Welcome back to your monthly report of game news, where I do my best to compile everything into one convenient ad-free place, so you don’t have to worry about the pesky cracks that info can fall through at other publications.

Thanks and credit for the banner image as always goes to the Avocado’s one and only Space Robot!

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September 1st: Right after its launch, Stephen Totilo reported at Game File about devastating circumstances surrounding the launch of Star Wars: Zero Company by Bit Reactor Games. The studio ran out of money during the final sprint of production, and with no safety net from EA or Disney as publishing partners, about 80% of developers were furloughed, being put on unpaid leave once the game went gold. Itwas unclear how many would return to the team when only a tiny group was originally delegated for post-launch bug patches. However, after the game was officially announced to have sold 1 million copies by October 9th, Bit Reactor’s CEO said that he had begun retrieving furloughed staff and paying them again thanks to additional investment for post-launch support after the game’s success. According to Stephen Totilo’s sources, more than half of the original team are currently back on payroll, with the remainder still furloughed so employed but without compensation, for now.

Strange Scaffold announced that their acclaimed FPS I Am Your Beast will launch on Switch 1 and Switch 2 on October 20th 2026, at the same time as the initial PC release of the game’s new story DLC which will arrive later on consoles.

Nvidia officially released the unacceptable DLSS5 exclusively on RTX50 cards for NBA2K27, after it was datamined from the game the week before, leaking widely and being modded into many other games, all of which produce inevitably awful results.

WB Games announced a Switch 2 port of the complete Lego games collection for the TERF Wizard series.

Nintendo released three more NES games for Switch Online Classics: Ninja Gaiden 3, RC Pro AM 2, and Ikari Warriors, the first new SNK game for the service in some time.

September 2nd: Original creator and owner xPaw sold the SteamDB database to modding company Nexus Mods, creating a further consolidation of the PC gaming ecosystem. The demands of running the site and the demoralizing state of online space with the rise of AI burned him out.

September 3rd: Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach has been accused of committing securities fraud after a series of events with the GoPro company: after the success of his Iron Lung film early this year in which he used GoPro cameras, he began buying stock in the struggling company to support it, recently becoming its second largest shareholder. He went from openly begging for a sponsorship to making a sponsored product review that was properly labeled as sponcon, but failed to disclose his additional stakeholder profits. And lastly, GoPro was just acquired by Starman Optical, an AI focused tech corp that sells to imperial militaries, for almost $300 million, which is currently boosting stock but is likely to cause drops as it faces controversy and opposition. He’s admitted he’s made terrible mistakes in this process, he’s not wrong to say he was foolish but not actually criminal: he made his investments before the talks started and he isn’t selling now, he wants to vote against the deal as a shareholder.

PlayStation State of Play: Sony’s latest presentation was pretty minor, consisting largely of updates to announced games, opening with a trailer for the Resident Evil movie and a minor last look at Wolverine. Sucker Punch Studios revealed the paid DLC for Ghost of Yotei, featuring the Echoes of Sekigahara story expansion and a roguelike survival mode called Most Wanted, which includes extra player characters such as Tsushima protagonist Jin Sakai. A Complete Edition bundling the base game and DLC released alongside the DLC on October 1st. Sony also announced a Lego PlayStation. Capcom offered the first full trailer for the Monster Hunter Wilds expansion Ascendance, while 4A had new gameplay for Metro 2039. Another Embracer Group game was revealed by developer Tripwire Interactive: Maneater 2 will follow a shark trapped in an aquatic themepark, and is scheduled to launch in 2027 for PC, PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series. The Crimson Desert DLC was shown off before its October release. Square Enix announced a demo for Final Fantasy Resonance. Bandai Namco had a launch trailer for Gundam Rogue Orbit, announcing that it will release March 5th 2027. Two of the original The Stanley Parable devs revealed their new studio’s game Hunter’s Moon, a first person horror game about surviving a 1600s witch hunt, which launched October 26th for PS5.

