This Week in Gaming: The Non-Pro Switch OLED, Assassin’s Creed Infinity, and GTA 6

The games industry’s news this week has been somewhat polarizing. We’re getting a new Nintendo Switch… but not the one we thought we were getting. Ubisoft’s working on a new Assassin’s Creed game… but it’s a live service evolving world game unlike the previous single-player titles. Even the rumors about the next Grand Theft Auto being in development are of the “good news and bad news” variety.

But the news this week has generally been pretty positive, and it’s not every day we get the announcement of a new Nintendo console. Here are some of the most interesting stories in gaming this week.

Nintendo reveals the Switch OLED model

Nintendo announced a new model of the Switch on Tuesday. Called the Switch OLED, it offers an upgraded Switch handheld with a 7-inch OLED display, as well as 64GB of internal storage and a LAN port on the new dock. It also comes in a new white colorway. It’s an incremental upgrade on the vanilla Switch, but a welcome one for players who wanted a better screen.

This may be the console that has been dubbed the “Switch Pro” and has been rumored to be coming for a while. Unfortunately, the Switch Pro was also supposed (by popular report, anyway) to be a significant power upgrade over the Switch, so the Switch OLED has gotten a rather tepid reception given that it doesn’t have that performance boost. There’s been some speculation that there’s still a “Switch Pro” in development at Nintendo, but if there is, it will likely be a while before it’s even announced.

Sony holds its first summer State of Play

We got one of our first post-E3 events this week as Sony held its first State of Play since the conference (which it didn’t attend) wrapped. The company warned ahead of time that we wouldn’t see God of War, Horizon Forbidden West, or any other upcoming titles. Instead, the show was primarily focused on the upcoming Arkane action title Deathloop. We got a long gameplay demonstration of the game, as well as a preview of the banter between hero Colt and his rival Julianna.

In addition to Deathloop, Sony showed off some trailers for third-party games and indies. The biggest game to appear is likely the Death Stranding Director’s Cut, which is coming to PS5 on September 24. We’re also getting a sequel to the PSVR game Moss, called Moss: Book II. In less gratifying news, the martial arts action game Sifu has been delayed to 2022.

Ubisoft is making a live service Assassin’s Creed game called Infinity

A report from Bloomberg this week claimed Ubisoft was working on a new Assassin’s Creed project. Codenamed “Infinity,” this game would be a live-service, evolving world platform, similar to Fortnite or Warzone. Infinity would take place in multiple times and settings simultaneously, as opposed to the games up to this point that have generally stuck to a single historical setting. According to the report, “Individual games on the platform might look and feel different, but they will all be connected.”

Not long after this report was published, Ubisoft confirmed that it was working on Infinity. It didn’t reveal any details about the game beyond the fact that Ubisoft Montreal and Quebec have pooled resources to work on it. The announcement from Nathalie Bouchard and Christophe Derennes says: “Rather than continuing to pass the baton from game to game, we profoundly believe this is an opportunity for one of Ubisoft’s most beloved franchises to evolve in a more integrated and collaborative manner…” This could mean that we get smaller stories within the AC universe, perhaps cutting down on the bloat the series has become infamous for in recent years.

The persistent rumor that GTA 6 isn’t coming until 2025

This isn’t exactly news, per se, but it’s still something worth talking about. There are multiple rumors circulating — the primary disseminator being YouTuber Tom Henderson — that the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is in the works, and it most likely won’t see a release date until 2025 or 2026. This rumor has been corroborated by multiple sources, who say the game is still in relatively early development at Rockstar.

Another part of the rumor is that the game will be set in a modern version of Vice City, and the map will start off modestly sized, only to be expanded later. This is allegedly to cut down on potential crunch for Rockstar employees. The last game in the series, Grand Theft Auto V, was released in 2013, and the company has been working on Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Red Dead Online in the decade since.

Games released this week:

Monster Hunter Rise Stories 2: Wings of Ruin

The latest in the Monster Hunter series takes the player to a village in harmony with monsters, and tasks them with solving the mystery of disappearing Rathalos.

Available on Nintendo Switch