Gaming News Roundup: GTA 6 Launch Trailer, Big Walk Skips Xbox, Ubisoft's German Cuts & More (Oct 15, 2026)
Grand Theft Auto VI launch trailer (image via Polygon / Rockstar Games)
Rockstar just dropped the GTA 6 launch trailer out of nowhere — 90 seconds of Vice City, heists, a brand-new Justice single, and a very steamy shower scene — and it's officially our lead. GTA 6 also squeaks into Game Awards eligibility by a single day. Elsewhere on Thursday: House House says Big Walk is skipping Xbox over the BDS boycott, Ubisoft wants about 100 people to leave its German studios, Cyberpunk 2's director says the sequel is outgrowing his original pitch, 007 First Light finally has a Switch 2 date, and Monster Hunter Wilds gets a Switch 2 demo. Also on the list: Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave's Expansion Pass, Final Fantasy Resonance's first review, Steam Next Fest, a datamined Steam Frame OLED, the ROG Xbox Ally X20, Red Rooster from ex-Disco Elysium devs, Dean Hall's free Brutal framework, and today's Castlevania and Jackbox launches. Here's the Lanbrew gaming roundup for October 15, 2026.
Grand Theft Auto VI (image via Eurogamer / Rockstar Games)
GTA 6's launch trailer is here: Jason, Lucia, The Keys, and a brand-new Justice single
No countdown, no tease — Rockstar just put out the official launch trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI this morning, five weeks before the November 19 release on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It's a tight 90 seconds, captured entirely on PS5, and it opens on The Keys, the corner of Leonida earlier trailers barely touched. We get heists that go fully high-tech, a helicopter getaway that looks like it goes sideways, a police chase, and a reverse-charge prison phone call where Jason admits he "got in trouble in the army" and left on bad terms.
The bit everyone's clipping: a shower scene between Jason and Lucia that pretty much confirms the rumored sex scenes (and yes, Lucia is still wearing an ankle monitor). The music is "Flower in a Hurricane," a new Justice single featuring Tame Impala, SZA, and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. It'll be on Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album, and Rockstar confirms Justice also composed the game's original score. This is almost certainly the last big trailer before launch.
Read on GameSpot → · Read on VGC → · Read on Eurogamer → · Read on Polygon → · Read on Kotaku →
Grand Theft Auto VI (image via IGN / Rockstar Games)
GTA 6 makes The Game Awards cutoff by exactly one day
The Game Awards' FAQ puts this year's eligibility cutoff at Friday, November 20, 2026. GTA 6 launches November 19, so it's in the Game of the Year race with one day to spare. Some people online think Geoff Keighley moved the goalposts, but Push Square points out the cutoff was November 21 in 2025 and November 22 in 2024, so this is the usual window. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 holds the record with nine wins from last year's show. Good luck to everyone else.
One more bit of GTA 6 detail that came out this week: Jason Schreier says Rockstar built a scripted sweat system, so characters perspire based on how hard they're working, like dancing in a club or lifting at the gym. That's "why it took so long," in one detail.
Read on IGN → · Read on Push Square → · Read on IGN (sweat system) →
Big Walk (image via Kotaku / House House)
Big Walk won't come to Xbox while Microsoft is a BDS boycott target
House House, the studio behind Untitled Goose Game, has explained why its co-op hit Big Walk skipped Xbox when it launched in August: it's honoring the pro-Palestinian BDS boycott, which lists Microsoft as a priority target. "We would love for people to be able to play the game on Xbox, but not until Microsoft and/or Xbox have been removed as BDS boycott targets," the studio said, adding that it knows the call means some friend groups will miss out. "We are disappointed too."
Big Walk is one of the best-reviewed games of 2026 and a strong indie awards contender, which makes it the highest-profile game yet to skip Xbox specifically because of the boycott.
