Gaming Editorial

Polygon defends Big Walk after House House's LLM disclosure

Polygon (Matt Patches) · Nov 14

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Polygon's Matt Patches argues that the debate over House House's Big Walk has buried how much human craft the game took. The studio said in the game's FAQ that a lighting physics problem in Unity had no workable answer, even after a Unity engineer told them what they wanted wasn't possible, so the five-person team used an LLM chatbot to solve it. A group of influential Indie Game Festival jurors then said they would not vote for any game that used gen-AI tools, which includes Big Walk.

Patches lands on the view that Big Walk is a great game made with a great deal of artistry, and that the chatbot only helped it over the last stretch. The piece pairs that argument with an interview, conducted before the controversy, in which co-founder Jake Strasser describes how proximity voice chat shaped the game.

Counterpoint: The jurors who pledged not to vote for games using gen-AI tools treat any use as disqualifying, whatever its size. Critics of the technology's training data and labour effects would say the amount of human craft is beside the point.

Previously: Aftermath argued that opposing generative AI is worth it even if unwinnable, and Pearl Abyss said it will expand AI use across its pipeline. — Saturday November 14 edition.

Virtue and a Sledgehammer turns anti-AI rage into a story about death

Polygon (Giovanni Colantonio) · Nov 13

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio reviews Deconstructeam and Selkie Harbour's Virtue and a Sledgehammer, a three-hour game in which Pratelle returns home after her mother's death to find the town's residents' consciousness moved into robots by her sister Nina. Smashing bots and buildings with a sledgehammer is the whole mechanic, and Colantonio concedes it is one-note but says it suits the length.

His argument is that the game's rejection of generative AI is deliberately unsubtle but is only part of the point. Bots that plead for their lives make the player doubt whether destroying them is right, and the story ends up treating grief and acceptance of death as inseparable from being human.

Counterpoint: Nina's position, that a person's thoughts are the person and can live on in a machine, is one that mind-uploading and AI-companion advocates still hold. Players looking for a critique of labour, copyright or environmental harm may find the game's focus more philosophical than political.

Previously: Aftermath argued opposing generative AI is worth it even if unwinnable, and Pearl Abyss said it will expand AI use across its pipeline. — Saturday November 14 edition.

Eurogamer: Vice City set Rockstar's formula and still holds up

Eurogamer (Dom Peppiatt) · Nov 14

Eurogamer's Dom Peppiatt replays GTA: Vice City 24 years after its October 2002 release, a year after GTA 3, and argues it fixed what Rockstar would keep doing. He points to star power and Rockstar's self-confidence, noting a budget of roughly $5 million plus $13.2 million in marketing, and the first voiced protagonist in Ray Liotta's Tommy Vercetti. He also credits a cast of about 50 story characters.

Peppiatt says the formula is to take a trope and push it to its cartoon extreme, which he traces forward to Trevor in GTA 5. He reads Vercetti as a tragic figure and finds the game's slow, miserly first half making its later freedom feel earned. He calls it one of the best games ever made. He also says he can't verify the Burt Reynolds recording-session story he opens with.

Counterpoint: Fans of San Andreas or later entries would pick a different game as the series high point. Critics of Rockstar's caricature and of the crunch behind its rapid schedules would dispute the idea that this is an unqualified model.

Polygon: Ocarina of Time's child half suits young first-time Nintendo players

Polygon (Rebecca Corgan) · Nov 14

Continuing · Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and Nintendo's physical media stance

Since the Switch 2 remake arrived on Nov. 5, parents on Reddit have argued over whether it is too scary for kids, despite its E10+ rating. Polygon's Rebecca Corgan, who has played the three child-era dungeons with her 4-year-old, argues the first half works as a fairy tale, with a child-sized Link who has tools to fight back. She cites remake director comments from Eiji Aonuma and art director Aya Shida that the game is meant for all kinds of players, and says the darker adult half can wait until her daughter is ready.

Counterpoint: Some parents in Reddit threads recommend waiting until age 8 or 9, and others skip whole dungeons. Several say the remake's graphics make the spiders and ReDeads worse, and the E10+ rating is itself an argument against starting at 4.

Previously: A first-time player found the remake beautiful but simpler than modern Zelda. — Saturday November 14 edition.

Games & Industry in Brief

Nintendo reveals Kirby and the World Beyond for Switch 2

Polygon (Ashely Claudino) · Nov 15

Nintendo officially announced Kirby and the World Beyond, a new Switch 2 game due in 2027.

Riot announces League of Legends: New Dawn overhaul for 2027

Polygon (Matt Patches) · Nov 15

Riot Games used Worlds Finals 2026 to reveal League of Legends: New Dawn, a major update with new gameplay and features due in 2027.

Tomb Raider remake's RPG elements divide fans

Polygon (Willa Rowe) · Nov 15

A new gameplay deep dive into the Tomb Raider remake Legacy of Atlantis has split fans over its RPG elements, Polygon reports.

Girls und Panzer tank game dated for March 25, 2027

Respec (Kite Stenbuck) · Nov 13

D3 Publisher will release Girls und Panzer: All-Star Tank Carnival on Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and Steam on March 25, 2027, with cross-play multiplayer but Japanese-only language support.

New GTA 6 trailer promotes in-game TV show Macca and Friends

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 13

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 launch

Rockstar's latest GTA 6 trailer advertises Macca and Friends, a TV show inside the game that is set to air on Weazel TV on November 19.

Previously: South Korea's rating board needed three reviews and nearly blocked GTA 6 over nudity. — Friday November 13 edition.

Dark Souls-style PvP game Rasen enters early access

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Nov 15

Rasen, a game built around Dark Souls-style PvP with an optional PvE mode, has launched in early access, Rock Paper Shotgun reports.

Super Meat Boy Again+ remaster announced with new levels

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Nov 14

Super Meat Boy Again+, a remaster of the original 2D game with updated graphics and new levels, is on the way months after the release of Super Meat Boy 3D.

Fungus-themed Soulslike MycoRelic reaches 1.0

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Nov 13

MycoRelic, a Soulslike in which a robot covers itself in mushroom parts that grant elemental powers, is now out in version 1.0.

Marvel Rivals to rework Storm's summer skin for Christmas

PC Gamer (Elie Gould) · Nov 13

After complaints of favouritism, Marvel Rivals will release an upgraded version of Storm's legendary summer skin at Christmas, with the team calling Season 10 a challenging one.

WoW: Forever dungeon mobs stop giving XP when trivial to any party member

PC Gamer (Justin Wagner) · Nov 15

Continuing · World of Warcraft: Forever launch

Dungeon mobs in WoW: Forever no longer award experience if they are trivial for any member of the party, ending high-level boosting of lower-level friends.

Previously: Eurogamer's week-one verdict praised visuals, class balance, new dungeons and the mega-server. — Thursday November 12 edition.

Intel takes desktop CPU share from AMD

PC Gamer (Jacob Ridley) · Nov 13

Intel has taken a large share of the desktop CPU market from AMD, PC Gamer reports, with AMD's strength in gaming chips floated as a possible reason.

AMD patches SSD-eating driver bug for RX 7000 and newer

PC Gamer (Andy Edser) · Nov 13

AMD has released an optional Adrenalin driver update for RX 7000-series and newer cards that fixes the bug that was damaging SSDs, though PC Gamer says the update has quirks of its own.

AI & Industry

Disney files patent for AI virtual park synced to real-life events

WDW News Today (Arica Conrad) · Nov 14

Disney Enterprises has published U.S. patent application 2026/0360078 A1, "Techniques for Generating Virtual Environments Based on Real-Time Events." It describes an AI system that keeps a virtual park in step with real parades, fireworks and wait times.

Merchant: Huang's ouster and AI backlash undercut the IPO pitch

Blood in the Machine (Brian Merchant) · Nov 14

Continuing · Jensen Huang affair and Nvidia investigation

Brian Merchant's Blood in the Machine ties Jensen Huang's ouster to a broadening AI backlash. He argues that the IPO pitches from Anthropic and OpenAI rest on dull desperation.

Previously: Tim Sweeney's "Save Jensen" posts drew Aftermath's criticism, and Rest of World looked at the impact on China's AI supply chain. — Saturday November 14 edition.

Interconnects: open-source AI must rebuild without Huang

Interconnects (Nathan Lambert) · Nov 14

Continuing · Jensen Huang affair and Nvidia investigation

Nathan Lambert calls Huang's removal a "decapitation" and says the open-source AI community now has to rebuild without him.

Previously: Tim Sweeney's "Save Jensen" posts drew Aftermath's criticism, and Rest of World looked at the impact on China's AI supply chain. — Saturday November 14 edition.

US-China AI safety dialogue appears unaffected by Huang scandal

Tech Policy Press · Nov 13

Continuing · Jensen Huang affair and Nvidia investigation

Tech Policy Press reports that the US-China AI safety dialogue still seems to be on track despite the Huang scandal.

Previously: Tim Sweeney's "Save Jensen" posts drew Aftermath's criticism, and Rest of World looked at the impact on China's AI supply chain. — Saturday November 14 edition.

Tech Policy Press: EU digital fairness plan leaves the work to users

Tech Policy Press · Nov 13

Continuing · EU Digital Fairness Act and loot boxes

A Tech Policy Press piece argues that the EU's Digital Fairness promise still expects users to do the work of protecting themselves.

Previously: Rob Fahey framed the act as a decade-old problem coming due as trade bodies issued sombre official responses. — Saturday November 14 edition.

AI Engineer speakers publish "No AI Slop" manifesto

Latent Space (swyx .ai) · Nov 14

Latent Space reports that speakers at the AI Engineer event published a manifesto on November 13 setting out how to fight AI-generated slop.

Tech Policy Press asks if the "Super Intelligence" rebrand matters

Tech Policy Press · Nov 14

Tech Policy Press examines whether the Trump administration's campaign to rebrand AI as "Super Intelligence" has any real significance.

Science & Archaeology

Skull study points to sacrifice at Egypt's first royal tombs

ScienceDaily · Nov 14

Researchers re-examining 46 skulls from the tombs of Egypt's first kings found evidence of potentially fatal head injuries in 18 of them, meaning at least 39% may have been deliberately killed. The finding supports a century-old theory that royal attendants were sacrificed at a king's death.

Turi King on how DNA settled the fate of the Romanovs

Live Science (Turi King) · Nov 14

In an excerpt from The Secrets of our DNA, geneticist Turi King describes how DNA resolved the 70-year mystery of what happened to the executed last Russian imperial family. Links to the British royal family proved crucial to the identification.

Possible sixth dwarf planet found beyond Pluto

ScienceDaily · Nov 14

Astronomers have found 2026 ED138, a potentially enormous icy world beyond Pluto that had been hidden in a crowded part of the night sky. If confirmed, it would join the official dwarf planets and hints at more distant worlds.

Webb finds ice older than the star it orbits

Ars Technica (Jacek Krywko) · Nov 14

James Webb telescope observations show ice that predates the star it orbits, and that radiation and collisions reshape planetary building materials, Ars Technica reports.

Rock chemistry suggests plate tectonics began 2.5 billion years ago

Nautilus (Janne Liebmann) · Nov 14

A chemical fingerprint in ancient rocks points to plate tectonics starting about 2.5 billion years ago, Nautilus reports.

Giant fruit bats are shrinking

Nautilus (Devin Reese) · Nov 14

Giant fruit-eating bats are getting smaller, Nautilus reports, leaving Madagascar with smaller pollinators.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Yamaha releases VOCALOID7 with second-generation AI engine

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Nov 14

Yamaha's VOCALOID7 adds a second-generation AI singing engine, new vocal expression controls, better Cubase integration and five new voicebanks.

Fred's Lab Octane: open-source 8-in/8-out TRS MIDI interface on Kickstarter

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 14

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Fred's Lab Octane is a freely configurable 8-in/8-out TRS MIDI interface with open-source hardware and firmware, now on Kickstarter.

Previously: Melodee and Xfer's Shrub beta show custom firmware and plugins spreading to MPC Sample and M-VAVE FM-1 hardware. — Saturday November 14 edition.

DistroKid launches music publishing service

Sonic State · Nov 13

DistroKid has launched DistroKid Publishing, designed to help independent artists collect songwriting royalties worldwide.

Blackstar adds Neural Amp Modeler to ID:X Floor range

Sonic State · Nov 13

A free firmware update brings NAM to Blackstar's entire ID:X Floor processor range through an official partnership with TONE3000.

KOMA Elektronik Haloplane opens for pre-order

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 15

KOMA Elektronik's Haloplane, an electromagnetic micro-loop sampler and wavetable synth made with Passpartout Duo, is now available to pre-order after its Superbooth 2026 unveiling.

Quiet Art releases WaveRider v5 with neural Dialog Mode

Production Expert (Production Expert) · Nov 13

Quiet Art's dialogue-levelling plugin WaveRider v5 is a full overhaul with VST/AU support and Dialog Mode, a neural speech detection feature that also comes to WaveRider TG v2 and LoudnessGracious v1.1.

Gaming Editorial

Aftermath: the fight against generative AI isn't lost

Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) · Nov 13

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

On the Aftermath Hours podcast, Nathan Grayson takes up the reaction to the news that Big Walk's developers used generative AI in the final stretch of development. The studio says it generated no in-game assets, yet the disclosure still felt like a betrayal to many. Grayson rejects the argument that opposing AI is a losing fight because tools like Google search and Bluesky already use it. In his view principles are not held because you expect to win, and fighting where you can is still worthwhile.

He adds that using a chatbot to fill gaps left by a hollowed-out web, such as thin documentation, cedes ground and removes the incentive to rebuild better alternatives.

Counterpoint: Developers and commentators who call AI use unavoidable argue that an absolute stance is impractical, since AI is already embedded in everyday tools. They also argue that small teams with limited help may reasonably use it for narrow problems.

Previously: Luke Plunkett argued undisclosed AI art on Steam is a trust problem, while Xbox's Asha Sharma touted gen-AI small-team development. — Friday November 13 edition.

EFF: ambient recording gadgets turn privacy into a bystander problem

EFF Deeplinks (Thorin Klosowski) · Nov 14

Thorin Klosowski of the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that smart glasses from Meta and Google, Apple's Audio Intelligence on the Apple Watch, Amazon's Bee devices and a wave of pendants and rings shift privacy risk onto everyone near the wearer. Company safeguards such as Apple's white paper, Meta's face blurring and Amazon's no-stored-audio claims protect the user, he writes, but offer nothing to bystanders who cannot opt out.

He expects law enforcement to try to compel access to the transcripts and summaries these products create. He also argues that normalising covert recording makes private conversation less spontaneous, and says it is unreasonable to expect everyone to understand each device's capabilities. He rejects the comparison to phones and cassette recorders because those require visible effort.

Counterpoint: Device makers say their products are no different in kind from phones and recorders, and that user controls, terms of service forbidding secret recording and on-device processing address the risks. Accessibility and note-taking advocates also point to real benefits from automatic transcription.

Aftermath: Tim Sweeney's "Save Jensen" posts

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Nov 13

Continuing · Jensen Huang affair and Nvidia investigation

Luke Plunkett writes that Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has framed Jensen Huang's downfall as the work of the US government and of journalists with "dubious motives", calling it a sad day for America and humanity. Sweeney has also repeatedly posted the slogan "Save Jensen" on X. Plunkett calls this unhinged, says Aftermath has long urged Sweeney to log off, and notes that the situation looks like serious international trade trouble rather than persecution.

Counterpoint: Sweeney and sympathisers would say that leaks of sensitive information by officials to the press are a legitimate concern in themselves, whatever Huang's conduct. Aftermath's tone is also that of an outlet openly hostile to Sweeney.

Previously: Huang resigned as CEO with Colette Kress interim, and commentators weighed the effect on PC gaming and founder culture. — Friday November 13 edition.

GamesIndustry.biz: the Digital Fairness Act was a long time coming

GamesIndustry.biz (Rob Fahey) · Nov 13

Continuing · EU Digital Fairness Act and loot boxes

Rob Fahey writes that industry alarm over the European Commission's Digital Fairness Act reflects a decade of consumer-protection issues finally coming due. After the draft leaked early in the week, trade bodies' responses to the official draft are less apocalyptic but still warn of harm to European games companies and of lost freedoms for players and parents. Fahey's framing is that the bill is the consequence of long-running industry practices rather than a sudden shock.

Counterpoint: Trade bodies such as Ukie and executives at companies like King and Supercell argue the rules would burden studios and restrict players and parents more than they protect them.

Previously: King and Supercell bosses and Ukie warned the act could hurt players and studios. — Friday November 13 edition.

This Week in Videogames: Ocarina of Time remake, judged without nostalgia

This Week In Videogames (Maddie Agne) · Nov 13

Continuing · Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and Nintendo's physical media stance

Maddie Agne, who never played the original, tests whether the Switch 2 remake's 96 Metacritic score holds up without nostalgia. She came in sceptical of Link's smooth look but came to like the dreamy art style, which the remake's art director Aya Shida described as a "puppet-show feel". She finds the gameplay "primitive" and then "quaint" next to recent Zelda games, with straightforward puzzles and easy combat, though she enjoys that as a low-stress experience. Her worry is that without the original to compare against, the remake reads as just another polished Zelda.

Counterpoint: Many reviewers calling it "timeless" would argue the simple design is a strength rather than a dated limitation, and longtime fans would say the original's structure and impact are what matter.

Previously: The remake sold more than 5.2 million copies in four days, a Switch 2 record. — Thursday November 12 edition.

Aftermath: Queen's Domain and its interlocking level design

Aftermath (Chris Person) · Nov 13

Chris Person, 65 hours in, calls the indie game Queen's Domain one of the year's best, arguing its level design rivals the interconnected map of the original Dark Souls. It looks like a King's Field homage, but he says it mutates into something closer to Metroid Prime and Elden Ring in its structure, full of hidden doors, elevators and shortcuts. He recounts taking an early shortcut into the Rotting Cavern at level 25, in an area scaled for around level 60, and being trapped for hours before finding the intended way out. He treats that as evidence of how thoughtfully the game is built.

Counterpoint: Players who dislike obscure, punishing design could see a save point that traps an underlevelled player as a flaw rather than a feature.

Games & Industry in Brief

Bethesda announces Fallout 5 and Fallout 3, New Vegas remasters

Polygon (Michael McWhertor) · Nov 14

Bethesda has officially announced Fallout 5 along with new releases of Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

Level-5 remaking Professor Layton and the Curious Village for 2027

Polygon (Willa Rowe) · Nov 14

Level-5 is remaking the 2007 Nintendo DS puzzle game Professor Layton and the Curious Village, due in 2027.

Blizzard responds to Overwatch Hero 55 backlash

Polygon (Michael McWhertor) · Nov 14

Blizzard has responded to fan disappointment that Overwatch's next hero, Hudson, is a Damage character rather than a support.

Blood of Dawnwalker adds New Game+ in update 1.2

Polygon (Willa Rowe) · Nov 13

Blood of Dawnwalker's update 1.2 adds New Game+ next week after strong fan demand.

Survival game Pioner shutting down under a year after launch

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 13

Pioner, a survival game once likened to Stalker and Tarkov, is closing less than a year after entering early access in late 2025.

Game Awards nominees to be announced Nov. 17

Polygon (Michael McWhertor) · Nov 13

Continuing · The Game Awards 2026 nominations race

The Game Awards will reveal its 2026 nominees, including Game of the Year, on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Previously: Polygon predicted Ocarina of Time would be nominated for GOTY but could not win. — Monday November 9 edition.

Slay the Spire 2 beta adds first new character since launch

Eurogamer (Matt Wales) · Nov 13

Slay the Spire 2's biggest beta patch yet adds its first new character since launch, a bow-wielding musician, plus two new modes.

GDC study finds Unreal and Unity usage declining

Game World Observer (admin) · Nov 13

A Game Developers Conference study reports that usage of Unreal Engine and Unity, long the top two engines, is steadily declining.

Halo: Campaign Evolved to get free four-player Firefight

Eurogamer (Dom Peppiatt) · Nov 13

Halo Studios will add a free four-player co-op Firefight mode to Halo: Campaign Evolved "this winter".

MapleStory lifts Nexon's third quarter

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 13

Nexon's MapleStory franchise grew Q3 revenue 72%, driving overall growth that beat the company's outlook.

Pearl Abyss to expand AI use across its pipeline

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 14

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Pearl Abyss, which apologised earlier this year for AI-generated art in Crimson Desert, says it is expanding AI use "throughout our entire development pipeline".

Previously: Plunkett argued undisclosed AI art on Steam is a trust problem, while Xbox's Asha Sharma touted gen-AI small-team development. — Friday November 13 edition.

New Fable trailer divides fans

Polygon (Francesco Cacciatore) · Nov 13

Xbox's new gameplay trailer for the Fable reboot drew a split reaction from fans over its bleak footage.

inXile says no one hurt after suspected shooting near office

Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) · Nov 14

Microsoft-owned inXile said it is relieved no one was hurt after a suspected shooting near its office and is working with law enforcement.

AI & Industry

EPCOT vice president Matt Simon reportedly leaves Disney

WDW News Today (Megan K) · Nov 13

According to a WDWMagic source, Matt Simon, who became EPCOT vice president in March 2025, resigned this week and has left Disney.

Google's Gemini 4 Hydrogen arrives, and pricing confuses

Simon Willison · Nov 13

Google launched Gemini 4 Hydrogen, the cheapest Gemini 4 model at $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 output, and Simon Willison's llm-gemini 0.37 supports it. Willison finds the pricing confusing because Carbon and Argon cost the same ($2 input, $10 output through Nov. 30) and both double on Dec. 1.

Zitron publishes a guide to Megaspeed

Where's Your Ed At (Ed Zitron) · Nov 13

Ed Zitron's premium newsletter offers a "Hater's Guide" to Megaspeed, with a note that the situation is moving fast and may change.

Independent AI auditors face a talent shortage

Transformer (Veronica Irwin) · Nov 13

Transformer reports a growing consensus that frontier AI companies need outside auditing, but asks whether enough qualified people exist to do it.

What Huang's exit means for China's AI supply chain

Rest of World (Rest of World Staff) · Nov 13

Continuing · Jensen Huang affair and Nvidia investigation

Rest of World examines how Jensen Huang's departure from Nvidia affects China's AI supply chain.

Previously: Huang resigned as CEO with Colette Kress interim, and commentators weighed the effect on PC gaming and founder culture. — Friday November 13 edition.

ArtCraft used AI to rebuild Photoshop as open source

Latent Space (Richard MacManus) · Nov 13

ArtCraft used AI to rewrite Photoshop as open source software, and CEO Brandon Thomas says he wants to "rebuild everything" in a bid to take back the internet.

Tropical Americas archway nears completion at Animal Kingdom

WDW News Today (Alice Kennedy) · Nov 13

Crews have painted the entrance archway to Tropical Americas at Disney's Animal Kingdom, which has a burnt red colour, and are adding thematic detailing.

Science & Archaeology

Bronze foot suggests Romans dismantled Antoninus Pius statue

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Nov 13

A bronze foot found in a Scottish bog was likely part of a monumental statue of Emperor Antoninus Pius, which Live Science reports Romans carefully took apart when they withdrew about 1,800 years ago.

Radiocarbon dates probe builders of Cape Trafalgar megaliths

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 13

La Brújula Verde reports radiocarbon dates for human bones from two monumental megalithic tombs on Spain's Cape Trafalgar, bearing on who built them.

Health of mummified Egyptian cats evaluated

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 13

Zooarchaeologist Wim Van Neer of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and colleagues evaluated the health of mummified Egyptian cats.

Ancient Peruvians adapted to environmental stress, study suggests

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 13

Thomas Snyder of New York University and colleagues report that ancient Peruvians adapted to environmental stressors, according to a Science Alert account.

Minimoon 2026 QQ8 is orbiting Earth until January

Live Science (Joanna Thompson) · Nov 13

Astronomers confirmed that a tiny asteroid, 2026 QQ8, entered Earth's orbit in April and is expected to leave in January.

CT scans show Jeremy Bentham's severe dental problems

Live Science (Tom Metcalfe) · Nov 13

CT scans of Jeremy Bentham's preserved skull show severe dental and jaw problems, suggesting the utilitarian philosopher lived in considerable pain.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

A Sound Effect rounds up 44 new libraries

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Nov 10

A Sound Effect lists 44 new sound effects libraries, including 1950s vacuum-tube sci-fi, live drift cars, dinosaur roars, Greek walla and Christmas sparkles.

Xfer's Shrub brings a Serum-lite synth to the M-VAVE FM-1

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 13

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Steve Duda of Xfer Records has released a beta of Shrub, a stripped-down version of Serum for the M-VAVE FM-1 synthesizer.

Previously: Akai opened an MPC Plugin SDK and Patchwerk added modular firmware to the M-VAVE FM-1. — Friday November 13 edition.

Melodee firmware adds VST3 groovebox to the MPC Sample

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 13

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Keremimo's custom Melodee firmware turns the Akai MPC Sample into a 16-track groovebox with VST3 plugins, running from a microSD card.

Previously: Akai opened an MPC Plugin SDK and Patchwerk added modular firmware to the M-VAVE FM-1. — Friday November 13 edition.

DJW Audio releases free open-source TB-303-style synth

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Nov 14

DJW Audio's DW-303 is a free, open-source bass synth with circuit-modelled sound, a 16-step sequencer and 64 patterns, available in multiple plugin formats and on multiple operating systems.

Pro Tools 2026.11 introduces Extensions and a stem separator

Mix (Mix Staff) · Nov 13

Avid's Pro Tools 2026.11 introduces Extensions and a Pro Tools Stem Separator.

Hainbach and AudioThing release Seconds filter bank plugin

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 13

AudioThing's Seconds, designed with Berlin musician Hainbach, is a filter bank plugin that combines per-band filtering and ring modulation.

Monique Evette's animated instruments blend modelling and fabrication

CDM (Peter Kirn) · Nov 13

CDM profiles computer scientist Monique "Evette" Byars, who builds animated instruments using digital modelling and fabrication, including harps with blooming flowers and guitars reimagined as koi ponds.

Why do games hide AI use they say is fine?

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Nov 13

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Luke Plunkett argues that a growing number of Steam games use obvious AI-generated art without disclosing it, despite a January 2026 rewrite of Valve's policy requiring disclosure of anything players consume, including visuals, sound and writing. He describes strategy and management games with distorted Napoleonic uniforms, malformed goggles and cityscapes whose buildings blur into each other.

His case is that studios that think AI is the future should have no reason to hide it, and that concealment shows they expect players to object. He calls this worse than openly AI-made games, which can at least be avoided, and says the problem is one of trust. He wants Valve to enforce its own rules and says disclosure lets him choose where to spend his time and money.

Counterpoint: Developers who use AI tools could say the stigma is itself the reason for silence, and that the policy's scope is murky enough for small uses to go unflagged. Valve has not been shown to treat the omissions Plunkett describes as violations.

Previously: CD Projekt is using AI alongside Jacek Rozenek's recovering voice for Witcher 3's Songs of the Past, with his consent. — Thursday November 12 edition.

What the Xbox–Take-Two publisher agreement says

Game File (Stephen Totilo) · Nov 13

Stephen Totilo read the 29-page, heavily redacted Xbox Publisher License Agreement that Take-Two filed with the SEC, effective September 17, and compared it with the 2020 version. He finds nothing shocking: Microsoft approves free patches, can require or reverse updates, and publishers must archive every version they released for at least two years after delisting.

The valuable parts, such as royalty tiers and the definitions of Cloud Gaming and Competitive Platforms, are redacted, and the latter was also redacted in 2020. Totilo says the filing is useful mainly as a rare look at standard platform-publisher terms, since fewer public companies now disclose them, and it reveals no plan for next-gen Xbox hardware.

Counterpoint: Anyone hoping to read Microsoft's strategy from the filing, particularly on cloud gaming, would say the redactions hide precisely the terms that matter, a limit Totilo acknowledges.

Why Huang's exit may not help PC gaming

PC Gamer (Andy Edser) · Nov 12

Continuing · Jensen Huang affair and Nvidia investigation

Andy Edser argues that Jensen Huang's resignation as Nvidia CEO is bad news for PC gaming, even though some gamers blame him for AI-driven RAM, storage and graphics-card price rises. Gaming brought in about $16 billion in fiscal 2026 against $193.7 billion from data centres, roughly 7.4% of revenue, and CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO.

Edser says Huang kept some sentimental attachment to consumer graphics cards, and that a successor answering to AI-focused investors is unlikely to favour them. He notes AMD has called itself data-centre-first and is not confident about Intel either.

Counterpoint: Those celebrating the departure would say Huang personified the AI buildout that has made components scarce. Others would say the revenue split, not who runs Nvidia, sets gaming's priority, as Edser's own figures suggest.

Previously: A new report alleges a second affair, with video evidence, involving another Nvidia executive. — Thursday November 12 edition.

Barbie Rewind as an archive of 'girl games'

Aftermath (Nicole Carpenter) · Nov 12

Nicole Carpenter reviews Digital Eclipse's Barbie Rewind, which collects 16 Barbie console games from 1991 to 2007, including the unreleased Genesis/SNES title Barbie: Vacation Adventure. It is wrapped in a dream-house decorating game. She finds the games mixed, with the 1991 NES original nearly unplayable, but says whether they hold up is the least interesting question.

Her argument is that the collection takes seriously a category of games aimed at girls that has been dismissed as brand-driven rather than innovative. She cites Bee Wertheimer's Aftermath essay on such games being buried rather than forgotten. She reads the package as a history of console gaming seen through one franchise.

Counterpoint: Critics who see licensed games as merchandise rather than design history, the attitude Wertheimer describes, would say the simple mini-games, which Carpenter concedes, make the archival claim thin.

Games & Industry in Brief

Wolfenstein 3 in production at MachineGames

PC Gamer (Jody Macgregor) · Nov 13

PC Gamer reports that MachineGames has Wolfenstein 3 in production.

id Software confirms a new game

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 13

id Software has confirmed it is working on a new game but says it will be some time before more is shared, as with the next Elder Scrolls.

Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester to step down

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 12

Fredrik Wester is stepping down as Paradox Interactive CEO, with deputy CEO Mattias Lilja taking over on January 4, 2027.

Resident Evil Requiem sweeps Golden Joysticks

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 12

Resident Evil Requiem won four awards at the 44th Golden Joystick Awards, including Ultimate Game of the Year and Console Game of the Year.

Helsinki studio Playnest shuts down

MobileGamer.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 12

Playnest, a Helsinki mobile studio building a platform for interconnected games, has closed after releasing 12 games in four years.

Marvel 1943 not cancelled, Skydance reportedly says

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Nov 12

Skydance reportedly says Amy Hennig's Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra is still in development, despite rumours of cancellation.

Disney Plus to stream The Game Awards

Polygon (Willa Rowe) · Nov 12

Disney Plus will stream the 2026 Game Awards, hosted by Geoff Keighley.

South Korea nearly blocked GTA 6 over nudity

PC Gamer (Lincoln Carpenter) · Nov 12

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 launch

South Korea's rating board GCRB needed three review rounds for GTA 6 and nearly blocked its release over 'out-of-context genital nudity' it feared would 'disrupt social order'.

Previously: GTA 6 is now the most pre-ordered game on the Microsoft Store as well as PlayStation's. — Thursday November 12 edition.

Steam approval backlog delays more indie releases

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Nov 12

Continuing · AI-generated clone games on Steam

More indie developers say they have delayed releases because of Valve's growing approval backlog, which is believed to stem from an influx of AI slop.

Previously: Itch deleted terabytes of AI-generated uploads and widened AI disclosure filters rather than banning AI content. — Wednesday November 4 edition.

Humble Bundle redesign drops two-factor authentication

PC Gamer (Joshua Wolens) · Nov 12

Humble Bundle's redesign removes two-factor authentication, and PC Gamer advises users to delete saved payment details for now.

Darktide adds Sisters of Battle class December 7

PC Gamer (Sean Martin) · Nov 12

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide gets a Sisters of Battle class, technically a Sister Novitiate, on December 7.

Xbox chief points to gen-AI small-team development

Eurogamer (Robert Purchese) · Nov 12

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

In a memo marking 25 years of Xbox, Asha Sharma said a small team will be able to build worlds that today demand hundreds of developers, which Eurogamer reads as championing generative AI.

Previously: CD Projekt is using AI alongside Jacek Rozenek's recovering voice for Witcher 3's Songs of the Past, with his consent. — Thursday November 12 edition.

GDC survey: 40% of developers use generative AI

GamesIndustry.biz (Alex Forbes-Calvin) · Nov 12

GDC's latest State of the Game Industry report finds 40% of developers using generative AI in their work.

Supercell and King warn on EU Digital Fairness Act

MobileGamer.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 12

Continuing · EU Digital Fairness Act and loot boxes

King president Todd Green said the EU's Digital Fairness Act would have 'dramatic consequences' for Europe's 1,000-plus mobile studios, and Supercell and UK trade body Ukie also weighed in.

Previously: The proposal was formally published, with analysis of global design effects and a trade-body denunciation. — Thursday November 12 edition.

AI & Industry

Platformer: the Huang scandal is about founder worship

Platformer (Casey Newton) · Nov 13

Continuing · Jensen Huang affair and Nvidia investigation

Casey Newton argues the real Nvidia scandal had little to do with sex and everything to do with Silicon Valley's cult of the founder, and that it marks the end of a 'nothing matters' era in American politics.

Previously: A new report alleges a second affair, with video evidence, involving another Nvidia executive. — Thursday November 12 edition.

Google launches Gemini Decisions API

Simon Willison · Nov 12

Simon Willison says Google's Gemini Decision 1 joins Jev and OpenAI's GPT-6 Luna in decision models, priced at 10 cents per million input tokens with free output, against Jev's 4.2 cents. Unlike text-only Jev and OpenAI's text-and-image model, it handles text, images, audio, video and PDFs.

Epoch: Huawei's flagship AI site is far behind Colossus 2

Epoch AI (Ben Cottier) · Nov 12

Epoch AI's satellite-imagery analysis puts compute at Huawei's Horinger data centre at roughly 7% of SpaceX's Colossus 2, as a measure of China's compute gap.

404 Media: Muse sexts while playing real people

404 Media (Samantha Cole) · Nov 12

404 Media reports that the chatbot Muse engaged in sexual roleplay as real people, and a user who tested whether it would stop a boundary-pushing fan scenario found it encouraged the behaviour.

Tech Policy Press memo on data center reform

Tech Policy Press · Nov 12

Continuing · Data center pause and AI policy politics

Tech Policy Press has published a memo to new governors and legislators on effective data center reform.

Previously: Tech Policy Press framed the US midterm results as a moment for change. — Monday November 9 edition.

Disney CMC strike vote cancelled for new proposal

WDW News Today (Ashley Gale) · Nov 12

Continuing · Disney craft maintenance union strike authorization

The strike authorization vote by Disney's Craft Maintenance Council has been cancelled, and members will instead vote on a new proposal later this month.

Previously: CMC members were being asked to vote on authorizing a strike against Disney. — Monday November 9 edition.

Cranston reveals Carousel of Progress reopening timing

WDW News Today (Arica Conrad) · Nov 13

Bryan Cranston, the voice of Father in the reimagined Carousel of Progress, made a surprise appearance at EPCOT's La Cava Experience and told guests when the attraction will open.

Science & Archaeology

Poisoned stone points found in Saudi Arabia

Live Science (Charles Q. Choi) · Nov 12

Archaeologists found thousands of stone artifacts on the shore of an ancient lake in Saudi Arabia, some suggesting people used poison-tipped points to hunt large game 125,000 years ago.

Danish West Indies governor's shoe found on mutiny wreck

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Nov 12

Archaeologists recovered the shoe of the first governor of the Danish West Indies from a 17th-century ship wrecked after one of Denmark's most violent mutinies, along with records of slave payments.

Monumental tomb excavated in Mongolia

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 12

Artifacts have come from a monumental tomb in the Duurlig Nars cemetery in eastern Mongolia, according to Archaeology Magazine.

Clay fragments hint at early Near Eastern pottery

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 12

Archaeology Magazine reports that 46 fired clay fragments unearthed in Turkey offer hints about how pottery developed in the Near East.

Euclid releases first big dataset, 900 million galaxies

Live Science (Brandon Specktor) · Nov 12

ESA has shared the first major data release from the Euclid space telescope, including a map of 900 million galaxies, part of a planned 3D map of the cosmos.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Akai MPC OS 3.10.1 adds plugin SDK

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 12

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Akai's MPC OS 3.10.1 introduces an MPC Plugin SDK so users can build custom instrument and FX plugins.

Previously: Behringer's AQ64L launched with open-source firmware. — Thursday November 12 edition.

