Gaming

When Borderlands 4 launched in September of last year, it was revealed that the Gearbox Software title was also coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, but at a later date. That "later date" eventually turned into an indefinite delay.

With no official word on when the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4 will release, we can assume the developers are still polishing, but perhaps not much longer. A Portuguese retailer has listed the Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4 alongside a release date of February 27, 2026. Additionally, the retailer lists the game's price at €69.99 and has pre-orders open for the Switch 2 version.

Take-Two stated in November 2025 that Borderlands 4 sales were "softer" than anticipated, but it expects those numbers to fill out "in the fullness of time." Unfortunately, since we have heard no official word on the release or current status of the Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4, we can't say for certain when it will be released, as it's often the case that retail websites list placeholder release dates for upcoming titles. However, retailers have accidentally listed accurate dates in the past.

Trading in games and consoles at GameStop may not be as popular as it once was, but if one YouTuber didn't blow the whistle on an infinite money glitch linked to a GameStop trade-in promotion, the slowly evaporating stores would be flooded with people like they were in the days before online game marketplaces.

YouTuber RJCmedia discovered what he calls an "infinite money glitch" that involves a Nintendo Switch 2 console, and trading it in alongside a pre-owned game. According to the YouTuber, individuals could buy a Nintendo Switch 2, and immediately trade it back in alongside a pre-owned game purchase and net $50 more per transaction. The YouTuber tested this process out in one store and after a success went and visited two more stores, netting $150 in profit.

However, GameStop caught wind of this scheme and quickly rectified the problem. The company put out a statement on its official X account, explaining, "our system briefly valued the pre-owned trade more than the new retail cost of the console itself, creating a narrow window where customers could repeat this transaction over and over again to amass infinite trade credit."

A new report claims Prime Video's upcoming God of War live-action TV show has secured the role of Heimdall.

According to Deadline, Max Parker, known for his roles in Boots, Vampire Academy, Emmerdale, and Blood, Sex & Royalty, will be taking up the role of Odin's son Heimdall, who is tasked with being the Watchman of Asgard, and gifted with the ability to anticipate all events.

Additionally, the character Heimdall believes himself to be the lesser of Odin's children, falling short of ever receiving the Allfather's praise or appreciation. Parker will be joining Ryan Hurst, who will be picking up the Leviathan Axe and Blades of Chaos to play Kratos.

Ubisoft is open to divesting more of its assets to secure funds, intent that could pave the way for more bids similar to the $1.2 billion Tencent deal.

Today, Ubisoft pressed the reset button on its gaming business. The company outlined a new model that sees its operations split across five different groups, or Creative Houses. Ubisoft split up its business in this way so it could secure a $1.2 billion investment from Tencent. In exchange, Tencent would receive a 25% stake in Ubisoft's highest-valued Creative House, which will oversee its 3 biggest franchises--Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six.

However, the Tencent deal may only be the first, as Ubisoft CFO Frederick Duguet confirms that the group is still open to the idea of divestitures. This means that Ubisoft could sell minority stakes in other Creative Houses in exchange for adjusted values.

Apps made billions more than mobile games in 2025 as consumers shift to non-gaming services like ChatGPT, new data from Sensor Tower indicates.

Consumers are making a shift in how they spend on mobile apps on Google Play and the App Store, culminating in a so-called "year of divergence" for the multi-billion dollar segment. Analyst firm Sensor Tower estimates that mobile owners spent $85.6 billion in non-gaming apps, a significant +21% year-over-year jump, but $81.8 billion on mobile games.

Mobile apps like CapCut, Tencent's streaming service WeTV, and AI chatbot ChatGPT are at the top of the earnings list. 18 apps total made over $1 billion revenue throughout 2025 and the list was "evenly split between games and non-games," the firm says.

The Xbox app is natively available for Windows 11 laptops running on Arm devices, opening up yet another platform to expand Microsoft's video games presence.

