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A very large and interesting-looking vessel is taking shape at a shipyard in southeastern China. What can be seen of it so far points strongly to it being the largest naval resupply ship anywhere in the world. A vessel like this would be valuable for supporting the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) growing blue water ambitions . It would be particularly important for enabling the PLAN’s conventionally-powered aircraft carriers , their air wings, and their escorts, to operate for sustained periods of time far from Chinese shores and friendly ports.

The ship is being built at a yard on Longxue Island, which is situated just southeast of the city of Guangzhou. A review of satellite imagery from Planet Labs indicates that it has been under construction since at least Febraury. A subsidiary of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) operates this facility. That firm is currently known as the CSSC Offshore and Marine Engineering Company (COMEC). It was previously called Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI).

A satellite image offering a general overview of the COMEC/GSI yard. Google Earth

COMEC/GSI’s public portfolio is focused on large commercial vessels, including oil and liquid natural gas (LNG) tankers and cargo ships. It also builds specialized civilian designs, such as semi-submersible heavy lift ships and platforms designed to support offshore wind turbine construction.

In recent years, the yard has become well known for the construction of unique and unusual vessels with clear military or at least dual-purpose applications. This includes what may be a one-of-a-kind ostensibly civilian ‘research carrier,’ jack-up barges designed to connect together to support amphibious operations, and a stealthy trimaran drone ship . Soviet-designed Zubr class heavy hovercraft , which China has built examples of domestically under license , are also regularly seen there.

PLAN Amphibious Ambition: China’s Dual Paths to Cross-Strait Dominance Visible

PLAN Power Check: Imagery (Sept 29) from Longxue Island's COMEC Shipyard shows two strategic tracks for amphibious lift: continued production of logistics assets and high-tech combat… pic.twitter.com/VUUH96OTkO

— MT Anderson (@MT_Anderson) October 10, 2025

The ship being built on Longxue Island that is now drawing attention is approximately 885 feet (270 meters) long and is 121 feet (37 meters) across its widest (also known as the beam), based on available satellite imagery. There is a superstructure at the bow end with clear wings for a large bridge and a mast on top. There is also a separate superstructure at the stern end with exhaust stacks situated in front of it.

The ship in question (at bottom) is seen here in a satellite image of the COMEC/GSI yard taken on July 2, 2026. PHOTO © 2026 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION

In May, CSSC also released a picture of the COMEC/GSI yard showing the ship from the stern as viewed from near ground level. The image, which was reportedly included in a social media post marking the change in solar terms in the traditional Chinese calendar, shows a large hangar with two at the rear of the stern superstructure. A large flight deck and hangar are also taking shape at the stern.

A close-up look at the ship in question as seen in the picture CSSC released in May. CSSC

A Planet Labs satellite image taken on July 2, seen at the top of this story and in parts throughout, also shows two large openings on the right side of the superstructure at the stern. These might be for launching and/or recovering small boats, including lifeboats. These could also just be apertures for crew walkways or other workspaces.

A closer look at the superstructure at the stern end with the openings visible in the side. PHOTO © 2026 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION

However, it is what is seen in between the two superstructures that may be the most notable aspect of the ship. There are several pillar-like vertical structures positioned relatively close to both sides of the hull. This is in line with what is typically seen on naval vessels configured to conduct at-sea refueling and replenishment of other stores. The flight deck and hangar at the stern would also allow for vertical replenishment via helicopters.

A look at the pillar-like structures in the middle of the ship. PHOTO © 2026 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION

“The hull form is broad and slab-sided, with a full midsection optimised for volume rather than speed alone. This is a characteristic associated with large fleet auxiliaries designed to carry fuel, dry stores, and ammunition for carrier strike groups,” according to a report on this ship from Jane’s back in April.

The ship’s design language also follows modern PLAN standards. Its layout, in broad strokes, is very similar to that of the Type 901 replenishment ship in PLAN service now. The PLAN also operates smaller Type 903 replenishment ships that have a roughly similar configuration, as well.

