Gaming News Brew: Financial Shakeups, Store Wars, and Unexpected Developer Strategies

Outer Worlds 2 will not be getting a sequel because it did not do very well.

So say goodbye.

We're just going to be talking about why the heck does the government activism and Epic Games boss Tim sweetie hate Steam so much when customers actually love it, right?

Mind's Eye was supposed to be like the Grand Theft Auto stopgap before Grand Theft Auto 6, and it didn't really turn out to be that way.

Now looks like they've changed Fable quite a bit because of the backlash of the very ugly woman that was protagonist or the highlight of it before.

You need a leadership team to understand you're making games to sell, you're not making games to make your stupid little point, and everybody keeps on missing that point.

All right, but make no mistake, Steam is dominant in the market not because it's a monopoly.

It's dominant in the market because it cares about the customer.

That's good.

Hey there.

Welcome back to Digital Coffee Gaming Brew.

I'm your digital barista Brett Dyster.

This week we're diving into everything from the latest updates on Mind's Eye and Horizon Hunters gathering to EA's financial rollercoaster and why everyone's got beef with Steam.

Grab your favorite drink, get comfy, and let's catch up on all the best and worst in gaming news right now.

First off, builder Rocket Boy announced a new phase of ongoing development for its open world game Mind's Eye.

The announce marks the company's first significant public relations push since the game's launch in June.

The game received a significant post launch update, described as achieving the studio's vision for quality and setting the stage for future content updates.

The updates is intended to serve as a reset for the brand and the title in 2026 and is accompanied by a trailer titled Mind's Eye.

More than it seems, Mind's Eye was poorly received at launch, with reports of bugs, poor performance, canceled marketing streams and negative reviews.

Developers laid off staff shortly after the game's launch, but has continued to release updates, with the latest being the seventh.

A free starter pack.

Trial was released on all platforms in November, and Mark Gerhan, CEO and CTO of Build a Rocket Boy, stated that the update is a significant achievement for the game and the and that future updates would include combat and gameplay enhancements.

The studio plans to reveal a new expansion with in game content enhanced world exploration in the coming months and add a multiplayer mode to its Arcadia platform.

The studio's founder was recently named in allegations related to Epstein's Vial, which he denied, claiming the allegations are false and misleading, which is completely unrelated to the game, but it does happen with when the Epstein files get released, things happen.

But this is an interesting thing because Mind's Eye was supposed to be like the Grand Theft Auto stopgap before Grand Theft Auto 6, and it didn't really turn out to be that way.

It just wasn't very good in general.

So people were upset and likely so the game has solely tried to do the no Man's sky, which is basically hey, we're going to fix this game because it's just not not good.

And I hope they do, to be honest with you.

But we'll see how this actually turns out.

I never really played it, but if it's on sale I might pick it up if it goes on sale, but I'm not picking up for full price.

Didn't seem to be that good even from the trailers.

I was like oh, it looks interesting but I'm not really quite sure.

But there we are.

That's where we're at.

Moving on to Guerrilla Games and Guerrilla Games just released a new game that is going to be Horizon Hunters Gathering.

It's a new co op title is the game is a tactical action game for up to three players where players take on the roles of hunters defending against machines.

It is not the conclusion of the Horizon trilogy as stated by by Guerrilla Studio director John Bart Von Beak.

The game will feature different hunter heroes with unique abilities such as tank, sniper and stealth.

Combat is described as tactical, reactive and skill based, requiring players to read enemy movements and coordinate with their squad.

Horizon Hunters Gathering will include a narrative campaign with new mysteries and characters in a social hub for players.

Real Games is conducting closed playtests at the end of February and players can sign up through Sony's beta program.

The game will be available on PlayStation 5 and PC with confirmation for PC release and wishlisting available on Steam.

This is a part of the Horizon universe, but the art direction is not the same.

It's a little bit more cartoony for whatever reason and this is more of a three player I guess they said roguelike, almost like Elden Ring Night Rain style gameplay.

Now I'm not really sure if that's actually true, but that's what they're trying to tell us is look, it's supposed to be like this and it's maybe we'll see, but should be interesting to see what it's all about.