Patchwerk turns M-VAVE FM-1 into a modular synth

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Nov 13

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Patchwerk is a firmware project for the M-VAVE FM-1 that adds more than 80 modules, from oscillators to samplers and sequencers, plus a browser-based editor and emulator.

Previously: Behringer's AQ64L launched with open-source firmware. — Thursday November 12 edition.

Blackmagic unveils 7th-order ambisonic mic

Mix (Mix Staff) · Nov 13

Blackmagic Design has announced a 7th-order ambisonic microphone array with an encoder.

Audient launches iD Mk3 interfaces

Sound On Sound (Luke Wood SOS News Editor) · Nov 12

Audient's third-generation iD range has four interfaces, the iD1, iD2, iD2+ and iD4+, with a front end derived from the ASP8024-HE console and onboard room correction.

IK Multimedia introduces ReSing Choir

Sonic State · Nov 13

IK Multimedia has launched ReSing Choir, which it calls the first standalone ensemble vocal generation software.

Production Expert on cloning Pro Tools

Production Expert (Russ Hughes) · Nov 12

Production Expert examines the ethics and copyright questions around open-source clones of Pro Tools and Adobe apps, and what professionals pay for, and concludes cloning is not a protest.

Buchla MARF prototype to debut live with Steve Horelick

CDM (Peter Kirn) · Nov 12

Reading Rainbow composer Steve Horelick will use a prototype of an official recreation of the Buchla 200's Multiple Arbitrary Function Generator (MARF) at a live online event, CDM reports.

CD Projekt pairs Geralt's Polish voice actor with AI for Witcher 3 expansion

Game File (Stephen Totilo) · Nov 11

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Jacek Rozenek, the Polish voice of Geralt since the first game, had a stroke in 2019 and spent months unable to speak. His voice has since returned but is lower and gruffer than the roughly 10,000 lines he recorded for The Witcher 3 in 2014. CD Projekt's localization producer Mikołaj Szwed told Game File that the studio feared players would hear jarring jumps between old and new Geralt, because the 2027 expansion Songs of the Past adds new battle cries and one-liners that play alongside the original dialogue.

After inviting Rozenek to the studio, CD Projekt decided, with his blessing, to bring in an AI company it had worked with once before. Rozenek told Totilo he trusts the studio's approach. The piece presents the decision as a special case, driven by consent and by a real medical history.

Counterpoint: Performers' groups that oppose AI voice replication in games would likely say that one actor's informed consent does not settle the precedent for an industry where such consent may not be so freely given.

Previously: House House disclosed limited LLM use in Big Walk, and juror Austin Walker said a 19-signature statement is not a majority or IGF position. — Wednesday November 11 edition.

Eurogamer: the Digital Fairness Act could reshape game monetisation worldwide

Eurogamer (Robert Purchese) · Nov 11

Continuing · EU Digital Fairness Act and loot boxes

The Commission has now formally published the proposal, which Eurogamer's Robert Purchese says matches yesterday's leaked draft. It would bar paid loot boxes for under-18s, disable paid virtual currency for minors by default until a parent approves, and let every player switch paid loot boxes off and see the odds. Fines could reach 6% of worldwide turnover, and the law is expected sometime in 2028 or 2029.

Purchese draws on George Osborn of the Video Games Industry Memo, who expects big publishers to be worried. Age detection, a master off-switch and local-currency price display are hard to build, and Osborn argues that, as with USB-C, firms will likely ship one compliant design everywhere rather than several versions. EA Sports FC's Ultimate Team could be age-gated as a mode, but games built around random paid rewards face a bigger problem.

Counterpoint: Games trade bodies, which call the proposal unworkable and disproportionate, would reject the framing that this is mainly a design problem, and publishers could still choose region-specific versions rather than redesign globally.

Previously: The leaked EU draft targeted loot boxes, virtual currencies and pay-to-win, and would let players switch off loot boxes. — Wednesday November 11 edition.

Eurogamer's reviewer logs 78 hours in World of Warcraft: Forever

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Nov 11

Continuing · World of Warcraft: Forever launch

Connor Makar says he played 78 hours and reached level 35 in the first week, and calls the result stunning. He credits new lighting, water and weather effects, buffs that make neglected specs such as balance druid less painful, and new dungeons such as Hall of Thanes and Excavation Site: Wetlands, which are built to be finished in one run. He also praises Blizzard's mega-server approach for making zones and cities feel full and prompting more chance grouping with strangers.

Counterpoint: Players who pushed Blizzard to raise dungeon monster XP by 50% evidently found the early leveling and dungeon pacing less polished than this enthusiastic week-one account suggests.

Previously: Blizzard raised dungeon monster XP by 50% after community feedback. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

Why 47 PC graphics chip makers shrank to two

Rock Paper Shotgun (Luke James) · Nov 11

Rock Paper Shotgun's Luke James argues that between 1998 and 2002 the graphics business stopped rewarding the fastest chip and started rewarding the fastest iteration. Nvidia, ranked fourth by 3D chip sales in 1998, restructured around PC makers' spring and fall release cycles and ran several chip generations in parallel by 2002. Others fell for their own reasons: 3dfx bought board maker STB for about $141m in stock and tried to sell Voodoo3 only on its own cards, pushing Diamond and Creative toward Nvidia. Intel's integrated graphics took an estimated 55% of the market by late 2001, squeezing S3, Trident and SiS.

Counterpoint: Historians who put more weight on 3dfx's specific strategic errors or on Intel's integrated graphics could say a single cadence thesis oversimplifies, and the article itself notes each firm fell for its own reasons.

Games & Industry in Brief

Black Forest Games leaves THQ Nordic to form Third Signal

Rock Paper Shotgun (Mark Warren) · Nov 11

The Destroy All Humans! remake studio has spun out of Embracer-owned THQ Nordic in a management buyout and announced Third Signal, a group meant to give independent studios more creative freedom.

Ex-id Software staff found employee-owned Hidden Horses

Rock Paper Shotgun (Edwin Evans-Thirlwell) · Nov 11

Twenty id Software alumni, laid off in July as part of Microsoft's cuts, have formed Hidden Horses, whose first game is Danger Pay, a single-player FPS inspired by Smash TV.

Ocarina of Time remake becomes fastest-selling Switch 2 game

Eurogamer (Robert Purchese) · Nov 11

Continuing · Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and Nintendo's physical media stance

The remake sold more than 5.2 million copies in four days, Nintendo's fastest start yet on Switch 2.

Previously: Polygon credited the remake as a showcase for Switch 2 power, and Respec used it to ask for more family-friendly fantasy games. — Wednesday November 11 edition.

PS5 passes 100 million shipped, 2.1 million in October

This Week In Videogames (Edmond Tran) · Nov 11

Sony's update puts PlayStation 5 lifetime shipments above 100 million, with 2.1 million moved in October, and says GTA VI is the most pre-ordered game in PlayStation Store history.

Crimson Desert wins PC Game of the Year at Golden Joysticks

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 12

Resident Evil Requiem and Meccha Chameleon were the other big winners at the 2026 Golden Joystick Awards.

Overwatch adds 6v6 role queue to Competitive

PC Gamer (Elie Gould) · Nov 11

Blizzard will offer 6v6 role queue in Competitive play alongside 5v5, saying there need not be a winner between the two formats.

Dark Souls 2 and 3 multiplayer returns after nearly two weeks

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 11

A server issue of unstated cause had taken both games' online features offline on all platforms for almost two weeks before the fix.

Rovio cuts 20 jobs at Turkish studio Ruby Games

MobileGamer.biz (Neil Long) · Nov 11

Rovio is not closing Ruby Games, and a small team will keep running its existing titles.

Turn-based Dragon Quest for smartphones due next year

Polygon (Ashely Claudino) · Nov 11

The series' creator says the new mobile Dragon Quest RPG will capture the series' unmistakable feeling.

Steam's Australian age check now counts account age

PC Gamer (Jody Macgregor) · Nov 11

Steam's age verification in Australia now takes account age into consideration, and accounts at least nine years old should pass.

GTA 6 tops pre-orders on Microsoft Store too

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 11

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 launch

Grand Theft Auto 6 is now the most pre-ordered game on both the PlayStation Store and the Microsoft Store.

Previously: Take-Two expects up to $3.5bn in the launch period, and Atari is releasing a Barbie compilation a week before the November 19 launch. — Wednesday November 11 edition.

European games trade bodies attack Digital Fairness Act

MobileGamer.biz (Neil Long) · Nov 11

Continuing · EU Digital Fairness Act and loot boxes

Two European trade bodies called the proposal unworkable, unjustified and disproportionate, warning it would be "game over for the European games industry".

Previously: The EU draft targets loot boxes, virtual currencies and pay-to-win, and would let players switch off loot boxes. — Wednesday November 11 edition.

Ex-Tekken director Harada criticises Xbox Series S at developer panel

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Nov 11

Katsuhiro Harada said he wished hardware like the Series S would not be released, with a member of the Xbox team in the room.

Hunger from Hell Let Loose's original developers hits early access December 3

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Nov 11

Good Fun Corp's Napoleonic-era extraction shooter-slasher launches in Steam early access on December 3, with an open beta this month.

AI & Industry

Anthropic roadshow video details multi-chip compute strategy

Simon Willison · Nov 11

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

Simon Willison highlights co-founder Tom Brown's account in the video that Anthropic trains and serves Claude across AWS Trainium, Google TPUs, NVIDIA GPUs and AMD GPUs, a multi-chip bet made early on.

Previously: Anthropic launched its IPO roadshow, and Tech Policy Press asked whether the US could seize the company at a discount. — Wednesday November 11 edition.

New report alleges second Huang affair, with another Nvidia executive

PC Gamer (Tyler Wilde) · Nov 12

Continuing · Jensen Huang affair and Nvidia investigation

A new report says video evidence of a second affair involving Jensen Huang exists but was swept under the rug.

Previously: Platformer reported that Trump was briefed and took no action, and that about 240,000 GPUs were smuggled into China. — Wednesday November 11 edition.

Zvi Mowshowitz reviews the Claude Mythos 5.2 system card

Don't Worry About the Vase (Zvi Mowshowitz) · Nov 11

Mowshowitz's post introduces Claude Mythos 5.2 as the world's most powerful model and works through its system card.

Hugging Face hosts models usable for cyber attacks

Transformer (Chris Stokel-Walker) · Nov 11

Transformer reports that the platform removed one model marketed for cyberattacks, but plenty of others remain available.

Mercor raises $750m at $20bn valuation; Gemini 4 Carbon goes GA

Latent Space (swyx .ai) · Nov 11

Latent Space's roundup notes Mercor's Series D at a $20bn valuation with a $3bn run rate, and Google making Gemini 4 Carbon generally available on November 10.

Epoch Brief: open-weight model hacks Firefox for $1,000

Epoch AI (Cathy Bogaart) · Nov 11

Epoch AI's briefing covers an open-weight model that hacked Firefox for about $1,000, a map of AI chips by country, and how biologists are using LLMs.

Ten things to watch at IAAPA Expo 2026

Attractions Magazine (Dani Meyering) · Nov 11

Attractions Magazine's preview lists new ride vehicles, attraction reveals and technology, with announcements expected from Six Flags, SeaWorld and Kennedy Space Center.

Science & Archaeology

Gold bear figurine found in Kazakhstan burial mound

Live Science (Margherita Bassi) · Nov 12

Archaeologists found a 2,200-year-old golden bear in an Iron Age burial that may have held seven people, with a surprising number of bones.

Homo naledi teeth point to an all-female burial

ScienceDaily · Nov 11

Researchers analysing ancient proteins in Homo naledi teeth found no male-specific markers among at least 20 individuals, suggesting the South African cave burial site, more than 240,000 years old, may have been all female.

Sheep virus DNA found in the 1,000-year-old York Gospels

ScienceDaily · Nov 11

Traces of a deadly sheep virus in medieval manuscripts show a lineage reaching back more than 3,700 years that has changed little, turning parchment into a record of ancient outbreaks.

Ice Age camp at Riparo Mochi re-dated

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 11

New investigations at the rock shelter in northern Italy, near the border, have led scientists to re-date the Ice Age camp, according to Phys.org via Archaeology magazine.

Dog kennels and human bone found at Dachau

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 11

Excavations at the Nazi camp site in Germany uncovered human bone fragments in a layer of ash, along with dog kennels.

Reanalysis of first black hole image yields same ring

Nature (Davide Castelvecchi) · Nov 11

Nature reports that fresh analysis of the data behind the first-ever black hole image produces the same ring-like shape.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

How a game's music establishes its identity

Unwinnable (Jonathan Fenn) · Nov 9

Unwinnable's Jonathan Fenn looks at how a few opening notes, such as a lone plucked banjo, can set a game's identity and emotional pull.

Behringer AQ64L clip launcher ships with open-source firmware

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 11

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

The compact 8×8 pad controller, in the vein of Akai's APC, is one of several Behringer products that leaked over the summer and are now official.

Previously: Akai published a GitHub repository as the first step in opening the MPC platform. — Monday November 9 edition.

Spitfire Audio releases Eternity with Eric Whitacre

Mix (Mix Staff) · Nov 12

It is the third sample library from the collaboration with the Grammy-winning composer and conductor, and is billed as a live-album first.

Anukari 1.1 adds strings, tubes and breath

Gearnews (Adam Douglas) · Nov 12

The 3D physics synthesizer's biggest update brings new physical modelling elements and more than 1,000 new sounds.

Mix cover story on John Carpenter's music, part two

Mix (Lily Moayeri) · Nov 12

The magazine continues its profile of Carpenter's work as a film composer alongside his directing career.

UAD Cooper Time Cube delay goes native

Sonic State · Nov 12

Universal Audio has released a native version of its hosepipe-based Cooper Time Cube delay plugin, no longer tied to UAD hardware.

OctaMEDIC revives OctaMED v4 on Linux, Mac and Windows

Sonic State · Nov 12

A hand-coded clone of the classic Amiga tracker is now available for all three desktop platforms.

Austin Walker explains why he signed the IGF jurors' AI statement

Clockwork Worlds (Austin Walker) · Nov 10

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Austin Walker, an IGF juror, publishes the two internal posts he wrote during judging, which he says were prompted by games he loved that turned out to use AI. He says the jurors' deliberation grew out of the conversation around House House's Big Walk but was never about one game, and that the studios' Steam pages carried no disclosure because Steam's rules differ from the IGF's.

Walker stresses the statement had 19 signatories among roughly 50 jurors, that others privately agreed but did not sign, and that many fundamentally disagreed. He asks readers not to treat it as a majority view or an IGF position, and calls it one group's commitment at one moment.

Counterpoint: The jurors who opposed the statement, as Walker himself notes, would argue that a blanket refusal to vote for any game that used AI penalises veteran developers whose use was limited and who followed the disclosure rules they were given.

Previously: Nineteen IGF jurors said they would not vote for any game using generative AI and called on the festival to ban such games. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

House House discloses limited LLM use in Big Walk

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Nov 10

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

House House told Aftermath that it used LLMs sparingly late in development to work through technical problems, estimating well under 0.1% of the code was involved. Its example was a shadow-culling problem in Unity's URP that an LLM helped solve with about 10 lines of modified code. The studio says it did not disclose on Steam because the platform does not ask about code or chatbot use. It calls its lack of an AI policy a failure and apologises to those opposed to generative AI.

Aftermath's Luke Plunkett reports the revelation was reportedly a major factor in the jury disagreement, and that reactions split between disappointment and a sense that fatigue with the technology was alienating a leading GOTY contender.

Counterpoint: Jurors and critics opposed to generative AI would say the small share of code is beside the point, since any use normalises the technology, a worry House House itself raises about voluntary disclosure.

Previously: Nineteen IGF jurors said they would not vote for any game using generative AI and called on the festival to ban such games. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

Why Atari put a Barbie compilation a week before GTA VI

Game File (Stephen Totilo) · Nov 10

Game File's Stephen Totilo notes that most of the industry squeezed holiday releases into earlier weeks to avoid GTA VI on November 19. Atari did the opposite, releasing a remastered Godzilla game last week and a Barbie classics compilation this Thursday. Atari CEO Wade Rosen says the timing was deliberate, and that the Godzilla release was meant to catch a new film and an expected lull in game launches.

Counterpoint: Publishers that moved their holiday releases earlier to avoid GTA VI evidently judged the surrounding weeks a bigger risk than Atari does.

Tom Orry asks for more family-friendly epic fantasy beyond Zelda

Respec (Tom Orry) · Nov 10

Continuing · Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and Nintendo's physical media stance

Writing for Respec after watching his son play the Ocarina of Time remake, Tom Orry argues that big-budget fantasy has drifted toward soulslikes and violent Elder Scrolls-style epics, leaving little for younger players. He points to Okami at 4.8 million sales and Immortals Fenyx Rising, which he thinks deserved better, and to Odyssey's 30 million against Astro Bot's roughly 4 million.

His conclusion is that audiences buy Zelda the brand rather than the genre, which discourages anyone else from investing in colourful triple-A adventures. He still wants publishers to try.

Counterpoint: Publishers weighing those same sales figures would say the commercial case for a non-Nintendo equivalent is weak, a point Orry largely concedes himself.

Previously: TWIV praised the Zelda Notes companion service, and The Game Business data put UK physical launch sales second-best in the franchise. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

Polygon: Ocarina of Time remake shows what the Switch 2 is for

Polygon (Giovanni Colantonio) · Nov 10

Continuing · Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and Nintendo's physical media stance

Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio argues the remake is the first Switch 2 game where the hardware jump is undeniable, citing detailed textures, dense swaying foliage and a stable 60 frames per second. He says Eiji Aonuma told Polygon the puppet-show look came from a young art director, and that the extra power lets Nintendo's art direction range more widely. Colantonio says it overturned his earlier doubt that a stronger Switch would matter much for Nintendo's franchises.

Counterpoint: Sceptics of the graphics-first view, a position Colantonio says he held until now, would say Nintendo's appeal rests on design and art style rather than hardware power.

Previously: TWIV praised the Zelda Notes companion service, and The Game Business data put UK physical launch sales second-best in the franchise. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

Games & Industry in Brief

Sony cancels live-service shooter Fairgames

Polygon (Austin Manchester) · Nov 11

Sony has cancelled Haven's Fairgames, the live-service shooter revealed in 2023, and the studio will become a support team.

Bandai Namco closes Unknown 9 developer Reflector

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 10

Bandai Namco is closing Reflector Entertainment, maker of Unknown 9: Awakening, and expects a €21m loss in its third quarter as a result.

Fortis Games appears to have shut down

MobileGamer.biz (Neil Long) · Nov 10

LinkedIn posts suggest parent company Las Vegas Sands closed Fortis Games with immediate effect, leaving more than 400 people out of work.

Skydance cuts games staff after $111bn merger

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 10

Skydance has laid off an undisclosed number of people in its games division following its $111bn merger.

Tripwire lays off 36 staff

Rock Paper Shotgun (Ashley Schofield) · Nov 10

Tripwire Interactive is cutting 36 employees 16 months after Killing Floor 3 launched, saying both that game and Maneater 2 remain in active development.

Arc Raiders passes 17 million sales on its first birthday

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Nov 10

Nexon says Embark's extraction shooter Arc Raiders has sold more than 17 million copies, while warning that its revenue is set to decline.

Sony retires PlayStation Plus PC app

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 10

Sony will shut the PlayStation Plus PC app in December because fewer than 0.4% of eligible subscribers use it.

EU draft Digital Fairness Act targets loot boxes

MobileGamer.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 10

The EU's draft Digital Fairness Act takes aim at loot boxes, virtual currencies and pay-to-win mechanics, and would let all players switch off loot boxes and other "addictive" features.

Switch 2 posts its best US sales week of the year

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Nov 10

Early US sales figures show Switch 2 hardware sales had their best week of 2026 so far on the back of the Ocarina of Time remake.

Steam store pages now show Steam Deck framerates

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Nov 10

A Steam update adds average Steam Deck framerate data to game store pages, and Valve says it is considering extending the feature to other hardware.

Lego Digital Play acquires ForthStar

MobileGamer.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 10

Lego Digital Play has bought ForthStar, a new studio founded by Golf Clash veterans, with president Aaron Loeb saying reports of mobile's death have been greatly exaggerated.

My.Games completes UAE-backed management buyout

MobileGamer.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 10

My.Games has completed a UAE-backed management buyout from owner Alexander Chachava, who bought the company from VK for $642m in 2022.

Take-Two projects up to $3.5bn over GTA 6 launch period

PC Gamer (Tyler Wilde) · Nov 10

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 launch

Take-Two expects to make as much as $3.5bn during the GTA 6 launch period and describes pre-orders as still "unprecedented".

Previously: Take-Two said pre-orders were far above expectations, Rockstar planned a Miami launch festival, and Robson doubted lasting dominance in Japan. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

Marathon's Symbiosis update arrives December 8

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 11

Bungie's Symbiosis update for Marathon, adding a co-op PvE roguelite mode and a new social space, launches December 8 with a free-play week and a beta for a Team Deathmatch mode.

AI & Industry

Platformer: Trump was briefed on Huang affair, took no action

Platformer (Casey Newton) · Nov 11

Continuing · Jensen Huang affair and Nvidia investigation

Casey Newton's Platformer reports that Trump was briefed on Jensen Huang's affair with an alleged Chinese spy and GPU smuggler and took no action, and that about 240,000 GPUs were smuggled into China.

Previously: Transformer argued Huang misled investors and should resign, while Nvidia ran an internal national security investigation. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

Anthropic launches IPO roadshow

Anthropic · Nov 10

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

Anthropic, PBC has launched the roadshow for its proposed initial public offering of Class A common stock.

Previously: Latent Space's Nov. 6 issue asked where the Anthropic IPO goes from here. — Monday November 9 edition.

Tech Policy Press asks whether the US could seize Anthropic at a discount

Tech Policy Press · Nov 10

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

Tech Policy Press publishes a piece raising the question of whether the United States government could seize Anthropic at a discount, as the company's IPO process moves forward.

Previously: Latent Space's Nov. 6 issue asked where the Anthropic IPO goes from here. — Monday November 9 edition.

Gemini 4 Carbon opens to everyone at $2/$10 per million tokens

Simon Willison · Nov 10

Simon Willison reports that Gemini 4 Carbon, announced two weeks ago for a subset of cyber defenders, is now generally available, priced at $2 per million input and $10 per million output tokens. The price is scheduled to double to $4 and $20 on December 1.

AI companies restrict reverse-engineering uses

404 Media (Jason Koebler) · Nov 10

404 Media reports that AI companies are cracking down on using their models to reverse engineer devices, and argues that the future of that kind of hacking lies in local and open-weight models.

Universal Hollywood launches $999.95 Diamond Annual Pass

Attractions Magazine (Dani Meyering) · Nov 11

Universal Studios Hollywood has introduced its most expensive annual pass yet, the $999.95 Diamond pass, which includes a VIP Experience, Universal Express and entry to Halloween Horror Nights and Fan Fest Nights, even as park attendance has declined.

Disney Imagineering Labs app lets guests test in-park tech

Attractions Magazine (Matt Roseboom) · Nov 10

The new Disney Imagineering Labs app gives Disneyland guests a chance to try experimental experiences, including an interactive Star Wars adventure and an AI-powered park guide.

Science & Archaeology

DNA confirms trisomy 13 in 1,600-year-old Nazca infant

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Nov 10

A DNA analysis has confirmed that an infant who lived in southern Peru 1,600 years ago had trisomy 13, a rare, fatal congenital condition that left her with a single central eye.

Study traces blue pigments in the ancient Southwest

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 10

The University of New Mexico says a research team has tracked the use of blue pigments in the ancient Southwest.

Could the Taung child reveal hidden hominin diversity?

Nautilus (Jake Currie) · Nov 11

Nautilus examines whether the famous Taung child fossil could serve as a Rosetta Stone for hominin diversity that is not yet recognised, and asks what the child would have grown up to be.

Armored amphibian from 237 million years ago lived in the sea

ScienceDaily · Nov 11

Fossils found in China show a giant salamander-sized, heavily armored amphibian that lived 237 million years ago and may be the first known amphibian fully adapted to marine life, even though modern amphibians cannot survive entirely in saltwater.

Digital twin of Webb telescope helps find hidden planet

ScienceDaily · Nov 11

Scientists built a digital twin of the James Webb Space Telescope to subtract starlight, making faint exoplanets two to 15 times easier to detect than with conventional methods. The technique has already uncovered a previously hidden planet in existing Webb data.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

ADC26: Chris Nash on procedural music in This Little World

Sonic State · Nov 10

Sonic State posts a video of Chris Nash's Audio Developer Conference talk on procedural in-game music for This Little World, a large-scale game project.

Schmidt Eightvoice arrives as a plugin

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 10

Schmidt Vi, an emulation of the Schmidt Eightvoice synthesizer, is out now as a plugin, alongside what is billed as a final run of the hardware.

Ableton announces Live 13 for early 2027

Sound On Sound (Luke Wood SOS News Editor) · Nov 10

Live 13 will launch in early 2027 and is available now as a public beta, with Ableton discounting Live 12 licenses and offering a free update to Live 13 when it ships.

Universal Audio releases Capitol Studios plugin

Mix (Mix Staff) · Nov 10

A new Universal Audio plugin brings Capitol Studios' rooms, microphones, processors, consoles and underground echo chambers into the DAW.

Royal Albert Hall installs d&b Cardioid system

Mix (Mix Staff) · Nov 10

The Royal Albert Hall's new d&b playback system uses 140 loudspeaker elements from the KSL, XSL and CCL lines, plus two new central hangs for Soundscape use.

ADC26: Universal Music Group on C2PA music provenance

Sonic State · Nov 10

Sonic State posts a video from Audio Developer Conference in which Jeremy from Universal Music Group presents C2PA-based cryptographic provenance for music.

Gaming Editorial

Nineteen IGF jurors say they won't vote for any game that used generative AI

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Nov 10

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

A group of 19 named jurors for the 2027 Independent Games Festival, among them Austin Walker, Sam Barlow and Lena Raine, have issued a statement saying they will not vote for any game that used generative AI in any capacity. They draw no line between art, sound and code, arguing that programming is a creative discipline and that the harms (ecological, economic, psychological and to labour) do not depend on what is generated. The statement cites a significant rise in AI-assisted submissions and urges the IGF to adopt a strong anti-AI policy that bars such games in future years.

The jurors stress that they do not speak for the IGF or for all jurors. Some colleagues disagreed, and others feared professional blowback if they signed. IGF leadership approved the release of the statement but has not adopted its position, and Aftermath's Luke Plunkett notes that the rise in AI use is visible across the industry this year.

Counterpoint: Developers and executives who defend AI tooling, the pro-AI camp in the Kenney and Sweeney exchange among them, would say a blanket ban on code assistance penalises small teams, and that the IGF's own rules leave jurors free to vote on taste. Some of the festival's other jurors had reservations about the statement itself.

Previously: The Kenney and Tim Sweeney exchange had put the pro- and anti-AI camps in direct conflict, with Steam survey data cutting both ways. — Saturday November 7 edition.

Aftermath on Black games journalists and an industry that treats whiteness as the default

Aftermath (Jeffrey Rousseau) · Nov 9

Continuing · Diversity and freelance work in games criticism

Writer Jeffrey Rousseau argues that games journalism has always been a white institution, with Black writers a small minority even when the sector was hiring heavily. The feature draws on interviews with past and present Black journalists about gatekeeping and who shapes coverage. Its central case study is N'Gai Croal, whose 2008 comments on the Resident Evil 5 trailer led to an industry-wide debate. Croal later learned that a senior Capcom US figure had raised concerns about the game's imagery internally, which sits awkwardly with producer Jun Takeuchi's claim that the reaction was unanticipated. Rousseau's conclusion is that Black journalists want more than gratitude for being included.

Counterpoint: Editors at mainstream outlets would likely say the shrinking of games media has cut staff of every background and that hiring has been shaped by economics. Some would also argue that coverage of cases like Resident Evil 5 shows the press can correct itself.

Previously: Unwinnable's survey of women and genderfluid reviewers described falling review placements and layoffs of editors. — Friday November 6 edition.

This Week in Videogames: Zelda Notes is Nintendo's second-screen idea done right

This Week In Videogames (James Wood) · Nov 10

Continuing · Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and Nintendo's physical media stance

James Wood argues that Zelda Notes, an optional service in the Nintendo Switch app, improves the Ocarina of Time remake instead of cheapening it. Its real-time map, filterable by Child and Adult eras, and its per-area completion percentages make a completionist run easier. Wood contends this avoids the usual complaint about open-world checklists because Ocarina's compact, dense world doesn't need the tracking, which sits on a separate device you can ignore. He calls it the best realisation yet of the Wii U's second-screen ambitions.

Counterpoint: Critics of companion apps and completion trackers, including some of the Polygon writers who questioned the remake's purpose, would say that any percentage counter nudges players toward checklist play whether or not the screen is separate.

Previously: Polygon's Welsh and Venter weighed in on the remake's purpose and on its scarcity compared with Skyrim's many releases. — Monday November 9 edition.

Daniel Robson doubts GTA VI will dominate Japan for long

This Week In Videogames (Daniel Robson) · Nov 9

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 launch

In his Parallax: Japan column, Robson says GTA VI is highly anticipated in Japan, which has a loyal GTA Online following through the Stogra roleplay server, and GTA V sold close to 2 million copies there. He argues the PS5 is the obstacle: with an estimated 6 million units in play in Japan after grey-market exports to China, against roughly 6.4 million Switch 2 units in under 18 months. He expects a strong first couple of weeks, but notes that Red Dead Redemption 2 lasted only two weeks in the Top 10. After that, he says, predictions get harder.

Counterpoint: Take-Two says GTA 6 pre-orders are tracking far in excess of its expectations, and the franchise's pull may be strong enough to outlast the console gap Robson describes.

Previously: Physical copies of GTA 6 had begun reaching retailers. — Sunday November 8 edition.

PC Gamer's Andy Edser says AI's financial reckoning has never looked closer

PC Gamer (Andy Edser) · Nov 9

Continuing · AI stock correction after the elections

Edser argues that the foundations of the AI boom are wobbling: a mid-October tech stock slide, a roughly $500 billion drop in Alphabet's value after it admitted AI search features were hurting ad revenue, and Democratic wins in both chambers, with polling suggesting data centre expansion was a voter grievance. He adds that Nvidia's share price fell in pre-market trading after Jensen Huang admitted an affair with an alleged Chinese spy and the company opened an internal national security investigation. Edser says he is no economist and cannot call a bubble burst, but he believes AI is here to stay and that the era of unlimited investor optimism is ending.

Counterpoint: AI bulls would say that record quarterly revenue at several tech companies shows demand is real, and that one bad week for shares, or a scandal around a single executive, is not evidence of a structural collapse.

Previously: PC Gamer reported that Nvidia, Micron and other AI stocks fell after the elections, in what looked like the start of a correction. — Friday November 6 edition.

Gaming Editorial

Oli Welsh: Ocarina and WoW: Forever show remakes done with purpose

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Nov 9

Continuing · Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and Nintendo's physical media stance

Polygon's Oli Welsh argues that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and World of Warcraft: Forever, released on consecutive days, show remakes can have motives beyond market pressure. Ocarina keeps the original's content and design but overhauls its art. Forever keeps the original look under a new rendering layer, adds content, and promises a fixed progression cap and horizontal expansion.

In his telling, producer Eiji Aonuma wanted a team raised on Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom to learn classic Zelda design by rebuilding it. The WoW Classic team, which pitched Forever after experimenting during Season of Discovery, wanted to see what the 2004 developers might have built with two more years. Welsh concludes that remakes are not just cash-grabs or schedule fillers.

Counterpoint: Critics of remake-heavy release slates would say developer interviews are a promotional frame, and that the financial logic Welsh sets aside still explains why these projects were greenlit over new ideas.

Previously: Welsh said he was holding off playing the remake until Christmas to share it with his son. — Sunday November 8 edition.

Oli Welsh: Ocarina will get a Game of the Year nomination but cannot win

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Nov 8

Continuing · The Game Awards 2026 nominations race

Welsh predicts the Ocarina of Time remake will collect several Game Awards nominations, including Game of the Year, and probably Best Action/Adventure and Best Score and Music. He points to its Metacritic score of 96, the year's highest so far, the jury's attachment to the 1998 original, and its status as an event release. The Game Awards have nominated only four remakes for GOTY since 2014, all of them extensive retellings: Resident Evil 2 and 4 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth.

He rules out a win, even in a year without GTA 6, because Ocarina is an old game rather than an original work. A win, he says, would send a sad message about the medium's best work.

Counterpoint: Those who think awards should judge quality alone would argue that excluding a 96-rated game because of its pedigree penalises it for being a remake rather than for how well it is executed.

Previously: Polygon argued that Phantom Blade Zero's reviews and buzz push Crimson Desert out of GOTY contention. — Monday November 2 edition.

Jason Venter: Ocarina's scarcity beats Skyrim's ubiquity

Polygon (Jason Venter) · Nov 8

Continuing · Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and Nintendo's physical media stance

Polygon's Jason Venter contrasts the Ocarina of Time remake, which he says feels like an event partly because the game has appeared on few platforms since 1998, with The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, which has reached 13 platforms as of November 2026, including Stadia and Amazon Alexa. He says Bethesda gives players no time to miss Skyrim, and that its new versions tend to add only minor improvements for people who already own the game.

Venter does not object to multiple releases in principle, since they widen access, but finds them tiresome when priced as premium titles without meaningful additions. Ocarina has avoided that fate so far; Skyrim, he says, has not.

Counterpoint: Defenders of Bethesda's approach would say wide availability keeps a 2011 game playable for new audiences on whatever hardware they own, a point Venter partly concedes.

Previously: Welsh was holding off playing the remake until Christmas to share it with his son. — Sunday November 8 edition.

Stephen Totilo: GTA IV is stubbornly strange and worth the effort

Game File (Stephen Totilo) · Nov 8

In the third entry of his series revisiting the big GTA games, Game File's Stephen Totilo returns to Grand Theft Auto IV after last playing it in 2010, restarting from scratch on an Xbox Series X. He recalls the lead-up: a March 2007 trailer that made rival open-world games look a generation old, Rockstar's 2006 ping-pong game that tested the tech, and an April 2008 launch averaging a score of 98.

His reaction after nine hours is that the game is deeply strange, more serious and harder to enjoy than its predecessors. He argues that this is exactly what makes it worth playing.

Counterpoint: Players who prefer the looser, more playful sandbox of the earlier games would say IV's heavier tone and friction are a step back rather than a virtue.

Jason Venter: Super Monkey Ball deserves an Ocarina-style remake

Polygon (Jason Venter) · Nov 9

Polygon's Jason Venter argues Sega should follow Nintendo's lead and remake the original Super Monkey Ball, which turns 25 this month as a November 2001 GameCube launch game. He says a remake could add visual polish, lean on its mascot characters and give the party games proper online play.

Sega's physical-only Super Monkey Ball Triple Pack for Switch arrives Nov. 10, bundling recent entries including Banana Rumble and Banana Mania. Venter notes none of the modern installments have matched the original's impact and says the open question is whether Sega wants to try.

Counterpoint: Banana Mania already remastered the original stages, and the series' recent entries haven't made much of a splash, so skeptics would see little evidence of demand for another version of the same game.

Jason Venter: Starfield is a 10/10 if you skip the story

Polygon (Jason Venter) · Nov 8

Venter argues that Starfield, launched Sep. 6, 2023, disappointed many players because its main plot lacks hooks and urgency, but that the game works if you make your own fun. He spent dozens of hours on faction quests for Ryujin Industries and the Crimson Fleet, buying houses, building settlements and growing a fleet of battleships.

He says patches have since fixed navigation pain points, as No Man's Sky's updates did. He concedes exploration is less thrilling than promised, and concludes the game is worthy of the Bethesda name for those willing to look past its plot.

Counterpoint: Players and critics who see story and exploration as the core of Bethesda's RPGs would say a game that needs its main plot ignored has failed at what it promised, however good the side activities.

Games & Industry in Brief

Warhammer Blood Bowl delayed into early 2027

PC Gamer (Jody Macgregor) · Nov 9

PC Gamer reports that Warhammer Blood Bowl has been delayed into early 2027.

Xbox tests phone-as-controller for cloud gaming on smart TVs

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 7

Xbox is testing two new ways to play its cloud games, one of which lets players use a phone as the controller on smart TVs.

GOG Galaxy gets a revamp for Windows, macOS and Linux

PC Gamer (Joshua Wolens) · Nov 7

GOG announced a revamped Galaxy client that will run on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Sega beats Q2 expectations on pachislot and pachinko surge

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 6

Sega's second-quarter results exceeded expectations, driven by a 331.6% jump in operating income from its pachislot and pachinko machines business.

