[PATREON UNLOCK] Update Patch - March 2026

Update Patch News Roundup (08/03/26)

Welcome to Update Patch, the newsletter where we go over all the latest ups, downs, and strangeness that persists throughout the games industry. As the weather continues to alternate between chilly winds and abnormal heat, the world keeps revolving. New games meet a premature end, even newer games fly off of store shelves, and our corporate overlords continue to keep us on our toes to keep us guessing what’s next. Oh, and we finally get a Black Flag remake. 

Gear Up for Your Last Raid, Warden

In an announcement made on March 3rd by developer Wildlight Entertainment, Highguard is set to shut down its servers on March 12th. Highguard was set to a tumultuous release back in December following its debut announcement at The Game Awards. Since then, Highguard’s fought an uphill battle, between Wildlight laying off the majority of its staff after a lackluster first month, to player counts steadily dropping to the point of “not [being] able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term.” To cap things off, there’s also one final patch dropping, including a new Warden, progression system, and weapon for players to try out before the 12th.  Highguard’s total shelf life will amount to a mere 45 days, nearly four times the lifespan of Concord, the other recent live service endeavor that fell apart shortly after its release. 

Highguard’s failure is multifaceted, and points to a handful of the issues plaguing the games industry today. Wildlight Entertainment began in 2021, built by the hands of former Respawn Entertainment developers who left after seeing the massive success of Apex Legends, and how little of that $3 billion revenue went to the developers. Following this, Highguard’s development began, and a few years down the line, Wildlight would pique the interest of TenCent, the Chinese tech conglomerate that has its hands in other big games such as League of Legends, PUBG Mobile, and larger company investments with Ubisoft and Epic Games. This would be followed by internal testing that failed to replicate a realistic play environment, a lack of an open beta, and concluding with the reveal at The Game Awards which tanked company morale. Josh Sobel, a tech artist and rigger for the game, took to Twitter to speak on how incredibly positive, constructive, and actionable the internal feedback was, only to be “turned into a joke from minute one.” 

Personally, I can’t help but lament the story of Wildlight. What started as an eager studio of ex-Apex Legends developers that wanted to see the money go into the hands of those who worked on the game turned into a turbulent road with unrealistic gameplay testing, a bold pivot to take the final slot at The Game Awards, and receiving near-immediate vitriol online. The future of Wildlight Entertainment is in the air, as the layoffs have left its staff with less than 20 people of its initial 100-person team. That said, the studio has not made any announcements about shutting down.  

March Fires Off on All Cylinders

As we enter the last few weeks of Q1, March has been a stacked month for gaming. Resident Evil Requiem released at the tail end of February and has received high praise from fans and critics alike as it combines both ends of the RE design philosophy, ushering in Grace Ashcroft as the fear-stricken protagonist to amplify the horror elements, and bringing back Leon Kennedy to do awesome kicks and other cool shit. Pokémon Pokopia released on March 5th and currently sits tied as the highest rated Pokémon game on Metacritic next to Pokémon Y. Slay the Spire 2 also entered early access on the same day. Marathon also hit online storefronts after its Server Slam that took place just days before the official release.

PlayStation Backs Out of Porting First-Party Games to PC

After six years of trying to get into the PC market, Jason Schreier reports that the console manufacturer will no longer be working on porting its first-party games to PC or Xbox anymore. This has no effect on their multiplayer titles, like the upcoming Marvel Tokon, but it does mean that the likes of Saros and Ghost of Yotei will remain PS5 exclusives. This comes on the heels of a strange few months for PlayStation, after the multi-million dollar blunder that was Concord, along with the more recent closure of Demon’s Souls remake developer studio Bluepoint. It would be rational to assume that it would want to increase its stake in the PC market, but between inconsistent release dates for ports, PC players needing to make PlayStation Network accounts, and a fear that bad ports might hurt the brand image for PlayStation, it’s up in the air whether or not this tactical retreat will be the correct step as opposed to improving the structure of its PC releases. 

