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• Marvel Tokon PC launch hit by performance and PSN account issues; Steam reviews 'Mixed'

  Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls launched last week from Arc System Works as a new tag fighter. The PlayStation 5 version runs well, but the Windows PC release has a 'Mixed' Steam rating from about 2,600 player reviews due to poor optimization, low frame rates, stability issues and a mandatory PSN account. These problems matter because they limit PC player access and could damage the game's launch reputation on PC.

• Samara Weaving on playing The Sims, Mario Kart and Red Dead Redemption

  Samara Weaving discussed her gaming history on Shelf Quest Episode 5, saying she played The Sims and Mario Kart as a child and later dove into Red Dead Redemption after watching her husband play. She describes herself as an agent of chaos who enjoys causing mayhem in games and uses films and games to express a wild side. She favors action and a little violence but still has a soft spot for The Sims.

• GTA V tops 230 million sales; averages 17.7M/year as GTA Plus and Mission Creator fuel spending

  Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick announced that Grand Theft Auto V has sold over 230 million copies worldwide since its 2013 release, averaging about 17.7 million copies per year. Recurrent consumer spending for the Grand Theft Auto series rose 3%, with GTA Plus subscriptions active and Rockstar adding a Mission Creator toolset to support community content. Grand Theft Auto VI has begun with exceptionally strong pre-orders, with an extended look scheduled for August 27 and a November 19 release date. The scale of GTA V’s lifetime sales outpaces many recent hits, underscoring the franchise’s ongoing commercial significance for Take-Two.

• HLTV publishes Week 32 'Short news' digest with bite-sized Counter-Strike updates

  HLTV released its Short News roundup for Week 32, presenting brief Counter-Strike items to help readers catch up quickly. The digest compiles multiple short updates into a single, concise piece for fans and followers. This format continues HLTV's weekly short-news series to provide fast, easy-to-scan coverage.

• Steam issued full refund for Battlefield 6 after 470 hours following mode removals

  A player received a full Steam refund for Battlefield 6’s Phantom Edition despite logging 470 hours of play. The refund followed the game's surprise removal of multiple quickplay modes, including Rush, which the player said prompted the request. Battlefield Studios removed those modes to shorten queue times and improve matchmaking, and the change triggered community backlash. The case shows Steam will sometimes grant refunds outside its usual two-hour/14-day policy for live-service changes.

• Bubbly Basin in Pokémon Pokopia hides large sunken relics that grant furniture

  Players can find large lost sunken relics and other treasures in the sands of Bubbly Basin in Pokémon Pokopia. Dug-up relics handed to Professor Trangrowth grant a new piece of furniture for a player’s home. The same furniture items can also be purchased in the in-game shop or found elsewhere on the map. Relics only count toward the Ancient Artifact collection if they are excavated from a block.

• Id Software founders reunite at QuakeCon's 30th anniversary

  QuakeCon marked the 30th anniversary of Quake and brought id Software co‑founders Adrian Carmack, John Carmack, Tom Hall and John Romero together for the first time since 1994. Founders publicly celebrated on X and spent time examining archived Doom design notes. The reunion occurred despite a 2005 lawsuit by Adrian Carmack, earlier staff dismissals and recent Xbox layoffs that had reduced the studio's workforce, giving the event positive public optics for the company.

• House House’s Big Walk launches to praise for playful co-op design

  Big Walk, a co-op puzzle adventure from developer House House, launched last week and is drawing strong player attention. Videos of players goofing off together across social media highlight the game’s goofy character designs, bright playground colors and playful puzzles. That social engagement and distinctive design are driving positive reception and give context for interest in the studio’s earlier, award-winning title on PlayStation Plus.

• Overwatch Season 4 Adds Multi-Track Battle Pass and One-Time Legendary Skin Swap

  Blizzard is overhauling Overwatch’s battle pass in Season 4 with a multi-track system and a new Tier Hack that lets players replace one unwanted legendary skin. The pass is split into six tracks—one short introductory track plus five reward tracks players can switch between at any time—so players can pursue rewards for heroes they actually play. Each premium pass grants a single Tier Hack usable at the end of a reward track to swap that legendary for a skin from a curated pool of past shop and loot-box skins. The replacement pool rotates each season, includes skins across all three roles, and contains 12 legendary options in Season 4, aiming to reduce unwanted rewards given Overwatch’s 50+ hero roster.

• Speedrunners 0.1s from First-Ever 'Perfect' Super Mario Bros. Run

  Kosmic, a Super Mario Bros. speedrunner and former world-record holder, released a video showing players are now 0.1 seconds away from achieving the first-ever perfect playthrough of the game. A perfect playthrough would meet the game's theoretical minimum completion time and mark a milestone for NES speedrunning. The tiny remaining gap means a sub-0.1-second improvement or frame-by-frame optimization is needed to claim the feat.

