Shigeru Miyamoto might be the most influential game developer of all time, but don't expect him to care about his rankings among other industry legends. Even in the '90s, Miyamoto wasn't terribly concerned about competing with other devs who were incrementally pushing existing game genres forward. His true rival? The Rubik's Cube.

"Since my background is originally in industrial design, I view the Rubik's Cube as my eternal rival," Miyamoto said in a 1996 interview with iconoclastic dev Kenji Eno, which was translated earlier this year by Shmuplations. "There's a kind of product that's very important to me. It's not stuff made by veteran craftsmen who have spent years building computer games specifically for gamers, but rather things that make people realize, 'Wow, computer games can do that...?!'"

Now, decades later, Nintendo has developed a reputation for consistently sidestepping whatever the rest of the industry is doing. But back in the '90s, the N64 was racing for dominance against the PS1 and Saturn, and games like the then-newly-released Super Mario 64 and then-upcoming Zelda: Ocarina of Time were driving Nintendo's end of the competition.

"Making products that surprise non-gamers, that is our big challenge," Miyamoto continued. "That said, when people point out that we do nothing but make sequels, they're entirely right. (laughs) I want to hurry up and reach a point where we can leave the franchise titles to the younger staff, while the older folks just do whatever they feel like. (laughs)"

Ultimately, that's exactly what would end up happening. The Zelda series would end up under the supervision of Eiji Aonuma, while Mario titles would increasingly be led by younger devs like Yoshiaki Koizumi. Meanwhile, Miyamoto seemed to be more interested in oddball concepts like Pikmin and Wii Music, and even now has become more of a face for Nintendo's filmmaking aspirations than its modern video games.

In the interview, Eno alludes to "a real danger that games were becoming too niche and catering only to maniacs." That's why he made D, an adventure game that plays like a sort of interactive horror movie – far different from the typical action games of the time.

"It's not that I want people to just make standard action games or shoot-'em-ups for the N64," Miyamoto responded, "but there are very few creators who are willing to seriously tackle an N64 action game. All the veterans have migrated over to RPGs. For our part, we don't want to just cater to hardcore gamers; we want to capture new customers every single time."

"Far more interesting than the RPGs we see today": Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto preferred casual physics sandboxes to cutting-edge graphics even in 1996.

A new game in the Ori series is rumored to be in production at Xbox, according to the same prominent leaker who spilled the tea on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's Switch 2 remake.

Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps are some of the best Metroidvania games around - they're drop dead gorgeous, brutally tough but always totally fair, and occasionally sad enough to make a Pixar third act climax feel quite cozy, in comparison.

That's why I'm trying not to raise my hopes too high after comments made by prominent insider NateTheHate, who recently said a "new Ori" is in the works. In the past week, he's dropped hints about Xbox potentially working on a sequel to one of its modern franchises in collaboration with a developer you might not expect.

Series creator Moon Studios is currently all hands on deck for No Rest for the Wicked, an ARPG that's leaving early access on PC and PS5 this October. Not only is the developer pre-occupied with another project, reports once suggested the studio's "oppressive workplace" led to its relationship with Xbox fizzling out, so you can probably expect an outside developer to jump aboard for a potential third Ori game.

NateTheHate also says he's not sure if the project will debut at next week's Gamescom Opening Night Live show or sometime after. Previously, the insider accurately let the internet know that a new Star Fox game and an Ocarina of Time remake were in the works weeks before Nintendo said anything official about either. Even before that, he was a somewhat trusted source within the Nintendo fandom - add in the fact that Ori and the Blind Forest sold over 10 million copies, and the prospect of a third adventure seems ever more likely.

Ori boss shares "one of the crazier ideas" for a possible third game that would flip the Metroidvania on its head: "Think Katamari, but with a Ghibli-twist"

A veteran developer who used to work at Rockstar Games thinks the massive GTA 6 leaks are no biggie because the majority of people who will inevitably buy and play the game aren't going feral over the various two-minute clips that have been spilling onto the internet.

For the past week, a hacker known online as Cyberleek has been leaking footage from GTA 6 in an effort to promote their crypto scheme and pressure Rockstar Games to protect players' digital rights, apparently. Parent company Take-Two is certainly taking the leaks seriously, but Obbe Vermeij, the technical director on games like GTA 4, says it's a "nothing burger."

"Calm down everybody," he tweets. "The leaks are a nothing burger." He explains that Rockstar has been keeping its crown jewel under wraps for "longer than other publishers" as a marketing strategy - mystery creates hype, after all - and "all that has happened is that some footage has escaped." If GTA 6 had gone through a regular marketing campaign with gameplay trailers already out in the wild, then these leaks wouldn't be revealing much in the grand scheme of things.

