Hello! Today is Sunday, February 15th, 2026. As usual, my name is Nisha Kumari, and I’m here to talk about all the video game news from this week. There’s a lot to cover, and the first thing I want to mention is just a really cool game.
Samson: A Tindleston Story – GTA-Style Brawler Shows Promise
If you’ve been following the Friday Show and our game ranking videos for a while now, you know we’ve talked about this one. But if you haven’t heard about it, let me put it on your radar. This is Samson, a Tindleston story, and it’s a kind of double-A style game with big ambitions. It’s a GTA-like game that just looks awesome.
That being said, it seems like it’s going to have a tighter focus than a Grand Theft Auto game—more centered on the narrative and focused on the brawling and driving.
And the newest trailer shows us a lot of both of those things. This is also significant because it’s not a game coming completely out of nowhere.
From Mad Max Developers to Double-A Ambition
This is from Liquid Swords, a newer studio founded by some people from Avalanche—the folks behind the Mad Max game, which is incredibly underrated, as well as Just Cause.
So, they have the chops for this style of game.
Gameplay Focus: Driving and Hand-to-Hand Combat
And what we see here is really good driving with some realistic damage modeling and a focus on car combat, plus a bunch of hand-to-hand brawling. The brawling looks a little rough in this gameplay footage, but with the physics and environmental interaction going on, it just looks like something I really want to play.
And if it’s got that punchy, jabby brutality of something like the Mad Max game they previously worked on—dude, I’m in. The detail, the focus on the narrative, everything here seems really cool.
I still have questions about the structure of the game and how it’s actually going to flow, because it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a full open-world “do anything you want” type of game.
It seems like it’s going to have a little bit more structure to it. But at the very least, the developers have been very upfront about this stuff. This is one in a series of gameplay videos they’ve put out, and this game has just been on my radar for a while because this is the type of game I like to play. A single-player action-adventure game with some cool ideas? I’m just down for the ride. I’m down for an adventure, and Samson seems like it might hit.
Hopefully, they nail it. As of right now, it still doesn’t have a release date. It was revealed last year, but with the developers talking about it so consistently and frequently, I’m hoping we actually get to play it and judge for ourselves soon.
Next up, it seems like the Steam Machine is sort of delayed.
Steam Machine Faces Pricing and Release Uncertainty
This comes from a really detailed and transparent statement from Valve.
Valve Addresses Hardware Component Shortages
They stated that they had intended to announce more details by now—like buying information, pricing, and a concrete release date—but they can’t because of all the stuff that’s been going on, the stuff we’ve talked about before.
Hardware prices rapidly increasing almost out of nowhere due to AI nonsense. Quote,
“When we announced these products in November, we planned on being able to share specific pricing and launch dates by now, but the memory and storage shortages you’ve likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then. The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing, especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame.”
First Half 2026 Release Still Planned
One thing they said is that like their goal of shipping in the first half of the year, that has not changed.
So we’re still going to see it in the first half of 2026, but we still don’t know exactly when—and it sounds like they don’t know either. It’s probably going to be further into 2026 rather than right around the corner. Quote:
We have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of these things can change.
They did say in the meantime they are going to continue giving information about these devices like what to expect from them at the very least while they figure all this stuff out. And I hope they figure it out soon cuz the device, the hardware, the whole suite of hardware from the controller to the VR headset to the Steam machine itself was really exciting.
So while this isn’t like a massive delay announcement or anything like that, it is a subtle kind of nudge to the fact that things still aren’t really set in stone for the Steam Machine. I think they need to take the time also because I think price is a very significant thing for them. They got to get that just right to get it in to the type of customer that like they’re trying to, you know, acquire here or like get these things in their hands.
So, for now, I guess all we have to do is just sit and hope we hear something more soon.
Also, we got a new Horizon game announcement that came out of nowhere from Sony.
Horizon Hunters Gathering – Sony’s Multiplayer Experiment
This is Horizon Hunters Gathering. It’s actually for PC and PS5, and it’s not a full-fledged new Horizon game. It’s an online multiplayer spin-off.
