Adding to discussion of Valve's handling of Steam's growing gen AI problem, Epic Games online services product director Alexander Rehm suggests the company's solutions to clone and slop games aren't enough for most people.

Rehm waded into the news on LinkedIn last week, just days before Valve announced a change to Steam's review process in response to a deluge of games evidently fueled, in part, by generative AI. However, this won't necessarily change the outpouring of slop on Steam, as Valve says it doesn't want to dictate what "tools" developers use even if Steam does call for AI disclosures in game store pages. In fact, the idea was to speed up the review process while also enacting new requirements.

At a recent event, Valve business team members affirmed that the company is still working to solve this problem and suggested developers focus on maintaining original, high-quality games that are difficult to clone.

Rehm says this "is a reasonable strategy if you've got the runway and team to do it, and not much use if you're one or two people who shipped a single clever mechanic." This camp, of course, is where a lot of the developers on Steam fall.

The same Valve staff also fielded reports of developers being extorted by AI users who'd threaten to clone a game unless paid off. "Valve also said it hasn't seen reports of developers being extorted over AI clones and that this is a job for law enforcement, not the storefront, which to me reads like a platform that still sees this as someone else's problem," Rehm says.

"If you're building anything indie sized right now, 'keep improving forever' isn't a moat, it's a tax only the well funded can pay," he concludes.

Rehm makes some of the counterarguments that Valve's response initially prompted. How long can Valve kick the can down the road? When will material solutions arrive? How can the creators of hotly anticipated games deal with copycats beating them to launch with identical or near-identical titles? Valve has, as evidenced by its review slowdown, not found the perfect answer, and this process deserves scrutiny.

The sticking point here is Epic Games' glass house, as some responses to Rehm's post argue. In the replies, you'll find former Valve dev Chet Faliszek, who reckons Epic Games, with its AI-first pivot, once AI-mandatory game jam, and "vibe coded" game launcher, doesn't really have a leg to stand on.

"What an absolutely dishonest read of mixing an off the cuff response in a Q&A with a written statement so you can say they see it as someone else's problem and that they aren't addressing it," Faliszek responds. "I love how you make sure to not to link to either... All the while Tim [Sweeney] screams it is a political act the same as revealing someone's voting record to have an AI disclosure... so explain - how does that work?"

Sweeney has repeatedly criticized Valve for Steam's AI disclosures, which aren't mirrored on the Epic Games Store even though Epic's Fab marketplace does mandate AI disclosures.

"This is a business to business marketplace," Sweeney says of Fab in an October tweet. "Many Fab customers are operating under contracts that require them to understand the providence of all content in their game (including Steam’s own contract that I’ve complained about) and they cannot buy assets without this info."

The CEO has also emphasized the gen AI features of Epic's Unreal Engine 6 – a game-making suite that, one video game lawyer told GamesRadar+, risks legal blowback by ignoring copycat potential.

Separately, Sweeney writes, "What does the law say on the copyright issues associated with training on content? The Anthropic court ruling found they were liable for copyright infringement when torrenting pirated content (as the article quotes me on), but they found that the training itself was fair use. Other courts have found that whether particular content produced by AI was infringing dependent on its similarity to the copyrighted work."

The rush to turn Fortnite into Roblox by way of Unreal Engine integration also calls into question how Epic Games would control a slop flood. Chalmers Robotics Society chairman Maximilian Ygdell tells Rehm, "Epic was fine with using AI trained on others' work, now the same technology is used to empower the people and suddenly it’s an issue? Am I missing something here?"

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney suggests AI could've saved Destiny 2 and will "enable games like Destiny to thrive!"

We're now four days into Fortnite's latest season, Treasure Hunters, and thousands of players have been taking that title very seriously with their attempts to unlock access to an enormous amount of cosmetics for free, thanks to a prize so desirable that they've been mapping out all the best ways to attempt to beat the extremely slim odds.

Fortnite's Pirate Shop Access tokens are undoubtedly the most exciting rewards that Epic has ever added to the game. Right now in the battle royale, there's a very small chance that when you open up a chest during your regular looting, you'll unlock two of these tokens, each giving you the ability to clear out the game's item shop (full of cosmetics like skins and emotes) for free for 14 consecutive days. One token can be used this year, and the other in 2027, for a total of 28 days of freebies for anyone lucky enough to find them. It's a prize that could, without exaggeration, save players thousands of dollars' worth of V-Bucks.

Needless to say, you can understand why seemingly everyone is currently going feral at the prospect of being one of the lucky few, and when some players have opened thousands of chests without finding what they're looking for, you can also understand why folks are trying to streamline the process. Beyond the general tip of searching in squads – a full team can search chests faster and all will be granted the reward if they're together when a lucky chest is opened, players have found – some have now mapped out the optimal routes to open as many chests as quickly as possible.

Content creator MacFNyt has suggested a few routes. The area just north of Plunder Port, for example, apparently contains between 11 and 23 chests for you to search in a neat loop, while the northwest of the map, containing Buried Treasure Island, reportedly boasts 30 chests in a fairly small area, meaning you can check loads very quickly.

Others have gone even further – Gatocarls15 has shared four routes you can use with your squad, so you're each able to split up and hit one each every match. It's all about optimization, folks.

Another popular chest-searching hotspot is, well, The Chest. That is, the enormous pirate chest POI on the map. The island it's sat on is covered in buried chests, which – as players have pointed out – you can dig up even faster if you equip the new Plundarrgh Sprite.

None of this will guarantee you actually finding any Pirate Shop tokens, of course. In fact, truth be told, I'm not seeing anyone in the replies to these tweets who've actually had real success with the methods. But, it tracks that the more chests you're able to open, then the more chances you have to roll the die, so they're still valid tactics.

There's been no official word from Epic on the actual chance of finding the Pirate Shop Access tokens, so it's really just a case of opening as many chests as possible and hoping for the best. As this is only a month-long season, though, time is ticking, but the dedication so many are showing to the grind even a few days in suggests that this may well be the incentive players need to keep pouring the hours in during a month that's otherwise set to be dominated by the Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and, of course, GTA 6.

Fortnite is giving out more V-Bucks through its monthly subscription – but also ditching one of its main perks.

Fortnite is making big changes to its Crew subscription from next month, and while it's good news for longtime, loyal subscribers, it also means losing one of the main perks going forward.

As announced in a blog post today, starting on December 5, the base amount of V-Bucks granted by the monthly Crew subscription is going back up to 1,000. This was the case for most of Crew's existence, but earlier this year it fell to 800 per month following Epic's V-Buck price increases.

It doesn't stop there, though – from then on, Epic will also reward longtime subscribers with more V-Bucks based on how long they've been paying for Crew. If you've been subscribed for at least 3 consecutive months, you'll receive 1,200 V-Bucks per month. After six months, that number increases to 1,400, and from 12 months onward, it'll cap out at 1,600 monthly V-Bucks. More to spend on skins, emotes, and the like is nothing to be sniffed at.

Current subscribers will be designated a 'tier' (bronze, silver, or gold) based on how many consecutive months they've been subscribed for in the last year come December 5, and lapsed subscribers who resubscribe between December 5 and 31 will see their starting tier "reflect your most recent continuous subscription period over the past 12 months," Epic says.

With the price of Fortnite Crew remaining the same, this is good news for everyone – especially for those who are already subscribed. Another extra perk is on the way, too – faster XP gain. Crew subscribers will now earn 20% more XP than non-subscribing players, but those not paying for the service will still earn a 10% bonus if they're on the same team as someone who is.

There's really only one downside to the changes, but it's a pretty big one. After December, Crew subscribers will no longer be getting a monthly skin as part of their perks. There were some genuinely great skins offered this way in the past, and they could be an enormous incentive to subscribe, since, up to now, they've never been offered any other way (such as in the regular item shop).

At the very least, all remaining Legacy Styles – alternate, selectable color styles for certain Crew skins, their back blings, and pickaxes that you'd unlock over the course of several months of subscription – will be unlocked for everyone who owns those cosmetics in December, regardless of whether they're subscribed or not. So even lapsed subscribers will see some benefit when these changes are rolled out.

Otherwise, things are remaining the same – Crew subscribers will continue to have access to the Battle Pass, Music Pass, and Lego Pass without having to purchase them separately, in addition to Rocket Pass Premium.

As GTA 6 looms, Fortnite breaks the emergency glass – almost unlimited free skins, emotes, and more for 14 days, but you'll basically have to win the lottery to get them.

As Steam is overwhelmed by AI-generated games and Epic Games attempts to outdo Valve's platform by vibe-coding the Epic Games Launcher, indie game marketplace Itch.io has secured itself a free PR win by taking stricter action against "AI slop" on its storefront.

"Slop" is the word of choice for Itch.io, which proudly proclaims on Twitter: "Just deleted a couple terabytes of AI slop."

Exactly what has been deleted isn't clear, but a follow-up post indicates that whatever it was fell into the spam category, and the platform is almost certainly better off without it.

"Just because you can upload 10 terabytes of poorly optimized AI generated models doesn't mean you should upload 10 terabytes of poorly optimized AI generated models," it says. "As a reminder we have had an AI spam clause in our quality guidelines for over two years."

The spam clause in question is there to prevent users from "uploading excessive amounts of automatically generated or AI-generated content," with Itch.io acknowledging in the guideline that "in some cases automatically generated or AI-generated content can be useful or interesting," but it shouldn't be used to "mass produce product pages."

It says its definition of spam can include "games or projects that are predominantly created by algorithms or AI with minimal human intervention," randomly generated content with "no or minimal curated design," and "multiple iterations of essentially the same content that are generated by AI or algorithms."

Seemingly, then, it's content that's gone against this rule that's now been eradicated.

Itch.io already required users to tag their use of generative AI for games and game assets, but this has now been extended to tabletop games, soundtracks, books, and comics, too. Creators now have to fill out an AI disclosure to create new pages or edit existing ones, and as an added bonus, this disclosure just got even more useful to players and customers.

"In order to better control what you see, we're adding Generative AI disclosure filtering to few more places on the site where it was critically lacking, including our search results page," Itch.io adds, sharing a screenshot of the new "Genre/Tag" you can use in your searches if you're looking for games, assets, and so on with "No AI."

For anyone sick of seeing AI creep into games and flooding the various online storefronts, it's refreshing to see action like this taken against the usage of the tech.

It's frankly becoming exhausting to see so many AI-generated clones of games clutter Steam, for example – just look at the viral Needle in a Haystack Simulator and the copies that inspired.

Conversely, it's been odd to see the Epic Games CEO still upset with Valve for enforcing AI disclosures, and saying that "forcing developers to write a political statement to be used against them by the hate mob they’re helping organize is abhorrent."

Amid Steam's battle with AI clones, Claude stops users from "recreating" games using its controversial tech to "prevent IP infringement."

As we enter GTA 6 territory, Fortnite's apparent answer to keeping players engaged is simple – break out the free stuff, stat. However, the shock is just how generous its latest offer is – but earning it is probably going to have a lot of players grinding for an entire month.

Fortnite's latest season, Treasure Hunters, kicked off yesterday, November 1, and as a shorter, month-long mini-season, it was always going to have its work out for it to compete for the spotlight when GTA 6 launches on November 19. Prior to its launch, I thought the plan here was its long-awaited One Piece collab, but as was highlighted shortly after the season went live, Epic Games had another trick up its sleeve.

Enter the Fortnite Pirate Shop Access tokens. Every time you open a chest this season to grab your regular loot – guns, healing items and the like – there's an extremely slim chance that you'll be greeted with a big, golden pop-up declaring, "You found Pirate Shop Access." This grants two special tokens – one for use during a window of time this year, and one in 2027 – which, when activated, allow you to claim almost everything in Fortnite's item shop for free for 14 consecutive days.

To be clear, that means you can log on for two weeks, and every single day, claim almost everything – that means skins, bundles, emotes… you name it – in the shop without spending a single V-Buck. And then, if that wasn't enough, you can return for a second two-week free period next year.

The way Fortnite's item shop works means that you won't be able to claim everything that's ever been added to the game with this, as cosmetics rotate in and out of the store each day. But, depending on how many items you already own and what's in the shop when you activate your tokens, players could genuinely net themselves hundreds, if not thousands of dollars' worth of cosmetics using this.

The only things users aren't allowed to claim for free are "real money offers" (items you can only buy with actual cash rather than V-Bucks) and Battle Pass levels; they can only grab "one free sidekick you do not already own." Owners also can't gift things to others for free, which, to be fair, makes sense since it could lead to a massive chunk of the player base clearing out the item shop for weeks on end if it was permitted.

And that part ties into the only major catch – the rarity. As you'd imagine, the Pirate Shop Access tokens are extremely hard to come by – Epic Games hasn't confirmed the actual odds, but a quick look on social media will show you players opening hundreds and thousands of chests without seeing that fateful pop-up. Given that we're only on day two of the season, we'll probably get a better idea of the stats as we go along, but it's safe to say that many are already fully committed to the grind – which, let's face it, is definitely what the devs were going for.

For anyone keen to try their luck, it seems like it might be easier to find Pirate Shop Access if you're playing with your friends. It's already been confirmed that if you're playing with others and someone else on your team opens one of the lucky chests, the reward will be granted to everyone in the squad (or duo or trio).

There are some other rare rewards this season which can be found in the same way – right now, you can also unlock a golden A$AP Rocky skin and pickaxe, a loading screen, vehicle, Jam Track, and more – but I think it's safe to say that the Pirate Shop Access is going to be the One Piece for most players this season.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says new multiplayer games flop because everyone's "already formed solid human networks in Fortnite, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, and Apex Legends."

Following Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney's latest jabs against Steam, one former Valve dev has responded, telling the Fortnite and EGS boss that, in no uncertain terms, "you're kinda crashing out, dude."

Sweeney's beef with Valve is nothing new. He's been very loud with his criticisms before, but he's really been going for it over the last couple of weeks. After proudly proclaiming that "we vibe coded the Epic Games Launcher to be faster than the other guy," he once again slated Steam's AI disclosure policy, claiming that "forcing developers to write a political statement to be used against them by the hate mob they're helping organize is abhorrent."

More recently, he went as far as to say that "Valve has held gaming back for years by locking developers' PC games into Steamworks' social walled garden where players can't talk to other players on iOS, Android, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, or even other PC stores." That's, uh, a questionable statement on multiple levels, and understandably, Chet Faliszek, who previously worked on Portal, Half-Life, and Left 4 Dead, has now responded with some thoughts.

In a new video on his YouTube channel (below), Faliszek suggests that some of Sweeney's behavior "is AI psychosis," but beyond that, "you're kinda crashing out, dude." First, acknowledging the CEO's comments about Steam's AI disclosures, he argues, "you're making up arguments that simply don't exist," in an attempt to back up his point.

Faliszek specifically highlights Sweeney's hypothetical of "should Valve force developers to list their political affiliation? Is that pro-consumer?" He responds: "Nobody's saying legitimately to do that."

He also points out that Epic's open digital assets marketplace, Fab, uses AI disclosures itself. "You said even if Steam removes their [AI disclosures] or not, you would still keep it up on Fab because, well, 'business, it just makes sense.' Business is political. Hmm. Hmm, Timmy. Come on. You can't have it both ways, bro."

