The debate over the use of generative AI tools for game development has raged across the industry for well over a year, and it doesn't seem to be letting up any time soon. As with anything related to AI, opinions are often polarized between those who want to take advantage of the new technology to improve games or simply to speed up the ever-growing development times, and others who are revolted at the mere idea of using it for any creative endeavor. In my most recent interview, Mitchell Patterson, CEO of backend developer Wolfjaw Studios, stressed that AI won't magically […]

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The next entry in 4A Games' Metro franchise, Metro 2039, was fully unveiled today by the development team during a dedicated streaming event. It will be released this Winter on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, and Xbox app). First and foremost, it won't be an open world game, unlike Metro Exodus, which featured semi-open world environments. 4A Games is returning to a handcrafted experience that focuses mainly on Moscow's tunnels. Another significant change is that Artyom, the protagonist of the first three games, has been replaced by the so-called Stranger. This is perhaps not so surprising to those […]

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Today, Battlefield Studios unveiled the 2026 Battlefield 6 roadmap. Season 3 will begin next month, with two classic maps returning after being reimagined: Season 3 also sees the debut of BR Solos — Battle Royale Solo as an official mode, as well as BR Ranked Play & Leaderboards, launching first in Battle Royale Quads in REDSEC. Battlefield Studios plans to expand the Ranked Play experience to Battlefield 6 multiplayer in future seasons. Season 4 will launch in July, introducing the previously teased Naval Warfare to Battlefield 6. The two new maps are: Naval-specific features include aircraft carriers with operational flight […]

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Following the recent debut of PRAGMATA and Resident Evil Requiem, the first two RE Engine games to support path tracing, CAPCOM's GDC 2026 presentation titled 'Real-Time Path Tracing in RE ENGINE for Resident Evil Requiem and PRAGMATA' is well worth exploring. The presentation is available on the NVIDIA Game Developer YouTube channel, and that's no coincidence: NVIDIA helped a great deal with the addition of path tracing to CAPCOM's engine. Indeed, the two speakers were Hitoshi Mishima from CAPCOM's RE Engine team, who covered the architectural and artistic implementation, and Calvin Shu, a NVIDIA GeForce developer technology engineer who covered […]

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In a roundtable interview attended by Gamesradar, Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard defended the developer's latest titles, Starfield and Fallout 76. When one of the interviewers pointed out that they were more divisive among gamers than all-time classics like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Howard suggested that even the early stages of now-acclaimed franchises like Elder Scrolls and Fallout were a bit divisive, until the franchises found their groove and a dedicated audience. The game designer also noted that both Starfield and Fallout 76, the studio's first sci-fi game and first multiplayer game, have eventually found their niches. If you […]

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Very early this year, The Blood of the Dawnwalker developer Rebel Wolves confirmed that their debut dark fantasy action RPG would release in 2026. Now, after a few months of silence, the CEO, Game Director, and Co-Founder Konrad Tomaszkiewicz has been interviewed on The Game Business Show, revealing that he is comfortable with the widespread comparisons to The Witcher games, especially after the successful focus tests. He also shared that the console versions are already shaping well, and he personally finished the whole game on a PlayStation 5. I'm really comfortable. I feel really confident about our game; we're already […]

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Today's exclusive interview is a bit different from the usual because it is focused on a company called Wolfjaw Studios that is probably unknown to most gamers but still powers many of the most played online games, including the likes of NBA 2K, WWE 2K, Destiny 2, Marathon, Among Us, and Magic: The Gathering Arena. Founded in 2019 by Mitchell Patterson (following a conversation at TwitchCon 2018), Wolfjaw was built from scratch around a single, focused ambition: to establish backend development as a distinct, mission-critical discipline within game development, rather than an afterthought bolted on after the "real" work was […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/wolfjaw-ceo-live-service-craze-fortnite-pubg-lol/

A new report published today by market analyst firm Newzoo suggests a structural shift in the PC and console gaming market: while the biggest AAA titles still dominate, a growing share of both playtime and revenue is flowing to games ranked outside the Top 20, with the trend most pronounced on the PC platform. The headline figure is striking. In Western markets (US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain), titles ranked 21st and below accounted for 56% of total PC gaming revenue in 2025, up from 48% in 2022. That means the majority of money spent on PC games now goes […]

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Yet another reliable rumor suggests Microsoft may lower the price of its Game Pass subscription service. Yesterday, we reported Jez Corden's claim that Microsoft may be considering dropping this year's new Call of Duty game from Game Pass. Today, The Verge's Tom Warren has shared the content of a leaked internal memo penned by new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma. According to Warren, Sharma made it clear to Xbox employees that there will have to be structural changes to Game Pass: Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It’s also clear that the current model isn’t the final […]

