Nathan Grayson

@nathangrayson.bsky.social

28679 Followers 826 Following

Co-founder and reporter @aftermath.site. Beats: labor, livestreaming. My book about Twitch, Stream Big, is available now. Formerly: The Washington Post. Send tips to nathan@aftermath.site or nathangrayson.666 on Signal

oddworld: abe's oddysee
screenshot from fallout season two where a character exclaims "lord tunderin' jaysus"
A bunch of ultra-rare Pokémon cards An election Citizenship in Malta A ticket to outer space A basketball that’s selling for $320,722 on Amazon, specifically The original Breakfast At Tiffany’s script A year’s worth of food and supplies for multiple families in your community (assuming you, the person who bought the jacket, have a community in any real sense and do not instead own, like, a company town—or a prison) The Doom bathroom (give or take $88,000) 101,327 lbs or 50.7 tons of cheesecake bites (according to Isaiah’s math, which I do not feel like double checking) 1/400 of Gabe Newell’s biggest yacht A struggling indie game studio Most—but not quite all—of the games on Steam Other jackets Jensen Huang might want in the future, but you dedicate your life to buying them before he can, filling his days with disappointment A flamethrower, to burn all of Jensen Huang’s jackets Aftermath
me in a floral print shirt and pink sunglasses
PODCASTS Cum Dungeon Cum dungeon! by NATHAN GRAYSON
Todd Howard just shared plans for the Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and Starfield franchises. These worlds have earned a special place with hundreds of millions of people over many years. I'm looking forward to what's next, including the partnership with Obsidian on a new Fallout game and closer collaboration with ZeniMax Online Studios on The Elder Scrolls. The achievements of these franchises are remarkable: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has crossed 65 million units sold, becoming one of the 10 best-selling games of all time, Fallout 4 has also crossed 35 million units sold, joining the top 25, and Starfield will soon reach over 1 billion hours played. This statement sucks so bad that it makes my blood boil. Look what the franchises did, all by themselves! Look what they’ve accomplished, of their own volition, thanks to their own intrinsic goodness! So many big numbers, which translate to giant heaps of cash in the bank accounts of execs and shareholders! Never mind the people who spent decades painstakingly crafting the many games, stories, and other creative endeavors that corporate ghouls now so happily flatten into “franchises,” erasing themes, meaning, and human beings in favor of empty iconography. This is how the people running the show at Xbox—and countless companies besides—view games, not to mention everything else in their robotic, colorless lives. Numbers and lines trending ever upward. Fuel for platitudes and faux-inspirational nonsense directed at the LinkedIn hivemind, of which they all paradoxically believe they’re the main character. Another stepping stone toward the next bigger, better thing. No ultimate destination, no camaraderie, no soul. Just an endless ladder that leads to the void regardless of which way you climb.
Legal action, though, is just one part of unions’ larger effort to hold Microsoft accountable for its decision to lay off thousands of workers. This week, CWA also hosted a series of “Save Our Devs” demonstrations outside the offices of affected studios like Zenimax, id Software, Bethesda, and Obsidian. “I think we are trying to put pressure on [Microsoft] from as many angles as possible,” a current Blizzard employee and union member told Aftermath. “Evidently keeping it internal is not enough.”
This is not CWA’s first time taking legal action against Microsoft and its subsidiaries. In 2025, CWA publicly announced that it had filed an unfair labor practice charge against Activision for allegedly disciplining a Raven Software employee for communicating about bargaining. It appears to have been withdrawn by the NLRB a couple months later. The NLRB’s database also includes a few other open cases filed by CWA against Activision—one from 2025 and two from 2026. Additionally, there are five open cases against Zenimax (not including today's), three from CWA. Also in 2025, CWA Canada filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Bethesda Game Studios for what it deemed unfair bargaining with Canadian employees and “choosing to treat Canada-based employees like second-class citizens.” It is unclear whether or not the case has been resolved. Currently, the US’ National Labor Relations Board is dealing with a “historic” backlog of cases after 2025 saw Donald Trump take the then-unprecedented step of firing Democratic member Gwynne Wilcox, costing the five-member board its quorum of at least three members and preventing it from deciding cases for nearly a year. The board has traditionally been overseen by two Democrats, two Republicans, and a chair from the president’s party, and with Trump’s nominee recently getting cleared by a Senate panel, it’s looking like Republicans will soon have a 3-1 NLRB advantage. This does not bode well for Biden-era NLRB decisions that encouraged union organizing—nor for unions in general.
