Gaming, in brief

Electronic Arts, the US publisher of EA Sports FC and Battlefield, closed BioWare on 21 October. BioWare made the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. [1][2]

BioWare was founded in Edmonton, Canada, in 1995, made Baldur's Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and was bought by EA in 2007. [3][4]

The next Mass Effect game, in early development with about 50 people, is cancelled. One of its writers says he worked on it on and off for five years. [5][6]

Bloomberg reports EA is cutting about 400 jobs, about 3% of its staff: about 50 at BioWare and about 350 elsewhere. [1][7]

A letter to staff from EA's operating chief David Tinson and studios chief Cam Weber said EA had taken 'a hard look' at its business over several months. [8][7]

EA will keep making Battlefield, Apex Legends, its yearly sports games, a third Star Wars Jedi game and a Marvel Iron Man game. [9][10]

EA paused a Sims game called Project Lotus, once planned as a free mobile game, to focus on another called Project Evergreen. Skate, its skateboarding game, keeps going with a smaller team. [11][12][13]

DICE and Respawn, two EA shooter studios, will make a game together. Bloomberg says it is likely a new Star Wars Battlefront. [2][14]

The cuts come less than three months after a group led by Saudi Arabia's state investment fund completed its $55 billion purchase of EA on 4 August. [1][15]

Much of that price was borrowed. Kotaku says EA now carries $18 billion of debt and promised investors $700 million a year in savings. [16][9]

BioWare's recent games disappointed EA. Dragon Age: The Veilguard reached 1.5 million players in 2024, against the 3 million EA had planned. [17][4][18]

EA still owns Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Amazon's Mass Effect TV series is still being made, IGN reports. [19][20]

Why it matters. Watch whether EA sells Mass Effect and Dragon Age to another studio or shelves them, and whether more job cuts follow, since the staff letter did not rule them out. [19][17]

Fortnite, Epic Games' hugely popular online game, is back on Apple's App Store in Australia. [32] Australia's Federal Court ruled that Apple broke competition law by blocking rival app stores and other ways to pay. [32] From 1 March 2027, Apple must let people download apps straight from developers, and let developers take payments without extra Apple fees. [33] Apple says it will ask for a pause and appeal. [32][33]

Why it matters. Epic has fought Apple over its store rules since 2020, and Australia was the last country where Fortnite stayed off iPhones after May. [32][33] If the ruling stands, every app maker selling in Australia can take payments without going through Apple.

Microsoft will sell Xbox cloud gaming, which runs a game on its computers and streams the picture to a screen, by the hour from November. [34] Packs cost $3.99 for 10 hours, $7.99 for 25 and $11.99 for 50, and do not run out. [23] They are for people without a Game Pass subscription. [34] They only work on games the player has bought, or a few free ones, so the hours come on top of the game. [24]

Why it matters. Game Pass members get monthly caps from November too: 15 hours on Ultimate, 10 on Premium and 5 on Essential. [35] Microsoft says streaming costs it more the longer people play, and admits heavy users will pay more. [23] Nvidia's rival service, GeForce Now, gives up to 100 hours a month for $10, Kotaku notes. [36]

From 1 February 2027, Xbox staff living within 50 miles of Microsoft's offices in Redmond, near Seattle, must work there at least four days a week. [37] Microsoft asked its staff for three days last year. [37] Xbox's head of people, Jacinda Chislum Pearson, wrote that working side by side makes it easier to review work and make decisions. [37] Xbox is cutting 3,200 jobs, and 1,868 have gone so far. [21]

Why it matters. More rounds of layoffs are reported for October, November and January, so the staff who stay will also commute more. [38] Kotaku suggests the rule may also push some people to quit, which would keep layoff numbers down. [38]

Sensor Tower, a firm that estimates game sales, counted PC and console games that sold over 500,000 copies in their first month. [39] From September 2025 to August 2026 there were 76 such games, up from 55 the year before. [39] Games from small independent studios, called indies, made 33 of them, up from 13. [39] Their share of first-month copies rose from 26% to 38%, while mid-sized games fell from 21% to 14%. [39]

