ARC Raiders Frozen Trail | Gaming News #47
Epic gives away Astrea and Mechabellum free to keep from September 24.
Gaming News · Issue #47 · 23 September 2026
TL;DR
- Epic gives away Astrea and Mechabellum free to keep from September 24.
🔫 FPS
Rainbow Six Siege Y11S3.1 Buffs Buck and Castle in a Small Balance Pass
Ubisoft released Rainbow Six Siege patch Y11S3.1 (3.49) on September 22. Buck's Skeleton Key jumps from 31 to 36 total rounds, Castle's armor panel now soaks 10 melee hits instead of 9, and Fenrir's gas mines take slightly longer to reach full spread, up from 1.9 to 2 seconds. Ubisoft called it a polish pass with no intended meta shift. Rainbow Six Siege is a 5v5 tactical shooter built around destructible walls and gadget counters.
Player impact: Buck gains real utility rounds for opening floors and walls, a quiet win for hard-breach comps. Nothing here forces a ban-phase rethink, so ranked lineups stay where they were this season.
🔜 Coming soon
Silent Hill: Townfall Reviews Land at 89 on PC Gamer Ahead of Its September 24 Launch
Silent Hill: Townfall cleared its review embargo on September 21, three days before its September 24 launch on PS5 and PC. PC Gamer scored it 89, IGN gave 8 out of 10, and Eurogamer landed 4 out of 5, praising the atmosphere, sound design, and a CRT-based puzzle and stealth tool. Critics knocked stiff stealth against relentless enemies and stingy checkpoints. Townfall is a first-person survival horror spin-off from developer Screen Burn.
Player impact: Strong reviews make this a safer pre-order than most horror spin-offs, but the stealth complaints matter if you hate trial-and-error deaths. Wishlist watchers get their verdict two days before launch.
Sources: PC Gamer · OpenCritic
🆓 Free to try
Epic's Free Games Swap to Astrea and Mechabellum From September 24
The Epic Games Store rotates its weekly free games on September 24, giving away Astrea: Six Sided Oracles and the mech auto-battler Mechabellum. Both are free to keep, claimable until October 1 at 8am PT / 11am ET. Astrea is a dice-building roguelike deckbuilder. Mechabellum is a large-scale auto-battler where you draft and position mech armies, then watch the fight resolve on its own. Claim once and they stay in your library forever.
Player impact: Two keep-forever PC games for nothing, so grab both before the October 1 cutoff even if you play them later. Mechabellum is the standout if you like strategy that rewards planning over reflexes.
Sources: Game Rant · Epic Games Store
🕹️ Console specifics
PS5 Pulse Elite and PS Link Firmware Update Leaves Some Headsets Dropping Connection
Sony rolled out firmware for the PS5 Pulse Elite headset and PlayStation Link adapter on September 21 and 22. After updating, some players report connection drops that appear to come from a sync issue between the headset and the PS Link dongle. PlayStation Link is Sony's low-latency wireless standard for its audio gear. The update prompts automatically when you power on the accessories.
Player impact: If your Pulse Elite starts cutting out mid-match, the new firmware is the likely cause, so re-pair the headset and PS Link before blaming your setup. Hold off updating a second unit if yours still works.
Sources: PlayStation LifeStyle
🖥️ Hardware
Nvidia's 617.14 Driver Preps Control Resonant, Gears of War E-Day, and Witcher 3 Remastered
Nvidia released GeForce Game Ready driver 617.14 (WHQL) on September 22, two days before Control Resonant launches with path tracing and DLSS 4.5. The driver also adds Game Ready support for Gears of War: E-Day, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, and AION 2. WHQL means the driver is Microsoft-certified for stability. DLSS is Nvidia's AI upscaling that raises frame rates by rendering at a lower resolution and reconstructing the detail.
Player impact: Update before you load Control Resonant on September 24, or path tracing will run rough. If you are on the fence about the Witcher 3 Remaster, this driver is the performance baseline reviewers are testing against.
Sources: TechPowerUp · Neowin
📦 Other
Xbox Cuts 268 More Jobs, Folds Obsidian Into Bethesda, and Hands Halo to Activision
Microsoft's Xbox division cut 268 more jobs on September 22 and reorganized studios, moving Halo under Call of Duty publisher Activision and merging Obsidian into Bethesda, per Bloomberg and PC Gamer. Xbox says it is about three-quarters through a planned 3,200 cuts. One Halo Studios director was promoted, then laid off two days later. The reshuffle continues the fallout from Microsoft's $69 billion Activision Blizzard purchase in 2023.
Player impact: Studio mergers and cuts usually mean slower updates and thinner support for the games under them, so Halo and Obsidian fans should temper roadmap hopes. Fewer teams shipping means fewer new games competing for your time.
Read the full issue on the site →
6 stories in this issue. Same digest goes out in the Warhogy Discord — reply to this email if there is a story I missed.