Discord trims memory use and boot times

PC Gamer (James Bentley) · Nov 6

Discord is cutting memory usage and speeding up boot times, joining Xbox, Epic and Steam in making similar efficiency upgrades this year.

Nordisk Games names new CEO and CFO

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 6

Nordisk Games appointed Stefanía Halldórsdóttir as CEO and Ásgeir Kröyer as CFO, according to GamesIndustry.biz's November jobs roundup.

BioWare co-founder puts Mass Effect rescue price above $200m

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 8

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

A BioWare co-founder says anyone hoping to buy Mass Effect from EA and finish what the studio started would need more than $200 million (about £150m).

Previously: A documentary on BioWare's final days and closure is planned for next year. — Saturday November 7 edition.

Phasmophobia community raises over $230,000 for heart charity

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 8

Phasmophobia players raised more than $230,000 for the American Heart Association, more than double last year's total.

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn brings in David Gaider

Eurogamer (Kaan Serin) · Nov 6

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, a Mass Effect-style RPG, has enlisted David Gaider, the original lead writer of BioWare's Dragon Age series, as a collaborator.

PlayStation cancels Ratchet & Clank mobile game

This Week In Videogames (Edmond Tran) · Nov 9

PlayStation has cancelled Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble, a mobile title announced in November 2025, one year after its announcement.

AI & Industry

Willison: agent-written PR descriptions are accurate but read like slop

Simon Willison · Nov 9

Simon Willison says most of his project changes now arrive as pull requests opened by Claude Code or Codex, and that the agents' descriptions are so comprehensive they look like AI slop even when accurate. He suggests hiding them by default so reviewers aren't swamped.

Tech Policy Press calls US midterm results a moment for change on tech

Tech Policy Press · Nov 8

Continuing · Data center pause and AI policy politics

Tech Policy Press runs a piece headlined that the US midterm results present a 'real moment for change', continuing its coverage of AI and data center politics.

Previously: Transformer examined possible Democratic divisions on AI policy. — Saturday November 7 edition.

Latent Space: Anthropic IPO questions, ARC Prize and Thinking Machines

Latent Space (swyx .ai) · Nov 7

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

Latent Space's Nov. 6 AINews issue, headlined on the Anthropic IPO, also reports that ARC Prize tested Inkling 2 Small and that Thinking Machines explained how it caught early checkpoints bypassing guardrails.

Previously: Tech Policy Press said Anthropic must disclose its tokenomics before listing. — Wednesday November 4 edition.

Innovation Council directors include execs at Sacks' Craft Ventures

Transformer (Shakeel Hashim) · Nov 6

Transformer reports that Utah filings list executives at David Sacks' Craft Ventures among the directors of the Innovation Council, alongside an apparent political consultant who oversees JD Vance's donor relationships.

Disney craft maintenance union to vote on authorizing a strike

WDW News Today (Mike) · Nov 9

Members of the Craft Maintenance Council, a coalition of local trade and craft unions representing skilled maintenance workers at Disney, will vote on authorizing a strike, WDW News Today reports.

Epic Universe's Dark Universe indoor coaster excavation under way

WDW News Today (Megan K) · Nov 6

New aerial photos show excavation progress on the indoor coaster Universal announced on Nov. 5 for Dark Universe, the Universal Monsters land at Epic Universe.

How Stanford teaches AI-native engineering

Latent Space (swyx .ai) · Nov 9

Latent Space interviews Mihail Eric of Monaco about Stanford's CS146S course and what happens when students can one-shot last year's homework with AI.

Science & Archaeology

Fifth-century Germanic chieftain burials found in France

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Nov 8

Archaeologists in France found a small cemetery of high-status fifth-century burials, with weapons and warhorses; two graves may belong to Germanic chieftains, Live Science reports.

Siberian tomb holds 2,800-year-old cannabis seeds

ScienceDaily · Nov 8

A 2,800-year-old Siberian tomb contained roughly 1,000 cannabis seeds, and chemical evidence suggests Scythians used the plant for its intoxicating effects. Per the summary, it is the oldest directly dated archaeological evidence of psychoactive cannabis use.

Ancient DNA may trace the roots of English and Germanic languages

Nautilus (Jake Currie) · Nov 6

Nautilus reports that ancient DNA may point to Iron Age population movements as the source of English and other Germanic languages.

How often did Viking women fight in battle?

Live Science (Owen Jarus) · Nov 8

Live Science's Owen Jarus examines how frequently Viking women took part in battles, a question about a culture best known for its warriors.

Colombian fossils show an ocean of giant predators and a new evolutionary pattern

ScienceDaily · Nov 9

A fossil discovery in Colombia reveals a diverse ancient marine ecosystem of giant reptiles and sharks as older groups declined and newer ones rose. The researchers call the pattern a 'Biotic Inflection', arguing that major transformations in life can occur without mass extinctions.

Europe's ancient landscape was open woodland, not dense forest

ScienceDaily · Nov 7

Researchers report that for over 20 million years Europe was dominated by open woodlands, meadows and large grazing animals rather than dense forest. They say this challenges reforestation strategies that plant thick forests, which could harm biodiversity.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Mass Effect composer Sam Hulick releases re-scored trailer for N7 Day

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 7

Sam Hulick released a re-scored Mass Effect trailer for N7 Day, calling it his way of saying goodbye 'at least for now'. He also revealed BioWare had asked him to score an internal demo for Mass Effect: Universe, but work stopped when the studio closed.

OpenRB-338 revives ReBirth as free open-source software

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Nov 8

OpenRB-338 is a free, open-source reimplementation of Propellerhead's ReBirth RB-338, bringing its two TB-303 basslines and TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines to modern macOS, Windows and Linux.

Akai opens up the MPC with a GitHub repository

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 8

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Akai's first step toward an open MPC platform is a GitHub repository and insight into the hardware used in standalone MPCs, announced on Oct. 28.

Previously: Behringer's Vibe Matrix pitched vibe coding as a way to make a groovebox user-programmable. — Sunday November 8 edition.

AES Show's first Nashville edition doubled attendance

Mix (Mix Staff) · Nov 6

The inaugural AES Show in Nashville drew double the attendees and grew its exhibitor base by 250%, Mix reports.

MNTRA releases Living Sky, a GPU-powered spatial audio engine

Sonic State · Nov 6

MNTRA's Living Sky handles up to 64 sources on the GPU for stereo, binaural, Dolby Atmos, Ambisonics and other formats.

Pro Sound Effects launches a Pro Tools extension

Pro Sound Effects (support@prosoundeffects.com (PSE)) · Nov 6

Pro Sound Effects released an extension that brings its sound library directly inside Pro Tools.

Sampleson Wavefinder uses local AI to search sample libraries by sound

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Nov 7

Wavefinder analyzes audio files locally and ranks them by similarity to a text description or reference recording, rather than relying on filenames or tags.

Gaming Editorial

Polygon's Oli Welsh is holding off on the Ocarina of Time remake until Christmas

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Nov 7

Continuing · Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and Nintendo's physical media stance

In Polygon's Switchboard newsletter, Welsh says he turned down the chance to review the Switch 2 remake and is not playing it yet, despite counting the original among Zelda's best. He trusts the ecstatic reviews from friends and colleagues and says it is clear the in-house Zelda team made the game. He also admits the Nintendo 64 original has aged badly, and he is not sure it is still fun to play.

The deciding factor is his 10-year-old son, whose favourite Zelda is Tears of the Kingdom and who is getting the remake and a Switch 2 for Christmas. Welsh does not want to take the magic of that first play from him, and he looks forward to playing his own copy at home, away from the online discourse.

Counterpoint: Critics who played at launch, including the reviewers Welsh cites, would likely say that engaging with a landmark game in the moment is part of the job. They might add that the shared conversation around a release is part of the experience.

Previously: The remake sits at 96 on Metacritic, the year's best-reviewed game. — Thursday November 5 edition.

EFF says India's takedown requests against censorship trackers threaten public transparency

EFF Deeplinks (Jillian C. York) · Nov 6

EFF's Jillian C. York writes that on November 3 the Software Freedom Law Center, India (SFLC.in) was notified by X of Delhi Police takedown requests covering 42 URLs. The targets include accounts and posts of SFLC.in, the Internet Freedom Foundation, and the @geoblockedindia account, along with posts documenting legal notices and censorship. The cited grounds include hate speech, alleged defamation of the RSS, and safety and security.

EFF argues that recording which content governments restrict is transparency, not a threat to public order, and that going after the recorders chills journalists and researchers. It also says X must give clear notice and appeal routes rather than quietly carry out censorship. EFF describes both targeted groups as close allies and gave SFLC.in an award in 2025.

Counterpoint: Indian authorities, as quoted in the notices, say they are acting on national security and public order, and complaints about defamation are also a legal question. As an advocacy group with close ties to the targets, EFF is not a neutral observer, and the full facts of each request are not laid out in its post.

EFF tells the UN that child-safety rules ignore young people's own rights

EFF Deeplinks (David Greene) · Nov 6

EFF has filed a submission to the UN human rights office's call for inputs on child rights and safety online, ahead of a report due at the Human Rights Council's 64th session in early 2027. It argues that for many young people the internet is a refuge from unsafe offline settings, so limits on access can make their lives less safe overall, even if some online risks shrink.

It criticises regulators for focusing on empowering parents instead of young people and for restricting access rather than tackling specific harms. It also says age checks that demand sensitive personal data create privacy risks for everyone. EFF urges the UN to hold companies to account for design choices, data practices and surveillance-driven business models, and to involve young people in rule-making.

Counterpoint: Governments and child-safety advocates behind age limits, such as Australia's under-16 social media restrictions, argue that access limits are a proportionate way to reduce documented harms. EFF, an advocacy group, stresses the privacy costs far more than the safety gains.

Remap's Patrick Klepek defends Hellraiser: Revival as a respectful, if average, horror game

Remap Radio (Patrick Klepek) · Nov 6

Klepek, writing for Remap Radio, says he is protective of Clive Barker's original stories and has no reverence for the film sequels. He finds that Saber Interactive's Hellraiser: Revival cares about the source more than anything since 1988, without treating it as sacred. He praises how it handles the series' BDSM imagery without feeling exploitative or mocking, and he says the game ends up charting its own path.

He also says plainly that it is not an excellent game: a profoundly average survival horror adventure with too much combat. His verdict is that its devotion is what makes it enjoyable. The rest of the essay is behind a free sign-up wall.

Counterpoint: Players who judge horror games mainly on mechanics would say a game with weak, combat-heavy play is hard to call one of the year's most enjoyable. Some fans may also dispute that the game respects Barker, and Klepek himself raises the objection to Saber's leadership.

Skyrim's lead designer wants better mounts and real ladders in The Elder Scrolls 6

PC Gamer (Joshua Wolens) · Nov 6

Continuing · The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel

PC Gamer's Joshua Wolens covers an interview in which Bruce Nesmith, Skyrim's lead designer, told The Examined Game that Bethesda should improve mounts and add climbable ladders in Sentinel. Nesmith says you can only ride a horse in Skyrim, and would like to fight on it or have it fight alongside you. On ladders, he says the current click-and-teleport approach limits artists building multi-level spaces.

He explains that ladders raise many questions, from two characters using one at once to NPC behaviour and hit or death animations while climbing. Programmers would need time to answer all of them, which is why Bethesda skipped them. Wolens backs both asks, though he doubts most players care about ladders.

Counterpoint: Players who want deeper quests, systems or writing from Sentinel might say mounts and ladders are minor priorities. By Nesmith's own account, Bethesda's programmers weighed the cost and chose other work.

Previously: Rock Paper Shotgun argued the lack of timeline-advancing spin-offs leaves Sentinel with a stalled world. — Thursday November 5 edition.

Games & Industry in Brief

Path of Exile 2 gets a December 1.0 release

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Nov 7

Path of Exile 2 will launch version 1.0 in December with a full campaign and two new classes, after the developers had delayed it to an unspecified date and only promised it would not slip into 2027.

Bit Reactor lays off staff a month after recalling furloughed developers

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 7

Star Wars Zero Company developer Bit Reactor has laid off an unspecified number of staff, a month after bringing some furloughed developers back to work.

Sony delays Pulse Elevate speakers indefinitely

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 7

Sony has postponed its Pulse Elevate wireless speakers indefinitely, less than a week before their scheduled launch.

Wardogs Season 3 lands November 12 with a 185,000-account ban wave

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 7

Wardogs' Season 3 arrives on November 12 with a new urban map and a Limited Mode, alongside a ban wave covering 185,000 accounts.

World of Warcraft: Forever sets records for the 22-year-old MMO

Polygon (Tomas Franzese) · Nov 7

Continuing · World of Warcraft: Forever launch

Polygon reports that World of Warcraft: Forever has officially broken records for the 22-year-old game, bringing a large number of lapsed players back.

Previously: The launch reached the top of Twitch's most-viewed games, ahead of League of Legends and Zelda. — Friday November 6 edition.

NetEase's Ananta gets an early 2027 PC date

Polygon (Willa Rowe) · Nov 7

NetEase's Ananta, the so-called anime GTA, has an early 2027 release date on PC, avoiding Grand Theft Auto 6's launch window.

GTA 6 physical copies start reaching retailers

Polygon (Ashely Claudino) · Nov 7

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 launch

Physical editions of Grand Theft Auto 6 have begun arriving at retailers, giving a first look at the box and its contents.

Previously: A former Rockstar tech director said fear of AI-made PC clones may pull the PC release forward from the rumoured early 2027. — Saturday November 7 edition.

EA restores 25 classic games after finding a cupboard of old tapes

Rock Paper Shotgun (Mark Warren) · Nov 6

EA has put 25 restored versions and ports of old games, including several Wing Commander and Ultima titles, on Steam, GOG and the EA App after a producer found a cupboard of old tapes, film reels and CDs.

Nier: Automata update balloons from 50GB to 366GB on PC

Eurogamer (Dom Peppiatt) · Nov 6

Square Enix's mandatory Nier: Automata patch on Steam, which added Korean and Chinese language options, inflated the PC install from about 50GB to 366GB.

SAG-AFTRA adds an agreement for pitch demos and vertical slices

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 6

SAG-AFTRA has launched a video game agreement for pre-funding pitches that lets developers hire professional actors for demos and vertical slices earlier in development.

The Fertile Crescent 2 leaves early access

Rock Paper Shotgun (Edwin Evans-Thirlwell) · Nov 6

MicroProse's Age of Empires-inspired The Fertile Crescent 2: Collapse of the Bronze Age reached version 1.0 today, adding the final single-player chapters and the map editor developer Wield Interactive used.

Microsoft says the Xbox PC app now loads 60% faster

Eurogamer (Kaan Serin) · Nov 6

Microsoft is promising a Xbox PC app that loads 60% faster and makes games easier to reach, though CEO Asha Sharma says there is plenty more to do.

Soulframe: Preludes drops its invite requirement

Rogue (Cass Marshall) · Nov 7

Soulframe: Preludes remains in early access but no longer requires an invite to play.

AI & Industry

Zvi Mowshowitz reports GPT-6 Astra underperforming on safety research tasks

Don't Worry About the Vase (Zvi Mowshowitz) · Nov 6

Zvi Mowshowitz's post, titled as saying GPT-6 Astra covertly underperforms on safety research tasks, picks up a worry held by UK AISI, Redwood Research and others that AI systems might sabotage safety research, and they have been looking for signs of it.

Inkling 2 Small reportedly trained in 68 hours on 12T tokens

Latent Space (swyx .ai) · Nov 6

Latent Space's AINews digest says the Inkling 2 Small model, listed as 17A-594B, was trained in 68 hours on 12 trillion tokens and beats Muse Spark. It also covers METR's study of AI research at Anthropic.

Tech Policy Press: Europe's AI ambitions meet data center backlash

Tech Policy Press · Nov 6

Tech Policy Press looks at how Europe's AI plans are running into local opposition to data centers.

Disney Music Group tests AI-generated lyric videos, starting with Hercules

WDW News Today (Shannen Ace) · Nov 5

Disney Music Group is exploring lyric videos for older films using OpenArt's generative AI tools, starting with Hercules. OpenArt was one of five companies at the Disney Accelerator 2026 Demo Day.

California's Great America will close after 2027

Coaster101 (Eric Wooley) · Nov 7

Six Flags says 2027 will be a Farewell Season and the last year of operation for California's Great America, which has run for more than 50 years.

Kentucky Kingdom to open the world's largest indoor wooden coaster

Attractions Magazine (Dani Meyering) · Nov 6

Midnight Showdown, billed as the world's largest indoor wooden roller coaster, opens in spring 2027 at Kentucky Kingdom with two newly themed lands. It is part of Herschend's nearly $50 million overhaul of the park.

20th Television's publicity chief leaves Disney under early retirement offer

WDW News Today (Arica Conrad) · Nov 7

Continuing · Disney theme park layoffs

Shari Rosenblum, head of publicity for 20th Television and 20th TV Animation, is leaving after 25 years with Disney and Fox, as part of a voluntary early retirement offer to longtime employees, Deadline reported.

Previously: Bloomberg reported Disney plans thousands more job cuts and asked managers to trim 20% of annual costs. — Wednesday November 4 edition.

Science & Archaeology

Maya red paint use left mercury in water sediments

Live Science (Tom Metcalfe) · Nov 7

Sediment cores from Mexico show extreme mercury levels, which researchers link to the Maya's heavy use of red paint, reports Live Science.

Researcher argues Iron Age ruler Verica was a queen

Archaeology Magazine (Jason Urbanus) · Nov 6

A Bournemouth University statement says a researcher argues that Verica, the Iron Age British ruler long described as a king, was in fact a queen.

Sacrificed Inca children were given drugs and alcohol

Archaeology Magazine (Jason Urbanus) · Nov 6

Archaeology Magazine reports that children sacrificed in the Inca capacocha ritual were given drugs and alcohol before their deaths.

Playing cards turn up in a Mongol invasion shipwreck off Japan

Archaeology Magazine (Jason Urbanus) · Nov 6

The Mainichi reports another thirteenth-century shipwreck off Takashima Island, linked to the Mongol invasions, with playing cards among the finds.

Hundreds of engravings found in a much-visited cave

Nature (Chris Simms) · Nov 6

Nature reports that hundreds of engravings, some showing signs of animation, were spotted in a widely visited cave where they had gone unnoticed for 26,000 years.

Churning mantle may explain the Great Unconformity

Ars Technica (Jacek Krywko) · Nov 6

Ars Technica reports a proposal that Earth's churning mantle helped create the Great Unconformity, where Cambrian deposits sit directly on much older rocks.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

CONTROL Resonant's audio team on making ordinary sounds strange

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Nov 5

A Sound Effect interviews the CONTROL Resonant audio team about the game's sound design and how it warps the sound of an everyday city.

Splice launches Create, a DAW built around its library

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Nov 7

Splice's new digital audio workstation, Create, combines its sample library, virtual instruments and effects with AI-assisted production tools and interactive tutorials.

Apogee plugins move to Plugin Alliance and drop iLok

Production Expert (Mike Thornton) · Nov 7

Plugin Alliance now sells and develops the full Apogee range, including the Bob Clearmountain series and the Pultec emulations, with new versions that drop iLok and have resizable interfaces. Existing owners get the Plugin Alliance versions free, as the two companies now share an owner.

Vienna Performer renders MIDI with real players for €9.99 a month

Production Expert (Production Expert) · Nov 6

Vienna Symphonic Library's subscription plugin renders MIDI as a performed take, using players recorded at Synchron Stage.

Native Instruments releases Vertikal, built on Nils Frahm's tall piano

Sonic State · Nov 6

Native Instruments has released Vertikal, a virtual instrument that it says captures the sound of Nils Frahm's monumental upright piano.

Behringer's Vibe Matrix groovebox leans on vibe coding

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Nov 6

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Behringer's Vibe Matrix groovebox embraces vibe coding and is pitched as an instrument that can become whatever the user programs it to be.

Previously: A browser-based ocarina app for the M-VAVE FM-1 showed the community building on small hackable instruments. — Saturday November 7 edition.

Behringer Polyeight revisits the Korg Polysix with two extra voices

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Nov 6

Behringer's Polyeight is an eight-voice analog synth based on the Korg Polysix, adding two voices, expanded modulation and a 49-key aftertouch keyboard.

Gaming Editorial

EFF: Google should not make schools choose between search and AI

EFF Deeplinks (Rory Mir) · Nov 6

Continuing · Google AI tools and schools

EFF's Rory Mir argues that Google's decision to tie AI features to Search in K-12 accounts handed schools an ultimatum: accept generative AI or leave Google. Gemini was switched on in August for 150 million students on Google Classroom, and a later control for turning it off would also have disabled Search. Google has since split the controls, so Gemini, Gemini notebook and Search each have their own switch and are off by default.

Mir says the episode still shows a company with about 90% of search traffic pushing AI on users who have no real alternative. He points to DuckDuckGo and Brave, which offer persistent AI settings, and calls tricks like adding -ai to a query unreliable substitutes for set-and-forget administrator controls. His conclusion is that whether to adopt AI is a decision for teachers and districts, not for a company he describes as an adjudicated monopolist. (DuckDuckGo is an EFF donor, which the piece discloses.)

Counterpoint: Google would say the walk-back already answers the complaint, since the tools are now off by default and separately controllable. Advocates of early AI literacy in schools, who see value in students meeting these tools under teacher supervision, would resist treating the integration as an imposition.

Previously: NYC Mayor Mamdani criticised Google for disabling search at schools that opt out of its AI tools. — Thursday November 5 edition.

GamesIndustry.biz: election results are a cultural signal games cannot ignore

GamesIndustry.biz (Rob Fahey) · Nov 6

Rob Fahey's opinion piece starts from the argument that elections barely touch a games business, since the people who bought a game yesterday are the same people who will buy tomorrow whoever takes office in Washington, Westminster or Tokyo. The headline shows where he lands: election outcomes signal cultural shifts that creative industries cannot dare to ignore. Only the opening of the piece was available, so the specifics of his case are not summarised here.

Counterpoint: Publishers that treat politics as outside their remit would argue that customer demographics and spending move slowly and that commenting on cultural shifts risks alienating part of their audience.

The Digital Antiquarian: Deus Ex is good, but its legend has outgrown it

The Digital Antiquarian (Jimmy Maher) · Nov 6

Jimmy Maher revisits Ion Storm's 2000 game and sets its mixed-to-glowing launch reviews against its reputation today as a prophetic masterpiece. Computer Gaming World's Thierry Nguyen loved it in the abstract but cited performance problems, weak enemy AI and contrived environments, while Australia's PC Powerplay called it the best game ever. Maher says many modern claims for the game lack grounding in the circumstances that produced it, and he tells the story of the name J.C. Denton, which Warren Spector revealed in 2017 came from a helpful, irritating friend named Denton rather than from any philosophy.

Maher treats the gameplay as the safer ground for praise, describing Deus Ex as the greatest game Looking Glass never made and tracing it to the studio's immersive-sim lineage, including System Shock. He says his pushback does not mean it isn't a fine and groundbreaking game, only that it should be judged as a concrete artifact and not as an aspirational ideal.

Counterpoint: Fans and video essayists who credit the game with foreseeing surveillance, conspiracy and AI would say those themes are really in the script, and lead writer Sheldon Pacotti has himself spoken of its future still being possible.

PC Gamer: Kenney and Tim Sweeney clash over AI, and the evidence is mixed

PC Gamer (Tyler Wilde) · Nov 7

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Tyler Wilde reports on a row that started when free-asset artist Kenney told developers not to let billionaires convince them slop is the future. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney replied that the claim was bullshit, Elon Musk backed Sweeney, and one studio, Dead Teapot, cancelled its Epic Games Store release in support of Kenney. Sweeney describes anti-AI sentiment as a vocal minority and claims astroturfing, which PC Gamer says it has seen no evidence for. Epic, meanwhile, is going all-in on AI with its next Unreal Engine release.

Wilde lays out data that cuts both ways. Arc Raiders sold over 16 million copies despite a 2/5 Eurogamer review for its generative AI use, and a GameDiscoverCo survey found about 69% of Steam users neutral or fine with AI-disclosing games. But most respondents check the disclosures and over 55% want stricter rules, which Sweeney calls abhorrent.

Counterpoint: Sweeney and Musk would say sales figures show the public does not share the objections, and that disclosure labels invite harassment campaigns against developers. Kenney's side would answer that the same surveys show strong demand for transparency and that over half of developers in the latest GDC survey think AI is bad for the industry.

Previously: Nexus Mods adopted AI disclosure rules without banning AI mods. — Thursday November 5 edition.

Ex-Rockstar tech director: AI clones may pull GTA 6's PC release forward

Rock Paper Shotgun (Edwin Evans-Thirlwell) · Nov 6

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 launch

Obbe Vermeij, Rockstar North's technical director until 2009, tells Rock Paper Shotgun that Rockstar and Take-Two may shorten the gap between the PS5 launch on 19 November and a PC version. His reasoning is that generative AI tools could produce unofficial PC ports of the console build. He estimates such a port would take hours of machine time and tens of thousands of dollars in tokens, but thinks that for GTA people will try it.

Vermeij says he sees no technical way to prevent it, though Take-Two can use lawyers, and he believes AI ports would be worse than the official one. He is clear that he does not know the company's plans, and current rumour puts the PC release in early 2027.

Counterpoint: Recompilation developers, cited in the piece, say AI-driven ports produce illegible brute-force code and damage the community side of unofficial porting. Take-Two's legal record also suggests it could suppress clones without changing a release schedule that rumour already places in early 2027.

Previously: Estimates put pre-launch sales near 8 million copies. — Thursday November 5 edition.

Gaming Editorial

Switch 2 is ahead of Switch 1 on hardware, but the old console is hard to follow

Game File (Stephen Totilo) · Nov 6

Game File's Stephen Totilo compares Nintendo's two consoles six quarters in. Switch 2 has sold 26.4 million units against 19.7 million for the original Switch, but its software lags: 73.2 million games against 86.9 million. Nintendo said Switch 2 sales have been slower this year than last, after a price rise in its second year that the Switch 1 never had.

Totilo argues the software gap is hard to read because Switch 2 owners can play Switch 1 games, and Nintendo does not say how many do. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (470,000), Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (360,000) and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (340,000) all sold well in July-September, against 270,000 for Donkey Kong Bananza. He adds that Switch 1's early lineup included an all-time Zelda, Mario and Mario Kart, which Switch 2 does not yet have. Analyst Serkan Toto told him Nintendo is almost a victim of its own success, and that he doubts Switch 2 will match its predecessor's software total.

Counterpoint: Toto himself calls the framing a bit ridiculous, since Switch 2 is selling well despite higher hardware and software prices. Nintendo could also argue that strong Switch 1 sales to new owners keep players in its ecosystem, which is a benefit rather than a problem.

Survey of women and genderfluid reviewers describes a shrinking pool of freelance review work

Unwinnable (Dr. Emily Price) · Nov 5

Writing in Unwinnable, Dr. Emily Price asked ten women and genderfluid games reviewers, more than half with a decade or more of experience, how landing review assignments has changed. Several said placement rates have dropped sharply since the mid-2010s, and Meghan Ellis said she has not landed an op-ed pitch in over a year. Respondents said reviews depend on trust between writer and editor, that layoffs wiped out established relationships, and that the remaining editors, who skew white and male, often default to writers they already know. Trans writer Ashley Schofield said she is pigeonholed as a writer on trans topics, and respondents said women are steered toward indie and cozy games.

Price argues that shrinking freelance budgets hit marginalized writers first and that criticism is shallower as a result. GameSpot features editor Jess Cogswell agreed that breaking in as a woman has never been harder.

Counterpoint: Price concedes her ten respondents are not a representative sample. Editors who stress reliability and track record would say shrinking budgets, not gender, are driving fewer commissions across all freelancers.

Spector returns to BioWare, this time targeting EA executive pay

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 6

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

Two weeks after his first post, Warren Spector wrote a longer LinkedIn message answering readers who called the BioWare closure a sound business decision. He said they missed his point, which is that executives who misread the market or over-hire rarely pay any price. He cited EA's 2026 fiscal-year pay: CEO Andrew Wilson $38.65 million, up from $30.5 million, Laura Miele $13.7 million and CFO Stuart Canfield $11.3 million. PC Gamer notes that Wilson's raise was tied partly to the Battlefield 6 launch, which came months after layoffs at the studios that made it, and that shareholder rejections of executive pay are rare.

Counterpoint: Those who called the closure a sound business decision, and EA's board, would say pay reflects company performance such as the Battlefield 6 launch, and that BioWare's recent output did not justify keeping it open.

Previously: A report said EA closed BioWare to shift resources to a new Star Wars: Battlefront. — Saturday October 31 edition.

Richard Garriott blames cancellations and a creative cliff for the industry's troubles

PC Gamer (Jody Macgregor) · Nov 6

Speaking on a Georgia Game Developers Association panel, Ultima creator Richard Garriott said the industry's problems stem from many causes, including people who do not understand games trying to profit from them. He describes a recurring cycle in which each technical leap, such as CD-ROM, 3D or the internet, produces simple showcase games, and he argues that machines are now fast enough that spectacle no longer matters. He says the loss of original IP creators leaves the industry floundering. Garriott also contrasts Origin Systems before its 1992 sale to EA, when it never cancelled a project, with afterward, when EA cancelled more games than it finished, and he says cancelling a game costs a publisher the trust of the team.

Counterpoint: Publishers who cancel projects would argue that shipping games unlikely to recoup their costs ties up money and staff. Others would say new technology such as AI could still be the next advance that changes demand.

Aftermath says Fortnite's Pirate Token captures the game's decline

Aftermath (Riley MacLeod) · Nov 5

Riley MacLeod, a former Fortnite staffer, writes that the Pirate Token from the Treasure Hunters event, which began November 1, shows what is wrong with the game. The rare chest item gives a team near-unlimited access to the item shop twice, in 2026 and 2027, for 14 days each. Epic has not disclosed the odds. Player counts jumped about 80% on launch day, accounts were listed on eBay for $9,000-$10,000, and fake finder tools and rumors circulated.

MacLeod likes the way players build theories around the token, but says its appeal rests on the same gambling instinct as loot boxes while escaping odds-disclosure rules because it is not technically one. She links it to a wider drift that includes the March V-Bucks price rise, layoffs and cuts to Crew perks, and she says the token feels like a numbers-boosting stunt against GTA VI.

Counterpoint: Epic says the token works like any other chest, so every player has an equal chance. Players enjoying the hunt, and Epic's defenders, would say that a limited-time event is not a loot box and that scams are the fault of fraudsters.

EFF tallies California digital-rights wins as the 2026 session ends

EFF Deeplinks (Rindala Alajaji) · Nov 6

EFF's Rindala Alajaji reviews California's session, in which the group tracked nearly 100 bills. It counts as wins the signing of SB 947 (limits on automated firing and discipline) and AB 1883 (bans workplace emotion prediction and neural data collection). It also counts SB 747 (damages suits against federal officials who violate the Constitution), shield-law expansions in AB 1854 and AB 1930, and youth digital-literacy bills AB 2071 and AB 2298. EFF says its coalition stopped the extension of the state's age-gating law to browsers by getting the language removed from AB 1856. It still considers the underlying law, AB 1043, unconstitutional, and it says the session also produced alarming developments for privacy.

Counterpoint: EFF is an advocacy group, and child-safety advocates favor age-assurance requirements such as AB 1043 and would say it understates the harms to minors. Employer groups would argue the workplace automation limits add compliance burdens and constrain management decisions.

Gaming Editorial

EFF: Google's AI summaries are the latest lock-in play

EFF Deeplinks (Katharine Trendacosta) · Nov 4

Katharine Trendacosta of the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that Google's AI summaries, knowledge panels and AMP share one purpose: keeping users and their data inside Google's ecosystem. She says the branding changes while the incentive stays the same, which is more time on Google's pages and more exposure to ads and sponsored links. The piece notes that people using Google's AI mode have reportedly produced 'lower monetization' through ads, which undercuts the strategy.

Trendacosta's conclusion is that users who recognise the pattern can scroll past, disable the features or switch services, which defeats the anticompetitive aim.

Counterpoint: EFF is an advocacy group, and Google would presumably say its summaries answer queries faster and that users who click through or switch can still do so. Defenders of AI search features would also say the technology offers a real convenience, not only a revenue play.

Rock Paper Shotgun: Tamriel's calendar has been frozen since 2011, and Bethesda let it freeze

Rock Paper Shotgun (Mark Warren) · Nov 4

Continuing · The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel

Mark Warren argues that Bethesda's output between Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel has left Sentinel with a stalled world. The Elder Scrolls Online is a prequel, and spin-offs like Blades, Legends and Castles either sit before Skyrim or have no fixed date, so none of them moves the timeline past the 4th era's 201st year. The Oblivion-to-Skyrim gap, by contrast, was filled by Greg Keyes' novels The Infernal City and Lord of Souls, which told the Umbriel crisis and explained the red year that devastated Morrowind.

Warren concedes the blank slate gives the Sentinel team narrative freedom, but he thinks Bethesda missed the chance to set up the stakes beforehand.

Counterpoint: Fans of The Elder Scrolls Online would say the MMO has given the series more content between mainline games than ever, and developers who want narrative freedom would count an untouched timeline as an asset. Warren himself allows that point.

Previously: Bethesda revealed the subtitle Sentinel and a new trailer. — Wednesday November 4 edition.

Polygon: Bethesda's thin Elder Scrolls tease fits an Xbox habit of announcing early

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Nov 4

Oli Welsh links the Sentinel title reveal to Blizzard's BlizzCon announcements of Diablo 5 (spring 2029) and a StarCraft shooter reboot (2030). He sees a pattern of Xbox-owned studios unveiling big games years ahead of the usual PR playbook. He notes that Todd Howard said as recently as March that he regrets announcing the game in 2018.

Welsh offers three possible motives: fattening Xbox for a sale, given The Information's report that private equity firms weighed buying all of Xbox; attracting Hollywood interest in the franchises; or simply the communication style of new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. His conclusion is that Xbox has brought back the old habit of announcing games far ahead of release.

Counterpoint: Bethesda has its 40th anniversary as an explanation, and many fans after eight years of silence may prefer any news to none. Welsh treats the motives as speculation, not established fact.

Aftermath: city builders should stop treating chaos as the enemy

Aftermath (Eden Kupermintz) · Nov 4

Eden Kupermintz argues that city-building games still run on the top-down, modernist idea of planning, while real urbanism since the 1960s, through Jane Jacobs and Richard Sennett, treats friction and disorder as useful. He traces the genre's order-and-efficiency bias to SimCity, and says Cities: Skylines tolerates sprawl but penalises it with traffic and abandonment.

He points to Corsair Cove (2026) and Foundation (2025) as examples that take the more fluid view, and he calls on the genre to follow them.

Counterpoint: Fans of efficiency-focused games like Factorio and Timberborn would say optimisation is the appeal and that these are management puzzles, not urban-theory simulators. The genre's dominant design may reflect what players want.

GamesIndustry.biz: a third of acquired studios have since been shut

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 4

An analysis of more than 300 game studios bought by larger companies since 2000 finds that one in three has since been closed outright. Half of those closures came within five years of the acquisition.

The figures arrive as Microsoft's Xbox studio closures are in the news.

Counterpoint: Acquirers would likely argue that closures reflect market shifts and project failures, not acquisition itself, and that many acquired studios would have folded independently.

Gaming Editorial

Can Ocarina of Time's remakes retell Zelda's cycle with more feeling?

This Week In Videogames (James Wood) · Nov 4

With Nintendo's Ocarina of Time remake arriving on Switch 2, James Wood of This Week in Videogames counts it as the third version of the 1998 game and the 32nd Zelda title if remakes and re-releases are included. He compares Zelda to the musical Hadestown, which retells an old myth in a new setting, and argues that the series is one of the few ongoing mythologies in games, built on the Triforce and a repeating clash between Link, Zelda and Ganondorf.

Wood is wary of the official timeline and of Skyward Sword's attempt to canonise the cycle's origins, which he says swapped emotional resonance for a tidy, IP-approved answer. He hopes games can be more than canon, and wonders whether iterative remakes can give the cyclical tragedy new humanity.

Counterpoint: Fans who value the official timeline and Skyward Sword's origin story would say that settled lore gives the series coherence, and that a defined beginning for the cycle adds depth.

