[PATREON UNLOCK] Update Patch - August 2026

Update Patch News Roundup (02/08/2026)

Europe is being ravaged by wildfires and hit with relentless heatwaves, so we really wish we could bring you a good Update Patch this week. Unfortunately, the biggest companies in gaming decided to end July with a slew of bad news.

Indie super hit Meccha Chameleon was used by hackers to install malware, Sony shows no signs of walking back its assassination of physical media, and EA’s CEO gets a massive financial bonus a few months after laying off some of the people who worked to get him said bonus.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey rejuvenates eight-year-old Assassin’s Creed title

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is taking over the world of cinema with a phenomenal box office performance, and that success has seeped into the world of video games. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey got its biggest player boost in years shortly after the movie premiered, according to Alinea Analytics.

The eight-year-old title did not see a massive surge in sales, but its daily active users nearly doubled, jumping from around 122k on July 17, The Odyssey’s premiere date, to 233k on July 27. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey doesn’t actually feature Odysseus, as the game takes place centuries after his voyage, but Homer’s hero is frequently mentioned, and the game features a cosmetic pack with his name.

Meccha Chameleon user-made maps installing malware on players’ PCs

According to someone going by Feint on Medium, at least two Steam Workshop maps for Meccha Chameleon were malware droppers. The title took over Steam in June with a mind-boggingly successful release, which made it a perfect target for this malicious initiative.

Attackers used Steam Workshop mods to install Remote Access Trojans on unsuspecting players’ PCs, allowing them to remotely control the computers. Both maps have since been removed, and Meccha Chameleon was patched to fix the vulnerability that had been exploited. The attack coincided with the game’s official Discord server being hacked.

While Steam Workshop mods are usually safe, that isn’t a given. If you want to be safe, it is always recommended to stick to popular mods and to do a quick check of the uploader’s profile. 

Xbox outage blocked players from accessing their games for multiple hours

Xbox players hoping for a late-night gaming session last Sunday were interrupted by a massive outage that lasted almost 20 hours. Via The Verge, the outage was first reported at around 11 PM ET on July 26 and was only confirmed to be resolved around 7 PM ET on the next day.

Players reported being unable to play their digital games, booting up Xbox Game Pass titles, and there were even mentions of people unable to enjoy their physical releases, but that wasn’t confirmed. This outage could’ve been an even bigger disaster for Xbox as Halo: Campaign Evolved came out on July 28, but the issues were resolved before the game’s release.

EA CEO gets multi-million dollar compensation following Battlefield 6’s success less than a year after laying off part of the team who made the game

Battlefield 6 was one of the best selling games of 2025 and became the biggest launch in the franchise. Despite this success, EA still laid off developers across its Battlefield teams earlier this year.

The company’s CEO, though, wasn’t affected. Andrew Wilson is getting over 38 million dollars in “total compensation” for the company’s 2026 fiscal year, according to PCGamer. Wilson had received 30 million in 2025, which means that Battlefield 6’s success helped him get around eight million dollars extra. If only that money could’ve been used to keep the teams who developed the game employed.

After a month of silence, Sony finally addresses the backlash for the end of physical disc production

July kicked off with PlayStation announcing that it would end physical disc production in January 2028. This announcement came just days after Rockstar confirmed that it would be selling empty boxes with download codes for the GTA VI’s physical release.

After multiple weeks of backlash and community outrage almost across the board, Sony finally addressed the topic on July 31. As reported by PCMag, analysts questioned the company in an investor Q&A session following a recent earnings call. Lin Tao, Sony’s chief financial officer, said they were “going to cautiously move this forward”, justifying the decision with “various reasons”, chief among them the “digitalization of content”.

There do not seem to be any plans to walk the decision back despite the backlash. DoesItPlay?, an organisation focused on physical video games and preservation, has called for a “#PSBlackout” boycott, asking players to turn off their consoles or log out for seven days, between August 23 and 30. 

