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TodayOct 15Thu3
  1. GamesIndustry.biz71

    Funcom lays off staff and pivots to Conan Exiles and Dune: Awakening only, CEO to leave at year end

    Funcom has begun a restructuring and will focus solely on long-term live operations for Conan Exiles and Dune: Awakening, with the number of affected staff undisclosed. CEO Rui Casais will leave the Tencent-owned Norwegian developer at the end of the year and be succeeded by Chief Product Officer Scott Junior, who has been at the company 25 years and served as executive producer on Dune: Awakening. Funcom said it will not share further details until the process concludes and that it remains committed to supporting and expanding both games and their communities.

  3. Ars Technica39

    Legendary FPS level designer Richard "Levelord" Gray dies at 68

    Legendary FPS level designer Richard "Levelord" Gray has died at 68. He designed levels for Duke Nukem 3D and SiN, and later pivoted to casual games like the Luxor series after Ritual Entertainment was acquired by MumboJumbo. Tributes poured in from peers including Scott Miller, Cliff Bleszinski, and John Romero.

Oct 14Wed
  4. Eurogamer62

    ArenaNet drops paid Guild Wars 2 Living World add-ons and bundles them with expansions

    ArenaNet announced that Guild Wars 2's Living World seasonal content will no longer be sold separately and will instead come bundled with expansions. Heart of Thorns includes season two, Path of Fire covers seasons three and four, and End of Dragons includes the final season, while the base game includes season one, with missing episodes added automatically to eligible accounts. Players who bought Living World DLC after 12th September will receive gems as compensation.

  5. IGN62

    Epic launches a new Epic Games Launcher built with AI assistance

    Epic has revealed a new version of the Epic Games Launcher that it says was built with generative AI assistance, making it faster and more responsive than the current one with a new look. Epic Games Store VP and GM Martin Keely told IGN that AI was used as a tool in the development process, letting a small team rewrite the code base and ship faster across platforms, supporting Windows and Mac with a Linux version to follow. He said the AI use focused on code efficiency and architecture rather than artwork or design style, which remained with Epic's design group.

  7. PC Gamer62

    Epic plans to bring Fortnite to Linux after improving Easy Anti-Cheat

    Epic says it intends to bring Fortnite to Linux, but first it is rebuilding Easy Anti-Cheat, and will launch the game via the Epic Games Launcher once EAC Linux v2 works with a critical mass of distro maintainers. Epic says the Steam Deck does not currently support the new EAC Linux v2 solution and that it is talking with Valve, while game security engineering director Rick Deist said Epic is investigating compatibility with Steam Deck and SteamOS devices. Epic has also released a new Epic Games Store client that includes a Linux version for the first time.

  10. Kotaku71

    Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition draws player backlash over AI upscaling and Steam delisting

    Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition, released on October 13, has drawn 82 percent negative reviews on Steam in the last 24 hours, with players citing poor performance, old and new bugs, broken mod support, graphical issues, and alleged undisclosed AI upscaling of unit cards. Sega also delisted all previous versions from Steam and raised the price, while the install size grew from 3.85GB to 45GB. Kotaku compared original and new images, found lost detail, and has asked Creative Assembly about AI use without a reply yet.

  12. GamesIndustry.biz49

    Legacy Games to close its online store this December

    Casual game marketplace Legacy Games will shut down its online store on December 31, 2026. After the store closes, disc download codes will no longer be redeemable and points, rewards, and Hero Club memberships will end, with the website and servers closing on February 28, 2027. Players will no longer be able to re-download previous purchases, though installed games can still be played on the same device.

  13. PC Gamer62

    Rockstar devs say GTA 6 was delayed partly because the number of NPCs was 'horrifying' and needed a dedicated studio

    Rockstar co-head of development Rob Nelson told Bloomberg that one reason for GTA 6's delay was the 'horrifying' number of NPCs needed to populate Leonida, which led the company to set up an entire studio in LA to handle the workload. Fellow co-head Phil Hooker said the team shifted the date once it became clear some areas wouldn't make it, since hitting the schedule would mean shipping a game they didn't want to make. GTA 6 was originally slated for May and delayed to November.

  16. GameSpot65

    Take-Two CEO on GTA 6's Second Delay: 'Please Tell Me You're Kidding'

    GTA 6 is now set for November 19, though it was originally planned for 2025. Publishing head Jennifer Kolbe told Bloomberg she called Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick twice to report delays to May 2026 and then November 2026, and he first responded, 'Please tell me you're kidding,' before understanding the reasons. Zelnick said a delay can be a wise investment of time and money if it lets a game reach the level of perfection it can achieve. Development head Phil Hooker said GTA 6 is 'never completely settled,' and no one currently expects another delay. The game comes to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with physical copies at retailers on November 12 containing a code rather than a disc, unlocking a week later.