The creators of Maquette announced their new game published by Annapurna: Uncanyon is an isometric puzzle game about bending reality, set to launch in 2027 for PC, PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox series. Double Fine surprise shadowdropped a PS5 port for their newest adventure game Keeper. Konami had a full reveal trailer for its new original IP action RPG Rev.Noir, coming in 2027 for PS5. Konami also revealed another brand new IP called Rhapsody in Scarlet, a character action game focused on the Jazz Age and coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series. A looter shooter called Mycopunk was announced to be releasing on PS Plus later this year, while PS Classics was announced to be adding Mega Man X Command Mission, Dino Crisis 2, and the original Ratchet & Clank. Brand new free updates were announced for both Saros and Gran Turismo 7, with the former featuring a new boss rush high score mode, new game plus mode, and accessibility features. A new trailer for Until Dawn 2 announced that it will launch on January 28th 2027 and opened preorders. As part of the marketing partnership with Take-Two, Sony announced GTA6 themed DualSense controllers.

Lastly, Square Enix provided the release date trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, showcasing piloting and skydiving, the new cities of Wutai, Rocket Town, and Gongaga, and a unique mechanic where different party members can take over as leader on side quests and change their stories. The finale RPG will launch on all current gen hardware on April 8th 2027, and unfortunately its physical edition for all three consoles will be an incomplete/partial download offering, which is to say effectively digital-only, due to its gargantuan 200GB filesize.

There was also a Japan-focused presentation right after, further elaborating on some games featured in the first State of Play and showcasing extras like Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 as well.

September 7th: Maddie Agne for This Week in Videogames broke a story that manages to make layoffs surprising again: Powerwash Simulator’s FuturLab fired seven workers and canceled a non-Powerwash game project.

Crytek announced that it has fired 23 more people after layoffs in 2025, in this case targeting a Turkey-based QA team and social media workers at its homebase in Germany, and the status of the previously announced Crysis 4 remains up in the air.

Capcom announced that Onimusha: Way of the Sword has sold over a million copies in its first day, getting it halfway to becoming the series’ bestselling entry.

September 8th: Multiplatform achievement tracking website Exophase scraped an unsecured backend on Steam and accidentally leaked a massive trove of achievements from upcoming and even unannounced games, most notably spoiling two major and still fairly mysterious releases: Kingdom Hearts 4 and Persona 6. I’ve hidden the details for those two games in the dropdown below, but I will be discussing the other unreleased games included in the leak here, including unannounced projects and canceled games. Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis, Persona 4 Revival, Stranger Than Heaven, Mega Man Dual Override, Crazy Taxi World Tour, Judas (single test achievement, Horizon Hunters Gathering, Deux Ex Remastered, Kena: Scars of Kosmora, Turok Origins, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement, Metro 2039, 4Loop, Clutch, Stuntman Hollywood, and Fable 4 were included as well, while games whose existence were leaked by this include Shrek 2 Remastered (then announced at ID@XBOX in October), a port of Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright, a Twin Peaks game that may or may not still be active, a sequel to Carrion, a new Tetris game, and a new edition for Telltale’s The Walking Dead. There were also much older definitely canceled projects like a pre-Disney Star Wars shooter and THQ’s Avengers game included.

September 9th: Late in the night, PlayStation abruptly announced that it was dropping Hideo Kojima’s next new IP PhysInt, which was announced in 2024 as a next-gen action espionage game as a direct spiritual successor to Metal Gear Solid and as a multimedia collab with Sony’s film division. It became the main project of Kojima Productions after Death Stranding 2 launched in mid-2025. Minutes later, it was confirmed that Xbox has secured partnership to produce and publish PhysInt (plus any multimedia adaptations) instead, in one of the weirdest and most shocking console war moments of the generation. Kojima discussed the events that led to this first on social media and then at greater length in interviews, but the gist is that PlayStation Studios reassessed the project and intended to cancel it in June, leaving Kojima Productions scrambling for months to rescue it before finally and unfortunately partnering with Microsoft, the tech giant deeply embedded in the surveillance state, the genAI tech destroying the world, and the unrelenting imperial war machine.

