Xbox Game Pass will lose nine games in October, including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, A Plague Tale: Requiem, and the Dead by Daylight spin-off The Casting of Frank Stone. Subscribers can save 20% if they buy these games before they leave the service. September saw 18 games depart, including The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Sifu, and Frostpunk 2.
Forest of Deceit, the social deduction party game from Ghost Camp and Thomas Mackinnon, has received a localisation update adding German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese and Italian. The update is out now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Windows PC, with Xbox Play Anywhere support.
The Xbox Store has added three notable free demos: Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, whose progress carries over to the full release later in October; FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves, following the full game's launch earlier this year; and Elta: Defy All Gods, which offers 60 minutes of gameplay and already holds a "Positive" reception on Steam. Other newer demos highlighted include The Zibbo Show and DYNASTY WARRIORS 3: Complete Edition.
Early deals ahead of Amazon Prime Big Deal Days include the Xbox Elite Series 2 Core Wireless Controller at $38, a Belkin Switch 2 Travel Case for Prime members at $23.07, and renewed Bose QuietComfort Headphones in Moonstone Blue at $149. The Pokémon TCG Prismatic Evolutions Super-Premium Collection is down to $239.95, and a $100 PS Store gift card is available for $90 with the code "TEFF427."
According to Rebs Gaming, Activision is considering making the next Halo game a hard reboot centered on Master Chief's origin story. This follows Xbox's Sept. 22 announcement that it had handed development of the Halo series from Halo Studios to Call of Duty publisher Activision.
MegaPals, one of the five new games in The Jackbox Party Pack 12, is a word association game inspired by Mind Meld where matching answers earns points and the two players who pair up best become the MegaPals. An eight-player game has 28 possible winning pairs, and a between-round relationship chart shows each player's highest-scoring friend. The pack launches October 15 on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.
Xbox's Disc to Digital feature rolled out to everyone this week, supporting over 1,500 physical games, but none of the Forza Horizon or Forza Motorsport physical editions work with it. The omission is likely tied to licensing, as Forza games are regularly delisted when their licensing deals expire — even the recently released Forza Horizon 6 lacks support. Xbox has said more games may be added over time.
According to The Register, Micron Technology CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said memory demand will exceed supply in 2027 and 2028, with the industry tighter than in 2026, and customers likely paying much higher prices than this year. Micron plans $25 billion in capital expenditure in the first half of its new financial year to bring new factories online in 2028, but says it will take time before supply and demand stabilise. The surge in memory demand comes largely from AI data centres, and Nintendo has already raised Switch 2 prices globally while Sony and Microsoft raised prices for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Insider Gaming's 28 Games Later Horror Showcase featured trailers for 28 games, eight of which are confirmed to be coming to Xbox, including Black Tides Draga's Wake, Remothered: Red Nun's Legacy and Tenebris Somnia. Remothered: Red Nun's Legacy launches on October 27, 2026, and Tenebris Somnia on October 16, 2026. Don't Fret has been rumoured for Xbox Game Pass, though no Game Pass mention appeared in its trailer.
Amazon has cut the price of the white Xbox Elite Series 2 Core controller from $149.99 to $111.74, a $38.25 discount, ahead of Prime Big Deal Days. The controller offers adjustable-tension thumbsticks, a wrap-around rubberized grip, shorter hair trigger locks, interchangeable components, button mapping options, and up to 40 hours of battery life per charge. The sale runs for only 48 hours until October 7.
Xbox has outlined the games coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox on PC, and Game Pass from October 5 to 9. Gears of War: E-Day and STAR WARS: Galactic Racer arrive October 6, while Echo Weaver joins Game Pass on October 8. The lineup also includes KINGDOM HEARTS Collection [I～III], Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, and Neon Abyss 2, with release dates subject to change.
About 24 hours after Gears of War: E-Day opened to Premium Upgrade, Premium Edition and Collector's Edition owners, it peaked at 20,374 concurrent players on Steam, beating Gears 5's record of 10,196. Digital Foundry reported that Xbox and The Coalition developed a technique using the SSD as a new tier of memory to supplement the 10GB of GDDR6 on Series S, so that version does not get a stripped-back world. The full release is set for October 6.
Halo and Xbox insider Rebs Gaming claims Activision is considering rebooting the Halo series after taking over the next game, possibly exploring Master Chief's origins. The report says Activision first proposed a free-to-play multiplayer game and a campaign-only game, with the campaign prototype described as a soft reboot that ignores Halo Infinite's story without retconning established canon, before leaning toward one combined package. Rebs also says Sledgehammer Games teams have conceptualised and prototyped basic gameplay mechanics for both projects in the Infinity Ward Engine, while Activision has only confirmed it will develop the next Halo title.
AI developer Mitchell Hynes has released the original Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved to play for free in a web browser, and it is not Gearbox's 2003 PC port. Five hours after release it saw nearly 20,000 games at an average of 94 frames per second. Hynes said his website's "Suspected Phishing" flag came from an automatic Cloudflare flag rather than Microsoft, and the ban was soon lifted.
