IO Interactive has announced it has regained full ownership of its in-development online RPG Project Fantasy following its split from an external funding partner last week, which was later confirmed to be Xbox. The studio behind Hitman and 007 First Light will continue working on the project, but this shift means a reduction of its staff.
The Copenhagen-based studio shared a message stating it will now fully fund Project Fantasy independently. However, IO writes that this shift means “we had to find a new balance for the long-term future of the studio, focused on the success of our main internal core titles instead of external projects and potential mobile game derivatives.” To this end, IO has had to make layoffs it had previously stated were necessary after Xbox pulled out of funding Project Fantasy. This includes the closure of its Istanbul subsidiary studio.
“These are hard, but necessary decisions, in order to retain the long-term future of IO Interactive as one of the very few fully independent AAA developer and publisher, as well as to give Project Fantasy the best possible foundation to succeed under our own passion and direction. Project Fantasy is a game, a world, and an IP that we are wholly committed to, and we cannot wait to share the love with you.”
Xbox told Bloomberg it ceased supporting Project Fantasy after reevaluating the types of projects it wanted to invest in. This portfolio adjustment came ahead of the company announcing plans yesterday to lay off 3,200 employees over the next fiscal year, 1,600 of whom were terminated immediately. Xbox also spun off or sold five of its development studios – Compulsion Games, Double Fine Productions, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and Arkane Studios – in the midst of this massive restructure,
For more on IO Interactive, read our review of its most recent release, 007 First Light, here.
When I sat down to play Orbitals at this year’s Summer Game Fest, it felt appropriate that we weren’t given Herman Millers or high-backed “gamer chairs,” but bean bags. There, on the carpeted floor of an improvised living room, complete with a bunk bed and an old-fashioned entertainment console, my co-op partner and I watched the start of Orbitals as if it were the opening sequence of our favorite Saturday-morning anime.
After a gorgeous, intriguing cutscene, we’re dropped into life aboard a floating ship, out in the stars. The new co-op puzzle-adventure from Shapefarm and Kepler Interactive might feel strangely familiar, as its screen splits in two and the two characters – Maki and Omura – each take up half of the TV’s real estate. Orbitals game director, Jakob Lundgren, worked at Hazelight Studios as a designer on A Way Out, It Takes Two, and Split Fiction, and it seems the same couch co-op concept is in store for Shapefarm’s debut.
Though we get to explore and gain familiarity with the controls, it’s not long before we’re picking up items and solving puzzles. Maki and Omura can select from several different tools they can carry around, with names like the Scrap Hook and Beam Cannon. Each serves a natural function, but applications can vary. The Beam Cannon can melt steel, sure, but it can also power a cell inside a generator to spin up a station for a co-op partner to access.
Figuring out how the items in the toolbox interact with each other and the environment to create paths through the inner guts of derelict spacecraft and myriad mechanisms is extremely tense. It’s not uncommon to feel like you’re barely eking out the solution, always one short jump or missed beat away from a restart. I wouldn’t say Orbitals is difficult, but it certainly demands attention and activity from both parties. No one really ever had the “boring job” of the pair when we were solving puzzles throughout its opening section.
Aesthetic is an immediate draw, as Orbitals wears its inspirations on its sleeve. Character designs immediately bring to mind Ranma ½; a ship’s sleek mechanical design is reminiscent of Cowboy Bebop; the vibrant space hub we explored elicits Studio Ghibli nostalgia. While this could easily tilt into shopping mall knick-knack pandering, Orbitals wields its influences with a clear love for the art and form, so it feels in conversation with them rather than just reiterating a familiar text.
Little touches, like emotes and tiny interactions between the two leads, bring these characters to life. The voice acting solidifies these bonds. And the soundtrack finds space to oscillate between spacey synth drones, moody keys, and one extremely funky bass. In its best moments, I was reminded of the music videos for Daft Punk’s Discovery, capturing the same feeling of interstellar adventure and mystery.
There are laughs, puzzles, action, and gorgeous cutscenes. In one moment, you’ll be working out carefully timed platforming sections, and in another, you’ll be tandem piloting a ship through the inky void. Put simply, Orbitals is the game you want to play sitting in a bean bag on a carpeted floor with a good pal, and could be a big one for co-op fans with a Switch 2 this September.
Xbox has announced it is splitting from four of its development studios – Compulsion Games, Double Fine Productions, Ninja Theory, and Undead Labs – while announcing plans to reduce headcount by over 3,000 employees over the next several months.
CEO Asha Sharma sent a lengthy message to the entire Xbox team detailing her previously announced plans for a “reset” of the brand and its operations in what she calls “the most significant restructure in Xbox history.”
