It has been a packed week for video game news, and a lot of it points to the same bigger picture: major publishers and studios are cutting back, changing how they sell games, and trying to figure out what the next version of their business looks like. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto is doing Grand Theft Auto things, PlayStation has a lot on its slate, and there are enough new games out this week to make my backlog nervous.
Key Takeaways
- Bungie confirmed it is exploring a sublease of its Bellevue campus after major workforce reductions.
- Rockstar has partnered with NoPixel for official GTA Online roleplay as new GTA 6 screenshots highlight the game’s variety.
- Xbox Cloud Gaming is introducing monthly streaming limits of five, 10 or 15 hours depending on the Game Pass tier.
- Onimusha, Halloween and The Blood of Dawnwalker lead a crowded week of notable releases.
Table of Contents
- Bungie is exploring a Bellevue campus sublease
- PlayStation State of Play had updates, but no physical media response
- Sony’s digital ownership argument is frustrating
- Rockstar officially leans into GTA Online roleplay
- Nintendo Directs are coming for Zelda’s 40th anniversary
- Xbox Cloud Gaming limits are getting tighter
- DLSS 5 is starting to appear, but the real test is official implementation
- The new games worth knowing about this week
- A rough week for the business, a great week for games
Bungie is exploring a Bellevue campus sublease
The big question around Bungie lately has been simple: how worried should we be? The studio already carried out significant layoffs in June, and reporting this week revealed that its enormous Bellevue, Washington campus is being marketed for a potential sublease.
The proposed arrangement reportedly covers 210,984 rentable square feet at 550 106th Avenue NE, with the lease running through September 2035. That is a lot of space. Bungie’s office is genuinely massive, and frankly, if I owned that building and had a much smaller workforce using it, I would probably consider doing the same thing.
Still, it is another unsettling dot to connect. Bungie confirmed that it is exploring options to sublease its campus, explaining that it shifted to a digital-first working model years ago and that remote collaboration has changed its office requirements. The company says it will retain a physical presence in Bellevue.
None of this proves that Bungie is at the end of the road. But workforce reductions, a smaller physical footprint and questions around Marathon all create a picture that is hard to ignore. I do not have secret business insight into every project the studio has cooking, but this is another example of an industry that is struggling, resetting and facing some serious setbacks. For more on the reported sublease, read the original Bungie campus report.
PlayStation State of Play had updates, but no physical media response
Sony held a PlayStation State of Play, followed by a Japan-focused presentation. I went in wondering whether PlayStation would even briefly acknowledge the major backlash around physical game production ending for new PlayStation releases. Not necessarily reverse the policy, because I do not expect that, but maybe offer some kind of PR acknowledgement.
Nothing. No mention of it.
Instead, Sony focused on updates, trailers and announcements. It was not a total knockout presentation, but there was plenty to pick through:
- Ghost of Yotei is getting a major October update with a combat survival mode and a narrative expansion.
- Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendants received an extended look.
- Metro showed more gameplay and continues to look great.
- Maneater 2 is coming in 2027, which I genuinely did not expect but am very happy about. I loved that ridiculous shark game.
- A LEGO PlayStation 1 was revealed, complete with a disc drive. Yes, I had to make the cheap joke.
- Crimson Desert: Charting the Unknown arrives on October 15 with new story material, castle construction, staff management, relationships, new areas and sailing.
- Final Fantasy Residence is dated for October 22.
- Wolverine got a new trailer that seems to show an awful lot of the game.
- Rhapsody in Scarlet was revealed as a 1920s New York anime adventure.
- Saros and Gran Turismo 7 are both getting new content and features later this year.
- Until Dawn 2 now has a January 28, 2027 release date and appears to be much bigger than earlier trailers suggested, with a strange game-show presentation attached to it.
- Final Fantasy VII Revelation is officially launching April 8, 2027.
- Grand Theft Auto 6 is getting a flashy PlayStation controller around the game’s release.
The sheer pace of Crimson Desert continues to be particularly wild. Every time it gets another update, there is a whole new batch of systems attached. Castle building, management and sailing in an already huge-looking game is kind of nuts.
Sony’s digital ownership argument is frustrating
PlayStation also made headlines for a California court argument involving digital game ownership. Sony’s position was that reasonable consumers understand they do not own digital downloads, because the software is licensed rather than sold.
Legally, that may be the framework. I am not a lawyer, and I am not going to pretend to unpack every part of a court filing. But the customer experience is still weird. Storefronts do not exactly present a giant flashing sign saying, “You are renting access to this software under a revocable licence.” They present a purchase button.
That gap between legal language and what buying a game feels like to regular people is why this stuff keeps making people angry. It is not only PlayStation either. Digital ownership across the whole industry is one of those things worth thinking about, especially as physical media gets pushed further out of the picture. Sony’s court argument is worth reading for yourself.
Rockstar officially leans into GTA Online roleplay
It would not be a game-news week without something related to Grand Theft Auto, and Rockstar made a genuinely interesting move: it is partnering with NoPixel for GTA Online roleplay.
NoPixel has been a huge part of the GTA roleplay world, so Rockstar becoming officially involved is a major signal. It suggests the company sees roleplay as more than an outside community experiment. I am very curious what this means for GTA Online as it exists now and, more importantly, what it could mean for the future of the series. You can read more about Rockstar’s official NoPixel V server.
There were also a bunch of fresh Grand Theft Auto 6 screenshots floating around, showing exactly the kind of variety I want from this game. Different hairstyles, different looks, convertibles, muddy backcountry chaos and characters who feel distinct from one another.
