Why is GameStop torching its business partner on social media? Can unionization help the studio behind Disco Elysium pull out of a rough couple of years? And what is one of the first people to get their Xbox Ally Rog handheld in the mail saying about it? It’s another edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily roundup of gaming news and culture. Take a stroll down memory lane with this excerpt from then-chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment Shawn Layden’s speech at E3 2019. “It really stuck with me as the thing that makes PlayStation so appealing,” Souls archeologist Lance McDonald wrote recently.
6 years ago @ShawnLayden delivered this mostly forgotten speech for PlayStation at E3, which for some reason it really stuck with me as the thing that makes PlayStation so appealing. The CEO saying “It wasn’t a multi-million seller, but that wasn’t the point” at the time was nice pic.twitter.com/iK6KdnXm4w
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) November 30, 2020
The Payday studio is killing its D&D project to focus more on Payday
Project Baxter was a “co-op urban crawl through a reactive Dungeons & Dragons world, utilizing procedural tools to enhance emergent gameplay in an endlessly replayable setting.” It is no more. Starbreeze announced the project has been canceled as it pivots to focusing exclusively on its multiplayer heist franchise.
“This was a difficult but necessary decision,” CEO Adolf Kristjansson said in a statement. “Our strategy is clear: PAYDAY is one of the most iconic IPs in gaming, with unmatched reach and potential. By focusing our investment and talent here, we can accelerate delivery, engage players with more content, and reinforce Starbreeze’s position as the clear leader in the heisting genre. This is about sharpening our focus to create the strongest long-term value for our players, our people, and our shareholders.”
Devs at Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM just unionized
The group will be represented by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) and meet regularly with studio management to discuss workplace issues, GamesIndustry.biz reports. The change comes after the cancellation of a Disco Elysium sequel, multiple rounds of layoffs, and an acrimonious split with the original game’s leads.
“It’s been a super turbulent couple of years,” Poppy Ingham told GamesIndustry.biz. “Oh God, you’d open Slack and you wouldn’t know if you were expecting to see another podcast about the studio. You had no idea what was going to happen.” ZA/UM revealed a trailer for its next RPG, Zero Parades for Spies, at Sony’s most recent State of Play.
GameStop claims it will keep Game Pass prices lower, for now
We will continue to sell Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $19.99/month in-store and online. pic.twitter.com/EAPGaud7cY
— GameStop (@gamestop) October 1, 2025
The Pokémon-card-trading house masquerading as a video game retailer used Microsoft’s Game Pass price hike announcement to chase clout and win back disaffected gamers who forget how much they once hated trading in games they paid full price for in exchange for pennies on the dollar. “We will continue to sell Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $19.99/month in-store and online,” it posted on X. That was after several viral posts dunking on the latest Xbox move. Kotaku reached out to GameStop for clarification on how long this offer will last.
Dune: Awakening dev is laying people off despite a huge launch
Funcom called the desert survival crafting MMO “the biggest release we’ve had in our 32-year-long history of making great games,” but added that it now has begin the “difficult process” of laying some people off as it pivots toward a console launch next year. Dune: Awakening debuted at over 100,000 concurrent players on Steam back in July and has been releasing steady updates for Early Access ever since.
“The transition from development to long-term live operation, while also building towards a major console release next year, will require us to restructure our teams and focus our resources from across projects and studios. Unfortunately, this also means having to say goodbye to cherished colleagues,” the studio told GamesIndustry.biz in a statement.
Someone got their $1000 Xbox handheld early
Amazon France has accidentally shipped an Xbox Ally X early to a Reddit user https://t.co/iTofLme10L pic.twitter.com/Qh3Jc6N9YX
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) September 30, 2025
“It’s a good console,” wrote TechnicalFun77 on the Asus Rog Ally subreddit (via GameSpot). “Very good ergonomics, controlled weight, pretty nice handheld, armory crate in the full screen experience is very responsive, no latency problem when pressing buttons, quite fluid in the menus in general, and superb battery life at 17-25w. And my god, the console is quiet and well-cooled even at high TDP. One of the main strengths is the sound of the device. It [feels] like the sounds are going all around my head, I almost don’t need headphones.” The post has since been nuked.
Daredevil and the first step toward cross-platform progression come to Marvel Rivals this month
Season 4.5 is called Heart of the Dragon and arrives on October 10 with the defense-attorney-turned-crime-fighter as well as testing for the ability to carry your account unlocks between platforms. Cross-platform progression will only be open to a few players at first before it’s expanded to everyone. Meanwhile, a fresh balance patch is hitting the hero shooter today.
