2 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
Skip to main content

Gaming

The Verge’s gaming section brings the latest video game news, reviews of the most exciting releases, and interviews with the industry’s biggest names. We cover everything from PlayStation and Xbox blockbusters, to quirky Nintendo games, to the cool indie gems on PC and Android that you might otherwise miss.

  • RELATED /
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
An innocent man spent 18 months in jail over a misread username.

Brandon Klayme was wrongly convicted for possession of child pornography after the investigation botched his Kik username, “fus_ro_dah,” in reference to Bethesda’s Skyrim videogame. The real suspect’s username — “fus__ro_dah” — included one additional underscore, a “subtle mistake that changed the course of my life,” Klayme said.

Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
I can’t stop staring through this PC with a curved glass front.

Maingear’s new Zero series of desktop PCs use 4mm-thick curved tempered glass for an airy, panoramic aesthetic. They come in Intel and AMD versions, starting at $2,699, with GPUs ranging from the RTX 5070 to RTX 5090.

Maingear and other manufacturers have done glass setups similar to this before, but the Zero series has no visible seams and it isn’t an ultra-limited edition run like last year’s Doom PC.

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

1/6Image: Maingear
Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Valve just added HDR and AV1 Remote Play streaming for Steam Deck.

I’ve heard Steam Remote Play is finally reaching parity with Moonlight when streaming games to your Steam Deck. Now, Steam Remote Play is getting AV1 for theoretically even better compression, and HDR for the Steam Deck OLED’s screen. I like streaming, but I’d also like more devs to embrace Dynamic Cloud Sync

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Ditto used Dive!

The new extended trailer for the first wave of Pokopia DLC gives us a much better look at all the water type monsters you’ll be able to befriend in Bubbly Basin beginning August 5th. It also looks like building underwater houses is about to get much easier.

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Logitech isn’t affected by RAMageddon — but a chipmaker ‘incident’ may cost it $20 million.

“We don’t have the same problems,” Logitech’s new gaming boss Robin Piispanen tells me during our wide-ranging chat, when I ask if PC builders are delaying peripheral purchases like other parts of their build due to RAM prices. In fact, Logitech’s gaming sales are up 12 percent YoY and 21 percent sequentially in today’s Q1 earnings.

But other chips might leave a dent:

in late June 2026, a serious incident in the manufacturing facilities of one of Logitech’s semiconductor suppliers resulted in its temporary closure, which is likely to impact the Company’s ability to effectively meet future demand. The Company is working on multiple mitigation plans.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Double Fine is laying off 23 staffers after going independent.

“Only the survival of our studio would ever make us consider such a painful action,” Double Fine founder Tim Schafer says in a statement. “Our transition to becoming an independent company also means becoming a size that we can sustain.”

Double Fine was one of four studios Xbox sold off as part of its recent restructuring, and the studio gets to keep its games.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Xbox’s CTO explains Monday’s big outage.

The outage, which lasted for nearly a day, blocked people from playing some digital and disc games. You can read Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet’s full explanation on X, but here’s a key part of it:

What happened. Late last night, a licensing service that sits outside of XBOX, but which XBOX depends upon, began failing. This caused some sign-in scenarios to fail, and it caused many scenarios that require an entitlement check to also fail, such as listing out your Full Library and launching games that you own. It also affected several of our publishing and store partners who depend on those same systems which is why some of you saw issues in specific games and not others.

4GB graphics cards are back4GB graphics cards are back
Stevie Bonifield
Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Well this is awkward.

The new remake of Halo: Combat Evolved is out today, and it’s an excellent reimagining of an FPS classic. But it also comes at a very weird time for the Xbox brand and Microsoft’s gaming ambitions. You can check out my full review below.

Cameron Faulkner
Cameron Faulkner
Ubisoft is getting aligned with Xbox’s PC-focused future.

Ubisoft announced that several of its biggest (and smallest) hits from the past decade are available on the Xbox PC app. Also, those who already own digital console titles listed in the Xbox blog post can play them on PC for no additional cost via the Ubisoft Connect app. Sounds like Ubisoft is positioning itself for Xbox’s PC-like Project Helix.

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is one of 13 games that support the Xbox-to-PC offer.
Image: Ubisoft
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
An Xbox outage has been preventing some games from launching since last night.

After a PS5 outage last week, now it’s apparently Xbox’s turn for problems, weeks after a massive wave of layoffs. The Xbox Live status page says an outage was first reported at 11PM last night and is still ongoing, preventing some account sign-ins and stopping people from playing their games, whether from a disc or a digital copy.

On my home Xbox, I could launch many games I own, but trying to load Game Pass titles threw up a “Check back later” message or error code 0x87e107df, indicating the license couldn’t be verified. The last update from @XboxSupport came three hours ago.

XBOX Support (@XBOXSupport) on X

[X (formerly Twitter)]

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
A Myst you missed.

