This is all becoming very commonplace now, and I am even starting to not be surprised when something like this comes across my feeds. This time, it's Halo: Combat Evolved running on a Nintendo 64, of all things.

The project, known as Halo-64, is playable, but it does require the Nintendo 64 8MB Expansion Pack. You also need a copy of the original Xbox version of Halo: CE to get it working. The setup process seems a bit complicated if you are uncomfortable with the Command Prompt, but the project itself is really cool and appears to be working pretty well.

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We are in the midst of pretty unprecedented times, what with all the AI modding happening and Xbox itself essentially jumping on the bandwagon with Xbox Labs. However, there’s currently no indication that this project uses AI, and I thought that was important to mention before I dive into what you can expect from Halo-64.

Halo on the Nintendo 64 shouldn't be possible, yet here we are

The game supports all 13 multiplayer maps with up to four-player split-screen, including game modes we’ve all come to know and love, like Team Slayer and Capture the Flag. It also supports bots in-game, with up to 8 AI players at four different skill levels. In a nice touch, those bots take random names from a "list of about 300 Mario, Zelda, GoldenEye, and Rare N64 characters."

Most impressively, the game features a Firefight mode. For those who don’t know, Firefight is Halo’s PvE mode featuring wave-based enemies, and it’s something that Halo: Campaign Evolved, the latest remake, doesn’t even have. The port also includes Rumble Pak support, so you can feel the shots and such on your controller.

Unfortunately, there’s no campaign, and I’d be surprised if we ever did get something like that. It’s crazy enough that we get multiplayer and Firefight, but Halo: CE’s campaign on a Nintendo 64? Now I do think that would be impossible.

I do love little projects like this, and I’ve been doing my best lately to highlight community-driven Halo creations, whether it’s Halo 5 on PC, Halo 3’s resurgence thanks to a new launcher, or Campaign Evolved getting multiplayer. It’s clear now more than ever that Halo’s community is what is driving the game forward, at least until we see what Activision cooks up with the franchise.

Do let me know your thoughts on Halo-64 in the comments, and don’t forget to take part in the poll above!

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Gears of War: E-Day is off to a fantastic start. The game has hit the top of the charts across the globe, becoming the second biggest Xbox launch this year, and that’s without even mentioning how well it has been reviewed across the board, including here on Windows Central.

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I’m not here to hype up how great the game is; fans who’ve played it already know that much. Instead, I’m here to explain the latest updates. The Coalition, the game’s developer, took to X to reveal that the game is finally getting Ranked Versus. The team says:

“It's time to lock-in, Gears. Ranked Versus is available now in E-Day... Gather your squad, choose from four playlists - Demolition, Crucible, Conquest, and Team Deathmatch, and grind your Rank for exclusive rewards.”

The Coalition rolls out dozens of E-Day fixes

The introduction of Ranked Versus came with a caveat, however. The Coalition quickly noticed an issue with placement matches that resulted in some players being placed in the wrong skill division. That issue has now been addressed, so placement matches should accurately determine your rank moving forward.

That’s not all, either. Alongside the new mode, the team has deployed a second patch for the game that addresses a range of bugs impacting the entire experience. I’ll do my best to highlight the ones I think are most important.

On PC, Xbox, and handhelds, the patch includes numerous improvements to stability and optimization across devices. It also makes multiple memory improvements to address crashing and performance degradation during long play sessions.

It also addresses multiple account linking and login issues, fixes problems with the Social Menu and friends list, and makes further improvements to server anti-cheat protection. Plus, it fixes an issue causing certain colorblind settings to not display as described, and in both Campaign and Horde Siege, it corrects multiple issues causing certain Weapon Mods to not perform as intended.

What about the story mode?

For Campaign players specifically, the patch fixes multiple issues causing parts of the War Journal and Achievement progress not to track, which is something that actually happened to me in my playthrough. It is worth mentioning, however, that missing collectibles are unable to be automatically re-granted.

Players will be able to see which collectibles are missing in order to re-collect them. Similarly, missing in-game rewards, such as skins and titles earned through Campaign completion, cannot be automatically re-granted. To work around this, players can start a new campaign from a completed mission and replay that mission to re-earn the missing rewards.

You can, of course, read the full patch notes linked here. For now, though, that’s the update. It’s great to see The Coalition hot on the heels of the launch with these updates, addressing important issues. When I played the campaign, I did come across a few bugs here and there, but nothing game-breaking.

Let me know your thoughts on E-Day’s patch notes and the introduction of Ranked Versus in the comments.

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I’m sure we’ve all seen the socials by now. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is proudly claiming that Linux support for Fortnite was “vibe coded,” and the official @EpicGames account on X (Formerly Twitter) is doing the same for the new Epic Games Launcher. They’re boasting about faster speeds than Steam, citing improvements of up to 46%.