“Our business today is not healthy,” Sharma writes. “We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset Xbox.”
South of Midnight
Regarding certain studios that had reportedly been considered for closure, they will either go independent or be sold to a new owner. “Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined,” writes Sharma. “We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset Xbox, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision.”
Compulsion Games (South of Midnight) and Double Fine (Psychonauts) will once again become independent studios and retain their IP and game catalogs. These developers were purchased by Xbox in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Compulsion Games and Double Fine each posted messages confirming this news on social media.
Ninja Theory (Hellblade) and Undead Labs (State of Decay) have “entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3,” according to Sharma. Both of these titles are targeting a 2027 release. The specifics of this deal, such as the identity of the new owner(s) of Ninja Theory and Undead Labs, are unknown. It has been reported that Xbox had already planned to split from Ninja Theory before revealing Senua during the Xbox Games Showcase in June, and showed the game anyway to attract a potential buyer. State of Decay 3, first announced in 2020, also had a new trailer during that showcase.
Senua
The fate of Arkane Studios (Dishonored) is less clear. Sharma states the Lyon-based team has entered the required consultation in France with its Works Council to “review potential strategic options.” The studio is currently making Marvel’s Blade, which has reportedly faced cancellation.
Layoffs will hit other studios such as Activision, Bethesda/Zenimax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and Xbox Game Studios. Approximately 3,200 employees will be laid off throughout fiscal year 2027; 1,600 employees will be terminated today. Despite this reduction in headcount, Sharma confirms none of Xbox’s publicly announced games or projects will be canceled. Mojang and King will also now report directly to Sharma.
In a reset of operations, Sharma has announced the promotion of Helen Chiang, corporate VP at Microsoft and head of Mojang, to chief operating officer (COO) of Xbox. Chiang will replace the previous COO, Dave McCarthy, who is retiring today after a 17-year career at Xbox.
To help streamline management, Sharma states that management layers will be reduced to no more than 5 and, where possible, 3. “Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Our platform teams are 40% larger than they were at the start of this generation, even as our player base and playtime have declined. That complexity has slowed decisions, blurred accountability, and made it harder to deliver for players. As we reset XBOX, we will simplify,” writes Sharma.
Sharma ends her message by stating her ambition for Xbox to return to growth in 2027 and to become “one of the few companies that entertain more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect.”
“History is full of companies that mistake longevity for inevitability,” Sharma writes. “We will not be one of them.”
Happy July 4th weekend! Fireworks. Lemonade? Hot dogs. Scared pets? Sunscreen? A lake and/or beach. Heat? Sales at mattress and furniture stores. Some of those things I am certain are Fourth of July things. Others, I admit I am making some assumptions about your celebrations. But yeah, you won’t be buying mattresses at a lake all weekend, right? There will be time for video games, as well, and we have some suggestions for what to check out this weekend… right after I share a few of our big stories this week.
Rhythm Heaven Groove, perhaps the last great Switch 1 game from Nintendo, is officially out and it is an infectious, goofy, music game that is easy to lose yourself in. In Game Informer‘s Rhythm Heaven Groove review, I wrote, “The series represents a wonderful and wildly unique collection of concepts that are not beholden to Nintendo’s history and make me happy, proud, anxious, and angry all in equal measure. Groove is not my favorite in the series, but it stands tall alongside the rest to earn permanent placement on my Switch hard drive.”
One opinion I didn’t dive into in my review is that all the Rhythm Heavens, Groove included, have the potential to become great meme generators with frequent instances of bizarre art and strange text. At least two of the games lean on stock photography showcasing construction workers and people drinking tea. It’s weird. But none of the games have ever reached the level of cultural ubiquity necessary to make the sharing of GIFs and images from them become widely accepted online vernacular. Being on Switch and how easy it is to share clips and screenshots from the device makes me hope Groove will be the one to break through.
Meccha Chamelon
Alex Van Aken
Multiplayer hide-and-seek game Meccha Chameleon is one of the year’s breakout success stories after selling 10 million copies in its first few weeks. More importantly for this blog: it’s cheap and fun as hell, making it a strong contender for your weekend relaxation. The Infection mode seems to be most popular in online lobbies, where one randomized player becomes a Hunter and must find and eliminate hiding players with a shotgun, subsequently converting them into Hunters upon death. The big catch: the Hiders can pose, stick themselves upon most surfaces, and paint themselves using a brush, color wheel, and a Photoshop-like color picker tool to camouflage themselves in the environment. It’s clever, simple-to-learn, and has excellent Steam Workshop integration making it incredibly easy to download custom maps without having to leave a multiplayer lobby.
