Epic Games reportedly pivoting to "AI first" game development model

Microsoft used its Fabric + SQL European Community Conference in Barcelona today to unveil a new vision for its customers’ agentic future. Before a crowd of more than 5,000 people from 71 countries at the Barcelona International Convention Centre (CCIB), the company announced a comprehensive set of new features across Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, OneLake, and Azure SQL. The theme: Microsoft wants data, its business meaning, and artificial intelligence to evolve toward a unified platform.

Paulo Kawanishi is a Brazilian freelance writer and contributor on Polygon. He's been writings guides, features, and reviews since 2022 for publications like Eurogamer, Game Informer, Nintendo Life, PCGamesN, and Into the Spine. He's part of the guides team at Polygon, working on projects that cover from long explaners to quick tips on how to complete specific tasks in games. In addition, he also writes features, analysis, and reviews especially about JRPGs and games like Path of Exile 2. He holds a master's degree and a Ph. D. in Applied Linguistics. The symbol of older, more exciting times

Willa Rowe is a contributing writer at Polygon, covering games and entertainment. She is a New York-based journalist and critic whose work has been featured in Kotaku, Digital Trends, the A. V. Club, GamesRadar+, and more. She also co-hosts the Girl Mode podcast. GRRM's prequel to the HBO series will continue

Sometimes, the people who make movies don’t always get the credit they deserve. Carrie Fisher served as an uncredited script doctor on the 1998 Adam Sandler movie The Wedding Singer, and Quentin Tarantino did an uncredited rewrite of the Saturday Night Live sketch-turned-movie It’s Pat. This is more common with writers than directors, but it can happen to directors, too. For example, Richard Donner, who helmed the 1979 masterpiece Superman, shot a good deal of the sequel Superman II, but was fired partway through the movie. Richard Lester, who replaced him, received full credit. And while all the details about it still aren’t really known, there’s a certain 1982 horror film that many speculate was directed by someone other than the guy in the credits. Poltergeist, which is currently available to stream on HBO Max, follows an ordinary suburban family who begin to experience strange things in their home. Furniture and toys move on their own, a glass of milk shatters out of nowhere, and the youngest child in the family, five-year-old Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke), begins to communicate with beings through the television.

The developer behind Russian roulette anime game Drunken Goddess Reflux has canceled its plans for a public Steam demo, citing concerns over potential AI copycats. Alliance Arts and Who You's path to launch has seemingly been mostly bump-free since it was announced back in April. Featuring ghostly pinks and purples and a gameplay premise described as "shot glass Russian roulette with a demon who loves you enough to kill you," the recent reveal that it would launch this December only made its future feel clearer. Part of that release date announcement included the promise that a demo would launch October 19, but as explained in an update post on Steam, those plans have changed. What was originally intended to be a public release for the Drunken Goddess Reflux demo has now been canceled in favor of a "closed play session for a limited number of participants. " It's a last-minute move Alliance Arts apologized for, but its concerns related to rapidly advancing AI technology were simply too great to ignore.