I will admit that it is impressive on paper. Steam takes roughly 10 seconds to boot, while Epic’s new launcher clocks in at around five seconds. At least, that’s what Epic says, and that was likely true 48 hours ago. But on the same day Epic decided to vibe code their way to success, Valve had already decided to update Steam.

Somehow, Valve managed to cut that 10-second startup time down to around five seconds as well. Which does put a bit of a damper on Epic’s bold claims.

Is the new Epic Games Launcher actually better?

As for Epic’s launcher itself, it does look rather buggy, though it is still a work in progress. I don’t have the technical know-how to know or understand what they’re cooking under the hood, and I imagine neither do the people making it, since the code is written by AI.

I'm joking, of course, but as silly as people make vibe coding seem, I do wish Epic the best in making a better launcher. At the end of the day, all we can hope is that it will push Steam to be better too, because competition is good for the industry.

I would love to see a battle of the launchers, including Xbox, which is in the middle of releasing a new and improved launcher. My colleague Jez Corden recently broke news about it, and I must admit that launcher is looking better than what we have had to put up with from the current Xbox PC app, which by all accounts is awful.

Do let me know your thoughts on the battle of the launchers. Do you appreciate Epic’s vibe-coded efforts, or will you be sticking to another launcher? Let me know in the comments and be sure to take part in our poll!

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Big Walk is one of the biggest indie game releases of this year, selling over 1 million copies in just six days following its release on August 4, 2026. It's a light-hearted, co-operative adventure game that requires friends to work together to explore its world and solve puzzles.

The game is currently available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2, which has led many fans to wonder why the Xbox release hasn't arrived yet. Well, now we have our answer. Developers House House have broken their silence, citing a line that the studio refuses to cross.

House House is boycotting Microsoft and Xbox

In a new blog post, the studio behind Big Walk and Untitled Goose Game has explained its decision not to bring the game to Xbox:

“We have made the decision not to release Big Walk on Xbox, in accordance with the Palestinian-led BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement’s call to boycott Microsoft, and their designation of Microsoft Games (and Xbox) as a priority boycott target. If you need help understanding our motives, we would recommend reading about why Microsoft is a BDS priority target, the successes this kind of pressure has already had on Microsoft, and especially, watching this great introductory piece by People Make Games.”

BDS is a Palestinian-led movement that calls for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel and companies it considers complicit in violations of Palestinian rights. Since the announcement, I've seen plenty of discussion online about the decision. Ultimately, it's up to the developer to decide which platforms it wants to release its games on.

How is Microsoft connected to this?

According to BDS, Microsoft is considered a priority boycott target because of its provision of Azure cloud and AI services to the Israeli military, which the movement alleges have contributed to Israel's military operations. House House goes into some more detail in its statement, acknowledging that the decision will prevent some Xbox players from enjoying Big Walk with their friends:

“It has always been our intention for Big Walk to be played by groups of friends, and we know that keeping the game off Xbox runs counter to those intentions. This decision means that some people will miss out on playing Big Walk with their friends, and we understand the disappointment we’re causing. We are disappointed too. We would love for people to be able to play the game on Xbox, but not until Microsoft and/or Xbox have been removed as BDS boycott targets.”

For now, Xbox players hoping to jump into Big Walk with their friends will have to look elsewhere for an alternative, as House House has made its position clear. Whether that changes in the future is unknown, but the studio hasn't ruled out bringing the game to Xbox forever. However, unless Microsoft or Xbox is removed from the BDS movement's boycott targets, it seems an Xbox release of Big Walk is off limits.

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Halo 5: Guardians is, to my knowledge, the only mainline Halo title that hasn’t been ported to PC. It remains confined to consoles, with the sole exception being Halo 5: Forge, which is essentially just the custom game editor and isn’t the full experience. Fortunately, if you’ve been waiting for Halo 5 to arrive on PC, one determined fan is putting in most of the legwork.

I’ll be the first to admit that Halo 5 is probably my least liked game in the franchise, and that might even include the mobile spin-offs. In my opinion, the campaign was disastrously terrible by every metric. What wasn’t a disaster, though, was the multiplayer. While I will die on the hill that Halo 5 is a flawed game, the multiplayer was, annoyingly, pretty fun.

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Warzone was a great addition to the franchise, which makes the fact that it was missing from Halo: Infinite all the more frustrating. But alas. Now, a community-run effort is aiming to get the entire Halo 5 package working on PC, with all the PC bells and whistles you'd expect, like higher FOV, increased FPS, and more.

How 'Halo 5: Reforged' actually works on PC

Halo 5: Reforged uses a custom PC runtime built around Halo 5: Forge, adapted to work with content you supply locally. This does mean you’ll need to source your own legitimate copy of the game to extract the necessary files.

