Riot has announced that the 2XKO team, which just celebrated launching the new League of Legends-based 2v2 tag fighter out of early access less than a month ago on January 20, will lose 80 members of its development team in a round of layoffs. The news was confirmed in a blog post from the game's executive producer, Tom Cannon, who cited that despite the game doing well with its "core audience," the "overall momentum hasn’t reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term." While the statement itself doesn't cite the exact number of developers who […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/riot-games-lays-off-close-to-half-2xko-team/

MindsEye, from UK developer Build a Rocket Boy (BaRB), was arguably the worst game to come out in 2025. It was the worst game of last year by Metacritic's standards, reaching only a 37, and was called out ruthlessly for the broken state it arrived in on launch. While the studio has made several strides to update and fix the game and save the studio, a new report from GamesIndustry.Biz digs into whether that's even possible. According to some former members of BaRB staff, the answer is a resounding no. To say MindsEye and Build a Rocket Boy have had […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/mindseye-build-a-rocket-boy-leslie-benzies-mark-gerhard-dont-know-how-to-run-a-game-studio/

Last week, Embark Studios announced a few changes coming to Expeditions in ARC Raiders to help players be better prepared to send off their Raiders into the unknown. Now, as we near the end of the first Expedition, the team has confirmed the next event that'll start tomorrow and bring players to the end of the month. Firstly, Embark is bringing back the Cold Snap map condition as part of the regular rotation of map conditions players can experience starting tomorrow, February 10, 2026. It was a fun map condition for the winter season, and added an interesting layer of […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/arc-raiders-cold-snap-shared-watch-pve-event-embark-studios/

Last month, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it would host four showcase events for its biggest ongoing franchises, to update players on what's next for each series. We've already seen the showcases for World of Warcraft and Overwatch, with today's Hearthstone presentation coming next, followed by a Diablo showcase later this week. But you might have noticed that one major franchise is missing from that list: StarCraft. In fairness, it's not surprising that StarCraft was left out of getting a showcase to start the year, only because it's been years since we've seen a new entry in the StarCraft series. When […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nexon-starcraft-shooter-blizzard-entertainment/

Callum Vinson, who you might recognize from the Chucky TV series or the recent mini series, Long Bright River, has been tapped to play Atreus in Amazon's God of War TV series, a new report from Variety has confirmed. It's the latest major casting announcement for the show, with Vinson joining the likes of Mandy Patinkin, Teresa Palmer, Max Parker, Danny Woodburn, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, to name a few. That said, we'll mostly see Vinson alongside Ryan Hurst, who is set to lead the show as Kratos. The official character description and logline for the show, included in Variety's […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/callum-vinson-will-play-atreus-in-amazons-god-of-war-tv-show/

Krafton, the Korean publisher mostly known for being the shepherd of PUBG, who also gained a fair bit of notoriety last year for its ongoing legal battle with the founders of Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds, has reached an "all-time high" in revenue, according to its latest financial results. With growth driven by PUBG for a fifth consecutive year, Krafton surpassed ₩3 trillion ($2.05 billion) in revenue. Most of that revenue growth came from its mobile sector, which brought in ₩1.7 trillion ($1.1 billion), followed by PC titles bringing in ₩1.1 trillion ($751 million), while consoles contributed ₩42.8 billion ($29 million). […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/the-ai-first-pubg-publisher-krafton-reaches-all-time-high-2b-in-revenue/

As predicted by reliable insider NateTheHate two weeks ago, Sony has announced that it will host a State of Play event this coming Thursday, February 12, 2026, at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 10pm BT. Unlike Nintendo's recent Partner Showcase Direct, which only featured announcements from third-party games, this showcase promises to feature "eye-catching third-party and indie games headed to PS5, along with the latest from teams at PlayStation Studios." That's from the PlayStation Blog post announcing the event, which also adds that this showcase will last for over an hour when it's all said and done, with "60+ […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sony-state-of-play-february-2026-announced/

