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July 2026
FLUX 3 folds image, video, audio, and robot actions into one model (2026-07-24) Black Forest Labs, the lab behind the FLUX image models that power Photoshop, Canva, and Cinevva, launched FLUX 3 on July 23: one multimodal foundation model that generates 20-second video with native audio, edits images, and predicts robot actions from a single shared architecture. Video early access is open now. Read more →
Roblox puts prompt-to-game on every phone, and the walled garden just got an AI factory (2026-07-20) Roblox announced Build on July 16, a mobile feature that turns a text prompt into a playable game prototype inside the Roblox app, with public alpha starting July 28 in New Zealand. The biggest UGC platform just told 380 million monthly users that typing a sentence is a valid way to make a game. Read more →
One in three new Steam games now discloses AI, and the revenue tells a harder story (2026-07-20) Sulka Haro's census of 53,597 Steam releases finds AI-disclosed games grew from 13 a month to around 530, driving 60 to 90 percent of the platform's release growth. But they capture a fraction of revenue, and the successful ones use AI very differently from the flood. Read more →
Cinevva Game Creator gets a WeChat mini game mode (2026-07-19) We're rolling out an experimental build mode that keeps AI-generated games inside the subset of the web platform that ports cleanly to WeChat mini games: canvas-only UI, touch-first controls, small assets, no dynamic code. Plus an honest look at the rules for publishing a game in China. Read more →
MIRA runs a playable 2v2 Rocket League match with no game engine (2026-07-14) General Intuition, Kyutai, and Epic Games released MIRA, a 5B-parameter open-source world model that simulates a full four-player Rocket League match at 20fps on a single GPU. The code, a 10,000-hour dataset, and a live browser demo are all public. Read more →
Godot bans AI-authored contributions, and the distinction matters (2026-07-14) The Godot Foundation updated its contribution policy to require human-authored code, allowing AI only for menial work like completion and regex, with disclosure. Four months after maintainers called AI slop PRs draining and demoralizing, the most-used open-source indie engine drew a hard line. Read more →
Tencent open-sources Hunyuan Hy3, and it's already working inside Path of Exile (2026-07-14) Tencent released Hunyuan Hy3 on July 6 under Apache 2.0: a 295B-parameter MoE model with 21B active, 256K context, and API input pricing cut to 1 yuan per million tokens. Path of Exile's AI assistant on WeGame already runs on it, a live game deployment on day one. Read more →
Korea's game industry went AI-native in one week (2026-07-14) ICML 2026 came to Seoul and Korea's game industry treated it like a home game. Krafton co-hosted the official AI for Games event, argued world models may challenge game engines, and landed a record 10 main-track papers. Two days later four smaller firms ran a free AI conference for indie devs. Read more →
260 million downloads, few homegrown hits: AI is rewriting India's game economics (2026-07-14) Business Standard reports that generative AI is collapsing pre-production costs inside Indian game studios. BGMI just turned five with 260 million downloads, the real-money gaming ban is forcing a pivot toward content, and the 50-swings-to-land-one-hit math that kept India from building its own IP is finally changing. Read more →
Phantom Blade Zero and the China AAA wave that Black Myth started (2026-07-08) S-GAME's Unreal 5 wuxia RPG locked October 29 and cleared a million wishlists in 15 days. Two years after Black Myth, China's single-player AAA push is a sustained wave, not a fluke, built on tools everyone now has. Read more →
Microsoft's fiscal year just closed, and Xbox's reset starts now (2026-07-01) New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told staff the next 100 days are a reset. Revenue down nearly $500M over five years, a 3% margin, and major layoffs timed for right after the June 30 fiscal close. The same big-bet fragility that ended Destiny 2's development, one rung up. Read more →
June 2026
ByteDance's Seedance 2.5 makes AI video controllable: 30s native 4K, 50 references, edit-in-place (2026-06-23) A single continuous 30-second clip in native 4K with synced audio, up to 50 multimodal references, targeted in-clip editing, and 3D white-model previz. The frontier moved from "can it generate" to "can you direct it." Read more →
