Gaming, in brief

A person posting on X as Chris First released Fallout: New York, a browser game he says was built with Claude Opus 5.5, an AI model made by Anthropic. [1][2]

He said it had quests, dialogue choices and Fallout's Pip-Boy wrist computer, and that every building, face and sound was made by code. [2]

His video of it was watched 3.5 million times on X. [2]

ZeniMax, the company that owns Fallout's maker Bethesda, sent him a cease-and-desist letter, a legal demand to stop. [1][2]

The letter named his web address, fallout.nyc, as a breach of the Fallout trademark, and also cited copyrighted material. He took the game offline. [2][3]

He had said the game was free and earned him nothing. [2] He also said he asked the AI for a game exactly like Fallout. [3]

The same week, clips of mashed-up games flooded X: Tarkov guns in Skyrim, Spider-Man swinging through Batman's city, Mario inside Elden Ring. [4][5]

Most of them start with decompiling, which turns a finished game back into readable code. [4][7] An AI model does that step, then moves parts from one game into another. [4]

Most of the mashups do not seem to be downloadable yet and exist only as clips. Kotaku tested one that put Minecraft into Skyrim, and fell through the world after mining two blocks. [5]

Mitchell Hynes put the original 2001 Xbox version of Halo in a web browser. Polygon reports 20,000 people played it in the first five hours. [6][7]

Nexus Mods, a big site for game mods, asks people not to use AI tools on material they do not have the rights to, and none of the mashups are on it. [4]

Venris, the modder behind SFO: Grimhammer III, a popular Total War: Warhammer III mod, deliberately broke it so AI-made reuploads stop working. [8][9]

Why it matters. Watch whether any mod site agrees to host these mashups, and whether a publisher goes after decompiled code rather than a web address; neither has happened yet. [4][2]

Capcom, the Japanese maker of Resident Evil and Street Fighter, held its own tech conference on 2 October. [10] Programmer Satoshi Ishida presented REX, a step-by-step rebuild of the RE Engine, the in-house software Capcom makes its games with. [10] He said games are now so big that simple jobs take too long, and that using AI has become essential. [10] REX moves the engine to the world's most common programming language, easier for staff and AI to read. [10] Capcom's long-term aim is an engine where it makes games together with AI. [10]

Why it matters. Capcom told shareholders in March it will not put AI-made art or other assets into its games, and REX keeps AI in the making instead. [10] It comes in a strong year: IGN counts three well-reviewed Capcom games in 2026, among them Resident Evil Requiem. [10]

Dana Walden, president of Disney, was asked at a Bloomberg event whether Disney would buy Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite. [11][12] She said Disney had very serious talks about an investment, but is not having talks about buying the company right now. [11] Disney bought a $1.5 billion stake in Epic in early 2024 to put its characters into Fortnite. [11] She promised several joint launches over the next two years. [11] Epic's chief, Tim Sweeney, holds full voting control of the company, so no sale can happen without him. [12]

Why it matters. Disney's share price is lower than it was ten years ago, and some investors see a big games purchase as a way to lift it. [12] For now Disney gets Fortnite's players for its characters without paying for the whole company.

Ted Sarandos, Netflix's co-chief executive, said at the same Bloomberg event that Netflix will still be in games in five years. [13][14] He called its phone games a gateway to cloud gaming, where a game runs on Netflix's computers and streams to a TV. [14] He spoke of a post-console world, and said Netflix likes games for spreading its shows into new forms. [13] Netflix closed its big in-house studio before it released anything, and later shut Night School, the team behind Oxenfree. [13]

Why it matters. Sarandos said Netflix grows mostly by building, not buying, and has no plan to buy a big games company. [13][14] Take-Two's chief, Strauss Zelnick, also expects streamed games to be a real business within three years. [14]

Grand Theft Auto 6, Rockstar's crime game due on 19 November for PS5 and Xbox, has been rated M for Mature by the ESRB, the US ratings board. [18] PEGI, which rates games across Europe, gave it an 18. [15] The European listing, from the board called PEGI, was put online and then deleted, but fans saved it. [16] It says drug use is frequent, and that the characters can take cocaine from their inventory at any time. [16][15] It also lists nudity and scenes of sex. [15][17]

Why it matters. In the 2000s a hidden sex scene in GTA: San Andreas got it re-rated adults-only, which kept it out of most shops. [18] GTA 6 shows sex openly and still gets the M rating that shops stock. [17][18]

The Miami Heat, a US basketball team, will play the Milwaukee Bucks on 18 November in GTA 6-themed shirts, on a court styled as Vice City. [19][20] That is the night before the game comes out, and the match is on ESPN. [19] The Heat already sells Vice City T-shirts at $55. [19] GameSpot reports the game has pre-sold close to 6 million copies, worth more than $570 million. [19] Kotaku says the publisher, Take-Two, is spending heavily on the campaign. [20]

Why it matters. A PC Gamer editor compared it to a chocolate bar at the checkout: it is not meant to persuade anyone, just to be everywhere. [21] GameSpot reports that some Miami officials have raised concerns about the advertising. [19]