"90% of future players don't spend their time on the internet looking for video snippets," Vermeij goes on. "They don’t have the time and don't want spoilers. I imagine the teams are a little annoyed about it but not more than that. I was there during Hot Coffee" - the scandal involving a sex mini-game accidentally left inside GTA San Andreas. "It was a nightmare for management [Rockstar's New York offices] but didn't affect us [Rockstar North] much. The current leaks are far less consequential than [Hot Coffee] was. It looks like GTA 6 will be phenomenal and sell for the next 15 years or so. The leaks are just a tiny blip."

In a slight twist, a couple of days ago Cyberleek posted footage that implied they have an actual playable build of the game, which could complicate matters if they ever decided to dump it build online. Still, Vermeij says "it probably only runs on a devkit" since development kits have far more memory than an Xbox or PlayStation or your regular PCs: "There probably isn't a build in existence that would run on a retail PS5 at the moment."

GTA 6 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are "the north stars of gaming," says Gamescom chief, but they won't last forever because "most gamers aren't only interested in a single game"

Evercade has just come out with a new physical release combining both Banjo-Kazooie platformers, but the retro handheld maker didn't rely on emulation for its new double pack. The Banjo-Kazooie re-releases are "brand new native ports" because Evercade wanted to retroactively add cut content and features to the classic platformers.

In a new video diving deep into the Banjo-Kazooie Double Pack, developer Pete Davison says the N64 gems have been "rebuilt from the ground up" for Evercade's suite of best retro consoles. "We didn't want to tamper with the core nature of these games too much, but developing brand new native ports rather than emulating the original 64-bit versions has allowed us to introduce quality-of-life features that make playing them much more comfortable and enjoyable from a modern gamer's perspective," he explains.

One of the new features is a tip-toe button that lets Banjo take slower, more careful steps without the player having to lightly graze an analogue stick - handy if you're playing on one of Evercade's smaller handhelds. Similarly, camera movement can be shifted to the shoulder buttons or you can simply have the camera follow Banjo automatically rather than wrestle with it as you would on the N64.

Other quality-of-life highlights include the ability to skip cutscenes, an overhauled options menu, a fine aim mode for Banjo-Tooie's first-person sections, inverted camera toggles, and the option to return to the hub world from anywhere in the game. "This is a cut feature from the original release that we have restored," apparently.

"We've also added new unlockable bonus features and secrets. You'll have to work hard to get them as you'll need to acquire some secret items which were normally inaccessible in the original game," the port makers explain.

Bear in mind, this is entirely separate from the Super Pocket Rare Edition handheld that bundled in 30 games from legendary developer Rare's catalogue, including the Banjo games and a Conker's Bad Fur Day prequel that was trapped on the Game Boy for literal decades. Very cool company, indeed.

We asked Xbox exec Matt Booty about legacy IP like Banjo-Kazooie: "There's options to do all kinds of things, and we're certainly looking at those all the time"

GTA 6 currently feels like such a juggernaut that the entire industry is bracing for its impact, but the head of one of the world's biggest gaming events says he's not worried that Rockstar won't be at his show.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Stefan Heikhaus, brand director at Gamescom, acknowledged that "games like GTA or other big releases over the last couple of years [...] are extremely important. For the game industry, they are the North Stars."

But GTA 6 won't be at Gamescom - in fact, Rockstar is directly competing with the event in Germany, with the GTA 6 Extended Look dropping on Netflix the evening before the show kicks off in earnest.

For Tim Endres, Gamescom director, it would be nice if those two things were happening in tandem - "of course we're always happy when everything happens at Gamescom," he says. But both he and Heikhaus are more focused on the hundreds of games that will be at the show.

At "events like Gamescom," Heikhaus says, "not only can you experience one game, but thousands of games, or at least hundreds. And this is the important difference. Of course, GTA will take some visibility and awareness from the digital Gamescom. But I believe that quickly, people will come back to Gamescom once they have seen the GTA content, because there are so many things, so many world premieres, so much new stuff to see, to experience. Hundreds of studios and companies."

Crucially, he points out, "there are not many gamers who have only focused on one single game. Most of them are interested in a lot of different games."

GTA 6 might be a tentpole release, but it can only hold players' attention for so long before something else comes along to challenge for it instead. Gamescom's continued growth - now at 1,600 exhibitors and counting - is evidence of that, and Heikhaus says "the indie scene has grown dramatically in the last 15 years."

It's not always easy to find an audience in that growing scene, especially not with massive releases like GTA 6 threatening to suck the air out of the room, but Heikhaus and Endres want Gamescom to be a platform for all kinds of games, whether or not they're made by Rockstar.

GTA 6 leaks go from bad to worse for Rockstar as new footage suggests leaker has access to a playable build.

Despite Take-Two and Rockstar Games' best efforts, the GTA 6 leaks aren't dying down. In fact, the hacker known online as Cyberleek is now teasing footage of the open-world game's strip clubs.

Parent company Take-Two isn't exactly having the best week - the plumbing that contains GTA 6 has been dripping for days, which is far from ideal considering the game's Extended Look special was supposed to give Netflix the world-first exclusive at the end of the month.

