It has just been reported by Bloomberg that Sony has officially canceled Fairgames, an online, live-service, heist shooter that PlayStation has been working on since before its announcement in 2023. The publication cites an internal email sent to PlayStation employees on Tuesday, November 10, which explains that, during a recent large-scale test of the game, "player feedback and retention were mixed and fell short of the goals we had set," despite "strong operational excellence, live ops readiness, and community engagement."

While the test demonstrated strong operational excellence, live ops readiness and community engagement, player feedback and retention results were mixed and fell short of the goals we had set. Combined with challenging market conditions in the PVP shooter genre, we have made the difficult decision to cease development on the game.

In mid-October, it was revealed that EA was closing BioWare, laying off 400 employees, and canceling an in-development Mass Effect 3 game in the process. The aftermath of that series of unfortunate events spawned a very lively #SaveMassEffect petition. More recently, seemingly in response to the outcry for a Mass Effect rescue mission, James Ohlen, former creative director and lead designer on games like Knights of the Old Republic and Dragon Age: Origins, and Trent Oster, one of the co-founders of BioWare, have teased that there may be something in the works to revive Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

Oster has made several posts over the span of a week or two suggesting that he is seriously considering or actively working on trying to revive both Dragon Age and Mass Effect, likely through the Embracer Group-owned Beamdog games, where Oster is the sitting CEO. One such post reads: "What are you doing this Saturday? I'm huddled in front of a computer running scenarios in Excel. I just passed rev 30. #SaveMassEffect #SaveDragonAge." Another directly tags James Ohlen as an unofficial recruitment to participate as a designer in a potential Dragon Age revival.

The power of frontier AI models is increasing, and the gaming realm has already experienced what AI can do in terms of mods, changes, bug fixes, and many other aspects when a powerful model is put to work. Late last night, Anthropic released its most powerful frontier model, Fable 5.2, which brings the best intelligence from the company's offerings into an API. As a demonstration of this model's capabilities, we are seeing a relatively complex first-person shooter developed from scratch today. This includes models, sounds, and textures, all created by Fable 5.2. It took about eight hours, 445 million input tokens, and about 2.7 million output tokens, totaling around $550 if done through an API. The result is a game called "Saltline," which can be played entirely in a browser through Claude Artifact, a platform used to showcase creations.

Below you can find the "Saltline" game, where the objective is a simple mission to cut three relays while being constantly attacked by an army of robot dogs and drones. After completing the objective, the main character reaches a boat, and the mission is complete. While this is a very simple task, the fact that Fable 5.2 accomplished all of this from a prompt is an amazing achievement. It can deploy thousands of agents to get one thing done, and with better descriptions, it can perform tasks much closer to what you have imagined.

Valve recently announced that it was adding an opt-in toggle to enable data collection in Steam for the Steam Deck, with the idea behind the new feature being that developers could analyze the reported framerate data using Steam's built-in tools to better optimize their games for the handheld's hardware. In a new Steam Client update, however, Valve has confirmed that it will start sharing that same average Steam Deck framerate data with players before they buy the game, so that they can get a relatively accurate idea of what to expect from the gameplay experience before spending money on the game.

The framerate data will be displayed as an average at the bottom of the Steam Deck compatibility screen as an FPS figure specific to the player's current hardware. The figure will also cite the date the average was last updated. Clicking or tapping the dropdown arrow next to the framerate note will expand a histogram showing the game's average framerate distribution across gaming sessions as a percentage. This should, with relative certainty, convey how often players ran into gameplay hitching.

PlayStation Game Size, the X account that pulls data from the PlayStation Store backend, has found three multiplayer-related entries tied to GTA 6 on PS5: "joinSession," "launchActivity," and "launchMultiplayerActivity." The account posted them on November 9, shortly before pre-loads started unlocking, and later shared a screenshot of the PS5 download queue where "Story" shows up as its own component. That has fans guessing that GTA 6's online mode could arrive as a separate install down the line. The same account pegged the download at 210 GB before Rockstar confirmed up to 212 GB, so its backend data has a decent track record.

