The seminal Half-Life turns 25 this weekend, and Valve are celebrating with a substantial update which restores launch day content, introduces fresh multiplayer maps, and provides insights into the original development team’s work. As part of the festivities, there’s also an excellent documentary produced by the Noclip production crew.

Australian game designer Luke Muscat has put out a great, 40 minute retrospective on the history and challenges of designing the mobile classic, Jetpack Joyride. His last one, ‘How I designed Fruit Ninja’, was also terrific - love hearing these stories.

Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 are in the spotlight with eight nominations each for the upcoming Game Awards on December 7. Considered by some as the ‘Oscars of the gaming industry’, the ceremony promises heightened competition this year with a myriad of acclaimed releases. Be sure to getcha votes in!

gamesindustry.biz have kicked off their Australia Games Week with a great deep dive into the Australian market, its expanding audience and flourishing community of developers, and overall growth. Lots of interesting insights here, and this is part of an ongoing series of articles this week, all of which you can check out here.

In its 41st year, the Golden Joystick Awards returned to an in-person format in London lastnight. Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 stole the spotlight, securing a record-breaking seven awards, notably Ultimate Game of the Year. Check out complete list of winners here.

Valve have announced the Steam Deck OLED: 7.4-inch 90Hz OLED custom Samsung screen, 1,000-nit HDR peak brightness, 50 watt-hour battery, and a bunch of other little improvements. It’s not the Steam Deck 2, but it looks very nice. The Steam Deck OLED ships November 16th - unless you’re in Australia, in which case we’re still boned.

Ten years after the release of GTA V, and in line with their 25th anniversary, Rockstar have confirmed the first look at the next in the franchise will be dropping early next month. In a series of tweets, Rockstar president Sam Houser reflects on the company’s history and speaks to his excitement for “many more years of sharing these experiences”.

Remedy have provided an interesting (and very impressive) look behind the technical curtain of Alan Wake 2 and its engine Northlight in a new blogpost. AW2 has been universally praised for its visual technical achievements (among other things), so it’s great to be able to read about some of the tools and tech they created or utilised.

Nintendo officially announced a live-action film adaptation of The Legend of Zelda. Wes Ball, known for The Maze Runner, will direct, with Nintendo and Sony Pictures to co-finance. Shigeru Miyamoto and Avi Arad, producer of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, lead the production. Miyamoto stated, “It will take time until its completion, but I hope you look forward to seeing it.”

Microsoft is teaming up with Inworld AI to create AI tools for Xbox game developers. The new partnership features an AI copilot for crafting characters, scripts and dialogue. Hard to ignore the seemingly tonedeaf or just careless timing; proudly announcing this amid thousands of ongoing layoffs in the industry, not to mention the concerns around labour issues and exploitation associated with generative AI.