After decades of requests, Microsoft has finally announced (via Xbox Wire) that Mythic Achievements are rolling out for Xbox consoles and Windows PC.

It's currently available to Xbox Insiders and will be released to the general public at a later date.

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For those unaware, Mythic Achievements are a new special kind of Xbox Achievement rewarded to players who manage to obtain every single regular Xbox Achievement in an Xbox game.

It's worth noting that Achievements added through an Xbox game's paid DLC or free updates aren't required for the Mythic Achievement, only the base game's achievements. Once you gain a Mythic Achievement, it's yours to keep forever.

What's cool is that these Mythic Achievements don't just apply to current Xbox Series X|S titles; they apply to all eligible Xbox games from multiple console generations, including the Xbox 360.

To help players keep track of Mythic Achievements, a new Gaming Tab has been added to their Xbox profile.

Within it, Xbox players can see their Achievements, track Gamerscore milestone badge progress, revisit past games they've completed, and visit their friends' Gaming tabs to compare their Mythic Achievement collections.

Additionally, a new progress bar has been added to each game's Achievement list to show how close a player is to obtaining a Mythic Achievement, with an option to focus on Achievements required to obtain it.

Get out there and grab those Xbox Mythic Achievements

Now, while I've personally never been interested in Xbox Achievement hunting, I know plenty of my friends have wanted Xbox Mythic Achievements ever since the late 2000s.

It's a great way to challenge Xbox completionists, show how much they love particular Xbox games, and provide bragging rights for players to impress their friends online.

But what do you think? Are you happy Xbox Mythic Achievements are finally happening? Are there any Xbox games you've 100% completed in the past that have now retroactively granted you Mythic Status?

If you have any thoughts on the matter, let us know on our Reddit page, in the comments section, or in the poll.

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Most game developers have adjusted their release schedules, moved launch dates, or cleared entire launch windows just to avoid being anywhere near the new Grand Theft Auto release. But Coffee Stain North isn't most developers.

While everyone else has seemingly run for cover Goat Simulator 3 knows who the real GOATS of gaming are and they have announced today that the third major expansion for Goat Simulator 3, titled Ticket to Dizzyworld, is set to launch on November 19, 2026.

Yes, that's the exact same day Rockstar Games is set to launch Grand Theft Auto 6. And Coffee Stain couldn't care less; in fact, they have turned it into a marketing tactic all in itself.

"We launched Baadlands on November 19th last year, and we are releasing Dizzyworld on the same date this year. And we dare anyone to put a game out on the same day. You’ve been warned!"

— Santiago Ferrero, Creative Director at Coffee Stain North

Move over Lucia and Jason: Pilgor the Goat is back and bringing the carnival.

Welcome to Dizzyworld: Rollercoasters, river rapids and bumper cars

Following up on last year's post-apocalyptic Baadlands: Furry Road expansion, Ticket to Dizzyworld swaps the rusty sand-pocalypse for an unregulated theme-park sandbox playground.

The expansion drops players into a massive new map filled with amusement rides, carnival games, and new opportunities to torment unsuspecting NPCs. Some of the standout features coming in the DLC include:

• Custom rollercoaster construction: Create your own physics-defying, health-and-safety-violating rollercoasters for the ultimate theme park experiment.
• First-Goat perspective: Experience rollercoasters, river rapids, and bumper cars directly through Pilgor's eyes.
• New Goat Gears & collectibles: Packed with new physics-warping carnival gear to cause maximum havoc, alongside collectible Dizzy Tokens scattered across the park to redeem for rewards.

The real kid-friendly GTA

Now there's a genuine irony to this showdown of the titans: while my partner queues up his GTA 6 download, my son will be fighting for the TV screen because he wants to play this DLC as soon as he finishes school. He absolutely loves sandbox games, and Goat Simulator 3 is one of his favourites. He's logged hundreds of hours in the game on multiple platforms at this point.

In many ways, Goat Simulator is like Grand Theft Auto with more Goats and less gun crime, and watching Pilgor ride a bumper car in first-person view will beat a Vice City car chase in this house, hands down.

When and where can I get my hands on Goat Simulator 3: Dizzyworld?

Goat Simulator 3: Dizzyworld launches on November 19, 2026 for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store) and Coffee Stain North has also announced that there are future plans to bring the game to Nintendo Switch 2.

Will Pilgor dethrone GTA 6? Probably not, but in this house it certainly will and I commend the nerve.

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Given the absolutely astronomical hype of GTA 6, the headline here might read as crazy. Madness, INSANITY! ... But it's only crazy if you're living within a particularly specific social media bubble, in my humble opinion.

Last week, buddy o' mine Tom Warren made waves by mentioning nerves at Xbox HQ over the potential sales viability of Grand Theft Auto 6 on Xbox Series X|S. It led to Xbox CSO Matthew Ball coming in to deny the rumors, stating that GTA 6 is "creating records" for Xbox preorders.

Even if that's true, GTA 6 presents something of a headache for Xbox. Thanks to an astronomical marketing deal with PlayStation, Xbox isn't even allowed to formally mention the existence of GTA 6 on its Xbox Series X|S consoles. All of the GTA 6 marketing is flowing directly towards PlayStation 5, and there's no guarantee GTA 6 Online will feature cross-play either, much like its predecessor.

Whether it's the PlayStation's marketing deal or the simple lack of available Xbox Series X|S stock to sell through (due to the RAMpocalypse), GTA 6 is shaping up to be something of a missed opportunity for Xbox this autumn.

... But does it even matter?

Perhaps out of nowhere, an unexpected savior has emerged. A savior from our past ... a video game that may well and truly last forever.

World of Warcraft: Forever can beat GTA 6

The hype around GTA 6 has seen publishers desperately swerve to avoid the Vice City-shaped train about to plow through the games industry. I've been inundated with games to review between September and October, and there's simply no time at all to realistically play through all of them. Blood of Dawnwalker, Control Resonant, Gears: E-Day, Star Wars: Zero Company, Valor Mortis, Sinking City 2, Onimusha, Minecraft Dungeons 2 ... dozens of great indie games, and even more AA and AAA titles ... all swerving to avoid GTA 6.