On its FY 2026 earnings call, Micron said memory demand will exceed supply in 2027 and 2028, with industry tightness greater than in 2026 and no line of sight to when supply and demand will rebalance. The company said it has already sold most of the memory it expects to produce next year at much higher prices than in 2026, and that new factories coming online in 2028 will not immediately improve availability or lower prices. Rising memory and storage costs have pushed Microsoft, Apple, Valve, Sony and Nintendo to raise hardware prices, while Micron and two other major RAM makers face a class action alleging they fixed supply and prices.
Sources speaking to Rebs Gaming say Halo now sits at Activision after recent Xbox changes, and that Activision has proposed a total reboot to move away from 25 years of convoluted lore. The sources say Sledgehammer Games built prototypes for a free-to-play multiplayer game and a story campaign in the Infinity Ward engine and may lead development, though nothing is concrete. Rebs Gaming adds that the earlier soft-reboot plan not following Halo Infinite's story appears to have been dropped, making a Halo Infinite sequel unlikely.
Gears of War: E-Day opened to early access players yesterday for those who bought the Premium Edition, Premium Upgrade Edition, or Collector's Edition, and some players noted missing legacy features such as chainsaw duels, meat shields, select past weapons, private lobbies, and leaderboards. In a statement timed with the launch, The Coalition said those features may arrive post-launch or in its next title, explaining that it rebuilt the gameplay sandbox from scratch for a more unified experience across campaign, PvE, and PvP. The first season runs eight weeks from the early access release to 1st December, ranked PvP arrives on 13th October, and the game's general release is 6th October.
Eight new games launch on Xbox today, October 2, including Double Fine's Keeper, which is new to Xbox Game Pass Premium. Agefield High: Rock The School arrives for Series X|S, alongside Aery - Calm Horizon 2, Aetherfall, Hole io: Complete Edition, Kawaii Push, Mister Scary – Where Are You?, Monster Nursery and Stone Run.
Microsoft has revealed the eight games leaving Xbox Game Pass in early October 2026, including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Donut County, Evil West, The Casting of Frank Stone, Pacific Drive, Crime Scene Cleaner and Nova Roma on PC. All of them leave on October 15, and each is discounted at least 20% until then.
The creator behind the AI-generated Fallout: New York has pulled the game offline, saying they received a cease and desist from Bethesda parent ZeniMax Media citing trademark infringement over the fallout.nyc domain and use of copyrighted material. Built with Claude Opus 5.5 and playable in a browser, the game included quests, companions, dialogue trees, V.A.T.S. and a working Pip-Boy, and its demo video drew 3.5 million views on X. IGN has asked Microsoft for comment, as a wave of AI-generated game-merging mods this week fuels debate over the legality of such clones.
Minecraft Dungeons II launched this week on Nintendo systems and other platforms, with a Metacritic critic score of 75/100 and user score of 8.2, and an OpenCritic average of 77/100. Destructoid gave it 9/10, saying it expands and improves on the original in most ways, while IGN gave it 6/10, calling it a shallow ARPG that makes poor use of Minecraft's world. Nintendo Life's review of the Switch 2 version is still to come.
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The Coalition's Gears of War: E-Day is a prequel whose campaign is mostly more of the same, according to this review. The campaign is described as buried in the past.
Gears of War: E-Day includes a collectible letter from developer The Coalition titled "Remember the Fallen," found at the start of Act 4. It is one of 140 collectibles in the game, which also requires 125 Hardcases, 36 Supply Caches, and 17 Secondary Objectives for 100% completion. An Xbox spokesperson said the note is not a reference to staff layoffs but was inspired by the team's own experiences and fan stories.
This week's Xbox Free Play Days lineup is a Ubisoft takeover, featuring Far Cry 6, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Skull and Bones, and The Crew Motorfest. All five games are free to play until late on October 4, and Xbox Game Pass is not required this time around. Each title also carries a hefty discount for players who want to add them to their permanent collection.
Pure Xbox rounded up critic reviews for Gears of War: E-Day, which currently holds an 88 score on Metacritic. Pure Xbox, Day One and The Outhaven gave it 10/10, IGN and Daily Star gave 9/10, VGC and GAMINGbible gave 8/10, and The Guardian gave 6/10. The reviews covered only the campaign, as Versus and Horde Siege modes were locked during the review period, and the game arrives for Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers on October 6th.
Sony has announced that AI upscaling is coming to the base PS5 in the form of QSSR, which works similarly to the PSSR upscaling on PS5 Pro by analyzing game images pixel by pixel and using AI to add clarity. The tech debuts with Ghost of Yotei and Marvel's Wolverine, and Sony says it will be offered broadly to all PlayStation developers going forward. Digital Foundry notes there remains a big divide between QSSR on standard PS5 and PSSR on Pro, but the tech may hint at what's to come for Xbox's Project Helix console.
Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave sold only an additional 26,728 copies in the latest Japanese charts (21st-27th Sep), a substantial drop, but still enough to hold third place. Derby Stallion 2 debuted at No.1 with roughly 29,000 sales, while Silent Hill: Townfall took fourth and Dragon Quest XI S on Switch 2 took fifth. Switch 2 led hardware with 32,198 units sold.
