Gaming, in brief

Xbox, Microsoft's games business, cut 268 more jobs on Tuesday. Most were at Halo Studios, the team that has looked after Halo since 2007. [1][3]

Halo itself now goes to Activision, the Call of Duty publisher Microsoft bought in 2023 for almost $70 billion. [1][2]

Activision will make the next Halo with a new team kept separate from Call of Duty. A small group at Halo Studios stays to support the Halo games already on sale. [1][4]

Halo Studios' only release since Halo Infinite in 2021 was this July's remake of the first Halo. GamesIndustry.biz says that slow pace probably counted against it. [1]

Call of Duty has come out every year for 20 years, IGN notes. [3]

Ninja Theory, the studio in Cambridge, England, that made the Hellblade games, faces closure. Two separate deals to sell it fell through. [5][7]

Its staff are now in a consultation, which UK law requires before mass job cuts and which lasts at least 30 days. [6]

Ninja Theory was making Senua, a new Hellblade game shown in June. Game File reported that Xbox revealed it partly to help attract a buyer. [5][8]

Other teams were folded together. Rare and World's Edge move under Activision, Obsidian moves under Bethesda, and Forza's two studios, Playground and Turn 10, become one. [1][10]

Arkane, maker of Dishonored, is still in talks over its future, and Xbox expects those to last until the end of the year. [4]

Xbox says it is about three-quarters through the 3,200 job cuts it announced in July. GamesIndustry.biz counts roughly 800 still to come. [2][1]

Xbox chief Asha Sharma said in July that platform teams had grown 40% this console generation while players and playing time fell. [11]

Activision itself changed its Call of Duty plans after two Black Ops games in a row, when the second sold much worse than expected. [1]

Across social media, many players reacted with anger at studios Xbox had bought being closed or merged. [12]

Why it matters. Watch where the last 800 or so cuts fall; GamesIndustry.biz notes Blizzard and inXile have not yet been touched, and Xbox meets all its staff on 6 October. [1][7]

Undead Labs, the studio behind the zombie survival series State of Decay, has left Xbox and is now independent and owned by its own staff. [13][14] Microsoft published the first State of Decay in 2013 and bought the studio in 2018. [13] State of Decay 3 is in an early test build, with a closed test for invited players planned before the end of 2026. [14] It is due in 2027 on Xbox, PC and PlayStation, and on Game Pass on launch day, with a new publisher. [13][1]

Why it matters. Of the five studios Xbox put up for sale in July, three have now left in one piece. [11][1] Ninja Theory faces closure and Arkane is still in talks. [4]

Jason Schreier, a Bloomberg reporter who wrote a book about Blizzard, said on a podcast that layoffs at Blizzard are coming soon. [15] Blizzard makes World of Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft, and Xbox owns it. [15][9] It has just held BlizzCon, its own fan show, where it announced Diablo 5, a StarCraft shooter and a new World of Warcraft game. [15] A senior Blizzard leader emailed staff that the World of Warcraft team is not affected by Tuesday's announcements, and Xbox confirmed the email is real. [2]

Why it matters. Schreier says the distant release dates Blizzard gave, as late as 2030, are about proving it will ship on time. [15] Earlier delays to Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 led Activision's former boss, Bobby Kotick, to cut costs at Blizzard. [15] GamesIndustry.biz lists Blizzard among the parts of Xbox not yet touched by the cuts. [1]

A leak reported by IGN says Microsoft plans to stop putting its new games on Game Pass on the day they come out, across every price level. [16] Game Pass is Xbox's monthly subscription, which lets players pick from a large library of games for one fee. The same leak describes a cheaper tier with adverts. [16] It also says online play, cloud streaming and family sharing would be sold as extras. [16] IGN calls it a rumour, and Microsoft has not announced it. [16]

Why it matters. On Tuesday Xbox still promised that State of Decay 3 will be on Game Pass the day it launches. [1] So the leak and Microsoft's own words do not yet fit together.

EA Sports FC 27, EA's yearly football game, opened early access on 18 September. [17] It goes fully on sale on 25 September on seven kinds of machine, from the PlayStation 4 to the Nintendo Switch 2. [19] An RB Leipzig esports player said its new passing system gives less automatic help, so experienced players must relearn habits. [17] IGN's early review praises new tactics tools but finds the computer-controlled players still move badly. [18]

Why it matters. The biggest new feature is The Grounds, an open-world area where players meet before matches. [18] IGN points out that NBA 2K has had one since 2014, and says EA's version solves a problem nobody had. [18]

Silent Hill: Townfall, a horror game from Konami and the studio Screen Burn, launches on 24 September. [21][20] Buyers of the more expensive deluxe edition could start on 22 September. [20] Players are Simon Ordell, exploring the fog-covered island town of St. Amelia with 1990s equipment. [21] Like earlier Silent Hill games it has several endings, and IGN has timed how long it takes to finish. [41]