Current employees speaking to Aftermath on the condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak publicly, noted that internal Xbox product teams were also hit hard by last week’s layoffs, with some losing 30-40 percent of their staff. This includes, one current employee said, “people who were responsible for the original Xbox and Xbox 360.” “Xbox in general had a lot of incredible people who stuck around for a very long time,” the current employee told Aftermath. “It’s the only way that we’ve been able to ship consoles which work well despite us always being on a shoestring budget. Tons of institutional knowledge, people stretched thin, and not enough time to properly document things, and Asha and her new leadership team have no trust in or respect [for] the value those people brought to the business. While they correctly diagnosed a shitshow, they don’t know or care to learn about why it’s so bad, and so they’re wildly blowing everything up since they’re too lazy or uncurious to actually listen to the teams who have struggled under the previous incompetent leadership teams.”
aftermath's frontpage with stories exclusively by me
Warframe, which began as a humble co-op space ninja shooter and evolved into a sprawling sci-fi epic with too many gameplay systems to count and one of the most dedicated communities in video games, has proven remarkably resilient in an era where live-service games drop like flies. Even Destiny 2—to which Warframe is often (if erroneously) compared—met what basically amounted to its untimely end earlier this year. "Games as a service, it's a scary world. We've been doing it for 13 years, and we have no secret formula. We have no cheat code." And of course, Microsoft’s latest round of layoffs remains all too fresh on everyone’s minds as hardware prices skyrocket and Sony adapts by killing physical discs. Change is afoot, with traditional triple-A games looking more and more like a potential casualty. No one is safe and nothing is sacred. Not even a seemingly unshakable pillar like Warframe. “It’s fucking awful, what’s happening in this industry,” community director Megan Everett told Aftermath during a recent interview. “I feel very lucky to be working on this game and to have this dev team and the community that we’ve built, because I’m no stranger to the fact that it could all end tomorrow. Games as a service, it's a scary world. We've been doing it for 13 years, and we have no secret formula. We have no cheat code. We have just stayed in our little Canadian homebrew lane, put our heads down, and really tried to make this game what we want and what our community wants it to be.”
rebbford To the Tenno: Tennocon is my most anticipated event of the year - we are working every day to make sure we have an exciting Warframe reveal, but sadly, I will not be there in person to tell you about it. Since November 2025, I have been privately dealing with an unexpected health issue that I learned would require major surgery to treat. I planned the required medical preoperative steps as best I could to have the surgery take place after Tennocon. But luck was not on my side - my operation is scheduled for July 10, the Friday of Tennocon. I will be in the hospital for 3 days post-op, then undergo a 6-week recovery. It should be very boring, and I should be very fine. The timing is what sucks, but I need the surgery. This is plainly devastating for me at a selfish level - spending time with the community after months of hard work and reveals is a gift, and this year I'm missing out. But the team won't be missing out - the event will be incredible, and I will be watching from the recovery room, taking care of my health. I hope you can hear me cheering on my Digital Extremes people and our players. Thank you for understanding, Rebecca (Rebb) Ford P.S: If the date changes, you'll be (almost) the first to know! 741 46 rebbford A notice regarding my attendance at TennoCon 2026: 6 minutes ago
ben starr in a wig and a shirt that says "definitely rebecca ford"
video of sgdq's balatro run followed by the text: "Anxiety inducing. Brain breaking. Probably the best run of the entire event." video of sgdq's "return to gaza" mini doc followed by the text: "Not a run, but an incredibly affecting, humanizing portrayal of people in Gaza."