A Polygon writer played Gears of War: E-Day and found solo play a serviceable third-person shooter, while same-screen co-op with a friend felt far better. Developed by The Coalition, the game is out now in early access on Windows PC and Xbox Series X with a full release on Oct. 6, supporting parties of up to four players but only two per screen due to technical limitations. Brand director Nicole Fawcette called split-screen core to Gears, and art director Aryan Hanbeck said local co-op is integral to the series.
The Invincible VS open beta begins October 13, the same day Angstrom Levy joins as the third DLC fighter and 21st playable character in Season 2. He is a zoning-focused fighter built around portals and summonable orbs, and he will be playable for the first time at Evo France this October. Invincible VS is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud as an Xbox Play Anywhere title.
Gears of War: E-Day launched on October 1 for players who bought early access to the new Xbox console exclusive. The developers said in a blog post that they built the entire gameplay sandbox from scratch on an empty hard drive, so legacy features like Meat Shields, Chainsaw Duels, select past weapons, Private Lobbies and leaderboards could not all be included at launch, though they are not gone from the franchise. Versus Ranked arrives October 13, Season 1 runs themed events through December 1, and later seasons are named Legacy and Beyond, Infiltration, Pendulum and Devotion.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told The New York Times that Xbox is not for sale, saying the company will seek the right partnerships and operating model to succeed. A June report from The Information said Microsoft had no immediate plans to spin off Xbox but had not ruled out restructuring it as a wholly-owned subsidiary or forming a joint venture. Sharma, who replaced Phil Spencer in February, has overseen 1,600 layoffs at Xbox with 1,600 more expected later this year.
Ruriko-ji Temple in Forza Horizon 6 sits in the northwest corner of the Minamino region, just south of the farms at the top of the area. The easiest route is to follow the off-road trail on the west side of the Naruo Golf Course, or fast travel to a nearby road if you have already visited. Photograph the temple itself rather than the pagoda beside it, and during the spring week of the "British Automotive" series you can complete the #TempleVantage photo challenge with a 1964 Aston Martin DB5 Vantage.
Woot has dropped the officially licensed 1TB WD_BLACK SN850P PS5 SSD to $179.99 with the code "APPLETEN," offering read speeds up to 7,300 MB/s. Amazon Prime members can get the 584-piece LEGO Star Wars The Mandalorian Helmet for $47.49, while the LEGO Speed Champions Ultimate Formula 1 Collector's Pack returns to its lowest price. The ASUS TUF Gaming Hatsune Miku Edition Mini Wireless Mouse is down to $69.99 on Amazon and Newegg with coupon codes.
Developer Mitchell Hynes has got a build of the original Halo: Combat Evolved running in a web browser, built off Bnunu's decompilation project with mouse and keyboard support. It supports up to 128-player multiplayer and works on Windows, Linux, and Android, though there is no matchmaking—players share a room link and servers are peer-to-peer. Within five hours, the project saw almost 20,000 games across 115 countries.
Early access for Gears of War: E-Day has begun for Premium Edition buyers, and the PC version supports Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD), which pre-translates and delivers shader files ahead of time to cut first-boot compilation waits to seconds. The author measured about 20 seconds of shader compilation on an Asus Xbox ROG Ally X, compared with waits of up to 15 minutes in other new games. ASD works across AMD, Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm hardware, is currently available for AMD graphics card users, and Nvidia-compatible drivers will arrive shortly after launch; E-Day is the first game to support ASD across Windows devices.
A Microsoft spokesperson denied that a new Xbox controller "devoted to cloud gaming" was abandoned because of the regulatory process, after The New York Times reported the plans were canceled. Sources also told Windows Central that rumors of Microsoft canceling upcoming Xbox Cloud Gaming controllers are false. Microsoft never formally announced such a controller, though an image of it leaked this year.
IKEA and Xbox have launched YXSTABY, a nine-piece collection designed for gaming at home, co-developed by designers from both teams. The collection draws on the Xbox controller for inspiration, including a thumbstick stool built from the Xbox Wireless Controller's original 3D design files. It launches in IKEA stores today and online later this year, with availability varying by market.
The Official Xbox Podcast sits down with teams from IKEA and Xbox to explain how their YXSTABY collaboration came together. The episode shows collection pieces including chairs, stools, controller display solutions and a D-PAD cushion, plus a TV stand with cable management. IKEA says it reached out to Xbox because gaming is a big part of life at home, and the two sides found their design approaches a natural fit.
Gears of War: E-Day begins Early Access on October 1 at 8:00 a.m. PT for Premium Edition players and Game Pass subscribers with the Premium Upgrade, with the full launch set for October 6 at 8:00 a.m. PT. The game is available on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and Steam, with cloud gaming through Game Pass Ultimate and GeForce NOW. Built by The Coalition in Unreal Engine 5, it includes an origin-story campaign, the 4-player Horde Siege PvE mode, and 4v4 Versus PvP, with two-player split-screen on console only.