The Verge’s gaming section brings the latest video game news, reviews of the most exciting releases, and interviews with the industry’s biggest names. We cover everything from PlayStation and Xbox blockbusters, to quirky Nintendo games, to the cool indie gems on PC and Android that you might otherwise miss.
Valve admits that it’s now taking ‘up to 12 business days’ to review games.
One developer has been waiting for weeks on approval for a game it planned to release today.
Ubisoft and “at least two other gaming companies” have made bids for Arkane, which Xbox is working to divest as part of its “reset,” Bloomberg reports. Xbox has “also weighed selling the studio to its management.”
Ahead of the game’s release on Wednesday, 404 Media reports the influx of vibe-coded AI slop add-ons pushed one developer to make their Github repositories private after finding AI ripoffs of their code. The CEO of the popular Warcraft Logs site also said it’s struggling to keep up with surging requests to use its API.
For the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo developers said in a new interview that they wanted to “preserve the experience of spamming the Roll Attack to forward roll your way across Hyrule Field.” I have very fond memories of rolling around the world in the original.
In the remake, you can still spam Roll Attack, but you can also dash.
Sega Fave — Sega’s arcade-focused subsidiary — says an unauthorized third party accessed its systems, forcing it to suspend the online services it provides across games like Taiko no Tatsujin and Initial D: The Arcade, as reported by Kotaku. The machines will remain offline while Sega Fave investigates the incident.
The indie game hosting platform didn’t specifiy what was purged, but it has clear creator guidelines around acceptable AI usage. The cleanup comes after itch.io reported that daily game submissions have doubled in two months. Meanwhile, almost half of all games released on Steam in October disclosed AI-generated content.
Here’s the GitHub for the $100 Jsaux E-Ink Faceplate, and here’s the GitHub for the $90 Pixel Matrix. The company isn’t open-sourcing what you need to flash new firmware, though — just a portion of the software that could beam your content to the panels. For a refresher, here’s my Today I’m Toying With video:
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Don’t get too excited yet; it’s running in a virtual machine, and trees and water in The Witcher 3 aren’t supposed to look like that! But SteamOS on Arm-based Macs is now a thing with surprisingly decent performance, ETA Prime demonstrates in this video. Here’s the GitHub page.
Streaming all your video games seems like such a good, simple idea. All your games, everywhere, on any screen you like — it’s the dream! The Verge’s Sean Hollister explains how the tech works now (which might be better than you think), why it’ll take a huge amount of work to make it even a little bit better, and why games like Grand Theft Auto VI probably can’t just live in the cloud.
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As AI becomes able to do more work, that will create opportunities for everyone to think seriously about what creation really means. Copy-pasted designs have existed before, but they don’t last. When an individual designs something, they create with intention. All a computer does is help with that work. I think that no matter how much it evolves, there will still be things we can do.
For anyone looking to catch up ahead of the FFVII remake trilogy’s third and final segment next Spring, you can pick up the first two entries for super cheap. The debut, FFVII Remake Intergrade, is only $7.99, while the second, FFVII Rebirth, is only $7.49. Both are the digital versions for Nintendo Switch 2, and are on sale until 11:59pm PT on November 16th. Read our FFVII Remake Intergrade review.
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Nagoshi Studio will never get to release its first game Gang of Dragon, because China’s NetEase stopped funding the studio this summer and it couldn’t find the investment to go indie. We’ve lost a lot of game studios this year, not to mention around 11,000 game developer jobs, but a few studios have managed to go indie.
[Gematsu]
As a nod to this week’s Ocarina of Time release, you can click the Master Sword that pops up to be transported back to a classic list of blue links, complete with a retro “Google!” logo. I wish this was an option for every search.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time launches later this week, and in the lead-up Nintendo has put out the first half of a lengthy developer Q&A, covering everything from what changed gameplay-wise, to the new visual style, which was inspired by puppet shows. As art director Aya Shida explains:
Neither puppet shows nor practical effects films reproduce reality exactly as it is. Even so, both create a convincing sense that the characters truly exist within their respective fantasy worlds. We also felt that there was some overlap between these forms of expression and the distinctive nostalgia evoked by the original game.
