Retention – это приключенческая игра, в которой игроку предстоит помочь главному герою восстановить утраченные воспоминания после несчастного случая. Очнувшись на холодной земле, придавленный велосипедом, персонаж оказывается в ловушке собственных мыслей и обрывков прошлого. Ключевая механика игры – ограничение по времени, выраженное в 630 ударах сердца, отпущенных на восстановление памяти. Игроку необходимо исследовать окружающий мир, взаимодействовать с предметами и решать головоломки, чтобы собрать воедино фрагменты воспоминаний и понять, что произошло. Каждое действие отнимает драгоценные удары сердца, поэтому игроку нужно принимать взвешенные решения, чтобы успеть восстановить прошлое и помочь герою выжить.
Report explores how Roblox can maintain older players as it becomes most-played game by total hours in H1 2026 80% of Roblox's older audience spent money on games in the past six months compared to 59% of non-Roblox players according to Newzoo and GEEIQ data Roblox generated 4.05 billion hours of playtime across PC and console in H1 2026, making it the most-played game by total hours. Data from Newzoo and GEEIQ shows that Roblox has attracted a valuable cohort of players over 16, with 80% spending money on games in the past six months compared to 59% of non-Roblox players. Newzoo market analyst Tianyi Gu said the combined data shows that Roblox's maturing audience "differs from traditional PC and console audiences" and is "particularly driven by entertainment IP." GEEIQ reports that Roblox averages 14 million concurrent users across 6.7 million active experiences, with 7 million in the top 50 experiences. When looking at visits since January 1, 2026, these experiences are "dominated by long-running live-service titles rather than new launches." The report found that most lapsed Roblox players move to other live-service titles like Fortnite and Minecraft, while 30% prefer realistic shooters such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto Online, which "signals a latent demand for AAA-style action." To retain its maturing audience, Roblox is investing in improved graphics and age verification.
Workers at the Activision QA union have voted to authorize a strike. News comes today from Aftermath, who are reporting that after two years of bargaining, members remain without a contract. Following the merger of Activision Blizzard with Microsoft in 2024, other studio workers at places like Blizzard and Zenimax have since secured their contracts. Activision QA workers have started rallying outside of company offices, but a full on strike would cause plenty of issues for the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 - set to launch on October 23.
Garry’s Mod creator Garry Newman has admitted he’s “ashamed” of the reception to his latest game, revealing plans to make it free-to-play and overhaul the experience. Beginning as a mod for Valve’s Half-Life 2, Garry’s Mod used the Source engine to let players experiment with the game’s physics, characters, and assets before becoming a standalone title. In April 2026, developer Facepunch Studios launched a spiritual successor called s&box, which uses Valve’s newer Source 2 engine and offers players more advanced tools to create and share their own games. However, the project has struggled to win over players, prompting Newman to acknowledge that the studio made some major mistakes.
S&box plans to go free-to-play and embrace human curation saying "Netflix for games doesn't work" Facepunch founder Garry Newman acknowledges the platform has struggled with reviews and retention Facepunch Studios plans to make its s&box platform free-to-play toward the end of the year as it shifts from offering as many games as possible to promoting the best and most popular ones. In a post on the s&box website, founder Garry Newman said the platform "is not well liked" and "doesn't have good retention". He said Facepunch had focused on the engine and development experience, but "we're not selling an engine, we're selling a game." Newman said he understood how charging for access while also selling skins, combined with other issues, could be "a big turn off". Players who have already paid will receive exclusive Steam inventory items, with extra for those who bought the game at $20 rather than $10.
"My idea of a Netflix for games doesn’t work": Garry's Mod creator says struggling spiritual successor S&box will go free to play as part of major rethink "I’m embarrassed by our reviews, I am ashamed" Earlier this year, Garry's Mod and Rust developers Facepunch Studios released S&box, a mix of open source game development platform/spiritual successor to their Valve prop-filled physics sandbox. It's not fared well, only earning mixed reviews and being stuffed with low quality AI generated games early doors. Now, Facepunch founder Garry Newman has announced plans for a major overhaul that'll see S&box go free to play. "Everyone who has paid for the game will automatically get a bunch of exclusive steam inventory items (extra if you bought it at $20 vs $10) that I hope will justify the purchase price," the dev added.
Burn With Me is a hand-drawn demon card game featuring the artist's own hand - and also, a refreshingly finite alternative to yer Balatro-likes High five! Burn With Me is a hand-drawn game in which the most prominent non-hand-drawn bit is artist Eva Manuilovich's own right hand. Manuilovich's hand appears on the right throughout each match ritual, dealing cards with a flick of the index finger; when you beat the target score, it gives you a thumbs-up, then reaches languidly towards the card you've won. The game itself is quite a swish and entertaining card puzzler/battler, going by a quick bash at the demo.
For the quickest way to join, simply enter your email below and get access. We will send a confirmation and sign you up to our newsletter to keep you updated on all your gaming news. Join the GamesRadar community for quick access. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more.