Why it matters. Sequels still sold more copies each, and the biggest-budget games took few chances: only 5 of their 28 hits were brand-new. [39] Meccha Chameleon, a cheap party game, sold 13.9 million copies in its first month, more than any launch that year except Battlefield 6. [39]

Open World, a games consultancy, studied which players are most likely to leave their usual game for Grand Theft Auto 6 at launch. [27] It named Call of Duty, Battlefield, Apex Legends, Fortnite, EA Sports FC and NBA 2K as most at risk. [27] Its survey found 69% of PC and console players plan to play GTA 6. [27] Counter-Strike 2 is safer, partly because it is not on consoles, where GTA 6 is coming out. [27][26]

Why it matters. Open World advises studios to avoid big updates and paid adverts in GTA 6's first weeks and to save them for later. [27] Battlefield, Apex Legends and EA Sports FC, three of the games it names, are the ones EA's letter promised to keep. [9]

Rockstar Games ran its first TV adverts for Grand Theft Auto 6 during NBA basketball games on 20 October, cutting two short shower scenes. [40] In Miami, the real city behind the game's Vice City, the Heat's arena renamed its burger bar after the game's Burger Shot. [26] The Heat will play one game as the Vice City Heat on 18 November, the day before launch. [26] A worker setting up branded beach chairs says he was fired for posting a video of them. [41]

Why it matters. Rockstar also put a $975,000 'Welcome to Vice City' sign on the arena roof. [26] An economics professor, Jose Garcia Montalvo, estimates 1.5 million US workers may skip work on launch day, though GameSpot calls it a projection, not a count. [42]

Sony released PS5 system update 14.20 on 21 October, saying only that it improved some screens. [43][44] Hackers have been breaking into older PS5 software so the console runs games it should not, including pirated ones. [43] Some games already need update 14.00, from 16 September, to download their own patches. [44][43] A hacker called Ark Sama says 14.20 fixes a flaw they reported to Sony, so they may now publish it. [45]

Why it matters. That flaw will still work on any PS5 that has not been updated. [45] Some in the hacking scene expect GTA 6 to need 14.20, which would push millions of players to update before 19 November. [44]

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches on PC this Friday, and its online modes need two security features switched on. [46] One is TPM 2.0, which checks that a computer started up cleanly. The other is Secure Boot, which lets only signed start-up software run. [46] Some older chip firmware will not pass, so players must update the motherboard's BIOS, its basic start-up software. [46] Two PC Gamer staff hit the problem. [46]

Why it matters. Activision, the game's publisher, uses these checks to keep cheat software out of online matches, as Battlefield 6 did. [46] The game's DMZ mode opened early to buyers, and a spawn point on a road already gets some players run over at once. [47]

Nvidia's new graphics driver, 621.01, supports Advanced Shader Delivery, a Microsoft system that prepares a game's graphics code in the cloud. [48] Normally a PC builds that code itself, which can mean a wait of 10 to 15 minutes and stutters mid-game. [49][48] For now only Gears of War: E-Day and Modern Warfare 4 use it. [48] It works for games bought on Steam, Valve's rival shop, but only if the Xbox PC app is installed. [48]

Why it matters. Consoles never had this wait, because every console of a kind is the same machine. [49] The fix gives PC players a reason to keep Microsoft's app beside Steam.

Dawson Little, 23, has sued Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, and Roblox, a platform of games made by its users, in San Francisco. [50] He says he began playing at about 15, and that the games left him addicted, anxious and out of school. [50] His filing says the companies used psychological techniques to keep players playing and spending. [50] Kotaku calls the filing sloppy, and notes US psychiatrists list gaming disorder only as a condition for further research. [50]

Why it matters. Kotaku expects the companies to get the case thrown out, or to settle it. [50] A trial would put the question of games borrowing tricks from gambling in front of a jury.