ARC Raiders has a lot of threats its players need to contend with. Other players are, of course, near or arguably at the top of that list. Everything else on that list, however, is the ARCs. The robots that come in various shapes and sizes, some more difficult to destroy than others, all of them dangerous, and all of them, to some degree, annoying to deal with. This guide will take you through the most annoying ones, most of which are also the ones you'll have to deal with practically every time you go Topside, and how to deal with […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/how-to/arc-raiders-guide-the-most-annoying-arcs-and-how-to-deal-with-them/

Isabela Merced, who you'll recognize as Dina from HBO's The Last of Us and Hawkgirl in James Gunn's recent Superman film, has been chosen to star in SEGA's upcoming film adaptation of its classic zombie franchise, The House of the Dead. Confirmed in a report from Deadline, Merced will lead the adaptation, which is set to be written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who is right at home in a gore-filled zombie world, as he's arguably most known for directing the Resident Evil films that star Milla Jovovich (who also happens to be his wife). The report adds that […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/isabela-merced-star-sega-the-house-of-the-dead-film-adaptation/

MindsEye was the worst game of 2025 by Metacritic's standards. While developer Build a Rocket Boy has made significant strides to work on and improve the game, including a major update that was released earlier this week, the studio's co-chief executive officer, Mark Gerhard, reportedly believes the game's issues stem from more than just Build a Rocket Boy (BaRB) failing to deliver a solid product. In a new report from Insider-Gaming, the studio claims to have obtained evidence of a "coordinated campaign to purposefully and maliciously damage Build a Rocket Boy's reputation and undermine confidence in MindsEye. We are working […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/mindseye-developer-claims-it-has-evidence-of-a-1-1m-coordinated-campaign-to-sabotage-its-reputation/

Nioh 3 is officially out, and it only took the game three hours (one for every Nioh game) for it to become the most-played Nioh game on Steam ever. After going live at 05:00 UTC, with 22K+ jumping in right away, per SteamDB, it had already surpassed its predecessors' concurrent player counts just three hours later. The first Nioh game peaked on Steam at 10,649 concurrent players, meaning that Nioh 3 had more than doubled the first game's peak concurrent player count right from the start. Nioh 2's peak concurrent player count currently sits at 41,325 players, which Nioh 3 […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nioh-3-is-here-and-in-just-3-hours-it-became-the-most-played-nioh-game-on-steam/

It might be difficult to imagine that increased sales of Nintendo's latest hybrid console, the Nintendo Switch 2, in any region, let alone its home base of Japan, would actually hurt the console's profitability. But that's exactly what's happening, according to Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa. In the company's official translation of its Q&A section from its third-quarter financial report, Furukawa confirmed that the "better-than-projected" sales of the Nintendo Switch 2 in Japan will negatively impact the Switch 2's operating and gross profit. How is that the case? Because the parts Nintendo uses to manufacture the Nintendo Switch 2 are purchased […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nintendo-switch-2-profitability-hurt-by-better-than-projected-switch-2-japan-sales/

Ori developer Moon Studios took a big swing with No Rest for the Wicked, choosing to make something outside of its 2D platforming comfort zone and instead direct its talents into making an action RPG. After its initial early access launch in May 2024, it was clear that the game had a lot of unrealized potential, and the time to realize that potential as an early access game. Now, over a year and a half later, during which the game has seen more than a few significant updates, the most recent being a co-op update that went live last month, […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/moon-studios-arpg-no-rest-for-the-wicked-hits-1-5m-copies-sold-two-weeks-after-hitting-1m/

Right now, there's a big air of mystery around MachineGames, and what its next project will be. The developer is mostly known for its take on the Wolfenstein series; its last game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, meant it took several years off from the Wolfenstein franchise to make a different kind of excellent Nazi-punching adventure. But now that its treasure-hunting adventure is out, with its own DLC, and will soon be available on the Nintendo Switch 2, the question once again becomes: what's next for MachineGames? Presumably, what's next is Wolfenstein 3, and in a recent interview with […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/it-can-be-now-it-can-be-later-but-were-not-done-with-it-machinegames-will-make-wolfenstein-3-eventually/

