As development on Dawn of War 4 gathers pace like the Waaagh! of a planet-cracking Ork stampede, we’re getting a better sense of exactly how the real-time strategy Warhammer 40,000 game will play. King Art Games has already published numerous gameplay videos showing off competitive multiplayer, which will be an important part of the game, but how, exactly, will the Space Marines work?

You know the Space Marines, right? The poster boys of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 tabletop are more often than not the stars of the show when it comes to video game adaptations. From the Ultramarines to the Space Wolves, the Space Marines have been leading the Warhammer 40,000 video game charge from day one. Indeed, the Dawn of War series' Blood Ravens, which were created by original developer Relic Entertainment, are now firmly entrenched within the Warhammer 40,000 canon as a legit chapter of Space Marines.

In Dawn of War 4 the Blood Ravens return, but this time they have help in the form of the Dark Angels and, briefly during the campaign, their primarch, Lion El'Jonson. In this exclusive interview with director Jan Theysen, we go into detail on how the Space Marines actually work in Dawn of War 4, explore some winning strategies, and find out what sets them apart from the Necrons, Orks, and the Adeptus Mechanics. We’ve also got a batch of exclusive screenshots showing off the Space Marines in all their glory, which you can view via the slideshow below.

IGN: How would you describe the Space Marine faction in terms of how it plays and how its different from the other factions at launch?

Jan Theysen: The Space Marines are definitely the most elite faction we have in the game. You control relatively few units that are pretty expensive, but also very good in what they're doing. You don't want to lose them. You want to protect your guys, you want to upgrade them. There are a lot of different equipments and abilities and so on. If you have your small, super well-equipped Space Marine Strike Force, you really want to care about it. So, especially in the early game, you really don't want to lose one of your units.

But the good news is that in the early game no other early game unit can defeat a Space Marine. They are the big boys. But also there are few. And so that is the challenge: wherever you are you are winning, but you are not everywhere.

IGN: What would you suggest as a good strategy for the Space Marines in multiplayer?

Jan Theysen: In Skirmish and in Multiplayer, it's very important in general to get out there quickly, to capture resource points and so on. But there's a little bit of a disadvantage for Space Marines, right? Because, compared to other factions, they can't quickly capture all the different points because you don't have that many units.

But whenever you see an enemy unit, you know you can probably kill it. So one good idea would be to go out there, maybe try to recapture enemy points pretty quickly because they can't get you off of the point easily again. Be aggressive and go after the enemy and only retreat if the enemy has like, two or maybe three units attacking you. You know that at some point you might think about retreating, or you might think about, just stand your ground, maybe auto heal your unit and wait until reinforcements appear, because that is also something you can do as Space Marines. You're relatively hard to kill. And so you can basically outlast even an overwhelming attack for some time, and wait or keep everybody occupied until the reinforcements arrive.

In general, the Space Marines can build anywhere on the map and they don't need a builder unit. They just call in the buildings from orbit. And so that is something you can keep in mind. You can maybe put some of your production buildings next to resource points, or almost build a little bit of a secondary base somewhere closer to the front line maybe, so that when you produce units they are already where you need them. And you can also produce units in reserve, which basically means that instead of producing the units and then having it on the battlefield already, you have the unit in orbit and can bring it down via Drop Pod or via Thunderhawk, which gives you a lot of flexibility. Because basically, if there is a surprise attack somewhere else, or if you spotted maybe a point that is not super well defended, you can just bring more units in and really quickly capture this point. These shock and awe tactics, so to speak, is really something that Space Marines excel at.

IGN: What are some of the little details you added to the Space Marines that players will notice?

Jan Theysen: A lot has to do with equipment and weapons. So when the Space Marines level up, you can give them better weapons, but not necessarily just a straight better weapon, but you can then start to specialise them. The Intercessors, for example, you can go for longer range or for more like an Auto Bolter, which fires faster. And you can push the units in a certain direction. And this is also true if you have something like a Dreadnought. Do you want a Dreadnought that's really strong against vehicles? Or do you want a Dreadnought that’s really strong against masses of infantry? And then you might pick a Gatling gun or you might pick a plasma gun. And so basically, Space Marines are super flexible.

To me they feel like in Dawn of War 1 where you had your units where you feel like, oh, these are my anti-infantry guys, and these are my whatever, and you build this little super specialised squad. Or maybe one or two units together. And then you have your hero killers or you have your vehicle destruction crew or something like that. And that is a lot of fun.

I think in general the Space Marines are probably one of the easier factions to play because you don't have that many units you have to control at any point. And since they're not that easy to kill, they forgive if you take a couple of seconds longer to realize that you're under attack. But on the other hand, if you then lose a couple of them, or if there's like a surprise attack from the enemy, it takes longer until you get back to full speed. Because not only do you have to buy a unit again if you lost a unit, but then you also have to upgrade them. And so you really want to make sure that you keep your units alive.

IGN: In terms of animation and design, how did you approach building the Space Marines so they don’t all run around looking like Buzz Lightyear?

Jan Theysen: I think we can all agree that Space Marines look badass, but this also comes with a lot of problems when you want to animate them, right? I mean, having these huge shoulders and having really restricted movement because of the armor and so on does not make your life easier. For the animators, it's figuring out how can we make sure that they feel right in terms of, they are very strong and they are very massive, but they are also very quick. Which is a little bit of a problem, right? Because if you have someone who's just very strong, but then very slow, you can easily communicate, okay, it's like a muscle mountain and usually slow but super strong. But you also want to make them quick, right? And so it's like, okay, if they're just stronger and quicker than everybody, then they are again kind of normal humans.

How can we communicate this strength? If a Space Marine fights an Ork, or they can also fight in our game a Guard in Multiplayer or in Skirmish, then you really see the difference. Then you really see, okay, how big a Space Marine is and how powerful a Space Marine is compared to other units.

And this was also one of the reasons why we actually start the game or the tutorial with the Guards. Because we wanted to set the baseline first. Like this is normal people, normal soldiers basically. And these are Space Marines, and this is how much better the Space Marines are. Because in the end, if everybody is like a super warrior then nobody is a super warrior.

IGN: What are the most powerful endgame Space Marine units?

Jan Theysen: In general, compared to other factions, the Space Marines do not have like this one super unit at the end. But they have a strong roster all the way through. They might even be a little bit focused on infantry because they have definitely a lot of different options there, including Terminators and Bladeguards and Eliminators, so very different kinds of infantry.