It's a very big departure from the Horizon games in general, so I'm not really quite sure about this but but it Is very interesting to see what they're trying to do with this game.

They did have different hero archetypes.

It's like a hero shooter but without the hardcore multiplayer component.

It's more co op but you have different roles and we have sub roles within those roles.

So it looks interesting.

I'm not really quite sure about it.

Not even sure if it's going to be a paid or if it's going to be a free to play type of game because don't really know much about beyond it's released or not released but it's been announced.

Yay.

All right, so publisher Team17 developer Bulkhead has announced a new game called War Dogs.

War Dogs is described as a tactical all out warfare first person shooter.

The game is set to launch early access on Steam in 2026.

It features a large scale up to 100 player militaristic sandbox environment.

The game is inspired by King of the Hill where three teams compete for control of a random where they really compete, control for a randomized control zone within this really big map.

It's huge.

But the first team to reach 100 points wins the match.

Players start with $10,000.

You can purchase custom loadouts each life from a selection of weapons, gear and vehicle team play actions such as reviving squad mates or transporting friends rewards cash.

Cash persists between matches allowing players to invest in better gear and equipment.

Players can choose different strategies including building bases or using vehicles.

The game promotes local voice chat for communication among players.

It looks interesting.

I saw some videos on.

It looks very interesting and it's a departure from Extraction Shooters Battle Royale which we've seen a plethora of them for quite a while now.

And so this is a bigger departure into a new era of it because I'm all for a different way of doing things.

I think extraction shooters are fine, but we don't need a ton of them to be honest with you.

I know when it's popular every developer and publisher tries to make a new one, but it doesn't really change the fact that it's still the same thing.

This is actually different in a way.

It relies more on the King of the Hill style gameplay and it looks like there's no actual extraction part about it.

It's just when you get to the amount of points you win and so I like that part about it.

Should be interesting to see what this actually happens and what this actually does and event actually is going to be good.

Now are they going to go for high graphic fidelity?

No, because of just the amount of players and the tech behind it.

I'm pretty sure they're not going to go for the most extreme fidelity on Unreal Engine 5.

They also apparently built their own custom wrapper or something that goes on top of Unreal Engine 5 so they can actually create stuff supposed to have destruction destructible environments.

So we'll have to see more about this when it actually launches into early access this year sometime.

All right, moving on to EA Electronics arts reported a 38% increase in net bookings to over 3 billion following the launch of Battlefield 6.

The company's net income for the third fiscal quarter was 88 million, a decline from 293 million in the same time period the previous year.

For the following three months ending from December 30, 2025, revenue was up 1.9 billion, up 0.95% year on year.

Net income was 88 million, down 69.9 year over year.

Oof, that's rough.

Net bookings were 3.04 billion, up up 38% year over year.

Battlefield 6 was the best selling game in the US for 2025 and set new franchise engagement records.

EA Sports FC saw net booking increase in the high single digits year over year driven by Ultimate Team and FC Mobile.

Net bookings for Apex Legend increased by double digits year over year due to new features and events.

EA is no longer holding earning calls or providing forward looking guidance due to the pending 55 billion acquisition deal by an investor consortium.

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.

U.S. lawmakers have requested a thorough review of the acquisition by the Federal Trade, citing concerns about its potential impact on workers.

And so that's where we're at on this one.

So looks like some are really good for EA and some was not really good.

Battlefield 5 or 6 was basically the bright spot in 2025 for the company with the other misses that were not really great from specifically Dragon Age.

Belgard was not a good thing for them.

It basically destroyed the franchise altogether just to help terribly.

It was received because it just wasn't a good game.

The writing was not there, it was awful.

Never do anything, never write anything specifically for political ideology.

Write it to actually be a fun, engaging game with fun and engaging characters.

That's always how you do it.

Battlefield 6 was good because they play tested the heck out of it with players and streamers and that's why it was so good.

Now it's had its rough patches, but it's still a fun game.

You may not play it like hours upon hours upon hours, but you can still get a few good hours in and still enjoy it.

So I think it's good overall.