Godot 4.7 ships: HDR output, AreaLight3D, a new Asset Store, and wasm64 web exports (2026-06-19) The stable build landed a week after RC2. Real HDR output on five platforms, the new AreaLight3D node, a rebuilt Asset Store, C# hot-reload, and wasm64 web exports that lift the old 4 GB memory ceiling. More than 1,265 fixes from 309 contributors. Read more →
Godot 4.7 hits RC2 with stable now days away (2026-06-12) RC1 on June 8 had just 16 fixes, RC2 cleaned up a WorkerThreadPool deadlock and a handful of editor regressions. The feature set is frozen: real HDR output, AreaLight3D, C# hot-reload, and wasm64 web exports. Read more →
Avataar's Varya makes AI video 10x cheaper, and that's the real story (2026-06-12) Avataar.ai launched Varya in New Delhi, generating a second of video for ₹0.48 by cutting diffusion from 50 steps to four. The 2026 video story isn't capability anymore, it's cost. Read more →
Summer Game Fest 2026: a wall of sequels up top, the real story underneath (2026-06-05) Final Fantasy VII Revelation, a Resident Evil Code Veronica remake, and Guild Wars 3 led the show. But Day of the Devs, 1,700 submissions for twenty slots, and one studio's no-AI stance were the real signal. Read more →
May 2026
Bungie ends Destiny 2 development and lines up a third round of layoffs (2026-05-30) Bloomberg reported that Bungie is ending active development on Destiny 2. The June 9 update, Monument of Triumph, is the last one. No greenlit successor, no Destiny 3, and significant layoffs are coming as resources shift to a struggling Marathon. Read more →
Godot 4.7 beta brings real HDR output, AreaLight3D, and 1,265 fixes (2026-05-22) HDR output on every desktop platform, a new AreaLight3D node, ray-tracing polish, C# hot-reload, and wasm64 web exports. Stable expected late June. Read more →
Google I/O 2026: Gemini Omni replaces Veo 4 and ships everywhere (2026-05-19) Google folded Veo and Imagen into a unified any-input creation model. Gemini Omni Flash lands in the Gemini app, Google Flow, and YouTube Shorts on day one. Read more →
Unity AI ships to open beta with an in-editor agent, AI Gateway, and MCP server (2026-05-04) Ask, Agent, and Plan modes for every Unity 6 developer. Powered by Gemini and other frontier models. Free 14-day trial, $10/mo for Personal. Read more →
April 2026
Pika Agents launch real-time video chat with a face, voice, and memory (2026-04-28) PikaStream 1.0 streams personalized 24 FPS video with 1.5-second latency on a single H100. Agents persist across Slack, Discord, Notion, Google Meet, and more. Read more →
Sora is gone: what the $1M-a-day shutdown tells us about AI video economics (2026-04-26) OpenAI sunset Sora after burning roughly $1M a day against $2.1M lifetime revenue. The API follows in September. Disney's $1B character-licensing deal collapsed with it. Read more →
March 2026
Three.js r184 lands HTMLTexture: live DOM as a 3D surface (2026-03-28) HTMLTexture wraps Chrome's HTML-in-Canvas API to render interactive HTML elements as textures on WebGL or WebGPU meshes. Plus per-frame allocation fixes and deprecated instancing cleanup. Read more →
Babylon.js 9.0 released with clustered lighting and Gaussian splatting (2026-03-26) Clustered lighting for thousands of dynamic lights, a visual Node Particle Editor, volumetric lighting, textured area lights, and a complete Gaussian splatting overhaul. Read more →
Kling 3.0 launches globally with 4K video and motion control (2026-03-25) Kuaishou's Kling 3.0 rolls out worldwide with 4K/HDR output, built-in audio sync, multi-shot narrative generation, and motion transfer from reference videos. Read more →
Solo developers are shipping complete games with AI tools (2026-03-22) Multiple solo and small-team developers shipped finished games in March using Claude Code, Flux, and other AI tools, from bullet-hell platformers to Steam Early Access titles. Read more →
Crowdfunding records fall as Cyberpunk TCG raises $8.3M (2026-03-21) The Cyberpunk TCG raised $8.3M on Kickstarter in 24 hours, AdventureQuest Worlds hit 100,000,000% funded, and retro and board game projects are thriving. Read more →
TRELLIS.2 brings open-source image-to-3D with PBR materials (2026-03-20) Microsoft's 4B-parameter MIT-licensed model generates full PBR 3D assets from images in 3 to 60 seconds. Handles open surfaces and non-manifold geometry. Read more →
Game industry layoffs continue through March 2026 (2026-03-19) Ubisoft, nDreams, and EA all cut staff in March as the GDC survey reveals 28% of developers experienced layoffs in the past two years. Read more →
Three.js r183 renames PostProcessing to RenderPipeline (2026-03-18) PostProcessing becomes RenderPipeline, Clock is deprecated for Timer, and BatchedMesh gains per-instance opacity. Read more →