Cyberleek has already shown the world the full Leonidas map and what seems to be near-final gameplay of the game itself. The inclusion of Tate McRae's Sports Car, a pop song that came out in early 2025, is probably an indication that whatever build Cyberleek has access to isn't years and years old.

And, now, the hacker has spilled more footage onto the interweb. The fresh gameplay clips that are traveling faster than Take-Two can DMCA them reportedly show more of what you'd expect from a Grand Theft Auto game - fast cars, cop chases, shop robberies, etc - but it apparently ends with footage teasing GTA 6's new strip clubs, a carrot I'm sure Rockstar would prefer to dangle over players' noses instead. No doubt a move to have fans shower the anonymous group's crypto scheme with more cash.

This weekend's footage comes despite Take-Two's moves to put a lid on the leaks. The company recently filed subpoenas asking Discord and Microsoft to help it catch whoever's behind the massive leaks. Take-Two is essentially trying to "obtain the identity of an alleged infringer or infringers" using the backend data it can get its hands on. At the very least, Xbox is trying to help Rockstar.

Still, GTA 6: An Extended Look goes live next week on August 27 with the full game coming on November 19. How much of the game the internet will have seen before that date is anyone's guess.

GTA 6 leaker Cyberleek is now charging a $165,000 fee for a chance to buy ad space on additional leaks

Some elements in The Duskbloods were pulled straight from director Hidetaka Miyazaki's experiences playing tabletop RPGs, which might just explain why you can propose to an enemy player mid-match.

Speaking to IGN, FromSoftware boss and game director Hidetaka Miyazaki says "there are two points I would say that can specifically be pulled from the board games." Instead of winning multiplayer matches by simply beating everyone else to a pulp, The Duskbloods asks players to earn Virtue by completing side objectives or killing mini bosses that stomp around the map or holding king of the hill-style zones, let's say.

"That's something that isn't as direct as just battling against each other, right? It's not directly a PvP thing. It's a common system in a lot of board games and something that through my own experience of playing board games has definitely rubbed off on me and it's been something that I've constantly thought about. I didn't watch those a lot," Miyazaki explains.

The second bit of TTRPG inspiration came from the game's Sigil system, which essentially creates match-specific relationships and objectives between players. One Sigil might let you propose to another player with a bouquet of flowers - naturally, they can reply with the pointy end of their sword - while a different Sigil might put you at odds with a specific enemy player.

Miyazaki calls the system "very similar to a lot of RPG elements you might find in a tabletop RPG," although, "in the past when I played games like that, a lot of it was basically rolling dice to determine certain aspects of your character, and that was pretty much the extent of it." With The Duskbloods, Miyazaki "wanted to have a way of controlling not just that, but the relationships between players and a variety of other elements that might be out of the scope of a TTRPG."

The Duskbloods' closed network playtests are rolling out now before it comes out in full sometime later this year as a Switch 2 exclusive.

FromSoftware enters the skill-based matchmaking debate with The Duskbloods: "We definitely plan on having the matchmaking system work in a way so that it's ranked"

Duskfade is a new indie love letter to some classic PS2 action platformers, Kingdom Hearts included. And, now, a Kingdom Hearts modder had made the Kingdom Hearts-like even more like Kingdom Hearts.

The developers of Duskfade have been pretty open about their inspirations in the past. It's a fast-paced action game where you swing a big sort-of Keyblade and fight shadowy, sort-of Heartless enemies across bright levels, with some light RPG progression and platforming sections in between.

Heck, there's even a handful of overt Kingdom Heart references littered in the game itself - one achievement is literally called Heartless, for example. b despite all the references and influences and similarities, Duskfade is still distinct enough to be its own thing... until one modder got involved, that is.

Modder Dallin1016 recently dressed up the game's main character Zirian in the iconic red outfit that Sora wore in the first Kingdom Hearts game. The mod (here on NexusMods) also comes with the option to replace Zirian's spiky hairdo with Sora's, and another mod completes the package by replacing Zirian's legally distinct Keyblade with an actual Keyblade.

Together, the mods turn Duskfade into an even cozier throwback for fans of the Kingdom Hearts series. Squint hard enough and you might not even be able to tell the difference - the distinct lack of Donald quacking every five seconds might be a giveaway, to be fair.

Modder Dallin1016's put in a bunch of good work elsewhere, too. One work-in-progress mod adds in Wuhu Island from Wii Sports Resort, of all things, as an explorable map in Duskfade. Another of their Kingdom Hearts 3 mods calls itself the most cursed one in series' history, and I really can't argue with that. Please, just look at Jigglypuff's head transplanted onto Davy Jones' body.

Duskfade itself is pretty great with or without the mods - on Steam, the game has an 89% 'Very Positive' rating. A great appetizer before Kingdom Hearts 4 comes out next year, I reckon.