It is still a work in progress, but the campaign, multiplayer, and Warzone are all playable in development builds. All 15 campaign missions currently load into gameplay, and two-player co-op is working. On the multiplayer side, they've even managed to support up to 32 players, something Halo 5 didn't originally have. On the Warzone Firefight side of things, testing seems to be going smoothly too.

Regardless of my personal feelings toward Halo 5, I do think this is great. I genuinely believe the game’s multiplayer would have been better served on PC rather than being locked to console, and if you are interested in this project, I suggest you join their Discord here.

Will Xbox shut down this community project?

As for whether this project will get taken down, it’s sort of up in the air. Prior to Halo Studios essentially being closed down, with few staff remaining, Ske7ch, the Community Director for Halo Studios, commented on the project.

Ske7ch says that from their loose understanding, it felt potentially problematic, but after getting more context, they realized it was a wrapper of shared components with players needing their own personal copies, but they do say that they couldn't know for sure.

Now if I were to speculate, I would say that given the recent announcement of Xbox Labs and Xbox embracing all this weird and wacky game porting and mashups happening, I could see this port sticking around without much issue.

Let me know your thoughts. Are you happy PC players can get disappointed with Halo 5’s campaign and enjoy the game’s multiplayer, or are you a genuine fan of this entry? Leave a comment and be sure to take part in our poll!

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I’ll be honest, this one slipped under my radar. I didn’t even realize it had been released nearly two weeks ago, but it seems the community has taken on the mantle of responsibility for Halo lately in more ways than one.

First, there’s Project Reclaimer for Halo 3, which is everything Halo 3 on PC should have been. It features full custom server browsers, mod support, and a massive expansion to the sandbox with up to 128 players in a single match.

Not only that, but in Campaign Evolved, while it was reported that the remnants of Halo Studios are working to bring Theater and Firefight to the game in December, some community members have already taken it upon themselves to start testing Firefight within the game, to varying success, mind you.

Now onto the main attraction, Mjolnir Core, a community effort to bring multiplayer to Halo: Campaign Evolved. I must say, so far it’s pretty impressive. The project supports 19 maps, including classics like Blood Gulch, Battle Creek, and Hang ‘Em High. The mod also supports up to 16 players, pushing past the initial four-player limit it had at the start of development.

The mod itself is in alpha, but those working on it have put together a pretty hefty amount of documentation for those who wish to help and get involved. From what I can tell, the mod works pretty effortlessly.

You get the launcher, install multiplayer, and you’re ready to go. That said, I don't believe there’s any public game browser in the game yet, so you’ll need to invite friends through your fireteam to play together.

Seeing the community put this much effort in really pains me. Halo: Campaign Evolved needed some sort of multiplayer content at release, even if it were just Firefight. And whilst projects like this are great, they’ll likely sadly remain rather niche, as people have already moved on to other games like Gears of War: E-Day, which actually outperformed Halo on launch.

Regardless, I can’t stress enough how cool this is and how I hope the team behind it continues their hard work. So let me know your thoughts: is this cool, too little too late, or do you have any other thoughts? Drop them in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll!

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I’ve sat here for 10 minutes now, staring at my PC, because I really just don’t know what to say about how this is even possible, but here goes. Yes, PS5 emulation is now working on the Xbox Series X via Xbox’s Developer Mode as a UWP app.

The emulator in question is KytyPS5, which has been ported by @maccosmo to Xbox. If you’ve been keeping up with the emulator on X (formerly Twitter), it's probably the main PS5 emulator making the most progress right now. Most notably, the emulator can play Demon’s Souls and Astro Bot at over 60 FPS, while Wolverine is bootable but runs at a much lower frame rate that isn’t really playable (these figures are for the PC version of the emulator, not the Xbox version).

You’re probably wondering what performance is like playing a PS5 game on an Xbox Series X, and well, it’s not great. Astro Bot sits at around 10 FPS, but there’s a lot going on under the hood. The Xbox fork of KytyPS5 includes a Direct3D 12 renderer that uses Mesa’s spirv_to_dxil to translate shaders, meaning there's a lot of code translation happening to make this work.

It’s a work in progress, but it’s not crazy to imagine Astro Bot eventually reaching a level where you can play it comfortably. For myself, I’ve made it known that I have no interest in PS5 hardware. That’s just my preference.

But Astro Bot has always been one of the few PS5 exclusives I thought genuinely looked good. If I thought I could purchase a copy of the game and play it on my Series X somehow, I think I probably would.

As I said, I’m just bewildered here. But the progress that’s been made, whether forced through thanks to AI, is cool to see. I mean, thanks to PS5 jailbreaking, we’ve already got Xbox Cloud Gaming on PS5, and there’s even one developer attempting to get Windows running on PS5, with some success too, as Hades is currently playable.

Let me know your thoughts. Is this something you’d try, or do you think this is all getting out of hand and regulators need to step in? Leave a comment below, and be sure to take part in our poll!

