Bungie Cuts 292 Jobs, Guts the Entire Destiny Team as Sony Restructure Goes Brutal

Sony-owned Bungie has laid off 292 employees across its Bellevue, Washington studio — essentially the entire Destiny 2 team plus some Marathon staff — effective July 9. Studio head Justin Truman has stepped down and will be replaced by former VP of Operations Poria Torken. Bungie publicly admitted Destiny 2 'fell short of expectations,' which, given the franchise's decade-plus run, is a remarkably bleak epitaph.

IGN →

UPDATE: Compulsion Games Layoffs Begin — Studio Closure Now Looks Inevitable

Employees at South of Midnight developer Compulsion Games have begun confirming departures on LinkedIn, with at least a dozen people out the door in the past week. Reports from Insider Gaming and Eurogamer point to an imminent full studio closure, potentially finalised before Microsoft's July earnings call. The especially cruel twist: South of Midnight pulled over a million Game Pass players in three weeks, and the studio is apparently being punished anyway because Game Pass accounting doesn't translate engagement into survival.

Eurogamer →

34BigThings Breaks Free from Embracer in Management Buyout

Italian studio 34BigThings — best known for Redout — has successfully completed a management buyout to regain independence from the crumbling Embracer Group. It's a genuinely positive story in a week drowning in bad ones, and another signal that the Embracer empire's unwinding is creating opportunities as well as casualties.

Game Developer →

Ninja Theory and Double Fine Still in Xbox's Crosshairs, Sources Say

Multiple sources cited by Insider Gaming confirm that Ninja Theory and Double Fine remain on Xbox's shortlist for closure or sale, alongside Compulsion. The full shape of Microsoft's studio cull is expected to crystallise before the July earnings report.

Insider Gaming →

Nintendo Breaks Ground on $800M R&D Center in Kyoto — Completion: 2029

Nintendo has officially announced construction of a ¥121 billion (~$800M USD) Technology Development Center in Kyoto, Japan, housing advanced R&D infrastructure including dedicated development servers. The facility is expected to complete in March 2029, giving you a rough sense of what platform cycle Nintendo is building for. For a company that just launched Switch 2, this is long-game thinking at its most literal.

Nintendo Life →

State of Web Gaming 2026: Developers Are Finally Taking the Browser Seriously

MCV/DEVELOP's annual State of Web Gaming report shows a marked shift in developer attitudes toward browser-based platforms in 2026, with more studios using web channels to build audiences and drive exposure for PC and mobile IP. The range of opinions runs from true believers to the deeply skeptical, but the trend line is clear. Worth a read if you're tracking where distribution is heading.

MCV/DEVELOP →

GTA 6 Pre-Orders Are Live — Rockstar's Already Stirring Up Pricing Controversy

Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-orders officially opened this week, with pricing and PlayStation 5 promotional details confirmed. The Ultimate Edition's content split has sparked a Reddit debate about whether Rockstar is selling an incomplete game — consensus seems to be it's overblown, but the optics of launching premium tiered pricing in the current climate are not great. No disc version is being planned, and analysts are split on whether that matters.

Indy100 →

Switch 2's Launch Week Physical Sales Surge Is Actually Good News for Retail

US market data from Circana confirms Nintendo Switch 2's launch week drove a notable bump in physical video game sales, a counterpoint to the industry's relentless digital-only push. It's not a reversal of the trend, but it's a useful data point for anyone arguing physical retail still has a pulse.

My Nintendo News →

New Releases This Week: Dead or Alive 6, Blood Bowl, Star Fox, Citizen Sleeper, and More

This week's release slate is headlined by Dead or Alive 6 Last Round and Warhammer Blood Bowl on Switch 2, alongside Citizen Sleeper's Switch 2 Edition and a raft of indie titles. Nintendo is also kicking off a summer content push. Not a blockbuster week on paper, but there's something for most tastes.

Tech-Gaming →

10 Indie Games from Summer Game Fest That Are Already on Our Wishlists

Windows Central rounds up standout indie picks from Summer Game Fest and the Xbox Games Showcase, including Uppercut Games' Magicians: The Devil's Deal. A useful curation piece if you've been too distracted by layoff news to track what actually looks good.

Windows Central →

The 10 Most Exciting Indie Games Still Coming in 2026 — Drinkbox's Blighted Leads the Pack

Dualshockers makes the case for the second half of 2026's indie slate, with Drinkbox Studios' Blighted earning the top spot from a writer who considers themselves a certified Drinkbox stan. July alone has a gothic cosy farming sim dropping on the 7th that's already generating quiet buzz.

Dualshockers →

Game Pass Accounting Is Actively Destroying the Studios That Feed It

The Compulsion Games situation has crystallised a structural problem that's been lurking for years: Microsoft's internal Game Pass revenue model doesn't adequately reward studios for engagement, even when they deliver a million players in three weeks. TechTimes and others are now openly naming this as the mechanism killing Xbox's creative pipeline — the business model is penalising its own successes. This is the 'Game Pass is unsustainable' argument finally arriving with receipts.

TechTimes →

Riot Games Partners with KICK for Global Esports Co-Streaming Expansion

Riot Games has announced a partnership with streaming platform KICK to enable co-streaming of League of Legends, TFT, and VALORANT esports events globally. It's a meaningful distribution play — KICK gets the legitimacy of Riot's IP, Riot gets more viewer touchpoints. Whether KICK's audience translates to engaged esports fans is the open question.

Riot Games →

Mobile Gaming in 2026: Cross-Platform Sync and Mobile-First Dev Are Now Table Stakes

A 2026 industry analysis confirms mobile-first development and cross-platform account synchronisation have moved from differentiators to baseline expectations for online gaming products. The piece is more marketing-adjacent than editorial, but the underlying data points — investment levels, user behaviour shifts — are worth a skim for anyone tracking where platform spend is going.

DayLox →