Nobody in the Lanxess Arena expected the story to start this way. Three rounds. That was FURIA’s return from the opening half on Dust2, a map 9z had picked and then proceeded to own so completely that the Brazilians looked less like tournament favourites and more like a team wondering how they got here.
Two hours later they were semifinalists.
FURIA vs 9z at the IEM Cologne Major: How the Comeback Happened
FURIA beat 9z 2-1 to reach the IEM Cologne Major 2026 semifinals, losing Dust2 8-13 before answering with 13-9 on Mirage and 13-6 on Overpass. It is FURIA’s first Major playoff win after quarterfinal exits in Austin and Budapest, and it arrives in the tournament many believe will be Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo’s last in Cologne.
The clutch that changed the series
Yuri “yuurih” Santos was the reason FURIA lived. His 1v3 on Dust2 gave them a route back that the scoreline had almost closed, and he opened Mirage with a 1v4 that should not have been survivable. Maximiliano “max” Gonzalez had answered with a 1v2 to shut Dust2, so this was never one-sided theatre. It was two teams trading knife-edge rounds until one blinked.
9z did not blink on Mirage immediately. They ran to 6-2. Then Danil “molodoy” Golubenko landed a 1v3, FURIA levelled, and the map turned.
Overpass was never a contest
The decider was clean. Starting CT, FURIA took nine of ten rounds and walked into the break at 9-3. 9z grabbed the second pistol, briefly. It changed nothing. 13-6, series over, and a Latin American fairytale that had already run further than anyone predicted ended where fairytales usually do.
What comes next
FURIA face Aurora in the semifinal, a bracket that guarantees a first-time organisation in a Major final. For FalleN, chasing a third Major trophy a decade after his first in this same city, the arithmetic is brutally simple. Two wins.
For 9z, the exit stings less than it should. They matched their best Major result and beat teams they had no business beating. The ceiling was not the final four this time. It may not stay that way.
The BMPS 2026 Grand Finals are set at JECC, Jaipur, with 16 teams competing for a โน1 crore top prize and a direct PUBG Mobile World Cup slot. TalkEsport’s Know Your Finalist series has already covered 8Bit, Orangutan, Victores Sumus, and Vasista Esports. This edition focuses on two more teams who earned their place through the Qualifiers: Divine Gaming and 7Gods Esports.
Divine Gaming: The Balanced Roster With a Point to Prove
The Lineup
Divine Gaming’s roster for BMPS 2026 features Omega, Slug, NinjaBoi, and Knight. This is not a new combination. This is the same unit that won the BGMI Masters Series trophy and finished runner-up at BMSD 2024. In BGIS 2026, the team added a sixth-place finish to that record. Every major BGMI event in recent memory has a Divine Gaming result attached to it.
Round 1 was functional but not dominant. Round 2 was a statement. By Round 4, with Grand Finals qualification on the line, Divine held their nerve and sealed their Jaipur spot in fifth place.
Strengths
Divine Gaming’s biggest asset is their balance. No single player carries the team. Every member can produce impact, which makes the lineup harder to read and harder to shut down compared to teams built around one star.
In the Qualifiers’ 24 matches, Knight led the team with 33 finishes. NinjaBoi recorded 32. Slug added 25. Knight, one of the youngest players in the roster, has shown in both BGIS and BMPS that age is not a limit when the reads and reflexes are there.
Omega brings a different kind of value. As the in-game leader, he won the BGMI Masters Series 2022 with Team Soul. His experience on clutch stages and his ability to call under pressure is what separates Divine Gaming from teams with similar firepower but no IGL pedigree.
The One Concern
The question around Divine Gaming heading into Jaipur is not about talent. It is about tempo. When this team plays with aggression and runs their natural game, they are among the best in India. When they slow down and second-guess, results follow. At the BMPS 2026 Grand Finals, where the pressure is highest and the margins are smallest, maintaining that aggressive identity across all 18 matches is the defining challenge for this roster.