All right, so Hell Drivers 2 has a new event SL update features a storyline with Automatons have stolen planes for a space station called Not a Death Star.

Players are required to mobilize to the automaton's home planet Cyber Stand to prevent potential destruction of their planet.

The new Bastion tank is introduced, which can carry up to four players and is equipped with 120 million millimeter cannon.

Each player in the tank has a specific role driver, gunner, and two passengers for flanking support.

The tank can be used as a weapon even when out of ammunition, providing its armor remains intact.

That's true.

A new premium war Bond allows players to unlock various weapons, including laser firing shotguns and explosive hammers.

Cyberstand was first introduced in the original Helldivers game.

Helldivers 2 includes references to the 2015 game hey look it.

They're still updating this game.

They're making some fun little things I'm interested in getting back into.

I haven't played in a while, but it's still a really good game.

There has been issues with the quality of.

I guess the updates have just broken a lot of parts of the game and it hasn't been as quality as before, but all in all it's still a really good, solid game, still really fun, still always not taking itself seriously for democracy and all that other fun stuff that it does.

At least you get this way of destroying those pesky robots because we all hate AI as gamers, so it's just a way of smashing some AI.

Best way of saying it all right.

There's new report indicates that Microsoft has plans for Xbox in 2026 with releasing Fortnite Horizon 6 in May.

Halo Campaign Evolve is tentatively scheduled for a summer release, Gears of War E Day is set for a second half of the year, and Playgrounds Fable is expected to be released in the fall.

Microsoft aims for Gears of War E Day and Fable to avoid competing with the November launch of GTA 6, the Armageddon Gaming, as that game is launched and nothing should be launched around it.

Maybe.

Fallout 3 Remastered is supposedly still in active development, having been mentioned in the FTC documents related to Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard three years ago.

Bethesda is focused on ensuring that Fallout 3 Remastered is polished for a successful launch similar to the Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered.

There is no update on potential remaster of Fallout New Vegas, which is Story Wise, the better of the two.

New content for Bethesda's Starfield is expected soon, along with news about a rumored PlayStation 5 version.

Microsoft plans to release a new Xbox controller this year that includes Wi fi connectivity to reduce latency in Xbox cloud gaming.

There are no indications that Microsoft release its next gen Xbox this year.

Aligning with comments from AMD's leadership, Microsoft recently held an Xbox Developer Direct Showcase revealing new information on several titles, but it was really Only Forza Horizon 6 and Fable were the two main of it now looks like they've changed Fable quite a bit because of the backlash of the very ugly woman that was protagonist or the highlight of it before and so they she's still there but she was didn't wasn't as prominent as before.

So we'll see what actually happens with Fable.

I'm not really optimistic about it, but I am going oh at least I can create my own character.

So it might actually be better than what it was.

But it's not a lot going off of that one.

All right, moving on to Obsidian and it's not working on the sequel to Outer Worlds 2.

Microsoft initial decision to price Outer Worlds 2 is $80 contributed to negative reaction from fans, despite later changing their price tag to $70.

Bloomberg reported that Obsidian launched three games in 2025 granted to the Auto Worlds 2 and a vowed only Grounded 2 was considered a success.

Fans expressed disappointment regarding the Outer Worlds 2, with some suggesting it suffered from the failures of its predecessor and other recent RPG releases.

And they're not wrong about it because the original was really was pretty good and then you had a vowed which was a weird game that really didn't it was a game that needed more time to be developed.

It seemed like it was a good starting point, but it had a lot of issues with missing a lot of features that other RPGs did better and that was the main issue with it.

So that it was a bad game actually it was a bad game in general.

The combat was just superficial.

It's great that you could go between all these.

The writing wasn't really that great.

You just didn't really care.

A lot of gamers just didn't really care about it.

It was in the Pillars of Eternity world which is renowned for its great writing and everything and it was just a miss.

Mostly because of a lot of the workers at Obsidian being more about ideology than again making a great game.

Every time you care more about your ideology than making a great game, it suffers.

Stop it.

You need a leadership team to understand you're making games to sell, you're not making games to make your stupid little point.

And everybody keeps on missing that point.

All right, moving on.