Update Patch News Roundup (12/08/2026)

We did not get into August with our best foot forward. EA has officially been acquired by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), a former executive at The Pokemon Company International is being charged with voyeurism; and Restart.run laid off its entire editorial staff.

Despite this, we manage to end this week’s Update Patch with some good news. Read on.

EA’s Acquisition By PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners Is Complete

The completion of the acquisition was announced by EA itself via an official press release. As previously reported by Game Developer, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund now owns 93.4% of the gaming giant.

In the press release, the PIF’s Deputy Governor and Head of International Investments states that “Entertainment and sports are key areas of strategic focus for PIF”. In other words, EA Sports titles (FC, Madden NFL, among others) are the latest addition to Saudi Arabia’s vehicles for sportswashing.

While official reports haven’t come out yet, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has already hinted on Bluesky that mass layoffs are likely coming in the near future.

Former Executive At The Pokémon Company International Is Being Charged With Voyeurism

Ben Tsai, a former Director of Engineering at The Pokémon Company International, is being charged with voyeurism in the first degree. According to the Washington Law Center, Tsai hid spy cameras in bathrooms at the company's office in Bellevue.

Documents seized from Tsai’s home include 89 videos recorded in bathrooms. Beyond this, he allegedly also hid cameras in retail stores. Four victims have been identified, but Washington Law Center is seeking people who worked or visited The Pokémon Company International headquarters in Bellevue to represent in this case. 

Japanese Officials Are Reportedly Concerned About The US Government’s Usage Of The Country’s Famous IPs

IGN picked up a report from Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun that states that Japanese government officials are worried about the way Donald Trump and the US Government are using some of the country’s most famous franchises in social media.

Maichini Shimbun’s report mentions that the Japanese Ministry asked the Trump administration to stop using characters from famous franchises like Naruto, Pokémon, and Super Mario in politically charged memes on social media.

Donal Trump’s administration has posted multiple meme videos on various social media channels (including The White House’s official page) using these copyrighted IPs without authorisation from its owners. These videos have centered on contentious and politically charged topics like the Iran war and ICE deportations.

Restart.run Has Laid Off Its Entire Editorial Staff

As shared by some former employees of the publication, Restart.run has laid off its entire editorial staff. At the time of writing, the publication hasn’t shared any official statement, and the website is still up and running.

Jesse Vitelli, former Associate Editor at Restart.run, took the opportunity to start a “lay-off sub-a-thon”. This publication is the latest casualty in what has been a rough couple of years for video game coverage, mirroring the struggles of the wider industry.

THQ Nordic Showcase 2026

THQ Nordic returned with the newest edition of its yearly showcase, and it was a much-needed silver lining in a week filled with dark clouds. Reanimal is already getting a DLC, Expeditions: Samurai is out in early access, and The Guild - Europa 1410 was announced, a new entry that promises to be a return to the franchise’s roots.

Multiple early access titles under the publisher’s umbrella are actively getting updates (Wreckfest 2, Titan Quest II, Call To Arms: Panzer Elite, Way Of The Hunter 2), and some of its older titles are being brought back. Following the success of Gothic 1 Remake, THQ Nordic is bringing back the originals with a Gothic Classic Trilogy.

I’d specifically like to highlight how beautiful The Eternal Life of Goldman looks, as evidenced by its most recent trailer. Lastly, THQ Nordic confirmed that DigixArt, the studio behind Road 96, is working on a new project but did not publicise a game title.

Update Patch News Roundup (17/08/2026)

August hasn’t been easy. Europe is still getting ravaged by wildfires and record-high temperatures and the video game industry hasn’t been faring much better. This week we’re finally bringing you some good news, even though they’re sandwiched between an equal amount of bad ones..