Kingdom Hearts 4 lead Tetsuya Nomura plays 4D chess, potentially drops hints his canceled Final Fantasy game could somehow connect to the next RPG

FromSoftware plans to have some kind of skill-based matchmaking in The Duskbloods to avoid a situation where Soulslike veterans routinely make newcomers miserable, but eventually, director Hidetaka Miyazaki also wants to give old-timers and newbies a reason to work together.

Asked about a system that would separate pros and fresh-faced newcomers in the upcoming PvPvE game, Miyazaki told IGN that "we definitely plan on having the matchmaking system work in a way so that it's ranked, and players who are really good tend to be matched with other players who are great, and players who are new tend to be matched with other new players."

The matchmaking system is being implemented in an effort to ease in people who might pick up and buy the Switch 2 exclusive months down the line. Jumping into an online game and immediately getting swamped by high-skilled, jetpack-wearing divers who have months of experience isn't the most welcoming experience, I imagine.

But Miyazaki notes that winning matches or surviving until you're in the final PvP showdown isn't the only way to progress and enjoy The Duskbloods: "There are things that you can unlock through just gameplay like story content and customization for your character which should allow you to enjoy it outside of the actual combat."

Skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) has been quite a hot topic, especially with recent first-person shooters. For instance, some Call of Duty players might complain that super high ranks and super low ranks struggle with poor connection times if SBMM works too strictly - others might even complain that high-skill players are punished with tougher matches for being good, an argument I've never subscribed to - but in a game like The Duskbloods, I imagine being on an even playing field only leads to higher quality matches. Activision once secretly turned off SBMM, and turns out, everyone hated it.

Interestingly, at some point, Miyazaki also wants to give players on both sides of the spectrum a reason to play together. "This might not be something that comes out initially and may come a bit later on, but we're definitely considering ways to build a relationship between veteran players and new players – something that's positive and not always scary or something they'd want to avoid," he tells the outlet. "For example, things like event customization, having certain in-match events be very rare or have higher chances of appearing if you're in a game with someone who has been playing for a really long time. Or having the Alliance system done in a way where you can specifically say that you want to be paired with someone who's really good and has a high rank. And the player who's high-rank can maybe have their settings prioritize pairing with newcomers if they want to help them out, very similar to leaving signs in front of a boss in our other games."

The Duskbloods is a Switch 2 exclusive because Nintendo was the "right partner" and "very receptive" to FromSoftware's weird idea, says Hidetaka Miyazaki

GTA 6 developer Rockstar and publisher Take-Two Interactive aren't having good weeks. With just weeks to go until the Netflix extended look really kicks off the marketing campaign in earnest, a massive GTA 6 leak surfaced online Tuesday afternoon and revealed the full Leonida map as well as what looked to be near-final gameplay. The leaker, who goes by Cyberleek online, soon after revealed yet another leak that suggested they had access to a playable build of the game, which is really a worst case scenario for Rockstar and Take-Two in the final months to launch.

Cyberleek has threatened even more leaks if Take-Two doesn't reverse-course and print GTA 6 on physical discs instead of sticking to digital-only as is the plan right now. Rockstar in turn has issued DMCA takedowns but has yet to identify the leaker, and now as Cyberleek continually proves they'll make good on their threat, Take-Two has subpoenaed Microsoft and Discord in order "to obtain the identity" of the leaker and presumably sue them into oblivion.

Now, the reason we're here. The tweet. Xbox's chief technology officer Scott Van Vliet sent out a tweet Friday evening seemingly confirming the company's coordination with Rockstar and Take-Two on the GTA 6 leaks. "We are working closely with Take-Two and Rockstar Games to support efforts to protect creative works and intellectual property," reads the tweet.

Admittedly, the tweet is written in such a way that suggests it was reviewed and edited by a dozen lawyers and HR managers to avoid actually saying anything meaningful and specific. Is it about the subpoena Take-Two sent to Microsoft? Probably, but not for certain. Is it even about the GTA 6 leak at all? Definitely, but as Rockstar and Take-Two have declined to publicly comment on the leaks, it makes sense for Xbox to stop short of straight-up confirming their authenticity in a public forum. For now, it seems the takeaway, if there is one, is simply that Xbox seems to be cooperating with the subpoena from Take-Two, but again, that's not explicitly confirmed.

I've reached out to Xbox for comment and will update this article if I hear back.

GTA 6 leaker Cyberleek is now charging a $165,000 fee for a chance to buy ad space on additional leaks

Contrary to what your self-preservation instincts might tell you, GTA 6 leaker Cyberleek is not hiding under a rock that's under another rock that's in the middle of a rainforest with no cell phone service. They're not even taking extra precautions following Take-Two's recent subpoenas demanding Microsoft and Discord share information that might reveal the anonymous hacker's identity. Instead, Cyberleek has decided to publicly share its contact information.