Read on Polygon → · Read on Kotaku → · Read on PC Gamer →
Anno 117: Pax Romana (image via Kotaku / Ubisoft)
Update: Ubisoft now wants ~100 people to leave its German studios, including Anno dev Mainz
One day after the RedLynx closure proposal and the Singapore cuts, Ubisoft confirmed to Game File that it has opened talks with the Works Council on a voluntary departure plan for Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Berlin, and Mainz. The target is about 100 of roughly 600 staff, or about one in six. According to Game File's sources, buyouts would be monthly salary × 1.5 × years served.
Mainz is the lead studio on Anno (most recently Anno 117: Pax Romana), and Düsseldorf and Berlin have worked on Rainbow Six Siege and Rayman Legends Retold. These are the same German studios that lost 185 jobs in 2025. Kotaku notes Ubisoft's share price has dropped back below €5.
Read on Kotaku → · Read on Rock Paper Shotgun →
Cyberpunk (image via GameSpot / CD Projekt Red)
Cyberpunk 2's director says the sequel is growing past his original vision
In a new blog post, Cyberpunk 2 game director Gabe Amatangelo says that as CD Projekt Red adds more people to the sequel, it's turning into something bigger than the idea he started with. "I had the idea of Cyberpunk 2 in the beginning, but it evolves as I involve more people," he wrote. He called the project "a reflection of the team's hearts and souls" and said its core theme is dehumanization.
There's still no release window. Cyberpunk is having a big month anyway: Edgerunners season 2 arrives October 20, and Paramount's live-action movie is in the works.
007 First Light (image via Eurogamer / IO Interactive)
007 First Light finally locks a Switch 2 date: March 18, 2027
After a string of delays, IO Interactive has given the Switch 2 version of its Bond game a firm date of March 18, 2027. That's about ten months after the May 27 launch on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. IOI says the extra time is going into "optimisation and performance." Pre-orders are open now, Deluxe Edition included.
The game has passed 4 million sales, and the Switch 2 version should come with the recent New Game Plus, harder difficulty, photo mode, and TacSim update.
Read on Eurogamer → · Read on VGC →
Monster Hunter Wilds (image via VGC / Capcom)
Monster Hunter Wilds' free Prologue Demo hits Switch 2 next week
Capcom's Switch 2 port of Monster Hunter Wilds is getting the same Prologue Demo PS5, Xbox, and Steam players already have. It arrives on the eShop next week, October 20 per VGC (Gematsu lists October 19, so it likely depends on your time zone), and digital pre-orders open the same day. You get full character creation and can play through Chapter 1-3, "To the Forest."
Your save carries over to the full game, which launches on Switch 2 on December 4.
Read on VGC → · Read on Eurogamer →
Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave (image via Polygon / Nintendo)
Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave gets a $34.99 Expansion Pass, and the cut lords are coming back
Nintendo has shadow-dropped a three-wave Expansion Pass for its Switch 2 tactics RPG: $34.99 on its own, or $104.99 bundled with the game. Wave 1 is out now with weapons modeled on the Heroes' Relics from Three Houses, alongside the version 1.1.0 patch. Wave 2 follows this holiday and Wave 3 comes in 2027.
The headline for fans: Intelligent Systems originally planned eight lords before cutting to four, and Wave 3 brings back chapters for the cut ones. There are also new outfits for the Flame Lords, and the Dagdan gods become playable in Part 3.
Read on Polygon → · Read on Nintendo Life →
Final Fantasy Resonance (image via Push Square / Square Enix)
Final Fantasy Resonance's first review is in: Famitsu gives it 36/40
A week before its October 22 launch, Square Enix's HD-2D throwback got straight 9s from Famitsu's review panel, for a 36/40 total. Famitsu puts the main story at about 20–30 hours, and around 70 hours if you want 100% completion.
That's a fairly short main campaign with a lot of optional content after it, which should suit a busy November. We'll watch for the English-language reviews.
Read on Push Square → · Read on Nintendo Life →
Steam (image via Polygon / Valve)
Steam Next Fest returns October 19–26
Free demo week is back on Monday. The October Steam Next Fest runs October 19–26, the third one this year after February and June, and it wraps up just before November's GTA-sized release crunch.
