GTA 6 leaker Cyberleek says it will release the whole game if its crypto coin reaches $30 million

The rest of the day

15 more stories on this beat.

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

1. 02

   Arc Raiders tests a mode with no player fights

   Embark Studios will test a mode in its shooter Arc Raiders from 13 to 20 October where players cannot hurt each other. [12] Embark first planned the game as a team game against computer enemies, then rebuilt it around fights between players. [12] Its own data splits players three ways: 37% play friendly, 34% only fight other players, and 27% do both. [12] It says 51% of players it asked want a mode with no player fights, but the test is "not a promise". [12]

   Play friendly37%

   Only fight players34%

   Do both27%

   Why it matters — The test comes as players return: 166,670 were on at once on Steam after a big update and a free weekend, against about 10,000 in September. [13] If the mode stays, every match is filled from two smaller groups instead of one.

2. 03

   Valve's unfinished Deadlock passes Team Fortress 2

   Deadlock, a team battle game Valve has run as an invite-only test for years, had 262,145 people playing at once on 9 October. [14] That beat the best day ever on Steam for Team Fortress 2, Valve's older team shooter, at 253,997. [14] The jump came with Solomon, a chess master who is one of six new characters. [14][15] Each time he reloads, his board shows a famous real chess game. [15]

   262,145Deadlock, 9 Oct

   vsvs

   253,997Team Fortress 2's best

   Why it matters — Valve has made no money directly from Deadlock in all that testing. [14] PC Gamer's writer credits Steam's size: the store earns enough to pay for a test this long. [14]

3. 04

   Squadron 42 gets a Steam page and a date

   Cloud Imperium Games has put Squadron 42 on the Steam store, with a release window of April to June 2027. [16][18] It is the single-player story game set in Star Citizen, an online space game the studio has worked on for 12 years. [17] Its cast includes Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson and Henry Cavill. [17][18] In August, its director Chris Roberts moved it out of 2026 so it would not come out near GTA 6. [16][17]

   Why it matters — Star Citizen passed $1 billion raised from players buying ships in May, and has raised $50 million more since, while it is still unfinished. [17] Squadron 42's release dates have moved so often that fans keep a web page listing them. [16]

4. 05

   Hacked PlayStation 5s play PlayStation 2 discs

   A coder called Swordpdf released version 2.01 of PS5SX2, a program that makes a hacked PlayStation 5 act like a PlayStation 2. [19] Such a program is called an emulator, and "hacked" here means the owner has removed Sony's locks so the console runs unapproved software. [19] The new version reads a PS2 game straight from its disc and copies it to the console. [19] It cannot read the blue PS2 discs, which are CDs, because the PS5's drive cannot read CDs. [19]

   Why it matters — Owners can now play their own old discs instead of downloading copies from websites. [19] Swordpdf says a PlayStation 3 version is in the works, and the project lists Claude, an AI, as one of its three contributors. [19]

5. 06

   An AI driving demo puts its makers in debt

   Easy Fox, a team of four, says its free demo of Teach My Little Sister How To Drive costs more than $1,000 a day to run. [20] In the game an AI chatbot plays a learner driver who follows, or ignores, the player's instructions. [20][21] Every reply is a paid request to an AI company, and demo players grew more than twentyfold in a month. [21] The team took out a bank loan and may close the demo before launch. [20][21]

   Demo players in a month20x

   ↓→

   AI bill$1,000+ a day

   ↓→

   Paid witha bank loan

   Why it matters — Most games cost almost nothing per extra player, so a free demo is cheap marketing. Here each extra player adds to a bill, and Easy Fox says the cost will go into the final price, with no separate charge per player. [21]

6. 07

   YouTube deletes a channel over a censored game video

   YouTube permanently removed the channel of J0nathan, a French creator with 190,000 subscribers, over a video of the horror game Hellraiser: Revival. [22][23] The game, from Saber Interactive, opens with an explicit sex scene. [22][24] He had covered the nudity with black boxes and marked the video not for children, but did not age-restrict it. [22] YouTube cited its sex and nudity rules, and his first appeal was turned down within minutes. [22]

   Why it matters — He says he lost 10 years of work, more than 3,000 videos and his main income, while uncensored videos of the same scene stay up. [22] Saber had told creators before launch to use age limits, because the game has no streamer mode. [22]

7. 08

   Silent Hill's director casts a new horror game

   Bokeh Game Studio is hiring actors for a new, untitled horror game, the site MP1st reports. [25] Bokeh was founded by Keiichiro Toyama, who directed the first Silent Hill and created Gravity Rush. [25] The casting sheet lists seven named characters and an eight-year-old girl. [25] It describes drug use, abuse and grief, and people who change into creatures, much like Bokeh's 2024 game Slitterhead. [25]

   Why it matters — Slitterhead did not sell strongly, Eurogamer notes, yet Bokeh is making another game in the same vein. [25] The studio itself has announced nothing.