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Gears of War: E-Day is seemingly still full of surprises, and according to the latest Xbox US store data, the game is flying off (digital) shelves. It has secured the number one spot, overtaking titles like Minecraft Dungeons 2 and the critically acclaimed Star Wars: Galactic Racer.

Gears of War: E-Day reaching the top spot in the US isn’t the only news, too. The game also topped the UK store and many others across the globe, which is great to see.

I will say, I am a bit surprised, obviously given the games on Game Pass, that does come with a certain, how would you say, online drama? Especially as it's often thought Xbox gamers don’t buy games, which of course has been debunked time and time again, but I digress.

We also know, thanks to reporting from TrueAchievements, that Gears of War: E-Day is 2026’s second-biggest Xbox launch. It surpassed Halo: Campaign Evolved by 8.6% but fell just shy of Forza Horizon 6, managing only 67.3% of Forza’s player count at launch, which of course was a massive success on both Xbox and PC.

I’m impressed with how well Gears of War: E-Day has done, and it's honestly well deserved. Having beaten the game myself, it has given me the Gears itch, and I am probably going to run through Gears 2, 3, 4, and 5 on Insane, just like I have done with the first game and E-Day.

Hopefully, everyone has enjoyed E-Day as much as I have, and I hope the game continues to perform well. There was, of course, reporting from Alinea Analytics, which estimated 230,000 copies sold across both Steam and Xbox. Steam accounted for 168,000 of those, with Xbox (console and PC) selling 62,000.

Alinea also estimated that 1.7 million people played the game via Game Pass, and of that 1.7 million, 722,000 paid for the five-day early access upgrade. Alinea also reported that the game grossed $37 million in revenue, and they called for the game to be released on PlayStation 5 too to help recoup development costs.

I won’t dive into that drama, though. Don't worry. For now, let me know your thoughts on E-Day, how it's performed, whether you're impressed, or if you expected it to do better, in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll!

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Following Xbox's recent push to simplify development for its platform, we have a new engine joining the party with official hardware support: Defold. For those unfamiliar, Defold is a game engine originally created by King, the studio behind Candy Crush, which is now owned by Microsoft.

Naturally, given its origins, the engine was heavily utilized for mobile titles like Blossom Blast Saga. However, it has since evolved into a solid option for indie developers, with existing support for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation consoles.

While Defold might not be the first engine that comes to mind for most people, I’m a strong believer that making development easier across whatever engines people choose is a fantastic move. In this case, it seems Defold has managed to make Xbox support as straightforward as possible.

According to its creators, Xbox support is now available in Defold 1.14.0, provided free of charge to approved developers. This completes a major expansion of the engine’s console capabilities, meaning it now supports all three major platforms.

Developers must first be approved for Xbox console development through programs like ID@Xbox before they can access the specific resources. Once approved, they can request access to the Xbox extension, which includes platform integrations such as user management and game saves, along with the necessary tools and workflows for building and testing Xbox games.

The engine itself has been around since 2008, so it’s been a long wait for official Xbox support. When asked why it took so long by @Danielon5538 on X (formerly Twitter), Defold responded:

“We (at Defold Foundation) developed Xbox support alongside our ongoing work on Defold, using the Foundation's own savings. Defold is free and all its console ports are completely free for approved developers too. We sustain development through partnerships and community donations. It took some time and sweat, but we're happy to finally make it available!”

You can also help fund Defold, which helps pay developers, and support core services, donations can be made here.

Hopefully, this is a sign of more things to come to make development easier for Xbox. While I can’t speak to what other engines might be lacking in the Xbox development space, lowering barriers in any way possible is one of Xbox’s best chances of getting as many developers on board with their platform as possible.

Let me know in the comments if you use Defold, if you’re glad it now has Xbox support, or if you just heard of the engine today. And, as always, don’t forget to take part in our poll!

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It’s easy to forget that the PS5 has any true exclusives left, given how few remain. Xbox, though, can hardly boast of a strong exclusive library either, having only recently started to reclaim that territory. Yet an extremely ambitious developer has managed to get Windows 11 running on the PS5 using a project called Mihawk OS.

This is just another wild turn for the PS5 modding scene since the console was jailbroken, but what developer Mihawk is actually doing is genuinely impressive. They are building a translation layer that will allow both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows games to run directly on a jailbroken PS5.

While development of Mihawk OS isn’t open source like many other mods currently releasing, Mihawk says progress is going well, and just to instill some confidence in what Mihawk is capable of, they also got RetroArch running, which allows a whole host of emulators to work on the console. That said, we don’t know much yet, particularly regarding how games actually perform. However, we have seemingly seen HADES run within Windows on PS5.

How other games perform is still unknown, but it's impressive regardless. Who knows, instead of relying on Xbox Cloud Gaming via a new homebrew app, you might eventually be able to play titles like Gears of War: E-Day natively.

