Gaming, in brief

Ubisoft, the publisher behind Assassin's Creed, told staff on 14 October that it proposes to close RedLynx, its studio in Finland. Up to 52 jobs are affected. [1][2]

On the same day it cut 70 jobs at Ubisoft Singapore, about a fifth of that studio. [1][3]

Ubisoft Singapore's latest game, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, a remake of an older pirate game in the series, sold more than 3 million copies in its first week. [4][5]

RedLynx made Trials, a series of motorbike stunt games. Ubisoft bought it in 2011, and the last Trials game came out in 2019. [3][6]

Since then RedLynx has mostly helped other Ubisoft teams, for example by moving Star Wars Outlaws onto the Switch 2. It also made one phone game, Gwen's Getaway, in 2023. [6]

RedLynx was not working on any game when Ubisoft decided, and Ubisoft judged that shrinking it would not make it pay its way, the news site VGC reports. [7][6]

Finnish law makes an employer negotiate with staff before it decides on big cuts. That is why Ubisoft calls the closure a proposal, not a decision. [7]

RedLynx already lost about 60 staff in October 2025, when Ubisoft told it to make only phone games. [4][6][8]

Ubisoft Barcelona, which helped make Black Flag Resynced, lost nearly a third of its staff shortly after the game came out. [5]

This year Ubisoft has closed studios in Stockholm, Halifax, Winnipeg and Belgrade and cancelled six games. [1]

It is regrouping its studios into six 'Creative Houses', each around a few big series. Both studios hit this week sat in a support group that helps the others. [1][9]

Ubisoft expects this financial year to be its low point for cash, with better years from 2027-28. [9]

Why it matters. Watch the negotiations Finnish law requires between Ubisoft and RedLynx's staff, which decide whether the studio closes and on what terms. [7]

Funcom, a Norwegian studio owned by the Chinese company Tencent, has begun cutting staff and will now only run two games, Conan Exiles and Dune: Awakening. [10] Its boss Rui Casais said Funcom cannot keep the size it needed at the peak of making Dune: Awakening. [10] Funcom called that game the biggest launch in its 32-year history, and it already cut staff after the launch in October 2025. [10] Casais leaves at the end of the year. Scott Junior, Dune's executive producer, takes over. [10]

Why it matters. Funcom has not said how many people will go, and says it will share nothing until the process ends. [10] It is the second games company to cut staff after a successful launch this week, alongside Ubisoft Singapore.

Microsoft has sent some members of its Xbox Insider test programme a survey about keeping its games off rival consoles. [17] One question imagines every future Xbox game except Call of Duty leaving PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. [20] Others ask the same about Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Diablo and Minecraft. [20] For Minecraft, the scenario would stop new sales and updates on rival consoles, while owners keep what they have. [21] Nothing would change on PC. [20]

Why it matters. A survey is research, not a decision, and Xbox bosses Asha Sharma and Matt Booty have told staff they will 're-evaluate' exclusive games. [20] If it happened, PlayStation and Nintendo owners would have to buy an Xbox or play on a PC to get new Fallout games.

Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, released a test version of its rebuilt Epic Games Launcher, the app that runs its PC game store. [15] Epic says AI agents wrote and reviewed all the code while a small team supervised, and it calls the result 'vibe coded'. [15][19] It says the app starts in 5.47 seconds, 46% faster than Steam, by far the most popular PC game store. [22][23] Ars Technica's own test found it a few seconds faster to the store page. [19] Players posted bugs from the first day. [24]

Why it matters. Epic opened its store nearly eight years ago and still trails Steam, so speed is its pitch. [19][23] Its boss Tim Sweeney said this week the whole company is moving staff around to build with AI. [15]

Epic is rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat, its tool that stops cheating in online games, so that Fortnite can run on Linux, a free alternative to Windows. [25][18] Fortnite has never run there. In 2022 Tim Sweeney said Epic could not fight cheating 'at scale' across Linux's many versions. [25] Epic will test the new version in Fortnite first, then offer it to other studios. [18] It gave no date, and Rock Paper Shotgun says Steam Deck support is not part of it for now. [26]