But then at some point you get the Dreadnoughts, which are already nice, but then you get the tanks. We have the Gladiator in two different versions: the Lancer and the Reaper. And then we have the Redemptor Dreadnought, which is the biggest tank in the game and also one of the biggest units in the game.

But compared to, let's say, an Imperial Knight, which is what the Ad Mech gets, they are not on the same level because they are still meant to be like a unit that you use in normal battles basically, or like in normal situations. So you might have two or three Reapers, you might have two or so Redemptor Dreadnoughts, and then you have your little tank strike force there. So it's not like this, okay, you have one of those, and this is like super special, right?

IGN: Which characters are available for the Space Marines and how do they work?

Jan Theysen: The Space Marines actually have the most characters and also the most playable characters. We have two Blood Ravens and two Dark Angel characters in the game. The Blood Ravens are Cyrus, who is basically a sniper / infiltrator who can hide, and he has a very long range weapon and a lot of stuff that revolves around hiding and scouting. Then we have Jonah Orion, who is a Librarian. He, of course, has a lot of different spells and stuff he can do to AOE attack.

Then we have for the Dark Angels, Astoran, who is a Captain in Terminator armor. He is the tankiest of the commanders we have in the game. You can equip him offensively, defensively, range, melee, so he's really, really flexible. But he is always super tanky. If you put him in a group with Bladeguards or other Terminators, that's definitely a brick that's hard to kill. And then lastly we have Ezrael, who is a Chaplain on Bike. And his main thing is, first of all, he's fast because he's an Outrider, but also, he can buff and motivate, so to speak, people around him. So he's very good at making others around him fight better. But he's also really a good character for just quick interventions. Because again, as a Space Marine, you have the problem that you can't be everywhere at once, right? So attach him to a unit of Outriders and have him as a fire brigade — something is burning, go figure it out. He's very, very useful for that.

IGN: Since the last time we spoke the game was pushed back to December. What are you now able to achieve that you wouldn't have been able to otherwise?

Jan Theysen: It's not like the one big thing we still wanted to do, right? It's more like there are a bunch of different things that we got from feedback from playtests and so on, where we felt like, oh yeah, that would be good to have it, it would be nice. Also, sometimes things we said, okay, we're probably not going to put it in the launch version, but then, that's definitely a we should do later on.

And then when we talked about, okay, do we want to launch in September or December? We basically said, okay, if we start in December or, you know, late November for the preorder guys, we could just put a lot more of these nice to have, should haves, and so on into the game and also, of course, just polish everything more in terms of performance and visuals.

And, as you know, this September is very busy. So a lot of things came together. We basically said, okay, this is probably the right decision because in the end, it's less than three months later, but we think the game is a lot better because of it.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 launches on PC on December 3, 2026.

Grand Theft Auto 5 was made playable in a browser before it was pulled offline, amid an explosion of AI-fueled games across the internet.

Footage of GTA 5 running in a browser spread via social media yesterday, though the game's website is now offline — with reports that hosting service Cloudflare stepped in to intervene.

This latest development follows last week's cease and desist sent by Bethesda to block the AI-generated Fallout: New York fan project, which was also made playable via a PC browser. That game had been built by Claude Opus 5.5, and it seems likely that the PC build of GTA 5 was compiled similarly.

GTA 5 is now playable on web browser

Here I am playing GTA 5 on chrome https://t.co/W7L7qfuI2Z

— Pixel Gamer 4k (@4k_isn) October 6, 2026

The owner of the GTA 5 browser website is now asking "Who wants the source code?" https://t.co/pEs6lLSXhP

— Pixel Gamer 4k (@4k_isn) October 6, 2026

Last week, IGN reported on the original Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved, which was made available to play in a web browser. This is not a port of Bungie’s seminal 2001 first-person shooter, rather the original Xbox game running in your browser.

There's no doubting the popularity of these AI-built clones or derivative games, with images and gameplay videos being shared widely on social media alongside impressed responses from fans. But the owners of these franchises such as Rockstar and Bethesda will inevitably take a dim view of what they will likely see as piracy — particularly in the case of GTA 5's port.

Still, it remains to be seen exactly how the rapid progress of AI will be checked — or how AI-generated versions of popular games will be policed in future, beyond publishers simply playing whack-a-mole as popular examples pop up.

AI is making what was traditionally a painstaking process of reverse-engineering and recompilation significantly faster, which has prompted some to wonder about the future of commercial video game development. Why buy a Switch 2 if you can have AI generate a clone of one of Nintendo's exclusives for free in your browser?

Others, though, have pointed out that none of the "game-merging" mods or clones display any creativity or present any new ideas, rather take existing popular video games and either mash them together or simply replicate what is already playable better elsewhere.

The question for Rockstar and parent company Take-Two now is, how long will it take for GTA 6 to be made playable in a browser, and what can it do to stop it?

Ubisoft will attempt to relaunch Watch Dogs: Legion next year via a revamped Director's Cut, it's been reported.

Legion launched back in 2020 to a somewhat tepid reaction, and the once-promising franchise has subsequently been rested, with no all-new game believed to be in development. But there is a push to do more with Legion early next year, Insider Gaming has reported — something that IGN has also heard through its own sources.

Watch Dogs: Legion divided fans by ditching the series' single-protagonist focus, and instead allowing you to play as any NPC from its virtual recreation of post-Brexit London. In practice, though, that meant playing as one of various archetypes (builder, hooligan, spy) who could be killed off if you failed missions.

Later DLC added Watch Dogs 1's Aiden Pearce and Watch Dogs 2's Wrench as playable characters, before an Assassin's Creed expansion attempted to reignite interest with a fun but non-canonical crossover featuring a descendant of Assassin's Creed Syndicate's Jacob and Evie Fry.

What could Watch Dogs: Legion Director's Cut contain? It seems likely to expect the above content to be included from the off, and perhaps more of a focus on the series' more recognizable faces, rather than that ability to play as anyone — but time will tell.

Watch Dogs: Legion creative director Clint Hocking abruptly parted ways with Ubisoft earlier this year, despite being in the middle of leading development on Assassin's Creed Hexe. Subsequently, Hocking said the experience of leading a large team within Ubisoft had been like working while "flaming barrels [are] falling down from a construction site," akin to a scene from the arcade game Donkey Kong.

This month, Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot acknowledged the fact that Watch Dogs hadn't been named alongside its other major franchises as a focus for the company following its recent restructure, but said it was still considered "an important brand for the future." In the meantime, it remains unclear what is happening with the long-planned Watch Dogs movie project that wrapped production two years ago and had reshoots last year, but still lacks a release date.

