[PATREON UNLOCK] Update Patch - January 2026

Update Patch News Roundup (06/01/25)

Happy New Year! Happy New Update Patch! It’s not been long since the New Year fireworks have cleared, and already the tech and gaming space is looking much like it was in 2025. The growing demand for generative AI is driving everything more expensive, and companies get bought, but on the other hand, hackers gave players billions of credits in Rainbow Six, so it probably balances out in the end, right? 

RAM Prices Skyrocket, And GPU Prices Expected To Surge Throughout The Year

A report from Newsis, has stated that both Nvidia and AMD will have substantial price increases across their main consumer GPU lineups. The most striking example given was Nvidia’s flagship RTX 5090, which could jump from $1,999 to as high as $5,000. Alongside this, in what was originally started with consumer RAM being kept aside for OpenAI in October 2025, RAM shortages have caused consumer RAM to effectively double in the last few months. From memory shortages alone, the IDC report said that PC vendors they spoke to expected a 15-20% increase in overall PC prices. Smartphone prices were to increase to a similar amount as well. Even worse, the organisation Counterpoint estimated that it could be as high as 40%. 

How this affects the game sector has a huge knock-on effect. On the consumer side, when you add in the cost-of-living, practically globally, continuing to increase, it’s well known that luxury goods, including gaming, are the first to be cut from people’s budgets. Less spending puts increased pressure on the industry, which already puts a sector with morally questionable business practises to be pushed even farther. However, this also affects the consoles themselves. The previously mentioned GPU price increases, combined with RAM increases and also everything else means that consumer PC building is in real danger of becoming prohibitively expensive for many. There’s also been speculative rumours that this would affect the timing or even the pricing for any next-gen consoles, let alone the possibility of current console price increases.

GOG Gets Bought Which Is Potentially Good News For Once

GOG announced that co-founder Michał Kiciński, has acquired GOG from CD Projekt, the developers of The Witcher series and Cyberpunk, and the co-founder of GOG, has acquired GOG from CD Projekt. The company stated that GOG will continue running, but now as a distinct independent company with the same mission to “Make Games Live Forever”. They have assured that this will not change anything for users of GOG, with all game libraries being unaffected and no changes in personal data handling. Michal, who was also a co-founder of CD Projekt, had been heavily involved with running GOG since founding it in 2007. The purpose of this change is that CD Projekt is entirely focused on game development, like the highly anticipated Witcher 4, while GOG gets to focus on its goal of DRM-free games. 

It’s too early to gauge, but in an industry that has a general malaise from buyouts, takeovers, and layoffs, GOG being bought might actually be a positive. It means that it is not at risk of issues with the development side affecting it or beholden to executives not close to the GOG platform, and business is unlikely to change on the GOG side because its owner already ran it for the most part. It has been very clear to stand firm with its position to “continue building a platform that’s ethical, non-predatory, and made to last, while helping indie developers reach the world.”

An Old Star Wars Racing Game Might Have Just Launched  PS5 Jailbreaking Efforts

Star Wars Revenge Racer demand has skyrocketed almost overnight, reaching prices on eBay up to $300. The reason being that an exploit within physical copies can potentially be used to jailbreak PlayStation 5 consoles. The exploit dubbed mast1c0re was possible on PS4s and PS5s already, but required a digital copy of Okage: Shadow King. However, owning a copy of this game means you had to download the game from Sony, meaning that only PS4s and PS5s on older firmware before this was patched out could use this exploit. 

This physical Star Wars game has been shown by a member of the PlayStation hacking group Gezine to have applied the mast1core exploit on any PS5. Due to being a physical release, even if the exploit is fixed, if your PS5 isn’t connected to the internet, you could theoretically still avail of this loophole. The exact method to do so had not been shown, but it has been enough for the game to become highly valuable for two groups: PS5 hackers and resellers. 

Beyond the jailbreak, the reason for the 1000% increase in resale value was that this was a PS2 game, re-released by Limited Run Games for the PS4 with an estimated 10,000 copies at most in circulation. It’s a veritable wild west gold rush based on a proof of concept for a jailbreak exploit that is not even available for other hackers yet.