Yet, there are two games from Xbox that are launching close to or even on top of GTA 6, in the form of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and perhaps more importantly, World of Warcraft: Forever.

MW4 hype does seem muted this year, likely in part because of GTA 6 and maybe generalized franchise fatigue, but the same absolutely cannot be said for WoW: Forever. Even as an unashamed WoW fanboy, I've been utterly stunned by the popularity of the beta, which generally requires a purchase to even access. It doesn't come out until November, yet it seems to be breaking franchise records already for Blizzard, and by extension, Xbox.

Blizzard devs have said they haven't seen the game this busy in 17 years, and my own sources within Blizzard have echoed similar. Perhaps crucially, I've been told that WoW: Forever is not cannibalizing WoW: Retail either. These are all new or long-dormant returning players, buoyed by hype from massively influential streamers like Asmongold. The servers are struggling under the load, as players new and long-dormant return in their hundreds of thousands to march upon Azeroth once again.

WoW: Forever is basically a remaster/remix of the OG WoW from 23 years ago ... and it's going to take on GTA 6 in the same launch window, which isn't yet on PC. WoW: Forever will have a near-blank runway on PC as a result of multi-platform games swerving to avoid Grand Theft Auto 6.

For Xbox's quarterly projections, it couldn't have come at a better time from a corporate perspective. Asha Sharma has promised shareholders that Xbox will return to growth this year, and that was without factoring in their thoroughly unexpected projections for WoW: Forever.

Xbox is far, far bigger now than people seem to realize

Indeed, if you're in the Xbox discourse bubble, it's potentially easy to forget that World of Warcraft: Forever will feed that bottom line. Minecraft also announced a new dimension in "The Sift," coming to the game in 2027. I can see from Windows Central's traffic that this is also going to be a huge deal for the game, but also Xbox as a business unit.

So, even if GTA 6 was a flop on Xbox (and there's no evidence to suggest it would be, really), Xbox has a variety of backup plans on the docket. Some intentional, some not-so-intentional.

This is the thing about modern Xbox. A lot of the commentary tends to focus on console — it ignores mobile, it ignores PC service games like WoWF, and other revenue streams Xbox is setting up with TV and movie licensing. There's even the Minecraft theme park coming to the UK, which will be a test bed for broader expansion across the world in the coming years. Could we eventually see "Blizzard World" set up shop next door to Minecraft World? I mean, it's not entirely outside of the realm of possibility. There's even been internal chatter about an "XboxCon" in a similar vein to BlizzCon in the future ...

Yes, GTA 6 is important for Xbox ... but there's also a component crisis. PS5 and Xbox Series X|S are not overstocked. They're selling every box they can muster even without GTA 6. Perhaps if the RAMpocalypse wasn't ongoing, GTA 6 would be more crucial than it otherwise is. But Xbox is stronger than ever off Xbox Series X|S hardware right now.

Xbox CSO Matthew Ball said GTA 6 is breaking records for Xbox regardless, but even if that wasn't true ... the Xbox operation is so, so much bigger, and has so, so much more potential beyond the traditional box these days. This is before Xbox has even announced the console versions of World of Warcraft: Forever, which you just know are undoubtedly on the way. World of Warcraft has never been on console. WoW:F as a timed console exclusive would drive more sales to Xbox Series X|S than GTA 6 with PlayStation marketing ever could, in my humble opinion.

But I digress. The point is simple. GTA 6 is only the cherry on top for the modern Xbox business; it's not the entire cake.

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Xbox’s disc-to-digital feature has been in testing for insiders for about a month now, and the momentum is picking up. Ubisoft joined the program not long ago, and SEGA has now seemingly followed suit.

Beyond the new publisher participation, there have been some tweaks to how the feature actually works. So, let’s go over what’s changed.

If you’ve been living under a rock and aren’t sure what this fabled feature is, I’ll quickly explain. Disc-to-digital allows you to insert participating discs into your Xbox One or Series X console to obtain a digital license. Once you have that license, you can keep playing the game without the disc even being inserted. It also unlocks access to the game on other platforms if it’s a Play Anywhere title, as well as through cloud gaming.

With that out of the way, how exactly is the experience changing? The digital entitlement is now granted automatically when you insert a disc, rather than requiring a manual step from the menu. Additionally, the service will only provide a full-screen explanation on your first digital entitlement. For any subsequent games, you’ll just see a simple toast notification.

Perhaps the biggest update, however, is that fans have started noticing select SEGA games allowing digital entitlement. Titles like Persona 5 Royal are already in. If all SEGA games work out similarly, that would add another 44 games to the program.

For those keeping count, or if you follow @XCTdotLIVE on X (formerly Twitter), that brings the current disc-to-digital count to 1,585 games, with 205 games currently not in the service. Considering the feature is still in testing, I’m personally expecting that figure to grow, especially as more publishers get on board.

Currently, publishers who aren’t participating include Bandai Namco and Square Enix. While I can’t speak much for Bandai Namco, I do presume that, given Square’s fondness for Xbox as of late, we’ll at the very least see them get on board at some stage.

Xbox’s disc-to-digital feature continues to impress. At least, I’m impressed anyway; in fact, it even got me buying physical games again. It’s a bit of a shame to think we could have had such a forward-thinking feature as far back as the Xbox One, but I digress.

Let me know your thoughts on disc-to-digital, what games you want to see enter the service that haven’t already, and anything else that comes to mind in the comments.

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Heroes of the Storm fans, rejoice: Blizzard has not forgotten you. Yes, shocking many, I’m sure. Blizzard has just released a new blog post announcing that Xal’atath is joining Heroes of the Storm alongside a major new update.