Of course, that assumes you’re comfortable with the cost of jailbreaking your console, which naturally limits your access to PlayStation servers and could even put your account at risk.

I’ve covered other impressive work in the PS5 jailbreak scene, including Xbox 360 and OG Xbox emulation running directly on the PS5. It’s honestly getting a little out of control. If Windows games can run natively on the PS5, I think that would push me over the edge to buy one.

It would seemingly make for a solid living room console, effectively becoming what I wanted the Steam Machine to be, but at a heavily discounted price if I went the second-hand route.

Just a rather quick asterisk, too: Jailbreaking isn't something I necessarily recommend, but it also isn't illegal, and I do recommend you at least purchase the games you are either going to play or emulate on a jailbroken PS5.

If you’re as baffled and impressed by these latest advancements as I am, let me know in the comments!

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For the second time today, I’m writing about PlayStation, and I have a feeling this won’t be the last time I discuss Sony’s console. The jailbreaking scene is offering a whole slew of reasons to revisit what I once considered Sony’s worst console to date. Thanks to community efforts, it’s quickly becoming a machine I might actually pick up secondhand.

If you’ve been out of the loop and aren’t sure what I’m talking about, the PlayStation 5 has been jailbroken. This allows users to install custom software on the platform, ranging from Xbox Cloud Gaming, which lets you play the latest Xbox exclusive, Gears of War: E-Day, on a PS5, to Xbox 360 and Original Xbox emulation.

Honestly, I’ve started to not get shocked by what people are doing with their jailbroken PS5s. We’ve even got a mod that allows you to insert PS2 games into your PS5 and play them directly on the console, with work currently underway to get PS3 games working as well.

It feels like the Wild West out there for PlayStation right now, and Xbox emulation is just the tip of the iceberg. Currently, fans can play titles like Gears of War 2 and 3, with the list of compatible games expanding as more work is done. The software itself is actually just a port of the existing Xenia emulator for PC, which allows 360 games to run on Windows through emulation.

As for Original Xbox games, it’s a similar story. XPSEmu can let PlayStation fans experience Halo 2 and even Forza. It’s honestly extremely impressive what modders are doing here. Whether these mods are being rushed through thanks to recent advancements in AI, I really don’t know. We’re seeing some genuinely crazy stuff happen with games lately, from Minecraft in Elden Ring to all sorts of whacky mods.

I’ll be honest, I do have concerns over where all this eventually leads, especially with people reportedly making open-source versions of Microsoft Office and Adobe’s suite of apps, all made thanks to AI. But for now, seeing the PS5 do all these things is impressive at the very least.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Do you find this cool, or does it worry you? And don’t forget to take part in our poll!

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Recently, it was revealed that fans can expect FSR4 on the likes of the Xbox Ally X, something my colleague Jez Corden covered. But now, thanks to god-knows-what-kind-of wizardry, a new mod developed by lonewolf0622 has managed to get Nvidia’s own DLSS 3.7 working on AMD’s hardware, including the ROG Ally X and Steam Deck.

For those unfamiliar with what DLSS and FSR do, they basically let hardware render games at lower resolutions to improve performance, then upscale that image without tanking visual quality. Think of it as a game rendering at 720p and upscaling to 1080p for a much sharper image.

The mod, called HelixSR, is quite clever in how it achieves this. Rather than requiring NVIDIA hardware, it effectively tricks the hardware in believing it's AMD's FSR 3.1, allowing games to use DLSS's image reconstruction instead.

In testing from various creators, we actually know whether the mod is good or not. And early testing says, yes, it is. Over on ResetEra, users have been comparing HelixSR against FSR 4. One test showed that upscaling at 1080p took around 7 milliseconds with HelixSR, compared to 11 milliseconds using FSR 4.

It's not an insignificant difference, particularly for handhelds where performance is already rather limited. Of course, there's more to upscaling than raw performance, and whether the resulting image looks better is up for debate.

YouTuber BlackHeart909 has also been experimenting with the mod, reportedly achieving between 35 and 40 FPS in CONTROL Resonant on the ROG Ally X at 1080p. Dropping the output to 720p apparently allowed the game to maintain a locked 60 FPS, which is rather impressive.

There are some catches, though. HelixSR currently only works with DirectX 12 games, and those without FSR 3.1 support need an additional tool called OptiScaler.

Still, I find this whole thing fascinating. NVIDIA has spent years making DLSS a major selling point for its graphics cards, and now we're seeing people bring the technology to AMD-powered handhelds, which is just something I never thought we'd see.

Do let me know your thoughts on this in the comments. Shoutout to wccftech for originally reporting on this; it’s a great mod and hopefully can be more refined in the future.

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The PlayStation 5 is currently going through a bit of a nightmare, at least for Sony. For fans, however, they’re in for quite the treat.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t particularly like PlayStation. The PS5 is the first Sony console I’ve actively avoided. But there’s been a lot happening in the jailbreak scene that actually makes it seem like it could be the best console to buy, at least second-hand anyway.

