The Igloo — GDQ Pulls the Plug on Metal Slug, Halo Kills Project Ekur, and Game Freak Built a Soulslike
Games Done Quick cancela su stream de SNK a mitad de la corrida por las protestas del público sobre la propiedad saudí, Halo Studios descontinúa el proyecto multijugador Ekur en la última ronda de recortes de Xbox, y ex empleados sindicalizados de MindsEye hacen piquete frente a su antiguo estudio. Además: Game Freak construyó un Soulslike.
Monday, July 13, 2026. A weekend that started with a speedrunning controversy, got heavier, and then ended with Game Freak doing something nobody expected.
The lead · GDQ Cancels Its Own SNK Stream, Mid-Run
Summer Games Done Quick 2026 wrapped up as a success — except for the part where it cancelled one of its own streams in real time.
The stream was a Metal Slug 30th anniversary celebration, co-sponsored with SNK. It went live. Then the chat happened. Audience members called out SNK's ownership: the company belongs to the Electronic Gaming Development Company, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. For a charity speedrunning event built entirely on community goodwill, that was enough. GDQ ended the stream while it was still running.
Why it matters. This isn't really about Metal Slug. It's about what happens when sovereign wealth funds buy up game IP and the goodwill those games carry doesn't transfer with the purchase. Speedrunners wanted to celebrate a classic. The audience wanted to know who was cashing the sponsorship check. GDQ blinked mid-stream — and that's the part that will be remembered.
The calls aren't new. Critics have raised similar concerns about SNK partnerships before. What's new is a live event stopping itself over them. That's a signal that community-run gaming events are holding a different line than the rest of the industry.
Halo Studios axes Project Ekur amid Xbox cuts
Another project gone from the Xbox layoff wave. Halo Studios has reportedly cancelled a multiplayer project called Ekur — and from early descriptions, it was building toward something genuinely interesting: customizable Spartans and Elites, large-scale player battles, a design space Halo multiplayer hasn't really explored since Reach.
The cancellation tracks directly with last week's broad Xbox cuts, the same round that hit Obsidian, ZeniMax Online, and studios across the Microsoft portfolio. Halo Studios has been in careful rebuild mode since Infinite's launch, and Ekur was apparently part of that architecture. Now it's not.
What this means. The studio doesn't disappear; neither does the thinking that went into Ekur. But cancelled projects cost more than their budgets — they take the team chemistry, tooling investment, and design iteration that can't just be restarted. Whatever comes next in Halo multiplayer just got harder to predict.
Source: Eurogamer
MindsEye workers picket while their old studio hosts a fan playtest
This one is hard to watch. The IWGB union organised a protest outside Build a Rocket Boy — the studio behind MindsEye — after the company reportedly hosted an expenses-paid fan playtest while laid-off workers were still fighting for what they were owed.
"A kick in the teeth for the fired workers who are seeing fans brought in to do jobs that would otherwise have been theirs." — IWGB chair Spring McParlin-Jones
MindsEye launched to a rough reception; layoffs followed the poor numbers. Hosting fans to test the game while those same workers stand outside with signs isn't just a PR miscalculation — it's a concrete picture of how studios can keep spending while workers wait.
The bigger pattern. Game worker organizing has accelerated. Unions showing up outside studios with cameras and statements is a relatively new thing. It's uncomfortable, and it's supposed to be.
Source: Rock Paper Shotgun
One more thing
Game Freak made a Soulslike. Beast of Reincarnation — from the studio that has shipped Pokémon games for thirty years — is a combat-forward action-RPG with Sekiro-style posture mechanics, landing in August. Early hands-on calls it "emphatically not a Pokémon game for widdle babies." One studio, one franchise, three decades — and now parry timing. This rules entirely.
Sources: Polygon — GDQ/SNK · Eurogamer — GDQ · Eurogamer — Halo Ekur · Rock Paper Shotgun — MindsEye · Polygon — Beast of Reincarnation · GameSpot — Beast of Reincarnation