Here at Goonhammer, we know that it’s hard to keep track of all the news happening all the time in the games industry. So much is always going on with games of all sorts, and their related media, it can be a real blink-and-you’ll miss it situation.
That’s why every week, we round up five of the biggest stories in the gaming sphere from the past week in the Games Industry News Roundup. Our trusty news boy, Dan “Swiftblade” Richardson, is at the very real and cool Goonhammer newsdesk with the scoop.
Netflix Announces Acquisition of Warner Bros.
It’s hard to understate how much of a shakeup to the modern media landscape our first story this week is. Last week, Netflix announced that it had successfully bought Warner Bros. for $27.50 a share, which totals to about $82.7 billion.
“Our mission has always been to entertain the world,” said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, in a statement announcing the news. “By combining Warner Bros.’ incredible library of shows and movies—from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends—with our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we’ll be able to do that even better. Together, we can give audiences more of what they love and help define the next century of storytelling.”
This deal is set to go into effect around September of 2026, after Warner Bros. splits Discovery off into its own publicly traded company. The buyout faces several major challenges before that time, however, that could see the whole thing broken up.
Firstly, the merger has come under scrutiny from federal regulators and politicians, who see the move as a potentially major violation of American antitrust laws. Even the Trump administration, normally extremely pro-big business, seems skeptical of the deal, with Trump declining to take sides but noting the colossal market share the buyout would give Netflix.
“This deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare. A Netflix-Warner Bros. would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market — threatening to force Americans into higher subscription prices and fewer choices over what and how they watch, while putting American workers at risk,” Senator Elizabeth Warren told CNBC in a statement.
The other major hurdle for this deal is the hostile takeover bid launched by Paramount, who claimed that their initial offer of $30 per share went ignored, and instead is going directly to Warner Bros. shareholders with the bid. The Paramount deal would also include Warner Bros.’s cable assets, and Paramount claims that their deal would allow the company to avoid much of the legal trouble the Netflix deal would cause.
“We believe our offer will create a stronger Hollywood. It is in the best interests of the creative community, consumers and the movie theater industry,” Paramount Chairman and CEO David Ellison said in a statement to PBS. “We believe they will benefit from the enhanced competition, higher content spend and theatrical release output, and a greater number of movies in theaters as a result of our proposed transaction.”
The Paramount deal also would come with potentially a much more friendly reception by the Trump White House, as Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is a part of the deal through his private equity firm Affinity Partners. Affinity also has close ties with Saudi Arabian money, as Affinity was a major player in Saudi Arabia’s purchase of Electronic Arts earlier this year.
As of this writing, there’s no clear indication which way things will go with this merger, though no matter how the dust settles it’s very likely going to cause a massive shift in the American media landscape, and how this plays out is probably already going to be one of the biggest stories of 2026.
The End Times Are Coming to Warhammer: Total War 3
Everyone’s favorite and least controversial Warhammer Fantasy plotline is coming to the digital realm, as the team at Creative Assembly announced a new Warhammer: End Times expansion for Warhammer: Total War 3.
The expansion, Lords of the End Times, will come with four new legendary lords available for play, each of which is adapted from the End Times storyline that saw the dramatic end of the Old World in 2015. The first of the four new Lords revealed is Nagash, the Great Necromancer, complete with his own retinue of Mortarchs revealed in an appropriately flashy cinematic trailer.
Alongside the Lords of the End Times expansion, Creative Assembly plans on releasing a free End Times update for Total War: Warhammer 3’s Immortal Empires campaign. In this update, the map is twisted and shattered by the apocalyptic events of the end times, with new gameplay mechanics that will see your forces working to either push back against the coming cataclysm or accelerate its doom.
The new DLC, as well as the free update, are both slated for release in summer 2026.
Czech Games Tests Partnership with Hachette for European Distribution
Asmodee has been soaking up the lion’s share of the positive board games publisher spotlight this year, as the company has come out swinging with major IP acquisitions and deals following its split from Embracer Group. It seems like this week, Hachette is trying to steal some of that attention and success away from Asmodee, as the popular game company Czech Games announced a deal to trial UK distribution through Hachette.
Czech Games, creator of popular titles such as SETI and Codenames, has used Asmodee as the longtime exclusive distributor of its games in the UK. For their upcoming game Wispwood, however, Czech is branching out to Hachette for UK distribution, with the CEO of Czech telling BoardGameWire “We’ll see how the cooperation on Wispwood goes and decide on the next steps from there.”
“We believe in Wispwood. It is a fantastic game, both mechanically and visually.” Hachette’s head of Marketing, Corina Cretu, told BoardGameWire. “Flavien, our CEO, fell in love with it at [Spiel] Essen and wanted it as soon as possible on the market. We wanted to make sure it would be available in the UK for Christmas, because we truly believe it will be an exceptional gift for people to play in the festive period!”
This is not Hachette’s first time being a thorn in Asmodee’s side, as Hachette acquired the distribution rights for Super Meeple in the USA from Asmodee back in 2024.
While Czech is currently still distributing its other major titles through Asmodee in the UK, a successful holiday season for Wispwood could potentially win Czech over to dealing exclusively with Hachette in the future.
Tekken Veteran Developer Leaving Bandai Namco at the End of 2025
Katsuhiro Harada, the heart and soul of the Tekken development team at Bandai Namco, announced on Monday that he would be leaving the company at the end of 2025.
According to his social media post, Harada felt that the 30th anniversary for the venerable fighting game franchise was “the most fitting moment to bring one chapter to a close.”
“In recent years, I experienced the loss of several close friends in my personal life, and in my professional life I witnessed the retirement or passing of many senior colleagues whom I deeply respect.” Harada wrote. “Those accumulated events made me reflect on the ‘time I have left as a creator.’”
Harada joined the Tekken team during the development of the first game in the series back in 1994, and has had a hand in the series through every title release since then. Harada was also a part of Project Soul, the internal team behind the Soul Calibur series, and served as global marketing manager for several of Bandai Namco’s biggest releases, such as Dark Souls III and Ace Combat 7.
Harada has spent the past few years preparing the Tekken team to carry on in his absence, and following his departure hopes for new and exciting things for both himself and the team behind Tekken.
Dead Space Franchise Put on Ice a Second Time
In space, no one can hear your beloved horror franchise scream.
According to internal sources reporting to gaming outlet Insider Gaming, the Dead Space franchise appears, uh, dead for a second time, with Motive telling IG that plans to develop a sequel have been shelved.
Sources told insider Gaming that after the popular reception of 2023’s remake of the original Dead Space, EA and Motive toyed with the idea of developing a remake of the second (and potentially third) games in the franchise, and possibly even entirely original projects within the Dead Space universe, but after the remake ultimately missed its sales target of 5 million units, EA lost interest in developing any additional games in the franchise. EA initially refuted this claim in 2024, but it appears the rumors were true.
There is hope for Dead Space fans however, as the same internal sources at Motive Games expressed some hope that the upcoming EA buyout could force EA to sell off the IP as a way to reduce the debt taken on from the purchase. Should this occur, a new publisher could acquire the rights to the venerable series and greenlight additional entries in the franchise. Should EA decide to keep the rights following the buyout however, it looks like the fate of the Dead Space franchise is sealed for good.
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