Organisations are suing over PlayStation’s alleged digital monopoly, a wealthy “friend of a friend” is entirely funding Thimbleweed Park 2, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 gets a massive boost off of Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s theatre release. Lastly, Saber Interactive’s CEO makes a fool of himself publicly after being accused of replacing a Lead Writer on a project with ChatGPT.

Stop Killing Games and DoesItPlay? are joining the Fair PlayStation Campaign to sue Sony

Stop Killing Games posted a video to its official Youtube channel announcing that, along with DoesItPlay?, it are backing SM&C’s (Stichting Massaschade & Consument) lawsuit against Sony.

SM&C has been working towards this lawsuit since 2024 and launched the “Fair PlayStation” campaign back in February 19, 2025. It sued Sony at the District Court of Midden-Nederland on June 24, 2025 and got Sony to comment on the applicable law in November of the same year. A new response from Sony is expected by October 21, 2026.

The lawsuit revolves around the claim that Sony has a digital monopoly on PlayStation due to the fact that all digital games are sold exclusively via its official store. This leads to more games being more expensive on average in digital form than their physical counterparts, an issue that will be exacerbated when Sony ends disc production for new PlayStation games in January 2028.

Thimbleweed Park 2 is being entirely funded by a wealthy fan of the original

Speaking with Bloomberg, Ron Gilbert, the designer primarily known for the Monkey Island series, shared the story behind the peculiar manner in which his next game is being funded. After releasing Return to Monkey Island in 2022 and Death by Scrolling in 2025, Gilbert decided to return to fan favourite Thimbleweed Park for a sequel.

Thimbleweed Park came out in 2014 following a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $620,000. Gilbert expressed interest in making a sequel in an interview with Ars Technica back in December of last year, but he didn’t know “where [he’d] ever get the money”. On August 14, 2026, he told Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier that he’d ruled out Kickstarter and … that publishers had expressed interest but the terms were unpalatable.”

In a bizarre twist worthy of its own Gilbert adventure game, it turned out that a wealthy fan of the original Thimbleweed Park was a friend of a friend and wanted to fund the sequel. Gilbert got his email and signed a deal with this sole investor with “terms that were far more attractive to [him] than any game publisher had offered.”

If everything goes according to plan, Thimbleweed Park 2 should be coming sometime in early 2028.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 got a massive boost following Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s success at the box office

We sometimes see stories like these. Just two weeks ago we reported on how Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey rejuvenated Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. But these transmedia effects rarely line up as perfectly as they did this week. 

Spider Man: Brand New Day is the first 2026 movie to break the top ten highest-grossing films of all time and is likely to go even higher than that. It seems like a lot of moviegoers wanted to experience web-slinging for themselves, which translated to 316k copies of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 sold between Brand New Day’s premiere at the end of July and August 10, according to Rhys Elliott at Alinea Analytics.

Paired with PlayStation Plus subscribers, who have access to the game via the subscription, and returning players who already owned the game, this transmedia effect took Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 daily active users to over one million, the first time it happened since the game’s launch week. Insomniac’s title came out on October 20, 2023.

Supermassive Games laying off “up to 75” people months after latest release

In a statement posted to its official LinkedIn page on August 11, Supermassive Games announced that it’s laying off “up to 75” employees in a “redundancy consultation process”. The studio describes it as “a necessary step to help ensure the sustainability of the company.”

It is the third year in a row in which Supermassive Games has laid employees off. According to Bloomberg, it was set to lay off 90 workers in February 2024. In July 2025, the studio made a similar announcement on LinkedIn that it was “losing up to 36 of [its] colleagues.”

Supermassive Games has released a title each of the past three years: The Casting of Frank Stone came out in September 2024, Little Nightmares III in October 2025, and Directive 8020 in May of this year. The studio has no other announced projects at this time.

Netflix is shutting down two gaming studios and laying off “additional game roles”

Netflix keeps closing gaming studios despite a supposed commitment to the interactive medium. Game File broke the news on August 13 that the streaming giant would be closing both Night School and Moonloot. The latter was founded in 2022 as a Netflix subsidiary and focused on “original, ad-free mobile games”.