The image that really sells me is the one with two lovers embracing while police cars and a helicopter close in around them. That is the Bonnie and Clyde vibe I am hoping the game delivers. Screenshots used to be all we had when games were announced, and honestly, there is still something fun about studying these things frame by frame.
Nintendo Directs are coming for Zelda’s 40th anniversary
Nintendo has announced a Nintendo Direct on September 8 focused specifically on the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, followed by a more general Nintendo Direct on September 9.
It seems like a very safe bet that the anniversary presentation will finally show gameplay from the Ocarina of Time remake. That is an enormous deal to me because I love that game, but it also makes me nervous. Ocarina of Time deserves more than a lazy Unreal Engine 5 makeover with glossy rocks and realistic grass shoved into it.
I want Nintendo to give it real care and a distinct identity. There is also speculation that the Zelda movie could appear, which raises a whole other pile of questions. Either way, those two Directs are suddenly very important dates for Nintendo fans. Nintendo’s announcement is available through its official Direct schedule post.
Xbox Cloud Gaming limits are getting tighter
Over on the Xbox side, Microsoft is adding monthly limits to Xbox Cloud Gaming usage. The stated limits are:
- Game Pass Ultimate: 15 hours of cloud streaming per month.
- Game Pass Premium: 10 hours per month.
- Game Pass Essential: 5 hours per month.
Apparently, most users are not reaching these caps. I believe that. I personally do not know many people who use cloud streaming heavily enough for 15 hours a month to become a crisis. But that does not make the messaging any better.
When a subscription costs money and a feature it already included becomes more limited, it feels bad. It will affect some people, especially those who rely on cloud streaming as their primary way to play. The full breakdown is available in Windows Central’s report on Xbox Cloud Gaming limits.
DLSS 5 is starting to appear, but the real test is official implementation
DLSS 5 is beginning to roll out alongside the new NBA 2K game, and people have already been experimenting with getting versions of it into games that do not officially support it.
The results look considerably better than the first reveal, although some of it can still look strange and uncanny. The big distinction is that unofficial testing is not the final version of how this feature will work in real games.
Developers are expected to have control over where and how they deploy it. That could mean masking the effect, applying it differently to environments and characters, and generally stopping it from looking like someone simply cranked a filter to maximum.
For players, it should ultimately be another graphics setting that can be turned on or off. I am interested to see whether DLSS 5 becomes a genuinely meaningful tool or another flashy marketing bullet point. Is it going to become an important standard, or end up like HairWorks, where it is technically neat but not exactly essential? We need more properly supported games before that answer is clear.
The new games worth knowing about this week
There were a lot of releases this week, which is why things feel a little frantic right now. We have been working through a mountain of games behind the scenes, and there are several worth putting on the radar.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword
I am thrilled that Onimusha is back. I have been with this franchise from the beginning, and while I did not personally handle the full review coverage this time, everything I have played at preview events made it look promising. It now seems to have landed as another strong entry for the series.
It also arrives after a run of strong releases including Star Wars Zero Company, Mortal Shell 2 and Hella Loose Vietnam. There is no shortage of stuff to play right now. For more detail, check out our Onimusha: Way of the Sword breakdown.
Halloween
Halloween is available now for those who bought the more expensive deluxe edition. I have spent a fair amount of time with it, and it is very much from the same general world as the old Friday the 13th game. It is janky, a little weird and has issues. I played before launch, so the final public experience may be better or worse depending on updates.
But beneath the rough edges, there is a very fun asymmetrical horror game that adds some smart ideas to the formula. More importantly, it feels authentically Halloween.
The small single-player campaign only lasts a couple of hours, but it lets me roam recreated Haddonfield environments as Michael Myers, stalking people, entering homes and causing trouble. For hardcore Halloween fans, that alone is a pretty cool experience. It is not flawless, but it knows exactly who it is for. Our Halloween game coverage goes deeper on the good and bad.
Orbitals and Crimson Moon
Orbitals has launched on Nintendo Switch, and its art style looks incredible. I have not had enough time with it yet to say how the whole game lands, but it is absolutely on my list.
Crimson Moon is another game that could get lost in the release chaos. It is an action RPG with Souls-like elements and a really cool visual style. Steam reception is mixed so far, but I wanted to point it out because it has been on my radar for a while and it is trying to do something visually interesting.
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Blood of Dawnwalker is the one I am particularly drawn to. It comes from a new studio founded by the director of The Witcher 3, and it has that familiar Witcher-like RPG flavour while still changing up the structure.
The game uses a timer-based format, but it does not seem designed to constantly rush me. Instead, it makes me carefully choose which quests and opportunities matter most. That is a clever way to create pressure without simply making every moment stressful.
The 14th-century vampire setting is great, and I am fully aware that I am biased toward vampire games. We do not get enough of them, and I tend to be easy on anything that lets me inhabit that kind of world.
There are technical issues and some flaws that I hope a sequel could improve, but I still think it is a really fun RPG adventure. It will not be for everyone. But if you want a different, more experimental flavour of The Witcher 3, and you are into vampires, it is absolutely worth considering. You can find our Blood of Dawnwalker review coverage for the fuller breakdown.
A rough week for the business, a great week for games
That is the strange split in gaming right now. On one side, Bungie’s office changes, layoffs, digital ownership arguments and reduced subscription allowances all feel like reminders that the business side is getting increasingly rough.
On the other side, there are exciting PlayStation announcements, Rockstar finally getting involved with roleplay, Zelda news on the horizon and more games worth playing than most people can reasonably keep up with.
So, yeah, it is a lot. Keep an eye on Bungie, keep an eye on the Zelda Direct, and maybe clear some hard-drive space while you are at it. Pizza is still on me.