  17. Eurogamer22

    Rockstar Co-Founder Dan Houser Blames Himself for Max Payne 3: "A Large Amount of That Failure Was on Me"

    Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser said in an IGN interview that he blames himself for Max Payne 3's failure, calling it "not a success" and saying "a large amount of that failure was on me." He acknowledged the game's lower sales, which publisher Take-Two said contributed to a $110m loss in that financial quarter. Houser, who was also the game's lead writer, said people really missed Sam Lake's writing.

  18. GameSpot30

    GTA 6's Nightclubs Have an Absurd Amount of Detail, Right Down to the Lighting

    Rockstar Games went to great lengths to make GTA 6's nightclubs realistic, sending developers on research trips to Miami that included ridealongs with police officers and visits to trendy clubs. Each patron in these venues has distinct animations and scripts, the bars feature unique drinks, and the lighting systems sync with the music being played. Rockstar even created a studio dedicated exclusively to building non-playable characters.

  19. Push Square37

    Rockstar Says GTA 6 Tech Will Speed Up Its Next Game, No Another 8-Year Wait

    Rockstar development heads Phil Hooker and Aaron Garburt told Bloomberg the next Rockstar game will not take another eight years, unlike the gap between Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA 6. The engine, tools, and team built for GTA 6 will carry over to the next project, cutting development time. Garburt said Rockstar overhauled much of its foundations for GTA 6 and won't rip it apart for what comes next, and the article also included two new GTA 6 screenshots.

  20. Eurogamer62

    Rockstar reveals GTA 6 was originally Project Americas, discusses crunch, delays and leaks

    In a wide-ranging Bloomberg interview, Rockstar revealed that GTA 6 was originally codenamed Project Americas and was meant to cover large areas of North and South America before being scaled down to Miami and its surroundings. Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson took staff to Miami in 2015 for the first research trip, and the game was initially to be developed alongside Red Dead Redemption 2 before being pushed back several years. Rockstar grew from 2,441 to 4,711 employees across 12 offices, and publishing head Jennifer Kolbe said the company reflected on the crunch of Red Dead Redemption 2 and recalled calling Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick about another delay. GTA 6 is now due 19th November on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X, with a PC version reportedly due in Q1 next year.

  21. IGN36

    Battlefield 6 Skins With Too Many Pistols and Spelling Errors Spark AI Accusations

    Battlefield 6's latest battle pass skins have drawn fan criticism over design flaws, including a soldier carrying five pistols and a patch that misspells "security" as "secuty." Some players now suspect the skins were made with generative AI, while others feel misled because DICE had said before launch that Battlefield 6 would not feature goofy, immersion-breaking skins. IGN has asked EA for comment.

  22. 触乐22

    Dune: Awakening Creative Director: In the Game Industry, the Only Constant Is Change

    Funcom CCO Joel Bylos said the Dune: Awakening team submits content to Legendary Pictures for approval via Jira, with a highly simplified IP oversight process, and that director Denis Villeneuve once worried the game's name was too similar to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Bylos said the biggest change in the game's update is the addition of a single-player mode, plus difficulty options, and the console version uses the DualSense controller's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. He noted most of Funcom is still working on Dune: Awakening and the studio is not ready to develop a new game, arguing stylized art will matter more than photorealism.

  23. Kotaku62

    Garry's Mod creator Garry Newman apologizes for s&box, says it goes free-to-play by year's end

    Garry Newman, creator of Garry's Mod, apologized in an official blog post for the performance of Facepunch's s&box, saying he is ashamed and embarrassed by its reviews and that selling it as an engine and development experience was the core mistake. Since its April release, s&box has sat at 47 percent positive reviews on Steam with roughly 500 daily players, while Garry's Mod still draws nearly 30,000 concurrent players a day. He plans to bring the sandbox mode to parity with Garry's Mod and beyond with more NPCs, vehicles and first-class multiplayer, drop Facepunch's own backend for Steam Workshop, and move the game from $10 to free-to-play before the end of the year, with existing buyers receiving exclusive Steam inventory items.

  24. GameSpot36

    Rockstar's GTA 6 Realism Experiment Started With Beer And Sandwiches

    Rockstar debated how realistic to make GTA 6, at one point weighing whether players would need to grab a case of beer from a liquor store fridge and bring it to the counter, or visit a supermarket for sandwich ingredients. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, those decisions required guesswork because so much of the game was unfinished. By 2022 GTA 6 began to come into focus, with head of development Phil Hooker describing a period where things don't work but you see snippets.

  27. Eurogamer34

    "You don't listen to the loudest people in the room" — World of Warcraft: Forever boss discusses how to approach a deluge of feedback

    World of Warcraft executive producer Holly Longdale spoke at PAX Australia about the World of Warcraft: Forever beta, calling it the biggest beta in Blizzard's history. She said the team has to be selective about feedback, noting "you don't listen to the loudest people in the room." The game fully releases on the 4th November.

