BioWare Deserved Better

Oof. I expected this day to come but the news has left me winded nonetheless; BioWare, the creator of so many beloved role-playing series and games - Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - has been closed. EA decided it had no place for it under its new Saudi and private investment ownership. So Mass Effect 5 has been canned, and a studio that helped shape an industry and popularise role-playing games over the course of 31 years is no more. But it's a shock rather than a surprise. BioWare's days were numbered after the fizzle of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, although really, the studio was rocked long before then. The twin blows of Mass Effect: Andromeda in 2017 and Anthem in 2019 left it reeling, and even had Anthem been a success, BioWare would be irrevocably changed by it. We know all this. We've pored over BioWare's many shifts and misfires countless times over the years. Why? Because of how much BioWare has come to mean to so many of us.

Michael McWhertor is a New York-based journalist and editor with more than 20 years of experience covering games, industry events, technology, movies, and TV. Valve employee reignites Half-Life 3 rumors by dropping 'HLX' codename

Clayface has more Joker Easter eggs than it knows what to do with Back in the summer of 2025, Clayface was filming in Liverpool. Photos from the set revealed a reference to another, far more famous Batman villain. One featured a wall with graffiti on it, and among the different tags was one that read “The Jokers.” That led to some speculation about Joker’s presence in the DC Universe’s Gotham.

It seems that Sony is exiting the UHD Blu-ray market, as it reportedly has quietly discontinued its one remaining 4K UHD player. It’s part of a larger change at Sony that has seen the electronics and entertainment giant investing less and less in hardware and physical media over the last year or so. And it has fans of physical media nervous. As first spotted by FlatpanelsHD, the Japanese blog and electronics reseller Kunkoku claimed that sales for the UBP-X700/K are officially ending on October 22 in Japan. This was the last remaining UHD player manufactured and sold by Sony in Japan. This means that, at least locally, the only new UHD player from the company that will be available is the PlayStation 5. The last major electronics company still making UHD players is now Panasonic. Sony is also, for now at least, still making one DVD player model and one Blu-ray player model. 'Sony reportedly exits UHD Blu-ray player market' https://t.co/WSUgXtk6RJ 'Sony Japan has discontinued its last remaining UHD Blu-ray player, UBP-X700/K, seemingly marking the company's exit. The news comes via Japanese blog Kunkoku, which happens to also be a Sony retailer.…

Virtue and a Sledgehammer looks like a satisfying game. There is perhaps no more wonderfully chunky and impact frame friendly a weapon than the reliable sledgehammer, and when put into a game with a description like, "Most people resort to therapy. But you chose the brave option. A sledgehammer," then of course I have to give it a look. Unfortunately, I still have to wait a week to check out the full thing. Fortunately, a prologue to the game just dropped for free that offers a tantalising, and quite different, experience. Where Virtue and a Sledgehammer is something of an action game, Virtue: Prologue (note the lack of sledgehammer) goes all in on just vibes as a visual novel. It's described thusly: "Virtue: Prologue is an experimental visual novella and companion piece to the violent catharsis of Virtue and a Sledgehammer. Navigate the complex feelings of your first love: a hot, rich boy from Barcelona. Sneak into the graveyard at night with your sister, or climb a tree for high-stakes conversations. "

Updated: Oct 22, 2026 8:20pm UTCClive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival has been a smash hit, says Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch in a post on LinkedIn, and it’s the first of a “series” of releases from the studio that will improve how it makes games in the future. Hellraiser: Revival has proven to be a smashing success, in spite of — or, perhaps because of — its super-spicy content. The game doesn’t skirt around the sex, blood, and gore that defined the source material, causing some content creators to get permanently banned despite taking pains to censor their playthroughs. In an October 19 LinkedIn post, Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch praised the Hellraiser development team, revealing the title has been performing “extremely well on PC and console” since its October 8 release. He also speculated that AAA titles with massive budgets and lengthy development timelines won’t be sustainable in the industry for much longer (if, indeed, they are right now), instead positing that AA games based on established IPs with smaller budgets are likely a more realistic path forward.