Xbox has just expanded its footprint to Arm-based laptops. Microsoft today announced that the Xbox app has been released on Arm laptops running Windows 11, allowing more users to play, stream, and--most importantly--buy Xbox games directly in Microsoft's first-party app.

"The Xbox app is now available on all Arm-based Windows 11 PCs. Players can now download and enjoy a wide range of titles from the Xbox PC app game catalog on Arm-based Windows 11 PCs," the Xbox Wire post reads.

Ubisoft has cancelled 6 games as part of a significant new restructuring plan, the company has announced.

Ubisoft today announced a "major portfolio reset" would occur as part of a new organizational plan. The company has effectively changed how it operates, delegating creative control and financial responsibility across five different so-called "Creative Houses." Each house handles its own games, content, and specialty focus--some houses focus on shooters, and others on casual games like Just Dance.

The restructuring plan unfortunately saw multiple studios closed and games cancelled across the full portfolio. In a rare bit of transparency, Ubisoft confirms that it has cancelled 6 games, including the anticipated Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake. The cancelled games also include 4 unannounced titles: 3 games set in a new IP, and a single mobile game. Ubisoft stresses that the cancellation of these games will allow it to enhance quality by being more selective in which games it develops.

Ubisoft reveals a more coherent organizational structure following its $1.2 billion deal with Tencent.

Ubisoft has made big changes to its studios and how it operates. The company today announced its new Creative Houses, a management structure that sees Ubisoft's core development teams and franchises split into different "houses."

Now Ubisoft has detailed how this structure will work. There will be 5 Creative Houses total, with each group having a specific focus (shooters, live games, fantasy, etc) in creating new games in various series. For example, Creative House 1 is Vantage Studios, which handles Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. This is the Tencent-backed subsidiary; in exchange for a $1.2 billion investment into Ubisoft, Tencent acquired 25% stake in Vantage Studios, effectively meaning Tencent may receive a quarter of the profits earned from Ubisoft's top franchises.

Nintendo will raise the price of the Switch 2 throughout 2026, and possibly only offer a $499 bundle, analyst firm Niko Partners predicts.

The tech sector is once again facing disruption. Hungry AI datacenters are eating up the supply of key components required to make electronics like the Switch 2, with RAM becoming quite scarce. Reports indicate that Nintendo ispaying 41% more for RAM used in the Switch 2--a dramatic production cost jump typically telegraphs a price hike.

That's exactly what gaming experts are expecting. The Switch 2 will get a price hike sometime this year, analyst firm Niko Partners predicts, with Nintendo possibly offering some sort of $499 value bundle to replace the $449 console-only SKU. The Switch 2 launched smack-dab in the middle of worldwide tariff escalations, yet Nintendo still kept the price to $449 in the United States. That is expected to change, and the Switch 2 may become more expensive in the region.

Russia wants to produce its own Call of Duty competitor and is willing to spend as much as 10 billion rubles, or $128 million, to make it happen.

The $128 million budget was put forward by Russian government ministries that are also offering additional tax breaks, financial support, lowered insurance premiums, VAT exemptions, and other various incentives that will be provided to any Russian game development studio that is willing to take on the task of creating a shooter that rivals Activision's Call of Duty.

Russia's desire to have its own domestically produced gaming monitors has been an open objective for quite some time, with even Vladimir Putin ordering Russian tech companies to create a variety of consoles that rival consoles made by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

Old-school Bethesda veteran Kurt Kuhlmann was in line to be lead designer of Elder Scrolls 6, and if that happened, the game would have been wildly different.

Bethesda has changed. The company that had everything riding in singleplayer games is long gone. Selling tens of millions of games let the studio expand its gates and push their singleplayer fantasy series into the online realm, complete with microtransactions. Add a $7.5 billion buyout from Microsoft, a bunch of layoffs, coupled with products directly launching into a subscription service, and we have a formula for Bethesda's current composition.

