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.
Diablo’s Development Team Unionizes
We’re kicking off this week’s roundup with one hell of a story, pun very much intended. The development team behind the Diablo franchise over at Activision Blizzard passed a vote to unionize, becoming the third flagship IP at Blizzard to do so.
The union currently consists of 450 members of the Diablo development across all roles, and is sponsored by the Communications Workers of America (CWA). It’s the third union of its kind at Blizzard, with the World of Warcraft team blazing the trail last year with the largest wall-to-wall union in gaming, followed by the unionization of the team behind Overwatch.
Kelly Yeo, a Producer on Diablo and union organizer, shared his excitement in the CWA’s official announcement: “With every subsequent round of mass layoffs, I’ve witnessed the dread in my coworkers grow stronger because it feels like no amount of hard work is enough to protect us. I am overjoyed that we have formed a union—this is just the first step for us joining a movement spreading across an industry that is tired of living in fear. We are ready to begin fighting for real change alongside our Diablo colleagues.”
According to reporting from Aftermath, the union has not yet ratified a contract to present to Microsoft at the negotiating table, but there are a few items that the union organizers think will likely be included. These items include securing better pay and benefits for team members, who have often been straddled with lower wages due to the “passion tax” of working on an iconic franchise like Diablo. Other proposed inclusions include protections against AI, remote work, and of course protections against layoffs.
It’s understandable why anyone would want that job security assured right now at Microsoft, with the tech titan undergoing multiple rounds of sweeping layoffs in the recent past. The Diablo team has been thus far only lightly touched, but the threat of losing their jobs at a moment’s notice is a sword of Damocles hanging over the whole team’s head.
For their part, Microsoft has recognized the union at Blizzard, bound by the union neutrality deal made with the CWA as a way to take heat off the company amidst the Activision Blizzard acquisition. As of this writing, formal negotiations have yet to be initiated.
Warhammer Prices Set to Raise in October
Another year, another Warhammer price hike. Oh boy.
Games Workshop announced the change last week in an email, which reads “From 6 October 2025, some prices in Warhammer stores and on Warhammer.com will be changing. On average, prices will rise by about 4%, but the exact amount will vary by product – some will change a little more, some a little less. The prices of many products, including paints, sprays, and paint sets, aren’t changing at all. We’re sharing this now so you’ve got time to make any purchases you’ve been planning at today’s prices.”
This price increase is the latest in GW’s recent trend of small annual price increases, though notably this is the first one in recent memory that was not announced in an article on the Warhammer community website, but instead in a brief email.
Last year’s pricing update post provided a bit more detail on what items could be potentially changing, and the year before that even gave a (very) brief reasoning, writing that “Stuff costs more to make and more to move, and Warhammer is not immune to these changes.” This time around, it looks like GW assumes this isn’t our first rodeo, and sticks with just the facts.
Games Workshop’s largely been able to avoid the steeper price increases that other companies have had to enforce with the ongoing tariff situation, such as Atomic Mass Games’ 15% price increase earlier this year and Wargames Atlantic’s decision to raise their prices around 8%, despite the lengths the company tried to go to in order to avoid making any pricing changes.
Still, the annual increases add up, totaling about a 20% rise in the games price since 2022, and the yearly Warhammer price hike cycle becomes more tiring with every iteration. This time, the announcement came so late in the year that one could’ve maybe hoped we would avoid it, but alas, we did not.
Games Workshop Ends Deal to Translate Novels in Ukrainian
It’s a double feature for GW in the hot seat today. Games Workshop is facing a renewed round of criticism after an article from The Telegraph brought wider attention to a decision the company made earlier this summer to cease its efforts to translate Black Library novels in Ukrainian. (Note: Since The Telegraph article is paywalled, we are linking instead to an article from PC Gamer which covers the article in depth.)
Until recently, Ukrainian localization for Black Library novels were contracted out to Molfar Comics, a publishing house whose other translation credits include various manga and World of Warcraft books. Prior to this deal, Ukrainian Warhammer fans had to settle for pirated Russian language copies of Black Library novels to get their Space Marine fix.
“These works are vital for the morale of our people, especially our soldiers—many of whom are our readers,” Oleksandr Nevskiy, co-owner of Molfar Comics, told The Telegraph. “We have repeatedly received photos of soldiers reading Warhammer books in trenches or in hospital beds.”