The id Tech engine, regarded by many as a miracle of optimization, has been a point of concern following recent layoffs. Some employees have claimed that Microsoft tossed crucial institutional knowledge about its basic functions out the window, effectively killing it. In a statement posted to Twitter today, id contested that characterization of events: While our studio was impacted, those changes were spread across teams. We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we're known for. The team today is about the same size we were when making DOOM (2016). We have always had a flat studio where everyone is a maker, and we will remain true to that philosophy moving forward. We are focused on supporting each other and the team members impacted. We're going to keep building the great games and tech that have defined us for the past 35 years, and we're looking forward to seeing you at QuakeCon this August. In a statement to Kotaku earlier this week, Microsoft claimed that the id Tech engine, specifically, is in no danger of going extinct: “There are dozens of people working on id Tech across multiple locations,” an Xbox spokesperson said. “Reports that there’s only one person left in Texas are inaccurate.” (A Microsoft spokesperson sent the same statement to Aftermath today following a request for comment.)
Current and former id Software employees informed Aftermath of layoffs at the Frankfurt office, saying that six of twelve of id workers were let go, in line with what happened to the rest of id earlier this week. Layoffs also affected Bethesda employees working out of the same office. Even prior to layoffs, id's Frankfurt operation was small, comprising a dozen employees across multiple departments like art and programming, with the majority working on id’s engine team. The remaining six, current and former employees told Aftermath, work on the engine. Following layoffs, Frankfurt is now home to the majority of id's id Tech engineers, with two others residing in Dallas. That said, other Zenimax studios also work on the id Tech engine.
a wind waker race with a person on the couch dressed as tingle
Everything is bad, with new horrors revealing themselves by the day. But you know what isn’t bad? Speedrunning. Summer Games Done Quick, the balmy, beachy (at least, by Minneapolis standards) edition of GDQ’s bi-annual charity mega-marathon, has been in full swing since Sunday. It could not be happening at a better and also worse time. The video game industry is on fire in the conflagratory sense; if not for this 24/7 reminder of the fact that games can be good and be used to do good, I’d be losing my mind.
‪Ed Lynch‬ ‪@goatburgler.bsky.social‬ · 22m Someone went through the vid frame by frame to get that exact screenshot. Let them know their work is appreciated. ‪Xavier‬ ‪@xavierck.com‬ · 16m I came to the comments to mention this exactly. It's truly inspired work.
Sharma, whose hobbies include masochism, weird natalist bullshit, and collaborating with other execs to sort of just wing their way through the wanton destruction of 3,200 people’s livelihoods, will be one of three heads of a task force designed to “assess the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, to inform the Federal Reserve's policy judgments.”
News Layoffs Hit GameSpot Again It's the fifth round of layoffs since the company was purchased by Fandom
According to Insider Gaming, the Barcelona studio’s launch celebration event for Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced was downgraded to a smaller catered “get-together at the studio.” The game itself, meanwhile, is already the best reviewed one in the series in over a decade, and seems poised to be a big seller for Ubisoft in an otherwise anemic year for new releases from the French publisher.
Prior to the layoffs, id was reportedly working on multiple project pitches, including a Western-style robot game, a cyberpunk Chicago “gun fu” game, and a new Perfect Dark. Now nothing is certain. “We have gotten no studio-wide announcements on what our expectations are going forward after these awful cuts,” a current id employee told Aftermath. “I wouldn't say no one knows how to use the engine anymore, but there are large gaps now. Our colleagues at id Frankfurt as well as Machine Games both have much stronger labor laws and haven't seen the layoffs we have. But within id many things will have to be relearned by new people or outright abandoned.”
