Gaming, in brief

A hearing at the Glasgow Employment Tribunal is deciding why Rockstar Games, the studio behind Grand Theft Auto, fired 34 staff on one morning last October. [5][9]

Thirty-one worked in the UK and belonged to the IWGB, a small British union that organises game workers; three were in Canada. [5][9]

Rachel Crawford, one of those dismissed, told a rally outside the tribunal that she was fired without warning and without a clear answer about what she had done. [6]

Both sides filed their opening papers this week, and Rockstar's owner Take-Two sent them to the games trade press. [2][1]

The fired workers say Rockstar's HR manager, Charlie Kinloch, had been getting reports from inside their private union Discord from at least February 2024. [1][2]

They say at least 26 meetings or messages about that chat took place over 21 months, about half of them started by Kinloch himself. [1][2]

The person passing the information is named in the papers only by a document number. The workers call them a mole; Rockstar calls them a whistleblower. [1][2]

On 7 October 2025 that person told Kinloch the union was 12 members short of 10% of staff, the point at which UK law forces a company to bargain. [1]

The union announced on the server on 18 October that it had crossed the line, and Kinloch was told on 20 October. [1][2]

Rockstar's vice president of information security, Abid Ansari, got into the chat on 24 October and copied two of its channels. [2][1]

Managers were handed lists of people to remove on the evening of 29 October, and the dismissals began the next morning. [2]

Rockstar says the 34 were dismissed for gross misconduct after sharing confidential company information, not for belonging to a union. [7][9]

Its filing says staff discussed a confidential 32-player online mode and other secrets in a room holding about 350 people, 26 of whom were not employees. [1][3]

The same filing lists insults posted in that room, including managers called arseholes and narcissistic, and says any of the 350 could have screenshotted them. [8]

It told the tribunal it guards Grand Theft Auto the way Apple guards the iPhone, keeps five full-time leak investigators and put privacy film on its windows after drones photographed inside. [4][3]

Rockstar's lawyers say waiting until the union had already reached 10% and then sacking 31 members inside 48 hours would have been, in their word, insanity. [3]

Why it matters. The hearing runs to 16 October, and the test is whether the tribunal finds Rockstar fired the 34 for what they posted or for how close the union had come to recognition.

Joe Brammer, who runs the British studio Bulkhead, said his company checks job applicants' social accounts and rarely hires people who post against crunch. [10] Crunch is the games industry's word for the months of long hours studios work before a deadline. [10] Brammer said the last three months on Wardogs had mattered more to staff than their family lives, and that chosen employees get bonuses and company shares for it. [11] Wardogs has sold two million copies since it went into early access on 10 September. [10]

Why it matters. It puts a price on speaking about working conditions: a developer who has argued in public for shorter hours is told that argument was read before the interview. [10] That is the question the Rockstar hearing is about, in a workplace where nobody has been fired yet.

European game studios spent 63% more on freelancers and contractors in 2025 than in 2024, against 55% growth worldwide. [12] The figures come from a survey by Tanja Loktionova, who runs the jobs site InGame Job and the consultancy Values Value. [12] The number of freelancers working with European studios rose 24%, and average freelancer income rose 19% globally. [12] Three in ten people surveyed had been laid off in the past year, and finding the next job took about six months. [12]

Why it matters. Loktionova describes studios settling into two tiers: a small core of directors and lead designers who get equity, health cover and bonuses, and a periphery hired for one phase and let go when it ends. [12] The second group carries the whole cost of a bad year.

Bungie, the Sony-owned studio behind Destiny, is rewriting the plan for Marathon, the shooter it launched in March. [13] An update due on 22 September has been pushed to 8 December and will add Symbiosis, the game's first permanent mode you can play without other players hunting you. [13] Bungie is also dropping its fixed seasonal release schedule. [13] It said players had told it the game needed more depth, more variety and better reasons to keep playing. [13] Sony cut at least 292 Bungie staff in June. [13]

Why it matters. Marathon is what Bungie's remaining staff are building on, and it is being redesigned after launch rather than before it. [13] A studio that has already cut its other team has nowhere to move people if this does not work.

