You will soon be able to play as Austin Abrams in this fan-made, retro-style video game adapting Zach Cregger’s take on the Resident Evil universe, complete with fixed camera angles and all.

An indie game developer who goes by the name “chicanogoth” on Instagram is going viral after sharing their progress for their video game adaptation… of a movie adaptation… of a game. It’s a Matryoshka doll-style line of thinking that the developer referenced in their viral video, jokingly calling it Resident Evil: The Movie: The Game.

Warning: Light spoilers for Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil movie to follow.

Their footage shows the player character, Bryan Hodukavich, running from an infected Doberman Pinscher in a fairly close recreation of a scene from the film. The dev even included a crashed police cruiser, whose blue and red lights flash on the white snow underfoot as Abrams’ video game counterpart flees from the dog.

What’s endearing players to this project is how it manages to recreate the feel of the original Resident Evil titles; it’s got fixed camera angles and a slightly polygonal art style, giving it that nostalgic look and gameplay that made the first few games so special.

Some commenters are begging the developer to somehow include Bryan’s horrible aim into the combat (which would be super cute), while others are already asking if they need any voiceover talent.

Chicanogoth shared another update on October 19, where he showed off a few death and injury animations for poor Bryan, most of which were pulled from various animation libraries. They also revealed that they took inspiration from the Cerberus model in Resident Evil 2 for their infected dog, and later teased a cinematic opening sequence that seemingly includes the aftermath of the police car crash.

“This has been a fun project to work on and I’m adding things little by little! This is the first game I’ve actually spent time on developing, and it’s been a learning process. Thank you all for your interest and encouragement to work on this project I primarily wanted for myself haha. More to come!” they wrote.

This is the latest Resident Evil fan project to go viral after Chandler Riggs, best known for playing Carl Grimes on The Walking Dead, debuted his own short film adapting Resident Evil 7: Biohazard earlier this month. The project even earned recognition from Resident Evil 7 director Koshi Nakanishi, who shared it on social media with the caption, “WOW.”

While the possibility of a sequel for Cregger’s RE movie is still up in the air, there’s no questioning its success at the box office; it surpassed $360 million worldwide and now stands as the 10th most successful video game movie ever made, out-earning Cregger’s previous films, Weapons and Barbarian, combined.

Hellraiser creator Clive Barker was worried the franchise's new video game would be "overly censored," but he's "proud as f**k" of "how far they've been able to push it."

The mind behind one of horror's most twisted franchises spoke about his feelings on Saber Interactive's Hellraiser: Revival during a recent chat with Dread Central. Where other adaptations of iconic properties often come and go, Barker only had nice things to say about the experience.

"I was fearful at one point that the game would be overly censored but I’m genuinely astonished by how far they’ve been able to push it," he said.

So as not to mince words, Barker clarified: "I'm proud as f**k at the end result."

It's about as much praise as Saber and Hellraiser fans could ever hope to see for the new game. Revival ditched the asymmetrical multiplayer formula used by other adaptations through the last decade and instead delivered a single-player survival experience set within the Hellraiser world. Pinhead and other Cenobites helped Saber earn its now famously strict "M for Mature" rating, which warns players of "blood and gore, intense violence, nudity, and strong sexual content," among other things.

It's every bit as intense as franchise fans hoped, but it's not been without its hangups. Hellraiser: Revival is so brutal that French YouTuber J0nathan reported their channel had been permanently banned after they uploaded footage of themselves playing the game. Not everyone has been quite so unlucky, but the fact that this person had even gone through the trouble to cover up moments featuring nudity and was still handed a ban speaks to how intense that gameplay can get.

As far as Barker's time in the Hellraiser universe is concerned, he said he'd "love to have another go at it and explore." The franchise, which began in the '80s and has seen numerous entries launch to varying degrees of success in the decades since, last saw an installment with Hulu's 2022 movie, simply titled Hellraiser. While its future remains uncertain, its creator thinks Revival might be able to offer a way forward for similar IPs.

"I think what was achieved in the game is a wake-up call to anyone who’s been involved in the making of a franchise like Hellraiser," Barker said. "It says to get your ideas warmed over so you can go back into existing worlds in a brand new way. I have many ideas that I’d like to see realized in the Hellraiser universe, and I’m planning to keep my fingers in that pie."

IGN gave Hellraiser: Revival a 6/10 review. We said, "While the studded scalp of otherworld antagonist Pinhead absolutely looks the part, it’s a shame that little else in Hellraiser: Revival has been nailed to anywhere near the same extent."

For more, you can read about how the team had an "unofficial goal" to be "banned, unrated, or restricted."

Steam Next Fest, Valve's festival for indie games and demos, started earlier today, and while there are usually a ton of low-effort games included, there seems to be more than usual this time around.

Browsing through the Next Fest, it's easy to spot plenty of games with art that looks like it was generated with a quick ChatGPT prompt. And now that Claude Opus 5.5 is out and has been at the center of the decompilation and mashup mod explosion that's been happening over the last few weeks, it's not surprising that there'd be a deluge of games that are either being promoted using AI-generated images or were just flat-out generated with AI.

Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of Steam fans who aren't exactly excited about having to dig through these AI games to find human-made material, with one user straight up begging Steam to filter out the slop. In a post on the Steam subreddit, user ScalesGhost wrote: "I've been looking over the Next Fest, and I really enjoy the Discovery Queue feature, I just wish I could personalize it a bit more. Specifically, I would like the ability to filter out all games that have AI-Generated content in them (after all, steam already requires you to disclose it), and also I'd like to exclude certain tags, e.g. Incremental Games."

Steam already has a robust tagging system, so this kind of filter wouldn't be a huge lift to implement, but Valve did cut down the amount of user-defined tags back in May. Iin order for that kind of filter to exist, Valve would have to add 'AI' as a tag.

ScalesGhost is far from the only person who's noticed the amount of low-effort submissions in this Next Fest. In another thread about how AI has "ruined Next Fest," user EmmaBooney said, "Yeah, noticed that myself. Usually I scroll through and look for interesting games... it's all AI slop and I dont want to participate."

Meanwhile, user aesoprowwy said, "Hopefully there is a significant drop in the engagement metrics due to the overabundance of vibe coded games being featured and steam implements some stricter guidelines for submissions."

Steam Next Fest being full of low-effort games is nothing new, however. Valve has long had a laissez-faire approach to curation on Steam, usually relying on the algorithm to boost popular games and bury the low-effort slop. And while this Next Fest does seem worse than previous events, most people are probably better off ignoring the event for a couple of days until the popular demos naturally rise to the top and most of the shovelware gets buried.

But this comes at a time when AI in game development is getting more common by the day. Just last week Epic delayed its upcoming Star Wars shooter in order to pursue an "AI-first" direction. Epic's CEO also bragged on Twitter last week about how the company has vibe coded the Epic Games Store launcher. Even Capcom seems to have embraced AI, using it as part of its REX program, which will reportedly help it continue to improve the RE Engine that has been used in some of the best games of the year, like Resident Evil: Requiem and Pragmata.