8. 09

   Epic's report leads to an arrest for Fortnite threats

   The FBI arrested Edward Frith, 29, of Alabama, after Epic Games reported threats he made in Fortnite's voice chat. [26] He had said he wanted to kill someone and would shoot FBI agents who came to his door. [26] Epic sent the FBI a recording and a written copy of what he said. [26] He was charged on 23 September, pleaded not guilty, and is held until trial. [26]

   Why it matters — Epic only receives a voice recording when a player in the chat reports it, and then it gets the last five minutes. [26] So what reaches the police starts with another player pressing report.

9. 10

   Hidden F-Zero codes found after 23 years

   A Japanese player called BTEST4HE has found eight hidden codes in F-Zero GX, Nintendo's 2003 racing game. [27] They unlock the "Gold Parts", car parts that could only be won at promotional events in Japan when the game came out. [27] The codes work on the original GameCube, the Wii and the Nintendo Classics service on Switch 2. [27] Five of the eight must be typed on four controllers at once. [27]

   Why it matters — Prizes tied to a one-off event usually vanish when the event ends. These were inside every copy all along, so every player can now reach them. [27]

10. 11

    Mafia 3 fixed ten years on

    Hangar 13, the studio behind the crime game Mafia 3, released an update for it this week, ten years after it came out. [28] It fixes missions where players got stuck and could not go on, including the game's ending. [28] It also fixes characters behaving oddly and achievement tracking. [28] PC Gamer scored the game 54% in 2016. [28]

    Why it matters — The update is on Steam, where the game's Definitive Edition is still sold. [28] Players who gave up at a broken mission can now finish it.

11. 12

    A small game mocks big-game habits

    Mike Lacher has made Triple-A Minesweeper, a five-minute joke version of the old puzzle game. [29] It mocks habits of big-budget games: logos you cannot skip, a yellow marker showing where to click, and characters who keep saying what to do. [29] Hitting a mine does not end the game. [29] PC Gamer links it to yellow paint on ledges in Stellar Blade and to hints in God of War Ragnarok. [29]

    Why it matters — Big studios add this help because they fear players getting stuck. [29] PC Gamer says the help is usually well meant, and the trouble is that it is not subtle enough. [29]

12. 13

    Medium Rare builds its art from stock photos

    Medium Rare, a horror dungeon game due in 2027, makes its pictures from stock photos edited in Photoshop. [30] Its artist, Giovanni Fim, says a game has to look unlike others to be noticed on Steam. [30] The game is about rescuing someone from a factory that turns people into food. [30] A free demo is on Steam now. [30]

    Why it matters — Fim says a game on Steam has to do something few others do, to rise above the mass of look-alike games. [30] Rock Paper Shotgun says the look, more than the rules, is what drew its writer in. [30]

13. 14

    Militsioner puts out a free demo

    Militsioner, a game about a town ruled by one giant police officer, now has a free demo on Steam. [31] Players try to escape the town while keeping the officer calm, because an angry officer takes freedoms away. [31] Each task can be done in several ways, and some fail for good if you break things. [31] The full game is due in 2027. [31]

    Why it matters — A demo lets a small studio collect wishlists, the saved interest that Steam uses to show a game to more people at launch.

14. 15

    One developer builds a first-person Diablo

    Heathen, a dungeon game made by one developer, Yabsley, has a new trailer. [32] It plays like Diablo, the famous loot-hunting game, but seen through the hero's own eyes. [32] Enemies can be cut apart, and their heads kicked at other monsters. [32] Yabsley says playing Diablo with his mother as a child inspired it, and it will have online co-op. [32]

    Why it matters — No release date is set. It will launch in early access, where players pay to play an unfinished game while one person finishes it. [32]

15. 16

    Nivalis Nights says it is not a cosy game

    Thomas Welsh, lead writer of Nivalis Nights, told PC Gamer the game is not cosy, even though it has no dying, shooting or boss fights. [33][34] It is a life game set in a crowded future city, where players run a shop and build a life. [33] Steam players have tagged it "relaxing", and many fans of gentle games have it on their wishlists. [33] Welsh says its first hours are meant to feel overwhelming. [33][34]

    Why it matters — Steam lets players tag games, and those tags help decide who sees a game in the store. Here the maker is telling buyers in advance that the tag gets the game wrong. [33]