This came after recent confirmation that despite so many cuts elsewhere, Xbox is still supporting Kojima’s OD project. The motivation for Xbox is obvious, it’s yet another gamer pandering move from Asha Sharma and I understand that the list of companies that can provide the kind of vast financial and technical resources Kojima prefers is very short, but the logical circumstances can’t overcome my wholehearted opposition to Microsoft’s place in our society. This story continued to develop in the weeks after with Jason Schreier quickly putting out a Bloomberg report on why Sony parted ways with the project, Kojima announcing at Tokyo Games Show that Bill Skarsgård of It and Nosferatu will be the lead actor of the game, and Daniel Robinson and Wesley Yin-Poole publishing an exclusive IGN interview with Kojima to discuss the transition from PlayStation to Xbox. The IGN article is very focused on Kojima’s emotional experience with the process of almost losing the game and securing its new home.

As for the Schreier article, it naturally shows how the cancelation was related to how much more risk-averse all the big publishers are becoming in the face of economic crisis. The Death Stranding duology was expensive and less popular than Sony anticipated, especially the sequel, PhysInt had apparently already missed deadlines and increased in budget just during early development, and perhaps most notably, Sony had no full exclusivity or ownership over the project, Kojima Productions would’ve been able to port it to PC and other consoles after a timed window just like Death Stranding. Schreier later commented on claims about PhysInt‘s production budget at Xbox, saying that the originally reported $400 million figure came from projections at Sony, and someone at Xbox explicitly told him that the game had been secured for “significantly less”, suggesting Kojima agreed to budget cuts to keep the game alive.

Deskworks and Shueisha delayed the release of their game ChronoScript from Fall 2026 to Summer 2027 for further polish.

Nintendo Directs: Nintendo premiered two major first party focused presentations on consecutive days: a Direct on September 8th dedicated to the Legend of Zelda franchise’s 40th Anniversary, which in practice was mainly a Ocarina of Time Remake Direct, and then a general Switch 2 Nintendo Direct presentation on September 9th.

Zelda Direct: After showing a logo for the upcoming Zelda movie, the meat of the presentation began with Aonuma demoing the Ocarina of Time Remake. He showed off large parts of the starting Kokiri Village and Great Deku Tree areas, confirming that a dedicated jump button, a new dash move, free second stick camera movement, reorchestrated music and full voice acting in cutscenes, and Zelda Notes integration were added among other things to modernize the game. Major areas still have small loading screen transitions but they are far fewer in number overall. Switch 2 microphone support was announced as an option for the game’s Ocarina songs, allowing players to hum or use electric Ocarina peripherals instead of the usual button patterns. Special themed Switch 2 consoles and pro controllers, whose designs previously leaked, and new amiibo were also shown. The game was announced to be launching on November 5th 2026. To close out, a very dramatic montage style full trailer for the Remake played, showing a more varied look at the world and cutscenes and making it more obvious that while the remake is overall very faithful, its precise adjustments to environments and puzzles add up to a bigger difference for veterans.

General Direct: The show opened with the very first look at gameplay footage for Capcom’s Switch 2 port of Monster Hunter Wilds, showing its system-to-system multiplayer, its >1080p Quality Mode and up to 60fps performance mode, and announcing a launch date of December 4th and a demo released October 19th. FF7 Revelation reappeared to reconfirm that it will launch on Switch 2 simultaneously with other consoles; the port’s first gameplay was shown later at Paris Games Week and confirmed a sizeable upgrade from Rebirth. Square Enix also shadowdropped a Switch 2 upgrade for Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion. Koei Tecmo announced Age of Calamity Definitive Edition, a dedicated Switch 2 upgrade for the Hyrule Warriors sequel launching February 25th 2027. It improves enemy counts, resolution, and performance, includes all DLC and a new Calamity difficulty mode, but it unfortunately has a bad upgrade path for existing owners: it costs $30 for only those who bought the game digitally, it’s a full $60 otherwise. The bestselling game of 2026 was shadowdropped by its creators for Switch 2 with MouseCon support: Meccha Chameleon is a friendslop hide and seek game where players use camouflage paint. Pokopia Expansion Pass Wave 2 was detailed to feature many new accessories and new Pokémon including Sylveon, Doduio, Snubbull, and Braixen.

