Hello Games marked No Man’s Sky’s 10th anniversary this month by teasing the name of its next content update: Cosmos. No further details or release date have been shared yet, but the studio’s decade-long track record of consistent free updates makes this one worth watching once more information surfaces.
Category: PlayStation
PlayStation hardware, first-party, and platform news
-
What’s launching in the final week of August and into September
The next few weeks are packed. Here’s what’s worth having on your radar.
August 27 brings Star Wars Zero Company, Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2, Plague Tale Legacy Resonance (day one on Game Pass), and Lou’s Lagoon, all landing the same day. Serious Sam: Shatterverse follows on August 31.
September opens with Moonlighter reaching its 1.0 release on September 2, followed by The Blood of Dawnwalker on September 3, which has confirmed a free performance mode at launch. American Truck Simulator’s South Dakota DLC is expected sometime during the month, the next state expansion following May’s Illinois release.
Later in September, Silent Hill: Townfall arrives September 24 on PC and PS5, and The Witcher 3: Remastered launches September 29 as a free upgrade for existing owners.
Looking further out, Path of Exile 2 reaches its full 1.0 release on December 11.
-
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.
-
Mortal Shell II’s Balance Patch 1 fixes most launch issues, one boss bug remains
Mortal Shell II has stabilized considerably since launch. Balance Patch 1 is now live across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series, building on an earlier Hotfix 2 that already resolved several crash and UI issues, including a menu lockup tied to the Slayer Seal and weapons getting stuck after a riposte.
One real issue remains open, though. Fighting the boss Zmey can cause weapons to disappear or attacks to stop registering entirely mid-fight. The official workaround for now is to unequip the Grisha Remnant item before attempting the fight again. No permanent fix has been confirmed yet, so if you hit this bug, that’s your move in the meantime.
-
Gamescom Opening Night Live: Witcher 3 Remastered, Path of Exile 2’s 1.0 date, and more
Gamescom’s Opening Night Live delivered a genuine surprise this year. The Witcher 3: Remastered is a free upgrade for existing owners, launching September 29 with overhauled combat, visuals, and monster AI, alongside a new expansion called Songs of the Past coming next year.
Path of Exile 2 finally has its full 1.0 release date: December 11. Mega Man 12 was revealed during the show, and Mega Man: Dual Override got moved up a full year, now targeting a 2026 release instead of its previously expected window. Silent Hill: Townfall also picked up a concrete release date, September 24, for PC and PS5.
Gamescom itself runs through August 30, so it’s worth watching for further announcements before things wrap up.
-
GTA 6 leaks trigger a federal lawsuit and a wave of malware scams
Real gameplay footage has continued leaking from an account calling themselves Cyberleek, including one clip that appears to prove the leaker has live control over an actual playable build of the game. Take-Two responded with federal DMCA subpoenas against both Microsoft and Discord, approved by a New York court, and both companies have until September 4 to comply.
The leaker, meanwhile, has started teasing additional footage, including strip club gameplay, in exchange for donations to their cryptocurrency wallet, which tells you most of what you need to know about the actual motive behind this.
Separately, and more urgently for players, the leaks have triggered a wave of fake “playable build” downloads circulating on Discord and torrent sites. These carry infostealers and remote access trojans disguised as leaked game files, with some listings claiming file sizes over 100GB. Fake Rockstar Social Club login pages are also circulating to phish credentials.
The bottom line is worth repeating clearly: there is no public GTA 6 build, no beta, and no PC version right now, period. The game launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S only. Anything claiming otherwise, a download, a beta invite, an early access key, is malware or a phishing attempt.
If you want a general layer of protection against phishing attempts like this, we use and are 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.
-
What’s launching between now and the end of August
The next two weeks are busy. Here’s what’s worth having on your radar.
Mortal Shell II launches August 20 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. The same day, STALKER 2 gets its Cost of Hope DLC.
Gamescom 2026 runs August 26 through 30, and Xbox has confirmed its presence, including the possibility of a surprise reveal. Insiders, including Windows Central’s Jez Corden, say Microsoft is preparing to show a game built on an existing Microsoft IP developed by a third-party studio.
What’s already been ruled out: Elder Scrolls VI, Wolfenstein 3, Banjo-Kazooie, the Fallout remasters, Blade, OD, and a StarCraft shooter. As of now, nobody’s correctly guessed what it actually is.
August 27 rounds out the month with three major releases landing the same day: Star Wars Zero Company, Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2, and Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, the last of which is available day one on Game Pass.
-
Phantom Blade Zero State of Play Details
Monday’s State of Play gave Phantom Blade Zero its deepest look yet, and it confirmed a genuinely large amount of build variety for a game this close to launch. Players will have access to more than 30 main weapons alongside 25 secondary “Phantom Edges,” and every combination is reforgeable, meaning a build that isn’t working out can be reworked rather than requiring a fresh start.
Three difficulty modes were confirmed: Wayfarer, aimed at players who want to focus on the story; Hellwalker, which introduces adaptive enemy AI that responds to how you play; and Sixty-Six Days, the hardest tier, which limits players to 66 total lives before a permanent game over. That last mode is a real commitment, not a difficulty slider in the usual sense.
The game’s world, Wulin, is structured as 8 interconnected regions, not a fully open world, but not strictly linear either, closer to a hub-based structure that still allows meaningful exploration.
One detail worth clarifying: Donnie Yen’s involvement has now been confirmed as more than a “creative consultant” credit. He provided facial and motion capture for Mo Yuan, the protagonist’s father, a more substantial role than earlier marketing suggested.
Phantom Blade Zero launches October 29, and pre-orders are live now.
-
The Sinking City 2 launches to strong reviews, here’s how to get it running smoothly
The Sinking City 2 launched Tuesday to a strong critical reception, Metacritic scores between 75 and 84 across platforms, along with “Very Positive” user reviews on Steam. Critics have specifically called out the tighter, more focused approach compared to the original game’s sprawling open world as a meaningful improvement.
Console players get two performance modes to choose from: a 30fps Quality mode and a 60fps Performance mode. PC players should expect the game to run well across most modern hardware.
If you’re playing on a Steam Deck or a lower-end laptop, though, it’s worth knowing where to look first. Like most recent releases, The Sinking City 2 is built on Unreal Engine 5, and two specific settings account for most of the engine’s performance cost: Lumen, the dynamic lighting system, and Nanite, the geometry detail system. Dropping Lumen to its lower preset and letting Nanite fall back to standard level-of-detail meshes recovers a meaningful chunk of frame rate for a relatively small visual tradeoff.
Pair that with FSR or DLSS upscaling set to Balanced or Quality rather than running at native resolution, and most UE5 titles reach a stable frame rate without needing to max out every setting. This isn’t specific to this one game either, it’s a good default approach for any UE5 release going forward.
-
Halo Campaign Evolved sold 351,000 copies on PS5 in its first week
Halo Campaign Evolved sold approximately 351,000 copies on PlayStation 5 in its first week, a figure that came in below what most analysts expected for the first mainline Halo title ever released on Sony hardware. The always-online requirement controversy and a mixed PC launch reception likely both played a role in softening the number.
The game reportedly performed significantly better on Xbox and through PC Game Pass, though subscriber engagement numbers through Game Pass aren’t publicly broken out, so a direct comparison isn’t possible. For a launch that was pitched as a landmark crossover moment, a below-expectations PS5 debut is worth watching as a data point on how much platform exclusivity history still matters to buying decisions, even when a game is technically available everywhere.