One mechanic that Embark Studios uses to keep players engaged in ARC Raiders is the game's Expeditions, which are essentially a big reset for your Raider. Things like your Workshop, player level, skill points, blueprints, coins, quests, and stash upgrade progress all get reset, letting you start again with new rewards and buffs to make your next round of Topside visits all the more intriguing. What makes Expeditions interesting to complete (and what helps keep players logging onto ARC Raiders each day) is that you have a limited amount of time to prepare for them, with Expeditions running on a […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/arc-raiders-players-can-prepare-for-the-second-expedition-with-a-new-catch-up-mechanic-and-lowered-stash-value-requirements/

Last week, as part of a flurry of showcases Blizzard Entertainment announced to start 2026, the studio hosted a World of Warcraft: State of Azeroth showcase, which dug into the roadmap the company has for the long-running MMORPG in 2026. Following that showcase, in an interview with The Game Business, game director Ion Hazzikostas and executive producer and vice president Holly Longdale went further into what they envision for the future of World of Warcraft, and the "bigger vision" they have for the franchise. It's clear that Blizzard has a lot coming for World of Warcraft. The game's next major […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/we-firmly-believe-our-best-years-are-ahead-of-us-blizzard-has-a-bigger-vision-for-world-of-warcraft/

As NVIDIA's cloud service GeForce NOW celebrates its sixth anniversary, with a new batch of games set to join the service, a new batch of games are also getting support for NVIDIA's DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation, including the critically acclaimed Masocore from Team Ninja that will arrive on PC and PS5 tomorrow, Nioh 3. While the full game won't be available until tomorrow, February 6, 2026, if you haven't already, you can download the Nioh 3 demo to get yourself prepared for the full release. The demo and the full game both support NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation. […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nioh-3-sea-of-remnants-and-vampires-bloodlord-rising-add-support-for-nvidia-dlss-4-with-multi-frame-generation/

Today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase event had a lot of announcements that were exciting for players who don't have any other console or device to play games on besides a Nintendo Switch 2, because most of the biggest announcements were about games already available elsewhere coming to the Switch 2. Three of those bigger ports all came from Bethesda, as Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard appeared to reveal that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition are all coming to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2026. Two out of three […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/a-trio-of-bethesda-ports-are-coming-to-nintendo-switch-2-in-2026-fallout-4-indiana-jones-and-oblivion-remastered/

After it was rumoured to appear during today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, once the showcase started, it didn't take too long for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to appear, with a new trailer showcasing the second entry in the FFVII Remake Trilogy on Nintendo Switch 2, and a release date, with it arriving almost precisely as predicted: on June 3, 2026. Two weeks ago, the reliable insider NateTheHate pointed to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth arriving on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S sometime this year. Following that, yesterday, ahead of today's Partner Showcase, NateTheHate pointed to Rebirth appearing at today's […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-arrives-on-nintendo-switch-2-this-june/

As part of the company's third-quarter financial results, which revealed that the PS5 has sold over 92.2 million units as of December 31, 2025, and that Ghost of Yotei's launch sales managed to surpass the sales of Ghost of Tsushima, we also got an update from Sony's chief financial officer Lin Tao about how the company is handling the ongoing memory shortage crisis. The answer, which will delight anyone who was perhaps planning to pick up a PS5 in 2026, is that Sony has defended itself against the shortages - for now. "As for securing a supply of memory, we […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sony-memory-shortages-ps5-ps5-pro/

Last week, Blizzard Entertainment announced a flurry of showcase events, one for each of its major titles: World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2, Hearthstone, and Diablo IV. The World of Warcraft showcase happened at the end of last week, with Blizzard digging into its World of Warcraft roadmap for 2026. Today, it followed up with the Overwatch Spotlight, announcing what to expect for the coming year, and a significant change to the game going forward: it's no longer called Overwatch 2, and will instead just be called 'Overwatch' once again. Towards the end of the 35-minute spotlight, Overwatch game director Aaron […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/were-dropping-the-2-overwatch-2-is-now-just-called-overwatch-moving-forward/