Why it matters. Epic says selling cheats is now a billion-dollar business that can drive enough players away to kill a game. [26] Most studios using Epic's tool left Linux out for that reason, so Fortnite could open the way for other online games. [18]

Rockstar Games, the studio behind Grand Theft Auto, gave Bloomberg a long interview about GTA 6, due on 19 November. [27][28] Its staff grew from 2,441 in 2018 to 4,711 across 12 offices. [27] GTA 6 began in 2015 as 'Project Americas', meant to cover land across North and South America, before it shrank to a Miami-like city and the state around it. [29] Rockstar set up a whole studio in Los Angeles to write its background characters. [30] Co-head Phil Hooker said the engine, tools and team built for GTA 6 will make the next game quicker. [27]

Why it matters. When told of the second delay, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said 'Please tell me you're kidding', publishing head Jennifer Kolbe recalled. [31] Rockstar is keeping the team it doubled, and plans to build the next game on GTA 6's work instead of starting again. [28]

Cyberleek, an anonymous account that posted leaked GTA 6 footage for weeks to push up its own crypto coin, says it will stop. [32][33] It had promised the whole game if the coin reached $30 million. The coin fell to about $1.2 million, and the account says no game will be posted. [32] Its last video showed clips from late missions, not the ending. [32][34] It warned that story spoilers would go online if anyone moved against it. [34]

Why it matters. Rockstar's Aaron Garbut told Bloomberg an earlier leak, in 2022, felt 'weirdly invasive'. [35] Rockstar ended working from home in 2024 over security, and Kolbe says that will not change soon because so many people want to steal the game. [35]

An employment tribunal in Glasgow, a court for workplace disputes, will now hear closing arguments on 17 and 18 November instead of ending this week. [36][37] The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain says Rockstar fired more than 30 staff in late 2025 to stop a union. [37] Rockstar says they shared secret information in an unsafe chat server. [37] Rockstar's lawyers asked for more time to question the fired workers. [36]

Why it matters. The arguments now end the day before GTA 6 comes out, and the judge rules some time after that. [36][37] The fired workers will not know whether their firing was lawful until after the year's biggest launch.

Riot Games will switch off League of Legends Classic in January 2027, about six months after it opened. [13] League of Legends is an online battle game where two teams fight over one map. Classic rebuilt it as it was around 2013, removing most newer characters and bringing back an older map. [13] Riot said many players enjoyed going back, but 'most have gone back to other parts of League'. [13] It will refund Classic items that stop working. [13]

Why it matters. Riot says it will explain where 'sticking too closely to the past' may have held Classic back. [13] Players had asked for the mode in posts and in Riot's own player votes, and it may return as a short event. [13]

Sega and its studio Creative Assembly released Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition on 13 October, a new version of their 2011 strategy game. [16] Within a day, 83% of Steam user reviews were negative. [14] Players report old and new bugs, broken support for fan-made mods, and blurry unit pictures they say were enlarged with AI. [16][14] The original game was taken off sale on Steam, and the new one costs more. [16]

Why it matters. The Steam page carries no notice of AI use, and neither company has answered questions. [14] PC Gamer's reviewer liked the new visuals and unit controls, but said most of the new additions went unused. [38]

Facepunch Studios will make s&box, its follow-up to the hit Garry's Mod, free to play by the end of the year. [39] Founder Garry Newman wrote that it 'is not well liked' and that players do not stay. [39] It came out in April and has 47% positive Steam reviews. [40][41] About 500 people play it at once, against nearly 30,000 in the 20-year-old Garry's Mod, Kotaku reports. [41] Creators must now apply to be paid from its fund, after a flood of AI-made games. [39][40]

Why it matters. 'We don't need the entrance fee, we need players,' Newman wrote. [39] People who already paid get exclusive in-game items, with extra for those who paid $20 rather than $10. [39]