The leaker is looking for advertisers. According to a new "contact" tab on Cyberleek's website, the merry group is "raising funds through community support and strategic partnerships" by selling ad space on its forthcoming GTA 6 leaks – well, if Take-Two doesn't turn it into canned peaches by then. Some of the "strategic partnerships" Cyberleek offers involve "custom-made gameplay footage tailored to specific brands (including sexual content)."

Sounds like a business venture with integrity to me; the stolen GTA 6 clips simply fell off a truck, anyway. Cyberleek emphasizes it's not demanding "a ransom where publishers pay to stop the leeks." It's just a shy boy looking for advertisers to send it a ton of Monero cryptocurrency to plaster ads across its copyright-infringing videos, so that Take-Two can more easily figure out who they are and where to put their graveyard plot.

"All pricing, terms, and deliverables are discussed privately over Session," a private messenger, says Cyberleek. "The Monero transfer serves as a contact fee that guarantees CYBERLEEK will respond to initiate the conversation."

Clicking a button to "generate contact details" displays a prompt to save your generated recovery password for Session, and then you pay the donation fee: 400 XMR (Monero), which currently converts to about $165,450.

This fee only guarantees Cyberleek will reach out to you over Session within 24 hours. The group stresses that, otherwise, advertisement "deal terms are worked out in chat," and it reminds interested parties, "You can advertise almost anything. Gambling and adult content are fine. No scams." No, I'd never think there were scams involved here. It's all squeaky clean fun with my friends – that's what handing a stranger $165,000 usually means, right?

Cyberleek's GTA 6 leaks won't change Rockstar's Netflix reveal plans, report says.

Mortal Shell 2 is playing the Soulslike hits in its first major balance patch: buffs for players, nerfs for enemies, and a shipment of quality-of-life changes.

Days after a solid launch, developer Cold Symmetry released patch notes for an update coming to PC ahead of consoles. One member of the studio posted the details to the Mortal Shell subreddit, and the patch notes are also available in the game's official Discord server.

"While we have a bigger patch in the works, which has to be thoroughly tested, we'd like to make a rapid balance & crash fix patch to bring the experience more in line with the game's open beta and our own vision for MS2," the post reads.

"Planned future updates will see extensions to popular game features such as Night Mode, Tarstones, PP Items, and more."

Mortal Shell 2's resource economy is getting some major adjustments. Glimpses, a hugely in-demand currency, are being replaced by more available Gloom as the cost to acquire the map locations of Shells. Anyone who's already spent Glimpses on Shell maps will have them refunded. I guess they have a mail carrier out there in the wastes.

"Finding your favorite Shell shouldn’t cost you the ability to bond with them," the devs say.

Gold, another staple currency, has also been tuned. "Gold drops from enemies have been significantly increased," with enemies in Mammon now dropping twice as much, Cold Symmetry says.

Additionally, smelting a weapon at the Tarforge will cost 75% less Gloom, with the devs agreeing "the Gloom costs were set exorbitantly high."

Many of the enemies and bosses that you'll use these Shells and weapons against have been nerfed, including The Lost Child and Monolith. "Some Monolith Attacks were retimed to be more fair, as well," the devs add.

Nerfed enemies include mace cultists, Caerinid spiders, halberd-wielding rusted knaves, and infested stalkers (with a whopping 52% max health reduction).

Finally, a suite of weapons and Tarstones have been buffed, with the likes of Troubador's Lute receiving 100% attack damage and Bulwark Stone's damage reduction being "increased significantly."

Players are coming out of this significantly stronger. If you found Mortal Shell 2 too hard or too limiting, this patch ought to be nothing but good news.

Mortal Shell 2 review: "The best Soulslike I've played since Elden Ring."

Amid a major restructure set to eliminate 3,200 jobs at Xbox, Psychonauts and Brutal Legend developer Double Fine was one of the lucky studios able to secure its independence. Now that it's once again independent, the studio is returning to Kickstarter for a project that'll seem very familiar to longtime fans: a two-week game jam that'll determine what Double Fine's next game will be.

Officially christened "Amnesia Fortnight 2026 - Indie Reboot: A Double Fine Productions Game Jam, Documentary and Kickstarter Campaign," this project will hit the crowdfunding platform on August 31, as the studio explains in its announcement.

"We're going to do a Game Jam, live on the internet, in which our backers will get to choose which of our myriad of ideas get made into four new prototypes-- and which of those final four will become a real (small) game," the studio explains.

Double Fine is no stranger to Kickstarter, as it funded development of the throwback adventure game that would become known as Broken Age through the platform back in 2012. Development stretched out much longer than originally planned, but the game was ultimately released in two parts across 2014 and 2015.

Amnesia Fortnight is another longstanding Double Fine tradition. At first, it was a purely internal effort to escape the stress of Brutal Legend's development. The studio would simply forget its current project, split into groups, and spend two weeks designing and building small game prototypes. Double Fine would return to this concept multiple times over the years, and Amnesia Fortnite prototypes would eventually turn into retail projects like Costume Quest, Stacking, and the recently released Kiln.

