Rockstar developers will vote on union recognition as GTA 6 launches, union says
Plus Three Kingdoms:Yi's breakout, REfeed, 13,653 Steam games on sale and this week's filings.
The Denoiser
From The Raytrace · No. 1 · Friday, October 30, 2026 · The week in video games, minus the noise
Number of the week
13,653
Steam games on sale in the US on October 29, out of 115,033 with a price: 11.9%. 878 of those discounts were new that day.
Deepest cuts among the top sellers
| House Flipper | −92% | |
| The Quarry | −90% | |
| The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series | −90% | |
| Scorn | −90% | |
| Dead Island 2 | −90% |
The week's lead · Industry
Rockstar developers in the UK will vote on union recognition from November 12 to 26, while Grand Theft Auto 6 launches. The dates come from a statement by the IWGB, the union organizing them.
Long Exposure
This week, The Raytrace interviewed Ripalda.
In an email interview, the developer behind RecompStore, Porpoise and RecompLauncher talks about curating recomps, porting other people's Xbox 360 work to the PS5, AI, Sony, and why every game starts with your own copy.
By Nicholas De Leon · 8 min read
Long Exposure
This week, The Raytrace interviewed Maddie Thomas.
In an email interview, Maddie Thomas, who runs Tanooki Studios alone, reveals Decomp Buddy's companion phone app and talks about AI-written install plans, credit for the scene's developers, and lessons from the Nokia N-Gage.
By Nicholas De Leon · 13 min read
Also this week
| • | Gears of War: E-Day cost over $500 million to make, Kotaku reportsReported by Kotaku |
| • | Activision says Modern Warfare 4 is this decade's best-reviewed Call of DutyConfirmed by Activision |
| • | No Man's Sky gets Forsaken, a Halloween update with a minimal HUD modeConfirmed by Xbox Wire |
| • | Phantom Blade Zero PC pre-load needs at least 300 GB of free spaceConfirmed by S-GAME Studio |
| • | Microsoft offers voluntary exits to 60,000 employees, Fortune reportsReported by Fortune |
| • | Konami kept its Silent Hill studios apart to stop ideas crossing over, VGC reportsReported by VGC |
Breakout
+119%
Steam reviews: 75 a week before, then 89 new from Oct 22 to Oct 28, 79% of them positive. The fastest riser on our watch list.
Reviews per day, last 35 days · the week counted is in color
Also rising
| • | One Million Coins: +445 reviews (+98%), 93% positive |
| • | Vahnora: +29 reviews (+66%), 55% positive |
First Light · picks nobody can pay for
REfeed is a free Windows download described as "an incremental uncanny game." The tags suggest a first-person, physics-based psychological horror game with low-poly and pixel-art visuals, though the description does not say what the player actually does.
download for windows (free)
A free, first-person prison kitchen sim where the player serves food to the cell block using physical ladles. The description also mentions keeping something for yourself, so there seems to be a small personal-comfort side to the job.
download for windows (free)
A short, low-poly 3D narrative adventure demo set in a Vietnamese village in 1990, in which the player sneaks out, gathers cashews, catches a cricket and shares ice cream.
playable in the browser (free)
Emulation & homebrew
New releases
| • | TIC-80 TIC-80 tiny computer 1.4.1Fantasy console · Oct 27 |
New homebrew
| • | Defence ForceTIC-80 · new on PDRoms |
| • | MazeZX Spectrum · new on PDRoms |
| • | Drag Racing ThunderCommodore 64 · new on PDRoms |
| • | Navy SealsSega Master System · new on PDRoms |
| • | EscapeZX Spectrum · new on PDRoms |
Newly Verified on Steam Deck
None this week.
Paper trail
| • | 10-29 Microsoft filed a 424B2 (see filing) |
| • | 10-29 Roblox filed a 10-Q (see filing) |
| • | 10-29 Roblox filed an 8-K (item 2.02: results; item 7.01: Regulation FD disclosure) |
| • | 10-28 DoubleDown Interactive filed a 6-K (foreign issuer's report) |
| • | 10-28 Bilibili filed a 6-K (foreign issuer's report) |
| • | 10-28 Microsoft filed a 10-Q (see filing) |
| • | 10-28 Microsoft filed an 8-K (item 2.02: results) |
| • | 10-28 Logitech filed a 10-Q (see filing) |
No union petitions or labor charges at game companies this week.
Elsewhere
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