Steam, Faliszek says, provides tools to serve what both developers and customers want, including giving players more information about what they're spending their money on – y'know, like those AI disclosures. "This is gonna sound like a dick move, but this may be something that you're not used to, is they've got a lot of people wanting to buy games on Steam," Faliszek says to Sweeney. Ouch.

"Players are just making informed choices," he continues. "Why are you treating all the players like children? Like, you're just treating players like they're stupid. Instead, act as a player yourself for a moment and go, 'What would I want to know about a game?'"

Faliszek accepts that Sweeney doesn't care about AI usage in the same way that he himself doesn't care about a game's frame rate, but that doesn't mean he's going to "get mad" if that information is listed, because he can "understand that some people want" to know.

And then we get to Sweeney's comment about Valve supposedly holding back gaming. Faliszek notes that "Valve doesn't get a lot into tools," instead opting to let the community build the tools they want and need, unlike Epic Games, which he freely admits has "an amazing set of tools" including a backend solution which "surpasses Valve's."

However, he argues, "If Valve solved every single problem for every developer, including engine and tools and everything else, you'd be screaming about the monopoly and how Valve needs to get taken down. Instead, Valve gives spaces for all of these things to exist. And they actually give tools that allow for this, but people don't use them. People use third-party stuff, and that is fine."

Wrapping things up, Faliszek suggests that Sweeney should "put your money where your mouth is" when it comes to being pro-consumer, and put Alan Wake 2 on Steam. "Will you do that? Because that's a walled garden. That's holding something back. That's anti-consumer and anti-developer," he argues.

Whether Sweeney decides to respond to this challenge is another matter, but I certainly doubt we've heard the last from him yet when it comes to the ongoing tiff between Epic and Valve.

Epic wants to pay you $50,000 to vibe code an AI slop game.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is once again taking aim at Steam on Twitter, this time talking about Steamworks.

In case you haven't noticed, Epic Games CEO doesn't particularly care for Valve, having supported a lawsuit against the company, complained about Steam AI disclosures, and taken shots at Gabe Newell following the Steam Deck price hike.

Just recently, Epic proudly claimed it had "vibe coded the Epic Games Launcher to be faster than the other guy," following its "huge pivot" into "maximum AI acceleration" (although Steam had already launched a faster update the day prior).

And now, the latest episode has been sparked by former principal animation programmer at Epic Games, Kiaran Ritchie, who laments Valve's 30% on Twitter, saying "It's really sad that the games industry is drained by a 30% tax on gross revenue." Following that, he adds, "you could vibe code a Steam alternative in a week," noting that "Steam's only remaining value is its network."

Enter Sweeney, who eventually adds, "Valve has held gaming back for years by locking developers’ PC games into Steamworks’ social walled garden," noting that "players can’t talk to other players on iOS, Android, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, or even other PC stores."

This, naturally, has a community note attached, with proof on the Steamworks website, showing that you can use Steam Datagram Relay (which Valve describes as its "virtual private gaming network") on other platforms if your game launches on Steam.

You can feel however you want about Valve's 30% cut on games or it pretty much owning the market as far as PC gaming platforms go. But to assert that it's "held gaming back" when the Steam Deck and Steam Machine have been spearheads of gaming on Linux over the years, thanks to Proton – not to mention being among the most significant players in the rise of digital games – is certainly a take.

"Little Tim is so obsessed with Gabe" – Ex-Valve dev not impressed by Epic's updated Steam rival or Tim Sweeney's latest dig at Gabe Newell

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney criticized Valve for continuing to mandate AI disclosures for games sold on Steam, calling the policy "abhorrent" following his company's full-throated endorsement of gen AI in game development.

"Forcing developers to write a political statement to be used against them by the hate mob they’re helping organize is abhorrent," says Sweeney.

Steam's AI disclosures require devs who use generative AI in their games to spell out how it was used. For example, the disclosure for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 reads, "Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets."

As early as November 2025, Sweeney was campaigning against AI disclosures for games and calling Valve's approach nonsensical in a world where "AI will be involved in nearly all future production."

This past June, he doubled down, comparing Steam's AI disclosures to a "Scarlet Letter" and insisting that they make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success."

Sweeney's latest message was posted as a reply to a comment from Matt Workman, whose Twitter bio says he works in "Content & Vibes" at "generative media cloud" Fal. Workman argues that "the premise of an AI Generated Content Disclosure is ABSURD in 2026, truly embarrassing [for] Valve and Steam," and Sweeney is clearly in his corner.

This month, Epic Games and Sweeney have been especially vocal about generative AI in games and in game development. "We vibe coded the Epic Games Launcher," the company said of its reworked PC storefront last week.

Just yesterday, Epic announced an Unreal Engine game jam – an event where participants make games very quickly – that initially required AI usage and promised access to unlimited agentic support. Epic has walked that back, now saying, "you can use as little or as much AI as you want."

In the background, Steam users have been picking through a Steam Next Fest demo showcase that saw more AI-aided games than ever, and nearly double the total demo volume of the June 2026 event. Once Steam's recommendation algorithms kicked in, all the AI slop quickly sank to the bottom of the charts, but an influx of AI games has only made game stores more cluttered.

Meanwhile, some people are using AI to clone trending games in record time, with viral hits getting copied almost overnight and game developers canceling their own demos to make it harder to rip them off.

Sweeney's most recent comments have, predictably, kicked up two common counterarguments in the replies. If AI is so great, why do you want to hide it? And if the answer is, 'Because some people hate it,' why do they hate it?

This, I think, starts to color in the "hate mob" that Sweeney alludes to but does not define – at least not in a way that stops it from applying it to everyone opposed or resistant to AI. So, why would people push back on gen AI in games or want to see it called out in a store disclosure? Dozens of developers and experts have made the case to GamesRadar+.

Legally, it's a landmine. Creatively, it can hollow out essential processes. And ethically, AI providers have yet to address the tech's environmental impacts or the wealth of stolen material that their tools were trained on. To top it off, it's a famously unprofitable industry led by companies skirting by on outsized, speculative valuations in a top-heavy market that's just begging for a correction. So far, those companies have mostly succeeded in destroying the consumer market for a lot of hardware and poisoning the well for a lot of software, hurting peoples' leisure and hobbies during a cost of living crisis.

In games, much of the criticism of AI leans toward the generation of art, music, and similar assets. More developers seem to accept it as a programming boon, and AI is generally more accepted in Asian game markets than in the West (though many studios oppose it globally). Yet even if you want to argue that programming is just machine-assisted now – as even Valve co-founder Gabe Newell does, and then some – it's not hard to see why people want AI kept on a leash. (Deadlock devs are also using AI but, curiously, not nailing their entire brand to it.)

Heck, just look at Steam's updated AI disclosure terms, which read: "As an aside, AI in games is rapidly evolving and we want to get it right. Many artists and creators are rightfully concerned about exploitation and misuse. But we also realize that technology and tools are going to change a bunch over the years, and there are lots of creative game developers out there figuring out ways to ethically use AI to make great entertainment. If you plan to release a product on Steam and you think we're overlooking something important in regard to AI, we'd love to hear from you."

The backlash against gen AI in video games proves voting with your wallet works.

You can trace the lineage of beloved games like Deus Ex, BioShock, and Dishonored directly back to Looking Glass Studios. This developer is one of the most notable in the history of the game industry, having effectively created the immersive sim genre through classics like Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Thief. However, the studio's closure in 2000 wasn't really "sad," at least according to Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney. It was simply a matter of economics.

"This isn't a sad day, it's an economically realistic day," Sweeney wrote on May 24, 2000. "Looking Glass spent lots of money making innovative games that never sold well." This quote recently resurfaced on social media, as gamers looking to hate Sweeney move beyond simply criticizing his mass layoffs, his bizarre jabs at Valve boss Gabe Newell, and Epic's increasingly AI-first approach to development.

Now, if I were a major industry figure who'd once written something callous about a beloved studio's demise, I think I'd do what I could to minimize the reach of that quote. I'd ignore it. If it spread too far, I'd apologize. I'd say I had grown over the course of the decades, and that I no longer believe as I once did.

Sweeney, however, retweeted his old quote today, saying "The crash in the game business nowadays is the first for the new generation of gamers, but only one of several in the history of games. Here are my thoughts from 2000 when a maker of beloved but long-unprofitable games went under."

With Sweeney already an unpopular figure among a segment of the gaming community, you can imagine how well this post has gone down. "The point of these posts is not to be popular; of course the most popular thing to do would be to lament the troubles in the game business as sad acts of nature and vaguely blame 'the system,'" Sweeney says. "I post because it's important for people in prominent positions to speak up on the root causes of what is happening in this crash as it evolves."

While Sweeney doesn't reference it directly, the recent shutdown of BioWare offers a sad mirror to Looking Glass's death decades ago. Another studio that made games in a niche genre for niche fans, building beloved titles at unsustainable budgets until the bottom fell out.

At least, that's one way you could look at BioWare's end. You could also see the studio's story like this: an unimpeachable maker of the best role-playing games in the world until it was bought by EA. Under the publisher, Mass Effect and Dragon Age built a core fanbase which would ultimately be alienated by pushes for broader market appeal, and what fans remained would be pushed away by Anthem's failed live-service push and a seemingly unending development hell for Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Meanwhile, one of BioWare's OG franchises would find itself under a new developer without a corporate mandate to cater to the masses, and we'd get an RPG megahit in the form of Baldur's Gate 3. Without corporate pressure, could the BioWare of today have made its own Baldur's Gate 3? I don't know, but I am confident that saying studio shutdowns are a process of natural selection is just as simplistic as blaming "the system."

"Projects and teams that are not producing profitable games are being axed," Sweeney's message in 2000 continued. "Origin's projects (minus [Ultima Online]) and Looking Glass are only the beginning. Some of the companies and teams that will take the axe damn will deserve it, and others are unfortunately made up of really good guys who just haven't had the good fortune of producing hits. This is the bit where the comet hits the earth and the dinosaurs die, but the way is cleared for cooler life forms to evolve."

To extend Sweeney's old metaphor, the problem here is that Earth hasn't actually managed to produce any cooler life form that's cooler than a dinosaur. Sure, primates proved to be much hardier and more adaptable over the course of eons, but survival is not the ultimate measure of success. I guess when you're raking in billions off of AI-generated content and reheated pastiches of other people's creative work, it's easy to think Fortnite is the only game in the world that matters.

"Elon Musk disagrees with me. This means I am onto something": Legendary game artist calls out AI billionaires, Tim Sweeney responds "this is bulls***" with Musk's support

Update: Since this story went live, Epic has changed the rules for its $2,500 "Glass Box" cash prize, which no longer mentions AI. The original wording is still included in the original story below. The company has also changed its FAQ for the event, which previously said that participants were required to use AI. Now, Epic says, "you can use as little or as much AI as you want."

Original story: Not content with the humiliation it has already received over the vibe coded Epic Games Launcher beta, Epic is keen to pay a whole lot of money to aspiring vibe coders in an AI-focused game jam. The company is promising $65,000 worth of cash prizes and potential $50,000 grants for "standout" projects – assuming, of course, that you can stomach being part of Epic's attempted AI redemption tour.

The 2026 AI MegaJam will take place from November 12 through 15, with registration open on Itch.io, challenging participants to build games using Unreal Engine or UEFN. The basic rules are roughly the same as normal game jams, which challenge indie devs to create fun, functional, small games under tight time constraints. It's a well-worn process that's created the prototypes for indie classics like Celeste, Don't Starve, and The Binding of Isaac.

But the key difference here is that Epic really wants participants to use AI. "Bring any AI tools into your workflow, from asset generation to coding agents. Get creative! Prototype the mechanic you never had time for, or try the art style you weren’t sure you could pull off," the company says in its announcement.

Cash prizes will be awarded in a number of categories, including $2,500 awards for the "best dev log showing how you used AI tools to build your game" and the best game using LLM-driven NPCs with AI conversations. For games Epic particularly likes, it's also offering "development continuation grants of up to $50,000 to keep building after the jam."

With six-fingered promo art for the event and a tagline of "vibe your way to 50K," Epic's clearly poking fun at AI critics, but it's not really clear who's laughing. The responses on Twitter certainly aren't kind, and general pushback from devs on AI has been loud and consistent for some time.

Certainly, Epic boss Tim Sweeney is happy to publicly feud with AI haters, and at least one former Fortnite producer says the anti-AI backlash is "mostly for show." But Epic's been fighting a losing battle for consumer goodwill ever since the Epic Games Store started its long, ineffectual war against Steam, and the company's "huge pivot" to AI doesn't seem to be endearing it to gamers, either.

Will a game jam sway public opinion? If the intent is to make people go "wow, look how quickly AI can make games," then I'm not sure how it's meant to be different from a normal game jam, where devs have been creating incredible projects for decades under similar time constraints without AI assistance.

Right now, the number of games I could potentially play is somewhere between 100,000 and infinity. Every day, dozens of new games launch across digital stores, and every day, I learn of a cool retro title I could go back and play on classic hardware. At this point, I'm practically begging every new game I come across to give me a reason not to play it, and so far AI-driven development has been a very handy line in the sand. I guess I can at least thank Epic for not wasting my time.

Xbox business manager says devs not using AI shouldn't "be in the business of being a business" – because he "vibe coded a bad but improvable game in 2 days"

Those viral Elden Ring and Minecraft mashups you've likely seen circulating the web over the past couple of weeks are now conveniently available to play via a questionably created launcher – one that might compromise your PC in the process.

You know the ones I'm talking about – the AI-powered crossovers boasting the world of Skyrim with the combat of FromSoftware games or whatever – they're everywhere right now.

And, as if that wasn't enough, somebody's gone and made (or perhaps vibe coded, as would certainly make sense) a special launcher for Windows computers that supposedly lets you play whatever weird mashup you'd like: Melty.

As per its official description, "Melty is a free mashup launcher for Windows that joins two games you own into one hybrid experience. Instead of installing mods by hand, you press Play once: Melty downloads the mashup, sets up everything the combination needs, and launches the merged game."

There's a reason I'm not linking to it here, however. Its terms of service are, uh… Well, they let the launcher do just about everything. They authorize the ability to find games, download new tools, copy files, modify folders, run programs, and execute automatic updates – but that's not all.

A coder who goes by "Wubbity" online alleges that he's "pulled apart" the Melty installer and found that it's "a rebrand of LookLoot, an app that records gameplay video and inputs as AI training data." As he writes, Melty's privacy policy "doesn't mention it."

Although he clarifies it's "not malware, no password stealing," it's "shipping a dormant gameplay-recording pipeline its website can trigger, and users weren't told."

In other words, I'd recommend giving this one a miss. That and the Bloodborne PC port similarly relying on AI, and everything else that relies on the controversial tech as it's popping up left, right, and center, it seems. I mean, seriously… it's everywhere.

It doesn't help that reputable (I know, I know) companies like Epic Games are transforming their own launchers and proudly announcing they've "vibe coded" them – although I suppose we still have Valve's ever-legendary Steam to lean on.