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On the eve of the current generation of consoles, CAPCOM announced a brand-new sci-fi intellectual property called PRAGMATA. It was the Japanese studio's first new global franchise since 2012's Dragon's Dogma, and a return to sci-fi for a studio historically more focused on other settings, such as zombie horror and fantasy. Following the initial trailer from PlayStation 5's The Future of Gaming event, though, PRAGMATA largely disappeared from radars. Its original launch window was 2022, but it wasn't until June 2023 that we got another trailer, and then there were two more years of silence. Finally, in June 2025, CAPCOM […]

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Following Microsoft's expensive acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the biggest question mark was whether the latter's most popular product, Call of Duty, would join Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft eventually decided to add new installments starting with 2024's Black Ops 6, developed by Treyarch and Raven Software. Right away, it broke franchise and Game Pass records, but later it became clear it wasn't such a good decision for the franchise. Now, according to Windows Central's Jez Corden, Microsoft might even remove 2026's Call of Duty from Game Pass. Speaking in his latest podcast, Corden said: It'd be interesting to see if they […]

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At GDC 2026, Intel graphics engineer Marissa du Bois took the stage to present Intel's version of neural texture compression, very similar to NVIDIA's NTC in that both technologies are deterministic. The presentation was a follow-up to the original R&D prototype shown at GDC 2025, with the key news being that Intel has now productized that research into a standalone SDK. Texture Set Neural Compression (TSNC) is essentially a smarter way to store game textures. Traditional GPU block compression formats (BC1 through BC7) use fixed mathematical rules to reduce texture size, and while they're fast and universally supported, they leave […]

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This morning, Phantom Blade Zero Game Director Liang Qiwei (known to the public as Soulframe) posted a lengthy letter on X about the studio's commitment to human artistry and creative expression over AI-generated content. Above all, though, it seems like the studio is quietly withdrawing support for the new NVIDIA DLSS 5 technology. Phantom Blade Zero was and still is officially listed among the first games to support NVIDIA DLSS 5, alongside AION 2, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Black State, CINDER CITY, Delta Force, Hogwarts Legacy, Justice, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, NTE: Neverness to Everness, Resident Evil Requiem, Sea of Remnants, Starfield, The […]

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Dune Awakening developer Funcom has outlined some major changes coming to the game soon. First and foremost, there's the fact that the game is essentially pivoting to be PvE-first. Funcom said that over 80% of the game's players engaged only with Player-versus-Environment content, forcing the studio to rethink the existing convergence of PvE and PvP towards optional PvP. Starting in Patch 1.3.20.0, the following changes will be introduced to Dune Awakening: Another big news is that the long-requested self-hosted servers are finally on the way. The initial iteration, which will soon be available for testing, will require a few extra […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/dune-awakening-pivots-pve-first-self-hosted-servers/

Today, as part of the Triple-i Showcase, publisher 11 bit Studios (Frostpunk, This War of Mine) and developer Carbonara Games have announced Crop, a gritty farming thriller game. The title is targeting a PC (Steam) release first, with console versions to follow, timing still to be determined. Wccftech checked out a press-only presentation ahead of the reveal, and there might be something interesting here. A single-player experience with a main campaign estimated at around 15 hours, Crop opens with your character half-naked, disoriented, and stumbling out of a truck on a dark, eerie forest road in the pouring rain. You […]

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In late March, Digital Extremes released a version of Warframe natively optimized for the Nintendo Switch 2 console. The studio hailed it as a major improvement over the Switch version, not to mention a significant milestone: it meant the long-running free-to-play action game is now available on all the major gaming platforms. The Android version had launched in February, and the game was already available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and iOS. Wccftech sent a few questions to Digital Extremes about the development of the Nintendo Switch 2 version and its features, such as […]

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Following the controversial reveal of NVIDIA DLSS 5 at GTC 2026, we have heard all sorts of reactions from both sides of the argument. However, in most cases, they were heavily skewed towards one side, either embracing or condemning the technology. Nobody really delved too much into what it would really take to make it viable from a game developer's standpoint. We've continued to reach out to various studios to gather their perspectives on this oft-neglected part of the DLSS 5 discourse. Today, on the release date of their debut game (Samson: A Tyndalston Story, of which you can read […]

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Not even two months after the previous 'Remnant' patch, Hello Games is back with another massive No Man's Sky update titled XENO ARENA. This time, the independent UK developer is introducing a full-fledged Pokémon-style battling system. Wildlife that has populated No Man's Sky planets for a decade now has a direct gameplay purpose: you can catch creatures, raise them, and pit them against other players' creatures in competitive arena battles. Beyond the obvious Pokémon reference, Hello Games has also mentioned World of Warcraft's pet battling as an inspiration. Creatures found across the universe can be recruited into the player's squad, […]

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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is yet another box office success for Nintendo and Universal's Illumination, becoming the biggest theatrical debut of the year in the United States. According to NBC's estimates, the film earned $131.7 million in the first three days, rising to $190.8 million in the first five days. Internationally, the movie also earned an estimated $182.4 million (including previews), bringing the total earnings to around $372 million. It narrowly failed to surpass its predecessor, though. The Super Mario Bros. Movie had earned $204 million domestically and $377 million worldwide. Still, there's more than reason enough to celebrate […]

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