Gaming News Roundup: GTA 6 “Never Completely Settled,” Ocarina's Dark Link, a Cancelled China Assassin's Creed & More (Oct 16, 2026)
Grand Theft Auto VI (image via GamesRadar+ / Rockstar Games)
Five weeks out, Rockstar says GTA 6 still isn't locked down: its tech director says the team has changed things "even within the last few months," and a giant GTA 6 banner in Paris quietly lost its guns. That's our lead. Also on Friday: Nintendo's new Ocarina of Time TV spots give us our first look at Dark Link, footage of a cancelled Assassin's Creed set in ancient China has leaked, Activision's QA union has authorized a strike as Modern Warfare 4's campaign early access begins, and digital game ownership is back in the spotlight with a new bill in Congress and fresh comments from Ken Kutaragi. Plus: Battlefield 6 rolls back its XP cut, the Street Fighter movie gets rough reviews, Game Freak winds down Beast of Reincarnation updates, CD Projekt says the Cyberpunk movie will tell its own story, decomp.dev shuts down over AI spam, Nintendo raises Switch repair prices in Japan, Edge of Memories dodges GTA 6, Enshrouded hits 1.0, and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 is out. Here's the Lanbrew gaming roundup for October 16, 2026.
GTA 6 banner in Paris (image via Kotaku)
GTA 6 is "never completely settled," Rockstar says, and a Paris billboard quietly drops the guns
GTA 6 comes out on November 19, but Rockstar says it's still being worked on. In a YouTube video that builds on his recent Bloomberg reporting, Jason Schreier quotes Rockstar director of technology Phil Hooker: "The game is never completely settled. We never have an exact blueprint. Even within the last few months, we've changed things." Schreier also says leadership told him there was no single big reason behind the delays. The game just wasn't coming together yet. Late changes like this are normal for a game this size, and it's a good bet there will be a day-one patch.
Meanwhile, Rockstar's marketing push has reached Paris. Fans tracking a huge GTA 6 cover-art banner on one of the Les Mercuriales towers noticed two guns are missing: Lucia's pistol (and her hand) and an assault rifle in another panel. Murals in the US, including the one in New York, kept the weapons. Nobody has said whether the building owner or a local ad rule asked for the change.
Read on GamesRadar+ → · Read on Kotaku →
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (image via IGN / Nintendo)
New Ocarina of Time remake ads give us our first look at Dark Link
Nintendo Japan has put out two short TV spots for the Switch 2 Ocarina of Time remake, and one of them shows the Water Temple fight with Dark Link. Link's shadow double seeps out of his sword and stares him down. The ads also show Ganondorf at his organ, Link pulling the Master Sword, and some late-game moments, so skip them if you've somehow never played the original.
There's preorder news too. French retailer Micromania is handing out a replica N64-style PAL box (with an insert that holds the Switch 2 cartridge) at its midnight openings on November 4–5, while supplies last. EB Games Canada already has an N64-style slipcover offer. The remake launches November 5.
Read on IGN → · Read on Nintendo Life →
Assassin's Creed Jade (image via VGC / Ubisoft)
Leaked footage shows "Assassin's Creed Destiny," a cancelled AC game set in ancient China
MP1st found prototype footage in developer portfolios that appears to show Assassin's Creed Destiny, a cancelled console and PC game set during China's Qin Dynasty in 206 BCE. It was reportedly led by Tencent's TiMi Studio Group, the team also making the mobile game Assassin's Creed Jade. The clips show a female assassin fighting her way into a palace under siege by the warlord Xiang Yu to reach a mysterious artifact. There's a boss fight with Xiang Yu, stealth kills, a leap of faith, and a spinning umbrella-like weapon.
Destiny was likely dropped after Tencent moved away from Western franchises in 2024. Jade is still in development, and Ubisoft says it will include co-op.
Read on VGC → · Read on Rock Paper Shotgun →
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 (image via Kotaku / Activision)
Activision's QA union authorizes a strike as Modern Warfare 4 arrives
Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA represents nearly 600 testers, many in Minnesota, including people working on Modern Warfare 4. The union formed in March 2024 and still doesn't have a first contract, and members have now voted to authorize a strike. The union says talks have stalled on wages, accommodations, AI guardrails, and the use of contractors. An authorization doesn't mean a strike will happen, but the union can now call one at any time.
Activision says it has been bargaining in good faith, has "made meaningful progress," and has offered to meet again on October 21 and 22. The vote comes as Modern Warfare 4's campaign early access starts and the full launch is a week away.
Read on Kotaku → · Read on Rock Paper Shotgun →
Ken Kutaragi (image via VGC)
Digital ownership in the spotlight: a new bill in Congress, and Ken Kutaragi weighs in
U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York has introduced the Power To The Players Act. The bill aims to treat digital game purchases as owned rather than licensed, so players can keep, play, and transfer them, and it would require offline modes before an online game is shut down. "A game that can be taken away the moment a company pulls the plug is not a purchase. It is a rental disguised as a sale," Torres said. His example was NBA 2K25 losing its single-player modes when its servers go offline. PC Gamer notes it isn't yet clear how the bill would be enforced.
Also this week, "Father of PlayStation" Ken Kutaragi talked to VGC about Sony ending physical disc production. He said he understands why fans see discs as a symbol of owning their games and admitted the move has "caused some friction with game enthusiasts." He still said continuing discs isn't "economically reasonable" and called the resistance largely "a mentality issue."