A Type 901 replenishment ship. Japanese Ministry of Defense

One of China’s smaller Type 903 replenishment ships. Chinese state media

Overall, the new ship under construction at the COMEC/GSI yard looks very much like a Type 901, but substantially scaled up. The Type 901 is quite large already, with a length of around 787 feet (240 meters) and a beam measuring just under 102 feet (31 meters). It also said to displace some 45,000 tons with a full load. As another point of comparison, the U.S. Navy’s newest John Lewis class replenishment oilers are just under 746 feet (227.3 meters) long and have roughly a 105-foot (32.2-meter) wide beam, according to the official fact sheet .

The new AOE design under construction at COMEC, Guangzhou. As already indicated by satellite imagery, this seems a very substantial hull, fa larger than the ca 45k ton Type 901 AOE (second image). Note the dual hangar doors for comparison.

Via Tomboy/SDF (edited for clarity). pic.twitter.com/mW8HubdQLA

— Alex Luck (@AlexLuck9) May 25, 2026

This is how of a monster is the new Replenishment ship building in Guangzhou

Compared from Left To Right

1. Type 903

2. Type 901 (Current Biggest)

3. Monster

4. Type 076 (50,000 tons)

5. Type 075 (40,000 tons)

6. Type 071 (25,000 tons)

This monster is probably for the Type 004 pic.twitter.com/FDtNphr9Y2

— PLA Military Updates (@PLA_MilitaryUpd) April 10, 2026

What other, more specific features and capabilities the new ship might have remains to be seen. What kind of armament it might have, even just for localized self-defense, is unknown. The Type 901 has four 30mm H/PJ-13 Gatling-type guns in turrets to provide close-in defense.

At-sea replenishment, in general, is a critical capability for any major navy that desires to conduct sustained blue water operations without having to rely on friendly ports. Even during peacetime in the broad expanses of the Pacific, port facilities of any kind, let alone ones capable of supporting large warships, can be few and far between and under direct threat.

For the PLAN, there is the added demand for at-sea replenishment support that comes from operating a growing fleet of so-far conventionally-powered aircraft carriers . Those carriers require steady streams of gas for their air wings on top of the fuel and other support needed to keep them sailing at all.

The Chinese aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong sail together, along with their escorts, as aircraft from their air wings fly overhead. Chinese government

The PLAN is also conducting more regular operations involving full carrier strike groups with conventionally-powered escorts that also need refueling and other support to keep up. During combat operations, replenishment ships also bring vital additional supplies of munitions to forward-deployed vessels.

A Type 901 replenishment ship, center, together with the aircraft carrier Liaoning , at top, and escorting surface combatants. Chinese government

It really cannot be overstressed how important at-sea replenishment is to modern blue water naval operations. This was underscored just earlier this year by challenges the U.S. Navy faced in keeping its conventionally-powered warships in the Middle East fueled amid Iranian attacks on friendly ports.

“So traditionally, for 25 years, we’ve been at war in the Middle East and that war was effectively fought in the parking lot of a giant gas station,” Robert Hein, Director of Maritime Operations for the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC), said during the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space exposition in April. “Iran has effectively shut down that gas station. So we’ve had to come up with really creative ways of, ‘how do we replenish the fleet?’”

You can read more about the “tanker treadmills” the Navy instituted in response, as well as other steps the service is taking now to bolster its at-sea replenishment capabilities and capacity, here .

It is worth noting here that America’s aircraft carriers are now all nuclear-powered , which eliminates their need to be refueled at sea. However, they still need gas for their air wings and other support to conduct sustained forward operations. Their escorts are all conventionally-powered, as well. As an aside, China may now be in the process of building its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier .

Other fighting in the Middle East in recent years has also rammed home the vital importance of at-sea rearming capabilities for the U.S. Navy, especially methods for reloading vertical launch system cells on warships that it currently does not possess. Last year, in the midst of operations against Yemen’s Houthis , the service acknowledged that its warships were having to leave their stations in and around the Red Sea for weeks at a time to rearm in ports.