“Today was actually the launch of our DLC for Doom: The Dark Ages,” a current id employee told Aftermath. “What was supposed to be a celebratory day after a long effort including significant crunch is now largely a day of mourning. Entire teams have been gutted or even outright eliminated, with institutional knowledge lost that can't be replaced. I don't even know our ability to put out fixes for today's launch if they are needed, let alone new projects.” “All but one person who helped run all our old titles was let go,” they added. “Passionate fans of id since before working there trying to keep our legacy alive now won't be able to do so, and for some that has been as painful as the job loss itself.”
r/posthardcore Songs about shitty mothers
“It was already excruciating [to wait] over the long weekend—which made it impossible to relax,” one current Blizzard employee told Aftermath. “Now we have it indefinitely, and nobody knows who it will hit.” “I’ve worked in roofing, construction, insulation, house building, glass factories, pallet shops, group homes for disabled and violent adults, gas stations, food service, customer service, and jobs involving gas meters,” said a current Activision employee. “Out of every industry I’ve worked in, I have never struggled financially or mentally as hard as I have working here.”
This morning, after 21 years at Obsidian Entertainment, my journey with the studio came to an end. While this wasn't the outcome I hoped for, I can't help but feel incredibly grateful for the time I spent there. Obsidian wasn't just a workplace, it was where I built a career, formed lasting friendships, and had the opportunity to work alongside some of the most talented and passionate people in the industry. We are clearly at a turning point in the games industry. These past months have been difficult for so many talented people, and unfortunately, it seems the challenges aren't over yet. Right now, I'm going to take some time to reflect, process this change, and figure out what's next. But when I'm ready, I will be looking for new opportunities. If you know of any roles or leads that might be a fit, I'd be grateful if you would reach out or share them. To everyone across the Obsidan and Xbox family and throughout the industry who has been affected by these layoffs, my heart truly goes out to you. Wishing all of us strength, resilience, and hopefully exciting new opportunities ahead. Thank you, Obsidian, for an unforgettable 21 years.
The entire memo is full of such wonderful brain gems such as “We know that great technology gets better when it gets simpler, not bigger” and “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.” At one point Sharma states, “I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect.” A BILLION PEOPLE A DAY, Asha? Creating and connecting, via Xbox? You just sent 1600 people into one of the worst job markets in history for the industry, and you’re talking about an install base of a billion, are you fucking high? These are delusional, careless, and tedious people who will never suffer consequences like these, attempting to massage a bad message so they can get patted on the back for it. It speaks of austerity and profit margins with a ruthless, mercenary logic that they refuse to apply to the other, money-burning parts of the company. And while I do not doubt Xbox could have been run more efficiently, the problem isn’t Xbox; it’s Microsoft. Nobody has ever loved Microsoft; it has only been tolerated, and increasingly less so with its embrace of AI and enabling of genocide in Gaza. It is a B2B SaaS company wearing a person costume and demanding love like Scarlett Johansson in Under The Skin. This entire charade is all in the service of a scam, the livelihoods of countless people being thrown into a furnace so Satya Nadella can continue to dick around with Copilot, an AI product so bad that I have no evidence to suggest that anybody has used it on purpose including AI perverts.
Recalls might prove necessary, because Microsoft absolutely took the hatchet to Zenimax. QA lost 105 people – 75 employees and 30 contractors, amounting to a third of total QA – according to Litchfield, while Zenimax Online Studios’ headcount was reduced by over 200, according to Gobelle. Another Microsoft worker who was granted anonymity as they are not authorized to speak publicly on these matters told Aftermath that higher-ups have said internally that a total of 1,600 positions were eliminated from Microsoft’s gaming division during July’s layoffs. Litchfield and Leese told Aftermath they’d heard the same.
When Compulsion Games was founded in 2009 as an independent studio, we were just a few dreamers in a leaky old gramophone factory devoted to creating rich storylines and experiences that felt handcrafted. We care about the craft of making games, the stories we tell, the players who experience them, and the assembled creators who put their heart and soul into doing something different. Today, we're sharing that Compulsion Games will return to independent management following our time as part of XBOX. As part of this transition, we will retain the rights to Contrast, We Happy Few, and our award-winning South of Midnight. We're grateful for the years we spent with XBOX, for the support they provided our team, and for the opportunity to bring these games to players around the world. As an independent studio, we're excited to continue building the distinctive games that define Compulsion while taking the next steps in our journey. Our immediate priority is to support our team throughout this transition period. We are confident in the future of Compulsion Games and look forward to this next chapter where one thing will remain constant: we will create unique games that tell important stories, all with the goal of touching the hearts and minds of our players.
