Spirit vs MOUZ, BLAST Open Porto grand final. Bo5 LAN at Super Bock Arena, Sunday 6 Sep 14:00 UTC.

Spirit are HLTV #1 and EWC champions, 8-0 on maps this event after 2-0s over DENDELE, G2, FURIA and Falcons (Nuke 13-8, Ancient 13-11). MOUZ are #5, BLAST Bounty Season 2 champions, and just swept Vitality 2-0 in the semis (Dust2 13-11, Mirage 13-7) with Spinx at 1.61.

This is a rematch of the Bounty final on 2 Aug, where MOUZ won 3-1 (Dust2 13-8, Mirage 13-4, Ancient 9-13, Nuke 13-10). Polymarket had Spirit around 79% that day. Spirit have been the better team since; MOUZ already beat them once in a Bo5.

Opening line: Spirit 0.65 (1.54x), MOUZ 0.35 (2.86x). Betting closes 13:50 UTC, ten minutes before the start.



Source: HLTV

Gametype: Duel
Map: DM2
Mod: N/A
Viewpoint: Thump4
Version info: ezquake
How to play back Q1 demos


Quakecon 2026 - Retro Classic Tournament

Featuring Quake Live, Quake II, and QuakeWorld

Map 3 - Quakeworld - Grand Finals

Gametype: Duel
Map: DM6 - The Dark Zone
Mod: N/A
Viewpoint: Thump4
Version info: ezquake
How to play back Q1 demos


Quakecon 2026 - Retro Classic Tournament

Featuring Quake Live, Quake II, and QuakeWorld

Map 3 - Quakeworld - Winner Bracket Finals

BLAST Open Porto playoffs opened at Super Bock Arena. Two quarterfinals, both done. $1.1 million pool.

Falcons 2-0 G2. Inferno 13-6 on G2's pick, 11-1 at half. Dust2 13-9. NiKo 37-24 (1.54), kyousuke 36-26. Falcons are the IEM Cologne Major winners. G2 take $75,000 and go home.

FURIA 1-2 Vitality. FURIA took Nuke 13-6 (10-2 half). Vitality took Cache 13-11, then Dust2 13-4. jL is still standing in for mezii. Vitality opened this event 0-2 to Inner Circle. They are through.

Saturday: Spirit vs Falcons 14:00 UTC, then MOUZ vs Vitality 17:30 UTC. Sunday Bo5 final 14:00 UTC. Winner $150,000 plus $100,000 club share.

Streams: BLASTPremier

Source: HLTV

Alinea Analytics has Steam at $15 billion gross for January through August 2026. Up about 15% on the same stretch last year, and already more than all of 2023. They think the year finishes well above $20 billion for the first time.

New 2026 games are not carrying it. The top six new releases are under $1 billion combined, about 6.6% of the total:

• Forza Horizon 6: $210.5 million
• Crimson Desert: $203.3 million
• Resident Evil Requiem: $200.9 million
• Slay the Spire 2: $148 million
• Subnautica 2: $139.2 million
• Meccha Chameleon: $89.8 million

The top 100 new 2026 games are about $2.4 billion, 15.9%. 63% of those titles are new IP. 52.5% of that revenue is still established franchises.

Steam has logged about 19,000 new releases this year already, on pace with all of 2025 and past 2024. Alinea flags the generative-AI dump as the next problem for anyone trying to get seen.

These are estimates, not Valve's books.

Source: Alinea Analytics

Archon Studio put up a cooperative playthrough of Quake: The Board Game. Rangers fight through a facility, recover Runic Keys, and seal an unstable Slipgate before it implodes.



Players plan at the same time with Action Cards. Slam lets you dump cards for extra movement, attacks, or heals. The deck is also ammo, stamina, and your connection to the server: spend too many without restocking and you cannot finish the round. Killing monsters and grabbing loot puts cards back.

Enemies run off a Control Card deck. Maps have High Ground, Low Ground, jumping, and jump pads. The co-op campaign is what they showed. Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch are still planned.

The Gamefound page is a campaign preview, not live pledging. About 13,000 followers. 1-4 players, about 60 minutes, 14+. Named expansions: Flesh and Runes (original Quake) and Stroggification (Quake 2 / 4). Archon has said rocket jumps are in.

Source: Archon Studio

The official StarCraft website is glitching on purpose. Images twitch. Text flashes. The page still sells StarCraft Remastered. The source does not.

Fans opened the JavaScript console and found a failed Terran Dominion login (user 2560037-DA, flagged, told to contact the service desk), a refused request for "special order 176," and a 2575 memo from a redacted first sergeant. Theta Squadron is inbound to the Roxara lunar mining complex. A freighter lands first. The crates are "pivotal to our research." Handle them carefully. Every scrap so far is Terran-only. No Zerg. No Protoss.

2575 is about 70 years after StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void.

Same week, Korea's Chosun said Nexon is close to a deal with Blizzard for a StarCraft successor. First pass sounded like an IP sale. Later wording is a development license. Genre is still a mess: some of the Korean reporting says StarCraft 3, older reporting said a Nexon shooter, and Blizzard was separately incubating an open-world shooter under former Far Cry lead Dan Hay. Two StarCraft shooters at once is a stretch. An RTS from Nexon is the other rumor. Nobody has confirmed either.

BlizzCon is 12-13 September. Opening ceremony 17:30 UTC on the 12th. Day-one main stage has an unexplained hour gap. The floor map has no StarCraft booth, so if something is announced it is probably not playable there.