Project Helix, the Next Xbox Console, To Be Discussed at GDC

On the other hand, Asha Sharma, new CEO of Microsoft Gaming, took to Twitter to tease Xbox’s next-generation console: Project Helix, set to “lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games.” This decision came straight off the heels PlayStation apparently ceasing work on PC ports of its singleplayer games, and on top of the murky future of the Steam Machine, which is still somewhere off in the horizon, Project Helix could be a response to the positive reaction that the Steam Machine garnered from its reveal back in November in tandem with Xbox’s recent pivot to focus more on games publishing rather than console development. This also fits the brand messaging that Xbox has stuck to during the modern era of “everything being an Xbox.”

Build a Rocket Boy CEO Claims Further Espionage After More Layoffs! 

It wouldn’t be an Update Patch without some more words from good ol’ Mark Gerhard, co-CEO of MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy. After alleging that the critical and commercial failures of MindsEye stemmed from an internal smear campaign chock full of espionage, sabotage, and €1 million to “harm MindsEye and Build a Rocket Boy’s reputation,” Gerhard dodged responsibility for the game’s failures yet again, this time with more layoffs. Meanwhile, MindsEye developers refute this and blame poor leadership in an open letter, citing “disrespect and mistreatment of [their] staff.” On top of this, publisher IO Interactive also took the stance that MindsEye just fell flat in the court of public opinion. 

As this saga continues to unfold in one strange direction after another, many questions are left unanswered. Will IO Interactive give its IOI partner program after this debacle? How many of the remaining developers at Build a Rocket Boy will continue their tenure at the studio on the heels of more layoffs? And just when are we getting that spy mission that will totally reveal who the culprit behind all this corporate espionage is? 

Clickout Media Mucks Up Review Sites With Gambling Ads and AI Written Reviews

When we look at games journalism, it’s not hard to see that this is a business that follows similar ebbs and flows to other aspects of the greater games industry. In the corporate sense, large companies like IGN, Polygon, and Eurogamer have been facing layoffs, and games journalism as a career seems harder to attain every day. That said, the amount of independent games writing that has cropped up over the past few years has garnered positive attention for their innovation and ability to stand out amongst the big guys. In a world where independent games journalism is becoming more celebrated, it’s always a shame to see AI-generated work rear its ugly head. 

Dating back to 2021, Australian Media outlet Gameshub was recently caught after having an AI generated review of Resident Evil Requiem hit Metacritic. 

Further research showed that Gameshub was full of AI generated reviews, a refocus of shady gambling and casino linkbacks to manipulate SEO for other websites, and AI generated authors with fake social media accounts used to prop them up. Even the Gameshub tagline reads “Games and Gambling News, Guides & Reviews.” Aftermath did a deep dive into the shady moves behind Clickout Media, and you can read that here. All in all, it appears that Clickout Media and its subsidiaries like GamesHub, are working solely in the interest of being invasive and generating clicks, rather than contributing effectively to games journalism.   

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Remake is Finally (Officially) Announced by Ubisoft

To close things out this week,  Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Resynced was announced on March 4th, confirming months of leaks and speculation. This came with a handful of other announcements regarding the franchise and its direction in 2026, including a 60 FPS update to Assassin’s Creed Unity, a PvP game made by a team of For Honor developers, and upcoming updates on the live-action series. The news comes barely a month after a strike that took place among global Ubisoft employees in early February, following layoffs, studio closures, and game delays and cancellations. With the amount of content announced, it’s hard to take these announcements in good faith. Players will have to keep their fingers crossed in hopes that Skull and Bones doesn’t remain the only current-gen way to experience boating around in an open, singleplayer world.

Update Patch News Roundup (15/03/26)

Hello everybody, and welcome to another Update Patch. This week, we’re coming up on the heels of GDC, developer interviews, and more AAA studio decisions that have our heads spinning. We’ve got the Screen Actors’ Guild involved this week, and we even have the return of Jeff Kaplan, finally spilling the beans on his abrupt departure from Blizzard back in 2021. With Spring around the corner, games appear to be just as turbulent as ever. 

GDC 2026 Shows a Shifting Games Industry

Every year, GDC rolls around to highlight the happenings of the games industry in a clearer light. While this year has already seen a slew of layoffs across all aspects of gaming, from development to journalism, GDC’s panels serve to show off more in-depth truths of the industry. In the 2026 State of the Game Industry panel, a survey was conducted amongst over 2,300 industry professionals, which pointed out important distinctions for navigating this job market. 