A major free update was announced and released for Star Fox Remake, featuring 4 player splitscreen and online support and additional levels in battle mode. Rare’s final Nintendo home console game Star Fox Adventures was shadowdropped for NSO Gamecube. Witcher 3 Remastered and Songs of the Past appeared, which were confirmed to feature MouseCon, gyro, motion control, and touchscreen support. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Royal Edition was announced by Warhorse and Embracer Group to be releasing for Switch 2 in 2027, bundling in the game’s story DLC and featuring 1440p docked performance. Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave made a quick reminder appearance. Level-5 returned once again with Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, finally announcing that it will launch on December 10th 2026 for PC, Switch 1/Switch 2 and PS5. Level-5 also newly revealed Yokai Watch 2: Haunted Domain Remake with a bad genAI cinematic trailer. Pikmin 4 Switch 2 Edition was announced to be releasing on November 12th, featuring higher resolution, microphone support for commanding Oatchi, and the new Dandori Academy mode, featuring 72 challenge levels only playable on weekends and released in waves.

Bloober Team finally revealed their anticipated Switch 2 exclusive horror adventure Onyx: The Dark Grip, a handheld-exclusive game coming in 2027 where touchscreen manipulation of the world around the player character damages his sanity as a cosmic horror. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Switch 2 Edition had a wave-based survival mode and new hero Shimmer announced. Overcooked developers Ghost Town Games announced that their new story based spooky co op adventure game Stage Fright will release for Switch 1 and Switch 2 in 2027. A new underwater DLC for Disney Dreamlight Valley was announced to be releasing November 2026 while Bandai Namco and Malaysian developer Metronomik revealed Ondeh Ondeh Kaya’s Tasty Tale, a 3D rhythm adventure game based heavily in the creators’ local culture, coming to Switch 2 and all current gen hardware in 2027. A reminder for the Lego Batman port appeared before its September release, and the game’s first major DLC focused on Joker and Harley was showcased. Kirby Air Riders amiibos were announced. The Game Bakers announced that their acclaimed climbing game Cairn will release for Switch 2 in Early 2027 with a demo out now. Capcom confirmed that their remake trilogy, Resident Evil 2 Remake Deluxe Edition, Resident Evil 3 Remake, and Resident Evil 4 Remake Gold Ediiton, would all release for Switch 2 on October 16th with physical editions in January 2027. Crystal Dynamics, Amazon, and Embracer Group once again showcased their genAI-infested Tomb Raider remake with Switch 2 preorders newly starting.

Switch Sports Resort had a major announcement: offline single player content will feature in the form of sandbox exploration modes for skateboarding, flying, and power cruising, and an Island Crown tournament mode is included for nine of the 12 main sports. Character customization is now fully based in the offline content rather than dependent on unlocks from online multiplayer play. Next, Mercury Steam officially revealed the previously leaked 2D Metroid 6: Metroid Ravenous will launch for Switch 2 on January 28th 2027, following Samus on the run from a horde of Space Ninjas and forced to survive by using her new Metroid side to absorb the life of enemies. The game features new abilities like water running and wall-phasing, as well as 120fps support. A new free update for Mario Kart World was detailed and released, formalizing the hidden SNES remake courses and adding the second set of new Knockout Tour options. Capcom properly revealed gameplay footage for Proto Man as a player character and updated Mega Man Dual Override‘s release window to Spring 2027. Marvelous revealed Eternal Anima, an RPG coming to PC and all current gen consoles on March 4th 2027, featuring featuring special time manipulations for turn based battles. Spike Chunsoft announced that Danganronpa 2X2 will launch January 14th 2027 and properly revealed the new story mode Slayhem Mode, an alternate timeline of the OG Danganronpa with completely different events and a new character.