I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect. I know we can achieve this goal. XBOX has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world, and we will return to growth in 2027.
Xbox began widespread layoffs today, around which fears and rumors have swirled since CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty announced a “reset” for the company in early June. In what Sharma calls "the most significant restructure in XBOX history," 1600 jobs have been cut today with more cuts planned, and some studios will transition to new ownership or become independent. "After careful consideration, I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout FY27. This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today, and in addition, four studios will leave XBOX to new management," Sharma wrote in a memo titled "Resetting Xbox." Additionally, Sharma wrote that Double Fine and Compulsion will "return to management and transition to independent studios with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games." Undead Labs and Ninja Theory "have entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3." Meanwhile, at Arkane, "management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options. "
“[Zenimax QA] agreed to a no-strike, no-lockout clause, which effectively says they can't lock us out of work and we can't stop work,” said Mitchell. “That keeps the peace while the contract is alive. But these other units that are still bargaining don’t have those terms, so they have a pretty credible strike threat right now.” “One interesting thing is that because all of our development units are still in bargaining, currently they all still have that credible strike threat,” Goin added. “That means that the development teams behind World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Online, [Bethesda Game Studios]—which includes the Elder Scrolls and Fallout IPs—could all theoretically make a credible strike threat, and we are all part of the same parent union.” That, of course, would be a particularly drastic course of action, but short of that, union members have already—just this week—held a press conference and spoken out publicly, actions that would have put non-union workers at risk. Meanwhile, CWA continues to negotiate with Microsoft over layoff protections even as the clock ticks down. “I will say, this should be a galvanizing moment for anyone who's not in a union right now,” said Fatima. “Layoffs are going to happen. If they don't happen now, there's going to be more layoffs in the future. We work at Microsoft.”
Writing too much about Jackass is its own kind of stunt; the word count creeps up and so does the likelihood you've embarrassed yourself somehow, like you've shit your pants in word form. It is silly to position these clowns and their subsidized chicanery as some form of cultural sin-eaters, as if any of us needs to know what it's like to shove a toy car in our rectum and get it X-rayed. But I think of the bad shoulder I have from the wrestling antics my friends and I pulled as teenagers, how fucking funny it was when Juanmiguel, a full head shorter than I and built like a goddamn Mack truck, ran faster than I thought humanly possible to spear my lanky frame into a swimming pool with such force that the wind blew out of my lungs and my ass skid across the bottom of the pool. I'm not that same kind of moron anymore, but I am still pretty stupid. Stupid enough to do anything as long as I've got my friends with me. Stupid enough to think I've got a chance at a life that I want. Stupid enough to write about it all. And yeah: Stupid enough to laugh when I see someone get punched in the dick.
Dbrand claims that more than one thousand hours of engineering work went into the case, and it was redesigned from scratch more than once. Further, the company says that following the case’s launch on June 22, it quickly became the second-fastest selling product in its whole history. It is, if nothing else, odd that nobody involved in this laborious process thought to reach out to Valve. Valve, according to Dbrand, agrees. “Shortly after [launch], Valve’s legal team reached out,” Dbrand wrote. “They stated that the Companion Cube is Valve intellectual property, for which Dbrand does not have a license. They requested we take down the product and launch film immediately. This was entirely within their rights, and they were direct, fair, and respectful throughout. We took everything down and made an appeal. We asked Valve whether there was any way to keep the project alive: properly licensed, with their blessing, on their terms. They said no. Given our backwards approach of building first and asking permission later, it was a fair answer.”
