A look back at games and game development between 10 July and 9 August 2026. Each item links to the company, organiser or store page behind it. Where we rely on a news report, we name the outlet.
Midsummer brought a record crowd to Shanghai, a new engine generation from Unity unveiled in Seoul, and a run of quarterly results from Seoul and Kyoto to Paris and Stockholm. Independent developers held their own celebrations in Brighton and Buenos Aires.
Asia
ChinaJoy sets an attendance record under an AI banner
The 23rd ChinaJoy in Shanghai ran under the theme 与AI同游, roughly “travelling with AI”. According to organiser figures in a Jiefang Daily report republished by the Shanghai municipal government on 4 August, the four-day show drew 438,900 visits, up 6.97% year on year and the most of any edition. Trade visitors reached a record 44,245, 21% of them from overseas. More than 900 companies exhibited, and overseas firms made up 44% of the business-to-business area.
The same report describes a new Vision Future zone for frontier technology, a busy AI interactive game area, and the second Shulong Cup (数龙杯) AI innovation competition, which attracted nearly 100 entries and gave awards to 14 teams. It also credits the show with about 709 million yuan in spending on food, retail, hotels and transport. That figure is an estimate, not audited data.
China licenses Phantom Blade Zero
China’s National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) published its July list of approved domestic online games on 23 July. It contains 193 titles, all approved on 22 July. Number 177 is 影之刃零, known internationally as Phantom Blade Zero. The operator is listed as 北京灵游坊网络科技有限公司, the Beijing company behind developer S-GAME. An NPPA approval is required to sell a game commercially in mainland China. For a single-player action game built for a global console and PC audience, this clears the domestic hurdle months ahead of launch.
KRAFTON’s record quarter is driven by PC
KRAFTON reported record second-quarter revenue of KRW 1.29 trillion on 29 July, up 94.9% year on year. Operating profit rose 67.0% to KRW 410.9 billion, also a second-quarter high. PC revenue rose 155.1% to KRW 560.4 billion, while mobile grew 5.5% to KRW 451 billion. The company says Subnautica 2, which entered early access in May, sold more than 5 million units within 22 days.
Unity 7 revealed in Seoul
Unity used Unite Seoul to announce Unity 7. The announcement is datelined Seoul, 21 July. Unity’s page header shows 20 July, the same day in US time. Under the heading “No Breaking Changes”, Unity calls it “a direct continuation of the Unity 6 architecture”. The promises include a modernised core using CoreCLR, near-instant Play Mode, domain reloads that touch only changed code and shader builds “up to 90% faster”. On graphics, Unity 7 adds real-time global illumination through Surface Cache GI, with what Unity calls AI-assisted graphics optimisation that scales from high-end PCs to mobile. A new CLI and public API let team members validate assets and push builds without the full Editor, and a free-to-use MCP will connect coding agents directly to Unity. Early beta testing is due in December, with full release scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.
Switch 2 passes 23.68 million units
Nintendo published its April–June results on 6 August. Its results presentation shows Nintendo Switch 2 selling 3.82 million units in the quarter. That is 34.4% below the console’s launch quarter a year earlier, and it brings the life-to-date total to 23.68 million units, with 58.17 million Switch 2 software units. Net sales fell 9.5% to ¥517.8 billion, while operating profit rose 150.5% to ¥142.5 billion. Part of that profit came from about US$300 million in refunds of US IEEPA tariffs, which Nintendo booked as a reduction in cost of sales. Nintendo kept its full-year forecast unchanged, including 16.5 million Switch 2 units.
Game Freak’s Beast of Reincarnation launches
Beast of Reincarnation, a new action RPG from Pokémon studio Game Freak, published by Fictions, launched in early August. Its Steam page lists a Windows release on 3 August with support for 11 languages. Players control Emma, an outcast, and her blighted dog Koo as they cross a post-apocalyptic Japan in the year 4026. Combat mixes real-time sword fighting with turn-based commands for Koo.
Europe
Develop:Brighton hands out its Star Awards
The UK developer conference held its Develop:Star Awards at the Brighton Dome on 15 July. Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won Best Game, Best Narrative and Best Audio. Frontier Developments was named Best Studio, and ustwo games received the Develop Star Award. Landfall Games and Aggro Crab won Best Small Studio and Best Original IP for PEAK, Blue Prince took Best Game Design and No Man’s Sky won Best Ongoing Game. Best Technical Innovation went to Crimson Desert’s BlackSpace Engine, from Korea’s Pearl Abyss.
Ubisoft beats its guidance as Black Flag Resynced lands
Ubisoft reported first-quarter sales from Paris on 23 July. Net bookings for April to June were €255.8 million, down 9.2% year on year but slightly above its target of about €250 million. The company credited a record quarter for Invincible: Guarding the Globe. It said the decline reflected a high comparison base, since the prior-year quarter included Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, released on 9 July, had sold in 3.5 million copies. Ubisoft said that exceeded its annual expectations within the first 14 days. It guided to about €370 million in net bookings for the second quarter and confirmed its full-year targets, which still expect net bookings to fall by a high single-digit percentage.
Paradox bets on games that last
Sweden’s Paradox Interactive published its January–June report on 6 August. Second-quarter revenue rose 14% to SEK 524 million and operating profit rose 37% to SEK 182 million. Most revenue came from long-running titles such as Cities: Skylines II, Crusader Kings III, Europa Universalis V, Hearts of Iron IV, Stellaris and Victoria 3, alongside Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. Chief executive Fredrik Wester said Paradox was shifting from individual launches towards long-running worlds and sustained relationships with players.
Latin America
Indie Dev Argentina names its best game
Indie Dev Argentina returned to the Centro Cultural de la Cooperación in Buenos Aires. Press Over, which founded the event, published the winners on 3 August. The Outer Frame, from Córdoba studio Sapucai Games, won Best Video Game and Original Idea. Teios Journey, from Serendipia Games of La Plata, won the visual award. La Hija del Delta (Bicho Raro) won for narrative, and Zupay: Sombras de la Independencia (Abstract Tales) for Argentine representation. All the winners are still in development. Each has a guaranteed place at the EVA showcase in Buenos Aires on 24–27 October.
Also in this period
Indonesia Game Day on Steam and the Taiwan-led East Asia Indie Games Celebration are covered in our separate Asia Spotlight.
GameTales uses AI to help research and prepare articles. This article was drafted with Claude Code, and a human editor decides what we publish.