Gaming News Roundup: Steam's 43.5M Record, GTA 6 Amazon Sellout, Aion 2 Backlash & More (Oct 12, 2026)

Steam (image via Eurogamer / Valve)

Steam just had its busiest moment ever: over 43.5 million people were logged in at the same time on Sunday, and a record 14.5 million of them were actually playing. GTA 6's code-in-a-box version somehow sold out on Amazon even though there's no disc inside, Aion 2 is pulling huge numbers while players tear into its monetization, and ConcernedApe says Haunted Chocolatier is closer to an action RPG than a farming sim. Also on Monday's list: the first Valor Mortis reviews, Final Fantasy VII Revelation's Switch 2 plans, a Dragon Quest creator's 30-minute AI game, a Sonic Racing DLC fight, and a $5 Call of Duty lookalike that's blowing up. Here's the Lanbrew gaming roundup for October 12, 2026.

Steam (image via Kotaku / Valve)

Steam breaks its all-time record with 43.5 million people online at once

Valve's platform hit 43,505,724 concurrent users on Sunday, October 11, per SteamDB. That's the most in Steam's 23-year history, and it beats the 42,686,616 record from March. The in-game number set a record too: about 14.5 million people were actually playing something, not just sitting logged in. (Yes, PCs left on overnight count toward the bigger number.)

There wasn't one giant spike behind it. Eurogamer points to Aion 2's big launch and Deadlock's jump after its latest update, and GamesRadar+ adds live-service early access games like Wardogs. Gears of War: E-Day's Steam sales helped too. The record came right after the Steam Autumn Sale ended, not during it, and analysts think Valve's on track for around $20 billion this year.

Read on Eurogamer → · Kotaku → · GamesRadar+ →

Grand Theft Auto VI (image via VICE / Rockstar Games)

GTA 6 is digital-only, and it still sold out on Amazon

Amazon US now lists both the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of GTA 6 as "currently unavailable," with the usual "we don't know when or if this item will be back in stock" note. These aren't discs. They're code-in-a-box editions, basically a case with a download code inside, but there are only so many of those boxes, and plenty of people still want something to put on the shelf (or a way to spend an Amazon gift card).

Reddit had fun with it ("Sorry, our digital stock ran out of digital codes"), but it's a real problem if you wanted the box. Rockstar says boxed copies arrive November 12 so you can preload, and the game's playable November 19. You can still pre-order digitally on PlayStation Store and the Microsoft Store, which obviously can't run out.

Read on VICE → · GamingBible →

Aion 2 (image via Steam / NCSoft)

Aion 2 is pulling 300K+ players a day, but its Steam reviews are stuck at Mixed

NCSoft's free-to-play MMO peaked at 397,905 concurrent players on its October 5 launch day, per SteamDB, and it's stayed above 300,000 every day since. It was sitting at about 305,000 this morning. It's one of the games Eurogamer credits for Steam's new record.

The reviews are another story. Aion 2 is at Mixed on Steam, with roughly 59% of over 26,000 reviews positive, and most complaints are about monetization, not the game itself. Players say it time-gates too much content for people who don't pay. One brutal review calls it "a cash grab wearing the skin of something you used to love."

Read on Game Rant → · Steam →

Haunted Chocolatier (image via IGN / ConcernedApe)

ConcernedApe says Haunted Chocolatier is "more of an action RPG" than Stardew

In a new GQ interview, Eric Barone gave the clearest description yet of his Stardew Valley follow-up. "It is still what I call a town game," he said, "but it's more of an action RPG - the main focus is more about adventuring, finding equipment and getting more powerful. There are monsters, there are boss fights." His pitch: "It's for the people in Stardew Valley that go into the mines. That's what I do, honestly."

He also called it more "metaphysical" than Stardew, and said "no one's playing the game until I'm ready to show it." So there's still no release date. He's said before that it'll come out "when it's done," and that its world is bigger than Stardew's.