Valve, which runs the Steam store, classified the vampire role-playing game Nighthawks as Adults Only days before its 22 September release. [14] The label pulled it out of Steam's default search results and delisted it entirely in countries including Germany. [14] Its writer Richard Cobbett said the game's nudity amounts to a few censored shots inside companion romances. [14] Publisher Wadjet Eye Games said so publicly, and Valve removed the label without ever saying what had triggered it. [15]

Why it matters. Steam decides whether a small PC game is found at all, and its ratings arrive with no explanation and no written appeal. [15] What fixed this one was publicity, which a developer with an audience has and a developer without one does not.

Playground Games has been building a new Fable since 2017, a year after Microsoft closed Lionhead, the studio that made the original games. [22] It is now due on 23 February 2027. [22] Over the same decade Xbox bought Bethesda for $7.5bn and Activision Blizzard for $68.7bn, then cut thousands of jobs and cast off Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs and Compulsion Games this summer. [22] Director Ralph Fulton told The Guardian that Fable survived because people inside Xbox see it as vital to the platform. [22][23]

Why it matters. This year's Xbox cuts will reach 3,200 people, and Fable shows what a protected project looks like inside the same company. [22] Being judged core to the platform is what bought this team a decade of funding.

Blizzard released The Forsaken Kingdom at BlizzCon, a 30-hour story campaign for Warcraft 3: Reforged, 23 years after the game's last expansion. [17] The same update made Reforged always-online and removed local network play, so the game now needs an internet connection even for people who never buy the new campaign. [16] Warcraft senior manager Brad Chan said the change came out of rebuilding the game's servers for worldwide matchmaking. [16] He said the vast majority of players were not using local play. [16]

Why it matters. The game went on sale in 2020 and what you can do with it changed this weekend, through an update nobody chose separately. [16] The one figure in the argument, how many people played offline, is a figure only Blizzard can see. [16]

The City of Miami Beach voted 4-3 to open negotiations with Rockstar Games over advertising for Grand Theft Auto 6, which is set in a version of the city. [30] One commissioner put the price at $3m and another said the city would end up nearer $4m. [30] The adverts would run on beach chairs and umbrellas from 15 October, showing the numerals VI or the words Vice City rather than the game's name. [30] One commissioner played footage of a police chase and said he did not want the city's name beside it. [30]

Why it matters. A city is being paid to carry advertising for a game about crime set in a version of itself, and three of its seven commissioners would not vote for it. [30] What one November launch is worth to Miami Beach is between $3m and $4m.

Players organised a week-long boycott of PlayStation in late August over Sony's decision to stop making discs for new games from January 2028. [25] They were asked not to play, not to buy and not to renew subscriptions. [25] Matt Piscatella, an analyst at the research firm Circana, said Sony saw no significant change in player counts or platform use that week. [25] He published no figures. [25] The week overlapped with the Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay reveal and a Call of Duty beta. [25]

Why it matters. The whole case for the boycott was that players could make a number move. [25] The only people who can see that number work for Sony or sell data about it, so the people taking part had no way to check. [25]

IO Interactive has delayed the Nintendo Switch 2 version of 007 First Light to March 2027. [21] The James Bond game was meant to arrive on every machine at once in May 2026, was moved to this autumn, and has now moved again. [21] The studio said the extra time goes on the Switch 2 version's performance and gave no other reason. [21] The game has sold four million copies in three months elsewhere, and IO cut staff this year after Microsoft pulled funding for a separate fantasy project. [21]

Why it matters. Switch 2 owners have now waited ten months past the original date for a game everyone else has finished. [21] IGN asked whether the delay is about the console's smaller userbase or about staying clear of Grand Theft Auto 6, and IO has not said. [21]

Sony released Marvel's Wolverine worldwide on 15 September, only on PlayStation 5. [26] It is made by Insomniac Games, the Sony studio behind the Spider-Man games, together with Marvel Games. [26] Hermen Hulst, who runs Sony's studio business, called it a milestone for PlayStation Studios in the company's own announcement. [26] No sales figures have been published yet. [26]