But the best part of the news might just be this: "All alongside the process, 2 Player Productions will be filming all the fun to produce one of their award-winning documentary spectaculars." The 22-hour documentary series that chronicled Psychonauts 2's development was fantastic, and broadly praised by devs as the best insight the public's ever gotten into how hard making games really is.

On top of all that, Double Fine CEO Tim Schafer has also confirmed that the studio once again owns its IP. "Everything, we got back, the transfer of the IP came back to us," Schafer says on the Kinda Funny podcast (via Kotaku). “We have the publishing rights back to our games. It still says 'Microsoft' on some of them, but it just takes a while for it all to process. When people buy our games, it supports the studio."

Not all of the news out of Double Fine has been good – after all, the studio just laid off 23 people in the wake of its new independence. But here's hoping that the developers who remain can find their footing as they take control of their own destiny once again.

The 25th Anniversary Xbox Series X is rumored to cost as much as the PS5 Pro, and I'm not surprised in the slightest.

DC Studios' Gorilla Grodd TV show is coming to HBO Max as an eight-episode series now officially titled The People v. Gorilla Grodd.

James Gunn, co-chairman and CEO of DC Studios, took to social media to announce the news. Gunn is executive producing the series and calls it DC Studios' "first foray into the true crime genre." Really, it's a mockumentary-style exploration of the cult-favorite arch-enemy Gorilla Grodd, one of the wildest creations in DC history, and whether he's guilty of murdering his father.

First conceived way back in 1959 during the early days of the Silver Age DC Universe in The Flash #106 by writer John Broome and artist Carmine Infantino, Grodd is a super-intelligent ape with psychic powers with world-conquering ideations. In the DC Studios TV show, he's convicted of murdering his father, the King of Gorilla City, while Jimmy Olsen, played by Skyler Gisondo, reopens the case to find out whether Grodd is truly guilty or innocent.

Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault, the directing duo known for creating the 2017 Netflix mockumentary series American Vandal, are serving as writers and showrunners on The People v. Gorilla Grodd. The cast includes Jimmy Tatro as Gorilla Grodd, Beck Bennett as Steve Lombard, Mikaela Hoover as Cat Grant, and Wendell Pierce as Perry White.

"We're excited by the challenge of creating a series that feels less like an entry into the DCU and more like an artifact from it," Yacenda and Perrault say in a statement to Variety. "A Daily Planet original documentary made for the people of Metropolis. We hope it'll appeal to fans of the comics, comedy and true crime. And while we can't speak for audiences here yet, we already know it's a huge hit in Metropolis. They love this series."

Meanwhile, Gunn repeats that the Grodd TV show is one of two shows alongside Lanterns that he pitched to Warner Bros. before he even joined the company. "With Tony and Dan at the helm, it's something truly special," he says.

While we await more details, here are all of the upcoming DC movies and shows on our radar.

Despite a new wave of GTA 6 leaks, developer Rockstar Games reportedly has no plans to shift its August 27 Netflix gameplay reveal or alter other parts of the game's road to launch.

Bloomberg reports that, as Rockstar's lawyers subpoena Microsoft and Discord for potential account details on leaker Cyberleek, staff are also frustrated that GTA 6 has suffered another major leak so close to launch despite new security measures enacted after the last breach.

A source says Rockstar is still moving forward with the Netflix gameplay reveal as planned. Bloomberg cites an internal message reassuring staff that the actions of Cyberleek, a person or group which has used GTA 6 to pump a transparent crypto scheme and theatrically champion digital consumer rights, haven't devalued their work.

The extended trailer has no direct precedent in games marketing: Netflix subscribers will get early access to GTA 6 gameplay footage before the showcase is uploaded to Rockstar's YouTube channel about six hours later.

With GTA 6 due out November 19 after years of delays, Rockstar is likely looking to recenter the conversation in these final months. That said, by all observable pre-release metrics, GTA 6 is still on course to become the biggest video game release of all time.

Earlier this year, Rockstar suffered a third-party breach that, the company said, had "no impact on our organization or our players" and only impacted "a limited amount of non-material company information."

In 2022, a much larger GTA 6 leak saw lengthy videos of an in-production build of the game spill online. Arion Kurtaj, one member of the hacking group behind the leak, Lapsus$, was sentenced to indefinite hospital stay in 2023. Rockstar later said that the leak cost it $5 million and "thousands of hours" of work.

GTA 6 leakers called out by Stop Killing Games after demanding game preservation solutions and physical discs from Rockstar: "Using illegal means to make a point is unacceptable."

Over the past couple of weeks, official accounts run by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have repeatedly made references to Pokemon Gold and Silver. Maybe it's nothing more than a nostalgic tribute to some classic games. But I'm over here drinking hopium straight from the tap, and I'm willing myself to believe this is a tease for a HeartGold and SoulSilver revival on Switch.

