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Halloween: The Game just revealed a special Limited Collector's Edition with an exclusive, and chilling, Michael Myers action figure by Trick or Treat Studios.

This special edition is crammed with goodies like a trick or treat bag of candy. Aside from the game itself, it features in-game skins and cosmetics, an exclusive poster, lenticular art, and "more surprises" still to come. However, all eyes are likely to be on the exclusive Scream Great Shape Jump Michael Myers 8-inch variant action figure. This gives the villain an ethereal, ghostly glow that really helps it pop. Personally, I love that it comes with a teeny pumpkin given the same finish. That alone gets it my vote as one of the best toys I've seen this week.

Nighthawk Interactive

Halloween: The Game Limited Collector's Edition (Playstation 5)

You can now pre-order this special edition ahead of its October release, but I don't think it'll be as slow and steady as Michael Myers himself; according to the official site , limited quantities are available.

In terms of the team behind that action figure, it's being made by Trick or Treat Studios – an outfit known for its masks, yes, but also its highly detailed action figures. That includes everything from Terrifier toys to Mr. Myers himself, but they're perhaps best known for their 1:1 scale Chucky Doll (which you can see here at Mad About Horror , because it needs to be witnessed). That kind of reputation makes me sit up and pay attention to this little Michael Myers, even if he is admittedly a fraction of the size of that Chucky masterpiece.

Halloween: The Game and its Limited Collector's Edition will land on October 6, 2026.

Want collectibles that are a little less creepy? It's worth dropping in on the best Lego sets . If you're still in a spooky mood, though, here's how, after 47 years, Halloween: The Game answers "burning questions" about John Carpenter's 1978 classic .

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Xbox is in the midst of an aggressive recalibration. CEO Asha Sharma is pursuing a "reset" of the content portfolio . Compulsion Games and Double Fine have regained their independence, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have been sold; thousands of jobs have been cut across Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, and Xbox Game Studios. We're still getting a grasp on how severely individual studios are impacted, although some appear significant.

Reportedly, id Software has lost 50% of its staff . It's a shocking development, leaving a pioneering developer – the stewards of the id Tech engine, and creators of Doom and Quake – with drastically lowered capacity. Bethesda Game Studios, id, MachineGames, and ZeniMax Online have apparently been given a mandate to refocus on Bethesda's "strongest franchises", but it's difficult to know where id goes from here.

Doom, Eternal, and The Dark Ages performed admirably, but didn't necessarily rip and tear the market to shreds. Quake Champions launched out of early access in 2022 but failed to gain momentum – arena shooters remain a challenge in an environment dominated by battle royale, extraction, and hero shooters. It's been over seven years since Rage 2.

(Image credit: Bethesda) Common sense would dictate that id shifts to support MachineGames – long rumored to be developing a sequel to 2017's Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. This would make sense: MachineGames has collaborated with other Bethesda studios around Wolfenstein in the past, having launched Cyberpilot and Youngblood with Arkane Lyon in 2019.

There's also external pressure to consider. A live action Wolfenstein television series is in development at Amazon MGM Studios, and given that Asha Sharma recently outlined a trans-media vision for the future of Xbox, it's unlikely that she will want to repeat the mistake made with Fallout: two hugely successful seasons of the show landing without a new Fallout game to meet raised interest.

Speaking of Fallout, id Software could help Xbox pursue its ambition of getting players back into the wasteland a little faster. Given the palpable appetite within the Xbox community for Obsidian to deliver New Vegas 2, I'd rather see id's expertise placed elsewhere. The studio is world renown for making the best feeling shotguns in video games – that would be wasted on V.A.T.S.

Xbox owns arguably the greatest catalogue of shooter franchises in the video game industry. Brink, Call of Duty, Doom, Gears of War, Halo, Overwatch, Perfect Dark, Prey, Quake, Rage, Singularity, Soldier of Fortune, StarCraft, and Wolfenstein to name but a few. If Xbox is serious about wanting to deliver more of its biggest franchises faster, it could do far worse than transition id to Gears or Halo.

Halo 3: ODST proved that Halo can thrive under tonal shifts; perhaps a faster, more furious id instalment would work wonders as Halo Studios gets its arms around the future of the mainline series. But really, id and Gears are a match made in heaven. The series could do far worse than an FPS experiment.

The gritty setting is perfect territory for a grounded, viscerally violent FPS. Don't just take my word for it, Cliff Bleszinski (designer of the original trilogy) toyed with taking Gears in this direction before Epic sold the IP to Microsoft. "I can tell you I wanted to actually consider going first-person with it," he told XboxEra . "I mean, can you imagine chainsawing a Locust in first person?"

I can imagine it, Cliff, and I want to play it. And there's no studio more equipped to make it a reality than id Software. Whether it will be given the opportunity under this new era of Xbox remains to be seen.

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