Quick Hits

• The Witcher III: Wild Hunt - Remastered has arrived as a free upgrade — and it's already propelled the RPG to new heights of player popularity, even as some fans grumble the new lighting looks "lifeless." Best part for Switch 2 owners: you can claim it free with a borrowed Switch 1 cartridge.
• Valve's Deadlock is now one of Steam's most-played games — without even being publicly released. Valve says it's still too unfinished to launch, but hero cosmetics and new game modes are in the works, and the new map looks absolutely stunning.
• Xbox CEO Asha Sharma insists "Xbox is not for sale" despite 268 more layoffs in the second of multiple planned cut rounds — while Gears of War: E-Day developers fear they'll be cut straight after launch, right before their bonuses come due.
• Fortnitemares 2026 is a full-on Five Nights at Freddy's takeover, with Freddy Fazbear's Pizza landing on the island.
• A Pikachu Pokémon card just sold for $8.4 million — the second-highest price of all time, a 5,340% jump since it last sold in June.

Pokémon & Nintendo

Spooky season is officially upon us: Pokémon Pokopia has announced a limited-time Halloween in-game event headlined by Pumpkaboo — "Pumpkaboo, I see you," as Nintendo Life put it. The Switch 2 release calendar keeps filling out too: Pokémon Legends: Z-A is getting a new physical Switch 2 release next month with bundled DLC, following the same playbook as Scarlet and Violet, while Japan gets a Pokémon Pokopia + Expansion Pass Game-Key Card release alongside it — fitting, since Pokopia was Nintendo's first-ever Game-Key Card title.

Pokémon Go kicks off October as the second month of its Twilight Trails season, with raids, Spotlight Hours, and appropriately spooky Halloween events (GameSpot has the full rundown).

Fighters, take note: SNK's Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves gets a Switch 2 demo in late October — the same demo is live today on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

CD Projekt Red went all-in on its promise to bring the Witcher 3 remaster to everyone who owned the base game, digital or otherwise — meaning a borrowed Switch 1 cart is enough to snag the free Switch 2 upgrade (Nintendo Life).

Hidden gem corner: Nintendo Life also spotlights a FromSoft-inspired indie RPG soaked in retro King's Field soul — the fix for anyone whose Elden Ring time on Switch 2 has them craving "real retro FromSoft."

Fortnite

Fortnitemares 2026 stars the Five Nights at Freddy's crew: Destructoid maps out where to find Freddy Fazbear's Pizza on the island and breaks down the full FNAF bundle — skins, accessories, and prices.

Fun postscript to the year's most chaotic collab: giving Sonic a gun has been a huge success, with players eliminating Dr. Eggman more than 14 million times, Kotaku reports — Sega President Shuji Utsumi and Epic Games Japan Managing Director Takayuki Kawasaki recently discussed the challenges of featuring Sonic in Fortnite.

Call of Duty

No Warzone or Black Ops patch notes today — the big Activision-adjacent news is all corporate, and it's messy:

• Sharma denies Xbox is for sale despite the layoffs and corporate restructuring (Rock Paper Shotgun) — 268 staff cut in the second of multiple rounds planned this financial year, part of the 3,200 cuts announced in July, roughly half of which took effect immediately (Eurogamer).
• Eurogamer also reports Gears of War: E-Day developers at The Coalition fear layoffs straight after launch — right before bonuses are due.
• With Activision now handling the next Halo via a "purpose-built team," former franchise director Frank O'Connor has offered three ways to revive the legendary series — and urges the company to hire laid-off Bungie developers (Eurogamer, GameSpot).

Arc Raiders

Embark Studios executive producer Aleksander Grøndal admits the team "wildly underestimated" how hard building Arc Raiders as a live service game would be — "Ultimately, we asked 'why are we doing this?'" — and he's warning fellow developers about the dangers of burnout (Rock Paper Shotgun, PC Gamer). Candid, sobering stuff.

Steam & PC

• The Witcher 3 remaster debate is already raging: the free upgrade pushed the game to new popularity heights, but Eurogamer reports players are divided "for a few key reasons" — sample complaint: "My god this new lighting is lifeless."
• Deadlock's momentum is absurd: still not fully released or accessible to much of the public, yet its latest update sent it into Steam's most-played ranks (Eurogamer). Valve says the game is still too unfinished to release publicly, with hero cosmetics and new game modes in the works (PC Gamer) — whose map write-up declares the new locale "absolutely beautiful."
• Steam Deck 2 watch: AMD's new "Gainsborough" APU is rumoured to be the chip powering the long-awaited successor (PC Gamer) — file firmly under rumor for now.

Gaming Roundup

• Grasshopper Manufacture is independent again, parting ways with NetEase: "We continue to cherish the amazing relationship our companies built." Big news for Suda51 fans.
• The FBI claims an alleged Rockstar Games hacker — one of the leaders of prolific group ShinyHunters — has been arrested in connection with the data breach that revealed GTA Online profits (Kotaku).
• PlayStation Plus' October freebies arrive October 6, with F1 25 and Hunt: Showdown 1896 leading a trio of free games (GameSpot).
• Magic: The Gathering's Corn Maze Secret Lair Superdrop brings Jim Henson's Labyrinth, KPop Demon Hunters, and Marvel Zombies to the card game (IGN).
• GameSpot's September staff picks look back at a packed, blood-soaked summer — The Blood of Dawnwalker and Marvel's Wolverine among the standouts.
• Hardware corner: PC Gamer reviews the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10 gaming laptop, and IGN flags an affordable deal on Moza's R5 direct-drive racing wheel with 5.5Nm of force feedback.