Following the launch of Halo: Campaign Evolved, Halo Studios has put out a blog post detailing plans for the future of Master Chief’s story. It’s an interesting look at where the series might have gone, prior to the recent announcement that Activision is now the shepherd of the Halo series.

The next Halo game was reportedly still years away, but the blog post, penned by Halo franchise writer Alex Wakeford, gives us a peek behind the curtain with hints about the studio’s plans, but also an attempt at canonizing a story that’s been told through games, remakes, books, and TV. You can check out the blog post for its list of retcons and continuity clarifications.

While the majority of the blog was written prior to the Xbox reshuffle, when Halo Studios thought the series was still in its hands, there are addendums written prior to the news breaking. At one point, Wakeford joked that you’ll have to wait until next week to find out more about the Sacristan Order, before dropping a note: “This joke sure took on new dimensions after last week's news.”

Elsewhere, Wakeford talked about the next novel by Troy Denning, titled Halo: Fireteam Noble. “Many have been asking whether this novel will still be releasing,” Wakeford said. “To this we can say that it is absolutely our intent to see this project cross the finish line. Troy has written a fantastic story and a good chunk of the editorial process has been conducted.”

Another novel, Halo: Burn the Road Home, written by senior franchise writer at Halo Studios, Kenneth Peters, is also in the works, though its future is as uncertain as Fireteam Noble. There’s no word on whether preorders will get a refund if the projects don’t make it over the line.

We also have official art of the Primordial, by Sam Wood. The Primordial would go on to become the Gravemind from Halo 2. "A creature of horrifying providence and intent known by many names — the Timeless One, the Primordial, and eventually the Gravemind," Wakeford said. "This twisted progeny of the Precursors was executed by Bornstellar through the use of a timelock on Gyre 11, reducing its form to dust by subjecting it to the passage of millions of years in mere moments. But the Primordial's experiments had borne fruit. Having infected itself with the Flood, the consciousness of this strange being passed into the parasite's hive mind where it is awakened whenever the Flood successfully form a compound intelligence."

Perhaps the most interesting bit of information for Halo lore fans comes at the end of the blog post with a tease of the Xalanyn, children of Abaddon. "THE ENDLESS EMERGE," Wakeford declared. "And finally, as is tradition, we’ll leave you with something that hopefully sparks your imagination and lets your canon curiosities run wild with endless questions."

The Xalanyn are an advanced race of immortal beings whose members were imprisoned by the Forerunners. The suggestion here is Halo 7, or whatever Halo Studios' now scrapped next Halo game would have been called, would have revealed more of the mysterious overarching antagonists.

The concept art is very cool and makes me a bit sad that Halo will probably never see them. It’s about time Halo got some new enemies to chew through. Instead, Halo will probably become Xbox’s Call of Duty (let’s pretend Call of Duty isn’t Xbox’s Call of Duty, for the sake of argument).

Halo Studios’ final game in the series was released globally on July 28, 2026, with IGN’s Halo: Campaign Evolved review praising the “gunplay that revolutionized first-person console games” which makes it still “worth playing today.” The game was a testbed for a switch to the Unreal Engine, following a middling launch for Halo Infinite, which used the studio’s proprietary Slipspace Engine.

Yesterday, people at Ninja Theory announced layoffs following the Xbox reshuffle that resulted in the studio closing down. Staff at Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition are also reportedly expecting layoffs, despite positive reviews of the studio’s latest game.

Don't hold your breath for a new Watch Dogs game anytime soon.

As reported by Game File, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was asked by an investor about the future of the Watch Dogs franchise. The CEO noted that Ubisoft considers the IP "to be an important brand for the future" but neglected to explain how. Game File's Stephen Totilo stated that Guillemot suggested that there are no Watch Dogs games in active development at the moment, which suggests Ubisoft may still be figuring out where to take the series from here.

There is a Watch Dogs movie on the horizon, but there's no word on when it will be released. The film wrapped production two years ago and had reshoots last year, but there hasn't been any sort of meaningful promotion for the film to date. As of right now, it doesn't even have a release date, which makes it even more of a mystery.

Watch Dogs made its debut back in 2014, though it was initially meant to launch simultaneously with the PS4 in November 2013. Ubisoft hyped it up as a direct competitor to Grand Theft Auto 5, which released in September 2013. Unfortunately, many felt it was unable to reach some of its ambitions, but it still managed to make a dent in the open-world crime genre. Two years later, Ubisoft launched a much more impressive sequel set in San Francisco, but failed to keep the momentum going with its third installment.

Watch Dogs: Legion was released in 2020, also boasting ambitious ideas, such as the ability to control any NPC in the world. Unfortunately, the game received generally mixed reception from fans. Since then, there have been a lot of question marks around the future of the franchise. It seems Ubisoft wants to do more with Watch Dogs, but it may be trying to figure out how it can separate itself from a game like Grand Theft Auto 6, which is set to shake up the genre in November.

There may be more Watch Dogs games one day, but don't expect them within the next few years.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's ambitious new extraction mode, DMZ, has received a massive deep dive from Infinity Ward.

DMZ was initially introduced in 2022's Modern Warfare II, and now, with the rise in popularity of extraction shooters, it is coming back in a bigger way. The mode is expected to be a major part of Modern Warfare 4's offerings, with its own 70-level progression system, lucrative rewards, and world building/lore. Additionally, there will be a forward operating base for players to hang out in between matches. Here, players can practice at a firing range to test their loadouts, craft items based on loot they've found in the world, gain intel and track different missions, bosses, and unique challenges for their next deployment, and more.

Speaking in a new behind-the-scenes video, Infinity Ward co-studio head Jack O'Hara stated that fans made it clear that there weren't high enough stakes in the first iteration of DMZ, so they've worked to change that. For starters, your time in DMZ is defined by your operator. This is a character that you build and level up, but if they die, it will cost you to bring them back. There are also lootable items that can be permanently lost if the player dies or drops them. These items can be used at a 3D printer to craft things like armor plates, consumables, gear, and seemingly killstreaks or AI-controlled fire support, based on a menu seen in some gameplay.

The team behind DMZ also described it as an "action extraction shooter." Infinity Ward wants players to feel like there is constant danger both through AI combatants, bosses, and other players, so you won't spend a ton of time wandering around opening boxes with minimal friction. Infinity Ward laid out a plethora of different enemy types in a blog post, noting that there will be drones, helicopter and vehicle patrols, tanks, and tougher enemies.