Storm is one of a handful of female characters in Marvel Rivals with just one Legendary skin, and the pushback around this fact has become so great that even rapper Sexyy Red is speaking up about it.

Marvel Rivals published a statement to its official social media profiles on October 15 that outlined its plans to improve moderation regarding speech violations from players. And while this post sparked its own debate among the game’s fanbase, it prompted a request of a different kind from "Sticky" rapper Sexyy Red.

In a quote-retweet, Sexyy Red asked the official Marvel Rivals account when Storm is finally getting another Legendary skin, writing, “When y’all gon give Storm her legendary skin?”

When yal gon give storm her legendary skin??

— Sexyy Red (@SexyyRed314_) October 17, 2026

Fans, of course, were mostly stunned that Sexyy Red plays Marvel Rivals, while others joined in on her request for more Storm costumes from the devs at NetEase and Marvel Games.

Both teams are well-aware of the discussion surrounding Storm’s Legendary skins (or lack thereof), as they directly acknowledged the matter in a post back in August. Players will likely remember this moment, as it came less than 24 hours after the debut of Storm’s swimsuit skin, Sacred Skies, which was listed as an Epic skin at the time.

Many fans expressed dismay that, out of all the other female characters included in the swimsuit lineup, Storm’s Sacred Skies skin was the only one that wasn’t a Legendary. Shortly afterwards, the Marvel Rivals Twitter/X account revealed its decision to upgrade the skin to a Legendary for free in direct response to player feedback.

“While we deeply value the expressive nature of our players, our number one goal is to create a positive community for everyone who loves this game,” they wrote. “...As the upgrades will take some time, please be patient, as we are already hard at work on the above. Get ready for the Mistress of the Elements to reign over the battlefield soon.”

This upgrade is still in the works, though fans are also looking forward to another Legendary skin coming Storm’s way, if rumors are to be believed. Based on character silhouettes for an upcoming skin line, it looks like players will soon get treated to some Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls crossover costumes, with game journalist Miller Ross comparing them to Storm and Iron Man’s poses in the 3v3 tag fighting game.

If true, this wouldn’t be the first time that a Marvel game has collaborated with Fighting Souls; Marvel’s Wolverine got its own cel-shaded skin directly from Arc System Works' fighting game, while Logan received a more realistic-looking costume in Fighting Souls from Insomniac’s action-adventure title.

It’s worth noting that Storm isn’t the only female character in Marvel Rivals to have just one Legendary skin; Jubilee, Black Widow, and Angela also only have one Legendary skin each. It seems like Emma Frost has the biggest wardrobe out of the entire lot — to the point where some fans are ready for her to share some closet space with the rest of the gals in the game.

Image Credits: Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images

At first glance the Love and Deepspace Blade Runner 2049 crossover is a cool, if unexpected, addition to the otome game's romantic universe, but it didn't take long for fans of the game to notice an uncomfortable parallel between one of the key storylines featuring the lead character's AI companion, Joi, and the canceled Love and Deepspace character Valko.

Warning: Blade Runner 2049 spoilers below!

In Blade Runner 2049, lead character K (Ryan Golsing) has a romantic relationship with an AI companion called Joi (played by Ana de Armas), but loses her when the "emanator" device that K uses that allows her to travel with him is destroyed. Love and Deepspace players immediately noted that something similar happened to the game's promised sixth love interest, Valko, a companion that players were already attached to when he was canceled by developer Infold just a week after his reveal following controversy around his character.

ironically, the bladerunner collab makes more sense like this, we lost valko just like the protagonist lost his virtual girlfriend joi, destroyed by the very same big corpo that created her, only for him to bump into that ad with another joi, naked and suggestive but not HIS joi

— lyn (@xialyn_ne) October 18, 2026

Other fans noted that a Blade Runner 2049 crossover, which is an unusual one for the universe, would have made sense as a vehicle for Valko, given that the character was described as a tech CEO and hacker.

Many are still hopeful that Valko could return, given the outpouring of support for the character on social media, at real-world events, and through boycotts, petitions, and charitable donations in his name. Players have sent money to wolf sanctuaries, sponsored forests, paid for billboards to feature him, and even set up memorials for the character. Infold has made no official comment about Valko since the initial cancellation.

The special event runs from today until November 5 and includes free in-game rewards inspired by the film. It's most likely part of a promotional campaign for the new Blade Runner 2099, which launches on Amazon Prime on November 25.

Rockstar Games gave GTA 6s' developers so much freedom to add cool details that not even the studio's top executives are aware of everything in the game.

The latest behind-the-scenes information on GTA 6 comes from Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who expanded upon his trip to the Rockstar North offices in Edinburgh, Scotland, after previously sharing other highlights last week. One of the more noteworthy bits shared in his 18-minute video's runtime is that the team who spent a decade or so making next month's Grand Theft Auto game had quite a bit of freedom to add details simply because they thought they might be cool.

Schreier said he'd guess that "not even top developers" at Rockstar know every tiny detail added to Vice City and its wealth of NPCs. He noted that giving large teams the autonomy to flesh out every street corner isn't too uncommon for open-world games. In the case of GTA 6 and its huge budget and lengthy development time, that means players will likely still be discovering new details even years down the road.

Schreier shared a quote from Rockstar's Aaron Garbut, who said, "There's no one person that has this whole thing in their head." That's probably not too new for the GTA team, with the video also recalling one specific detail from Red Dead Redemption 2.

Players may remember that horses found through the cowboy simulator had testicles with realistic physics. The thing fans still love to pass around to this day is the fact that they even shrink in colder weather.

Garbut mentioned that this specific feature (if you can call it that) was not something Rockstar had on some big list of details to include in Red Dead Redemption 2, nor was it something the team was ever asked to spend extra time on. Instead, the shrinking horse testicles, like many other details in the 2018 Western sandbox game, was something that someone happened to have enough time to work on and bring to life. It's this same strategy that fans can expect to see implemented in GTA 6.

Schreier's video also revealed that Rockstar spent quite a bit of time trying to do away with the weapon wheel it had leaned on in past games. Worried that slapping a game-y wheel on Jason and Lucia would remind players of what they can't carry on their person, they attempted to create a new system to replace it. The team then spent "months, if not years, trying a million different things." Examples listed include trays, webs, and UI updates for the formula before eventually, as we've seen, tossing all of those ideas out the window and going back to the traditional weapon wheel.

Meanwhile, as one might imagine could be the case over the course of developing a major video game, Rockstar's long path to launch wasn't without its roadblocks. Schreier said the "dark moments" of development saw the GTA 6 team struggle between the years of about 2019 to 2022. He said Rockstar's desire to balance the realism of Red Dead Redemption gameplay with the traditionally more arcade-y systems GTA is known for was the driving factor.