For starters, over a quarter of the participants reported being laid off within the past two years, and over half stated that their company had conducted layoffs. Generative AI usage is inconsistent between roles, but still appears in game development, marketing, and mundane tasks like writing emails – at the same time, 52% of the professionals think that AI is causing more harm than good, with the majority of that half  being artists, programmers, and designers. 82% of professionals also stated an interest in joining a union of some sort. 

Amongst these panels were other insights that call out industry discrepancies like the near $40,000 salary wage gap between white and non-white workers, show a broad interest in developing games for the Steam Deck, and trying to navigate live service games during a period that seems to signal their downfall. 

All of these reports can be read for free and in full through the links provided by GDC. 

Xbox Discusses More on Project Helix, Says Copilot Will Hit Series X|S

Last week we talked about the announcement of Project Helix on Asha Sharma’s Twitter. This week, we finally got some news on the next-gen steps for Xbox at GDC. VP of Next Generation, Jason Ronald, stated that Project Helix will be “designed to play your Xbox console and PC games, delivering high performance and providing the ultimate player-first experience,” as well as discussing a partnership with AMD to develop the internal hardware.” Between all the talk of component specs and next-gen hardware features, the most important part of the idea is that it’ll be able to play both PC and Xbox games, further signalling the end of the ‘This is an Xbox’ era, and also signalling the competition between this and Valve’s Steam Machine. This news, however, only raises more questions given the reception of the ROG Xbox Ally. While everything being an Xbox may be quietly off the table, the attempt to unify the Xbox ecosystem appears to be alive and kicking. 

This begs the question: what is the actual goal of Microsoft at this point? With Xbox making a pivot away from its roots and opting to put more of its time and energy into games publishing, announcing a new console that could effectively just be an Xbox-branded PC seems a strange move given there not being a large interest for PC gamers to transition over to console. On the other hand, this comes at a time when it may be strategic enough to utilise the rising RAM prices and helium shortages that are affecting tech all over. If building a PC becomes more inaccessible, and Xbox finds a way to undercut the Steam Machine, this could be the first major win for the company in some time. 

Following this, Microsoft announced that Gaming Copilot would be coming to current-gen consoles in 2026, as reported by GamesRadar. The feature itself has been in beta for some time, offering players what is essentially a gaming LLM that they can talk to, answering questions about the game they’re playing, on top of features like asking for game recommendations, seeing your playtime, and seeing what games are coming soon. You know, all things you can do yourself or ask your friends about. 

This comes only weeks after Sharma publicly announced that Xbox wouldn’t “flood [its] ecosystem with soulless AI slop.” It’s clear that the all-encompassing AI utilisation of Microsoft has finally made its way to gaming in a way that players themselves will be able to interact with, for better or worse. 

PlayStation Quietly Introduces Dynamic Pricing 

After announcing the end of porting its first-party games to PC, PlayStation’s next move began in secret. Reported by PSU, nearly 70 regions across the globe have reported dynamic pricing, charging a range between 12% discounts to 20% price hikes. As these shifting prices have recently hit the U.S. yet, this continues to highlight the strange position that PlayStation may be in going into the next generation of consoles after major losses, such as the failure of Concord, and closure of Bluepoint Games. 

PlayStation’s recent moves point to a business that’s perhaps moved too boldly during the current generation. While the PS5 continues to lead the gaming hardware market, including dynamic pricing to online storefronts will more than likely push consumers to try and find loopholes, especially when that surge pricing is linked to account statistics and not geography.  

It’s currently unclear how long this dynamic pricing will be in effect. 

SAG-AFTRA issues Do Not Work Order for Upcoming Mega Man Game 

On March 10th, voice actor Ben Diskin took to BlueSky to announce that he would not be returning to voice Mega Man in the recently announced Mega Man: Dual Override. The decision came from Diskin after he was told that he would not be working under union protections while working with Capcom, even after working with it on Mega Man 11, the highest-selling game in the franchise. 

Following this announcement, SAG-AFTRA put out a Do Not Work Order against Mega Man: Dual Override, warning that any union members who work on the game may face disciplinary action. 

On the bright side, Diskin states in his thread that Capcom seemingly has no desire to include A.I. generated voice acting in its games. On the other hand, this decision not to go union comes at a time when job security exists in a strange ebb and flow with A.I. integration in games. In another post, Diskin stated that Sega has gone union with nearly all of its titles, further highlighting the strangeness of Capcom’s decision. 