Read on Eurogamer → · IGN → · GamesRadar+ → · GameSpot →

Valor Mortis (image via Eurogamer / One More Level)

Valor Mortis reviews are in ahead of tomorrow's launch

The first-person Soulslike from Ghostrunner studio One More Level is getting mostly good reviews. Eurogamer gave it 4/5 and called it "a stellar Soulslike, but not as you know it," Push Square went with 8/10, and Rock Paper Shotgun says it's "one of the freshest Soulslikes in years." GamesRadar+ was cooler at 3/5: it liked the combat but hated the scripted parkour bits (and yes, there's a sewer level).

You play William, a soldier in Napoleon's Grande Armée who wakes up in a pile of corpses in an alternate history where Napoleon won at Waterloo with help from a plague that brings the dead back. Vincent Cassel voices Napoleon. It launches October 13 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and Pure Xbox says it's one of this week's Game Pass additions.

Read on Eurogamer → · Rock Paper Shotgun → · Push Square → · GamesRadar+ →

Final Fantasy VII Revelation (image via Wccftech / Square Enix)

Final Fantasy VII Revelation wants to look even better on Switch 2 than Rebirth did

Director Naoki Hamaguchi told Nintendo Everything that the team isn't letting Switch 2 hold the final game back, even though Revelation is launching on every platform at once. "The idea is to take the graphics quality and the presentation even higher than it was on Rebirth," he said, and the experience from porting Rebirth should help them "bridge that gap" on lower-spec hardware.

He was careful not to overpromise. "It's not that everything is much higher on Switch 2, just because we pushed it that far," he said, but better optimization "should all come out as a really good result in the end." Final Fantasy VII Revelation is due April 8, 2027.

Read on Nintendo Everything → · Wccftech →

Yuji Horii (image via VGC)

Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii made a game with AI in "about 30 minutes"

Horii, 72, showed off Interrogation Room Komiya on X, a little text game where you pick prompts to get a suspect to confess. He compared it to making The Portopia Serial Murder Case by himself decades ago: "And now, by using AI, even if I can't draw pictures or program, I can just give instructions to the AI and create a decent game all by myself. It's truly astonishing." His tip: "don't press the boost button."

It's not a surprise from him. Last year at G-Star he talked up AI-powered mystery games where you find the culprit by chatting, and said yes when asked if he'd use AI in future games. Not everyone's thrilled. GamesRadar+ ran its story under a headline calling it "AI slop."

Read on VGC → · Nintendo Life → · GamesRadar+ →

Sonic Racing CrossWorlds (image via VGC / Sega)

Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Deluxe owners say Year 2 should be free, and they have a tweet to prove it

Year 2 of Sonic Racing CrossWorlds starts November 3, and its six crossover packs cost extra or come in a $29.99 Year 2 Season Pass. Some Digital Deluxe owners are pushing back. Sega's June 2025 pre-order tweet said that edition included the "Season Pass" and, as a separate line, "all future paid downloadable content."

It looks like wording from before anyone planned a second year, but the tweet's still up, and VGC has asked Sega to comment. The free stuff keeps coming either way: Bayonetta on November 3, a McLaren car and Sonic skin in late November, and Persona 3 Reload's Aigis in early 2027.

Read on VGC → · TheGamer →

Crimson Desert (image via PC Gamer / Pearl Abyss)

Pearl Abyss admits Crimson Desert critics didn't really play the same game

Pearl Abyss Europe CEO Lybee Park told The Game Business that reviewers had a point: "they had to play the build that is not the exact same version of the launched game. Also they had limited time." Park also thinks critics didn't get "a fair chance" to find all the little hidden details spread around its world.

PC Gamer, which gave it an 80, mostly agrees. The game has changed a lot since launch, from a private storage chest added four days in to a bigger story overhaul, and more systems keep getting piled on. Fans of the messy, do-everything design will be happy. Everyone else may find it more overwhelming than ever.

Read on PC Gamer →

PUBG Ded.Net (image via Eurogamer / Krafton)

Krafton's PUBG Ded.Net turns the battle royale into a gory '90s gameshow roguelite

Eurogamer talked to creative director Dave Curd of PUBG Madison, the Wisconsin studio behind the new PUBG. It's still a third-person battle royale with a shrinking circle, but you're a contestant in an ultra-violent gameshow, and you pick roguelite-style upgrades from sets of three that carry over across back-to-back matches. Swap your arms for giant blades and you might get melee perks next round, plus injuries you have to work around, like occasionally fumbling a reload.