Game companies got hit with a 20% decline in the stock market because of Google launching Project Genie 3, an AI tool designed to generate virtual worlds from text prompts in 60 second bursts.

Companies affected included Take Two CD, Projekt, Red Unity and Roblox.

Project Genie 3 is described as a general purpose world model capable of generating photorealistic environments that can be explored in real time with interactive and controllable elements.

The generated environments can depict both real life and fantastical scenarios and are rendered in realistic 3D or style or animated styles.

Limitations of Project Genie 3 include restricted interactive elements and the fact that creations are only one minute long.

That's a pretty big fact.

Report by Unity in 2024 indicated that 62% of studios were using its tool incorporate AI in game development, particularly in animation.

A GDC survey from the same year found that about one third of the industry workers reported using AI tools.

And the Tokyo Game show surveyed indicated over half of Japanese game companies are utilizing AI in development.

Google launched a new AI product called Genie 3, which is described as experimental research prototype because really and honestly it doesn't do very much except for a one minute long thing.

Now it's great for ideation and maybe like experimentation on if things can work out or not using this, but you're not going to be able to create a whole game out of this.

You're going to be able to do a starting point of a game which is great.

But like everything I say, take AI with a grain of salt.

It's good in some ways as a tool, but you can't over rely on it because it does make things up just like humans mix things up.

So be skeptical about it, but use it.

I use it as a tool, but I'm not actually AI is our savior or anything like that.

It's just a tool for me.

I still do my best to critically think and use my own brain, but it can help with being efficient in your workflows.

I agree with that.

That's why I say use AI in limited fashions that help with your workflows, but don't destroy the creative independence that you have as a human.

All right.

Moving on to Embark Studios has implemented new measures to reduce cheating in the game.

Arc Raiders.

The Steam family sharing feature now has restrictions specific to Arc Raiders.

If any account in the Steam family receives a ban while using a shared Arc Raiders license, all accounts in that family will be received receive a restriction.

Cheaters have previously circumvented the bans using alternate accounts, but the new rules aim to make this more difficult.

If any account in the family network is temporarily banned, they will lose access to the family sharing feature for arc Raiders permanently.

Players accessing the game through family sharing will need to purchase their own copy to continue playing if banned.

Which to me, I'm all for it.

It's one of those things where you're never going to get rid of cheating.

It's unfortunate.

It's a reality in this gaming, especially PC gaming.

You're never going to get rid of it, but you can heavily reduce it where it's not advantageous to cheat.

Will there always be some people that will do it regardless?

Of course there is.

There always will be people that will find it lucrative and make cheating tools for specific games.

AR is a very popular game right now, so people create cheats for popular games.

That's how it is.

So we'll see how well this actually works and how much more they will do this.

But I usually say, if you're going to cheat once, zero, zero tolerance policy, just ban them.

All right?

No, like one strike, two strike, three strike.

Just ban them because they're not going to stop, obviously, and they're just going to try to get more clever about it.

So you're like, you cheat once, you're probably going to cheat again.

So you're done.

Thank you.

Buy the game again.

If you really want to try to cheat again, you just make more money off the cheaters anyways.

All right, so moving on to the main thing about why governments activists in Epic Games does not like Steam very much.

It's a weird thing to me, honestly, because of the way Tim Sweeney views Steam.

Tim Sweeney views Steam as well, an obstacle to get more money.

And you use it because of the quote unquote junk service FEES, which is 30%.

Now, mind you, if you actually create Steam keys and you sell it like through another storefront, they don't take the 30% cut.

You get all the money.

Now they don't want you to abuse it, obviously, rightfully.

But you have to understand, Steam is very consumer focused.

Tim Sweeney is not.

His Epic game store sucks.

It's awful.

I finally got rid of it because I'm like, I don't like using it.

It's awful.

It's a resource hog.

Why am I still using this awful resource hog?

And so instead of being upset about it, I just go, I don't really need to use this anymore.

But there are a few things going on that makes this very, very weird.

First of all, there's a $900 million lawsuit in the UK over claims of quote unquote, unfair competition related to the Steam platform.

