Quick Hits

• ARC Raiders is about to cost you nothing. Destructoid reports Embark's extraction shooter will be fully free-to-play for four days next week as the studio ramps up hype for its next major update, Frozen Trail — a perfect drop-in window if you've been waiting on the sidelines.
• Disney isn't buying Epic Games… "right now." Disney president and chief creative officer Dana Walden responded to acquisition rumors by saying conversations about buying the Fortnite maker aren't happening "right now" — a notably flexible non-denial, per IGN.
• Halo may be getting a full reboot — at Activision. Eurogamer reports Microsoft's next Halo game sits at Activision, where a new purpose-built team led from Sledgehammer Games is reportedly considering rebooting the series.
• Gears of War: E-Day is landing hard. Eurogamer cites commendatory early reviews and fantastic initial player numbers a weekend before general release, with the studio's self-described "big investment" in gore paying off.
• Pokémon TCG chaos, one last time in 2026. IGN reports the Mega Evolution—Delta Reign expansion — the final announced Pokémon TCG set of 2026, launching November 6 — is already causing preorder chaos.

Pokémon & Nintendo

Pokémon TCG's Mega Evolution—Delta Reign lands November 6 as the last announced set of the year, and IGN reports preorders are already a battlefield — fitting for a set that keeps the Mega Evolution spotlight burning. Elsewhere in the Pokémon world, VGC sat down with Lego Pokémon's design director and senior interaction designer to mark six months of the line, digging into the divisive Smart Brick, sets aimed at adult fans, and what's coming next.

Nintendo Life is polling readers on whether they survived the ticket rush for the Zelda 40th Anniversary Concert, announced during what the outlet calls a pretty predictable Direct — the tour kicks off in Japan in January 2027, with more dates to follow. In quieter news, Nintendo has renewed trademarks for multiple 3DS and Wii U titles, including Next Level Games' 2016 Metroid Prime multiplayer game.

On the hardware front, brace yourself: Nintendo Life relays reports that memory shortages are set to get worse in 2027, with "the supply-demand environment is only getting tighter." And Sega confirmed Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds gets its "final content drop of Year One" on October 13 — a paid DLC pack, though Sega insists the race isn't over yet.

Community corner: a r/pokemon post is spreading the word that you can now play Gen 3 Pokémon online on virtually any device, a gorgeous Phantump & Trevenant LEGO MOC is making the rounds, and Poketober artists are already cranking out daily prompts.

Fortnite

Fortnitemares is in full swing in Chapter 7, Season 4, and the Five Nights at Freddy's crew has taken over the island — GameSpot notes that among Fortnite's 2,800+ skins, only Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy have a special feature beyond their looks. Destructoid has you covered with maps to all the FNAF character locations (they're only visiting for a bit), plus a guide to grabbing the seasonal Dumpster Dive Sprite, one of the event's must-find, must-extract collectibles. And hovering over all of it: that Disney-Epic acquisition chatter, which Walden's "not right now" keeps firmly alive.

Call of Duty

Activision really, really wants cheaters gone before Modern Warfare 4. Destructoid details the new "Server Culling" anti-cheat method, which aims to kill wallhacks for good by handling what players can see on the server side. In weirder news, AI-generated "vibe-coded" mashup mods — think Skate 3 running inside Modern Warfare 2 inside Minecraft — have taken over X this week; IGN has spent three days scrolling the madness, while Kotaku is decidedly not playing along.

Arc Raiders

The big one: ARC Raiders goes completely free for four days starting next week, per Destructoid, timed as Embark Studios builds toward its major Frozen Trail update. If you've been meaning to see what all the extraction-shooter fuss is about, this is your zero-risk window — rally your squad now.

Indie Games

Epic's October giveaway slate is a quiet indie goldmine: alongside the headliner remaster, you can claim Buried Stars, Out of Sight, and TerraScape for free throughout October, per VGC. If your backlog needs a palette cleanser between blockbuster season drops, start there.

Steam & PC

Gears of War: E-Day is the story of the week on PC — buoyed by commendatory early reviews and fantastic initial player numbers ahead of general release, with devs telling Eurogamer they made a "big investment" in gore because "we felt that fans were getting a bit desensitised to the violence." Weirdly, it works. Also free on the Epic Games Store: the System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster, a steal for a genuine horror landmark.

On the hardware beat, Rock Paper Shotgun laments that inflated RAM, SSD, and graphics card prices have beaten "cheap gaming PCs" into a coma, pushing bargain hunters toward the site's old frenemy: gaming laptops. PC Gamer, meanwhile, catches you up on all the latest from Steam's 20 most-wishlisted games and sings the praises of Valve's patch-note supremacy — because nobody writes release notes like the Half-Life house.

Gaming Roundup

GameSpot catalogs a staggering 50 video game movies currently in the works and asks the real question: how many will actually come out? GameSpot also flags that God of War Ragnarok is finally cheap enough to earn a hearty "boy, buy it." Over at IGN, former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin revealed the Minecraft city he's spent 12 years building — an unexpected new gaming YouTuber is born. And Destructoid explains Deadlock's revamped hero voting system, which now works differently as players pick which new heroes join Valve's shooter first.