Polish developer Rebel Wolves has revealed today that their debut game, the action RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker, is officially gold. That means the physical disc is being printed, though of course, in this day and age, the studio will continue to work on day-one patches and the like up to the launch date of September 3. I suppose this saying will have to be updated if Sony's planned end of PlayStation disc sales from January 2028 goes ahead. Anyway, the gold status effectively confirms there will be no delays. The studio worked quite swiftly on its debut game; Rebel […]

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Xbox's planned 3,200 layoffs by July 2027 are already easily the biggest round of layoffs the industry has ever seen if taken at mere face value, but Bloomberg's Jason Schreier argues that's just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. In a new YouTube video, the journalist highlights the "hidden cuts" of the many contractors that were linked to a canceled project. Nowadays, triple-A game development involves several studios working together, some of which are external. For example, he reveals that the Perfect Dark reboot wasn't developed solely by The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics: sister studio Eidos Montréal was also involved, […]

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ZeniMax Online Studios was among the first-party studios most affected by the Xbox layoffs in both July 2025 and 2026. Last year, the team saw its sci-fi online game Project Blackbird (with related layoffs of a few hundred employees who had been working on it for years) canceled despite then-Xbox CEO Phil Spencer reportedly loving it. The end of Project Blackbird also directly led to the resignation of ZeniMax Online Studios founder Matt Firor, who would later label it as a missed opportunity for Xbox. Following the cancellation of Blackbird, ZOS refocused on its prize jewel, the popular MMORPG The […]

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The games industry is still reeling from Sony's switch to a digital-only PlayStation future starting in January 2028, but after fierce backlash from fans and developers, Sony may now face opposition from politicians, too. In Mexico, two Movimiento Ciudadano legislators stated that the Japanese corporation may be crossing into monopoly territory with its planned move, following a broader wave of criticism around Sony's abandonment of physical media and its growing control over PlayStation's storefront economy. According to Mexican website Ovaciones, Movimiento Ciudadano senator Luis Donaldo Colosio and federal deputy Iraís Reyes plan to file a complaint with Mexico's antitrust authority […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sony-all-digital-playstation-plan-hits-political-resistance-in-mexico/

On the heels of the early success of Black Flag Resynced, which sold 2 million units on launch day and pushed the total franchise sales to over 250 million, Ubisoft is now focused on delivering the next big entry in the IP: the mysterious Assassin's Creed Hexe. First teased nearly four years ago, Hexe will be a classic Assassin's Creed-style installment that follows the RPG-style game Shadows, according to Ubisoft's formula, which alternates between the two experiences to satisfy two fairly diverse audiences. Now, Ubisoft leaker Rogue has shared a lot of details about Hexe in a lengthy X thread. […]

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Amid all the problems that besiege Microsoft's Xbox division, the studio divestitures, the layoffs, the declining business, and even the loss of a few million Game Pass subscribers, lies one lingering question: what actually is Xbox? A platform or the biggest third-party publisher? Microsoft certainly tried its damnedest to confuse consumers with its constantly shifting strategy regarding first-party content, as well as the delirious "This Is an Xbox" campaign. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma quickly tossed it in the trash after taking over from Phil Spencer, seeking a return to the brand's core values. But even she admitted that there's a fundamental […]

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Today, NVIDIA announced a technical partnership with Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition to bring its RTX technologies to the upcoming third-person shooter game. DLSS Super Resolution, Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, NVIDIA Reflex, and Ray Tracing (for shadows, Lumen global illumination, and ambient occlusion) will all be supported for GeForce RTX Series owners. NVIDIA hasn't provided frame rate estimates yet, but early access to the multiplayer Open Beta begins on Thursday, August 6, so it's not too far off from being available to the public. It's likely that most, if not all, of these technologies will already be there. […]

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Montréal-based developer Compulsion Games is among the studios that were officially divested from Microsoft's Xbox last week. Indeed, Compulsion Games (like Double Fine Productions) was sold back to its own management and has therefore returned to full independence, but that does not mean they won't need partners. In fact, they haven't wasted any time at all in opening the search. A few hours ago, the official LinkedIn account of the studio posted the following call-out message to fellow industry members: With Compulsion Games returning to its roots as an independent developer, we are expanding opportunities to collaborate with studios across […]

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Rumors about a Nintendo Switch 2 OLED version have swirled even before Nintendo's latest console launched in June 2025. In April 2024, a Samsung leaker suggested that the unit was actually already in production for a launch slated at a later time. That turned out to be incorrect, but the rumor that Samsung is pushing for an OLED version persisted into May 2025. That wouldn't be surprising, as Samsung supplied Nintendo with the OLED panel for the first Switch. Now, the Korean edition of the business technology website ZDNET has learned that Nintendo is actively evaluating the possibility. They cited […]