On a day like today, I can’t help but fixate on Meccha Chameleon. In many ways, it’s yet another vaguely Among Us-inspired piece of disposable entertainment for the content age. I see ambitious, decade-spanning labors of collective blood, sweat, and tears like Destiny 2 disintegrate, and I think about how it’s highly unlikely that there will ever be another One Of Those, but there will almost certainly be another Dozen Or Hundred (Or Thousand???) Of These: small teams armed with a decent idea and some asset packs. It’s not like one is coming at the expense of the other, either—at least, not directly. But what it means to make games—and therefore the allowable shape and scope of them—is changing. Greedy executives and shareholders have decided to do an extinction event to a segment of the medium rich with expertise and tradition, but which was never built with any sort of sustainability in mind. Triple-A looks more like a dinosaur by the day, with those in charge playing the part of the asteroid. It’s a horrific shame, both in terms of the damage done to developers' livelihoods, careers, and futures, and because—on a more selfish note—I personally find something like Destiny much more interesting than something like Meccha Chameleon. But from the ashes, something else must rise, and even if it’s not my exact kind of thing, there’s hope to be found in that. People want to play. People want to have fun. People want to explore and experience new points of view. They always have and they always will, regardless of circumstance. That’s how you get a game that’s essentially just a dressed-up version of a playground favorite selling seven million units in the span of a couple weeks. This is not to say that indies will save the video game industry—to the extent that a singular video game industry even exists anymore—but smart, creative people will continue to ensure that games exist, even if they’re not backed by ethically compromised mega-corporations.
an “I voted” sticker with elden ring font on top of it that reads “civic duty performed”
In general what I enjoyed about our work on the open world content was that we were able to do weird stuff and take character-motivated swings. Devrim Kay, Failsafe, Sloan, and Asher Mir are a pretty wild lineup. And it was great being able to explore very different aspects of the world than you could see through the eyes of Zavala / Cayde / Ikora. Working at Bungie was the most toxic, dysfunctional experience of my professional life. But the incredible people that I got the chance to work with were some of the best in the world at what they do, and I consider all of them friends to this day.
breyers ice cream (big)
UFC Freedom 250 is facing a chaotic weather setup on the White House South Lawn, with a 60% chance of thunderstorms, heavy downpours, and wind gusts up to 34 mph threatening to delay the outdoor fights. On top of the storm risk, brutal D.C. humidity is driving a triple-digit heat swarms of mosquitos and gnats that fighters will have to battle inside the cage. While the venue’s massive 92-foot overhang will keep the octagon dry, a single lightning strike within eight miles will trigger an automatic 30-minute freeze on the entire event.
Let Me Tell You About Love and Deepspace by NICOLE CARPENTER Let Me Throw A Gun At A Guy's Head by CHRIS PERSON
a little skit about canvassing performed with two dsa members
hasan saying all that stuff on stage surrounded by people holding signs
hasan piker and will neff at the nba finals game that will go down in history as the beginning of NYC’s tragic fall
The circumstances surrounding the news paint a slightly muddier picture. In at least one case, Ubisoft justified the embargo by saying that staff in Belgrade were still being informed at the time, according to reporters to whom Aftermath spoke. Ubisoft also reached out to members of the press relatively close to when the embargo was set to lift, meaning that if this was the first reporters were hearing of the layoffs, there wasn’t a ton of wiggle room for them to publish on their own terms. But Ubisoft did, to a degree, put reporters in a bind, with some who agreed to the embargo telling Aftermath that Ubisoft did not specify the nature of the embargo before they said they’d adhere to it; the company only mentioned that it was going to announce something soon. Had reporters known more about what they were agreeing to, they might not have done so as readily, or at all. Aftermath reached out to Ubisoft for more details but did not receive a reply as of this publishing
But really, this goes back to a central, defining problem with AI: Its mere existence sows suspicion. People see it everywhere now, sometimes even in art and writing that did not actually employ it. If a company suggests that AI played any role in the proceedings—even if it swears up and down that humans hand-carved the end result—it’s only natural to wonder if other corners were cut. This goes double for games like Tomb Raider and Crazy Taxi, where the implication of the more detailed AI disclosures journalists and the public had to badger out of companies is that developers needed help with ideas, specifically—aka the easiest part of creating anything. Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad that Steam makes companies disclose use of AI; it’s better than nothing. But the current requirements clearly aren’t doing the job, and there have been plenty of instances involving games both large and small where it’s been difficult to glean the actual scope of AI usage from disclosures—which can make it feel like developers are trying to hide something or are not being entirely honest.