That’s right: for the first time in almost six years, the game is receiving a brand-new hero, making her the 91st to join the Nexus.

To celebrate the launch, fans can earn exclusive Twitch drops starting today, September 28, at 9:00 am PT, through October 5 at 11:59 pm PT. Rewards scale with watch time, ranging from 1,000 gold for an hour to Epic and Legendary loot chests, and even an Epic Deadly Chaos Wolf at the eight-hour mark.

Now, my personal knowledge of Heroes of the Storm is limited, but the blog post does detail the new hero. Xal’atath is a ranged assassin, and her ability kit is as follows:

• Trait - Void Volley. Basic attacks build Soul Essence; at full Essence, unleash a barrage of void orbs at a target area while moving freely.
• Q - Shadow Mark. Cast a large Void Orb that marks enemy Heroes hit by its inner radius; the Dark Heart moves to the impact point and detonates on marked enemy Heroes.
• W - Dark Heart Ritual. Summon the Dark Heart talisman to pulse void energy at nearby enemies, then follow and detonate on any Shadow Marked Hero.
• E - Void Step. Blink between three points in a triangular pattern, gaining attack damage at each stop; can be cancelled early to reposition or escape.
• Heroic - Void Eruption. Channel a growing void orb, launch it to blind enemies and dominate space, then detonate in a large area - cast on the Dark Heart for an instant, fully empowered eruption.
• Heroic - Void Convergence. Summon a portal that spawns relentless void minions to overwhelm nearby enemies, replacing fallen minions until the portal ends or is destroyed.

Xal’atath is a paid hero, available for $7.99 right now. For those who prefer to use gold, Blizzard aims to make her available for gold later this year, tentatively set for the end of November.

Outside of this new hero, Blizzard details a bunch of other stuff in the blog post, which you should check out, including a teaser that more might be to come... Fans of Heroes of the Storm seemingly have a lot to be excited about, and I for one hope the game can stick it to other MOBAs.

Do let me know your thoughts in the comments, whether you’re excited, not excited, or somewhere in between. And with that, do be sure to take part in our poll below:

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As Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 approaches on October 23, the PR machine is really getting into full swing. Whether it's reactive or not is irrelevant, so long as players are being given worthwhile features.

It looks like Modern Warfare 4 is going to fix one of the biggest points of irritation I have with Call of Duty in general: burning through 2XP tokens while you're sat in the lobby, or tweaking your loadout, or hell, even checking on your Camo challenges.

Announced today is the news that this will not be the case in Modern Warfare 4. 2XP tokens will now only count down in-game time, not from the very second you apply them, as happens right now.

I don't know if there's panic setting in, if these ideas were always planned, or if players are actually being listened to. But this is twice in recent days that we're getting some positive news about features for Modern Warfare 4.

The 2XP token update comes after the news that from Season 1, when Warzone is integrated with Modern Warfare 4, players will have a toggle to turn off all the goofy legacy skins and see default MW4 operators instead.

I'm not sure this is enough to make me want to play Warzone outside of doing the Mastery Camo, but still, it's another big W from Call of Duty for its players. Even though I only tolerate Warzone for the barest minimum time, there are some truly heinous cosmetics going back as far as Modern Warfare 2.

In isolation each of these may seem small, but both are actually significant quality of life increases. I can now work on the Warzone Mastery Camo without seeing Beavis and Butthead or American Dad, and I can do so knowing I'm not losing my 2XP tokens while waiting on matchmaking.

There are still plenty of improvements that could be made, though. I don't really have a dog in the SBMM fight, but plenty of players do, even if it doesn't look like it's going away. The anticheat will also be a big focus, again, and Activision talks a big game, but players are only going to be happy when they see it working.

But I'm happy to take the wins wherever they come. I've got about 50 hours of 2XP and 52 hours of 2XP weapon tokens to burn through when Modern Warfare 4 comes out. I'm glad that will at least translate to in-game hours and not losing half of it outside of matches.

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We're less than a day from Minecraft Dungeons 2 releasing into the world, yet reviews for the game have quickly begun spreading like wildfire.

At first glance, this sequel to 2020's completely unexpected action-RPG take on Minecraft is enjoying an above-average, positive reception, with an overall Metacritic score of 76 and an OpenCritic score of 85.

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But how does it fare compared to the first game, and is it worth your time and money? Here's what some of the most popular review sites had to say about Minecraft Dungeons 2:

Minecraft Dungeons 2 Reviews

• IGN (6/10): "Minecraft Dungeons is a beautiful and fun dungeon crawler with a simple but tried-and-true set of systems in place. It plays it extremely safe, though, without bringing anything mining or crafting spins to the genre to accompany Minecraft’s signature look and feel. Still, it's just so damn charming, and so fun, it's hard to fault it for going the safe route. With tons of loot, secret areas to uncover, and progressively more aggressive difficulty levels to unlock, Minecraft Dungeons has a fair amount of replayability beyond its relatively short six to eight-hour story mode. But who plays Minecraft for the story, anyway?"
• Destructoid (9/10): "A hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage. Expanding and improving on the original game in most conceivable ways, Minecraft Dungeons 2 is an excellent advancement in this ARPG spin-off for one of gaming's most beloved and iconic franchises."
• Gamespot (7/10): "Where Minecraft Dungeons was a charming introduction to the dungeon-crawler genre, Dungeons 2 builds a deeper action-RPG within the same familiar, blocky framework. While it doesn’t completely escape the limitations of its predecessor, Minecraft Dungeons 2 is a more ambitious sequel that finally gives its loot, builds, and world the depth that was missing, even if a few rough edges remain."
• Gamesradar+ (7/10): "Minecraft Dungeons 2 scores zero points for originality and feels very much like its predecessor, but when you're trying to perfect a formula, it's not the time to add wild new ingredients. The result is a polished and enjoyable dungeon crawler that children and adults alike can enjoy whether solo, online, or next to each other on the couch."
• Gameinformer (7.3/10): "Minecraft Dungeons II proves this spin-off franchise can stand on its own and improve with subsequent entries at a time when Xbox is refocusing on its biggest IP. There’s plenty of room to expand, improve, and let me reach that endgame feeling of satisfaction much sooner, though. Right now, Minecraft Dungeons II is simply a straightforward, entry-level action-RPG."