There may be a possibility that the ship under construction at the COMEC/GSI yard could be something other than a huge new at-sea replenishment ship, but this seems extremely unlikely. As noted, the ship has an array of distinct features that are exactly what one would expect to see on a replenishment vessel, and an overall configuration in line with that of the Type 901.

The new ship’s large size, both in terms of length and width, will offer far more internal volume for fuel, munitions, spare parts, food, and everything else needed to keep a carrier strike group operating far out to sea. China has a growing number of other ships that will require blue water support, too. This includes its massive Type 076 amphibious assault ship , which is expected to carry a substantial air wing , as well as a growing number of smaller Type 075 types .

The appearance of this ship at the COMEC/GSI also comes as the PLAN continues to modernize and expand its fleets across the board, in scale and scope, with a clear eye toward more regular and sustained blue water operations. China has been investing heavily in establishing a network of naval port facilities around the Pacific and elsewhere globally to help support these activities, as well. As noted, having to rely on friendly ports is not always desirable or even possible, especially during a conflict when the countries in question may be neutral parties .

The steady flow of warships and other naval vessels, many of them very large, from shipyards across China underscores the PLAN’s broader ambitions. As TWZ regularly points out, this has created an increasingly worrisome disparity between Chinese and U.S. naval shipbuilding capacity, or lack thereof in the latter case. The U.S. government has been trying to reverse this trend , including by leveraging foreign shipbuilders , but significant challenges remain.

An unclassified Office of Naval Intelligence briefing slide from circa 2023 underscoring the disparity between U.S. and Chinese naval shipbuilding capacity. ONI

Satellite imagery shows significant progress on the new ship of interest at the COMEC/GSI yard since the start of this year. More insights into the design and capabilities of what is likely to be the world’s largest dedicated naval replenishment vessel should emerge as that work wraps up.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post China Is Building A Monster Supply Ship For Its Carrier Groups appeared first on TWZ .

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2026 has been a busy year for Sydney Sweeney so far after she returned as Cassie in the third and final season of Euphoria , but her momentum heading into the year was a result of another project. Back in 2025, Sweeney teamed up with Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar for The Housemaid , the erotic thriller based on the novel of the same name by Frieda McFadden . The Housemaid grossed over $400 million at the box office against a modest $35 million budget, making it one of the most profitable movies of 2025. It didn’t take Lionsgate long to confirm that a sequel to the film, tentatively titled The Housemaid’s Secret , was already in the works, with Sydney Sweeney confirmed to return as Millie. Seyfried and Sklenar are not expected back, but Kirsten Dunst has been cast in a key role in the sequel film.

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Even a few months after it launched, we still haven't gotten tired of seeing the wild stuff you come up with in Crimson Desert's sprawling sandbox. That's why our latest monthly winner of PC Gamer Clips is yet another great Crimson Desert video—and that's why the person who sent us that clip just won $500 in Amazon gift cards.

If this is the first you're hearing about PC Gamer Clips, it's a snap: just record yourself playing a PC game, send us the clip, and each month we'll pick our favorite and award its creator a $500 prize. Visit our PC Gamer Clips page to find the submission form and prize restrictions (you need to be a US or UK citizen to be eligible).

Below you can check out our most recent winner demonstrating a pretty slick way to swap a horse for a wyvern:

Pretty smooth moves… though I would have liked to have seen the dragonrider make a dive to catch the unfortunate horse they just leapt off. Did it just go splat at the bottom of the cliff? Ah, well, these things happen.

That's not the only Crimson Desert clip we've received. Here, check out some more of our favorites:

And we'd love to see clips from any of the great PC games you're playing these days: Marathon, Counter-Strike 2, GTA 5, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynched… as long as your clips are funny, exciting, surprising, or a showcase of your impressive gaming skills, please send 'em our way.

Need some inspiration? Just visit PC Gamer Clips to watch all the great videos our readers have sent in so far.