7Gods Esports: The Comeback Artists
The Lineup
7Gods Esports’ roster for BMPS 2026 features Captain Moksh, Vishu, Ninju, RexBoy, and Ninja. At first glance, this lineup reads as a mid-tier combination. The history behind each player tells a different story.
Moksh has been part of Hyderabad Hydras and went on to finish runner-up at BGMS 2025 with Sinewy Esports. Ninju has played for Numen, Cincinnati Kids, MadKings, and Reckoning across his career. This is not a group of newcomers finding their feet. It is a set of experienced players who have been around multiple competitive cycles without yet winning the big one.
How They Qualified
7Gods entered the Qualifiers from Group B and produced one of the most dramatic qualification runs in BMPS 2026.
Round
Points
Placement
Round 1
58
3rd (Group B)
Round 2
29
12th
Round 3
27
10th
Round 4
Qualified 8th
โ
Round 1 was a genuine surprise. 58 points and a third-place finish earned the team promotion to Group A for Round 2. Rounds 2 and 3 were difficult. In Round 2, the team survived relegation by three points. Round 3 was similar โ steady enough to stay in, not enough to stand out.
Round 4 was the turning point. Needing results with everything on the line, 7Gods produced 11 finishes in a single match and claimed second place in that game. That one result reshuffled the leaderboard and booked their ticket to Jaipur in eighth position overall.
Strengths
7Gods have shown they can produce when it counts. The Round 4 comeback is the clearest evidence: rather than collapsing under qualification pressure, the team raised their level exactly when it mattered. That ability to find the right gear in a final push is a meaningful quality at a three-day LAN.
The roster also has firepower. They did not qualify on luck. They qualified by outscoring most of the field in a last match that required it.
The One Concern
Consistency is 7Gods’ clearest problem heading into Jaipur. Their Qualifiers trajectory shows peaks and valleys that a Grand Finals format punishes. At JECC, 16 teams play 18 matches over three days. A team cannot rely on one big match to rescue a poor run. Points accumulate, and rosters that drop off in the middle sessions give ground that is very hard to recover.
If 7Gods can string together steady performances instead of alternating between standout and invisible, they have everything needed to be the surprise team of BMPS 2026. If the inconsistency follows them to Jaipur, they will likely finish mid-table.
Head-to-Head: Title Chances
Divine Gaming enter the Grand Finals as genuine contenders. The trophy pedigree, the IGL experience, and the fragger depth all point toward a team that belongs in the title conversation. Their path to winning runs through maintaining their aggressive identity for the full three days.
7Gods enter as underdogs. Their qualification story, built on a last-match rescue rather than sustained dominance, does not suggest a team ready to go wire-to-wire with the title favourites. But underdog stories in BGMI have a habit of being written in exactly this format, where one big match can change everything.
Rockstar spent June doing what Rockstar always does, which is releasing information one piece at a time and collecting a news cycle for each one. The date came on June 18. The price came on June 24. The pre-orders opened on June 25. Three headlines out of one announcement.
GTA 6 Pre-Orders Are Live, and the Price Is No Longer the Interesting Part
Standard Edition costs $79.99. Ultimate costs $99.99. That is the number everyone waited for, and it landed almost exactly where the industry expected it to. Therefore, it makes it the least surprising thing Rockstar said all month.
The surprises are underneath. Only two editions exist. The $129.99 Collector’s Edition that circulated for weeks was never real, and Rockstar has confirmed no plans for a physical collector’s or disc edition at launch. If you buy the boxed copy, you are buying a cardboard sleeve with a download code inside it. However, there is no Blu-ray. The most anticipated game of the decade will not exist as an object you can put on a shelf.
Ultimate buyers get vehicles, two exclusive mod shops, a four-car Classic Car Collection commission, and salon cosmetics for Jason and Lucia. None of it is required to finish the game. Everyone who orders before November 20 gets the Vintage Vice City Pack regardless of edition. So, the $20 gap buys convenience and cosmetics, nothing more.