Of course, these entries don't mean there's a playable online mode hiding in the files. They seem to be standard PS5 system hooks that let the console's UI jump players straight into an activity or a friend's session, and there's no sign of actual multiplayer content in what has been shared so far. Rockstar still describes GTA 6 as a single-player experience and hasn't announced its online mode at all. That said, a follow-up seems to be on the way. Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said earlier this year that he expects GTA 6's multiplayer to launch in 2027, after talking with Rockstar about its plans. Take-Two has also said the current GTA Online will keep getting support after GTA 6 releases.

AMDLSS5, a free mod that runs NVIDIA's DLSS 5 Neural Rendering on AMD's Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, has reached version 2.0 with an engine its developer, Wehaveall, built for the project. Earlier builds were based on Daniel Blanco's DLSS-NR-on-AMD, the tool that first got DLSS 5 working on Radeon cards back in September, but version 2.0 no longer needs files from any other mod. In a 60-second Resident Evil Requiem run at 4K with FSR on an RX 9070 XT, the new build averaged 101.2 FPS with 78.5 FPS 1% lows, up from 91.3 and 66.0 FPS on version 1.6.1. That is roughly 11% and 19% better, respectively.

The headline 64% figure comes from a comparison with unnamed "other mods," which managed 61.6 FPS in the same scene. These are the developer's own numbers from one game on one GPU, and there's no mod-off baseline showing what Neural Rendering costs. Game support now includes PRAGMATA, Nioh 3 and GTA 5 Enhanced, the latter only in offline Story Mode with BattlEye disabled. RX 9060 series cards should work but are untested, while RX 7000 support is an alpha that hasn't been tried on real hardware yet.

It's been known since before the actual release date was announced that GTA VI would generate enough hype that there would be ripple effects throughout the gaming industry, with some analysts estimating that the game would generate as much as $4.5 billion in sales in its first week on the market. However, according to Take-Two Interactive's CEO, Strauss Zelnick, in a recent interview with Variety, GTA VI is already exceeding expectations.

Strauss Zelnick via VarietyGrand Theft Auto VI" presales are "running far in excess of our expectations... That's a good thing. That said, we never claim success before it occurs. So we're just days away from beginning to see the fruits of our labor.

With the GTA VI launch around the corner, more and more information has begun to surface about the upcoming game. The latest news comes from GTAForums user Tex2, who analyzed the GTA VI PS5 metadata, who claims that GTA VI will launch alongside a newer version of PSSR. The biggest takeaways from this update are that the new PSSR game mode improves both the framerate capabilities of the PlayStation 5 and manages to eke out some more CPU performance out of the PlayStation 5.

The metadata lists PSSR (or MFSR, by Sony's internal references) version 13.60, which builds on the 13.00A found in Assassin's Creed Shadows and Cyberpunk 2077, and the new version will apparently include a 120 Hz mode that drops support for VRR. It may also include a 40 FPS mode as a stop-gap to make up for the lack of VRR, but that hasn't been confirmed by the metadata. It will also enable a CPU High Frequency mode on the PlayStation 5, which may be necessary to enable higher frame rates in GTA VI.

Welcome to the second week of November, which we could call the calm before the storm, but it doesn't mean this is a bad week for new releases. This week's major release takes us fishing in a Lovecraftian inspired world with all that it entails. When it comes to this week's other games we once again have a lot of releases on a single day of this week, but we start off with a psychological horror survival game, followed by some sports management and a pixel graphics Warhammer game. We round off the week with a game that was more popular as a benchmark than a game and a space factory builder. Don't forget to check out this week's other releases as well.

Dreadmoor / This week's major release / Early access / Monday 9 November
Take the helm of a fishing trawler and explore a world flooded by a catastrophic human mistake. Coastal regions have sunk beneath the water, and much of the remaining land has been submerged underwater. Travel between scattered settlements, catch fish to trade, upgrade your vessel, and craft essential equipment. Face mutated creatures across sea and land and move carefully through a divided world where resources are scarce, and trust is fragile. Steam link

SteamOS is now officially on the list of Linux distributions Epic Games plans to support with its new Epic Games Launcher. In a statement to GamingOnLinux, Epic communications director Jake Jones said the launcher is still in Preview, and that Epic plans to "support as many Linux distributions as possible, including Fedora, SteamOS, Cachy, Omarchy, and more." It seems to be the first time Epic has explicitly named SteamOS, which runs on the Steam Deck and Steam Machine. For now, the Preview only ships as a.deb package for Debian and Ubuntu, though Epic says it is testing other packaging formats and will bring back the AppImage version this month. Epic first said a native Linux launcher was coming back in August, and the Preview arrived on October 14.