Different parts of the map will have different threat levels, and those levels can rise based on the player's actions. If you're running around causing a bunch of noise, it will create more attention and lead to enemies searching for you. However, if you play stealtihly with silenced weapons, melee takedowns, and exercise caution, you can avoid extreme conflict. Additionally, the more players explore, the more opportunities there will be to uncover loot and secrets in the game's world.

Infinity Ward has also promised extensive support for DMZ post-launch, including changes to the map, dynamic weather that can vary per season, and much more. It sounds like a big focus for the team and it should be a really cool change for Call of Duty. Hopefully it sticks and isn't dropped next year, but that will likely depend on if players show up to support it.

DMZ will be available at launch when Modern Warfare 4 releases on October 23. Unlike MWII's version, it will not be free-to-play.

New Final Fantasy 7 Revelation footage has revealed a hot springs feature that boosts the party's health and gives them a set of new bathing suit skins.

Half the fun of Square Enix's remake trilogy is allowing Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and the rest of the party to have some fun on their way to stop Sephiroth once and for all. In Rebirth, that meant spending a day at the beach, and in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, players will be able to kick their feet up, mingle, and, for some reason, balance rubber Chocobos at a collection of new hot springs.

The publisher unveiled the new gameplay feature as part of SDCC Málaga and later shared gameplay footage on social media. When the group stops at a hot spring, they'll benefit from a permanent increase to their max HP. The health bonus and moments shared between each character seem to be the real draw. The thing that might appeal to some players more than others, though, is the promise that the bathing suit outfits featured during these segments can be unlocked as skins, too.

【名湯めぐりの旅🐤】

冒険の合間に、ほっとひと息。

#FF7リベレーション のワールドマップに隠された温泉スポット♨旅の仲間たちとのここでしか聞けない特別な会話が楽しめます。さらに最大HPアップの効果や衣装スキンが手に入ることも https://t.co/S41hqabFqp

— ファイナルファンタジーVII リメイク (@FFVIIR_CLOUD) October 5, 2026

Across all of the clips shown online today, we can see skins for Cloud, Barret, and Cid. Red XIII can relax in the hot springs, too, but considering he's not usually wearing clothes to begin with, it doesn't look like any skin he may get will change his appearance too much. Then, there's newly playable party member Vincent Valentine, who prefers to bathe in the same slick get-up he fights monsters in because he's… just that cool, I guess.

"We’re sharing a preview of some of the hot spring events revealed during our stage presentation at SDCC Málaga," director Naoki Hamaguchi said in a follow-up post on X/Twitter. "Each hot spring offers a different glimpse into the characters’ everyday lives, and the outfits featured in these events can also be unlocked as skins. Explore the world, discover hot springs, and enjoy these special moments with your companions!"

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is still months from delivering the concluding chapter of the remake trilogy, but that hasn't stopped Square Enix from unloading new details as often as it can manage. Hamaguchi has been especially keen to share, telling IGN last month that players will have an option to automatically level up their characters if they want to skip the grind. He's also said players could easily spend more than 100 hours playing through the story, even if the Platinum Trophy doesn't present much of a challenge on its own.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches for PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S April 8, 2027. While we wait to see how those hot springs heat things up for Cloud and company, you can see how Hamaguchi responded to players hoping for a full-disc release. You can also check out IGN's hands-on preview.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance studio co-founder Martin Klima is "bored and tired" of RPGs that are just "power fantasy" trips "for teenagers."

The Warhorse Studios developer shared his thoughts about his least favorite kind of RPG during an interview with PC Gamer. Kingdom Come: Deliverance has received praise for straying from the beaten path in the past, and Klima's comments suggest that's no accident.

He admitted that the role-playing genre is one he enjoys. What he doesn't enjoy are the RPGs that set the player up to be "the chosen one" with a "grand task of saving the universe." It's a straightforward set-up that he's "bored and tired" of seeing, calling these kinds of experiences "repetitive."

"It's really a distillation of what the common RPG is," Klima said. "So, I found that there must be many, many people who are really tired of this formula and who want something new and different."

He continued: "The games that were and sort of are being made are still the games for teenagers. If you are 16, 17, you love playing these power fantasy games because it's something that you need. But the audience is much older today … everybody's going to think that I am hating on Expedition 33 right now, but that's definitely not the case."

There is no doubt a section of RPG fans who would agree with Klima's assessment. The question, though, remains: Why? He believes a reliance on strategies and designs that have worked in the past is to blame, saying major publishers are "best at recycling the same formula over and over."

Ubisoft is one of the more specific examples that came to mind. He called the "craftsmanship" of the publisher's games "excellent," pointing out that its games are mostly free of bugs and feature standout animations and character models. He'd prefer if that same level of craftsmanship was used on more innovative ideas, even if he doesn't have "any easy answers" for a company that could be taking financial risks when experimenting at that level.

"I played the original Assassin's Creed, and the original Far Cry, and the original Watch Dogs, and most of these games in the first iterations, and it was fun," he added. "But once you play the same game for the 10th time, it sort of becomes stale."

Klima recently commented on how he hopes GTA 6 will be able to "blaze a trail" for increased game prices. IGN reviewed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 when it came out last year and gave it a 9/10.

While Gears of War: E-Day is a beautiful game, it's incredibly demanding, whether you're playing it on the Xbox Series X or on PC. But, The Coalition was able to work some magic on the Xbox Series S by tapping into the SSD to increase performance.

The Coalition's studio technical director Kate Raynor talked to Digital Foundry and described tapping into the SSD while the Series S was out of memory. That's important for a game as demanding as Gears of War: E-Day, as the Xbox Series S only has 10GB of RAM, rather than the 16GB on the Series X.

Offloading data from the RAM to an SSD is nothing new. Your computer does it all the time when you run out of memory. What happens then is that the computer relies on the Page File, a dedicated block of storage on your SSD or hard drive that's used to hold overflow data. The problem with relying on that typically, though, is that SSDs are way slower than RAM, which is why your computer slows to a halt whenever it has to lean on the Page File.

The key for Gears of War: E-Day, then, was strategically choosing which data to offload to the SSD, and which data to keep in the faster system memory. According to Digital Foundry, The Coalition got around this by prioritizing data that wasn't used "in a frame or over a run of frames," while data that's constantly needed stays in RAM.

This approach does have its limits, though, and will degrade performance over time if the page file is refreshed into memory too often – as that does have a performance cost on its own. But, with this memory trick and dropping Lumen reflections, The Coalition was able to get Gears of War: E-Day running pretty well on the Xbox Series S. Hopefully, more developers are able to adopt this approach going forward, because I have a feeling that the cheaper hardware in the Xbox Series X is going to be more necessary as the RAM crisis carries on.