• Overwatch will permanently unvault old battle passes from Season 4, with exclusions

  Blizzard will begin permanently re-releasing an old Overwatch battle pass starting halfway through Season 4 next month, and will continue unvaulting one past pass halfway through each future season. Unvaulted passes will be put on sale for players who do not own them and made available to players who already purchased them, but premium currency, player titles, and Mythic-tier skins from the original passes will be removed. The unvaulted passes will appear alongside Overwatch’s new Season 4 battle pass system, which breaks rewards into selectable tracks and lets players swap one unwanted Legendary skin from a curated selection. This change reduces the forced FOMO of one-time-only passes by giving permanent access to older content, while still excluding some high-tier rewards.

• Battlefield 6 removes Rush and other modes from playlists; devs explore return

  Battlefield 6 removed Rush, King of the Hill and Team Deathmatch from official playlists and custom searches after patch 1.4.1.5 on August 4, relocating them to Portal custom games. Battlefield Studios focused the change on concentrating players into the most active playlists to improve matchmaking and fill matches faster. The removal sparked community backlash, including forum and Reddit criticism and at least one Steam refund from a player with roughly 500 hours. Developers say they recognize those modes are community favorites and are monitoring impact while exploring ways to restore them to matchmaking.

• Hello Games shelved a larger Light No Fire reveal after teaser drew about 20M views

  Hello Games founder Sean Murray planned a bigger Summer Game Fest 2024 presentation for Light No Fire after a 90‑second teaser, but abandoned it when the teaser exploded in popularity. The trailer amassed about 20 million views and pushed the game to number two on the Steam wishlist, prompting the studio to keep the project private and focus on development rather than extra marketing. Murray says he played the current build and considers it well beyond what most studios would have shown. The decision changes the public timeline for the game and reduces external marketing pressure on the studio.

• Overwatch Season 4 adds flexible battle pass letting players pick rewards

  Overwatch's Season 4: Heroes of Busan revamps the game's battle pass to let players prioritize which rewards they unlock instead of moving through a fixed progression track. The overhaul was detailed on Aug. 10 and goes live on Aug. 11. The previous linear 80-tier battle pass will return later in the season. This change lets players target specific skins and cosmetics, changing how progression and grinding are managed.

• Blizzard finished 2026 fiscal year as Xbox's top-performing studio

  Blizzard president Johanna Faries told staff last week that Blizzard ended the 2026 fiscal year as the top-performing studio in Xbox’s studios division and recorded the studio’s third-highest top-line revenue ever. Faries said Blizzard posted its first consecutive years of growth since fiscal 2017 and credited Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred and Overwatch for driving the gains. The performance highlights Blizzard’s ability to run multiple successful live-service titles after Microsoft’s 2023 acquisition and contrasts with weaker results from other Xbox studios this period.

• Marvel Tokon PC Patch cuts CPU use, fixes frame drops and several bugs

  Arc System Works released the first PC patch for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls one week after launch to address widespread performance and stability problems. The update reduces overall CPU usage, eliminates unnecessary audio input checks that caused sudden frame-rate drops, fixes resolution-related FPS issues and several gameplay-setting bugs, and triggers a lengthy shader compilation after installation. This targets the poor optimization players experienced despite moderate PC requirements and aims to improve online and single-player stability.

• Valve notifies European Steam hardware buyers after CEVA Logistics cyberattack

  Valve contacted customers who bought Steam hardware in Europe after regional shipping partner CEVA Logistics suffered a cyberattack between July 29 and August 1, 2026. The breach likely exposed delivery-related customer data that CEVA retains for up to 90 days, including names, street addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and order details. Valve learned of the incident on August 7, assembled a list of at-risk customers and warned recipients to watch for phishing that may use the compromised delivery data. CEVA’s attack affected eight warehouse hubs and caused shipping delays across Europe; no customer payment information or unrelated Steam account details were shared with CEVA and users do not need to change their Steam passwords.

• Starbreeze launches Heist Escape Roguelike: Payday Experience inside Fortnite

  Starbreeze released Heist Escape Roguelike: Payday Experience as a UEFN-exclusive game inside Fortnite. The mod reimagines Payday as a progressive roguelike shooter with three heists and is live now with Island Code 8105-9005-4478. Starbreeze is using Fortnite to introduce Payday to new players as Payday 3 underperforms commercially while Payday 2 remains active on Steam. The release follows earlier franchise expansions including Roblox spinoffs and a VR Payday title.

• GameStop weighs ditching $56B eBay takeover, shifts toward partnership on collectibles

  eBay rejected GameStop's $56 billion takeover offer and called it "neither credible nor attractive," prompting GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen to consider abandoning the bid and pursuing a partnership to jointly sell collectibles and digital in-game items. GameStop holds a 9.8% stake in eBay and originally offered $125 per share payable 50% in cash and 50% in GameStop stock. Cohen outlined financing that included $20 billion of potential debt from TD Bank, $9 billion in company cash, and outside investors such as Middle East sovereign wealth funds. The change matters because GameStop’s market value is about $12 billion versus eBay’s roughly $54 billion, making a full acquisition complex and a partnership a materially different path to expand collectibles and digital-item commerce.

