kotaku looked, six shopping streamers had 65 viewers between them. [44] Twitch is also testing AI that writes down what streamers say, to decide where ads can run. [44]

    Why it matters — The test began during Amazon's Prime Day sale. [44] Kotaku says Amazon is trying to compete with TikTok and Instagram for people's attention. [44]

21. 22

    Call of Duty bets on its DMZ mode

    Infinity Ward, the studio making Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, set out its plans for DMZ, a mode where players fight over loot and must escape to keep it. [45] DMZ has its own 70 levels, and its own money and crafting materials that carry over between rounds. [45] Weapon progress is shared with the rest of the game and with Warzone, its free battle mode. [45] The studio wants DMZ to become a main part of the series. [45]

    Why it matters — It builds on a test version that ran in 2022's Modern Warfare 2. [45] Infinity Ward calls it the series' 'definitive extraction shooter experience'. [45]

22. 23

    Dead Space returns inside Battlefield 6

    A trailer for Battlefield 6's fifth season ends with soldiers in armour like Dead Space's hero, beside one of the series' alien Markers. [46] EA, which owns both series, calls it a limited-time Halloween mode. [46] The season also adds a faster free battle royale mode and six new weapons. [46] EA's 2023 remake of Dead Space got strong reviews but weak sales, and the series has been on ice since. [46]

    Why it matters — Polygon reads the mode as a sign EA has not given up on Dead Space, though no new Dead Space game is announced. [46]

23. 24

    A fan rebuilds P.T. for PCs, and Kojima notices

    A modder called LoreanXavier has rebuilt P.T., a free horror demo from 2014, to run on Windows PCs, and says it is about 97% done. [18] P.T. was a teaser for a Silent Hill game led by Hideo Kojima, a famous Japanese game designer. [18] Konami, which owns Silent Hill, scrapped that game after falling out with Kojima and removed the demo from the PlayStation store in 2015. [18] Kojima has shared an article about the port. [18]

    Why it matters — The port reuses P.T.'s original files, so fans are urging the modder to publish his code in case Konami has it taken down. [18]

24. 25

    The PS5's menus now run on a PC

    A user called VinasExplosao posted video of the PlayStation 5's menu system running on a PC through an emulator, a program that copies how a console works. [47] The team behind the RPCSX emulator says starting the PS5's system has been possible since early 2026. [47] Kotaku calls this the first proper video of it working. [47] It is not yet the same as running PS5 games on a PC. [47]

    Why it matters — People breaking the PS5's locks have made big steps in the past three months, Kotaku reports. [47]

25. 26

    A cancelled Borderlands game is playable

    A modder called EpicNNG has made Borderlands Online playable, in English, about a year after a copy of the game was found. [19] It was a free spin-off of Borderlands, planned only for China, and was cancelled before release. [19] The team had to get past its login screen and translate the whole game. [19] EpicNNG says no money is made from it and they will stop if Take-Two, the publisher, asks. [19]

    Why it matters — EpicNNG released it early because AI tools are getting powerful enough that others could soon do the same work quickly. [19]

26. 27

    A designer's papers sold off from a storage unit

    The YouTube channel Pixel Game Squad bought a storage unit at auction and found game design papers, concept art and chips holding unreleased versions of games. [48] They included a prototype of Contra III and level plans for Double Dragon and a Terminator game. [48] The unit is believed to have belonged to Tom Tanaka, a designer who worked at Virgin Games in the 1990s. [48] Much of it has gone to private collectors. [48]

    Why it matters — Papers in a private collection are closed to people studying how games were made, Kotaku notes. [48] Frank Cifaldi, head of the Video Game History Foundation, called it 'deeply unsettling'. [48]

27. 28

    A warship game admits copying an artist

    Artstorm, the maker of the online naval game Modern Warships, admitted it used an artist's ship design without permission. [49] Alex Jay Brady drew the design in 2014, an aircraft carrier that skims over water on wings, and spotted it in the game. [49] Brady said he would have agreed if they had asked and paid him. [49] Artstorm apologised in public and said it would contact him 'to make this right'. [49]

    Why it matters — Players can pay up to $700 to buy the ship outright, by IGN's sums, so the copied design earns real money. [49]

28. 29

    Forza Horizon 6's makers answer months of complaints

    Playground Games, the British studio behind Forza Horizon 6, posted that it has not talked to players 'as much as we could be'. [50] It said it is looking at changes to the game and to how it talks with players. [50] Players had complained for months, in long videos, about missing voice chat and recycled cars, and heard nothing back. [50] The game got top review scores when it came out. [50]