The lawsuit alleges that Valve prevents publishers from launching games on other storefronts at lower prices, which is referred to as platform parity obligations.

Yes, Steam doesn't want you to undercut them on their own storefront, since what's the point now?

It doesn't say that you can't post it or publish it on any other storefront.

They're just saying if you're going to do it and use Steam keys to do it, you have to do it at the same price.

Fair.

This is an unfair competition because they want to have the same sale on that as they do anywhere else.

And you can launch it without being on Steam.

You don't have to use Steam.

You could use EA Desktop, you could use Ubisoft, if they actually sell third party games.

You could use Goggles, you could use Epic, you can use other storefronts because Steam Valve does not own the OS that creates it on PC.

PC is a more open platform.

Now granted they're making Steam machines, so that's a little bit different, but still they're allowing you to use Linux and so you don't actually have to use their os.

You can go, because I have a Steam deck, you can go into Linux and you don't actually have to use their system.

I've never known any company to be like, here's a device now you can use our program if you want to, or you can just use Linux.

Xbox doesn't do that.

Nintendo certainly doesn't do that unless you jailbreak them.

And Sony PlayStation 5 doesn't do that.

What company does that?

The only other ones I know of is, was when after Steam, the Steam deck was successful.

So all the other handheld PC ones that do that and they all run on Windows and I'm pretty sure you can figure out how to actually install Windows on Steam Deck.

Plus they have iFixit where you could fix your actual Steam deck and not have to buy a new one.

Plus, and this is the more important thing, I don't know what activist is saying that millions of UK gamers are being fraudulently or being manipulated or being taken advantage of by Steam because everybody loves Steam or the majority of people love Steam.

It's not because it's the nicest or best looking program, it's the most efficient, it doesn't require as much resources as other ones.

And it works really well now.

I remember when it was new and it was a pain in the butt to get it to work.

It was not fun.

I hated that thing and I was not happy because I wanted to play Half Life 2 and it.

You could just not get this thing to work.

But it got better over time and it became the standard.

Why did it become the standard?

Because you now have.

You could put Mons into the game.

You can.

You have reviews, you have now personalized calendars.

You can put other games from other storefronts onto it.

So it will launch through there as well.

You can.

You can have forums, you can now screenshot and.

Or you can video record through it now too.

That's a new recent update.

You can do a lot of things through it.

So the 30% isn't because that you have to do it.

It's the 30% is there because it does help with continuing to build up Steam and now Steam OS to use Linux, which I foresee eventually overtaking Windows because Windows is crappy.

I do not like Windows 11.

I have Windows 11 and it has not been a good OS.

I miss Windows 10 and Windows 7.

Those two were better.

Those two.

When I go to the task manager, it doesn't say not responding for whatever reason.

But Tim Sweeney doesn't like it because no one's not.

Very many people are using his actual storefront.

Plus he wants more money from Fortnite and he can't put it on Steam because then they take a cut.

And so he wants all the monies.

He wants more billions.

This is why I don't trust really rich people saying, I'm doing it for the gamers.

I'm like, no, you're not.

You're doing it for yourself.

You want more money.

I'm completely fine and comfortably fine if you want more money.

But let's be honest here, you want more money.

And also their refund policy is probably one of the best I've ever seen.

A lot of them.

Other ones are not great.

This one, as long as you do it within the time frame, they give you no questions asked.

I pre ordered one and I was like, I don't want this anymore.

They're like, all right, here you go.

I was like, oh, that was good.

That was quick.

But make no mistake, Steam is dominant in the market not because it's a monopoly.

It's dominant in the market because it cares about the customer.

Tim Sweeney does not care about the customer.

The UK activist does not care about the customer.

They Just want to see Steam knock down a peg.

Tim Sweeney would really love to see Steam knock down a peg because then it makes his system or storefront, quote unquote, better.

Even though even their executive leadership has said it sucks.

And gamers like, we know it sucks.

We've told you it's not good since you launched it.

We're like, this is not good.

Why did you launch in such a terrible state?

Because EA desktop, not good.

Ubisoft's crappy launcher, still not good.

Rockstar's crappy launcher, not good.

