Gaming

Microsoft's gaming aspirations have shifted from making Xbox the best place to play to making Windows #1 for gaming, indicating a homogenization of the brand. But the tenets of this new universal model haven't changed--take a multi-platform approach to virtuously build an expansive software base while reinvesting in your core infrastructure.

Xbox isn't a console anymore, and hasn't been for some time now. It's now more apt to say Xbox is an experience. Microsoft is bringing this Xbox console experience to Windows 11 for the first time with the Xbox Ally X, a handheld PC that blends a console user experience with a PC operating system and beefier hardware specs.

It's not just the user experience, though. Xbox console games have also crossed over to other platforms now that Microsoft has broken exclusivity of first-party games. This fragmentation of the ecosystem breaks down the isolated "walled garden" that companies used to build up their platforms in previous generations. This approach isn't valid any more because Microsoft now has some of the broadest franchises on the planet with Call of Duty, Elder Scrolls, and Minecraft.

In a new video posted on X, we've got a look at the single-player campaign from the new Battlefield, which you can check out below:

In a new post to X by dataminer @Temporyal we've got some early footage from the campaign of the new Battlefield, which is not a gameplay clip from a playtest or the Battlefield Labs test from previous leaks. The clip doesn't include watermarks that are there if someone was playing the closed playtest of Battlefield.

The footage looks very early, but teases a little of what to expect from the single-player campaign of the new Battlefield game. We can expect a big campaign for the game, with this video just being a simple tease of things to come.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy gives updates on the current revenue mix for the streaming business, says most earnings come directly from viewers.

Like PBS, Amazon's streaming platform Twitch is very much a viewer-supported operation. Twitch lives and breathes on community, whether its social interactions or the collective of millions of viewers paying for subscriptions, donating, or by watching advertisements. That's the real message that Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wants to send--it's not just a game stream, but a "community-centric live stream," Clancy says.

In recent interviews, Clancy outlines how viewers are directly responsible for the success of their favorite streamers and the Twitch platform itself.

Splitgate 2 developer 1047 Games is hit with layoffs shortly after releasing their F2P shooter, and studio co-founders have suspended their pay amid the reductions.

It looks like Splitgate 2 may not be having a successful launch, at least on PC. SteamDB numbers show Splitgate 2 had a peak of 25.7K on Steam, with about 10K players in the last 24 hours. Conversely, megaton shooters like Counter-Strike 2, PUBG, and Apex Legends accrue over 100,000 players each in a 24-hour period, and some reach over a million players each day.

Coupling this limited data with recent controversy mires things even further for Splitgate 2. The studio was recently criticized for launching the game with expensive microtransactions like an $80 skin bundle, and CEO Ian Proulx triggered backlash for a particular hat he wore this month at the Summer Games Fest.

Nexus Mods is now under new ownership, and the modding community is hoping the old adage "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" rings true here.

Premiere PC mod hosting site Nexus Mods recently changed hands and is currently being run by a new team, with site owner Robin Scott aka Dark0ne citing burnout as the reason for him stepping down. The new owners of the site recently introduced themselves to the community in an announcement post.

Nexus Mods is now owned by Chosen, a somewhat-mysterious figure, who has put together a triumvirate of leaders to run the site: Foledinho, Rapsak, and Taagen, as they're known by their website usernames. The team's reveal post aims to assuage community worries around monetization, ads, and premium subscriptions--will Nexus Mods be bogged down with money-making strategies?

Rumors stated that Xbox and Meta were planning to unveil an Xbox-branded Meta Quest virtual reality headset sometime next week, and now the first leaked image of the device has appeared online.

In an X thread that has since been removed, an image of the Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition packaging has been posted, and while the thread no longer exists, it was far too late to stop the spread of the image, as it has been reuploaded now countless times across various social media platforms. The packaging shows a collaborative effort on the product, with it stating "Meta 3S Xbox Edition" on the front, along with "Meta Quest" and "Xbox" in the bottom right-hand corner.

Additionally, the VR headset, while being black, features green accents around the face panel edges, matching the iconic Xbox green hue. Following this leak, more details about the VR headset leaked online, with reports stating it will cost $399, come with three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and feature 128GB of storage. Furthermore, these recent leaks said that the new product will be announced on June 24.

Black Myth: Wukong, an extremely popular Souls-like game developed by Game Science, has finally had its Xbox release date confirmed, with a new trailer published to the Xbox YouTube channel.

Game Science released Black Myth: Wukong on August 20, 2024, and its reception was phenomenal. It gained massive traction on both PC and PlayStation, with players stepping into the shoes of the Destined One, a monkey protagonist based on Sun Wukong from the iconic story Journey to the West. Black Myth: Wukong was praised for its Souls-like combat and mostly linear progression, acquiring several accolades, including Game of the Year awards. Within the first month, it sold 20 million copies, making it one of the fastest-selling games of all time.