More of the same dungeoneering, but better Minecrafted

The consensus of Minecraft Dungeons 2 seems to be that it doesn't try to reinvent the ARPG genre, but rather refines the elements that players and critics enjoyed in the first Minecraft Dungeons (which we gave a 4.5/5 review score many years ago).

Character-build variety is more diverse, combat and traversal feel more in-depth and nicer to control, there's a wider interconnected world to explore, and plenty of post-game activities to keep players busy for a while after the credits roll.

Some critics noted that Minecraft Dungeons 2's gameplay can get repetitive after a while. Plus, it has a bloat problem regarding the amount of loot you can obtain, and there are a fair number of bugs that force players to reset the game in order to progress.

Either way, it appears that Minecraft Dungeons 2 sounds like a fun weekend romp for the whole family and a decent entry-level ARPG to introduce young kids to the genre before moving them up to more intimidating titles like Diablo or Path of Exile.

Minecraft Dungeons 2 is set to release on September 29, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S (with Xbox Play Anywhere support), Xbox Game Pass, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam and Windows.

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Tomorrow sees the re-launch of a decade-old game that every RPG released since is still compared to: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The Witcher franchise is a universe very close to my heart. Prior to 2015, I didn't have any interactions with it, but The Witcher 3 brought it crashing into my periphery, and I've never looked back.

In 2015, I suffered a family bereavement that resulted in me being signed off work sick for a number of weeks. In those weeks, I holed up in a room, didn't get dressed, and fired up this new game everyone was raving about... The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and completely lost myself in it. So began a new obsession; I went back and played The Witcher 2, and I ordered and devoured all of the books, even downloading translations of later ones that hadn't been translated into English yet.

I was utterly transfixed by the world of Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer, and really used my obsession to completely distract myself from the real-life breakdown I was having. It was like therapy (and probably much cheaper), and since then I've had more than just a normal love of the game, as I genuinely credit it for dragging me out of a dark period of time.

I was more than a little emotional when Songs of the Past was announced, as it gives me an opportunity to go back to this world once more. Well, I say an opportunity; I've had multiple playthroughs of The Witcher 3 over the years and seen the various updates it's gone through, way up to 4.04, and now we are blessed with a whole damn remaster.

The original game was an effortless 5 out of 5 at launch. If I could rate this new Version 5.0 remaster higher than a 5, I would in a heartbeat. But you didn't come here to read my blithering diatribe on why I love The Witcher franchise so much; you want to know what's actually new with the remaster and whether it’s worth diving back onto the Path. Well, let's get down to it.

The following thoughts are based on a playthrough on the Xbox Series X console.

Fluid combat and a modernized progression system

The biggest criticism of the original Witcher 3 was the combat system, and it’s a criticism I never really shared with the masses anyway. I have always liked it, jank and all, but I think CDPR has done a good job with introducing smoother swing connections and subtle animation tweaks. Geralt practically pirouettes with grace while swinging his sword and I find the dynamic camera the most noticeable improvement here as it swings much more naturally during large encounters.

We also get brutal new Sign-integrated execution animations (like explosive Aard finishers) that make moment-to-moment skirmishes feel infinitely more interesting. The fire effects on Igni alone have made using signs feel more impactful.

Character progression has received a shake-up too. The core skill tree remains structurally familiar but with subtle adjustments that make individual abilities feel much better suited to the faster tempo of modern action-RPGs. It's been simplified so you don't have to choose exclusively between strong or fast attack builds, for example.

Toxicity, mutations and bomb skills have all moved into Alchemy with some cool poison scaling options I've yet to try out but once I get my hands on the Viper set I'll give them a whirl.

Transmogrification is finally here too. Abeit you have to 'unlock' it later in the game in Skellige. You can map the visual appearance of any piece of armor or weapon onto your preferred stats, meaning you no longer have to sacrifice fashion for function. Modders have been doing this for years, mind you, but us console peasants can finally look as stylish as we like.

The visuals and technical overhaul

If you thought the 2022 next-gen update was the ceiling of how good this old game could look, Version 5.0 blows that out of the water. Powered by heavy optimizations, path tracing, and ray reconstruction, the lighting and environmental fidelity surpassed my relatively low expectations. Character models and the bouncing torchlight off faces in particular look great during the night cycles.

Environmental assets are starkly improved, something most visible when looking at the foliage around you. Surface textures have more detail than before, and distant mountains have been completely rebuilt to an incredible standard. Stepping into Velen or Novigrad almost feels like a brand-new setting with the reworked lighting and asset density.

Now it's not all perfect; there are some areas in the game that seem either a little too washed out or too dark following the visual upgrade, but we were told in the preview phase that we would encounter occasional visual issues or inconsistencies, as well as some minor gameplay bugs. These had been reported to the dev team and should be fixed ahead of launch, fingers crossed.

Quality of life and UI upgrades

The UI has also gone through an overhaul, transforming into something far more compact and intuitive that fits a modern RPG release rather than a decade-old classic. Menu navigation has been improved, and you open back up to whatever tab you were last looking at. Loot now merges, too, so you can just loot a bunch of corpses at once rather than one at a time.

Roach still occasionally fights pathing or handles awkwardly on sharp turns which is frustrating during the race quests, but traversal overall feels much cleaner, and hey I love Roach being a little awkward, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Also, thank the lord we now actually have Xbox Play Anywhere. Cross-progression was always pretty good between platforms via the Red launcher, but I don’t have to switch launchers anymore when playing on Xbox and then switching to my ROG. I can just switch between Xbox PC and console now without fiddling with passwords.

