Good morning!

It’s your weekly reminder that the gaming industry is still unhinged, and I’m here to sift through the chaos so you don’t have to. Whether it’s broken previews, billion-dollar dreams, or stealth pee mechanics, this week had it all.

In this edition, we’ve got:

• A skeptical (and slightly savage) look at MindsEye

• Sony’s State of Play: more like a state of confusion

• Elden Ring is melting Twitch and GTA V refuses to die

Strap in, scroll down, and maybe don’t pre-order anything.

Here’s everything you need to know this week in the world of gaming.

TOP STORY

A Skeptical Look at 'MindsEye'…

So MindsEye is the debut game from Build a Rocket Boy, a studio stacked with ex-Rockstar devs. Sounds promising, right? Big open world, slick cutscenes, futuristic dystopia, gunfights, car chases, robots… basically GTA meets Watch Dogs meets a cyberpunk fever dream.

But here’s the problem: the more you look, the more it unravels.

Preview events showed the game running so poorly, the devs had to turn on God Mode just to get through it.

No joke. They invited journalists to a remote preview (via Microsoft Teams, of all things), and then wouldn’t let anyone capture footage. The only media allowed? Carefully curated B-roll that conveniently avoided any of the hilarious bugs and broken missions.

Meanwhile, the game’s being pitched as a standalone title, even though it was originally supposed to be part of a broader metaverse platform called Everywhere. Yep, Fortnite, but with more ambition and fewer working features.

And why the rush to launch? Probably because the studio seems to be burning money like it’s coal on the Titanic. Layoffs, crunch, bad Glassdoor reviews, and now, wild executive claims that critics are "paid off by Rockstar." Yep. Totally normal, rational behavior from leadership.

Here's what you're getting for $60:

• ~15 hours of gameplay

• Tons of technical issues (allegedly)

• A desperate marketing campaign

• A side of battle passes because... sure, why not?

Verdict?
Wait. Just wait. MindsEye might one day be cool, but right now it smells like a launch-day mess. Save your cash and let the dust (and robot explosions) settle first.

Watchdogs this ain’t. And it sure as hell ain’t GTA 6.

LATEST NEWS

QUICK LINKS

• 🔫 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now shows you microtransaction ads when you swap weapons.

• 🎨 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 devs hope players will support more $40 or $50 games as publishers hope GTA 6 will charge gamers $100 to play.

• 📉 Even after several big updates, Civilization 7 is Firaxis' worst-scored game on Steam, and just hit a new low.

• 🔥 Elden Ring Nightreign player count surges to more than 300,000 players in just 60 minutes, eclipsing the entire Dark Souls trilogy combined.

• 🧠 "The longer the game is, the less likely people are to finish": Fallout creator Tim Cain says 100+ hour RPGs are "deep" and all, but they're also intimidating money pits.

• 👑 Rumour: Hunter Schafer is being eyed as Princess Zelda in the Zelda movie

• 🚀 No Man's Sky Beacon Update Trailer 👇

LATEST VIDEO

🎮 Sony’s State of Play 2025: What the Hell Was That?

Alright, so I went into this State of Play thinking, “Here we go baby, PlayStation’s about to sweep the leg.”

And, uh... they kinda tripped over their own shoelaces instead.

Let me walk you through the emotional damage:

🧠 Pragmata Exists... Somehow

First shock of the night? Pragmata’s still real. I genuinely thought Capcom just left it in a dusty server from 2020. But no, release window confirmed. Took them six years, but hey, that’s just 2025 dev time now I guess.

🎭 Tactical Nostalgia, Anime Weirdness & Young Bond

We got:

• A Final Fantasy Tactics remake (finally),

• A new Silent Hill F trailer that was peak "what am I watching but I’m into it,"

• And a 007 origin game starring Young, Not-Yet-Horny Bond in the Navy. Honestly, Bond looks cool. Could be a sleeper hit.

🧻 Toilet Trek: The Game

There was this open-world mountain climbing sim with the most intense pee anxiety I’ve ever seen. I'm not even kidding. “Pee behind the bush” was a legitimate gameplay suggestion. Weirdly compelling though?

Might play it. Might hate myself for it.

🥋 Marvel Fighter from ArcSys + The Return of the Fight Stick™

Okay. Props where it’s due: Arc System Works x Marvel could go hard. They’re doing a 4v4 fighter, and Iron Man looks like he just walked out of Gundam Wing. Not my genre, but even I can tell this one’s got juice.

And yes, Sony made a new fight stick. In 2025. Bold.

💔 They Teased Ghost of Yoté... and Then Left Me on Read

They hyped it up.
They showed a cinematic.
I got goosebumps.
Then... “Come back in July for gameplay!”

That is not a reveal. That’s a crime.

🤔 Final Thoughts

Look… was it all bad?

No. There are solid games here if you're into niche genres or anime soul-melters. But if you came looking for big first-party haymakers? Sony did a shoulder shrug and said, “Check back later.”

The pacing was weird. The ending was anticlimactic. The Ghost of Yoté bait-and-switch? Still recovering.

But hey, maybe that’s the plan. July’s looking stacked. Maybe that’s when we finally get the real heat. Until then...

▶️ Watch me slowly unravel

I reacted to the whole thing live, mildly entertained, mildly betrayed.
👇 Watch the full stream here

WHAT’S TRENDING?

^{via Sullygnome.com}

🔥 MOST POPULAR:
The Twitch throne still belongs to Just Chatting, because apparently we’d all rather listen to people talk than watch them play. Meanwhile, the big hitters are still doing work:

🥇 Just Chatting – 59M hours watched (📈 +9.2%)
🥈 Grand Theft Auto V – 20.9M hours watched (📈 +12.7%)
🥉 League of Legends – 19.8M hours watched (📉 -4.5%)
🎯 Counter-Strike – 12.4M hours watched (📉 -12.0%)
🗡 Elden Ring: Nightreign – 18.8M hours watched (📈 +3,014%... that’s not a typo)

📈 TRENDING (Most Growth in Hours Watched):
These titles are popping off—either thanks to major updates or pure streamer chaos.

💀 Elden Ring: Nightreign – +18.2M hours (📈 +3,014%)
🧍‍♂️ Just Chatting – +5.9M hours (📈 +9.2%)
📹 IRL – +4.5M hours (📈 +32.5%)
🦸‍♂️ Marvel Rivals – +2.5M hours (📈 +67.5%)
🚗 Grand Theft Auto V – +2.3M hours (📈 +12.7%)

Big week for Souls fans, casual chatters, and people watching people live their lives. If you're not streaming Elden Ring: Nightreign by now, you're either built different... or just still recovering from Malenia.

Want more stats next week? You know where to find me.