2026 games : All the upcoming games

Best PC games : Our all-time favorites

Free PC games : Freebie fest

Best FPS games : Finest gunplay

Best RPGs : Grand adventures

Best co-op games : Better together

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BMW has launched a configurator for ChatGTP.

It enables users to build and compare models.

ChatGTP told us no such BMW plugin exists.

Car configurators have come a long way as they’ve transformed from a basic list of options to an interactive experience that shows realistic images of your ideal vehicle. Given the explosion of artificial intelligence, it was only a matter of time until automakers embraced the technology.

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BMW is now dipping their toes into the water with a new plugin for ChatGPT . It will enable users to “engage in a natural conversation to configure their dream car.” As an example, shoppers could tell the AI something along the lines of ‘configure a red 3-Series with 19-inch wheels.’

More: Rivian’s R2 Configurator Is Live And A Spare Tire Costs $755

The automaker said the plugin combines the natural language capabilities of generative AI with their “product and configuration knowledge base.” This means ChatGPT should be able to configure your ideal vehicle and ensure it’s a ‘real’ product.

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More interestingly, users don’t have to know that much about BMWs as they can describe what they want – using characteristics such as size, ground clearance, or powertrain – to get useful suggestions on what to configure. BMW also said users can compare running costs as well as factor in things such as driving dynamics or the availability of all-wheel drive.

Unfortunately, getting to the configurator isn’t easy. The multistep process requires users to go to ChatGPT.com , access the Plugins menu, and then search for BMW.

When I tried on mobile and desktop, ChatGPT told me “No plugins match that search right now.” That’s not a great start as the automaker said the service is “available on both mobile devices and desktop computers.” However, it remains unclear if the plugin is available globally or is limited to certain markets such as Germany.

Regardless, BMW isn’t the first automotive company to offer ChatGPT plugins as I came across offerings for Autotrader, Cars, CarMax, Carfax, and Edmunds.

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The Royal Ontario Museum is one of the premier institutions in Canada, which often makes it a destination for local paleontological and archaeological finds. That includes a killer whale vertebra found underneath Queen's Quay and Bay Street, discovered during transit excavations in 1988. Unfortunately, the vertebra's origins are still up for debate to this day.

The discovery was, at first, a cause for excitement since no post-glacial fossil remains had ever been found in the area. But the sediment near the whalebone showed traces of ragweed pollen, indicating the bone arrived after European settlement but before the presence of the pollen became incredibly common around 1840.

Another theory posited that it was, instead, a discard from Piper's Zoo, an establishment that existed on the lakeshore of Toronto. However, Piper's Zoo never had an orca on display, so this theory was discarded.

The current thought is that the vertebra was dropped in the harbor by a whaler during the early 19th century, and then later ended up as landfill in the early 1900s. Past that, it remains a Toronto-area mystery, on display in the Royal Ontario Museum thanks to a loan from the Toronto Transit Commission.

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Anyone who wanders to the very end of City Island Avenue will reach a small seating area looking out over the waters of Long Island Sound, from which portions of Queens and Nassau County can be seen. Only rows of rotting wooden pilings hint at this spot’s former life as a summer resort and amusement park.

In the 1860s financier William Belden was a controversial figure, having conspired with Jay Gould and Jim Fisk to inflate the price of gold, a plot that eventually caused a stock market panic. After years of investigations, he still had enough money to purchase a mansion at the southern tip of City Island in 1885 and develop it and the surrounding area into a summer resort, with the mansion itself becoming a French restaurant. The resort was a big hit, leading Belden to further develop it with features like a bowling alley and a billiard hall. Visitors could easily reach the area via steamboat, which ran to City Island frequently.

Unfortunately, the good times could not last; Belden had cheated his mentally ill brother and was now expected to pay damages as a result, while one of Belden’s many other creditors had obtained a lien on the resort property. Belden would sell the land to railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington, who died just a few short years later. Belden was never able to get the land back and without it, he died in impoverished obscurity.

