Wolverines! not Wolverine.

Daggerless Indie Dev Dispatch — Week of September 28, 2026

WARDOGS is at three million copies, sixteen days into Early Access. Xbox cut more jobs this week. Tomorrow is Witcher 3 Remastered, TOEM 2, Minecraft Dungeons II, and the Big Break Showcase. Lets get into it.

WARDOGS

WARDOGS crossed three million copies this weekend, sixteen days after Early Access opened on September 10. Players are still there. Recent peaks have sat in the high 300,000s, Season 02 is dated October 15, and the Steam price is still $40. Console versions are not planned until 2028. Joe Brammer spent the week saying the studio is “pro hard work, not pro crunch,” and that most of the launch period has gone to fighting cheaters and DDoS attacks. The numbers are holding, the game is still climbing, and the players are happy.

Dressmaker

Cozy Lives shipped it September 21. Free Lives published. The team said it recouped in 24 hours. Steam reviews are Overwhelmingly Positive. Peak concurrent passed 27,000.

The Big Studio News

Control Resonant shipped September 24 to mid-80s reviews and Very Positive on Steam. Peak concurrent was about 40,000. Remedy already posted New Game++, photo mode, and a combat hotfix that cut enemy health. Steam Machine runs it. Deck support is the weak note. This is the first Control game that launched day one on Steam.

Silent Hill: Townfall landed the same day. Critics were in the low 80s. Steam users landed Mixed, about 65 percent positive, mostly over stutter and a stealth loop. Peak concurrent was about 8,300, well under Silent Hill 2 Remake. First-person is the split. Yamaoka is not on the soundtrack. Konami has a PC performance patch coming. Five endings already have guides.

Wolverine is still selling, but the boxed launch in Japan is well behind Spider-Man and UK stores are already bundling it at £20 with a console. Insomniac added a toggle for the scent trails this week, hoping to cut down on the player complaints.

Out this week

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered lands September 29. Free for existing owners. Path tracing, a lighting pass, combat tweaks, photo mode, gear reforge. Songs of the Past is still downstream.

Minecraft Dungeons II ships the same day, wide platforms. TOEM 2 is out September 29 on PC, PS5, and Switch. High 80s early. Nivalis Nights, Transport Fever 3, and Way of the Hunter 2 also land this week.

Coffee Stain, Raw Fury, and Ghost Ship run the Big Break Showcase tomorrow at 1pm ET.

October 1: End of Abyss, Dynasty Warriors 3 Complete Remastered, Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition. October 2: Ace Combat 8. October 6: Gears of War: E-Day.

Industry Notes

• Microsoft laid off more people. Halo and Rare move under Activision. Obsidian folds toward Bethesda. Forza and Fable studios merge. Ninja Theory looks like the studio without a home. Nadella called the streamlining great and said Xbox needs a sustainable business model. Halo Studios is reportedly down to about 30 people.
• Sony is surveying developers about dropping disc support ahead of the 2028 cutoff. Physical still paid about 23 percent of Wolverine’s opening.
• Build A Rocket Boy appointed administrators.
• Fireteam Elite 2’s studio took layoffs and slipped the Switch 2 version to early 2027.
• King signed the Swedish collective agreement after last week’s strike threat.
• Nintendo collected $4.5 million from a Switch pirate who ignored the lawsuit.
• Meta showed AI game tools plus VR glasses with day-one Unity.
• God of War: Laufey preorders open tomorrow.
• Minecraft’s first new dimension in 14 years is called The Sift. It is dated 2027 for Java and Bedrock.

Free Tools & Assets

• Kenney.nl — Tiny Factory is live. All-in-1 is coming to Steam.
• itch.io free assets and OpenGameArt.
• Epic Fab limited-time free through October 6: Global Search Pro by SpanZeto’s Dev Tools, Paladin RPG Set by Polyphoria, Asian Canal Environment by Leartes Studios. Claim at fab.com/limited-time-free.

Daggerless Verdict

WARDOGS added another million while players sit on the concurrent chart and wait to see if the studio can keep it. Control Resonant got the reviews it needed. Wolverine still sold, then showed up in UK bundles at £20, which is the part of AAA that does not travel the way it used to. A small team shipped a sewing game this week and recouped in a day. Use that. Solo and small rooms have a clearer path right now than a mid-size deal sitting in an Xbox reorg.