Gaming, in brief

Meta, which makes the Quest virtual-reality headsets, showed its new VR Glasses at its Meta Connect event on Wednesday, 23 September. [3][21][6]

The glasses weigh about 100 grams, five times lighter than the Quest 3 headset, and have no head strap. [2][6]

A puck on a cable, clipped to a pocket or bag, does the computing and holds the battery and storage. [1][3]

They go on sale in spring 2027 for $1,299. [3][5]

Meta spent most of the glasses' announcement on films and work. The glasses are the first VR device approved by IMAX, and can act as extra screens for a laptop. [1][2][3]

Owners will be able to watch more than 100 live sports events a year, through Meta's deals with MLB, NBC Sports, TNT Sports and UFC. [2]

Every game already made for Quest headsets will run on the glasses with Meta's controllers. At launch, at least 75 games will also work with bare hands. [2][7]

Unity, a tool studios use to build games, works on the glasses from day one, so studios can carry their Quest games across. [4]

Schell Games, Marvelous and six other studios are already building games for the glasses with Unity. [4]

Reality Labs, the Meta division that holds its games business, has lost about $83.6 billion in six years. [1]

In the same years, Meta closed several of its own VR game studios, including Twisted Pixel, maker of Deadpool VR, and Armature, maker of Resident Evil 4 VR. [1]

IGN says $1,299 is also the price of Valve's 1TB Steam Frame headset, which has more memory and storage. IGN thinks costly memory chips are probably why the glasses hold only 128GB. [5]

Why it matters. Watch what Meta sells alongside the glasses before they ship in spring 2027. IGN expects subscriptions and add-ons to help pay for the hardware. [5]

Capcom, the company behind the Ace Attorney series, announced Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Dual Destinies VR at Meta Connect. [9][8] It is the fifth main game in the courtroom series, first sold on Nintendo's 3DS in 2013. [8][1] The studio AMATA K.K. rebuilt it so players point at witnesses and shout 'Objection!' out loud. [10][8] It comes out in 2027, sold only through Meta's store. [8] The last new game came out in 2016 or 2017, depending on which one counts. [8][9]

Why it matters. Polygon reports Capcom said on 20 September that the Ace Attorney Trilogy has sold more than 5 million copies, and the whole series more than 15 million. [9] Fans quoted by IGN and Polygon wanted a seventh new game instead, and the series turns 25 on 12 October. [8][9]

Meta showed two AI tools for making games: Horizon Create for phones and Horizon Studio for web browsers. [4] A user describes a game in words, and Meta's Horizon Engine builds a playable game from it. [4] The game can then be published straight to Facebook and Instagram. [4] Selected creators are testing the tools with money from Meta's Horizon Creator Fund, and early access will open bit by bit. [4] Roblox added a similar AI tool for its creators earlier this year. [4]

Why it matters. Meta says making a game usually takes months of work, costly hardware and special skills, and that these tools remove those barriers. [4] Details on how these games can make money are still to come. [4]

Sensor Tower, a market research firm, says 21 million PC and PlayStation games were sold in Japan in the first half of 2026, 13% more than a year earlier. [11] Its count covers Steam and PlayStation only. [11] Capcom was the top publisher, led by Resident Evil Requiem, which sold an estimated 2.6 million copies on Steam in its first month. [11] Spending inside phone games in Japan fell 5.1%, to 1.56 trillion yen, about $10 billion. [11]

Why it matters. Sensor Tower says Steam matters more and more to big Japanese games, because it gives a game like Resident Evil Requiem a worldwide audience at once. [11] Japanese publishers made 28% of phone game downloads in Japan in the second quarter, down from 32% a year earlier. [11]

Rockstar Games, maker of Grand Theft Auto, updated its rules for mods ahead of Grand Theft Auto 6. [18] Mods may not 'expand or modify' its official stories, missions or characters. [18] Mods that carry maps or characters from one Rockstar game into another are banned. [18] Mods for playing online together must use Rockstar's own Creator Platform. [18] PC Gamer says the guidelines came out earlier this month and tell modders to 'respect our games'. [19]