It was during this time that some team members felt they were just "treading water," leading the project to shed some designers before the vision really started coming together toward the beginning of 2023. According to Schreier's reporting, some Rockstar artists have been working on GTA 6 since 2015, just two years after the launch of GTA 5. It was this same year the team started taking trips to Miami to plot out their reimagined Vice City.

Now, after all this time, GTA 6 is exactly one month away (!) from its November 19, 2026, release date. To help hype up everyone who has waited 13 years to see if it was worth the long, long wait, Rockstar has taken over Miami. One recent example from its marketing push includes a collection of cars ripped straight out of the game.

For more, you can check out new details and screenshots from the GTA 6 launch trailer. Rockstar has insisted it won't take another eight years to make its next game, but as we wait during these last 30 days for this one, you can read IGN's interview with Rob Nelson.

Two weeks ago, a Tekken player created a mod that allowed users to play the game online with rollback netcode, sparking a community-wide debate between Western players and competitors based in Japan and Korea.

The mod, made by a community member named Ekspym, became an instant hit among Tekken players, reaching more than 10,000 players as of October 17 and a recorded 4,547 downloads as of October 15. According to the mod’s readme, “the package contains neither the PS3 firmware nor the game,” though it acts essentially like an emulator.

It sparked a viral conversation regarding the current state of Tekken 8 (with many players seeming to prefer Tekken 6 out of the two games), but perhaps more surprisingly, received massive pushback from players in Japan and Korea.

One of the loudest voices speaking out against this mod was celebrated fighting game pro Dogura. “The pirated version of Tekken 6? That thing crosses the line way too much, and I'm horrified that no one overseas is raising negative voices about it,” he wrote in a post on Twitter/X. “When our fundamental values and sense of morality differ this much, we probably can't even have a conversation. I'm praying that the right response is taken.”

Another Japanese user named Higemura also had a viral take on the situation, worrying that the Tekken series might end due to mods such as this one. “It seems like you're running the Tekken 6 service without permission, but the people doing it should really think about what they're actually up to. If the population flows over there and money stops going to the official service, the Tekken series will come to an end, right?” they wrote.

“I totally get having an attachment to Tekken 6, since I love the bound system and move balance too, but if that's the case, you should develop a new fighting game that's Tekken 6-like. The way things are going now, you're just infringing on rights and gobbling up Bandai Namco's assets and potential customers without permission.”

Overall, it seems that Japanese players take copyright very seriously and consider such mods to be outright theft. This attitude is also reflected from some players based in Korea, with one Korean user likening it to sexual assault. (Another Japanese player even compared it to necrophilia, while another made a baffling comparison to the Civil Rights Movement.)

This, of course, prompted a massive discussion that has taken hold of the broader fighting game community. The attitudes toward such mods are far more lenient among Western players, with one writing, “Please tell me how I am supposed to ‘properly’ support the game when I cannot even buy it here? If I take a broken old bike out of the trash and repair it, why are you saying I am stealing from the bike corporation? It was trash. There was no way to buy it!”

“Explain why it is more morally righteous to demand people to pay for used copies of an old game on the secondhand market that the developers won't see any money from,” another said.

Ekspym’s Tekken 6 mod is still alive and well, and has not yet received any pushback from Bandai Namco — though it has, inadvertently, exposed a very intriguing difference in opinions about emulation and modding between Western fighting game players and those based in East Asia.

(It is worth noting, though, that some Japanese players are pushing back against this mindset, with one even pointing out a pro player using a cracked arcade cabinet in response to Dogura's initial tweet.)

This is the latest Tekken-related news to go viral after Baki’s Yujiro Hanma was finally shown off at Evo France, and he’s just as terrifying as we expected him to be.

Hundreds of PSA-graded trading cards worth more than $100,000 were reportedly stolen from a FedEx truck over the weekend, leaving collectors distraught — and the damage is still being calculated.

On October 17, a collector named SKY-B posted on Twitter/X claiming that PSA had notified him via email that a FedEx truck carrying his 104-card collection had been burglarized after leaving its Southern California location. According to SKY-B, more than $100,000 worth of cards had been taken.

In its email, which SKY-B shared in a reply, PSA outlined steps it had taken to rectify the situation as best as possible, saying it had deactivated certificates for the affected items, notified its commerce partners of the stolen cards, and is actively working with both FedEx and law enforcement to investigate the theft.

"We will compensate you for the items from your order that were involved, which is based on fair market value up to the Maximum Insured Value ("MIV") you selected for each item."

@natsturner, I pray you handle this and take care of everyone affected in the most professional manner possible. I have an awful feeling PSA is going to be extremely unfair on what the values of these cards are.

— SKY-B (@SKYBCards) October 17, 2026

PSA also stated that it would compensate SKY-B for the items in his collection, the monetary amount for which is “based on fair market value up to the Maximum Insured Value" he selected for each item.

In a YouTube video, SKY-B explained that the stolen order had taken him more than two years to accumulate, which included “many irreplaceable cards” that he fears he’ll never see again. He said that he hand-delivered the cards to PSA to be graded at the National Card Show in July, and three months later, his extensive collection could be lining the pockets of the thieves who stole it.

SKY-B says he spent $8,000 to have the cards graded, which had a maximum insurance value of $156,000 each. The collector claimed that several of the cards in his collection exceeded this maximum value, but says that he wasn’t “upcharged” by PSA because of this — making him worry that the company will “destroy” him with “low-ball values” of all his cards.

“Honestly, that’s what hurts the most, outside of obviously being absolutely financially destroyed here,” he said, referring to likely never seeing his carefully-curated collection again. “...I am currently out all of the money that it cost to acquire these cards, I’m out all the PSA grading fees, and I don’t have and I probably will never see any of these cards in person.”

SKY-B wasn’t the only one impacted by the FedEx truck theft; content creator and fellow collector Boston Card Hunter claimed that he was approached by a “major PSA dealer” who told him that customers had lost an estimated “$500K of declared value.”

After speaking with other affected dealers and collectors, Boston Card Hunter stated that FedEx trucks have now become targets for thieves, and speculated that dealers might handle their own shipping and handling from PSA moving forward.

Currently, Boston Card Hunter has compiled a list of 383 serialized cards that were allegedly stolen from this FedEx truck, which include a 1995 Upper Deck 23K Gold Michael Jordan 50,000 Print Run, a 2024 One Piece Simplified Chinese 1st Anniversary Set Nami, and many other cards from various anime series, trading card games, and sports figures.

Over on Reddit, other card collectors claimed to have also been victims of the FedEx theft, with one saying their PSA 9 Smaug the Magnificent card from Magic: The Gathering had been burgled.

In a statement to IGN, PSA reiterated the steps it has taken to help law enforcement and FedEx recover the items and investigate the theft, as well as contacting customers to compensate them based on fair market value.