Mega Man: Dual Override was announced at the tail end of The Game Awards last year, and with it being so early in production, there’s still a chance for Capcom to turn around and adjust their contracts to make working with the company easier for contract work like voice acting, especially with the Do Not Work Order lasting “until further notice.” 

Jeff Kaplan Opens up on Leaving Blizzard 

When Overwatch released in 2016, one of the hallmark traits of the game’s reception was the open dialogue conducted by Jeff Kaplan, the game’s former lead director. After Kaplan parted ways with Blizzard in 2021, fans were left confused how the man who had essentially been the face of Overwatch for five years could suddenly leave. On March 11, Lex Fridman, a computer scientist and podcaster, sat down with Kaplan to hear from him directly.

The podcast goes over Kaplan’s career as a gamer. He discusses his work on Project Titan and how that failed, a massive game that brought together a wide variety of ideas that couldn’t find their synergy. He also mentions the beginning of his career at Blizzard, his time as a writer, his obsession with EverQuest, and most notably, the end of his time working on Overwatch.  

According to Kaplan, Overwatch derailed with Blizzard’s desire to “make lots of money really fast.” After the Overwatch League failed to bring in the revenue that Blizzard leadership had hoped, on top of steering away focus  from Overwatch 2 to work on the League, the game’s direction fell apart. After a conversation with Dennis Durkin, CFO of Activision Blizzard at the time of Kaplan’s departure, he was told, “Overwatch has to make [redacted] in 2020, and then every year after that it needs a recurring revenue of [redacted]... If it doesn't do [redacted] dollars, we're going to lay off 1,000 people, and that's going to be on you.”

While Overwatch seems to have found its voice for where it fits with the modern audience that it’s cultivated, it’s clear that the initial years of Overwatch 2’s development were going to be a different beast entirely that died when Kaplan left. Instead, the game has a competitive focus, but without the burden of an overpromising competitive league on its shoulders, focusing on competitive game modes, dropping the ‘2’ from the title, and wholly abandoning its previously promised PvE content.  

On top of this, Kaplan’s new appearance in the public eye also came with a brief announcement on The Legend of California, an upcoming “action-survival FPS based on the mythical island of California during the gold rush era.” The game is being developed by Kintsugiyama, Kaplan’s independent studio that formed in 2022. 

You can watch the full five-hour interview here. 

Ludovic, Maryland FGC Member, Finally Able to Return Home After Being Detained by ICE

After nearly a month of being kept in ICE custody, Ludovic Mbock will be able to return home soon. 

Reported by Aftermath, Mbock was on his way to an Immigration Services building in Baltimore, Maryland to renew his work permit before he was taken into ICE custody. Mbock was transferred to detention facilities in both Louisiana and Georgia before finally being able to return home after being granted a “very low bond.” Mbock has since been reunited with his family, bringing an end to a horrible situation that continues to plague the United States. The past month has seen FGC members rally together to bring Mbock back and reunite him with his family, from constant updates and support online to a fundraiser that even garnered a $2,000 donation from EVO.  

Mbock’s story began like many others who have been detained by ICE: no criminal record of any sort, no inciting incident, just pure, unfettered aggression and racism. While the White House continues to claim that these raids and arrests are meant to target “the worst of the worst,” nearly 80% of people that began deportation proceedings had no kind of criminal conviction. What happened to Mbock was a great and unjust evil, and it is thanks to relentless compassion and community efforts that he was able to return home. 

A call to action to Maryland’s representatives was posted, asking that there be a full investigation into the indiscriminate use of deadly weapons from ICE agents, abusive and illegal conditions of detention centers, and impeachment of Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security (at the time of writing, Noem has been fired and set to be removed from the position on March 31). 

Update Patch News Roundup (22/03/26)

Hello all, and welcome to another Update Patch! Spring has sprung, which means that Crimson Desert can finally thaw out, IO Interactive can cut ties with Build a Rocket Boy, and Subnautica 2 can finally come home. Let’s get into this week’s updates. 

Nvidia Announces DLSS 5 to an Unwelcoming Audience

At GTC this week, Nvidia revealed the demo for their upcoming DLSS 5 software, an upscaling filter that uses generative AI to create “photorealistic” lighting and images. This comes after more than 80% of survey participants at GDC last week stated that they have little-to-no interest in using AI in their work. 