Hackers Breach Rainbow Six Siege Servers

Hackers managed to gain access to the systems for Ubisoft’s online shooter Rainbow Six Siege, with them running amok. Millions of players received two billion credits and multiple skins, including developer-exclusive ones. They also used the ban list messaging system to write derogatory comments about Ubisoft executives. 

This then triggered thousands of players to be banned from the automated security system. Ubisoft swiftly responded by pulling the plug, with all servers being shut down, and its marketplace closed. They then pushed a rollback so that all actions, including spending, were reverted to their pre-hack states, with assurances that no players would be banned for spending with the hacked virtual currency. While this didn’t overly affect the game in the long-term, this vulnerability, dubbed MongoBleed, is a critical exploit. Censys estimated it to be applicable to over 60,000 organisations and 87,000 servers; with over 20,000 US-based. It’s entirely possible that we may see another company hit by this before this exploit can be removed from all vulnerable systems.

Update Patch News Roundup (14/01/26)

This week in gaming news: a podcast comment shakes up Take-Two’s stock, Rockstar continues to face off with unions, Larian (attempts) to clarify its stance on AI, Ubisoft shutters a studio with accusations of union-busting (again), and New Game Plus kicks off the year with a cosy showcase of games.

Podcast Comment Causes Take-Two Stocks To Fall

Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier’s comments on the Button Mash podcast about Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 6 caused Take-Two Interactive’s stock to fall. Schreier stated that he wouldn’t be surprised if the highly anticipated game was delayed again and noted they had heard that it was not ‘content-complete’ with developers still working on missions and levels. Schreier has a known history of insider information and was in conjunction with having insight into the game’s development. Some sites then reported on this as if he were more definitive, rather than closer to his own personal speculation. Schreier explicitly called out ‘content farms’ like Dexerto, going so far as saying they spread misinformation. Parent company Take-Two Interactive’s stock fell 1.7% from this but has now started to slowly climb back up. Rockstar is not new to this kind of kneejerk reaction from investors as Take-Two’s stock dropped almost 10% when GTA 6 was delayed the first time from May 26 2025 to November 19 2025. 

Rockstar Employment Tribunal

A Glasgow employment tribunal has denied interim relief for 31 UK-based Rockstar developers who were fired last year. Rockstar claims the dismissals were due to leaking of game features and development and not union activity. The employment Judge Frances Eccles’ determination stated that the fired staff had not demonstrated that the dismissals were for being part of a union. The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) had asked the employment tribunal to grant interim relief at the preliminary. This relief would have meant workers would have continued to be on Rockstar’s payroll until the full hearing. Protests have been held outside of Rockstar North Edinburgh, and its parent company, Take-Two’s London office. 

The IWGB Discord server itself has become a vocal point for Rockstar’s accusations as it’s where the company claims the employees disclosed private information, including features, development processes, and release windows. Rockstar also said union moderators couldn’t guarantee access was restricted to employees. Rockstar has a known history of zero tolerance leaks and has had multiple instances of firing employees for disclosing information.

Larian Studios Holds Ask Me Anything Addressing Divinity While Giving Mixed Messaging Around Generative AI

The developers of Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios, held a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) on its upcoming Divinity game. Larian’s CEO, Sven Vincke, has noted that since Baldur’s Gate 3, the developer has grown from 411 to 500. Many of the features of their previous game have been confirmed, including mod support, increased scope and player agency, and co-op at launch. 

As well, Vincke addressed the generative AI comments that he had made previously in an interview with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier. He has insisted that Divinity would not use generative AI art and that genAI tools would not be used during concert art development, but could in other areas of development. He emphasized that if GenAI models were to create in-game assets, then they would be trained on their own data. This has caused further descent from detractors who point out that it is not possible for Generative AI to create a functioning model based on the scale of data that Vincke appears to be alluding to.

This was then further expanded to somewhat conflicting follow-up answers with the studio’s Machine Learning Director, Gabriel Bosque, who then emphasised the usage of Machine Learning to streamline and improve efficiencies. It is worth noting that Machine Learning is a different form of AI, separate from Generative AI, where a party can collate its own data for training a model. It also does not necessarily have some of the contentious issues people have with Generative AI, such as huge energy consumption, questionable sourcing of training data, and huge pushes by tech companies.  Because of this, Machine Learning has seen far less pushback and has been used in many aspects of technology already. Whether it is because of Larian’s messaging or the general promotion of tech companies pushing any form of AI as the more lucrative Generative AI, it has caused blurred lines between the two.  Although there was a strong emphasis on no text generation, voices, or acting. Whether generative AI will play any role or if it will solely be Machine Learning remains unclear.

