This gaming recap covers a packed week of news that is equal parts painful and exciting. Xbox breaks its silence to admit a deeper crisis than anyone expected, Ubisoft shuts down two more studios, and Diablo 4 Season 14 raises more doubts than hopes after its test server. Meanwhile, Path of Exile 2 is hiding secrets nobody saw coming, and Grim Dawn is preparing its swan song.
Thankfully, the not-E3 reminded us why we love this hobby. Guild Wars 3 is official, Final Fantasy is stacking announcements, and Fable gets a brand-new trailer. Here is the complete gaming recap for the week, topic by topic.
Diablo 4: Season 14 Worries Players After the Test Server
Le Season 14 test server just closed its doors, and the verdict is mixed. Few testers seem enthused, mainly due to changes made to unique and mythic items that are drawing the most criticism. The release is set for June 30, barring a last-minute delay. Before panicking, it is worth remembering that the Season 11 test server also got a bad reception, before the devs listened to feedback and delivered one of the best seasons in the game’s history. Better to wait for the official dev stream presentation before crossing S14 off your calendar.
What is frustrating is that Season 13 was excellent. At some point, the developers need to recognize what works and leave it alone. Adding content, sure. Breaking what works, no. And yet Season 14 appears to double down on unpopular changes around unique items. The likely explanation: it was already well into development before Lord of Hatred launched, which means before community feedback on items could be incorporated.
Other observations from the test server: the invulnerability bubble has disappeared at the end of Pits, which is likely a bug. The irony is that one of the biggest complaints from Season 13 was deaths caused by monster effects that persist after the monster dies. The bubble elsewhere in the game was actually a solution many players had asked for. On the wish list for S14, two items keep coming up: a proper gem farming system (through Infernal Hordes rather than looping the same dungeon) and merging the salvage buttons for charms and seals.
On the recent Goblin event, many players were left underwhelmed. An event focused on goblins should logically mean running into them all over the map, which was not really the case. On the campaign side, the request to play it on a higher difficulty, or to skip it after a first completion, keeps coming up. Blizzard continues to tease that the Diablo 30th anniversary celebrations are not over, with something announced for BlizzCon.
Path of Exile 2 Hides Fascinating Secret Mechanics
PoE2 keeps on surprising, and not only thanks to the quality of its expansion. Beneath the surface lie mechanics that nobody suspected existed, until players discovered them the hard way.
The most striking: a secret location called the site of the chosen, nestled deep inside a fortress. The first player in a league to reach it is offered a brutal choice: permanently sacrifice their level 100 character. In return, every player in the league gains a passive point, and the character is immortalized as the martyr of the first edict.
Ka was the first to take the plunge in standard solo self-found. Raiken did it in hardcore solo self-found, Resurrect God in softcore trade. Each league can have its own martyr. It is a far more powerful way to close out a level 100 race, a voluntary sacrifice that marks the entire community, especially since nobody knew this mechanic existed before it was discovered.
Two other secrets were also uncovered. The archon of Chayula is an ascendancy skill that only unlocks through a Breach quest, before appearing in the Monk’s acolyte of Chayula tree. The unique ring the Taming is obtained by farming three separate rings, Barack’s Grip, Barack’s Pass and Barack’s Respite, then combining them on a hidden altar near the start of the azurine chains. This kind of secret adds genuine depth to the game, that rare feeling of discovering something the game was keeping to itself.
Not everything is rosy, however. The Temple remains a source of friction: it enforces a meta that optimizes fun outside of the game itself, forcing developers to constantly monitor and nerf strategies that spiral out of control. Many are calling for it to be temporarily removed pending a full rework. The concept of building your own dungeon is solid on paper, but route optimization weighs heavily on the top build meta and on the economy.
A patch also arrived recently. Delirium fog damage has been cut in half, a temporary measure while a deeper rework is in progress. Wisps now join the nearest target and their speed can be boosted through Atlas passives. Jamanra has been nerfed, as has a monster responsible for many deaths. Remnant encounters have been rebalanced to make endgame more rewarding.
On the PoE1 side, the 3.29 expansion is announced for July 24, with a live reveal on the 16th. One more thing to bookmark in this gaming recap for fans of the genre.
Grim Dawn: Final Expansion and Xbox Version in the Works
Bad timing for fans: Grim Dawn’s final expansion drops on July 24, the exact same day as the big PoE1 reveal. You will have to pick a side that evening.
Additionally, the developers confirm that an Xbox version of Fangs of Asterkein is in development, with no release date announced yet. Patch 1.3 will arrive simultaneously on PC and Xbox, whatever date is eventually chosen for the console version.
