Gray Zone Warfare Rogue Ops Launch | Gaming News #77
Gray Zone Warfare's Rogue Ops is live for everyone, with 293 launch-day cheater bans and the game at 35% off until November 5.
Gaming News · Issue #77 · 23 October 2026
TL;DR
- Gray Zone Warfare's Rogue Ops is live for everyone, with 293 launch-day cheater bans and the game at 35% off until November 5.
- Modern Warfare 4 launches today at $69.99 and sits at number one on Steam, but Game Pass players wait until holiday 2027.
- Capcom says 11.7 million Capcom ID accounts leaked, so Monster Hunter and Street Fighter players should watch for phishing emails.
- A Valve composer said 'HLX' out loud at a game audio talk, and a coworker immediately told him 'nice work'.
- Xbox hardware hit its worst September ever in the US while PS5 dollar sales jumped 43%.
🎯 Extraction shooters
Gray Zone Warfare's Rogue Ops Launches With 293 Cheater Bans and Its Lowest Price Yet
MADFINGER Games pushed Update 0.5, Rogue Ops, live for everyone on October 22, moving Gray Zone Warfare into alpha with a Hideout, crafting, smuggling jobs, multiple characters, and seven new guns. The same day it permanently banned 293 accounts caught by new anti-cheat checks during the Supporter preview and the first hours of release. Every edition is 35% off on Steam until November 5, so the Standard Edition drops from $39.99 to $25.99.
Player impact: This is the cheapest entry yet into a freshly soft-wiped Lamang, so a returning squad loses nothing by starting over now. Watch whether the ban count keeps climbing once discount buyers flood in.
Sources: Gray Zone Warfare on Steam: Release Day Ban Wave · Gray Zone Warfare on Steam: 35% Off
Modern Warfare 4's DMZ Has a Perk That Brings You Back From Full Death, and Players Call It Broken
Within a day of DMZ early access opening, players flagged Possum, an operator trait on the Warfighter skill tree that lets you self-revive into last stand once per match after you have been fully killed, with health restored. PC Gamer reports it takes only a handful of matches to unlock, and clips show killed players popping up to shoot the person who just finished them. Eurogamer separately reports players spawning in the middle of roads and getting run over before they can move.
Player impact: Confirm every kill in DMZ until Infinity Ward touches Possum, and check the road before you spawn-sprint. Looting a body without a second burst is now a gamble.
ARC Raiders Support Reportedly Sent a Player ChatGPT Prompts and Other People's Tickets
A Reddit user says Embark Studios' ARC Raiders support chat sent them about 10 other players' messages at once, complete with visible prompts like "Create a short response" and "ChatGPT said: Writing". GamesRadar reviewed the chain, including a reply refusing to restore a full loadout lost to a game issue, and AI detection tools rated it 100% machine-written. Embark has not commented. The studio is also surveying a sample of players from October 22 about its PvE test.
Player impact: If you file a ticket for lost gear, expect a templated answer and no restore. Keep clips of the bug, because a human may never read the text.
Sources: GamesRadar+ · ARC Raiders on Steam: Update 2.2.0
Delta Force's Raven's Deal Adds a New In-Raid Mechanic to Operations Until November 9
Team Jade's Halloween update for Delta Force landed October 22 with no downtime, and its Operations events run October 23 to November 9. Raven's Deal: First Call adds a new in-match mechanic tied to exploration missions, while Raven's Deal itself pays Major Event Tokens for extracting with supplies above a set value. Tokens buy limited skins, including a P90 Ahsarah Wraith, plus supplies at the Trickster Store.
Player impact: Raids that reward high-value extracts push squads to carry more and play greedier, so expect hotter exits for the next two weeks. The skins are the bait; the supplies are the actual value.
Sources: Delta Force on Steam: Halloween Update
🔫 FPS
Modern Warfare 4 Launches Today at Number One on Steam, and Game Pass Waits Until 2027
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 fully launches October 23 after a week of campaign and DMZ early access. TechPowerUp reports it hit number one on Steam's US and global top sellers ahead of launch, passing Counter-Strike 2, with a 91% positive rating from over 5,000 reviews. It costs $69.99, or $99.99 for the Vault Edition. Activision confirmed it will not join Game Pass until holiday 2027.