Deltarune Chapter 5: The Festival
Eric Van Allen
Every new installment of the Undertale pseudo-sequel Deltarune is a little holiday for those who have been following along, and the latest chapter certainly bolstered that festive feeling by centering on the town festival. Within minutes of starting the newest Deltarune chapter, I had already gasped, laughed, and been amazed by the swerves and twists Toby Fox and co. have been lining up for our intrepid party. Chapter 5 feels a little reminiscent of Chapter 3 to me, using mixed media and sudden style and genre-switching concepts to throw curve balls at the player. And the creeping sense of unease and dread, as the dark forces at work in the town make their moves, just adds to the tension of it all. It’ll be at least a little longer until we see Deltarune reach its full conclusion, but I’m already more than happy with how this surprise follow-up to Undertale is coming along.
Deltrune Chapter 5 fan art by Claire Godbold Hilliard
Wanderstop On Switch And Switch 2
Kyle Hilliard
Originally released in 2025, Wanderstop is from the mind of Davey Wreden, best known for The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide. Those games, in summary, are a little bit about the process of playing and appreciating a video game and what it means to have and give player choice. There is a lot more to them than that, but that’s arguably the short version. By comparison, Wanderstop is more straightforward, but still makes plenty of room for the examination of video games as an entertainment medium.
In the game, you are Alta, a former adventurer/warrior who is attempting to take on a new life and manage a tea shop to address her overwhelming anxiety. But, in typical Wreden style, there is more to it than that. In Game Informer‘s Wanderstop review I wrote, “I admire the game for being able to use video game genre conventions to tell a pensive, funny, and surprising story set in a charming location with enjoyable characters. Watching Alta grow and accept her limitations will stick with me and make me reflect on my own inability to turn off and just relax. I appreciate any art that makes you think in that way, and Wanderstop is successful in that goal.”
As of June 23, the game is available on Switch and Switch 2 and it’s worth playing, even if you’re not typically a fan of the wide-ranging “cozy” genre. Wredon is still making video games, but the studio, Ivy Road, that created Wanderstop has unfortunately been shuttered. But that’s doesn’t mean it didn’t create a worthwhile video game worth experiencing.
Tabletop Pick – Leviathan Wilds
Matt Miller
If you have fond memories of video games like Shadow of the Colossus, boy, do I have the board game for you. Leviathan Wilds is a cooperative or solo game in which players work together to climb gigantic creatures, with the goal of destroying the corrupting crystals that make them dangerous, saving them in the process. Each session plays out on an open-page spread of the included spiral-bound book – so each time you play, you confront a different creature and its challenges.
The gigantic creatures reveal what they’ll be doing and how they might attack through a card pull at the start of the round, and you can use your turn to slide, climb, rest, and use various powers to complete your mission. The art is beautiful, the theming and concept is brilliant, and the turn-to-turn action inspires lots of compelling choices. Designer Justin Kemppainen hit on something very clever here; this could easily become a staple play option for your gaming group.
The action genre’s relationship with difficulty has been complicated.
In their earliest stages, action games were often unreasonably demanding, but this was not always by design. These difficulty spikes and trial-and-error sequences were a result of trailblazing developers figuring out the best practices for requiring precision from players while remaining fair.
During the advent of cinematic storytelling in gaming, many action titles offered more leniency in favor of delivering a compelling narrative that a large portion of the audience could easily experience. As a result, beating many action titles during the late ’90s and through the mid-2010s felt more like a formality than a challenge to conquer. Subsequently, games like Ninja Gaiden and Super Meat Boy delivered the kinds of white-knuckled experiences challenge-driven players craved. However, the action genre reached a major milestone in 2009, as a brutally tough, seemingly obscure game out of Japan emerged as a fan favorite and went on to become one of the most influential video games of all time.
Special guest (and former host) Ben Reeves joins The Game Informer Show to discuss the big PlayStation shake-up, our favorite games of 2026, and Kyle’s Rhythm Heaven Groove review. Finally, we close the show with listener questions! Grab a cold beverage, stay indoors from that summer heat, and join us for another episode of The Game Informer Show.
The Game Informer Show is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday for chats about video game reviews, news, and exclusive reveals alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry. Support the show by subscribing to our physical video game magazine!
Erosion was one of the most promising upcoming titles I checked out during Summer Game Fest. Developed by a small team at Plot Twist (makers of The Last Case of Benedict Fox), the voxel-based game stars a nameless cowboy on a mission to rescue his kidnapped daughter; the twist is that time advances 10 years every time the father dies, meaning his daughter grows older.