This graph shared by game hosting platform Itch.io doesn’t flag when AI was specifically used in game development, but at a time when so many studios are struggling, its hard to think of another reason why daily game submissions would have doubled in two months.
The two biggest games of the year launch in November, offering some reprieve from a terrible year.
Sadly, they’re so limited that they’re only available through a lottery. But these red and green Fenders feature sprites and pixel art from the original games under a transparent, tinted finish, plus a built-in bit crusher for authentic 8-bit tones.
That’s the logline for Death Stranding anime Isolations, which just dropped its first short teaser. Produced by Hideo Kojima, the series releases on Disney Plus and Hulu some time in 2027. It’s separate from the live-action Death Stranding film from A24, which is set to start filming next year.
Looks pretty darn easy, based on a video from Austin Evans. The key part starts at 5:33.
If you own Pokémon Legends: Z-A, you’ll soon be able to get a Poké Ball Pattern Vivillon for the first time in a decade. This form of Vivillon has only ever been available via special event distributions, and the last one was in 2016. (The first, in 2014, was only in Paris.) The exact dates of the distribution are still TBA, but it’s on its way, so don’t miss it!
Three weeks ago, I told you a free mod for a 10-year-old game is one of the best things I’ve ever played in VR. That wasn’t an exaggeration, and now it has multiplayer. Last night, I grappling-hooked and wall-ran and summoned titans from the sky to battle human foes. At 2AM, I still wanted more. Join me?
That’s the subject line of a real press release I just got in my email. Glover will “direct, write, executive produce, and star in the series,” according to the announcement. Stephen Glover, his brother, will also be a writer and executive producer. No word on when the series might actually be out.
That’s according to developer Maddy Thorson, who also said that TowerFall had been removed as well.
Earlier this month, Big Walk developers House House said that the game skipped Xbox to support the BDS movement.
Full production of restoring vaulted content is expected to begin in February, and from there, “we expect full production will be about 12mos. to fully complete the porting process,“ according to a blog post.
Bungie is also teasing updates to come about a Destiny 2 “celebration,” a project Bungie is calling Destiny “Legacy,” and something “Redacted.” The next major communications beat for Destiny is planned for February.
It’s packed with details and worth reading in full. There’s a lot of fascinating stuff about the game’s systems and seemingly incredible level of detail, but I was most intrigued by a tidbit about how quitting crime is a “a fundamental theme” of the game’s story:
“These games, maybe some people think, ‘Oh, they’re power fantasies’,” Nelson says. “Sure. But what if these characters want something else?”
The Duskbloods — an ambitious, Switch 2-exclusive vampire-themed multiplayer game from FromSoftware — is no longer coming out this year. The studio says this will allow “time for final adjustments to game rules and balancing.” In the meantime, you could always read my profile on the studio from this summer.
A new GTA VI clip in the latest episode of South Park shows Jason grabbing a bag of dog poop off one of Leonida’s beaches and whacking an NPC in the face with it. You can try it yourself when GTA VI comes out on November 19th.
Epic’s VP of development, Marcus Wassmer, told This Week in Videogames that “we are definitely using AI to develop code and features for Unreal Engine.” Wassmer says that the UE team has seen benefits like “faster” development of features, and the ability for engineers to “explore ideas” that they haven’t had “the time to tackle.”
CEO Tim Sweeney said this month that Epic is retooling for “maximum AI acceleration,” and the company said it “vibe coded” its updated games launcher.
[This Week in Videogames]
While we all await a return to Hyrule next week, Nintendo held its latest indie game showcase, which included everything from Game Boy-style adventures to a co-op raccoon simulator. We also finally got a release date for one of my most-anticipated games: My Arms Are Longer Now. You can catch up on the full event here.
