Questions linger regarding MindsEye's rushed release
The big Summer Games Fest weekend of live showcases and game previews is over, and here's what to expect in this week's game news recap.
The big picture
'A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad' – a quote that still resonates in the games industry. Nowhere is that more evident than in the release of action-adventure open-world title MindsEye.
This highly touted game from ex-Rockstar Games producer Leslie Benzies's studio, Build A Rocket, promised a rich single-player narrative and ongoing user-generated content post-launch.
It was released on June 10, with not a single reviewer in the world receiving an early copy before launch – usually a red flag.
Sure enough, both early and late impressions from reviewers and content creators were largely negative. The game was buggy, unstable, and riddled with technical issues involving performance and artificial intelligence (AI). Its story also ended abruptly.
A large number of PlayStation owners refunded the game en masse – the last time this happened on such a scale was during Cyberpunk 2077's troubled PlayStation 4 launch in 2020.
The developers are now scrambling to patch the title, likely over the next several weeks, as it is – to quote the community – 'a car on fire'. It simply should not have been released in its current state, even with this relatively quiet sales window before the second half of 2025.
This raises a few lingering questions:
Who exactly was asking for another open-world action-adventure title that isn't Grand Theft Auto?
Did the ex-Rockstar producer contribute meaningfully to the earlier GTA titles? A seasoned veteran wouldn't have allowed a game to launch in such a state.
Short beats
ASUS Republic of Gamers is teaming up with Xbox to produce the ROG Xbox Ally (standard and X versions), a portable PC launching this holiday season.
The Outer Worlds 2 will be released on Oct 30 and will cost US$80 – part of the ongoing trend of triple-A titles surpassing the US$60 mark.
The animated superhero series Invincible is getting its own fighting game in 2026, developed by the same team behind the acclaimed Killer Instinct reboot (2013).
Resident Evil Requiem (aka Resident Evil 9) is Capcom's next survival horror entry, launching Feb 26, 2026 for PC and consoles.
Nintendo Switch 2 has outsold the original Switch by 3-to-1 during its launch in Japan.
No Straight Roads 2, from Malaysian studio Metronomik, will be published in 2026 in collaboration with Shueisha Games.
Upin & Ipin, the beloved Malaysian children's show, is getting an action-adventure game adaptation due later this year.
Marvel Mystic Mayhem, a mobile strategy game, is coming to iOS and Android on June 25.
Konami is remaking the original Silent Hill with Bloober Team, which also handled the Silent Hill 2 remake.
Games out this week
Berserk Or Die is a 2D indie action game where you control a berserker slaying Roman legionnaires from both flanks using keyboard-based combo inputs.
MindsEye is an open-world action-adventure game by Build A Rocket, led by former GTA producer Leslie Benzies.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine – Master Crafted Edition is a remaster of the 2011 sci-fi action title.
Wizard of Legend 2 is a roguelite sequel featuring 3D visuals and new combinable magic spells.
Recommended viewing
Here's a funny comparison between Mindseye and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). Watch this insightful interview with RPG composer Yasunori Nishiki on crafting great game music.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
9 hours ago
- New York Post
I'm a teacher — AI is beating us in the fight for kids' minds
For almost two decades, my best friend and I have taught together in the same social studies department in the dusty urban landscape of California's Central Valley. He teaches US History to juniors; I teach government and economics to seniors. Twenty years of summer conversations have centered on how we can get better as teachers, diving into granular elements to improve the quality of our classes. We have refined exams, tweaked schedules and assignments, and altered our classrooms in countless ways in hopes of offering a better academic product to our students. For many years we would read a book together that had relevance for both of us, such as Jon Meacham's magisterial 'American Lion' on Andrew Jackson or a history of the Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis. We would joyfully discuss the books, pulling out different threads to bolster each of our courses in different ways. Not this summer. This year we're grappling with a Herculean task: how to counter the reality that our students, armed with artificial intelligence technologies that were the stuff of sci-fi just a few years ago, can cheat on virtually any assignment we give them. You name it, they can use AI to cheat on it. Math equations. Writing assignments. Document analysis. Research. Practice tests. Reading tasks. And