One More Level, the studio behind Ghostrunner, says its new game Valor Mortis made back what it cost to make in seven days. [28] It is a hard first-person sword-and-gun game set in the past, published by Lyrical Games. [28] The studio priced it at $40 and moved it off its first date of 24 September, saying this autumn was crowded. [28] Gears of War: E-Day and Silent Hill Townfall came out weeks apart around it. [28]

Why it matters. The studio gave no sales or budget figures, so the claim cannot be checked. [28]

Sports Interactive will let anyone play Football Manager 27 free on PC and Mac from 29 October to 3 November. [51] Pre-orders open on 29 October at 10% off, and the full game comes out on 10 November. [51] Saved games carry over into the paid version. [51] The studio says a full free trial of a yearly game is an industry first. [51]

Why it matters. Last year's Football Manager 26 still has a 'Mostly Negative' score from Steam players, after the studio moved to a new engine and lost features. [51] A free week lets doubtful players try it before paying.

SonicFox, a champion fighting-game player, cancelled an appearance at Nexcon, a convention in Norman, Oklahoma, on 14 and 15 November. [29] Its organisers had used generative AI to make a poster showing SonicFox's furry avatar and other guests. [29] SonicFox said they refuse to have their likeness made by AI. [29] Ty Bailey, a Nexcon founder, apologised and said the two organisers had no money left to pay artists. [52]

Why it matters. Much of the art of SonicFox's avatar is drawn by fan artists, and their work was fed to the AI without asking. [29] Other fighting-game players backed SonicFox. [29]

Nura Studios, an AI storytelling company, posted an AI-made video tribute to Machinarium, a 2009 puzzle game by Czech studio Amanita Design. [30] Amanita said it 'looks disgusting and has nothing to do with us or our craft'. [30] Nura's chief executive, Sylvio Drouin, deleted the posts and apologised. [30] Amanita announced a sequel, Machinarium 2, earlier this month. [30]

Why it matters. Amanita objects that the video was made by feeding the game's own art to AI. [30] It was posted on 20 October, the same day the Nexcon poster drew SonicFox's anger. [30][29]

Pedercini, a game maker known as Molleindustria, says his satire Future? No Thanks! used some AI. [53] A small part of its code was fixed with AI help near the end, and about two minutes of voices came from an AI voice tool. [53] He wrote about it because every indie festival in 2026 asks for an AI disclosure. [53] The game's Steam page now carries one. [53]

Why it matters. He deleted part of his post after angry replies online. [53] His case shows how disclosure rules now reach even small uses, in a game that mocks AI.

Vivrato, a consultancy, interviewed 101 studio leaders in Europe and North America between April and September. [31] It found 97% had used some form of AI in making games. [31] The commonest uses were code at 86%, office tasks such as email at 83%, and early ideas at 79%. [31] More than half rated how deeply AI is built into their work at three out of ten or lower. [31]

Why it matters. Some form of AI here includes older tools, such as automated testing, not only image and voice generators. [31] Vivrato's founder, Adam Boyes, says public talk about AI in games usually means only the generators. [31]

Christofer Sundberg founded Liquid Swords, the studio behind Samson, which went bankrupt less than a year after its game came out. [54] He now plans a new studio with 'a small, experienced team, low running costs'. [54] He wants a game it can afford to finish without every sales forecast coming true. [54] He would use AI for early test versions, repetitive work and testing, but says AI is expensive too. [54]

Why it matters. His plan is built to survive a game that sells less than hoped. [54] He says simply declaring a studio AI-first is not a plan. [54]

Beyond Good & Evil 2, first shown by Ubisoft in 2008, is still in pre-production, the planning stage before full building, says the French site Origami. [22] About 250 people work on it at Ubisoft Montpellier alone. [22] It began as a big online game like Fortnite and is now planned as a story game for one player, with optional co-op. [22] It kept missing milestones as its ideas changed. [22]

Why it matters. For years the game could not be cancelled, Origami says. [22] After Ubisoft's recent cuts, its staff are told nobody knows what will happen. [22]

