Atlus's Persona series features a wide variety of mythological and folkloric creatures as Personas, but one stands apart: Mara, who was so scary that Atlus had to design a censored version of him. The author hates him.
Circana analyst Mat Piscatella warned that the US console hardware market faces its most severe crisis since the industry crash of the early 1980s. Through August this year, US Xbox hardware sales fell 33% year over year and PlayStation sales fell 25%, the latter hitting their lowest point since 2013. Rising prices are the main cause, with the average US price of a new Xbox at $529, up 26%, and a new PlayStation at $597, up 20%, both record highs.
"This is your Dreamcast moment": Former PlayStation boss thinks Xbox needs to "pick a lane" with exclusive games to fix itself. https://bit.ly/3VNYdDL
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 boss hopes GTA 6 pushes game prices up because it's "long overdue and also necessary for this business to survive". https://bit.ly/3THSAGD
Delta Force announced on October 8 that its China server DAU passed 58 million, up from the 50 million reported in March. The piece traces its growth since launching in September 2024 and contrasts it with overseas extraction shooters, including KRAFTON ending development of PUBG: Black Budget on October 1 and Arc Raiders falling from a 481,000 concurrent peak to under 50,000 in June before recovering to 131,388 after the Frostline update on October 8. It credits frequent updates, cross-platform play and esports for the game's long-term run while noting a mismatch between overseas preference for PVE and domestic preference for PVP.
The water-type starter in Pokémon Winds and Waves breaks a long-standing series curse. For about two decades, fire-type and grass-type starters have taken turns stealing the spotlight, while water-type starters rarely captured the fandom's attention.
Blur Busters founder Mark Rejhon and former Nvidia developer Timothy Lottes debuted a CRT beam simulation algorithm that uses 240+ Hz displays to drastically reduce motion blur in 60 Hz content, working like a motion-focused DLSS. It was first implemented in a Retroarch shader and later split into a standalone tool called ShaderBeam, tested on the Asus PG27AQWP-W's 540 Hz OLED panel. The author argues Windows itself must change before the effect can reach its full potential.
The 2026 multiplayer shooters Arc Raiders and Marathon both use a loop of venturing from a safe hub into hostile areas, shooting enemies, grabbing loot, and returning to safety. These hits owe a debt to Outriders, a maligned 2021 loot-shooter published by Square Enix.
More GTA 6 leaks are spilling out despite Rockstar's efforts, and one of the bigger ones seems to involve Jason's nudity. The video has been taken down, and if these reports represent the full release, the nudity sounds pointless and outdated.
Kotaku's Lewis Parker says a wave of browser ports decompiled by Claude Opus 5.5 has appeared in recent weeks, covering Call of Duty: Black Ops, Halo: CE, GTA: Vice City, Skate 3 and The Simpsons: Hit and Run. He played several of them and found some near flawless, with The Simpsons: Hit and Run hitting 240fps and one of four Halo: CE ports running working online servers at low ping. He argues takedown letters won't stop these ports because they are quick and easy to make.
Lucasfilm Games producer Craig Derrick responded on Twitter/X after clips of Star Wars: Galactic Racer character Biddy Blas went viral, saying he is glad so many people love the game. Biddy Blas is a Crocin who will do anything to win, including giving players a "gift" that is actually a bomb and destroys their ship. Developer Fuse Games also announced that Galactic Racer's multiplayer party limit will double in a post-launch patch coming in the next few weeks.
FURIA reached the playoffs of ESL Pro League Season 24 before being eliminated, and coach sidde said he was proud of how the team recovered from a low point in the group stage. With three more events before the Major, he stressed the need to use the small gaps between tournaments to update the playbook and find a balance so the team does not arrive at the Major 100% burned out.
Don't worry, Valve: I've got your next Deadlock character concepts sorted https://www.pcgamer.com/games/moba/dont-worry-valve-ive-got-your-next-deadlock-character-concepts-sorted/
A PC Gamer writer has pitched a batch of new Deadlock character concepts, including the Summer Mummy from Heathcliff, a baseball-playing minotaur, the Loch Ness Monster's child, three gnomes in a trench coat, a boxing haunted suit of armor, a big spider, Humpty Dumpty, and the rest of the monkey the Monkey's Paw came off of. The piece notes Deadlock already has draculas, werewolves, and a Frankenstein, but is missing foundational cryptozoology and occult elements like a mummy.
