The latest stories from the gaming world
Fast Travel Games debuted gameplay for the officially licensed VR co-op heist game at the August 13 VR Games Showcase, running through loadout building, casing the target and going loud. A closed Meta Quest 3 playtest runs August 20-24 ahead of a Q4 2026 launch on SteamVR and Quest.
Chuhai Labs and VITEI BACKROOM's on-rails arcade shooter launched August 13 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S for $14.99, with Star Fox veteran Giles Goddard involved and a Switch version due in the autumn. Reviews are split between calling it the truest Star Fox 64 successor yet and calling it too faithful for its own good.
Weird Beluga's clockpunk action-platformer launches August 13 on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2 at $29.99. Five regions, a 15-to-20-hour campaign, and a Steam demo sitting around 91% positive that also earned the game its Switch 2 version.
Hidden Mountain's second chapter lands August 20 UTC with a high-altitude cliff region unlocked by a server-wide Cloudtop Ascent event, the Inkpincer Scorpion and Cloud-Seizing Serpent world bosses, two new martial skills, and three new modes including a Ghost Festival survival horror mode.
Amazon Games will hand Throne and Liberty to NC by the end of Q4 2026 and Lost Ark to Smilegate in early 2027. Neither game is closing, player data carries over, and Amazon's MMO publishing era ends after New World's wind-down.
RubberBandGames' physics sandbox arrives on phones August 20 as a premium $8.99 release, with 20-plus jobs, 90-plus vehicles, 500-plus customisation items and cross-platform mobile multiplayer. Curve Games is publishing.
Sucker Punch is bundling Ghost of Yōtei, Legends and two brand-new additions into a $69.99 Complete Edition on October 1, with a $14.99 upgrade for existing owners. Echoes of Sekigahara reaches into Atsu’s past at the 1600 battle, while Most Wanted is a roguelike bounty mode that finally makes Oyuki and Nagato playable. PS5 only, one day shy of the game’s first anniversary.
Xbox revealed the Gears of War: E-Day Limited Edition Wireless Controller on August 12 at $89.99, with pre-orders live now and shipping September 30. It uses 3D moulded, laser-etched asphalt grips with glowing red cracks and a translucent Crimson Omen. A separate Xbox Design Lab option with exclusive Luke Preece artwork opens the same day, alongside a licensed 8BitDo magnetic charging dock.
Double Dagger Studio announced a Little Kitty, Big City port for iOS and Android in late 2026, with pre-registration already open on both stores. The mobile version adds an exclusive AR photography mode that places the cat in your real room — resizable, posable and wearing any hat you have collected — plus a virtual gamepad that keeps the left and right paws on separate buttons. No price announced yet.
S-GAME opened Phantom Blade Zero pre-orders on PS5, Steam and Epic at $59.99 (Deluxe $69.99) alongside an eleven-minute gameplay trailer, and confirmed a dedicated 20-minute State of Play for August 17 built around builds and unseen characters. Launch is October 29 on PS5 and PC, 50 days later than the original September 9 date.
Version 7.0 "Everwinter Without Mercy" launched August 12, opening Teyvat's seventh nation across Morepesok, Snezhnograd and Glupov. Odette arrives as a 5-star Cryo sword user, Alyosha is a free 4-star Electro polearm from the Archon Quest, and two new Cryo reactions plus a third-person Shadow Realm shooter mode shake up team building on phones and PC alike.
The Until Dawn and Dark Pictures Anthology studio has begun a redundancy consultation covering up to 75 roles, following roughly 90 cuts in February 2024 and 35 in July 2025. Supermassive reported 172 staff at the end of 2025, and the cuts follow Directive 8020's soft launch and CEO Robert Henrysson's exit.