Player impact: Game Pass players either pay full price or sit out a whole year of multiplayer. Early reviews are strong, so the launch-week queues should be packed.
Sources: TechPowerUp · Call of Duty blog
A Valve Composer Said 'HLX' at a Public Talk, and His Coworker Whispered 'Nice Work'
During a GameSoundCon Q&A on Valve's audio engine, composer Mike Morasky, whose credits run from Portal to Half-Life: Alyx, said "Deadlock has their own version of HDR" and then "HLX has its own version." Sound designer David Feise appears to whisper "nice work" before moving the talk on. HLX is the long-rumoured codename for a new Half-Life game. Valve has not announced anything, so this remains an unconfirmed signal.
Player impact: This is the clearest on-record sign yet that HLX exists as a working project with its own tech. It confirms nothing about a date, so keep the hype on a leash.
Sources: GamesRadar+ · PC Gamer
EA's Layoffs Hit Battlefield Portal's Team and the Campaign Studio Behind Battlefield 6
EA's cut of about 400 jobs reached Battlefield Studios, according to MP1st and Vertical Slice. Ripple Effect, which runs Battlefield Portal, and Motive, which worked on the Battlefield 6 campaign, both lost staff, with named artists and a senior gameplay designer confirming on LinkedIn. DICE appears untouched. An internal EA memo calls Battlefield 6 "a great success" and says EA will "balance our resources" across its shooters.
Player impact: Portal is where custom modes and community servers live, so fewer people there could mean slower creator tools. Watch the Season 6 roadmap for anything Portal-related that quietly slips.
Sources: MP1st
Borderlands 4 Reportedly Dropped Denuvo in Its October 22 Patch, and Players Say It Runs Faster
Borderlands 4's update 1.110 on October 22 appears to have removed Denuvo, the anti-tamper DRM, according to community members who inspected the game files. TechPowerUp notes the binaries shrank by 171.69 MB and several packages vanished. 2K and Gearbox have not confirmed the change, and there is no benchmark data yet, only player reports of better frame rates.
Player impact: PC players who shelved the looter shooter over stutter have a reason to re-test it. Treat the FPS gains as anecdotal until someone posts real benchmarks.
Sources: TechPowerUp · MP1st
🔜 Coming soon
Croteam Is Making Serious Sam: The Third Encounter, 25 Years After The Second
Croteam and Devolver Digital announced Serious Sam: The Third Encounter on October 21, a new mainline entry now in early development. It will be the seventh mainline game in the series, which started with The First Encounter in 2001 and last shipped Siberian Mayhem in 2022. No platforms, release window, or price have been announced.
Player impact: Boomer shooter fans get a new headline game to watch, but early development means a long wait. Wishlist it and check back next year.
Sources: PC Gamer · GamingOnLinux
🆕 Just released
Gears of War: E-Day Reportedly Cost $500 Million as Its Third Patch Targets Crashes
Kotaku and The Game Business both report Gears of War: E-Day's budget at about $500 million, with Kotaku saying that excludes marketing. Windows Central's Jez Corden says the figure is not wrong but may include studio running costs. The game reportedly sold 230,000 copies but reached nearly 2 million players through Game Pass. The Coalition shipped a third update on October 22, a hotfix for crashes on Xbox, PC, and the ROG Xbox Ally.
Player impact: If E-Day crashed on you at launch, this hotfix is worth a retry. The budget numbers explain why Xbox keeps rethinking what goes on Game Pass day one.
🆓 Free to try
Dying Light 2 and Riders Republic Head Xbox Free Play Days, and DeadPoly Is Free on Steam
Xbox Free Play Days run until late October 25: Dying Light 2 Reloaded Edition, Tropico 6, and Let's Build A Zoo need Game Pass, while Riders Republic is free for every Xbox player until October 26 and both Monster Hunter Stories games get three-hour trials. On Steam, zombie survival game DeadPoly is free to play until October 26 at 10am PT. On PS5, FuRyu's CRYMELIGHT has a free demo covering all of Chapter 1 before its November 4 launch.
Player impact: All of these are play windows, so nothing here is free to keep. Dying Light 2 is the best way to spend a free weekend if you have Game Pass; everyone else gets Riders Republic.
