AAA Watch
12articles · no PR · no bullshit
Forza Horizon 6 Was Leaked a Week Before Launch. Microsoft's Response Was an 8,000-Year Ban.
Forza Horizon 6 leaked on Steam without encryption ten days before its May 19 launch. One player got hardware-banned until December 31, 9999. Playground Games says it wasn't a preload issue -- meaning someone with early access leaked it. That detail is more interesting than the ban.
13 May 2026 · 8 min
ARC Raiders Just Did a Helldivers 2. The Industry Still Hasn't Learned.
ARC Raiders dropped to Mixed reviews overnight after the Riven Tides update. Players are calling it the Helldivers 2 playbook -- nerfs disguised as buffs, a community that trusted the devs, and a studio that squandered it. This is the same mistake, second time around.
4 May 2026 · 8 min
Subnautica 2 Early Access: The Developer Betrayal Story You Need to Know Before May 14
Before you buy Subnautica 2 on May 14, read this. Krafton's CEO used ChatGPT to scheme his way out of a $250 million bonus owed to the developers. A Delaware court just ruled it fraud. The full story, with citations from the court record.
4 May 2026 · 10 min
Xbox Hiked Game Pass 50%, Got Torched, and Is Now Pretending It Was a Learning Experience
Microsoft raised Game Pass Ultimate from $20 to $30 in October 2025. Six months later, new CEO Asha Sharma admitted it was too expensive and rolled it back. This is not a pivot. This is a company getting caught.
1 May 2026 · 9 min
Destiny 2 Is the Most Predatory Game Ever Made by a Studio That Used to Make Halo
Bungie built the FPS genre twice. Then they spent a decade building a slot machine. Destiny 2 is the most sophisticated psychological manipulation engine in gaming, disguised as a loot shooter.
24 Apr 2026 · 9 min
Dead Space: How EA Killed a Franchise by Fixing What Wasn't Broken
Dead Space was a successful horror franchise. EA added co-op, microtransactions, and action set pieces. Sales declined. EA closed the studio. The IP sat unused for six years. This is the story of how publishers destroy their own franchises.
24 Apr 2026 · 10 min
Redfall: How Microsoft and Bethesda Took Arkane's Best Team and Made the Worst Game of 2023
Arkane Austin made Prey. One of the best immersive sims ever created. Then Microsoft told them to make a live service co-op shooter. The result was predictable to everyone except the people making the decision.
24 Apr 2026 · 9 min
Anthem: How BioWare and EA Burned One of Gaming's Greatest Studios to the Ground
Anthem was not just a bad game. It was the visible symptom of EA systematically destroying the studio that made Mass Effect and Dragon Age. The full story is worse than you think.
24 Apr 2026 · 9 min
Skull and Bones: $750 Million, Seven Years, and the Most Expensive Lesson in AAA Hubris
$750 million. Seven years. A 58 Metacritic. Skull and Bones is the most expensive lesson in what happens when no one is allowed to say no.
23 Apr 2026 · 9 min
Cyberpunk 2077 at Launch Was Not a Mistake. It Was Fraud.
CD Projekt Red knew Cyberpunk was broken on consoles before launch. They hid review copies. They took the money. Not a mistake — fraud.
23 Apr 2026 · 11 min
Ubisoft's Slow Collapse: A Timeline of Every Bad Decision Since 2020
Every bad Ubisoft decision between 2020 and 2026 in order. Skull and Bones, NFTs, the open-world formula calcifying, an executive layer that kept growing.
17 Apr 2026 · 9 min
EA Just Killed Another Studio. Let's Talk About Why This Keeps Happening.
EA has a documented, decades-long pattern of acquiring beloved studios and closing them when the numbers don't work. This isn't incompetence. It's the model.
17 Apr 2026 · 8 min