Gaming · Monday, 12 October 2026

01 Briefing what happened

An EA producer finds 600 original video tapes of Wing Commander 3 and says a 30th-anniversary remaster is coming

Jim Vessella, who has been copying EA's old video archive into digital files, told a retro games show that the 1994 space game will return with its filmed scenes restored, though no date or price has been given.

600

original video tapes of Wing Commander 3, found in EA's archive

Jim Vessella found them while copying the archive into digital files [1]

32 years

since Wing Commander 3 came out, in 1994

the remaster is still called the 30th-anniversary edition [1]

$1bn+

raised from fans for Star Citizen, a game still being made, which Roberts leads

it passed $1 billion in crowdfunding in May, Eurogamer reports [3]

The lead story — what happened

Jim Vessella is a producer at EA, the big US games publisher. [1] At a panel at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, a fan show for old games, he said Wing Commander 3 is getting a remaster. [1][2]
Wing Commander 3: Heart of the Tiger is a space fighter game from 1994. [1] It tells its story through filmed scenes with real actors, among them Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, Tim Curry and John Rhys-Davies. [2]
Vessella found 600 of the original video tapes while copying EA's old video archive into digital files. [1] Kotaku says he has been restoring them. [2]
Kotaku says the remaster will clean up the squeezed-down video of the 1994 game. [2] PC Gamer says it will offer both the original footage and a copy enlarged to look sharper on modern screens. [1]
Steve Lin, a board member of the Video Game History Foundation, a group that works to save old games, shared a slide from the talk on Bluesky, a social network. [1] The slide and Lin's posts list 60 frames a second, controller support, and release on the PC game stores Steam and GOG and on the EA app. [1]
The slide also promises 'Kilrathi Saga integration'. [1] PC Gamer and Kotaku both read that as the first two Wing Commander games coming in the same package. [1][2]
Neither report gives a price or a release date. [1][2]
EA rarely brings its old games back, PC Gamer notes. [1] Its Dead Space remake did not sell well enough for the sequel to get the same treatment. [1]
Vessella did not work on the original series, Kotaku notes. [2] PC Gamer asks whether this is his own passion project that EA approved, or the start of something bigger. [1]
Chris Roberts, who directed Wing Commander 3, has led Star Citizen, an online space game, for more than a decade. [1][2] Its single-player spin-off, Squadron 42, opened its Steam page on 10 October and is planned for April to June 2027. [3]
IGN calls Squadron 42 a spiritual follow-up to Wing Commander, again with film stars, Mark Hamill among them. [4]

Who is involved

Jim Vessella

a producer at EA who has been copying its video archive; he found the tapes and announced the remaster
Chris Roberts

directed Wing Commander 3 in 1994; now leads Star Citizen and its spin-off Squadron 42
EA

the big US games publisher whose archive held the tapes; it has rarely remade its old games
Steve Lin

a board member of the Video Game History Foundation, which works to save old games; he shared the talk's slide

How it unfolded

1994 Wing Commander 3 comes out, directed by Chris Roberts [1]
May 2026 Star Citizen passes $1 billion raised from fans [3]
10 Oct Squadron 42 gets a new trailer and a Steam page [3]
Within a day Vessella announces the remaster at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo [1]
Apr-Jun 2027 Squadron 42's planned release [3]
Not given a date for the remaster [1][2]

Where this points

Watch whether EA itself confirms the remaster with a date and a price, which would show it is a company product and not one producer's side project. [1]

What is pushing on the whole day

The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.