For those unfamiliar with what I’m referring to, the PlayStation 5 has basically been cracked open. Users can now install custom software and do as they please, though that comes at the cost of accessing PlayStation’s servers for games on the console.

It’s not the only thing developing in the PlayStation scene, either. The console is also being emulated on PC lately, much to Sony’s dismay, I imagine. But let’s get back on topic. Users who jailbreak their PS5 can now play Xbox games with the console, thanks to a new app that’s appeared on GitHub: PSBox Cloud Gaming. It natively runs Xbox’s cloud gaming service on the PlayStation 5.

A year or so ago, this wouldn’t have really mattered much. Xbox was in full swing with its multiplatform strategy. But given recent changes, specifically with the return of Xbox exclusives like Gears of War: E-Day never releasing on PlayStation, fans of the franchise who are willing to jailbreak their console can experience what I’d personally describe as a fantastic game. I finished it myself on Insane difficulty last week with a friend, and enjoyed every second.

Of course, cloud gaming isn’t as good as actually playing the game on the console itself. But I’d say it’s a pretty good compromise, and something I’ve started to come around to lately. Granted, Xbox just threw a massive spanner in the works by egregiously limiting cloud gaming hours to pitiful numbers. But if you’re willing to put up with that, you can play through E-Day on Insane and get all the collectibles in about 20 hours or so. At least that’s what it took me.

Let me know your thoughts. Would you jailbreak a PS5, or do you think this is all far too silly? At the very least, it’s interesting to see. So do be sure to leave a comment and take part in our poll!

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Gears of War: E-Day modding is here, and as a Halo fan, I’m quite pleased with what’s already on display. It hasn’t even been a week since the game’s full release, but creator @WH40kWorkshop, who is known for mods for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, has turned their eyes to Gears of War. Their first mod, Incursion (PC Only), replaces the character models for the main cast.

Of course, if you’re a Warhammer fan, you can swap Marcus, Dom, Lucas, and Mags for Space Marine characters. But what excites me more is that you can replace the entire cast with the Noble Team from Halo: Reach. The only exception is Noble 6, who is instead replaced by Master Chief.

It doesn’t stop at Warhammer and Halo, either. You can also become a Stormtrooper from Star Wars, or what seems to be (I haven't tested it myself just yet) any other character from E-Day’s campaign, including Tai, and more.

For now, other mods don’t do much. You can find improvements to the HUDs and several mods that claim to improve performance, though I haven’t tested those either.

If you want to install the mod, follow these instructions:

1. Download the mod from here on Nexus Mods.
2. Unzip the mod to a safe location.
3. Navigate to Gears of War: E-Day’s installation directory (this will vary depending on whether you’re using Steam or Xbox PC).
4. Copy the contents of the mod folder directly into the game’s installation directory and click Merge if prompted.
5. The mod should work when you next load up the game.

Gears of War: E-Day is a great game. I actually managed to finish it on Insane with a friend and even got all the collectibles, which just shows how much I enjoyed it. For little mods like this, I think they’re great, and I do hope we get official skins at some point in the future. Whilst mods like this aren't essential, it’s just good fun to see Master Chief killing hordes of Locust.

In any case, let me know your thoughts on E-Day and this mod in the comments, and don’t forget to take part in our poll!

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Gears of War: E-Day is out, and I’m personally having a fun time with it. I’ve been running through the campaign on Insane with a friend, and while it hasn’t been a struggle, collecting everything has genuinely been fun.

So much fun, in fact, that I’d be disappointed if the next Gears of War was years away. Luckily, we might not have to wait that long. In a recent interview with the BBC, The Coalition studio head Mike Crump discussed what it means for the series to be exclusive to Xbox, whilst also hinting that the development timeline could be shorter going forward.

“The next game will not take nearly as long,” Crump said, noting that E-Day provides a “great foundation” for future entries.

There have, of course, been concerns floating around online about whether Gears will perform at the level it needs to, with some even speculating about potential layoffs at the studio.

Critics have questioned the exclusivity strategy given the game’s long development cycle and estimated budget, arguing that keeping it away from other platforms could make it harder to recoup those costs. However, contrary to that, I believe titles like this are essential in proving that Xbox deserves to stay around.

That said, current numbers seem to be good. According to Circana, E-Day is off to a strong start on console. That’s without even mentioning its solid performance on Steam, where it peaked at 30,000 concurrent players.

I’m currently enjoying the game through Game Pass on my PC, but it’s definitely a title worth purchasing. As I typically do when I enjoy a game on Game Pass, I’ll probably pick it up at some point. Who knows, I might even grab the physical version thanks to Xbox’s generous disc-to-digital program.