Blizzard has not commented. Nexon has not commented.

Source: Polygon

NVIDIA has a date for DLSS 5. It goes live 3 September at 21:00 PT in NBA 2K27, on RTX 50-series cards, laptops, and GeForce NOW. Nothing older. NVIDIA says it needs Blackwell's fifth-generation Tensor cores.

Older DLSS fills in pixels and extra frames. This one paints lighting and materials the engine never drew: skin, hair, contact shadows, light through ears. Faces in the March GTC demos came out looking like a different person. Resident Evil Requiem's Grace Ashcroft got memed as yassified. People called it AI slop. A few Capcom and Ubisoft staff said they found out their games were in NVIDIA's reel when everyone else did. Jensen Huang told Tom's Hardware the critics were "completely wrong."

Since then NVIDIA has added sliders, three models, and masks so developers can leave faces alone. The launch game is NBA 2K27.

With DLSS 5, players will see how light naturally passes through player ears, the natural lighting of skin, and how light catches hair.

NVIDIA's charts have an RTX 5090 at 370fps in 4K Ultra with ray tracing, which includes the rest of the DLSS stack and a lot of generated frames. The neural pass itself is supposedly a 50-60% hit. In March this ran on two 5090s; now it runs on one.


How much better would this make Quake. We may never know.

Source: NVIDIA

This is the last installment of the MADIR series. This one was just a nice little Sunday project that I had fun putting together.

I want to say thank you to all my subscribers for supporting me over the years on my YouTube channel. Without your support and engagement, I probably wouldn't have had the motivation to keep making content for this long.

Music
5l33p - Mad Mercer (Slowed)
glwzbll - Untitled #13 (Super Slowed)
Hugeloud - Destiny

Programs used
Wolf Whisperer
DaVinci Resolve

Thanks to
The Movie Making Discord
All of my subscribers over the years

Special thanks to
Ryan_H — You were the person I looked up to when I first started the MADIR series. Without you, I don't think I would've ever gotten into making these in the first place. Love you, bud.

Fnatic are out of Worlds 2026. GIANTX beat them 2-1 on 30 August in the last LEC Summer regular-season series, so they miss Summer Playoffs and the last three European Worlds spots.

The LEC account called it the first time Fnatic have ever missed Summer Playoffs. The postseason streak went back to 2013. Worlds appearances had been uninterrupted since 2017; they last sat one out in 2016. They won the first Worlds in 2011 and made the 2018 final.

Summer opened 0-3, then three wins (SK, Shifters, G2), then three losses ending with GIANTX. Eighth in Versus, seventh in Spring. Roster churn all year: Oscarinin, Humanoid and Mikyx out; Vladi, Empyros and Lospa in; Soboro replaced Empyros for Summer. Razork is in year five.

Fnatic on X: "A heartbreaking end to our 2026 season." Their VALORANT side already missed every international this year.

Source: Shane the Gamer

cYpheR talked to baSe, LeXeR and Shambler on the 250 FPS Russian stream after 4-1'ing AGENT in the Season 5 grand final. Plus Forward translated it.

On yesterday's 2-3 winners-final loss, then today's 4-0 on the maps they played:

Yesterday I tilted very badly. I wanted to throw or break something.

I think yesterday I lost to myself. I was rushing.

One hundred. I am not going to pretend otherwise - one hundred out of one hundred.

He changed the Lost World red-armor read after AGENT kept stealing it on timing. Chat told him to ban Bloodrun; he did. First pick after Vertical Vengeance came out was Aerowalk. AGENT's "jokers" he named: Lost World and Bloodrun.

On pressure:

You smell blood - and it carries you forward.

AGENT does the same thing. If you get caught in his claws, he pushes you into an endless series of traps.

He said the final was "surprisingly comfortable" because AGENT was not at his peak. On hours vs twenty years (pro at sixteen):

Let them play as many hours and as many tournaments as I have, and then we can compare.

Next goal: win an Estoty or EGB Cup in Quake Champions. "At the moment, I can barely do anything in the game." Who he wants in 250 FPS Season 6:

Bring rapha here. I want revenge.

Name the date and time. Send me location.

Source: Plus Forward

rapha and maxter went unbeaten through EGB Cup 2v2 #3 and 3-1'd Keltz and serious in the grand final. $100 QC TDM: $70 / $30. Map record 7-2.

They opened 2-1 vs that same pair in WB R1, then 2-0'd ANTOWKA and st0n3 in the winners final. Keltz and serious came back through losers, 2-1 over ANTOWKA and st0n3 in the LB final, then lost the rematch.

k1llsen and rapha took Cup #2 two weeks ago. This pairing is the regular rapha/maxter tandem (KeenCon, Estoty 2v2). Keltz and serious play Quad-barrelled League WB R1 on Saturday.

Source: Plus Forward

The Quad-barrelled League QC TDM 2v2 playoffs open Saturday 5 September at 15:00 UTC with Keltz and serious against Strongsage and Yup in the winners bracket first round. First place is $400 of a $700 pool. Stream is on vkvideo.

Keltz and serious swept Group A 2-0, 2-0. Yesterday they finished runners-up at EGB Cup 2v2 #3, losing 3-1 to rapha and maxter in the grand final after beating ANTOWKA and st0n3 2-1 in the lower final. Strongsage and Yup came through Group D 2-1 against bukster and fire_bot, the only map any of these four playoff teams dropped in groups. Strongsage won NAQCL Duel Tournament #70 the same weekend.