What I will say though is where the 4.04 version worked perfectly on my Xbox ROG Ally X, the Remaster stutters considerably and some floor textures just refuse to load. I think many of these issues will be solved with an early patch, as previously mentioned, but I'm going to hold off on playing the upgrade on my handheld until these fixes are implemented.

So do you really need another 100 hours in The Witcher 3?

For repeat visitors to The Continent like me, it's a great excuse to fire up the game again and refresh my knowledge of the story not long before Songs of the Past arrives next year — and of course it's completely free if you already own it.

What really gets me, though, is the sheer level of respect behind it all. CDPR didn’t really need to spend a fortune or break a sweat on this release. Given the game’s self-sustaining popularity, they could have just pushed out the update on a Tuesday and let word-of-mouth do its thing. Instead, they’ve poured resources into an enormous presence at Gamescom, hosted panels at BlizzCon, and handed out early review access to a massive wave of creators, large and small.

I really think it’s commendable to see a studio treat an 11-year-old game like a major tentpole launch simply because they know how much their community still cares about it. Let alone just giving out two massive expansions (Heart of Stone and Blood of Wine) for free. If I could give this a 6 out of 5, I would!

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I’m sure it needs no recap at this point, but Halo Studios is no more. Well, mostly no more, as the studio has reportedly been left with just 20 or so employees, while Activision has now taken on the mantle of responsibility for Halo.

Regardless of your thoughts on the matter, @Mr_Rebs_, a prominent leaker within the Halo community, has spoken out about what he alleges Halo Studios had planned for the franchise’s future. Despite my grievances with Halo Studios and its poor management of the franchise, one of these plans actually doesn’t sound too bad.

However, given the letdown of Campaign Evolved, I personally have very little faith that Halo Studios could have seen these ideas through. So, without further ado, let’s dive into it.

According to Rebs, Halo Studios was reportedly working on Halo 2 and Halo 3 remakes, as well as Halo 7. However, these projects were apparently still years away.

More interesting to me, though, is the fourth project: a standalone spin-off campaign based on Halo: First Strike, a genuinely great novel by Eric Nylund.

First Strike, for those unaware, fills in the gaps between Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, which genuinely would have been great to see adapted into a game. Apparently, the project was targeting a release next year, although development was still in its early stages.

Given the state Campaign Evolved was in, I really doubt we would have seen it within that timeframe, especially considering the reported plans to include around five campaign missions alongside a Firefight mode.

The Halo 2 and Halo 3 remakes, though, were almost a given and something we’ve reported on before, with Halo 2 even being teased at the end of Campaign Evolved.

Halo 7 was actually in the conceptual stages, with a concept for the game apparently presented to Matt Booty and other Xbox executives shortly before the recent changes at Halo Studios. According to Rebs, the plan was for Halo 7 to launch with Campaign, PvP, PvE, and Forge from day one.

Of the remaining staff at Halo Studios, Pierre Hintze (Studio Head) does remain, a figure of controversy within the community and according to Rebs, Pierre still has a plan, Rebs states:

If this is the case, I do hope Pierre is unsuccessful in these endeavors; the last thing Halo needs right now is AI slop.

As for the future, there are still a lot of unknowns, and I imagine it will be that way for a while; however, one rumor floating around suggests a reboot of sorts might be on the cards now that the IP is under Activision.

I’m personally happy with the changes being made to Halo. While I do have my reservations regarding Activision, there’s no doubt it has the infrastructure to support an IP as big as Halo.

And while my long-dreamed-of wish to see Halo’s books adapted into games is probably dead for the foreseeable future, I’d still much prefer a future where Halo Studios is no longer making Halo. Because yes, things really were that bad.

If you feel differently about everything, do let me know in the comments. I’ll be sure to respond, and as always, don’t forget to take part in our poll!

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Is it likely? Probably not, but as a Killer Instinct fan, one can hope.

Despite backlash to some aspects of the console, the Xbox One had arguably one of the strongest launch line-ups in the platform's history, with titles like RYSE and Titanfall from first-party, and games like Battlefield 4 and Assassin's Creed: Black Flag from third. For me, the best launch title was Killer Instinct, however, which revived Rare's classic fighting game for a new era.

Killer Instinct is a combo-heavy fighting game that is easy to play, and difficult to master. Breaking enemy combos with a satisying "C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER" announcer effect elevated the game to its legendary status, atop its violence and creative character line-up.

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PlayStation cornered the fighting game audience pretty hard in the years to follow, landing exclusivity for Street Fighter for a time, alongside other major fighting games.

Killer Instinct struggled to maintain pace, and ultimately fell into maintenance mode not long after, although it had strong post-launch support bringing in fan-favorite fighters alongside various new ones. It even picked up combatants from other Xbox franchises, such as RAAM from Gears of War and the Arbiter from Halo.

Aside from the occasional update and balance change, Killer Instinct has remained largely dormant over the last few years. There is a small team at Xbox who works on maintaining the game, but the player base is miniscule, likely in the dozens rather than hundreds going from Steam stats.

Could it be revived, though? Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon has once again polled users on the state of the fighting game industry, and it's not the first time Boon has spoken about interest in picking up Killer Instinct.

He asked users to vote on which recent fighting game should grab a second chance, including Riot's ill-fated 2XKO, Rumbleverse, Warner Bros' cancelled Smash-clone MultiVersus, and Xbox's dormant Killer Instinct.

As of writing, Killer Instinct leads by a sizeable margin with over 50% of the vote.

Microsoft's gaming portfolio is currently undergoing a lot of upheaval, with Obsidian moved to Bethesda to work on Fallout, and Halo Studios practically shuttered, with the franchise handed off to Call of Duty producers at Activision.

There's probably not a ton of bandwidth at Microsoft right now to explore what a new Killer Instinct might look like ... but what if Warner Bros' studio NetherRealm and Ed Boon's Mortal Kombat team picked up the flag?