SnK announced that Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves would release for Switch 2 on October 22nd and revealed its first Season 3 DLC characters as a Tokyo Revengers crossover, while also revealing Metal Slug Ultimate Collection for a 2027 launch. Konami announced Yugioh Tag Force GX for Switch and Switch 2 coming February 16th 2027, a remake of the final entry in the trilogy based on the anime’s second era, a game that never left Japan; however, this remake is confirmed to use genAI for its translations. Square Enix revealed Romancing Saga 3: Destinies United, a fully voiced 3D remake and final rerelease for the RPG series coming February 16th 2027. A sizzle reel featured 007 First Light coming March 2027, Far Cry 3 and Far Cry Blood Dragon newly announced to be coming in Spring 2027, The Crew Motorfest, Apothecary Diaries: The False Imperial Brother coming early 2027, House Flipper 2 releasing October 15th, Sonic Pico Park releasing November 12th, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World, and the newly revealed Torneko’s Mystery Dungeon Classic HD being shadowdropped, the origin of the Mystery Dungeon franchise released in the West for the very first time on all current gen consoles.

The sizzle reel also included Hela launching December 1st, Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream launching December 3rd, Stellar Blade Complete Edition releasing November 5th and featuring an exclusive Bayonetta costume, The Ascent Ultimate Edition releasing in December 2026 for Switch 2, It Takes Two Switch 2 Edition releasing October 15th, Palia Switch 2 Edition releasing in December, photography game Bluey’s Happy Snaps releasing October 15th, Hot Wheels Infinite Rush, acclaimed indie action RPG Fading Echo releasing for Switch 2 on September 17th, only three months after initial launch, Hell is Us, and lastly the newly revealed pleasant surprise late port Guardians of the Galaxy: Encore Edition by Eidos Montreal, which features docked VRR and 1440p support. The third party one more thing this time around was significant but a slightly frustrating one since it really should’ve happened back in June: Sega and Atlas confirmed that Persona 4 Revival and Persona 6 are both releasing for Switch 2, replaying the trailers from the Xbox show. The continually disappointing P4 is landing on May 20th 2027, 3 months after its initial release, and we still don’t officially know anything about Persona 6. The final announcement was Kirby and the World Beyond coming to Switch 2 in Spring 2027, an open sandbox focused sequel to the series’ bestseller and debut 3D platformer Forgotten Land, the trailer focused on using Kirby’s signature powerups for new traversal options in a starter zone based on basic planet Popstar grasslands before the surprise reveal of Kirby upgrading his Sword powerup to break through a mysterious facade and reach a new area desert canyon area.

After the Direct, Sega updated its website for Persona 6 to confirm that the game is planned to release physically for both PS5 and Switch 2, reaffirming the leaked Holiday 2027 release target right before the cutoff of Sony discontinuing PS5 discs. The Switch 2 cartridge based on Sega’s track record is almost certainly a game-key card.And the day after the Direct, Nintendo released a major Switch 2 firmware update adding one of its most widely requested features: Variable Refresh Rate support during docked play, which had been exclusive to handheld mode up to this point since it’s built into the display while TV compatibility and connectivity is of course more variable and requires more bespoke programming. Out of the gate, Switch 2 Welcome Tour was updated to include docked VRR support, while the Ocarina of Time Remake was confirmed on its eShop page to include support at launch.

September 10th: Level 5 hosted a Vision Showcase to elaborate on its Nintendo Direct and upcoming TGS appearances, showing new gameplay footage for Holy Horror Mansion, DecaPolice, and Snack World Reloaded, announcing believe it when we see it 2027 launch windows for all three of those games, announcing paid DLC for Fantasy Life i, and finally revealing a Professor Layton and the Curious Village Remake for PC, Switch 1/Switch 2 and PS5, and promising a special reveal for a new major title for the studio’s 30th anniversary next year. The presentation was hosted by an ugly genAI 3D animated model of CEO Akihiro Hino and featured telltale genAI slop traits in all of its major trailers, unsurprising after the CEO’s previous boasts of extensively using LLM tech. The studio has tried to defend itself in the face of heavy criticism, claiming that some of these visual flaws were human error and not AI hallucination, and claiming that genAI will be refocused to earlier parts of production and release cycles and used less in public-facing materials in the future, despite how obviously difficult to trust these statements are.

Goodbye Volcano High and Young Suns developer KO_OP, a queer worker cooperative studio, sadly announced that they were firing 13 employees as an emergency response to running low on funds, not long after they reached the 1.0 launch for the latter game, a multiplayer sci fi life sim about rebuilding society for the better. Young Suns will hit Steam on November 3rd and any future profits from the game will be distributed equally to current and former employees, and if the studio can secure outside funding soon to continue surviving, they will rehire those lost.