The pairings are EU versus NA/SA. Keltz and serious have been a regular 2v2 tandem; the prices follow that, plus the group sweeps and the EGB result.

Betting closes at 14:50 UTC, ten minutes before the match.

Source: Plus Forward

The other Quad-barrelled League winners bracket opener is Cypher and danches against DesiRo and Thri11er, also 15:00 UTC on Saturday 5 September. QC TDM 2v2, $700 pool, stream on vkvideo.

Cypher and danches swept Group B 2-0 against OpiuM and Tras1d. DesiRo and Thri11er swept Group C 2-0 against ANTOWKA and st0n3, who had just made the EGB Cup 2v2 #3 winners final. Thri11er took his first NAQCL Duel title this month. Cypher (cYpheR) is coming off the 250 FPS QL League Season 5 title; that was Live, not Champions.

Group C is the stronger 2v2 scalp. Cypher's TDM name still leans the price a little the other way. This is the closer of the two openers.

Betting closes at 14:50 UTC, ten minutes before the match.

Source: Plus Forward

Adam "SyncError" Pyle posted in the official Quake Discord that he is back on Quake Champions as of Monday, 31 August, for four weeks to finish the 1.31 update.

Back to work on Monday, for four weeks to wrap up the 1.31 update.

Not a new contract and not a rehire. He said he had remained an id Software employee and is now officially staying longer, though the extra four weeks only "delays the inevitable."

Not a contract, I'm just not being laid off (yet).

He also cut the wish list. No balance work in this window, and not enough time to implement, test, and ship public lobbies. The job is existing 1.31 work already underway.

He was in the July id Software cuts. After that the community petitioned for him to stay on QC; it passed 1,000 signatures in under three weeks.

Source: Plus Forward

cYpheR came through losers and 4-1'd AGENT in the 250 FPS QL League Season 5 grand final. AGENT had a one-map lead from the winners bracket. Maps played: Silence 9-4, Aerowalk 11-5, Lost World 7-1, Furious Heights 4-1. $1,000 / $500 from a $5,500 season pool.

cYpheR opened 3-0 vs k1llsen, then lost the winners final 2-3 to AGENT (Lost World, Vertical Vengeance, Bloodrun, Furious Heights, Cure). In the LB final he dropped Vertical Vengeance 5-9 to ash, then took Lost World 7-2, Bloodrun 13-5, Furious Heights 7-5.

Third 250 FPS grand final between these two. cYpheR 4-0 in Season 2, AGENT 4-3 in Season 3, now 2-1 for cYpheR. Fourth straight season final for him: won 2 and 5, runner-up 3 and 4.

3rd ash. pavel 4th after beating k1llsen 2-1 in LB R1, then 0-2 ash. cherepoff 6th: 3-1 pavel in WB R1, 1-3 AGENT in the WB semi, 0-2 ash in LB R1.

Source: Plus Forward

About 12TB of Steam content from 2003-2013 is circulating as a torrent of old Steam2 depots: retail builds plus betas, prototypes, trailers, demos, and soundtracks. Valve has not commented.

Dataminers Gabe Follower and Scolcer say this was not a hack. Steam2's content endpoint was public until Valve switched to SteamPipe in 2013.

No hacking involved, just verified that everything in Steam2 Teraleak was obtained via a publicly accessible [API] endpoint. It's Valve's fault...

Gabe Follower, on X.

Reported Valve material so far: a playable Portal 2 build from 2009 (TF2 stand-in assets, cut GLaDOS and Cave Johnson lines), Left 4 Dead and CS:GO prototypes, assets from F-Stop (the canceled Portal prequel), and a weapon also seen in old Half-Life 2: Episode 3 footage. There is no confirmed Episode 3 game in the dump.

The archive is not Valve-only. Hidden Palace has listed obtainable third-party prototypes including Spec Ops: The Line, Civilization V, Mafia 2, and GTA 3. A depot name list is hundreds of titles wide; that is not the same as extracted playable builds. Tyler McVicker called the third-party slice more legally dangerous than Valve-only files.

Source: Ars Technica

Seems like the allsop gigapad xl has disappeared from stores online and at office depot etc. Anyone know if they are still sold anywhere? still my favorite pad

The 250 FPS Quake Live League Season 5 finals open on Saturday 29 August at 11:00 UTC with cherepoff against pavel in the winners bracket first round, Bo5. The loser drops to Sunday's lower bracket rather than out.

cherepoff came through group play in the last six and drew this match. Asked by Plus Forward for the season's most exciting series, he named his own against pavel. Neither player carries a bye, so on bracket position alone this is the closest of the two opening matches, and it is priced that way.

Betting closes at 10:50 UTC, ten minutes before the first map.

Source: Plus Forward

The 250 FPS Quake Live League Season 5 finals run over two days, with the winners bracket on Saturday 29 August and the lower bracket and grand final on Sunday 30 August. Both days open at 11:00 UTC. The champion takes $1,000 out of a $5,500 season pool.

Six players are left. AGENT and cYpheR carry byes into the winners semis, so they open a round ahead of the other four: cherepoff meets pavel and k1llsen meets ash in WB R1. Lower bracket is Bo3, winners Bo5, the grand final Bo7.

The opening prices follow the bracket. The two byes are favoured, and cherepoff - interviewed by Plus Forward this week - named AGENT his toughest opponent of the season and picked cYpheR as champion.

Betting closes at 10:50 UTC on Saturday, ten minutes before the first match.