This is a tactical co-op action game where uh three players can link together and hunt monsters and do stuff in a kind of lighter, quirkier style of the Horizon world.
Tactical Co-Op Action in a Quirky Art Style
I will say the art style here is pretty cool. Obviously, it’s different from the main Horizon games, but I don’t hate it. It seems very cohesive, at the very least. They’re going to be announcing playtesting soon, and the video they put out details a lot about the game. It’s being done with Guerrilla Games, but they did start the whole trailer by saying, “Hey, we here at Guerrilla Games are still very committed to single-player games.”
So, I kind of like that they were addressing the typical fans of the franchise first.
But on the website for this game, uh they did also mention that there’s going to be like crossplatform play, cross progression, as well as a single player mode. You’re going to be able to just play it alone, so that’s good at least.
Cross-Platform Play and Single-Player Mode Confirmed
But yeah, I don’t know about this one. This type of game, this type of multiplayer thing, isn’t usually for me. But I’d love to know in the comments if you’re the type of person who vibes with this. Let me know what you think. Are you going to give this a shot? It takes place after the events of Horizon Forbidden West, but looking at this, I don’t know if it’s my type of game.
It’s Sony trying to go after a different market once again. Let me know if maybe it’s up your alley. Is this something you’re going to give a try? I’m asking because it’s always nice to know—maybe we’ll make a video about it. But as of right now, it doesn’t have a release date.
GTA 6 Physical Release Confirmed by Take-Two
Take-Two did come out and say, “Hey, the rumors that everybody talked about last week about GTA 6 not having a physical release at launch, that it’s going to be digital only? That’s false.” They’ve come out specifically and clarified.
CEO Strauss Zelnick Debunks Digital-Only Rumors
Take-Two CEO, good old Strauss Zelnick, said that “GTA 6 will be available as a physical release on day one.” So there you have it. We talked about it a lot last week. It seemed like a believable rumor, but it seems like it’s not going to be the case. So everything’s normal—everybody put your guns down.
Ashes of Creation in Crisis
Also, in some wild news—some bad news—Ashes of Creation seems like it’s just done, kaput.
According to reports, the MMO’s early access that a lot of people dug is going to face issues because it seems like most of the people working on the game were suddenly laid off—something like 100 developers.
Mass Layoffs and Developer Exodus
Not only that, a lot of people choosing to quit because seemingly just some issues going on with management.
Steam Withdraws Game from Sale
We don’t have the full picture yet, but Steam withdrew Ashes of Creation from sale early in the week, and then all this happened. Now there are issues with refunds, with people rightfully wanting their money back, and it’s not quite clear if Steam is going to completely honor them.
I’ve seen reports of some people getting refunds after playing a lot of the game, while others are having issues. I really hope Steam does the right thing here, because this seems like a complete shitshow.
Refund Issues and Management Concerns
And very unprofessional, because it’s not only just a bunch of layoffs and a sudden surprise—we see that a lot. I hate to say it, but we see a lot of studio closures and sudden layoffs. But the way it seems to have been handled here feels different.
People aren’t getting their final paychecks. It just seems like a complete mess. So I don’t know what’s going on with Ashes of Creation, but it’s going to be interesting to see the final story—the post-mortem on this, the Jason Schreier Bloomberg report that gets the inside sources. I’m really curious to see what the hell happened here because it seems like they had a good thing going with Ashes of Creation, but that’s where we’re at.
Overwatch Drops the “2” and Adds Five New Heroes
Also, in case you missed it, Overwatch 2 is getting a big update next week. They’re working to add five new heroes, which is really interesting for what I believe is this whole Season 1 update.
But along with that, they’re dropping the two, just Overwatch.
Season 1 Update Marks Fresh Start for Troubled Franchise
It’s cleaner. And honestly, that absolutely makes sense. Overwatch should have just been a thing that grew. The whole Overwatch 2 debacle just seems like a massive fumble that they’re still recovering from, and I hope they do.