September 11th: The workers who were fired in blatant unionbusting last year at Rockstar held public protests in Glasgow outside the tribunal center where the five week hearing for the case had just begun. Thousands of pages of evidence were submitted to review between both sides. Rockstar’s extreme surveillance measures meant to fight leaks were immediately revealed by both opposing parties: three moles/”whistleblowers” were planted inside the disputed labor organization Discord server for over two years before the organizers were fired, and one of the moles passed login information to management right before the layoffs began. Rockstar argues that their moles are the needed proof that the Discord server wasn’t as secure as the organizers argue it was. Rockstar has also been proven to have been compensating the moles with extra time off. The fired workers’ legal team argues, on top of the existing evidence, that the firings had a clear successful chilling effect on participation in the labor organization server. The tribunal was initially set to end in mid-October but at that time it was extended to November 18th, right before GTA6’s launch.

Moss series developer Polyarc Games announced that they were closing down immediately, not long after converting their games from VR and releasing them on consoles this summer.

In response to it being leaked by the Steam achievement fiasco, NightDive officially announced that they are adding a new story expansion called The Tarnished Mirror to Thief Remastered.

A Twitch streamer revealed that Amazon/Twitch is testing a new genAI chatbot to be integrated into streams and used to give advice to streamers, after the platform had already started scraping streamer videos for genAI without their permission earlier this year, making it opt-out and hidden deep in menus because “If it was opt-in, nobody would opt in.”

September 12th: To the disappointment of many, myself included, game developer Ikumi Nakamura publicly invited Elon Musk, one of the single worst most destructive people on the planet, to play her game Kemuri and even posted a comic of her and Musk together based on them sitting near each other back at the 2019 Game Awards. She defended herself by saying that she was testing if he was a true otaku, as if his track record of being a bad nerd wasn’t the least offensive thing about him. Suggestions of her studio being disorganized, financially unstable, and hemorrhaging workers came around the same time.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King hosted their latest BlizzCon event against the backdrop of of Blizzard’s union successfully ratifying a major new contract covering 1900 employees with terms for three day hybrid work weeks, disability accommodations, wage increases, an extra four weeks of severance and an industry-first right to be rehired to open positions in the first 14 months after a layoff, and a mandate for Microsoft to discuss and negotiate over genAI usage before it is implemented.

As for the bloated PR convention, aside from the previously reported Diablo 4 on Switch 2 and multimedia adaptations, there were three major project announcements as well as the first new campaign added to Warcraft 3 since 2003. World of Warcraft Forever is a new edition of the MMO coming November 4th 2026 to be supported alongside WoW Classic and the basic version; instead of a faithful recreation of the MMO’s early days like Classic, Forever is an expanded and modernized reboot using the 2004 edition as a foundation for many new features. I suspect it will take precedence over basic WoW very quickly, especially if the Brazil ratings board leak of console ports is accurate. Diablo 5 was the strangest of the main announcements, arriving alongside confirmation that expansions of Diablo 4 are ending after only two, although seasonal support for the outgoing entry will remain for now. Lastly was the previously leaked and rumored Starcraft, an open world FPS. Diablo 5 and Starcraft had their specific distant launch targets publicly announced (Spring 2029 and Spring 2030 respectively) in a very clumsy attempt at projecting confidence even though everyone at this point anticipates constant delays for AAA games.

September 13th: Limited Run Games founder Josh Fairhurst said that many major employees of Limited Run Games have recently either resigned or been fired, including Jeremy Parish, in response to incoming changes from leadership and owner Embracer Group, which canceled over 50 projects and started taking an extremely risk-averse approach to the company’s future releases. A Killer Instinct collection and LSD: Dream Emulator were the two explicitly confirmed canceled projects.

The ongoing reactionary mistreatment of indie developers by digital storefronts saw another incident: Richard Cobbett’s vampire RPG Nighthawks was unexpectedly slapped with an adults only label by Steam shortly before launch, automatically excluding it from searches and banning it in some countries for far more modest content than the label should imply. Enough attention was brought to the issue that Steam became aware of it and removed the adults only tag days later.