• Aliens: Fireteam Elite Switch cloud version shut down and now unplayable

  Cold Iron Studios turned off the cloud servers for Aliens: Fireteam Elite on August 5, making the Nintendo Switch cloud-streamed edition impossible to play for owners. The Switch edition had been removed from the Nintendo eShop earlier this year, while the game remains playable in an offline state on non-cloud versions for other platforms. A sequel, Fireteam Elite 2, is scheduled for August on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, with a Switch 2 edition arriving later in the year. The shutdown underscores consumer and preservation concerns around cloud-only game releases.

• 1666: Amsterdam resurfaces after 15-year development by Assassin's Creed creator

  1666: Amsterdam, a witchy new game from Patrice Désilets, returned to the public eye this year after a 15-year conception. Development included legal battles, multiple concept rewrites and secret publishers before the project reached an actual game. Désilets is known for creating Assassin's Creed and Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, making this long-delayed title notable for fans and the industry.

• 1666: Amsterdam enters PC early access on 25 August after years-long legal battle

  1666: Amsterdam, a dark, witchy action game from Patrice Désilets, will launch in PC early access on 25 August. The game will be sold on Steam and the Epic Games Store. Its release follows years of legal battles between Désilets and Ubisoft that had delayed the project, making this a notable public return for the Assassin's Creed creator.

• id Software lead: Microsoft cuts make Doom-scale games 'impossible'

  An id Software lead developer publicly criticized Microsoft's recent major staff cuts at the studio, saying Xbox executives 'don't understand art' and that it's 'impossible' to create triple-A games like 2016's Doom with half the staff. The comments pinpoint a direct conflict between creative teams and Microsoft management decisions and raise immediate concerns about id's ability to deliver future high-budget titles.

• Spider-Man: Brand New Day Boosts Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Sales by Hundreds of Thousands

  Spider-Man: Brand New Day has grossed $1.6 billion and coincided with a large sales surge for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. The 2023 game sold 316,000 additional paid copies on PS5 and PC and gained another 274,000 players through PlayStation Plus, generating $11 million in paid sales. The lift pushed lifetime totals to 18.2 million units and over $1.2 billion in revenue, and Insomniac issued a PS5 Pro PSSR update to coincide with the film's launch.

• Water-cooled Steam Machine mod uses neon-pink tubing, cuts APU temps 20–30°C

  A modder converted a retail Steam Machine into a water-cooled system and posted a short build video showing the work. The conversion adds a fan-cooled radiator mounted to the rear, a custom CNC water block and external neon-pink coolant lines, and reduced APU temperatures by about 20–30°C. The mod swaps the Steam Machine’s original compact, quiet air-cooling design for a bulkier setup that raises performance cooling but introduces VRM/MOSFET cooling challenges.

• Sovereign Tower: time-travel visual novel/RPG management game launches Aug 6, 2026

  Sovereign Tower is a visual novel, RPG and management game from Wild Wit Games and Curve Games releasing August 6, 2026 for $17/£12.74 on Steam (Steam Deck Verified). Players control an itinerant leper who becomes the ruler and must send knights on quests, balance citizen class satisfaction and manage treasury resources. The game extends a Reigns-like throne-management format with time-travel mechanics, deeper roleplaying systems and elaborate storylines, creating constant resource and timing pressure.

• Square Enix posts 88.6% operating profit jump as games division rebounds

  Square Enix recorded an 88.6% year‑on‑year operating profit increase for the fiscal year ending 2027; its videogame business saw operating profit rise 91.8% and revenue grow 51.8%. The videogame surge was driven largely by Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, while Final Fantasy XIV showed a player uptick in a community census earlier this year. Creative Studio 3 has adjusted FF14 content—introducing scalable difficulty in encounters and announcing Evercold changes to jobs, raid difficulty, and the tomestone system—indicating the publisher's results are now supported by multiple titles rather than a single MMO.

• All 12 VRS-invited teams accept ESL Pro League S24 invites for Poland

  All top 12 teams that received VRS invitations have accepted entry to ESL Pro League Season 24 in Poland. Their acceptance finalizes the invited portion of the tournament field. With the invited roster set, organizers will integrate those teams into the event schedule and brackets.

• Corsair’s gaming hardware sales fall ~9% despite pricier DDR5 RAM and higher profit

  Q2 2026 gaming component and system revenue fell about 9% year‑over‑year while gross profit rose 17%. Memory sales have increased, but revenue from other component products dropped sharply. Corsair buys memory modules from Samsung, SK hynix, Micron and CXMT rather than manufacturing them, and higher component prices are boosting memory margins while raising input costs across its systems and peripherals. Elevated component costs are suppressing upgrades and new builds among cost‑sensitive consumers, reducing demand for the Gaming Components and Systems segment even as enthusiast builders remain relatively less price‑sensitive.

• No Man's Sky at 10: 45+ major updates and Sean Murray rejects 'redemption arc'

  No Man's Sky reached its 10th anniversary this week and Hello Games says the space sim is 'stronger than ever' after a decade of support. Studio head Sean Murray reflected on the game's journey, outlined its future, and rejected the framing of the developer's history as primarily a 'redemption arc'. The studio has released more than 45 major updates since launch, and Murray also discussed smaller design details such as the origin of the game's emojis.