Ubisoft Halifax Studio Closes

The Nova Scotian studio Ubisoft Halifax has closed, just shortly after it had unionized in December. 61 of its 71 employees belong to the Game & Media Workers Guild of Canada. Ubisoft has stated that this was not from union-busting but due to cost-cutting across the whole of the Assassin’s Creed portfolio. The studio had recently been working on mobile versions of Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six. Multiple studios, however, over the years have closed, with the most recently closed studio being Ubisoft Learnington under a year ago, laying off 185 staff. Ubisoft has had significant periods of layoffs, with nearly 2000 layoffs since 2022, nearly a 10% reduction in staff. This has been amid notable financial difficulties. In a statement to Game Developer, CWA Canada has stated: “We will pursue every legal recourse” for its union members, and the closure’s timing “raises many questions”.

New Game Plus Games Showcase

The first of 2026’s gaming showcases began with New Game Plus. Over three hours and 40 games were showcased. While few were completely new reveals, there were a range of large studios like Ubisoft and Microsoft, particularly many of Obsidian’s ongoing projects, and substantial developer interviews. There were also interesting higher-budget studies like Owlcat’s Dark Heresy and The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, and the vampire RPG Blood of the Dawnwalker. Indie games littered throughout as well, including the utterly bewildering stunt trick game Denshattack.

Update Patch News Roundup (20/01/26)

This week in gaming, Meta continues to pull back on its own metaverse, not even being cancelled stops Hytale from finally launching into early access, Disney quietly removes several legacy games from sale, and Capcom’s Resident Evil: Requiem showcase shows off the world’s worst secret in the form of Leon Kennedy with a surprise Porsche.  

Meta Shuts Down VR Studios, Moving Away From The Metaverse And Into AI

Meta has reportedly laid off around 10% of its Reality Labs division, equating to an estimated 1,500 jobs. As part of this, three VR gaming studios are getting closed down. They are Twisted Pixel Games (Marvel’s Deadpool VR), Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath), and Armature Studio, (the Resident Evil 4 VR port).  After this round of layoffs and restructuring, only three internal VR teams will remain: Beat Games (Beat Saber), BigBox (Population: One), and Ouro Interactive, which focuses on content for Horizon Worlds. Over the past few years, Meta has acquired and later closed multiple studios. These include Ready at Dawn (Echo VR, and The Order 1886) in 2024, and Unit 2 and Downpour Interactive in 2025. 

Meta has also cancelled the planned sequel to Batman: Arkham Shadow, which had been considered a major flagship title for Meta Quest VR headsets and was reportedly in early development. It is also shutting down its corporate-focused equivalent of Horizon Worlds, Horizon Workrooms, on February 16, 2026. The company has stated: “Meta will also no longer sell its headsets and software as a service for businesses”, while also removing support: “We are stopping sales of Meta Horizon managed services and commercial SKUs of Meta Quest, effective February 20, 2026.”

This follows a general trend shift away from the metaverse. Reality Labs has reportedly lost around $70 billion since its creation in 2020, and despite Facebook rebranding as Meta in 2022, it has since shifted investment toward AI while scaling back its virtual reality plans, with Meta committing to cutting metaverse spending by 30%. Its AI investment has significantly ramped up, however. With Zuckerberg’s company now investing heavily in the space, including acquiring the AI startup Manus for around $2 billion, and investing $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI, with Scale AI CEO’s Alexandr Wang to lead on delivering Meta’s AI strategy. 

Previously Cancelled Hytale Launches Into Early Access

After being cancelled in June 2025, Hytale has unexpectedly launched into early access on January 13, 2026. 

Hytale initially began development as a modded Minecraft with minigames and further role-playing elements, and the decision to create a standalone game was spurred when Mojang threatened to enforce rules preventing the sale of gameplay-affecting items on all servers, which caused upset to many players and server owners. The team began development of Hytale with funding from League of Legends behemoth Riot Games in 2015. The studio was then bought in 2020 by Riot Games, but the game was then apparently cancelled in June 2025. However, the Studio’s co-founder, Simon Collins-Laflamme, purchased the IP from Riot Games in November 2025, re-hiring many of the same developers. Two months later, Hytale is now released in early access and has had huge traction while also being well received by the community. It was briefly the most viewed game on Twitch, reaching 420,000 viewers. 