The mansion itself would continue to stand for over 100 years as part of the City Island Athletic Club, but it would eventually burn to the ground in 2006. As for the former dock at the end of the street, it lay in ruins, with access to the waterfront blocked off by a chain link fence and the shore often used for illegal dumping. Eventually the city stepped in and renovated the area, building a small park with benches where people can now look over the water in tranquil peace after enjoying a hearty meal at one of the many seafood restaurants lining City Island Avenue.

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I was born in the early '90s, and thanks to a life marked by periodic socioeconomic turmoil, I've come to accept—as any reasonable person would—that blatant dysfunction is the hallmark of a healthy and developed economy. The free market doesn't have seatbelts or brakes, and that's why it works. If there's any wreckage that might say otherwise, we're driving too fast to see it.

But even though I've learned that business success looks indistinguishable from a runaway vehicle, the games industry's current course feels like it's careening so close to a cliff's edge that I can't help but wonder: Are we sure anyone actually remembers how to drive this thing? Are we sure anyone remembers how to drive anything?

(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios) I know it's impertinent of me to question those most devoted to their civic duty of delivering shareholder value, but I mean, can you blame me? Being engaged in videogames over the last decade has meant watching a cohort of publisher executives inherit an industry of products, professionals, and consumers they seem to actively resent for failing to produce instant, infinite profits—profits they only ever had a vague notion how to create.

Faulty service

Take Sony, for example. It committed years to abortive attempts at bottling live-service lightning: Concord burnt hundreds of millions of dollars just to suffer a launch-week euthanization. Blue Point, a studio that built its reputation on remasters, was placed on a live-service God of War spinoff project—a notion that should have been declared doomed before it left the board room, but instead dragged the developer into a February 2026 shuttering once Sony lost patience with its own plans.

And yet, even after cancelling eight of the 12 live-service projects it said it would launch by 2025, Sony's spectacular streak of misguided endeavors somehow hasn't dimmed its live-service ambitions. Last month, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and president Hideaki Nishino said the publisher wants to "continue to take on" live-service projects .

(Image credit: Bungie) That commitment that would have been baffling enough to hear on its own, but it was made farcical by the fact that just days earlier, Sony laid off almost the entirety of Bungie's Destiny 2 team after pulling the plug on its ongoing content development. Yes, years of studio mismanagement had taken a toll on Destiny 2's output. But even though it was well past its peak, Destiny's rank-and-file developers had just drawn in a massive surge of returning players for a final update, closing out almost a decade as one of the longest-running games in a market where most competitors, including Sony's, suffer near-instant collapses.

If I wanted to give my next live-service swings the best chance of survival, having access to the Bungie engineers, designers, and artists who maintained one of the most successful games in the field seems like it would be a blessing. Instead, Sony culled that collective expertise to save on costs, investing Bungie's remaining staff on Marathon, which—though it brings me no joy to say so—doesn't seem to be thriving. (Its game director just quit .)

Meanwhile, Sony has announced the approaching end of its physical disc production, marking 2028 as the year it'll start releasing new PlayStation games exclusively through digital distribution. And while that undoubtedly looks good on its quarterly balance sheet, it's a decision that could quietly damage its future prospects: While the percentage of players buying discs has steadily decreased, ending their production means strangling whatever viability remains for reselling used games. Even among PC users who haven't handled a game disc in years, some of us—myself included—would never have maintained the gaming hobby if reselling pieces of our used console libraries hadn't been an option.

(Image credit: Bungie) Maybe that won't be an issue. But if Sony ever decides it's dealt lasting harm to its user base—well, who knows whether the leadership responsible will still be around? That's a problem for whoever happens to be answering the investor questions at the earnings call.

Bad reset

And then, of course, there's Microsoft. In an industry that's seemingly lost its ability to place any bets but bad ones, Xbox has spent the 2020s making the worst. With Phil Spencer at the helm, Microsoft's gaming division sank tens of billions of dollars on an acquisition spree that put a sizable portion of the games industry under the Xbox umbrella, staking the futures of those studios as collateral for its all-in gamble on Game Pass.

