Gaming - Page 88

Just as we predicted, Bethesda is re-releasing Fallout 4 to celebrate the game's 10th anniversary.

Today, Bethesda announced the Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, an updated re-release of the original game packed with extra content. It's coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and, for the first time ever, the Nintendo Switch 2.

Similar to the Skyrim Anniversary Edition, the Fallout version will come with the base game alongside all official expansions. Fallout 4's Creation Club is also getting revamped into the newer Creations infrastructure, and the Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition gives players access to 150 player creations. Plus, the game also carries forward Fallout 4's console mod support.

It's no secret that Microsoft is currently looking to inject AI tools and features into all areas of its Windows 11 operating system. This includes the PC gaming side of the OS and the Xbox App, which now features a Gaming Copilot chatbot and AI assistant that can be used for information, tips, and even feedback on what you're seeing on-screen.

Still listed as being in Beta, Gaming Copilot is already a staple feature of the Xbox App on PC, with the tool popping up the moment you bring up the Xbox 'Game Bar' overlay. However, it seems that whether you're using it or not, Microsoft is actively recording, capturing, and analyzing screenshots of your PC gaming and sending all the text data to the company for training purposes. That is, Microsoft is reportedly training its Gaming Copilot AI tool with your data and screenshots of your PC gaming.

This training option, which sends your data to Microsoft, is enabled by default, too. This was spotted by ResetEra user 'RedbullCola' (via Wccftech), who noticed that their network traffic was sending "everything I was doing to Microsoft," including data from an unreleased game they were playing that was under NDA at the time.

For those who might need a little history lesson, say, if Battlefield 6 was your first foray into the long-running franchise, Epic Games and the studio's Unreal Engine dates back to the seminal 1998 first-person shooter, Unreal. Released at a time when full 3D graphics were relatively new, it elevated PC gaming with some of the most impressive visuals and smooth FPS gameplay that gamers have ever seen.

At the time, of course, looking back at a PC game that's well over 25 years old means it looks dated when run on a modern PC. This is where NVIDIA's impressive RTX Remix mod tools come in, allowing modders and fans to update classic titles like 1998's Unreal with cutting-edge ray-traced visuals.

UnrealRTX, from modder mstewart401, is an RTX Remix project that has now reached a point where you can play Unreal's entire single-player campaign with path-traced lighting covering everything from global illumination to dynamic shadows, and all of the game's memorable volumetric and emissive light sources.

The PlayStation 6 is expected to release sometime in 2027, and Sony's upcoming console is reportedly less powerful than Microsoft's next-gen Xbox. However, this performance difference comes with a significant price discrepancy.

We already got a hint that Microsoft is planning on making the next-gen Xbox a very premium, even boutique gaming console, with Xbox head Sarah Bond recently stating in an interview with Mashable that the next-gen console will be a "very premium and high-end curated experience." Gamers are already seeing how Xbox is approaching the next-gen console, as evidenced by the company's approach to creating the ROG Xbox Ally.

Notably, the ROG Xbox Ally X is the most expensive Xbox-branded device ever released, with a price tag of $1,000. If this console is representative of what future Xbox-branded devices will be, we could see the next-gen Xbox be more than $1,000, possibly even approaching $1,500.

Valve is expanding Steam with a new store feature designed to make it easier to discover new releases and upcoming games. Launching first as 'Steam Labs Experiment 16,' Personal Calendar is designed to show you recently released and upcoming games, "filtered down to the set of games we think you are most likely to be interested in."

Presented in a date or calendar format, as shown in the screenshot above, it serves as a daily planner or calendar of games to check out, wishlist, and purchase. "This new calendar finds people with similar playtime profiles to you, and then looks at the games those players have been adding to their wishlist," Valve explains.

It works like existing recommendations in Steam, but focuses on using the games you spend the most time playing as the basis for filling out your Personal Calendar. Valve notes that a "few minutes trying out a couple of new games or demos won't have much impact on your recommendations, but sinking a bunch of time into a new favorite will."