Source: Plus Forward

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told the BBC that the next console, Project Helix, has to chase "efficiency and affordability alongside performance." She would not say whether Helix ships a disc drive. Dev kits are not due until 2027. Helix is described as a console/PC hybrid.

As an industry, we're in the middle of 'Rampocalypse'.

RAM and storage prices are up because AI data centers are buying the same chips. Microsoft is one of the buyers. Xbox already hiked current hardware this month: UK Series S 512GB to £430 (from £250 at launch), Series X 1TB with disc to £670 (from £450). The translucent green 25th Anniversary Series X is $899.99.

We've reached a point where it will be hard to imagine that mass audiences can afford thousands of dollars to spend on a console generation.

That line is from June. In the BBC sit-down she added that Xbox will look at "how they play their console and how they purchase their console," and at "hardware efficiency in terms of how you use storage and memory." In June she also floated "radically different business models" later this year. No detail on what that is.

Same interview: disc-to-digital. Insert a supported Xbox One or Series X disc, claim a digital license. About 1,000 titles at first. Insider test starts 31 August. The license follows the disc if you sell it. Sharma tied it to backwards compatibility on future hardware.

Within Xbox, we haven't been healthy.

Source: BBC

Inner Circle dumped Vitality 2-0 in the BLAST Open Fall Group B opener in Copenhagen. HLTV had Inner Circle at #34, Vitality at #4. jL stood in for mezii (paternity leave). Prize pool is $1.1 million. Groups run through 31 August at BLAST Studios; playoffs are in Porto, 4-6 September.

Anubis 13-8, Inner Circle's pick. Vitality's T half was 5-7; ZywOo went 0-7 to start. Cache, Vitality's pick, went to OT. Vitality led 6-0 then 12-7 and still lost 13-16. cptkurtka023 was 43-30 (1.58), headtr1ck 42-24 (1.37). ZywOo finished 27-36 (0.78).

Today we were mentally much, much stronger.

onic, to HLTV.

Same event, Group A (26 August): M80 2-1 NaVi (NaVi took Anubis 13-4, then 6-13 Mirage, 6-13 Inferno), G2 2-0 Aurora, Spirit 2-0 DENDELE, FURIA 2-0 paiN.

Inner Circle play MOUZ next in the Group B upper semi. Vitality drop to 9z in the lower bracket. Three teams per group make Porto.

Streams: BLASTPremier

Source: HLTV

This is the forum of a First person shooter circa y2k. To relate to a car model TOYOTA ALTEZZA that is not actually featured in the subject WMMT. If i have any mental retardation, it is neverheless the most rational or cosnsider thing to drive car in World Rally Championship.

It's time to debate about this.

Just a matter of time to relaunch the most epic arena shooter.

Name your list, what is needed to have a good relaunch/remake?


-Full soundtrack based on Quake 3 Noise album, better sound engine.
-No brightskins, detailled old quake 3 skins, vanilla force models option if wanted.
-Full config editing feature in-game
-Inbuild IRC Client with Server browser option, people can invite to games over this.
-Better netcode, better graphics, gameplay is like vanilla osp.
-Full stats, people have profiles like in old quakelive.
-Archiviements.

What else? Dreaming is free :=)

Two weekly Quake Champions duel cups this weekend, plus EGB 2v2 on Sunday.

Estoty #215 - Friday 16:00 UTC, 28 August 2026 to 20:30 UTC, 28 August 2026. $100, double-elim, Bo3 / Bo1 losers / Bo5 grand final. Streams: ShaftasticTV, Keltz, st0n3, Strongsage. Plus Forward, EstotyCups.

NAQCL #70 - Saturday 18:00 UTC, 29 August 2026 to 21:30 UTC, 29 August 2026. Ping uncapped. Same day as 250 FPS S5 finals day 1 (that one opens at 11:00 UTC). Streams: dramiS, Strongsage, st0n3, Yup, ChurchOfQuake. Plus Forward.

EGB Cup 2v2 #3 - Sunday 16:00 UTC, 30 August 2026. $100 QC TDM. Plus Forward.

Source: Plus Forward

Thri11er won NAQCL Duel Tournament #69, 3-1 over dramiS in the grand final. $100 pool: $50 / $30 / $20 to klyb.

He went through winners: 2-1 vs dramiS in WB R3, 2-1 vs klyb in the winners final. dramiS won three straight in losers, including 2-0 klyb in the LB final, then lost the rematch.

First NAQCL title for Thri11er. ChurchOfQuake's VOD is on Plus Forward.

Source: Plus Forward

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 wrapped in Cologne. Two hours of trailers, plus a separate Nvidia GeForce drop the same day.

The closer was The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, a free upgrade, with new footage of the Songs of the Past DLC. Other headline reveals: Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Remake, Path of Exile 1.0 on December 11 (free-to-play), Metro 2039 for February 2027, Exodus April 7 2027, Ananta January 15 2027, Rainbow Six Tactics in 2027, and a Gears of War: E-Day story trailer. Control Resonant, Turok Origins, Crazy Taxi multiplayer, Rayman Legends Retold (October 1), and a free Hitman World of Assassination Snoop Dogg DLC on August 27 also showed.

On the PC side, Nvidia shipped DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction through the Nvidia app for all GeForce RTX cards (Game Ready 580.88 or newer). It is a second-generation transformer model that folds denoising and Super Resolution into one pass. Launch override list is 30 games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, and DOOM: The Dark Ages. RTX Mega Geometry, six years of work on ray-tracing Unreal Engine 5 Nanite at full detail, debuts in Gears of War: E-Day on October 6 and is headed into Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing 2.0. Control Resonant (September 24) and 007 First Light (path tracing update September 15) were the other tech showpieces.