Old games sold again Building↑

EA plans to sell Wing Commander 3, from 1994, again. [1] A copy of the 1987 arcade game Wonder Boy in Monster Land is on sale on Steam, and its own composer calls it unofficial. [18] A programmer got Super Mario 64 running on a 2009 Microsoft music player. [21]

Games sold before they are done High↑

Phasmophobia, a ghost-hunting game, has sold 30 million copies while still in early access, before its finished version. [5] A $34.99 pass for the fighting game Marvel Tokon buys four new fighters, and three of them arrive only in 2027. [13][11]

Crypto scams aimed at players Building↑

Cyberleek, an account leaking GTA 6 footage, posted a new clip to push its own coin, worth about $4.75 million on paper. [6] A hacker took over the 250,000-member chat server of a fan-made add-on for the game Terraria and used it to push a crypto coin. [8]

Horror selling big High↑

The Resident Evil film has taken about $320 million worldwide in four weekends. [9] Capcom's newest Resident Evil game has sold 8 million copies since February, The Verge reports. [10] Phasmophobia, a game about hunting ghosts, passed 30 million sales. [5]

Game makers and AI Steady→

Mick Gordon, who wrote the music for Doom in 2016, told IGN he will not use AI. [19] Nier's creator Yoko Taro said he hopes to dodge competing with younger makers who use AI. [25] The Super Mario 64 port's first code change lists an AI as co-author. [21]

The rest of the day

17 more stories on this beat.

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

02
Phasmophobia passes 30 million sales

Phasmophobia, a horror game about hunting ghosts, has sold more than 30 million copies on PC and consoles since 2020, its maker Kinetic Games said. [5] It is still in early access, the stage when a game is sold before it is finished. [5] Its director, Daniel Knight, began it alone at his parents' house, hoping to sell 1,000 copies in its first year. [5] The finished version, 1.0, slipped to the second half of 2027 after an update players disliked. [5]

1,000Knight's first-year goal
30 millionCopies sold by now
Daniel Knight hoped to sell 1,000 copies in a year. The game has now sold 30,000 times that, still in early access.

Why it matters — Every one of those copies was sold before the game's finished version, which is now due in late 2027. [5] Kinetic has also opened a publishing arm, whose first game, Contact Protocol, is due in spring 2027. [5]
03
GTA 6 leaker posts a new clip to sell its coin

Cyberleek, an anonymous account leaking footage of Grand Theft Auto 6, posted a new clip of Lucia, one of the game's two main characters, naked and parachuting off a roof. [7][6] It says it will release a playable copy of the game if its crypto coin reaches a market value of $30 million. [6] Kotaku put the coin at about $4.75 million. [6] Take-Two, which owns Rockstar, the game's studio, has tried to use a legal order to make Discord help name the leaker. [7]
$0m$15m$30m
1. 1The coin's value now, per Kotaku$4.75m
2. 2The leaker's promised target$30m
The leaker says a playable copy comes out only if the coin reaches $30 million. It sits at about a sixth of that.
Why it matters — GTA 6 comes out on 19 November. [7] The last time Cyberleek went quiet, Kotaku says, it seemingly walked away with about $250,000 from its coin. [6]
04
Hacker takes a 250,000-member chat server

A hacker known as Kata took over the Discord chat server of Calamity, a fan-made add-on for the game Terraria, on 9 October. [8] The server had more than 250,000 members. [8] Its owner was tricked into handing over control by two people posing as former moderators, the volunteers who run a server. [8] The hackers filled it with links to a crypto coin named after it, whose price was pushed up and then sold off. [8]

Why it matters — A former moderator, whose admin powers the hackers had missed, wiped the server, and tens of thousands of members left within two days. [8] Kotaku says Kata has hacked dozens of popular Discord servers in two years. [8]
05
Resident Evil film passes $320 million

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil film, based on horror games by the games company Capcom, has taken an estimated $320.2 million worldwide after four weekends, IGN reports. [9] That passes Weapons, his last hit, at $270 million. [9] It went back to number one around the world after opening in China, which gave $40.6 million of its $62.65 million fourth weekend. [9] It cost a reported $75 million to make. [9]

Resident Evil (2026)$320.20m
Weapons$270m
Worldwide takings, in millions of dollars. Cregger's game-based film passed his last hit in its fourth weekend.