After accurately predicting a Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase for this week, reliable insider NateTheHate has another prediction, this time to do with the arrival of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on Nintendo Switch 2, but more importantly, about how Square Enix will start its marketing campaign for Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3, which, according to NateTheHate, will not be a PlayStation exclusive title at launch, and will instead be multiplatform from day-one. During the latest episode of the NateTheHate podcast, when discussing predictions for tomorrow's Partner Direct Showcase, on the topic of what Square Enix might bring to the table, […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/final-fantasy-vii-remake-part-3-will-reportedly-be-multiplatform-on-launch-no-timed-playstation-exclusivity/

With the understanding across the tech industry being that "no one can escape memory shortages," with price increases for devices already directly impacted by the shortages and rising cost of RAM, the question of popular consoles, like the Nintendo Switch 2, getting a price increase seems inevitable and more like a question of 'when,' instead of 'if.' So far, Nintendo has been cautious on the topic of price increases for the Nintendo Switch 2. When tariffs were the major factor potentially impacting the price of the console, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa made it clear that the price of the console […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nintendo-president-doesnt-want-to-be-overly-influenced-by-rising-ram-costs-nintendo-switch-2-price-to-remain-stable-for-now/

Build a Rocket Boy, the studio behind the biggest flop and the worst-reviewed game of 2025, MindsEye, is still chipping away at fixing and improving the game that was the butt of its fair share of jokes last year. The game's latest update, Update 7, is "a big step forward" for both the game and the studio, according to Mark Gerhard, chief executive and chief technical officer at Build a Rocket Boy. The new update focuses on improvements to "campaign flow, making objectives easier to follow, and continuing to refine AI behavior," the patch notes on the game's official website […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/new-mindseye-update-is-a-big-step-forward-for-both-build-a-rocket-boy-and-mindseye-new-content-is-in-development/

Dispatch was one of the more beloved indie games from 2025, selling over 3 million copies to close out the year and getting several nominations from the DICE Awards and The Game Awards. It was even one of Wccftech's picks for the Best Adventure Games of 2025 and one of our picks for the Best Games of 2025 overall. Everything was coming up roses, and with a Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 port coming in January 2026, it seemed like developer AdHoc Studio was about to add another million copies sold to its tally. That was until it actually […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/adhoc-studio-working-with-nintendo-to-address-dispatch-censorship-nintendo-switch-switch-2/

After rumours appeared last week pointing to a Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase happening this week, specifically on Thursday, February 5, 2026, we now know those rumours and reports were correct. Confirmed first through the Nintendo Today! mobile app, Nintendo will host a Partner Showcase Direct event tomorrow, February 5, at 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm BT. This will be the third Nintendo Direct event of 2026 so far, after the Super Mario Galaxy Movie Direct and a Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream Direct last month. It's also the first Partner Showcase event Nintendo has hosted since July 2025. […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/the-rumours-were-true-nintendo-confirms-a-parnter-showcase-nintendo-direct-for-tomorrow/

The next-gen Xbox console from Microsoft, which we know will be powered by a semi-custom SoC currently in development from AMD, is "progressing well to support a launch in 2027," said AMD's chief executive officer, Dr. Lisa Siu, during the company's 2025 fourth quarter earnings call. "For 2026, we expect semi-custom SoC annual revenue to decline by a significant double-digit percentage as we enter the seventh year of what has been a very strong console cycle," Dr. Siu said on the call. "From a product standpoint, Valve is on track to begin shipping its AMD-powered Steam Machine early this year. […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/amds-semi-custom-soc-thatll-power-the-next-gen-xbox-is-progressing-well-to-support-a-launch-in-2027-says-amd-ceo/