Full rundown: TechRadar. Nvidia notes: GeForce.

Source: TechRadar

Keltz took two Quake Champions time-limit duel titles this weekend, both against St0n3.

On Friday he won Estoty Duel Tournament #214 ($100: $40 / $25). St0n3 beat him 2-1 in the winners final. Keltz 2-0'd Thri11er in the losers final, then reversed it 3-1 in the grand final. ShaftasticTV has the VOD.

On Sunday he went unbeaten through EGB QC Cup #6 ($85: $68 / $17), 2-1 in the winners final then 3-0 in the rematch. Map record 9-1. St0n3 took 2nd after 2-0'ing dramiS in the losers final.

It is Keltz's second EGB QC Cup after #2, and his fourth duel win since August 8: NAQCL #67, NAQCL #68, Estoty #214, and this. Through six EGB QC Cups, k1llsen leads with three titles, Keltz two, Strongsage one.

Sources: Plus Forward (Estoty #214), Plus Forward (EGB QC #6)

cYpheR and pavel went unbeaten through koMnoT Cup TDM 2v2 and 2-0'd AGENT and ash in both the winners final and the grand final. Ten teams, 100,000 RUB (~$1,200): 60k / 30k / 10k.

They dropped one map in four series: Almost Lost in a 2-1 WB semi over danches and rell. Winners final was Campgrounds 74-36 and Bloodrun 83-70. AGENT and ash came back through losers, 2-0 over k1llsen and Spart1e in the LB final (3rd), then lost the rematch 0-2: Bloodrun 86-60, Campgrounds 62-55.

This pairing has now met in three recent 100k-RUB TDM 2v2 cups. AGENT and ash took GBNC (2-0, then 2-1). cYpheR and pavel took EGB Cup #50 (2-1 twice). Playoff head-to-head is now 4-2 for cYpheR and pavel.

Bracket: shambler.site

Source: Plus Forward

The approximate match schedule for the 250 FPS QL League Season 5 finals is out. Two days, not one: winners bracket on Saturday, 29 August, lower bracket and grand final on Sunday, 30 August. Both days open at 11:00 UTC.

11:00 UTC, 29 August 2026 - cherepoff vs pavel (WB R1)
11:50 UTC, 29 August 2026 - k1llsen vs ash (WB R1)
12:40 UTC, 29 August 2026 - AGENT vs winner of match 1 (WB semi)
13:30 UTC, 29 August 2026 - cYpheR vs winner of match 2 (WB semi)
14:20 UTC, 29 August 2026 - WB final

11:00 UTC, 30 August 2026 - LB semi (loser of WB semi 2 vs loser of WB R1 1)
11:30 UTC, 30 August 2026 - LB semi (loser of WB semi 1 vs loser of WB R1 2)
12:05 UTC, 30 August 2026 - LB R2
12:40 UTC, 30 August 2026 - LB final
13:30 UTC, 30 August 2026 - Grand final

Lower bracket is Bo3, winners Bo5, grand final Bo7. Champion gets $1,000 from a $5,500 season pool.

Times after the 11:00 UTC starts are approximate and may slip with match length.

Streams listed on the event page: ShaftasticTV, 250 FPS RUS, 250 FPS ENG, mstshambler.

Source: Plus Forward

Plus Forward posted an interview with cherepoff (Andrey Cherepanoff, 30, IT, Moscow) ahead of the 250 FPS QL League Season 5 finals on August 29. He finished group play in the last six and draws pavel in WB R1.

Toughest opponent this season: AGENT.

He constantly pushes with the rocket launcher while dodging. If you don't deal a critical amount of damage right away, he just starts chasing you all over the map.

Most exciting match: his series vs pavel. Predicted champion: cYpheR.

I think after last season, Alexey is laser-focused on taking top 1.

On rapha: you can out-aim him in spots, but one shake and you lose map control.

It felt like rapha plays very aggressively and with total confidence.

What he needs vs that:

nerves of steel.

He does not use aim trainers; he practices in-game because Quake movement does not copy well into them. He rarely gets weekends free around work, so match-day form is the tradeoff. Original Russian interview is on the 250 FPS Telegram.

Source: Plus Forward

Scheduled: 16:00 UTC, 23 August 2026 to 20:00 UTC, 23 August 2026
Schedule: Passed

EGB QC Cup #6 is Sunday, 16:00-20:00 UTC: Quake Champions time-limit duel, double-elim, Bo3. Prize pool is $50 ($40 / $10).

Maps: Awoken, Blood Covenant, Blood Run, Corrupted Keep, Deep Embrace, Ruins of Sarnath, Tower of Koth, Vale of Pnath, Vestibule of Exile.

k1llsen took Cup #5 last weekend without dropping a map. Cup #4 went to Strongsage.

Streams from the usual QC names when they go live: k1llsen, st0n3, Keltz.

Bracket: egb.com

Source: Plus Forward

Scheduled: 11:00 UTC, 22 August 2026 to 18:00 UTC, 22 August 2026
Schedule: Passed

koMnoT Cup TDM 2v2 is running now: QL 2v2, double-elim, Bo3, 11:00-18:00 UTC. Prize pool is 100,000 RUB (~$1,209): 60k / 30k / 10k.

Ten teams. Maps: Almost Lost, Bloodrun, Campgrounds, Devilish, Hidden Fortress.