Xbox Openly Admits Major Problems
Asha Sharma, the new head of Xbox, marked her first 100 days in charge with a brutally frank assessment. In an internal memo and at the Bloomberg Tech Conference, she stated it plainly: Xbox is failing, the company has overextended itself, and that cannot continue.
The numbers are painful. Xbox revenues have dropped by nearly half a billion dollars over five years, despite more than 20 billion invested in the brand, not counting the Activision Blizzard acquisition. Sharma acknowledges it bluntly: the business needs to be reset and priorities overhauled from the ground up.
Hardware is becoming increasingly expensive to produce. Storage costs have quadrupled, and Xbox would need a new business model to stay viable. Analysts are raising the possibility of third-party manufacturers building Xbox hardware in the future, a way to outsource costs without abandoning the brand.
On the human side, the situation is concerning. A major wave of layoffs is anticipated next month, with reports mentioning around a thousand employees affected and studio closures to follow. This would be the fourth consecutive year of significant cuts at Xbox. The smaller studios acquired at high cost during the Phil Spencer era are particularly exposed: Microsoft would now only produce a handful of AAA titles in-house and hand off smaller projects to third parties.
Xbox is also reintroducing platform exclusives, but with a flexible definition. When they say « exclusive », they mean absent from PlayStation. Games remain available on PC. The logic is to protect the Microsoft ecosystem without closing the door on the largest user base.
Game Pass is also in the crosshairs. Following the price cuts that made the service even less profitable, analysts are anticipating an ad-supported tier. It is a trend seen across streaming services, and one that seems inevitable to balance the books.
On the hardware side, a new console is still planned for 2027. Sharma specified it would cost under 1000 dollars. The long-term pivot targets PC, mobile and cloud, however, which raises doubts about the place of the physical console in the future strategy.
One last detail worth noting: before taking over Xbox, Asha Sharma led Microsoft’s central AI program. And it is precisely AI that is driving hardware costs up, with Microsoft planning to pour more than 100 billion dollars into it in 2026. She therefore knows better than anyone the reasons behind the problem she is supposed to solve.
Ubisoft Closes Two Studios and Cuts Its Workforce
A bad week for Ubisoft. The company announces the closure of two studios: Ubisoft Winnipeg, founded in 2019, and Ubisoft Belgrade, opened in 2016. The first had specialized in the in-house Anvil and Snowdrop engines, and was recently working on a Rainbow Six mobile title, following the disastrous failure of free-to-play FPS XDefiant. The second was a support studio deeply embedded in major productions: Ghost Recon Wildlands, The Crew 2, Skull and Bones, Assassin’s Creed Shadows and the Black Flag remake are among the projects it contributed to.
In total, around 380 employees would be affected by these closures. A third studio, Ubisoft Barcelona, escapes closure but is not spared: it will be restructured to focus exclusively on the Rainbow Six franchise, with a possible 61 job cuts.
The list of industry layoffs keeps growing, and Ubisoft is contributing heavily this year. It is one of the most concerning topics in our gaming recap this week: the closed studios leave behind experienced teams whose futures remain uncertain.
Not-E3: Guild Wars 3, Final Fantasy 7 and Fable on the Lineup
Good news to wrap things up: the not-E3 delivered its share of announcements, and the biggest is Guild Wars 3. The MMO genre had seemed doomed to stagnate for years, unable to attract new titles that could go the distance. Guild Wars 3 could change that. No firm release date, but a beta is planned as early as fall 2027, on PC and PS5.
The developers describe it as a modern evolution of the MMO, playable solo or in a group with no obligation to dive into large raids. It is a prequel set a thousand years before the first Guild Wars, with the deep customization and skill creation that define the series. Combat rewards positioning and relies on movement. Like the two previous games: no subscription, no battle pass.
On the Final Fantasy front, the summer has been busy. The Final Fantasy 7 Revelation trailer dropped: the final chapter of the remake project, set for spring 2027 on all platforms, with a proper jobs system this time. Final Fantasy Resonance, in HD-2D, releases on October 22, 2026. All signs point to it being a remaster of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, the mobile game, stripped of its aggressive monetization. Two announcements, two very different directions for the franchise.
Capcom keeps up its momentum with Resident Evil Code Veronica, a remake of the 2000 original whose worldwide trailer confirms a 2027 release. Capcom’s remake series remains one of the strongest in the industry right now.
Fable showed up in a new trailer, darker and more serious than what we had seen before, but with a vibrant world that keeps its charm. Mark your calendar for February 23, 2027.
A few other announcements worth noting:
- Stellar Blade: Blood Rain introduces a new martial artist heroine, with an atmosphere that recalls Ghost in the Shell.
- Alien Isolation 2 got its worldwide trailer reveal, twelve years after the original.
- The Dragon’s Dogma 2 expansion is called Dark Arisen, a direct nod to the first game’s expansion.
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