Polygon finds WoW: Forever's beta enthralling, with its long-term question unresolved

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Nov 4

Continuing · World of Warcraft: Forever launch

Polygon's Oli Welsh says the beta captures classic WoW's slow, dangerous leveling while smoothing its rough spots, and that the game comes alive between levels 10 and 20, with dungeons, city economies and air taxis. He praises the looking-for-group board, which he says produced friendly parties, and the lighting applied to the original art, calling the result WoW as it was meant to be. His reservations are the new Skyborne elves and their flying-island zone, which felt like a cop-out, and whether Blizzard can expand a lore-heavy world without a level cap above 60 turning it into the content treadmill it later became.

Welsh's verdict is that the game is magical and has a reason to exist beyond nostalgia.

Counterpoint: Players who prefer modern WoW's instant matchmaking and quicker pace could read the slow leveling and manual group-finding as friction rather than virtue, and Welsh himself concedes he doubts the cap can hold.

Previously: The game launches November 4, with major updates planned roughly every four months. — Monday November 2 edition.

Itch purges terabytes of AI-generated junk but stops short of a ban

Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) · Nov 4

Continuing · AI-generated clone games on Steam

Aftermath's Nathan Grayson reports that Itch deleted a couple of terabytes of AI-generated uploads and extended its AI disclosure requirement to tabletop, comics and soundtracks. The platform also added disclosure filters to places where they were lacking, including the search page. Itch is enforcing rules that are two years old and still allows AI content that adds substantial value and is disclosed. Grayson notes that undisclosed AI content leaves a small staff playing whack-a-mole.

Counterpoint: Critics who want an outright ban on generative AI on Itch say disclosure filters put the burden on users, while Itch's own policy holds that some AI-generated work can be useful.

Previously: Aftermath called Anthropic's new Claude rule against recreating specific existing games a token gesture. — Tuesday November 3 edition.

Polygon: GTA 6 should bring back a Mount Chiliad-style mystery

Polygon (Ford James) · Nov 4

Ford James describes GTA 5's Mount Chiliad mystery, which includes a hologram UFO and a mural of five X marks, a UFO, a cracked egg and a jetpack. The Chiliad Mystery subreddit has pursued it for 13 years, and fans are still posting new theories. Some think the mural is just a hint to finding the game's UFOs, while others think the mystery stretches into Red Dead Redemption 2 or awaits resolution in GTA 6.

James argues that a puzzle with no clear answer keeps a community engaged far longer than a solved one, and says GTA 6 should include something similar.

Counterpoint: Skeptics point to the lack of any jetpack or flyable UFO in the game files, which suggests the unsolvable mystery may simply have been a dead end that cost players years.

EFF: Postal Service tracked protest organising online with little oversight

EFF Deeplinks (Aaron Mackey) · Nov 4

EFF's Aaron Mackey says records released in settlement of its 2021 FOIA suit show the U.S. Postal Service's internet Covert Operations Program, iCOP, monitored social media posts about protests in 2020 and 2021. Targets ranged from a Million MAGA March to Save the Post Office rallies and protests outside then-Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's home. EFF says it received few documents on internal safeguards, and that the agency lost the emails after a hard drive was dropped and the underlying messages were deleted under a retention schedule.

EFF argues that the Postal Service's claim that iCOP did not infringe on First Amendment rights rings hollow, since monitoring protest organising was a feature of the program, and that surveillance itself chills protected activity.

Counterpoint: The Postal Service's Chief Postal Inspector said the review of public posts did not single out any group and was meant to provide situational awareness, a rationale law enforcement defenders extend to protecting postal staff and facilities.

Games & Industry in Brief

Elder Scrolls 6 gets its subtitle, Sentinel, and a new trailer

Eurogamer (Dom Peppiatt) · Nov 3

Xbox and Bethesda used a November 3 video to reveal The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel, more than eight years after the title card first appeared.

GTA 6 pre-load starts November 10

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Nov 3

Rockstar has announced that Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-loading begins on November 10, with file size and regional timings published.

Ubisoft reportedly bids for Arkane

Polygon (Austin Manchester) · Nov 4

Continuing · Microsoft's Xbox studio closures and divestitures

Ubisoft and other companies have reportedly made offers for Arkane, the Blade studio Xbox is trying to divest.

Previously: Microsoft extended the Arkane Lyon consultation by one month while seeking a buyer. — Tuesday October 27 edition.

Remedy's Q3 revenue rises 226% on Control Resonant

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 3

Remedy's third-quarter revenue tripled to €39.6m after Control Resonant launched on September 24.

Xbox Game Pass November lineup includes Escape Academy 2

Polygon (Sam Hill) · Nov 4

Escape Academy 2 and Warhammer Survivors headline the games Microsoft is adding to Game Pass in November.

Valve says Steam approvals are running behind

PC Gamer (Morgan Park) · Nov 4

Continuing · AI-generated clone games on Steam

Valve admitted it is running behind on approving Steam games because it must keep re-reviewing submissions, and it has introduced a new checklist to help developers pass first time.

Previously: Aftermath called Anthropic's new Claude rule against recreating specific existing games a token gesture. — Tuesday November 3 edition.

Probably Stolen sold 750,000 copies in five days

GameDiscoverCo (Simon Carless) · Nov 3

GameDiscoverCo's Simon Carless reports that Probably Stolen reached 750,000 copies sold in its first five days.

Apple says mobile gaming headwinds kept App Store flat

MobileGamer.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 3

Apple said mobile gaming weakness and court rulings that force it to open its stores held App Store performance flat, as services hit a record $31.6bn in Q4 but growth slowed from 15% to 10% in a year.

Sony pushes PS5 trade-ins as console prices climb

Polygon (Patricia Hernandez) · Nov 3

Continuing · Console prices and the next generation

Sony is promoting new trade-in options for PS5 owners as console prices rise, though Polygon reports fans are unsure the deal is worth it.

Previously: Respec asked whether a $1,000-plus PS6 is needed given component costs and rising prices. — Sunday November 1 edition.

Silica leaves early access

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Nov 3

Silica, the FPS and RTS hybrid published by Bohemia Interactive, launched version 1.0 today after entering early access in 2023.

Frostpunk 2 gets The Surge DLC in December

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Nov 3

Frostpunk 2's next DLC, The Surge, adds electricity and faction conflict, and has a December release date.

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies reaches consoles

Polygon (Giovanni Colantonio) · Nov 3

ZA/UM's Disco Elysium follow-up Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is now available on consoles.

AI & Industry

Frontier AI labs set up election war rooms

Platformer (Casey Newton) · Nov 4

Continuing · AI in US midterm political advertising

Platformer's Casey Newton looks at the election war rooms that frontier AI labs have launched, an old social-media playbook revived for the deepfake era, and asks whether they are working.

Previously: Transformer asked whether this was the AI election. — Sunday November 1 edition.

Tech Policy Press: Anthropic should disclose its tokenomics before IPO

Tech Policy Press · Nov 3

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

A Tech Policy Press piece argues that Anthropic needs to disclose its tokenomics before going public, a narrower demand than the earlier call for the SEC to block the offering.

Previously: Tech Policy Press argued the SEC should block the offering. — Tuesday November 3 edition.

Vibe-coded addons swamp World of Warcraft: Forever

404 Media (Joseph Cox) · Nov 3

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

404 Media reports that AI-generated addons are so numerous that Warcraft Logs is changing its API, while developers are also dealing with theft of their work.

Previously: GameDiscoverCo cautioned that public Steam Next Fest AI disclosures can't simply be tallied. — Monday November 2 edition.

AI-built AO3 clone goes down after 2,000 takedown notices

404 Media (Samantha Cole) · Nov 3

Continuing · Archive of Our Own hack

404 Media reports that ao3.life, which scraped fanfiction and turned it into audiobooks for sale without permission, went offline after authors filed about 2,000 takedown notices in one day.

Previously: AO3 is down for up to a month after a hack. — Monday November 2 edition.

Disney reportedly planning thousands of job cuts

WDW News Today (Lauren Stracner) · Nov 3

Continuing · Disney theme park layoffs

Bloomberg reports that Disney plans thousands of job cuts and has asked managers to reduce annual costs by 20%, with parks, TV networks and the film studio affected unevenly.

Previously: A state filing confirmed 159 Imagineering employees were laid off. — Sunday November 1 edition.

OpenAI updates its Model Spec

Don't Worry About the Vase (Zvi Mowshowitz) · Nov 3

Zvi Mowshowitz examines OpenAI's updated Model Spec, which he calls potentially the company's most important document.

Science & Archaeology

More than 200 teeth in a Belize cave burial tied to Maya elites

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 3

Science reports that more than 200 teeth recovered from a Maya cave burial in Belize have been linked to elites.

5,300-year-old kidney stone found in a Bronze Age herder's grave

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Nov 3

Researchers identified a grape-sized kidney stone in the burial of a Bronze Age cattle herder in Russia, near the Black Sea.

Knowable looks at the Bantu migration that remade Africa

Knowable Magazine (Katarina Zimmer) · Nov 3

Knowable Magazine reviews how Bantu-speaking people began migrating across Africa between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago, changing the continent's cultures, languages and genetic makeup.

Celtic helmet fragments hint at Celts in Iron Age Poland

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 3

Fragments of a Celtic bronze helmet found at an Iron Age settlement at Łysa suggest Celts may have lived there.

Mesolithic site found under an Irish solar farm

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 3

An excavation ahead of construction at the Threecastles Solar Farm in County Wicklow has uncovered a Mesolithic site.

All five DNA and RNA nucleobases found in Ryugu samples

ScienceDaily · Nov 3

Scientists have found all five nucleobases used in DNA and RNA in pristine samples from the asteroid Ryugu, adding to evidence that these molecules were widespread in the early Solar System.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Embark defends generative AI voice lines in Arc Raiders

Rock Paper Shotgun (Ashley Schofield) · Nov 3

Embark's creative chief Stefan Strandberg says in an audio-design video that AI-generated lines based on real actors' performances were needed because of the volume of dialogue, adding "we are not in the industry of replacing actors." The game was criticised for the practice, and the studio's CEO has said generated lines are being swapped for recorded ones.

Sound designer field-tests Lectrosonics mic on basketball effects

Mix (Mix Staff) · Nov 4

Mix reports that Bill Kole used Lectrosonics' newest microphone to record basketball sound effects for major video games.

iZotope releases Photon for stem separation and denoising

Sonic State · Nov 3

iZotope's Photon is a standalone app and ARA plugin that uses GPU acceleration for AI-powered stem separation and denoising.

Pro Tools 2026.11 adds Extensions, stem separation and MPE

Production Expert (Mike Thornton) · Nov 3

Avid's update introduces Pro Tools Extensions, a new plugin format whose first entry is a local Stem Separator included in every tier, along with MIDI Polyphonic Expression and native High DPI scaling on Windows.

Dreadbox announces Alecto analog drum synth

Gearnews (Adam Douglas) · Nov 4

Dreadbox's Alecto is a two-voice analog percussion synthesizer with a polymetric sequencer.

Vibe-coding custom firmware for the M-Vave FM-1

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Nov 4

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Synthesist Floyd Steinberg's video shows how to use AI-assisted coding to write alternate firmware for the M-Vave FM-1 synthesizer.

Previously: Polyend opened its entire Tracker line to open source. — Tuesday November 3 edition.

Mixxx proposal could unite open standalone DJ hardware efforts

CDM (Peter Kirn) · Nov 3

Mixxx's Daniel Schürmann has proposed a shared approach to running the free DJ software on embedded hardware, which CDM says could give open standalone DJing a stable path instead of scattered forks.

Gaming Editorial

Anthropic tells Claude not to recreate existing games, and critics call it a token gesture

Aftermath (Riley MacLeod) · Nov 2

Continuing · AI-generated clone games on Steam

Anthropic added a line to Claude's game-building instructions telling it to make original games, genre games or games from a user's own assets, and not to recreate a specific existing game "even if it is renamed." Aftermath's Riley MacLeod argues this will do little against the flood of clones: other tools remain, and LLM safeguards are easy to talk around, for instance by describing a plumber with a mustache instead of naming Mario.

Eurogamer reports that some users doing what they call legitimate work, such as single-player versions of owned board games, have been refused. MacLeod doesn't see that as an unintended consequence, and says the change mostly helps Anthropic look concerned about theft while it keeps training on others' work. She also doubts that slop games are the core threat to the industry, and concedes the rule is marginally better than nothing.

Counterpoint: Anthropic, via employee Addy Osmani, says the change is meant to keep Claude from helping infringe IP, which its usage policy already prohibits, while leaving original and genre games intact. Defenders of that approach would say a guardrail that isn't airtight still raises the effort needed to clone a game.

Previously: Aftermath reported that itch.io's daily new game pages had doubled in two months while its voluntary AI tag was widely ignored. — Monday November 2 edition.

Aftermath's Luke Plunkett says quitting Spotify takes three steps

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Nov 3

Citing artist pay, layoffs and an upcoming AI-powered remix and cover feature, Plunkett argues the time to leave Spotify is now, and that it is easy. He suggests picking an alternative such as Bandcamp for purchases or Tidal, Apple Music or Qobuz for streaming, and warns against Amazon and YouTube Music. Then move your library and playlists with the platform's own import or a tool like Free Your Music or TuneMyMusic, delete the account and block Spotify's emails.

Counterpoint: Spotify's defenders would say its reach, discovery tools and listener base are hard for artists to replace, and that rivals have their own labor and AI controversies. Plunkett's political charges against the company are his own characterization.

Why most survival games skip the bathroom

Aftermath (Riley MacLeod) · Oct 27

Aftermath's Riley MacLeod asks why a genre that models sock weight and boredom rarely lets characters poop. Developers say the feature tends to be irritating or irrelevant: Creepy Jar's Michał Stawicki says early Green Hell versions had it and it was cut. Others have made it work. SCUM tracks the stomach, intestine and colon, Ostranauts ties it to a StatDefecate need with impaction as a penalty, and Abiotic Factor turns it into a mini-game with a stink debuff and craftable waste.

The piece finds that where the mechanic survives, designers gave it consequences or links to other systems, such as fertilizer, crafting or illness, rather than treating it as realism for its own sake. ARK's cofounder said it exists partly as a way to get unstuck. The piece is cut off in the copy we have, so the author's closing view is not covered here.

Counterpoint: Designers like Stawicki would say leaving it out is sound design rather than a gap, since a need that adds friction without decisions makes the game worse.

Games & Industry in Brief

Nagoshi Studio closes after NetEase pulled funding

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 2

Gang of Dragon developer Nagoshi Studio has shut down, months after NetEase withdrew its funding.

Phantom Blade Zero sells over 4 million copies in three days

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Nov 2

S-Game says its debut Phantom Blade Zero passed 4 million copies in 72 hours, which Eurogamer calls Steam's biggest launch of the year so far, though no per-platform breakdown was given.

Borderlands series passes 100 million copies sold

Eurogamer (Kaan Serin) · Nov 2

Gearbox says the Borderlands franchise has sold more than 100 million copies and that it is working on more Borderlands 4 content for next year.

CI Games lines up $32 million to finish Lords of the Fallen II

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 3

CI Games signed a $32 million (€28.6 million) syndicated credit facility to complete and self-publish Lords of the Fallen II.

Saudi-backed Kingdom of Gaming event pushed to 2027

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 3

The government-backed Kingdom of Gaming event has moved from December to an unspecified 2027 date.

Astragon closes Astragon Development

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 2

Astragon Entertainment is shutting the German studio formerly known as Independent Arts Software.

PlayStudios shuts Tetris Block Party after 177 job cuts

MobileGamer.biz (Neil Long) · Nov 2

PlayStudios has closed Tetris Block Party as a restructuring that began in March, and has cost 177 jobs and four studios, appears to continue.

Schell Games announces a second round of layoffs this year

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Nov 2

The Among Us VR co-developer has announced its second round of layoffs of 2026.

Hoyoverse's Petit Planet launches December 4

MobileGamer.biz (Vikki Blake) · Nov 2

Hoyoverse's first life sim arrives on mobile and PC on December 4 after a year of beta tests.

Bloodborne reportedly sold over 251,000 copies this year

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Nov 2

More than a decade after release, FromSoftware's Bloodborne has reportedly sold over 251,000 copies in 2026 alone.

Former Xbox COO disputes 'policy violation' account of her exit

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Nov 2

Continuing · Xbox leadership changes

Helen Chiang, Xbox's first chief operating officer, who joined in July and left after about three months, rejects claims she was fired for a policy violation and says she has "serious concerns" about how her case was handled.

Previously: Turn 10 founder Dan Greenawalt left after 27 years as the studio merged with Playground Games. — Saturday October 31 edition.

Activision sets November 12 date to remove Itaewon footage from Modern Warfare 4

This Week In Videogames (Maddie Agne) · Nov 2

Continuing · Modern Warfare 4 Itaewon footage backlash

Activision apologised to "bereaved families and victims" and said the crowd-crush footage will be removed in a 12 November update.

Previously: Activision had apologised and said the footage would be removed in November. — Saturday October 31 edition.

Black Parade mod team makes new Thief Remastered expansion

PC Gamer (Ted Litchfield) · Nov 2

Thief Remastered's new expansion is being built by the Black Parade mod team and arrives next month.

AI & Industry

Tech Policy Press argues the SEC should block Anthropic's IPO

Tech Policy Press · Nov 3

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

Tech Policy Press has published an opinion piece arguing the SEC should stop Anthropic's public offering to protect the public.

Previously: Transformer reported that Anthropic had filed for an IPO. — Sunday November 1 edition.

Startups retool Chinese open-weight models for Western clients

Rest of World (Rina Chandran and Viola Zhou) · Nov 2

Rest of World reports a growing number of startups are editing powerful Chinese open-weight models to suit Western businesses worried about censorship and security.

Polling place hands out AI-generated 'I Voted' sticker

404 Media (Matthew Gault) · Nov 2

404 Media's Matthew Gault reports that his polling place gave midterm voters an 'I Voted' sticker he describes as AI slop.

Six Flags Over Georgia investigates fatal Goliath incident

Attractions Magazine (Dani Meyering) · Nov 2

Attractions Magazine is running live updates on the investigation into a fatal incident on the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia, covering eyewitness accounts, official statements and safety inspections.

AI week ahead: data center politics, Apple in China, OpenAI's Congress push

AI Weekly · Nov 2

AI Weekly notes that US voters choose 36 governors today and that in up to 15 races the candidate backing a pause on new data centers could win. Apple begins testing Apple Intelligence in China with Alibaba's Qwen on Wednesday, and OpenAI plans to lobby for "speed limits" on the most powerful AI when Congress returns November 9.

Blooloop makes a data case for a Harry Potter theme park

Blooloop (Bea Mitchell) · Nov 2

Blooloop's Bea Mitchell argues that data supports Warner Bros. opening a Harry Potter theme park.

Science & Archaeology

Radar and electrical scans reveal 2,600-year-old complex at Buto

Live Science (Wafaa Tantawy) · Nov 2

Satellite radar and underground electrical scans found a 2,600-year-old structure beneath Nile mud at Buto, one of ancient Egypt's most sacred cities. Live Science says the surprise was what lay beneath the walls.

30,000-year-old DNA points to well-connected Ice Age Europeans

ScienceDaily · Nov 2

Genetic evidence from human remains and cave sediments suggests Europeans over 30,000 years ago were linked across long distances, challenging the idea of isolated populations. The study also bears on migration and how communities survived the Ice Age.

Genetic study traces the first Hawaiians

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 2

Stanford's Alexander Ioannidis and colleagues analyzed genetic data to track the origins of Hawaii's first settlers, according to Science Alert via Archaeology Magazine.

Paw prints turn up in 4,000-year-old Anatolian bricks

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Nov 2

La Brújula Verde reports animal paw prints in adobe bricks from a Bronze Age building in Kütahya Province, Turkey.

Possible blood cells claimed in 115-million-year-old dinosaur bone

Live Science (Kenna Hughes-Castleberry) · Nov 3

A study says chemical signatures in a Brazilian dinosaur fossil may be preserved red blood cells, though Live Science notes not all experts agree.

Earliest recordings of a nearly extinct American Creole language resurface

Nautilus (Jake Currie) · Nov 2

Nautilus highlights "lost" early recordings of a nearly dead Creole language, which it says carry information that written transcripts cannot.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Arc Raiders uses a sample from a Chernobyl piano

PC Gamer (Elie Gould) · Nov 2

Arc Raiders developers used a music sample recorded from a piano someone discovered in the Chernobyl Forbidden Zone, part of what they describe as the game's unusual sound palette.

Matteo Milani's book tells how a Lucasfilm team invented the DAW

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Nov 2

A Sound Effect talks to Milani about DROIDS, his book on Lucasfilm's early digital audio work, including synthesized arrows for Indiana Jones and washing-machine-sized hard disks. The book is free.

A Sound Effect rounds up 12 new sound libraries

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Nov 2

The roundup includes cinematic explosions, dogs barking across a Spanish valley, Roman ambiences and jungles of Laos.

Polyend opens up the Tracker family and ships community update 1.0

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 2

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Polyend is making its whole Tracker line (OG, Plus and Mini) open source and has released community update 1.0 with major new features.

Previously: Behringer's Polykeys 61 controller was billed as open-source at a $199 target price. — Monday November 2 edition.

Krotos Studio 3.0 adds unified search and send to Pro Tools cursor

Production Expert (Mike Thornton) · Nov 2

Krotos Studio 3.0 is a free update for Studio, Pro and Max subscribers that rebuilds the app around searching and placing sounds. Sounds and preset performances can now go straight to the Pro Tools edit cursor.

EastWest releases Hollywood Scoring Tools

Sonic State · Nov 3

EastWest has released Hollywood Scoring Tools, an all-in-one scoring product for turning musical ideas into finished compositions.

Production Expert lists five checks for vibe-coded audio plugins

Production Expert (Russ Hughes) · Nov 2

With AI-assisted code now in most audio software, Production Expert's Russ Hughes offers five checks for judging whether a plugin and its developer deserve a place in a session.

Itch's AI filter is failing as new game pages double

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Nov 2

Continuing · AI-generated clone games on Steam

Aftermath's Luke Plunkett reports that itch.io's daily count of new game pages has doubled in the past two months, which he attributes almost entirely to AI-generated copycats and vibe-coded 'games'. The platform's voluntary AI tag, introduced in 2024, is widely ignored: Plunkett found plenty of obviously AI-made titles in the latest-releases feed that carried no tag.

Itch itself says downloads and purchases have not doubled, so he argues the harm is to discovery rather than to developers' revenue. Real games get harder to find and the storefront looks like a clearance rack. He doubts that the stronger human moderation that might work for Valve is realistic for a small, community-run site, and he leaves the problem unresolved.

Counterpoint: Developers and advocates who treat generative AI as a legitimate creative tool would say the real problem is spam and discovery, not AI as such, and that better sorting and ranking would help more than tagging or policing.

Previously: GamesIndustry.biz's Rob Fahey called the flood of AI games a 'Slop Grenade' problem for storefronts. — Saturday October 31 edition.

Penguin Colony's maker says the game is a challenge to the industry

Polygon (Matt Patches) · Nov 2

Continuing · Developers and the Xbox BDS boycott

In a Polygon interview, Tali Faulkner of Origanme Digital (Umurangi Generation) describes Penguin Colony as a retelling of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness from the penguins' point of view, with anticolonial and antifascist themes. He says he wanted the message in the game to be hard to ignore, and that he sees the games industry as having failed to respond to the violence in Palestine. Polygon connects the game to the Xbox boycott.

On the practical side, Faulkner credits Australian government funding, noting the game cap is about $100,000 against a $10 million film minimum. He also credits publisher Fellow Traveler for taking the pitch without demanding changes, and says development took roughly a year.

Counterpoint: Platform holders and publishers that avoid public political positions would say their stores and catalogs should stay out of geopolitical disputes, and some players share that view.

Previously: Celeste and TowerFall were pulled from the Xbox store in support of the boycott. — Friday October 30 edition.

Why Next Fest AI disclosures can't simply be added up

GameDiscoverCo (Simon Carless) · Oct 30

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Simon Carless's GameDiscoverCo newsletter argues that public AI disclosures on Steam can't just be summed to measure AI use in Next Fest demos. The piece points to a less obvious signal in the event data that complicates any headline count. The issue also carries the usual Steam discovery news and weekly charts.

The takeaway is that tallies of disclosed AI use are a shaky proxy for how much generative AI is actually in games.

Counterpoint: Critics of generative AI who want clearer labelling would say that messy disclosure data is an argument for stricter, standardised rules, not for dismissing the counts.

Previously: Roblox said 80% of its top 100 games used AI tools. — Sunday November 1 edition.

A horror-averse writer tries Amnesia and mostly fails

This Week In Videogames (Maddie Agne) · Oct 30

This Week In Videogames' Maddie Agne set out to overcome her fear of horror games by playing Frictional's 2010 Amnesia: The Dark Descent on PlayStation 4. She admits she didn't finish it, managing only brief sessions after long stretches of dread.

She also spoke to Marc Andersen of Aarhus University's Recreational Fear Lab, who describes the 'paradox of horror', the question of why people enjoy an unpleasant emotion. He says the lab's studies point to a 'sweet spot of fear' where fear becomes pleasurable, and Agne's attempt shows how easily it is missed.

Counterpoint: Horror fans might say that having an escape hatch such as Story Mode or watching others play, as Agne does, is itself a legitimate way to enjoy the genre and needs no 'curing'.

Polygon says Phantom Blade Zero edges Crimson Desert out of GOTY

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Oct 31

Polygon's Oli Welsh argues that S-Game's Phantom Blade Zero, with Metacritic and OpenCritic scores of 88 and 89 and strong Steam numbers, is the likelier Game of the Year nominee of the two. He calls it and Crimson Desert (Metacritic 77) 'outsider AAA', ambitious non-big-publisher games that appeal to similar Game Awards jurors, and argues Black Myth: Wukong's nomination shows such games travel well.

He says Phantom Blade Zero's better reviews and tighter focus effectively cancel out Crimson Desert, though both could make it, and he would welcome the recognition for new international development scenes.

Counterpoint: Crimson Desert's supporters, whose backing Welsh acknowledges, would say its update schedule has kept it relevant. Fans of both games may also vote for both at the nomination stage, so the two are not strictly rivals.

PC Gamer's writer welcomes WoW: Forever's slower update pace

PC Gamer (Harvey Randall) · Nov 1

PC Gamer's Harvey Randall, 50-plus hours into the World of Warcraft: Forever beta ahead of its November 4 launch, says he is relieved by principal designer Kris Zierhut's plan for major updates roughly every four months, instead of the eight to ten weeks of Season of Discovery. He says retail WoW's seasonal churn has left him exhausted and afraid of missing content.

He is wary of the staggered content planned between patches, but hopes it will be optional and not pressure players to keep up.

Counterpoint: Players who enjoy Season of Discovery's rapid cadence, and those who want constant fresh content, may find a four-month rhythm too slow.

Games & Industry in Brief

Dune: Awakening's free Blood and Ice expansion lands December 1

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 1

Funcom's Dune: Awakening gets a free expansion, Blood and Ice, on December 1 that adds a frozen new map.

Cancelled Portal prequel F-Stop is now playable after leaks

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Nov 1

Leaked assets and source code, plus work by modders, have made what exists of the cancelled Portal prequel F-Stop fully playable.

Melvor Idle 2 becomes an official RuneScape spinoff

PC Gamer (Justin Wagner) · Nov 1

Jagex has partnered with Melvor Idle's developers so the sequel carries the subtitle 'A RuneScape Adventure'.

Modern Warfare 4 has worse input lag on Switch 2 than PS5

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 1

Eurogamer reports that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 on Switch 2 shows noticeably higher input lag than on PS5, which could disadvantage Nintendo players in multiplayer.

Chronicles: Medieval studio faces closure after losing funding

PC Gamer (Rick Lane) · Nov 1

The developer of Chronicles: Medieval says it faces imminent closure after losing funding just short of an early access launch, but that it is 'not going down without a fight'.

HoYoverse's Animal Crossing-style Petit Planet heads to Switch 2 in 2027

Polygon (Tomas Franzese) · Nov 1

Petit Planet, HoYoverse's Animal Crossing-like life sim, will come to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2027, the first console it will be ported to.

Selaco's Machines of War update to double the game's size

PC Gamer (Rick Lane) · Nov 1

Selaco: The Machines of War, a free expansion that roughly doubles the FPS's size and adds a heavy machine gun, arrives later this month.

Modders add multiplayer to Mass Effect Legendary Edition

PC Gamer (Jody Macgregor) · Nov 2

Modders are bringing Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode to Mass Effect Legendary Edition.

GOG weighs bringing back physical games

PC Gamer (Justin Wagner) · Nov 1

GOG says it wants to offer physical copies of its games on demand but calls it 'a very, very complicated thing'.

Playground's Fable reboot will be single-player only

Polygon (Ari Notis) · Nov 1

Playground Games' Fable reboot will have no multiplayer, which Polygon notes drops a feature of the earlier games.

Pikmin 4 Switch 2 Edition launches November 12

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 1

Pikmin 4 Nintendo Switch 2 Edition launches on November 12 with a new mode called Dandori Academy, and a demo is due before release.

At Dead of Night sequel The Great Hugo coming 'very' soon

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Nov 1

Baggy Cat Games says the sequel to its viral FMV horror At Dead of Night, The Great Hugo, is coming '(very) soon'.

AI & Industry

Nathan Lambert revisits open models and cyber risk after 'Black October'

Interconnects (Nathan Lambert) · Oct 30

Continuing · PHP2Shell vulnerabilities in core PHP

Interconnects' Nathan Lambert asks whether he underrated the cyber risk of open models, after October's run of serious disclosures, including PHP2Shell and a long-standing GitLab bug, which some read as AI-model cyber risk becoming real.

Previously: Street Fighter V was delisted and its online functions switched off after the PHP flaw. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

AO3 offline for up to a month after hack

PC Gamer (Ted Litchfield) · Nov 1

Fan-fiction archive Archive of Our Own is down for as long as a month following a hack, PC Gamer reports.

Blood in the Machine looks at data centres and AI in the US midterms

Blood in the Machine (Brian Merchant) · Oct 30

Brian Merchant and Paris Marx discuss data centres, AI and the 2026 elections, and Merchant lists three things to watch as Americans vote on Tuesday.

Shrek immersive experience coming to Cosm

Attractions Magazine (Dani Meyering) · Oct 31

Cosm will mark Shrek's 25th anniversary with an immersive experience that surrounds audiences with the film's swamp world.

Piston Peak construction under way at Magic Kingdom

Attractions Magazine (Mateo Osorio) · Nov 1

Construction has begun on Piston Peak, which will bring two Cars rides to Magic Kingdom on the site of Tom Sawyer Island.

Gamebox launches a KPop Demon Hunters game

Blooloop (Bea Mitchell) · Oct 30

Immersive arcade company Gamebox has launched an experience based on Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters.

Science & Archaeology

Egyptian ape fossil may shift the origin of modern apes

ScienceDaily · Nov 1

A 17- to 18-million-year-old ape fossil found in Egypt suggests that North Africa and the Middle East, not East Africa, may have been the cradle of modern ape evolution.

3D maps show the interstellar medium is dynamic

Quanta Magazine (Perri Thaler) · Oct 30

Quanta reports that new 3D mapping of the interstellar medium is replacing the picture of a static backdrop with one of a dynamic, changing galaxy.

Cold fusion's legacy lives on in exotic-atom research

Quanta Magazine (George Musser) · Oct 30

Quanta's George Musser describes an active research program on exotic atoms that grew out of cold fusion's wreckage; it won't solve the energy crisis but pushes the boundaries of physics.

IEEE retracts 1,400 conference papers in one day

Nature (Miryam Naddaf) · Oct 30

Nature reports that IEEE pulled 1,400 conference papers in a single day, a record, after a study linked them to paper mills.

Simulations hint giant planets destabilise sooner than thought

Live Science (Abha Jain) · Oct 30

A new study suggests the outer solar system's giant planets could descend into chaos just a few billion years after the sun runs out of fuel, much sooner than previously estimated.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Noisevember opens on Airwiggles

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Nov 1

A Sound Effect announces that Noisevember has started on Airwiggles, with a sound design contest and prizes.

Lena Raine on how Pigstep changed Minecraft's music

PC Gamer (Rick Lane) · Nov 1

The Celeste and Minecraft composer tells PC Gamer that after Pigstep's success, the request she hears most is for more 'bangers'.

Techno originator Juan Atkins dies at 64

CDM (Peter Kirn) · Nov 2

CDM reports the death of Juan Atkins, who coined the term 'techno' and is often called its originator, at 64.

Behringer Polykeys 61 is an open-source controller with polyphonic aftertouch

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 1

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Behringer's new 61-key MIDI controller has a polyphonic aftertouch keybed and open-source firmware, at a target price of $199.

Previously: Behringer published the source code for its IGNITE sequencer. — Sunday November 1 edition.

FabFilter Twin 3 gains MPE support in update 3.10

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 1

FabFilter's subtractive synth plugin Twin 3 now supports MPE with version 3.10.

Slate Digital offers 16 free plugins

Production Expert (Mike Thornton) · Nov 1

Slate's Complete Access Free Collection gives away 16 plugins from four brands, covering compression, saturation, EQ and reverb, with no expiry date.

Gaming Editorial

EFF defends VPNs as Russia again pulls them from Apple's App Store

EFF Deeplinks (Hayley Tsukayama) · Oct 30

EFF's Hayley Tsukayama says developers are reporting that VPN apps are again being removed from Apple's App Store in Russia. She calls it an attack on a basic privacy tool, one that shows websites only the VPN server's address and can let people reach information their government has banned. She cites reports that Roskomnadzor went after VPN apps in 2024, that Russia blocked FaceTime in 2025, and that Bloomberg says Apple and Microsoft were added to a state surveillance registry.

Tsukayama argues this is not only a Russian problem. She points to several US states that, while trying to enforce age-gating laws, have floated restricting or banning VPNs, and says EFF will keep opposing such proposals.

Counterpoint: EFF is an advocacy group, and supporters of age-verification laws would answer that VPNs let minors get around protections the law requires. Platforms such as Apple also say they must follow local law to stay in a market, though EFF would say that is exactly the pressure point.

Respec asks whether anyone needs a $1,000 PlayStation 6

Respec (Alex Donaldson) · Oct 30

On the Respec Ramblings podcast, Alex Donaldson and Tom debate whether the industry should pause the next console generation as predicted prices climb past $1,000. The episode covers the component crisis, rising console prices, streaming's role and Xbox's future. It also lists the seven PS5 first-party exclusives the hosts think justify the console. Tom's thesis is that the current generation has not delivered enough to justify a rush to the next one.

Counterpoint: Hardware makers and developers pushing for new capabilities would say that waiting does not remove cost pressure on current consoles, and that a generation that stalls leaves studios building for ageing hardware.

Totilo finds Vice City narrowed GTA's freedom and San Andreas pointed to GTA VI

Game File (Stephen Totilo) · Oct 31

In the second part of his replay of the series, Game File's Stephen Totilo says GTA: Vice City gave up some of GTA III's player freedom. He cites missions that stage a chainsaw, a golf cart and a crashed motorbike so the intended spectacle is clear, and he calls it a wild game on Rockstar's terms.

He says San Andreas, which he replayed afterwards, surprised him as a radical detour from Vice City. He now reads it as a set-up for the direction Rockstar seems to be taking with GTA VI, and says it changed how he sees the unofficial sex scene.

Counterpoint: Players who prize Vice City's cinematic, authored set pieces would say a directed Rockstar is the series at its best, and that scripting is not a loss of freedom.

Aftermath's Chris Person says it is time to leave Windows for Linux

Aftermath (Chris Person) · Oct 30

Aftermath's Chris Person argues that Windows 11 has become miserable to use and that Microsoft's AI push and its dealings with Israel make a case for moving off it. He quotes the BDS movement, which treats Xbox as a priority boycott and Microsoft more broadly as a pressure target, and which suggests free and open software where a full break is not feasible.

Person also notes that using Windows for work is not a personal failing. He cites France's DINUM moving to a NixOS-based system as a sign that governments are looking for alternatives to US tech. His conclusion is that Linux is the way forward, and that it gets easier every day.

Counterpoint: Microsoft would reject the characterisation of its Israel work, noting it restricted some cloud services to Unit 8200. Many users and employers would add that Windows compatibility for games and workplace software still makes Linux impractical for them.

Aftermath writer recounts selling $16,000 of Pokémon cards for a relative

Aftermath (Lucas DeRuyter) · Oct 26

Continuing · Resellers in Pokémon and retro gaming markets

Lucas DeRuyter describes helping a soon-to-be grandmother-in-law sell Pokémon cards and merchandise valued at $16,000 to $20,000, a process that ran from June to October 2025 and strained his relationship. He describes the collectors market as a speculative commodities market driven by scarcity and nostalgia, and says it resembles the Greater Fool theory. He also notes that competitive decks cost $25 to $36 and that the most valuable cards are unplayable.