Shortly after this announcement, Digital Foundry posted a video of their firsthand reactions that was chock full of praise for the AI upscaling, with industry veteran Richard Leadbetter going so far as to say “When you flick between the two, which one would you rather play? It's a bit of a no-brainer, isn't it?” when discussing the Resident Evil Requiem comparison. This would be followed by a DF Direct Q+A where Alex Battaglia joined two journalists who first saw the demo and acted as something of a counter, questioning the technology’s ethical implications and its fundamental temporal awareness. In this video, Leadbetter added that the team should have waited to discuss such divisive technology before diving into audience questions. 

While the software would have absolutely zero bearing over gameplay elements that require direct, mechanical interaction from players (such as climbing ledges or fighting enemies), it takes away from the aesthetics deliberately chosen by the artists and designers that worked on those games. When lighting in an area changes, it has to be deliberate in order to communicate to the players what it’s supposed to. Resident Evil Requiem loses some of its dark, urban edge when you crank the brightness up for more realistic lighting. The leaves in Assassin’s Creed Shadows look like fake plants you’d put in a doctor’s office. A prime example of this comes from those who had no idea that Nvidia would use their games as examples of what DLSS 5 can do, most likely a decision signed off by higher-ups at Capcom, Ubisoft, and Bethesda. 

Even if the use of DLSS 5 is entirely in the hands of the designers, generative A.I. is growing increasingly unwelcome in the games industry. 

It has now also been confirmed, via an email exchange between an Nvidia spokesperson and PC hardware YouTuber, Daniel Owen, that DLSS 5 is, in fact, a screenspace effect with the only input being 2D frames and motion vectors. What this means in less techie terms is that, despite Nvidia’s initial claim that DLSS is a revised lighting model, it is in fact a simple gen-AI filter applied to individual frames, which would likely result in vast discrepancies between the look of things like faces frame to frame.

Ubisoft Proceeds with more Layoffs Following Global Strike

Recently, we reported on over a thousand Ubisoft employees going on a global strike in February this year as a response to Ubisoft’s restructuring and attempting to cut €200 million in costs. Since then, Ubisoft has continued laying off employees at its various studios, with the most recent one being Red Storm Entertainment, the studio behind some of the older Tom Clancy’s titles. 

Red Storm Entertainment has now seen 105 employees cut, this follows 19 employee layoffs in 2025, as well as an undisclosed number in 2024 alongside Ubisoft San Francisco. These layoffs will see the end of game development at the studio, however it will remain open and under Ubisoft’s Creative Network, a group of studios outside of Ubisoft’s Creative House Network functioning in a tech support role.

Prior to this, Red Storm faced two game cancellations, one being a VR Tom Clancy’s Splintercell game, and the other being Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartlands. 

IOI cuts ties with Build A Rocket Boy, leaves Mindseye in its Hands

After a strange journey full of accusations of corporate espionage, internal sabotage, layoffs, and possibly including the “suspects” of these crimes as assassination targets in a Hitman update, IO Interactive has cut ties with the developer of MindsEye, Build A Rocket Boy. This also includes leaving MindsEye in the hands of BARB for all publishing going forward, allowing the game to stay in-house. In a press release that dropped on March 17, IOI stated that its involvement and partnership with BARB had concluded on March 16 as both studios “[coordinate] to ensure a seamless transition over the coming weeks.” 

MindsEye, when put plainly, is a game that was not well-received. While it was able to garner comparisons to the likes of Grand Theft Auto and Mafia, and even some praise for its setting, the gameplay and narrative elements have been regarded as janky, uninteresting, and lackluster. After the layoffs that BARB continued earlier this month, it’s becoming increasingly harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel for this game and its parent studio. 

With this being the case, BARB has some pretty big shoes to fill now that it’s on its own. While it will be an uphill battle for the studio, here’s to its next game having a lot less crunch and a lot more polish. 

Legal Battle Between Krafton and Former Unknown Worlds CEO Winds Down

After months of legal back and forth between Krafton and former Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill, it appears that Gill will eventually be reinstated into his position after a lengthy legal battle. 

The history of this development traces back to Krafton’s initial purchase of Unknown Worlds in 2021, and PCGamer has a detailed series of articles covering the events, courtesy of Andy Chalk, Rich Stanton, and Fraser Brown. 