Games Workshop addressed the backlash from the community in an Instagram post earlier this summer when the news first broke, as conspiracy of Russian collusion ran wild following the announcement. Critics cite GW’s relationship with Owlcat Games, the studio behind the popular Rogue Trader and upcoming Dark Heresy video game adaptations which was founded in Moscow before relocating to Cyprus as proof of this relationship with the Russian state, despite the fact that GW has suspended sale of Warhammer products in Russia since 2022.
GW writes in the Instagram post “Recently we chose not to renew our contract with a Ukrainian publisher who had previously been responsible for localising Black Library novels. We won’t discuss the why. That wouldn’t be right. What we will say is that we thought long and hard about it, and it was done for good reason. This is our considered, honest, and only explanation.”
Games Workshop ends the post with an open invitation to any Ukrainian publishing house who’s able to fulfill the company’s high standards to reach out and discuss a potential partnership.
Mantic’s Answer to Legions Imperialis is Live for Preorder
Mantic’s plunging into the world of bigger battles with even smaller models. Its upcoming epic scale wargame, suitably titled Epic Warpath, is up for preorder on the Mantic site, launching with a two player starter set as well as a host of other starter sets and accessories.
“Commanders, the wait is finally over,” the Epic Warpath press release reads. “Mantic Games is proud to announce the impending launch of Epic Warpath, the next evolution of large-scale, multi-faction, sci-fi warfare on the tabletop. Years in the making, Epic Warpath combines everything you love about massive armies, cinematic battles, and deep strategy into one streamlined, explosive system that’s perfect for veterans and newcomers alike (but mostly veterans!).”
The game is set in Mantic’s sci-fi Warpath universe, and ups the scale of the conflicts while reducing the scale of the miniatures. Its ruleset was developed by industry veteran Alessio Cavatore, the designer behind Mordheim, Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, and Kings of War, as well as Matt Gilbert, COO at Mantic.
The headline for the initial release wave is the two player starter box, Battle for Phorvox, which sees the human Enforcers face down the gnarled Plague hordes. Other launch items include starter sets for Plague and Enforcers, as well as the sleek Asterians and stubborn Forge Fathers, centerpiece models like the Plague Colossus, rulebooks and accessories, and a companion novel for Battle for Phorvox featuring an anthology of short stories from the Warpath universe.
Prior to the release of the game, Mantic will be hosting a live Q&A on its YouTube channel on the 18th of September. Epic Warpath is set to release on 29th of the same month.
Valve Institutes Age Verification for UK Users
With the online safety act looming over them, as well as after weeks of pressure and controversy about adult content on the platform, Valve quietly rolled out its new age verification requirements for mature games on Steam last Friday for UK users.
As initially reported by VGC, the verification process for UK users is straightforward: In order to access certain content deemed not safe for younger audiences, users must have a credit card under their name on file with the platform. Since UK citizens must be 18 or older to have a credit card in the first place, the presence of this information on the platform is proof of the user’s age and theoretically prevents a child from just lying on the “how old are you” question the rest of the world uses on Steam before allowing someone access to a mature game.
This age verification comes in part due to the ratification of the Online Safety Act in the UK which states, “services who have users in the UK need to be safe by design, and have a higher standard of protection for children than adults, whilst providing transparency and accountability in relation to those services.”
Age verification has become a go to method of enforcing this online safety, but has come under criticism as many wonder what it means for important internet issues such as privacy, censorship, and even basic accessibility.
“In places like Australia and the U.K., there is already a split happening between the internet that people who are willing to identify themselves or go through age verification can see and the rest of the internet. And that’s historically a very dangerous place for us to end up,” Jason Kelley, activism director at the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, told NBC New York.
This change from Valve follows weeks of heat the company has endured since it announced a change that would give payment processors more power to dictate what was morally acceptable to host on Steam, and a widespread purging of many pornographic games from the platform. While there is little love lost for these games as they exit, valid concern is being raised about giving this much authority to banking companies like Visa and Mastercard that have eagerly been falling in line with the Trump administration’s “anti-woke” rhetoric that targets LGBT and minority communities.
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