That gamble failed. Hard. With Game Pass attracting tens of millions fewer subscribers than it needed to sustain itself, Microsoft floundered through misguided marketing campaigns, mismanaged release strategies, and recurring mass layoffs, studio closures, and project cancellations.

The developers it had diligently collected were tossed, even as the company boasted about their work: Tango Gameworks was axed during a mass downsizing in 2024, a year after Microsoft said the studio's Hi-Fi Rush had exceeded "all key measurements and expectations." In 2025, Spencer insisted that Xbox's "platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger" in the same memo that informed employees of another wave of Microsoft layoffs and closures. Those cuts included a ZeniMax team that spent seven years developing an MMO which Spencer reportedly enjoyed so much that the controller had to be physically removed from his hands during an internal demo.

(Image credit: ZeniMax Online Studios) Given Xbox leadership's bold strategy of achieving very little as expensively as possible, some amount of continuing fallout seemed inevitable even after Spencer's departure in February. The havoc unleashed this month under the regime of new CEO Asha Sharma, however, is an abandonment of any pretense of good-faith stewardship over the fiefdom Microsoft claimed within the industry.

It isn't obvious that these cuts are cunning and calculated to any greater degree than the acquisitions that led to them.

On July 6, 1,600 Xbox employees were put out of work , with the axe still looming over another 1,600 workers set to lose their jobs before the end of Microsoft's 2027 fiscal year. The cuts are borderline nonsensical in scope and intent, hitting Bethesda, ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and Xbox Game Studios alike, with King and Mojang now reporting directly to Sharma as part of an organizational restructuring meant to help Xbox become "one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day."

Any number of self-assured finance guys will happily tell you that all Xbox did was cut unprofitable employees from its payroll, but it isn't obvious that these cuts are cunning and calculated to any greater degree than the acquisitions that led to them. ZeniMax Online Studios has been gutted of 213 employees , calling into question its ability to maintain The Elder Scrolls Online—a game which, as of 2024, had generated $2 billion in revenue across its lifetime, and had just been gaining promising momentum in the months leading up to the layoffs as it transitioned to a seasonal model.

(Image credit: id Software) Maybe most galling are the heavy cuts to id Software, which slashed 136 employees from a studio with one of the most storied legacies in the history of videogames that had just delivered a record-breaking launch last year. Despite assurances to the contrary from Microsoft and id Software's Hugo Martin , some of its laid off staff insist that even the studio's proprietary id Tech engine—a technical achievement that powers not only id's own games but also its sister studio's projects at MachineGames—has been left with an uncertain future .

If Microsoft does have a coherent vision for its bloodletting beyond, potentially, improving Xbox's books in advance of a spin-off or sale, I doubt it's one we'll like. Its new chief strategist, Matthew Ball, is a true believer in the metaverse and the co-founder of a "UGC game studio." The company clearly has Roblox on its mind.

ZeniMax Online Studios founder Matt Firor, who left the company after Microsoft cancelled the studio's upcoming MMO, said this year that "a giant successful videogame" is "not that stimulating" to Microsoft, which seeks a greater scale of profit. What it saw in the project, he reckons, was cost and risk: "We're a number on a ledger, and if that number is large, it is ripe for analysis, shall we say."

(Image credit: Bethesda) For now, Microsoft is making a show of doubling down on big series like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, even as it lays off some of the veteran developers making them. The confirmation that there's a new Fallout in the works is slim consolation when it's in the hands of an executive culture that's so clearly disinterested in properly supporting the studios making its games and willing to toss out years of work when it decides to change course.

Deep cuts

Launching a successful game isn't as simple as providing game developers with job security; I won't dispute that. But it's been made abundantly, repeatedly clear that layoffs and employment uncertainty during a game's development don't help.