it's doing measurable damage, according to a new MIT study that found diminished memory and learning activity in the brains of students who use AI — a result completely and utterly consistent with what so many of us are seeing in the classroom. Before ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity, students had to take time to complete assignments. After all, that is the point of academic work: Committing time to focused mental labor — reading books, practicing math, writing essays — trains students' minds to process and comprehend new ideas. Whatever students were asked to do, they were expected to take time and use their own brains. Until recently, this wasn't considered unreasonable or outrageous. Mental labor, we understood, was transformative; becoming educated, obtaining knowledge and cultivating rational thought were treasures leading to a meaningful and full life. My students are casting those treasures aside as they choose AI's easy path. That's the deeper, more penetrating tragedy we teachers are coming to accept: AI is a classroom Gordian knot that cannot be untangled. Because it's not just homework — students use AI to write their emails and clean up their text messages, too. And with the ubiquity of personal tech, teachers witness it everywhere. Students offer up precise summaries of complex novels in seconds and solve difficult math equations in an instant. Large language models generate in moments lengthy essays that creepily mimic the quirks of human writing. Our students are normalizing mental mediocrity through an endless expectation of ease. Pew Research reports that 26% of US teens 'have used ChatGPT for schoolwork,' doubling the number that did so just two years ago. No offense to Pew, but that figure is absolute, unadulterated, unbelievable hogwash: I'm sure the number is much higher, and that it will meteorically rise in the years ahead. The truth is, the tools meant to catch cheating — plagiarism checkers, AI detectors — are deeply flawed. Teachers who think they can outsmart AI are fooling themselves. As one philosophy professor observed on Substack, 'Whatever success they imagine they have today in spotting computer-generated work will disappear with the next generation of AI, or the one after that.' Silicon Valley titans have spent the past decade destroying the mental health of my students via social media, siphoning off their time and attention spans so thoroughly that not even Ivy Leaguers today can read a complete book. Now they have come for the high-school classroom, where the surge in ubiquitous, no-apologies and guilt-free cheating has forced teachers like my friend and me to treat our students with potent suspicion in every academic interaction. Which begs the question: What new classroom innovations are we coming up with this summer? I'll admit, the homework quagmire continues to baffle us. But we have agreed, sadly, that exam days this fall will resemble contraband searches. We will require our students to leave backpacks at the back of the room. Pockets must be emptied. Phones and devices surrendered. We will provide paper and pencils like it's the 1950s, ensuring that at least some brain work will occur in our classrooms. Problem solved . . . right? Not so fast. I mentioned our new policy to an incoming senior who quickly warned me, 'You better watch for the Apple Watches — kids are using those, too.' For teachers in the trenches, this battle never ends. Never. Jeremy S. Adams is a high school teacher from Bakersfield, Calif. and author of the book 'Hollowed Out: A Warning About America's Next Generation.'
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
AMD Just Landed a New Microsoft Partnership. Should You Buy AMD Stock Here?
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) recently announced a high-profile partnership with Microsoft (MSFT) to collaboratively create silicon for a wide range of devices, including the next Xbox console. As the gaming hardware sector slowed down in recent quarters, this news represents a strategic wager that there will be strong demand down the road for new gaming solutions and customized AI-specific workloads. AMD shares are now higher by more than 9% over the previous five trading days. Beyond gaming, the AI chip space remains a large tailwind. Despite import controls and a cautious macroeconomic picture, AMD continues to gain traction in hyperscale data center, client, and custom silicon partnerships. The partnership with Microsoft reestablishes AMD's relevance in a more fragmented chip market and adds a fresh catalyst to a name that has lagged behind other AI stocks. Dear Tesla Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for June 30 3 ETFs with Dividend Yields of 12% or Higher for Your Income Portfolio This Options Tool Can Show You How to Trade Tesla Stock Ahead of Robotaxi Day Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now! Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is a global leader in semiconductors based in Santa Clara, California. The company designs CPU, GPU, and adaptive SoCs for data center, PC, gaming console, and embedded markets. AMD is valued at over $205 billion and competes fiercely with Intel (INTC) and Nvidia (NVDA). AMD shares are down 20% over the past 52 weeks and are more than 40% off record highs. However, things could soon start turning around, with shares up 20% in the last three months. Valuation-wise, AMD trades at a forward price-earnings multiple of 40.1x and a price-sales multiple of 7.99x. These are high figures relative to its history but are within range for its large-cap AI hardware peers. The PEG ratio of 1.64x for AMD suggests that the stock is fairly valued relative to growth, but sustained execution, especially in high-margin AI areas, will be required to justify a premium. AMD's first quarter 2025 results exceeded expectations across the board. The company generated revenue of $7.44 billion, 36% higher year-over-year, and non-GAAP EPS of $0.96 trounced consensus by a wide margin. For the coming quarter, management predicted Q2 revenue of $7.4 billion, minus or plus $300 million, and non-GAAP gross margin to be 43%. The latter reflects a $800 million charge related to fresh export restrictions, without which, margin expectations would have been 54%. Segment by segment, data center revenue increased 57% year over year to $3.7 billion due to strong EPYC CPU and Instinct GPU demand. Client segment revenue increased 68% to $2.3 billion with strong Ryzen processor sales. Gaming revenue decreased 30% to $647 million due to lowered semi-custom sales. According to Barchart, there is currently a 'Moderate Buy' consensus rating among 42 analysts for AMD. 28 of them rank it a 'Strong Buy,' one ranks it a 'Moderate Buy,' and 13 rank it 'Hold.' AMD's consensus price target is $133.32, translating to around 4% upside potential from its current price. The most bullish and bearish targets are $200 with 56.3% of upside and $95 with 25.8% of downside risk. The wide range reflects varied perceptions of AMD's AI momentum vis-a-vis execution risks, particularly margin squeeze and global regulatory challenges. On the date of publication, Yiannis Zourmpanos had a position in: AMD. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Newsweek
10 hours ago
- Newsweek
Dave Bautista Being Targeted for Jake Gyllenhaal's 'Road House 2'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors In both the original "Road House" and the 2024 remake, the hero had to lock horns with some serious contenders. Next time? He might be dealing with Drax the Destroyer. According to Variety, Dave Bautista of "Guardians of the Galaxy" fame has been offered a role in "Road House 2", the sequel to last year's remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal as ex-UFC fighter and hero Dalton. Read More: 'Toxic Avenger' Reboot Trailer Shows Best Look at Peter Dinklage's Toxie There's no word on the plot of "Road House 2" or what kind of role Bautista has been offered, though it seems likely it's the part of the bad guy. The "Road House" remake debuted on Amazon Prime last March and attracted close to 80 million viewers worldwide in its first eight weeks. According to then-Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke, it was Amazon's "most-watched produced film debut ever on a worldwide basis." Dave Bautista attends Amazon's Upfront 2025 Presentation at Beacon Theatre on May 12, 2025 in New York City. Dave Bautista attends Amazon's Upfront 2025 Presentation at Beacon Theatre on May 12, 2025 in New York Amazon While "Road House" was directed by Doug Liman, Guy Ritchie has been tapped to helm the sequel. The change in director likely has something to do with Liman's frustration over "Road House" premiering on a streaming service rather than in a theater, something he expressed in interviews. "Road House 2" will be Gyllenhaal's third collaboration with Ritchie. Gyllenhaal will star in the upcoming action thriller "In the Grey" and has already starred in 2023's "The Covenant". Will Beall is writing the script for "Road House 2". Producers include Gyllenhaal, Josh McLaughlin, and Atlas Entertainment's Charles Roven and Alex Gartner. Ivan Atkinson is executive producing. "Road House" is a reboot of the 1989 action classic starring Patrick Swayze. Gyllenhaal plays Elwood Dalton, an ex-UFC fighter who starts the movie living in his car and is offered a job as a bouncer. Accepting the job finds Dalton pulled into a conflict involving criminals and bikers, as well as a developer who will stop at nothing to build his resort. Coming up for Bautista is "Trap House," in which he plays an undercover DEA agent whose teenage kids are using tactics they learned from him to rob a drug cartel. There's also "The Wrecking Crew", Bautista's long-awaited buddy cop team-up with "See" and "Dune" co-star Jason Momoa. More Movies: Ryan Reynolds' 'Dragon's Lair' Netflix Movie Recruits 'Muppets' Director Jeremy Allen White Transforms Into Bruce Springsteen in Biopic First Look
