EA's biggest franchises are undoubtedly its EA Sports games, but on the EA Entertainment side, beyond shooters like Apex Legends and Battlefield 6, it's The Sims that rules the roost as one of its biggest ongoing live service titles. Today, EA studio Maxis, the team behind The Sims, gave players an update on the life sim franchise and its future in a blog post, with insights into what players can expect in 2026 and beyond. But before it got to that, it began with a couple of paragraphs on how the "values" of the game have not changed. The blog […]

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It's been over two years since Ubisoft Massive confirmed that it would be making The Division 3, and that series creator Julian Gerighty would be at the forefront of the project. Since then, Ubisoft has released major updates and expansions for The Division 2, and at Gamescom 2025, we even got a major reveal of what the company has planned for the franchise, with a new survival extraction game called The Division 2: Survivors and an upcoming mobile MMO title called The Division Resurgence. As for The Division 3? Ubisoft did not mention it at the time, but during yesterday's […]

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Hooded Horse, a publisher that made a name for itself when it picked up Manor Lords and has since been known to have a keen eye for strategy and city-building games, has drawn its line in the sand on GenAI tech. In an interview with Kotaku, Hooded Horse's chief executive officer, Tim Bender, made it clear that the publisher will not sign studios that use GenAI. The studio has even gone so far as to add a "no f***ing AI assets" line into its contracts, banning any studios that work with it from using generative AI technology in the process […]

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Update 09/01/2026: In response to the publication of this article, a separate user on X (formerly Twitter) dug into the Smarty.cz source code to verify the Steam Machine pricing estimates for themselves, and went a step further to look into Alza, another Czech retailer and one of the country's largest. On Alza's listing for the Steam Machine, user Hajedan also found that it had a similar pricing structure for the Steam Machine, though added that the original post's indication that the actual price will be lower than the conversion estimates is almost definitely correct due to Alza and Smarty.cz including […]

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When Larian Studios announced Divinity at The Game Awards 2025, it likely did not think what would follow would be swarms of backlash targeted at the studio and its chief executive officer, Swen Vincke. Not because it had announced a new Divinity game, but because Vincke had made it clear that Larian had been experimenting with using GenAI tools in its development process. Those comments came with considerable backlash, to which Vincke responded fairly bluntly before trying a more measured statement, but that did not stop players and other game developers in the industry who are entirely against the use […]

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Starfinder: Afterlight is a new turn-based cRPG from Epictellers Entertainment, a Barcelona-based studio that saw how Baldur's Gate 3 proved there was a commercial appetite for strong cRPG games (as they told us in the linked exclusive interview), and wanted to offer a sci-fi flavour to those fans of the genre and anyone introduced to cRPGs through Baldur's Gate 3. Today, at the New Game Plus Showcase, Epictellers debuted a first look at some gameplay, including some combat and a bit of exploration. It's not a huge look at what's to come, but it does feature some stunning voices, and […]

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2025 saw the return of one of the biggest strategy franchises in the genre, a spiritual successor to a series that fans are dying to see make a comeback, and a beloved game get its long-awaited remake. There was plenty to fill our pick of the Best Strategy and Simulation Games of 2025, and if everything on our list below makes it out before the end of 2026, putting together 2026's list of the best strategy games and best simulation games shouldn't be an issue either. Other Wccftech's Most Anticipated 2026 Games per genre: Role-Playing Games, Indie Games, Platformers, DLC/Expansion, Action, Shooters, Horror, Sports/Racing, […]

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DON'T NOD has unveiled a new trailer for its upcoming game, Aphelion, at today's New Game Plus Showcase, which focused on the game's music and featured an interview with its award-winning composer, Amine Bouhafa. You may have already heard Bouhafa's work in the 2021 short film The Summit of the Gods or in 2025's The Little Sister, though this is the first time the César-winning composer is working on a video game. "This is my first time working on a video game, and I loved the way that [the Aphelion team] thought about the music and about the game. I'm […]

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The 29th annual DICE Awards are set for February 12, 2026, and the full list of nominees has been revealed, with an unsurprising list of games leading the way in nominations. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Ghost of Yotei lead the pack with eight nominations each, while Dispatch and ARC Raiders tie for second place with six nominations each. All four titles are also nominated for the big prize, Game of the Year. The DICE Awards are hosted every year by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, with the nominees and winners picked by an academy of more than […]