As for Crump’s remarks on exclusivity, he emphasized the franchise’s long history with the console. “Gears has been an exclusive franchise to Xbox for 20 years now. It's sort of entwined deeply with the brand... and we’re proud of that,” he said. He added that the series gives people a “reason to be in the Xbox ecosystem.”

It’s great to see one Xbox flagship franchise deliver this year. Yes, I am a longtime Halo fan, and I can’t resist taking a slight jab at a franchise I’ve seen butchered over the years, but at least Gears of War fans have been treated well, and I really do hope the next installment is no more than three years away at most.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Are you enjoying E-Day, or are you finding it a slog?

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Halo 3, my favorite entry in the franchise, just keeps getting better thanks to Project Reclaimer. This new PC-specific launcher runs Halo 3 directly off your installation of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, so yes, you do need to own the base game.

That said, what the community is building here is genuinely impressive and honestly a little bewildering. Players are setting up matches with up to 128 people, including 64-on-64 team battles, all with full mod support. The catch, sadly, is that this is all PC-only, which is a real shame.

The entire project is so ambitious that I barely feel like I’ve scratched the surface. You can play the Halo 3 campaign in co-op with up to 16 players, and I appreciate that you can bring your own customized Spartan or Elite too. What I love most, though, is that they’ve restored Halo 3’s original menu and even managed to cram in a server browser, so you can play to your heart’s content.

I love stuff like this. I really do. It’s just frustrating that so much of the labor of love for Halo seems to come from the community rather than the people who were in charge of the franchise.

Beyond the campaign, four-player split-screen is back. Unlike the original Xbox 360 release, though, those four players aren’t stuck on a local network. You can take your entire local group online and jump into community servers together.

Forge has also been completely blown open. Creators can now use objects from across different maps, remove invisible boundaries, mess around with custom lighting, and even place Halo 3’s AI directly into their creations. Spartans, Elites, Marines, Grunts, Jackals, Brutes, Hunters, and more can all be thrown into maps and made to fight players or each other.

Dedicated servers are here as well, running on Windows or Linux, alongside playlists where players can vote on what map and mode comes next. Now I had to sit down when I heard that mods can even be downloaded automatically when you join a server, rather than requiring everyone to go hunting around online for the exact same files beforehand! Something that takes me back to my Garry's Mod days.

It basically feels like someone looked at everything Halo 3 could have become on PC and just decided to build it themselves. Project Reclaimer isn’t simply increasing the player count; it’s effectively building an entire community multiplayer platform around a game that originally released almost two decades ago.

I highly recommend you check the project out and let me know what you think. It really reminds me of ElDewrito, if anyone remembers that. It was a port of Halo Online a while back, before Halo officially launched on PC.

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Splitting up with your partner usually leaves both parties on rather poor terms, or is that just me? In the case of Undead Labs, the developer behind State of Decay, that seemingly isn’t the case.

In a recent interview with Game File, Undead Labs Studio Head Philip Holt was asked why the studio is still sticking with Game Pass, and here’s what he said:

Shocking many I'm sure, as again another developer comes out in defence of Game Pass, but Holt does go on, stating:

"Even today, we have several thousand people coming through the door every day. The benefit of State of Decay is that it’s a very retentive game. Last time I looked, something like half of our monthly active users have been in the game for close to two years, and a quarter for more than five. A lot of players from Game Pass come in and they’re like ‘this isn’t for me’ and leave. There is a high churn rate. But of the players we capture, we capture for a long time. And then they become franchise fans and consume other titles, and they’re excited for State of Decay 3. It’s really helped us achieve scale."

He continues, lamenting Game Passes reach:

"How do we make the most of that for State of Decay 3? Our biggest investment by far is the four-player co-op shared world, so a large audience that comes through Game Pass becomes a huge benefit. They play State of Decay 3, it is a great experience with friends, they invite their friends, and many of them will be on other platforms. It is a vector of growth for us."

The full interview dives into a plethora of additional details, including how the studio is working with three co-development teams to keep the project on track, so I do suggest you dive in and read it yourselves. But it’s great for us Xbox fans to see Holt take this position and recognize the value of a service like Game Pass despite the split with Xbox.

Thankfully, State of Decay 3 is full steam ahead for next year. As quite the zombie fanatic, I’m excited and hopeful that the game does well. It remains the one game I wish Xbox hadn’t chucked out amid their restructuring, but alas.

Do let me know your thoughts on Holt’s comments down below!

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Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to confirm that more is coming to make development on the platform easier. Despite already rolling out numerous positive changes for developers, Van Vliet states that the company is actively working to remove further friction.

“We’ve heard the feedback from developers: bringing a game to XBOX should be easier than it is today. We agree, and we’re working to make it better. We care deeply about ID@XBOX and the developers who build for XBOX. We’re starting with some of the areas we know can create unnecessary friction, including our concept and publishing processes, and simplifying them so developers can spend less time navigating process and more time bringing great games to players. More soon.”