Supernatural, a VR exercise game, came back in early access on Meta's Horizon Store on 21 October. [25] Meta had said it would stop making new workouts, so the game's team spun it off on its own. [25] It now costs $20 a month or $200 a year, up from $9.99 a month. [25] Old members can move their points and streaks over until 3 December. [25]

Why it matters. New workouts arrive every week from next week, and a phone app to track heart rate is planned. [25]

Blizzard opened a free stress test of World of Warcraft: Forever on 21 October to anyone with an account, with no subscription needed. [55] WoW: Forever brings back an older version of Blizzard's online role-playing game. [55] A stress test fills the servers with players to find weak spots before launch. [55] Blizzard also extended the paid test to Friday, and the full launch is on 4 November. [56]

Why it matters. The paid test already had server trouble, PC Gamer says, and a smooth launch day depends on fixing it now. [55]

Croteam, the studio behind the Serious Sam shooters, and publisher Devolver Digital announced Serious Sam: The Third Encounter. [57] It continues the story of The Second Encounter, from 2002, and will be the seventh main game. [57] Croteam says it is in early development, so it will not come soon. [57] PC Gamer's writer says Shatterverse, a recent spin-off by another studio, was not very good. [57]

Why it matters. Croteam is promising a return to the series' old style of fighting huge crowds of enemies. [57]

Valve, which runs Steam, ended a long player vote on new heroes for Deadlock, its online battle game. [58] Players cast 110 million votes over several rounds, and Nurse Harrow, who came last, joins as the final hero. [58] One player cast exactly 1,000 votes for her, Valve said. [58] Only 847 players picked the winner in every round. [58]

Why it matters. Valve let players choose which heroes came next, round by round. [58] It says Nurse Harrow's voters won more matches than other heroes' voters. [58]

S-Game, a studio in Beijing, releases Phantom Blade Zero, a martial-arts action game, on PS5 and PC on 28 October. [59] Its disc version for PS5 will follow only in 2027. [59] Only digital pre-orders were offered before launch. [59] The disc will hold the game itself, not just a download code in a box, as many 'physical' editions now do. [59]

Why it matters. Polygon notes that more publishers are moving away from discs. [59] A late disc gives buyers who want one the game, but only after the launch rush.

Bandai Namco, the Japanese publisher, narrowed the release of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 to the second half of 2027. [60] It had said only 2027 before. [60] Producer Masayuki Hirano said players' feedback and surveys led to changes. [60] The game follows a 2016 fighting game and will keep getting new content after launch. [60]

Why it matters. Hirano warned that the team may stay quiet for a while before its next update. [60]

Scott Van Vliet, Xbox's chief technology officer, posted a video that ends with Halo 3, an Xbox 360 shooter, starting in what looks like Microsoft's Edge web browser. [61] He tagged Xbox's chief executive, Asha Sharma. [61] Xbox Labs, a new Xbox group, was announced last week. [61] Fans have recently made unofficial browser versions of old games such as The Simpsons: Hit & Run. [61]

Why it matters. Microsoft has not said Halo 3 is coming to browsers; the video only shows it. [61]

Glass Cannon Unplugged, a board game maker, is making Diablo: Unbound, an official board game of Blizzard's Diablo series. [62] It will raise money on Gamefound, a crowdfunding site, in early 2027. [62] It can be played alone or with others, in dungeon sessions of 60 to 90 minutes. [62] People can try it at the SPIEL board game fair in Essen, Germany, from 22 to 25 October. [62]

Why it matters. Diablo is also getting a new video game and a Netflix cartoon, so the series is spreading well beyond games. [62]

A repair shop in China says it received seven Nvidia graphics cards with burnt power plugs in two days, mostly RTX 5090s. [63] The cards use a 12+4-pin plug that can carry up to 600 watts. [64] When power spreads unevenly across its pins, some pins overheat. [64] Super Flower, a power supply maker, now sells an adapter that beeps when a pin carries too much current. [64]

Why it matters. The cards came from several brands and many owners had good power supplies, so PC Gamer blames the power these cards draw. [63]