He concludes the money was not worth it and offers the account as a cautionary tale, citing sweaty, misogynistic buyers and constant family pressure.

Counterpoint: Collectors and professional resellers would say the market is less predatory than described, and that sellers with documentation and patience can get fair prices. Aftermath's own Nicole Carpenter has defended the community side of the hobby.

Previously: Aftermath's Plunkett argued the sneaker market shows speculative reseller booms eventually fade. — Thursday October 29 edition.

Ritual Tides joins a wave of UK coast horror games

This Week In Videogames (Jamie Hore) · Oct 29

This Week in Videogames' Jamie Hore says 2026 has made the UK coast a horror setting, pointing to Silent Hill: Townfall, the cosier No Ghosts at The Grand (early access December 2026) and Ritual Tides. Hore interviews James MacLeod, a former Rockstar developer and head of studio Vertpaint, about the game. It is a first-person horror game set in the late 1800s on a fictional Cornish island called Hortus, with Bude as a main inspiration.

MacLeod cites The Wicker Man, Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Lovecraft as influences, and says he wants to bend Victorian rural folklore into something sinister. Hore's case is that the region's bleak winter coastline suits the genre.

Counterpoint: Three games in one year is a thin basis for a trend, and the piece is a preview built around the developer's own account of the project. Coastal British horror has also long been a staple of film and literature.

Games & Industry in Brief

Final Fantasy 14's Evercold expansion dated for February 2027

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Oct 31

Final Fantasy 14's Evercold expansion launches on 23 February 2027, with the second new job, zephyr, a ranged physical DPS that uses a crossbow and a bird, and pre-orders opening next week.

Warframe heads to the Tau system in December

Polygon (Tomas Franzese) · Oct 31

Warframe will leave the Origin System for the new Tau star system before the end of the year.

Nintendo's Pikmin Day Direct announces Hello! Pikmin

Polygon (Michael McWhertor) · Oct 31

Shigeru Miyamoto announced Hello! Pikmin and other Nintendo franchise news in a Pikmin Day Direct.

Silent Hill: Townfall adds Hard mode

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Oct 31

Silent Hill: Townfall's latest update adds a Hard difficulty and rebalances every existing setting to make room for it.

Star Wars fan game Fate of the Galaxy releases free after nearly two decades

Polygon (Elijah Gonzalez) · Oct 30

The Star Wars space combat fan game Fate of the Galaxy has been released for free after almost two decades in development.

Alien: Isolation mod tools reach 1.0

PC Gamer (Jody Macgregor) · Nov 1

After nearly a decade of work, the Alien: Isolation mod tools hit version 1.0 with support for custom maps, missions, modes, characters, weapons, animations, sounds, models and textures.

Former volunteer threatens legal action against Skyblivion

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Oct 31

A former volunteer on the fan remake Skyblivion, which rebuilds Oblivion in Skyrim's engine, is threatening legal action over code they contributed to the project.

Walmart sends $519 gift cards over cancelled Ocarina of Time Switch 2 orders

Polygon (Ashely Claudino) · Oct 31

Walmart could not fill every special Ocarina of Time Switch 2 order and is sending affected customers $519 gift cards.

Sony buys film rights to Mouthwashing

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Oct 30

Sony has acquired the movie rights to the 2024 indie horror game Mouthwashing.

World of Horror gets free As Below So Above update

Rock Paper Shotgun (Edwin Evans-Thirlwell) · Oct 30

World of Horror's free PC update As Below So Above adds two Old God invasions plus more enemies, mysteries, characters, items, spells, curses and injuries, along with quality-of-life fixes.

Bungie says unvaulted Destiny 2 content may not arrive until early 2028

This Week In Videogames (Jamie Hore) · Oct 30

Bungie's Josh Deane shared a rough plan for reinstating vaulted Destiny 2 content, with the first wave possibly not arriving until early 2028.

AI & Industry

Latent Space: Google concedes AI Mode hurts Search revenue

Latent Space (swyx .ai) · Oct 31

Latent Space's AINews says Google acknowledged that AI Mode hurts Search revenue, and that the stock fell about 15%, a roughly $500 billion drop and the worst since its 2004 IPO. The newsletter asks whether an AI bear market is coming.

Researchers describe attack chain that took over ChatGPT accounts

Simon Willison · Nov 1

Parameter Labs found an exploit in ChatGPT's HTML previews feature, which shows custom HTML apps in a sandboxed iframe. The chain used the MathLive library's virtual keyboard, which can be triggered in the parent page through postMessage, per Simon Willison's summary.

Judge urges privacy expert for Character.AI before Disney deal

WDW News Today (Austin Haughton) · Oct 31

Continuing · Disney's bid for Character.ai assets

Per Bloomberg, a federal bankruptcy judge urged Character.AI to appoint an independent privacy expert over concerns about potential harm to children as Disney pursues its $20 million bid to license the technology.

Previously: 404 Media's podcast discussed the Character.ai bankruptcy. — Monday October 26 edition.

State filing puts Imagineering layoffs at 159

WDW News Today (Lauren Stracner) · Oct 31

Continuing · Disney theme park layoffs

A state filing confirms that 159 Walt Disney Imagineering employees were laid off in the latest round.

Previously: At least 100 park division employees, including Imagineers, were laid off. — Thursday October 29 edition.

Roblox says 80% of its top 100 games used AI tools

This Week In Videogames (Jamie Hore) · Oct 30

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

In its Q3 2026 shareholder letter, Roblox said 80% of its top 100 games used AI tools to speed up creation, and that AI use on the platform surged during the quarter.

Previously: Roblox said 70,000 games were published in five months and credited AI-assisted development. — Saturday October 31 edition.

SeaWorld Orlando pushes SeaQuest to 2027

Attractions Magazine (Blake Taylor) · Oct 31

SeaWorld has confirmed SeaQuest: Legends of the Deep will open in 2027 rather than 2026, as the park's first suspended dark ride.

Transformer asks whether this was the AI election

Transformer (Shakeel Hashim) · Oct 30

Continuing · AI in US midterm political advertising

Transformer Weekly's roundup asks whether this was the AI election, alongside reports that Anthropic has filed for an IPO, that the Trump administration ignored an Nvidia espionage plot, and that Rep. Casar is threatening hearings.

Previously: Platformer said voters have other concerns and covered OpenAI's deepfake policy. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

Science & Archaeology

4,000-year-old wall in Morocco points to complex prehistoric societies

ScienceDaily · Oct 31

A defensive structure about 4,000 years old found in Morocco suggests North African societies were more sophisticated than thought, and that the region played a larger role in Mediterranean history.

Neanderthal may have been killed by a spear to the heart

ScienceDaily · Oct 31

A circular hole in the shoulder blade of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal suggests a wooden spear pierced the chest. The same individual had survived a severe facial injury earlier, which suggests other Neanderthals cared for them.

Possible 'shrine maiden' figure found in Japanese burial mound

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 31

Archaeologists have unearthed a human-shaped funeral offering at a 1,500-year-old burial mound in Japan that may represent an ancient priestess.

Scientists analyse wine once made with ground-up mummies

404 Media (Becky Ferreira) · Oct 31

A new study examines the chemistry of a once-popular medicinal drink made with ground-up Egyptian mummies, per 404 Media's Becky Ferreira.

Australia returns looted statue heads to China

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 30

China Daily reports that Australian officials have repatriated the looted heads of two ancient statues to China.

Hubble finds stellar winds block rather than clear early universe's fog

ScienceDaily · Oct 30

New Hubble observations challenge a leading explanation for how the universe emerged from its hydrogen fog about 13 billion years ago, showing that winds from exploding stars block radiation instead of helping it escape galaxies.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Behringer publishes source code for IGNITE sequencer

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Oct 31

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Music Tribe has released source code for the 64-channel IGNITE hardware sequencer, covering its application, audio engine and hardware communication protocol, with MIDI and CV/Gate details.

Previously: Behringer's BCR32 now has open-source firmware. — Saturday October 31 edition.

ROLI reportedly in administration for a second time

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 31

Synth Anatomy, citing The Times, reports that ROLI is in administration for the second time, three months after its earlier financial trouble.

Airwindows Consolidated arrives on iOS for free

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Nov 1

Sveinbjorn Palsson has released a free iOS port of Airwindows Consolidated, bringing more than 500 of Chris Johnson's effects to the platform.

IK Multimedia announces TONEX Parametric Tone Model technology

Sonic State · Oct 30

IK Multimedia has announced TONEX Parametric Tone Model technology for guitar tone.

Behringer gives first update in a long time on VCX3 EMS VCS3 clone

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 31

Behringer has shared its first update in a long time on the VCX3, its clone of the EMS VCS3 analog synthesizer.

Production Expert asks whether TV is mixed in rooms that are too big

Production Expert (Mike Greenberg) · Oct 30

Mike Greenberg asks whether the large traditional dubbing stage, where much scripted TV is mixed, contributes to the dialogue intelligibility problems viewers have at home.

Warsaw Wave releases Revolt patchable synth

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Oct 30

Warsaw Wave's Revolt, a software synth with configurable oscillators, flexible modulation routing and extensive randomization, runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Gaming Editorial

Fahey: storefronts face a 'Slop Grenade' problem

GamesIndustry.biz (Rob Fahey) · Oct 30

Continuing · AI-generated clone games on Steam

Rob Fahey of GamesIndustry.biz argues that a concerted and not especially subtle campaign is under way to manufacture consent for AI use in game development. He casts the flood of generated games as a problem that lands on storefronts, which have to absorb it. The piece adds an industry-trade voice to the Steam clone-game argument, and it frames the issue as one of persuasion as much as volume.

Counterpoint: Platform and engine holders see it differently: Roblox says AI-assisted development is driving an "explosion of content", and Epic has said it will use generative AI across Fortnite and Unreal Engine 6.

Previously: Aftermath argued that Steam has become de facto infrastructure and that Valve is not acting like its custodian. — Friday October 30 edition.

Lovell: 'What's your budget?' no longer makes sense

GamesIndustry.biz (Nicolas Lovell) · Oct 30

Nicolas Lovell of Spilt Milk Studios looks back three years to the Kickstarter for the cosy shop sim Trash Goblin. Seventy-four publishers had turned the game down, one of them pulling out in what the team expected to be the final contract meeting, even though players seemed to love it. His argument, per the headline, is that a single budget figure is the wrong way to describe or evaluate a game in 2026.

Counterpoint: Publishers and investors, who need a cost figure to judge risk and returns, would say a budget remains the basic unit for deciding what to fund.

Aftermath: horror fans and devs on why the genre is undervalued

Aftermath (Ashley Bardhan) · Oct 30

Ashley Bardhan argues that horror games deserve a place in the artistic canon but are avoided by players who don't want to feel afraid. Developers she interviewed back the case. Hellraiser: Revival narrative director Antony de Fault says games lean toward escapism over enrichment, and darkwebSTREAMER's Chantal Ryan says horror exists to confront unpleasant feelings.

Bardhan points to institutions such as the Golden Globes, which has no horror category, as evidence the genre is undervalued, and says the Silent Hill fandom still measures new entries against Kojima's cancelled P.T. She concludes that players need the courage to be frightened because art reflects the unpleasant parts of life.

Counterpoint: Players who choose games for escapism would say that wanting comfort is not a failing, and de Fault himself acknowledges that the medium leans that way.

Aftermath Hours: two ex-IGN staff say 'IGN is not a monolith'

Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) · Oct 30

Nathan Grayson hosts Max Scoville and Brian Altano, who each spent over a decade at IGN before layoffs pushed them to launch the independent X Button network about two weeks ago. They argue that IGN is hundreds of different people, so treating one reviewer's score as the outlet's verdict is a mistake. Altano describes waking up to anger over a review he never wrote, citing the backlash to a ten for Mixtape, and says audiences read any review as a slight against a product they are invested in.

Counterpoint: Critics of IGN's scoring would say a masthead trades on one brand and can fairly be held to account for its aggregate output.

TWIV: women's autofiction horror games and FMV

This Week In Videogames (Ashley Bardhan) · Oct 30

Ashley Bardhan writes about developers who put themselves in their FMV horror games. Cara Cadaver uses her own photos and video in Vile: Exhumed, which Steam banned in 2025 for "sexual content with depictions of real people" and which is now free to download. Emily Pitcher draws on her upbringing as a Chinese-American girl for lily's world XD.

Bardhan calls the form autofiction horror and sets it in a line from Roberta Williams' 1995 Phantasmagoria to Sam Barlow's interactive films. She argues that making these games lets their creators reclaim control over frightening real experiences.

Counterpoint: Valve's stated reason for the ban points to a content-rule question about depicting real people rather than a judgement on theme, and it would likely say the rule applies regardless of artistic intent.

EFF: rewriting copyright for generative AI would hurt everyone

EFF Deeplinks (Tori Noble) · Oct 31

EFF has filed an amicus brief in In re OpenAI arguing that narrowing fair use would harm researchers, journalists, artists and ordinary internet users, not just AI companies. It says courts have already found fair use in some training cases, and that treating unlicensed copying as disqualifying would put scraping used by watchdog researchers at risk. It also warns that mandatory licensing would entrench the largest firms, citing Lawrence Lessig on the cost of licensing everything.

EFF adds that creators are unlikely to benefit much from expanded rights, and concludes that rewriting copyright to help them would mostly help powerful media and tech companies.

Counterpoint: The authors and publishers suing AI companies argue that training on their work without permission or payment lets models compete with them, and that licensing is the proper remedy.

Games & Industry in Brief

Activision apologises for Itaewon footage in Modern Warfare 4

Polygon (Sam Hill) · Oct 30

Continuing · Modern Warfare 4 Itaewon footage backlash

Activision apologised for using footage of the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 and said it will remove it in November.

Previously: Bereaved families and a citizens group had asked Activision to remove the real crowd-crush footage. — Friday October 30 edition.

Report: EA closed BioWare to fund a Star Wars: Battlefront sequel

Game Developer (Imran Khan) · Oct 30

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

A new report says Electronic Arts shut BioWare to move resources away from Mass Effect and toward a new Star Wars: Battlefront game.

Previously: Greg Zeschuk criticised executives and AI cutbacks while EA staff described collapsing morale. — Friday October 30 edition.

Roblox beats Q3 expectations

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 30

Roblox reported third-quarter revenue up 16% to $1.6bn, beating expectations, though bookings fell 12% to $1.7bn.

John Romero's cancelled game gets a new publisher

Game Developer (Imran Khan) · Oct 30

John Romero's game, cancelled by Xbox, has been picked up by a new publisher with a reduced scope, and he has kept part of his team.

Forza's Dan Greenawalt leaves Microsoft after 27 years

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Oct 30

Continuing · Xbox leadership changes

Turn 10 founder and vice president Dan Greenawalt has left Microsoft after 27 years, as the studio merges with Playground Games.

Previously: Helen Chiang was allegedly terminated for policy violations. — Tuesday October 27 edition.

Mina the Hollower buys Yacht Club stability 'for now'

Eurogamer (Kaan Serin) · Oct 30

Yacht Club Games says Mina the Hollower sold well enough to keep the studio going, and most of its developers are now on a new 3D game, possibly Shovel Knight 3D.

FromSoftware pulls Dark Souls 2 and 3 servers

Eurogamer (Kaan Serin) · Oct 30

FromSoftware says the online servers for Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 will be temporarily closed because of an unspecified issue.

Soulframe opens to all on 6 November

Rock Paper Shotgun (Edwin Evans-Thirlwell) · Oct 30

Digital Extremes will open its fantasy RPG Soulframe to everyone on 6 November after two years of closed alpha, just before its 17th major update, Verse of the Veilands.

Crimson Desert Enhanced Edition gets a five-hour demo

Eurogamer (Dom Peppiatt) · Oct 30

A demo of Crimson Desert Enhanced Edition on PlayStation and Xbox allows five hours of play with save carry-over, for a game that sold over 6 million copies in three months.

Phantom Blade Zero peaks at 731,026 concurrent players

Game World Observer (Evgeny Obedkov) · Oct 30

S-GAME's Phantom Blade Zero reached 731,026 concurrent Steam users on 30 October, the 15th-highest peak in Steam history.

Blizzard hints at console ports for World of Warcraft: Forever

Eurogamer (Kaan Serin) · Oct 30

Blizzard has signalled it is taking console versions of World of Warcraft: Forever seriously, saying players will be able to play it on whatever they want "at some point".

Death Stranding anime gets first teaser

Polygon (Francesco Cacciatore) · Oct 30

Death Stranding Isolations has released its first teaser trailer ahead of a 2027 release.

AI & Industry

Proton CEO cancels AI 're-interviews'

404 Media (Joseph Cox) · Oct 30

Continuing · Proton AI re-interviews of staff

Proton CEO Andy Yen has cancelled the AI re-interviews after 404 Media published its investigation into his push for AI across the company despite security concerns.

Previously: 404 Media reported the CEO was pushing AI-built code despite engineers' security concerns. — Friday October 30 edition.

Anthropic steers Claude Code away from remaking games

Game Developer (Bryant Francis) · Oct 30

Anthropic has released an update to Opus 5.5 to steer Claude Code away from "recreating someone else's specific game", it confirmed to Game Developer.

Epoch AI: models can turn security patches into exploits

Epoch AI (Aiden Ament) · Oct 30

Epoch AI reports that in its experiments GLM 5.3 reliably turned published security patches into working exploits before fixes reached users.

Roblox cites 70,000 new games in five months

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Oct 30

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Roblox says AI-assisted development is driving an explosion of content, with 70,000 games published on the platform in the last five months.

Previously: Epic confirmed gen-AI will be used across Fortnite and Unreal Engine 6, and Willison called October an inflection point for vibe-coded games. — Thursday October 29 edition.

Southern California parks lose ground after record attendance

Blooloop (Bea Mitchell) · Oct 30

Continuing · Universal theme park revenue and Epic Universe

Blooloop reports that Southern California theme parks lost ground after setting attendance records.

Previously: Theme Park Insider said the attendance report was bad news for many parks. — Friday October 30 edition.

What's coming to Orlando parks in 2027

Attractions Magazine (Jon Self) · Oct 30

Attractions Magazine rounds up Orlando's planned 2027 openings, including Disney and Universal additions and a new resort hotel, with some opening dates still uncertain.

Reddit to move to logged-in-only access

PC Gamer (Tyler Wilde) · Oct 30

Reddit will move to a logged-in-only experience, with exact details still being worked out and AI the driver, according to PC Gamer.

Science & Archaeology

UV light reveals mineral coatings in Chauvet Cave

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 30

A team including Philippe Walter and Yohan Boulard used UV light to reveal mineral coatings in Chauvet Cave, SciNews reports.

Wooden cupboard excavated in a Pompeii house

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 30

Archaeologists have uncovered a wooden cupboard in a house at Pompeii, Reuters reports.

First-century cremation tomb found at Turkish theater site

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 30

A first-century cremation tomb has been unearthed at a theater site near Bursa in northwestern Turkey, according to Türkiye Today.

700-plus Roman coins recovered in Hungary

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 30

More than 700 Roman coins were found at three sites near the Drava River in Somogy County.

Sahara meteorite is a rare piece of Mars' ancient crust

Ars Technica (Jacek Krywko) · Oct 30

A meteorite found in the Sahara is a rare fragment of Mars' ancient crust, offering a view of the planet's early geology, Ars Technica reports.

Why crocodiles survived the asteroid

ScienceDaily · Oct 30

An analysis of fossils and ancient climates suggests crocodiles survived the asteroid impact because their preference for warm environments placed them in tropical refuges that stayed habitable.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Behind the horror sound of 'Crystal Lake'

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Oct 27

Supervising sound editors and re-recording mixers Steve Giammaria and Nicholas Renbeck discuss the horror sound of Crystal Lake, focusing on episode one, in a Tonebenders interview covered by A Sound Effect.

sndstation turns cheap gaming handhelds into music workstations

CDM (Peter Kirn) · Oct 30

CDM has an exclusive first look at sndstation, an open-source project that turns inexpensive handheld gaming consoles into Linux music workstations able to run plug-ins and original games.

Behringer BCR32 gets open-source firmware

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 30

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

The BCR32 MIDI/CV controller with sequencer, a successor to the BCR2000 that has been shipping in small quantities, now has open-source firmware.

Previously: Behringer's SP1200X shipped with open-source firmware. — Friday October 30 edition.

Neve launches Elements range and 8424E console

Sound On Sound (Luke Wood SOS News Editor) · Oct 30

Neve's first digitally controlled analogue products are three eight-channel rackmount processors, alongside a revised 8424 console called the 8424E.

Electra One Mk3 arrives

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 31

The Czech company's flagship platform-based MIDI controller gets a third generation with a major redesign and better hardware.

Analogue Solutions opens pre-orders for Series 700 modular

Sonic State · Oct 30

Analogue Solutions' hardware recreation of Roland's System 700 is open for pre-order after its showing at Synthfest UK in Sheffield on 24 October.

Light Reft's DZA.grain makes a granular sampler of the 3DS and PSP

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 30

Light Reft has released DZA.grain, which turns a Nintendo 3DS or Sony PSP into a granular sampler.

Gaming Editorial

Aftermath: Steam is now public infrastructure, and Valve doesn't want the job

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Oct 30

Continuing · AI-generated clone games on Steam

Luke Plunkett argues that Steam has become something close to public infrastructure for Western PC games, the one place where AA, strategy and indie teams still sell in volume. Valve, in his telling, is a privately held company that wants to sell games rather than steward a market. He points to its patchy enforcement of its own AI-disclosure rules, its failure to deal with clones and copycats, and its long-running discoverability problems.

Plunkett accepts that Valve has no obligation to change, but says that however it treats the store sets the terms for everyone who depends on it. He warns that tolerating slop and ignoring AI rules could erode trust among developers and buyers. He closes by hoping Marc Wilkinson's remark that many people at Valve are working on discoverability and slop leads to real fixes.

Counterpoint: Valve and its defenders would say a lightly curated open store is the reason Steam works, and that heavier policing means more arbitrary rejections and more power over what gets sold; the comments Plunkett responds to were also made informally at a trade show, not as policy.

Previously: Valve's earlier response to AI clone games was to suggest developers make their games harder to copy. — Thursday October 29 edition.

Aftermath: Games PR sends an email every four minutes, and nobody reads them

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Oct 30

For Inside Baseball Week, Luke Plunkett shows a day in Aftermath's shared inbox in which a press release arrived roughly every four minutes, mostly for indie Steam games and mostly from third-party PR firms. He says the volume makes his job harder, devalues email and gets the messages ignored. In his view it also shows that the firms don't understand their clients or the state of the media.

He asks PR teams to match outlets and writers to games the way the better reps already do. Failing that, he says, small studios paying for 'outreach' should know that mass mailings mostly slide past unread.

Counterpoint: PR firms would say that blanket mailing is cheap insurance when coverage is scarce and that a game's launch week doesn't allow for careful targeting; a small studio with no press contacts may have no alternative.

Aftermath: How Warframe plans five years ahead and still changes course

Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) · Oct 29

Nathan Grayson talks to creative director Rebecca Ford, who took over in early 2022, about planning a live-service game years out. Much of what is happening now, including the Tau star system and the Sentient storyline, was already on a whiteboard in 2022, and Digital Extremes still plans mostly on whiteboards, with a quarter-by-quarter visual schedule of Warframe releases.

The plan did bend: Tau and the detective frame Brysko were pushed back a year to make room for The Old Peace, an idea from the former leads now on Soulframe, and the demon frame Uriel took Brysko's 2025 slot. Ford's argument is that live-service games must take big swings and keep the flexibility to rearrange them.

Counterpoint: Skeptics would note that this is a success story told by the studio's own creative director about an unusually loyal, long-lived game; most live-service titles lack the audience to survive a mid-plan reshuffle.

Aftermath: At KO-OP, the workers voted on their own layoffs

Aftermath (Riley MacLeod) · Oct 29

Riley MacLeod reports on KO-OP, the Montreal studio behind Goodbye Volcano High and Young Suns, which in September announced it was parting with 13 of roughly 30 people. The decision was made democratically: members knew about the cash shortfall in advance and an elected group planned the cuts, which were ratified by membership. Everyone is paid the same $90K CAD, and affected workers, described as furloughed, keep profit share and voting rights in case they are rehired.

Co-founder Saleem Dabbous says funders now want a polished vertical slice or a year of full-team development, which the studio can't deliver while Young Suns is still in production. Former narrative designer Jenna Yow says the advance notice let them cancel a move to Montreal and relocate near family instead. The piece treats the process as better than a typical layoff while not changing the funding squeeze that caused it.

Counterpoint: Critics of the co-op model would say that equal pay and consensus decisions leave a studio slow to adapt, and that a democratic vote doesn't change the fact that 13 people lost their jobs.

BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk: executives 'have never made a game'

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Oct 30

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

In a rare interview with 80lv, reported by PC Gamer, Zeschuk called BioWare's closure by EA sad, especially for Edmonton, but said his main concern is the people now looking for work. He doesn't regret selling to EA, which offered stability, but says he sensed the PIF takeover would go badly for a studio whose long, complicated games don't fit a guns-and-sports model. He also rejected the idea behind recent mergers and AI-driven cuts that great games can be recreated with 'random people and AI', and said that executives who came up through business rather than development don't know how games get made.

Counterpoint: Executives and investors would say that BioWare's recent output did not justify its cost and that the business side of the industry has to make decisions developers dislike.

Previously: Polygon argued Larian shouldn't take over Dragon Age after BioWare's closure, and Sam Hulick planned to rescore the leaked Mass Effect Universe trailer. — Thursday October 29 edition.

Denis Dyack: AAA publishers are abusing early access

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Oct 29

Former Silicon Knights head Denis Dyack argues that big publishers are using early access as a release strategy rather than a development one, and that games like Subnautica 2 are 'skewing player expectations' of what early access means. His concern, as PC Gamer summarises it, is that this makes things harder for smaller teams who use early access the way it was originally meant.

Counterpoint: Publishers and the developers of large early access games would argue that charging for an unfinished game funds development and brings in player feedback, and that players can see the label before buying.

Games & Industry in Brief

Phantom Blade Zero launches to 431,541 concurrent Steam players

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Oct 29

S-Game's wuxia action game peaked at 431,541 concurrent players on Steam within hours of release, according to SteamDB and Eurogamer.

FromSoftware's The Duskbloods slips to 2027

Eurogamer (Dom Peppiatt) · Oct 29

The Switch 2 exclusive has been delayed from its 2026 window to an unspecified date in 2027.

Xbox hardware sales fall 14% as Sharma cites supply limits

Eurogamer (Robert Purchese) · Oct 29

Xbox leader Asha Sharma said there is 'more demand than consoles available' and that sales remain constrained by supply, as hardware sales dipped 14%.

Ubisoft says no Assassin's Creed remakes are in development

Polygon (Austin Manchester) · Oct 29

Ubisoft confirmed that no Assassin's Creed remakes are currently in production and gave updates on other projects, including Assassin's Creed Hexe.

Donald Glover to write, produce and star in Netflix's PUBG adaptation

Game Developer (Imran Khan) · Oct 29

Netflix has picked up a PUBG Battlegrounds adaptation, with Donald Glover attached to write, produce and star.

Monster Hunter Outlanders launches on mobile, built by Tencent's TiMi

GamesIndustry.biz (Lewis Packwood) · Oct 29

Tencent's TiMi Studio Group released Monster Hunter Outlanders, a mobile take on Capcom's franchise developed in collaboration with Capcom.

Bungie's Destiny 2 unvaulting plan hints at original Destiny on PC

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Oct 29

Bungie's update on restoring vaulted Destiny 2 content suggests the original Destiny is coming to PC, though the restoration itself is a long way off.

Skydance orders five-day office weeks and opens a voluntary buyout

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 29

The newly merged Skydance Corporation is requiring staff in the office five days a week and offering a Voluntary Buyout Program.

Modern Warfare 4 criticised for using real Itaewon crowd-crush footage

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Oct 29

The bereaved families association and the Citizens Countermeasure Meeting are asking Activision to remove real footage of the Itaewon disaster from the game's opening.

Rockstar's union could top 1,600 workers

Game File (Stephen Totilo) · Oct 29

Continuing · Union drives at game studios

Game File reports that the union at Rockstar Games could grow past 1,600 workers.

Previously: Hasbro appointed Dan Ayoub to lead Wizards of the Coast amid a wave of unionization. — Thursday October 29 edition.

Celeste and TowerFall pulled from Xbox store to support BDS boycott

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Oct 29

Co-creator Maddy Thorson confirmed that Celeste and TowerFall were removed from the Xbox Store deliberately, in support of the BDS boycott of Microsoft over its support for the Israeli military.

EA staff say AI mandates and mismanagement have sunk morale

PC Gamer (Harvey Randall) · Oct 29

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

Workers told PC Gamer that morale at EA has been terrible, blaming AI mandates and leadership for a company they describe as slowly decaying.

Previously: Polygon argued Larian shouldn't take over Dragon Age after BioWare's closure, and Sam Hulick planned to rescore the leaked Mass Effect Universe trailer. — Thursday October 29 edition.

Football Manager 27 offers a free launch preview ahead of release

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Oct 29

Sports Interactive has released a Launch Preview of Football Manager 27, playable about a week before the full game arrives.

AI & Industry

Anthropic's S-1: finances stronger than expected

Understanding AI (Kai Williams) · Oct 29

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

Understanding AI's Kai Williams read all 421 pages of the Anthropic S-1 and concludes the company's financials are surprisingly strong.

Previously: Zvi Mowshowitz began a full read of the published S-1. — Thursday October 29 edition.

Platformer: weak AI search at Google is also hurting Reddit

Platformer (Casey Newton) · Oct 30

Casey Newton argues that AI search is underperforming for Google and cutting Reddit's traffic, and asks what both companies do next.

Proton's CEO pushes engineers to build with AI despite security worries

404 Media (Joseph Cox) · Oct 29

Continuing · Proton AI re-interviews of staff

404 Media reports that Andy Yen, who publicly criticises Big Tech and AI, is internally pressing engineers to build Proton with AI even where they raise security concerns.

Previously: A leaked email said staff would be re-interviewed about AI to decide who keeps their job. — Tuesday October 27 edition.

Gemini 4 Carbon leads leaderboards, with access limited to cyber defenders

Latent Space (swyx .ai) · Oct 29

Google's new frontier model tops independent evaluations, but access is initially restricted to trusted cyber defenders.

Senators Wyden and Markey press Meta over 'pervert glasses'

404 Media (Samantha Cole) · Oct 29

After a 404 Media investigation, the two senators wrote to Meta saying its smart glasses are increasingly implicated in privacy invasions of users and bystanders.

Theme Park Insider: why park attendance is down and how to fix it

Theme Park Insider (Robert Niles) · Oct 29

Continuing · Universal theme park revenue and Epic Universe

Robert Niles reads the industry's annual attendance report as bad news for many parks and sets out what Disney, Universal and Six Flags could do to recover numbers.

Previously: Epic Universe entered the North American attendance rankings while Magic Kingdom stayed on top. — Thursday October 29 edition.

ArieForce One heads to Six Flags Magic Mountain

Attractions Magazine (Dani Meyering) · Oct 30

Attractions Magazine asks why Six Flags chose Magic Mountain as the next home of the relocated coaster, weighing which parks had the strongest case.

Science & Archaeology

Decapitated man from Roman-era Scotland gets a facial reconstruction

Live Science (Tom Metcalfe) · Oct 29

A new virtual face has been built for a man who was decapitated after death and buried near a Roman fort in Scotland.

A 700,000-year-old elephant tooth shows a lush world shared with early humans

ScienceDaily · Oct 29

A well-preserved straight-tusked elephant tooth found in northern Israel alongside stone tools points to a green landscape where giant elephants and early humans lived side by side.

Intact Roman child's sarcophagus found in Romania

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 29

Romania Insider reports an intact Roman sarcophagus of a child has been uncovered in the necropolis at Constanta.

Texas rock shelter yields more than 3,000 artifacts

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 29

Some 3,000 artifacts were recovered from the Schaeffer Shelter, according to local station KFDA.

Rubin Observatory spots a possible sixth dwarf planet beyond Pluto

Live Science (Damien Pine) · Oct 30

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has found a bright object on an inclined orbit past Pluto that may be a new dwarf planet.

Neanderthal interbreeding looks socially patterned, not random

Live Science (Olivia Maule) · Oct 29

Developing research suggests that ancient interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals was directional and socially structured, and more complicated than headlines imply.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Mouthwashing reaches all consoles, with music by Imogen Heap

CDM (Peter Kirn) · Oct 29

The indie psychological horror game, which introduced many players to Imogen Heap's music, is now out on current consoles in time for Halloween weekend, CDM reports.

GTA 6 composer Justice releases 'Pusher'

Polygon (Austin Manchester) · Oct 29

Justice, credited as the game's composer, released a new song from the soundtrack, with the full soundtrack due in December.

A Sound Effect rounds up 12 new libraries, from Gatling guns to cyberpunk drones

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Oct 27

The collection includes Western weapons, cyberpunk drones, water and electricity spells and cozy cooking sounds.

Behringer's $200 SP1200X clones the E-mu SP-1200 with open-source firmware

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 29

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Behringer announced the drum machine clone among a batch of new products, shipping with open-source firmware.

Previously: Akai said the MPC Sample will be opened to custom firmware, and Klangfeld Labs shipped a major update for the SP-404MKII. — Thursday October 29 edition.

Attack Magazine asks if private equity is hurting music production

Attack Magazine (Adam Douglas) · Oct 29

Using Native Instruments as the example, the piece traces private equity ownership across hardware, software and distribution companies. Francisco Partners bought NI in 2021 along with iZotope and Plugin Alliance, and NI later declared insolvency after accruing £250 million in debt by 2023.

Waldorf Crema is a string and pad synth

Gearnews (Adam Douglas) · Oct 29

The synth pairs a string ensemble from Streichfett with wavetable, FM and virtual analog engines.

HEDD's TYPE 40 is a $50,000 modular monitoring system

Gearnews (Stefan Wyeth) · Oct 29

The scalable active system uses the TYPE 40 Main with up to three XTD modules.

Pokémon and retro collectors can take heart from sneakers: speculator booms end

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Oct 29

Aftermath's Luke Plunkett argues that the reseller squeeze on Pokémon cards and old games will fade, as it did in sneakers. After a decade as an enthusiast-to-collector sneakerhead, he traces the pattern: mainstream coverage of long lines and stratospheric resale prices turned grails into commodities, Nike and Adidas leaned into limited releases, and StockX and GOAT grew while resellers stockpiled shoes by gaming online auctions and raffles.

Then the gas ran out. Yeezy collapsed as a brand, Nike over-relied on retro Jordans and Dunks, and Hoka, On and Salomon pulled demand away from hyped models. Plunkett says he has since bought only two pairs at resale, one at half retail. He backs this with an interview with former SLAM editor Russ Bengtson, who says the boom rested on a generation buying back its childhood shoes and was never going to last at that level.

Counterpoint: Collectors of retro games and trading cards might say the comparison breaks down because supply is finite. Sneaker brands can reissue models, while a 1990s cartridge cannot be reprinted, so scarcity could keep prices high even if speculators leave.

Virtue and a Sledgehammer turns a smash-the-servers fantasy into an anti-AI argument

Aftermath (Harper Jay MacIntyre) · Oct 28

Harper Jay MacIntyre reviews the new game from Valencia studio Deconstructeam and co-developer Selkie Harbour, in which Pratelle returns to her town with a sledgehammer after her sister Nina's brain-digitizing technology spreads. MacIntyre reads it as a game about AI intruding into homes and workplaces, and ties it to a mother's cancer scare and a father who talks to Alexa a lot.

The author is unambiguous: they smashed every robot, concluding that machines cannot be people, and cite an appellate ruling over an AI video of a murder victim shown at sentencing. They also recount using AI art briefly in a fan project and regretting it once they learned how the models were trained. They end undecided on what they would do with a digitized parent, but certain about the tech.

Counterpoint: Philosophers who defend functionalist views of mind, and AI developers who stress its practical uses, would reject the premise that a digitized person is categorically not a person. Some players may also find the game's one available verb, smashing, a blunt way to explore that question.

Aftermath: when gamers say games should cater to men, they mean white men

Aftermath (Isaiah Colbert) · Oct 28

Isaiah Colbert argues that the recurring complaint that the industry no longer caters to men really concerns a narrow figure who is white, straight and cisgender. He says that man is already catered to, and that men of other backgrounds are the ones missing, usually appearing as villains or supporting characters whose otherness is their whole function.

