Gaming, in brief

Valve, the company that runs the Steam store for PC games, priced its Steam Frame headset on Monday. [8]

The Steam Frame costs $1,059 with 256GB of storage and $1,299 with 1TB. [1][4]

When Valve showed it in November 2025, it planned to make it cheaper than its Valve Index headset. [5]

The Index cost $999 in 2019, so the new headset ended up $60 dearer. [3]

Reviewers at IGN and Rock Paper Shotgun blame a shortage of memory chips that has pushed up the cost of the parts inside. [3][5]

Game Developer says the shortage comes from AI companies signing exclusive deals with big memory makers such as Samsung and SK Hynix. [9]

Game Developer also says Valve refuses to sell hardware below cost and make the money back on games. [9]

Meta's Quest 3 headset costs $599. [3] The Verge says Valve's headset costs two to three times as much as similar-looking Meta headsets. [2]

The Frame is not only for VR. It can stream a player's whole Steam library from a PC, or run lighter games on its own chip. [2][8]

Every Frame comes with Half-Life: Alyx, Valve's 2020 VR game, rebuilt to run on the headset without a PC. [1][6]

People sign up until 17 September. Valve then draws a random order and sends the first invitations to buy on 18 September. [1][6]

Only Steam accounts that bought something before 27 April 2026 can sign up, and each household gets one sign-up. [8]

Valve says the same draw helped stop resellers when it sold its Steam Machine PC this summer. [7][1]

Reviewers found games that crashed and a battery that lasts one to two hours. [2][3] The power charger is not in the box and costs $29. [1][4]

Why it matters. The next thing to watch is whether Valve's draw on 17 September leaves people on a waitlist, which happens only if more people sign up than Valve has headsets. [5]

IGN, one of the biggest video game news websites, laid off staff across several departments on Monday, Kotaku's sources say. [10] Those cut include Brian Altano, at IGN since 2009 and a host of its PlayStation podcast Beyond, and Seth Macy, an editor and Nintendo podcast host. [10] A smaller group, including engineers, was cut months earlier, days after IGN Live, the site's yearly event in Los Angeles. [10] IGN's owner, Ziff Davis, bought Eurogamer and Rock Paper Shotgun in 2024. [10]

Why it matters. IGN has not said how many people lost their jobs. [10] Kotaku says some cuts may depend on whether remote staff were willing to move. [10]

KO_OP, the studio behind Goodbye Volcano High and Young Suns, has laid off 13 people. [11] KO_OP is owned and run by its workers, and it says the decision was made democratically. [11] It says it could not find money for new projects while working on its current ones. [11] Team leads and elected executives are among those leaving. [11] Young Suns, a life game played with other people, launched on Xbox and is coming to other machines. [11]

Why it matters. KO_OP says it will share any Young Suns profits with the people it laid off, and rehire if new funding arrives. [11] Its members were told about the cash shortfall well in advance. [11]

Ubisoft, the French publisher of Assassin's Creed, has delayed Rayman Legends Retold from 1 October to 3 December. [12][13] It is a remake of the 2013 platform game Rayman Legends, rebuilt with 3D graphics. [13] The team says the game has gone gold, meaning finished and ready for release, but wants more time on the details. [12][13] Apart from a new Just Dance, it is Ubisoft's only new game this autumn. [13]

Why it matters. Polygon counts dozens of games coming this autumn, led by Grand Theft Auto 6, and only this one from Ubisoft. [12] Kotaku says earlier delays led to money troubles that pushed Ubisoft to seek outside funding, lay people off and close studios. [13]

CD Projekt Red, the Polish studio behind The Witcher, will sell The Witcher 3 Remastered and Cyberpunk 2077 on Battle.net before the end of the year. [14] Battle.net is Blizzard's own PC game store, started in 1997 alongside the first Diablo. [14] It sold only Blizzard games until Destiny 2 arrived in 2017, then Activision and Xbox games. [14] Blizzard's Andrew Guerrero told Polygon it is not trying to compete with Steam or the Epic Games Store. [14][15]

Why it matters. Guerrero says Battle.net will stay picky and add only games Blizzard's own players would like. [14] Blizzard also ties a Geralt outfit in Diablo 4 to pre-ordering a Witcher 3 add-on on Battle.net. [15]