Sources: Pure Xbox · Game Rant · Push Square
🕹️ Console specifics
Xbox Hardware Hit Its Worst September Ever as PS5 Dollar Sales Jumped 43%
Circana's September US data shows Xbox Series hardware down 27% year on year to an all-time September low. PS5 grew 22% in units and 43% in dollars, while Switch 2 fell 12%. Marvel's Wolverine was September's best-selling game, and NBA 2K27 passed Resident Evil Requiem as the best-selling game of 2026 so far. Analysts expect GTA 6 to top the year after its November launch.
Player impact: Fewer Xbox consoles sold means more pressure on Microsoft to push Xbox games onto PlayStation and PC. PS5 owners are the audience every publisher will chase this holiday.
Switch 2 Gets Its First Software-Only Jailbreak, on the Latest 23.0.1 Firmware
Security researcher pepsipu released ns2jb, a software-only Switch 2 jailbreak that works on current firmware 23.0.1, and showed it off by adding Peter Griffin and Hatsune Miku to Mario Kart World. The chain starts with an integer overflow in SmileBASIC 4, a roughly $25 Switch 1 app, then exploits a filesystem service bug. It is tethered, so it has to be rerun after every reboot. The researcher says OpenAI's Codex did much of the work.
Player impact: Homebrew, save backups, and mods are now possible on Switch 2 without opening the console. Expect Nintendo to patch it fast, so anyone interested should stay off firmware updates.
Sources: TechPowerUp
🖥️ Hardware
The Cheapest RTX 5050 Now Costs $400, and an RTX 5060 Ti 16GB Costs as Much as an RTX 5070
PC Gamer's price check on October 22 found the cheapest RTX 5050 at $400 at Best Buy against a $249 MSRP, the RTX 5060 at $420, and the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB at $470. That leaves just $70 across Nvidia's three entry cards. The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB has climbed to $789, about $360 over its intended price and level with RTX 5070 listings, as the memory shortage keeps pushing GPU prices up.
Player impact: Do not buy a 5060 Ti 16GB at these prices when a 5070 costs the same. Budget builders are better off waiting or looking at used cards.
Sources: PC Gamer
📦 Other
Capcom Says 11.7 Million Capcom ID Accounts Leaked, and 196 Had Their Passwords Changed
Capcom confirmed a third party accessed Capcom ID, the account needed for online play in Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, and Resident Evil, on October 19. Emails and login data such as last-login IP addresses for 11,774,247 accounts leaked, 43 accounts also exposed birthdays and nicknames, and 196 had their passwords changed by the attacker. Capcom says no card data or customer-set passwords leaked, and it will email affected players.
Player impact: Change your Capcom ID password and treat any email claiming to be Capcom as suspect. The leaked emails make convincing phishing bait.
Sources: PC Gamer · GamesRadar+
A PHP Security Flaw Locked Final Fantasy 14 Logins for Nearly a Day and Took Pokémon Apps Offline
A critical vulnerability in PHP, the web language behind many game account and login services, forced publishers to pull services this week. Square Enix halted new Final Fantasy 14 logins for about 21 hours from October 21 for "security enhancements", then reopened them on October 22. Pokémon apps and Umamusume: Pretty Derby also went offline. FF14's housing auto-demolition timer was paused and returns next week.
Player impact: If an online game will not let you in this week, check for a maintenance notice before blaming your connection. FF14 house owners should log in before the demolition timer restarts.
Sources: GamesRadar+ · Eurogamer
A Trailer for the Cancelled Mass Effect 5 Leaked a Day After EA Shut BioWare
A two-minute, gameplay-free trailer reportedly titled Mass Effect: Universe surfaced on the Mass Effect subreddit from a burner account on October 22. It appeared hours after a self-described EA employee said a Mass Effect 5 trailer had existed for months, which clashes with EA calling the project early. Push Square reports the trailer is real. EA closed BioWare and cancelled the game on October 21.
Player impact: This is likely all anyone will ever see of Mass Effect 5, and it makes EA's 'early production' framing a lot harder to believe.
Sources: GamesRadar+ · Push Square
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17 stories in this issue. Same digest goes out in the Warhogy Discord — reply to this email if there is a story I missed.