September 14th: After months of modest performance and right before its third season and next major update were supposed to arrive, Bungie hit the pause button on Marathon, delaying the season 3 content update featuring a new PvE mode to December 8th, saying the next is expected for March 2027, and ending the seasonal schedule entirely to give extra time to production and release of content updates. Bungie will be running “gameplay experiments” between October and December to seemingly test options for a larger reboot of Marathon, as the PlayStation studio admits that “it did not reach as many players as hoped” so it needs to evolve. I follow or personally know quite a few people who truly loved playing Marathon, but who lost their motivation to play because they could already see the writing on the wall for it, one of the biggest problems with AAA live services.

Just one week later on September 21st, Bungie issued a major announcement that one cannot help seen as directly connected to Marathon floundering: Destiny 2 is coming back in a big way only four months after content support ended. All of the vaulted content from the first years of Destiny 2’s life, from the base game Red War to the acclaimed Forsaken expansion and all raids in between, will be rereleased for free. In late October, Bungie released a new blog post further detailing the “unvaulting” plan to create “forever Destiny.” The restored content won’t actually be ready to release until 2028.

Ziff Davis fired yet more people at IGN including long time video hosts Seth Macy, Brian Altano and Max Scoville, as well as senior tech editor Bo Moore. IGN’s union says many were affected including four union members. While far from the worst thing about this, it remains asinine how much mainstream games media keeps cutting to the bone in the face of some of the biggest stories of the generation.

Ubisoft unexpectedly issued a last minute delay to Rayman Legends Retold, moving its release from October 1st to December 3rd for all platforms, mainly to avoid all the bigger games coming out this fall.

Recruitment for private playtests of an unreleased AAA 2D fighting game went live online and were quickly assessed to likely be for Injustice 3 from NetherRealm as the playtest is based in Culver City, home to one of Warner Bros’ headquarter offices, and the timing is consistent for NetherRealm to market and release its next project soon after Mortal Kombat One launched in 2023. Injustice 3 has been widely rumored for a while, from a reliable MultiVersus leaker discussing it earlier this year to reports on MKO’s development discussing how it was specifically chosen to make first over Injustice 3.

September 15th: Right after becoming an immediate viral popular hit off its Steam early access release, the studio behind military shooter Wardogs got in hot water when CEO Joe Brammer proudly declared in an interview that they not only engage in crunch but actively scan for support or opposition to crunch on social media before hiring new devs, and that he fully opposes work from home for game development.

Sega announced three new major multimedia projects produced by Netflix, the next animated Sonic the Hedgehog TV series, a live action Crazy Taxi movie, and a Stranger Than Heaven movie, not long after previously announcing a live action Persona TV series.

September 16th: Hyper Light Drifter and Possessor(s) developer Heart Machine sadly engaged in yet another round of layoffs, affecting “nearly everyone” left at the studio and positioning it most likely to be forced to close soon after a publisher suddenly withdrew from fully funding their next unannounced project.

After a veritable gauntlet of problems for MindsEye studio Build a Rocket Boy, an equally undignified end arrived as a full studio closure was reported by departing employees during the latest set of layoffs.

September 21st: Only 10 days after a judge scheduled settlement talks between the proposed megamerger of Skydance-Paramount and Warner Bros and 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America as opposition, a settlement was officially reached with the attorneys general, immediately leading in short order to the WGA folding due to lack of sufficient support, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approving the settlement on September 30th, and the acquisition officially going through on October 6th, in turn leading to the immediate merger of Paramount Games Studio and WB Games with the former’s executives taking charge. As soon as he finally claimed his treasure David Ellison went right to work acting exactly like the asinine nepo baby techbro he is, pissing on the legacy of these historical studios by stamping his Skydance brand all over them, firing the people who greenlit and supported masterpieces like Sinners, and appointing a Legion of Doom of execs including Bobby Kotick. Let’s all keep exactly in mind who we have to thank for this: not just Trump forcibly pushing Netflix out of negotiations to deepen the right-wing takeover of news media, but also the virulently transphobic California governor Gavin Newsom who personally stepped in to pressure his AG and ensure the merger because it’s “good for business.”