Sporting a blend of twin-stick shooting, dozens of wacky weapon upgrades and abilities, dungeon crawling, and a highly reactive open world that changes based on your actions, Erosion is full of ambition. We spoke with Plot Twist creative director Bartłomiej Lesiakowski to better understand Erosion’s reactive nature, how the passage of time affects the world and players’ strategies, the game’s thematic inspirations, and its philosophy for creating consistently entertaining combat.
Game Informer: How long has Erosion been in development, and what inspired the idea?
Bartłomiej Lesiakowski: We’re in our second year of development, and the idea actually came from a story. We thought of the story, and since a lot of guys on our team are actually young dads, so the story resonated quite well from the get-go. And we were tinkering with it, and simultaneously, me and my buddy, who is the concept artist in Plot Twist, we also experimented with voxels as an art style, so those two things jump quite well, and given the story, it came kind of naturally that the game also became a role, right?
Erosion almost feels like almost like two different games, because you have the twin-stick shooting and almost roguelike structure with the abilities that you can gain, on top of the progression of the main plot of rescuing your daughter and having her age every time you fail. How did that particular mechanic come to life?
Lesiakowski: The technology of voxels and the approach that we took with it allows us to create assets extremely, extremely quickly for such a small team, so we wanted to flex a bit. And we thought that, ‘Hey, this could be our strength in this project, so let’s think about how we could use it.’ So we can destroy things, that’s one, so the combat should revolve around that. And by saving the daughter and going into the dungeons, we will surely die, right? So, what could we do to make the deaths meaningful? So let’s join those two things together. So, if we die, let the daughter age, and also when we die, let the world change, and by following this path, we basically created the whole concept.
For the daughter’s aging, how far does that system go? How old can she get? Is it possible for her to pass away from old age? And if so, what happens?
Lesiakowski: We don’t want to spoil too much, but let me say that there is a chance we won’t be able to even meet her.
I assume there are different endings, and if so, are the endings tied to when you’re able to rescue her, or what age she happens to be at the time that you rescue her? Does that affect how the game concludes?
Lesiakowski: The true ending for the story is one ending, but due to how the world is constructed, the timelines and the questlines themselves, as you recall, can veer off completely differently, so [the] story of each location in each variant can end quite differently.
How feasible is it to only focus on rescuing your daughter? I was talking to a rep at the event, and they kind of implied that, technically, everything else in the world is sort of optional in an almost Breath of the Wild way. If I wanted to try to only focus on rescuing her, could I do that with whatever my starting equipment is? And has anyone on the team been able to pull that off, if it is possible to do that?
Lesiakowski: It is possible. The world is technically optional, but this would be a challenge for some hardcore players. Right now we’re still in the balancing act, so there’s no chance to do that, but we are sure – and we, by the way, see it already in our telemetry from the playtest that has just begun that the players are already better at the game than we are, so I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody else would manage to do it.
How big is the world overall? What is the scope of this game, if you had to describe it?
Lesiakowski: That’s always a pretty tough question, because one thing is the geographical size, and the world, for what the game is, is pretty vast, actually. And the other side is that it’s also multiplied through every timeline, so it’s this certain amount of geographical space times X, basically. So this is why Erosion is so hard to measure in the traditional terms. I think that players will be surprised how much of a game is there, apart [from] the dungeons.
I was also shown during the demo a timeline that you can pull up, where you can see not only what you decided to do but all the possible outcomes. Can you explain how that works exactly? Because I believe the demo implied that you can jump between eras sometimes, but I wasn’t totally clear on how that worked exactly.
Lesiakowski: Yes, yes, exactly. So by playing, players naturally do certain actions, and whenever [the] game recognizes an action that actually will influence the future, they have a prompt, and players can check the timeline view to see what action caused the effect. And only after they will jump to the next timeline and explore the location, they will see what action caused what effect. So in the end, they will be able to see which resolutions for a quest can result in different outcomes for certain locations, so this will mean that in the end the players will be able to strategize, as well, because as you saw, also the new states of locations are connected to weapon and item unlocks, so they will be able to figure out what path they want to take, and later on they will just have to decide whether they are morally inclined to to follow the path as well.
So if I do a mission a certain way, can I immediately go back in time and do that same mission a different way, just to see the other way it could have gone?
Lesiakowski: Not immediately. There is some form of time control in our mind, but we also don’t want to give too many details about that.
Does time only advance when you die, or is it advancing slowly? Like, if I go a long time without dying, I don’t have to die just to see the outcome of everything I’ve done?
