BREAKING: Netflix is shutting down two of its game studios (only one left beyond its central team) - Moonloot, which hadn't released a game - Night School (Oxenfree), which just released the thriller Unhinged Netflix says it still see games as an "opportunity" www.gamefile.news/p/netflix-cl...

BREAKING: Netflix to shut down two more game studios

Oxenfree Night School and Moonloot closing, as streaming giant continues to shrink internal game studio operation

gamefile.news

Added today to UE6-Main a brand new Lumen mode; LumenRef, essentially reference quality lumen, per pixel, giving an absolutely stunning pathtraced feel to deferred renders but faster than using the path tracer, this scene has no lights, it is completely lit by those emissive. #UE6 #GameDev #VFX

"GPU texture address mode collies" meme continues to be my main achievement in life, I think.

Psst: Moonlighter is free on Steam if you get it within the next 24 hours, apparently.

Save 100% on Moonlighter on Steam

Moonlighter is an Action RPG with rogue-lite elements that demonstrates two sides of the coin – revealing everyday routines of Will, an adventurous shopkeeper that secretly dreams of becoming a hero.

store.steampowered.com

Adaptive ray rate per pixel! A series of compute passes distribute a fixed budget of rays over the pixels on the screen, a fixed trace dispatch goes over the final ray list and traces them. Improves disocclusions drastically. Allows way fewer (i'm using 2x fewer) rays per pixel at BETTER quality.

An exceptional exploration of genAI in game development from a producer who absolutely Gets It: www.productionalchemist.com/p/inever-see...

I Have Never Seen a Game Fail Because the Artists Were Too Slow

AI is optimising the cheapest part of production

productionalchemist.com

Our artform should not be a speculative asset.

the oscilloscope can produce mind-boggling effects 💀

Making games is a business. But without people who genuinely love making games, there won’t be much of a business left. The industry doesn’t just need better numbers. It needs more passionate people in leadership, more new talent welcomed in, and more belief that games are art worth fighting for.

I don't like this timeline, where friends and family tell me about local art contests and every time there's a predictable backlash against someone winning the contest with AI art. Gimme the 'bad' handmade art instead. That art is better, I promise.

Hi everyone, today me and 22 others at Double Fine were hit by layoffs today. All the people who lost their jobs today care so much about the games they make and the people they work with. If anyone is looking for a tools SE with 7 years of experience and who brings baked goods on Mondays lmk.

The newly independent Double Fine is laying off staff today, three weeks after Xbox divested the studio as part of its massive restructuring.

The main way in which AI has negatively impacted games industry jobs is not through actual automation of those jobs or even untrue claims about automation. It's by making capital unavailable because it's tied up in AI investments while also destroying the consumer base for video game hardware.

Pretty darn good advice here. Making games is hard. Finding ways to focus and be efficient with your efforts is important, and often forgotten in the pursuit of making everything great.

Rami Ismail (رامي)@ramiismail.com · 4w ago

And the 101 Courses are not the only Levelling The Playing Field content out today: also read this FREE newsletter article on my 75-20-5 rule - a simple but powerful tool to manage quality bar and disagreements building on the paid "Ask Rami" article from two weeks ago. ltpf.ramiismail.com/75-20-5/

On this day 15 years ago, we launched our first game, Bastion. To everyone who helped the Kid survive the Calamity, thank you!!🙏 You're the reason we've been able to carry on as an independent studio ever since.

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 447 - July 19th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...

The most cost-saving measure ANY studio can take is keeping crews together.

christopher linoleum@scribblechris.bsky.social · last mo.

"Overlong production cycles and exponential budget increases are worsened every time a studio is forced to reassemble its detonated workflow to account for the institutional knowledge lost whenever a dev is cut loose."

New from me: "Being engaged in videogames over the last decade has meant watching a cohort of publisher executives inherit an industry of products, professionals, and consumers they seem to actively resent for failing to produce instant, infinite profits."

Does anyone know how to drive this thing?

It's increasingly looking like nobody remembers how videogames work—or cares to.

pcgamer.com

People make games, and what comes next will either be 60% ai slop or the product of severe and backbreaking crunch for the remaining staff.

Aftermath@aftermath.site · last mo.

Fallout didn't make itself aftermath.site/fallout-5-beth...

Hey this thing where they try to jingle keys in your face with new project confirmations to distract from the layoffs is very transparent and sucks.

Kotaku@kotaku.com · last mo.

Todd Howard has delivered a huge update on the furture of Fallout, including updates on Fallout 5, confirmation of Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters, a new Fallout 76 expansion, and more https://kotaku.com/fallout-5-is-in-preproduction-and-fallout-3-and-new-vegas-remasters-are-on-the-way-2000717079

NEW: Bethesda has announced a slew of new Fallout games, including Fallout 5 and Fallout 3 + New Vegas remasters. The company also confirmed my scoop last week that it is working with Obsidian on a Fallout game. I spoke to Todd Howard about the roadmap: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Bethesda Announces New ‘Fallout’ Roadmap Following Xbox Reset

The studio confirmed development on ‘Fallout 5’ and a new game with Obsidian Entertainment

bloomberg.com

2026 Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games course line up is here - check it out! advances.realtimerendering.com

Long ago when the four nations lived in harmony.

I saw a post where someone made the connection that a company laying you off right after your product comes out is pretty much stealing your wages from you and, yeah. They’re double dipping, getting all the profit and not having to pay for the team that generated it.

Kotaku@kotaku.com · last mo.

Ubisoft devs who worked on Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced in Barcelona celebrate the game's launch today by bracing for layoffs. "After 7 years at Ubi... https://kotaku.com/assassins-creed-devs-celebrate-black-flag-remake-launch-with-layoffs-this-is-not-how-i-imagined-it-would-end-2000714209

I wanted to write something thoughtful about XBOX's wanton destruction spree of their talent, portfolio, and future - on how XBOX has destroyed so much trust from both of its audiences - from developers and players. But how can I write anything thoughtful about such thoughtless greed?

As someone who has going through multiple big company layoffs over my career (That’s the game industry for you!), I can tell you that there isn’t much work happening at the companies that had the layoffs. For sake of velocity and quality, IC layoffs are the opposite of what you need.

Proud to announce the next game Vampirium: 1997 Dracula is king of the United British Empire. Kill his enemies and find your own path through a minimalist immersive sim sandbox. Wishlists and retweets massively appreciated (and, you know, massively helpful) store.steampowered.com/app/4035190/...

Vampirium: 1997 on Steam

1997. Dracula is King of England. At his command, master your dark gifts to assassinate his enemies and secure his vampiric empire. Infiltrate locked-down locations, adapt and survive in living enviro...

store.steampowered.com

Among the layoffs was character artist Christiane Meister — a 27-year veteran of Bethesda and (as far as I can tell) one of the longest tenured women in games, period. She worked on Argonians + Khajiit in TES3, horses in TES4 and TES5, Fallout creatures, and more. (cont'd)

I’m so sorry for everyone at id Software affected by these layoffs. I know what it feels like to leave id while id goes on. It’s a strange and painful thing to step away from a place that holds so much of your work, friendships and history. 1/5