Quick Hits

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has fully detailed its DMZ extraction mode, and Infinity Ward is calling it "Call of Duty's definitive extraction shooter experience" — the studio is betting big on DMZ becoming another major pillar of the series, and Destructoid thinks it sounds like this year's main attraction.
• Arc Raiders is going Hollywood. Embark Studios is collaborating with Chernin Entertainment — the production company behind the Backrooms — on film and TV adaptations of both Arc Raiders and The Finals (Eurogamer).
• The Kingdom Hearts Collection reviews are in for Switch 2, and it's finally "the proper experience with no cloud-related drawbacks" per the Nintendo Life round-up — just budget more than 130GB of storage for it.
• Gears of War: E-Day launches worldwide today, October 6, and The Coalition's first patch is already live to fix early-access issues, including gloriously named "giant vomiting frog" error codes (GameSpot).
• Fortnitemares 2026 is in full swing in Fortnite Chapter 7, Season 4, with horror icons stalking the island — Freddy Krueger is now a huntable boss.

Pokémon & Nintendo

It's a quiet day on the Pokémon beat, but Switch 2 is eating good. Kingdom Hearts Collection arrives this week, and Nintendo Life's review round-up confirms it's a proper native port at last — though the site's PSA warns the collection will collectively take up over 130GB ("still better than the cloud"). The site's mini review of Kingdom Hearts III + Re Mind lands on "A Fair Switch 2 Port of an Enjoyable 'Conclusion,'" wrapping up the Dark Seeker Saga that began back on the PS2-era hardware.

Elsewhere: Nintendo is ramping up its Zelda 40th Anniversary celebrations by adding The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask soundtrack to Nintendo Music this week — Termina beckons. Capcom announced Monster Hunter Rise has surpassed 20 million sales worldwide, an absolute monster of a result even with all eyes on Monster Hunter Wilds. In sadder news, NBA 2K25 is being fully delisted with a server shutdown inbound, benching MyCareer and MyTeam — 2K pushing the boat out even further than usual, as Nintendo Life notes.

Nintendo Life also went hands-on with Nintendo Switch Sports Resort after gamescom '26, calling it "more of the same, but better." And on the great October pile-up, a product growth expert tells the site "Nintendo Didn't Swerve" — every other publisher is scrambling to avoid Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 6, but Zelda isn't blinking.

Quick bytes: Nintendo released 'Hello, Peach!' and 'Hello, Luigi!' apps for Switch and mobile alongside a toy 'Melody Car,' extending its parent-and-child 'My Mario' line; Japan is getting another Switch 2 "Choose-Your-Game" hardware bundle (the console has now shifted more than 23 million units); Shapefarm rolled out patch 1.0.5 for the Switch 2 co-op title Orbitals; and former WarioWare director Goro Abe talks "I Wanted To Challenge Myself" and life after Nintendo.

Fortnite

Fortnitemares 2026 is serving a full spooky menu in Chapter 7, Season 4, and Destructoid has the guides: track down and defeat Freddy Krueger, the A Nightmare on Elm Street slasher now lurking as a boss; hunt the full collection of Fortnitemares Sprites, each with their own abilities; and crack Hope's Lobby Hack by piecing together Hope's special code and activating it in the Admin Panel.

Call of Duty

Two outlets, one clear message: DMZ is the headline of Modern Warfare 4. Eurogamer digs into Infinity Ward's wide-ranging blog post and developer commentary, where the studio declares "this is Call of Duty's definitive extraction shooter experience" and positions the mode as another major pillar alongside campaign and multiplayer. Destructoid echoes that it "sounds like this year's main attraction," tipping its cap that shipping a campaign, multiplayer, and a third mode annually remains an accomplishment despite the series' souring public sentiment.

Arc Raiders

Massive day for Embark fans: Eurogamer reports film and TV adaptations of Arc Raiders and The Finals are in the works with Chernin Entertainment, the production company behind the Backrooms. And in-game, PC Gamer reports Embark is pursuing "more ways to integrate real human performances," starting with a visual overhaul for Celeste in the Frozen Trail update.

Steam & PC

GameSpot says the Steam Frame "gets VR right where so many others went wrong" — with the caveat that entry-level pricing stretches past $1,000. If that stings, IGN spots the Meta Quest 3S at just $297 during Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days, running October 6–7.

On the AI front, the developer behind the unofficial Banjo-Kazooie: Recompiled PC port has posted an impassioned rebuttal to claims that generative AI speeds up PC ports of classics, calling them "false" or missing the point (Rock Paper Shotgun). Sale-spelunkers, PC Gamer has a delightfully weird deep cut: an ARPG originally developed for the Nokia N-Gage that's brilliant on Steam Deck. Also worth your click: GameSpot's roundup of the best video game soundtracks of 2026 (so far), a Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen pre-order discount, and Rock Paper Shotgun's hands-on with Car Park Capital — a city builder whose public-transport utopias were utopias right up until the writer got involved.

Gaming Roundup

A rough day for studio staff: Eurogamer reports Ninja Theory developers are facing redundancy after a second wave of Xbox cuts, and Kotaku reports Supermassive has laid off 70 people less than six months after launching Directive 8020 to mixed Steam reviews. Meanwhile, Halo Studios says "it is absolutely our intent" to release its previously announced Halo novel despite layoffs and a rumored Activision lore reboot (Eurogamer), and IGN reports that as Halo moves to Activision, studio writers are teasing a new alien race and what Master Chief's story might have been after Halo: Campaign Evolved.

In business news: Paramount has completed its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, but as GameSpot notes, Warner Bros. Games now belongs to Skydance and the announcement didn't mention video games once. Ubisoft will reportedly relaunch Watch Dogs: Legion next year as a Director's Cut (IGN), and Capcom's remake machine keeps ticking — which means revisiting Resident Evil 5 and 6 (PC Gamer).

The rest of the pile: Deadlock's "City Never Sleeps" update has, per PC Gamer, turned it into a horror game — no longer a MOBA or a third-person shooter. Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive is hiring for a triple-A sci-fi first-person shooter with "a high realism bar" (Eurogamer). IGN has exclusive Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 Space Marine screenshots plus an interview with creative director Jan Theysen. Star Wars: Galactic Racer is out now, and GameSpot thinks it "might just be one of the best Star Wars games ever made" — with a free route if you know where to look. Sega appears to rule out using GenAI for in-game creativity in a new Kotaku interview, with interesting remarks on working with indie developers. Deal hunters: IGN has the MTG Marvel Draft Night Box at 25% off with a free Collector Booster. And for your spooky-season rabbit hole, Destructoid catalogued every video game reference in Spooky Month: The Wacky Wicked Woods.