For Steam Deck owners, official support could mean an easier way into their Epic libraries without third-party tools like the Heroic Games Launcher. However, Epic hasn't said how the launcher will work in SteamOS's Game Mode, and Windows games will still need a compatibility layer. In the current Preview, the launcher handles that by downloading GE-Proton. As for Fortnite, Epic plans to bring it to Linux through the new launcher once EAC Linux v2 is ready, but the new anti-cheat relies on a signed kernel, Secure Boot, and several other security features. Back in October, Epic said the Steam Deck doesn't currently support what EAC v2 needs, and that it is talking with Valve about it. It looks like Steam Deck owners will get the launcher well before they get Fortnite.

Physical copies still make up close to a third of the console games people actually own, according to a new Newzoo white paper produced with support from G2A. The firm surveyed 6,166 "premium gamers" across the US, UK, Germany, Poland, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia in August, defined as players aged 18 to 55 who game at least monthly on PC or a current-gen console and bought or subscribed to at least one AA or AAA title in the past year. Of the console games these respondents paid for outright, 30.4% were physical. That share drops to 11% across everything they play, since free-to-play and subscription titles together account for more than half of it.

Apparently, the most common reason for buying physical is being able to play without a stable internet connection, followed by the feeling of owning something tangible and saving storage space. That last one carries a bit more weight now that game download sizes have ballooned, with GTA 6 needing up to 212 GB on its own. Reselling, trading, or lending games came in fourth, and that is something digital console purchases still largely don't allow. PC is a different story, with PC-only players reporting just 6% physical ownership, although GOG would like to change that.

GOG has long since confirmed that it was working on a Galaxy game launcher for Linux, but it has officially just previewed the updated GOG Galaxy launcher in a new announcement on X. According to the post, not only has GOG Galaxy received a proper Linux version for the first time ever, the macOS and Windows versions have also been updated with a new UI, faster loading, and new library management tools. The new launcher has yet to be made available to the public, even in testing, but the announcement video showed off the new game launcher's UI and announced a 2027 launch window.

GOG.com on XGOG GALAXY is officially heading to Linux. At the same time, we've reworked the client on Windows and Mac to be simpler, run faster, and give you cleaner ways to view your library. Most importantly, our core promise stays untouched: GOG GALAXY is entirely optional. Your games are yours to download and keep through offline installers, exactly as they've always been.

EA has put 25 classic PC games on Steam with a very interesting story behind them. Seven of them are restored Anniversary Editions of Road Rash and six Wing Commander titles. The other 18, which include Theme Hospital, Strike Commander, both Crusader games, and eleven Ultima games, are on Steam for the first time, according to EA. The Anniversary Editions cost $9.99 and the rest go for $4.99, and Steam currently has them at 50% off until November 19. EA returned to Steam back in 2020 and has been slowly adding older classics since.

Apparently, it all started in March 2022, when EA producer Jim Vessella found a storage room at EA's Redwood Shores campus with nearly 20,000 old tapes, film reels, and CD-ROMs, including the master recordings for Wing Commander and Road Rash. By April 2026, around 6,000 had been digitized, and EA says that helped restore over 1,500 cutscenes. Much of the work happened on personal time, with Vessella using lunch breaks and evenings and Brian Barnes spending his weekends on Road Rash, the same pair that helped make the Command & Conquer source code public last year. Fan modders also played a big part, as the Wing Commander releases ship with community patches, and GOG's engineers built the Prophecy edition.