The developers have promised frequent updates and a future roadmap, and while  Hytale will not have any official microtransactions during its early access release, third-party mods can set monetization. While in Early Access, the team is promising to furtherHytale’s RPG elements, especially compared to Minecraft, including a proposed adventure mode that features character progression, story, and co-operative play.

Capcom Showcases Resident Evil: Requiem 

In what is potentially the biggest release of 2026 (after Grand Theft Auto 6) Capcom previewed Resident Evil: Requiem in a showcase. 

The showcase highlighted its dual protagonists; the debut character, FBI agent Grace Ashcroft who has a stronger emphasis on the series survival-horror roots, including returning features of ammo conservation, colossal stalker monstrosities, and a return to limited saves. The second was resident fan favourite Leon Kennedy showcase old and haggard look but with a more action-oriented playstyle. This action focuses around his new hatchet that could somewhat inexplicably be resharpened like in Monster Hunter, and the returning Resident Evil 6 style contextual melee attacks, verging on Like A Dragon-esque Heat Moves. A new feature shown was being able to use enemy weaponry, with Leon chain-sawing through an enemy in an explosion of exaggerated viscera. Leon also sports in-game high-end cross-promotions with a custom Porsche, and both Leon and Grace wear custom Hamilton watches. 

Unlike most of the recent previous Resident Evil titles, Requiem currently has no announced demo, but with the level of confidence in promotion and advertising, it’s likely Capcom is confident in the game and may disclose more closer to release.

Ubisoft’s The Division Head Leaves For Battlefield Studios

Julian Gerighty, the executive producer of The Division games, has announced that he is leaving Massive Entertainment. Later, Massive shared that “Gerighty ... .is heading off on a new adventure at Battlefield Studios. This comes weeks after Gerighty had publicly talked about his excitement for the ongoing development of The Division 3, at the New Game Plus showcase. 

Gerighty had spent more than 25 years at Ubisoft, with a number of positions including creative director of The Crew, The Division, and The Division 2. The Division 3 had been announced roughly in tandem with his new position as executive producer of The Division franchise. His new position within EA and Battlefield Studios has not been clarified yet.

This also came days after Ubisoft had announced layoffs at Ubisoft Massive (Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft Stockholm), in the form of restructuring, which caused 55 job losses. This is unlikely to have been part of Gerighty’s departure, but could have an impact on the development of The Division 3. 

Disney Delists Older Games

Disney has removed 14 games from Valve’s Steam platform without prior notice. Typically, when developers or publishers begin to delist from any storefront, advance warning is given to providers to give customers a final opportunity to purchase them before they are gone. Often, the cause is due to license or contract expiration. In this case, however, this opportunity has not been given, and Disney has yet to make a statement on why these have been delisted. The games affected are:

• Armed and Dangerous

• Disney’s Hercules

• Phineas and Ferb: New Inventions

• Stunt Island

• Afterlife

• Disney’s The Princess and the Frog

• Cars: Radiator Springs Adventures

• Disney Fairies: Tinkerbell’s Adventure

• Toy Story Mania

• Disney’s Winnie The Pooh

• Lucidity

• Chicken Little Ace In Action

• Finding Nemo

The only game that is on an alternate store for PC gamers is Disney’s Hercules, which is on GOG and, fortunately, is likely the most well-known of the 14. Any potential key resellers will likely increase prices immediately as well.

Update Patch News Roundup (27/01/26)

This week on News Update: January isn’t over, and neither is Ubisoft’s round of layoffs, the Xbox Direct showcases the long-awaited Fable, Life Is Strange’s next entry gets announced, and the Switch 2 gets another free Switch 2 update.

Ubisoft Cancels Prince of Persia, Alongside Announcing Major Cuts

Ubisoft, one of the largest video game companies in the EU, has cancelled its long troubled Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake while laying off more employees across its studios. As part of its announced restructuring, six games have been cancelled, four of which were unannounced, the aforementioned Prince of Persia, with the sixth being an announced game but not specified. Seven games were also delayed, six to an unspecified date, with one delayed from the financial year 2026 to 2027. One of these has been speculated to be the long-rumoured and frequently leaked Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag remake.  