Gears of War: E-Day launched last week into early access, and has some pretty big changes over past games. But, still, The Coalition is proud that Gears of War: E-Day is now one of Xbox's main exclusives.

Solid Snake's Japanese voice and motion capture actor is keen to return for a new game, though feels conflicted about any fresh entry without the involvement of creator Hideo Kojima.

In an interview with Bunshun (translated by IGN), Snake actor Akio Otsuka reminisced about his deep attachment to the Metal Gear series and keen desire for Konami to make another entry — which may come as a surprise for Japanese fans of the series. Famously, Otsuka previously said he wouldn’t make a new game sans Kojima — a quote that spread around the franchise's Japanese fandom after the Konami/Kojima split.

Reflecting on that and his bond with the series' creator, Otsuka said: "My job as a voice actor is to do what I’m told. But when it comes to the Metal Gear series, it was created by Kojima, and I take pride in having helped bring it to life.

"So I [previously] said, 'I don’t want to do a Metal Gear that doesn’t involve Kojima.' Now I've said that, I can't take it back," he said.

Given Konami and Hideo Kojima’s far from amicable split, it seems pretty unlikely that Kojima will ever helm a MGS game again. When asked whether Otsuka had told Kojima that he’d like the Death Stranding director to make a new Metal Gear game, Otsuka simply replied: "I'll leave that to your imagination."

Looking back over his years of voicing Snake, Otsuka recalled that Solid Snake's famous "Kept you waiting, huh?" ("mataseta na") line was actually an adlib during the Japanese language recording. "It was subsequently used in ads too," Otsuka added, with David Hayter’s English rendition of the line becoming equally iconic.

Otsuka also recalled how surreal it was to have his real-life father, voice actor Chikao Otsuka, voicing Big Boss in MGS4’s finale, while Otsuka himself provided the performance capture. "When I arrived on set, my father's eyes widened at the sight of me in the motion capture suit, and he asked with surprise, 'Am I actually going to be voicing you?' It was rather amusing."

Otsuka expressed much fondness and empathy for Kojima throughout the interview. "He went through so many difficulties after leaving Konami yet managed to finish making this major game," Otsuka said, referring to the creator's subsequent project, Death Stranding. "After all, if Death Stranding had failed he could have easily ended up with debts that he wouldn't have been able to pay off even if he continued working for the rest of his life… So when the game was finished and they announced its release, I burst into tears."

Otsuka has also previously expressed support for former members of Kojima's team still working at Konami, who for various reasons did not jump ship to Kojima’s new company Kojima Productions. In an MGS cutscene-worthy bit on his Nameless Mouse podcast back in June 2023, Otsuka emphasized that, "I want the fans to understand this. I don't want them [the remaining MGS staff at Konami] to be made out to be villains. The people who stayed at Konami were part of the crew on Kojima's ship. These people, who inherited the director's legacy, want to protect Metal Gear."

Just as David Hayter is commonly held up by MGS fans as the definitive English voice of Snake (despite his controversial replacement by Kiefer Sutherland in MGS5), Otsuka's performance holds similar significance for Japanese fans. "I certainly have a deep attachment to Snake," Otsuka concluded. "After all, to the [Japanese] fans, Snake will always be Akio Otsuka, regardless of what happened between Kojima and Konami. When I think of the fans… well I'm really caught in the middle.”

While Kojima may be busy for the foreseeable future working on new projects O.D. and Physint, Konami clearly still has an interest in Metal Gear — something that may well lead to an all-new entry in future. Last year's successful Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater reused Otsuka’s original performance from 2006's MGS3: Subsistence. However, it seems that the actor might be open to working on a new Metal Gear Solid, should Konami choose to make more than just remasters and remakes of the groundbreaking stealth series.

Magic: The Gathering booster packs have gone through a lot of changes in the last decade, some of which have been awful. But Wizards of the Coast is introducing 'God Packs' to MTG, which could feel like winning the lottery.

Everyone who plays TCGs knows the rush you get when you open a booster with a better spread of rares and mythics than usual. Right now, in a Play Booster, that usually means getting between two and four rares and mythics, and it feels incredible when it happens. But in a blog post, Wizards is taking that feeling a step further by announcing 'God Packs,' which will be entirely comprised of rares and mythics.

Both Play Boosters and Collector Boosters will have a chance to be a god pack, with Collector Boosters naturally being way more likely to hit gold. Approximately 1 in 1,000 Play Boosters will be God Packs, and 1 in 300 Collector Boosters will be God Packs.

God Packs will have their loot distributed differently between Play and Collector boosters, too. For Play boosters, you'll get one special 'God Pack celebration card' – whatever that means – along with 10 non-foil Rares and Mythics. Then, there will be two non-foil 'Booster Fun' variants (think showcase and borderless cards), along with two foil 'Booster Fun' cards.

For Collector Boosters, though, you'll get one foil land, 3 foil default frame rares and/or mythics, 3 non-foil 'Booster Fun' variants, and 5 foil 'Booster Fun' variants. On top of these rare God Packs, though, Wizards says in its blog, "while we're at it, we're also increasing the drop rates on foil rare and mythic rare cards across booster packs" in order to make them more fun to open.

But it can't all be fun and games; Wizards is also removing things from boosters, like foil commons and uncommons from play boosters altogether. It's also trimming the amount of cards in Collector Boosters down to 12, by removing 3 of the foil common and uncommon slots.

Wizards claims that these changes will make opening Collector Boosters more meaningful, saying in its blog:

"How does removing cards make opening Collector Boosters more exciting? We'll be honest here—it doesn't. But we do know that most people who open Collector Boosters mostly skip past these cards. Not everyone, but enough of a majority. You can see it in virtually any Collector Booster opening video, where the video practically skips over that section of the booster. Removing them isn't about shrinking the experience; it's about making room—in terms of both printing capacity and player psychology—for cards people actually get excited about."

There are a lot of people who skip through their commons and uncommons when cracking a lot of packs, hell I do it sometimes. But there are enough commons and uncommons that see constructed play and already jump in price – just look at Aetherdrift's Stock Up – that I could see removing these uncommon slots having unforseen consequences.

Either way, these booster changes will go live when Nauctis: The Sunken Realm, and will carry over to every in-universe set going forward. As for Universes Beyond, those sets will get these new booster changes starting in 2028.

Hollywood is mining Arc Raiders and The Finals for its next big video game adaptations, as the two franchises will be turned into films and TV shows.