PSA's full statement is as follows:

"We are aware of a theft involving a third-party shipping vehicle carrying PSA-graded items. We are working closely with law enforcement and the carrier as the investigation continues.

"We have deactivated the certificates for the stolen items and notified marketplace partners so they can be on the lookout for rare and serialized items. Our customer service team has contacted affected customers directly and is arranging compensation based on fair market value.

"We understand the impact this has on collectors involved, many of whom see these cards as far more than a financial asset. Our team is focused on supporting them. We take this incident seriously, and we will continue working with law enforcement to hold those responsible accountable."

This is the latest development to go viral within the card collecting community after Pokemon TCG collectors were put on blast for offering to trade their purebred puppies in exchange for cards at two separate card shows.

Image Credits: Marcin Golba/NurPhoto via Getty Images

LEGO designer Björn Ramant has revealed a giant Derpy Tiger build based on the animated Netflix hit Kpop Demon Hunters.

Ramant shared the full build, which was commissioned by Netflix and LEGO, on his personal LinkedIn and Instagram. A 90-second timelapse shows the entire building process, from tail to ears, with Ramant reportedly using almost 37,000 total plastic bricks in the final product.

The giant LEGO Derpy Tiger is now on display at LEGO World 2026 while LEGO's official (and much smaller) Kpop Demon Hunters set happens to be on sale at Amazon.

While Ramant's post doesn’t reveal exact dimensions, the completed build appears almost as tall as the designer himself. Answering questions in the comments, Ramant explains that the full build took about two and a half months of on and off work. He used almost 37,000 bricks, though clarifies he wasn’t paying for each one - the work was a commission from the LEGO Group and Netflix.

In the video, Ramant is shown starting with the tail and using four steel rods to support the rest of the build. He builds up layers of the tiger demon’s blue and black fur, finishing with his slightly haunting yellow eyes. Commenters were quick to compare the full timelapse to watching a human 3D printer.

The full build is currently on display at LEGO World 2026, taking place at the Jaarbeurs convention center in Utrecht, Netherlands, though October 21. An additional post on Ramant's Instagram shows the build in action, but there’s no word on what will happen to the giant Derpy after the event concludes.

Whalefall, the movie that sees Austin Abrams attempt to fight his way out of the belly of a sperm whale, has a fan in Hideo Kojima. The Metal Gear Solid creator and serious movie buff shared his thoughts on the film over the weekend, revealing a love for whales that has been with him since school — but says Whalefall has, as a result, put him off snacking on squid.

"It was a literary film that explored, in a somewhat metafictional way, the Steinbeck-like relationship between whales and humans as part of an ecosystem, alongside the familial bond between father and son. The visual effects were also outstanding. However, I don’t think I’ll be eating squid for a while," he wrote on Twitter/X.

I watched “Whalefall.” I had received a copy of Daniel Kraus’s novel, on which the film is based, quite some time ago, but hadn’t had the chance to read it yet. Kraus was also involved in writing the screenplay. It was a literary film that explored, in a somewhat metafictional way, the Steinbeck-like relationship between whales and humans as part of an ecosystem, alongside the familial bond between father and son. The visual effects were also outstanding. However, I don’t think I’ll be eating squid for a while 🦑. I love whales. They appear frequently in my games. When I was in the early years of elementary school, I researched whale ecology for a school project. Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by their enormous size as mammals and their symbolic presence in the marine ecosystem. In MGS2, Raiden is swallowed, digested, and excreted by the enormous Arsenal Gear, a whale that swallows digital information. Whales also feature in MGSV and DEATH STRANDING. There are references to Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick” as well. It’s a shame they didn’t make a program for the film 🐳.

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) October 18, 2026

Director and writer Brian Duffield spoke to IGN for Fall Fan Fest 2026 about the making of the movie and revealed the unusual research he had to undertake when it came to whale guts.

"We would watch autopsies of beached sperm whales, and there's a bunch of endoscopies of beluga whales and dolphins that we would watch and then talk to the experts and see how much of that we could use and how much would be different with a sperm whale," he said.

"But yeah, it was a real weird time in my life where most everything I was watching was very graphic endoscopies and autopsies. My wife would walk into the room and I'd close my laptop lid, and she was just like - she knew I wasn't watching porn - she was just like, 'Just another autopsy?' I was like, 'Yes, it's my job.'"

Whalefall is in movie theaters now, and our review said it "pulls the viewer into an unthinkably frightening, incredibly gross, and panic-inducing environment that plays on primal human fears about being predator or prey." You can read more of that review here.

Peter Jackson has confirmed The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past is in the scriptwriting stage following cancellation rumors that emerged in the wake of the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.

The filmmaker behind the fantasy franchise's original live-action trilogy gave a much-needed update at the Sitges Film Festival (via ScreenRant). When accepting the Honorary Grand Prize, Jackson took a moment to talk about where The Lord of the Rings stands in the movie world.

It's Shadow of the Past that most fans may be scratching their heads about, though. Announced by Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema in March, The Lord of the Rings story is being written by Philippa Boyens, Peter McGee, and perhaps most notably, former Late Show host and franchise fan Stephen Colbert. Earlier this month, outlet Knight Edge Media reported that the newly formed Skydance had paused the project.

Considering the sudden end of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this year, fans begin to fear the worst for Shadow of the Past. Warner Bros. did eventually clarify to the outlet that the project had not been outright canceled. Jackson, however, didn't skip a beat when promising that work for the movie was still very much underway.

"We have The Shadow of the Past, which is in the scriptwriting stage," he said.

It's not much, but it should be good news for those who have missed taking trips to the theater to see The Lord of the Rings films. Despite supposedly being so early in development – and its work-in-progress title – we do already know a bit about Shadow of the Past's story.

Jackson and Colbert promised that the trilogy follow-up movie would take place 14 years after Hobbit Frodo had passed. It's said to instead see "Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began."

Jackson also took his Sitges acceptance speech as an opportunity to deliver an update on another, much further along project: The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Production on the Andy Serkis-led film is underway, but it sounds like they won't be filming for too much longer. Jackson is in the mix on this one as well, with the plan being for him to work on Tintin 2 next.

"The Hunt for Gollum is almost finished filming. I think there are about two weeks of shooting left. And we've also already written the script for Tintin 2, the second Tintin film. That will be the next film I make."

The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past is still making the long trek to become an actual movie, but does not currently have a release date. The Hunt for Gollum will premiere December 17, 2027. In the meantime, you can read what Colbert had to say to those concerned about his involvement.

Photo by Darren Gerrish/WireImage.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 has cast Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima in a role that will see him reprise his part from Cyberpunk 2077.

Series game developer CD Projekt Red confirmed the news in a social media post on X/Twitter. The message teased that it's more than a throwaway part, too, as Kojima will be seen playing "the famous braindance director who was at Konpeki Plaza in Cyberpunk 2077" (via X's machine translation).

