Nadella Backs the Xbox Reset, a New Age of Empires Looks Lost, and VCT China Goes 0–8

Industry

• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called the Xbox cuts "streamlining" and said it is "great to see." On the Sources podcast Nadella said he feels "fantastic" about Xbox's studios and IP, and that "there's some amount of streamlining the team is doing, and Asha is doing, which is great to see" — with more than 1,600 Xbox staff cut this year and roughly another 1,600 planned before the fiscal year ends under CEO Asha Sharma's reset. Read more →
• The same layoffs appear to have taken a new Age of Empires game with them. World's Edge, the studio that oversaw the recent Age of Empires and Age of Mythology remasters, lost at least half its staff and was moved under Activision; departing staff wrote on LinkedIn that the studio had "some great plans for what's next" and that "our next project was cancelled," which points to the loss of a brand-new entry rather than another remaster. Read more →
• Undead Labs was nearly sold to Splash Damage before the deal collapsed. The Game Business reported that the UK developer behind Brink and Enemy Territory was acquiring the State of Decay studio with money from private-equity backer Emona Capital before the deal fell apart; Kotaku says it corroborated that account, and Undead Labs is now employee-owned and finishing State of Decay 3 with an unannounced publisher. Read more →
• Nintendo won a $4.5 million default judgment against an alleged operator of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit. James Williams never responded to the suit, so the court granted Nintendo the damages it asked for and ordered him to shut down any sites he runs that distribute pirated Switch material — Nintendo's second seven-figure piracy win, after a $2 million judgment against modding shop Modded Hardware. Read more →
• Ubisoft Milan pitched a Zelda spin-off led by Ganondorf, and Nintendo passed. Insider Gaming reported that the pitch, codenamed Goliath, reached Nintendo in early 2023 with a new protagonist until Nintendo suggested Ganondorf as the lead, and that the prototype finished that November was rejected anyway; key Ubisoft Milan developers left in July 2024 and formed Day 4 Night. Read more →

Releases and updates

• Minecraft is getting its first new dimension since The End. Minecraft Live revealed The Sift, a fourth dimension joining the Overworld, the Nether and the End, arriving first in the spin-off Minecraft Dungeons II on September 29 before reaching the base game next year — alongside rare underground ice caves with a new frozen-zombie mob, and Minecraft itself on Switch 2 on October 27. Read more →
• Valve shipped its biggest Counter-Strike 2 update of the year on September 22. The "Rush Hour" patch added Rush, a 3v3 mode and CS2's first new game mode in three years, restored clan tags, added silent reloads, and replaced Premier's map veto with a pick-and-randomise system designed to stop Mirage and Dust 2 from dominating the pool. Read more →
• Call of Duty: Warzone got a mid-season balance pass on September 24. Raven Software removed players' ability to detonate C4 while in Last Stand, closed a cash-on-death exploit that was inflating the in-match economy, cut the Fortune's Keep boat exclusion zone to two uses of about 80 seconds, and raised deployment fees at Diamond and above to compress Skill Rating inflation at the top of the ladder. Read more →
• League of Legends Patch 26.19 went live on September 23. Ten champions including Aatrox, Aurora and Kha'Zix were buffed and six including Nasus, Nocturne and Ryze were nerfed, with Teleport and support items adjusted three weeks before Worlds opens on October 15, alongside a new batch of Coven and Old God skins. Read more →
• Reviews landed September 25 for Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, the series' first entry in seven years. Critics praised the new first-person story sequences built around Joker Flight and a bespoke cloud engine that lets cloud banks break missile locks and shrink lock-on range. Read more →

Esports

• Host region China lost every map of the opening round at VALORANT Champions Shanghai. TYLOO, EDward Gaming, XLG Esports and JD Gaming were each swept 0–2 — TYLOO by G2 (9–26 rounds), EDG by LOUD (13–26), XLG by Karmine Corp (9–26) and JDG by FUT (11–26) — leaving VCT China the only region without a map win while VCT Americas went 4–0 in series. Read more →
• LYON took North America's last Worlds 2026 spot by beating Shopify Rebellion 3–1. A year after entering the LCS, LYON came through the lower bracket to qualify for a third international event; the LCS Grand Final on October 4 still decides the region's seeding. Read more →
• LOS beat LOUD 3–2 to become the first CBLOL team to qualify for Worlds 2026. The win takes LOS to the CBLOL Grand Final on October 10 in Rio de Janeiro and into the main stage of Worlds, which begins October 15 in the United States; LOUD face FURIA on October 3 for Brazil's second, play-in berth. Read more →
• Complexity has ceased operations after 23 years. Founder Jason Lake said he decided at the end of 2025 to shut the North American organization down in an orderly way rather than fail to raise the capital to service the seller-financed note from buying it back in 2024, and its intellectual property has returned to GameSquare. Read more →
• Esports is leaving the Asian Games after this year's edition, with a dedicated event in Kuwait in 2027. The Olympic Council of Asia signed the host agreement on September 21 for the first Asian Esports and Mind Sports Games, which will draw more than 4,000 athletes and take over the role the Asian Games' 13-title esports programme — running now in Aichi-Nagoya until October 2 — has held. Read more →