Why it matters — Capcom's newest Resident Evil game, Requiem, has sold 8 million copies since February. [10] The Verge, citing the newsletter Game File, says six games in the series have each sold 3 million copies this year. [10]
06
Marvel Tokon names its next four fighters

Arc System Works, the studio behind the Marvel fighting game Marvel Tokon, named all four extra fighters in its first-year pass at Evo France, a fighting-game tournament. [13][12] Phoenix Cyclops arrives on 2 November. [11] Thor (Jane Foster) follows in winter 2027, then Venom in spring and Jubilee in summer. [11] The pass costs $34.99, and each fighter can also be bought alone. [12][11]

Why it matters — IGN says the game launched with bad problems on PC, and its Steam player count still struggles to pass 1,000 at once. [12] Its director apologised for the PC launch, and the team admits winning back trust will be 'extremely challenging'. [12]
07
Tekken 8 shows a kangaroo and a comic villain

Bandai Namco showed the next extra fighters for its fighting game Tekken 8 at Evo France. [14] Roger Jr., a boxing kangaroo with a joey, arrives in early access on 11 November and in full on 16 November. [14] Yujiro Hanma, a villain from the Japanese comic Baki the Grappler, appeared in a short teaser with no date. [14] A full Yujiro trailer is due at the Tekken World Tour Finals on 17 January 2027. [14]

Why it matters — Tekken 8 sells extra fighters in seasons, and Kunimitsu in June and Bob in August came before Roger Jr. [14] IGN expects a Yujiro date when the January trailer airs. [14]
08
NetEase shows a shooter players call a copy

NetEase, the Chinese tech company, revealed ECC: Redline, a free-to-play shooter for PC and phones, with a Steam page but no release date. [15] Many players online called it a near copy of Activision's Call of Duty: Warzone, down to its menus and sounds. [15] Others said they would welcome it, because many Warzone fans miss that game's first years. [15]

Why it matters — NetEase has faced this before, when its Marvel Rivals was compared with Blizzard's Overwatch. [15] Riot Games once sued over Hyper Front, a shooter that drew comparisons with Riot's own Valorant. [15]
09
Krafton's new PUBG carries injuries between matches

Krafton, the publisher of PUBG, is making PUBG Ded.Net at PUBG Madison, its studio in Wisconsin. [16] PUBG is a battle royale, where players fight on a shrinking map until one is left. [16] Ded.Net sets that fight inside a violent game show styled on 1990s action films. [16] Powers and injuries picked in one match carry into the next, like a roguelite, a game played in repeated runs. [16]

Why it matters — Creative director Dave Curd told Eurogamer that new players face PUBG veterans with five to six thousand hours, so run-to-run powers are meant to make losing sting less. [16] He says a lean team builds it, so a miss would not put everyone at risk. [16]
10
Escape the Backrooms adds three levels

Escape the Backrooms, a horror game for one to four players from Fancy Games, will add three new levels in December in an update called the After Party. [17] Free and paid outfits arrive first, in October. [17] Its publisher, Secret Mode, announced it on 8 October. [17] More than 12 million people have played the game since it went on sale in early access in 2022, on PC, PS5, Xbox and Switch 2. [17]

Why it matters — Like Phasmophobia, it started in early access, and four years on it still adds levels and sells outfits. [17][5]
11
An unofficial Wonder Boy sits on Steam

A copy of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, a 1987 arcade game, has been on sale on Steam since 28 September from a seller called Retro Maniac, PC Gamer reports. [18] The game's own composer, Shinichi Sakamoto, says it is unofficial. [18] PC Gamer bought it and found the original arcade file running in an emulator, a program that copies old machines, with the Sega logo removed. [18] LAT Corp owns the old Wonder Boy games, and Sega owns the name. [18]

Why it matters — Only Sega or LAT can ask Valve, which runs Steam, to take it down, and neither Sega nor Valve answered PC Gamer. [18] Sakamoto says it has been downloaded 10,000 times. [18]
12
Doom's composer will not use AI

Mick Gordon, the Australian composer of the music for Doom in 2016, told IGN at the PAX Australia fan show that he will not use AI to make music. [19] He said AI learns from what people already made, so it will always lag behind them. [19] He also said he would return to Doom 'in a heartbeat' if many things lined up. [20] In 2022 he accused id Software, Doom's studio, of not paying him for half his work on Doom Eternal. [20]

Why it matters — id Software lost 136 staff in Microsoft's Xbox layoffs in July. [20] Gordon's music next appears in Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2, out on 14 October. [19]
13
Super Mario 64 runs on a 2009 music player