Zavvi, a British online shop for films, games and collectors' editions, has entered administration, a legal process for a company that cannot pay its debts. [42][43] It has stopped trading and says it cannot fill any orders or pre-orders, or accept returns. [42] It tells customers who paid to ask their bank or card company for their money back. [42] Zavvi was formed in 2007 from Virgin Megastores and first went into administration a year later. [42]

Why it matters. People with pre-orders now depend on their card company, not the shop. [42] If it closes for good, collectors lose one of the few shops still selling special editions of films. [43]

Google added a Game Finder to its Play store, which suggests games from a player's habits and reviews and says why it chose each one. [44] It starts in the US, in English. [44] Google also added 48-hour contests between players of similar skill, and 30-second clips players can send without leaving a game. [44] It says its gaming service links more than 700 million player profiles. [44] Some PC games, such as Dave the Diver, come to Play with saves shared between phone and PC. [44]

Why it matters. Google charges a lower fee to games that join its programmes, and says PUBG Mobile's spending per engaged buyer rose 62% after joining. [44] Games that follow the programmes' guidelines pay Google a lower fee. [44]

Summer Eternal, a worker-run studio started by former makers of the role-playing game Disco Elysium, revealed its game Red Rooster. [45] Anyone who buys from the studio, including its 500-page book about the game, can join a players' non-profit that owns 5% of the company. [46] Staff, freelancers and investors hold the other 95%. [46] The players' group can call a general meeting to discuss the studio's decisions. [46] The book costs 69 euros. [46]

Why it matters. Players usually see a game only near release; here paying members get a formal say while it is made. [46] The group can also spend its share of the game's money on events or on union work. [46]

Kotaro Uchikoshi, writer of the Zero Escape puzzle games, said on 14 October that the first game of his new studio, Crash Keys, had been cancelled after about a year and a half. [11] He asked for work so the studio would not 'crash into a million pieces'. [11] He blamed cheap AI-made games for squeezing mid-sized studios like his. [11][47] Hours later, fans found coded messages on the studio's website and began to suspect a teaser for a new game. [11]

Why it matters. If it is real, a small team lost its only project overnight. If it is a teaser, the studio used a cancellation story to promote its next game, and nobody can yet say which.

World of Warcraft: Forever, Blizzard's new version of its online world, comes out on 4 November. [48] It differs from both today's game and Blizzard's earlier Classic copies of the original. [48] Producer Holly Longdale says no Blizzard test has ever drawn more players than its beta. [48] Blizzard has started freezing trading, mail and auction use for accounts it suspects of buying or selling game gold for real money. [49] A freeze leaves no strike unless the trade is proved. [49]

Why it matters. Gold sold for real money floods a game's economy and pushes prices up for everyone. [49] A freeze instead of a ban means players caught by mistake can still play while Blizzard checks. [49]

Reporters played Nintendo's remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a 1998 adventure, before its 5 November release on Switch 2. [50] Link can now sprint, jump with a button and switch items without opening a menu. [51][52] His first wallet holds 200 rupees, the game's money, up from 99. [53] Parts of the Forest Temple were changed to cut walking back and forth. [53] Polygon says it plays 'better than ever', though its new art style split opinion. [12][54]

Why it matters. Nintendo is aiming at players who first met Zelda in Breath of the Wild, The Verge says. [50] Fans of the original meet a familiar world with a hero who handles very differently. [51]

ArenaNet, the studio behind the online role-playing game Guild Wars 2, has stopped selling its Living World story seasons separately. [55] Each season now comes with the base game or an expansion; Heart of Thorns, for example, now includes season two. [55] Before, players who bought only the expansions missed what happened to key characters between them. [55] Players who bought Living World content since 12 September get the game's premium currency back. [55]

Why it matters. ArenaNet has announced Guild Wars 3, with a test planned for autumn 2027. [55] New and returning players can now follow the whole story for the price of the expansions. [55]

Fans are rebuilding the original Destiny, the online shooter Bungie made before Destiny 2, to run on PC, where it was never released. [56] Their project, Golden Age, works backwards from the messages the game sends to its servers. [56] Footage shows it running at 4K and over 60 frames a second, with a wider view than on consoles. [56] Josh Deane, a Bungie studio head, joked under the video, 'Seems like a pretty game'. [56]