The studio's growth also led a number of high-profile creatives to leave the group. One of these was Kurt Kuhlmann, who had been working at Bethesda since 1996 and had been involved in every Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall. Kuhlmann was designated the franchise's loremaster at the time. A new interview with PC Gamer gives a rare look at the going-ons at Bethesda, with Kuhlmann finally revealing why he left Bethesda in 2023. In short, he was promised the lead designer position for The Elder Scrolls 6...and that promise wasn't honored.

Arc Raiders is one of the best-selling new games of the season, and it did so well that it actually interfered with big franchises like Call of Duty.

With games like Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders breaking into the top sales charts, competition was hot for shooters in 2025. One game, Embark Studios' extraction shooter Arc Raiders, has taken the world by storm. The $40 multiplayer hit has championed Steam's top sellers multiple since release, and has also shown up in frontline positions on the PlayStation Store and on Xbox.

Embark has now confirmed that Arc Raiders has sold 12 million units in less than 3 months time. These numbers are stellar--typically, we only see a few breakout games pull these kinds of sales. The extraction shooter has effectively made over $500 million in full game sales alone, and given the game's popularity, it's possible that Arc Raiders has made close to or even more from in-game purchases, microtransactions, and season passes.

Leaks indicate that Microsoft is gearing up to announce a new ad-supported tier for Xbox Cloud Gaming, following messages that appeared in front of users of the Xbox Cloud Gaming service that stated, "one hour of ad-supported play time per session."

The messages attracted the attention of Xbox insider Jez Corden, who penned a report over the weekend that outlined a change, per an unnamed source. "(adverts) will appear separately on Xbox Cloud Gaming, for those who have purchased Xbox games digitally, but don't have Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft has hundreds of games available to buy via Xbox Cloud Gaming, but as of writing, you need at least one tier of Xbox Game Pass to access them. This session-based ad-supported access tier will change that."

This isn't the first time Microsoft has dipped its toe in the water of an ad-supported tier of Xbox Cloud Gaming, as in October last year, the company said it was exploring a "free ad-supported" access tier. From Microsoft's perspective, it does make sense to roll out an ad-supported tier for its Xbox Cloud Gaming service, as it's expected that more users will adopt the service in the coming years due to the growing cost of hardware, particularly fuelled by the endless hunger of the AI sector gobbling up global supply.

Fable fans are patiently waiting for the Xbox Direct, which is scheduled to take place in just a few days. But ahead of the Xbox Direct, we have a slew of concept images to dive into of the highly anticipated Fable reboot.

The Fable reboot will be showcased during Xbox Direct, alongside the highly anticipated Forza Horizon 6. Sticking to Fable, the last time we saw a glimpse of the title was in February last year, when pre-alpha gameplay was released alongside the announcement of its delay. However, to tie the Fable fans over until the Xbox Direct, mp1st has obtained many concept art images showcasing the luscious world of Albion.

The above and below images come from an artist who previously worked on the upcoming Fable title. As for what is in the images, we can see a protagonist looking out over a large piece of land at a city in the distance. A sign in one of the images reads "Bloodstone," which Fable II fans will note is a port town known for containing criminals. Another set of images shows the protagonist making their way through sewers and then facing off against a werewolf standing atop a cage.

Rockstar North was recently hit by an explosion that resulted in emergency departments rushing to the Grand Theft Auto 6 developer at 5 AM on Monday.

Fire crews and police were called to Barclay House, the building where Rockstar North is located on Holyrood Road in Edinburgh, and after spending several hours at the scene, emergency services deemed the building safe after firefighters worked to secure structural damage. There were no reports of casualties, and now Rockstar Games has confirmed to a publication that the explosion was a result of a "malfunction" in one of the building's heating boilers.

A Rockstar Games spokesperson told BNONews, "Many thanks to those who reached out with concern, and also to the police and fire crews who were on scene quickly to assess the situation." Adding, "Please know that everyone is well and our studio remains open and operational." Rockstar North is the lead developer of Grand Theft Auto 6, the world's most anticipated media property, and following the explosion, many wondered whether it would affect the title's release date, which is currently scheduled for November 19, 2026.