  29. Eurogamer53

    Microsoft forms Xbox Labs, led by former Azure for OpenAI head Scott Van Vliet

    Microsoft announced Xbox Labs, a new initiative led by Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet, who previously led Azure for OpenAI at Microsoft. The news came in a staff message from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma published on Xbox Wire, which never mentions AI or generative AI and instead frames Labs as exploring games being decompiled and rebuilt for hardware they were not designed for. Sharma said Labs is a small group of game makers, engineers and scientists that will build in the open and measure success by whether more people are playing and creating.

  30. 游戏LOOK62

    Epic's Disney-partnered shooter delayed as project shifts to AI-first development

    Bloomberg reported that Epic Games' Star Wars and Marvel shooter with Disney has been delayed over development progress and staffing shortages, and the project lead told the team production would move to an AI-first model with code no longer hand-written and art generated through a full AI workflow. Epic cut about 1,000 roles in March 2026, 20 percent of its staff, the same month the Star Wars project slipped. The game is led by an internal Epic team for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, with no title or release plan announced.

  31. 游戏LOOK22

    Yoozoo AI Red Coast Lab's Yu Huasong: How AI Agents Reshape Game Creation and Interaction

    Yu Huasong, head of Yoozoo Network's AI Innovation Institute Red Coast Lab, shared at the 2026 China Metaverse Conference that AI Agents have three major game applications: multimodal content generation, intelligent NPCs with memory and decision-making, and one-click game creation from an idea. He said AI now covers all six major scenarios and over 100 sub-scenarios within Yoozoo, and presented the content production system YOOLab and the development collaboration platform YOOSpark.

  32. 游戏LOOK66

    South Korean lawmaker pushes Game Industry Promotion Act amendment over SOL: Enchant streamer spending dispute

    South Korean lawmaker 김재원 raised the case of SOL: Enchant topping the charts alongside roughly 300 million won in streamer spending during an Oct. 12 parliamentary audit, and is seeking to amend the Game Industry Promotion Act to bar publishers from improperly buying in-game items or paying third parties to do so in order to lift sales rankings. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Game Rating and Administration Committee acknowledged no investigation was conducted, and current rules do not require separate disclosure of promotion spending. Netmarble said streamer promotion is one marketing method and that its contracts pay for marketing services, not for top-ups.

Oct 13Tue
  1. 游戏LOOK71

    ARC Raiders hits 185,000 concurrents on Steam after 2.0 update as Embark moves to twice-yearly updates

    ARC Raiders' 2.0 update, Frost Trail, launched on October 8 alongside a free-to-play period, and Steam concurrent players rose from about 10,000 in September to 185,000. The update adds the Pendora Pass map, the Outpost home system, tier-5 weapon upgrade paths and a reworked skill tree, while Embark drops monthly updates for twice-yearly deep updates. The article notes the free period as one driver and points to the October 13-20 PvE test, with Tencent's China server still in testing.

  2. IGN23

    Mick Gordon Plans to Take His Doom Concert Performance on the Road

    Mick Gordon said at PAX Australia that his headline show at the UK's RADAR festival on August 1, 2027, is not meant to be a one-off, and he and his agency are discussing taking the Doom and Doom Eternal live show worldwide over the next two years. A few days after RADAR he will play the Brutal Assault Festival in the Czech Republic, a roughly 25,000-person metal festival held in a medieval castle. His soundtrack for Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 arrives October 14 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version coming later.

  4. PC Gamer71

    Epic Games' unannounced Star Wars and Marvel crossover shooter pivots to AI-first development and is delayed indefinitely

    An unannounced Star Wars and Marvel crossover shooter at Epic Games has been delayed indefinitely from its planned March 2027 release, with staff told to adopt an AI-first production model using tools such as Anthropic's Claude, according to Bloomberg. CEO Tim Sweeney said on X that Epic has a huge pivot underway to retool developers for maximum AI acceleration, and that the company's modest aim is to survive the AI revolution. He said current AI efficiency gains range from 20% in the most technical areas of Unreal Engine development to 5x in areas like web development. Epic Games laid off over 1,000 employees in March.

  5. Kotaku60

    VRChat community protests influx of generative AI content as platform opens AI policy consultation

    VRChat community volunteer Patroll said they would stop wiki maintenance, translation and community testing in protest at the influx of AI-generated worlds and images, urging other developers to label their work as AI-free. VRChat then banned deceptive AI thumbnails, endorsed AI for translation, code help and engine tools like Blender and Unity, but called user-facing uses such as generating worlds or game logic uncertain and asked users whether to label or ban them. The platform also promised better search to surface higher-quality content, with the consultation running for a week before findings and policies are shared.