🎮 Xbox Game Pass Price Hike, D&D Game Cancelled and Halo CE Remake Might Be In Development...

Xbox Game Pass Price Hike, D&D Game Cancelled, Halo CE Remake Might Be In Development, Netflix Wants Gen AI Director In Games and more!

Hello friends,

Today is October 14th 2025 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌

In today’s news:

• 🎮 Xbox Game Pass Price Hike

• 🎮 D&D Game Cancelled

• 🎮 Halo CE Remake Might Be In Development

• 🎮 Netflix Wants Gen AI Director In Games

• ⚡ Lightning Round!

• 🫡 True Tribute!

• 😄 Personal Update

All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️

Let’s dig in!

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🎮 Xbox Game Pass Price Hike

Image: Xbox / Microsoft

Microsoft has decided to implement a rather controversial change to its Game Pass service, which includes price increases, tier changes, and the removal of current plans.

In the official announcement, the company shared that the change was implemented to “offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players”:

Our goal with Game Pass has been clear: deliver unmatched value, benefits, and a deep library of games for our players. Since launching in 2017, we’ve steadily grown our subscriber and creator satisfaction – and today, creator participation and player engagement in Game Pass are at an all-time high. But we have the opportunity for Game Pass to help more players find the creators and games they love.

We know not everyone wants the same thing in their Xbox experience, so we’re evolving Game Pass to offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players, whether you love day one releases, discovering hidden gems, or playing across multiple devices and screens and across Xbox consoles, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud.

In addition to that, it looks like every time you boot up the console, a huge ad is being thrown in your face. Probably also to offer you “more choice and value” 😅

With every company gradually raising their prices, this was probably inevitable. Nonetheless, if I were using this, I would be very upset. Especially when a company that only wants to increase its bottom line dresses up these changes as “improvements”. Personally, I don’t see any improvement.

What do you think?

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🎮 D&D Game Cancelled

Image: Hasbro

I completely forgot it was a thing, but until recently, there was a Dungeons and Dragons game in development by people who made Payday.

Unfortunately, Starbreeze recently announced that this live-service project, which was in development since 2023 with a planned release date of 2026, is no longer happening. The company evaluated that its resources would be better spent developing more Payday IP.

This was a difficult but necessary decision. 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.

Which also means that some people will also be let go, but a “part of the Baxter (codename of the project) team will be redeployed across Starbreeze’s projects, most prominently within PAYDAY.” The company also stated that it will provide support for affected employees to transition to new roles when the internal opportunities are limited.

It’s hard to be sad about a project we knew virtually nothing about, but it’s still a bit depressing. Not even the cancellation part, the part when the company firmly decided to pursue this idea, and then suddenly realised that they had a bigger fish to fry. I mean, this all doesn’t sound like a strong vision to me; it sounds more like we are stumbling in the dark and going where the wind takes us…

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🎮 Halo CE Remake Might Be In Development

Image: Bungie / Microsoft

While we are still on the subject of Microsoft, there’s a rumour going around that Halo Combat Evolved Remake may be co-developed by one of Virtuos’ studios.

According to Insider Gaming, the claim first appeared in a YouTube video made by Halo-centric creator MrRebs, which claimed that the remake is in development with Abstraction Virtuos Studios out of the Netherlands. And at least one other outlet has also confirmed it.

These combined rumours all state that the game is being developed with Halo Studios at the helm and that the remake will use a hybrid engine similar to this year’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. But as usual with these things, take them with a grain of salt.

It’s been a minute since we saw a new Halo game, even if it’s just a remake. Considering how successful Oblivion Remaster was, I’m 100% sure there are fans out there who would die to play Combat Evolved again, especially if it’s a good and polished remake.

What do you think about a potential CE remake?

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🎮 Netflix Wants Gen AI Director In Games

Image: Netflix

With every studio in the world trying to figure out how to insert AI into their processes, Netflix decided to up the ante and hire a “Head of Gen AI” to “lead the strategy and application of Gen AI across our games organisation.”