Valve beats Epic to the punch, updates Steam launcher 1 day before its rival claims to be "faster" thanks to AI-powered vibe coding

Epic Games signed up for criticism this week by positioning its work-in-progress Epic Games Store launcher overhaul as a showcase of generative AI's capabilities, boasting of how "we vibe coded the Epic Games Launcher" and insisting that "programming is hard." The response from some players and developers has waffled between cringe and condemnation. Former Valve writer Chet Faliszek, a veteran of Half-life and Left 4 Dead among other series, certainly shares in some of this criticism. He also asks an important question which may be missed in the sheer volume of AI backlash: what is Epic actually trying to accomplish here?

In a video response to Epic's launcher announcement, Faliszek is flabbergasted by the company's decision to lead, in its blog post, with the message that, "Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look."

"I saw this online and I had to go look it up because I couldn't believe this is true," Faliszek says. He notes that "the only customer-facing thing that would get a customer excited here is that it has a new look."

Like several others, Faliszek also lingers on the second paragraph of Epic's announcement. It reads: "This first release is light on features. Think of it as a speedboat and not a yacht! Though it does have advanced digital commerce technology such as a shopping cart."

Faliszek, not unreasonably, interprets this as the latest jab from Epic, specifically CEO Tim Sweeney, at Valve over co-founder Gabe Newell's yacht collection. Sweeney has made it all too easy to read such comments this way: earlier this year, when Valve hiked the price of the Steam Deck amid our AI-driven component crisis, Sweeney lamented "severe disruptions in the component parts supply chain for megayachts."

"We are in the second paragraph of their announcement and little Tim is so obsessed with Gabe that he has to try to frame a cheap shot against Gabe," Faliszek says. "If you've ever seen Tim posting online, he talks about Gabe's yachts obsessively. This is not an accident."

Later, Faliszek questions the crew overseeing Epic's communications, claiming that "a bunch of people I used to know there that were really smart about how to communicate and talk about these kinds of things are gone."

"And I think they're gone, because it's like, 'Little Timmy, make sure you make a jab at Gabe,'" he jokes. "'Where should we put it? First paragraph?' 'No, no second. We'll be subtle. We'll be subtle. No one will catch it.'"

If only through Unreal Engine and Fortnite, to say nothing of the old asset store that Faliszek calls "so good," Epic really has been a massive contributor to the forward march of games. The company's whole-chest pivot to generative AI, with Sweeney among the loudest AI evangelists in the industry, has been held up by some as yet another sign of the times. If a company of this scale and experience is embracing gen AI in this way, surely there is something to it. (Newell is also a massive proponent of gen AI.)

But the results of AI integration remain the sticking point, and here again, Faliszek suggests, Epic doesn't have a lot to show for all its vibe coding. Talk of the technology is overshadowing the actual user experience, which is where the Epic Games Store has always trailed Steam, no matter how fast it loads.

"What is their North Star and what is yours?" he wonders. Faliszek sums up Newell's vision for Steam this way: "It's an MMO." It's not just a library and a shopping cart; Steam is a whole ecosystem of mechanics, rewards, and feeds designed to make discovering, buying, and playing games feel good on its own. "There's all of these elements that let you express who you are as a person as a person as well as MMO-ing the entire experience," he says. "Players aren't just consuming, they're also expressing themselves but in very passive ways," he adds.

With Epic, "I still don't understand their North Star," he continues. "Because their store always feels sterile to me." Faliszek agrees that Valve could do more to improve Steam, like finding better ways to "monitor and control some of what's happening there" in places like comments or forums, but says the platform is still far ahead of Epic's.

"Monitor your downloads, find games faster, customize your experience, everything about your game in one view," he says, reading off of Epic's post, "but it's nothing about community. It's nothing about that. Maybe they've decided that that's not the avenue that they can pursue because they don't have the number of people there and they don't have that as their North Star. But I'm just confused by what the launcher is supposed to be and why I'm supposed to be excited about it. Because saying it loads faster when it doesn't have all the features isn't a real flex."

Valve beats Epic to the punch, updates Steam launcher 1 day before its rival claims to be "faster" thanks to AI-powered vibe coding.

Epic Games has just overhauled its launcher using generative AI, unveiling a new "vibe coded" version meant to be faster than Valve's Steam – but, spoiler alert… it's seemingly not so quick, after all.

Although Epic publicly called out Steam, claiming its launcher is now "faster than the other guy" (with Valve's launcher being the other guy here, if that's not obvious), fans are proving the company wrong – and, hey, why not?

After all, Epic Games did also instruct us to "test it out" for ourselves should we not believe its claims. And, as it turns out, a new Steam update dropped just one day before Epic's controversial assertion.

You'll find the full details over on Steam itself, where one little note in particular stands out: "Improved Steam Client startup performance." In other words, the Steam launcher boots up more quickly than it did before – and boy, does it.

So much more, in fact, that it beats the so-called improved Epic launcher and its AI-powered foundation.

A user on X records their screen to prove it, amusingly writing, "they didn't even take 24 hours to eat them alive."

Yes, "they" is Steam and "them" is Epic there – and it's undeniably hilarious. The clip shows Steam opening in five seconds, which is a solid five seconds less than Epic claimed it takes.

I decided to test this myself, too, opening both Steam and Epic, and I'm happy to report that it all checks out. Valve did beat Epic Games to the punch here with its Steam update, and others online are finding the same.

A separate post sees another user test the speed, for example. They, too, declare that "Epic's claim is WRONG" and Steam launches in five seconds.

It's not the only exciting thing about Valve's patch, either. There are various gorgeous Big Picture Mode changes, improvements to everything from layout to the in-game overlay, and plenty more.

It's a hefty update that deserves more attention than the Epic comparisons it's getting – but hey, they are funny… and, apparently, valid.

Epic Games undergoes "huge pivot" for "maximum AI acceleration" amid reports of Disney shooter delay due to the controversial tech

Epic Games has retooled the Epic Games Store to feel less like molasses in an igloo, and the company says it's now "46% faster than Steam" thanks to the power of partially AI-generated code.

"We vibe coded the Epic Games Launcher to be faster than the other guy," Epic says in a recent Twitter post. Attached is a graph claiming that the EGS launcher now has a "cold start to store" time of 5.47 seconds, which is about 4.6 seconds faster than the 10.07 seconds recorded for Steam.

The time it takes to "restore from system tray to library," meanwhile, is allegedly a whole 0.06 seconds faster than Steam. The Epic Games Store really did feel cumbersome to use, but when you're visualizing a 0.06 second gain, I fear you've lost the plot a bit.

This overhaul will seemingly make good on promises Epic made at the start of the year, and this news follows the company's "huge pivot" into "maximum AI acceleration" across its business. This, itself, comes on the heels of an Unreal Engine 6 reveal that showed off a whole load of gen AI tools.

CEO Tim Sweeney insists "the aim isn't to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal." Sweeney oversaw more than 1,000 layoffs at Epic earlier this year and blamed "downturn in Fortnite engagement."

The updated page for the Epic Games Store preview boasts of "a cleaner framework" and "faster startup and switching" across the board. Long-requested features like a "recent games" list will now be "easily available" in the launcher, Epic promises; a download hub centralizes games and downloads with live speeds, and figures like playtime and install date are displayed in the "activity feed."

Additionally, the EGS library now supports detailed and grid views, visualized search, collection groups, and is purportedly "30x faster."

"Is this bad boy faster? Yes," Epic adds. "Will it have some bugs? Yes. Do we want to hear about them? Hell yes."

Months ago, Epic enlisted the help of Blizzard's Battle.net lead to help get the Epic Games Store on track.

"My goal on PC isn't to topple Steam": Epic Games Store boss says beating Valve isn't the plan – just getting "enough market share on PC that you have to be here no matter what."

Following Fortnite developer and publisher Epic Games' public announcement that it would be undergoing a "huge pivot" for "maximum AI acceleration," one former producer shares his take on the controversial technology and its role in the development process.

Aakash Gupta, who worked at Epic as a producer on Fortnite, explains that Tim Sweeney's push for a new "AI first" approach to game dev and how quickly it's moved – just see the now-delayed Disney extraction shooter – isn't surprising.

"Fortnite Battle Royale was built in two months," he writes on X. "I was a producer at Epic, and that's the speed Tim Sweeney moves at when he decides the whole company is turning. He just decided again."

Indeed, he did, hence the whole "huge pivot" – a pivot that isn't new to Epic, and has likely long been in the making by the time it's publicly announced.

"Inside Epic, a pivot means the whole company turns that week," as Gupta states. "People get new teams, new bosses, new roadmaps, and nobody blinks because that's how the place has always run. By the time Tim posts a memo about it, the moves usually already happened."

And, when it comes to AI, Gupta doesn't think any amount of backlash will stop Epic – or other studios, for that matter– from utilizing the tech.

"Here's where it gets bigger than Epic though Epic makes Unreal Engine, the software a massive share of big-budget games are built on. Studio heads can ban AI art. Voice actors can strike over AI voices. Steam can put warning labels on AI games," he says.

But, "None of that touches the layer Epic controls, because Epic makes the tool everyone builds with." He recalls how Epic "wired" AI models like Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini into its Unreal Engine, with more underway.

"So for millions of game developers, AI shows up as a built-in feature of software they already pay for" – public pushback be damned. According to the ex-Fortnite producer, it's all "for show," anyway.

"Honestly, the industry's AI fight is mostly for show," he describes. "Google Cloud found nine in 10 game developers already use AI agents at work. The debate happens on stage while the usage happens at the desk."

I've located the survey he cites here, too, which alleges that some 87% of devs are employing the use of AI during production, for everything from optimization to "dynamic balancing" and much more.

So, Gupta concludes that the AI controversy begins and ends publicly, while use continues behind devs' doors – whether opened or closed: "While everyone argues about whether games should use AI, Epic quietly turned it into a checkbox inside the editor. Most developers will click it without ever having the debate."

While I'm not sure I agree with Gupta here, I can't say Epic Games' own move is surprising at all.

Studio CEO Tim Sweeney has made his stance on generative AI quite clear in the past, dubbing Steam's required AI disclosures "really irresponsible of Valve" as they supposedly make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success."

He's always come across as openly pro-AI use in game dev, to say the least… even if it's not a great look considering his company's widespread layoffs earlier this year.

Gupta and Sweeney aren't alone in their thoughts on the questionable tech, either. Former Square Enix executive Jacob Novak has responded to Epic's AI news himself, writing, "Epic, by far one of the best technical leaders in games, is saying no hand written code. If you're not doing the same you will be left behind. It is over for non-AI workflows."

It's a heavy-handed message, but it does beg the question: how far will this whole AI thing truly go?

I suppose only time can tell, but the future feels a bit bleak right now. Between Epic and these other supposed devs using gen AI, I worry for folks in creative roles and those coding, too. It can't be easy for anyone in those positions, that's for certain.

Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii continues his love affair with AI slop as he releases a new game he generated in 30 minutes

Fortnite developer and publisher Epic Games has reportedly delayed the release of a Disney extraction shooter that it had been working on so as to incorporate more artificial intelligence technology into its development.

The news comes from Bloomberg, which reports that the game's developers were instructed to engage with an "AI first" production process, using generative AI models like Anthropic's Claude – a tool that's recently been in the limelight for its role in fan-created PlayStation emulations like the controversial fan-made Bloodborne PC port that made rounds online last week.

An internal message from one of the game's directors has apparently confirmed as much. "No more hand-written code," it allegedly reads, going on to declare that all art for the game would now be "generated with full AI workflows."

Epic Games' communications director Jake Jones has responded to Bloomberg, too, admitting, "We're embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do."

Disney representatives declined to comment, apparently.

This all lines up with what Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is writing over on Twitter as well. "We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic," the studio lead describes, "moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration. The aim isn't to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal."

As you can imagine, commenters aren't exactly thrilled.

I can't say this comes as much of a surprise, though, really. Sweeney has made his stance on generative AI very clear in the past, having dubbed Steam's own AI disclosures "really irresponsible of Valve" as they supposedly make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success."

In other words, he's never been opposed to the highly controversial tech – he's only ever expressed the opposite.

So, what's next for Epic Games and its collaborative project with Disney? Well, I suppose that only time can tell for certain – but I'm not sure that this move is tasteful… especially after the company's widespread layoffs earlier this year.

Fortnite's Hollow Knight crossover items cost more than Hollow Knight itself – and Silksong, too.

After all this time, Fortnite is collaborating with an actually good game, in Hollow Knight. I kid, of course – the all-consuming battle royale recently incorporated Kingdom Hearts as well. So, two games. The irony of this latest partnership is that the pack containing your cosmetics and what not is actually more expensive than the base game.

I wish I were joking. Upon announcement of the esteemed nail-wielding warrior's arrival, Epic revealed the corresponding Fortnite DLC will cost you 2,000 V-Bucks if you opt for the full bundle.

2,000 V-Bucks costs you £17.19, or $22.49. Right now, if you go to buy Hollow Knight on Steam, you'll be putting down £12.79, or $14.99.

So, yes, buying the Fortnite Hollow Knight goodies costs more than Team Cherry's excellent Metroidvania, and by a noticeable margin, too. Included in the bundle are three items: Hollow Knight as a sidekick, a Hallownest Grub as a backbling, and the Nail as a pickaxe.

The bench and Shade make appearances as well, all part of the Fortnitemares horror theme for Halloween, where Slender Man, Freddy Kruger, and the Yautja from Predator are involved, with Beetlejuice on the way soon, too. The price discrepancy here gets even worse when you note that Hollow Knight is frequently on sale, since it's nine years old now.

Funnily enough, Fortnite's bundle is more expensive than the sequel, Silksong, too, since that retails for $19.99. On some level, I respect how brazen these prices are. Imagine trying to explain this to someone back in 2017. Hell, imagine showing them in-game footage of our trusty knight being caught up in the middle of a tense gunfight between Goku and Peter Griffin.

The future is a strange and inscrutable place. Sadly, it's expensive too. Hollow Knight's available in Fortnite until October 15, at which point the bundle will leave the shop, and it's not clear when it'll return.

€100 million Fortnite lawsuit claims Epic put "pressure" on minors to spend real money: "Young consumers are supposed to be protected from exactly that."

Look, I wanted to like End of Abyss; and I did! Sometimes. When everything's going smoothly, it's an atmospheric and excellently-paced survival horror that's harsh but fair. The problem is that when everything isn't going smoothly – which is more often than should be the case, especially in the latter half of the game – it's a pretty good example of what not to do in the genre.

The distant camera and smoky darkness may well put you in mind of Little Nightmares (studio Section 9 is made up of former Tarsier devs), but a better comparison would be classic Resident Evil. Partly this is down to the (great) monster design – many of End of Abyss' creepy horrors wouldn't be out of place for Leon Kennedy and friends to face, with dashes of the sort of abominations that haunt The Last of Us and indeed Little NIghtmares. But, End of Abyss feels built in the Resident Evil mold right down to the gameplay.

Abyss of a problem

Though you can sprint, avoiding the lumbering pace of old-school Resident Evil (the controls are, thankfully, significantly tighter too), one survival horror element End of Abyss channels excellently is teaching you to be wary of, and respect, uncharted territory. There could be an enemy just off screen at any time, and you don't want to run in for a hug. Especially not when most of the beasties can delete a huge dollop of your health with one hit.