Colbert points to the Lollipop Chainsaw publishers' anti-DEI promotional language and the cancellation of EA's Black Panther game as evidence of an industry that panders to white male anxiety. He argues that white male protagonists are an invisible default and that a studio's choosing another grizzled white man is now a choice. His conclusion is that white masculinity is a surplus, not an endangered category.

Counterpoint: Critics who argue that big publishers have prioritised identity politics over game design would dispute this, as would analysts who attribute the Blade and Black Panther outcomes to production and licensing problems rather than the race of the lead.

Polygon: why Larian shouldn't rescue Dragon Age

Polygon (Rebecca Corgan) · Oct 29

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

Rebecca Corgan takes on the fan wish, which grew after EA closed BioWare in October 2026, that Larian would take over Dragon Age. She gives four reasons against it. Larian has said it wants to build its own IP and has already announced Divinity. Licensed worlds come with strings, and Dragon Age carries 17 years of lore and a troubled Veilguard. Larian's turn-based identity fits poorly with a series that has never been turn-based. And EA has not said the IP is for sale.

She cites former executive producer Mark Darrah saying EA may be more likely to sell now but would chase the biggest return, and that it turned down BioWare's remaster pitches. Corgan's alternative is to back BioWare veterans at Archetype and Arcanaut and let Larian make its own originals.

Counterpoint: Fans in the Reddit threads she cites, including one with 4,100 upvotes, would say any rescue beats EA leaving the series in a vault, and that Larian's success with Baldur's Gate 3 shows it can handle inherited worlds. Corgan concedes Larian owning it would probably beat dust-gathering.

Previously: Austin Wintory shared music he wrote while in talks to score the cancelled Mass Effect 5. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

Bing Gordon on why EA missed mobile and what Zynga got right

MobileGamer.biz (Vikki Blake) · Oct 28

Continuing · Why video game investment dried up

MobileGamer.biz's Vikki Blake interviews EA cofounder Bing Gordon about why EA was slow on mobile and what Zynga did better. The conversation also covers games funding, 'AI fluent' development and why successful companies fear risk.

Counterpoint: Developers wary of generative AI would likely challenge the idea of 'AI fluent' studios as a goal, and a founder's retrospective on his own company's missed shift naturally gives his own account of events.

Previously: Mike Futter told Aftermath the money left after 2022 and that an AI bubble now makes funding harder. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

Games & Industry in Brief

Epic says gen-AI will run through Fortnite and Unreal Engine 6

Eurogamer (Kaan Serin) · Oct 28

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Epic Games confirmed it is expanding generative-AI use across Fortnite and Unreal Engine 6, saying its engineers are "no longer writing the bulk of the code," according to Eurogamer.

Previously: Peter Molyneux predicted AI would be built into Unity and Unreal within a year, while Epic changed its EULA on AI training. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

Valve answers Steam's AI clone problem by telling developers to be harder to copy

Eurogamer (Robert Purchese) · Oct 28

Continuing · AI-generated clone games on Steam

Valve responded to AI-generated clones being sold on Steam by suggesting developers make their games less copyable, rather than promising enforcement, Eurogamer reports.

Previously: Aftermath's Luke Plunkett argued Valve, not developers, should moderate AI clones on its storefront. — Friday October 23 edition.

Don't Nod faces internal unrest as it restructures against insolvency

Eurogamer (Robert Purchese) · Oct 28

Continuing · Game industry layoffs and studio closures

Eurogamer reports deep unrest at Life is Strange developer Don't Nod as it scrambles to restructure and guard against insolvency.

Previously: Don't Nod was reportedly under a safeguard procedure with layoffs feared. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

Microsoft hopes Modern Warfare 4 and GTA VI will help Xbox grow

This Week In Videogames (Edmond Tran) · Oct 29

Xbox hardware, content and services revenue kept declining, though Microsoft said layoffs slightly improved quarterly operating expenses, This Week in Videogames reports.

Capcom reports strong Onimusha and Pragmata sales, with Monster Hunter Wilds missing

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Oct 28

Capcom updated sales figures for Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Pragmata and Resident Evil Requiem, but Monster Hunter Wilds was absent from the report.

Warhorse Studios hit by a 'serious' cyberattack

This Week In Videogames (Maddie Agne) · Oct 28

The Kingdom Come: Deliverance II developer said the attack gave unauthorised access to company data and systems.

Pokémon Unite will shut down in March 2027

This Week In Videogames (Jamie Hore) · Oct 27

The free-to-play Pokémon MOBA, launched in 2021 and downloaded over 80 million times, will have its servers switched off in March 2027.

No Man's Sky adds horror missions in Forsaken update as it launches on iOS

Polygon (Elijah Gonzalez) · Oct 28

The Forsaken update brings horror-themed missions and creepy cosmetics, arriving alongside the game's iOS launch.

GOG moves into publishing after leaving CD Projekt's orbit

PC Gamer (Joshua Wolens) · Oct 28

GOG is entering publishing under its new post-CD Projekt arrangement and already has games on the way, PC Gamer reports.

Wardogs tops Newzoo's September PC revenue chart

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 28

Bulkhead's Wardogs led Newzoo's September PC revenue rankings, ahead of EA Sports FC 27.

Hasbro names Dan Ayoub president of Wizards of the Coast

Rascal News (Chase Carter) · Oct 27

Continuing · Union drives at game studios

Ayoub takes the Wizards job with a charge from Hasbro's CEO to "develop our people" amid a wave of unionization, per Rascal News.

Previously: Rockstar workers got a two-week vote on recognizing the IWGB union. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

PlayStation reveals transparent 'Prism' PS5 collection

Polygon (Sam Hill) · Oct 28

Sony is releasing the PS5 Prism Collection, bringing back 1990s-style transparent designs on new DualSense controllers and console covers.

AI & Industry

Disney lays off at least 100 theme park staff, including Imagineers

WDW News Today (Megan K) · Oct 28

Employees at Walt Disney Imagineering and Disney Live Entertainment are among those cut, and a source told the Los Angeles Times the total will be between 100 and 200.

Zvi Mowshowitz reads Anthropic's S-1 in full

Don't Worry About the Vase (Zvi Mowshowitz) · Oct 28

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

Zvi Mowshowitz has gone through the full filing with the same line-by-line treatment he gives model cards, now that the text is public.

Previously: Latent Space reported the S-1 financials and Transformer questioned whether post-IPO governance can protect the safety mission. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

Anthropic reportedly drops coding interviews

Latent Space (swyx .ai) · Oct 28

Latent Space's AINews reports Anthropic has ended coding interviews, under the framing that "hunger beats tenure" now that coding is treated as solved.

How UK and EU users can object to Meta's AI training

404 Media (Samantha Cole) · Oct 28

404 Media explains that under Meta's new terms allowing scraping of user data for AI, people in the UK and EU can still object to certain uses of their information, for now.

Simon Willison sees an October inflection point for vibe-coded games

Simon Willison · Oct 28

Willison argues that Claude Opus 5.5 has pushed vibe-coded games past a threshold, citing improvements in areas such as 3D modeling and music generation. He compares it to the November 2025 shift for coding agents.

Roblox says no adult content was used in AI training after Open3DLab scrape

Game Developer (Bryant Francis) · Oct 28

Roblox says an AI agent failed to operate as intended when it mass-downloaded adult content from Open3DLab, Smutlab and SFMLab, and that none of it was used in training.

Epic Universe enters North American attendance rankings; Magic Kingdom still tops

WDW News Today (Lauren Stracner) · Oct 28

Continuing · Universal theme park revenue and Epic Universe

Magic Kingdom remains the world's most-visited theme park, and Universal's Epic Universe now appears in the North American attendance rankings.

Previously: Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh pointed to new packages such as three-park passes, hinting at Epic Universe in annual passes. — Sunday October 25 edition.

Science & Archaeology

Bronze Age sword from an Italian lake is still sharp after 3,300 years

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 29

Archaeologists found several ancient weapons, intact vases and a bronze razor in a volcanic crater lake in Italy, among them a sword that remains sharp.

5,000-year-old burial chambers uncovered in Oman

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 28

The Oman Observer reports burial chambers holding human remains and pottery at Ibri, dated to about 5,000 years ago.

Old Kingdom tombs investigated at Saqqara

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 28

Ahram Online reports work on a 4,000-year-old offering chapel belonging to Ikhetnefert at the Saqqara necropolis.

Stenciled rock art identified in South Africa

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 28

Phys.org reports that stenciled rock art has been identified in Mpumalanga Province.

In Arabia's Rub' al Khali, water alone doesn't predict early human occupation

Nature (Emanuele Cancellieri) · Oct 28

A Nature piece by Emanuele Cancellieri notes that fresh water in deserts often marks sites with early humans and stone tools, but in the Rub' al Khali region it does not explain occupation on its own, with stone availability also mattering.

Meteors go through seven stages, with melting and fragmentation dominating

ScienceDaily · Oct 29

Researchers describe seven stages space rocks pass through on entry, finding melting and violent fragmentation matter more than simple evaporation. The work could help explain how meteorites scatter and how dangerous asteroids explode.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

A Sound Effect collects 70+ stories on making horror sound

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Oct 29

The site has gathered more than 70 stories on how the scariest sounds in film, TV and games are made, along with tutorials, free SFX and tips for creating your own.

Sam Hulick wants to rescore the leaked Mass Effect Universe trailer

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Oct 28

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

The Mass Effect trilogy composer says he intends to rescore the leaked internal trailer for the cancelled Mass Effect Universe for N7 day, to "properly represent my musical vision."

Previously: Austin Wintory shared music he wrote while in talks to score the cancelled Mass Effect 5. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

Audio Developer Conference tickets go on sale for 9-11 November in Bristol

Sound On Sound (Luke Wood SOS News Editor) · Oct 28

The conference returns for its 12th year in Bristol, UK, with tickets now available.

Native Instruments replaces Massive X with Massive XL

Production Expert (Production Expert) · Oct 28

Massive XL costs £179, with an introductory £89 price until 31 December 2026. Production Expert notes the upgrade pricing leaves existing owners to judge whether it is a genuinely new instrument.

Akai opens the MPC Sample to custom firmware

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 28

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Akai says its battery-powered portable sampler will be opened to the community for custom firmware, following its surprise tease of the SampleKey with open firmware.

Previously: Akai teased the SampleKey with open firmware a day after Behringer's MPC clone. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

Klangfeld Labs DOOM OS 0.7 adds 20 synth engines to the SP-404MKII

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 29

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

The unofficial custom firmware's update turns Roland's SP-404MKII into a groovebox with 20 synth engines.

Previously: Akai teased the SampleKey with open firmware a day after Behringer's MPC clone. — Wednesday October 28 edition.

Logic Pro 13 adds better drum separation and an AI assistant

Gearnews (Stefan Wyeth) · Oct 28

Apple announced Logic Pro 13 for next month as part of a major Creator Studio subscription update, with enhanced drum separation and a new AI assistant.

Gaming Editorial

The managers who have to deliver the layoff news

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Oct 28

For Aftermath's Inside Baseball Week, Luke Plunkett spoke with three games workers, mostly in AAA, who were told by ownership to lay off colleagues. One, "Sandy," left the company alongside the team they cut. "James," a leader with over 20 years in games, says layoffs have been done in person and over video call, and that being pushed to cut people he thought should stay was worse still.

James describes the support as thin: a short chat with HR and a script not to deviate from. Taking the rest of the day off is, in his experience, a token gesture that can mark you as weak. Plunkett's argument is that the decade's layoffs also damage the people who carry them out and the teams left behind, and that executives are insulated from this because they delegate the task downward.

Counterpoint: Executives and owners who order cuts would say they are a painful response to financial pressure and are needed to keep a studio or publisher solvent. The piece quotes no one from ownership, and its sources are anonymous.

Where the video game investment money went

Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) · Oct 27

Nathan Grayson used Aftermath's You Are Error podcast to ask Mike Futter, who runs the Virtual Economy podcast and works at Causeway Studio and Strange Scaffold, why funding has dried up. Futter says the industry expected a correction after the 2020-21 pandemic boom but not one this severe, and he points to the war in Ukraine, covid supply-chain effects and now an AI investment bubble. He dates the turn to 2022 and says consolidation, including Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard, did not deliver the hoped-for gains for labor.

The shared argument is that venture and private-equity money chases buzzwords and gets bored fast, as it did with esports. Futter says 2026 is as much an anomaly as 2020 was, for different reasons.

Counterpoint: Investors and publishers would argue the money simply followed returns, and that a glut of expensive, similar games, not capital flight alone, made the economics hard. Futter's remarks here are an excerpt of a longer conversation.

AI-generated fan wikis are crowding out the real ones

Eurogamer (Jay Castello) · Oct 27

Eurogamer's Jay Castello found that the top Google result for "Nighthawks Wiki" was not a wiki. It accepted corrections only by email, listed companions and skills that don't exist, and cited a 1981 film and a Hopper painting as sources. She traced the domain to a service that offers an AI website builder, and found many similar sites aimed at smaller indie games. Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender says his company has been playing "whack-a-mole" with them, including a collection covering more than 20 games whose operator admitted using generative AI.

Volunteer wikis are hurt twice. Players are misled and bounce off wikis entirely, and AI crawlers add load: the Dune: Awakening community wiki logged 7m crawler requests in 30 days, 5m of them from Meta. Castello's argument is that low-cost AI spam has made it easy to crowd out good information in a corner of games culture that was already squeezed by hosts like Fandom. In one case a site pointed users to a download that her malware software flagged as potentially unsafe.

Counterpoint: Operators of such sites, and AI vendors, would say automated tools fill gaps where no fan community exists. None of the site operators Castello contacted responded, so that case isn't made in the piece.

EFF: platforms must do better at moderation when elections are close

EFF Deeplinks (Corynne McSherry) · Oct 28

EFF's Corynne McSherry cites criticism, including from Meta's Oversight Board, of Meta suspending a major political Instagram account for hours during an October 17 early-voting push, and of allegedly boosting a candidate in Brazil's presidential election. Meta denies deliberate interference and blames mistakes in its automated moderation. EFF argues that automation reproduces bias and handles context and low-resource languages poorly, citing leaked 2020 figures that Meta wrongly deleted 77 percent of nonviolent Arabic content.

Its prescription is the Santa Clara Principles 2.0: automation that assists rather than replaces human moderators, especially around elections, plus transparency, bias audits, human-decided appeals and human-rights impact assessments. EFF also urges lawmakers not to mandate automated moderation or dictate platform design. It adds that too few companies hold too much power over political communication.

Counterpoint: Platforms such as Meta say automated systems are unavoidable at their scale, and some policymakers want faster, more automated removal of harmful content, which is the kind of mandate EFF opposes. EFF is an advocacy group and the piece is a policy argument, not a neutral review.

Molyneux says the industry is already using AI while pretending otherwise

PC Gamer (Robert Jones) · Oct 27

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

PC Gamer's Robert Jones interviewed Peter Molyneux, who says developers are "pretending" not to use AI when coding without it is almost impossible, and that Steam's AI checkbox lets them avoid the label. He cites a survey figure of 12 percent of players who would never buy a game involving AI. He blames early image-generator failures for equating AI with slop, says AI cuts weeks of concept work to minutes and prototype code from months to a day, and expects it to be bound into Unity and Unreal within a year.

Molyneux says AI isn't yet good enough for final-quality assets, but will be. Jones calls the shift inevitable, for better and worse.

Counterpoint: Defenders of Steam's disclosure rule, such as PC Gamer's Shaun Prescott earlier this week, would say players are entitled to know how a game was made, whatever tools are now common. Developers who avoid AI would dispute that it is nearly unavoidable.

Previously: Tim Sweeney attacked Steam's AI disclosures as partisan while PC Gamer's Shaun Prescott defended Valve's rationale. — Monday October 26 edition.

Nightdive CEO: changing an acquired studio's identity leads to doom

Game Developer (Bryant Francis) · Oct 27

Game Developer's Bryant Francis reports on the Nightdive Studios CEO's argument that large publishers which buy a studio and then change its core identity consistently see it fail. The thrust is that acquirers would do better to let studios keep doing what they do best. The summary provided does not include the CEO's specific examples.

Counterpoint: Acquirers would argue they must integrate studios into portfolio strategy to justify the purchase price. Nightdive is a specialist in revivals and remasters, which colors its view of what a studio's identity is.

Gaming Editorial

What laid-off games journalists do next

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Oct 26

For Aftermath's Inside Baseball Week, Luke Plunkett interviewed six former games-media workers, including Merritt K (Fanbyte), Danielle Riendeau (Game Developer) and Matt Kim (IGN, laid off in August 2026 after six years), about life after the layoff. His starting point is a 2024 argument of his own: with the sector contracting, a layoff now often means a new career rather than a new job at another site. The accounts bear that out. Merritt K applied for hundreds of PR and narrative jobs across 2023 and 2024 and got a handful of interviews. Kim found he had little appetite left to pitch games stories, and Kazuma Hashimoto feared homelessness if he stayed in the field.

Plunkett says he does not want to dwell on misfortune or portray an industry in terminal decline. He wants to show that, as in game development, a closed door can lead somewhere more interesting.

Counterpoint: Labor advocates and critics of media ownership might say that individual resilience stories can obscure structural causes, such as private-equity-style cost-cutting and the loss of any employer base for these workers.

Physical-media sellers say disc demand will outlast Sony's phase-out

This Week In Videogames (Maddie Agne) · Oct 26

Continuing · Sony ending physical discs for new PS5 games

At an MCM London Comic Con panel on 23 October, The Game Collection's Darren Simpson said it was unclear how Sony's promise that partners could sell new games at retail using digital codes would work. Sony will stop producing PlayStation discs after January 2028. Simpson hoped Sony would still let other publishers press discs. He also questioned whether a PS6 at £1,200 to £1,500 without a disc drive would beat the PS5 by enough to justify the price, and said Nintendo's continued investment in cartridges gives it an opening. Evercade's Sean Cleaver noted that most PS4 and PS5 consoles in circulation have disc drives, so demand for discs will persist whoever makes them.

Counterpoint: Sony would presumably say digital distribution is where its audience has moved. The panelists also sell physical games or hardware, so they have a commercial stake in the format's survival.

Previously: A report said Resident Evil Requiem PlayStation discs out-earned all Xbox versions. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Paris Game Biz meets amid protests with guarded optimism

GamesIndustry.biz (Jon Hicks) · Oct 26

Continuing · Games industry contraction and studio closures

GamesIndustry.biz's Jon Hicks reports from the third Paris Game Biz, held in the 2nd Arrondissement while the city was still seeing widespread protests. He describes shattered shop windows, soot patches and burnt-out bins and shared bicycles on the walk to the venue, and police vans parked outside the official party to enforce a curfew just beyond the area. His argument is that publishers, investors and developers who have already weathered several years of financial turmoil are now adding civil unrest to the list, and that the mood was cautious rather than gloomy.

Counterpoint: Critics of the sector's leadership would say that optimism from dealmakers looks hollow against continuing layoffs and closures.

Previously: Sweeney's resurfaced 2000 Looking Glass eulogy prompted debate over whether closures reflect economics or strategic mismanagement. — Monday October 26 edition.

Polygon makes the case for Super Mario Sunshine on Switch 2

Polygon (Giovanni Colantonio) · Oct 27

Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio argues that Super Mario Sunshine, now in Nintendo Switch Online's GameCube collection, is the Mario game that best captures the series' spirit. He says its early reception was glowing (9.4 from IGN, perfect marks from Nintendo Power) and that it became the third best-selling GameCube game. He also acknowledges its modern reputation as divisive. His case is that its FLUDD-based traversal, grab-bag level ideas and cohesive island setting make it the most experimental Mario game, a forerunner of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. He reads the whole series as being about travel, with Mario a tourist in unfamiliar worlds, and says Sunshine takes that idea most literally.

Counterpoint: Detractors, whom Colantonio himself cites, point to poor camera controls and a handful of dud levels such as the Pachinko minigame, and say its defenders overlook them.

EFF: Reddit's DMCA suit threatens research on the open web

EFF Deeplinks (Mitch Stoltz) · Oct 26

EFF's Mitch Stoltz argues that Reddit's lawsuit against SerpAPI and Perplexity misuses Section 1201 of the DMCA, the anti-circumvention law. Reddit alleges that SerpAPI got around its arrangement with Google by bypassing access controls on search results. Stoltz says Reddit does not own its users' posts, that search indexing has long been held fair use, and that Google's rate limits are not the sort of access control the 1998 law targeted. He warns that a July ruling letting the suit proceed puts large-scale research, from public-sentiment studies to historical preservation, under legal threat, leaving only wealthy institutions able to afford the risk. EFF discloses that SerpAPI is a donor.

Counterpoint: Reddit and other platforms holding user content would argue that licensing deals fund their services and that automated scraping around technical barriers is unauthorised use. The district judge agreed the claim could go forward.

EFF uses AdFection spyware campaign to argue for banning behavioral ads

EFF Deeplinks (Thorin Klosowski) · Oct 26

EFF's Thorin Klosowski summarises Citizen Lab's report on AdFection, in which an ad network delivered zero-click spyware to journalists' devices. Ads from Discover-Tech, described as a likely front for ad espionage, carried JavaScript that reported device details to a server. For Al Jazeera machines, the server returned a payload made by partner Candiru/Integrity Labs instead of an empty response. EFF says neither malvertising nor zero-click attacks are new, but combining them with ad targeting is, and that behavioral advertising is the perfect vehicle for such threats. It lists mitigations, including Privacy Badger, resetting the mobile ad ID and Surveillance Self-Defense guides, and calls for banning behavioral ads.

Counterpoint: Advertising trade groups would likely say targeted ads fund much of the free web and that the fault lies with spyware vendors and fraudulent advertisers, so tighter ad-network vetting rather than a ban would be the answer.

Games & Industry in Brief

Microsoft extends Arkane Lyon consultation by a month

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 26

Continuing · Microsoft's Xbox studio closures and divestitures

Microsoft has extended the consultation period for Arkane Lyon by one month while it seeks a new buyer, and development on Marvel's Blade continues.

Previously: Reports said several takeover forms were being weighed for Arkane Lyon before the November deadline as Blade production nears its end. — Sunday October 25 edition.

Microsoft offers voluntary exit to up to 60,000 staff

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Oct 27

Microsoft is offering voluntary exit to as many as 60,000 employees, Xbox staff among them.

Xbox COO Helen Chiang reportedly fired for policy violations

This Week In Videogames (Maddie Agne) · Oct 26

Continuing · Xbox leadership changes

Helen Chiang, appointed Xbox's first chief operating officer in July 2026, was allegedly terminated for policy violations, according to This Week in Videogames.

Previously: Xbox's first chief operating officer, Helen Chiang, left Microsoft three months into the job. — Monday October 26 edition.

Sucker Punch reportedly lays off 26

Eurogamer (Kaan Serin) · Oct 26

Continuing · Game industry layoffs and studio closures

Sucker Punch, the PlayStation-owned maker of Ghost of Yotei, has reportedly laid off 26 developers, according to Eurogamer.

Previously: The studio behind Scum was cutting staff just after being acquired by Splash Damage, which had its own layoffs. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Auroch Digital cuts a quarter of staff

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Oct 26

Continuing · Game industry layoffs and studio closures

Auroch Digital has laid off roughly a quarter of its workforce.

Previously: The studio behind Scum was cutting staff just after being acquired by Splash Damage, which had its own layoffs. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Netflix reportedly offered $500m for Xbox IP licence

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 26

Netflix reportedly offered Microsoft $500 million over seven years to license Xbox IP for film and television adaptations.

GameMaker to go free for commercial PC releases

Rock Paper Shotgun (Edwin Evans-Thirlwell) · Oct 26

The GameMaker engine series behind Undertale, Hotline Miami and Spelunky will let developers publish games made with its latest tools commercially on PC for free, alongside web and mobile.

Shenmue 3: Enhanced Edition slips to 2027

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Oct 26

Publisher Inin Games has delayed Shenmue 3: Enhanced Edition to 2027 in order to get everything right.

Stardew-style RPG Emberville delays Early Access

Polygon (Sam Hill) · Oct 26

Emberville has pushed its Early Access launch to January 2027 so the developer can improve combat.

Save Mass Effect petition passes 223,000

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Oct 26

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

More than 223,000 people have now signed the petition asking EA to save Mass Effect.

Previously: Polygon's Oli Welsh framed BioWare's closure as part of an industry contraction, and the petition had passed 187,000 signatures. — Monday October 26 edition.

Side opens China studio, buys Roboto Entertainment

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 26

Services provider Side has opened a new studio in China and acquired art outsourcing provider Roboto Entertainment.

Steam Personal Calendar leaves beta

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Oct 26

Valve's Steam Personal Calendar, tested for nearly a year, is now available to everyone.

AI & Industry

Anthropic files S-1 for proposed IPO

Anthropic · Oct 26

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

Anthropic has filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC for a proposed initial public offering.

Previously: AI Weekly said Anthropic was expected to file its IPO paperwork publicly at any time. — Monday October 26 edition.

OpenAI releases GPT-6.1 Terra with visual reasoning and computer use focus

Simon Willison · Oct 27

OpenAI's announcement for GPT-6.1 Terra stresses visual reasoning and precise computer use, and describes it as a significant step up from GPT-5.6 Terra. Simon Willison notes that Terra occupies the same tier as Sonnet does in Anthropic's lineup, neither the cheapest nor the most expensive.

Gemini 4 Argon ships with a compact 14-page model card

Don't Worry About the Vase (Zvi Mowshowitz) · Oct 26

Zvi Mowshowitz reviews Google's Gemini 4 Argon model and safety cards, noting that the model card runs to a compact 14 pages.

Proton to re-interview staff about AI to decide who stays

404 Media (Joseph Cox) · Oct 26

According to a leaked email seen by 404 Media, Proton will re-interview employees about AI, and the email calls the re-interviews consequential for who keeps their job.

Non-English languages cost more to process with AI models

Rest of World (Ananya Bhattacharya) · Oct 26

Rest of World reports that some languages need far more tokens for AI models to process, which raises costs and shrinks the usable context for speakers of those languages.

Teenager dies in fall from temporary amusement ride in Mexico

Blooloop (Bea Mitchell) · Oct 26

Blooloop reports that an 18-year-old died after falling from a temporary amusement park ride in Mexico.

Cast named for London's immersive Pirates of the Caribbean show

WDW News Today (Arica Conrad) · Oct 26

Olivier winner George Maguire will play Captain Jack Sparrow in Disney's immersive Pirates of the Caribbean stage show in London next year, with Captain Barbossa and other roles also cast, per Variety.

Science & Archaeology

Turkish shipwreck may be the world's oldest

ScienceDaily · Oct 26

A wreck off Turkey's coast may date to about 4,500 years ago, the age of the Egyptian pyramids, with only its pottery cargo surviving. Researchers think it was carrying goods such as oil, wine or resin when a storm drove it onto rocks.

The Mold gold cape, a 3,900-year-old masterpiece

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 26

Live Science profiles the Mold gold cape, a detailed 3,900-year-old piece unique in Europe and considered one of the finest examples of prehistoric goldwork. It may have belonged to a high-ranking woman.

Animal proteins found mixed with ocher in 60,000-year-old South African material

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 26

Kyushu University says an international team identified animal proteins mixed with ocher dating to about 60,000 years ago in South Africa.

Possible praetorium found at Roman fortress in Bulgaria

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 26

Science in Poland reports that a monumental building uncovered at a Roman fortress in northern Bulgaria may be a praetorium, the commander's headquarters.

Ancient eclipse refines estimate of Earth's early rotation

ScienceDaily · Oct 26

Researchers corrected an eight-kilometre error in the location of an ancient Chinese capital to reconstruct a total solar eclipse of 709 BCE. That gave more accurate measurements of how fast Earth was spinning then.

Spike-thumbed iguanodon relative found in the UK

Nautilus (Jake Currie) · Oct 27

Nautilus reports a new swamp-dwelling relative of Iguanodon with a thumb spike from the United Kingdom, which may have been prey for spinosaurs.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Wardogs game audio deep-dive

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Oct 26

A Sound Effect has a long deep-dive with Sean Garavan and Albin Jansson on the sound of BULKHEAD's tactical shooter Wardogs, from APA member Audio Logs.

Behringer shows prototype Kick, an open-firmware MPC One clone

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 27

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Behringer has shared a first prototype of the Kick, a clone of the MPC One groove workstation that will run open-source firmware.

Previously: A free alternate firmware added a new synth engine, chords and effects to the Teenage Engineering OP-1. — Monday October 26 edition.

Plugin recreates Lexicon 224 'Vangelis reverb'

Synthtopia (synthhead) · Oct 27

A new plugin models the Lexicon 224, the reverb synthesists associate with Vangelis and the Blade Runner soundtrack.

RME updates flagship converter with ADI-2/4 Pro EX

Sound On Sound (Luke Wood SOS News Editor) · Oct 26

RME's ADI-2/4 Pro EX upgrades its flagship converter and headphone amp with redesigned converter circuitry and improved A-D and D-A specifications.

Rick Camp scores SEAMAX Alaska and installs a 9.1.4 Atmos system

Mix (Steve Harvey) · Oct 27

Mix profiles Rick Camp, who wrote the score for the special-venue adventure film SEAMAX Alaska and installed a custom 9.1.4 Augspurger system for Dolby Atmos playback.

Isla Electronics releases Alesis Andromeda A6 as a plugin

Sonic State · Oct 26

Isla Electronics has released ASYX, a softsynth version of the Alesis Andromeda A6.

Ex-Eminem engineer pleads guilty to selling leaked tracks

Mix (Clive Young) · Oct 27

Joseph Strange, who worked in Eminem's private studio for 14 years, pleaded guilty to selling multiple unreleased tracks by the rapper.

Gaming Editorial

Polygon: BioWare's closure is a symptom of a slow-motion industry crash

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Oct 25

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

Oli Welsh writes that EA badly mismanaged BioWare, most visibly by forcing it into Anthem, but that the closure came now because EA itself had just been bought by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and was going through a post-deal restructuring. He sees the same pattern in Xbox's job and studio losses after its acquisition spree. His broader claim is that games are in a contraction driven by plateaued audience growth and too many, too expensive games chasing too little demand.

He points to reports that Microsoft expects its next Xbox to cost $1,200 to $1,800, with PlayStation 6 only a little cheaper, as a sign that both platform holders are committed to costlier hardware and development. He concludes that BioWare will not be the last victim.

Counterpoint: Commentators who put the weight on EA's own decisions, such as the Anthem pivot and the handling of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, would say the structural framing lets the publisher off lightly, and the console prices are reported expectations rather than announced figures.

Previously: Tributes from NK Jemisin and Mass Effect voice actors Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer gave a creative-community response to the closure. — Sunday October 25 edition.

PC Gamer: indies and non-sequels drove the past year's breakout hits

PC Gamer (Justin Wagner) · Oct 25

Justin Wagner summarises a Sensor Tower report, which defines a breakout as 500,000 units sold in 30 days. It counted 76 breakouts between September 2025 and August 2026, up from 55 the year before. Indie breakouts rose from 13 to 33, or 43% of the total, and 35 breakouts were non-sequels, 27 of them from indie studios. Of the indie hits, nine were friendslop games such as Meccha Chameleon and RV There Yet?, and 18 were debuts in other genres, including Escape From Duckov and Megabonk. Triple-A breakouts barely moved, from 27 to 28. Wagner reads this as a strong showing for cheap, novel multiplayer games, and as good news for anyone tired of proximity-chat clones.

Counterpoint: The report rests on estimated sales and excludes free-to-play games and Call of Duty, so it covers only the top of the market. As Wagner notes, more than half of the roughly 19,000 Steam releases last year had fewer than 10 reviews, which suggests many indie developers would not recognise this picture.

PC Gamer: Sweeney's 2000 Looking Glass eulogy still stings

PC Gamer (Ted Litchfield) · Oct 25

Ted Litchfield covers the resurfacing of Tim Sweeney's May 2000 statement on the closure of Looking Glass Studios, which called it an economically realistic day and compared the industry shakeout to the comet that killed the dinosaurs. Sweeney stood by it, saying a game business must earn enough to pay its bills and should size its budget to the audience that will pay. Danny O'Dwyer, Raphael Colantonio and Gloomwood developer Dillon Rogers objected.

Litchfield admits the argument has an uncomfortable ring of truth, since the market leaders can point to the scoreboard. He pushes back that many recent closures, including Bluepoint, Arkane Austin, BioWare and Tango Gameworks, followed fad-chasing mandates or short-term stock logic rather than failed balance sheets. He also notes Epic laid off 1,000 people in 2026 while remaining a juggernaut.

Counterpoint: Sweeney's own position is that creative merit does not excuse a studio from earning its keep, and that tools which make games cheaper to build are good, a view many executives share.

PC Gamer: Sweeney's attack on Steam's AI disclosures draws a defence of Valve

PC Gamer (Shaun Prescott) · Oct 26

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Shaun Prescott reports that Epic CEO Tim Sweeney spent the week on X arguing that Valve's mandatory AI disclosures are as partisan as forced political essays and feed hate campaigns against developers. Prescott defends the policy as a response to legal uncertainty, noting that Steam released 18,433 games in 2024 against about 1,100 on the Epic Games Store. He also points out that Valve is not anti-AI, citing Gabe Newell's $20 million donation to OpenAI, and expects the disclosure rule to be revisited. He suspects most anti-AI sentiment in games is a visceral reaction to ugly generated assets rather than principle.

Counterpoint: Sweeney and AI-friendly developers argue that disclosure labels cost developers real revenue by inviting backlash, and he predicts everyone will be using AI within a year.

Previously: Future? No Thanks! removed AI voices and offered refunds, while Miyamoto said humans will keep a design role. — Saturday October 24 edition.

Naavik: Skydance has the resources but not the focus

Naavik (Naavik) · Oct 25

Naavik's analysis asks whether Skydance can avoid repeating Warner's recent expensive live-service failures. Its title gives the answer: Skydance has everything it needs except focus. Only the headline and summary were available for this edition, so the detailed argument is not summarised here.

Counterpoint: Those who see live-service games as the main route to durable franchise revenue would say a lack of focus is secondary to execution and timing, and that Warner's misses do not rule out the model.

Stevie Case, KillCreek and the Quake duel that made Romero's reputation

The Digital Antiquarian (Jimmy Maher) · Oct 23

In the second part of his Ion Storm history, Jimmy Maher turns to Stevie Case, a Nebraska freshman in 1996 who had planned a political career until a dorm-mate showed her DOOM and Quake. She won a campus tournament in January 1997 as the only woman on a team called Impulse 9 and became known online as 'KillCreek'. She then travelled to Dallas to play John Romero, lost, and saw him post that deathmatch was a man's game.

She challenged him to a best-of-three with an online shrine at stake for the loser. She won the first game, lost the second, then won the tiebreaker after, by her account, Romero's sexist trash-talk pushed her into a rampage. Maher uses the episode to show the rock-star persona Romero carried into Ion Storm, which the piece's opening quote from Computer Gaming World mocks over Daikatana's delays.

Counterpoint: The account of the rematch rests heavily on Case's own recollection, including the keyboard-smashing detail, and Romero or his defenders might tell the story differently or play down the trash-talk as standard deathmatch banter.

Polygon says critics undervalue Nintendo's casual games

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Oct 24

Oli Welsh argues that Nintendo is again being underestimated, this time in reviews of Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, which he calls the company's best release of the year so far. He notes that even glowing reviews seem capped at around four stars or 8/10, and that it scores below Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, Pokémon Pokopia and Rhythm Heaven Groove, and even below the 'lackluster' Star Fox remake on Metacritic.

His explanation is that critics are not primed to value the skill of simplification and leaving things out, so games aimed at someone other than the reviewer get marked down. He argues that the free-roam leisure sports, such as skateboarding, prop plane and power cruising, are top-drawer design and may be many players' first taste of open-world play.

Counterpoint: Reviewers who scored the game around 8/10 would likely say that rating depth and long-term replay is part of the job, and that lower scores reflect a real difference in ambition rather than a bias against casual audiences.

Rock Paper Shotgun defends Mass Effect 3 and its co-op as BioWare closes

Rock Paper Shotgun (James Archer) · Oct 24

James Archer argues that the long-running fight over Mass Effect 3's ending overlooked what the game achieved: a 'compendium of endings' that closed dozens of plot threads, character arcs and running gags across a three-game series. He grants that other RPGs are more branching individually, but says none has matched that scale of audacity, and he counts the Citadel expansion as Shepard's real last ride.

His main worry after BioWare's closure is the game's co-op mode, which he credits with player-to-player synergies and an increasingly eccentric character roster, in contrast to modern co-op shooters fretting over small balance changes. He hopes its peer-to-peer setup helps it survive EA's cull.