Riot Games announces a final hurrah for its ill-fated fighting game 2XKO, with a surprise character joining the roster this month Setting expectations. Riot Games has released a final gameplay trailer for 2XKO, its short-lived fighting game set to be sunsetted later this year. The game is going out with a bang, with a shock reveal of a secret character coming alongside the games last major update. This final major update, set to go live on the 27th October, was previously confirmed to feature Samira as the game's 16th character.
Dune Awakening's creative director on copying Hollywood, in-game advertising, and why style beats photorealism As Dune Awakening makes its way to consoles, Joel Bylos reflects on how Funcom's future might lie in targeting lower-powered devices The fun thing about making a game based on a big movie property is that you get to hobnob with Hollywood royalty. The bad news is that it's through Jira. Joel Bylos, chief creative officer at Funcom, explains that while making Dune Awakening, the studio had to run various things by Legendary, the company behind the Dune movies. After all, as we enter the age of $1,000+ consoles, the majority of the audience is likely to be playing on older machines for many years to come.
Global game content revenue forecast to rise 2.3% to $229.1bn in 2030, supported by PC and Asia-Pacific market Predicted growth driven by publishers prioritising monetisation of existing audiences over acquiring new players Global game content revenue is projected to increase from $204.4 billion in 2025 to $229.1 billion in 2030, representing a 2.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), according to S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan. By platform, S&P expects PC to lead with revenue increasing from $42.25 billion in 2025 to $49.23 billion in 2030, a 3.1% CAGR. Cloud gaming is projected to be the fastest-growing segment, with global revenue rising from $6.12 billion in 2025 to $9.71 billion in 2030, a 9.7% CAGR, supported by improved connectivity and subscription models. Xbox recently reported a 29% drop in hardware revenue, while revenue plunged by $1.7 billion.
Activision cites data claiming cheating in games is an $8.5bn industry; 69% of online multiplayer studios consider cheating "a significant or very significant problem" "Over the past three decades, cheating has transformed into a sophisticated and constantly evolving industry," says Anybrain CEO and co-founder Activision's Team Ricochet, which manages Call of Duty's anti-cheat initiative, recently cited data that claimed cheating in games is an $8.5 billion industry. Earlier this year, threat intelligence platform Intorqa estimated that cheat developers earn approximately $3.5 billion annually from 15 analyzed games. Including services such as spoofing and account sales, the estimate increases to $8.5 billion. In a blog post, Activision stated that Team Ricochet has "disrupted more than 375 reseller operations, issued more than 80 cease-and-desist demands, and helped shut down 31 primary cheat vendors." Last month, the team issued over 70,000 new hardware bans as part of its anti-cheat efforts.
In an interview first published in Edge Magazine issue 428 and shared online via its Knowledge newsletter, former Tencent Games business development director and inaugural Game Awards Game Changer Amir Satvat offered his take on why the now-yearslong games industry layoff crisis has been so uneven in its geographic distribution. A 2019 CEDEC report—discussed in English in 2022 by consultant Serkan Koto—put the average salary of Japanese game devs at $37,000. More recently (so a less relevant, but still worthwhile comparison with the 2019 CEDC data), the 2025 GDC Salary Report put the average pay at $142,000 from a survey of 500 games industry professionals. Back to the layoff crisis, Satvat estimates that the industry is still growing when it comes to new positions, but at a rate that barely covers attrition and pales in comparison to its growth at the end of the 2010s (the following figures were provided to Edge by Satvat or are based on his data): - 18,000-25,000 new jobs per year - 14,500 total layoffs predicted for 2026 - 58,000 total layoffs from 2022-2026 - The industry grew by 32,000-67,000 new jobs from 2022-2026 - Compared to growth of 150,000 new jobs from 2017-2021 "It is hard for me to foresee a picture where the industry doesn’t eventually contract from its current size," Satvat said." If I’m being optimistic, there is some number that is not a ghastly decrease from where we are now, where things can stabilize out.
For the quickest way to join, simply enter your email below and get access. Japanese companies like Nintendo, Capcom, and Konami are healthier because they have smaller teams, don't have frequent layoffs, and don't pay executives $30 million, says expert Even as GTA 6 is set to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time and publishers like Activision Blizzard and EA get bought and sold for billions, there are lingering fears that the game industry is heading toward – or perhaps already in the middle of – its biggest crash in decades. The layoff tracker website shows that, of the job cuts that have happened in 2026 so far, 66% of layoff events happened in North America, representing 79% of affected workers. "They still make great money, but it's two or three million dollars, not 30 million." To offer specific examples, EA boss Andrew Wilson made $38,649,984 last fiscal year, or about 305 times more than the median employee.