Your scanner also serves to reward more careful exploration, but with mixed results. Although it can provide useful info, such as what notes say or which keycard is required for which door, it's nothing that a simple button tap wouldn't achieve faster with equal efficiency. The only unique use it really has is for a bit of classic 'follow power lines through the walls' in order to find door-opening nodes to shoot.

The Resident Evil comparison comes in not just through keycard use, but intentionally imperfect combat against resilient enemies. There are also safe rooms, though saving works differently to the Capcom classics. When you die, you retain any items you picked up, and any opened doors or extended bridges stay as you left them. However, all enemies – apart from bosses and ambush setpieces – respawn. Any expended ammo, however, does not.

Combat while exploring is usually tough, just the right level of awkward, and manageable (make sure you upgrade your weapons, though). Unfortunately, End of Abyss has a nasty habit of cheaply synthesizing challenge by forcing you into a tiny arena. This is especially true of the boss fights, most of which are awful. When facing multiple enemies, this results in silly situations where you're leading monstrosities in circles like a Benny Hill chase, occasionally stopping to take potshots at them until it's over.

Bugs aside – I have a few instances of enemies hitting me through walls, an elevator that doesn't load properly, and a soft lock that loses me progress in the final area – my journey to the end of End of Abyss is frequently marred by small but cumulatively annoying gripes, a different kind of horror to where the game shines. Gloomy environs, for example, contribute to the great atmosphere, but it does mean that levers and other objects can sometimes be hard to see. At one point, I completely miss a progress-crucial destructible section of floor because the subtle pale coloring melts out of view.

My greatest nemesis is a radiated area where, without the correct (and missable) suit mod, you take minor but constant damage while exploring. Once I eventually get hold of the mod, I find that it requires four energy points to activate… and my suit only has three! Cue hours of aimless wandering until I finally stumble across what I need – wait for it – deep into the area I need it for. Doubtless I missed at least one of these energy pickups somewhere earlier, but it shouldn't have been possible for me to find myself in that situation. While there's a touch of Metroidvania – I regularly encounter doors and devices before I'm able to make use of them – the fact that there's only one piece of traversal gear to find (a grappling hook) brings me back to Resident Evil as a reference point.

A combination of darkened corners and missable items means that I spend a lot of hours wandering around in this way, and I often yearn for fast travel between safe rooms. It doesn't help that information from the scanner isn't very useful for many doors, cheerily informing me that they're locked without any indication of how I might remedy the situation.

That said, End of Abyss does hold some juicy rewards for those willing (or, in my case, forced) to stray off the main path. Not only crafting materials and snippets of lore, but meaty weapons and entire boss fights that you can otherwise roll credits without seeing. There's even a way (it seems) to soften the difficulty of the final boss by finding certain items scattered across the game, but by then I've had more than enough of running around overfamiliar areas to even consider the idea.

I spend way, way longer than I'd like doing laps of the shuttle system trying to find something to help me progress, and I'm not a huge fan of the fact that, if you run out of crafting materials for ammo by repeatedly failing a boss fight, the only way to get more is to revisit areas you've already rinsed to kill enemies you've already killed. It was bad back when Bloodborne did it, and it hasn't suddenly become good now.

However, there are enough sprints of enjoyment between the swamps of frustration to just about hold End of Abyss together. There's lots to enjoy if you live for immersing yourself in a complex environment to explore backwards and forwards with little consideration of plot; but if you're after something where you can follow the story path with relative ease, expect to make plentiful use of guides.

End of Abyss was reviewed on PS5, with a code provided by the publisher.

This isn't where your gaming journey ends. If you want more like this, check out our best survival horror games ranking, or keep an eye on our upcoming horror games list!

A Dutch consumer group is suing Fortnite maker Epic Games for €100m, accusing the company of misleading young gamers into spending real money in the in-game store.

GamesIndustry.biz reports that Stichting Massaschade & Consument (SMC) seeks refunds and damages from Epic for intentionally designing the Fortnite store in such a way that puts pressure on young gamers to buy items using real-life money. The suit also alleges Epic collected personal data from children without parental consent. SMC reportedly served Epic a notice of liability with an offer to settle and will take the company to court if those negotiations fail.

In its filings, SMC cites research that studied 1,000 Dutch teenagers aged 16 to 19 and reportedly found that "six in 10 buyers of currencies such as V-Bucks said it didn't feel like real money, and half said they had regretted a purchase made under time pressure."

This is far from the first time Epic has been accused of misleading microtransactions and breaching children's privacy laws. In 2022, the company agreed to pay $520 million to settle two complaints filed by the United States Federal Trade Commission alleging children's privacy law violations and "dark patterns" that tricked "millions of players into making unintentional purchases."

In 2024, the Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM) fined Epic $1.2 million for "unfair commercial practices aimed at children," and in January 2026, a Rotterdam court upheld the ACM's fine.

"We aren't asking for Fortnite to be banned. But a Dutch regulator found that Epic broke the rules, and a court has confirmed it. The logical next step is for Epic to pay players back," says SMC chair Lucia Melcherts.

"Epic deliberately designed the game to pressure players into buying. Young consumers are supposed to be protected from exactly that. The bill belongs with the company that made the game, not with the players or their parents."

Epic defended itself in a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, saying Fortnite "has protections and tools so parents can control how their child makes purchases and set limits for how long they can play.

"The Fortnite Item Shop does not have a timer, parents can require a PIN to make real money purchases and players under 18 in the Netherlands cannot see or purchase items that are available in the Shop for less than 48 hours," says the Epic spokesperson.

"When a player under 16 in the Netherlands creates an account, it is a Cabined Account where they cannot make real-money purchases until a parent or guardian provides consent. We also offer protections against unwanted purchases, including a two-step confirmation to make a purchase, instant purchase cancellations, self-service returns for Shop purchases, and an explicit choice on whether to save payment information."

Here are the best PC games you can play right now.

Fortnite's Kingdom Hearts collab is finally arriving this week, and it looks like it's not just Sora joining Epic's battle royale.

Fortnite's current gaming-themed season, Override, kicked off last month, at which point it was confirmed via the official key art that Kingdom Hearts protagonist Sora would be added to the game soon with his very own skin. Almost a month into the season, folks were starting to wonder where he was, but Epic has now revealed that we can expect him to be added to the game "this week."

A new teaser video gives us our best look yet at Sora and his slightly Fortniteified Keyblade – you'll notice that the keychain attached to it that'd normally be a little Mickey Mouse head has been swapped for a Fortnite llama, instead.

Presumably this will be available to buy as a pickaxe, though it'd be very cool if it was added to the loot pool as a Mythic weapon, too – Epic hasn't confirmed this either way at this stage, though.

That's not all, though. The official Fortnite Twitter account has also posted a series of quotes from different Kingdom Hearts characters, suggesting that they might be joining the game too. After sharing a Sora quote, Epic also posted lines from Riku, Kairi, and Roxas, so it sounds like we could have a full squad joining the fray.

We're still waiting on a number of previously teased gaming collabs to get added to Fortnite this season – Persona 5's Joker was also shown off in marketing last month, but still isn't available yet, and CD Projekt Red has now confirmed that a Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Lucy skin is on the way, too. Epic previously said that Rebecca's Guns will be available as a weapon in the loot pool at some point, so presumably these will come at the same time.

As it stands, Fortnite Override is set to run until the end of October, so here's hoping fans won't be waiting too long for those other crossovers. In the meantime, let's just hope that Kingdom Hearts' already baffling narrative web doesn't get any more complicated with some Fortnite-exclusive lore that'll become inaccessible within a few weeks.

Be sure to check out our guide to Fortnite admin panel codes to get some free bonuses this season.

Emmanuel Rosier, director of market intelligence at analyst firm Newzoo, says he personally doesn't see the Epic Games Store being able to recover against Steam.

Speaking to PC Gamer, he says, "I don't really see how they can turn that around," adding that "Steam has become so inevitable."

He further explains, "the Epic Games Store, they get players by giving free games, but people just go, they log in, they get the free games, they don't even play them. You know, it's almost like collecting games rather than actually playing them."

Rosier reckons part of the issue with Epic is the company's larger attempts to win on all fronts, saying, "They try to win against Steam, they try to win against Apple, against Google Play, and probably they run out of steam on where they cannot fight all these battles at the same time."

Obviously, Epic is doing well overall thanks to Fortnite, with Rosier saying, "They probably need to focus on what really matters. You can see they put a lot of thought in Fortnite right now. They are doing everything they can, and I think it's working better when you look at the state of Fortnite today compared to six months or one year ago."

He notes that one element of Fortnite that works is that "they are not afraid of other games" overtaking it.

"It's funny because it's a gaming platform that's not even competing any more with other games. Because if you are launching a game, it makes sense to do some marketing within Fortnite," while saying he's "almost surprised" that GTA 6 isn't doing a trailer event within Fortnite.

Epic Games Store vice president and GM Martin Keely issued a statement to PC Gamer in response to Rosier's comments, though, claiming that "the data tells a very different story."

Keely states, "In 2025, players spent a record 2.78 billion hours playing third-party games on the Epic Games Store and player spending on third-party PC games grew 57% to an all-time record $400 million. With the improved launcher that's coming this year, that momentum is only going to accelerate."

Newzoo itself said that "these remarks should not be treated as a Newzoo market assessment," however. And, while the numbers may be getting better on the Epic Games Store, Rosier is correct about one thing: Steam is inevitable.

Valve turned 30 years old today, and for the majority of its life, Steam has been the place to play PC games. And, while the Epic launcher will continue to do well off of the back of it being the only place you can get Fortnite, Steam is almost too big to fall behind. It would take some massive shifts for things to change.

Epic Games boss calls Steam AI disclosures "really irresponsible of Valve" as they make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success"

Epic has hired a new and seasoned VP to lead the Epic Games Store as the storefront struggles to compete with Valve's Steam.

Martin Keely, who had been with Blizzard for seven years when he left his role as SVP overseeing the Battle.net launcher, is the new Epic Games Store VP and GM, a role previously held by Steve Allison. Allison boasted about the Epic Games Store's free games program in a GamesRadar+ interview from February, but he left the company in July and took up a new position at Saber Interactive.

In a Linkedin post, Keely shares: "I'm excited to get started with the team delivering new capabilities that elevate player, creator and developer experiences. And I'm truly grateful for the opportunity to play a role in shaping an open and sustainable gaming ecosystem. To my new Epic colleagues: I look forward to connecting soon and building together."

As for his time at Blizzard, Keely says he "learned something new every day" he worked there and is "proud of how we worked to achieve growth and record results as a platform -- unlocking the greatness of gaming and bringing joy to millions of players around the world."

Keely's announcement comes as Epic struggles to chip away at Steam's not-a-monopoly on the PC games market. It's not uncommon for companies to poach talent from their competition for all sorts of reasons, although the exact details of Keely's appointment are unclear.

What this means for PC gamers is that you will very likely see some pretty significant changes to the Epic Games Store in the coming months. One thing's for sure, it'll take a lot more than Epic CEO Tim Sweeney deriding Steam's policy on AI disclosures to turn the Epic Games Store into a legitimate threat to Valve.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says new multiplayer games flop because everyone's "already formed solid human networks in Fortnite, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, and Apex Legends"

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, who recently criticized Valve's use of mandatory Steam disclosures for games with AI-generated content, will surely not be using a new browser plugin which makes those disclosures significantly more noticeable and even hides AI-aided games in Steam search results.

Self-described Linux gamer and coder seeeeew shared the "AI warning for Steam" plugin on Bluesky earlier this month, shortly before Sweeney made the case that Steam's disclosures make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success".

The plugin is available for Firefox and Google Chrome directly, and is also listed on Github. I've seen reports of workarounds that can get it running in the Steam client itself, but I haven't been able to confirm this functionality.

I have tested the Chrome version myself, and it works as described. When you open the Steam store page of a game with any sort of AI content disclosure, that disclosure will appear as a pop-up when you first load that page, making it utterly unmissable.

Additionally, in Steam search results, any AI-aided games are blurred out by default, covered with a label reading, "AI Generated Content Disclosure found." If you consider any gen AI use to be a deal-breaker, or if you're just a stickler for the tech, this plugin could save you some time filtering or checking games on Steam.

Many people discovered this plugin during the latest Steam Next Fest, a week-long showcase of Steam demos for upcoming games. As Palworld lead John Buckley lamented, more and more Steam Next Fest entries use AI-generated images or assets, reflecting a broader rise in the use of the technology.

Sweeney has repeatedly pushed Steam to drop AI content disclosures, which are not used on the Epic Games Store. His latest argument is that they attach a "Scarlet Letter" to games which use AI and can invite a "hater community trying to kill the game".

Sweeney says devs "have to choose from either not using tools that can make you way more productive, and probably failing due to competition that does," reiterating his stance that AI will be central to game development going forward, and suggesting that devs who don't use AI tools will fall hopelessly behind.

In a report featuring over 30 game developers from across the industry and around the world, GamesRadar+ repeatedly heard that many game devs do not want to use generative AI for myriad reasons.

Joint The Witcher 4 and CD Projekt Red CEO says fully AI-generated games are coming, but he has "some doubts whether this is really the path to follow."

Looking for something excellent to read this weekend? We published over 400 articles on GamesRadar+ this week, but here's our pick of the five stories that you absolutely need to read.

1. A match made in heaven: Star Wars, racing, and roguelikes combine in Galactic Racer

Star Wars has been in desperate need of something a little different ever since the Skywalker Saga collapsed. Perhaps it'll be Galactic Racer that reignites some energy into the franchise, a fast-paced racing game while blurs a development studio's expertise with Burnout and Need for Speed with the sort of lush, cinematic storytelling that Star Wars is known for delivering. We played the game ahead of its October 6, 2026, release date and the early signs are exceptionally promising.

2. Epic Games' CEO has a lot of opinions on Steam AI disclosures. None of them are good.

The use of generative artificial intelligence in video games continues to be exceptionally divisive, if not actively volatile. Recent comments from Epic Games' longtime CEO Tim Sweeney have only inflamed the conversation, as he simultaneously comes to the defense of Gen AI in certain cases and attacks Valve over its requirement that developers publicly flag when the tech has been used on Steam. This story has sparked a lot of discussion, so don't be afraid of adding your voice to the conversation.

3. "It's huge for us": Why Obsidian is finally ready to take Grounded 2 to PlayStation 5

If there's one thing that's clear from Xbox's somewhat messy approach to console exclusivity, it's that live service games will continue to be widely available – all in an effort to help build better, larger communities of players. Grounded 2 is a perfect example of this strategy in action. Obsidian legend Chris Parker walks you through all of it, the promise of the new Into the Abyss update coming this August, and the potential for the studio's survival game to grow to new heights on PS5.

4. What did we learn from the Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-order campaign starting? Rockstar is ready to change open-world games forever

The silence surrounding Grand Theft Auto 6 has been deafening. It's been over a year since the last trailer released, leaving nothing but space for rampant speculation. That's why it was so damn refreshing to see Rockstar come out this week ready to celebrate GTA 6 pre-orders going live. We got some controversial launch details, we got over 60 new screenshots, and even a bunch of new gameplay details. If anything, this is a time to remember that GTA 6 is not only real, but that it's actually coming November 19, 2026.

