"The concept of [Xbox] Game Pass was good" despite its eventual faceplant now contributing to mass job losses, reckons Forza Horizon 5 director

Forza Horizon 5 creative director Mike Brown, who's currently working on open-world racer Clutch after departing Microsoft-owned Playground Games in 2023, has offered his perspective on Xbox's current layoff-heavy pivot in direction. Despite the Xbox Game Pass push of former Xbox boss Phil Spencer and co being blamed by new boss Asha Sharma as she's ditched studios and given devs their walking papers, Brown still believes Game Pass was a "good" concept, if clearly not one successful enough to avoid this outcome.

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"Built for that world doesn't mean built to require it": Unity reveal their next game engine while walking a careful line around generative AI

Unity have announced Unity 7, the latest incarnation of their game creation platform. In a pleasant shock for people who've been keeping up with Unity's doings these past couple of years, it doesn't appear to ruin anything. Aside from more routine promises of "speedier workflows" and tastier graffix, the company are promising a more "open" approach whereby collaborators using third-party tools can contribute more easily to Unity projects, without using the full Unity editor. This being the year 2026, there are of course some new features for genAI fans, though Unity appear interestingly guarded on this front, stressing that these can be ignored.

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Valve see the great RAM shortage "getting worse," just in case you were clinging to hopes of a cheaper Steam Machine

As Oisin reported over the weekend, Steam Machine engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais gave a big Valve thumbs-down to the practice of platform exclusives – a hot topic in the context of Xbox owners Microsoft retreating back into whatever kind of shrivelled, joyless husk Xbox is nowadays. The same interview, with Bloomberg scoopsmith Jason Schreier, also touched on the acutely PC-spoiling subject of RAMnarök and its subsequent, en-masse embiggening of hardware prices. Good news? No! Obviously it’s all terrible!

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This week in PC games: a Mass Effect-style RTS, a gamebook RPG for back-stabbing nobles, and a civilisation builder that offers to teach you kanji

Hello all! This week, there are a lot of new cat-themed games for some reason. One suspects that some dire cat anniversary is underway. Maybe week of 20th July 2026 marks 30 million years since the invention of cats? Or since cats invented us? In any case, there is already far too much cat discourse round these parts, so I've only allowed one of those sinister feline diversions into the Maw. Without further ado, the list.

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Game Of Thrones: War For Westeros delayed to 2027, as PlaySide take more time before playing their turn to ensure the RTS hits a "high level of quality"

Game Of Thrones: War For Westeros, the Age of Empiresy RTS teeming with Targaryens and laced with Lannisters, has been delayed to 2027. Developers PlaySide have decided that while development's "progressing well", they need a bit more time to nail their strategical rendition of the Seven Kingdoms.

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for realising that there's a car in Japan's Super GT racing series this year which is sponsored by horse girl game Umamusume Pretty Derby. Here it is. It's been racing in the GT300 category against, among other cars, a Mercedes sponsored by Hatsune Miku. I'm not sure I like them as much as my all-time favourite GT300 car, the Mooncraft Shiden (I mostly just dig its name), but hey, they exist. I often wonder if their small crews of drivers - Super GT has pilots swap over after a set time behind the wheel - gather at the back of the garages and think about some bloke in the UK writing for a games website. They probably don't.

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You're probably not going to see everything your friend does in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and its director is just fine with that

The Blood of Dawnwalker is, if done well, a game that might not land with everybody. For one, there's the lack of a traditional main story quest, and then there's the fact that you only have 30 in-game days and nights to beat it. Neither are necessarily massively novel, the brilliant Unsighted, for example, also forces a timer upon you, but this is still a notable AAA game taking a risk. This thing likely won't have been cheap to make, and crafting a scenario where not everyone is going to experience the entirety of what it offers, on purpose, is certainly a touch bold at the very least. So it's a good thing its director is happy with people missing things.

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