Lesiakowski: It still revolves around the specific timelines, as we call them. So the player either has to die three times, which we call the trice […] or they can initiate the jump manually.
What fascinates me about Erosion is that time plays such a big part and that it’s thematically a western. I don’t know why; I love that this is specifically a western story. Why is it a western? Was there any specific Western media that the team was inspired by?
Lesiakowski: That’s a good question. Actually, when I tried to backtrack the idea for the Western itself, I remember a point when we threw around a few references, and the idea that, in the first biome, the pillar will be surrounded by the desert, was from the get go, and we did want to have the setting be reminiscent of United States type of deserts and wastelands, and so on. So it kind of naturally veered into the cowboy and western setting. But the mix actually came from, I think, one of our biggest inspirations, the Adventure Time cartoon, which we absolutely love, and there are so many wacky and different and unique things about it. So we also wanted to create something with our twist on it, so there will be cowboys, but there will also be ghosts and robots and aliens, and you name it.
I noticed when I was jumped to like a save state where my loadout was a lot more impressive I had laser beams and drones and all kinds of stuff. I saw that you are touting over 100 different abilities and weapons and a crazy amount of combinations. Are you still creating more weapons and abilities? Is there such a thing as having too much in this game, or are you just shooting for the stars and making however many you can come up with?
Lesiakowski: Surely there is a limit, but it’s far, far off on the horizon. We’re so far from the limit, I think, so we are still creating, and we are still finding the technical limits, I guess. And also exploring the possibilities is just so much fun that probably till the very last moment […] we will add more and more items and weapons.
What’s the rule for adding a new weapon or ability? Is there such a thing as an idea being too stupid or outlandish for this game?
Lesiakowski: Too stupid or outlandish? No [laughs]. Maybe sometimes we tend to over-complicate solutions, so we have to have [a] few rules that we impose on ourselves like ‘Okay, this item can do only those two or three things at once. If you want more, let’s figure out another item that will be also interesting that can have this kind of ability attached to it.’ So in terms of weapons and modifiers, we started with [a] basic pool of items that will have a very classic roguelike gameplay controls, and after certain points, when we were sure that the basis is solid enough, now was the time to start creating the synergies. So, whenever we add now, first we identify the items that will have the most amount of synergies with existing items, and then we have like a crazy, crazy huge graph with the synergies, and we identify, ‘Okay, these types of builds are lacking right now, so what can we do? Can we create a weapon? Can we create a active skill, or passive modifier that will help improve the synergies in that region,’ for example. And all in all, of course, the fun is the main factor. So it has to be fun, and we remove the most passive and the most boring combination.
Are there any other major factions, like in the vein of the cultists I ran into in the demo?
Lesiakowski: Oh yeah. Dozens, actually.
How far does the faction gameplay go? Is it going to be a thing where if you side with one, you can’t side with another if they’re directly feuding? Can you change allegiances at will, or even join multiple factions at the same time?
Lesiakowski: Not at will, and depending on how the quests go, sometimes you create enemies for good, for example. But if your reputation with certain factions goes bad, because, for example, they caught you cheating at the poker table, there are also ways to regain reputation by, for example, questing for the opposite faction, like killing the opposite faction, or doing the quest for the faction that you lost some reputations with. So there is some room to play, and there will be certain factions that start with negative reputation, and it will be very, very hard, but not impossible to at least get neutral with them.
How do you communicate your current reputation? Is it something visible, like a meter, or is it more just the way people react to you that communicates, ‘Oh, they don’t like me.’
Lesiakowski: That’s something we’re actually still experimenting with. We have both solutions ready, and during different testing sessions, we try some stuff out, and we are still not sure, because certainly, to some players, it’s super cool to explore, to guess, and to experiment on their own. But certain players like to strategize and want to see exactly what they do, so we have to play a bit more with both solutions, and I’m sure we will pick the most fun one.
Who kidnapped the daughter, anyway? I don’t think I got a sense of who the main villain is in this game.
Lesiakowski: You need to play the playtest because the Summer Game Fest [demo], the game didn’t have the prologue, and the latest version already does, and there you will learn a bit more about the lieutenant and his henchmen; so the evil bunch, the daughter. But in the full game, the player will get to know a lot about them through the gameplay, especially through the dungeons, because they will play a big role in the overall story.
Does the protagonist have a name? Is there any sort of background that you can give me on him?
Lesiakowski: He’s just Pop.
Just Pop?
Lesiakowski: Just Pop for his daughter.
Was there any Clint Eastwood inspiration here, like in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, where he’s also a nameless outlaw?