Remedy recently warned investors that it will incur a €16 million loss. Now the company's CEO is leaving, and Remedy seeks new leadership as it tackles Max Payne and Control 2.

FBC Firebreak, the latest game from Remedy, was a bust. The shooter sold so poorly that the company issued a tax write-off for the project, which is essentially an acknowledgement of devaluation of a product. Now, little over a week later, Remedy's CEO Tero Virtala is departing after 9 years of leadership.

Remedy issued a press release announcementconfirming the decision was made in mutual agreement between Tero Virtala and Remedy's board of directors.

Sports games and Gearbox's looter-shooter Borderlands 4 help two publishers take over console game sales charts in the US.

Circana's latest games industry data report shows interesting trends for September 2025. According to the latest info from Circana senior director Mat Piscatella, two publishers had more best-selling games on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo than the rest: Take-Two Interactive and Electronic Arts, with EA being the best-selling games publisher of the month.

While it's not surprising that annual games like NBA 2K and EA Sports would show up on the best-sellers list, Take-Two benefitted from the breakout success of Borderlands 4, which was the #1 best-selling game in the US for that month.

EA is reportedly pushing developers to use AI more and more, and it's causing problems with content production.

Electronic Arts has big plans for AI. Last year, the publisher revealed a generative AI chatbot prototype that could change how players interact with games. Users type in what they want to see in the game, and the chatbot renders it in real time, adjusting level design, weapons, and rules. In the presentation, EA said that they had over 100 active AI projects in development.

New reports from Business Insider say that EA is also using AI behind the scenes in the hopes of shaving off costs and automating specific workloads. But the tech is still experimental, and the limits in what it can and can't do haven't properly been tested. New reports suggest that this testing is happening in real-time on active business hours, and is costing the company extra time and money as workers have to solve the problems that AI creates for them.

Nintendo's new Switch 2 console helps spark console sales in the US for the fourth month in a row.

The latest Nintendo console is full steam ahead in the US. According to new data from Circana senior director Mat Piscatella, the Nintendo Switch 2 was the best-selling console in the United States for the fourth month in a row, becoming the top-selling system in terms of revenue and unit sales for the month. Released in between its competitor's mainline consoles, the Switch 2 has rallied the US games console market in a critical period of rising consumer costs from the global economy.

Overall, US consumers spent $324 million on video game hardware in September 2025, up +24% year-over-year. Piscatella also says that the Switch 2's overperformance has helped offset notable dips in current-gen console sales across PS5, Xbox Series, and even the Switch 1.

Battlefield 6 Season 1 is almost upon us, arriving on October 28, and we've been treated to an official trailer showing off some of the new maps, modes of play, vehicles and weapons that are inbound.

As TechRadar noticed, the Battlefield 6 Season 1 Gameplay Trailer has been aired on YouTube via the PlayStation channel, and you can watch it above.

It shows off Blackwell Fields, which will be the first new map to arrive when Season 1 kicks off next week, as part of Rogue Ops, the initial themed update. We also get to see plenty of Eastwood, the second map that'll debut next month (November 18) as part of the California Resistance update.

Ubisoft has openly announced it will offer severance packages for employees that voluntarily separate from its The Division development teams.

Ubisoft just opened up its big new Tencent-backed subsidiary, Vantage Studios. The deal saw Tencent inject $1.2 billion into Ubisoft in exchange for 25% stake in Vantage Studios, which now oversees all of Ubisoft's most valuable properties: Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. The portfolio has an estimated value in excess of $4 billion.

Shortly after that news spread, and after Ubisoft asked Marc-Alexis Cote to step aside from his role as lead on the Assassin's Creed franchise, Ubisoft is now offering these voluntary layoff packages to Massive Entertainment employees. This segment is responsible for the high-profile The Division series, but the group has taken a hit after two successive back-to-back titles underperformed on the market--Avatar Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws didn't live up to the publisher's sales expectations.