5. "Destiny 2 fell short of expectations": Understanding the crisis enveloping Bungie

It's been a difficult year for Bungie. The studio has enjoyed the highs of bringing Marathon online and the lows of having to abandon Destiny 2. This week, the crisis at the famed studio behind the creation of Halo hit another bump in the road, as PlayStation CEO Herman Hulst announced a restructure of the organization that has caused widespread layoffs and a massive shift in priorities. It's been disappointing to see the studio (responsible for revolutionizing the FPS genre twice over) impacted in this way, and it's difficult to see where it will go from here.

6. Shigeru Miyamoto created The Legend of Zelda. He has some things to say about the quality of its dungeon design

Shigeru Miyamoto is responsible for bringing some of the most iconic characters and worlds in the video game industry to life. It's rare for him to do interviews, which is why GR+ staff writer Dustin Bailey had to go all the way back to 1999 to find the legend commenting on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Miyamoto had a revelation during the development of this iconic adventure game, and it's one that clearly reshaped all of the games that followed.

Much as Steam may be the dominant marketplace on PC, it's far from a one-stop shop for all the most popular games available. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, believes Valve is consistently shooting itself in the foot in ways Epic Games has managed to avoid - so far, at least.

According to him, a noted Steam disliker for reasons I'm sure are obvious, the fact that Steam isn't a more collaborative entity shuts out large swaths of PC gamers. "They have a nice thing going on on PC, but they reach what percentage of the PC audience?" he told PCGamer, when asked about Valve's place in the hierarchy.

"You know, they don't reach any of the Fortnite [audience], they don't have Fortnite and Riot's games and Genshin Impact, and many of the top games in the industry on Steam," he adds.

This much is true: there are massive communities Valve is actively closed off from. In the case of Riot Games, it's due to being active competitors, both in general and because League of Legends was started as a spiritual successor to the original DotA, and since Steam hosts Dota 2, they were never going to sit side-by-side.

Fortnite came out only a year before the Epic Games Store took off, making it unlikely the original version or the battle royale would ever be on Steam. The separation is frequently mutually assured, is what I'm saying here. But Sweeney looks at it differently.

"They're missing out on a lot of opportunity that I think they could have if they took the more forward-looking, open view that Epic has taken, and Microsoft has taken," he says, doubling down on what Microsoft charges devs to list games on its marketplace: "Microsoft Store charges 12% - really good deal. Google's now giving all developers a better deal, and has some really cool things coming for the future."

Valve could bring together "Team Open," Sweeney argues, and help the PC user base flourish. "Steam's got a pretty sweet business - a lot of gamers love Steam - but imagine if you could have Steam on all of the platforms?" he muses. "What if you could have it on iPhone, what if you could have it on Android? What if they carried a lot of games?"

What if, indeed. Valve has faced a lot of pushback over the years due to how it handles its market position. Steam was cited as part of Epic's legal battle against Apple over unfair practices, and more recent legal battles have brought to light reported instances of Valve being unhappy about other publishers selling games cheaper than on Steam as part of sales on their own stores.

Valve billionaire Gabe Newell spends $70 million on a new mansion to go with his $500 million yacht as the house of Steam fights monopoly lawsuits

Fortnite developer and publisher Epic Games has been in the limelight for its creators' stance on generative AI – and it seems it'll continue to be, as CEO Tim Sweeney speaks on the topic once more, specifically in relation to what he calls Valve's "irresponsible" AI disclosures on Steam.

It comes up in a recent interview with PC Gamer, in which Sweeney explains how AI could be a valuable tool for smaller devs.

"If you have a game with a really unique look and feel, you need unique content, and AI is a path to getting that with a degree of economy that makes it competitive with Fab or scanning or other things, but works for a larger category of objects," states the Epic lead.

He refers to an example of making a flower pot model for a game. "The value is not in creating a perfect flower pot. It will be an absolute folly to spend a million dollars creating a flower pot, because the real value is in building the scene and building the game and building the narrative, and the gameplay, and making it awesome, and giving it a unique feel, and making something that appeals to gamers."

Apparently, this process – "giving it a unique feel" – can rely on AI use. And that, according to Sweeney, makes the attitude folks have toward AI "unfortunate" – as well as Valve's insistence that devs disclose whether they've used any AI in games released via Steam.

"If you want to launch a game, and get it as widely publicized as possible, you've got to put it on Steam so people can wish list it, and if you want to play it on Steam, then you have to get this Scarlet Letter of AI attached to your product."

Sweeney says that results in "a hater community trying to kill the game," going on to criticize the AI disclosures on Steam.

"I think it's really irresponsible of Valve. They shouldn't do it because it makes it much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success. You have to choose from either not using tools that can make you way more productive, and probably failing due to competition that does."

It's important to note that this isn't the first time Sweeney has shared this take. Last year, he said digital storefronts (like Steam) should drop "the AI tag" because "it makes no sense" when "AI will be involved in nearly all future production." He doubled down on this later, saying, "I hate to see Valve confiscate ever more opportunity from small developers." It's not an unpopular opinion among other Epic staff, either.

Stephanie Arnette, who serves as senior external development manager on Fortnite, stated that the goal of AI "is to make us more efficient" and not to "take all our jobs."

Suffice to say, that's not how many other devs (and consumers) feel… hence the so-called "hater community" Sweeney claims is out to get games with an AI disclosure on Steam. It's a hot topic right now, to say the least.

I doubt it'll stop being one, either, as generative AI penetrates more and more aspects of development – and, well, everything. I, for one, am very happy with Valve's system, though. Here's hoping it doesn't change.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says new multiplayer games flop because everyone's "already formed solid human networks in Fortnite, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, and Apex Legends."

The increasingly rare times I get to play online games with friends happen solely because of me, because of my efforts alone, no thanks to the other members of my friends group who usually refuse to abandon the latest Helldivers 2 Major Order to play one of my weird co-op horror games or Sea of Thieves, even for a few precious moments with their old pal Jordan. Multiplayer games these days, particularly those of the live-service variety, have a way of pulling players in and making them feel like nothing else is worth playing, and that's precisely why so many new ones fail, according to one of the foremost authorities on the matter, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.

I can't imagine the amount of people who can relate to my experience with an analog of their own that replaces Helldivers 2 with Fortnite, one of the most enduring live-service games of the last decade. How could you ask your friends to play the criminally underrated co-op horror game Devour when they've almost got the new John Wick skin from Fortnite's latest battle pass? Well, maybe you should get yourself some more adventurous friends, because maybe if more people were willing to try new things, games like Highguard and Concord wouldn't be rotting in the dirt.

"Users tend to enjoy games with their actual friend groups, and it is nearly impossible to move that entire group of friends from an existing game to a completely new one," says Sweeney in an interview with South Korean publication Inven Global (thanks, Automaton).

"Only the massive mega-hits that appear once every few years succeed in this community migration," he continues. "This is the decisive reason why many multiplayer new releases have failed one after another recently. Users have already formed solid human networks in Fortnite, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, and Apex Legends; there is no reason to leave friends behind and go to a new game alone."

There are undoubtedly other factors at play in the failure of any game, and Sweeney cites "many complex factors" including exorbitant budgets and development cycles that have simply become "too long," but multiplayer games specifically face the additional "unique barrier" of friends groups being too stubborn to try new games. In seriousness, the ubiquity of seasons, paid battle passes, and microtransactions is specifically designed to make players feel invested, financially or otherwise, in a specific live-service game and thus less willing to abandon that investment to start fresh somewhere else. That's capitalism in action folks.

Here are the best online games to play in 2026.

After Epic Games spoke heavily about generative AI ahead of yesterday's State of Unreal presentation, Vampire Survivors dev Poncle says it's "reviewing" the Fortnite crossover that was announced during the event.

Earlier this week, Epic Games released a video titled "A Look At Epic’s Art Concepting Process," where it openly admitted that it is using generative AI during the development of Fortnite skins and assets. The video itself features the artists designing concepts for Fortnite before using a Photoshop tool to generate details and speed up the process. Unsurprisingly the video also features a lot of moments where the AI hallucinates and the artist needs to go back and fix the error, which – in the wake of Epic laying off over 1,000 employees earlier this year, and the general cost of everything due to global ram shortages from it being wasted on AI slop farms – feels especially tone-deaf.

A day later, during the State of Unreal presentation, new crossovers coming to Fortnite were announced, specifically Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Control Resonant, Phantom Blade Zero, and Vampire Survivors. However, mere hours later, the Poncle account took to a Reddit post about the collaboration to say the following: "Following today's news about gen AI usage by Epic to create all sorts of game assets, including Fortnite characters, we're currently 'reviewing' our collaboration with Fortnite. We'll let you know if anything moves forward."

From the wording, I don't know that the collab is canceled entirely. Rather, it seems Poncle is looking into whether AI was used to create Vampire Survivors content in the game. Earlier this year, the developers of Phantom Blade Zero spoke out against AI usage, too, and while there hasn't been a similar comment from S-Game, I can see Epic's open use of generative AI tools being a hurdle for some collaborations in the future.

Why so many game developers don't want to use generative AI

Like a hyena on an injured lion, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney is jumping Valve co-founder Gabe Newell while he's down in the immediate aftermath of this week's Steam Deck price hike that took the handheld's top OLED model all the way up to $950.

It's a rare sight to see an industry leader forgo the usual business formalities that typically mask long-simmering rivalries between top-level competitors, but on Thursday, May 28, just a day after Valve revealed its new Steam Deck pricing, Sweeney sent out a blistering tweet obviously, but not explicitly, aimed at Newell. In the tweet, Sweeney sarcastically feigns sympathy for Valve as it faces widespread backlash against the price increase – just before going for the throat with a jab at Newell's notorious affinity for luxury yachts and other outrageously expensive naval vessels.

"Everyone's being too harsh here," reads Sweeney's tweet. "There has been a significant rise in the cost of components that Steam customer spending ultimately funds, and economic trends have created severe disruptions in the component parts supply chain for megayachts."

Sweeney's beef with Newell goes back years to at least 2018 when emails emerged out of a lawsuit in which he slammed the "assholes" at Valve for Steam's controversial revenue split with developers. Naturally, the Epic Games Store living in Steam's shadow since its release likely has a compounding effect on Sweeney's animosity, which mostly seems to lean one way, with Newell largely remaining silent on the whole matter. For all we know, Newell is either asleep or scuba diving as we speak.

It's also worth noting that Sweeney himself isn't exactly a PR darling at the moment, with Epic having recently laid off more than 1,000 employees shortly after raising prices on Fortnite V-Bucks considerably. In this seemingly one-sided quarrel between billionaire CEOs, it seems no one comes out on top.

Valve allegedly had higher Steam Machine prices in mind before the Steam Deck hike, but I need you not to assume the worst

One Star Wars fan has given us all a full tour of the Din Djarin and Grogu homestead, and now I'm wondering if Mando is accepting applications for roommates.

The homestead was introduced at the end of The Mandalorian season 3, when Din Djarin and his newly adopted son, Din Grogu, settled down on Nevarro. In the show, though, we only got to see the house from outside.

The duo return to it in The Mandalorian and Grogu, and this time, while we get to see inside, it's only a glimpse before Grogu is forced to flee (with his Anzellan pals) and Mando literally blows up the roof to get to bounty hunter Embo.

But, thanks to the Fortnite collaboration, we can see the entire household. In the video, which you can watch below, we can see the grounds outside, including two blurrgs outside in a callback to season 1. The N-1 starfighter is also parked nearby, and there's a target range behind that. Round the front, you can even see Mando himself sitting next to the front door and enjoying some downtime, in a reference to the season 3 finale.

Inside, the house is simple, but very cozy. There's a bed against the wall and what looks like a smaller bed for Grogu on the floor beside it. On the other side of the house, there's a fireplace – with Mando's blaster mounted in pride of place above it – and a small kitchen and dining area. The whole interior is pretty spartan, but there are some rugs for decor. Check it out below.

Honestly, the whole place looks adorable, and I hope someday – in a potential The Mandalorian season 4 or somewhere else – we get to see Mando and Grogu spending a peaceful stretch of time in their homestead together.

"We wanted to build something that, yes, was a gaming experience, and you drop in with, I think, up to [12 players], and it's a fun adventure, but the backdrop is a very immersive one," Jon Favreau told us of the Fortnite collaboration. "And you could choose to go on the adventures within it, but you could also choose to explore. And we even developed other areas that we had either explored [or] thought about, so that you can actually explore and go throughout that planet."

The Mandalorian and Grogu is in theaters now. For more, check out our The Mandalorian and Grogu review, or our roundup of how to watch the Star Wars movies in order.

The Mandalorian and Grogu Watch Party Island is here, as promised, and the Stars Wars collaboration with Fortnite has shifted into an entirely new gear. I'd previously argued that I didn't think anyone was prepared for the amount of Star Wars that was about to hit Fortnite – and that very much applies here as the new island is more than just a bunch of set dressing around the edges of a screening experience.

But that screening experience is absolutely the initial draw, and everyone knows it. The Fortnite island has a message from Jon Favreau on top of a 10-minute sneak peek of the upcoming Star Wars film several days before it's actually in theaters on May 22. If you're the kind of Star Wars fan that just has to see the movie as early as possible and you're not a reviewer or critic, this is your shot. Additionally, Favreau will also have a Q&A airing in the Fortnite island's amphitheater on May 26.

When I say it's "more than just a bunch of set dressing," I'm speaking from experience. Ahead of the new Star Wars Fortnite island's launch, I was able to play around in and explore the world of Nevarro created by Fairview Portals and Beyond Creative. Collecting bounties, fighting off enemies at a moment's notice, playing the role of pit fighter, and even hopping on a speeder briefly at one point. And, of course, helping Grogu.

After spending some time on Nevarro, I was able to speak with some of the developers at Fairview Portals to better understand the work that went into the experience – and working with Epic, UEFN, Favreau, and more.

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

GamesRadar+: How do you balance bringing people who maybe are not familiar with the show or the upcoming movie, while also people who are very intimately familiar?

Jeff Brown (games director at Fairview Portals): Huge consideration from us and the whole team, including Jon. First of all, we identified that the Watch Party was a great opportunity for us, and having that around the time of the film launch, but also we wanted to make sure that that was expanded. Epic's done other watch party islands, but they're just not as expansive; there's not as much going on. So we saw the opportunity to kind of really dig in. And Jon proposed Nevarro for many reasons, of course, in terms of us being able to build something that's that's authentic, but also it was important to have one of everything, something for everyone. So we can go on quests, you can just get right into the action, you can go watch the previews for the film. It was always important for us to be able to include lots of variety to help folks that aren't as tuned into Fortnite.

GR+: As you're building this, is there anything like, 'Oh, we've got to have this. This is a part of this that has to be present'?

Matt Burdette (lead artist at Fairview Portals): I mean, we're building this under Jon's roof. So we have complete unfettered access to everything we could have needed to do this, like build a pinpoint-accurate Nevarro – we had blueprints, we had set photos, we had concept art. Pretty much anything at all we needed, we had available to us, which basically left no excuse to not build a one-to-one of some of these environments. And we also were pretty clear up front to say, 'If it exists in the show, if there's a canonical version of this that's in the show, we're gonna do it.' And we pretty much did, so.