Earlier this week, Nintendo of America tweeted "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other is gold." Attached is a screenshot from Pokopia, recreating the bit in Pokemon Gold and Silver's intro where you find your rival peeking through a window into Professor Elm's laboratory.

That alone would hardly be a reason to infer anything, but it's not the only suspicious recent tweet. Back on August 10, an official Japanese Pokemon account tweeted an image of the ultimate battle in HeartGold and SoulSilver, where you confront the original game's protagonist in a mountaintop battle against his uber-powerful Pokemon team.

Two tweets counts as a pattern, right? After all, Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen hit the Switch earlier this year. Wouldn't it make sense for Nintendo and The Pokemon Company to follow up on these modern versions of classic gen 1 remakes with modern versions of classic gen 2 remakes?

And! – I shout as I start stretching red strings along my conspiracy board – FireRed and LeafGreen are about to get Pokemon Home support. If you've completed the Pokedex in those games, once that update hits, you'll be gifted a Celebi in Home. That's the very same legendary Pokemon that was introduced alongside Gold and Silver all those years ago. Johto fever is running wild, baby.

This is, admittedly, a lot of wishful thinking. But we're now celebrating Pokemon's 30th anniversary, and HeartGold and SoulSilver are often regarded as the best Pokemon games ever made. What better way to see out the year than a new way to play the classics?

For now, Pokemon Winds and Waves are the biggest things on the horizon.

There is nothing the internet loves more than collectively obsessing over a surprisingly cute animated character. Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. God of War Laufey's Phranque the Cube. The Overwatch hero Jetpack Cat, and his Marvel Rivals analogue, Jeff the Shark. Dark Souls developer FromSoftware knows what it's doing, and that's why we have Zork, a new and admittedly endearing playable character from The Duskbloods, the studio's upcoming Switch 2-exclusive multiplayer action game.

FromSoftware ended The Duskbloods' first closed network test early today after players flooded the servers and really put the stress in stress test. People are upset about that and talking about it a lot on The Duskbloods subreddit and elsewhere online, but deep, deep down, they know they can't be too mad. FromSoftware planned for this. Zork.

Zork can only do so much. Server issues are no fun... but you know what is fun? A dorky little armored freak with a beak shooting missiles and yeeting people off cliff edges. Zork. Following in the ancient tradition laid down by characters like Wooloo and Gooigi before it, Zork is here to do one thing: make you love him, and he's already stolen the hearts of so many.

Zork definitely knows how to stand out. Defiant next to Senator Samir Patres in the character selection screen, opting for a wide-eyed, tongue (beak?)-out expression instead of brooding like the rest of his playable brethren, Zork is clearly the class clown of Duskbloods' roster. There's also something indescribably cute about him, which makes him ideal meme material, and that's precisely what's happening.

Over the course of about 24 hours, likely hundreds of memes have turned Zork into a verb (zorking it), and otherwise infantilized what is in reality an extremely dangerous killing machine.

ZORK

— @berardbro.bsky.social (@berardbro.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-08-21T18:24:21.502Z

Despite the frivolity, a question with potentially disturbing implications lingers... what is Zork? Beneath the armor, beneath the three-inch steel veneer of innocent friendliness? Is there a soul in there? The Duskbloods characters are called Bloodsworn, Vampiric entities of a sort, but what does Zork actually look like without his armor? Some have speculated that he may have come from the sea due to various nautical references in his design and moveset, and the beak and propulsion method have led some to theorize he's actually a squid or octopus, but Zork's true nature will likely remain a mystery until launch.

In the meantime, you have to applaud FromSoftware of all studios, the crew famous for coming up with some of the most horrific, grotesque, mind-numbingly challenging monsters in all of video gamedom, for getting the internet to love-bomb a literal war machine.

The Duskbloods is a Switch 2 exclusive because Nintendo was the "right partner" and "very receptive" to FromSoftware's weird idea, says Hidetaka Miyazaki

Once Nintendo sniffs out a pirate, that miserable scallywag should prepare for the worst. The Mario creator is aggressive in stamping out copyright infringement – it's almost a hobby, as Nintendo demonstrates with yet another DMCA takedown of Switch emulator repositories on GitHub.

Copyright news site TorrentFreak reports Nintendo took only one day to file a total of seven DMCA anti-circumvention notices at GitHub, impacting over 400 Switch emulator repositories. It's an old routine for Nintendo, which killed Switch emulator Yuzu after settling for $2.4 million in 2024. Nintendo also killed emulator Ryujinx by asking it politely to go away that same year, and it habitually performs DMCA sweeps to demonstrate that any Switch emulator still online will wither under its legal stare.

This time, some of the exact language Nintendo uses when requesting content removal is revealed on their tombstones – I mean, main GitHub branches, which now show only Nintendo's DMCA request. The company says, "Nintendo Switch emulators are primarily designed to play Nintendo Switch games," and therefore "Nintendo Switch emulators illegally circumvent Nintendo's [technological protection measures, or] TPMs in order to run illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games." Nintendo doesn't like that.