Whatever short-term gains those layoffs provide only intensify the long-standing difficulties driving the industry towards an existential crisis. Overlong production cycles and exponential budget increases are worsened every time a studio is forced to reassemble its detonated workflow to account for the institutional knowledge lost whenever a dev is cut loose. Even if a replacement is eventually hired, proficiency with studio-specific tools, conventions, and workplace dynamics doesn't come immediately—and that lost time isn't free.

(Image credit: Tyler C. / BioWare) The trend isn't hard to identify: Destiny 2's downward slide of expansion delays and disappointing launches followed back-to-back waves of layoffs as Bungie, under its new Sony ownership, tried to stem the bleeding of its leadership's overexpansion. The prolonged and turbulent development of Dragon Age: Veilguard included a layoff of roughly 50 BioWare employees in 2023. In 2024, Ubisoft launched the infamously troubled Skull and Bones, the ill-fated XDefiant, and the underperforming Star Wars: Outlaws—three games whose development cycles coincided with company-wide cost-cutting measures the publisher initiated in 2022, which let it shed 2,000 jobs over the next two years through hiring freezes, redundancies, and studio closures.

Whatever short-term gains those layoffs provide only intensify the long-standing difficulties driving the industry towards an existential crisis.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure— multiple layoffs before launch. Civilization 7— 30 layoffs in 2023 as part of a wider 2K restructuring. Name a game that didn't have a stellar launch, and there's a good chance there were layoffs at its studio or publisher that left its developers with damage to rebuild or doubts about their livelihoods.

Is it any surprise, then, that Capcom's currently enjoying a multi-year hit streak after avoiding mass layoffs since 2018 ? Or that Larian, a studio with a strong history of employee retention , pulled off a generational breakout hit like Baldur's Gate 3?

Crash course

Acknowledging the long-term damage that layoffs are causing, however, would mean returning to a framework the industry's current leadership has largely abandoned since the ascent of games as services, as platforms, as forever games. Cost-cutting has been the primary economic activity of the games industry for years.

(Image credit: Epic) The industry's giants perform so many layoffs for short-term gains that the success of any traditional game launch feels like an oversight. And I'll admit it's not without reason: Data reported by analyst firms like Newzoo indicates that gamers are spending as much as two thirds of their collective playtime on games more than six years old, with a concentration on platforms like Roblox and Fortnite.

A major game publisher can't simply choose to make their own Roblox because it's not possible to choose to become a phenomenon.

But sales successes like Helldivers 2, Arc Raiders, Meccha Chameleon, and Resident Evil Requiem are proof that there remains a lasting hunger for quality, novelty, and variety in traditional, purchasable games. How many more games like those might players have enjoyed had industry giants not maintained a myopic obsession with creating an ex nihilo Roblox of their own? Why would you stop playing Fortnite when it's felt like all anyone's done in the last six years is try to gouge you for the privilege of playing Worse Fortnite?

Roblox and Fortnite didn't become Roblox and Fortnite by choosing to become Roblox and Fortnite. Roblox and Fortnite happened. Neither was an overnight juggernaut: Roblox's original launch was in 2006, almost three years earlier than the first public alpha release of Minecraft in 2009, and it steadily ballooned over two decades. Fortnite as we know it today was cobbled together in 2017 from the six-year-old bones of an entirely different product concept to offer a free-to-play alternative that could capitalize on the ascendant PUBG zeitgeist.

(Image credit: Roblox) The Roblox and Fortnite we recognize today were created through the years-long accretion of strategic decisions unique to their time-and-date contexts. A major game publisher can't simply choose to make their own Roblox because it's not possible to choose to become a phenomenon.

But these attempts to conjure perpetual revenue platforms continue as companies seek to make more money with fewer employees, build new gig economies, and lobby the public to please, please just accept AI-generated art already. Just making good games isn't an exponential growth opportunity—and those are the only growth opportunities we're meant to care about.

And maybe they're right. Maybe we can finally believe that something can be made without its makers. Maybe you can give the keys to someone who knows they won't be harmed either way, no matter how close they get to the cliff. Maybe the line can keep going up.

Or maybe we could put someone else back in the driver's seat before there's a crash.