Rainbow Six Mobile’s shutdown, Minecraft Blast’s next steps and AI’s risks for games | Week in Views

The games industry moves at a relentless pace. While individual stories often come and go in the blink of an eye, some developments leave a lasting impact that demands a closer look. To give those particularly thorny topics a thorough examination, the editorial team at PocketGamer.biz has pulled together a weekly digest. This space allows team members to share their deeper thoughts, industry data, and contextual analysis on the most interesting and consequential events shaping the mobile gaming landscape over the past week.

From major franchise closures on mobile to the delicate balance of brand-new playtests and hard-hitting warnings regarding artificial intelligence, this week’s digest explores three major talking points that underscore the shifting realities of the modern games business.

Rainbow Six Mobile to Shut Down in January 2027

One of the most striking pieces of news to hit the mobile sector recently is the confirmation that Rainbow Six Mobile is officially shutting down in January 2027, less than a year after its anticipated global launch. It is a disheartening development, particularly given the immense amount of time, capital, and effort Ubisoft has invested in trying to crack the mobile shooter code.

The project had a notoriously arduous journey through development. After initially entering soft launch back in 2023, the title hit a major roadblock and went into hiatus in 2024 for extensive structural improvements. It eventually returned with a slate of major reworks, followed by several rigorous testing phases, before finally achieving its worldwide rollout in February 2026.

Despite all of that rigorous work and high-profile branding, Ubisoft has ultimately decided to pull the plug. To be sure, the game showed initial promise, generating approximately $1.6 million globally in its first two weeks on the market. However, that early momentum quickly slowed down, serving as yet another cautionary tale in the mobile ecosystem: simply bringing a major, beloved console and PC franchise to mobile platforms is by no means a guarantee of commercial success.

Rainbow Six certainly boasted an established, passionate audience on traditional gaming platforms, but translating that specific tactical appeal into a sustainable, long-term mobile experience requires an entirely different playbook. It forces developers and publishers to confront a difficult question: Does that core fanbase actually want a mobile iteration of their favorite tactical shooter? And if they do not, is there a sufficiently large new audience out there to sustain it, especially when factoring in the fiercely competitive landscape of the mobile shooter genre?

While it is a genuine shame to see the project close its doors for good, it appears that Ubisoft ultimately felt it had exhausted all available strategic options in its quest to make the title viable.

Minecraft Blast Testing Phase Expands: Developing for New and Lapsed Fans

Shifting focus from a sunsetting shooter to a burgeoning puzzle adventure, King is pressing forward with its ambitious crossover project, Minecraft Blast. Ahead of its first major playtests in the West, Aaron Astle recently returned to King’s London headquarters to get an exclusive look at how the title is shaping up.

During the hands-on preview, players were introduced to the core gameplay mechanics, interacting with a puzzle board populated by familiar franchise elements such as potions, fireworks, and End Crystals. Completing traditional blast-style puzzle levels rewards players with energy, which can then be spent constructing a Minecraft-style world. This includes building houses, balconies, and other structures designed to make a small companion character feel right at home while keeping them safely sheltered from creeping dangers.

Following its initial trials, Minecraft Blast recently returned to Malaysia for its second playtest and is slated to expand its testing footprint into Canada and Australia. According to King’s Gavin Lammin, the title remains in its very early developmental days. Because of this phase of the product lifecycle, players who miss a tightly restricted, weeks-long window of availability are unable to download the application. These early tests are fundamentally designed to validate player engagement metrics, gather crucial initial learnings regarding how monetization strategies are received by the community, and test overall product-market fit.

Intriguingly, Lammin also shared insights into the game’s origins, revealing that development has already spanned three years since initial conversations first began with Mojang Studios. King had been eager to explore a mobile partnership for some time, and Mojang’s Magnus Nedfors noted that the eventual acquisition by Microsoft helped clear the path for the collaboration to materialize.

The acquisition process itself took considerable time for various reasons, but according to Nedfors, the teams were aligned from the very start. The day the acquisition went through, the priority was reaching out to King, matching mutual interests between the studios and kicking off the partnership at the earliest possible opportunity.

In the Hot Seat: Ex-Take-Two AI Chief Luke Dicken on the $2tn Bubble, Junior Jobs, and the Next 2008

Conversations surrounding artificial intelligence in the video games industry typically fall into one of two polarized camps: optimists who insist AI will completely revolutionize and improve every facet of development, or pessimists who argue it will systematically ruin the medium. A recent conversation between Mariam Ahmad and Dr. Luke Dicken managed to avoid both extremes entirely, offering a grounded and sober perspective that continues to resonate across the sector.

Dicken brings immense technical and strategic credibility to the table, having spent a decade building Zynga’s applied AI group before running artificial intelligence operations at Take-Two until April. Having spent his career actively advocating for the integration of AI within game development pipelines, he now stands out as one of the most compelling and cautious voices in the discussion.

One of the most sobering points to emerge from the discussion centered on the broader labor market, specifically concerning the hiring of junior staff—or rather, the alarming lack thereof due to the proliferation of automated tooling. While utilizing AI to bypass entry-level hiring may deliver short-term cost savings that look appealing on corporate earnings reports, Dicken points out a glaring blind spot. The games industry is rapidly approaching its first major wave of retirements, and leadership seems entirely unwilling to ask a critical question: who is going to replace those seasoned veterans and step into leadership roles a decade from now?

Furthermore, Dicken offered stark advice to studio executives who have not yet deeply integrated AI into their workflows: stay on the sidelines. In a market environment defined by an almost incessant industry-wide pressure to slap the label of "AI" onto every corporate presentation and product feature, making a deliberate choice to wait is a bold stance. His rationale is rooted in historical precedent, noting that just as 3D development tools eventually settled into standardized industry practices, AI tooling will eventually normalize. Studios currently rushing to chase immediate productivity gains, he warns, are essentially "running on a treadmill."

While acknowledging that he does not claim to possess all the answers, Dicken’s pointed warnings about building fragile production pipelines on top of cheap, heavily subsidised AI services—only to be caught off guard when API costs and subscription models inevitably rise—highlight a financial risk every modern studio should be factoring into its long-term planning.

Walking away from the discussion leaves industry observers feeling equal parts fascinated and genuinely unsettled, which, by Dicken’s own measure, might just be the most appropriate emotional response to the current technological gold rush.