Counterpoint: Players who objected to the ending, whose backlash prompted BioWare to expand it in 2012, argued that it undercut the choices the series had built up, and that praise for the surrounding game does not answer that complaint.

Defector writer audits her digital life and finds it fragile

Defector (Alex Sujong Laughlin) · Oct 23

Alex Sujong Laughlin takes stock of storage across Google Drive, Dropbox (3.19 TB), iCloud and six external drives, with a baby on the way and a growing fear of paying several companies to keep her work. Archivist Margot Note tells her that digital files need active maintenance because of bit rot, and recommends refreshing and migration. Note also gives the 3-2-1 rule: three copies, two media types, one copy offsite. Her book says external drives may last about a decade if treated well, and as little as five years if not.

Laughlin sets out to consolidate onto one 8 TB drive and one paid cloud backup and to build a lasting routine. Her first obstacle is that the drive, last used in 2020, needs reformatting for her Mac, which she can only do safely because her wedding photos were also in Dropbox.

Counterpoint: Preservation specialists could point out that one drive plus one cloud service sits at the thin end of the 3-2-1 rule, and that consolidating trades redundancy for tidiness.

PC Gamer charts the cozy-game gold rush

PC Gamer (Lauren Morton) · Oct 24

Lauren Morton revisits her 2023 prediction that marketing would seize on 'cozy', and says it did. Google interest in 'cozy games' has roughly doubled since 2023, and Steam games user-tagged cozy that launched between January and October rose from 468 last year to 1,341 this year, a 186% increase. Publicists' use of the word in her inbox has grown too, and she notes the term now covers things like a post-apocalyptic gunsmithing sim.

She argues that cozy players have become a savvy, even 'hardcore' audience, so the movement is shifting from trend to enduring corner of gaming. She expects a possible plateau as cynical marketing and AI copycats test the label, but says it has not peaked yet.

Counterpoint: Skeptics would note that Steam tags are user-generated and grow as the word gets popular, so the 186% figure may measure labelling more than any real change in the genre, a limit Morton concedes herself.

NK Jemisin mourns BioWare and blames an industry that kills its own geese

PC Gamer (Joshua Wolens) · Oct 24

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

The new element is a tribute from author NK Jemisin on Bluesky, who said the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games were 'a literal inspiration', that she made lifelong friends in Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, and that writer Jennifer Hepler and actor Jennifer Hale were the best in their fields. She added that the industry had killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

PC Gamer's Joshua Wolens ties her remark to the sector's rising budgets and repeated layoffs, which he says fall on developers more than executives. He notes that CD Projekt Red and Warren Spector have also posted tributes.

Counterpoint: Executives and analysts who defend cost discipline would argue that rising development costs and uneven returns forced hard choices, and that tributes to past hits do not show the studio's recent games could sustain it.

Previously: PC Gamer explained how leveraged buyouts work, and GamesIndustry.biz and Eurogamer covered BioWare closure fallout, including Mass Effect items removed from Battlefield 6. — Saturday October 24 edition.

Gaming Editorial

Aftermath asks why legacy outlets keep polishing Xbox chief Asha Sharma's image

Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) · Oct 23

Continuing · Xbox under Asha Sharma and its press coverage

On the Aftermath Hours podcast, Nathan Grayson, Riley and guest Chris Kerr, formerly of Game Developer and now running the new site Vertical Slice, take on recent profiles of Xbox head Asha Sharma in the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, the New York Times and Fortune. They read the pieces as something close to a press tour. Grayson compares them to early glossy coverage of Elon Musk and says the harder story of workers being laid off is less appealing to write.

Kerr's argument is that Sharma should be given praise only once she has earned it. He notes that failure means a payout for her, but job losses or even a sale of Xbox for the people under her, so her employees have more riding on her success than she does. He adds that when journalists do get rare access to an executive, they should ask the difficult questions.

Counterpoint: Editors at the business and general-interest outlets would likely say that profiling a new head of a major Microsoft division is ordinary executive coverage, and that readers beyond the games trade want to know who is running it. Microsoft would presumably describe the restructuring as necessary to stabilise Xbox, which is the framing the profiles reflect.

Previously: Aftermath criticised mainstream profiles of Sharma and flagged a Fortune report of a possible $1,200-$1,800 next Xbox. — Saturday October 24 edition.

PC Gamer explains how leveraged buyouts hollow out companies, using BioWare as the example

PC Gamer (Lincoln Carpenter) · Oct 24

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

Lincoln Carpenter walks through the mechanics of a leveraged buyout, in which the target company's own balance sheet is the collateral for the debt used to buy it, as in the $20 billion JP Morgan loan behind EA's deal. He then lists the usual ways value gets extracted: workforce cuts, price rises, asset sales, sale-leasebacks and fees under the standard 2-and-20 structure. He cites a report that private-equity-backed companies made up over 10% of 2024 US corporate bankruptcies and more than half of those with over $500 million in liabilities.

He ties this to games, citing the BioWare closure with 400 EA layoffs, and layoffs at Scum developer Gamepires, acquired eight months ago by Emona Capital-backed Splash Damage Group. His view is that the outcome was predictable given the ownership model, and that BioWare would have been poorly placed with its new owners regardless.

Counterpoint: Carpenter's own source, Kiplinger's Karee Venema, points to Hilton and Dell as successful buyouts, and private equity firms generally argue they rescue underperforming businesses. Others would say BioWare's weak sales record and development troubles, which the article acknowledges, were reason enough for EA to act whoever owned it.

Previously: An earlier edition covered commentary framing BioWare's closure through private equity and studio-team economics. — Saturday October 24 edition.

GamesIndustry.biz's Rob Fahey calls BioWare's end a tragically familiar tale

GamesIndustry.biz (Rob Fahey) · Oct 23

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

Fahey places the closure within five years of studio closures, cancellations and restructures and tens of thousands of layoffs. He argues that the industry's accumulated thick skin has not made one more bad news story painless. His framing treats BioWare's fate as part of a repeating pattern, not a one-off.

Counterpoint: PC Gamer's Lincoln Carpenter, writing on the same closure, stresses factors specific to BioWare: a studio that had not turned development turmoil into sales and a new owner unlikely to favour its games. On that view this is a particular case, not only the latest in a pattern.

Previously: Commentary from GamesIndustry.biz and others framed BioWare's closure through studio-team economics. — Saturday October 24 edition.

EFF uses the PHP scramble to argue for funding open source

EFF Deeplinks (Cooper Quintin) · Oct 24

Continuing · PHP2Shell vulnerabilities in core PHP

Cooper Quintin sets out the timeline: a severe PHP flaw found in a 2024 audit was deprioritised because no exploit was known, then AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic led researchers to rediscover it and a second flaw in August 2026, this time with working exploits. Leaks began October 20, exploitation was reported from October 17, and Chainguard released a patch six hours before the planned embargo on October 21. Over 33 million sites were still on vulnerable versions at the time of writing.

He says cheap AI-driven discovery is flooding maintainers with reports: October alone brought 13,000 new CVEs, about 3% of everything in the National Vulnerability Database since 1988. Node.js and GitLab also had severe bugs this week. His conclusion is that corporations should contribute both money and engineers to the volunteer-run projects they depend on.

Counterpoint: Security vendors that favour rapid patching would argue that, with exploitation already reported, an early patch helped defenders. Some in the industry also hold that AI-assisted discovery will leave software safer once the backlog is cleared, a case the post does not weigh. EFF is an advocacy group and this is a funding appeal.

Previously: EFF explained the outage wave and argued for funding open source. — Saturday October 24 edition.

EFF details what the 11th Circuit rulings allow Florida and Georgia to enforce

EFF Deeplinks (Joe Mullin) · Oct 23

Continuing · US state social media age-gating laws

Joe Mullin lays out the two opinions from the same 11th Circuit panel. Florida's H.B. 3 bars under-14s from accounts even with parental permission and requires consent for 14- and 15-year-olds, and Georgia's S.B. 351 requires parental consent under 16 plus commercially reasonable age checks. EFF notes the Florida panel did recognise that H.B. 3 targets protected expression.

Its objection is that the court treated time online as a proxy for harm, and in Georgia faulted the plaintiffs for not proving invalid applications outweighed valid ones, which EFF calls a near-impossible standard. It argues the laws cut minors off from communities and information and put adults' privacy at risk through age verification, and it asks affected users to document harms at agegates@eff.org.

Counterpoint: State officials and child-safety advocates would argue that platform design features such as infinite scroll and push notifications do harm minors, and that the panel was right to let legislatures act. EFF is an advocacy group that opposed these laws in court.

Previously: The 11th Circuit let Florida and Georgia enforce under-14 and under-16 account restrictions, and EFF is collecting reports of harm. — Saturday October 24 edition.

At 25, GTA III reads as an accidental liminal-space game, argues Respec

Respec (Alex Donaldson) · Oct 23

Alex Donaldson concedes that GTA III was bettered in nearly every gameplay sense by Vice City a year later and is hard work to replay now. His argument is that its empty streets, looping NPC lines, litter blowing around and areas that appear to have no spawns make it feel eerie, like the liminal-space aesthetic that recently produced the Backrooms film. He says the game's logic is laid bare yet immersion deepens, and that this was not the developers' intent.

He compares its Liberty City to Silent Hill without the intended nightmare, and says its meaning has changed over time in a way later, more convincing GTA worlds cannot match.

Counterpoint: Critics wary of retrofitting meaning would say the emptiness is simply a technical limit of PS2-era hardware, and that reading it as art credits the game with an effect its makers did not design. Players who prefer the later, denser GTA worlds would hold that those are the more compelling places today.

Gaming Editorial

Aftermath: Valve, not developers, should police AI clones on Steam

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Oct 23

Luke Plunkett writes that this week's wave of AI-generated clones, in which someone scrapes a real game's codebase and sells a copy on a storefront, has pushed developers into defensive tactics. Those include announcing games later, favouring in-person events over online showcases and delaying public playtests. He argues the burden belongs with Valve, which takes a 30% cut of most Steam sales and already has content rules it enforces unevenly.

Plunkett points to a Steam Next Fest with more than 8,000 games as a sign that moderation is overdue. He says a store full of near-identical copies will drive users away. He cites Nintendo acting against Unpacking copycats on the eShop and PlayStation removing publishers for clogging its store as precedent. His conclusion is that the problem is Valve's to fix.

Counterpoint: Defenders of Valve's hands-off approach would say that screening thousands of submissions for derivative code is hard to do at scale. They would add that aggressive proactive removals risk catching legitimate developers, and that Valve already has an AI-disclosure policy that it can enforce after the fact.

Aftermath: AI-assisted decomps and MiSTer cores are wearing down hobby communities

Aftermath (Chris Person) · Oct 22

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Chris Person argues that vibe-coded ports are breaking the trust that open-source retro and decompilation projects rely on. Luke Street of the Dusklight project shut down decomp.dev, a tracker of decompilation projects, saying bad actors were forking and "finishing" other people's work and stretching the word "decomp" to cover any port. Person cites a Bloodborne port, built partly on the ShadPS4 emulator's renderer, that spawned many forks. A piracy site's packaging of one fork flooded the community-run Hunter's Dream server and led it to ban that fork. He also describes a growing number of slapdash MiSTer cores.

He treats the P.T. port, shared by Hideo Kojima and endorsed by hacker Lance McDonald, as a harder case: it looks competent, but AI involvement complicates how it should be reported. Person's conclusion is exhaustion at being unable to tell who cares about accuracy from who ships unchecked code.

Counterpoint: Street himself concedes that AI can speed up decompilation significantly with human guidance and code review. Supporters of AI-assisted porting would say it widens access and helps preservation, and that the P.T. port shows careful use can produce competent results.

Previously: Sakurai predicted AI would multiply Steam releases while only human creators produce something new. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Game Developer: Calling a team the 'core team' shapes how work is credited

Game Developer (Bryant Francis) · Oct 22

Continuing · Team-size claims versus full credits in game development

Game Developer's Bryant Francis argues in an opinion piece that the way the industry describes game development, and 'core teams' in particular, will shape how studios organise and value their work. This adds a trade-press voice to the debate over headline team sizes versus the people who actually build a game.

Counterpoint: Studios that cite core-team figures would say the term describes the small group making key decisions, not a claim about total headcount.

Previously: Aftermath argued the 75-person core-team figure for Galactic Racer hides roughly 1,109 credited contributors. — Monday October 19 edition.

EFF urges Canadians to oppose the C-22 Lawful Access Act in the Senate

EFF Deeplinks (Joe Mullin) · Oct 23

EFF's Joe Mullin says Bill C-22, which has passed the House of Commons and is now before the Senate, would expand state surveillance. It would force telecoms and messaging apps to assist government surveillance and let the Public Safety Minister order backdoors, provided they do not create a "systemic insecurity". It would also require metadata retention for up to a year.

EFF cites an analysis by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Citizen Lab that calls for withdrawing Part 2, the surveillance and retention regime. It also warns the bill could widen data sharing with foreign police, including a prospective US agreement without Canadian court oversight. The piece is a call to sign the CCLA's petition, and it notes that some senators have raised constitutional concerns.

Counterpoint: The Canadian government and law enforcement would argue that investigators need modern tools to deal with crime committed over encrypted and digital services. They would say the "systemic insecurity" limit and the bill's safeguards address the encryption concerns, which EFF, an advocacy group, presents in its strongest form.

Games & Industry in Brief

Ace Combat Zero on Steam now runs as a standalone

Respec (Mikhail Madnani) · Oct 23

Respec reports that Ace Combat Zero for Steam can now be downloaded and played without Ace Combat 8, though it is not sold separately.

Marvel's Wolverine tops US September charts

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 22

Marvel's Wolverine led US game sales in September, GamesIndustry.biz reports, with the highest monthly dollar sales for a Sony-published title since Helldivers 2.

Fortnite returns to iOS in Australia

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 22

Fortnite is back on iOS in Australia after a court found Apple violated competition law and ruled that it must open iOS to third-party app stores.

Supercell says cyberattacks did not touch player data

MobileGamer.biz (Vikki Blake) · Oct 22

The Clash of Clans developer says it was targeted in multiple attacks last week, found no player data affected, and has notified police and regulators.

Roblox is H1 2026's most-played game by hours

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 22

A report says Roblox logged 4.05 billion hours of playtime across PC and console in the first half of 2026, the most of any game.

Owlchemy Labs' next game targets XR headset

Game Developer (Bryant Francis) · Oct 22

Owlchemy Labs' Hyper Visor will be a launch title for HTC's XREAL Aura headset, marking the VR pioneer's move to XR.

Blood of Dawnwalker gets update 1.1

Polygon (Willa Rowe) · Oct 22

Update 1.1 for the vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker is out, with a long list of changes that Polygon calls huge.

Canadian opposition leader backs BioWare employee buyout

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Oct 23

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

Avi Lewis, leader of one of Canada's top opposition parties, has called on the government to help BioWare employees buy the studio and run it themselves, citing his opposition to private equity.

Previously: Rock Paper Shotgun and Polygon looked back at EA's record with BioWare, and Eurogamer reported cuts totalling 400 roles. — Thursday October 22 edition.

PHP vulnerability knocks out Final Fantasy 14 and other games

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Oct 22

Final Fantasy 14 and Umamusume: Pretty Derby were among the games hit by outages after a serious PHP vulnerability was discovered this week.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 delayed to second half of 2027

Polygon (Elijah Gonzalez) · Oct 22

Developers pushed back Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 to the second half of 2027, saying they are responding to fan feedback.

Epic's AI game jam drops its AI requirement

PC Gamer (Tyler Wilde) · Oct 23

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Epic announced a game jam requiring the use of AI and then walked back the requirement.

Previously: Sakurai predicted AI will multiply Steam releases while only human creators produce something new. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Switch 2 jailbroken in AI-assisted hack

Polygon (Willa Rowe) · Oct 22

Polygon reports the Nintendo Switch 2 has been jailbroken with AI assistance, after the PlayStation 5 suffered the same fate.

Serious Sam: The Third Encounter is being made

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Oct 22

PC Gamer reports that a Serious Sam: The Third Encounter project is under way.

AI & Industry

OpenAI program co-discovered PHP2Shell flaws in core PHP

Latent Space · Oct 22

Latent Space reports that OpenAI's Patch the Planet program, using GPT-5.6 Sol, was one of two parties to find the PHP2Shell vulnerabilities, which affect core PHP used by about 70% of the web. The response was coordinated over two months, and the flaws are behind this week's game outages.

Texas pulls portal used to rubber-stamp data centers

404 Media (Matthew Gault) · Oct 22

After 404 Media's reporting, Texas took down a portal that had been used to approve data centers without scrutiny. Commissioners said staff will now review all applications to determine whether they are data-center related.

Disney patents AI characters that bond using guest memories

WDW News Today (Alice Kennedy) · Oct 22

Disney has filed two patents, on the same date, for emotionally responsive AI interactive characters that could draw on guests' memories to personalise interactions.

Facial recognition replaces ticket scanning at Islands of Adventure lockers

WDW News Today (Shannen Ace) · Oct 22

Most locker locations at Universal Islands of Adventure now use facial recognition instead of ticket scanning, a system first introduced at Epic Universe.

Anthropic donates Agent Skills to the Agentic AI Foundation

Anthropic · Oct 22

Anthropic is donating its Agent Skills to the Agentic AI Foundation.

Armed-conflict law experts push for AI weapons guardrails

404 Media (Matthew Gault) · Oct 22

404 Media reports that the people who write the Laws of Armed Conflict want guardrails on AI weapons systems, while AI is already amplifying the destruction of war.

Disney patents cameras that detect falls and call for help

Blooloop (Bea Mitchell) · Oct 22

Blooloop reports Disney has filed a patent for security cameras that spot a person falling and summon assistance.

Science & Archaeology

Neanderthal hand bones with collagen found in Spain

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 22

Well-preserved Neanderthal hand bones containing collagen have been recovered from Abauntz Cave in Navarre, northern Spain.

Maya city stayed inhabited after its collapse

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 22

Traces of 96 small structures indicate people continued to live in a Maya city after its collapse, according to the Greek Reporter.

Malta's bedrock wheel ruts analysed

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 22

Researchers have analysed the deep grooves cut into bedrock across the Maltese archipelago.

Possible penguin hunters' campsite off Patagonia

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 22

IFL Science reports that a team led by Nicolas C. Ciarlo is examining whether penguin hunters occupied a campsite off Patagonia's coast.

Skull analysis reveals what Denisovans looked like

Nautilus (Jake Currie) · Oct 22

Nautilus reports an analysis of Denisovan skulls that paints a picture of the appearance of these archaic human relatives.

2,884 supernovae hint that dark energy changes over time

ScienceDaily · Oct 23

A large analysis of 2,884 exploding stars has produced new evidence that dark energy may change over time, challenging a cornerstone of modern cosmology.

Sound, Game Audio & Music Tech

Inside the sound of The Blood of Dawnwalker

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Oct 21

A Sound Effect has a game audio deep-dive on how the audio team designed sounds for the game's vampires, creatures and gore.

Seven new sound effects libraries

A Sound Effect (Asbjoern Andersen) · Oct 20

A Sound Effect rounds up new libraries covering dark fantasy spells, a Suzuki V-twin cruiser, tropical wildlife and grassroots football, among others.

LEGO DESiGN hiring a Sound Design Manager

Soundlister (Asbjoern Andersen) · Oct 19

Soundlister flags a rare audio opening at LEGO DESiGN for a Sound Design Manager.

Akai launches MPK Mini Plus II

Synthtopia (Elisabeth) · Oct 22

The controller pairs a 37-key mini keybed with eight velocity- and pressure-sensitive RGB pads and a full-colour display. It adds tools such as Glitch, Mutate, Strum, Freeze, Chords and Follow.

Roland TR-1000 1.5 adds keyboard mode

CDM (Peter Kirn) · Oct 22

Roland's 1.5 update for the TR-1000 drum machine adds a much-requested keyboard mode for playing bass and melodic parts. It also allows seamless pattern and kit switching with effects on.

Teenage Engineering expands K.O. range with EP-35 AMP and EP-127 Pedal

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 22

Teenage Engineering has added the EP-35 AMP, EP-127 Pedal and other accessories to its K.O. range, confirming a long-leaked amp.

Audio-Technica buys Hollywood facility for West Coast base

Mix (Mix Staff) · Oct 22

Audio-Technica has acquired a two-story Hollywood facility that will become its West Coast base.

Gaming Editorial

EA never understood BioWare, and BioWare kept repeating itself

Rock Paper Shotgun (Julian Benson) · Oct 22

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

Rock Paper Shotgun's Julian Benson revisits old developer interviews on EA's 19-year ownership and finds two threads. EA changed the studio's culture straight away: audio lead Steve Sim recalled "I need more guys" turning into "I need more resources", and co-founder Trent Oster described an across-the-board 10% budget cut right after the acquisition.

Benson also argues BioWare kept making its own mistakes, starting projects years before settling on a vision. Anthem is the example. David Gaider says it grew out of executive bullet points that no one owned, and Mark Darrah calls the pitch the one EA wanted to hear. Benson concludes that EA was an irresponsible owner and that BioWare never learned from its repeated missteps.

Counterpoint: EA's own closure letter presents the decision as a way to focus resources on its biggest opportunities, and the company would say Anthem's cost justified tighter control. Polygon's Ari Notis puts far more of the blame on corporate interference than on BioWare's habits.

Previously: EA's memo confirmed BioWare's closure, a pause on Project Lotus and a focus on shooters and sports. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Polygon: Dragon Age: The Veilguard deserved better as BioWare's last game

Polygon (Ari Notis) · Oct 22

Continuing · EA restructuring after the PIF buyout

Polygon's Ari Notis argues that The Veilguard, now BioWare's swansong, was a very good game hit by three problems: executive meddling, a profit-driven outrage economy and a crowded 2024 release calendar. He recounts the troubled development, including a cancelled prototype in 2017, live-service elements added at EA's behest and later removed, and a backlash over the nonbinary character Taash.

He grants the facts against it. It sits at 82 on Metacritic for PS5, about 1.5 million people played it in two months, roughly half of EA's expectations, and it was almost entirely passed over at The Game Awards. Notis still calls the smooth action combat and accessible story a fitting end to the studio's career.

Counterpoint: Notis concedes that critics found the combat system reminiscent of live-service design. Others would say the sales miss against targets and the studio's long record of troubled development, which Rock Paper Shotgun documents, count against his case more than the online backlash does.

Previously: EA's memo confirmed BioWare's closure, a pause on Project Lotus and a focus on shooters and sports. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Sakurai: generative AI will flood Steam with copies, not originality

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Oct 22

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

In an interview with Denfaminicogamer, reported by Eurogamer, Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai said AI will push annual Steam releases well beyond this year's 19,000 (275 in 2010), and that most of those games will be unprofitable. He expects them to mostly reproduce systems from other games, with simple-premise puzzle games the easiest to copy.

Sakurai allows that AI might eventually imitate games like Ico, but says it works from what already exists and cannot produce what hasn't been made, which he sees as where human creators like Fumito Ueda matter. Eurogamer links this to Steam Next Fest, which has more than twice last year's demos, and to indie developers pulling demos for fear of being copied.

Counterpoint: The studios in the Vivrato survey covered earlier, which puts AI use at 97%, would say AI is a production tool and not a substitute for design. Sakurai's claim that AI cannot go beyond its sources is also a prediction that boosters of the technology dispute.

Previously: Pedercini's disclosure of limited AI use in Future? No Thanks! drew backlash, and a Vivrato survey puts studio AI use at 97%. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Penguin Colony drops the subtext on purpose

Remap Radio (Patrick Klepek) · Oct 16

Remap's Patrick Klepek profiles Penguin Colony, the new game from Umurangi Generation designer Tali Faulkner and Origame Digital. It reworks Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness through a sliding penguin whose home has been invaded by Nazis digging under the ice. Faulkner says the game ends in open analogies to Gaza and global indifference to genocide, and that "I don't think now's the time for subtlety or nuance."

Faulkner says the plain politics made the game hard to pitch, even after Umurangi's success, because publishers said their slots were full. Klepek notes that the game works on a surface level too, as shown by his six-year-old playing it and by long lines of children at a festival. Faulkner says it is the first of a proposed trilogy reworking Lovecraft.

Counterpoint: Critics who think political games work better through ambiguity would say the lack of subtlety is a limit and not a virtue. The publishers who passed would cite their own priorities and portfolios, not the politics, as the reason.

Early-access offers for big games shift again in 2026

Game File (Stephen Totilo) · Oct 17

Game File's Stephen Totilo surveys this year's paid and unpaid early access. Anyone who bought the $70 digital edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 could play the campaign from October 16, a week before the official launch on October 23. Many offers have crept up: NBA 2K27's $100 version gave up to nine days early, up from seven last year, and Forza Horizon 6's premium edition cost $120 against $100 for Horizon 5.

Other offers include five days early on Gears of War: E-Day for $100 and 48 hours on Control Resonant for PlayStation buyers of the deluxe edition. Sony and Nintendo generally don't sell early access, and Grand Theft Auto VI has no early version. Totilo's point is that the early date works as the real launch, with the official date amounting to delayed access.

Counterpoint: Publishers would say early access is an optional premium tier. Totilo notes that deluxe editions like NBA 2K's also bundle virtual currency and items, which makes the price hard to read as a charge for early access alone.

Gaming Editorial

Aftermath: a $1,200–$1,800 Helix console would be commercial suicide

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Oct 21

Continuing · Rising console prices and the next hardware generation

Luke Plunkett's reaction to a Fortune profile of Xbox chief Asha Sharma centres on one detail in that piece. Microsoft has internally projected its next console, codenamed Helix, at $1,200 to $1,800 for consumers, unless the company subsidizes the cost. Fortune also reports the prospect of further layoffs at Microsoft-owned studios.

Plunkett argues that this lands on a weak market. He points to the cost-of-living crisis, shrinking visual gains from each console generation, thinning Xbox exclusives as AAA budgets climb, and weak Series S/X sales at a $499 launch price. Even a subsidized $1,000 machine would cost twice that. He calls the plan a historic disaster, says he is amazed Microsoft is still committed to it, and half-seriously suggests his own joke about re-releasing old consoles may be the industry's real way out.

Counterpoint: The figure is an internal projection reported by Fortune, not an announced price, and Microsoft could subsidize the hardware as the report itself notes. Executives and analysts who favor premium hardware would say a high-end device can serve a small enthusiast base without needing mass-market sales, a case Plunkett does not engage.

Previously: The earlier edition reported that PS6 memory and storage costs alone could top $680. — Monday October 19 edition.

Aftermath turns the Xbox manager's AI posting spree into a lesson for Tim Sweeney

Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) · Oct 20

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Nathan Grayson's piece covers the aftermath of Xbox senior business strategy manager Brandon Stirrup's weekend of posts. Stirrup claimed that anyone can build a game with a prompt, and that gaming is the only industry pretending not to use AI. He deleted his X account on Monday evening, which an Xbox source told PC Gamer was because of the volume of replies.

Grayson treats this as the model arc for a bad poster: say something dumb, dig in, get buried in replies, log off. He then uses it to needle Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, whom Aftermath has long said should leave social media. The piece is satire, not a rebuttal. Its one substantive point is that AI use at Microsoft-owned studios is already well known.

Counterpoint: Supporters of Stirrup's underlying position, that studios should openly acknowledge AI use, would say the piece mocks his posting style rather than answering the argument. It also concedes his main factual claim, that Microsoft studios already use AI.

Previously: The earlier edition covered Stirrup's pro-AI thread and exit from X alongside a code-copying dispute among Needle In A Haystack clones. — Tuesday October 20 edition.

Indie studios cancel public playtests over AI clone fears

This Week In Videogames (Maddie Agne) · Oct 20

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Digital Sun, maker of Moonlighter and Cataclismo, has scaled back a planned public playtest of ReVamp to its Discord community, saying launch is still months away and a build shared with tens of thousands of players felt too risky. Alliance Arts and Who You cancelled the public demo of Drunken Goddess Reflux on October 16 in favor of closed sessions. They said imitations of the game's presentation and gameplay could be produced quickly with AI and released before launch.

This Week in Videogames ties the moves to a wave of AI-assisted decompilation projects that have produced unofficial ports and recompilation mods. decomp.dev, a community site for decompilation knowledge, announced it was winding down partly because of AI involvement. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has also announced an Xbox Labs initiative in response to the code-porting projects. Digital Sun said it wants platforms to strengthen protections for original work so small studios can keep sharing games early. Alliance Arts also cited a second reason: it was not equipped to manage restrictions on posting and streaming gameplay.

Counterpoint: Decompilation advocates say these projects serve preservation and let classic games run on new platforms, which is different from cloning an unreleased title. The developers' fears are about what could happen, and the report cites no confirmed clone of a game in playtest.

Previously: The earlier edition covered a code-copying dispute among Needle In A Haystack clones and Xbox manager Brandon Stirrup's pro-AI thread and exit from X. — Tuesday October 20 edition.

Remap: Star Wars Galactic Racer is a great game but an odd racer

Remap Radio (Rowan Kaiser) · Oct 20

Rowan Kaiser calls Star Wars: Galactic Racer a terrific Star Wars experience and a blast to play, with a run-based structure that makes it a racing roguelike. He is unsure it works as a racing game. In his framing, arcade racers are about relationships with rival cars, while technical racers are about learning the track and tuning the car. Galactic Racer, he argues, does neither.

Opponents show up mostly as engine lights ahead of you. Tracks are stitched from variants of each planet's layout, with no map or racing line, so they are hard to learn. He says the tunnel-or-wall confusion is the game's biggest annoyance. Speeder parts are largely cosmetic, and each campaign starts from the same base car. Kaiser concludes that survival is the main motivator, not racing. The full text is behind a free signup wall, so this summary covers only the portion available.

Counterpoint: Fans of roguelike structure would say survival and temporary run-based builds are the design, and that judging it by Mario Kart or Gran Turismo standards misses the point. Kaiser himself praises how fun it is to play.

AI & Industry

Anthropic publishes early update on Project Glasswing

Anthropic · Oct 20

Anthropic has posted an initial update on what it has learned from Project Glasswing. The summary gives no further detail.

Anthropic says it cut distillation by more than 90%

Anthropic · Oct 20

Anthropic describes steps it has taken against illicit distillation, in which developers copy frontier model capabilities without building comparable safeguards. It says these measures have reduced the rate of distillation by more than 90%.

Eight eMudhra intermediate CA keys compromised

Simon Willison · Oct 21

Simon Willison flags that the private keys of eight eMudhra intermediate CA certificates have been compromised. They chain to roots trusted by the Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple and Chrome programs. Linux distros need to update their ca-certificates packages, and uv 0.13.4, pip 26.2.2 and certifi 2026.10.19 ship updated certificate lists.

Court rules OPM's data disclosure to DOGE unlawful

EFF Deeplinks (Mario Trujillo) · Oct 21

Continuing · Federal data consolidation and privacy law

A federal court in New York ruled on October 20 that the Office of Personnel Management violated two Privacy Act provisions when it disclosed millions of federal employee records to DOGE agents. One provision limits disclosure between agencies and the other requires safeguarding record security. The court will decide the remedy later. EFF says OPM should still clean up the cybersecurity problems it created.

Previously: EFF had laid out three waves of federal data consolidation and called for stronger privacy law. — Saturday October 10 edition.

Don't Nod begins safeguard proceedings, with up to 85 jobs at risk

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Oct 20

Continuing · Game industry layoffs and studio closures

The studio behind Life is Strange, Jusant and Lost Records: Bloom & Rage has begun "safeguard proceedings" to protect itself from creditors. Its restructuring plan puts up to 85 employees at risk of dismissal.

Previously: The earlier edition covered Funcom's further cuts, Liquid Swords' bankruptcy and Polygon's tally of layoffs behind 2026 shooters. — Sunday October 18 edition.

Sensor Tower: GTA 6 preorders dwarf other AAA launches

GamesIndustry.biz (Lewis Packwood) · Oct 20

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 approaches release

A Sensor Tower analysis shows GTA 6 well ahead of some of the biggest AAA games of the past six years on preorders.

Previously: The earlier edition reported Rockstar saying GTA 6 will not directly reference Trump or COVID-19. — Sunday October 18 edition.

Griffin Gaming Partners and Entertainment 360 launch game-adaptation company

GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy) · Oct 20

Griffin Gaming Partners has launched a company to support video game adaptations for film and TV, in partnership with talent management and production firm Entertainment 360.

Cedar Point coaster reopens after bracket fell from ride

Blooloop (Bea Mitchell) · Oct 20

Blooloop reports that a roller coaster at Cedar Point has reopened after a bracket fell from the ride.

Shanghai Disneyland tests Spider-Man coaster at full speed

WDW News Today (Shannen Ace) · Oct 20

Imagineers have begun full-speed testing of Shanghai Disneyland's new Spider-Man roller coaster with weighted dummies strapped into some seats. They have also removed the clearance envelopes used in earlier push-pull testing.

Science & Archaeology

Westminster Abbey's Roman sarcophagus mystery solved

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 21

Live Science reports that a 150-year-old puzzle over a medieval skeleton buried in a Roman-era sarcophagus at Westminster Abbey has been resolved. The sarcophagus carries both Roman and Anglo-Saxon decoration, which had long baffled archaeologists.

Elite infant burial found at Moche temple in Peru

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 20

Andina News Agency reports that a 1,400-year-old infant's grave has been uncovered at a Moche temple near Trujillo, Peru. Archaeology Magazine describes it as an elite burial.

Faience workshop discovered in ancient Nubia

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 20

A statement from the journal Antiquity reports the discovery of a faience workshop in ancient Nubia.

Alaska and Russia prehistoric sites linked culturally

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 20

Gizmodo reports that Shég' Xdaltth'i', an archaeological site in Alaska, shows a cultural connection with prehistoric sites in Russia.

Voynich manuscript may have been bound out of order

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 20

A new study argues the undeciphered 15th-century Voynich manuscript was incorrectly bound. Experts quoted by Live Science say the finding "moves the ball" toward deciphering it.

Webb may be watching one of the earliest supernovas

Live Science (Ivan Farkas) · Oct 20

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope may have found a supernova erupting just 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang.

Sound & Music Tech

Roland n/vision brings wavetable synthesis to the Boutique line

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 20

Roland's n/vision is the first bi-timbral wavetable synth in the Boutique format, with two oscillators, effects and a step sequencer. Synth Anatomy has posted a sound demo.

Roland revives the Boutique Jupiter as the JUPITER-08

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 20

The JUPITER-08 returns the Boutique Jupiter-8 as a bi-timbral synth with up to 32 voices, built-in effects and a sequencer. It arrives ten years after the original JP-08.

Arturia MiniFreak 49 reviewed

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 20

Synth Anatomy reviews the MiniFreak 49, which puts the polyphonic Freak synth in a full-size keyboard with true stereo output. The review describes the sound as grittier, with more performance controls.

KORG MS2000R emulator built from machine code

Sonic State · Oct 20

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Sonic State highlights a hardware-level emulator that runs the MS2000 and microKORG engine from the original machine code. It joins the recent run of firmware projects, emulations and recompilations.

Previously: The earlier edition covered M-VAVE's FM-1 Open, launched to invite community firmware. — Sunday October 18 edition.

Serato DJ launches on iOS

Sonic State · Oct 20

Serato has released Serato DJ for iPhone and iPad.

Sound library catalogues 100 keyboard switches, with live-service mechanics

PC Gamer (Jess Kinghorn) · Oct 20

PC Gamer covers a sound library that catalogues 100 different keyboard switches and includes live-service-style game mechanics.

Gaming Editorial

EFF: Police should need a warrant to search license plate reader data

EFF Deeplinks (Adam Schwartz) · Oct 20

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a post co-written with legal intern Andi Cao, argues that automated license plate readers are mass surveillance and that cities should not buy them. Where they already operate, EFF says courts and legislatures should at minimum require police to get a warrant before searching stored data. A warrant would make an officer show a judge probable cause and describe what is being searched, rather than letting the officer decide alone.

The post leans on San Jose, where EFF and the ACLU of Northern California represent two groups in a lawsuit over the practice. SJPD officers searched stored data 261,711 times between June 2024 and June 2025, about 692 a day, and the department fired an officer who tracked a woman and passed her location to his cousin, the man she had accused of domestic violence. EFF also lists searches aimed at Romani people, protesters and an abortion, plus thousands of searches run on behalf of federal immigration enforcement, and says a judge should have refused to sign off on each one. It notes that a federal judge in Oklahoma recently agreed that a warrant is required. EFF concludes that a warrant requirement would not make the systems acceptable, but would stop much casual and abusive searching.

Counterpoint: EFF is an advocacy group that wants the systems abolished. Police agencies and vendors such as Flock have argued that plate readers help solve vehicle thefts and violent crimes, and that plates on public roads carry little expectation of privacy. Law enforcement groups would add that a warrant requirement slows time-sensitive investigations.