The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake was first announced in September 2020 for a March 2021 release date, but was delayed indefinitely in February 2021. Later that year, Ubisoft stated it would aim for a 2022 release, then, with no news until 2024, it was stated that the game was aiming for a release date of 2026.

Ubisoft, in its press release, referred to it as a “Major organisational, operational, and portfolio reset to reclaim creative leadership and restore sustainable growth.” It was focused on three principles, a new operating model centred “on Open World Adventures and GaaS-native experiences,” five ‘creative houses’ including its subsidiary studio Vantage Studios. This was Ubisoft’s new spin-off studio that  Chinese tech giant Tencent invested over £1 billion in November 2025. Vantage’s main aim is for their core franchises: Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six, to transition to a Games-as-a-Service (GaaS) model. 

Ubisoft has had several rounds of layoffs since 2022, with a nearly 10% reduction in staff from 22,000 to under 20,000. Recently, before this announcement, Ubisoft Halifax in Canada and Ubisoft Stockholm in Sweden had already been closed down.

Following this press release, Ubisoft’s shares plummeted to the lowest in close to 15 years after this announcement. The share price dropped 34% the day after the announcement at around £514 million. At its peak in 2018, the company was valued at under £8 billion. 

Xbox Developer Direct Finally Announces Fable Release Date 

Microsoft gave a deep dive focusing on four games. The most time was spent on Playground Games’ long-awaited Fable. First announced in July 2020, the game has now finally been given a release window of Autumn 2026, sixteen years after the last instalment. The deep dive showed a return to many of the series staples, like jobs, mini-games, buying property, romances, including marriages and children, and RPG elements and moral choices. A new feature was a fairly robust character creation alongside the modernised and overt British comedic tone, including The Office style cutaways for jokes and exposition. This adds to the existing cast of comedian Richard Ayoade and Matt King, well known as Super Hans from Peep Show.  

Playground Games’ other game shown was the follow-up to 2021’s Forza Horizon 5. Forza Horizon 6 is the next open world driving game in the series, now set in Japan, showcasing locales like Mount Fuji Tokyo City which is said to be five times larger than urban environments in previous games, like Guanajuato in FH5. The game was announced to be coming to PC and Steam, 19 May, with the PlayStation 5 (PS5) release at a later date this year.

Game Freak also showed further details surrounding its first major non-Pokémon title, Beast of Reincarnation. With a setting of an overgrown far-future Japan reminiscent of Miyazaki films, particularly with Princess Mononoke, with developers even referring to the game as a “one person one dog action RPG”. Gameplay focused on action RPG games reminiscent of Black Myth: Wukong and NieR: Automata. alongside Final Fantasy 7 Remake-stely turn based and quick time elements. It is also expected for Summer 2026 and will also be coming out on PC and PS5.

Kiln was the newly announced game from Double Fine, an online multiplayer party brawler pottery game. There was a large focus on physics-based destruction and procedural animations dependent on vastly varying pot shapes that held water. This initial idea came from the team’s Amnesia Fortnight 2017 game jam. It is also expected for Spring 2026 and will be released additionally on PC and PS5.

Square Enix Announces The Next Life Is Strange

Life Is Strange: Reunion was announced as a direct sequel to the 2024, Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. This follow on also acts as a conclusion to the original 2015 game, by focusing on the fallout of the original protagonist Max’s decisions around her friend/lover Chloe. Max will be able to rewind time and redo decisions, and Chloe is able to ‘Backtalk’ like she could inLife Is Strange: Before The Storm, allowing her to talk her way through to advance through conversations in alternate ways.  It releases on March 26 on PS5, Xbox, and PC.

Donkey Kong Country Returns Gets Free Update

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD has received a free upgrade for the Switch 2.. There are numerous quality of life improvements, particularly the increased resolution and improved loading times. Diddy Kong’s sidekick girlfriend, Dixie Kong, has also been added, alongside a Turbo Attack mode, wherein levels run considerably faster. The additional content and the quality of life improvements like additional languages and bug fixes, have also been added to the original Switch console.