Netflix's Post-Console Pivot, Krafton Cancels a PUBG Spin-Off, and Team Liquid Reclaims the LCS
A fast scan of September 28 – October 5: Netflix's cloud-gaming pitch, a cancelled PUBG extraction shooter, GTA 6's pricing ripple, and a winless VALORANT Champions for China.
This issue covers September 28 – October 5, 2026.
Industry
- Netflix's co-CEO says the company's gaming future is cloud gaming on the television, in a "post-console world." At Bloomberg's Screentime event, Ted Sarandos called mobile gaming "a gateway to cloud gaming" and said a post-console world opens "all kinds of opportunities for gaming on the television," while adding that Netflix has "not been traditionally big buyers." The pitch lands after Netflix closed its AAA studio and then Night School, the studio behind Oxenfree. Read more →
- Microsoft's Activision and Bethesda both moved against fan projects built with generative AI. Bethesda sent an alleged cease-and-desist over Fallout: New York, a browser-playable Fallout recreation whose maker abandoned it on October 1, and Activision had footage of an AI-assisted Modern Warfare 2 decompilation taken down. The notices arrived as AI-built recreations of well-known games keep going viral. Read more →
- Krafton cancelled PUBG: Black Budget, its extraction shooter, months before release. First mentioned in a 2023 investor presentation and given a Steam page and teaser in 2025, the game was ended because Krafton judged its "current direction would not allow us to deliver an experience players could enjoy over the long term" — after PUBG: Blindspot shut down following two months in early access. Read more →
- Warhorse co-founder Martin Klíma hopes GTA 6's $80 price tag makes costlier games normal. In a PC Gamer interview, Klíma said development costs keep climbing while audience growth has stalled, and that raising the unit price is "the last thing you can do" but "everybody's scared to death about it" — so he wants Rockstar and Take-Two to blaze the trail. Read more →
- Sony Japan put the PS5 Pro behind a lottery limited to active PlayStation players. Store purchases now require a Sony account with at least 60 hours of confirmed PS4 or PS5 playtime between September 27, 2024 and September 27, 2026, with applications closing October 7 — a response to shortages and scalping ahead of GTA 6's November launch. Read more →
Releases and updates
- Jagex announced RuneScape 4, the first mainline entry to run on Unreal Engine. Revealed with a teaser at RuneFest in Birmingham, the game is "still a few years away" and will run alongside RuneScape and Old School RuneScape; Jagex also announced an animated RuneScape series with the streamer MoistCr1tikal. Read more →
- World of Warcraft: Forever's beta raised its level cap to 30 and opened a new dungeon. The update unlocked Excavation Site: Wetlands for level 26+ characters, restored the Mulgore questline "Kyle's Gone Missing!", and halved the experience from dungeon quests — a change that has divided testers. Read more →
- Arc Raiders goes free to play from October 8 to 12 alongside Frozen Trail, its biggest update since launch. The full game opens on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation for the four-day window, and new players can reach the new Pendola Pass map straight away if paired with someone who has unlocked it. Read more →
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leaves Game Pass on October 15. The 2025 game-of-the-year winner was one of the service's strongest day-one third-party launches, and it exits alongside Pacific Drive, A Plague Tale Requiem and Donut County this month. Read more →
- Neon Genesis Evangelion is getting a VR trilogy, with the first game due in 2027. Korean studio Pixelity released a debut trailer for Evangelion:Δ Cross Reflections, an alternate-universe retelling that casts the player as a new NERV trainee, with the two remaining games to follow later. Read more →
Esports
- Team Liquid Alienware won the LCS 2026 Summer Split, beating LYON 3–1 in the grand final. It is Team Liquid's first regional title of the year and sends the team to Worlds 2026 as North America's first seed, with LYON second and Cloud9 into the Play-In; jungler Josedeodo was named finals MVP. Read more →
- FURIA beat LOUD to claim Brazil's second Worlds 2026 spot, completing the 19-team field. FURIA meets LOS in the CBLOL Split 2 final on October 10 in Rio de Janeiro, where the winner takes Brazil's first seed and a direct place in the Swiss Stage. Read more →
- VCT China left VALORANT Champions 2026 winless on home soil. All four Chinese teams — EDward Gaming, JD Gaming, TYLOO and XLG Esports — went out in the group stage with a combined 0–8 series and 2–16 map record, the worst regional performance in VCT international history; the Shanghai playoffs run October 7–18. Read more →
- South Korea won back-to-back Asian Games gold in League of Legends, sweeping Chinese Taipei 3–0. Faker, Zeus and Keria collected a second gold and Canyon, Zeka and Gumayusi a first, a win that also exempts the newcomers from South Korea's mandatory military service. Read more →
- FUT Esports signed former G2 AWPer Álvaro "SunPayus" García to replace Nikita "cmtry" Samolotov. G2 released SunPayus on September 29 after three months on the bench, and he debuts with FUT at PGL Masters Bucharest on October 24. Read more →
This story was produced automatically by a channel. One sentence is all it takes for Neodrop to keep producing for you.