To summarize, in 2021 PUBG’s parent company Krafton purchased Unknown Worlds, the studio behind Subnautica, in an attempt to “diversify the company’s portfolio of groundbreaking games.” Four years later, in the summer of 2025, Krafton announced a major departure of leadership from Unknown Worlds, firing Charlie Cleveland (Subnautica designer and director), Ted Gill (former CEO), and Max McGuire (co-founder), with Steve Papoutsis (CDO of Striking Development Studios) as the new CEO. Following this, Krafton alleged that the three former leaders would not be eligible for the $250 million earnings payouts because they failed to do their jobs when leading the charge on Subnautica 2. 

This triggered a legal battle from the ousted members, claiming that Krafton was taking extra steps to delay the release of Subnautica 2 to avoid the game reaching revenue targets within the time allotted for the team to be able to receive the payout. Krafton alleged that Cleaveland, Gill, and McGuire had essentially given up on the game. Legal matters persisted, and it was during this time that it was revealed that Krafton CEO Changham Kim had relied on ChatGPT for legal advice on how to avoid paying out the Unknown World bonus, and finally, on March 16, it was ordered that Krafton would have to reinstate Ted Gill as CEO of Unknown Worlds.

The day after this all happened, Krafton announced that Subnautica 2 is planned to release in early access this May. However, this too could trigger more legal action as Gill and his legal team has now sent a letter to the Vice Chancellor of Delaware's Court of Chancery claiming that Krafton didn’t have the authority to set this release date and that Krafton’s quiet announcement has sabotaged the “marketing activity, fanfare, and community coordination”, that most games’ release date announcements receive. 

So, it seems this story is still far from over. While Gill will have to wait for the transition of power to finalize, he has stated his confidence in the developers at Unknown Worlds. Time will tell if the early access launch in May still proceeds as Krafton plans while the transition of power occurs. 

Update Patch News Roundup (30/03/26)

Hello, and welcome to March’s final Update Patch. While these stories might not give us the graceful exit to the month like the saying might imply, this week’s seen more talk of AI in gaming, price increases, and the strange relationships of fighting game characters. 

Crimson Desert Caught Using AI-Generated Art Assets

Only three days after its release, Crimson Desert was exposed for using generative AI in some of its background art pieces. After various community members (one of which including our very own Lex Luddy) posted pictures of various paintings in the game that appeared to be artificially generated, Pearl Abyss came clean just a few days later.  

Crimson Desert is a massive game in both its content and outreach, having sold over 3 million copies at the time of writing. Its abundance of gameplay features continues to be a hefty talking point, and the reception from both critics and the general audience seems to be fairly positive. Despite all of this, it’s a shame to see that gen AI was not only implemented in the development process, but stayed around afterwards.

On March 22, the official Crimson Desert Twitter addressed this, stating that gen AI was used to develop “2D visual props…as part of early-stage iteration using experimental AI generative tools.” The statement goes on to discuss how these are meant to speed up the exploration of “tone and atmosphere in earlier phases of production,” with the end goal of being replaced during a final review. Pearl Abyss acknowledged that it should have disclosed the use of gen AI much earlier on to the public, and promised to roll out updated assets in future patches of Crimson Desert. On one hand, it’s great that these changes are happening and that Pearl Abyss even addressed these issues. The fact that companies are being called out for things like this, and that change is happening fairly quickly, is a sign that there’s still room for a larger resistance to gen AI outside of the individuals who work in the games industry and don’t use it. 

That said, this shouldn’t have been a problem to begin with. Since Pearl Abyss was exposed for its use of gen AI, many game developers have gone on to highlight how the temporary assets they use are distinct in a way that allows them to not be mistaken for later down the line during final review, with plenty of threads on Bluesky highlighting this. After last year’s debacle with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 using AI generated art for some of its smaller assets, Anno 117: Pax Romana using AI in its loading screens and development, The Expanse: Osiris Reborn currently using gen AI in its development, and the plethora of indie games on Steam that are published with AI generated assets, it’s frustrating to see that this kind of work still exists in new releases, only to be caught by keen-eyed players and to be patched out eventually and met with an “I’m sorry we got caught” message from the publishers, especially when the desire to use gen AI during development is incredibly high within the industry. 

