Gaming, in brief

A court in Stockholm, Sweden's capital, issued a bankruptcy order against Liquid Swords on 12 October. [1][2]

Liquid Swords is the Swedish studio that made and published Samson, an open-world fighting game often compared with GTA. [1][2]

Samson was its first and only game. [1][2]

About 30 developers worked there, and none had been paid since August, Kotaku reports, citing the games site Gametalk. [1]

The unpaid staff asked for the company to be made bankrupt themselves, according to Rock Paper Shotgun's account of a report by the Swedish news site Breakit. [2]

The Swedish state is stepping in to cover all the unpaid wages, Breakit reports. [2]

Even without pay, the team kept working: Samson came out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox on 21 September and got an update on 8 October. [1]

Samson launched on Steam, the PC game store, on 8 April, and critics mostly attacked its bugs. [1]

Its average review score on Metacritic, a site that collects reviews, is 51 out of 100. [1]

Christofer Sundberg, a co-founder of Avalanche Studios, the maker of the Just Cause games, set up Liquid Swords in 2020. [1][2]

Sundberg called Samson's state at launch "unacceptable" in an apology on Steam, and half the team had been laid off partway through making it. [1][2]

Cirio Law, the firm running the bankruptcy, has put the studio and Samson up for sale, and bids close on 21 October. [1]

Why it matters. The next date is 21 October, when bids close: a buyer would decide whether Samson keeps getting fixes, and none has been named. [1]

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, this year's game in the war series, opened its story mode on 16 October to people who ordered it digitally. [7] Early reviews from IGN, GameSpot and PC Gamer mostly praise it. [4][3][5] IGN calls it the best Modern Warfare story since the series restarted in 2019. [4] Nobody has given a score yet, because reviewers want more time with the online modes first. [6] The full game goes on sale on 23 October. [6]

Why it matters. Reviewers set it against Modern Warfare 3 from 2023 and last year's Black Ops 7, whose stories were poorly received. [4][6] Players who pre-ordered digitally also get the online mode DMZ on 20 October. [7]

Wizards of the Coast, the company behind Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, told its staff union it will not recognise it without a vote, the union says. [9] The refusal covers the D&D team and Studio X, the creative staff behind Magic. [9] It is the second time this year: staff on Magic's online game formed a union in June, and the company did not recognise that one either. [9] Wizards says it is "not neutral" on unions but will respect the vote. [9]

Why it matters. The union wants fair pay, job security, lighter workloads and protection from AI. [9] PC Gamer says it bargains from strength: Wizards and its digital games made $568 million in operating profit, the profit from running the business, in six months. [9]

GOG, a PC game store, has added Ghostwire: Tokyo to its Preservation Program. [15] GOG promises to fix any problems that come up as Windows and other systems change over the coming decades. [15] Its version also drops the login to Bethesda.net, the publisher's own service. [15] Ghostwire is a 2022 action game from the studio Tango Gameworks, and more than 6 million people have played it. [15]

Why it matters. Tango would be closed now if Krafton, the company that owns PUBG, had not bought it after Xbox shut it. [15] GOG's promise means the game should keep working whatever happens to the studio that made it. [15]

Hoothanes Technology, a studio in Hangzhou, China, is making The Defiant, a war game about Chinese forces fighting Japan's army in the 1930s and 1940s, DW reports. [16] More than 700 million people in China play games regularly, according to the research firm Newzoo. [16] Every game sold there needs a government licence after several layers of approval, says George Osborn, a journalist who advises governments on games. [16] Children may play online for at most three hours a week. [16]

Why it matters. Foreign studios must pass the same rules to sell in China, and Osborn fears they will cut things before being asked, such as queer characters. [16] Black Myth: Wukong showed in 2024 that a Chinese game can sell around the world. [16]

Rebel Wolves, a studio started by former Witcher developers, will release update 1.1 for its vampire game The Blood of Dawnwalker next week. [11][10] It adds an even easier Story mode, while the old one is renamed Forgiving, and a potion that resets a player's skills. [10][12][14] The update brings more than 1,000 fixes, and the Japanese version on Steam gets its blood and gore back. [10][12] Players will also be able to pet dogs and cats. [13]

Why it matters. The game sold 1 million copies in its first two days, so the fixes reach a large group who already own it. [11] It still lacks New Game Plus, a way to replay with skills kept, which fans have asked for since launch. [10]

Grand Theft Auto 6 comes out in November, and Polygon says many developers moved their games out of that month so they would not be lost next to it. [17] Some still launch: Blizzard's World of Warcraft: Forever on 4 November and Nintendo's remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on 5 November. [17] Polygon calls several of them counter-programming, games aimed at people who will not play GTA 6. [17]

Why it matters. Barbie Rewind, a set of old Barbie games out on 12 November, and Milki Delivery, a calm game about delivering milk, are aimed at players GTA 6 does not reach. [17] GTA 6 is not coming to the Switch 2, and Polygon says Nintendo is answering it with the Ocarina remake on that machine. [17]

Battlefield Studios, which makes EA's shooter Battlefield 6, answered players angry about two new outfits added on 13 October. [18] One armband reads "Secuty" instead of "Security", and the studio says it will be fixed in November. [18] A second outfit with five pistol holsters is on purpose, a joke about action films, it says. [18] Some fans blamed AI tools, and the studio did not say how the mistake happened. [18]

Why it matters. The studio says it is checking how the outfits got past its quality checks. [18] The rest of the season follows on dates it has set: a new map on 10 November and map updates on 8 December. [18]

Neverwinter Nights, a role-playing game by BioWare more than 20 years old, still runs on servers that players host, Ars Technica reports. [22] A few hundred people were playing across about two dozen servers when the writer checked. [22] Arelith, one of the biggest servers, had its most players about two years ago, says Daniel Morris, who runs it. [22] Its online chat group has 5,000 members. [22]

Why it matters. The game came with tools to build worlds and a mode where one player runs the story, like the host of a tabletop game. [22] Ars says most buyers played it alone and few used the building tools, so it is remembered less than BioWare's other games, while those few kept it alive. [22]

Jeremiah Kipp, the director of The Mortuary Assistant film, has died, his partner Lindsay Katt said. [19] The film came out this year and is based on a 2022 indie horror game; it follows a woman working shifts in a morgue. [19] It was the biggest film of his career. [19] Dread, the company that put out the film, sent its condolences to his family. [19]

Why it matters. Kipp had just finished filming Faceless, a horror film based on Cambodian folklore, Deadline reported. [19] DreadXP, which published the game, is making more films from games, including a deal with the film studio Blumhouse to adapt Amanda the Adventurer. [19]

A Reddit user who says they have leaked games before claims a remaster of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is in the works. [20] Bloodlines is a cult role-playing game from 2004. [20] Separately, a fan said the metal band Genitorturers told a Brooklyn crowd on 15 October that a remake is coming. [21] No remaster has been announced, and PC Gamer found no one to back up the concert story. [20][21]

Why it matters. PC Gamer says the rights to Bloodlines are split, with Activision one of several holders, and it has asked Activision to comment. [21] The leaker also claims many games being made now will never come out. [20]