Per Variety, Nexon, the parent company of developer Embark Studios, will team up with a production company known as Chernin Entertainment to develop adaptations of Arc Raiders and The Finals. As of right now, it sounds like the teams are exploring all possible options, which include TV shows and films. This will be done to help expand the worlds of these games that "reward the passion" of the players, according to Nexon.

“ARC Raiders and The Finals are exactly the kind of opportunities we’ve been building towards at Chernin Entertainment: ambitious global IP with the potential to become major franchises across film and television,” said David Ready, president of film at Chernin Entertainment. “Nexon and Embark have created visually stunning, atmospheric worlds that contain countless stories to tell. We’re honored they’ve trusted us to unite our film and television teams to tell those stories.”

Embark Studios says it will work directly with Chernin Entertainment to develop these adaptations, ensuring there is respect paid to the worlds and lore that fans have fallen in love with over the years. As of right now, there are no release dates or specifics for these projects, so they are likely still years away from materializing.

Arc Raiders was one of the biggest games of 2025, but it has lost some steam in recent months due to a lack of steady updates with significant content. Later this month, Embark plans to test a PvE mode in the game, allowing players to enjoy a more cooperative experience without fear of being gunned down by other players. The studio emphasized that there's no guarantee that this mode will become permanent, but it is exploring the option following demand from players.

NBA 2K25 is being delisted after just two years, and players will soon no longer be able to play the game's single player story mode.

Launched back in September 2024, NBA 2K25 is the latest NBA game that is being pulled from digital stores. 2K will be pulling the game from purchase starting on October 30, 2026. Additionally, online servers will be shut down on January 1, 2027. As a result, the game's multiplayer modes and MyCareer, the game's single-player story mode, will become unplayable. MyCareer is linked to the game's online capabilities, as progression and the game's virtual currency are all dependent on a connection to the servers. If there are no servers, the mode becomes unplayable.

Those who purchase NBA 2K25 before October 30 will be able to freely download the game and play offline modes whenever they want. You can read 2K's statement on the matter below.

"As of January 1, 2027, you'll no longer be able to play multiplayer games or access any online game modes. MyCAREER and MyTEAM will no longer be available, and it will no longer be possible to earn Virtual Currency (VC). While you will still be able to enjoy Play Now, MyNBA, The W, and MyWNBA, any features that require a connection to 2K servers will be unavailable. This includes multiplayer, Online Leagues, and community sharing."

Although it's not uncommon for much older games to have their servers shut down, 2K has been delisting and killing recent NBA games in the last few years. While there's likely a very small percentage of players playing these titles anyway since the player base often moves to the current game, it is a disappointing move. It forces players to move to the new games, regardless if they want to or not. Although most sports games have modest iterations with each new entry, some titles remove features and modes, meaning some legacy content is outright non-existent anymore.

If you were a fan of NBA 2K's standalone All-Star Team-Up mode, that is no longer accessible because previous versions of the game were delisted and taken offline. It also means a lot of your effort in MyCareer is rendered somewhat useless since it has an expiration date. However, given fans keep buying the series, it doesn't seem to be hurting the franchise.

Fortnite has quietly replaced a piece of in-game artwork after fans spotted its original version contained a Google Gemini AI watermark.

Epic Games added the music track "Meow" by Ironmouse, Sleeping Forest & HalaCG to Fortnite last month, with the telltale Gemini watermark in the track artwork's bottom right corner. This lay mostly unnoticed until last weekend, when its wider discovery prompted something of a minor kerfuffle on social media and Reddit.

As of this morning, however, this artwork has been replaced with an alternate version (with no Gemini watermark). But after closer inspection, it's worth pointing out that the Gemini usage was present in the track list's original art that Epic Games simply incorporated in-game. Go check the track on Spotify, and the Gemini mark is there, too. In other words, the Gemini usage here is the fault of whoever made the track art initially — not Epic Games.

So, why the switcheroo? AI-generated artwork in Fortnite is a contentious subject for fans who have pointed to previous dubious examples such as an in-game poster featuring a nine-toed character in a hammock to suggest that Epic Games was resorting to poor-quality AI work rather than using human designers. A more recent, official developer video then pulled back the curtain on Epic Games' AI use, showcasing how the company experiments with AI in the conceptual phase when creating characters and in-game locations.

All of that said, Epic Games has always shied away from strictly confirming any particular in-game art is AI generated, and has maintained at least a veneer of quality over the evergreen battle royale it continually toils to keep popular. To date, there hasn't been anything quite as egregious as Call of Duty's embarrassing and grotesque six-fingered Santa.

The fact that Epic Games has made the switch here is, if anything, a positive sign that it does not want to openly show artwork featuring obvious AI elements, such as that Gemini watermark, in Fortnite.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, Disney stated that its rumored desire to buy Epic Games was not something it was planning to act on — at least right now.

One of my favorite games of this year, Resident Evil Requiem, has been discounted to $50 at Amazon across PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X ahead of the retailer's Prime Big Deal Days sale. Not only does this mark a new low price for the game on PS5 and Xbox Series X (and a return to its lowest price on Switch 2), but it's also cheaper than where we saw it during June's Prime Day sale event earlier this year. That's an awesome savings surprise.

Unlike the previous deal, this one isn't exclusive to Prime members. So, if you're not signed up, you can take advantage of these discounts for each platform while they're still available on Amazon.

Score Resident Evil Requiem for $50

Diablo 2 is already a game you could lose thousands of hours to, but what if you could truly lose yourself in the world via VR? Well, a modder found a way to translate the isometric ARPG to a first-person VR game.

Reddit user fantasticauthor2736 created the mod, using an existing 3D conversion mod, FlatVR and BodyWalk. While the mod itself hasn't been published quite yet, there are a few videos of it in action, and while it doesn't look like a fully polished VR game yet, it does seem like a cool way to play the game.

All of the videos posted so far, though, have been in the first couple zones of Diablo 2, and while they haven't shown any particularly intense combat so far, it's easy to see how it works in theory. You just point your motion controller at an enemy and shoot fireballs at them. Easy enough.

The modder was also able to redesign the UI a bit, too. They moved the inventory to the belt, but the rest of the UI has been moved to the left wrist, where you can see health, mana and the toolbar. And, if you want to pull up the map, it looks like you just summon it as an orb that you hold in your hand. That's less ideal than the overlay map in the standard game, but I can imagine that'd make it hard to actually play in VR.

