Embark Studios' extraction shooter Arc Raiders achieved a peak of 481,966 concurrent players on Steam over the weekend, significantly outpacing Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's launch performance. Black Ops 7 managed only 100,332 concurrent players on Steam during its launch weekend, less than a quarter of Arc Raiders' numbers and considerably lower than previous Call of Duty Steam launches. Black Ops 6 saw over 300,000 players at launch despite also being available on Game Pass, whilst Modern Warfare 3 peaked at 190,000 players in November 2023.

The disparity suggests Black Ops 7 is facing stiff competition from Arc Raiders, which recently released its first major update and completed a community event that unlocked a new map. Battlefield 6 also continues to perform strongly with a weekend peak of almost 300,000 players. Whilst Black Ops 7's Steam numbers don't account for players on Battle.net, Microsoft Store, or Game Pass, the decline compared to previous Steam launches indicates the game's PC audience is increasingly fragmented across multiple platforms following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision.

Publisher Paradox Interactive and developer Colossal Order have mutually agreed to part ways after four games together, with Paradox's internal studio Iceflake taking over all development of Cities: Skylines 2. Iceflake will assume control of existing and future updates for Cities: Skylines 2, including the long-delayed console versions, starting in early 2026. Before the transition, Colossal Order will deliver several final updates including a major patch adding bikes and Old Town buildings, plus a beta version of the game's editor with mod-asset support due before the end of 2025.

The developer handover follows a troubled launch for Cities: Skylines 2 in October 2023, which was plagued by significant performance issues that Paradox warned players about before release. In response to the rocky launch, the Beach Properties DLC was made free and additional content was added to the Ultimate Edition. The game currently holds a "Mixed" user review rating on Steam, in stark contrast to the original Cities: Skylines which has "Very Positive" reviews.

Iceflake Studio manager Lasse Liljedahl described taking over the franchise as "an immense honour and a great responsibility", noting the studio's experience with city-building games including 2021's Surviving the Aftermath. Colossal Order's Mariina Hallikainen expressed confidence that the franchise will continue to thrive under Paradox's leadership, stating the studio is excited to channel its experience into new projects that align with its long-term vision.

Brendan Greene's open-world Czech Bohemia-inspired orienteering game Prologue: Go Wayback! from PlayerUnknown Productions has launched in Steam Early Access, featuring a controversial machine learning-based map generation system. The game generates new 64km² wilderness maps offline on players' systems each time they play, using proprietary machine learning models trained on publicly available open-source data that the developers claim excludes copyrighted material. The ML model creates base terrain maps in Unreal Engine 5, which are then populated procedurally with custom assets including trees, rivers, rocks and hills.

The game is the first of three titles laying the foundation for Project Artemis, described as "a platform for massive, living multiplayer sandboxes where millions of players can shape their own worlds and emergent stories". Whilst the developers have provided detailed disclosure about their ML approach, questions remain about the emissions cost of training the generators and concerns about normalisation of automation in game development. The game offers a wilderness walking sim experience, with the developer having previously explained there are in-game lore reasons for the title's unusual name.

Poncle has announced Vampire Crawlers, a first-person deckbuilding dungeon crawler spin-off of Vampire Survivors, launching next year on Steam. The game reinterprets the characters, enemies and items from Vampire Survivors into a grid-based dungeon crawler that combines the series' chaotic gameplay with first-person "blobber" mechanics popular in 1980s PC games. Players will mow down hordes of enemies using cards whilst exploring dungeons at their own pace, with the dungeon exploration providing structure and interesting choices between fights rather than heavy RPG elements.

Poncle founder Luca revealed the concept has been gestating for approximately four years, shortly after Vampire Survivors' success when he was already considering spin-offs with other indie studios. The marriage of Vampire Survivors' spiralling chaos with first-person roguelike mechanics worked immediately amongst several prototypes in development. Luca explained the approach addresses what he sees as bare-bones choice-trees in many modern roguelike games, aiming to create something more involved whilst avoiding heavy RPG territory.

The dungeon interface uses giant on-screen buttons for grid-based first-person movement, marrying this retro concept with fast card-playing mechanics. The game will benefit from players' existing familiarity with Vampire Survivors' item catalogue, though is expected to include substantial new content as well.

Asus ramps up Rog Xbox Ally production after sales exceeded expectations despite $600 and $1,000 price points, with management describing market response as "extremely positive". The company is working with component suppliers to address current supply shortages.

EA skips a standalone F1 game in 2026, instead offering the Formula One season as a paid expansion for F1 25. The next full game arrives in 2027 as a "reimagined" experience as part of a multi-year strategic investment in the franchise.

Battlefield 6 offers a free week-long trial from November 25th - December 2nd featuring three maps and modes including Conquest, Breakthrough, Sabotage, and Team Deathmatch. The timing coincides with one of the game's biggest patches addressing XP progression, weapon dispersion, and vehicle bugs.

The Game Awards 2025 nominees are revealed with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 dominating across multiple categories including Game of the Year alongside Death Stranding 2, Hades II, and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Community voting is open until December 10 ahead of the December 11 ceremony.