As of WB semis, AGENT and ash are through after a 2-0 over k1llsen and Spart1e. cYpheR and pavel are in the other WB semi against danches and rell. k1llsen and Spart1e dropped to losers.

Streams: Cypher, k1llsen, mstshambler, AGENT.

Bracket: shambler.site

Source: Plus Forward

Keltz went undefeated through NAQCL Duel Tournament #68, a $100 QC time-limit duel cup on August 15, then 3-0'd dramiS in the grand final.

He never dropped a map in winners: 2-0 Anorky, 2-0 Thri11er, 2-0 dramiS in the WB final. dramiS came back through losers, 2-0'ing Yup in the LB final for the rematch. Keltz swept it. Yup took 3rd, Thri11er 4th.

Prize pool was $100: $50 to Keltz, $30 to dramiS, $20 to Yup. ChurchOfQuake's VOD is on Plus Forward. NAQCL #69 is later today.

Source: Plus Forward

was browsing for some old fighting game clips and found this

it was cool to see multiview and gtv chat after so many years



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf8PBS0sSAs

QuakeHub put up a monthly "State of Quake" dashboard that rolls every live-polled Quake game into one page: peak counts, maps, servers, modes, a world map, and Twitch.

August so far (the month is not over): 8,058,178 real-player frags, 125,193 hours played, 507 players online on average, and a peak of 1,009 at once on August 16 at 18:00 UTC. 984 servers hosted a real match (2+ humans and a frag). A typical poll still sees 2,281 bots.

Average concurrent players by game: Quake Champions 214 (Steam concurrent; QC has no dedicated servers in this poll), Quake Live 199, Quake III Arena 66, Quake II 26, QuakeWorld 17. Everything else is in the low single digits.

Deathmatch is 36% of play, Clan Arena 27%, duel 10%, TDM 9%. Servers sit mostly in the US (29%), Germany (24%), and Russia (14%). 2,300 different maps got played. QL Thunderstruck leads map time at 8%, then Campgrounds and Blood Run.

The fullest single match was 63 players on Japanese Castles at [a2m] Quake Like Carmack Used To Make (QL, August 8). Busiest server by hours is IZI PUB#1 16v16 CA.

Twitch peaked at 1,803 viewers on August 16. AGENTJKEZOOR ( AGENT) had the most days streaming Quake (8). One-night peaks: marcrebillet 1,132, then JeanFaymas, iXBT_games, rapha, Maynarde, k1llsen.

Source: QuakeHub - The State of Quake

Two EGB cups from last week, one in Quake Champions and one in Quake Live.

On August 13, k1llsen & rapha went undefeated through the upper bracket of EGB Cup 2v2 #2, a QC TDM event with a $160 prize pool. They 2-0'd Creeep & Korshun, 2-0'd DesiRo & Thri11er, then 2-0'd ins & Keltz in the WB final. ANTOWKA & st0n3 dropped their opener, then won four straight in the lower bracket, including a 2-1 vs ins & Keltz in the LB final. Grand final: k1llsen & rapha vs ANTOWKA & st0n3, 3-0 ($112 / $48). k1llsen's winner POV is on his YouTube.

On August 15, AGENT won EGB QL Cup #66, his second title in the series after #65 a week earlier. He went 2-0 vs H3LLDOWN, 2-0 vs cherepoff, then 2-1 vs cYpheR in the upper bracket final. Grand final rematch: AGENT vs cYpheR, 3-0. k1llsen finished third after going 0-2 vs cYpheR in both WB round 3 and the lower bracket final. Prize pool was $53: $40 to AGENT, $10 to cYpheR.

EGB QC Cup #6 is this weekend. EGB Cup 2v2 #3 is listed for September 12.

Sources: Plus Forward (2v2), Plus Forward (QL #66), EGB 2v2 #2, EGB Cup #66

Marty Stratton has told Windows Central that id Software is still making its own games and is not dropping id Tech.

Jez Corden's piece, published yesterday, is the studio's first detailed public account since Microsoft's July cuts. It sits next to comments from former VFX/technical art producer Andrew Willis, who was among those laid off after finishing Doom: The Dark Ages and the Revelations DLC.

Willis described a July 6 Microsoft Teams call: about 95 people, cameras off, chat disabled, everyone muted except Stratton.

I received a Microsoft Teams invite, there were about 95 of us, no cameras on with chat disabled, everyone muted except (Executive Producer) Marty Stratton. He took about 50 seconds to say that if you were on this call, your positions were eliminated. He said it wasn't a reflection on our performance.

He also said Xbox never told the studio what success looked like.

They never explained anything. They never told us what metric they wanted, which is extremely confusing given Xbox Game Pass. If there was something they wanted (downloads, playtime, Game Pass subscriptions, etc.), they never told us.

It was frustrating to get laid off before we even saw how successful the Revelations DLC was. How can you lay off a team right before they release what gets called 'their best work yet'?

Stratton, 26 years at id, called the layoffs "emotion and pain" and said that is not diminished by talk about the future. He rejected the rumor that id would become a support studio or move to Unreal.

We're all in on id Tech; we're not moving to Unreal Engine.

He said MachineGames is staying on id Tech too, and the two studios will work closer on the stack. On size, Corden writes that id has lost more than half its staff and is roughly as large as it was for Doom (2016). Willis called that line damage control.

This has been one of the most frustrating mischaracterizations I've seen. It is just damage control. Id is now objectively smaller than it was during 2016. They also fired 2/3rds of the folks that were left from 2016; these would be the people who have the experience needed to make a game like that.