Night School, on the other hand, was acquired back in 2021. The studio, founded back in 2014, rose to prominence with 2016’s Oxenfree, its debut title. It followed that up with Afterparty in 2019 and, after being acquired by Netflix, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals in 2023.

The news of the studio’s closure came less than two months after Netflix released Unhinged, an “immersive game experience” starring Zoë Kravitz, Sadie Sink, and Troy Baker, developed by Night School. It also followed Netflix’s July 16 Earning Call,  in which CO-CEO Gregory Peters mentioned Unhinged alongside FIFA World Cup Launch Edition as having done “really solid numbers that put it in the top tier of game performance for us.”

Speaking with Game Developer, a Netflix representative mentioned that the company is “eliminating some additional games roles” beyond the two studio closures. The company is seemingly turning its focus towards “kids games, party games, and mainstream games”. It appears that developing a title that becomes one of the two “most successful cloud game debuts” isn’t considered mainstream.

Saber Interactive CEO lashes out in response to former employee’s claims about generative AI use in recently announced Rideshare “Stimulator”

Stella Sacco, Lead Writer at Saber Interactive between July 2023 and August 2024, took to Bluesky on August 11 to claim that she was the lead writer on the recently announced Rideshare “Stimulator” before being replaced by “ChatGPT midway through development”. As a reply to the original post, Sacco left a screencap of a timestamped Facebook post from December 2023 that reads “I got replaced on one of my games at work. With ChatGPT.” She further clarified that the decision was due to “one to two AI dummy higher-ups at Saber”, saying that there is no ill-will towards UNIGINE, the game’s developer, and that her then boss tried to fight the alleged replacement.

The following day, on August 12, Saber Interactive told PC Gamer that the claims were false and that “neither Saber nor UNIGINE have replaced any writers with AI for Rideshare or any other game”. Sacco responded to Saber statement via PC Gamer saying that she has mentioned the event “on Bluesky several times without using the game’s title” and that “it was my job to write the game, and then it wasn’t once Matt Karch decided using ChatGPT would be great publicity for the game”, directly calling out Saber Interactive’s CEO.

This response was likely what prompted Karch’s follow-up via This Week In Videogames, which came around as an update on August 13:

“Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalised the feature set. Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready.”

“We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower priced title, as a plus for consumers. As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.”

Sacco responded via Bluesky:

“Hey everybody. I’ve seen the statement by Matt Karch, the CEO of Saber Entertainment, and all of the truly horrendous things he said about me. I think it should be obvious to anyone who reads that statement that he’s lashing out because he did not want people to know there was AI use in the game.”

“Everything I said was true. Here’s more truth: that statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company to be making, and combined with the AI use it will do far more damage to Saber’s reputation than it ever could mine. This screed will be many people’s first exposure to the Saber brand.”

“I appreciate everyone’s support, but people who know me know I’m a person of principle, and one of those principles is don’t let the bastards get away with it. I’m comfortable with what I said, and everyone got to see what kind of man is running Saber.”

Since this back and forth took place Rideshare “Stimulator”’ now includes an AI Generated Content Disclosure on its Steam page, outlining that “AI tools are used for voice generation and some localisation. The optional Free Ride mode includes AI-generated passenger missions and localised dialogue. Free Ride mode is separate from the main Campaign and can be skipped by players who prefer to experience only human-written narrative content. The game also includes a mix of radio stations featuring human-made music and AI-generated music. Stations containing AI-generated music are clearly labelled as such in the game.”

This story is still developing, proof of which is another Bluesky post from Sacco on Saturday. In it, she claims that she “received a long email from … CEO Matt Karch” in which Karch apparently “apologized unreservedly” as well as “said he regretted escalating” and the resulting online abuse that Sacco has been a victim of since his statements.

