Zelda Direct Dominates Viewership; Wolverine Stumbles at Launch

The Nintendo Direct focused on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time drew more viewers than PlayStation's last State of Play and beat Gamescom Opening Night Live, according to analyst figures — a striking gap that underscores just how much weight a single legacy title can carry when Nintendo puts it front and center. The broadcast came alongside MercurySteam apparently confirming it is developing Metroid Ravenous, addressing questions that had lingered since the Direct aired.

Marvel's Wolverine is reportedly Sony's lowest-scoring PS5 game of the era, a rough reception for what had been one of the platform's more anticipated exclusives. Sony is also facing pressure on a separate front: fans have compiled a list of every instance the company publicly told players they owned their digital purchases, directly contradicting the position Sony argued in a recent lawsuit. The Final Fantasy 7 Revelation team at Square Enix, meanwhile, confirmed the game's physical disc still requires a download — a decision the developers framed as avoiding creative compromise — and director Naoki Hamaguchi described the project as being made as if it were the last Final Fantasy 7 game ever.

A former Starfield lead has gone on record saying Bethesda should not have made the game, arguing that something more ambitious than 'Skyrim in space' was beyond what the studio could deliver. On the publishing side, Saudi Arabia is reportedly exploring a merger of EA into a new larger corporate entity, just a month after the acquisition was reported. Ubisoft games on Steam may soon drop the requirement to run through the Ubisoft Connect launcher, though the announcement has been described as difficult to pin down. Fired Rockstar Games workers have rallied as an employment tribunal gets underway.