October 16, 2026

‘Call of Duty Tax’ Blamed for Softer CoD Reception by Marketing Lead

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Purchasing intent for Modern Warfare 4 is running below where it sat for last year’s Call of Duty, and the explanation being offered is unusually blunt. According to the game’s marketing lead, the series is paying a “Call of Duty tax” that has softened the reception. The phrase is not an official term, and it is doing a lot of work. Read plainly, it suggests that the cost of keeping up with an annual release has become part of how people judge the value of the next one, independent of whether that game is any good. That is a familiar problem for annualised franchises. Each entry inherits the goodwill and the fatigue of everything before it. A strong year raises expectations, a weak one lowers trust, and the audience’s memory stretches back further than any single marketing campaign can reach. This year’s picture is uneven. The Black Ops releases found a large audience on... Read More

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October 16, 2026

Animal Evolution Sim Ancestors Gets Surprise PS5 Version, Free Upgrade for PS4 Owners

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Ancestors: A Humankind Odyssey was one of the more unusual games of the last console generation, and it was easy to miss. A PS5 edition has now been announced for 8 December 2026, and owners of the PS4 version will be able to upgrade for free. The game is an animal evolution simulation from Panache Digital Games. Rather than casting the player as a hero, it asks them to guide a lineage across a vast span of time, which is a premise that rarely appears in big-budget releases and even more rarely gets a second chance. That second chance is broader than PlayStation. The studio has said the game will also come to Nintendo platforms, with a Switch 2 version confirmed. A title that once sat on a single console is now being lined up for two current platforms. Evolution is a difficult subject for games. Real change happens over millions of years, and... Read More

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October 16, 2026

Caves of Qud: Diaspora breaks new ground by being the first early access DLC release on Steam

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Caves of Qud has already been through one public launch cycle. The roguelike RPG spent time in Steam Early Access before reaching its full release, a path that has become familiar for independent games built around complex, interlocking systems. Its next step is stranger. The expansion Diaspora will itself arrive in Early Access, rather than waiting until it is finished. That reversal is what makes the announcement notable. Expansions are usually treated as content-complete products: you buy them, you play them, and patches follow. Sending an add-on back into the same development model the base game has just left is being presented as a first for Steam, and it raises obvious questions about how players will judge something that is still being built in public. Early Access works best when the audience understands what it is signing up for. Players get earlier access, often at a lower price, and in return they accept rough... Read More

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October 16, 2026

Ubisoft to close Trials studio RedLynx, downsize Ubisoft Singapore

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Ubisoft’s restructuring has claimed another pair of studios. RedLynx, the team most closely associated with the Trials series, is to close, while Ubisoft Singapore is being downsized. Between them, the decisions will affect more than 120 jobs. The two studios sit at very different points in Ubisoft’s history. One is tied to a long-running franchise with a distinctive identity; the other is part of a large international network. Losing one outright and shrinking the other removes capacity in two different areas at once, and neither loss is easy to replace. Both had a specific character, and that is the sort of thing a balance sheet cannot capture. The job numbers are the part that matters most. More than 120 people will be affected, and closures of this kind rarely stay contained. Contractors lose work, local businesses that depend on a studio lose clients, and expertise built up over years disperses. Studios are not only... Read More

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October 15, 2026

Epic Games claims its new “vibe coded” launcher runs 46% faster than Steam from cold start to store page

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Epic Games has put a beta version of a rebuilt launcher into testers’ hands, and the company is making a bold performance claim. According to Epic, the new client reaches the store page from a cold start 46 percent faster than Steam does. That is a specific, measurable boast, and it sets the terms of the comparison. A cold start is exactly what it sounds like: launching the application from a closed state, with nothing already loaded in memory. It is the slowest and most frustrating version of the experience, and it is the one users notice most, because it happens when they have decided to play something and want to get on with it. The project has been described as “vibe coded”, a label that suggests a fast, improvisational approach rather than a slow corporate rebuild. Whether that is an honest description or a piece of marketing framing, it signals that Epic wants... Read More

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October 15, 2026

House House will not release Big Walk on Xbox in support of pro-Palestinian BDS campaign

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House House has decided not to bring Big Walk to Xbox. The Melbourne studio has linked the decision to its support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, known as BDS, which campaigns for economic and cultural pressure over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Big Walk is a cooperative game, and the announcement concerns the Xbox version specifically. Choosing to skip a console is a significant step for an independent studio, because reach is usually the difference between a project finding an audience and struggling to. It is a decision that puts a political position ahead of a straightforward commercial one. BDS is a long-running campaign with several strands, including boycotts of companies and institutions it identifies as complicit. Artists and studios that align with it generally do so as a statement of principle rather than a calculation about sales, and the effects on their businesses can be mixed. Supporters see it as a moral... Read More

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October 15, 2026

An oral history of the Tomb Raider game no one wanted to make

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Tomb Raider turns 30 this month, and the anniversary has produced a fittingly archival project. The Creation of Tomb Raider: 1997-2000, by Daryl Baxter, examines the years when the series moved from a debut phenomenon into a franchise with expectations attached. That period is often described as a peak, and not only because of sales or coverage. It was a stretch in which the games were being made quickly, by teams learning on the job, with technology changing under their feet. The book is presented as an oral history, which means the story is told largely through the recollections of the people who were there rather than through a single author’s argument. The subtitle’s years matter. By the late 1990s, Tomb Raider had become a global brand, and Lara Croft had crossed from games into the wider culture in a way few characters had managed. That visibility brought pressure. Each sequel had to be... Read More

One Column Transparent

‘Call of Duty Tax’ Blamed for Softer CoD Reception by Marketing Lead

Animal Evolution Sim Ancestors Gets Surprise PS5 Version, Free Upgrade for PS4 Owners

Caves of Qud: Diaspora breaks new ground by being the first early access DLC release on Steam

Ubisoft to close Trials studio RedLynx, downsize Ubisoft Singapore

Epic Games claims its new “vibe coded” launcher runs 46% faster than Steam from cold start to store page

House House will not release Big Walk on Xbox in support of pro-Palestinian BDS campaign

An oral history of the Tomb Raider game no one wanted to make

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