On the surface, it's hard to imagine how this even works, but it builds on the mod D2R-3D by emmericp, which just gives Diablo 2 some more robust camera controls. You see, while most people will see Diablo 2 as a 2D isometric game, it's actually all 3D. As emmericp explains in a YouTube video, all the assets necessary for a 3D view of Diablo 2 Resurrected are already in the game, it's just a matter of rendering it from the right point of view. Just keep in mind, that in the process of doing this, you won't be able to play the game without it crashing after about a minute.

To do that, he had to change the way projectiles were calculated, along with lighting and shadow effects to work properly when you're zoomed in. But once all the math is out of the way, there are still some bugs, like item names floating high in the sky, and targeting simply not working with mouse and keyboard.

The biggest problem, though, is that the D2R-3D mod will flag Blizzard's file integrity checker, which will crash the game after about a minute of playing it. He does explain that there is a workaround, but it involves using programs that could theoretically allow players to cheat, so he doesn't detail those.

Fantasticauthor2736's mod, then, takes the D2R-3D mod and then further converts it to a VR game, using FlatVR, and then uses BodyWalk to let you use your body's movement to control your character's movement. But, even when the mod is released, it will likely have the same restrictions as D2R-3D, in that it'll likely crash the game after about a minute. After all, Diablo 2: Resurrected does require an online connection, and because these mods change the code in the game, there's no way to get around a crash without downloading sketchy software.

Still, it's one of the coolest Diablo 2 mods I've seen, and just makes me want a Diablo game that I can play on the Steam Frame. Diablo 2 has also been on the top of people's minds as we move towards Diablo 5. Game Director Joe Shely has promised a return to more methodical gameplay made famous by Diablo 2, and Path of Exile's Chris Wilson is hopeful that Blizzard's next ARPG will take more inspiration from the second game, as well.

Last month, Xbox announced its intention to close Hellblade developer Ninja Theory, after two deals to save the company didn’t pan out. Now we’re starting to see the consequences of that decision as people at the studio post on job site LinkedIn, spotted by journalist Chris Kerr.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to write this because Ninja Theory was never just a job to me,” gameplay programmer Katrin Mair said. “After four years, it’s hard to put into words how much this place and the people in it have meant to me.

“What I’ll remember most is how much people cared. About the work, about the details, and about each other. I feel very lucky that this was the place where I got to start my career and grow into the programmer I am today. It’s incredibly sad knowing that we won’t get to finish what we were working on. So much care, talent and effort went into it, and I really wish we’d had the chance to see what it could have become.”

Mair moved to the U.K. to work at Ninja Theory. Elsewhere, technical director Loong-Wei Ding is among those affected, with his leaving post calling for other studios to pick up his Ninja Theory colleagues.

Expert technical sound designer Alessio Mellina is also at risk of redundancy after 12 years with the studio working on the industry-leading binaural audio that powered Hellblade’s haunting whispers. “As the only Technical Sound Designer here, I've been the owner of most of our dynamic audio systems on recent projects,” he said.

Performance capture expert Xoe Suvari has also been let go. “Hundreds of shoot days,” he said. “Hours and hours of data. Sweat and bruises from set builds. New pipelines and the never ending battle of naming conventions. I saw my team grow at work and as people, and together we built a performance capture stage that was truly top of its class.”

All of the posts talk about their colleagues, suggesting layoffs are widespread throughout the studio. In June, at an Xbox Games Showcase event, Microsoft announced Senua, the third game in the Hellblade series. It’s widely speculated that the trailer was intended to increase interest with potential buyers of Ninja Theory, since Microsoft would have known at this point that it had no plans to publish the title.

Last month, Microsoft announced that the next mainline Halo game will be developed by Call of Duty maker Activision, with mass layoffs hitting Halo Studios. Xbox has moved Age of Empires developer World's Edge and Sea of Thieves developer Rare under the Activision umbrella.

Outside Activision, Obsidian, developer of Grounded and The Outer Worlds is now a Bethesda studio, as it begins work on a new Fallout game. According to Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty, these changes bring us three quarters of the way through planned restructures, which suggests more job losses will happen over the course of the next few months.

Star Wars Zero Company, one of our favorite games of the year so far, has just received its first big discount since its launch in late August. Ahead of the retailer's Prime Big Deal Days sale, which starts up tomorrow, Amazon has slashed 20% off both PS5 and Xbox Series X physical copies of the game, dropping them down to $47.97 and $47.99, respectively.

Mighty Mike Plays dad Dave has promised refunds and issued a lengthy explanation after the internet demanded more information about the YouTube ads allegedly purchased by his son and the drama that followed.

The saga began when a father took to his son's YouTube channel, Mighty Mike Plays, to announce that his child had allegedly used a company credit card to purchase $118,000 in video ads. It was a painful and highly relatable story that snowballed into a full-fledged internet spectacle when pricey AI-generated T-shirts and questionable details led many online to look for concrete answers.

The controversial father figure came clean in a new video titled "Allow me to Explain" that was uploaded to the Mighty Mike Plays channel last week (via Dexerto). Dave started the hour-long explainer – which has since been deleted and re-uploaded on a new YouTube channel called Coffee Time with Dave – promising that everyone who purchased one of those T-shirts would receive a refund.

“this might be the end of Mighty Mike Plays…” is the funniest thing you could say in front of your dad after putting him 118k in debt and getting him fired

— Mako Fukasame 🦈👩‍🏫 | Vershion AU (@MakoFukasame) September 15, 2026

"Dave here. A.k.a. Devoted Dave. A.k.a. Dazzling Dave. A.k.a. Dependable Dave, and the list goes on," Dave said. "I want to give you guys an update: First off, I'm going to say that everyone that got a shirt got refunded whether they asked for it or not. So, whether you wanted a refund or not, you got it."

The full video covers allegations related to the Mighty Mike Plays drama and also covers a lot that has nothing to do with it at all. Dave's headline he wants to share, though, is that this all blew up so much faster and so much bigger than he ever expected it to be.

He explained that he thought he was simply "venting" about his son's spending with a story that sounds like the kind of thing you'd tell a friend at a bar. Millions of views and a sea of video responses later, and it's clear it didn't pan out the way he ever imagined it would.

"I remember thinking, like, you know, I wonder if this video will hit 10,000 views," he said. "That's kind of where I thought it would cap. I didn't think it would go so viral. Everything happened real-time, organically, and I obviously didn't handle everything the right way, essentially, but just to make it clear: I didn't come to YouTube to ask for help. I wasn't looking for any sort of help."