Lead creatives on Gears of War: E-Day have debunked a 20-year-old fan theory that heightened in-universe gravity is why every character is so muscular. According to the developers, there is no truth to the theory whatsoever.
The fourth entry in Nintendo Life's Ocarina of Time Dungeon Crawl series revisits the Forest Temple. The writer calls it possibly his favourite Zelda dungeon ever, praising its twisting corridors, Wallmasters and the Phantom Ganon boss fight. For the Switch 2 remake, he hopes for shortcuts to later winding pathways and a more detailed map.
At Tokyo Game Show 2026, Japanese indie publishers are diverging from tradition by selling doujin zines, stickers, and other merchandise to fund in-development games and build audiences. Finding Polka, about searching for a missing dog, won the Platinum Prize for best indie game and is published worldwide by Parco Games, a new publisher from the Japanese department store chain. Events like Comiket draw over 300,000 people across two days, while Comitia's quarterly Tokyo events attract over 30,000 attendees each.
A Polygon writer wants to return to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for its free Remastered update and next year's Songs of the Past expansion, but can't decide which of his many saves to resume. His options include a PlayStation save stuck mid-Blood and Wine, a four-year-old Steam Death March save parked before a boss, and several earlier runs. Because the Remastered update reworks combat and skill trees, every save except a fresh one refunds skill points and requires rebuilding the character, so he leans toward starting Blood and Wine with a premade character.
This should be game streaming's moment, but it's not. The launch of GTA 6, with console hardware overpriced and facing scarcity, should be perfect for a game streaming breakthrough, says Rob Fahey. But nobody seems to care. https://bit.ly/4icDulO
The Xbox console experience has received a wave of updates in 2026, including Disc to Digital, which lets physical-disc owners claim digital licenses and access games on console and the Xbox PC app via Xbox Play Anywhere. Mythic Achievements, still in testing with Insiders, track progress toward 100% completion, alongside additions like a play history log, Quick Resume toggles and custom startup animations. The author calls Xbox Play Anywhere the standout feature, with over 1000 new supported titles added this year.
Pearl Abyss Europe CEO Lybee Park said critics reviewed a build that was not the exact same version as the launch game and had limited time to explore Crimson Desert's world. A day-one patch and a major first-week update overhauled systems including inventory limitations, so by the end of the first month the game differed greatly from the reviewed version. Crimson Desert holds a 77 on Metacritic and reached 7 million sales, with its "Charting the Unknown" DLC arriving on October 29.
Xbox Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball debunked a report that GTA 6 streaming rights would be Xbox-exclusive, saying the game will not be streamed exclusively or to PC. With PS5 and Xbox Series X prices hiked and console shortages and scalper markups already reported more than a month before launch, GTA 6 should be a breakthrough moment for game streaming, but there is little interest. Microsoft recently placed strict caps on streaming usage for Game Pass subscribers, and the muted response showed how few consumers cared.
Street Fighter 6 producer Shuhei Matsumoto and director Takayuki Nakayama said the Street Fighter IP could have died within 10 years if nothing changed, as the Street Fighter 5 player base was roughly 35 to 45 years old. The team developed Street Fighter 6 like a brand-new fighting game, adding the Modern Control scheme and World Tour mode and involving the fighting game community more closely, and it became a hit upon its 2023 release.
IGN revisits "Reuniting the Families," the penultimate mission of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' opening act, calling it the peak of Rockstar's cinematic mission design. Inside the Jefferson Motel, CJ fights through scripted corridors to rescue his brother Sweet, turning the open world into a third-person cover shooter two years before Gears of War. The piece argues players should experience this mission before GTA 6 arrives.
PC Gamer ran a knockout tournament of graphical effects, and in a final poll of close to 2,000 entries, motion blur beat chromatic aberration 80% to 20% as the worst effect in games. The author concedes motion blur can occasionally help at low frame rates, especially on consoles, and in genres like racing games, and is usually optional on PC. Still, because it is often on by default, he turns it off in the settings menu of every game he boots.