The real-life game director was quick to respond and share his excitement, as well as a few pictures from his time recording his lines. His full statement, minus a few fun emojis, is as follows: "I make a cameo appearance in the anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 as Hideyoshi Oshima, the character who appeared in the previous game."

I make a cameo appearance in the anime series “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2” as Hideyoshi Oshima, the character who appeared in the previous game. 🙏🙇🏻😅🫶👍 https://t.co/OuUaazFfR4

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) October 19, 2026

Cyberpunk 2077 players were treated to an unexpected visit from the Kojima Productions lead when they first traveled to Night City back in 2020. It's a moment that wasn't actually directly tied to V's mainline quest and surprisingly easy to miss, but yes, if players search Arasaka's Konpeki Plaza hard enough, they can find Kojima sitting near a bar.

If you're familiar with Kojima's work on games like Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding, what he had to say in the Cyberpunk world wasn't too surprising. He enjoyed chatting about the in-universe memory-exploring mechanic, braindances, as he wanted his "productions to convey real, raw human emotion." When stopped by V, he asks the player if they have any pitches to show him.

"The feeling when you combine happiness and melancholy, or being calm with an underlying sense of anxiety," he says in the game. "These complex, realistic feelings and emotions are what I aspire to recreate... woven into much better stories, of course."

Kojima's Oshima will now bring his love for braindance technology to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 when it premieres tomorrow, October 20, 2026. All 10 episodes of the second season will drop at the same time. IGN called this second anime trip into Night City "Amazing" in our 9/10 review.

"Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 delivers the gory, action-packed goods, even if it doesn’t quite hit the highs of its predecessor,” we said.

Kojima is hard at work on games like Physint and OD, but that doesn't mean he hasn't had time for one or even a few cameos. We know now that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 was one of the few anime projects he teased earlier this month, but we're still waiting to see the "big movie" he filmed.

Returning to Cyberpunk 2077 or playing it for the first time? We’ve got a new and improved Cyberpunk interactive map to help you find every mission, Iconic item, and collectible in the game. Plus, we’ve also got a full walkthrough for the base game, a Phantom Liberty walkthrough, and an overview of all the Cyberpunk 2077 endings so you don’t make a choice you regret. And we can’t ignore the various romance options you can smooch, which also impact how V’s story concludes.

A new update for Saros dropped today, adding some new features to the hectic Housemarque shooter. New Carcosan Modifiers allow players to further tweak the challenge, a boss rush mode lets you compete on leaderboards, and Arjun gets a golden glow.

Zenith adds 10 new Trial Modifiers to increase the challenge level. One example is “Hostile Regeneration,” which allows you to stun larger enemies, but you have to get in and finish them with a melee strike before they recover.

The update also adds New Game+, which adds mysterious new nodes to the Armor Matrix back at Passage. You use these to move through Eclipse Layers, which ramp up the challenge with new rules and deadlier enemies.

During Eclipse Layers, Arjun dons a golden crown and his armor glows. The more trials you have active, the more it glows and the flashier his gilded attire gets. Wearing the crown also grants access to new story and lore entries called Visions.

Then there’s Overlord Rush, accessed via the primary unit in Passage. This is a training simulation boss rush mode that lets you take down the fiercest Saros enemies and compete for a place on global leaderboards.

“Overlord Rush is divided into multiple Sets, each of which contains a different selection of Overlords,” the post on the PS Blog said. “The Incursion and Ascension Sets contain three Overlords each, and can be completed in 10 minutes, for a nice little Saros snack. The final Set is known as Totality. As the name implies, it lines up all eight Overlords from around Carcosa in one continuous gauntlet!”

Elsewhere, Housemarque has added a bunch of accessibility modifiers for people who are struggling with Saros, including the ability to slow projectiles down, giving you more time to dodge. “You have control over how much the game slows down, and can even choose if you want the setting to kick in automatically during combat, or if you want to manually toggle it on when things get hairy,” the blog said.

There’s also a new Auto Fire setting you can toggle on, which fires your weapon for you whenever you’re aiming at an enemy. You can also change the controls to aim with the motion sensor, for players who can’t get used to patting their head while rubbing their tummy and running on a treadmill at the same time.

“We here at Housemarque are super excited for everyone to get their hands on the new content Zenith adds,” Housemarque said. “I can’t wait to hear what players think about all the new control options, see your Crown-equipped Photo mode snaps, and compete (and likely lose) to your high scores in Overlord Rush.”

The PlayStation 6 hasn't even been announced yet, but little rumors pop up now and then that add speculation on what to expect from Sony's next-gen console. The latest is a shocking claim that the RAM and storage configuration of the console will cost more than the entirety of the PS5.

Today's rumor comes via a long thread about next-gen hardware on NeoGaf, where known leaker Kepler_L2 simply said: "RAM + NAND alone is over $680." This was in response to another commenter who optimistically hoped that the console would come in at around $680. But, if Kepler_L2's numbers are right, and you should take them with a grain of salt, there's little chance of that happening.

This isn't the first time that Kepler_L2 has shared the leaked manufacturing cost of the PS6. Back in March, elsewhere on NeoGaf, they suggested the BoM (Bill of Materials) for the PS6 would be $760. But, due to the ongoing RAM crisis, they amended that estimate by saying the cost has gone up by around $200 in June. That would leave an estimated BoM of $960, which doesn't take into consideration additional costs like R&D, marketing and shipping. Keep in mind, though, that Sony has yet to say anything official about the price of PS6.

However, while the presumed cost of the RAM and SSD are high, the rest of the console's hardware could be quite expensive, too. All of this speculation happened in a thread responding to previous speculation from Kepler_L2 that the PS6 would have a GPU with around 40 teraflops of compute performance, and Project Helix would be around 56 teraflops. Now, teraflops isn't the best predictor of gaming performance, but if these numbers are accurate, it would mean that the PS6 would be a little more than twice as powerful as the PS5 Pro, with a GPU that's roughly between the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT.

For reference, the Radeon RX 9070 costs around $900 right now, due to ongoing price increases, but even at launch it was still a $549 part. Part of that cost is made up of the VRAM, which would be accounted for in Kepler_L2's $680 figure, but the GPU itself is still a huge portion of the cost. Sony would likely get a discount for buying in bulk, but the chips powering the PS6 are probably still going to add a couple hundred dollars to the equation.

I wouldn't be surprised, then, if the total cost of manufacturing the PS6 crosses the $1,000 or $1,100 mark. Sony has already suggested it won't sell the PS6 at a "significant" loss, so I doubt the company is going to slash hundreds of dollars off the price to move more consoles. So, if these leaked prices are accurate, I don't really see a world where the next-generation PlayStation sneaks in under $1,000, and we'd be lucky if we get it for under $1,200. I hope I'm wrong, though, I really do.

