Following up on its Sky Cipher special edition Xbox Wireless Controller, Microsoft has announced a full series of transparent controllers now available for preorder.
The Cipher Series Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 comes in six different color options. The white Ghost Cipher is the most transparent-looking, but there are also Velocity Cipher, Astral Cipher, Surf Cipher, Candy Cipher, and Pulse Cipher, which are Xbox green, purple, blue, pink, and red, respectively. You can mix and match D-pad, button, joystick, and trigger colors, and get your own in the Design Lab. A base model will cost $150, and be wary of any add-ons that might up the price more than you’d like.
Xbox is also offering two chromatic D-pad and paddles in the series, with Energy Chroma (blue) and Sunset Chroma (yellow). These are accessories for those who want more granular control over their gameplay sessions, and are helpful for those who play online competitive games or shooters. You don’t need them necessarily, but the advanced Elite Series 2 controller is for these kinds of players specifically.
If you don’t want to shell out for the Elite controller, there is a Ghost Cipher version of the regular Xbox controller that evokes the Sky Cipher design, except in white and with copper-colored triggers and D-pad. Unlike the other Cipher series controllers, which are only in the Design Lab, you can get the Ghost Cipher special edition wireless controller for $70. You can preorder it now, and it’ll be available on October 8.
Xbox revitalized transparency in its accessory designs with the Sky Cipher special edition, which featured a dark-blue gradient and a see-through shell that extended up and down the front. Each option in the new series has a transparent case and black grips, which means you do get less transparency than you might expect, especially since it doesn’t extend to the back.
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.