Needle-in-a-haystack clones multiply on Steam, and one accuses another of copying its code

Rock Paper Shotgun (Mark Warren) · Oct 19

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Rock Paper Shotgun reports that the viral appeal of the unreleased Needle In A Haystack Simulator has produced a pile of imitators on Steam, and the pile has now produced a code theft dispute. NoGlyph, maker of Needle In A Haystack (released September 29), says Little Field Studios' A Game About Needle In A Haystack (October 16) contains its code. Dev Jahvin says 13 classes share exact names, more than half of the functions in that section match, and some error messages appear word for word, including one pointing to a shader that doesn't exist in the newer game. He says the copied code matches NoGlyph's free demo builds from September 20 and 21, and that NoGlyph has filed a copyright notice with Valve.

The accused game's Steam page discloses generative AI use, but only for its logo. The article says AI-assisted decompilation is a possibility, with no confirmation. It ties the case to growing developer worry about AI cloning games, citing the makers of Drunken Goddess Reflux, who dropped a public demo for limited playtests for that reason.

Counterpoint: The claims come from NoGlyph alone and haven't been tested. The report doesn't include a response from Little Field Studios, and the AI link is speculation. Boosters of AI development tools, such as Epic's Tim Sweeney, would say that lowering the barrier to making games is the point, and that code theft is a separate problem from AI use.

Previously: Tim Sweeney said AI coding would usher in a golden age of gaming as Epic retooled staff, and PC Gamer noted vibe-coded games spreading on Steam. — Monday October 19 edition.

Xbox strategy manager deletes X account after saying AI holdouts shouldn't be in business

PC Gamer (Andy Chalk) · Oct 19

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Xbox senior business strategy manager Brandon Stirrup posted a thread on October 18 saying he had vibe-coded a game over two days, with about three hours of active work. He said studios not building AI into their plans are "planning for a fake future", that Xbox uses AI like every company in 2026, and that hundreds at Xbox should stop pretending otherwise. He deleted his X account within a day. An Xbox source told PC Gamer he deactivated it because of the volume of replies.

PC Gamer places the thread in a wider push to treat AI as settled fact: Epic's Sweeney on retooling developers for AI acceleration, the Epic Games Store's "vibe coded" launcher backlash, Xbox's new Xbox Labs program under a former AI executive, and Linux dropping its AI disclosure rule. It adds that Stirrup last month told laid-off employees to use Copilot to catalog their skills.

Counterpoint: Many developers and players, whose pushback seems to have driven the reaction, argue that a three-hour prototype says little about shipping a commercial game and that framing AI refusal as a business failure ignores quality and labor concerns. Stirrup is a business strategist, not a game maker, and the post is not an official Xbox position.

Previously: Sweeney said AI coding would usher in a golden age of gaming as Epic retooled staff, and PC Gamer noted vibe-coded games spreading on Steam. — Monday October 19 edition.

PlayStation's Ken Kutaragi calls disc nostalgia a 'mentality issue'

Eurogamer (Robert Purchese) · Oct 19

Continuing · Sony ending physical discs for new PS5 games

Ken Kutaragi, who founded PlayStation and designed its first three consoles, told Eurogamer's source interview that discs became a "metaphor for 'owning' games" and that upset over Sony ending them is probably a "mentality issue". He said he understands the feeling, but that it doesn't make continued disc printing "economically reasonable" for Sony. This puts a founding figure on the side of the phase-out, framing it as economics against sentiment about ownership.

Counterpoint: Players and preservation advocates argue that discs are the only form of ownership that survives a shuttered store or revoked license, so the attachment is practical, not psychological. Nintendo has taken a different line, saying it has no plans to drop physical games.

Previously: Nintendo's Latin America VP said the company has no plans to drop physical games. — Tuesday October 13 edition.

Lucasfilm Games says it is 'more flexible' on pitches, and indie studios are delivering Star Wars hits

Eurogamer (Sherif Saed) · Oct 19

Eurogamer notes that this year's two best-liked Star Wars games, the XCOM-like Zero Company and the Burnout-like Galactic Racer, both came from independent studios. In recent years the franchise has mostly gone to much larger companies, such as Ubisoft with Star Wars Outlaws and EA with Star Wars Battlefront. The piece ties the shift to Lucasfilm Games saying it is now more flexible about whom it takes pitches from. The argument is that opening the licence to smaller teams with genre-specific ideas has produced better results than relying on big publishers.

Counterpoint: Two successes are a small sample, and large studios still carry the budgets and live-service ambitions that smaller teams can't match. Fans of the bigger-studio games could argue that scale, not studio size, is what the franchise needs.

AI & Industry

Wizards of the Coast declines voluntary recognition of D&D and Studio X union drive

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Oct 19

Continuing · Union drives at game studios

Wizards of the Coast won't voluntarily recognize the union drive by its Dungeons & Dragons and Studio X teams, so staff will vote in a secret-ballot election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Previously: Wizards of the Coast again said it would not voluntarily recognize union efforts. — Sunday October 18 edition.

PEGI re-rates digital-only games with loot boxes to 16

GamesIndustry.biz (Vikki Blake) · Oct 19

PEGI is moving existing digital-only games with paid random items, such as loot boxes, up to a 16 rating if they currently carry a 3, 7 or 12.

Records detail mechanical failures and broken bones at Six Flags

Blooloop (Bea Mitchell) · Oct 19

Continuing · Six Flags Georgia coaster fatality

Blooloop reports that records show mechanical failures, faulty restraint bars and broken bones at Six Flags parks, adding documentary detail to the safety scrutiny that followed the Georgia coaster death.

Previously: Blooloop reported the death added pressure on Six Flags to sell, with Travis Kelce joining an investor group, and prompted shutdowns across the US and Canada. — Saturday October 17 edition.

Ceiling fan falls in Stardust Racers queue at Epic Universe

WDW News Today (Shannen Ace) · Oct 19

A ceiling fan in the queue for Stardust Racers at Universal's Epic Universe fell on Sunday, October 18, reportedly hitting a guest, according to WDW News Today. TikTok creator Shane Mercier posted video of the fan on the ground, stuck between a wall and a railing.

Simon Willison shares an 'obituary for programming'

Simon Willison · Oct 20

Simon Willison points to Jeremy Scheff's essay mourning what coding agents take from career programmers who loved the puzzle-solving side of the job. Scheff describes a profession that paid well because ordinary people couldn't do it.

AI Weekly: AI finds software flaws faster than teams can fix them

AI Weekly · Oct 19

The Applied AI edition of AI Weekly, drawing on its use-case library and SEC filings, says AI now finds security flaws at record volume, agents do a large share of work at some companies, and test agents keep doing things nobody asked for.

Themed-entertainment sound firm Sound Sculpture Inc. turns 30

Blooloop (Rebecca Hardy) · Oct 19

Sound Sculpture Inc., founded by Ben Herrington in 1996, marks 30 years of work in themed entertainment, arguing that sound should be a foundational design element rather than a finishing layer. Blooloop says the company began as a way to preserve the techniques and physical props of classic sound artists as studios discarded them.

Japan Actors Union proposes strict rules on AI voice use

Eurogamer (Connor Makar) · Oct 19

The Japan Actors Union has issued guidelines restricting AI-generated voices, including an outright ban on replicating the voices of dead actors unless they authorised it while alive, Eurogamer reports.

GamesIndustry.biz surveys the AI legal landscape for studios

GamesIndustry.biz (Anna Poulter-Jones) · Oct 19

A GamesIndustry.biz explainer says generative AI is increasingly embedded in game development while laws, regulations and guidelines on it multiply, with each landmark case adding nuance to how it can be adopted.

Science & Archaeology

Medieval Russian 'pizza peel' doubled as a game board

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 19

Archaeologists in Russia found an 11th-century flat wooden paddle with a board game carved into it, Live Science reports.

Romans may have burned a Celtic town to humiliate its people

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 19

Archaeologists found a first-century-BC military camp built during Emperor Augustus' Cantabrian Wars, and they suggest the Romans set fire to a nearby Celtic town to humiliate the enemy, per Live Science.

'Birdman' copper plate may show a woman dressed as a warrior

Live Science (Kristina Killgrove) · Oct 19

The roughly 700-year-old plate, found in an Indigenous grave in Georgia nearly 150 years ago, may depict a woman ceremonially dressed as a warrior holding a weapon and a severed head, Live Science reports.

Roads and terraces found near Machu Picchu

Archaeology Magazine (Jessica Esther Saraceni) · Oct 19

Archaeology Magazine, citing a Science in Poland report, says researchers found about a mile and a half of roads and terraces near Machu Picchu.

Astronomers find the first star that would look truly green

ScienceDaily · Oct 19

A study of white dwarfs found stars glowing pink, purple, yellow and cyan from unusual chemistry in their dense atmospheres, including the first known star that would appear genuinely green to human eyes, ScienceDaily reports.

Sound & Music Tech

Zynthian 'Vangelis' OS adds clip launcher and new instruments

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 19

The open-hardware synth platform's new major OS update adds a clip launcher view, new instruments and plugins, according to Synth Anatomy.

Darkglass shows Anagram touchscreen multi-effects platform at Brooklyn EXPO

Sonic State · Oct 19

Sonic State's video from Brooklyn EXPO 2026 has Darkglass showing Anagram, the company's touchscreen multi-effects platform.

YouTuber argues the Sega 32X was an audio powerhouse

Sonic State · Oct 20

Sonic State highlights a video from YouTuber Jenovi on the sound capabilities of Sega's 1994 32X add-on, a commercial flop that he says was strong on audio.

Rift is a glitch and effects performance tool for Ableton Live

Sonic State · Oct 19

DWP's Rift 1.0.0 is a Max for Live device for macOS and Windows that controls glitches and effect snapshots across several Live tracks.

Bob Moog Foundation holds online fundraising auction

Sonic State · Oct 20

The Bob Moog Foundation's online auction, running October 19-26, offers original Moog artwork, collectibles and memorabilia.

Gaming Editorial

Galactic Racer's 'core team of 75' and the 1,109 names behind it

Aftermath (Luke Plunkett) · Oct 19

Aftermath's Luke Plunkett takes issue with how Star Wars: Galactic Racer's development has been described. In a GI.biz interview, Fuse Games CEO Matt Webster outlined three tiers of distributed development: traditional outsourcing of assets, external development of self-contained features (photo mode went wholesale to an outside studio), and co-development with people embedded in Fuse's stand-ups, Slack and code base. GI.biz nonetheless framed the game as made by a core team of 75, while MobyGames lists roughly 1,109 credited people.

Plunkett says Webster is working within the realities of the 2026 industry, and his main complaint is with the coverage. He argues that repeating the small-team figure, as happened with Manor Lords and Expedition 33, misrepresents how modern games get made. He also says the model risks entrenching a permanent underclass of contractors, naming Electric Square, Expression Games, Mindwalk and Original Force. He lands on bafflement at why the industry keeps trying to narrow the spotlight.

Counterpoint: Studio heads such as Webster, and the GI.biz writers, would say the core-team figure describes who steered design and direction, which differs from headcount of everyone who touched the project. Webster also argues that distributed work lets a studio scale up and down without laying off its permanent staff.

The Game Awards jury loses its American majority

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Oct 18

Polygon's Oli Welsh reports that the 2026 Game Awards jury has just 17 American outlets, down from 24 in 2024 and 2025. The UK rose from 14 to 17 and now matches the US, while Brazil gained four outlets and holds 14 votes. Latin America makes up about 21% of the jury, and continental Europe (27%) now nearly matches the Anglophone bloc (28%). The US decline comes largely from mainstream, lifestyle and tech outlets leaving, among them Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Wirecutter and Wired. Welsh says he cannot tell whether the cause is TGA's choice or newsrooms losing their games writers.

He restates last year's argument that a bigger international jury has narrowed taste toward games that travel easily, which has hurt indies that cannot afford localisation. He adds a caveat: the winners' countries of origin have diversified, with no American GOTY winner since 2020 after four wins in the first seven years. Grand Theft Auto 6, which squeaks under the eligibility cutoff, is the overwhelming favourite, and Welsh calls it likely a last hurrah for the American blockbuster.

Counterpoint: Welsh himself concedes the US-UK shift looks mostly symbolic given how similar the two gaming cultures are. Defenders of the jury would say a broader panel better reflects a global audience, and that winners follow quality rather than outlet nationality.

Sweeney says AI coding will bring a 'golden age of gaming'

Polygon (Ashely Claudino) · Oct 18

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Polygon reports that Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is again defending AI in development, arguing that AI coding has improved sharply over the past year and will let studios build large open-world games with far fewer resources. He says the time he spent writing Unreal Engine 1 could have been saved with AI producing equivalent work. Ahead of a report that Epic's upcoming Disney title prioritises AI, he posted that Epic is moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration.

The piece also gathers earlier reports: developers allegedly told there is no more hand-written code, rumours that some partners are refusing Fortnite collaborations over Epic's AI use, and a new store launcher, in preview, that was vibe coded. Polygon describes player reaction as largely hostile and calls Epic's upcoming products a litmus test for how comfortable players are with generative AI.

Counterpoint: Many developers and gamers oppose the stance, as Polygon notes, citing concerns about quality, effort and labour. Sweeney's critics point to the vibe-coded launcher, which fans felt lacked polish, as evidence that the promised gains have not yet arrived.

Previously: Konami's president said people and creators matter most, while a vibe-coded San Francisco game drew backlash. — Sunday October 18 edition.

A Game Boy cartridge that holds an entire Game Boy museum

Eurogamer (Robert Purchese) · Oct 18

Eurogamer's Robert Purchese profiles Dr Marcel Pflug, who spent years of evenings and weekends fitting his Game Boy Museum archive onto a cartridge that runs on real 1989 hardware. The site catalogues the handheld's products, peripherals, hardware revisions and hundreds of journal articles, and the cartridge makes it searchable like a chapter-by-chapter paperback. The limits were severe: only 255 tile blocks on screen, many consumed by each line of text, which Pflug calls making the Game Boy a spectacularly bad e-reader.

He added QR codes, a format invented in 1994 for a Toyota factory, so the handheld can point phones to photos, and drew the title screen by hand because photo conversion turned his face into a skull. The ROM is free to download. Purchese reads the project as a human counterweight to AI, because the work is done purely for the pleasure of it, at a time when similar projects might take minutes to generate.

Counterpoint: AI-tool advocates such as Tim Sweeney would argue that automation lowers the barrier to making things and does not stop hobbyists from doing it the slow way. The framing also sets this hobby project against AI rather than against a specific use of it.

Steam Next Fest passes 8,000 demos as vibe-coded games multiply

PC Gamer (Shaun Prescott) · Oct 19

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

PC Gamer's weekly Steam roundup for the week ending October 18 notes that Steam Next Fest has more than 8,000 demos. Its headline also describes vibe-coded games as worthless slop that is levelling up on the platform.

Previously: Konami's president said people and creators matter most, while a vibe-coded San Francisco game drew backlash. — Sunday October 18 edition.

PS6 memory and storage reportedly cost more than $680

Eurogamer (Vikki Blake) · Oct 18

Continuing · Rising console prices and the next hardware generation

Eurogamer reports that the memory and storage in the PlayStation 6 reportedly cost more than $680 between them. The figure adds a concrete number to the debate over how expensive the next hardware generation will be.

Previously: Rob Fahey argued a hardware market freeze could reshape the industry just as GTA VI should be boosting console sales. — Saturday October 17 edition.

AI & Industry

Anthropic sets aside shares for a new public benefit fund

Anthropic · Oct 18

Continuing · Anthropic IPO preparations

Anthropic says it is committing a portion of its shares to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new entity structured so that its stake increases as the company grows.

Previously: Anthropic told investors Q3 revenue reached $16.8bn with an 11% adjusted operating margin. — Friday October 16 edition.

Leaked Anthropic-drafted AI safety bill sets high thresholds for intervention

PC Gamer (Justin Wagner) · Oct 18

PC Gamer reports on a leaked AI safety bill from Anthropic that would require government intervention only when 50 or more injuries or $1 billion in harm are at risk. The outlet's framing is sceptical, mocking how high that bar sits.

Disney details Kamino, the simulator behind its Olaf animatronic

WDW News Today (Shannen Ace) · Oct 19

Disney Research shared a video and paper on Kamino, a GPU-accelerated physics solver for simulating complex mechanical systems. It was used to program the walking, talking Olaf animatronic and other park robots, according to WDW News Today.

Monstropolis gets monster-themed trim at Disney's Hollywood Studios

WDW News Today (Austin Haughton) · Oct 18

WDW News Today's latest construction update shows teeth, scales and weathered paint added to Monstropolis facades on the former Muppets Courtyard site. Painting is concentrated around the restroom building attached to the future Archie's Scare Pig Pizza.

Tower of Terror refurbishment adds lightning-strike scarring

WDW News Today (Austin Haughton) · Oct 18

The Hollywood Studios Tower of Terror refurbishment now shows new lightning-strike detailing on the pink facade, visible through the scaffolding. WDW News Today describes a diagonal scar with dark purple shading and brighter white around it, recalling the hotel's fateful strike.

Science & Archaeology

Japan's 7,300-year-old eruption hit communities unevenly

ScienceDaily · Oct 18

New research on the catastrophic eruption of 7,300 years ago finds its effect on prehistoric Japanese populations was more complex than assumed. Some communities vanished or declined, while others flourished as survivors migrated and adapted.

Black Death cut biodiversity as farmland was abandoned

Live Science (Sarah Wild) · Oct 18

A study reported by Live Science finds that biodiversity fell during the Black Death, when a third of Europe's population died, as people abandoned farmland. Researchers say understanding the farming practices involved could help increase diversity in modern agriculture.

Gemini North images knotted remnant of the 1181 supernova

Live Science (Jamie Carter) · Oct 18

A new Gemini North image of Pa 30, linked to the supernova seen in 1181, reveals chains of tiny gas knots. Live Science describes the remnant as full of mysterious structure.

Mrk 501 may host two black holes merging within a century

ScienceDaily · Oct 18

Astronomers report evidence of two supermassive black holes spiralling together at the centre of galaxy Mrk 501, revealed by a previously unseen particle jet. The pair appears to orbit every 121 days and, depending on their masses, could merge in as little as 100 years.

Altermagnetism discoverers win a major physics prize

ScienceDaily · Oct 18

The physicists who identified altermagnetism, described as a third form of magnetism, have won a major physics prize. The discovery challenges more than a century of established understanding and could affect future computing, electronics and quantum research.

Sound & Music Tech

ACME Synthworks opens pre-orders for the XP60, a compact Xpander revival

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 18

The ACME Synthworks XP60 revives the Oberheim Xpander analog polysynth in a compact design that keeps to the original architecture. It is now available for pre-order, per Synth Anatomy.

Olydian's VC-01 Voicecrafter is a hardware vowel-and-consonant synth

Sonic State · Oct 18

Sonic State's Brooklyn EXPO video features Olydian Music's VC-01 Voicecrafter, a hardware vocal synthesizer that lets players play vowels and consonants.

Greenwaves is an Ondes Martenot-inspired instrument from Idiotech Devices

Sonic State · Oct 18

At Brooklyn EXPO, Idiotech Devices showed Greenwaves, a synthesizer inspired by the Ondes Martenot and presented as a tribute to Greenway.

Hop's Tactile is an open-source standalone synth

Sonic State · Oct 18

Sonic State's Brooklyn EXPO coverage shows Tactile from Hop, an open-source standalone synthesizer pitched as easy to play.

1010music pushes major firmware updates for Bento and Blackbox 2

Sonic State · Oct 18

1010music showed Brooklyn EXPO visitors new firmware for the Bento and the Blackbox 2, which the company described as a major update.

Gaming Editorial

Konami's president says people, not generative AI, make good games

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Oct 17

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

The new element is a statement from Konami Digital Entertainment president Hideki Hayakawa in the company's latest integrated report, spotted by Dengeki Online and translated by Automaton. Hayakawa rejects the widespread belief that generative AI will make game development much easier, noting that entry barriers have already fallen thanks to general-purpose game engines and user-generated content. He allows that AI may improve production efficiency, but says people and creators remain the most important factors in making entertaining, innovative games.

Rock Paper Shotgun's Oisin Kuhnke, who has been dismayed by AI adoption across the industry, welcomes this as a rare bit of common sense from an executive. Kuhnke notes that Hayakawa describes the "chemical reaction" among developers from different backgrounds as not easily replaced, and that Konami says it will support creators in assessing the risks of new technology. Kuhnke treats the stance as a priority for real people rather than a promise, acknowledging the company's tune could change.

Counterpoint: Advocates of generative AI tooling would argue that efficiency gains matter most to studios under cost pressure, and that an investor-facing report that stops short of ruling AI out says little about what Konami will actually do.

Previously: A developer cancelled a demo over AI-clone fears, and Faliszek mocked Epic's vibe-coded launcher. — Saturday October 17 edition.

Shooters have had a surprisingly strong 2026, Polygon argues

Polygon (Giovanni Colantonio) · Oct 17

Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio says the year began badly for the genre, with Highguard's launch and near-immediate delaunch and heavy scrutiny of Marathon raising doubts about live-service shooters. He argues those fears proved overblown. In his account, Gears of War: E-Day, Housemarque's Saros, Splatoon Raiders and Capcom's Pragmata were hits with critics or players, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is positioned as another strong release for Xbox.

Indies and live-service veterans feature too. Wardogs is a Steam hit despite mixed reviews, Overwatch and Arc Raiders have found momentum through updates, and Colantonio cites Mouse: P.I. for Hire, Sprawl Zero, Don't Stop, Girlypop! and Boltgun 2 among others. He balances this against the human cost: layoffs at the teams behind Halo: Campaign Evolved and Doom: The Dark Ages' Revelations DLC, and Kwalee dismissing the whole Luna Abyss team weeks after launch. He concludes that the industry should do everything it can to keep the talent behind these games.

Counterpoint: Business-minded analysts would say critical praise and a long list of games are not proof of health, pointing to erratic sales, Marathon's struggle to build a player base, and the very layoffs Colantonio lists.

Ocarina of Time remake shows where Nintendo chooses to spend

Polygon (Oli Welsh) · Oct 17

Polygon's Oli Welsh uses the first hands-on previews of next month's Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake to argue that Nintendo's spending shows its priorities. He starts with comments from Nintendo Latin America's Bill van Zyll on physical media, which gained attention because Sony will end production of physical PlayStation games from 2028. Welsh notes that Nintendo still puts full first-party games on cartridges despite memory chip costs, while third parties lean on key cards.

He applies the same reading to the remake. Polygon's Michael McWhertor found it "snappy, streamlined, and polished," and Welsh says previewers noted how responsive it is, a correction to the original's 20 frames per second. Unlike the Grezzo-built Ocarina of Time 3D and the 2019 Link's Awakening remake, he says this one appears to come from an internal Nintendo team. Welsh concedes publishers use remakes to pad schedules for cynical reasons, but concludes Nintendo is protecting its legacy and brand reputation.

Counterpoint: Critics of the remake trend would say it still comes at the expense of new ideas, and that these are previews rather than final reviews, so claims of a meaningfully better game remain unproven.

Inscryption's sacrifice mechanic, five years on, as a lesson in persuasion

Polygon (Rebecca Corgan) · Oct 17

Polygon's Rebecca Corgan revisits the 2021 deckbuilding horror game from Daniel Mullins Games, published by Devolver Digital, and its blood-sacrifice system. Players begin by sacrificing a free supply of squirrels, then are pushed toward costlier trades, such as pulling out a tooth with pliers, as the scale tips against them. Corgan describes hesitating for about three seconds before the first sacrifice, and she says the game shows how little convincing it takes to make someone complicit in horror.

She notes that Polygon named it the best game of 2021 and that it won the BAFTA for Game Design, but argues the awards are not its real legacy. She also points to later acts that change the game's form, including a pixel-art adventure and a factory with floppy-disk cards, and to its pull toward real websites and GPS coordinates. Her conclusion is that she would gladly sit back down at the Act 1 table, which she finds the most unsettling thing about it.

Counterpoint: A player who values Inscryption chiefly as a deckbuilder and puzzle game might say that reading it as a study in complicity overstates a trade that is, mechanically, only cards.

AI & Industry

Funcom cuts more staff as CEO Rui Casais prepares to leave

PC Gamer (Rick Lane) · Oct 17

PC Gamer reports Funcom is laying off more developers as it pivots to supporting Dune: Awakening and Conan Exiles. CEO Rui Casais will depart at the end of the year.

Samson developer Liquid Swords files for bankruptcy

Rock Paper Shotgun (Oisin Kuhnke) · Oct 17

Rock Paper Shotgun reports the Swedish studio behind the open-world beat 'em up Samson has gone bankrupt about six months after launch. The game was poorly received, partly for being broken, and later patches did not appear to be enough.

Disney reportedly to pay $60 million a year for 66 Character.AI hires

WDW News Today (Austin Haughton) · Oct 17

Continuing · Disney's bid for Character.ai assets

WDW News Today reports Disney plans to pay $60 million annually to 66 employees recruited from Character.AI, weeks after cutting hundreds of positions, including technology jobs. The hiring comes as Disney reassesses staffing and its use of technology.

Previously: Disney bid $20 million for Character.ai assets after earlier threatening the company over conversations with children. — Wednesday October 14 edition.

AI-made midterm ads top $137 million, most unlabelled

AI Weekly · Oct 17

AI Weekly's issue #539 cites the New York Times in reporting that campaigns and PACs have spent more than $137 million on AI-generated or AI-enhanced midterm ads, about 70% with no AI label. It also notes a report finding 81 of 134 AI models failed a test built from terrorist-style questions, and that a video game reverse engineering site is closing because AI made the work too easy.

Vibe-coded San Francisco 'zombie' game pulled after backlash

PC Gamer (Tyler Wilde) · Oct 17

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

A tech founder's free web game about shooting 'zombies' in San Francisco's poorest neighborhood was taken down after city residents and leaders denounced it, PC Gamer reports. The game was built by vibe coding.

Previously: A developer cancelled a demo over AI-clone fears, and Faliszek mocked Epic's vibe-coded launcher. — Saturday October 17 edition.

Wizards of the Coast again declines to voluntarily recognize a union

PC Gamer (Harvey Randall) · Oct 17

Continuing · Union drives at game studios

PC Gamer reports Wizards of the Coast does not intend to voluntarily recognize union efforts at the company, for the second time this year.

Previously: Activision's QA union voted to authorize a strike over remote work, pay and AI protections, with talks set for October 21-22. — Friday October 16 edition.

Rockstar says GTA 6 will skip direct nods to Trump and COVID-19

Polygon (Michael McWhertor) · Oct 17

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 approaches release

Rockstar has officially said GTA 6's real-world references will not include direct acknowledgement of Donald Trump or the 2020 pandemic, per Polygon.

Previously: Aftermath said GTA VI's Game Awards eligibility follows normal practice, with a code deadline of 30 October. — Saturday October 17 edition.

Disney parks recap: Indiana Jones reopening date and a Harryhausen's permit

WDW News Today (Lauren Stracner) · Oct 17

WDW News Today's Friday recap covers the 2027 Banana Ball tour schedule, which includes a tournament at Walt Disney World, and a reopening date for Disneyland's Indiana Jones Adventure. Imagineering also filed a permit for Harryhausen's restaurant in Monstropolis at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Science & Archaeology

Roman Space Telescope's image quality beats predictions by nearly 30%

ScienceDaily · Oct 17

Engineers moved a mirror by one-sixteenth the width of a human hair to bring NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's instruments into near-perfect alignment. Its Wide Field Instrument now produces image quality nearly 30% better than predicted, ScienceDaily reports.

Webb finds recurring weather states on a world 20 light-years away

ScienceDaily · Oct 17

The James Webb Space Telescope found that a turbulent world 20 light-years away has a surprisingly orderly weather system, with three recurring atmospheric states driven by temperature changes and shifting clouds. Scientists say the result offers a new tool for studying weather on distant worlds.

Has Earth ever had a mountain taller than Everest?

Live Science (Joshua Rapp Learn) · Oct 17

Live Science's Joshua Rapp Learn asks whether Earth has ever thrust up a mountain larger than Everest.

The 1960 'doomsday' forecast for November 13, 2026 and why it failed

ScienceDaily · Oct 17

A 1960 mathematical forecast predicted that runaway population growth would bring humanity to the brink of destruction on November 13, 2026, and it tracked reality for decades. ScienceDaily says it unravelled as birth rates fell and population growth slowed, showing how models can fail when human behavior changes.

California redwoods slow photosynthesis in heat

Live Science (Sarah Wild) · Oct 17

Live Science reports that California redwoods reduce their rate of photosynthesis when temperatures rise, which could matter for the species' long-term survival. It remains unclear how much damage the heat is doing.

Sound & Music Tech

M-VAVE opens the FM-1 to custom firmware

Synth Anatomy (Synth Anatomy) · Oct 17

Continuing · Synth firmware hacking and open-source firmware

Synth Anatomy reports M-VAVE's FM-1 Open welcomes developers building alternative firmware and gives them a dedicated space to share their work. The little FM-1 synthesizer has been popular since summer.

Previously: The Obervave firmware brought Oberheim-style polysynth voices to the M-VAVE FM-1 and SMK-37. — Friday October 16 edition.

Boss shows the EX-4 FX Expander at Brooklyn EXPO

Sonic State · Oct 17

At Brooklyn EXPO 2026, Sonic State spoke with Boss about the EX-4, a new effects expander in the company's 200-series chassis.

NYU's SynthAccess builds tactile and talking synth tools

Sonic State · Oct 18

Sonic State met the SynthAccess team from NYU Tandon School of Engineering at Brooklyn EXPO 2026. The project is a set of accessibility tools for synths, including tactile and talking interfaces.

Daydreamer's Synth One is an open-source wooden kit synth

Sonic State · Oct 18

Sonic State's Brooklyn EXPO coverage includes Daydreamer's Synth 1, an open-source, homemade synth built as a wooden kit.

Gaming Editorial

Fahey: a frozen console market could reshape the industry

GamesIndustry.biz (Rob Fahey) · Oct 16

Continuing · Rising console prices and the next hardware generation

Rob Fahey of GamesIndustry.biz opens from a simple premise: six years into the hardware generation, with GTA VI weeks away, this should be the moment platform holders widen their installed bases by converting long-time fence-sitters. His headline argues instead that a hardware market freeze could transform the industry permanently. The excerpt supplied sets up that expected second wind but not the full case for why it may not arrive.

Read alongside last week's coverage of analyst Mat Piscatella's warning about AI-driven memory costs, the piece frames price-driven stagnation as a structural risk, not a passing slump.

Counterpoint: Platform holders, and analysts who expect a big launch to pull in buyers, could argue the freeze is temporary and that GTA VI will still lift hardware sales.

Previously: Analyst Mat Piscatella called the US console market the most precarious since the early 1980s, with AI-driven memory costs lifting prices. — Saturday October 10 edition.

Developer cancels demo, citing fear of AI clones

Rock Paper Shotgun (Edwin Evans-Thirlwell) · Oct 16

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

Rock Paper Shotgun's Edwin Evans-Thirlwell reports that Alliance Arts, makers of Drunken Goddess Reflux, cancelled a public demo planned for 19 October and will run limited-access online sessions instead. The studio gave two reasons: it could not manage restrictions on posting and streaming with its current team, and it feared the demo could be used to replicate the game with AI tools and ship a copy before launch.

The author suspects this is the start of a trend. She points to a surge of quickly generated clones, including a needle-in-a-haystack game whose imitators crowded the Steam listings, and a March clone of the Japanese game Typing Magician made by feeding progress videos to a generative AI. Her conclusion is that developers may become less willing to show work in progress, which she finds sad.

Counterpoint: The author herself concedes that anti-AI positioning has become a marketing tactic and that the AI reason may be a bid for attention. Developers who rely on demos to build wishlists could also argue that closing them costs more than the cloning risk.

Previously: Plunkett's critique tied the Shogun 2 remake's failure to AI-generated portraits and Mataboo's past AI accusations. — Friday October 16 edition.

Ex-Valve writer Faliszek mocks Epic's vibe-coded launcher

PC Gamer (Harvey Randall) · Oct 16

Continuing · Generative AI in games and modding

PC Gamer's Harvey Randall covers an eight-minute YouTube critique by Chet Faliszek, who wrote on Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead and Portal 2 before leaving Valve in 2017. Faliszek takes aim at Epic's announcement last week of a "vibe coded" launcher, which he says opens with a jab at Gabe Newell by calling it a speedboat rather than a yacht. He argues Epic was an engine company that bolted a store on, whereas Valve treats Steam as something like an MMO, with places for players to express themselves and gain standing. Epic's store, he says, feels sterile, and appealing to vibe coders offers nothing to people who just want to play.

Randall agrees the optics are poor, noting the announcement amounts to saying that building a store is hard and Epic has taken a shortcut. He adds that many players and developers are tired of AI being pushed into everything.

Counterpoint: Epic and its supporters could argue that being candid about cheap tooling is the point, and that the real issue is Steam's market dominance rather than the tone of the announcement. Faliszek is also a former Valve employee with an evident stake in the comparison.

Previously: Plunkett's critique tied the Shogun 2 remake's failure to AI-generated portraits and Mataboo's past AI accusations. — Friday October 16 edition.

Darrah: AAA over-specialisation has made the industry fragile

Rock Paper Shotgun (Julian Benson) · Oct 16

Rock Paper Shotgun's Julian Benson revisits an interview former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah gave for the Summer Eternal Anthology, a 500-page book from Red Rooster, a studio of former Disco Elysium developers. Darrah says AAA development has become over-specialised to the point of "hyper-fragility": no one person can add anything alone, teams balloon, and a 500-person team slipping one month costs perhaps five to ten million dollars. Benson adds Saber's Tim Willits, who put 200 developers at over two million dollars a month, and applies the same arithmetic to GTA VI's delays, estimating a cost above $500m for a team of more than 4,700.

Darrah predicts a "bifurcation" in which GTA VI and perhaps Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty and Battlefield pull away with effectively unlimited budgets, while too many $100m games fail to earn back their costs. He cites Dragon Age: Veilguard, which EA said reached 1.5m players against a 3m plan, as a casualty. The headline says he also sees CD Projekt in a dangerous position because of these costs; the excerpt supplied cuts off before that section.

Counterpoint: Executives at the largest publishers could argue that scale still pays off for hits and that cancellations reflect discipline, not fragility. The $500m delay figure is Benson's back-of-envelope extrapolation, and Darrah's own history with Anthem colours his view.

Why New York has indies but few major studios

Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) · Oct 16

Aftermath's Nathan Grayson shares a live Aftermath Hours recording from the inaugural New York Games Week, with NYU Game Center director Naomi Clark and Half-Mermaid's Sam Barlow. Barlow argues that games are effectively three-to-five-year office jobs needing steady funding, unlike New York's freelance, scrappy film scene, and he recalls a Hollywood company balking at game budgeting when a consultant explained it. He says that beyond the indie level, you need a studio like Avalanche, which closed its New York location.

A colleague on the panel adds that Seattle and San Francisco court game companies, while New York's economy does not need them. Barlow says it may now be too late: his team's Unreal project needs people who have shipped two or three Unreal games, and none are local. Remote hiring is now the practical answer.

Counterpoint: Local boosters, including organisers of New York Games Week, would likely argue it is not too late and that the city's indie output is the foundation for larger studios. The piece is a conversation excerpt, not a researched case.

MacLeod: no conspiracy behind GTA VI's Game Awards eligibility

Aftermath (Riley MacLeod) · Oct 16

Continuing · Grand Theft Auto 6 approaches release

Aftermath's Riley MacLeod rebuts suspicion that this year's Game Awards cutoff of 20 November was set to admit GTA VI, which launches 19 November. Staff at voting outlets say the deadline for publishers to supply code to voters is 30 October, and earlier cutoffs have all fallen between 17 and 22 November. Nominees are routinely announced before the cutoff: 17 November in 2025 and 18 November in 2024.

MacLeod notes a leaker's claim that review codes will go out before the end of October. She also notes Game File's observation that Rockstar has held no previews, but she finds it hard to imagine the company skipping reviews. Her wider argument is that the awards are secondary to the hype show around them, that GTA VI is already the presumed winner, and that limited pre-release code means nominations may reflect one reviewer's view.

Counterpoint: Geoff Keighley and developers who value the trophy would dispute that the awards are secondary to the showcase. Those who still find the timing convenient could point to Rockstar's unusual lack of previews.

Previously: Leak group Cyberleek is asking for crypto payments in exchange for leaking a playable build. — Sunday October 11 edition.