That was just on PC and PS5. Black Myth: Wukong is finally coming to Xbox exactly a year later, with the latest trailer confirming a release date for August 20, 2025. Black Myth: Wukong will get its first-ever discount soon, which will include Xbox as well. With a 20% discount from June 18 to July 3 on the PlayStation Store, from June 18 to July 11 on the Microsoft Store, and from June 20 to July 11 on PC (Steam and Epic Games Store). Xbox fans who want to take advantage of the 20% discount will need to pre-order between June 18 and July 11.

Sega has accidentally made public sales data for 11 of its major games in a recent presentation document for its annual management meeting.

The company tried to block out years of sales data for a selection of its titles, but, regretfully for the company, someone decided to just place a gray overlay on top of the sales figures and not erase what was underneath. The information was easily accessible and revealed game sale data of the last six fiscal years, which includes titles such as Sonic, Persona 5 Royal, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and the Like a Dragon franchise.

What was learned from this accidentally leaked sales data is that Persona 5 remains one of Sega's biggest franchises, it has under its umbrella, with Persona 5 Royal moving as many as 7.25 million units over the last six years. Other staple titles for Sega are Sonic Frontiers at 4.57 million units and Sonic Superstars at 2.43 million units. Notably, the sales data below stretches from Fiscal Year 2020 to Fiscal Year 2025 and features 11 of the company's titles.

Action Soulslike Lies of P has achieved noteworthy success with 3 million copies sold, publisher NeoWiz has announced.

Released in 2023, hack-and-slash action game Lies of P was instantly recognized among gamers for its fast-paced gameplay and imaginative, tough boss fights. It quickly became a breakout hit for Korean games publisher NeoWiz, and in less than two years on the market, Lies of P has now sold 3 million units across all platforms.

The news comes shortly after a new expansion, Overture, was released for Lies of P earlier this month. The Overture DLC is currently reviewing favorably among fans.

Chinese gamers make up more than half of Stellar Blade's breakout PC sales, analyst firm Alinea Analytics estimate.

Stellar Blade is smashing success on PC, with the game selling over 1 million copies on Steam within 3 days. The game's breakout performance on PC helped push total cross-platform sales to 3 million. This means that about one-third of the franchise's sales were made in this short PC launch window.

According to new data from Alinea Analytics, most of these new PC game sales were made in China, underlining the region's healthy appetite for action-based hack-and-slash games.

NetEase Games and 24 Entertainment have just unveiled a new cinematic, single-player, linear, story-driven, action-adventure title, and it takes players along a journey of survival and loyalty during the Dunhuang uprising. Introducing Blood Message.

Blood Message is currently in development for both PC and consoles and is powered by Unreal Engine 5, with enhanced proprietary tools from 24 Entertainment. As explained in the press release for the game, Blood Message is NetEase's first AAA single-player title, with the game blending brutal survival combat with Eastern storytelling. Players will step into the shoes of a nameless messenger and his young son, who are caught in the middle of a righteous uprising.

The nameless messenger and the son are driven by loyalty to both their family and their country as they begin a treacherous journey eastward to deliver a message that holds the fate of their homeland. The game is set during the final years of the Tang Dynasty, and players will journey approximately one-thousand miles to their destination of Chang'an, which is the heart of the Tang Empire.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is the first game in the Onimusha series in decades, but that doesn't mean Capcom will chase the current modern gaming trends.

Just because Capcom's new Onimusha game has samurai fighting with swords in third-person combat doesn't mean it'll be a soulslike. Way of the Sword isn't about using grit, strategy, and luck to conquer bosses in a grueling gauntlet of skill. The new Onimusha game is more nuanced in its swordplay than dodge-and-attack mechanics, focusing on striking, clashing, and evading--and the series' trademark Issen critical strikes are also back for Way of the Sword.

"Onimusha: Way of the Sword isn't an open-world game, and it certainly isn't a punishing die-and-retry (soulslike) game either," game director Satoru Nihei said in a recent interview with Automaton.

It's official: Borderlands 4 will have a radar at launch.

When Gearbox revealed Borderlands 4, one of the biggest complaints was the lack of an on-screen radar that showed enemy locations. The other Borderlands games had a radar, so why not this one? Radars have slowly disappeared from the public eye over the years, but they're important tools for FPS games, and Borderlands fans apparently like the mechanic.

The studio is listening and decided to add radars back into Borderlands 4. Gearbox's Randy Pitchford revealed the news today in a lengthy Twitter thread while also discussing why radars weren't in the game to start. The feature will be off by default and gamers will have to toggle combat radar within the settings menu.

Developer ShiftUp says that Stellar Blade is the best-selling Korean singleplayer game ever, and shows the game sold one-third of its total copies in just 3 days.

Stellar Blade is a big hit for both Sony and Korean games developer ShiftUp. Thanks to the recent PC release, Stellar Blade has now sold over 3 million on both PlayStation 5 and PC combined. Over 1 million of these sales were made on PC in a three-day period, the developer has announced.

These sales metrics are explosive for ShiftUp. To put things into perspective, Stellar Blade's PC version sold as many copies as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 did across a 3-day span, but games like Elden Ring Nightreign moved 2 million copies in 1 day. Stellar Blade's sales also unlock an interesting milestone for Korea. According to ShiftUp, Stellar Blade is the best-performing singleplayer game that was made domestically, which makes sense, as online games are more popular in Korea.