Killer Instinct always had huge potential in my view, it was always my personal preferred fighting game. There are major influencers who often advocate for its revival, like Maximilian_Dood.

As a Spinal enjoyer, I still had a ton of fun playing it despite how invariably poor I was at PvP. It would be intriguing to see a Mortal Kombat-style cinematic take on Killer Instinct's lore and universe — which is undeniably intriguing. It's unclear whether or not Warner Bros. would have appetite for involvement here too, given its attempts to turn Mortal Kombat into a viable movie franchise.

There's probably a universe where Killer Instinct could be revived as a high-quality fighting game, with a cinematic single player experience, with franchising potential into TV and movies. You could draft characters from Blizzard games, or Fallout, and beyond too ... alas, it's probably unlikely.

Still, it's fun to dream, no? What IF?

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Rumors about Xbox's deal with Hideo Kojima's upcoming "Action Espionage" title have been swirling recently.

Xbox is undergoing "restructuring" over the past few weeks, leading to thousands of layoffs and staff reductions in the form of divestitures. Microsoft's new gaming CEO Asha Sharma has made no secret of the intent to focus on big-name franchises like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, and less time on smaller projects like those produced by Double Fine or Compulsion — both of whom are now fully independent teams. Existing studios like Obsidian have been moved to be closer to the Fallout franchise for example, and Halo Studios itself was recently shuttered (in essence) with the franchise handed off to Call of Duty publisher Activision.

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There have been some questions about the timing of Xbox's announcement in partnership with Hideo Kojima's "PHYSINT," as a result. With some (erroneously) speculating that the closures have been designed to fund Kojima's long-awaited return to the espionage genre. Metal Gear Solid is arguably among the top 5 (or maybe even top 3) most legendary franchises of all time. To get the spiritual successor to that on Xbox is a pretty huge coup, considering it was originally announced by PlayStation.

But uh, is this project going to cost almost half a billion dollars? And did it lay off thousands in order to do it? The answer is "no," trusted and verified sources tell me.

Speaking on his podcast, Chris Dring of The Game Business reported that Xbox's budget for PHYSINT is at $400 million. He has since walked back the claim after Bloomberg's Jason Schreier poured cold water on the figure.

I was told similarly by first-hand sources with direct knowledge of the contracts that the figure for PHYSINT is far lower than what is being reported here. It has been suggested to me that the "$400 million" figure is potentially what Sony and PlayStation might've been on the hook for until they cancelled the deal. Xbox and Kojima are building towards their Xbox projects on a "fraction" of this reported figure.

I'm told Xbox negotiated a deal with Kojima Productions that includes both movie and TV licenses for PHYSINT, and it also included enhanced terms for OD — Kojima's anticipated atmospheric horror game for Xbox.

We're seeing a more thrifty Xbox, and a more thrifty AAA industry in general

There has been a lot of discussion about budgets in recent years. Some estimates suggest Grand Theft Auto 6 has had a budget upwards of a billion dollars, for example. Developers from the likes of Saber Interactive, Remedy, and Bloober Team have all commented on building AAA-grade experiences on budgets in the tens of millions, rather than hundreds of millions.

Game development in the United States has become incredibly expensive. I'm told part of this revolves around salary competition for AI-adjacent software engineering disciplines, that often share cross-over hiring processes and salary scales with gaming companies. The closer you are to an AI development hub (like Microsoft HQ in Redmond, WA), the greater the competition for salaries becomes ... making game development potentially unviable from a purely fiscal perspective in some regions.

Microsoft has been exploring outsourcing in Eastern Europe, the United Kingdom, and other regions where game development is more "affordable" to that end. PHYSINT might have spendy Hollywood actors tied to the project, but Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has quite loudly stated goals around cost-saving and cost-cutting.

Movies and TV shows are also becoming an increasingly crucial tool for both marketing and offsetting costs for gaming projects. Selling the rights to streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime can feed back into game development budgets, and creates a symbiotic marketing beat (if indeed, the content is actually good). Given Kojima's penchant for cinematic games, PHYSINT should be at least one project that pays dividends if everything is executed well.

... I suspect Xbox will have to give Kojima more flexibility than they may want to if they do want the game to hit that coveted quality bar.

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It's that time of year again. A chill in the air, pumpkin lattes on repeat, and Minecraft Live, of course! Today we got a first look at new Minecraft content, including Minecraft Dungeons 2, launching on September 29.

Here's everything announced at this year's Minecraft Live.

Deep dive into Minecraft Dungeons 2

Ahead of next week's launch, the development team gave us an extensive look at what is coming in Minecraft Dungeons 2. The sequel features a bigger, interconnected world with expanded combat, deeper character customization and better multiplayer.

The segment also spotlighted the Sift, a mysterious new dimension with distinct environments, inhabitants, dangers, and gameplay. Developers shared insights into the creative process of designing and introducing an entirely new dimension to the universe.

The Fourth Dimension: The Sift coming in 2027

The Sift isn't just for Minecraft Dungeons 2 players, it's officially coming to Minecraft Java and Bedrock editions in 2027.

This will be a huge milestone for Minecraft as it's the first new dimension added in over 14 years joining the Overworld, The Nether and The End as places for the player to discover and explore.

Yep, that statement made me feel ancient too, and I felt like the Nether was much more recent, but it was actually added in 2010 and just updated in mid-2020. This is legitimately the first brand new dimension in over a decade!

Ice Caves, new zombies and new combat mechanics

Mojang teased the next upcoming vanilla game drop too, as we were shown around the Ice Caves, an all-new, rare underground extension of cold biomes filled with glowing ice crystals.

The ice crystals can be placed both vertically and horizontally for building and decoration, or even as just a light source.

We also got a whole new mob! The frozen zombie if encountered will apply a stacking freezing affect to the player with melee attacks, and he throws ice balls that deal knockback. Normal zombies can also become Frozen variants if exposed to powder snow.

