Category: Industry

Industry news from PC, Xbox and PlayStation

  • Guerrilla Games strips live-service elements from Horizon Hunters Gathering

    Bloomberg reported this week that Guerrilla Games is stripping the live-service elements out of Horizon Hunters Gathering following poor internal playtests, restructuring it into a smaller, story-focused co-op game instead. The project isn’t cancelled, but the studio reportedly has until December to prove the new direction to Sony leadership.

    This fits a pattern that’s become hard to ignore at PlayStation. Concord, The Last of Us Online, and a live-service God of War project were all cancelled before reaching release. Whether Horizon Hunters Gathering’s retooled version survives that same scrutiny is worth watching over the next few months.

  • Elder Scrolls VI speculation collides with layoffs and protests at Bethesda

    Elder Scrolls VI speculation collides with layoffs and protests at Bethesda

    Elder Scrolls VI speculation picked back up this week, but it’s arriving alongside a harder story about layoffs and labor unrest at Bethesda, and the two are worth covering honestly rather than separately.

    The speculation started with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s own post on August 11: “Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI: ********,” written after she visited Bethesda’s Rockville studio. Fans quickly matched the eight asterisks to the long-rumored subtitle Sentinel, and pointed back to a 2023 Starfield character-creation screen that reportedly ciphers out to the same word. Former Bethesda lore writer Michael Kirkbride replied “yep” when asked if Sentinel was correct, though he no longer works at the studio, so that’s him agreeing with a theory, not an official confirmation. Nothing about the game itself has been confirmed by Bethesda.

    That studio visit was met with a protest, an inflatable rat and roughly 800 red flags representing laid-off workers. Separately, lead character artist Christiane Meister, who worked on every Elder Scrolls game since Morrowind, was laid off after 27 years as part of Microsoft’s broader cuts, roughly 1,600 positions eliminated so far, with a total of around 3,200 planned by mid-2027.

    On August 18, Xbox and Bethesda union workers held coordinated “Save Our Devs” rallies across nine cities in the US and Canada, including Rockville, Austin, Dallas, Montreal, Redmond, and Irvine. One union member said the group had submitted a proposal back in February on how to handle a reduction in force fairly, and that the company sat on it for four months before proceeding with layoffs regardless.

    Worth being clear about what’s confirmed and what isn’t here: the layoffs and protests are real, documented events. The Sentinel subtitle is fan speculation with some circumstantial support, not an announcement. Both are worth watching, but only one of them is a confirmed fact right now.

  • Valve confirms Steam hardware data breach affecting EU customers

    Valve confirms Steam hardware data breach affecting EU customers

    Valve confirmed this week that a cyberattack on CEVA Logistics, its European shipping partner, exposed the names, addresses, phone numbers, and order details of customers who bought Steam Deck, Steam Machine, or Steam Controller hardware.

    The attack took place between July 29 and August 1, and Valve began notifying affected customers on August 10.

    Passwords, Steam Guard codes, and payment information were not part of the breach. That’s the important distinction here, this isn’t an account compromise. But the exposed data, real names, real addresses, real order details, is exactly what makes phishing attempts convincing.

    A scam message that correctly references your actual order number or shipping address is far more likely to be trusted than a generic one.

    If you’ve purchased Steam hardware recently, the practical advice is simple: treat any unexpected email, text, or phone call referencing your order as suspicious by default, even if the details check out. Valve will not ask for your password, payment information, or Steam Guard codes through any of these channels.

    If you’re unsure whether a message is legitimate, go directly to Steam’s support site rather than clicking a link or calling a number provided in the message itself.

    If you want a general layer of protection against phishing attempts like this, I use and am an affiliate for NordVPN, its built-in threat protection blocks known phishing and scam sites in real time, before you’re able to enter a password or lose money. It’s currently offering 75 percent off two-year plans.