Activision, the Call of Duty publisher that took over Halo from Xbox's Halo Studios on 22 September, is considering rebooting the series, a report says. [23][22] The report comes from Rebs Gaming, a Halo insider, and says one idea is a story about Master Chief's early life. [22][23] Sledgehammer Games, a Call of Duty studio, has built early test versions using the Call of Duty engine. [24] Nothing has been approved. [23] The report says a sequel to Halo Infinite is unlikely. [24]

Why it matters. A reboot would set aside 25 years of Halo story, which GameSpot says has grown tangled. [24] Eurogamer notes the Call of Duty engine was rebuilt in 2019 and handles modern lighting well. [22]

Jason Jones, a co-founder of Bungie who co-created Halo and Destiny, has launched Stone Kite in Los Angeles. [26][27] Its chief executive is Margaret Stohl, a novelist and former narrative director on Destiny 2. [26] Its first world, One Zero One, comes from a novel Jones began seven years ago about AI-driven robot soldiers turning on humans. [25] It starts as an 80-page graphic novel, with free issues online in early 2027 and games and screen versions planned. [25][26] More than 250 writers, artists and directors are working with it. [26]

Why it matters. Stohl says the medium a story starts in usually decides everything after it, so Stone Kite plans books, comics and games together from the start. [26] The New York Times notes it is betting on a new world in an industry built on sequels and reboots. [25]

Sony is surveying the studios that make games for PlayStation about its decision to stop supporting games sold on disc, GamesIndustry.biz reports. [28] The survey was first reported by Moore's Law is Dead, a hardware news channel. [28] Sony announced the move before asking those partners. [28] GamesIndustry.biz expects little change, but suggests one compromise: letting publishers still choose discs for the rest of the PS5's life. [28]

Why it matters. GamesIndustry.biz says Sony seemed surprised by how strongly people objected to the plan. [28] It reads the survey as a response to that outcry, made after the decision was public. [28]

Gears of War: E-Day, Xbox's big new shooter, opened on 1 October for players who bought its dearer editions. [29] Players found fan favourites missing, such as chainsaw duels and private online lobbies. [29] The Coalition, the Xbox studio that made it, said it rebuilt the game from an empty hard drive, and those features may come later or in its next game. [29] Reviews split: The Verge called it great, while The Guardian said it runs out of ideas. [30][31]

Why it matters. The studio talks of a next game while Microsoft makes deep cuts across Xbox, and E-Day's story director already left in the layoffs. [29] The Verge calls the game an early look at Xbox's new plan to lean on its biggest series. [30]

Seventy-nine people from 41 games companies and advisers met at the GamesIndustry.biz HR Summit on 1 October. [32][33] A show of hands found most of their companies now have an AI policy, against a minority a year earlier. [32] Several said AI adds work, such as long AI-written complaints that staff managers must answer. [32] One said a new kind of attack on AI tools meant rewriting a policy written two weeks before. [32] Another joked that AI just lets you "make crap quicker". [32]

Why it matters. One manager gets late-night emails from staff asking whether AI will take their jobs. [32] Another said their company keeps all AI-made content out of finished games, while it looks for routine jobs AI could do. [32]

GamesIndustry.biz named 25 UK games companies as Best Places to Work on 1 October, in small, mid-sized and large groups. [33] Each was judged mostly by its own staff: an employee survey is 80% of the score and a company survey 20%. [33] Special awards went to Dink, Hangar 13, Jagex, NaturalMotion, Rare and Snap Finger Click. [33]

Why it matters. The scores come mostly from staff, not from the companies themselves. [33] The awards were held in London after the HR Summit. [33]

Lois van Baarle, an artist known as Loish whose work appears in Horizon Zero Dawn, was accused on TikTok of using AI. [34] The picture was hers: she has videos of making it, and it dates from 2023, when such tools were only beginning. [34] She has posted her art since 2003. [34] She says artists now compete with AI images in their feeds and can be accused even when they film every step. [34]

Why it matters. Kotaku says a false accusation can do lasting damage to an artist's career. [34] Its own writers now check games for AI art, and it warns that getting it wrong hurts real people. [34]

The Witcher 3: Remastered, CD Projekt's rebuilt version of its fantasy game, is now out on PC. [35] In its first two days, PC Gamer counted more than 450 mods new or updated on Nexus Mods, a big site for game mods. [35] Many older mods were changed to work with the new version. [35] PC Gamer also noticed many mods now use AI-made preview pictures. [35]

Why it matters. Many of the updated mods date from the 2010s, and their makers kept them working within days. [35] The AI pictures are the part players see first, and PC Gamer says they put it off. [35]

Blizzard banned Ziqo, a well-known streamer, from the test version of World of Warcraft: Forever. [36] He had taken large amounts of in-game gold from strangers before a tournament with a $100,000 prize. [36] Players buy that gold with real money from outside sites that farm it with bots, which the rules forbid. [36] Blizzard now says it will punish buyers too, and accounts that accept suspicious gold. [36]

Why it matters. Blizzard admits it was too lenient on gold buying in the past. [36] Forever launches in full in November, so the rules for its economy are being set now.