In a recent interview, CD Projekt Red has claimed it's aware that fans are expecting big things from The Witcher 4, as there has been an entire generation of consoles between The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4.

Jan Hermanowicz, the engineering production manager on The Witcher 4 tech demo that was recently showcased at Unreal Fest, explained to the publication that CDPR is adapting to the "generational shift when it comes to hardware, engines, and technology between The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4." With new and much more powerful hardware at the disposal of the developer, Hermanowicz says CDPR intends to "take full advantage of it and really deliver the next-gen experience."

How is CDPR going to get there? Hermanowicz says that for the recent Witcher 4 tech demo, and specifically the part where the developer showcased how many NPCs can be in one small village at any given time, the team studied the inhabitants of Novigrad in The Witcher 3, with Hermanowicz saying that by looking at extensive footage of The Witcher 3's villages and cities they were able to determine what wasn't possible during the development of that game, and what they can now add to The Witcher 4.

Xenia, an Xbox 360 emulator developer, has responded to the claims that it's working with Microsoft to bring Xbox 360 games to PC.

The leak comes from YouTuber Extas1s, who stated a source who he says works directly at Microsoft informed him that Microsoft is currently working on bringing Xbox 360 and original Xbox games to PC and handheld devices via a new advanced emulator. Extas1s also stated that Microsoft is currently working with Xenia, the creators of the open-source Xbox 360 emulator that is available on PC. However, Xenia has since responded to those claims and denied any involvement with Microsoft.

In the official Discord server for Xenia, members of the team stated, "It's not real. Microsoft has their own Xbox 360 emulator, they'd never even consult Xenia." Adding, "If it was real I'd be under an NDA." Extas1s has since doubled down on his claims, writing in a recent X post that Xenia is currently under an NDA, and "don't worry, we'll see it in 2026," which is in reference to the initial claim that Microsoft is going to unveil this advanced emulation platform next year.

Battlefield Labs is getting a big upgrade today which introduces new features into the test version, including support for NVIDIA DLSS 4 upscaling and more.

The new Battlefield Labs update was reported on the official Battlefield subreddit, with the new patch pushed live a few hours ago. The update includes DLSS 4 support, the option to turn off the border around the capture zone, and more. The new update tweaks the watermark from "PRE ALPHA" to "ALPHA" as well as teasing new files related to the Battle Royale mode.

We are also promised some news coming soon about the class system in the game, which shouldn't be too much further away given that the next-gen Battlefield has moved from its "pre-alpha" stage to the "alpha" stage. We've seen plenty of leaked footage and gameplay of the game, where the new Battlefield will not only have its traditional multiplayer mode, but also a single-player campaign that has been developed by Motive Studios, the developer behind the Dead Space remake from last year, and will be influenced by TV shows and movies including Lioness and Civil War.

Sony's PlayStation executives have 'huge respect' for Nintendo and enjoy seeing the company do well, former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida says.

In the FTC v Microsoft trial, the Federal Trade Commission isolated PlayStation and Xbox and took Nintendo out of its analysis. The rationale was simple: PlayStation and Xbox are more alike to each other than they are to Nintendo. This narrowing allowed regulators to better define a "relevant market" (in this case, high-powered games consoles), but on the surface it felt like a big mistake to remove Nintendo from the Big 3.

Apparently, Sony does something similar. Sony too removes Nintendo from its competitive analysis, but only for markets abroad. Domestically in Japan, Sony very much sees Nintendo as a competitor, but still feels that it's important to see Nintendo do well. As we've learned in our coverage of the FTC v Microsoft court case, all of the Big 3 are synergistically and mutually inter-connected in a kind of symbiosis with one another, and the aphorism "a rising tide lifts all boats" rings true here.

Blizzard is cooking up Overwatch 2 Season 7 next week with a bunch of new upgrades, maps, and more... all with a sleek 80s throwback aesthetic. Check out the trailer below:

Overwatch 2's upcoming Season 17 will let players choose between three randomized maps ahead of their matches, with the maps not selected by the vote itself, instead each of the votes will add a 1-in-10 chance that the map will be chosen in the end with a final roulette style decision. Your voting is hidden from other players, with leavers being penalized as soon as voting starts for anyone who dives out of the round early.

On the first day of Season 17, there will be new Mythic Skins for both D.Va and Reaper, with the D.Va Mythic Horang Hero Skin with four stages of evolving tiers, as well as Reaper's new Mythic Steel Death Weapon Skin, with both of the Mythic skins available in the Mythic Shop for 80 Mythic Prisms.

Red Dead Redemption actor Rob Wiethoff pulls back on his teasing comments about a big new announcement.

A bit ago, Rob Wiethoff, who played John Marston in Red Dead Redemption 2, shared his excitement for a big new reveal.

Wiethoff wouldn't say what it was, but fans connected the speculative dots and tied his comments to recent rumors. Reports and rumors indicate that Rockstar will release Red Dead Redemption 2 on Switch 2 sometime this year, and Wiethoff's comments could be leading up to that.