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Though not a new Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest game, the first two Octopath Traveler games established the series as an important one for JRPG fans to pay attention to. Octopath Traveler and its sequel, Octopath Traveler II, could easily be considered two of the best JRPGs to be released in the last decade. Now, Square Enix has continued the series with a prequel for the third installment, with Octopath Traveler 0. Here's everything we know about the turn-based prequel. Release Date, Platforms, Pricing, Editions Octopath Traveler 0 was first announced back in July 2025. Its reveal trailer was included […]

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IO Interactive is quickly approaching the launch date for what has been described as the peanut butter and chocolate of video games: IO Interactive behind a new James Bond game. 007 First Light will arrive on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on March 27, 2026, and leading up to that launch, IO Interactive has kicked off a new series of videos on the game's YouTube channel called Beyond the Light, going behind the scenes of the game's development. The first episode of the series includes reactions and insights from the developers regarding gameplay, with IO Interactive's gameplay director on […]

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A new report from Alinea Analytics has ARC Raiders listed as the number-one best-selling game on Steam for November 2025 by copies sold, and has now reached 7.7 million copies sold across all platforms. It's the latest sign of how Embrak Studios' third-person extraction shooter continues to be one of the biggest games of the year. This comes after Alinea Analytics reported that ARC Raiders had sold nearly 750K copies in the week of November 16-22, and that it had sold at least half of all its copies sold on Steam, with the other half coming from PS5 and Xbox […]

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If you were looking at the calendar, the week that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launched on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S with a day one launch on Xbox Game Pass, considering the fact that this was Sandfall Interactive's debut title, and (though you may not have known it at the time) it would be competing with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, you'd be forgiven for thinking Clair Obscur didn't have a strong shot at standing out that week. Not only was Oblivion Remastered's shadow-dropping in no way a hindrance for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but according to Xbox […]

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Sony and San Diego Studio are bringing MLB The Show to iOS and Android devices with MLB The Show Mobile. Published by Sony and developed by San Diego Studios, it's already available, though only in the Philippines. It's getting a limited regional release to start, and will roll out globally as development on the game expands. The free-to-play mobile game will be "a new standalone experience built from the ground up to deliver realistic baseball gameplay on mobile devices," according to the game's website. If you're keen to swing for the fences with MLB The Show Mobile but you don't […]

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Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord is taking a major step forward as it ages into the back half of the decade with the release of its expansion, War Sails. The action strategy game is finally adding naval combat in this expansion, and ahead of its release, I got to spend some time hearing about it from developer TaleWorlds Entertainment. I also got to speak with a couple members of the development team, senior producer Falk Engel and design lead Gökçen Karaağaç, all about this expansion and how it changes Mount and Blade: Bannerlord II, and why TaleWorlds Entertainment is calling […]

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Three months after its first developer blog, Ghost Story Games and Ken Levine are back to remind everyone that Judas is still around, that the studio is still working on it, and that it is still planning to be released, eventually. On that last point, no, the blog does not include a release date or an indication as to when it'll be out. In fairness, a trailer at The Game Awards could give players all the answers they want that are not included in this blog, but we could also just as easily go another year wondering how the spiritual […]

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Santa Ragione's horror game, Horses, getting banned on Steam with only vague reasons to back up its ban was an additional tally on the year for Valve getting mixed up in controversy regarding what it allows and what it doesn't allow on Steam. Epic Games Store, seemingly, felt out of the loop, so it decided to join the fray by also disallowing Horses to release on its digital storefront, even though it was previously slated to arrive alongside launches at GOG, Humble, and Itch.io today, December 2, 2025. The difference, however, is typical of the difference between Epic Games Store […]

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Destiny 2: Renegades is out now, and as part of that launch, Bungie has debuted a new cinematic trailer for players to check out, but what players are also likely checking out is the game's concurrent player count on Steam. Now, it needs to be said that concurrent player counts on Steam are not everything; they are not the full picture for any multiplatform game, they are not an indication of sales, and they are not the best measuring stick for the health of multiplatform multiplayer games. All that said, Steam is, almost undoubtedly, the largest digital storefront and platform […]

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Squeezing itself in just before The Game Awards, 11 bit Studios has announced that it will host its first-ever digital showcase next week on December 8, 2025, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT / 7pm CET. It'll be livestreamed on the studio's YouTube channel and in partnership with IGN on its YouTube channel, featuring new looks at Frostpunk 2 DLC, new content coming to The Alters, and more. The publisher and developer will include information on games it worked on in both capacities, with its published titles like Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault and Death Howl making […]

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