Matches at the Valorant Champions finals in Shanghai, run by Riot Games, were paused again and again when players' wireless mice failed. [37] Riot says the metal of the custom desks it built could be the cause, and told players to use wired mice. [37] In one match a FUT Esports player's mouse would not fire, and FUT lost 2-0 to 100 Thieves. [37] Riot said a replay should have been allowed and it takes responsibility, but the result stands. [37]

Why it matters. Riot kept the result because overturning it would punish 100 Thieves, which did nothing wrong. [37] FUT carries the cost of Riot's mistake.

Love and Deepspace, a popular romance game, posted five cocktail recipes for an in-game event on 28 September. [38] Some used datura and flame lily as garnish, plants that are poisonous to people. [38] Players quickly warned others and asked for the posts to be deleted. [38] The game's account added a notice that the drinks are fictional and must not be made. [38]

Why it matters. The recipes came from the game's official account, so players feared some fans would try them for real. [38] Players spotted the danger before the makers did. [38]

Sony has quietly changed the inside of the PS5 Slim, GameSpot reports, citing a hardware tinkerer who found the changes. [39] The new board makes repairs easier and uses a cheaper chip for the TV signal, which likely cuts the cost of making each one. [39] The price has not fallen: the cheapest PS5 cost $400 at launch in 2020 and costs $600 now. [39] The disc model went from $500 to $650 and the PS5 Pro from $700 to $900. [39]

Why it matters. Older consoles used to get cheaper as they aged, and this one has only got dearer. [39] GameSpot says the changes come as parts have become harder to get. [39]

Bungie, the Sony-owned maker of Destiny, will close its online merchandise store on 19 October. [40] It says it is building a new home for its merchandise, but has given no date. [40] Codes and downloads bought there will work until 31 December. [40] The separate shop for its game Marathon stays open. [40]

Why it matters. The shop closes weeks after Bungie dropped its plan to stop updating Destiny 2, following an outcry from players. [40] PC Gamer guesses the merchandise may move into Sony's own store, which Bungie has not said. [40]

Tymon Smektala, who ran the Dying Light zombie series at Techland for 13 years, has joined Bloober Team, a Polish horror studio. [41] He will lead Broken Mirror Games, Bloober's label that works with outside studios on horror games. [41] He starts on two games already being made, Saw: Genesis and Onyx: The Dark Grip. [41] The label has already released Star Trek: Infection and I Hate This Place. [41]

Why it matters. Bloober is growing by working on other studios' horror games as well as making its own. [41] Smektala says he is looking for outside studios with horror ideas to work with. [41]

Delta Reign, the last Pokemon trading card set of 2026, goes on sale on 6 November. [42] Preorders opened on the Pokemon Center website at the end of September. [42] Buyers reported queues of 12 hours and many technical errors, and stock ran out fast. [42] Some fans suspect too few were printed. [42]

Why it matters. One fan reported the shop had cut how many each buyer could order, and it still sold out. [42] The Pokemon Company has not said how many were printed.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, the third and last game in Square Enix's remake of the original PlayStation game, launches on 8 April. [43] Its director, Naoki Hamaguchi, told PC Gamer his team has worked together for 10 to 12 years. [43] He said keeping one team stable for over ten years is incredibly difficult. [43] He doubts other publishers can copy the model, because a change of leader can change a whole project. [43]

Why it matters. Hamaguchi says the trilogy built a team Square Enix can trust, as well as a hit. [43] PC Gamer notes that even a publisher willing to fund three games at once would struggle to keep one team that long. [43]

Star Wars: Galactic Racer goes on sale on 6 October for PC, PS5 and Xbox. [44] It is made by Fuse Games, a studio with many former staff of Criterion, makers of the Burnout racing series. [45] It is published by Secret Mode and costs $60. [46] It is set between the films Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. [46] Each race in a run earns upgrades for the next. [44]

Why it matters. Eurogamer says it plays more like Burnout's crash racing than like a Star Wars film. [45] Early reviews from The Verge and Eurogamer are warm. [44][45]

At least nine games leave Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft's games subscription, on 15 October. [47] They include Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, one of 2025's most praised games, and A Plague Tale: Requiem. [47] Microsoft names the games leaving at the start of each month, alongside those joining. [47]

Why it matters. Subscribers who have not finished them have until 15 October, or must buy them. [47]

Pixelity, a South Korean studio, has shown the first trailer for Evangelion: Delta Cross Reflections, a virtual reality game based on the 1995 anime. [48] It is planned as three games that tell a new story, with the player as a trainee pilot. [48] It was first announced in early 2025, and Kotaku reports the first part is due in 2027. [48]

Why it matters. Kotaku calls it one of the more ambitious VR games in development. [48] It promises the anime's giant battles and its NERV headquarters. [48]