The absence that matters most is PC. GTA 6 launches November 19 on PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X and Series S. Moreover, a PC version is confirmed to exist and has no date attached to it. This follows the pattern set by GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. For the Indian PC and mobile-first audience that drives most of this country’s gaming conversation, the biggest release in years is a console exclusive for an unknown stretch of time.
Digital preload begins November 12. Rockstar has also described the game as a single-player experience at launch. The online component will arrive later, which is a quieter admission than it sounds.
If you were waiting for a reason to hesitate, the disc is gone and the PC build is a rumor with a confirmation attached. If you were never going to hesitate, you already pre-ordered on June 25.
The BMPS 2026 Grand Finals tickets are live, and the biggest BGMI weekend of the year is nearly here. India’s best 16 teams land in Jaipur from June 19 to 21, after grinding through months of qualifiers and knockouts, to fight for a โน4 crore prize pool. If you would rather feel the arena than watch on your phone, here is how to lock in a seat.
Booking takes only a few minutes, and entry starts at just โน249. Below is the official platform, the prices, the exact steps, and the rules to sort out before you travel.
Where to buy BMPS 2026 Grand Finals tickets
There is only one official place to buy: District, formerly known as District by Zomato. KRAFTON India has named District its official ticketing partner for the finals, so every genuine pass is sold through it. You can book on the District app or on the website, whichever is easier for you.
Stick to the official event page on District. Skip resellers and random links floating around social media. Demand is high, fakes are a real risk, and only valid District tickets will scan at the gate.
How much do tickets cost?
Prices start at โน249, which keeps the LAN affordable for most fans. District lists the higher tiers and better seating blocks, so you can match a ticket to your budget and how close to the action you want to sit.
Going for more than one day? Look for a multi-day pass on District before you pay. KRAFTON used a single-day and full-pass setup for the Semifinals and Last Chance ticket sales, and if a similar option exists for the finals, it usually works out cheaper than buying each day separately. Either way, booking early gives you the best shot at good seats before popular blocks sell out.
How to book your seat, step by step
The flow on District is quick and beginner-friendly:
Open the District app, or go to district.in.
Search for “BMPS 2026 Grand Finals” or “Battlegrounds Mobile India.”
Open the official event page from the results.
Choose your day or pass, then pick your seats.
Pay, then save the e-ticket sent to you.
Keep that e-ticket on your phone. You will need it to get in, so take a screenshot or download it in case the network is slow at the venue.
Venue, timings and entry rules
The finals take place at the Jaipur Exhibition & Convention Centre (JECC), one of Rajasthan’s larger indoor arenas. It is fully air-conditioned and seated, with washrooms inside, so three long days are actually comfortable.
According to the event listing, play starts around 3:15 PM IST on each day from June 19 to 21, and each session runs close to six hours. Six matches go off per day as the 16 teams chase the title and a spot on the world stage.
A few ground rules to remember. Everyone needs a ticket, kids included, though all ages are welcome and the event is family-friendly. Pets are not allowed inside. Parking at the venue is free, and the on-ground experience runs in Hindi.
That said, a stream cannot match the room. The crowd noise, the big screens, and the live clutch moments all land harder in person.
Tickets are moving now, and with 16 teams and โน4 crore on the line, the JECC stands will fill up fast. Book your seat on District, sort out your travel to Jaipur, and aim to arrive before the 3:15 PM start so you catch the opening drop. Then settle in for three days of the best BGMI in the country.
The BMPS 2026 Grand Finals are finally here, and one of the year’s biggest BGMI tournaments now comes down to three days in Jaipur. Sixteen teams have survived weeks of qualifiers and knockouts. Only one leaves with the trophy.
The action runs from June 19 to 21, with a โน4 crore prize pool and an international slot on the line for the champion. Here is everything you need before the first lobby drops.
