Video Games Weekly: Silksong And Gamescom

2 weeks ago

Welcome to Video Games Weekly connected Engadget. Expect a caller communicative each Monday aliases Tuesday (or Wednesday, whatever), surgery into 2 parts. The first is simply a abstraction for short essays and ramblings astir video crippled trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a newsman who's covered nan manufacture for much than 13 years. The 2nd contains nan video crippled stories from nan past week that you request to cognize about, including immoderate headlines from extracurricular of Engadget.

Please bask — and I'll spot you adjacent week.

On a satellite shrouded successful myth, successful a onshore surrounded by lore, connected a upland draped successful mystery, successful a cave suffocated by secrets, nan fable sleeps. For six years, nan fable has slumbered while chaotic stories spiral astir it, twisting and expanding and entwining. New words person been calved and aged words infused pinch evolved meanings: Believer. Doubter. Silkpost. The lies person grown truthful heavy they’ve go corporeal, spreading trickery pinch a sanction and a dormant smile.

For six years, nan fable has slept while nan masses roiled, each of them waiting for nan awesome to awaken and cognize truth. All of them waiting for a doorbell that will ring, yet and clearly, connected Thursday, August 21, 2025.

Skong. Skong. Skong.

It’s a typical clip successful nan Silksong subreddit. After years of soundlessness astir its sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Team Cherry has scheduled a livestream pinch a “special announcement” astir nan crippled for August 21 astatine 10:30AM ET. Not only is this breathtaking for Metroidvania fans everywhere, but it’s besides imaginable that this announcement marks nan last moments of nan Silksong subreddit arsenic we cognize it. A unusual cocktail of crippled delays, inconsistent updates and hyper-focused cult fandom has cultivated a fascinating small beingness successful r/Silksong, complete pinch its ain rules, villains and heroes. It’s a spot wherever comedian wigs are commonplace and contributors person turned trolling into a role-playing artform. A LARPform, if you will. It’s a spot that’s consistently made maine laughter each clip it’s appeared successful my provender complete nan past twelvemonth aliases so.

Ahead of Thursday’s typical announcement, this sub is experiencing nan past gasps of hopeless myth-making and hopeless anticipation earlier it transforms into thing other entirely, equipped pinch existent accusation astir nan sequel, gameplay videos and possibly moreover a patient merchandise date. Or, situation I opportunity it, a astonishment launch. For conscionable a infinitesimal longer successful r/Silksong, thing is possible.

And past it’ll beryllium over. No matter what happens during Thursday’s livestream, nan time will travel erstwhile Silksong comes retired and nan drip-feed of silkposts dries up completely. But for now, our look overgarment is ready. Sometimes it’s conscionable bully to admit nan madness and nan beauty of nan moment, earlier it slips distant for good.

The news

News from ONL 2025

Gamescom 2025 kicked disconnected connected Tuesday pinch Opening Night Live, a showcase hosted by Geoff Keighley and nan folks down The Game Awards, and location were plentifulness of delightful morsels connected display. Engadget UK Bureau Chief Mat Smith is connected nan crushed astatine Gamescom successful Cologne, Germany, to play upcoming titles and talk to developers, but for now, present are our headlines consecutive retired of ONL 2025:

And our headlines from Gamescom 2025 truthful far:

Gamescom 2025 runs done August 24.

ROG Xbox Ally lands successful October

Microsoft is slow establishing its handheld era pinch news that nan ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X will beryllium disposable connected October 16. There’s still nary charismatic connection connected really overmuch they’ll cost, but location are hints: As spotted by Wario64, Best Buy precocious listed nan Xbox Ally astatine $550 and nan Xbox Ally X astatine $900, and these autumn successful statement pinch our predictions, which were based connected nan prices of existing ROG Ally handhelds. Alongside nan merchandise date, Microsoft announced nan Handheld Compatibility Program, an inaugural aimed astatine optimizing games for portable devices and informing players astir really good they perform. It’s fundamentally Steam Deck Verified, but for Xbox handhelds, and it’s yet different motion that Microsoft’s portable gaming ambitions agelong beyond conscionable 1 hardware manufacturer.

The PS5 will costs much tomorrow than it does today

First Nintendo and Microsoft raised nan prices of their latest consoles, and now it’s Sony’s turn. Sony connected Wednesday announced nan pursuing value increases for nan PS5 family:

Standard PS5 pinch a disc drive: $550, up from $500
PS5 integer edition: $500, up from $450
PS5 Pro: $750, up from $700

Sony blames nan increases connected a “challenging economical environment,” echoing sentiments from its contemporaries. The value hikes travel astatine a clip successful nan hardware procreation erstwhile we’re utilized to seeing consoles get cheaper, which conscionable makes this full point much frustrating.

Rod Fergusson is successful complaint of BioShock again and already making large changes

There person been signs of turmoil astatine BioShock 4 workplace Cloud Chamber for a while now, including news earlier this month that nan crippled grounded a reappraisal pinch 2K executives and was owed for a complete communicative revamp. Now, we’re seeing moreover much fallout. Former Gears of War and Diablo caput Rod Fergusson has left Blizzard to lead improvement of BioShock 4 astatine Cloud Chamber, and his assignment comes alongside news that 80 group astatine nan studio are being laid off. This is really nan 2nd clip Fergusson has joined nan improvement of a BioShock crippled astatine nan past 2nd — he likewise swooped successful and trim aspects of BioShock: Infinite astatine Irrational Games successful 2012.

The title done improvement hellhole betwixt Judas and BioShock 4 continues.

Blizzard’s cinematic and communicative squad is unionizing

Microsoft is nan location of different video crippled union. Workers pinch Blizzard Entertainment’s Story and Franchise Development team, which handles in-game cinematics and lore for titles including Overwatch and World of Warcraft, voted this week to unionize nether nan Communications Workers of America. This covers astir 169 developers and it marks nan 4th unionization effort from Microsoft’s gaming teams, joining QA workers astatine Activision, ZeniMax and Raven Software.

Steam censorship is breaking PayPal

PayPal isn’t a valid measurement to bargain games connected Steam successful definite countries immoderate longer. Steam in July removed hundreds of games pinch big and NSFW themes from its storefront, and updated its policies to prohibition "content that whitethorn break nan rules and standards” of its costs processors. This was incredibly vague and raised contiguous concerns astir financial censorship, particularly erstwhile mixed pinch a related culling of thousands of games from Itch.io. Now, it’s confirmed that PayPal has terminated its business pinch Steam successful aggregate countries, affecting immoderate denomination “other than EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD and USD.”

Valve says it’s being pressured by costs processors including Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to region definite games and instrumentality puritanical censorship policies, and this has already resulted successful astatine slightest 1 crippled being unjustly removed from nan platform. That game, VILE: Exhumed, is now available arsenic shareware.

Roblox is changing its rules aft so, truthful galore child-safety lawsuits

Roblox is locking down its strategy for sharing and viewing user-generated games pursuing a activity of lawsuits accusing developers of failing to protect their young userbase. All unrated experiences, aliases user-created games, will beryllium restricted to nan developer and anyone actively moving connected them, alternatively than being disposable to anyone complete nan property of 13, arsenic is presently nan case. This alteration and others, including a caller strategy that automatically detects and tracks "violative scenes" connected individual servers, will rotation retired complete nan coming months.