Why it matters. It is played in first person, through the hero's own eyes, which IGN's preview says brings players closer to the fear. [22] It lands two months before Grand Theft Auto 6, which comes out on 19 November. [24]

Rockstar Games put Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album up for pre-order on 17 September. [23] It holds 34 songs written for the game, and six can be streamed already. [24] A double CD costs $20, a double vinyl $50 and a limited vinyl $125. [25] The limited vinyl had already sold out on the album's UK site. [24]

Why it matters. The album will exist on a disc, while shops are listing the game itself as a download code in a box. [23][25] Rockstar is taking orders for the music two months before anyone can play the game.

Rockstar and its owner, Take-Two, are lifting giant letters by helicopter onto the roof of the Kaseya Center, a basketball arena in Miami. [26] When finished they will spell Welcome to Vice City, the game's fictional city. [26][23] WLRN, a Miami news outlet, reported the deal is worth almost $1 million to Miami-Dade County. [26] The county plans to spend it on land behind the arena for public use. [26]

Why it matters. The county sheriff and one commissioner object, saying the game glorifies crime and killing police. [26] The commissioner wants the money spent on gaps in the sheriff's budget instead. [26]

Files from Grand Theft Auto 5 surfaced online last week. [27] They were reportedly taken in the 2022 hack of Rockstar that also leaked the first footage of Grand Theft Auto 6. [27] They include plans for a scrapped expansion set in Liberty City and a very early version of the new game's map. [27] Take-Two, Rockstar's owner, is having videos and images of the material taken down from YouTube. [27]

Why it matters. People who post the material risk copyright strikes against their channels. [27] IGN expects security around Grand Theft Auto 6 to be at its tightest, with the game two months away. [27]

At Take-Two's yearly shareholder meeting, chief executive Strauss Zelnick was asked about Grand Theft Auto 6 on PC. [28] He said Take-Two aims to launch on every platform with a meaningful audience, and that PC is becoming more important to the company. [28] The game launches on 19 November on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S only, with no PC date. [28] He also called it a single-player experience when asked about online play. [28]

Why it matters. PC Gamer notes that in May Zelnick said PC can bring in up to half a big game's sales. [28] The year's biggest game still skips PC at launch.

Paramount Skydance settled with California and 11 other US states that sued to block its $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros Discovery. [34][29] Warner Bros Discovery owns HBO, CNN and Harry Potter. [32] Its games arm, Warner Bros Games, owns studios such as NetherRealm. [35] Paramount agreed to release at least 30 cinema films a year and pay $30 million for each one it falls short. [31][34] It also agreed to a board of journalists to protect the independence of CNN and CBS News. [30] The FCC, the US communications regulator, let foreign investors back the deal, but without votes. [33]

Why it matters. The settlement terms filed in court cover films, cinemas and news, and none of them mentions video games. [31] What Paramount plans for Warner Bros Games has not been set out.

Injustice 3, a DC superhero fighting game that NetherRealm has not announced, surfaced again this week. [35] A stunt performer's online CV named the game and listed motion-capture work as Supergirl and Batwoman, before those lines were removed. [35] It follows a leak of player tests the week before. [35] NetherRealm, which also makes Mortal Kombat, last released Mortal Kombat 1 in 2023. [35]

Why it matters. Eurogamer guesses a release in 2027, based on how often NetherRealm puts out games. [35] It would be NetherRealm's first new game since 2023, and Warner Bros Games is part of the company Paramount is buying. [35][29]

A Valve update more than doubled how fast its new Steam Frame headset charges from flat. The Verge measured about 8 watts before and about 20 after. [37] Valve also made Lepton, its tool for moving headset games built for Android onto the Steam Frame, free for anyone to use and change. [36] Developers have already used it to bring over Meta Quest games. [36] Guy Godin, who makes the Virtual Desktop app, says he will try to port it, though Valve sent him no headset. [38]

Why it matters. Games ported from Meta's Quest headsets give Steam Frame owners more to play. [36] The Verge had found charging slow, and the fix came in Valve's 0.3.0 update. [37]

iFixit, a website that publishes repair instructions, now has guides for Valve's Steam Machine, a gaming PC. [40] They cover jobs from replacing the main circuit board to cleaning the cooler. [40] Separately, Valve is testing Pyrowave, a new way to stream games from a PC to another screen in the same home. [39] It uses five to ten times more data than other methods, and uses the graphics card to cut delay. [39]

Why it matters. Both give owners more from hardware they already have. [40][39] Pyrowave is in Steam's test version on Windows, macOS and Linux, and Valve warns it may not help every setup. [39]