A programmer has got Super Mario 64, the Nintendo 64 game, running on the Zune HD, a Microsoft music player from 2009 that the company stopped making in 2011. [21] It plays mostly at full speed, with touch-screen buttons and saved games. [21] It is built on a rebuild of the game's code that fans finished in 2019. [21] Players must copy the game from their own cartridge. [21]

Why it matters — The project's first code change lists an AI as co-author, and Tom's Hardware says AI tools may be why such ports are multiplying. [21] Nintendo's lawyers moved quickly against an earlier PC version in 2020. [21]
14
A mod lets Starfield's ships land without loading

Frederik Wessberg, a modder, is building a mod, a fan-made change, that lets ships land on planets in Starfield without a loading screen. [22] Starfield is a big space role-playing game in which landing has meant picking a spot and watching a loading screen. [22] His work-in-progress video shows a ship heating up as it enters the air, passing through cloud and touching down. [22] He rebuilt how the game draws planets from space, using its own maps and climate data. [22]

Why it matters — Other mods already remove the wait on jumps and take-offs, and PC Gamer says landing had looked like the one gap modders could not close. [22]
15
Golden Joystick Awards name their shortlists

The Golden Joystick Awards, a games prize now in its 44th year, named the shortlists for the prizes the public votes on. [23] The ten PC Game of the Year picks include Crimson Desert, Escape from Tarkov, Mewgenics, Valheim and Star Wars Zero Company. [23] Voting closes on 23 October, and winners are named on 11 November. [23] Nominees for the top prize, Ultimate Game of the Year, come on 26 October. [23]

Why it matters — Only games released between 1 November 2025 and 25 September 2026 could enter, unless the judges saw them early. [23]
16
Galactic Racer was tested as a board game

Fuse Games, the studio behind Star Wars: Galactic Racer, tested the racing game's upgrade system as a board game before building it, its leaders told Eurogamer. [24] After races, players pick upgrades for their racer, and some carry over between runs. [24] Creative director Kieran Crimmins said he can make a board-game version in a day from sticky notes and dice. [24]

Why it matters — Chief executive Matt Webster said writing an idea down is still faster than building it in a game engine. [24]
17
Yoko Taro says he has done what he set out to do

Yoko Taro, who made the Nier and Drakengard games, said he has already done what he wanted to in games and has thought about retiring. [25] He spoke at the Tokyo French Institute last month, the Japanese site Denfaminicogamer reported. [25] He said he keeps working partly for the money, and because it is 'good for preventing dementia'. [25]

Why it matters — He said he hopes to avoid competing with younger, AI-assisted makers before he dies. [25] PC Gamer notes he often jokes, so he may not mean it literally. [25]
18
Two-player pinball closes PAX Australia's contest

Bumper Bout, a two-player pinball game where each player can send balls onto the other's table, was the final game of the Omegathon, the main-stage contest at PAX Australia. [26] Each ball lost costs a heart, and losing five hearts loses the round. [26] It has a free demo on Steam and comes out on 29 October. [26]

Why it matters — PC Gamer notes that games popular at shows often fail to turn that into sales, and Bumper Bout will now find out. [26]

02 Lesson why it matters

Why studios sell what they have not made yet

Studios sell games and passes before the work is done, so players' money pays for the rest, and players carry the loss if it comes late.

The twist

When players buy a game before it is finished, their money pays for the rest of it. If the rest arrives late or never, it is the players who lose, not a bank or a publisher.

The picture

1 of 4

fighters in Marvel Tokon's $34.99 pass that arrive in 2026

The first-year pass buys four fighters. Only Phoenix Cyclops arrives this year, on 2 November. The other three come in 2027.

How it works

A studio sells a game, or a pass, before the work is done
Players pay now for parts that come later
That money pays the team while it builds them
Each new part brings players back, and some buy again
If the parts come late or never, the buyers carry the loss

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

Phasmophobia passes 30 million sales

It has been sold in early access since 2020, and its finished version slipped to late 2027 after an update players disliked.
Marvel Tokon names its next four fighters

Players pay $34.99 now, and three of the four fighters it buys arrive only in 2027.
Escape the Backrooms adds three levels

Sold in early access since 2022, it adds levels in December and sells outfits in October.