According to the job description:

This role sits at the intersection of technology, product, and creativity – driving how we leverage cutting-edge AI to create meaningful, novel, and scalable experiences for players.

Your mandate is to shape and scale our approach to Generative AI, from core capabilities to in-game features to entirely new forms of play, anchored in both what’s technically feasible and what’s compelling for players.

There are also mentions that the person ideal for this role should know “when and how Gen AI adds real value to the experience,” along with the ability to “influence broader company thinking around Gen AI.”

AI and Gen AI specifically have been under a lot of fire ever since this technology made its way to the general public. With most companies claiming that this is the future of technology and not really giving a damn about the criticism, I’d say that positions like this will be more and more prominent in the foreseeable future.

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⚡ Lightning Round!

1…2…3…Go!

🎮 Former Capcom Designer’s Campaign Against Palworld

Image: Pocketpair

Speaking of criticism, a former Designer from Capcom recently decided to comment on the ongoing legal dispute between Pocketpair and Nintendo, discouraging people from buying Palworld.

According to the YouTube video, kindly translated by IGN, Yoshiki Okamoto stated that Pocketpair “crossed a line” with Palworld and doesn’t wish for the world to accept “this kind of thing.” He also asked everybody not to buy this game because it’s in the middle of a lawsuit.

Surprisingly, he then said that it will be fine to play it in case the developers settle with Nintendo, so I guess the alleged copyright infringement is “fine” as long as you settle with the parent company 😅

🎮 Funcom Hit With Layoffs

Image: Funcom

Another studio that joined a long line of companies laying people off is Funcom, which recently shared that they are doing “restructuring”.

According to gamesindustry.biz, before announcing the restucturing, Funcom said that the open-world survival game was “the biggest release we’ve had in our 32-year long history of making great games”:

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.

This difficult process is starting now, and we cannot yet determine the exact impact. We are working to find new opportunities for those affected.

Yet another company is saying that it’s all well and good, but we are laying people off…

🎮 More KOTOR Remake Screenshots Surface Online

Image: Saber Interactive / Aspyr

More screenshots have surfaced while the world wonders what’s going on with the Knights Of The Old Republic Remake.

Kindly shared by Insider Gaming, those screenshots are, again, mostly assets from an artist who previously worked for Aspyr. Most of the images are of assets that would have appeared in the game or been utilized as weapons, including a blaster, blaster rifle, and Vibroblades. Other images include computer interfaces and what appear to be props that would likely have been found around the world of the game.

It’s a shame that we don’t get to hear any updates on this title 😢

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🫡 True Tribute!

Today I wanted to salute

Prof. Rock

and

Prof. Rock's Learning Arcade

!

From Feeds to Servers: How I Replaced Social Media

Another great piece from

Prof. Rock

about an interesting alternative to social media. Honestly, I never considered Discord to be anything more than a place for friends to play together, but your arguments actually make a lot of sense. I used to be a part of many communities and joined them strictly based on whatever game I was playing at the time. Maybe I ought to look outside the box for a change!

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😄 Personal Update

Despite being quite busy at work, I couldn’t walk past the autumn sale on Steam this year and decided to expand my ever-growing backlog of games 😅

Now it’s official, I have more games to play than I have time. I still haven’t completed my playthrough of The Last of Us games when I switch to Hades 2, and now I finally bought myself Spider-Man 2, so it looks like my upcoming time will be quite busy.

While this is going on, I’m working on quite a few articles and on that note, I have a question for those of you who read this far. If there’s anyone who recently landed a junior to mid-level QA position, give me a nudge if you don’t mind answering some questions about how your interview process went and what questions people usually ask these days 😉

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This is all the news I have for you folks today.

Thanks for making it this far! 🙌

If you feel like supporting me and my work, consider Powering-Up GameDev Relay 🎮

Have a great week!

Alex from Gamedev Relay.