It’s a bad idea to predict a year’s worth of Videogame Happenings while you are delirious with cold, but one of the advantages of being delirious with cold is that you become incapable of noticing that ideas are bad. In the brief interval before I eat a bowl of cakemix and fall asleep, here are some quick opinions about the Trends and Tribulations of 2026, mostly based on our reporting from 2025. The evergreen short version: it’s never too late to get back into amateur dentistry.
Rockstar vs the unions
Goaded by years of consolidation, squeezed resources, mass layoffs and closures, game developers continue to be keen on forming unions. The legal battle between Rockstar and around 30 unionised former GTA 6 developers will push the subject further into the public eye, and explore how working conditions and the culture of Rockstar inform what is by some distance the most anticipated videogame of the year. Assuming it isn’t delayed again to e.g. spite Ubisoft when they strategically shunt their rumoured new Far Cry game into 2027. I’m hoping to see both some intriguing revelations about Rockstar, and a range of critical analysis that dips beneath the routine sloganeering to make this subject interesting to a larger swathe of people.
Furore over Saudi Arabia’s purchase of EA
Assuming it gets past the regulators – and it’s unlikely to fail, with Jared Kushner’s liquefying babyface on the ticket – the proposed $55 billion acquisition of EA will leave one of North America’s oldest publishing operations wildly in debt and operated by a consortium dominated by the investment wing of a country that has journalists executed. The deal is due to close in the first quarter of 2027, and will be subject to much scrutiny this year – certain US senators and unions are calling for a federal investigation.
It’s likely the accompanying $20 billion debt will lead to extensive reductions across EA, with cherished albeit struggling studios like BioWare facing an uncertain future. It also remains to be seen whether the politics of the Saudi Arabian regime will be felt in subsequent EA games, perhaps especially The Sims. As with suspicion of Chinese studios, we can expect some jingoistic reactions among pundits in the western Anglophone world: the aforesaid letter from US senators already smacks of hypocrisy in accusing Saudi Arabia’s rulers of using EA as a propaganda platform – never mind that American companies like Activision have spent years peddling celebrations of the US military to people overseas. Distinguishing the legitimate criticisms from the reaction-fire will be an important component of this story. In general, this is going to be a year for talking about the connections between large videogame publishers and Saudi Arabia, a country looking to diversify its oil economy and improve its reputation abroad.
A healthier conversation about “adult” games
While the payment processor crackdown on “NSFW”, “adult” and/or sexually themed games continues, one result has been a resurgent, healthier conversation about portrayals of sex in games. Compelled by the threat of delisting, game developers and players have been obliged to reckon with certain habits about what is considered ‘acceptable’, while becoming more conscious of how moral panics work, and of how certain groups may enforce their views by working the triggers of notionally ‘neutral’ financial systems. I’ve found the volume of discussion around, say, Horses (which isn’t a direct victim of the crackdown) inspiring, however frustrating at times. So much damage is done when people refuse to talk about sex and fall back automatically on an unspoken false consensus.
Xbox to continue circling the drain
As cheery RPS fanzine PCGamer recently listicled, Microsoft have had a disgraceful year. They have cut jobs, closed studios and cancelled projects while announcing record profits. They are forcing generative AI uptake by way of their existing control of PC operating systems – the principle beneficiaries of this fait accompli will be investors and the executive class, and even if you think there are good outcomes to follow for the scruffers down in Sector 7G, you should take issue with the smug and condescending way the tools are being imposed by a company that has bought up much of its competition. Microsoft are also an outfit with their hands dipped in blood: they continue to work with the Israeli military during the latter’s conquest of Gaza, despite significant divestments ahead of a recent and highly theoretical ceasefire, and have many other military partnerships that deserve wider attention.
Speaking as a former Official Xbox Magazine writer, I think Xbox itself is all washed up. The business rarely produces any genuinely interesting work, despite the efforts of weirder outfits like Double Fine. It’s hamstrung by Greatest Hits thinking – sure, why not remake Halo again – and focused on subscription growth and monetising the fruits of some gigantic acquisitions. It is as vast as it is boring. Perhaps quixotically, I expect 2026 to be a year in which more developers and players try to move away from Microsoft Gaming and Xbox, whether by joining the BDS boycott or getting into Linux or finding other places to sell their games. Given how pervasive Microsoft’s technologies are, this will be quite the journey.
Hopefully, the end of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
We are now almost four years into the deadliest conflict on European soil since the Second World War, a Russian invasion preceded by years of false flag operations and imperial rhetoric. I wish I could predict that the battle will end this year with Russia retreating to its borders and giving up on its ‘historic’ claim to Ukraine’s territory. This doesn’t seem likely, given the facts on the ground and the Trump administration’s desire to coddle Putin. But at the very least, I’m hoping for a proper ceasefire, and a chance for Ukraine’s many game developers to sleep soundly at night. A whole generation of Ukrainian games are emerging that are inflected by experience of the war, either working around the associated huge practical challenges or directly engaging with it.
RAMnarök continues
The generative AI craze is doing terrible things to the availability of RAM, with price hikes and the closure of one major consumer brand in order to sell more chips to “larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments”. Expect it to continue, sayeth a Kingston rep, with prices remaining high well into 2026, and other hardware costs (including the price of Valve’s new Steam Machine and the Steam Deck 2) expected to go up by association. Unless…
The bursting of the genAI bubble?
My enthusiasm for the sight of Sam Altman being made to walk Cersei-style through a city of egg-throwing concept artists is countered by the conviction that if the genAI bubble does pop, we are all going to suffer. Save for the super-rich who get governments to bail them out, anyway. I’m no economist, but the bare facts here are that an incomprehensibly large sum – as of late summer 2025, Nvidia accounted for about eight percent of the value of the entire stock market – has been collectively wagered on technologies that have yet to comprehensively demonstrate their worth, beyond being a boondoggle you can wave around the office to reassure your investor friends that the Future Is Now. There are precedents in radio and aviation, but the promise that generative AI can be shoved into every walk of life creates a frightening amount of room for failure.
If you are reading this on 1st January 2027 and scoring me 0/7, please consider that about 90% of this article was written by a committee of rhinoviruses. Here are some other words that deserve proper entries: World Cup, inflation, tariffs, China, Roblox, Fortnite, India, South America. Also, please read the comments, which I’m sure will be filled with far more substantial and accurate pieces of soothsaying.
Alternatively, check out GamesIndustry’s recent round-up of proper grown-up analyst predictions: this includes some points about consoles, mobile gaming, and other realms of human endeavour that have never known the radiance of a Rock Paper Shotgun editorial. It burns! It burns! Cakemix for now.
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