Drinkbox delayed their metroidvania Blighted from Fall 2026 into 2027 for more polish.

September 22nd: As previously discussed for how it changed preexisting headlines about Ninja Theory and Undead Labs, Xbox announced the next part of its year-long mass layoffs and restructuring: Many studios were formally transitioned over to ZeniMax or Activision and 268 people were newly fired across Halo Studios, Age of Empires dev World’s Edge, Activision subsidiaries Treyarch and Raven Software, and Gears dev The Coalition, with Halo Studios and World’s Edge taking the brunt of the layoffs. World’s Edge lost roughly half of its staff while being moved to Activision, and Halo Studios was reduced to a tiny team handling community support while full development and control over the Halo franchise now belongs to Activision. Obsidian was moved under Bethesda to formalize its new role as a Fallout team. Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 was merged into Playground Games after it was already gutted last year, cementing that Forza Horizon is the priority for the series and that those who remained at Turn 10 are no longer independent creatives. The Coalition lost E-Day story director Juan Vaca before the game’s inevitable unsuccessful launch weeks later. Shortly after on September 26th, Microsoft got another bloated PR event to whitewash its practices with the annual Minecraft Live event, where the first new dimension for Minecraft was announced after 15 years.

September 23rd: Capcom abruptly announced Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies VR for all current Meta VR products, coming in 2027.

September 24th: A new report by Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson revealed that against what we all assumed, weak launch sales for Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope back in 2022 aren’t what killed Ubisoft Milan as led by Davide Soliani: Nintendo and Ubisoft actually moved forward with early work on their next collaboration, a Legend of Zelda spinoff starring Ganondorf, it wasn’t until after Nintendo abruptly pulled support for that project a year later at the end of 2023 that the Milan team leads ultimately rejected Ubisoft’s project options and left to start Day4Night together. Reading between the lines here since we know Sparks of Hope pushed the Rayman comeback and Ubi Milan’s next game wound up being Rayman Legends Retold, I would guess that Ubisoft turned down a brand new Rayman pitch in favor of starting with the safer remake and that was the last straw for Soliani and co.

September 26th: Suda51’s Grasshopper Manufacture officially went independent again by removing itself from Chinese publisher NetEase Games as it continues to remove all international subsidiaries.

Bandai Namco announced that their co op live service extraction shooter SynDuality: Echo of Ada will be ending support and transitioning to an offline mode in May 2027.

September 29th: Coffee Stain Studios and parent company Embracer Group announced an upcoming large paid DLC for their game Satisfactory. Coffee Stain also announced that the open world sci fi farm game it’s publishing, Lightyear Frontier, will release in 1.0 on November 4th for PC and Xbox Series S|X. Meanwhile, developer Perfect Garbage and publisher Blumhouse Games announced that their horror farm sim Grave Seasons will launch March 9th 2027 for PC, Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series.

September 30th: An anonymous social media accused Youtube video essayist Jacob Geller of being a rapist, quickly leading to a paper trail analysis and the confirmation from public record that in college, he was fired from a radio job and suspended for a single semester for raping his then-girlfriend. Geller was fired by MinnMax and removed from Nebula within hours of this coming to light, after he which confessed to the crime on BlueSky while making no mention of it to his much larger Patreon and Youtube audiences.

Kitfox Games announced that Caves of Qud will get a Switch 2 port as a free upgrade in the future, which is also newly getting a physical release from Lost in Cult alongside Morsels for Switch 1 and PS5 and The Séance of Blake Manor for Switch 2 and PS5. On October 15h, the first paid expansion for Caves of Qud was announced: Diaspora will release in early access on December 9th, featuring the addition of playable animals and plants with notable biodiversity.

Antonblast developer Summitsphere announced that their game ends its Switch timed exclusivity and releases for PS4 and PS5 on October 15th.

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Thank you to everyone for your support over the years, in all its forms. I am incredibly grateful for you, all of you, for your enthusiasm, kindness, inspiration, and generosity. I will no longer be asking for your financial support, only for your shining presence in my comments. I am proud to say that this train can keep right on rolling!