Stratton pointed at QuakeCon and at whatever ships next.

We've always persevered as a studio. We're going to again, we're going to continue to make great games, with great technology.

The verdict is going to be in how we move forward, what we deliver to fans, and whether or not that meets the bar.

Willis's last note was for players: support the developers. CWA's Save Our Devs action was at the Richardson office on August 18; more protests are planned.

Source: Windows Central

Gameplay videos of GTA 6 have been circulating the internet in the last couple of days - as it turns out, a full game build tracked back to Rocksaar India has leaked and the hacker CyberLeek got his hands on it. Whats interesting is that the game works on PC without issues, suggesting no specific port work was needed and the whole strategy of postponing PC release by a year was just marketing to sell the game to people twice.

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/catastrophic-gta-vi-leak-is-a-full-working-build-notorious-hacker-cyberleek-taunts-rockstar-games-by-spraying-the-word-leek-onto-a-wall-in-game-with-bullets

Footage of the slop: https://files.catbox.moe/cjqq05.mp4

just joined ESR. Been checking out the forums for a bit, figured I'd finally say hi.

Looking forward to getting into some discussions.

Scheduled: 11:00 UTC, 20 September 2026 to 20:00 UTC, 4 October 2026
Begins In:

House of Quake is running the QL European Nations Cup - Fall 2026 across three Sundays, one mode each week. Everything is played online.

CTF 4v4 - Sunday 20 September, 11:00-20:00 UTC Infinity, Ironworks, Japanese Castles, Spider Crossings, Troubled Waters

Duel 1v1 - Sunday 27 September, 11:00-20:00 UTC Aerowalk, Bloodrun, Cure, Silence, Sinister

TDM 4v4 - Sunday 4 October, 11:00-20:00 UTC Dreadful Place, Hidden Fortress, Limbus, Purgatory, Ragnarok

Nations, rosters and signups are handled in the House of Quake Discord: houseofquake.com/discord

Source: Plus Forward

The live streams box in the sidebar has been broken since 28 February 2022. That is the day Twitch switched off the old v5 API that fed it, and it has quietly reported "no live streams found" ever since.

It works again. Streams now come from Twitch's current API and refresh every two minutes.

What is new:

• The sidebar shows the eight most-watched streams, biggest first, with a link to the rest.
• Quake channels that were not being tracked have been added, along with tournament and community organisers: QuakeCon, QuakeCon BYOC, Quake Pro League, QuakeWorld, Quake Club, Quake Canada, Quake Brasil and QUAKE LATAM. Those only appear when they actually go live.

If your channel belongs on the list, or you know one that does, say so in the comments and it gets added.

Full list: Live Streams

Laid-off and remaining id Software staff are back at the studio's Richardson office today for CWA's Save Our Devs action, 11:30 local at 1500 N Greenville Ave. It is one of eight coordinated rallies across the US and Canada, including Austin, Rockville, Hunt Valley, Redmond, Minneapolis, Albany, and Montreal.

A Texas WARN filing in July put the id cut at 136 of about 185 jobs: 96 on site, 40 remote. CWA Local 6215 organized the studio wall-to-wall in December 2025. Producer Andrew Willis, laid off in that wave, spoke at the first Richardson rally on July 15.

"I don't think it's right what they're doing to these folks and to show people the door after so many loyal years of producing great value and providing service to the company. We're going to use this time to organize and fight back."

On the studio itself:

"The people that had that institutional knowledge of how to execute that; the people who have that information in their head are all gone. It's really unclear to me how they'll proceed at the same bar that folks are used to."

CWA District 6 vice president Derrick Osobase named the damage in the union's July 7 statement:

"It is our CWA members who make the games that make Xbox valuable. Today's layoffs decimated the teams at id Software, Bethesda Game Studios, and ZeniMax Online Studios, legendary studios whose employees brought us games like Doom, Quake, Elder Scrolls, and Fallout."

CWA president Claude Cummings Jr. added:

"When Microsoft decides to treat the workers who built Xbox as expendable, it should know who they're dealing with."

The ask today is the same as last month: layoff protections and first contracts. CWA says it brought those proposals months ago and Microsoft sat on them. The union filed an NLRB charge on July 15 (16-CA-390759) over discretionary layoffs. Texas workers are still being paid through Sept. 4 under WARN, but Willis said they were already locked out of company systems.

UVW-CWA is streaming the actions on Twitch. CWA media: Sean Nesmith, [email protected].

Source: Action Network (Richardson), Save Our Devs campaign, KERA, CWA, Texas AFL-CIO, Game Developer / WARN

Scheduled: 11:00 UTC, 29 August 2026 to 20:00 UTC, 29 August 2026
Schedule: Passed

The group stage of 250 FPS QL League Season 5 is over after 11 round-robin weeks, 66 matches, and 154 maps. AGENT and cYpheR both finished 10-1 and take the top seeds into the double-elim finals. k1llsen is 3rd at 9-2. cherepoff, pavel, and ash take the last three slots.

WB R1 on Sunday, August 29 at 11:00 UTC is cherepoff vs pavel, then k1llsen vs ash. AGENT and cYpheR sit in the winners semis. Lower bracket is Bo3, winners Bo5, grand final Bo7. The champion gets $1,000 from a $5,500 season pool.

baksteen and Spart1e missed the six-man cut at 5-6 but locked Season 6 group-stage spots. Furious Heights (20.8%) and Silence (18.8%) ate the map pool; Aerowalk was picked seven times, Vertical Vengeance once.

