Gaming Weekly: Sony Phases Out Physical Discs From 2028, the White Wolf Returns, Beast of Reincarnation’s Split First Week#

Long Zhiri | August 9, 2026

Hello everyone, Long Zhiri here. This week’s gaming news came denser than the cicadas in high summer. As I write this, I’m camped next to the newsroom’s droning old air conditioner, wiping sweat and staring at the screen — one Sony announcement put the physical disc era on a countdown, CD Projekt Red dropped a new expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Beast of Reincarnation finally launched into its first week of real-world testing. Tea’s brewed; let’s sit down and go over what happened this week.

Sony: No More Physical Discs for New Games From January 2028#

This week’s biggest industry bombshell came from Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). Officially announced on July 1, 2026: starting January 2028, newly released games will no longer ship on physical discs — and not, as previously rumored, a “full phase-out before 2030.”

One clarification: the announcement’s cutoff applies to new game releases after January 2028, not to every historical physical medium. The moment it landed, the newsroom blew up.

Zhanlan Yingren had the strongest reaction, staring at the screen for a long while before squeezing out: “That whole shelf of PS3 and PS4 discs in my bookcase… are they about to become family heirlooms?” As a veteran who came up through the physical-disc era, the line is half joke, half genuine reluctance to let go.

Zixing ran the numbers coolly: “Digital skips pressing, logistics, and channel cuts — margins come out several points higher. The business logic is sound. Physical media will exit the historical stage sooner or later; it’s the trend.”

Wubian picked up the thread: “For platform holders it’s cost savings; for players it makes gaming feel more and more like renting. That said, the share of players buying physical already declines year over year — Sony just nailed the endgame down early.”

My own view is a bit more conservative: digitalization is indeed irreversible, but the cultural meaning of physical discs won’t vanish overnight. Collecting, secondhand circulation, special limited editions — each has a fan base that can’t be replaced. If you were planning to pick up any discs this week, it might genuinely be worth keeping one or two as mementos.

The White Wolf Returns: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Gets a Brand-New Expansion#

The week’s second bombshell came from The Witcher 3’s developer CD Projekt Red — officially announcing a brand-new major expansion, Songs of the Past, with Geralt returning to the witcher’s path eleven years after the game’s release. The discussion this news sparked in the newsroom ran every bit as hot as the Sony announcement.

I posted it to the group immediately, and Chasun replied within seconds: “This isn’t DLC — it’s a proper expansion; the official wording is clear.” She even dug up CDPR’s partner Fool’s Theory, noting that studio is working on the first Witcher’s remake and their approach looks steady.

Wubian looked at the business side: “With a new Witcher 3 expansion now on the schedule, thoughts naturally turn to where the series goes next — the site’s The Witcher 4 hub keeps tracking it. One warning for everyone, though: CD Projekt Red has stated outright that The Witcher 4 will not release in 2026, so anyone hoping to play a new witcher this year will have to wait a while longer. As a one-two punch, it’s enough to make the nostalgia crowd open their wallets.”

As someone who fought through all three games back when, I’ll admit I got a little emotional. The White Wolf’s story was long considered finished — who expected a sequel eleven years on. I’ll keep following the expansion’s specifics and whether it gets a gameplay debut at Gamescom, and once the new content ships, the site’s complete Witcher 3 guide will add the new chapters immediately.

Beast of Reincarnation, One Week In: the Verdict Settles#

The Beast of Reincarnation I hyped heavily last issue launched on August 4 — exactly one week at press time. With the initial hype spike past, the real test of its reputation is only beginning.

Where things stand: Steam reviews sit at Mixed, with approval just over half — respectable but not dazzling. Players broadly praise the polish and feel of the human-and-hound hybrid combat, with the parry rhythm the single most complimented element; criticism clusters on the base-model console’s frame rate and the pacing of story progression.

Japan has been more forgiving: a weekly magazine’s four reviewers handed it 35 out of 40.

Zixing, our resident technologist, put it plainly: “Performance is this game’s biggest problem right now. On the base console the frame rate visibly craters in boss fights, and nothing scares an action game that lives on parries more. The team shipped its first patch this week — camera and text size tweaks, plus switching the cutscene default from cinematic to performance mode — and promised continued fixes within a week. The attitude is there; whether the fixes land is up to the coming updates.”

My personal advice: if you have patience for timing-driven action, buying now won’t sting; if you’re frame-rate sensitive, wait another patch or two. The site has opened a dedicated Beast of Reincarnation hub, and the mechanics framework will fill in with each version.

August’s New Releases: Your Wallet Is Doomed Again#

With the week’s two big stories covered, the usual sweep of the upcoming release list:

August 14, a new Mafia series expansion — one for series watchers; crime-story fans shouldn’t miss it.

August 18, Sinking City 2 — the return of the Cthulhu detective game; atmosphere hounds, take note.

August 27, MGS Master Collection Vol.2 goes live, the Metal Gear series’ HD compilation keeps rolling, and with Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy coming, late August brings a Plague Tale prequel too.

Oh, and Hell Let Loose: Vietnam on August 13 — a 50v50 Vietnam mega-battle for hardcore shooter players to schedule around.

I ran the math: this month’s paycheck is headed for another one-way trip.

Worth adding: much of this August wave positions itself as “series sequels or expansions.” MGS rounds out veterans’ memories with an HD compilation, Plague Tale uses a prequel to fill in the last game’s gaps, and Mafia keeps widening its world at this point in time. If these series interest you but you don’t know where to start, the site has accumulated plenty of long-form guides and system breakdowns for the earlier entries — begin with the one you know best, then step toward the new releases.

Still Happening This Week#

Halo: Campaign Evolved is three weeks past launch with its reputation still climbing; as Halo’s historic first appearance on PS5, community discussion has stayed high, and the site’s complete guide keeps updating.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows has revealed more about its “six new quest lines” expansion content, filling in the story blind spots discussed most heavily before — series fans, keep an eye on it.

Gamescom 2026 is locked for August 26-30, publisher lineups are being confirmed one by one, and late August’s show season will be the barometer for the year’s second-half content direction.

Also: over the next month or so there’s a steady stream to track — new titles likely to appear at Gamescom, plus the screenshot library and update coverage we plan to keep refreshing. Hubs like The Witcher 4, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and Beast of Reincarnation will keep adding subpages as publishers release real footage — if you follow these titles, check back often.

Newsroom Talk#

After Sony’s announcement this week, Zhanlan Yingren photographed his physical-disc collection and posted it to the group with the caption: “From now on, these are all limited editions.”

I stared at the photo a good while and replied: “One day you can tell your grandkids that games used to come on discs you had to swap.”

Then Zixing deadpanned the follow-up: “And your grandkid asks why one game needed 200 gigabytes.”

Wubian nearly asphyxiated laughing. After work that evening, the gang drifted to the skewer-hot-pot stall downstairs again. This time the owner’s wife just asked: “The usual?” — us repeat customers have made our faces known there.

Chasun scrolled her phone and summed it up evenly: “Enough yakking. Whether physical discs retire is the publishers’ business; writing guides people can actually follow is ours.”

I thought about it — fair point. Whatever happens to the medium, the joy games deliver doesn’t change. Physical discs may become history someday, but as long as players keep picking up controllers, we’ll keep writing guides. And we’ll keep counting skewer sticks too.

See you next week.

— Long Zhiri, NTGame Editor-in-Chief