Lesiakowski: For sure, he’s like a stoic demeanor, and he’s not talkative, that’s for sure. But we’ll leave it to the players to find if he says anything at all, or if he will be like the quiet protagonist for the whole time.
How big is the team exactly?
Lesiakowski: There’s 30 people at the studio, but we are currently creating two games. One is Erosion, and one is unannounced, and the Erosion team at the moment is 17 people.
Because of just how ambitious it sounds, is this the biggest game that you’ve ever tackled in your career?
Lesiakowski: Yeah. We tend to dabble in ambitious projects. We constantly like to remind ourselves that, ‘Yeah, maybe next time the next game will be simpler,’ and we always end up with something more and more ambitious.
What would you say has been the most challenging aspect of developing Erosion so far for you?
Lesiakowski: There are so many unique aspects to the game that probably the hardest part is not having like clear references for many things. There are here and there parts that we can figure out based on what other people did, but in most cases we end up in a tough spot, because some aspects of the game are too different from everything there was, so we just have to figure it out and playtest as much as we can, and follow the fun, basically, and see what is most attractive to the players. And previously, probably in our previous project, when we were creating a metroidvania with a surprising amount of puzzle elements, it was slightly easier, so I think this is the most challenging part with Erosion.
On the flip side, what’s been the most enjoyable aspect of developing the game so far?
Lesiakowski: Both the aspect of working with voxels, especially with our approach, and with how many steps that usually are needed to create assets for the game, the development is very agile. So we can figure out the character, basically like creating it from Lego, and few hours later it’s already an animated character in the game. So it’s a very freeing feeling to have as a developer, that it doesn’t have to follow all of the steps that usually are connected to creating assets.
And the second thing is that we put so much time into make sure that the base and the moment-to-moment gameplay is enjoyable, that the testing itself is also enjoyable as an effect. I remember when we started implementing destruction, and there was almost no possibility to open the game and not destroy something just for the sake of destroying, just to have some fun, to see the voxels spread around. It’s a very rewarding feeling.
Last question: What’s your favorite Adventure Time episode?
Lesiakowski: The hardest question is the last one. Maybe [“Jake the Brick”]? When Jake became a brick. It’s such a cozy and out-of-the-box idea. Probably this one, yeah.
Erosion launches in 2027 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Coming into this generation, we were given lofty promises about the value to the consumer and what the new technology could afford developers. Now that we’re nearing the end of this era for both PlayStation and Xbox, it’s clear this generation will not be defined by the incredible games that released during the PS5 and Xbox Series X’s lifecycles (of which there were many), nor by the powerful technology that has all but eliminated load times and allowed for unprecedented performance and graphical fidelity. Instead, the ninth console generation will be defined by corporate greed, mismanagement, and anti-consumer practices that could very well alter the course of the games industry itself.
If you pay attention to the news within the games space, you couldn’t possibly miss that we have been in the midst of persistent layoffs and closures for the last half decade. Beloved, successful studios with storied histories have been forced to lay off tens of thousands of workers in aggregate as the corporate pursuit of eternal profit has disenfranchised millennia of collective institutional knowledge. When you factor in how many of those long-tenured games industry workers may simply never return because they can’t find steady or secure work, as well as how many younger would-be developers have simply decided to pursue other careers in the name of not having to look over their shoulders in fear of their jobs, the damage to this industry by the shareholder-appeasing corporations has been immense and, likely, irreversible. That, in and of itself, is enough to potentially kill the entire industry, but that’s far from the only dramatic downturn gaming has faced this generation.
Former Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer at XO19 in 2019
Looking at just this last year, PlayStation and Xbox truly seem to be racing towards the bottom. After all but killing the value proposition of Xbox Game Pass by skyrocketing the subscription price, Xbox leadership underwent a huge shake up at the top, which saw Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond – the two most prominent figureheads at Xbox, and the architects of this generation’s strategy – depart the company. This opened up the door for sweeping changes, and that is precisely what has happened, as new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma has come in with a “reset” mentality, that seems to involve adopting the move-fast-and-break-stuff approach often seen tech startups.
Sharma’s new leadership brought the price of Game Pass back down and re-instilled the long-missing notion of exclusive games for Xbox, but the rest has either been inconsequential (like changing the official name of Xbox to all-caps or minimalizing competing platform logos on streams) or seemingly shortsighted moves, like reportedly considering the closures of renowned and award-winning studios like Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, Double Fine, Undead Labs, and Arkane Studios. And that’s after the platform holder already shuttered its apparent ace-in-the-hole studio, The Initiative, and canceled its Perfect Dark reboot last year. What good is restoring exclusivity if you close some of the best studios under your umbrella? If Xbox wants to “give people a reason to own an Xbox again” after an extremely underwhelming generation, it needs more than just Halo Studios, Playground Games, and The Coalition to deliver the content.