GR+: …How big is it? I played what I thought was a good chunk of it, but I could tell there was definitely even more than that. Like, there's a lot there on the island.

JB: It's a good, complete representation of the city of Nevarro, with some changes for gameplay. But it's about everything that you would expect to be in the city. And then we knew that we had to have the shipyard, and, of course, the homestead, so it just kind of expanded from there. It's a celebration of the show, so it was important to include the things that everyone knew of it.

GR+: When you were initially visualizing what this would be, was it always sort of this, or was there an earlier version of this that you iterated from?

JB: It definitely evolved a little bit over time. Nevarro was always the thing that we wanted to do; it just had to be scaled appropriately. So I think when we first went in, there were a lot of ideas for stuff that we could do, and that ultimately had to be pared down to something that fit within the timeframe. And that was a process, working with Epic, working with Andre [Balta, senior director at Epic Games] just to find the essence of what we should do.

There was so much that we could have done, but I feel like we've kind of clawed back a lot of things that were in the original spec. So there's a lot of things that – and little details, little Easter eggs – are in there too, that we managed to put in.

GR+: What's the most difficult thing about building a Fortnite creation like this?

JB: That first part's really easy for us. Matt and I have been working together for a long time in full-fat Unreal Engine, and this is our first project in UEFN, which there's a learning curve, as anyone that's worked in this flavor of Unreal would tell you. I think that we've dealt with everything in a good way.

There's a limiting factor there, but it's also sort of a creative box that you learn to stay within, and you end up having to come up with a lot of creative solutions, which we have, and honestly, teaming up with, Beyond Creative, they've been great, and we've learned a lot about how to how to develop for the engine.

GR+: And how does adding Star Wars to the mix complicate all that, if at all?

MB: Well, I mean, you just have to make sure that you're, again, sticking to the authenticism of it. You can't phone it in like. You really have to stick to what makes Star Wars Star Wars. You have to pay attention to the details. You kind of just have to treat it as gospel. That requires a pretty enormous amount of vigilance, but it's like the proof is in the pudding as you do that, you really can feel it come out as you continue to build it.

JB: Yeah, there's spaces that don't exist in Nevarro either. So that was kind of a big challenge. But luckily, we had Doug Chiang [SVP and executive design director at Lucasfilm] as a resource, who was incredible, and he would come in and give us a lot of advice for the areas that Matt was building that are specific to the island that you wouldn't see in the show or the film.

MB: Doug Chiang had some fantastic feedback for us. Every time we met with him, the needle moved forward significantly. So it was great having him with us.

The Mandalorian and Grogu Watch Party Island is now available in Fortnite. If you're interested in more about the movie, you can check out all of our previous coverage of The Mandalorian and Grogu.

The Mandalorian and Grogu will soon be hitting the big screen as the first Star Wars movie in seven years – but it has also arrived to Fortnite.

Thanks to The Mandalorian & Grogu Watch Party Island, you're now able to see the first 10 minutes of the new film and hear from director Jon Favreau.

That's not all you can do in the collab, either. You can also explore Nevarro, hang out with Grogu, accept quests from IG-11, and take on the role of a Deputy to battle Imperials.

"Oh, we were very involved," Favreau tells us when we meet with him in London to discuss the movie and the collaboration. "I saw the opportunity of the partnership between Disney, Lucasfilm, and Epic as an important one. And the company that I work with, Fairview Portals, which deals with gaming and also deals with immersive and deals with new technologies, new media, as it relates to storytelling, we saw an opportunity to really lean into this.

"We'd already been working a lot with Unreal and with Epic, because even the Volume that we created for The Mandalorian was using assets from Unreal Engine," he continues. "We use a lot of Unreal Engine in the development on the front end of the process, with both the film and the shows. We use game development technology as part of a workflow that borrows a tremendous amount from animation. So, before we ever roll camera, we build out this experience."

As Favreau explains, it was all about crafting the most immersive, true to Star Wars experience possible. "We saw an opportunity, now that we have the opportunity to do a partnership with Fortnite, to take those assets, and create as close to an authentic experience of immersion that we could on the planet of Nevarro after season 3," he explains. "And so we pulled in all of our art department, we pulled in Doug Chiang, we pulled in Andrew Jones, the entire team that works on the films and the shows.

"And we wanted to build something that, yes, was a gaming experience, and you drop in with, I think, up to [12 players], and it's a fun adventure, but the backdrop is a very immersive one," he adds. "And you could choose to go on the adventures within it, but you could also choose to explore. And we even developed other areas that we had either explored [or] thought about, so that you can actually explore and go throughout that planet."

According to Favreau, this might only be the beginning, too. "Clearly, the scale is not one to one, but the finishes, the look: it was an opportunity to begin exploring what I think is going to have greater potential, which is not just using these tools for a backdrop of a gaming experience, but also to start to create immersive environments and communal environments," he says.

"And so this was a first step of what I think is going to be a much larger project when it comes to that partnership. We're also going to be showing 10 minutes exclusively with an amphitheater that we created on Nevarro before the film comes out."

This May 26, you can return to the amphitheater for a fan Q&A with Favreau, too. And, after 20 minutes in the island, you'll unlock the Mandalorian Sanctuary Loading Screen, while the Mandalorian Pen & Ink Outfit is available in the Shop from May 21. This is the Way...

The Mandalorian and Grogu is in theaters this May 22. While you wait, check out our guide to all the other upcoming Star Wars movies for everything else the galaxy far, far away has in store, or see our roundup of all the ways to watch the Star Wars movies in order.

The upcoming Soulslike Lords of the Fallen 2 won't be tied to any particular store at launch after all. Previously, the sequel was an Epic Games Store exclusive, but publisher CI Games has since bowed out of that agreement, opening the possibility of the game releasing on Steam and other stores from the off.

The news comes from an official document outlining the change, published on May 18. This actually happened back in April, and the announcement was delayed slightly to buffer against immediate prejudices.

Although the publishing contract has been dissolved, CI Games and Epic will continue working together on a number of fronts, including through the Unreal Engine. "The conclusion of the agreement by the company and Epic will not affect the ongoing cooperation between the parties in relation to the Unreal Engine, Epic online services, Epic account services, or the company's participation in the Fortnite ecosystem," states the document, "and each of these relationships will continue and remain governed by their respective separate agreements."

This is a turnaround from comments made by Marek Tyminski, the founder and CEO of CI Games, who's been defending the Epic deal on social media. In December 2025, he proclaimed on Twitter that the "majority of PC players who want a specific game will buy it on Epic if it’s exclusive there."

While I don't doubt the principle to some extent - if people want a game enough, they'll get it wherever they can - clearly, something about the arrangement didn't make sense anymore. The obvious side-effect is that Lords of the Fallen 2 might be available on Steam as soon as possible, opening up a much larger potential audience, no matter what way you look at it.

This is the latest in what's been a tricky few months for Epic. Fortnite's prices were raised in March, to considerable pushback, and the company laid off hundreds of people in the same month. The dissolution of exclusivity deals, once a big part of the Epic Games Store's strategy for attracting customers, is another signal that wings of the enterprise are perhaps struggling a little.

Lords of the Fallen breaks even after 2.5 years, selling 2.5 million copies as the Soulslike RPG's sequel is underway

Overwatch fans are lamenting that Fortnite is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the hero shooter better than Blizzard itself is.

Earlier this week, the Overwatch 10th Anniversary Event kicked off in-game, and very quickly, fans discovered that it kinda stinks. Most of the new cosmetics are the Decennium Skins, which are purple and white recolors for the original cast. But at the same time, the Fortnite x Overwatch collab also kicked off this week, which brought Tracer, Genji, Mercy, and D.VA to the game as skins, as well as making some changes to battle royale mode with Tracer's guns, Mercy's Staff and a number of POI's taking the form of iconic Overwatch locations.

Over on Reddit, a post laments that Fortnite's crossover does Overwatch more justice than the game's own devs, with responses saying "I'm actually more excited to play Fortnite's Overwatch mode than the actual Overwatch." Another adds, "Epic just made Blizz look absolutely pathetic." Meanwhile, another puts it simply: "When the crossover vastly outshines the anniversary…"

It's even inspired some more conspiracy-minded posts, with one user theorizing: "The Anniversary event is so hilariously bad that I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of the Epic deal: push the playerbase over to Fortnite until the end of the season." In the same vein, another says, "I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard did this on purpose; make a lackluster 10th anniversary event in their own game and let Epic do the heavy lifting with a Fortnite collab to rake in profits that way," and that it's "kind of a shame they'd put so much stock into another game rather than their own honestly."

Truthfully, I highly doubt the event is intentionally bad, but I can definitely understand how underwhelming some are finding it. Although, to Overwatch's credit, it did just relaunch with multiple new characters earlier this year, which is a pretty significant thing for a big milestone year.

Fortnite's most embarrassing cause of death has been removed, but Epic Games has managed to balance it shockingly well.

In a win for clumsy players everywhere, Epic Games is removing death by fall damage from Fortnite, although the alternative isn't exactly a buff either.

I'm sure its a universal experience for anyone who has played Fortnite that you'll be playing a match and going on an absolute tear through the battlefield. '10 kills on the board right now, just wiped out Tomato Town' level domination, only for you to make one wrong move, fall off of a cliff and instantly die, ruining everything. While multiplayer games in general are hotbeds for frustration, there's a special type of frustrating that comes with the dreaded fall damage death, and clearly Epic Games knows this, as it's killing off that type of death entirely.

As reported by Fortnite leaker HYPEX, Fortnite is removing fall damage deaths from its regular Battle Royale mode, and – the actually good mode – Zero Build. Given that part of the strategy in build mode is to destroy opposition structures and give them a big fall to contend with, this could have a massive effect on the game's balance. Although thankfully, Epic has seemingly balanced it so that falling during battle is as good as death anyway.

As the leaker notes, fall damage will now send your character into a "splat" animation, which – as the name implies – splats them onto the ground, with a delay before they get back up. Your health and shields will also be fully drained too, leaving you with 1hp to survive with.

I'm actually all for this, and think it's a perfect example of a good way to rebalance the game, effectively removing the frustration of dying to fall damage when wandering around the map by giving you a chance to recover, while also not removing the threat of dying to fall damage when you're fighting someone.

Epic knows everyone's afraid "AI is going to take all our jobs," but Fortnite dev insists the goal of AI "is to make us more efficient."

Video game production is a big, expensive process that now tends to involve a bunch of people working across a whole lot of different studios. According to Stephanie Arnette, who serves as senior external development manager on Fortnite, AI isn't coming to kill jobs, whether that be at Epic itself or for its co-development partners.

"Epic has been exploring different AI tooling that we can use to help support our games," Arnette said at a recent Gamescom Latam panel attended by GamesRadar+. "I know everyone's biggest fear is, 'Oh my god, AI is going to take all our jobs.' That's not our goal. The goal is to make us more efficient."

Arnette suggested that if "the thing that takes you 10 hours to do" suddenly "doesn't take you as long," that's a compelling use case for AI. Part of that "tooling" is being explored "in the art realm as well," she added, but didn't detail exactly what shape that might take.

Regardless, Arnette insisted that Epic is leading the charge on whatever AI is implemented in Fortnite's development process. "There really is no opening for a partner to try to put their AI info or tooling into ours," she explained, "because it's such a massive, massive company, so it would always be from our direction outward, and not the other way around."

This notion that AI is going to be used to make things more efficient for developers is one we've heard over and over again – including just today, when Sony detailed how Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered made use of a new AI animation tool. We're already seeing games that have been built using AI tech coming to market, and while many players are holding firm against obvious AI-generated content in their entertainment, those quieter uses of the tech are difficult to pick out.

Of course, the actual power of AI tech to make developers "more efficient" is difficult to measure, and the real question of whether those efficiency gains will be used as justification for layoffs remains to be answered. After all, you're not technically being replaced by AI if your boss decides that with all these new efficiencies that your co-worker can do your job too.

Take-Two CEO says if AI replaces anyone, it should be Elon Musk after his claim GTA 6 could come from gen-AI before Rockstar: "The richest guy on Earth, wouldn't that be job number one for AI to take?"

As I creep through a derelict Star Destroyer, simultaneously looting and avoiding Darth Vader, I jump when I turn a corner and see the red of his lightsaber reflecting off the dead steel all around. Minutes before, I'd been battling against Imperials to hold bases on a frozen planet that was never explicitly called Hoth but wasn't not Hoth either. After escaping Vader, I go on to build a small-but-respectable droid business on a sandy planet.

All through Fortnite.

The current evolution of popular games of a certain size goes something like this: release, get popular, make brand deals, release creative tools, make more brand deals, launch a platform, make even more brand deals. Relatedly, Epic Games' Fortnite is now adding the ability to use Star Wars assets in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) and Fortnite Creative to create all kinds of Star Wars-inspired islands, like the ones mentioned above.

Use the Force (in UEFN)

"Since 2019, Fortnite has been a gateway into the Star Wars galaxy," says Andre Balta, senior director at Epic Games. "What started off as limited-time events grew to seasons and in some cases, a complete takeover of Fortnite with Star Wars lore. Our team decided to take all those amazing weapons, assets, vehicles, and characters, and expose them to our Fortnite development community – and the response has been incredible."

"It was pretty clear from the start when we announced that every Fortnite creator has their own Star Wars story they want to tell," continues Balta. "It's been awesome to see the passion come through, and this will lead to Fortnite having the largest collection of official Star Wars experiences for players to enjoy."

None of this is exactly news – Epic Games announced the curated Star Wars assets and tools back at the beginning of April – but now it's officially here. But alongside hundreds of these Star Wars-tinged Fortnite islands that people have been crafting in anticipation of launch, Epic Games and Lucafilm have partnered with three different creators in order to "set a really high bar with three exemplar islands," according to Balta.

Those three are:

• Galactic Siege from JOGO Studios (island code: 5003-9856-3648)
  • "Fight in large-scale PvP class-based battles with 10v10 combat across iconic Star Wars planets."
• Escape Vader from Beyond Creative (island code: 7285-4185-5428)
  • "Hide, run, and try to survive in this 4-player co-op game where you attempt to escape the terrifying Sith Lord, Darth Vader."
• Droid Tycoon from FOAD (island code: 7865-8305-9184)
  • "Build and customize droids using authentic Star Wars blueprints, manage your workshop and factory systems, and unlock rare components and special missions."

Ahead of their release, I'm able to play around in each island during an event hosted by Epic Games. This is me doing more than getting my feet wet; I've not messed with any of the UEFN Fortnite islands previously, so it's more like diving straight into the deep end – three times.

"Interactive entertainment is rapidly becoming one of the defining forces in how audiences experience stories, and Disney is fully embracing that evolution," says Sean Shoptaw, executive VP of Disney Games and Digital Entertainment. "Games offer a uniquely powerful way to deepen engagement, expand our worlds, and connect with fans in real time. As this space continues to grow, we see extraordinary potential to elevate Disney storytelling in ways that are innovative, social, and built for the way people play today."