Sacco mentioned that she noticed how people pointed out that it was not her “first time calling a former employer out, so [she] must love drama or be hard to work with,” to which she responds that employees are poorly treated throughout the game industry but rarely go public about it. She writes that Karch “expressed a desire to make it right” with her and that, while she doesn’t yet know what that looks like, she accepts his apology. She concludes with “God willing, this is the last statement I’ll need to make about this.”

Update Patch News Roundup (26/08/2026)

Compulsion Games and Double Fine acquire their IPs from Xbox

As initially reported by Gamesbeat, Compulsion Games is now fully separate from Xbox. The makers of We Happy Few and last year’s South of Midnight were one of the five studios leaving Xbox as a part of the massive layoffs in early July. The studio completed a full management buyout and now “owns its original intellectual property games again”.

In a similar fashion, Double Fine is now fully independent and the sole owner of its IPs. The studio’s CEO, Tim Schafer, publicly shared the update in an interview with Kinda Funny Games, saying that “we have the publishing rights back to our games. It still says ‘Microsoft’ on some of them, but it just takes a while for it all to process. When people buy our games, it supports the studio.”

Legendary video game designer Warren Spector announced his retirement

Via a post on LinkedIn, Warren Spector announced that he is “retiring from game development.” While he doesn’t fully lock the door, he says that he is “pretty sure [he means] it” this time. 

Spector’s career spans over four decades designing both tabletop roleplaying games and video games. He is best known as the Director and Producer of the original Deus Ex at Eidos Interactive, and he also oversaw the development of Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows as Studio Director. Spector then worked at Disney Interactive Studios, where he helped bring Epic Mickey and its sequel to life. 

An artist’s work is never done, so Spector mentions that he retires with three games that he’d still like to make: “One is very big… one is very small… and one I don’t know how to make which scares me.” But he follows up that statement by saying that the game business is “just not as much fun for me anymore.”

Two actors who shared their talents with the video game industry passed away

Jan Frycz, one of Poland’s most acclaimed actors, died aged 72. The prolific actor, who had been working since the 1970s, became beloved by the Polish video game community when he voiced Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, a vampire who played an important role in The Witcher 3’s final expansion, Blood and Wine.

Hayden Panettiere, a talented actress who rose to fame as Claire Bennet in the TV series Heroes, also passed away this week. She was only 36 years old. Beyond her successful TV and cinema career, Panettiere enchanted the video game community as Samantha, one of the protagonists in Until Dawn. The actress voiced and did all the motion capture for the character.

EA workers unsure of the company’s future under Saudi Arabian ownership

The recently completed acquisition of Electronic Arts by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity partners has left EA workers unsure of what their future holds. Speaking with Game Developer, a “number of current EA workers based in the United States and Canada” are worried that “Saudi Arabia views the U.S. publisher as a means to launder its culture through western media.” Following years of investment into a variety of sports, acquiring a studio whose bestsellers are sports games like FC and Madden seems like a logical way to apply the same tactic to the digital landscape. 

Other developers are concerned that Saudi Arabia might be using the fact that EA, also known for inclusive franchises like The Sims, is being co-opted for its “comparatively progressive company culture.” Game Developer mentions that the leadership of the company insists that “nothing will change”, but workers do not share the same opinion. A lot of them have concerns and told Game Developer that the responses to those “are mostly just vague reassurances”. We shouldn’t forget that the deal meant that EA took on $18 billion in debt and the company “told investors that it will cut $700 million in annual costs”, as mentioned by Jason Schreier on Bluesky.

Riot Games ending active development on 2XKO

Riot Games officially announced that it is ending active development on its fighting game 2XKO in December 2026. The game originally came out on PC in Early Access on October 7, 2025, before being ported to consoles with the full release on January 20, 2026. Exactly 8 months to the day following its release, 2XKO is already being left behind by Riot Games.