Why it matters. A joke is not permission, and Eurogamer expects Sony, which owns Bungie, to send takedown notices. [56] The same method has kept other shut-down online games, such as Anthem, running. [56]

Microsoft announced the Xbox Nano, its smallest controller, at $49.99. [57] It is just over five inches long, lighter than most phones, and keeps all 18 standard inputs. [58] Unlike most Xbox controllers it has a built-in rechargeable battery instead of AA batteries. [57] Microsoft pitches it at younger players and smaller hands. [57] It arrives in early November. [58]

Why it matters. It also connects to phones, tablets and PCs by Bluetooth, so it is not tied to an Xbox. [57] Kotaku says it is $15 cheaper than a standard Xbox controller. [58]

Sony is taking Grand Theft Auto V out of the game library in its PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium subscriptions on 17 November, two days before GTA 6 comes out. [59] Its message to PS5 owners includes an option to pre-order GTA 6. [59] GTA V came out 13 years ago, and Kotaku puts the number of people who own it at about 230 million. [59] Most of October's new library games, including Mafia: The Old Country, arrive from 20 October. [60]

Why it matters. Subscribers who never bought GTA V have about a month to finish it before it goes. [59] The date clears the old game out of the subscription just as people are asked to pay for the new one.

Valve, which runs Steam, updated Big Picture Mode, the version of Steam built for TVs and controllers. [61] A new Big Art Mode fills the screen with each game's artwork. [61] A screensaver that was only in testing is now open to everyone. [62] One option is a bouncing Steam logo that copies old DVD players. [62] The update also reached the Steam Deck handheld. [61]

Why it matters. PC Gamer's writer runs his living-room PC in this mode with a controller and no keyboard, instead of installing SteamOS, Valve's own system. [61] Valve did not make the bouncing logo the default. [62]

Dave Oshry, who runs New Blood, a small publisher of fast retro-style shooters, told PC Gamer he puts money from hits into new projects instead of sequels. [63] He named Gloomwood and Fallen Aces as games paid for that way. [63] He said that if he had made developer David Szymanski build Dusk 2, Szymanski would not have made Iron Lung, now a film that took $50 million. [63] New Blood has no outside investors. [63]

Why it matters. Oshry singled out Ubisoft for selling its Heroes of Might and Magic series 'all over the place for decades'. [63] He says New Blood never ships a game because a deadline or a shareholder demands it. [63]

The fourth Galaxies Showcase, an hour-long online show of trailers for independent and mid-sized games, airs on 15 October. [64] Founder Chris Thomas runs it twice a year, in April and October, in gaps he found between other shows. [64] Its spring audience more than doubled in its second year. [64] Data from the research firm GameDiscoverCo says games shown gained 17,731 wishlist adds on average. [64]

Why it matters. A wishlist entry means a player asked to be told when a game comes out. [64] For small studios with little money for advertising, a slot in a show is one of the few ways to collect them.

Jeff Kaplan, who led Blizzard's hit shooter Overwatch until 2021, now runs a small studio called Kintsugiyama. [65][66] Its first game is The Legend of California. [66] He told GameSpot that industry contacts who once chased him now ignore his emails, and called the change 'humbling'. [66] He told GameSpot he has not played or read about Overwatch since he left. [65]

Why it matters. Kaplan's studio is built on the idea that game makers, not owners, should make game decisions. [66] He built its server network in his dining room, GameSpot reports. [66]

The Guardian's games columnist reports a small return of arcades in Britain. [67] NQ Japan, a cafe filled with imported Japanese arcade machines, is about to open in London's Soho. [67] Smaller arcades with chosen collections of games, such as Pixel Bunker in Milton Keynes, have opened too. [67] Games journalist Will Freeman says gaming bars and cafes show there is a business in playing outside the home. [67]

Why it matters. The column links it to new games built like arcade games, such as Ace Combat 8, made to be finished rather than played forever. [67] Freeman stops short of calling it a boom. [67]