To be fair, many publishers and studios pivoted from single-player content in the pursuit of live-service glory in the wake of Fortnite’s success last decade, but few more than PlayStation. PlayStation has seemingly mortgaged its entire future on the notion, and it isn’t letting up. Even putting aside its house-cleaning at Bungie, one of the historically most successful live-service studios, PlayStation has witnessed firsthand the collapse of its live-service endeavors through the massive flop that was Concord, which was shut down and its studio closed mere weeks after launch. These knee-jerk decisions when it comes to closing live-service games so shortly after launch neglect to remember that not even Fortnite was the wild success that it eventually became right at launch; its PvE mode was originally set to be its flagship content, but when it didn’t hit the way Epic Games had hoped, the publisher gave the team the ability to pivot to the Battle Royale format (a direct response to PUBG: Battlegrounds’ success) that made it one of the most-played games in history. That didn’t happen until two full months after launch; PlayStation only gave Concord two weeks before throwing in the towel.
Then comes the all-digital future that nobody wants but the corporations. I’m someone who hasn’t bought a physical game in years, but I have plenty of friends who still love going to stores and perusing the new releases. PlayStation’s confirmation of its all-digital future starting in 2028 is yet another anti-consumer practice that will further push the industry down a dark path. We’ve already learned time and again that content you purchase on these digital storefronts is not yours to own, but rather a rented license to play said content. PlayStation itself reaffirmed that earlier this week, when it delisted and removed hundreds of digital movies customers purchased.
We are rapidly heading down the path to not only a lack of ownership with our entertainment media (even more so than we already are nearly 20 years into the movie and TV streaming era), but also a crisis of game preservation. Frank Cifaldi, director of the Video Game History Foundation, put out a statement in the wake of PlayStation’s announcement of its all-digital future, calling it “a hit to consumer rights, the resale market, and game creators whose businesses rely on the physical market.”
The latest console price hikes do not bode well for future game consoles
And that’s all without mentioning the skyrocketing cost of being a gamer in 2026 and beyond. We’ve already accepted that most triple-A games will cost $70, but Nintendo broke the $80 seal with Mario Kart World. And it’s not just individual games, as the cost of the consoles are going up, too. Normally, early adopters pay a premium for getting new tech right when it comes out, while those who wait can score a discount. Due to a confluence of events, including international trade policies like the implementation of tariffs and the over-consumption of tech components by the AI industry, the ninth console generation is raising prices for the same technology rather than dropping it over time.
The PS5 Pro felt expensive when it was announced as a $700 premium gaming experience, but that price feels tame in comparison to its current $900 price tag. In fact, the closest system to what I bought for $500 in 2020 – the current PlayStation 5 Slim Disc Edition – is now priced nearly at that original PS5 Pro price at a staggering $650. Xbox also raised its prices for the third time in 13 months, with an acknowledgement that it will likely continue to become more expensive next year. It’s not difficult to imagine the new consoles on the horizon that are either announced (in the case of Xbox) or reported (in the case of PlayStation) could cost even more. And when the best alternative to PlayStation and Xbox – PC gaming – is also impacted heavily by tariffs and AI-induced shortages, therefore jumping in price right alongside its console contemporaries, it paints an even bleaker picture of the current and future states of gaming.
I’d have some level of sympathy for Xbox, as it continues to blame component shortages for the price increases, but when its parent company, Microsoft, has invested $146 billion in AI, it’s hard not to feel like this is not a self-inflicted wound. Instead, it feels like, at best, a case of one hand not talking to the other on Microsoft’s part or, at worst, a cannibalistic calculation wherein Microsoft thinks that sacrificing the games industry in pursuit of the ever-prophesized-yet-still-unrealized eternal profit growth through AI infrastructure is a worthy sacrifice.
Additionally, when PlayStation says it will no longer offer physical sales starting in 2028, and Xbox may reportedly be not far behind, we will be beholden to the digital storefront sales going forward when it comes to saving money. Those discounts are often good now, but when you remove the brick-and-mortar competition, what’s to stop these digital shops from keeping prices inflated for longer?
PlayStation and Xbox aren’t the only companies struggling during this stretch, but when platform holders make such hard pivots after unchecked expansion and acquisition sprees, it spiderwebs out to impact more than just the localized in-house changes. Sure, PlayStation and Xbox studios are being shuttered or impacted by massive reductions in workforces, but we also saw the immediate impact of Xbox’s withdrawal from its partnership with IO Interactive’s Project Fantasy; that studio just released the successful and acclaimed 007 First Light earlier this year, and now, it’s contemplating necessary layoffs. We saw it with Xbox’s scaling back with its longtime PR agency, Assembly; just as that news hit, several tenured employees were laid off. And now, with PlayStation’s announcement of the end of physical media for its upcoming hardware, we will likely see even more fallout.