For the quickest way to join, simply enter your email below and get access. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma herself said in May that lowering the service's price to $23 was simply "a good first step" in improving it, and that Xbox staff would otherwise "have to outwork the problem in front of us in our path to restore durable growth." We know now that Microsoft's plan to "outwork the problem" includes a total of 3,200 layoffs at Xbox and, I guess, opportunistically deciding to publish another Hideo Kojima game. Still, Sharma said as recently as July that "our business today is not healthy," partly because, "To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content." "While those businesses have created meaningful value," Sharma added at the time, "they did not grow at the pace we expected." #217 - Andrew Willis Speaks On ID Software Layoffs, DOOM TDA, Gamepass, Xbox, ID Tech Engine etc.. After The Dark Ages' 2025 launch, IP holder Bethesda was glad to tell fans, "Thank you for making DOOM: The Dark Ages the biggest launch in id's history - 7x faster to 3 million players than DOOM Eternal." But The Game Business reported at the time that a huge chunk of those 3 million players were on Xbox – over two million of them, actually – compared to just half a million fans on PS5.
Roblox creators will soon be able to publish games on multiple platforms as standalone apps Roblox Everywhere initiative "will start with a select set of gaming developers and storefronts to test" Roblox will enable creators to publish their games on mobile, PC, and console through the Roblox Everywhere initiative. Announced at this year's Roblox Developers Conference, the company said creators will be able to make their games available as standalone apps on multiple platforms, with Roblox "powering the technology and services underneath." It's not yet confirmed if standalone apps will be available on third-party storefronts. A Roblox representative told PC Gamer that it "will start with a select set of gaming developers and storefronts to test, and will share more details soon." By the end of 2026, players will be able to join games directly in-browser from the Experience Details page, without needing an app or installation. Roblox will also produce a physical card in 2027 for creators "to spend their available balance directly, anywhere it's accepted." In its latest financial results, Roblox reported a 36% increase in revenue to $1.5 billion.
While tons of new updates are coming to Diablo, including a new Netflix series, Diablo 4 Season 15, a Switch 2 port, and more, the biggest reveal for the franchise at BlizzCon 2026 was the announcement of Diablo V, coming in 2029. IGN sat down exclusively with the team behind the upcoming game, including Game Director Joe Shely, Narrative Director Jennifer Helper, and Production Director Tiffany Wat, who gave us tons of new details about Diablo 5, including how it’s already past early development. The Reason Diablo 5 is Set 100 Years After Diablo 4 IGN: Diablo 4 still has some life in it. We were just announcing earlier today, coming to Diablo 4, the Amazon, the Season of Hell's legacy, Diablo 4 is coming to Switch 2, and there will continue to be ongoing support for Diablo 4.
Nvidia acquires open-source AI platform Hugging Face for $12.9bn Firm to pay approximately $11.9 billion to Hugging Face investors, could offer up to $1 billion in stock-based retention incentives Nvidia has acquired the artificial intelligence platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. As BBC News reports, Nvidia will pay about $11.9 billion to Hugging Face investors and may offer up to $1 billion in stock-based incentives. Amazon, AMD, and Intel are also investors in the open-source AI platform. "Nvidia's infrastructure, engineering and global reach can help improve platform reliability, safety, model evaluation, inference and deployment capabilities, while preserving the open ecosystem that made Hugging Face foundational." Hugging Face was founded in 2016 in New York City by French entrepreneurs Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf.
Rovio closes Copenhagen studio following shut down of Sonic Blitz "We're still very proud of the game, very proud of what the team achieved, but it didn't work," says Rovio CEO and Sega West COO Rovio has closed its Copenhagen studio after cancelling its mobile title Sonic Blitz. However, approximately 20 employees were working on Sonic Blitz. Sega acquired Rovio for $776 million in 2023. Earlier this year, Sega reported a $200 million impairment on the acquisition cost after profitability "fell below the initial forecast." Sega reported challenges integrating Rovio's Beacon technology with its own mobile titles.
Maria Redin of mobile giant MTG on rebranding, buying Raid: Shadow Legends, and plans to double the company's size The president and CEO on plans for growth – and why new games remain important even as evergreen mobile titles dominate In February last year, the Swedish mobile giant MTG (Modern Times Group) acquired Plarium, maker of the hugely successful hero collecting game Raid: Shadow Legends, for a cool $620 million. A fresh look MTG was already home to numerous mobile studios before the Plarium purchase, including InnoGames (maker of Forge of Empires), Snowprint (Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus), Hutch (F1 Clash), Ninja Kiwi (Bloons TD 6), and Futureplay (Merge Gardens). Supercell head Ilkka Paananen has warned that the western mobile industry is "coasting", with only two of the 22 new mobile titles that have made over $1 billion since 2020 coming from the west. And if you want to grow above and beyond that, you need to continue to invest in your strong evergreen IPs, but then you also need to be able to bring new games to the market." Read this next - Double Fine Productions regains ownership of IP and publishing rights following independence from Xbox - Take-Two Interactive files subpoenas against Microsoft, Discord, and X amid ongoing GTA 6 leaks - Compulsion Games officially separates from Xbox – "The team told me we would rather eat rocks and drink gasoline than be split up"
Riot Games to end LoL fighting game 2XK0's development and issue refunds, less than a year since launch 0HNO. Active development on 2XKO - the free-to-play fighting game from Riot Games - will end in December. This comes not even a year after the game's full release in January, as the company doesn't see "a path toward sustainability". You'll still be able to buy a big bundle containing almost all cosmetic items in the game for $39.99 / £33.99 / €39.99.