The Wolf Among Us Remastered Rayman Legends: Retold Rayman Origins Enhanced Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered Arizona Sunshine (Non-VR remake) Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Hitman Classic Trilogy Remastered Persona 4 Revival Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis Final Fantasy 7 Revelation Halo: Campaign Evolved Resident Evil: Veronica Company of Heroes: Definitive Edition Thief: The Dark Project Remastered Barbie Rewind Toy Story Retro Round-Up Toy Story 3: Complete Edition Dynasty Warriors 3 Remastered
But it’s still an act of digital necromancy involving a man who, crucially, cannot object. The dead deserve to rest, but instead, the modern era turns their ghosts into IP. This isn’t even the first dead person RGG has shamelessly boasted will appear in Stranger Than Heaven. That not-honor goes to Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara, who passed away in 2014. At least in his case, it’s confirmed he’s not getting the Val Kilmer treatment, with actor Takashi Ukaji providing his voice instead of AI.
Trending 1. Tupac 2. Gundam Game 3. Guild Wars 3 4. Knicks vs Spurs 5. Stranger Than Heaven
“Trans rights have been important to me my entire adult life,” Knapik wrote on Bluesky. “My first job after leaving the Army (which no one who knows me will admit happened) was for my mother at the Hippo in Baltimore. The Hippo was, to my knowledge, the largest queer nightclub in Baltimore, maybe the state. … It wasn't my first time among LGBTQ+ communities—my mother is a lesbian, my friends were sometimes queer, and people I had known throughout my time in the Army transitioned immediately afterwards—but my time there did more to shape me into an upstanding person than service ever did.” Knapik believes that homophobes and transphobes are a dying breed in the grand scheme of things, but they’re not going out quietly. “I (perhaps naïvely) believe there are fewer of those people these days, but they are inarguably louder and more powerful than ever. They hold office, they own websites,” he wrote. “UFC fucking champions posting AI videos depicting hate crimes. Shit we didn't accept from YouTubers a decade ago has become passé behavior for major public figures. So yeah, the silly typo website redirects to a place that fights as well as anyone can for trans people in this environment. I'm just garden-variety bi, but I've been within the echo radius of trans hate—and trans joy—for decades, and seen how gleefully the former shreds the path to the latter.”
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick is now a playable character in WWE 2K26. I have some questions. Principally, of course, I’d like to know why 2K added one of gaming’s most AI-confused, money-hungry executives at all. I mean, it’s not like he has some enormous cult of personality beyond his position at Take-Two and the odd vaguely spicy interview quote. He did release a fitness book and go around promoting it by showing off shirtless pictures of himself with eight percent body fat, but that was back in 2018. Plus, he’s not even shirtless in the game.
Now, many of these games cater to different audiences, and you don’t have to buy every game—even ones you’re looking forward to—on the day they come out. In fact, it often makes more sense to wait for a sale, especially when you’re dealing with triple-A price tags. Still, this is the kind of pileup we haven’t seen in years, and I would have to imagine that at least a few of these games wind up getting delayed into the following months—or to early 2027, to once again avoid a potentially disastrous clash with GTA VI. Further, I cannot help but consider the current industry climate; if any one of these games falls short of—or, in some cases, even meets—sales expectations, layoffs and other grim knock-on effects are likely. However, given the shortsightedness with which companies are incentivized to operate, delays could produce similar outcomes. Not ideal no matter how you slice it!