Why it matters. PC Gamer says Rockstar can remove a rule-breaking mod easily on FiveM, and much less easily on sites it does not own. [19] In 2021 Rockstar sent takedown notices to projects rebuilding older GTA games, then released its own remasters later that year. [19]

Blizzard opened a beta test of World of Warcraft: Forever, a new version of its 2004 online game, earlier this month. [15][14] Its name filter was not ready, so staff checked every character name by hand, senior producer Tom Ellis said. [13] Bans for the worst names went out with the beta's first big patch. [13] Some players said they were punished wrongly. Ellis said every one who posted had another rude name he could see. [13] The full game comes out on 4 November. [14]

Why it matters. Ellis said such names were never allowed in any version of the game, so there is no new rule. [13] Players in the beta can reach level 20, and new items hidden from data miners already change how old character classes play. [14]

A leaker called Kepler_L2 claims the next Xbox, Project Helix, will reach 56 TFLOPS, a measure of raw chip speed, against 40 for the PlayStation 6. [20] The same leaker says the chip designs for both consoles are finished and ready to be made. [20] IGN India reports the claims as a rumour. [20] Wccftech, quoted by IGN India, says the gap would not make games run much faster in practice. [20]

Why it matters. Wccftech says price will decide which console stands out. [20] Ampere Analysis, a research firm, has said that if both cost around $1,000 they could sell 38% fewer than the last generation. [20]

Smyths and Argos, two UK shops, are selling Nintendo's Switch 2 console for 354.99 pounds. [12] That is 65 pounds below the console's new recommended price of 419.99 pounds, which went up at the start of September. [12] IGN calls it the console's lowest UK price yet. [12] IGN guesses the shops may be clearing stock before a Switch 2 with a battery owners can replace reaches Europe this autumn, and says its guess is unconfirmed. [12]

Why it matters. The official price went up this month, and two shops now charge well under it. [12] IGN points out that Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives on PlayStation 5 and Xbox, not on the Switch 2. [12]

A virus that copies itself is spreading again through mods for People Playground, a game on Steam made by Studio Minus, PC Gamer reports. [16] Last month its lead developer, who goes by zooi, called the game a 'technical hellscape'. [16] The developer said mods could not be properly walled off, and called keeping bad ones out 'a hopeless arms race'. [16] PC Gamer counts three other Steam Workshop malware cases this year, in mods for Project Zomboid, Wallpaper Engine and Meccha Chameleon. [16]

Why it matters. Steam lets small studios publish easily, and PC Gamer says their games cannot always match the security of bigger studios' games. [16] Its reporter says anyone playing People Playground now plays at their own risk. [16]

Beat Games, the Meta-owned studio behind the rhythm game Beat Saber, is giving it its biggest update yet, due in 2027. [1][2] Players will be able to slice notes with bare hands, and a new mode called Flux brings 35 songs. [2] A mixed-reality Tetris Effect and a hand-tracked Two Point Hospital are also coming to Meta's devices. [1][2] The heist game Payday: Aces High reaches Quest 3 and 3S later this year, with an open test from 19 October. [2]

Why it matters. Hand controls matter because the glasses ship without controllers. [6] Meta says more than 75 games will work that way when the glasses launch. [7]

Supernatural, an exercise app for VR headsets, returns to the Meta Horizon Store this autumn. [2] A newly independent team now runs it, after Meta made wide cuts across its VR and metaverse division at the start of the year. [2] Users keep their points, streaks and badges in the new app. [2] The team is adding more HD scenery, workouts and music, Meta says. [2]

Why it matters. The app outlived Meta's cuts because a team took it over and kept players' progress. [2] Game Developer lists three of Meta's own VR game studios among those it has closed. [1]

A Punk Games Showcase will run on Steam from 9 to 16 October. [17] Brad Smith of the studio Miracle Tea, who has helped run itch.io's Hardcore Punk Jam since 2018, picked just over 100 games from 443 entries. [17] He and an illustrator, Camille Carpentier, worked in their spare time to filter out games made with generative AI. [17] Studios known for treating staff badly were turned away too. [17]

Why it matters. Games their makers published themselves get special treatment, and Smith hopes Valve will add a 'punk' label to Steam so players can find them. [17] He said there was a lot of AI art to remove, and hopes nothing slipped through. [17]