    Why it matters — Playground's monthly show for players has also stopped, and some players link that to Xbox's cuts. [50] Microsoft has still not given a date for the PlayStation 5 version. [50]

29. 30

    Fans add modern online play to Street Fighter IV

    Two fan mods have added rollback netcode to Ultra Street Fighter IV, Capcom's 2014 fighting game. [51] Rollback is a way to handle a slow connection: the game acts on each button press at once and corrects itself if the two players fall out of step. [51] The original game waits instead, so moves can feel late. [51] Both mods were written with help from Claude, Anthropic's AI, and one maker has already stopped work. [51]

    Why it matters — Rollback has been the standard for fighting games since the mid-2010s, and this game never had it. [51] Rock Paper Shotgun's writer would rather keep the old netcode than use AI-made code. [51]

30. 31

    50,000 join Sonic's chat server in six hours

    Sega opened an official Discord chat server for Sonic the Hedgehog, and more than 50,000 people joined in about six hours. [52] Moderators quickly slowed it down, so each person must wait two minutes between messages. [53] New members cannot post at all unless they pay for a Discord upgrade, and pictures are switched off. [52] A filter deletes messages written in capital letters. [52]

    Why it matters — The server bans anything made with AI and anything that is not family-friendly. [53] It opens as Sega hires for several teams, though no new Sonic game is announced. [52]

31. 32

    Sonic's producer says no remakes for now

    Takashi Iizuka, who leads the Sonic games at Sega, told the site Automaton that Sonic will not get remakes or remasters soon. [54] He said a remake means 'providing the same experience again'. [54] He also said remaking an old game now takes about as much work as making a new one, because all the art must be redone. [54] Fans have asked Sega to bring back older games such as Sonic Unleashed. [54]

    Why it matters — Other publishers keep making remakes because players already know the games, which makes them a fairly safe bet. [54]

32. 33

    Dizzy's creators make a new game with AI

    The Oliver Twins, the British brothers who made the Dizzy games in the late 1980s, announced a new Dizzy game at Play Expo in Blackpool. [55] It mostly remakes Treasure Island Dizzy from 1989, including a version with modern graphics. [55] They said they use generative AI for much of the art. [55] Philip Oliver said the art for his other new game would otherwise have taken over a year and about 100,000 pounds. [55]

    Why it matters — Andrew Oliver argued AI lets small teams match the look of big, well-funded studios. [55]

33. 34

    A solo-made horror game passes 4 million players

    Escape the Backrooms, a horror game first made alone by a developer called Fancy, has passed 4 million players on PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch 2. [56] It is based on the Backrooms, an internet horror story from 2019 that has since become a record-breaking film. [56] Fancy brought in Blackbird Interactive, a studio that works on other studios' games, and the publisher Secret Mode to help it grow. [56] It peaked at 16,500 players at once in January 2024. [56]

    Why it matters — More than 270 games on Steam use 'Backrooms' in their title, and this one leads them. [56]

34. 35

    A game in early access since 2015 is back

    Novus Inceptio, a survival game on sale unfinished since October 2015, got its first big update since 2018. [57] Its solo maker, Martin Markus Mastny, said answering players all day from 2016 to 2019 burned him out. [57] The update grows the map from 9 to 64 square kilometres and rebuilds the fighting. [57] He says 'the energy and the will to finish the project are back'. [57]

    Map before9 km2

    Map now64 km2

    Why it matters — Mastny says he kept changing the game to please players and reviewers until it became 'something it was never supposed to be'. [57]

35. 36

    At Fate's End slips to 2027

    Thunder Lotus, the studio making the action game At Fate's End, has moved it from 2026 to 2027. [58] It said the game 'needs a little more love and care' so its release goes smoothly. [58] A demo is now on Steam, with a new trailer. [58] The studio has not yet given a new date. [58]

    Why it matters — Thunder Lotus put out the demo at the same time, so players can try the game while they wait. [58]

36. 37

    Warhammer Survivors lands days before GTA 6

    Warhammer Survivors, a game by Auroch Digital where heroes fight off screen-filling waves of enemies, comes out on 10 November. [59][60] It costs $7.99, with 10% off on Steam in its first week. [60] It follows the style of Vampire Survivors, a cheap hit, with more than 40 Warhammer heroes to play. [60] A new demo with two new heroes is on Steam now. [60]

    Why it matters — It comes out on 10 November, nine days before GTA 6 arrives on 19 November. [61][16]