Blizzard says Diablo 4 will get no more expansions before Diablo 5, which is due in 2029. [19] Game director Brent Gibson said the team is focused on Diablo 4's seasons and on getting to Diablo 5, and more story will come through those seasons. [19] A new season for the series' 30th anniversary starts today, 15 September. [19] The same day, Diablo 4 comes out on the Nintendo Switch 2 with everything released so far. [19]

Why it matters. Players who wanted a big story add-on get about three years of seasons instead, and a returning Amazon class in the first half of 2027. [19]

Borderlands 4, Gearbox's shooter from September 2025, has climbed to about 26,000 people playing at once on Steam. [16] That is its most since November 2025, after months below 10,000 following complaints about how it ran. [16] The rise came after Loveless, a $9.99 add-on character, arrived on 10 September with a second story pack. [16] Gearbox also cut the game to $34.99 during a free weekend that ended on 14 September. [16]

Why it matters. The base game climbed back into Steam's top five sellers in the US. [16] IGN says it is unclear whether the players will stay. [16]

Rain World is a hard 2017 survival game from the small studio Videocult, where a slug-like cat hunts for food before deadly rain. [18] When Akupara Games took over publishing from Adult Swim Games in 2022, its record was about 600 players at once. [18] Two add-ons lifted that record to 8,500 and then 15,500. [18] Akupara says the game has sold 3.5 million copies since, 1.3 million of them in one Steam summer sale. [18]

Why it matters. Akupara says Rain World is still tied to Warner Bros., which owns what is left of Adult Swim Games. [18] It hopes a deal to go fully independent is close, but has thought that before. [18]

Dave the Diver, a 2023 game that mixes deep-sea diving with running a sushi restaurant, has sold more than 10 million copies, its maker Mintrocket says. [17] Its In the Jungle expansion, released in June, has sold more than a million on its own. [17] Mintrocket is part of the publisher Nexon, which caused an argument when the game was nominated as an indie in 2023. [17] Next comes Bancho the Chef, a cooking spin-off. [17]

Why it matters. The game sold its first million copies in 10 days in 2023. [17] Three years later it is still selling, with an add-on selling alongside it. [17]

Capcom, the Japanese publisher of Resident Evil and Street Fighter, opens its first shop in the US on 19 September. [20][21] It is a pop-up in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, open until 18 October, and a branch of Capcom's store in Tokyo. [21] It sells plush toys, T-shirts and keychains, and visitors can try Mega Man: Dual Override. [20] Resident Evil Requiem, out this year, has sold more than 7 million copies, and Pragmata more than 2 million. [20]

Why it matters. Merchandise like this has mostly been sold only in Japan, Polygon says. [21] The shop brings it to US fans for one month. [21]

The Triple-i Initiative Showcase, a not-for-profit show of independent games, returns on 8 October. [22] It is run by Evil Empire, a studio in Bordeaux, France, and promises no ads and no host. [22] About 40 games will appear, including Dave the Diver, Risk of Rain 2 and the pirate game Windrose. [22] In March its organisers said they receive more than 300 games for about 40 places in a 45-minute show. [22]

Why it matters. Polygon calls it a counterpoint to The Game Awards, which Geoff Keighley hosts. [22] Most studios that apply are turned away, so the choosing decides which small games get seen. [22]

Sony is adding a slimmer set of games this month to PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium, the higher tiers of its subscription, Kotaku says. [24] RuneScape: Dragonwilds and WWE 2K26 join today, 15 September. [24] Ball x Pit and Slitterhead follow on 22 September. [24] Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, Dungeons of Hinterberg and Sniper Elite: Resistance arrive on 29 September. [24] August's list, led by Helldivers 2, was stronger. [24]

Why it matters. Subscribers pay the same each month whatever gets added. So the list of new games is the part of the service that changes for them.

Asha Sharma, head of Xbox for about six months, spends a few hours each month answering customer support tickets, The Wall Street Journal reports. [23] In that time she ended the This is Xbox adverts, cut the price of Game Pass Ultimate and oversaw mass layoffs. [23] She has told Xbox studios to focus on its best-known series, and Obsidian has begun a new Fallout game. [23]

Why it matters. The Journal says the ticket work showed her how hard it can be to fix one player's problem. [23]