Shoptaw's not exactly wrong, despite the vested interest, about gaming's evolution. It's not hard to look at the rise of Roblox and user-generated content (UGC) more broadly and see that there's a sea change in progress, if not already complete. Less and less emphasis and money seems to be getting put behind a more traditional development path while more of that is refocused on simply giving players the tools to amuse themselves.

After playing a good bit of Droid Tycoon – basically a business sim of building droids, selling droids, and having them complete tasks in order to earn money over time – following both Galactic Siege and Escape Vader, the overwhelming impression I'm left with is that a lot of effort has gone into simulating all sorts of genres and experiences using the same box of building blocks. It's impressive, but something is lost when everything's painted using the same brush.

These are all probably great examples of the sort of work you can do within UEFN, but it's hard to escape the feeling that it's largely simulacra; ghostly imitations of larger-scale experiences and games. If you squint, Galactic Siege is basically "what if we made Battlefront in Fortnite" and Escape Vader borrows mechanically from its peers while throwing a coat of Star Wars paint on top. If your only game is Fortnite, however, and you have no further point of reference, I bet they'll really hit a sweet spot.

Droids you're looking for

"We've been in UEFN since the day it was announced at GDC 2023 and been shipping games," says Kevin Marciano, co-founder and CEO of the game studio Future Trash – which creates under the name FOAD in Fortnite. "We are a team on the platform known for crafting our own original IP, and that's kind of like our reputation and the types of games that we ship. Over time, we started to build relationships with the developer community and with Epic, and so we were very fortunate enough to be considered for this opportunity, and as lifelong Star Wars fans, saw this as one of the coolest things we could work on, and so we dove right in."

FOAD is an interesting case, because the name is actually also associated with Future Trash's eponymous "flagship IP," which it had been working on prior to getting involved with UEFN. The playtest is still available on Steam, if you're looking to try out a new "online competitive platformer battle royale party game," but the vertical slice apparently struggled to break through. While the team ultimately took a step back to work on all this Fortnite stuff, the goal appears to be to eventually return to the "core game" as well.

If the new Star Wars Fortnite island is any indication, it would appear that FOAD is in a good place overall, so it's not shocking that the OG FOAD has taken something of a backseat. If you're one of three exemplary pillars for something this big, you're clearly doing something right.

But… why droids? I had to know. Given everything that Star Wars encompasses, lasers and Jedi and starfighters and so on, why tie your reputation to droids? The answer is fairly nuanced, but there's also a short version.

"We like droids," says Scott Ulliman, creative director and co-founder of Future Trash aka FOAD. "A lot."

"Also, part of what we are good at is creating assets," he continues, "and we wanted to do something that we thought was going to be a little less likely to be made a bunch of times, and something we felt passionate about. When it comes to the kind of games we're interested in making and playing – you know, creature, companion, sidekick type stuff – the droids felt like a really good fit for that."

If you're wondering why creating assets would be such a strong skill to have, given that Epic Games is explicitly providing a whole bunch of them in the Star Wars toolkit, so did I. According to Ulliman, there are no droid assets; FOAD made all of them itself for Droid Tycoon. All 42 unique droids, along with 10 more that are planned for further updates.

It's a whole lot of droids to make, especially for launch, but when I ask why FOAD bothered to make so many droids, Ulliman says that it just sort of… happened.

"It was a snowball," he admits. "We wanted to make 20. We thought with the game we were building, 20 was a really good number. As we started building them, and we started playtesting, and you see them, you know, once, twice, three times in the game – the most consistent feedback we got internally and from Epic, and we agreed, is, 'We want more droids.' So we kept making more droids."

"It's made the game significantly more interesting," he says. "There's a lot more to unlock and see. You get to learn a lot more about Star Wars. We got to do some really niche droids too, really weird ones that are all canon and haven't been seen a lot, and Disney was very welcoming for us to build some of those out. So honestly, it was one of those things where we knew it was about the droids, but actually seeing them animated in the game just became this thing where we all wanted to see our favorites in there and other people's favorites. And there's a lot of favorites for droids."

Fortnite is currently available on… pretty much every platform. The Star Wars UEFN islands mentioned above are available on May 1. While you wait, maybe take a peek at our ranking of the best Star Wars games.

When it comes to bugs and glitches in Fortnite, Epic is pretty ruthless about what gets priority, according to CEO Tim Sweeney. There's a queue of importance, but the low-priority items get wiped periodically, something that's prompted one of the leads on Rust to provide an alternative methodology.

On Twitter, Sweeney responded to a report that Epic just deletes the backlog of bug reports, even when entries haven't been looked at yet. "We prioritize reported bugs," he says. "We fix them in priority order. At the bottom are low-priority, low-impact bugs. We find the cutoff point where fixing those bugs is less valuable to the game than other things, and we drop them."

He calls this "normal software development," and clarifies this never includes things players are experiencing to a widespread degree. "Bugs that many players experience and that affect the quality of the game are not those abandoned low-priority, low-impact bugs," Sweeney states. "They are higher priority bugs the team is tasked with fixing. When that takes time, it is because they are hard to track down, fix, or deploy."

One of the responses comes from Alistair McFarlane, COO and company director of Facepunch Studios, the team behind Rust, who says they keep reports going back years. "Our backlog on Rust is usually several hundred of low priority bugs, many are bugs to us rather than players, but we never deleted them," he tweets.

"Generally we have cleanup sprints to tackle them, allow QA to fix them, or they're a good starting point for new staff to resolve and becomes familiar with the project during their starting period," he adds. "A lot of our low priority bugs can date back years, it's a burden on QA and the whole team to know if its still broken or fixed in passing."

He finishes by saying he "can see the logic in deleting them," however, he'd "rather have them logged than forgotten." There's logic both ways, but when it comes to remedying issues within a game, I can imagine having the full extent of your bug reports is more helpful than not. That's easy to say though, when something like Fortnite must have an avalanche of them on a regular basis. Either way, as long as things get fixed, that's the most important part.

"Fortnite's cultural moment is starting to fade," games analyst says amid mass layoffs, and its downturn is part of the "erosion of American leadership" in video games

Fortnite's not dead, but it's suffering a "downturn" in engagement that Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has blamed for recent layoffs affecting over 1,000 employees. According to one industry analyst, Epic's declining fortunes mark one example of a broader collapse of "American cultural dominance" in video games.

"It's in the nature of empires to destroy themselves," NYU professor and games industry researcher Joost van Dreunen dramatically begins in a new analysis. As he explains, "the news of Epic Games' latest layoffs adds to the mounting evidence of the real-time collapse of American cultural dominance in interactive entertainment." As a result, it has become "painfully clear that, at long last, Fortnite's cultural moment is starting to fade."

American developers now "face a bevy of strategic and economic challenges." Demand for games has diminished since its COVID peak, yet prices to enter the hobby continue to rise, further driving down consumer interest. Van Dreunen argues that while many of those factors are global, some are specific to the US, as much of the burden for the cost of recent tariffs falls on the shoulders of American business and buyers.

He also cites expensive H-1B visa fees, saying that the $100,000 cost of these visas "virtually ensures that publishers will relocate talent elsewhere. It makes the US less competitive and causes it to miss out on tax revenue from high-earning employees." These cost factors mark a notable "contributor to the erosion of American leadership" in the game industry.

Meanwhile, game companies based in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East are all finding more success. "Publicly traded game makers in Europe (+60%) and Asia (+26%) have, on average, performed notably better than their American counterparts (+18%) in 2025," van Dreunen says.

"One major contributor now showing its true impact is the encroaching, disproportionate power wielded by platform holders," van Dreunen says. "Over the ten years leading up to 2025, platform revenue, from app stores, console marketplaces, and digital storefronts, jumped from $14 billion to $41 billion, a 191 percent increase. By comparison, game publishers saw their revenue rise from $65 billion to $128 billion, a more modest 98 percent increase. Over the course of a decade, gatekeepers have captured value at nearly twice the rate of content creators."

Epic, of course, fought a protracted, expensive legal battle in an effort to loosen the power wielded by platforms like Apple and Google. "Despite winning several important concessions," van Dreunen says, Epic "has spent a fortune on lawyers and forfeited even more in lost opportunities. Before its removal from the App Store, Fortnite was generating an estimated $1-$2 million per day on iOS, or roughly $500 million annually. Even after Apple's 30 percent cut, that's $375 million in net revenue, every year, gone. Five years later, that totals close to $2 billion."

I have to wonder, though, if the decline of a game like Fortnite is inevitable in itself, regardless of external economic factors. Business doesn't demand profit, which Fortnite does generate at a remarkable rate, it demands growth, which is impossible to sustain in perpetuity. At some point, every live-service game will decline – you'll eventually run out of new players to court, and old players will eventually decide that they've had enough.

Fortnite helped spark a live-service gold rush, and while there have been hits in the space, names like Concord and Highguard litter an increasingly larger graveyard. Even if the American live-service empire is the first to fall, I'm not sure the global game industry can stave off the force of entropy forever.

Fortnite producer says "we cannot even fully understand what kind of impacts this will have" amid mass layoffs at Epic Games: "What comes next is very hard and painful."

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has apologized for "not recognizing this terribly painful situation" after a terminally ill employee lost his job in the recent mass layoffs – losing his life insurance in the process – promising that the company "will solve the insurance" for him and his family.

Last week, it was revealed that over 1,000 employees were being laid off from Epic Games, as Sweeney said "I'm sorry we're here again." One of those affected is Michael Prinke, who, according to his LinkedIn, first joined the company in 2019 as a technical writer, before going on to become a programmer writer.

As highlighted on social media, Prinke's wife, Jenni Griffin, took to Facebook shortly after the news, sharing that "what makes this different for our family is that Mike is currently fighting terminal brain cancer." She explained at the time: "Because of the layoff, we didn't just lose income – we lost his life insurance. And because his condition is now considered a pre-existing condition, he can't get new coverage.

"So now, as I face the reality of losing my husband… I'm also facing the reality of what type of funeral/burial I can afford. How I will keep a roof over our heads. How I will protect our son and the life we built together. What will happen to our dogs," she continued. "I truly believe that if the people who made this decision understood the full human impact, they would not have intended this outcome."

Sweeney has now publicly responded to this, stating that Prinke's cancer "was not a factor in this layoff decision," pointing to the confidentiality surrounding medical information.

"Epic is in contact with the family and will solve the insurance for them," he writes on Twitter. "There is high confidentiality around medical information and it was not a factor in this layoff decision. Sorry to everyone for not recognizing this terribly painful situation and handling it in advance."

Griffin's original post has now been updated, too, stating: "WE ARE IN TALKS NOW WITH THE APPROPRIATE PEOPLE! WILL UPDATE SOON, LIKELY BY TUESDAY."

You can find many thoughts around Epic Games recently laying off 1,000 people strewn across the internet, and someone who hasn't minced their words is Chet Faliszek, a former writer at Valve. In an impassioned video, he tears through CEO Tim Sweeney and Epic itself, calling out the scale of the cutbacks and pondering about morale at the corporation.

"Can someone explain this to me, why anybody who works at Epic should work hard?" Faliszek says (spotted by PC Gamer). "'Cause Epic just laid off 1,000 people. And it's gonna shut down Fortnite Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Festival Battle stage, whatever that is. Who knows?"

It's a fair response. Epic's one of the biggest video game companies in the world. Fortnite is a cultural juggernaut. If, despite all of that, people's jobs are still at risk, what motivation is there to keep pushing?

Faliszek, who was involved in such games as Portal and its sequel, Team Fortress 2, the Half-Life 2 episodes, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, continues. "It's not like they're a publicly traded company," he states. "It's not like there's some need to hit the stock market thing. This is Tim Sweeney. This is Tim. A thousand people is more than [the amount] who work at Valve."

That's a pretty damning comparison, especially as Valve operates Steam, which Faliszek then brings up, albeit indirectly. "Tim has gone from making games to making one game," he says. "Spending all his time doing that and trying to make as much money as possible. And I guess well, hey, Tim, Gabe's better at that than you. I don't know what to tell you, man, because you stopped caring about making things."

He brings up that generally while at work, he's "gonna work my ass off," but then wonders if he'd have that kind of motivation at Epic, or any other major publisher right now. "Would I do that at Epic if they're gonna treat me like that and just have layoffs like that and just act the same way [as EA]?" he ponders. "Like, hey, 'great job, made Battlefield 6, we dethroned Call of Duty: here's a pink slip.'"

Staying on Valve, he points out a considerable amount of devs have been there for years, making great money, and he himself benefited from excellent financial benefits, implying that Epic is doing the opposite when it comes to retaining talent. "I could retire, I worked my ass off at Valve, and I could retire today," he explains. "I made more money than I'll ever make. And the money I made is dwarfed by the people who were there longer than me or before me."

The difference here is, "Valve understood that," Faliszek points out. "That's how you get this thing where people cared, people worked hard, people stayed because they felt they were improving," he continues. "What they were building on was something that they had agency over and owned."

The whole recording is seven-and-a-half minutes long, and it goes around and around like this. Knowing Sweeney, we might get a reply, since he's particularly susceptible to being trolled by Valve. We'll keep our eyes peeled.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says latest layoffs will result in "a stream of resumes of once-in-a-lifetime quality folks" because the downsizing "wasn't a performance-based 'rightsizing.'"

A couple of days ago, Epic Games laid off over 1,000 employees, with CEO Tim Sweeney blaming "the downturn in Fortnite engagement" – and now, remaining developers are sharing their own reactions to the mass layoffs.

Fortnite gameplay producer Robby Williams is one such dev, taking to an online thread with his thoughts – and it's admittedly a tough read, considering the situation at hand.

"Hey. End of day and I've had some time to process," he writes. "It's been a brutal day at Epic today, and I'm absolutely devastated by the loss of some of the most insanely bright and talented people I've ever had the honor to work with or even just around."

Williams continues, with a heartfelt message about his former coworkers: "I appreciate the outcry of support and empathy that I've seen from the community today, and I just ask that you please show as much love as you can offer to those that were impacted. None of them deserve this and it's not at all reflective of their work or their impact."

He then alludes to the future – one that won't be easy for the remaining staff at Epic Games.

"What comes next is very hard and painful," the dev admits. "Our teams will have to pick up the pieces and try to keep moving forward, but we cannot even fully understand what kind of impacts this will have on the game for the rest of the year and likely beyond."

It's especially difficult to gauge, likely, with Sweeney himself having said Fortnite was suffering from a dwindling community. But, as Williams concludes, folks will do what they can now.

"I'll continue to do my best to keep making the best game for you, and I'm confident that my peers feel the same, but please be patient with us as we navigate this tough time and do our best in spite of these truly gut-wrenching losses."

As for what the Epic Games CEO has said, aside from his initial words on the matter, he stated the layoffs will result in "a stream of resumes of once-in-a-lifetime quality folks" – which, uh, doesn't exactly help.

According to Sweeney, the company's downsizing "wasn't a performance-based 'rightsizing.'" Regardless, I'd say it stings all the same – and the impact layoffs like this have on the games industry as a whole… isn't great.