itch.io ships major app modernization with Apple Silicon support (2026-03-15) First major stable release in years with native Apple Silicon support, browser-based OAuth login, Electron 25 upgrade, and dropped 32-bit builds. Read more →
South Korea and Steam tighten AI content labeling rules for games (2026-03-14) Korea's AI Framework Act mandates labeling all AI-generated content in games with extraterritorial reach. Steam narrows disclosure to player-facing content only. Read more →
GDC 2026 by the numbers: attendance down, AI divide deepens (2026-03-13) Attendance dropped to 20,000. Unreal overtook Unity as the primary engine. Over half of studios use generative AI, but most developers say it hurts the industry. Read more →
NVIDIA DLSS 5 launches at GDC with immediate backlash (2026-03-12) DLSS 5's neural rendering drew criticism for altering character faces and overriding artistic intent, becoming GDC 2026's biggest flashpoint. Read more →
Xbox gives all developers free cross-platform tools (2026-03-11) PlayFab Foundation Mode gives every Xbox developer free cross-platform player accounts, saves, matchmaking, and live service tools. Read more →
Chrome 146 adds WebGPU compatibility mode for older GPUs (2026-03-10) Compatibility mode runs WebGPU on OpenGL ES 3.1 and Direct3D 11, bringing the API to older hardware. W3C also published WebGPU as a Candidate Recommendation Draft. Read more →
Meshy Labs debuts AI-generated gameplay mechanics at GDC (2026-03-09) Black Box: Infinite Arsenal generates weapon mechanics from text prompts in real time. Meshy hit $30M ARR and 10M users. Read more →
LTX 2.3 ships open-source 4K video generation with native audio (2026-03-07) A 22B-parameter open-source model that generates native 4K video at up to 50 FPS with synchronized stereo audio in a single pass. Read more →
PlayCanvas v2.17 adds GPU-driven Gaussian splatting on WebGPU (2026-03-06) f16 spherical harmonics, GPU-driven sorting and frustum culling, and a global splat budget for Gaussian Splatting on WebGPU. Read more →
Steam Next Fest February 2026 shows clear discovery patterns (2026-03-05) Over 2,200 games participated. Co-op games overperformed, narrative games struggled, and prior momentum was the strongest predictor of success. Read more →
Nintendo Switch 2 launches with strong indie lineup (2026-03-03) Indie World showcase highlights day-one Switch 2 titles including Blue Prince, Rotwood, and Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Read more →
Godot maintainers overwhelmed by AI-generated pull requests (2026-03-03) Rémi Verschelde calls the flood of AI-generated code contributions draining and demoralizing. The project has 4,681 open PRs. Read more →
Roblox launches AI-powered 4D model creation (2026-03-01) The open beta 4D creation tool generates interactive, physics-driven 3D objects from natural language. Players created 160,000 objects during early access. Read more →
February 2026
Unity previews AI game creation ahead of GDC (2026-02-28) Unity CEO says a new AI beta at GDC 2026 will let developers prompt full casual games into existence with natural language. Read more →
Godot 4.6 released with Jolt Physics and a new editor (2026-02-27) Jolt Physics as the default 3D engine, a modern editor theme, unified docking, SSR overhaul, and LibGodot for embedding. Read more →
January 2026
Cinevva launches reels-first game discovery (2026-01-18) Reels-first platform for discovering and playing indie games instantly in the browser. Read more →
Godot 4.6 expected Q1 2026 with further web improvements (2026-01-10) Godot 4.6 is on track for Q1 2026, continuing the engine's investment in web export. Read more →
China approved 1,771 games in 2025, the most since 2018, and imports came back (2026-01-06) China's NPPA licensed 1,771 games in 2025, up roughly a quarter from 2024 and the highest total since the 2018 freeze. Monthly approvals normalized and foreign titles are flowing again. The regulatory drag that defined the last cycle has eased. Read more →
Web game development enters the WebGPU era (2026-01-05) With WebGPU now available across all major browsers, 2026 marks a turning point for web game development. Read more →
2025
November 2025
Tencent's Hunyuan 3D engine goes global: text-to-asset in minutes, free tier and all (2025-11-26) Text, image, or sketch to a game-ready 3D asset in minutes, with a free tier of 20 daily generations and 150-plus companies already integrated. The generative asset pipeline stopped being a research demo and became infrastructure. Read more →