NVIDIA has released NVIDIA App 11.0.9.585, a small update that adds DLSS Override profiles for 19 games and Optimal Settings profiles for six. The list mixes older titles like PUBG: Battlegrounds, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Dragon's Dogma 2 with Control Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, Gears of War: E-Day, and Star Wars: Galactic Racer, all of which were scheduled to launch in September or October. Oddly enough, 007 First Light was already listed in the main 11.0.9 release, and Active Matter showed up back in 11.0.8. NVIDIA doesn't explain the repeats, and it doesn't say which overrides each game supports either.

The changelog otherwise only mentions "various stability/security fixes" without any details. This build follows two bigger ones that added significantly more features. The main 11.0.9 release brought DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction and per-game Resizable BAR controls, while 11.0.9.565 added RTX Spark support, a local MCP server for AI agents, and a faster Performance Mode for DLSS Frame Generation. As a refresher, DLSS Override lets GeForce RTX owners use newer DLSS models, or modes like DLAA, that a game may not offer on its own. It sits under Graphics > Program Settings > Driver Settings. Below is the full list of games.

Epic Games's recent proclamation of significantly faster launch times on its new vibe-coded Epic Games Launcher, followed by a Steam update making similar performance improvements, seems to have inspired Microsoft's Xbox to put in the work to improve its Xbox app for PCs, with a new announcement making several claims about improved performance.

Although the claims for the new Xbox App for PC are more ambiguous, with no startup times claimed and no test data supplied, Microsoft says that the new Xbox App launches up to 60% faster, while Home, Store, and Game Pass pages load up to 50% faster, and in-app windows are claimed to launch 65% faster. Perhaps more important than the performance improvements, however, Xbox has streamlined the app, with "simpler navigation, updated filters, and new ways to organize your games," in addition to a more prominent placement for the Friends tab, wider search that covers installed games, add-ons, and people, as well as a cleaner aesthetic that "make the app easier to scan and navigate."

Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake launches on Switch 2 today, but it looks like PC users got there first. A dump of the game was already making the rounds before launch, which Brazilian account Senhor Linguica Pro confirmed on X while noting that no emulator could run it properly at the time. That didn't last long. Footage now shows the remake running on PC through Lichii, a Switch 2 emulator that reportedly traces its roots back to Yuzu, the Switch emulator Nintendo took to court in 2024.

Running is a generous word, though. Users report white or washed-out visuals, gameplay scenes where only the HUD shows up, and terrain poking through objects, while some setups can't even get past the title screen. Gameplay clips show the frame rate swinging anywhere between 20 and 60 FPS, with regular stutters along the way. For comparison, Digital Foundry's look at the Nintendo Direct footage showed the remake running at 1080p and 60 FPS on Switch 2, so the emulator still has a long way to go. The emulator can load the dumped files now, but that doesn't mean other Switch 2 games will work, and it's going to take a lot more fixes before anyone can play this one properly.

Shortly after the official Fedora 45 launch, Bazzite 45 has launched, with a rebase to Fedora 45, Gnome 51.1, and KDE Plasma 6.8.2. The new Bazzite version lists updated OGC Linux kernels—7.2.15 for AMD and Intel, and 6.18.60 for NVIDIA users—and additional hardware support, including for the Acer Predator Atlas 8 and ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X20, but also for more peripherals, including the Logitech TrueForce racing wheel hardware. The Mesa driver version has also been updated to 26.2.6, InputPlumber has been updated, and CoolerController has been moved to the official docker container, while XWaylandVideoBridge has been removed in the name of stability and squashing KDE bugs. The rest of the actual updates are minor back-end changes, save one.

As per the announcement post on the Universal Blue Discourse page, as of Bazzite 45, Bazzite has become accepted by Epic Games as a signing key provider, and the development team behind Bazzite has added a Linux EAC V2 readiness checker to Bazzite 45. The checker automatically updates the latest Linux EAC V2 requirements and compares the requirements to the current kernel and BIOS configurations—specifically kernel and module signing, Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, measured boot, IOMMU, kernel lockdown, kexec, and BPF LSM. If there are any incompatibilities, the user will be notified by the readiness checker.

Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles are finally getting machine learning-based upscaling technology with the latest FSR Upscaling 4.1.2. Microsoft's Game Development Kit (GDK) now officially includes FSR Upscaling 4.1.2 in two models. One is the full-scale upscaling model based on the INT8 data type, and the other is a new and efficient Lite INT8 model. Both models are compatible with both consoles, but the key point is that game developers have the flexibility to choose which model to implement. Depending on the demands of a game, the appropriate model can be applied to achieve optimal upscaling performance.

For Xbox handheld devices, the AMD FSR SDK 2.4 adds FSR Upscaling support for the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme and Ryzen Z2 A processors, which power the ROG Xbox Ally, ROG Xbox Ally X, and ROG Xbox Ally X20 handhelds. This is achieved using an efficient INT8 model. Since these devices run Windows, developers can integrate FSR Upscaling 4.1.2 through the standard AMD FSR SDK.

Ubisoft has made an offer to buy Arkane Lyon, the French studio behind Dishonored, Deathloop and the upcoming Marvel's Blade, according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier. At least two other gaming companies have put in offers of their own, though their names haven't come out yet. Apparently, Xbox is also weighing a sale to the studio's own management, much like how Double Fine and Compulsion Games went independent earlier this year. No deal has been agreed so far, and Xbox reportedly told Bloomberg that it is still exploring options ahead of a December deadline.

That deadline exists because of French labor law. Arkane Lyon's future was put under review in July as part of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's "reset," and France's Florange Law required Microsoft to look for a buyer before it could close the studio. The consultation was first set to end on November 13, but Microsoft extended it by a month to December 13. Around 217 jobs are on the line. Insider Gaming, which says it confirmed the bid independently, adds that Ubisoft had been interested "for some time," even before Arkane's situation became public over the summer.

Valve now requires developers to launch their game through the Steam client and run it for at least five minutes before submitting it for review, as part of several new additions to Steam's pre-release checklist. It doesn't have to be the developer playing, since anyone's playtime counts, as long as it was logged within the past seven days, or since the last build upload if that's older. Apparently, Valve keeps getting builds that were never run through Steam at all, which is how games end up with broken launch options or missing depots.

The changes are meant to cut down Steam's review backlog. Valve says store page and build submissions have jumped over the last few months, and it's quite obvious why that would be. For Valve, build reviews that usually take three to five days are now taking up to 12 business days, largely because games that fail basic checks have to be reviewed again. Other new checks include at least five screenshots tagged as gameplay, a test save written to Steam Cloud for games that support it, a list of required redistributables like DirectX or Visual C++, and complete achievement setup.

Sony has started nudging some PlayStation owners in the US to sell their PS5, with a PlayStation app notification shared on ResetEra offering "up to $400" for a standard console. The trade-in itself runs through Back Market, which inspects the hardware and then sends cash straight to the owner's bank account instead of offering store credit. That $400 figure comes with some fine print, though. It is based on quotes for a standard PS5 in Grade 0 condition, which is basically flawless, with two or more controllers included, collected between August 23 and September 22. PS5 Pro owners aren't part of this one. The timing certainly looks pretty convenient, with GTA 6 launching on November 19 and pre-load starting on November 10.

Coincidentally, Microsoft also started emailing inactive Xbox owners last month, offering up to $375 for a Series X traded in at Best Buy. Sony's offer looks a little better on paper, since Microsoft pays out in Best Buy eGift Cards rather than cash. A couple of users who ran the online trade-in estimate got a little over $400 for a base PS5, so the headline number seems realistic for consoles in good shape. A new PS5 now costs $649.99 after Sony's April price hike, while the $899.99 PS5 Pro is hard to find at list price, and GameStop is reportedly asking $1,399.99 for used units. With retailers already expecting console shortages around the GTA 6 launch, used PS5s will probably sell fast. Owners with an idle console are advised to compare Back Market's quote with local resale prices before shipping it off.

The Elder Scrolls VI finally has its full name. Bethesda Game Studios revealed it as The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel at the end of a video celebrating the studio's 40th anniversary, with Todd Howard walking through Bethesda's history first. The short teaser that followed has no gameplay, just a stretch of desert, an Elder Scroll rising out of the sand, and the new logo. It also carries a line of lore text credited to Yazar, Moth Priest to High Queen Iradne of Hammerfell, dated 4E 206. Skyrim takes place in 4E 201, so it looks like Sentinel is set roughly five years later, in the Redguard homeland of Hammerfell. Sentinel itself is one of Hammerfell's major cities, sitting on the Iliac Bay. Both the name and the setting match what The Verge's Tom Warren reported last week.

