Microsoft just hosted its first Xbox Accessibility Showcase, where the company showed off a video celebrating gamers with disabilities, shined a spotlight on Minecraft: Education Edition‘s usage in neuro-diverse job interviews, and revealed new gaming features coming to the Xbox and Halo Infinite.
Xbox has been one of the leading faces in the world of accessibility in gaming. Years ago, the company produced the groundbreaking Xbox Adaptive Controller, which allows gamers with limited mobility to play games with completely customizable controls. Now it is pushing for more accessibility in its ecosystem, with even more features coming to Xbox and future titles.
During the Accessibility Showcase, Xbox announced that accessibility feature tags are on the way to the Xbox Store, which will allow players with disabilities to immediately find out what games they can actually play before playing them. The tags show the accessibility features included in the game of choice without the need for additional searches.
Along with that, the entire Xbox console is getting an accessibility update that will introduce a refreshed accessibility spotlight page, quick settings, color filters, night mode, and more.
Xbox is also putting a huge focus on accessibility with its upcoming title Halo Infinite. As soon as its December 8 launch, Halo Infinite will include features that allow players to customize their game and make it more suited to their needs.
Xbox has confirmed that the new features include:
EA also recently opened all its accessibility patents to competitors to push more companies to focus on gamers with disabilities. Hopefully, this work on inclusivity inspires more companies to search for even more ways to allow those with disabilities to game in ways perfect for them.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.