WebGPU now supported across all major browsers (2025-11-15) WebGPU is shipping across Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, enabling modern graphics and compute on the web. Read more →
October 2025
Cinevva recognized as top performing startup in Shanghai (2025-10-18) Selected among World's Top Performing Startups in digital science category by Shanghai investors ecosystem. Read more →
September 2025
Godot 4.5 adds WASM SIMD by default (2025-09-18) WebAssembly SIMD enabled by default for improved web export performance. Read more →
Safari 26 ships WebGPU support by default (2025-09-15) Apple's Safari 26 enables WebGPU by default on macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS. Read more →
August 2025
Three.js r170 moves WebGPU modules to addons (2025-08-14) Reorganizes WebGPU support and improves GLTFLoader compatibility. Read more →
June 2025
Firefox 145 adds WebGPU support on macOS ARM (2025-06-10) Firefox expands WebGPU support to macOS ARM64, closing another gap in cross-browser coverage. Read more →
April 2025
Unity 6.1 adds WebGPU support (2025-04-22) Unity 6.1 introduces WebGPU as a supported backend for browser builds. Read more →
GeoGuessr launches on Steam Early Access (2025-04-15) The popular browser-based geography game launches on Steam, showing browser games can cross over to traditional platforms. Read more →
March 2025
Babylon.js 8.0 released with native WGSL shaders (2025-03-27) WGSL-first shaders eliminate GLSL conversion for WebGPU builds. Read more →
Cinevva wins Dell for Startups pitch at SXSW (2025-03-12) Second place in the Dell for Startups pitch competition at SXSW 2025. Read more →
Godot 4.4 released with improved web export (2025-03-03) Continues improvements to web export with better stability and compatibility. Read more →
January 2025
DeepSeek R1 resets the cost of intelligence, and China's studios are already spending it on games (2025-01-20) DeepSeek released R1 at roughly 27x cheaper than OpenAI's comparable model. Within weeks NetEase's CEO said it had cut game R&D time and labor cost by double digits. The frontier moved from who has the best model to who can afford one. Read more →
2024
December 2024
WebAssembly GC ships in all major browsers (2024-12-11) Garbage collection reaches baseline support across Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Read more →
Marvel Rivals launches: NetEase owns the year's breakout hero shooter, then lays off the US team (2024-12-06) 40 million players in weeks made a Chinese publisher, not Blizzard or Valve, the breakout multiplayer launch of the year. Two months later NetEase cut the US design team anyway. The hit and the layoff are the same story. Read more →
November 2024
Three.js r171 adds zero-config WebGPU imports (2024-11-29) Simplifies WebGPU adoption with straightforward imports. Read more →
October 2024
Epic launches Fab unified marketplace (2024-10-22) Unifies Unreal Marketplace, Sketchfab Store, Quixel, and ArtStation into one platform. Read more →
September 2024
Unity cancels the Runtime Fee (2024-09-12) Unity officially cancelled the controversial Runtime Fee and returned to seat-based pricing. Read more →
August 2024
Black Myth: Wukong ships: 10 million copies in three days and 2.2 million on Steam at once (2024-08-20) Game Science's Unreal 5 action RPG peaked at 2.2 million concurrent Steam players and sold 25 million copies by January 2025. A Chinese studio topped the global single-player charts outright, and the ceiling everyone assumed existed turned out not to. Read more →
Godot 4.3 adds single-threaded web export (2024-08-15) Single-threaded web exports make browser deployment more practical without COOP/COEP headers. Read more →
July 2024
Three.js r167 enables WebGPU by default (2024-07-15) WebGPU becomes the default renderer when available, with WebGL fallback. Read more →
Zenless Zone Zero launches: 50 million downloads in 72 hours, and a lesson in polish (2024-07-04) HoYoverse shipped ZZZ on PC, PS5, and mobile at once, hitting 50 million downloads in three days and nearly $100 million in a month. The Chinese live-service studios made launch-everywhere-at-once the default expectation. Read more →
May 2024
PlayCanvas adds Sketchfab integration (2024-05-20) Browse and import Sketchfab models directly from the PlayCanvas Editor. Read more →
April 2024
Unreal Engine 5.4 released with Pixel Streaming 2 (2024-04-23) Experimental Pixel Streaming 2 features for web streaming of Unreal content. Read more →
March 2024
Babylon.js 7.0 released (2024-03-28) Major performance improvements and new features for web 3D. Read more →