Read on IGN → · Read on PC Gamer → · Read on VGC →
Battlefield 6 Season 5 (image via Eurogamer / EA)
Battlefield 6 reverses its surprise Season 5 XP cut, calling it "unintended"
After Season 5 launched, Battlefield 6 players found they were earning much less XP, capped at roughly 300 XP per minute in some tests. There was no patch note about it. Battlefield Studios now says "backend configuration changes" caused the drop by accident, and it has rolled them back and is watching the numbers.
Players were suspicious for a reason: the cut showed up alongside the new $30 Ultimate Shortcut Kit, which unlocks every class, 28 weapons, and eight vehicles at once. The season has also brought back an old exploit and fresh accusations of AI-made content, like the skin with a patch that reads "Secuty."
Street Fighter (image via Kotaku / Paramount)
The Street Fighter movie opens today, and critics mostly aren't fans
Kitao Sakurai's live-action Street Fighter is in theaters now, and its reviews put it around 41% on Rotten Tomatoes, per Kotaku. The cast includes Noah Centineo as Ken, Andrew Koji as Ryu, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Cody Rhodes as Guile, 50 Cent as Balrog, and David Dastmalchian as M. Bison. The common complaint is too many characters for too thin a story, plus jokes that don't land.
Some critics are kinder. IGN says the fights that do land "hit hard," and Collider liked the action and the animated sequences. PC Gamer's summary: not a disaster, but it misses more than it hits.
Read on Kotaku → · Read on PC Gamer → · Read on IGN →
Beast of Reincarnation (image via GamesRadar+ / Game Freak)
Game Freak is wrapping up major updates for Beast of Reincarnation after two months
Game Freak says the frequent post-launch updates for its action RPG end with the next patch, planned for around October 19. After that, it will keep taking feedback and support tickets but won't keep up the same pace of major patches.
Beast of Reincarnation launched in August to "Mixed" reviews, and its director has already apologized publicly that it didn't deliver a "sufficiently enjoyable experience." Two months is a short support window, even for a studio best known for Pokémon.
Read on GamesRadar+ → · Read on Push Square →
Cyberpunk 2077 (image via IGN / CD Projekt Red)
Update: CD Projekt says the Cyberpunk movie won't retell the game's story
What's new: CD Projekt has now commented on the live-action Cyberpunk film for the first time. "We definitely don't want to make a film adaptation of the game," co-CEO Michał Nowakowski told PAP Biznes. "We want to tell a story in the world of Cyberpunk, but it won't be a one-to-one translation." So don't expect a movie version of V and Johnny Silverhand.
The film is with Paramount (now under Skydance), and Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing. Edgerunners season 2 arrives October 20.
Read on IGN → · Read on GamesRadar+ →
Image via GamesRadar+
decomp.dev shuts down, saying AI spam has "broken" the decompilation community
Luke "encounter" Street is closing decomp.dev, a site that tracked the progress of fan decompilation projects for dozens of classic games. He acknowledges that AI, used with care and human review, can speed decompilation up a lot. His problem is "bad actors": people who fork other projects to "finish" them with AI against the original team's wishes, or rush out half-working ports built on other people's work.
"The community aspect of decompilation has been broken," Street wrote. It's another flashpoint in the AI-port fights that have been running through game preservation circles for weeks.
Nintendo Switch 2 (image via Nintendo Life / Nintendo)
Nintendo is raising Switch and Switch 2 repair prices in Japan
From November 16, Nintendo Japan will charge more for hardware repairs on both Switch consoles. A Switch 2 CPU board repair goes from 27,500 yen to 37,400 yen, and the same repair on the original Switch goes from 16,500 yen to 26,400 yen. LCD and other component repairs are going up too, but controller and accessory repairs aren't changing.
This follows the console price increases earlier in 2026. Nintendo hasn't announced repair price changes anywhere else yet.
Edge of Memories (image via Push Square / Nacon)
Edge of Memories moves out of GTA 6's way to December 3
Midgar Studio's JRPG-inspired Edge of Memories was due November 5, which is also Ocarina of Time's release date, two weeks before GTA 6. Publisher Nacon has moved it to December 3 for a "quieter" window. Character art is by Raita Kazama (Xenoblade Chronicles X) and the writing is by Sawako Natori (NieR), and a new trailer shows off the continent of Avaris.
It's probably not the last game to leave November this year.
Enshrouded (image via Rock Paper Shotgun / Keen Games)
Enshrouded hits 1.0 after almost three years in early access
Keen Games' co-op survival game is out of early access. The map of Emberval is now finished, the main story wraps up ("for now," with more promised), the level cap rises to 50 with gear up to 55, and there's a long list of other changes.
If you checked it out early and moved on, this is a good time to go back.
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 (image via Kotaku / Auroch Digital)
Out now: Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2
Auroch Digital's pixelated boomer-shooter sequel is out, and you can now play as returning Space Marine Malum Caedo or new Battle Sister Nyla Veyrath. Kotaku calls it "basically a perfect sequel," bigger and better than the original in every way, and IGN gave it an 8/10.
Critics are positive overall, with a Metascore around 81 on PC. Our Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 Review Roundup has the scores.
Read on Kotaku → · Read on IGN →
Roundup compiled Oct 16, 2026 (America/Chicago). Reporting credit to the linked sources; images via the linked outlets and publishers.
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