It’s rare for game studios to talk about unreleased projects, which is why it’s so cool that Cyan has put out this trailer for a cancelled Myst title dubbed “Anglerfish.” It’s a glimpse into what could have been — though the good news is that the studio says another Myst spinoff, codenamed “Mudfish,” is currently in development.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
PlayStation users are going dark to protest Sony ditching discs.

Game preservation group Does It Play? is encouraging console owners to give Sony “a small taste of their own medicine,” announcing a one-week PSBlackout starting on Sunday, August 23rd. Protest participants are being asked to avoid logging into, playing, or purchasing any content on PlayStation-related platforms during this period.

A message posted to X by Does It Play, annoucing the PSBlackout protest.
The protest aims to make Sony scrap its plans to end production of physical PlayStation game discs in 2028.
Image: Does It Play?
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Why yes, your modular synth can run Doom.

There are very few unexplored frontiers for the iconic first-person shooter. Microsoft Word, an Ikea smart lightbulb, even tractors are fair game. But this is the first time I’ve seen Doom running on a modular synthesizer. Don’t be fooled by the laptop, it’s just streaming video from the synth.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
God of War Laufey gets a February 16th, 2027 release date.

The latest entry in the series was given a firm release date at Comic Con 2026, after being revealed during a Sony State of Play showcase in early June. Unlike previous God of War titles, this one won’t focus on angry dad Kratos, instead following the more dexterous mom Laufey.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Tomb Raider: Catalyst pushed to 2028.

Amazon’s games head Jeffrey Gattis confirmed to The Game Business that the title won’t arrive in 2027 as originally expected.

When commenting on the pair of upcoming Tomb Raider titles, Gattis highlighted Legacy of Atlantis’s February 12th launch date, but noted that the company will “follow on in 2028” with Catalyst.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Xbox gamer Strive4G8ness23 signs a two-year, $8 million deal with the 76ers.

How could anyone have known that LeBron James would choose Philadelphia as his next NBA team? Well, there were signs.

Screenshots of tweets from LeBron playing madden against a Philadelphia 76ers / Eagles fan in 2024.
Screenshots: @kingjames . @MarcAnthonyRo15 (X)
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Are Xbox 360 games coming to PC next?

After Microsoft brought four original Xbox games to PC earlier this week, a reverse engineer found that the company is powering them with Xenon Fusion — the same emulator that enabled backward compatibility on the Xbox 360. This might be laying the groundwork for Xbox 360 games on PC, as the XWine1 account on X figured out how to get some 360 titles running with “varying degrees of success.”

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
A game where you repair and restore retro gadgets sounds like the perfect way to unwind.

In ReStory you’re tasked with growing your “quaint electronics repair shop in mid-2000s Tokyo” by dismantling, repairing, cleaning, and restoring devices like cellphones, consoles, and cameras. Developed by Mandragora Studio the game launches on Steam on August 6th

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Turtle Beach’s new Xbox flight stick puts a full color screen under your thumb.

The new $149.99 VelocityOne Flightstick II upgrades the original with a new full color screen at the top of the joystick, 38 mappable inputs, and Hall effect sensors. It’s joined by the $149.99 VelocityOne Dual Throttle featuring two levers with adjustable tension, 35 programmable inputs, and an LED throttle indicator.

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

The Turtle Beach VelocityOne Flightstick II and Dual Throttle controllers sitting side-by-side with a simulated cloudy backdrop.
The VelocityOne Flightstick II and VelocityOne Dual Throttle can be purchased together with a slight discount as the Turtle Beach VelocityOne H.O.T.A.S. bundle for $279.99.
Image: Turtle Beach
Meredith Haggerty
Meredith Haggerty
Merriam-Webster tags in.

The internet’s favorite dictionary just dropped a new word game, Tagline — and, surprisingly, there’s not a definition in sight. The game consists of three increasingly difficult clues with hangman-style answers to guess. The twist is that all the solutions are made up entirely from the same seven letters.

The new Halo remake is a reminder of what Xbox used to be

Halo: Campaign Evolved is excellent, but it’s launching at a very awkward time.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Splat!

That’s the sound of the Splatoon series exploring a new genre with Splatoon Raiders, which is Nintendo’s take on looter shooters. I quite enjoyed my time with the game, but you can check it out for yourself now, as it launches today on the Switch 2.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Amazon leaked a buildable Halo Warthog from Mattel, not Lego.

Mattel’s older Mega line of building sets included a couple of Halo sets featuring the Warthog, but Amazon Australia leaked a larger and more detailed 935-piece buildable UNSC M12 Warthog that’s part of Mattel’s recent Brick Shop line. There’s no pricing, but the model includes working independent suspension and customizable detailing.

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

1/3Image: Mattel
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Bethesda’s union claims laid off employees were told they’d have jobs until September.

The OneBGS union said in a post that Bethesda laid off some of its Canadian employees on July 17th, weeks sooner than employees were warned the layoffs would happen, PC Gamer reports. That same day, Bethesda announced it’s working on Fallout 5.