The studio said that “servers will remain on beyond 2026, and 2XKO will be playable on all platforms”, but did add that it will “give advanced notice if any of that changes.” The last updates will come throughout the rest of the year, including the release of Lux and Samira as the two final champions, taking the roster to a total of 17 playable characters. The game’s final bug fix patch will happen in December.

Riot Games is also making all champions free and “refunding all money spent in 2XKO on or before August 20.” According to the rest of the post, active development is ending because the game was only making “a fraction of what it would take to trend toward sustainability.” 2XKO is the latest example of Riot Games’ struggle to expand beyond League of Legends and Valorant — Legends of Runeterra got its final expansion in 2024 before the team was downsized and Riot Forge, the company’s publishing arm, was shut down earlier in the same year.

Update Patch News Roundup (02/09/2026)

Welcome to the final Update Patch of August as we start saying goodbye to Summer and hello to the absolute torrent of games coming in the final months of the year. Gamescom 2026 blessed us with some good news, but we can never escape the bad.

The legendary Tim Curry passed away, multiple devs had their equipment stolen at Gamescom, DLSS5 leaked and players have been slapping it on every game, XBOX debuts a new game preservation system, and CD Projekt Red is bringing a lot more to The Witcher 3 than “just” the new DLC.

The Witcher 3 takes over Gamescom 2026, 11 years after its original release

Just over a decade following its original release, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt dominated the biggest gaming event of 2026. CDPR’s megahit closed Gamescom Opening Night Live with a new look at its upcoming DLC: Songs of the Past. The DLC will be the final adventure players will have with Geralt of Rivia for the foreseeable future and will function as a bridge between the 2015 game and The Witcher 4, which is reportedly coming in 2028.

That’s not all, though. CDPR is taking this opportunity to revise The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt once again, following its 2022-Next Gen update. The 2015 title is getting Remastered as a free upgrade coming September 29, 2026. This upgrade brings better visuals again (with the assistance of some modders), but also a panoply of gameplay features. Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, the two original DLCs, are also now free for all The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt owners.

XBOX Disc To Digital featured coming soon as a new effort in game preservation

In what XBOX is describing as “part of our broader commitment to game preservation”, the Microsoft division is debuting a new feature. Players who own physical versions of XBOX One and XBOX Series X games can “claim a digital entitlement by inserting a supported disc and launching the game.” This essentially lets players also own a digital copy of their physical games.

While this is a positive feature and an easy win for XBOX following recent Playstation announcements, it leaves players wondering about the future of XBOX. In a recent interview with BBC, XBOX CEO Asha Sharma wouldn’t reveal if Project Helix, the company's next-generation console, will feature a disc drive. The dodging of the question, the focus on “cost concerns”, and this new feature (which would allow players to boot their physical Xbox games on a theoretical all-digital Helix) all point to a very likely digital-only future for consoles.

Double Fine Studios honors Tim Curry, who passed away this week

Cinema legend Tim Curry passed away on August 25, 2026. The star, who rose to fame with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, voiced characters in over a dozen video games. Notable game roles include Premier Anatoly Cherdenko in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Arl Rendon Howe in Dragon Age: Origins, and Doviculus in Brütal Legend.

Double Fine Studios, the team behind 2009’s Brütal Legend, honored the actor’s passing on the game's itch.io page, writing “Rest in peace, dark prince.” The studio also gave the game away for free for 666 minutes.

DLSS 5’s AI filter leaked and can be used on virtually any video game

A few months following its original announcement trailer and subsequent negative reception, Nvidia’s DLSS 5 leaked and is now out in the wild. Some of the people behind RenoDX, a reshade modding tool used to fix HDR and change how video games look on PC, managed to find a DLSS 5 dll via NBA 2K27.

They now have DLSS 5 working on character models via their RenoDX add-ons on Reshade with multiple sliders for customization. It works similarly to what Nvidia showed in the original announcement trailer and appears to have massive performance costs on even an RTX 5090 GPU.