Already, there’s been discourse online about how a) God Of War stars a woman now, woe are the many babies who actually hate both women and video games, but more importantly b) the cube. Some contend that it looks out of place in this otherwise muddy, bloody afterlife setting and that Jack Quaid’s line reads, so far, sound a little Marvel-y. I cannot deny these prospective criticisms of a game that—let’s not forget—doesn’t even have a release date yet. But watching the trailer, I was absolutely entranced not by the brutal balletics of a boss battle against a red demon, but instead by the cube wobbling along beside and behind it. Then, as if to add insult to the injury of Laufey’s sword strikes, the cube would crash into the back of the boss with the ferocity of an untouched, slightly spoiled Jell-O mold. Nobody really acknowledges this as Laufey and the boss trade ill-intentioned blows and words, which in my opinion makes it better. Laufey nearly hews the dude in half, and then—for good measure—gelatinous cube comes in with a follow up boop. It is the gentle rhythm of slapstick, a dying art resurrected. Fitting for a game about someone who’s supposed to be dead.
Project Zomboid is a hardcore zombie survival game that’s been in development since 2013 and still carries an early access tag. It is a labor of unfaltering commitment—an instance where both developers and community share a tinkerer’s obsession with small details. Their priorities are not always 100 percent aligned, however. In the unstable version of the game’s latest patch, players noticed that autodrink—a toggle-able feature that causes your character to automatically drink water when thirsty—now only applies to 100% water. This means your character will no longer slam mixed drinks… like battle milk. “You'd get a water dispenser jug, drop in 1L of whiskey, 6.4L of milk and fill the rest up with water: battle milk,” explained one player on Reddit to others unfamiliar with the not-quite-exploit (via Ed Smith). “The water being at 51% or higher would trigger autodrink, and the milk portion would add calories, and the booze would temper panic/anxiety.”
Zara Rahim, a communications specialist and political advisor who was set to join Piker on his panel, offered an even more vociferous rebuke of SXSW. “The entire premise of our panel was rooted in examining why audiences increasingly distrust institutions, gatekeepers, and traditional power structures political discourse, and whose voices are permitted legitimacy in public life,” she wrote on Instagram. “There's an obvious irony in hosting a conference about the future of media, democracy, dissent, and political power while responding so cautiously to the banning of one of the most influential political commentators from even entering the country. … I appreciate everyone's time and the work that went into putting this together, but under the circumstances, stepping away feels like the only option for me.”
us, live, one last time
emember when the Steam Deck—no longer a bleeding-edge piece of hardware but still a marvel from an “it just works” perspective—was a bargain? Well, those days are painfully over. Today Valve announced that the 512 GB OLED Deck has leaped from $549 to $789, while the 1 TB version has positively soared from $649 to $949. In other territories, that comes out to CAD 1,129, EUR 779, GBP 649, AUD 1,199, and PLN 3,279 for the 512 GB model and CAD 1,349, EUR 919, GBP 779, AUD 1,429, and PLN 3,879 for the big boy. Nearly every platform under the sun has undergone a price increase at this point, but the Deck’s is especially (sticker) shocking. The top-end model’s price is now almost 50 percent higher than it used to be.
But that pretty much sums up the UFC in general these days: a gaudy, shambolic traveling circus so married to short-changing fighters that it’s become incapable of giving anyone, except its own money-grubbing execs, what they actually want. There is a shamelessness to the operation exemplified by its weekly cascade of inconsequential events—many of which are run out of a near-empty warehouse in Las Vegas—and even White’s seeming inability to care about them. It’s content for content’s sake, which the UFC has nonetheless convinced Paramount, the organization’s latest suitor, to wildly overpay for. The UFC is a well-oiled machine with exactly one purpose: to collect a paycheck. In this way, the UFC pairs perfectly with the current US presidential administration, both ideologically and in terms of naked desire to swindle everyone in its path, but loyalists most of all. So as far as symbolism goes, you can’t really beat the UFC vomiting the guts of its infernal contraption onto the lawn while the White House devours itself from the inside out both figuratively and, of course, with Trump’s big, beautiful ballroom. It’s yet another pus-spewing pockmark on the back of an empire in collapse, but at least it’s funny.
hasan responding to all of this with a thirst trap
us, live