Polygon's early picks: Emberville (its next big Stardew-like hope), the Russian-roulette drinking game Drunken Goddess Reflux (500K+ wishlists already), and the co-op body-hiding game We Are So Cooked.
Steam Frame (image via Rock Paper Shotgun / Valve)
A Steam Frame OLED shows up in Valve's source code (don't cancel your reservation)
SteamFrameHub found "deckard-oled" and "deckard-plano" branches in the Steam Frame source code (Deckard is the Frame's codename). The references point to MicroOLED panels at 3,552×3,840 and 90Hz, which happen to match Samsung's Galaxy VR, plus a foveated-rendering trick to keep standalone performance manageable.
Both PC Gamer and RPS say to keep expectations low. It could just be Valve experimenting. And an OLED model wouldn't solve the Frame's real problems right now, which are a RAM-shortage price hike and reservation queues that already stretch into 2027.
Read on PC Gamer → · Read on Rock Paper Shotgun →
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 (image via PC Gamer / Future)
ROG Xbox Ally X20 review: the best Ally yet, with a $300 premium
Asus's 20th-anniversary Xbox Ally adds a bigger, brighter OLED screen with 0.2 ms response time, TMR sticks, refined triggers, and new cooling. Inside it's the same Ryzen Z2 Extreme, 24GB LPDDR5X, and 1TB SSD as the regular Ally X, so performance is identical.
PC Gamer scored it 80 and calls it the best ROG Ally you can buy, but says that $300 over the standard Ally X is a lot for a familiar package, especially in the UK.
Red Rooster (image via Eurogamer / Summer Eternal)
Ex-Disco Elysium devs reveal Red Rooster, an "incendiary, physics-driven RPG"
Summer Eternal is the ZA/UM splinter studio with Disco Elysium writer Argo Tuulik and narrator Lenval Brown, and it has revealed its debut. You play Redrick Roost, a white-collar inmate turned arson investigator, partnered with opiate-dependent mathematician Dr. Astrid Albers and Rico, a nunchaku-wielding bus driver. Yes, really.
It moves away from Disco's visual-novel style toward 3D physics immersive sim, citing Larian's Divinity games and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic as influences. The studio also has an unusual non-profit structure meant to give players and developers a voice.
Read on PC Gamer → · Read on Eurogamer →
Dean Hall (image via Eurogamer / RocketWerkz)
DayZ creator Dean Hall: "Our industry is rotting from its core", so he's giving away his engine framework
In a long Reddit post, Dean Hall (DayZ, Icarus) said big-company "greed" and a race to the bottom have left developers with too little control over their own tools, and he took aim at Epic's Unreal and Unity. His answer is Brutal, the RocketWerkz framework behind Kitten Space Agency (and used by RimWorld dev Ludeon for its new engine). It's now public with source code and free for commercial use, with attribution and no royalties.
"You are only as independent as your tools are," Hall wrote. "This is how we fight back." He's also upfront that Brutal isn't meant to be the tool for everyone.
Castlevania: Belmont's Curse (image via Eurogamer / Konami)
Out today: Castlevania: Belmont's Curse and The Jackbox Party Pack 12
Evil Empire's Castlevania: Belmont's Curse is out today. Eurogamer's launch-day review joins the pile with a split take: "inspired by great ideas, but doomed by questionable execution." It loves the mirrors, the Notre-Dame music puzzle, and the secrets, but finds Rose's 8-direction movement stiff next to modern Metroidvanias. Our full Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Review Roundup has the scores.
Also out today: The Jackbox Party Pack 12, with five new party games for 2–8 players on PC (Steam and Epic), PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch.
Read on Eurogamer → · Read on Jackbox Games →
Roundup compiled Oct 15, 2026 (America/Chicago). Reporting credit to the linked sources; images via the linked outlets and publishers.
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