Epic Games defends Fortnite's controversial V-Bucks price hike, insisting it's in "direct correlation to the operating costs" and teasing "amazing things" are coming that'll make you "understand what's been going on"

Tim Sweeney wants the world to know that the more than 1,000 workers laid off in the latest Epic Games downsizing are great hires.

This week, Epic let go of more than 1,000 employees, with Sweeney blaming a "downturn in Fortnite engagement" as well as "industry-wide challenges" and factors "unique to Epic" in a letter to staff. Today, he's encouraging employers and recruiters to keep an eye out for resumes coming from the talented people he no longer employs.

"In the coming days, employers will see a stream of resumes of once-in-a-lifetime quality folks," reads a tweet from Sweeney, insisting that the company's latest layoffs had nothing to do with employee performance.

"An important thing to understand is that Epic never lowered our hiring standards as we grew, and the layoff wasn't a performance-based 'rightsizing' as companies call it nowadays. It's a sound bet that anyone with Epic Games on their resume is in the top few percent of their discipline."

Of course, Sweeney offering sweeping referrals for his former employees is a nice gesture, but it's a dubious compliment in the wake of one of the most brutal layoffs in recent months. The move also resulted in the deaths of three Fortnite game modes: Ballistic, Festival Battle Stage, and Rocket Racing, the latter of which was a key driver in Epic's original push toward a multi-game metaverse.

It's also worth noting that, as more and more developers lose their jobs, the pool of qualified applicants grows larger, making the scarcity of available jobs even tougher. Sweeney's words aren't meaningless, but they're statistically less likely to result in an applicant's success than they were, say, before Epic laid off 1,000 more employees.

Fortnite art lead behind iconic characters like Jonesy has been laid off by Epic Games, and fellow devs are paying tribute: "Fortnite looks like Fortnite because of you."

Yesterday, it was announced that Fortnite developer Epic Games is laying off over 1,000 employees, and it's now come to light that one of those affected is the character art director who created the model for Jonesy, easily the most iconic and recognizable character in the battle royale.

Vitaliy Naymushin has worked at Epic Games for over 11 years, and you need only look at his Artstation page to see what an impact he's had on Fortnite, with models for notable characters like Ramirez and a "female constructor" we'd later know as Penny. Most importantly, shared in July 2017, is the "the Male Soldier model I created for Fortnite" – Jonesy – based on concept art by principal concept artist Ben Shafer.

Per his LinkedIn page, dating back to 2015 when he was a senior character artist, Naymushin "established the 3d style for Fortnite characters," and "created majority of the original cast of characters (Jonesy, Ramirez, Penny etc)," but now, he's looking for work.

"Well this is weird," he begins on LinkedIn. "After 11 years I find that I no longer work at Epic. It's been a wild ride, lots of ups and downs. Seeing Fortnite from pre launch to today and being a part of making that happen was an experience of a lifetime."

He acknowledges that there are "lots of similar posts out there" from other affected employees, adding: "I hope that everyone impacted by the layoff lands on their feet." Naymushin extends his wishes to those still working at the company, too: "Best of luck to all the folks remaining at Epic."

Fellow Epic Games devs have been wishing Naymushin well, too. "Fortnite looks like Fortnite because of you Vitaliy," comments creative cinematic director Gavin Moran, who's "sorry to hear" that the art lead is "no longer at Epic."

"It's been so awesome to work with you," writes aforementioned Jonesy concept artist Shafer. "I can't believe you got swept up in this. You were like the glue for our team. Appreciate you man and you will be missed big time! Thanks for everything."

"You're an amazing leader and truly a legend to the games industry," says Epic art director Dakota Sager-Leonard. "I'm so sorry you were affected. Wishing you all the best moving forward, you've made a huge impact to Fortnite and I know you will continue to do incredible things wherever you go."

Epic kills 3 Fortnite modes amid mass layoffs, including the Rocket League devs' Mario Kart-like which helped kick off the multi-game metaverse era to begin with.

Today, Epic announced that it's laying off more than 1,000 employees. Alongside that news, the studio also revealed that it's ceasing support for three Fortnite game modes in 2026: Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Festival Battle Stage. Rocket Racing is particularly notable, since it was one of the key pillars of Epic's original push into a multi-game metaverse.

"We've built a lot of Fortnite modes, and in some cases we failed to build something awesome enough to attract and retain a large player base," the company says in its announcement, adding that it's "grateful for everyone who played."

Rocket Racing will go offline in October 2026. This mode, created by the Epic-owned Rocket League studio Psyonix, is an arcade racing game that blends Rocket League's high-flying cars with a competitive Mario Kart sensibility. It seemed like the obvious highlight when Epic first unveiled Fortnite's multi-game future back in 2023, but that wasn't reflected in the player counts, which quickly dwindled in comparison to other modes and user-created options.

One of the other key pillars of that 2023 launch was Fortnite Festival. While Epic says "music remains a major part of Fortnite" and the mode as a whole will continue to get updates, the PvP Festival Battle Stage is going offline as of April 16, 2026.

And there's another mode dying on April 16: Ballistic. This is a 5v5 FPS that transplants Counter-Strike's ultra-competitive vibes into the Fortnite ecosystem, and this shutdown seems to be the one the community is taking the hardest. You can just look at the comments under Epic's announcement to see the community's outcry – many believed Ballistic could have had a robust future with more support from the devs.

But with 1,000 fewer people at Epic, it's unclear what the future of modes outside of the core Fortnite ecosystem will ultimately be. Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney blamed a "downturn in Fortnite engagement" for the layoffs, although he stopped short of detailing steps the company is taking to realign the battle royale.

Speaking more broadly, Sweeney had this to say about the future of Fortnite: "What we now need to do is clear: build awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events."

Epic Games defends Fortnite's controversial V-Bucks price hike, insisting it's in "direct correlation to the operating costs" and teasing "amazing things" are coming that'll make you "understand what's been going on."

Epic Games, the multi-billion dollar corporation behind Fortnite and one of the most successful games in the world, is laying off more than 1,000 employees. CEO Tim Sweeney blames a "downturn in Fortnite engagement" for the move, which he attributes to both "industry-wide challenges" and factors "unique to Epic."

"Today we’re laying off over 1000 Epic employees," Sweeney says in a memo to the company, which was also shared with the public. "I'm sorry we're here again. The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded. This layoff, together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place."

The news follows a notable price hike for V-Bucks a few weeks ago, which Epic framed as a way for players to "help pay the bills" for the mega-popular battle royale. Clearly, the publisher figures those bills are still too high.

Epic last laid off 830 people in 2023, which represented around 16% of its workforce at the time. On today's cuts, Sweeney says affected employees "will receive a severance package that includes at least four months of base pay, with more based on tenure. We’re also extending Epic-paid healthcare coverage. For example, in the U.S., they’ll receive paid coverage for 6 months. We’ll also accelerate their stock options vesting through January 2027 and extend equity exercise options for up to two years."

As Circana senior director Mat Piscatella was quick to note on Bluesky, Fortnite was played by 35% of PlayStation players and 31% of Xbox players in the US through February 2026. That made it the biggest game on both platforms for the month. But the engagement downturn is real: "The avg PS player engaged with Fortnite for 16 hours in the month (vs 21 last Feb), with Xbox players averaging 15 hours (vs 19 last Feb)," Piscatella says.

According to Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, Fortnite led in US Feb Monthly Active Users across both PlayStation (35% of actives playing) and Xbox (31%). The avg PS player engaged with Fortnite for 16 hours in the month (vs 21 last Feb), with Xbox players averaging 15 hours (vs 19 last Feb).

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-03-24T15:08:37.371Z

Sweeney says that "some of the challenges we're facing are industry-wide challenges: slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics; current consoles selling less than last generation's; and games competing for time against other increasingly-engaging forms of entertainment."

He acknowledges that Fortnite remains "one of the most successful games in the world," but says the company has "had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season," and is still in the "early stages of returning to mobile." He also says that "being the industry's vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers."

Sweeney's not specific about what those bullets are, but it's tough to imagine he's referring to anything other than the company's ongoing battles with entrenched digital storefronts, which has seen Epic go to court with Google and Apple while attempting to wrest a sliver of Valve's PC gaming pie.

"Since it's a thing now, I should note that the layoffs aren't related to AI," Sweeney also acknowledges. "To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can."

Epic Games defends Fortnite's controversial V-Bucks price hike, insisting it's in "direct correlation to the operating costs" and teasing "amazing things" are coming that'll make you "understand what's been going on."

In a peak crossover, friendslop climbing hit Peak now has skins in Fortnite. But before you decide to make your character an orange, round-headed boyscout, you should know the price is almost three times a copy of the multiplayer game.

No, seriously, it's all in the V-Bucks. A Twitter user did the math: The Peak Scout skin will run you 2,000 of Fortnite's fictitious currency. That's $22.40, by the current rate for V-Bucks, or 2.8 whole copies of Peak on Steam, which costs $7.99 as standard. The easiest option for buying it is actually slightly more expensive, as there's a 2,400 V-Bucks pack available for $22.99.

If this skin became available before the recent mark up on virtual dollars in Fortnite, then it'd cost $17.80. That's only 2.2 copies of Peak, something I'm sure we can agree is a much less egregious proposition. Capitalism!

Epic Games recently revealed that Fortnite was going to become a bit more expensive, introducing the first mark up in several years. In-game currency is pricier across the board, something the company maintains is necessary for the planned expansion of the already mammoth shooter in the months and years ahead.

While this is all to be expected in an age of industry instability and increased emphasis on games being live-service, it doesn't make seeing it spelled out any easier. It's amazing that a game like Peak is being exposed to so many people through Fortnite, but seeing the price, and knowing that Aggro Crab and Landfall won't be seeing any of it, definitely makes it bittersweet.

"That's actually a slap in the face to the Peak developers," says one response on Twitter. "Like: 'Hey, we at Fortnite feel our skin of your character is worth well over double the price of your fuck ass game.'"

That said, I'm kind of here for Scout beaming Goku across the island. It's all about the nonsense idiosyncrasies, really. Peak.

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Developer Aggro Crab is turning friendslop into friendwine and joining Fortnite for a Peak bundle no one expected.

"PEAK IS COMING TO FORTNITE ON MARCH 21st," Aggro Crab announces alongside a teaser on YouTube, which shows off the suddenly incredible length of the Peak characters' legs… and a concerning lack of divorced plushie Bing Bong.

One YouTube comment with nearly 2,000 likes says, "If there is no Bing Bong back bling, we're rioting."

"Give us a BingBong backpack and my life is yours !" promises another fan. But try not to make any promises yet – Aggro Crab clearly anticipated players' sick need to trade their souls for Bing Bong long ago. They remind fans on Twitter that they created a mockup of Bing Bong the Fortnite pickaxe back in 2025, after one of the battle royale's major leakers FireMonkey observed a friendslop buffet: "Only in Fortnite can you wear the REPO Semibot Skin with an Among Us on your back while holding the Stop Sign from Lethal Company."

Fortnite developers "had a better vision" than theirs for Bing Bong, Aggro Crab now says. On YouTube, they respond to that first popular comment on the topic and provide what may be a back bling tease, saying, "I can't snitch, but you'll find out March 21."

The Peak developers are more forthcoming about, as they write in another YouTube comment, their shockingly "LONG" new Scouts. To fit Fortnite player models as skins, Peak's Scouts have apparently undergone painful leg lengthening surgery, and they look huge.

"That's crazy," summarizes another fan comment. "I'm immediately buying that."

Peak co-creator loves the term friendslop, because "what's so bad about hanging out with your friends and playing games like this?"

Epic Games lead producer Jean Pierre Kellams maintains that, had you not known NVIDIA's new rendering model DLSS 5 was powered by AI, you would collapse from the euphoria of seeing Resident Evil Requiem's Grace Ashcroft look like her skin was made out of other people's skin.

"I know everyone is looking at faces, but look at the leather jacket. Look at the correct lighting on the neck," Kellams argues in a series of Twitter posts discussing NVIDIA's applying DLSS 5 to Grace, who I believe has suffered enough. "This is awesome," he says.

Many other people, including me, do not think DLSS 5 is awesome, because the AI rendering seems to inject pork fat into characters to simulate what a "beautiful human woman" looks like. And I'm afraid of someone doing that to me in my sleep. But Kellams says in another Twitter post, "All you guys roasting DLSS 5 like it doesn't look better/is detracting from art direction are absolutely insane."

"The lighting and shading improvements are bonkers," he continues. "If that was shown as a next-gen hardware reveal and not 'AI,' you guys would be going nuts." The producer compares some people's disappointment with DLSS 5 to how "it was painful when candlemakers were put out of business by Edison."

Kellams could have a point there. If I really don't think about it, it's true that Grace's "chin is slightly lighter," and her "eye socket is now accurately casting a shadow," as Kellams points out, and that these facts are equivalent to the advent of electricity. Wait, no, they're not. Sorry, I think I was just operated on by DLSS 5.

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Fortnite developer and publisher Epic Games has caused waves among fans after revealing plans to raise the price of V-Bucks and leave optional purchases like the Battle Pass with far less value – but the creators stand strong behind their decision to increase the pricing.

Andrea Balta, senior director of ecosystem growth at Epic Games, speaks on the matter in a new online post, replying directly to a disappointed player.

"Seeing comments like 'the Item Shop is the main focus instead of the game' hits me really hard," writes Balta. "It's not the impression we want to give, nor how we focus our efforts. We put a ton of work and care into Fortnite's gameplay, and this focus is only growing."

The dev then concludes, "Paying the bills frees up our teams to continue driving stories and building stuff you love." Unsurprisingly, fans aren't exactly convinced – in fact, many seem angry.

"Oh, I feel sooooooooo sorry that your poor little billion-dollar megacorporation can't afford to keep the lights on," reads one reply. "You must be struggling to feed your families with those 10 billion dollars you made last year. Should we start a charity fund?"

It's an especially charged response, all things considered, but the community seems distraught all around. A separate thread outlining how "the Battle Pass will now cost 800 V-Bucks and award 800 V-Bucks for completing it" instead of 1,500 with bonus rewards included shows as much.

One person asks, "Why they acting like they're poor and in desperate need of money?" Another adds, "This is genuinely one of the worst changes they've done."

Elsewhere, somebody argues in their own post that, "Epic posted this at the WORST possible time, right as so many people were leaving the game, bored of the season, right at a low point anyway, they decided to drop a real bomb and make everything so much worse. It's almost as if they're trying to kill off the game at this point."

Comments see folks agree, with a person dubbing the price increase a "diabolical fumble this season."

Another player replies directly to the sentiment that Epic somehow needs help "paying the bills," exclaiming, "'Help pay the bills'" – MAN FUCK UR BILLS WHAT ABOUT OURS?"

It's certainly not looking good in the Fortnite fandom right now, that's for sure, and people aren't sure how this will work out when the next season starts. As one user says, "Doing this just BEFORE a new season is CRAZY. All your good faith is already gone."

Here's hoping Epic Games listens to its community and considers some changes – changes that don't see prices increasing anymore, that is. It's evident players aren't satisfied with how things are turning out now, even if the devs argue it's necessary.

Searching for something else to play other than Fortnite right now? Be sure to browse our roundup of the best Battle Royale games out there.