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Since the surprise announcement of Dragon's Dogma 2 Dark Arisen at the June Nintendo Direct, CAPCOM has maintained a steady pace of news and updates. We've learned about the many new dungeons and the brand-new Relic hunting loop, for example. Now, in a series of interviews, the studio has shared even more as we inch closer to the October 9 launch of the expansion. Speaking to Automaton, producer Naoto Oyama revealed that Dragon's Dogma 2 Dark Arisen will be quite sizable for a DLC: The new story takes place in a new region called Norgan. We expect players to spend around […]

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A storm passed through many internal Xbox studios between studio divestitures and mass layoffs, but Activision Blizzard largely emerged unscathed this time around, likely because it's the main money-maker at present. We know that Call of Duty prints money even in off years, for example. But even the Blizzard side has been doing well lately, thanks to a resurgence of its core IPs: Overwatch, Warcraft, and Diablo. That's what Bloomberg's Jason Schreier confirmed in his latest video, while teasing that the company has "a ton" of projects underway, including the rumored StarCraft shooter game. So right now, Blizzard is kind […]

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Japanese developer PocketPair has just released version 1.0 of Palworld, the game that became an overnight sensation when it launched in early access in January 2024, breaking sales records left and right for a while. Judging by Steam data, it seems like the fever is back. While the game's full version did not go anywhere near the all-time peak of 2.1 million concurrent users registered at the early access launch (a figure that's still the third highest ever recorded on Valve's platform), Palworld nonetheless lured a lot of people back, with the weekend's peak reaching 855K concurrent users. Version 1.0 […]

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Ubisoft has confirmed that Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is performing very well so far, having sold two million units on its launch day. The game also ranked Top 1 on Twitch on the release date (July 9) and peaked at 104K concurrent Steam users yesterday, by far the highest of any game in the franchise. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced was also received positively by critics, with an 85% review score on Open Critic and 84% review score on Metacritic, making it the highest rated Assassin’s Creed game since the launch of the original Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag. Here on Wccftech, the game got an 8.6/10 score from Kai Tatsumoto, who wrote: While there is […]

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Halo Studios leaker Rebs Gaming, who previously delivered several reports on upcoming Halo titles, has now dedicated his latest video to the alleged mismanagement of the studio's leadership. Rebs Gaming's sources blame specifically studio head Pierre Hintze, who reportedly has created a hostile environment and mismanaged projects, while Microsoft HR and senior Xbox leadership allegedly failed to intervene. Hintze was promoted from production lead to studio head on September 13, 2022, amid a company-wide restructuring that followed Halo Infinite. Rebs Gaming received accounts from current and former Halo Studios staff, who spoke anonymously because they are constrained by NDAs or […]

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TennoCon 2026 delivered another big Warframe reveal by Digital Extremes, headlined by a brand-new Narrative Chapter that pushes the game beyond the Origin System for the first time, a new Chimera Warframe voiced by Matthew Mercer, and a full slate of cosmetic, seasonal, and endgame content confirmed for the rest of 2026. Tau Takes Players Beyond the Origin System Warframe's next major Narrative Chapter, Tau, sends the Tenno to an entirely new Star Chart called (you guessed it) the Tau System, marking the first time the game has expanded beyond its long-running Origin System setting. The chapter launches free on […]

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Digital Extremes used its TennoCon 2026 Devstream to reveal a wave of new content for Soulframe, its upcoming free-to-play fantasy action RPG, currently available in early development through Soulframe Preludes. The Canadian studio is once again opening access to Preludes during TennoCon: anyone who creates an account on the official website, Soulframe.com, and signs up by July 12 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time will receive permanent access to the current build. Once that window closes, latecomers can still sign up, but will need to wait for weekly raffle invites to get in. Players who gain access can claim an Envoy […]

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[UPDATE - July 11, 2026] The Verge's Tom Warren has now chimed in to say that despite the big layoffs, id Software is not, in fact, a support studio and work has already begun on a new DOOM game. [ORIGINAL STORY] Following the mass layoffs enacted by Xbox CEO Asha Sharma as part of her "big reset" of the division, Texan developer id Software repeatedly made headlines as evidence mounted that it may no longer be fully operational. A WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) filed in Texas revealed that 136 of around 185 employees had been laid off, raising serious concerns […]

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[UPDATE - July 10, 2026] Jason Schreier is essentially backing Avellone's rumor in his latest YouTube video: By the way, quick side note is that Obsidian actually have a small team that was working on Avowed 2 that is still going to keep working on Avowed 2 even though it is canceled while they wait for other projects like Fallout to be ready for them. And maybe in hopes of getting it uncancelled. Maybe it was actually farther along than I think people would expect for a sequel to a game that came out last year. So, I think their […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/avowed-2-isnt-dead-yet-chris-avellone-says-as-obsidian-quietly-fights-to-re-pitch-it-after-xboxs-cancellation/