Players are trying to construct Call of Duty-inspired maps within Battlefield 6's Portal Mode, and Electronic Arts (EA) doesn't like that idea at all, with the publisher now writing warning emails to players participating in the creation of these Call of Duty-inspired maps.

EA has fired off an email to a player that recreated Call of Duty's iconic map "Shipment" in Battlefield 6's Portal Mode, and according to the language in the email the player has received an official warning from EA after the publisher reviewed their account and found "inappropriate" content attached to it, specifically pointing out "third party products in Battlefield 6".

The email states the user will still be able to play Battlefield 6, but if they violate any of the game's terms of service again by adding prohibited third-party content to the Portal, restrictions will be placed on their account, or they will be permanently banned from EA games and its services. Currently, it remains unclear whether EA is specifically prohibiting Call of Duty-inspired maps and content from its Portal service or if the same rule applies to all games, meaning players won't be able to reference any other title within the Battlefield 6 Portal.

Microsoft is said to have raised the price of its Xbox development kits by $500 as hardware becomes more expensive to produce.

Xbox is becoming more expensive for gamers and game developers. Microsoft has increased the price of its Xbox Series X/S development kits by $500, with XDKs (Xbox Development Kits) now costing $2,000, a 33% increase from the original $1,500 price tag.

"The adjustment reflects macroeconomic developments. We remain committed to providing high-quality tools and support for your development efforts," reads the announcement that Microsoft sent to developers, who must sign an internal NDA to be a part of the program.

This week, Call of Duty gamers caught wind of a rumor that suggested Black Ops 7 was going to release ahead of schedule, but, unfortunately for those who believed that rumor was true, Treyarch has put the rumor to bed.

The initial rumor comes from renowned Call of Duty leaker, TheGhostofHope, who wrote on X a few days ago that some evidence came to light to suggest the release date for Black Ops 7 was going to be moved up a week. Notably, Ghost wrote that he isn't sure if he "buys" the rumor, which would have put Black Ops 7 to release around the week of November 7, instead of its original November 14 release date.

For Call of Duty fans hanging onto hope for the rumor being true, it appears it wasn't as Treyarch recently took to its official X account to reiterate the release date for Black Ops 7. The post reads, "We're less than a month away from #BlackOps7's launch on Nov. 14!" Adding, "Our newest Dev Talk drops today with more juicy MP updates coming out of the Beta."

The founder of Build A Rocket Boy, the studio behind the failed title MindsEye, has blamed employees at the studio for the game's extremely poor reception, describing them as "saboteurs".

The founder of the studio Build A Rocket Boy is Leslie Benzies, who stated during an all-hands staff meeting in July, shortly after MindsEye's release in June, that the title's poor reception was "uncalled for" and went on to allege that "external and internal forces" were influencing the launch. Additionally, Benzies stated that an investigation would be launched into locating "saboteurs" within the company, which was a message sent to staff only a week before staff were informed there were going to be layoffs.

For those who don't know, Benzies was known for his work at Rockstar, specifically on the Grand Theft Auto franchise, where he gained increasing recognition for his influence on the series. Stepping away from Rockstar, Benzies formed Build A Rocket Boy to release MindsEye, which critics and casual gamers alike received as a buggy mess that appeared to be far from complete.

The new flagship PC gaming handheld from ASUS and Microsoft, the ROG Xbox Ally X, has been garnering a lot of attention lately. One reason for this is that it's the first Xbox-branded PC gaming handheld to include a new, custom version of Windows 11 optimized for gaming performance and efficiency. In addition to this, it also makes the Xbox app the default UI, in an attempt to create a Windows gaming handheld ecosystem on par with the Steam Deck.