It seems the name is all fans are getting for now. In a follow-up post on X, Bethesda said development is still ongoing and that it will be "some time" before the studio has anything else to show, adding that it's happy to have the name and location out in the open at last. There's still no word on a release date, launch window, or platforms. The game was first teased at E3 2018, and Bethesda said in July that it remains the studio's primary development focus, although reports suggested the Xbox layoffs could cause delays. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has also claimed on Bluesky that the game was at least two years out, so anyone hoping for a 2027 launch should probably temper their expectations.

The RPCS3 team says its PlayStation 3 emulator now has zero games in the Loadable compatibility category. In a post on X, the developers said Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 is now Ingame, thanks to an SPU accuracy fix from contributor Yahfz. It looks like that game was the last one in the Loadable list, which is reserved for titles that only show a black screen with a framerate counter in the window title. As for the fix itself, it is fairly technical. RPCS3 now recreates the SPU thread loader and the arguments the PS3's LV2 kernel leaves in Local Store at the start of each SPU group, before the code image loads. According to the team, that stops the loader from getting corrupted.

Ingame, of course, only means the game runs, with no guarantee of being playable from start to finish. It can still have serious glitches or poor performance, so H.A.W.X. 2 is probably not fully playable yet. RPCS3 announced an empty Loadable list once before, around the turn of 2023, so the category has clearly refilled since. When we reported on RPCS3 compatibility back in July, 0.06% of the library was still Loadable back then. Moreover in that time, the Playable category has also jumped from 75% to 80%, which is great news for enthusiasts of PS3 games. The Intro category reportedly holds around 22 titles, many of them PS Move games. That list will probably be the tougher one to clear.

PC Games Hardware has put a modded GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 22 GB through their test gauntlet, and the extra memory seemingly pays off once games run out of headroom. At 4K with DLSS Performance and FSR 3.1 Frame Generation, the card averaged 52.5 FPS in Flight Simulator 2024 against 30.2 FPS on a regular 11 GB model, roughly 74% faster. Spider-Man 2 jumped from 39.4 to 64.0 FPS, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle crashed to the desktop on the 11 GB card. At 1440p with DLSS Quality, the gap was smaller, though those first two games still ran about 20% slower on 11 GB. Of course, PCGH chose nine memory-hungry games on purpose, and most titles run fine on 11 GB. Keep in mind that these are just one outlet's numbers, and other results may vary.

These cards have shown up everywhere from Alibaba to eBay listings at $499, and this one came from a reader. All eleven memory chips are swapped for 2 GB Samsung parts. No firmware changes are needed, since relocating a single strap resistor tells the GPU about the extra capacity, and NVIDIA's regular drivers pick it up. Its weak blower-style cooler and 250 W limit held it back, so PCGH tuned both cards to identical 1.9 GHz, 15 GT/s, and 280 W settings. At around €500, the 22 GB card costs quite a bit less than a 16 GB RTX 5060 Ti, which goes for €770 in Germany. PCGH still calls it a gamble, citing eight-year-old hardware and soldering work that can fail weeks later, and advises checking the seller's reputation and whether any warranty goes beyond a 30-day return window.

Welcome to November and we kick off this month with a somewhat slow start, as even this week's major release is technically a re-release of a game that's over 20 years old. The rest of this week's new releases includes a lot of early access games and kicks off with a pack of hounds in space, followed by a family friendly, multiplayer life/farming sim and an open world MMORPG. This is followed by an extended medieval city builder and we end the week with a haystack and you get to guess what you have to find in it. Don't forget to check out this week's other releases as well.

World of Warcraft: Forever / This week's major release / Wednesday 4 November
WoW: Forever is an invitation to take your first steps in a legendary world of untamed frontiers, warring factions, untold perils, and unseen mysteries. Experience an Azeroth that grows from the roots of WoW's first age, continually evolving through regular content patches and updates that promise never-ending adventure.