Where you've seen this

Flats sold before they are built

buyers' deposits help pay for the building, and they wait if it runs late

Crowdfunded gadgets

backers pay first, and some never get the product

Season tickets

fans pay for a whole season before a single match is played

The catch

It only works while players trust the studio to deliver. After a bad update, like Phasmophobia's, or a broken launch, like Marvel Tokon's on PC, the next sale is harder.

And the whole of it

Thirty million people bought Phasmophobia before it was finished, and each of them saw only their own copy. Together, their money is what keeps a team building the version due in 2027.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

Much of today's games news is about selling something made long ago, or something not made yet. EA is preparing to sell a 1994 game again from tapes it found in its own archive. [1] Phasmophobia has sold 30 million copies while still in early access, with its finished version due in late 2027. [5]

Why it works on us — A game people loved as children, or a promise of what comes next, gets cheered before anyone has seen a date, a price or a finished game. [1][2][11]

Who gains

EA — It can sell a 1994 game again, built from tapes it already owned. [1]
Kinetic Games — It has sold 30 million copies while still building the game, and has opened a publishing arm. [5]
Capcom — The film's run has come alongside strong game sales, and Capcom calls it a cycle in which new and old games sell together. [10]
Cyberleek — Each new clip helps push up the price of its own coin, now about $4.75 million on paper. [6]
Retro Maniac — It sells a copy the game's own composer calls unofficial, while Sega and LAT have no official Wonder Boy games easily available on Steam. [18]

Who pays

Calamity's chat server members — Anyone who bought the coin during the hijack bought into a price pushed up to be sold off. [8]
Late buyers of Cyberleek's coin — Last time the account went quiet, it seemingly walked away with about $250,000 from its coin. [6]
Phasmophobia players — They paid for a game whose finished version slipped to late 2027, after an update the studio admits missed the mark. [5]
Marvel Tokon's PC players — They bought a game with launch problems and a Steam player count that struggles to pass 1,000 at once. [12]
Rockstar — Its unreleased game is being shown in pieces to sell a coin, five weeks before launch. [7][6]

What nobody knows yet

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

01

Whether EA has signed off on the Wing Commander 3 remaster as a product.

One producer announced it at a fan show, not in an EA statement, and PC Gamer asks whether it is his own passion project. [1][2]
02

When the remaster comes out, and what it costs.

Neither report gives a price or a release date. [1][2]
03

What version of GTA 6 Cyberleek is really showing.

Nobody in the game reacts to the naked characters, so Eurogamer and Kotaku say it may be a test mode or an older build, not the game as it will be sold. [7][6]
04

How much Calamity's members lost to the coin.

Kotaku gives no figure, and the one channel left on the wiped server still carries messages from one of the hackers. [8]
05

Whether Steam will take down the Wonder Boy copy.

Only Sega or LAT Corp can file the legal notice. A fan account says one is under way, but no notice shows on the Steam page, and neither Sega nor Valve answered PC Gamer. [18]
06

Whether Marvel Tokon sells enough to deliver its whole first-year pass.

IGN reports player worries that poor sales could put the game's future at risk, while the team has set dates up to summer 2027. [12][11]
07

When Phasmophobia's finished version really arrives.

Kinetic Games now says the second half of 2027, after it already slipped once from this year. [5]

04 Hope carry this

Jim Vessella found 600 original video tapes of Wing Commander 3 in EA's archive while copying it into digital files, and the game's filmed scenes are being restored from them.

Also true today

Daniel Knight began Phasmophobia alone at his parents' house, hoping to sell 1,000 copies in its first year. It has now sold more than 30 million.
Phasmophobia players raised more than $100,000 for the American Heart Association last year, and the charity ghost hunt returns from 26 October to 1 November.
A former moderator of the hijacked Calamity chat server, whose admin powers the hackers had missed, wiped the server, and tens of thousands of members left within two days.