š® 2025 Golden Joystick Nominees, AC Mirage: Valley of Memory and Why Xbox Handheld Was Cancelled...
2025 Golden Joystick Nominees, AC Mirage: Valley of Memory, Why Xbox Handheld Was Cancelled (Allegedly), Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Announces Free Update and more!
Hello friends,
Today is October 16th 2025 and I hope youāve had a great week š
In todayās news:
š® 2025 Golden Joystick Nominees
š® AC Mirage: Valley of Memory
š® Why Xbox Handheld Was Cancelled, Allegedly
š® Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Announces Free Update
ā” Lightning Round!
š«” True Tribute!
š Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ā²ļø
Letās dig in!
š® 2025 Golden Joystick Nominees
The year 2025 is almost over, and for some, itās already time to start giving out the awards. For example, we already have a list of nominees for the Golden Joystick.
Kindly summed up by Games Radar, everything has already been announced. From a little over a week ago to October 31, you can vote on 21 different categories and a lot of different games, performers, studios and other things to figure out the best thing there is.
There are definitely some surprising nominees this year. As far as these things go, Iām always surprised and ask myself all the time about who selects those games in the first place. I wonāt say anything specific at the risk of starting the holy war, but I think some of the games that got on this list shouldnāt have been there, and some of them that did deserve to be put into a different category.
Regardless, Iām glad that at least some of the games that I played in 2025 got the recognition they deserved, and Iām very curious about who would take the gold home with them.
The biggest question, though, is which game do you think is going to be The Best Game of the Year in its respective categories?
š® AC Mirage: Valley of Memory
Itās finally time for an official reveal of the free DLC for Assassinās Creed Mirage that Ubisoft has been teasing for a while, with a release date of November 18th, 2025.
The DLC called Valley of Memory even got its own trailer, and a bunch of details have been shared during the latest livestream. In the trailer, we can see Basim returning in order to learn more about his past, specifically about his long-lost father. Set in Al Ula, we can resume Basimās story with new content and a new map.
All in all, this DLC seems to be a big deal for the 2023 title that many players consider to be the best Assassinās Creed since Black Flag and a much more interesting addition than a bunch of other recently made additions to the franchise. And the fact that this DLC is free will definitely help it win hearts and minds of the fans.
Personally, Iām still waiting for Ubisoft to hit a reset button on this franchise. For a person who cares too much about the plot, I lost it a while ago, probably after they got rid of Desmond. And all the recent ACs have so many different twists and turns, it gets too confusing for my taste. Maybe thatās the plan for this new Ubisoft x Tencent studio?
What do you think about Assassinās Creed Mirage? Are you excited about the DLC?
š® Why Xbox Handheld Was Cancelled, Allegedly
Right before Xbox ROG Ally was announced, there were rumours that the company was working on an original handheld, but then quickly partnered with ASUS, and that was that. According to some of the recent reports, we now have a potential reason why.
According to a rumour from Insider Gaming, this original handheld shouldāve had AMD components, and the original contract from AMD required a commitment of a minimum of 10 million units. Considering the current market data on how the other handhelds are doing, Microsoft assessed that this commitment is too big a gamble and decided not to pursue this deal, later on shifting its focus to ASUS.
However, according to Jez Corden, Executive Editor of Windows Central, āthis isnāt even slightly trueā. Even though the original info was provided by somewhat reputable AMD and hardware leaker KeplerL2, who has reported on many AMD-related leaks in the past.
While itās unclear whether this information is true or not, it kind of makes sense. In our current state of affairs in the industry, even corporations that have a lot of money to burn are not ready to gamble on something thatās not a 100% sure thing, or at least that they think would be a sure thing. Of course, we probably will never know for sure what caused Microsoft to change course, but weāll see how the new console is doing with ASUS as it is scheduled to release today.
If youāve already had a chance to use this bad boy, please let me know what you think!
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š® Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Announces Free Update
And speaking about expansions and DLCs, Sandfall Interactive has announced a big update coming out soon for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for free.