Take-Two Interactive's third-quarter financial results have been published, which means there's plenty of information to glean from the company behind 2K and Rockstar's latest numbers. What everyone wants to hear about, though, is Grand Theft Auto VI, which may just be the most anticipated video game ever, and in the meantime, GTA V has hit yet another astronomical sales milestone. While Take-Two's chief executive officer, Strauss Zelnick, didn't get too deep into what's coming for GTA VI, he did confirm in an interview with The Game Business and during the call with investors that we can expect more "marketing beats" […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/more-grand-theft-auto-vi-marketing-beats-coming-in-summer-2026-while-gta-v-has-sold-over-225m-copies/

EA's announcement that it would be going private in a buyout led by the Saudi Arabia PIF and Silver Lake wasn't the only major deal the company made in 2025. It also struck a deal with Stability AI, a generative AI firm that "is unlocking the power of open-source generative AI to expand human creativity," according to its website. At the time of the deal, Stability AI chief executive officer, Prem Akkaraju, said, "EA is a pioneer in interactive entertainment and understands that innovation begins with the creator. At Stability AI, we put creators at the center and build around […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/to-be-a-great-electronic-artist-you-need-the-best-technology-and-tools-ea-digs-further-into-its-deal-with-stability-ai/

The meteoric rise and sustained success of Embark Studio's new third-person extraction shooter, ARC Raiders, will be one for the history books of the video game industry if things keep going the way they are currently going. A new report from Alinea Analytics claims that for the third consecutive month, ARC Raiders was the number one selling title across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox. That month was, of course, January 2026, during which Alinea Analytics says ARC Raiders sold an additional 1.5 million copies just on Steam. On PlayStation and Xbox, it combined for an additional 1.7 million copies sold, bringing […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/arc-raiders-dominance-continues-reportedly-stands-as-top-selling-game-across-steam-xbox-and-playstation-for-third-consecutive-month/

Last week, Google debuted its latest generative AI experiment, Project Genie. It's a tool capable of generating interactive three-dimensional environments made entirely through generative AI that you can explore for one solid minute. All you need to do (after paying the $250 monthly fee for Google's AI Ultra subscription) is write a prompt to start generating your own game-like worlds, but besides the paywall barrier, there are more than a few limitations to this technology in terms of it becoming the new way to make games. The fact that it runs at a slide-show speed of 24 frames per second, […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/googles-project-genie-shows-meaningful-progress-in-content-generation-but-it-cant-replace-creative-vision-says-analyst/

Xbox has announced the first batch of Xbox Game Pass games joining the service for February 2026, headlined by a couple of major past releases and one new day-one launch for the subscription service. That new release is Squanch Games' upcoming High on Life 2, while the other headlining titles include Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. This new batch of games also includes a couple of titles already included in the service for players subscribed to the Game Pass Ultimate tier that are now available for Premium tier members. Once again, unfortunately for Essential tier players, there's […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/avatar-frontiers-of-pandora-high-on-life-2-and-kingdom-come-deliverance-headline-new-xbox-game-pass-games/

Obsidian Entertainment was one of the busiest studios in 2025, releasing not just one, but three major titles last year. It began the year with Avowed in February 2025, followed by Grounded 2 releasing in early access in July 2025, and capped off the year with The Outer Worlds 2 in October 2025. Two of those three games were misfires in terms of sales (though they were fairly well received by critics, especially here on Wccftech), and a new report from Bloomberg digs into how the studio is looking to bounce back and "reinvent itself." If you can't guess which […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/that-sucks-what-are-we-learning-new-report-reveals-how-obsidian-looks-to-bounce-back-after-two-commercial-misses-in-2025/

The Epic Games Store won't be toppling Steam anytime soon, but the numbers shared by Epic in its Epic Games Store 2025 Year in Review blog post clearly show that the digital storefront is growing. The digital storefront best known for giving away free games also saw quite a few players doing more than just claiming a free title each week, spending more time and money in third-party titles. 2025 was a year of record-setting for the EGS, as player spending on third-party games grew by 57% compared to last year, reaching a record-high $400 million. Epic also added that […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/epic-games-store-saw-record-setting-third-party-sales-growth-in-2025-reaches-317m-pc-users/