GOG is probably the only real competition that they have because it's actually a decent platform.

Xbox, terrible platform.

BattleNet, not bad.

I'll give Battle.net some props.

It's not bad.

It's better than Xbox, man.

I remember trying to update a game and Xbox apparently just wouldn't want to update the game.

And then I go to battle.net and BattleNet will update the game just fine.

I'm like, I don't know what you guys are doing over there, but yeah, Microsoft, figure it out.

Get rid of the Xbox app and just use battlenet.

Battlenet's better than the Xbox.

I'm glad you guys got rid of the Bethesda one because that one was awful too.

But that's the problem.

We do have all these storefronts.

We just don't want to use all these storefronts because they're just not good.

Again, Gabe, Valve, Steam have all figured out how to be successful.

Spoiler make sure the customer is taken care of.

Now, I may not like the DRM system they have on there, but look it, you got to take your wins and you got to take your losses and it's a bigger win on Steam than there is on losses on Steam.

I don't mind gog.

I still think, and I will say this, GOG and Balance are probably the two best competitors you have for Steam.

Epic is not one of them.

EA Desktop is horrendous and Ubisoft is the worst of the worst out of all of them.

But you just have to use it.

I'm just GLAD EA on Battlefield 6 was like, we'll just put a wrapper around our game where it's like baked in and it doesn't really annoy me very much.

That's fine.

Maybe Ubisoft should take some lessons from this.

But if you're going to build a storefront, look at what Steam is doing and try to implement that.

Because if you don't, no one's going to want to use it.

I get it.

Epic has free games and I used it.

But then eventually I was like, I never play these things.

I don't care.

Nope, Steam.

And Steam's going to have Steam machines and the Steam controller, which the controller will automatically give you controller layout buttons for games that don't actually have any way of using controller.

It's not like this company is like taking advantage of you.

It's look it, we understand you as gamers and so we're trying to make things that will actually help you.

And so if you make a Steam machine that basically becomes a console, then I just have one system that I play all my games on and it doesn't matter.

I can go from Steam machine to Steam Deck to PC again if I wanted to.

And if they make their Linux os, the Proton OS really, really good, I'll consider switching.

Not gonna lie, I do not like Microsoft that much.

It's just, it's.

Windows is just a necessary evil for Windows in computing when you don't use Apple.

It's not the best and it has, it's had its moments, but it's not the best whatsoever.

They keep on messing it up and not really caring about it.

Now the leadership's like, all right, we're gonna slow down on the all these AI integrations with Windows and we're actually gonna fix the problems.

I'm like, thank you.

Maybe you should have done that earlier.

But make no mistake, Steam is not fleecing the customer.

It's not screwing over the customer.

Epic activists and government, they're all screwing over the customer.

Even Turkey is, hey, you gotta conform to us or we're going to throttle you.

Weird.

I get it, you want to protect children, but that's the parents job.

Parents gotta do a better job than me last week.

But anyways, there is no purpose of this.

And I know there's another lawsuit from another developer that's for years has tried to file to sue Steam, slash Valve because it thinks there's unfair practices when it's not really unfair practices, it's just, it's the most popular one.

You got to use it and if you don't want to use it, that's fine, but you just won't make as much money as Remedy has found out.

It took them a couple years for Alan Wake 2 to become profitable again.

And that was because you don't use Sweet Baby Inc. At all.

You avoid that company like the plague.

But.

30% is not the issue.

The issue is that Jim Sweeney because he's I support the $900 million lawsuit.

Fact is that yours is not that popular.

Yours is awful.

And Steam is better.

Make a better product and people will go over.

Look at PC.

Gamers are not like beholden to one.

We're beholden to one when it works well and it's like this is the best option I have.

So every one of you that actually is making a digital storefront, learn from Steam.

Don't hate Steam.

Learn.

Do better.

That's what we gamers want.

We just want something better.

So if you find something better, we'll use it.

Anyways, thank you for listening to Digital Coffee Gaming.

Really do appreciate it.

And follow this podcast and all your favorite podcasting apps and leave a review.

And guys, enjoy your weekend and game what you want to game and see you next week later.