Epic Games Lays of 1,000 Employees as Tim Sweeney Works to “Pay the Bills”

Sadly, it wouldn’t be a week in the games industry without layoffs, as Epic games announced that 1,000 employees would be laid off on March 24th. In the announcement written by Sweeney himself, he states that this round of layoffs comes as a result of “industry-wide challenges: slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics; current consoles selling less than last generation's; and games competing for time against other increasingly-engaging forms of entertainment.” Sweeney then notes that even though Fortnite continues to be one of the most successful games in the current gaming landscape, the team at Epic Games struggles to “[deliver] consistent Fortnite magic every season,” citing that they’ve only just returned to mobile development. That same day, it was announced that Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Festival Battle Siege would all be cut from the roster of playable game modes in April and October (Rocket Racing) this year. 

Epic Games is no stranger to cutting content. In the early days of Fortnite, it wasn’t uncommon for these changes to come in the shape of weapons being locked away for a period of time, or skins being taken out of the shop’s rotation. That was years ago though, and Fortnite’s magnitude has granted it a treasure trove of game modes, and Rocket Racing was one that was made to kick off and define the current era of Fortnite as the game shifted to be more of a metaverse style experience. 

Merely two whole weeks before these announcements, Epic announced that the price of V-Bucks would increase to “help pay the bills.” This all comes after a longstanding legal battle with Apple and Google over their ecosystems that require developers to pay a 30% store fee on their revenue. In January 2025, Sweeney stated that while the battle was costing Epic billions to fight, he told IGN that they might run into financial trouble in decades. 

While Sweeney did confirm that these layoffs have nothing to do with AI, and that U.S. employees would receive and six months of paid healthcare coverage, the impact of these layoffs is already being felt, as former Epic employees are struggling. Mike Prinke, a longtime employee at Epic was impacted by these layoffs, and is now struggling further with a battle against terminal brain cancer. As of March 29, Tim Sweeney posted publicly on his Twitter account that Epic is contacting Prinke’s family to assist with the insurance matters.

Major Price Changes on the Horizon for PS5 and Switch 2

The PlayStation 5 has been in an uncomfortable position for the past few months. After announcing that players can lease a PS5 for monthly payments, followed by variable pricing on games hitting many regions outside of the U.S., Sony recently announced a price increase on nearly all PS5 hardware, including the base PS5 (from £470 up to £570), PS5 Digital (from £420, now £520) PS5 Pro (from £690 up to £790), and PlayStation Portal (jumping from £200 to £220). Accessories and controllers have yet to see a price hike. 

This comes after an initial round of increases back in August 2025, and further points out that Sony is in a similar spot to most tech companies as prices increase globally due to the boost in resources going towards AI data centers and related hardware. 

Continuing the conversation on price shifts in gaming, Nintendo recently announced that it would be changing its pricing model in May, with digital games and physical games offering different MSRPs. This will begin with Yoshi and the Mysterious Book being sold for $59.99 digitally and $69.99 physically. 

While this announcement may have lit a fire under some people based in the U.S., this is a practice that’s been going along steadily in the U.K. for almost a year now. 

Nintendo clarified that while there will be no difference in content between the digital and physical versions, it’s clear that the rising cost of gaming continues to be in effect for the foreseeable future. 

Street Fighter VI Retcons Incestuous Relationship for Latest DLC Character 

It’s been fun capping these Update Patches with some of the weirder stories that persist in the weekly news cycle, so why not bring incest into the mix? 

Alex is the newest DLC character for Street Fighter VI announced back in June 2025, alongside Sagat, C. Viper, and the to-be-released Ingrid coming later this Spring. The past few months have seen Capcom building up hype with the character, bringing in professional wrestler Kenny Omega to do the mocap for the grappler. It was then discovered that in Alex’s Arcade Mode ending that he had a child with his second cousin.

To make matters weirder, this is the same second cousin that grew up with him as if they were siblings. While none of this has any bearing on the gameplay of Alex as a character, this narrative beat was more than enough to draw in some unwanted attention on the return of one of New York’s strongest. 

Since then, the story has been adjusted slightly to include more details that separate Alex and Patricia’s lineage, including a brief episode on the Street Fighter VI website, with extra emphasis on Alex being Patricia’s father’s son-in-law.