Aimed to celebrate a huge milestone of surpassing 5 million copies sold since the initial release in April, and according to the official note from the devs, the update is quite big:
A new, playable environment, taking the characters of Expedition 33 to a brand-new location with new enemy encounters and surprises to discover.
Challenging, new boss battles for late-game players to overcome.
New costumes for each member of the Expedition, giving even more customisation options for players throughout their adventure.
New text and UI game localisations into Czech, Ukrainian, Latin American Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Thai, and Indonesian, bringing the total number of supported languages to 19.
And more to comeā¦
Ever since the release, Clair Obscur gathered a ton of support, momentum and praise, so itās great that the studio that made it happen decided not to be greedy and do something for the fans, basically, for free.
Iām yet to give this game a fair try, as Iāve been switching back and forth and only got through the tutorial. But with each passing month, I hear more and more good things about it, so Iāll definitely put it on the short list after Iām done with Hades 2 š
ā” Lightning Round!
1ā¦2ā¦3ā¦Go!
š® Funcom Closes The Outsiders
After announcing a round of layoffs recently, Funcom has now decided to start closing studios, and the first one on the list was the studio behind the rhythm-based first-person shooter Metal: Hellsinger.
In a statement released last week, studio founder David Goldfarb shared the following:
Many of us had survived a near-death studio experience years back when Darkborn was cancelled, and because of this teamās loyalty and refusal to quit, Metal Hellsinger was born. It will always be a high point for me personally and I will be forever grateful we got to make it and for the wonderful team and partnerships that made it happen.
We had hoped to do something even better this time.
But we are not giving up, and we are going to continue on in some new form.
š® Microsoft Addresses Rumours Surrounding Xbox Console Future
With so many uncertainties and no official position from the company, the rumour started spreading that the future of Xbox is āup in the airā right now. Well, Microsoft finally decided to reassure its users that this is not the case.
According to Windows Central, the company said that its commitment to hardware remains strong and offered the following statement:
We are actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox. For more details, the community can revisit our agreement announcement with AMD.
At least they are saying something, right? š
š® Alien: Fireteam Elite Sequel Rumoured
Have you played Alien: Fireteam Elite? If you have liked it, you are in for a treat, as there is a rumour going around that Cold Iron Studio is working on a sequel.
According to Game Rant, the rumours first started back in mid-2024, but recently, Polygon noticed an M-rated listing on the ESRB website, which was quickly taken down. But the outlet did manage to notice that it will be released for PC, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5, and the publisher will be Daybreak Game Company.
Have you played the original game? What do you think about a potential sequel?
š«” True Tribute!
Today I wanted to salute
and !
Iāve never been too much of a fan of the Fallout series and Bethesda in general, but
makes it sound quite intriguing. Aside from really selling the feature, also shares a bunch of interesting quotes from developers and dives deep into why the base building as a mechanic is so cozy to begin with. Love it!š Personal Update
We are finally done with our second and probably biggest update to Angry Birds Bounce so far, and Iām very excited!
While we are still figuring out what to do with our next update and evaluating the results, for me, itās time to focus on the stuff that I need to be better at as a Producer. Namely, figure out how to transition from a doing mentality to directing.
And yes, Iām still playing Hades 2 like crazy.
This is all the news I have for you folks today.
Thanks for making it this far! š
If you feel like supporting me and my work, consider Powering-Up GameDev Relay š®
Have a great week!
Alex from Gamedev Relay.
I love relaxing, reading these news articles ā I feel like Iām staying on top of whatās happening with the industry without bias.
God knows, I have my biases, but itās nice to see whatās happening.
With the failures of Ubisoft lately, Iām mostly neutral to the news. Itās nice to see they want to make things up to their fans with an update to AC, but to me I donāt expect much from themā¦
That's awesome, thanks so much for the mention Alex! I'm super happy that you liked my latest article on Fallout 4 with the base-building mechanic š
I'm also glad to read of Microsoft talking about its commitment to keeping the Xbox alive! I am still primarily a PlayStation gamer, but I do hope that Xbox is there for the competition down the road and to give people other options! It will be very interesting to see what the future holds for the Xbox š®
Thanks again Alex, I greatly appreciate the work you do!