Soon after that news hit, retro and physical-game vendor iam8bit put out a statement saying it was “profoundly disappointed” in PlayStation’s decision to phase out physical media – likely a bad sign for its core business. But it’s going to go deeper than that, as online vendors and brick-and-mortar shops that rely heavily on physical game sales will struggle even more than they have in the modern video game landscape. None of this is Sony’s concern, nor does it need to be, but it’s another example of how these seismic shifts in policy and partnership can impact the broader games industry, even beyond the anti-consumer implications. Both Microsoft and Sony are rewriting its places and legacies within the games industry, and their reputations may not recover for a very long time, if the industry even survives their nosedives.
And though I’m largely leaving Nintendo out of this, it’s been far from perfect, with price increases and the controversy surrounding Game Key Cards. But when compared to the practices of PlayStation and Xbox during this stretch, Nintendo’s operations have looked downright ethical. And, perhaps not coincidentally, the sales of Nintendo platforms during this time have lapped those of PlayStation and Xbox. The Switch and Switch 2 have consistently sold well, with the first Switch earning its spot among the best-selling video game platforms of all time.
Though Nintendo’s policies might only play a small direct role in that, the benefits of its employee retention, calculated acquisitions, and more measured approaches to policy changes that impact consumers and the broader landscape are likely directly responsible for its sustained affluence. Nintendo has the advantage of having the best first-party developer in the history of video games (itself) exclusive to its platforms, and it’s likely not a coincidence that it has retained that title by not laying off its most important development team members after an underperforming game or a lull in releases. Sure, Japan’s labor laws make layoffs more challenging, but Nintendo likely could have conducted massive layoffs during the sluggish early years of the 3DS, but it didn’t. Instead, the late Satoru Iwata took a pay cut to make up for the slow handheld sales, and Nintendo lowered the price of the platform and offered early adopters free classic games to thank them for their business. That is how a company executive can take accountability, and a corporation can still race to the top amidst financial problems, rather than making its struggles everyone else’s problem.
The Console Wars, as they emerged in the early days of gaming, used to be about one-upping your competition. Today, it feels more about finding the nebulous line for how much wealth you can extract from your consumer base without driving them into the arms of your biggest competitor. I truly don’t know what the future holds for this industry if we continue down the path of the last five years, but I can tell you it won’t be good. Though sustainability is a problem for the entire industry to solve, we need the platform holders to lead from the top rather than continuing to pull the rug out from under their partners in the process of dismantling this hobby that we all love.
The Blood Of Dawnwalker has one simple goal at the center of it: storm the castle, save your family. And not long after completing the introduction, protagonist Coen – and by extension, you – are let loose in the world to figure out how best to accomplish this task.
As we learned during our cover story trip, this means a great deal of The Blood Of Dawnwalker could be optional, tackled at different times, and even missed in one playthrough. NPCs can be affected, and even killed, due to Coen’s actions. So we talked with some of the leads behind Dawnwalker to understand the vision behind these choices and consequences, and how they feel it shapes their approach to role-playing in their fictional 14th century world.
Frictional Games, developers of Soma and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, have delayed its next horror title, Ontos, to 2027. The game was first announced at The Game Awards 2025 with a launch scheduled for this year.
The sci-fi horror game is set on Samsara, a repurposed moon hotel, where players control an engineer named Aditi Amani, who is invited there by her father, a cryptic yet brilliant scientist-turned-prophet. The nature of reality is fractured at Samsara, so Amani must confront disturbing realities about her father’s past and the nature of existence. Frictional touts an immersive narrative with tactile, systems-driven gameplay that includes scavenging for materials, manipulating machinery, and using analog systems. Samsara itself is billed as a vast, labyrinthine space made of surreal biomes run by different factions and teeming with disturbing threats.
In a social media post, Frictional Games says it needs more time to realize what it describes as “our most ambitious game to date, both in terms of its size and scale, and in the depth and layers of our story and gameplay.”
▇▄▋▋▎ ONTOS is our most ambitious game to date, both in terms of its size and scale, and in the depth and layers of our story and gameplay.
In order to deliver this vision, we have decided to push the release of ONTOS to 2027.
Ontos is coming in 2027 to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. You can see what other games are launching next year with our 2027 Video Game Release Schedule.