Part of the reason why the internet gathered with Minecraft fans to help out is because Dave said the $118,000 hole his son put in his company card resulted in him being fired. He also stated he had just 30 days to make up for the missing money, but in the new video, Dave has clarified some of those details.

Instead of losing his job, Dave suggested he technically was not fired in a traditional sense, with that part of the story being a "simplified version" of what actually happened. The reality, he said, is that "the contract between company A and company B just got terminated," adding, "isn't that the same thing?" As many had suspected, he doesn't just own his own company – he owns 12.

"Yeah, I own my own company. So what?" Dave clarified. "In fact, you guys didn't even see – I have like 12 companies. Not all of them are productive, as we speak. Some of them are just collecting dust, and just because someone has a company or is a CEO doesn't mean that, 'Oh, OK. Just by having those titles you're actually conducting a profitable business.'"

He continued: "But just to clarify, I consider that being fired. If my company lost a contract with this important company, then, I mean, how is that not being fired? Fine. I'll be more specific next time."

As for those controversial T-shirts and why he's issuing refunds, Dave said he "didn't want to sit around and let these actual scammers sell people who wanted to be involved in this story." His plan for an official merch page, which allegedly put him "another $10K in the hole," still drew much ire from the internet, at least partially due to its prolific use of AI-generated designs. He explained why he's issued refunds – even if not all that many people found something to buy.

"In retrospect, was AI and the merch the way to go? Was the price the way to go? No," he said. "Look, I'm going to admit when I was wrong: That was not the move. I shouldn't have used AI. Although, at the time, I know I defended it. There is a now-infamous deleted post, which I crashed out."

He later added: "I do agree now, and if I could go back, I'd do it differently, but again, I didn't have the luxury of time. Time was running out. We had to figure something out, so yeah, I had AI create some designs. I still feel like those designs were flawless, gorgeous, beautiful, superb, and there is about 100 people who got free shirts."

It's unclear if Dave's explanation video will be enough to satisfy the many online who looked into the Minecraft YouTube channel after the events surrounding it kicked off last month. If this is the first time you're hearing of Mighty Mike Plays and the drama surrounding AI-generated T-shirt designs, there's no need to fear. We broke down everything you could ever want to know about the story right here.

Professional Tekken 8 player SuperBrine is going viral after reaching God of Destruction using Alisa while completely blindfolded with a sleep mask.

SuperBrine has been streaming his run on Twitch in the form of seven separate broadcasts, starting in June 2026. The final stream from this series, broadcast in early October, has become a hot topic within the fighting game community, as he was able to reach one of the game’s top ranks from Beginner while obscuring his vision with a sleep mask.

It’s an impressive feat no matter how you swing it, standing as a testament to SuperBrine’s skill as a player and Tekken 8’s laudable sound design — but, perhaps unsurprisingly, his blindfolded run from Beginner to God of Destruction has sparked no end of debate about the game's difficulty and Alisa’s ease of use as a character.

HERE WE ARE...

First person ever to get From BEGINNER to GoD rank 100% Blindfolded on LIVE stream

This took me alot of effort and time, but hell yea worth it.

my whole run from the beginning to the end is SAVED in my twitch highlights.

a new youtube video incoming

#TEKKEN8 https://t.co/JhEpwWijjw

— SuperBrine (@SuperBrineTK) October 4, 2026

I got the chance to sit down with SuperBrine to discuss his self-imposed challenge and find out if it was legit or not. He confirmed that there was no way he was able to see through the sleep mask (which are typically made out of thick material with dense cushions on the eyes), and reiterated that he’d streamed his entire run live on Twitch for all to see, so there was no way for him to cheat.

As for the ‘why’ of it all, SuperBrine said he wanted to prove that he could do something impossible, and is hopeful the challenge will help boost his visibility as a pro player. He also admitted that this undertaking was not, in any way, meant as a criticism of Tekken 8 as a game, despite the discourse surrounding his efforts on social media.

“My primary goal was simply to take on a challenge that most people will consider impossible and prove that I can do it,” he said. “I want to clarify that I didn't do this to criticize the game or suggest that it's poorly designed in any way. It's actually the exact opposite. I genuinely love this game, and I thrive on pushing my own personal limits through these kinds of extreme challenges. I am deeply passionate about it, and since my long-term plan is to pursue competing as my professional career, these kinds of challenges will directly support my career."

Outside of being unable to see, SuperBrine revealed that the hardest part of this challenge was that his eyes began to burn from being closed so long beneath the sleep mask. This, on top of being mentally drained from putting so much effort into the task, forced him to take frequent breaks.

“The physical toll was actually surprising. …Mentally, it required extreme patience, without it, completing this run simply wouldn't be possible,” he said.

Even a top player would have difficulty on ranked if blindfolded, so how did SuperBrine manage to pull it off? He told me that he relied on his foundational skills as a fighting game player and a keen sense of how people play on different ranks, as well as Tekken 8's helpful sound cues.

“It comes down to a massive amount of foundational experience. Playing on multiple smurf accounts over time gave me an exact read on the game knowledge players have at different ranks. Because of that, I knew precisely which strings and flowcharts would work and which wouldn't. Beyond that, precise hearing is crucial. You would be able to instantly differentiate specific sounds knowing whether a move resulted in a wall splat or not, if it was a hit or a block, and if you landed a counter hit versus a normal hit. Ultimately, it’s all about paying attention to the audio and knowing exactly the type of player you are facing," he explained.

For those who believe that Tekken 8 is so easy that anyone can pick up a blindfold and a controller and get to God of Destruction, SuperBrine invites you to try it; but it’s not that simple, because if it was, anyone would be able to do it.

“People are free to have their own opinions on it. There will always be positive and negative ones, and I respect that. But turning this into a criticism of Tekken 8 will not help the future of the game. You can't reach God of Destruction blindfolded just by picking a specific character and hoping for the best. It takes thousands of hours of game knowledge, knowing what kind of players you will face and what level of game knowledge they have, and relying entirely on audio cues. If it was just a flaw in the game or an easy character, someone else would have done it already,” he said.

SuperBrine chose to give himself this challenge; there are many other fighting game players who have reached top ranks and even become pros in spite of having actual disabilities. For instance, the late great BrolyLegs was a top Street Fighter player who could duke it out with the best of them using only his mouth to move his controller. And BlindWarriorSven, a blind Street Fighter 6 player who lost his eyesight at six years old due to cancer, won a livestreamed set at Evo 2-1 with E. Honda thanks the game’s impressive accessibility features that allowed him to 'hear' where his opponent was at on-screen.