But even though the PS6 is likely going to be very expensive, the company has been working overtime filing patents for some wild technology that may find its way into the PS6. Just last week, Sony filed a patent with its own take on frame generation, and before that filed another patent that would let games use player behavior to train NPCs.

The company has also patented a technology that would turn your controller into an NFC card reader, and would use an AI agent to watch your console for hardware flaws, and deploy vibe-coded patches to fix problems before you even notice them.

But don't hold your breath on a release date for the PS6. Following Sony’s shock decision to kill video game discs on PlayStation consoles from January 2028, analysts predicted 2028 at the earliest, potentially the end of 2028.

GTA 6 is coming in November and focuses on a relationship between its dual protagonists, Jason and Lucia. The recent GTA 6 launch trailer featured three steamy intimate scenes in the shower, and, according to GTA 6 previews, Jason and Lucia can kiss at the touch of a button and are able to walk around holding hands. Screenshots suggest the pair can go on beach dates and shopping trips, and Rockstar has said that their relationship can blossom or wilt depending on how quickly you text back on the in-game mobile phones.

That Bonnie and Clyde-style relationship is at the center of Rockstar’s upcoming game, and you’ll be able to engage with it as much or as little as you want. But you might want to speak to your romantic partner in real life first.

In September, British polling company YouGov asked 4,000 British adults whether they’d consider dating in a video game as cheating or not. Around 6% of respondents said they would consider it cheating, while a further 19% said that while they didn't consider it cheating, they wouldn’t be okay with it.

That’s a fairly surprising number of people who think smashing pixels together is some kind of betrayal. Women were considerably more against it than men. Only 4% of men would consider it cheating, while 7% of women would. Of those that didn’t consider it cheating but still weren’t okay with it, that was 13% of the men and 24% of the women asked.

The BBC published an article on the poll, leading with a headline that was a question: can you cheat on someone with a video game character? This framing has led to a bit of backlash from players.

“No, video game characters are not real, get a grip ffs!” said Stetson Spatula. “Can you get arrested for murdering someone on call of duty?” asked another X / Twitter user.

A lot of the responses focused on established games such as The Sims, which let you live an alternative domestic life where your Sims marry, have children, and follow career paths while decking out their house. The perceived hypocrisy here is that players have been roleplaying relationships for a long time before GTA 6.

GTA 6's potential for "cheating," has come up before. In August, we reported on how a swath of angry spouses on social media said they thought GTA 6's relationship mechanic was so in depth that it was equivalent to cheating on your real-life partner and worth breaking up over. Over on TikTok, for example, a number of concerned people said they wouldn't let their partner to play the game.

Rockstar has also been very clear that you don't actually have to engage with this part of GTA 6 if you don't want to. Jason and Lucia want a relationship at the start of the game, but it's up to the player to actively pursue that. If you don't, they won't be as head-over-heels for each other, but will still have each other's backs when it matters most. If you do choose to make the two a power couple, you'll likely get more mileage out of the game, though.

"When you bring them together, it feels like you’re a steward of their relationship, and you feel protective of them as a unit," Rockstar North co-studio head, Rob Nelson, told IGN. "But this is something we did not know when we started, and it really had to be something we felt our way through. But I will say that whether you’re getting in trouble, or you’re running from the cops, or getting in a car, or waiting for the other one — playing as them together feels very cool. It feels like you’re taking care of them, if that’s something you’re into."

Rockstar is currently pushing hard on the marketing front ahead of next month’s release. Last week saw real cars modified to look like GTA vehicles being driven around Miami.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s campaign is available now in early access, and is arguably the strongest the series has been since its 2019 revival. Those who have played it will be aware that a lot of its heroes and villains meet their end in one of the darkest COD entries to date. It makes it all feel like a bow being tied on this particular storyline. Activision has confirmed a new Call of Duty subfranchise outside of the traditional Modern Warfare and Black Ops rotation is in the works, further signalling that it may be the end of this particular road.

But is that Activision’s plan, or if MW4 turns out to be a smash success, will the developer be tempted to head back to Captain Price and gang well one more time? The final mission of the campaign, taking place during the middle of the game’s credits, appears to suggest it might be the end of the line for the saga and one of its most beloved characters. It begs the question: Is this the end of the rebooted Modern Warfare story?

“It's a good question, and you'll not love the answer,” Jeff Negus, narrative director at Infinity Ward, told IGN.

“I don't know. What I do know is we tried to tell a definitive, conclusive story in that we were trying to set up, or rather pay off the setups, answer things that had been posed as questions, push characters into new territory that they've never been in before, raise the stakes, push the conflict.”

This new era of Modern Warfare started strongly with 2019’s acclaimed campaign that echoed much of what players enjoyed about the 2007 original. Despite the callbacks, the most exciting thing was that it felt like something fresh, with new characters blending in with familiar faces to tell a new story. The recently released MW4 pulls off a similar trick, weaving in a huge-scale Korean conflict with the more personal Price missions. But the path here was rocky, and not necessarily one that was meant to end here. In fact, it turns out there wasn’t really a fleshed-out idea of where the saga would go post-2019.

“No, there wasn't a long-term plan”, Negus revealed. “Similar to a television show where you got a first season, it comes out, people like it, cool, there's going to be another one. If you do it well, what you built can be built upon in a way where you can use it as a foundation and then push on top of that to build and go to new places.

“Four, that was of particular importance for us. Not many games get a four, let alone one that has these kinds of characters that have gone through the things they've gone through. And so while there wasn't a long-term plan necessarily for the story specifically from 2019, we definitely are self-reflexive in a way where we're looking back at the same time as being in the present in order to inform it and make it more impactful.”

Having the plot of a four-game series being developed over the course of much of the decade not entirely mapped out is understandable, but what may be surprising is that the team didn’t know where this story would be heading just three years ago after the release of Modern Warfare 3.

“It's interesting because at the end of Modern Warfare 3, there were some definitive events that took place,” Negus explained. “And because of that, particularly for Price, once you take that action, you can't come back from it. And although it doesn't change his core motivations, and in that I don't think it changes his character, it does adjust how he tries to achieve his goals; the means changed. And we weren't beholden to it, but we wanted to use it as a way to continue the story in a meaningful way, not go, ‘Don't worry about that thing that happened,’ but really lean into it and say, ‘Well, if he had done that, it would mean this. And if it meant this, how can we use that to push into new territory?’ And that's where an alliance between Price and Valeria comes in.”

There’s a lot going on in Modern Warfare 4’s story, and it's a credit to Negus and the team that it remains coherent throughout, despite having to juggle an extensive cast dotted around much of the globe. It’s a stark contrast to MW3’s limited, plot-light campaign, which introduced fan-favourite villain Makarov in what felt like a rushed manner.

