Latest game development news from across the industry
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LunarG
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11 hours, 58 minutes ago
Gamefromscratch
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18 hours, 3 minutes ago
Graphics and tools teams get the most from these drops: Babylon.js 9.28.0 improves render correctness and adds root-motion support for animation groups, while also smoothing OBJ AssetContainer and Gaussian Splatting behavior. Aseprite’s patch fixes a tilemap paste crash and layer/sprite copy issues, which matters for pixel-art workflows. Stride’s CLI and samples updates mainly reduce setup friction and keep starter content/versioning aligned for teams on newer .NET paths.
LunarG says Vulkan SDK 1.4.363.0 is out for Windows, Linux, and macOS, with KosmicKrisp now a Vulkan 1.4-conformant ICD on Apple silicon. That makes macOS a first-class target for the same validation, capture, and config workflow used elsewhere. The release also adds vkprofiles and fresh extension headers.
The Cherno shows how AI helped finish Hazel’s multiplayer server work, turning a long-running backend task into something shippable. For teams building online games, the practical takeaway is less about hype and more about using AI to accelerate boilerplate, unblock implementation, and keep momentum on infrastructure-heavy features.
GamesIndustry.biz reports Trophy Games is buying Paris mobile studio Playrion for $2.6 million, its biggest acquisition yet. The deal brings Airlines Manager and Airport Simulator: First Class under Trophy's umbrella, with Playrion set to keep operating independently. Trophy says it will lean on marketing, data, and tech to push the existing games further.
GamesIndustry.biz reports that the National Videogame Museum has opened a UK-wide survey to map the state of game preservation. Behind the Screens is asking studios, publishers, former devs, and collectors what materials they hold, from source-era artwork and design docs to hardware and archives.
GamesIndustry.biz says DICE turned Battlefield 2042’s rough launch into a full franchise reset, with Battlefield 6 arriving as a smooth, high-selling comeback. Rebecka Coutaz says the studio reorganized around live ops, split development across four studios, and kept iterating from player feedback. The result was over 7 million copies sold in three days.
XBox Wire says Forest of Deceit has added six new languages, including German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Italian. For a social deduction game built on conversation, the update is more than a nice-to-have: it reduces friction, keeps players from looking suspicious over UI confusion, and opens the game to mixed-language groups.
GDC Festival of Gaming shares a new GDC Side Quest clip with Sam Carlisle of XDS Spark, focusing on the practical line between outsourcing and co-development. For studios planning external support, the distinction matters: co-dev usually means deeper integration, shared ownership, and tighter production alignment than task-based vendor work.
XBox Wire says Gears of War: E-Day is getting a Liquid Death tie-in that unlocks a Legendary animated pose, Chainsaw Flex, plus branded banner, emblem, and icon. The promotion runs in the U.S. from September 25 to November 30, 2026, with a limited-edition chainsaw pint glass also going on sale today.
GameFromScratch reports that Gozen, a free and open-source video editor built with Godot, has entered beta on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Developers can build it from source for free, or buy a precompiled version. The project is notable as another real-world example of Godot being used beyond games.
GamesIndustry.biz reports Sony Interactive Entertainment is surveying developers about ending PlayStation disc support, with questions aimed at how studios feel about the shift to digital-only distribution. The move follows Sony’s stated plan to stop disc production in January 2028, even as physical advocates warn of real costs for collectors and premium releases.
XBox Wire says Minecraft is getting The Sift, its first new dimension in more than 14 years, with a preview arriving in Minecraft Dungeons II on September 29. Mojang Studios also says the dimension will come to Minecraft Java and Bedrock in 2027, giving builders and modders a new space to design around.
GamesIndustry.biz says Microsoft wants Xbox to find a “sustainable business model” as it pushes to reach more players across PC and console. Satya Nadella tied that goal to recent “streamlining,” which has already meant thousands of layoffs and studio closures. He also said Xbox is expected to return to growth in fiscal 2027/28.
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GamesIndustry.biz reports that Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer has walked back comments that sounded pro-crunch, saying he is “pro hard work” instead. He argues overtime should be rewarded, but says planned weekend-style crunch is “horrendous behaviour.” The remarks come as Wardogs has topped 3 million sales in 18 days.
Unity details how Scritchy Scratchy was adapted from PC to mobile and Nintendo Switch 2 without splitting into separate branches. The team rebuilt touch-first scratching for controllers, added mobile haptics, and kept the game feeling native across screen sizes while targeting 60 fps.
Tim Ruswick argues that “make small games” is bad shorthand: tiny projects still carry most of the same production overhead as larger ones. He says the real challenge is depth per system, not raw content count, and that small games often take longer because good ideas are harder to cut, polish, and finish.
"I built this as an internal tool while working on my own game. Sprite sheets from separate sources often arrived at different scales or with inconsistent alignment, so checking an animation meant a l…"
Community details Covil Sprite Pipeline, a local Windows tool aimed at cleaning up sprite-sheet animation before it reaches the engine. It normalizes scale, pivots, and timing, previews frames, and exports PNGs, atlases, JSON, or ZIP for a one-time $4.99. For teams juggling mixed-source 2D assets, it’s a small workflow win.
XBox Wire says Minecraft LIVE returns this Saturday, putting fresh Minecraft news and updates back in front of players and creators. For developers, the event is worth watching for any new feature reveals, ecosystem changes, or tooling direction that could ripple through the broader sandbox and UGC space.
GameFromScratch reports that Meta has unveiled two upcoming "game engines" at Meta Connect 2026: Horizon Create and Horizon Studio. The pitch points toward AI-driven creation tools for Meta's Horizon ecosystem, with the resulting content apparently staying inside that platform. For developers, the bigger question is whether these tools are engines in any traditional sense or just a tightly scoped content pipeline.
GDC Festival of Gaming spotlights co-development as a trust-and-process problem, with Beth Elderkin speaking to XDS Spark co-founder Sam Carlisle on GDC Side Quest. The discussion is aimed at studios hiring external teams or joining them, with a focus on collaboration, expectations, and avoiding friction. It’s a timely reminder that co-dev success depends on more than just bandwidth.
XBox Wire says Used Cars Simulator is out now on Xbox Series X|S, mixing car-flipping management with a physics sandbox. Players inspect, negotiate, repair, customize, and resell vehicles, but can also drift, explore, and lean into more chaotic ways of acquiring cars.
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