Ice balls are dropped upon the death of a Frozen Zombie, or can be crafted by players and used as a weapon to deal damage and knockback, or brewed into an ice cold freezing potion!

Minecraft coming to Nintendo Switch 2

Such an absolute no brainer I'm surprised it isn't already there, but Minecraft is officially launching on Nintendo Switch 2 on October 27, 2026 with enhanced performance and visuals.

Merlin Entertainment revealed the Minecraft Hotel and Rollercoaster

I've been excited about the upcoming Minecraft-themed park in the UK since it was announced, but beyond some concept art, we haven't seen much detail, especially given its 2027 opening date.

Well today Minecraft Live showed us something to really get excited about, with these two major additions to the Chessington World of Adventures based park. There's going to be a Minecraft Hotel, and the official name of the resort's new rollercoaster is "Escape the Nether."

I'm planning to be there the minute this place opens, as my son is going to lose his mind, and we missed out on the London Minecraft experiences. I've got high hopes for this theme park; don't let me down, Merlin!

Sound effect packs and new creator platform

During the stream, Jens Bergenström (Chief Creative Officer at Mojang Studios) announced a new initiative to build a richer, more accessible, and more diverse Minecraft experience through an evolving creator platform.

Additionally, Mojang introduced Sound Effects Packs for the Minecraft Marketplace, giving players brand-new tools to customize their worlds and bring their creations to life later this year.

And that's a wrap on Minecraft Live 2026

Minecraft fans should be happy with all of those updates, but if not, let me know what you were hoping for in the comments below!

Don't forget there is an ongoing Wilderness Bound Community Challenge where players can earn exclusive character creator items and Java skins simply by placing cushions and a straw bed in-game; full details are here.

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I know, I know. It’s a bold statement, and before you rush to the comments, let me explain myself. You’ve likely all heard the news by now. Halo Studios may be whittled down to as few as 20 employees, with the franchise hoisted under the Activision umbrella and a new team created to take over the mantle of responsibility. It is genuinely devastating that well over 200 people were impacted by this move and are now out of work.

Despite how painful it has been to be a Halo fan over the past 15 years, we should still show compassion and kindness to those impacted by these decisions because, at the end of the day, we’re all human. "Genuinely devastating" is also how I’d describe Halo itself, at least in its current state.

It’s no secret that 343 Industries, and later Halo Studios, struggled to capture what made Halo truly fantastic, with each game suffering from glaring launch issues or missing features. Despite this, I find it a little unfair for 343i/Halo Studios to shoulder all the blame. I imagine Microsoft itself played a heavy role in how poorly the franchise was handled and mismanaged, even going as far back as the Bungie days.

Can it really get any worse?

This begs the question of whether Activision is actually the right choice here. If we look at Call of Duty, it’s fair to be concerned that Halo won’t be treated much better there either. However, I believe the franchise is at such an unbelievable low point that Activision is a better bet for Halo’s future than another game developed under Halo Studios, and I will explain why.

We know Halo Studios relied heavily on contract work to finish Halo: Campaign Evolved, if you could even call it finished. Due to this outsourcing, I'd argue that Halo: Campaign Evolved is among the worst ways to experience the first Halo game, second only to Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.

Like Campaign Evolved, the Anniversary edition takes creative liberties that I believe ruin the experience for returning fans and do the original a disservice for first-time Halo players.

Don’t get me wrong, though, Campaign Evolved isn’t awful. It still tells the same story as the original, so it isn’t all bad, and I enjoyed the updated visuals and even some of the changes to levels, but that’s mostly where my positives end.

Campaign Evolved suffers from worse cutscenes, awkward pacing, poorly directed voice-overs, and an experience that feels like it was worked on by 2,000 people who barely communicated with one another. That said, I’d still give the campaign itself a solid 7/10 because, despite my problems with it, I had fun.

Ironically, it feels as though the Helldivers 2 x Halo ODST crossover did more for Halo than a remake of the original game. If you’re at a point where crossovers in other games based on titles that predate your studio are better received than your actual games, then something clearly needs to change.

The prequel missions killed any hope I had

Halo Studios developed three new missions that take place before the events of Halo: Campaign Evolved. However, in almost every way possible, they fail to deliver anything meaningful to Halo’s lore. Instead, they wasted what should have been an opportunity for Halo Studios to show that it understood Halo and could carry the franchise forward.

What we got instead turned into an experience I can only describe as possibly the worst story told within a Halo game, right up there next to Halo 5. Allow me to paint a better picture of what we could have had.

Instead of Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson meandering around a Covenant ship, imagine three missions spliced throughout the campaign following Thel 'Vadam, the Arbiter, as he desperately tries and ultimately fails to stop Master Chief from destroying Halo.

Not only would that have given us a far more interesting perspective on the events of the first game, but it could have perfectly led into Halo 2. Instead, we got a barely memorable experience that feels like a huge missed opportunity.

That brings me back around to why I believe Activision is a better option than what we were currently looking at for Halo’s future. The franchise is at a point where, despite enjoying Halo since 2001, I would now rather see the publisher responsible for Call of Duty make a Halo game.

I genuinely don’t see how things could get much worse than they already are.

Yes, I am aware Call of Duty’s battle passes are awful, and skill-based matchmaking is also awful. But I will also remind people that Halo Infinite required you to pay $10 to color your Spartan white and already has skill-based matchmaking as strict as Call of Duty, except with a player base not even a fraction of the size.

Why Activision might actually make sense

Seeing the word Activision rightfully invokes a sense of doom. However, the company has also consistently managed to ship enormous Call of Duty games on an annual basis, with the franchise regularly sitting among the best-selling games each year.

Despite yearly Call of Duty releases becoming stale, it’s fair to say that Activision operates a well-oiled machine with seemingly no signs of letting up. Unlike 343i/Halo Studios, which often struggled to get games out of the door, Activision has repeatedly demonstrated that it can coordinate enormous titles across multiple studios and actually ship them.