World of Warcraft: Forever associate production director Clay Stone says there's a real longing for a slower, more deliberate pace in MMOs, calling it a deliberate pushback on the "go go go" nature. He pointed to the success of Classic, the 2023 response to Hardcore, and players who skipped Season of Discovery because seasons felt ephemeral. Stone says Blizzard is deliberately building WoW Forever to answer whether it's too late to start with an emphatic "no."
Charlie Cox said at New York Comic Con that he has recorded around 40 hours of dialogue for an as-yet-unannounced Sega game, a role that required him to perform in an American accent. Cox, who previously voiced Gustave in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, said the game "doesn't have a name yet." Fans online have already begun speculating the project could be Persona 6.
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The people have spoken: Motion blur is the worst https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/motion-blur-is-the-worst-effect-in-games-confirmed/
After Vitality eliminated PARIVISION in the EPL quarter-final, flameZ said the team's communication was at its best, with every second on TeamSpeak alive, and that no one can beat them when they talk like that. He posted a 2.30 rating on Inferno and credited his pairing with mezii for making every bullet connect to the head. Vitality now face Aurora in the semi-final, and flameZ called them a competitive team but said it will be very tough for them to win if Vitality bring their A game.
Kotaku interviewed Double Fine CEO Tim Schafer about the union petition filed at the Psychonauts studio this past May and withdrawn two weeks later. Schafer said he had only heard rumors until a letter with roughly 30 signatures appeared in Slack, after which management stayed hands-off per Microsoft's labor policy. Xbox declined to comment, while the Communications Workers of America provided a statement.
Wolverine PS5 Sales Estimates Are Somewhat Soft, But Here's Why I'm Not Worried https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2026/10/wolverine-ps5-sales-estimates-are-somewhat-soft-but-heres-why-im-not-worried
Ampere Analytics estimates Marvel's Wolverine sold about 2.16 million copies in September, making it the second best-selling PS5 game of the month behind EA Sports FC 27. Alinea Analytics predicted 1.9 million copies as of 17th September, and neither figure is an official source. The game reportedly cost up to $300 million to make, including a licensing fee to Disney, with Sony expected to share a concrete number during its November earnings report.
Does Razer's 'Perfect 180' insta-turning mouse feature count as cheating? https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-mice/does-razers-perfect-180-insta-turning-mouse-feature-count-as-cheating-you-decide/
Razer's new Basilisk V4 Pro and V4 HyperSpeed gaming mice include a Perfect 180 feature that lets players bind a quick 180-degree turn to a mouse button, aimed at low-sensitivity competitive FPS players. The Synapse option can be configured per game and lets players spin in either direction with tweakable count settings. The author argues it isn't aim assist but still a movement-enhancing feature outside the game itself, echoing the earlier SOCD/Snap Tap controversy.
Street Fighter 6 producer Shuhei Matsumoto said in an October 2026 interview that during Street Fighter 5 the team realized the Street Fighter IP would likely die in 10 years if nothing changed. Street Fighter 6 responded with a Modern Controls system to streamline inputs and a focus on new modes and more forgiving combat balance. The game reached 7 million sales this past summer and has been tracking ahead of Street Fighter 5.
Video games aren't the enemy of kids' mental health – ignoring them is https://bit.ly/4yKVzxo
Pearl Abyss European CEO Lybee Park said Crimson Desert's lower-than-expected review scores stem from critics playing a build that was not the exact launch version and having limited time to explore. She said reviewers typically follow the main quest line, so they did not get a fair chance to experience the game's hidden details. Pearl Abyss has been patching the game since its March release and is planning a Switch 2 version for the first half of next year.
kyxsan: "I'm always open to feedback; when you play with so many experienced and good players, you can learn from every one of them" https://www.hltv.org/news/45682/kyxsan-im-always-open-to-feedback-when-you-play-with-so-many-experienced-and-good-players-you-can-learn-from-every-one-of-them
The charity director for Safe In Our World argues that video games are often blamed for young people's anxiety, isolation and poor sleep, while research shows the picture is far from black and white. Games can be a lifeline for socially anxious kids, a coping tool for those with ADHD, and a rare space where isolated teens feel capable and accepted. What separates a healthy gaming experience from a harmful one is usually context, not the game itself, and parents should approach it with curiosity rather than blanket bans.