It’s great to see Xbox address developers directly here and whilst what exactly will change is kept rather vague for now, and doesn’t give much away, outside of simplifying concept and publishing processes, it's still nice to see acknowledged, and publicly no less.

Not long ago, I was getting quite giddy over changes made to PlayFab, specifically with the introduction of Foundation Mode. This gives developers access to backend services for free, including infrastructure for multiplayer lobbies and other essential features.

At the same time, Microsoft expressed confidence that developers could now get working within the Xbox development environment in about 30 minutes, making the onboarding process significantly simpler than before.

For folks like me, and you, it won’t really mean much if you just play games. But for developers, Xbox is making serious strides to lower as many barriers as possible. Eventually, maybe skipping Xbox won’t be an option anymore? Who knows?

Hopefully, we hear more soon about the specific changes Van Vliet is referring to. Despite not being all too technically inclined with game development, I do enjoy dabbling here and there, and as an Xbox fan, it’s exciting that more and more developers might see the platform as more viable in the future.

With that said, let me know if things like this excite you or not by commenting down below, and be sure to take part in our poll.

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Color me surprised. Somehow, Halo: Campaign Evolved survived?

Yes, according to leaker @Mr_Rebs_, who detailed what’s left of Halo Studios in his latest video. He also broke down plans for a final content update for Campaign Evolved and clarified the team’s connection, or rather lack thereof, with Activision. As we all know, Activision is now in control of Halo, so let’s first jump into what we know about the remainder of Halo Studios.

To many’s surprise, and perhaps chagrin, Pierre Hintze has remained. He is a figure of controversy within the studio, but he continues to head a 30-person team. Their priorities are set to be handling Halo Fest and shipping a content update for Campaign Evolved.

Now, what could possibly be coming to Campaign Evolved? Well, if true, it’s quite impressive. At least, I think so anyway. According to Rebs, Halo Studios is planning to add both Firefight and Theater mode to the game. These are features I expressed disappointment over not being available at launch.

For those unfamiliar, Firefight is Halo’s PvE mode featuring wave-based gameplay, whilst Theater mode lets players replay their matches, record clips, and use free-cam within their played matches. It was a great tool for the likes of Machinima, so shout-out to anyone who remembers those.

Rebs also mentions that some things may be cut due to the recent layoffs, so don’t hold out hope just yet on all of these making it into the game.

His source also expects Halo Studios to disappear completely in the future. The remaining team has no contact with Activision or the future of Halo, a fact I’m personally pleased with. I haven’t been best pleased with the state of Halo these past 15 years.

It’s weird, and almost bittersweet, how things have panned out. I don’t know if Activision is the right choice for Halo. I do have some thoughts on it, and I am more positive about the prospects of another Halo game from Activision than I am about another Halo Studios effort. But it’ll be years before we see the fruits of Activision’s labor.

Frankly, unless the game is a massive hit, I’d be surprised if anyone really comes back to Halo. Then again, I know I’ll somehow find a way to muster up the courage to potentially be disappointed for the hundredth time.

Let me know your thoughts on a potential last update for Campaign Evolved, whether you’re happy nobody at Halo Studios is jumping ship to Activision, or anything else down below in the comments.

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The death of 343 Industries and Halo Studios, whether you view it as the right call or not, has brought an enormous amount of drama with it. We aren't going to dive into that mess today. Instead, I want to highlight something that has been somewhat buried in the noise: a community-driven effort has ported the original Halo: Combat Evolved to a host of devices.

We are talking about your web browser, Android, Linux, and yes, even the PS4 and PS5. All of these ports support full multiplayer and campaign modes. For the PlayStation crowd, you will of course need a jailbroken device, which has become a relatively straightforward process.

Beyond the basic ports, we are seeing other Halo mods emerge, a new Halo 3 port on PC, and new modes for Halo: CE that support up to 128 players. Is this effectively making Halo x Battlefield a reality? Maybe.

Of course, these projects are largely driven by AI-powered tools, or at least most are anyway. With Claude recently releasing Opus 5.5, the barrier to entry for this kind of work has dropped significantly, so make of that what you will.

Regarding Halo, Combat Evolved was also recently decompiled, again thanks to AI, which is also likely why we're seeing a surge in mods for the game.

The scope is genuinely wild. We even have Halo: CE running on a Nintendo 3DS, and unrelated to Halo, there's even a project showcasing Minecraft inside Elden Ring. Yes, that exists, and it is pretty crazy to see.

Personally, I am somewhat indifferent about these things. I find it rather cool that the community is pushing the boundaries of what is possible, but I do worry about the long-term implications of AI being able to transform games to this extent. It raises some interesting questions about what it might mean for multiplayer titles in the future, especially if AI can start reverse engineering games.

With all that said, do let me know your thoughts in the comments. Whether you agree with where I sit on this matter or disagree, both opinions are welcome!

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