The developer emphasizes, "In their ordinary course of operation, the TPMs require the application of information and a process [...], with the authority of Nintendo, to gain access to Nintendo's copyrighted works."

All these weighty words certainly sound convincing, but as TorrentFreak notes, none of the affected Switch emulator repositories should have existed in the first place – not because they're morally dubious, but because Nintendo technically already took their parents to court. Many of the newly removed repositories are forks or mirrors of emulators that were supposed to have been dealt with, including Yuzu. Hence, the regularity with which Nintendo practices its DMCA takedowns, and the common knowledge that you never really have only one mouse in the kitchen.

Nintendo denies The Duskbloods' September release date in the least convincing way possible.

Arc Raiders Expeditions will be on pause until early 2027 after the upcoming fifth wipe while developer Embark Studios plans "major improvements" to the divisive system.

In a new blog post, Embark outlines changes made with the fifth Expedition. The footnote is the most important part: "The fifth Expedition will be the last one until early 2027, when Expeditions will return with major improvements, tackling some of the biggest player pain points."

Oddly enough, this means the big October 8 update, Frozen Trail, will come and go without an Expedition.

Historically, Arc Raiders has made a bad habit of putting out new content right before an Expedition window, meaning players planning to wipe and prestige their raiders can't really engage with the new rewards until after the Expedition concludes.

Skipping Expeditions altogether solves that problem quite tidily for Frozen Trail, but it does also remove a cog from the endgame loop. Of course, if you never bother with Expeditions, this doesn't annoy you one bit. Here's hoping the promised long-term pursuits of Frozen Trail provide more appealing goals to work toward in this downtime and beyond.

Embark says "we have been carefully reviewing your feedback on Expeditions, and while we've made ongoing improvements along the way, we've come to realize that some of the issues you've raised, like the tight departure windows, the reward structure, and accessibility for new players, need more than incremental fixes. They call for bigger changes."

One big change was just made in the fifth Expedition. Players no longer automatically reset their quests when they embark on an Expedition and wipe their character. Instead, you can opt into a quest reset if you, for some unknowable reason, wish to repeat some of the most unrewarding quests to ever blight a game.

And if you're wondering, Embark says "since the Hullcracker Blueprint can only be obtained through the quest line, we will give you other ways to get it."

Any expedition bonuses players have obtained will persist through this quiet period. "Also, since Caravans will be reset," Embark explains, "any partially completed Caravans will be replaced with Ermal Vouchers of equal value which can be used to purchase Ermal offers together with ARC Parts and firearms trade, or sold for Coin."

Between Frozen Trail and this Expedition hiatus, it feels like Embark has decided that the usual live service appetizers aren't making a difference anymore. The game's declined considerably since launch, and increasingly it feels like the coming winter season may be its last real shot at rekindling that day-one fire.

Arc Raiders' Frozen Trail update is out October 8, Embark admits "it's time to expand" as recent Steam reviews hit 50% negative.

Baldur's Gate 3 is finally seeing Divinity: Original Sin 2-style custom campaigns coming to fruition, as one new mod adds just that: a solid six-hour custom campaign.

Yes, you read that right. A Dream of Silence: ReVamped, as it is oh-so aptly dubbed over on Nexus Mods, adds an alternate campaign to Larian Studios' beloved Dungeons & Dragons RPG.
The mod is an adaptation of a browser-based text adventure by Abigail Corfman (which you can still access over on her official website), starring none other than my favorite of all the Baldur's Gate 3 companions: the ever-beautiful vampire elf Astarion, of course.

The mod's campaign is around six hours long in total, featuring four different endings, six new companions complete with unique dialogue lines and rewards, "more dynamic combat and boss fights," and, perhaps most excitingly, "a kitty that potentially accepts scritches."

Plus, you get to rescue Astarion from a nightmarish take on Cazador's already vile mansion (or choose not to and opt for a different path, I suppose). Sign me up, stat.

Sadly, it's only available for PC players right now, but that doesn't take away how impressive the custom campaign's emergence is.

Early last year, modders said custom Baldur's Gate 3 campaigns with "levels and lands comparable to the Skyrim modding community" could come in 2025 thanks to Patch 7 and its capacity for "level editing, save editing, and more" – but not too much has actually happened in that regard.

Sure, we've got projects like Return to Candlekeep underway, but it's been a long road, and limitations like multiplayer restrictions haven't exactly helped.

A Dream of Silence: ReVamped sparks hope for other custom campaigns later down the line, and I know I'm personally keeping my fingers crossed for even bigger projects in the same vein. Could you just imagine all of the possibilities…?

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Clea actor finds it "fascinating" that RPG fans give her character "more grace" than Baldur's Gate 3's Lae'zel.