How will Radiance Cores make make web-slinging even better in Spider-Man 3? How much of Battlefield 7 will be AI-generated once Saudi Arabia takes over? And why is licensed DLC fueling a Sonic kart-racing renaissance? Welcome to another edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily roundup of gaming news and culture. The Eagles spiked another one last night. Now begins the annual Philly football crashout before things start to recover after Thanksgiving.
Mark Cerny talks like a space wizard while teasing the PlayStation 6
The architect behind Sony’s upcoming gaming hardware sat down with AMD’s senior VP of computing, Jack Huynh, to discuss how the two companies’ joint partnership in advancing GPU tech will make Joel’s beard in The Last of Us Part I look even more awe-inducing on next-gen hardware. They talked about Neural Arrays, Radiance Cores, and Universal Compression. No, these aren’t Destiny 2 patch notes, they’re a roadmap to what will seemingly make gaming on PS6 marginally better than current-gen tech.
In layman’s terms, it’s all supposed to mean more efficiency that lets developers draw better performance and visual fidelity out of the existing GPU. It will seemingly scale with AI tech to give you more bang for your buck across the spectrum, whether you’re playing on a high-end living room console or the rumored PlayStation handheld that’s coming. Cerny didn’t call out the PS6 by name but did suggest it will be here in the next “few years.”
“Overall, it’s of course still very early days for these technologies, they only exist in simulation right now,” he said. “But the results are quite promising and I’m really excited about bringing them to a future console in a few years’ time.” Microsoft is also working with AMD on its next-gen hardware, which it promises it hasn’t canceled.
Players are having too much fun with the new Minecraft pack in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
The Minecraft pack arrived in-game this week and costs $6 for the addition of Steve, Alex, Creeper, the Minecraft vehicle and World course, and other cosmetics. Sonic fans are already calling it “peak.” Sonic can barely see out over the top of the Minecraft cart vehicle. In no other game can you have a Creeper race Shadow while riding in a Hatsune Miku box.
Galactus tells Ubisoft to “fuck off” over canceled Civil War-era Assassin’s Creed game
Once again, fuck off https://t.co/kidkOjOZYd
— Ralph Ineson (@ralphineson) October 9, 2025
British actor Ralph Ineson had harsh words for the publisher following former Kotaku EIC Stephen Totilo’s report that an Assassin’s Creed game featuring a former slave fighting an emerging Ku Klux Klan during post-Civil War Reconstruction was canceled over fears it was too controversial during America’s current reactionary lurch. The actor played Charles Vane in Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag (which is currently getting an unannounced remake) and more recently Cid in Final Fantasy XVI and Lorath Nahr in Diablo 4. He also played Galactus in this year’s Fantastic Four movie. Ineson had a similar response to Hollywood agents trying to promote an AI actress.
EA exec calls generative AI “very seducing”
Speaking of everyone’s favorite $1 trillion Ponzi scheme, EA’s general manager of DICE and Criterion Games, Rebecka Coutaz, told the BBC (via IGN) that there is no generative AI in the finished version of Battlefield 6, though the technology is used early in the development process “to allow more time and more space to be creative.” CEO Andrew Wilson previously told investors that AI was going to be at the heart of everything the company does moving forward, and some developers within the company have told Kotaku there’s new pressure from above to experiment with AI tools wherever possible.
The Financial Times reported that EA’s new Saudi and private equity owners are banking on an AI transformation to help it pay off $20 billion in debt. “If we can break the magic with AI it will help us be more innovative and more creative,” Coutaz told the BBC.
Fortnite‘s new Ghostface mythic weapon is wrecking people
The Last Call Knife changes your costume to the Scream icon and offers voice lines and a speed bonus. Most importantly, it lets you use a phone to ping nearby enemies so you can get the jump on them. Players can also pick up Leatherface’s weapon from Texas Chainsaw Massacre but it’s apparently not as good. “Just so everyone knows, Ghostface beats chainsaw. Found out the hard way,” one fan wrote on Reddit.
Physical Switch editions of the PS1-era Final Fantasy games are finally coming West
They won’t be cheap, though. The Final Fantasy VII and VIII double-pack is $40 on Nintendo’s last-gen console, while Final Fantasy IX is $40 all by itself. At least there’s not a game key card in sight though for these HD remasters. Square Enix must know their fans are marks. I suspect they (we) know it too, though I personally prefer the PS4 version of Final Fantasy VIII with this neat box art.