The goal is to make losing sting less. "You never want to go out on a loss," Curd said, but in Ded.Net a good ability might come up and get you to play "one more match." It's also meant to give newcomers a fresh start instead of dropping them in against PUBG veterans with thousands of hours.

Read on Eurogamer →

WARDOGS (image via Screen Rant / BULKHEAD)

WARDOGS Season 2 lands October 15 with tanks, rain and a betting system

BULKHEAD and Team17's 100-player tactical FPS is getting its first big Early Access update this Thursday. Season 2 adds four weapons (TCX-SPR assault rifle, M14 DMR, PP-19 Bizon and Evo-3 Ultra LMG), four vehicles including a T-72B3 tank and a Flakpanzer Gepard, plus three new buildables like an MG nest.

There's also a new rain weather setting, with thunder that's synced across the server and can drown out footsteps, and an "Experimental Wager Vendor" that lets you bet in-game cash on how well you'll do. BULKHEAD admits it might pull that if it gets too exploitable. Combat, building, progression and faction balance are all getting reworked, and full patch notes are coming this week.

Read on Games Press → · Screen Rant →

The Blood of Dawnwalker (image via Eurogamer / Rebel Wolves)

The Blood of Dawnwalker's lead actor on what AI can't copy

Will de Renzy-Martin, who plays Coen in the English version, put it simply in a My Perfect Console teaser: "I think the least interesting thing about what I do is the way my voice sounds. That is really all that generative AI is able to replicate." What it can't copy, he says, is "my personality and the things that I do when I'm in the room, and the choices that I make."

He also pointed out that "actors are pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things" next to whoever you'd need to coax a real performance out of an AI. Rebel Wolves took heat for using text-to-speech to plan cinematics before casting real actors, but Eurogamer notes that nothing in the finished game was made with AI.

Read on Eurogamer →

Hood Warfare 2 (image via Dexerto / Trapstar Games)

Hood Warfare 2, a $5 Call of Duty lookalike, is going viral on Steam

The first Hood Warfare peaked at 68 players on Steam. The sequel, out October 8 for about $5, has rival gangs fighting over Chicago with create-a-class, killstreaks and a very Modern Warfare-looking HUD. The modes are CoD staples with new names: Turf War is Domination and Chain Snatch is Kill Confirmed. A clip from Rainbow Six Siege pro Merc using its UAV-style "Snitch" killstreak passed five million views.

Insider Gaming says it's peaked at 4,491 players so far with 74% of 346 reviews positive. Players call it "basically just low-budget Call of Duty" with bad spawn camping, fun for a bit before it gets old.

Read on Dexerto → · Insider Gaming →

Escape from Tarkov (image via Insider Gaming / Battlestate Games)

Escape from Tarkov is adding a GPS, and some veterans aren't happy about it

Battlestate Games head Nikita Buyanov showed off the "simple GPS" coming to Escape from Tarkov. It's an optional special-slot item, like the compass or rangefinder, and from the screenshot it just gives you an arrow and a distance to your nearest extract. It's part of a push to make Tarkov friendlier for new players.

Some longtime players think that's too easy. Others don't get the fuss: "The game is literally based off (the) modern era, so why can't our operator afford at least a simple GPS?" There's no word yet on how you'll get one or whether it'll be limited by map or level.

Read on Insider Gaming →

Vertical Slice (image via Kotaku)

Ex-Game Developer news editor Chris Kerr launches Vertical Slice

Kerr spent around 11 years at Game Developer, finishing as senior news editor, before leaving at the end of September. Now he's running Vertical Slice, an independent games trade publication focused on news. No guides, no reviews, no aggregation, just a newsletter and, he hopes, breaking stories every day. He's paying for it out of his own savings and running it solo for now.

"I feel like I can do my best work outside the confines of a publication that is owned by a globally traded corporation with wildly different commercial interests," he told Kotaku. "It is scary. I believe in it." It's the latest in a wave of independent outlets popping up as bigger gaming sites shrink.

Read on Kotaku →

Roundup compiled Oct 12, 2026 (America/Chicago). Reporting credit to the linked sources; images via the linked outlets and publishers.