Liquid Swords bankrupt, PS6 costs mount, and AI rattles the modding scene

Liquid Swords, the studio behind the ambitious open-world project Samson, has reportedly gone bankrupt — a grim outcome for a developer that had generated considerable anticipation. The news lands alongside a report that the PS6's memory and storage components alone reportedly cost more than $680, signaling that next-generation hardware economics are going to be punishing for Sony and, eventually, consumers.

On the preservation and modding side, the Video Game Decomp Hub has shut down, citing AI as the cause — its operators say the community aspect of decompilation work has been fundamentally broken by the technology. Separately, developers of Drunken Goddess Reflux pulled their Steam Next Fest demo over fears of AI cloning, a concern that is increasingly shaping how smaller studios approach public-facing releases. The broader mood around AI and games is sour enough that a Kotaku piece notes even developers who clone viral Steam hits are now complaining about the vibe.

A job listing suggests the next Xbox hardware — potentially codenamed Helix — could include a disc drive, with the company seeking someone to coordinate the launch of physical Xbox games. That aligns with comments from the Silent Hill remake studio, which said it wants to keep making physical games for as long as possible. Elsewhere in departures, Star Wars and Double Fine titles are leaving Game Pass, while No Rest for the Wicked is heading toward its 1.0 release — though its developers are braced for players to find overpowered builds and have essentially decided not to fight it.