The development time granted to Infinity Ward to construct it was truncated, especially when compared to the three years it had with MW4, and it shows in its quality, but also in its quantity. This is a beefy campaign with a lot of story to tell. So much so that its opening missions almost feel like an epilogue to Modern Warfare 3, as it clears the table ahead of telling its new story. So, in an ideal world, was part of this story ever meant to be in that game from three years ago?

“Short answer, no,” Negus stated. “I think the reason that this story has so much in it is that we had the ambition to continue the legacy character storylines and a very strong impulse to return to form in that, assuming the role of a low-level soldier within a bigger war landscape. And so obviously those characters that we've been with don't really fit that desire in terms of having that perspective. So it was a challenge, but ultimately an opportunity to get to redefine our returning characters and define, for the first time, a whole set of new, young, fresh faces that would give us a totally different perspective. And we combined them together, uniting them by a common theme continuing from 2019, setting up the ‘you draw the line wherever you need it’ that permeates both threads of the storyline and both perspectives.”

This approach is definitely proving a success, with Modern Warfare 4’s campaign receiving widespread praise from fans, and a thank you from the actor behind Captain Price in return to those enjoying it. Have you played it? Did you enjoy it? Let us know in the comments!

We’ve got an in-progress Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Walkthrough to help you through the campaign missions, and a guide to All Yellow Supply Crate Locations for the 10th mission, Stranded. Make sure you don’t miss out on a thing with our guide to All Collectible Note Locations, and all the Code Solutions you’ll need to open every keypad and container.

After six years of silence, Riot Games' League of Legends-themed virtual K-pop girl group, K/DA, has returned with Firestarter, a comeback single created by the animation studio behind Arcane.

The single leads K/DA's new EP, set to come out on October 21, which would mark the group's second major release since All Out in 2020.

Returning to the lineup are MIYEON and SOYEON of i-dle, alongside Sophie Powers and Mimi Webb who bring new voices to K/DA’s latest era. The group has previously featured artists including Madison Beer and Jaira Burns, while Seraphine, who joined the virtual girl group for More in 2020 and was voiced by Lexie Liu, is notably absent from the new release. Behind the track are producers Kill Dave and Sebastien Najand, the composer and producer often regarded as one of the architects of K/DA’s sound, having worked on the group’s music since its inception.

Watch it burn.

“FIRESTARTER” Music Video is out now // https://t.co/EpvKkgbVYF

#KDA #FIRESTARTER #CALLINGALLBLADES https://t.co/3W1SRkTR8X

— K/DA (@KDA_MUSIC) October 19, 2026

Behind Firestarter's music video is Fortiche, the French animation studio whose long-standing partnership with Riot dates back to the original Pop/Stars video in 2018. Since then, the two companies have built a creative partnership that extends well beyond music videos, most notably with Arcane, the acclaimed animated series set in the League of Legends universe. With Fortiche involved, the quality of the animation was never really in doubt — and the studio delivers once again.

Originally scheduled for release on Tuesday, October 20, Firestarter arrived as a surprise drop one day earlier, reportedly following leaks teasing the group’s return. The result is a spark that has already turned into a wildfire, with the music video surpassing 4.3 million views on YouTube alone in just nine hours.

It’s been a particularly busy year for Riot Games’ musical universe with three new songs released in less than a month. Heartsteel returned with Live My Life, True Damage made a comeback with Know My Name, marking a milestone for Riot’s virtual bands as the first to deliver a League of Legends Worlds anthem.

Add a collaboration with Pentakill on the orchestral Worlds theme, and K/DA were the last of Riot’s major virtual groups yet to re-enter the spotlight. Teasers released last week made it clear that the wait was almost over, and now the final piece of the musical puzzle is back in place.

A match made in animation Heaven

Fortiche’s signature hybrid approach, blending 3D CGI with hand-painted textures and hand-drawn 2D elements, gives Firestarter a visual identity that feels both real and ideal. The meticulous, almost obsessive details and hidden references are exactly what fans have come to expect from the studio. League players will easily recognize in-game abilities woven into the choreography — like Ahri’s charm or ult — yet these nods never feel forced or overwhelming to viewers unfamiliar with the game.

A music video this saturated with color could easily become visually exhausting, but Fortiche knows when to pull back. Brief, single-frame visual disruptions break up the dominant pink and orange palette, while infrared-inspired sections make the characters appear to radiate heat. Reflections shimmer in the oil-slick ground beneath the characters, and particles of light seem to bring the heat straight through the screen. Every frame feels planned, building toward a visual spectacle that reflects years of creative collaboration.

Catchy beats, fashion, and ballroom choreography

Musically, Firestarter knows exactly how to get under your skin. Built around a catchy rhythm and punchy rap sections, the track constantly plays with contrasts, breaking up its harder-hitting moments with melodic, almost ethereal, pre-choruses that make the chorus hit all the harder when it finally explodes. It is a satisfying build-up that keeps the song moving, balancing fiery attitude with melody and making the hook all the more contagious.

Beyond the animation, great visual composition extends to costumes and choreography. Every look reinforces the members’ personalities, each outfit worthy of high-fashion magazine covers — and it would hardly be surprising to see K/DA gracing those pages again. The choreography, meanwhile, seems inspired by drag ballroom culture, combining sharp poses, commanding gestures and theatrical flair into something utterly mesmerizing. It is bold, precise and unapologetically larger than life, the kind of performance that demands your attention even when everything else is already filling your senses.

With Firestarter, K/DA reminds us why they became one of the most recognisable virtual acts in pop culture. Riot Games and Fortiche have reunited to deliver a music video packed with visual ambition, while the track itself strikes a balance between fan service and mainstream appeal.

A cost-of-living crisis and worsening conditions in schools have kicked off a wave of protests across France, and as is tradition, some have taken advantage of the chaos and started looting stores.

The BBC reported that over 1,200 people were arrested during violence, with shop owners left to rebuild after fronts were smashed and stores looted. Through it all, one French video game store employee has gone viral for aura farming while defending the sanctity of his shop.

Warning, the following contains photos and videos containing real world violence.

Photos and videos on social media showed Pierre, a sales assistant at a Micromania branch in Nice, attempting to protect the doorway to his store as rioters harassed him. In one clip, he attempted to chase looters away but was kicked to the ground when he turned his back.

Asaltan una tienda de Micromania en Niza y agreden al dueño por intentar defenderla: https://t.co/kD8OgE2hWr

— Wall Street Wolverine (@wallstwolverine) October 17, 2026

"At one point, I just stood in front to keep people from getting inside — that’s all." Pierre told ICI. Despite his attempts to defend the store, it was looted and Pierre was struck in the face by projectiles.

"I can’t quite process what happened,” Pierre said. “That might come a bit later, once the dust has settled. I don’t think I should have done it, honestly. It was foolish. But in the moment, that’s what I did."

Since the incident, Pierre has received dozens of social media messages supporting his actions. Pierre said he appreciates the support, but pointed out that the protests are a symptom of real issues working people across the world are dealing with.