Bungie's extraction shooter, Marathon, finally got an official release date earlier today, with the game set to hit PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on March 5, 2026. Pre-orders for the game are now open, with its $39.99 USD price matching that of its competition, 2025's breakout hit Arc Raiders.

With the PvPvE action taking place on the "dark sci-fi world of Tau Ceti IV," Marathon sees players take control of Runners that all sport different playstyles, as they fight for loot and gear solo or as part of a crew. One of the big drawcards of Marathon, outside of Bungie's impeccable reputation for delivering responsive and fluid first-person mechanics, is the art style.

Although Bungie faced plagiarism accusations (which have since been resolved) over the origin of Marathon's evocative style, the good news for PC gamers is that you won't need a high-end rig to jump into the action. With the game's PC system requirements live on Steam, the recommended GPU is NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2060 6GB.

AYANEO's latest portable KONKR gaming handheld is the company's first Windows-based model, powered by the impressive AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 processor. And with a 7-inch OLED display and a large 80Wh battery, the AYANEO KONKR FIT is being positioned as an alternative to the larger Lenovo Legion Go 2 or ROG Xbox Ally X.

The Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 is one of the premium options in AMD's new Ryzen AI 400 Series of mobile processors, announced at CES 2026. With 12 cores and 24 threads and a 5.2 GHz Boost Clock, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 is also relatively power-hungry for a gaming handheld, with a TDP rating of up to 54W.

It also features an integrated Radeon 890M graphics card with 16 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units, making it a powerful APU for on-the-go 1080p gaming. The good news is that with its large capacity 80Wh battery, the AYANEO KONKR FIT should offer decent battery life simply because it's offering more capacity than the competition.

Ubisoft refreshes the sales figures for its key franchises, showing how important specific games are for the publisher.

Some good news for Ubisoft, following the recent Rainbow Six kerfuffle: Assassin's Creed is one of the highest-selling video game franchises on the planet, and the publisher's other series have likewise delivered solid sales.

The company's latest press kit shows that Assassin's Creed has now sold over 230 million copies worldwide, including the most recent release, Shadows. There are a few other tidbits, including that Black Flag engaged nearly 22% of the entire franchise's total unique players (34 million out of 155 million total), compared to Valhalla's 13%, or 20 million.

Hasbro and Scopely make history with their mega-popular mobile game based on the Parker Bros. classic.

Monopoly Go has made a fortune that would make even Rich Uncle Pennybags envious. According to data from analyst firm Sensor Tower, the Monopoly Go mobile game broke $6 billion revenue threshold faster than any other mobile game--conquering hits like Honor of Kings and Monster Strike with its speed.

Estimates show that Monopoly Go passed the $6 billion mark in 1,275 days, or roughly 3 and a half years, beating the closest competitor by over a year. Interestingly enough, Monopoly Go has only been on the market for 1,014 days. Sensor Tower notes that the timeframe doesn't include advertising revenue, and only in-app purchases are reflected. The game is said to generate $200 million in revenue per month--to put this number into perspective, a company like Rockstar Games earns anywhere from $150 - $200 million every quarter from Grand Theft Auto games.

Less than 24 hours after a pre-order trailer appeared on the Xbox store and was promptly removed, Sony has conceded and confirmed the release date for Bungie's Marathon.

The pre-order trailer appeared on the Xbox store and was quickly captured and re-uploaded across social media, sparking a stir that Sony was about to confirm the official release date for Marathon. Giving more credit that the leaked pre-order trailer was real is the copies of the trailer being taken down from social media, presumably from the rights holder. In this case, that would be Bungie or Sony. If it wasn't real, and the trailer was fan-made, take-downs wouldn't have occurred.

However, the trailer was real as Sony has conceded to the speculation and officially announced that Marathon will be launching on March 5, 2026, and that pre-orders are now open. Sony announced the news via its social media channels, and for those wondering if a free playtest will be available to those who wish to try Marathon, the official Marathon X account responded to a user asking this very question. "Yes. We'll have an open preview weekend before launch, and everyone will be able to try Marathon out!"