Of course, as the first version of this new Xbox-themed Windows, it has issues and isn't quite as seamless as you'd expect. According to reviews, it's a big step in the right direction, but using the ROG Xbox Ally X still feels like gaming on a Windows 11 PC. And with that, even with optimizations, there's still a performance cost for gaming on a Windows 11 handheld versus one running the simple-to-use and intuitive Linux-based SteamOS.

YouTube creator and tech enthusiast Cyber Dopamine has posted a new video showcasing the custom Linux OS 'Bazzite' running on the ROG Xbox Ally X. Bazzite, like Valve's own SteamOS, is a gaming and controller-friendly version of Linux designed for gamers to access their Steam libraries. And with that, even with the additional overhead of Steam's Proton compatibility layer, the ROG Xbox Ally X is faster without Windows 11.

Halo Studios is rumored to launch two new Halo games next year, and one is meant to be unveiled on Friday at the Halo World Championship. That title is meant to be the Halo Combat Evolved Remake, and now leaks are suggesting it will be launching on PS5 as well as Xbox.

The latest Halo rumor has come from Grunt.api, a known Halo insider and dataminer who accurately predicted on November 11, 2021 that Halo Infinite's multiplayer was going to release on November 15. Grunt.api has had a fairly solid track record when it comes to Halo rumors, and now the dataminer is writing the upcoming Halo game scheduled to be unveiled at the Halo World Cup on Friday will be getting a simultaneous release on the PS5.

Unfortunately, for Nintendo Switch 2 users, Grunt.api was unable to find any evidence to suggest the Halo Combat Evolved Remake was launching on Nintendo's latest console. According to Grunt.api, the evidence that was found two new Halo games listed in the API, both with PlayStation compatibility.

Xbox president Sarah Bond just re-confirmed that new Xbox hardware is on the way, and now she delivers a slight tease on what's to come with upcoming Xbox consoles.

Despite rumors of the contrary, Microsoft is indeed working on a new Xbox console. Reports say that the new Xbox could be a hybrid device that switches between console and PC. Xbox management still won't give a definitive answer on this topic, but Xbox president Sarah Bond did give a response. When asked by Mashable tech editor Timothy Beck Werth if the next-gen console would be like a PC, the Xbox executive said:

"The next-gen console is going to be a very premium, very high-end curated experience. You're starting to see some of our thinking in this handheld, but I don't want to give it all away."

Grim Dawn 2 is confirmed, but the game is in pre-production planning phases and won't be released for another six years or so.

ARPG fans will have something big to look forward to in 2031: a fully-fledged Grim Dawn sequel built in an entirely new engine. In a recent episode of Path of Exile creator Chris Wilson's podcast, Crate Entertainment CEO Arthur Bruno confirmed Grim Dawn 2 is happening. It just won't be out any time soon and will take six years before it's ready.

In the interview, Bruno says that the team will also make some tweaks and changes around systems to ensure the sequel has a better runway for more classes. The original Titan Quest developer cautions fans that work on Grim Dawn 2 hasn't begun just yet. The team at Crate is currently working on early access town-builder Farthest Frontier.

Nintendo's new Game-key Cards are the best way forward for game developers and consumers, Square Enix developer Naoki Hamaguchi says

The Switch 2's newer Game-key cards aren't too popular among gamers. The cartridges don't hold games, but instead contain license keys to unlock access to a downloadable version of the game. There's not much data on the actual cartridge storage. The strategy is a heavy-handed push towards digital access that's sold as a physical product--just like most game discs these days--but it's not just about business. For game developers, it's also about necessity.

We've heard multiple game devs talk about why they choose Switch 2 Game-key Cards instead of shipping their full games on Game Cards. It's a cost vs performance equation: Game-key Cards are cheaper to make, potentially more profitable, and aren't limited by the slow data transfer rates of Nintendo's proprietary cartridges. While the Switch 2 itself supports SF Express flash, and while the console's storage supports up to 2.1GB/sec transfer rates, the actual data speeds between the game cartridge and the console aren't fast enough to meet developer's needs.