We’re talking about an operation capable of juggling huge campaigns, multiplayer, progression systems, live-service content, PC support, console support, backend infrastructure, and multiple studios all working alongside one another.

Somehow, it still gets a Call of Duty game out of the door every single year. Whether every single one of those games is good is another question entirely. Again, there’s no denying that Activision knows how to organize and ship enormous FPS projects.

That’s the biggest thing that gives me hope here, especially when Halo has repeatedly struggled to simply have everything ready at launch. Halo Infinite launched without campaign co-op or Forge; Halo 5 also shipped without Forge, and even Halo: The Master Chief Collection famously launched in an absolutely terrible state.

So, having a company that has consistently managed projects of this scale does at least sound appealing on paper. It’s also important not to get caught up in the fact that it’s Activision.

They are reportedly creating a completely new team to head up a Halo project, and I’m hoping we see some old, familiar faces join on board, with the likes of Joe Staten and, of course, Marcus Lehto, who has recently spoken about how he’d love to return to Halo, even posting numerous polls asking fans what they’d like to see from the franchise moving forward.

That new team is probably what gives me the most hope, as it clearly won’t just be Treyarch or Sledgehammer being told to make Halo, or Infinity Ward being pulled away from Call of Duty. Microsoft is effectively building a new Halo team under Activision, which creates an opportunity to bring in people specifically because they want to work on Halo.

A completely new team also means completely new leadership and, hopefully, a clearer creative direction from the very beginning. Activision’s existing technology, production pipelines, QA teams, and general infrastructure could still sit behind that new team without necessarily dictating what Halo itself has to become.

That’s really the important distinction here because I don’t want Call of Duty wearing a Halo skin. What I want is Halo being given access to the kind of development structure that has allowed Call of Duty to consistently ship enormous games year after year, while still retaining what actually makes Halo, well, Halo.

Halo doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel or itself

This really brings me to what I think Halo actually needs moving forward. At this point, I don’t think the franchise needs yet another grand reinvention, although I wouldn’t necessarily be against them rebooting things and picking the story back up after Halo 3.

Halo 4 tried to take the story in a completely different direction, Halo 5 then shifted things again, and Halo Infinite was supposed to become a platform for Halo for years to come. Then, 343 Industries became Halo Studios with the promise that things would change (Spoiler: they didn't). At some point, you really do just need somebody to make a complete Halo game.

Give me a campaign with scoring and timing, split-screen, campaign co-op, Forge, Firefight, Big Team Battle, social modes, custom games, theater, a proper progression system, and a multiplayer suite that actually feels complete when I boot the game up on day one. These shouldn’t feel like ambitious requests either because, for a franchise like Halo, a lot of these things were once simply expected as far back as 2010.

More than anything, I’d also like to see some consistency with the story again. Halo has spent far too long introducing new ideas, setting up villains, establishing plot threads, and then seemingly deciding by the next game that it would rather move on to something else entirely. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches on October 23 (though the campaign has an early access period for a week prior to this), and if you're jumping in at launch, then you're going to want to burn through leveling up as fast as possible, right?

Whether you're going down the Classic Prestige route (aka, the proper way) or the other Prestige that doesn't reset your progress and gives fewer rewards, there are a lot of levels to climb through. Then there are the weapons, which, based on the Modern Warfare 4 beta period, will take some time.

What you need to speed this process up is a big stash of 2XP tokens. You've likely already got some if you've been playing Black Ops 7, and they will carry forward to Modern Warfare 4. But you should be at least opening Black Ops 7 every day right now to maximize your gains going into the new game by getting all the free 2XP tokens you can.

Open Black Ops 7 daily, grab the free 2XP tokens and profit

Even if you've stopped actively playing Black Ops 7 now (I know I've been putting some time into Modern Warfare 3 Zombies instead), don't uninstall it.

Instead, open it up every day, and go straight to the Store tab. I don't know if it's actually every day, but it sure feels like it right now, but when you open the game after each daily reset, you'll likely see the message "free" at the top of the screen just under where it says Store.

There could be free Gobblegums, but those won't be any use to you in Modern Warfare 4. But what you do need to do is scroll down a little further and look for the "Free Gift" box.

Whatever this is, claim it. It could be a 2XP token, a 2XP Weapon token, or a 2XP Battle Pass token. All three will carry forward into Modern Warfare 4, but it's the first two in particular that you want to be stocking up on.

Just claim it, but be sure not to press the equip button when you do. This way it'll go into your pile, and you can close the game until the next day. Just rinse and repeat and stock up all the way through to October 22.

Finish the Black Ops 7 Season 06 Battle Pass if you can

None of the weapons or cosmetic items you can get in the Season 06 Battle Pass in Black Ops 7 will be usable in Modern Warfare 4 (though you will be able to use some of these in Warzone).

But the Battle Pass also gives you 2XP and 2XP Weapon tokens, alongside COD Points which also carry forward into Modern Warfare 4.

So, if you can finish the current Battle Pass, you'll get a few more tokens to add into your stash. But obviously for this, you'll have to play the game. I recommend not having auto-redeem turned on so you choose the rewards you claim as you progress.

It'll at least make the process shorter if you're mostly interested in the tokens and the currency since new pages can unlock before you've claimed everything on the current one.

This may all sound a little "duhhhh" to regular players, but it's worth highlighting. Especially as we're in that period where traditionally even those regular players have moved away from the current Call of Duty.

Better still, at least if you have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, is that you can claim these tokens even if you haven't played a lick of Black Ops 7. Maybe you skipped this year, but you're coming back for Modern Warfare 4. In that case, why not give yourself a little leg up?

It only takes a couple of minutes to fire up the game, grab any free tokens, and close it again. But it'll certainly help your leveling in Modern Warfare 4.

As will doing it the proper way and going Classic Prestige. Using this track will grant improved XP gains, so you'll be getting higher, faster. Make things easy on yourself; it's the smart thing to do.

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