Fall’s Video Game Release Slate Is Intimidatingly Good And Completely Doomed

There are more games of all sorts to come in October, like a new Ace Combat, a Gears of War prequel, a Hellraiser title, Star Wars: Galactic Racer, Modern Warfare 4–not to be confused with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare–a port of a mobile Final Fantasy, Phantom Blade Zero, and even a collection of Kingdom Hearts games. Hell, we don’t have confirmed release dates, but even The Duskbloods and the upcoming remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are still supposedly due by the end of the year. 

Of course, all of these games with actual dates are launching ahead of the biggest title of the year, and maybe even all time: Grand Theft Auto 6, which looks like it’ll dominate November, the holidays after, and perhaps the entirety of the next few years. 

Much as I want to view this lineup optimistically, it’s hard to see this run of releases as anything but carnage. The games industry has never been more fraught, and now it’s about to tear itself apart in a matter of months. Whether a game is good or bad, a hit or a flop, developers and studios are seeing layoffs and even being completely shut down, as parent corporations tighten their belts and watch their stock tickers. All these games are about to go head-to-head vying for a limited number of gamer dollars and eyeballs, which is likely to make all the existing problems in the industry even worse.

Take, as one example, the fact that Riot Games gave its fighting game 2XKO about nine months before winding down its development. If the support of the publisher behind massive ongoing hits such as League of Legends and Valorant can’t provide a modicum of protection for developers, what is saving any of the studios dropping into this fall’s free-for-all? And how are we, as consumers, supposed to reasonably prop up all of that?

Now, especially at a time when consumer dollars are being stretched or spent elsewhere, it feels impossible that all of these teams can possibly succeed to the degree they need to in order to survive–or even simply come out of the season unscathed. No matter who wins this fall, it feels like we’ll all lose as a consequence. 

Console spending is down due to a worsening global economy and increased corporate spending on AI, which has brought the cost of systems and some games to an all-time high. Anecdotally, most savvy gamers I know–the types to pick up all kinds of games for a breadth of experiences–are budgeting their time and money carefully for the next few months with so many games dropping on top of one another. Even subscriptions such as Xbox Game Pass, which should be a bounty to budget-conscious consumers, are failing to gain any momentum, and in fact seem to be losing their footholds as discourse over ownership and physical media has intensified. 

Some of these games are simply going to slip through the cracks, and as a result, the whole space will hurt. Sales forecasts will adjust to account for the most contentious season in years. Some games might perform well or even better than expected. I expect countless more will underperform, though. Publishers and developers will downsize teams as a result, despite the likelihood those teams have put out incredible work. And while massive publishers like Capcom, Square Enix, and Nintendo will be mostly protected from absolute devastation, I suspect smaller developers and publishers–like Remedy, which often skirts the line between AA and AAA–will bear a heavy burden should they come up short at the literal worst of times. And that’s to say nothing of independent studios–teams made up of handfuls of hopefuls trying to make a dent at the same time that Rockstar happens to drop what will likely be one of the most successful entertainment launches of all time.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no great solution. Many studios are hemorrhaging as they try to weather this storm the games industry finds itself caught in. Teams can’t simply hold back releases for more opportune release windows, for fear of going under before they can even get their games out the door. Whatever protections may have once existed–lofty publishing deals with Epic Games or contracts to launch titles day one on Game Pass–seem all but gone. It’s everyone for themselves right now, and I fear it’s going to bear out in an ugly way come the end of this year.

I’d love to be proven wrong. I want everyone to win. But the reality of the situation seems to be that few will. And if the worst does come to pass and the season takes its toll on these talented developers, as it seems has become common, then this bounty of releases will turn into a bloodbath quickly, and all that’ll remain at its end is an increasingly broken games industry without a path forward.