"It’s very kind of them to offer their support — to me, to all the shopkeepers, and to everyone else," he said. "We shouldn't forget that this kind of behavior is the exception, not the rule. Throughout the rest of the march, things went quite well. There are a few 'bad apples,' but they don't represent the majority."

Several other stores were affected by the bad apples, including JD Sports, Decathlon, and Foot Locker. A total of 15 businesses sustained damage, and 85 people were taken into police custody, 40 of whom are minors.

A fundraiser has been launched to help get the shop back up and running, sitting on just over 6,000 Euros at the time of writing. “Following the events and demonstrations this Saturday, the manager of our Micromania Jean Medecin in Nice unfortunately suffered damage and was cowardly attacked by groups of vandals, while bravely defending his shop,” the fundraiser stated.

“Behind every store, there are passionate people who dedicate themselves daily to welcoming us, advising us and sharing with us their love of video games. Today, it’s our turn to show him that the community is here to support him through this difficult time.” It isn’t clear whether the proceeds will go to Pierre or the store itself.

Google researchers have released a paper claiming that four Google Gemini 4 Argon AI agents just beat Minecraft without any help from humans. It took them just over 27 hours to take down the Ender Dragon in what is believed to be a world first.

Of course, it’s not as simple as just turning up and firing arrows at the thing. To reach The End and defeat the Ender Dragon in Minecraft, there are a series of trials you have to complete.

You have to get Ender Pearls, Ender Rods, and craft Eyes of Ender, before tracking down a Stronghold and completing a puzzle. This takes a fair bit of farming and requires you to work up through the basic Minecraft tools.

To start the test, Google placed a team of four agents into a random Minecraft seed with a goal of defeating the Ender Dragon. According to Google, the agents used in-game chat to coordinate but otherwise had no strategy assigned going in — just a goal.

"Each agent controlled a player via an open-source library called Mineflayer and coordinated with its teammates through in-game chat and shared memory," the researchers said. "No one assigned roles or wrote game logic. The agents planned, wrote, and debugged every program themselves. Researchers could watch the run on a live dashboard and pause or stop it at any time, but they had no cause to intervene."

The agents settled into roles quickly, with some building Enderman shelters for farming materials, others gathering food, and others focusing on exploration. They shared combat tips and helped each other recover lost gear when they died.

Over the playthrough, the four agents exchanged 229 messages, ran 2,783 programs, and died 605 times, which suggests worse performance than my kid when he was five. A fifth agent oversaw the process to make sure the other bots weren’t cheating, but you can tell they weren’t by how many times they died anyway.

It took around 13.5 hours to reach The End, and the remaining time was spent trying to kill the final boss (and dying a lot). The current Minecraft speedrun record is six minutes and 36 seconds, so the AI agents won’t be breaking any records any time soon. The agents used 1.35 billion input tokens, which would cost a normal user around $1,620. That’s $60 per hour, which works out at $15 an hour per agent. Not a bad salary for a group of computer ghosts who don’t need sustenance.

"To our knowledge, this is the first end-to-end autonomous completion of Minecraft by AI agents, achieved using only the standard Mineflayer library without pre-scouted seeds or other game-specific tools written by humans," the team wrote in a paper, via Engadget. "Winning required the agents to keep a coherent plan across thousands of dependent steps for more than a day."

What is the point of all this? The researchers said they wanted to study how teams of agents coordinate in a setting where every step is visible to help understand such systems before they are trusted with real-world tasks. "The skills required to solve Minecraft such as coordinating a team, recovering from failure, and pursuing a goal for more than a day, are also what agents need to work reliably alongside people," they said.

A modder has used AI to put Middle-earth: Shadow of War’s Nemesis System inside Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2.

The enRage mod, created by nicklovin99, tracks how individual enemies feel about you. This works largely the same way as Shadow of War's much-loved Nemesis System, creating rivalries on the fly and disrupting the ranks of rival gangs. And, like the Nemesis System, enRage names every single NPC in the game. Some like you, some fear you, and some want you dead.

It groups people by gangs, groups, and affiliations, so you’ve got the O’Driscoll Boys, Lemoyne Raiders, the U.S. Army, The Klan, the Wapiti people, the Bronte Family, the Murfee Brood, the Skinner Brothers, Van der Linde, and unaffiliated randoms. These are all tracked in a new menu.

When you kill an affiliated NPC, their status within the gang gets passed along to a new member in the organization. The Hierarchy menu page tracks every NPC in the game, and tells you how they feel about you.

Then there’s the X-ray page, which allows you to see NPC skeletons and what injuries they carry, with limping and paralysis showing up as possible health conditions on the mod trailer. You can injure an enemy and hold them at gunpoint to use a new interaction menu, forcing them to tell you about another member of their gang.

Like RimWorld, it also tracks interactions NPCs have with each other on another World page. It creates an illusion of the world moving on without you, with people adopting stray dogs, recovering from alcoholism, and starting new feuds with each other.

Each NPC also has traits, such as calm, sharp, introverted, and, of course, drunk. It also tracks their faith — or lack of it, don’t tell Dutch — and what they do for a living. These clashing ideologies cause gang wars that wage with or without your involvement, and you can step in to help out either side or take care of two in one. Annoy a gang enough and they’ll send hunting parties after Arthur, making every trip across the open world perilous — it’s fertile ground for systemic stories.

Early Access for the enRage mod is available now on Nexus Mods. nicklovin99 added a disclaimer to the mod's description, saying: "AI Transparency - Claude Code assisted in the creation of scripts and systems."

The last few weeks have seen an explosion in AI-generated video game modding, with some using the technology to port games to a browser, mash two existing games together, or even make new games using existing, popular IP. Video game companies have reacted by issuing DMCA takedowns, but some have also issued statements somewhat in support of what's happening.

And some even want a piece of the action. For example, last week, Xbox boss Asha Sharma announced Xbox Labs, a new initiative aimed at getting games on web browsers. It was seen as a reaction to the growing community of games getting improved versions ported into web browsers (like the 94fps browser version of Halo: Combat Evolved).

"In recent weeks, we’ve seen games rapidly decompiled and rebuilt to run on hardware they were never originally designed to support. Windows PC builds have been translated to run on Apple Silicon or ported to run inside a browser through WebAssembly and WebGPU, the latter now approaching 90% global browser support. Perhaps more surprisingly, we’ve seen many of the biggest games in the world have been remixed into the source code of another," Sharma said.

"These experiments challenge long-held assumptions about our industry: the tether between software and hardware, the boundary between creation and play, and how people discover and experience games. While it is hard to predict the future of gaming, it is easy to see the possibilities in making great games easier to access, giving old games new life and allowing more players to become creators and co-creators. These are unmistakably good outcomes for players, even when (and sometimes because) they challenge our existing business models."