Why it matters. Sony has landed its biggest autumn release two months before Grand Theft Auto 6 goes on sale on 19 November. [26][5]

Bohemia Interactive, the Czech studio behind the Arma military games, has bought a minority stake in Enjoy Studio in Poland. [18] Enjoy makes Everwind, a survival role-playing game that has sold more than 300,000 copies in six months of early access, with Bohemia as its publisher. [18] The two have worked together since Enjoy joined Bohemia's incubator programme in 2024. [18] The price was not disclosed, and Bohemia says this is its first investment in a Polish games company. [18]

Why it matters. This is money going into a small studio rather than out of one. [18] A minority stake leaves Enjoy's founders in charge and gives Bohemia a claim on whatever they build next.

Curve Games will publish Wyldheart, an online co-operative role-playing game from Wayfinder Studios, a team founded by former developers from DICE, the Swedish studio behind Battlefield. [19] Wayfinder says Curve understood quickly what it was trying to make and who for. [19] The studio has described the plan as persistent shared worlds on private servers, so a group of friends plays together instead of thousands of strangers on one shard. [19] No terms were given. [19]

Why it matters. A publishing deal is how a new studio covers wages before its game earns anything. [19] Wayfinder's founders say the big-budget audiences they used to build for want the familiar rather than something new. [19]

Microsoft has listed Gears of War: E-Day for Xbox Game Pass on 6 October, the day it goes on sale. [27] Minecraft Dungeons 2 does the same on 29 September, and the survival game Dune: Awakening joins on 22 September. [27] Day one on Game Pass means a subscriber pays nothing extra for a brand-new game, so the publisher takes the monthly subscription instead of the sale. [27] Both day-one games are limited to the PC and Ultimate tiers. [27]

Why it matters. Xbox is putting one of its own biggest series into the subscription on release day rather than selling it. [27] That trades a large first-week sales number for income that arrives every month and never spikes.

Polyphony Digital, the Sony studio that makes the Gran Turismo racing games, has posted adverts for build engineers, online engineers and racing game programmers. [24] The listings do not name a project, and Polyphony has only ever worked on Gran Turismo. [24] The last main game, Gran Turismo 7, came out in 2022 and still had more than two million active players in December 2025, according to series creator Kazunori Yamauchi. [24] The studio is also adding twelve cars and two circuits to that game. [24]

Why it matters. A studio staffing up for online and build work is starting a project, not finishing one. [24] For players it means the next Gran Turismo is years away rather than months.

Katsuhiro Harada, who led Bandai Namco's Tekken fighting games for decades, left this year to start VS Studio, a company owned by the Japanese publisher SNK. [28] Former Tekken 8 director Kohei Ikeda and other Tekken staff have since joined him. [28] Harada told VideoGamesChronicle that the first game has not been announced and will be a surprise, but not something outside what fans expect. [28] He said the colleagues who followed him did so voluntarily. [28]

Why it matters. A senior designer taking his team to a new owner is how a genre changes hands, and SNK is paying for the move. [28] Whatever VS Studio ships will compete with the series Harada spent his career building.

Blizzard will launch World of Warcraft: Forever on 4 November, a version of the game set in an alternate history of its own world. [29] Lead Classic designer Tim Jones told Kotaku the team is starting from a baseline of simplicity closer to the original 2004 game. [29] That rules out Season of Discovery, an earlier version that let character classes take roles they normally could not. [29] Every raid will have a ten-player and a twenty-player option. [29]

Why it matters. Blizzard is now running several versions of the same game at once. [29] The design choices here decide which of them a subscriber actually plays.

Masahiro Sakurai, who created Kirby and Super Smash Bros., has ended the Game Designers Award he set up at the Japan Game Awards in 2010. [20] He said at this year's ceremony that he is stopping because he could not find anyone to replace him, and that the award needs a director who has made games that changed how games are played. [20] Its last winner is Word Game, a text puzzle from the independent studio Team9. [20]

Why it matters. The award existed to point at new ideas rather than sales. [20] It stops because it rested on one person and nobody took it on.