Bracket, streams, and results: Plus Forward, 250fps.com

Source: Plus Forward

k1llsen went undefeated through EGB QC Cup #5 on Sunday, then 3-0'd danches in the Quake Champions time-limit duel grand final.

The weekly EGB cup was an $80 double-elim bracket, Bo3 until the final. k1llsen never dropped a map in winners: 2-0 over danches in WB R2, 2-0 Yup, then 2-0 Thri11er in the winners final. danches took the long way back, beating creeep, klyb, cYpheR, Yup, and Thri11er out of losers before running into k1llsen again at 19:15 UTC. The rematch was a sweep. Thri11er finished 3rd, Yup 4th.

"another EGB Cup in the pocket this time Quake Champions DUEL," k1llsen posted after the match. His winner POV of the full cup is up on YouTube.



It is k1llsen's second solo title in the series after Cup #3, and it comes a day after he and rapha 3-0'd ANTOWKA and st0n3 to win EGB Cup 2v2 #2.

Source: Plus Forward, EGB, k1llsen

Rockstar Games and Netflix are teaming up for "Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look," a new video presentation premiering exclusively on Netflix Thursday, August 27 at 3 p.m. ET. It's the first major game trailer to debut on a streaming service rather than YouTube. Patience pays off for non-subscribers: the same video hits Rockstar's YouTube channel and the official GTA VI site six hours later, at 9 p.m. ET.

What it'll actually show is unconfirmed. No GTA VI trailer so far has included gameplay, but the extended format has fueled speculation it could go beyond a cinematic trailer into mechanics or on-screen UI. Netflix's VP of Nonfiction Series, Brandon Riegg, called the partnership recognition that "Grand Theft Auto reveals have become cultural moments in their own right."

The game itself is confirmed for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19, 2026, capping a development cycle Rockstar has been running for 13 years.

Source: Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look - Rockstar Games

Multiple market-research firms released updated esports industry sizing this year, and they don't agree by a wide margin. ResearchAndMarkets puts the current market at $3.6 billion in 2026, growing at a 20.8% CAGR to $7.7 billion by 2030 -- but a separate ResearchAndMarkets release projects growth all the way to $17.42 billion by 2031, an implied 29.8% CAGR. Grand View Research lands closer to the conservative end ($3.3 billion in 2026, $12 billion by 2033), while Mordor Intelligence puts today's market well above the rest at $5.34 billion, growing more slowly (4.89% CAGR) to $6.78 billion by 2031.

The spread comes down to what each firm counts. Analysts note that including gambling and streaming revenue alongside traditional esports income (sponsorships, media rights, tickets, merchandise, publisher fees) roughly doubles the estimated market size, from around $3.3-3.5 billion up toward $4.8 billion or higher.

What the reports agree on: sponsorship investment, digital viewership, and major tournament ecosystems (this month's Esports World Cup finale in Paris among them) keep expanding. How big that translates to in dollar terms depends entirely on which report you read.

Source: E-Sports Market Report - Research and Markets, Esports Market Size Report - Grand View Research

Quake Champions designer Adam "SyncError" Pyle was among the roughly 136 id Software staff cut last month as part of Microsoft's wider Xbox restructuring. In response, the community has started a Change.org petition asking Microsoft to bring him back.

The petition credits Pyle as the driving force behind Quake Champions in recent years, pointing to his work on updates, community communication, and tournament support as key to keeping the game active. It has been circulating across the Quake Champions Steam Community hub and Quake-focused forums since the layoffs were confirmed.

Read more from the community:

Sources: Change.org petition, Plus Forward

QuakeCon returned to the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Texas from August 6-9, drawing more than 10,000 registered attendees for the event's 30th anniversary. The four-day BYOC hall ran around the clock with freeplay, tabletop gaming, and community tournaments across Quake Champions, Quake Live, and DOOM II, including a $2,000 Retro Classic bracket spanning Quake 1, II, and Live.

The biggest announcement landed within hours of the doors opening: MachineGames shipped Dawn of the Machine, a free 19-map Quake episode with new progression mechanics and a new Deathmatch map, released day one across PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch 2 via backward compatibility.

The anniversary also brought a rare reunion: John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack, and Tom Hall shared a ticketed panel to mark three decades of id Software. It came only weeks after a WARN notice confirmed Microsoft's Xbox division had cut 136 of the studio's roughly 185 employees, about 74 percent of the team, giving the founders' return more weight than a nostalgia lap.

Sources: Bethesda Slayers Club, Blue's News

This is a test draft posted by the esrnews tool. Please ignore.

Source: ESReality

Celebrating three decades of Quake in this special anniversary showdown, the Quakecon 30th Retro Classic took place over the weekend. It was the only event managed by Quakecon this year. The event was a double-elimination duel tournament where competitors battled through best-of-three matches across Quakeworld (ezquake with qcon ruleset), Quake II (q2pro with anticheat) and Quake Live (via steam) to crown the Retro Classic Champion.

Of the 32 competitors included makaveli, czm (first tournament since ~2012), fiend, dramis, Kev! among others

The official bracket for this year's main tournament, the $2,000.00 QuakeCon 30th Anniversary Retro Classic, was managed and tracked live on toornament.

The tournament concluded with a multi-generational group of players making it to the final stages.

Fnal Standings & Payouts:

🥇 1st Place: Thump4 ($1,000.00)
🥈 2nd Place: czm ($600.00)
🥉 3rd Place: Burner / Twitch ($400.00)