BMPS 2026 Grand Finals: dates, venue and match timings
The finals run for three days, from June 19 to June 21, 2026. KRAFTON is hosting the LAN at the Jaipur Exhibition & Convention Centre (JECC) in Rajasthan. A big live crowd is expected across the weekend.
The structure is simple. Sixteen teams play 18 matches in total, six each day. There is no relegation and no safety net at this stage. Whoever banks the most points across the 18 games wins the title.
KRAFTON has not locked an exact match clock to the finals yet. Through the LAN rounds so far, broadcasts have opened around 3:30 PM IST, so a similar mid-afternoon start looks likely. Check the official stream on the day for confirmed timings.
All 16 teams heading to Jaipur
The field filled up through three routes. Eight teams came straight out of the online Qualifiers, taking Group A’s top eight places. Six more advanced from the Semifinals, played offline at the Nodwin Gaming Arena in Delhi. The last two scraped through the brutal Last Chance stage.
The Qualifiers sent GodLike Esports, Team SouL, 8Bit, Orangutan, Victores Sumus, Vasista, Divine Gaming and 7Gods to Jaipur. From the Semifinals came Nebula Esports, Genesis, Gods Reign, Revenant XSpark, Reckoning and Myth. Team Apex Gaming and Team Tamilas completed the lineup by finishing top two in the Last Chance.
A few names carry extra weight into the finals. GodLike Esports topped their Qualifiers group and arrive as one of the favourites. They are still chasing a first official BGMI trophy, this time with a rebuilt roster around Manya after Jonathan’s departure.
Team SouL look like the team to beat. Nakul’s squad won BGIS 2026 and have been India’s most consistent unit all year. Another title would round off a strong season nicely.
Then there is Team Apex Gaming. Jonathan founded the org during the April 2026 transfer window, and BMPS is its first official outing. Reaching the finals through the Last Chance already counts as a statement. Nebula Esports also deserve a shout after topping the Semifinals standings.
One absence is worth flagging. Reporting indicates the previous BMPS champions, Team AX, fell short in the Last Chance and miss the Jaipur LAN. In a field this deep, even title holders can get squeezed out.
Maps and match format
BMPS 2026 has run on BGMI’s current competitive pool all season: Erangel, Miramar and Rondo. The finals will use the same three maps across the 18 games. KRAFTON usually confirms the map for each match closer to game day, so the exact rotation will land just before play.
In the earlier LAN rounds, days have tended to open on Rondo before moving to Erangel and closing on Miramar. The points system rewards both placement and kills, which keeps aggressive teams and patient rotators in the hunt.
Prize pool, international slot, and how to watch
The headline number is โน4 crore, doubled from the โน2 crore KRAFTON announced at launch. The champion takes โน1 crore. Second place gets โน60 lakh, with โน40 lakh for third. All 16 finalists walk away with a share.
The international reward is where things get a little murky. KRAFTON’s BMPS 2026 launch tied the title to an Esports World Cup 2026 berth in Riyadh, with India holding two slots. More recent reports instead point to a PUBG Mobile World Cup (PMWC) 2026 Paris spot for the winner. Either way, a global slot is on the table, so confirm the exact route on the official BMPS 2026 tournament page nearer the final.
Watching is free. Every match streams live on Krafton India Esports’ official YouTube channel, with Hindi and English commentary. If you would rather be there in person, JECC tickets start at โน249. For the full bracket and live standings, Liquipedia tracks every result.
What to watch next
The finals tip off on June 19, and the race looks wide open. SouL bring the pedigree, GodLike bring the hunger for a first title, and Apex Gaming bring the hype. Keep an eye on the Day 1 points table, because momentum at a three-day LAN tends to snowball. Once the standings settle on June 21, India will have a new BGMI champion and a team booking its trip to the world stage.
Sony has filed a patent for a new PlayStation controller design that can potentially change the way you experience video games, allowing its buttons to physically change feel while a game is being played.
Spotted by Cheat Happens, the filing from Sony describes an operating device capable of altering the hardness of its buttons in real time through control commands sent from the connected system.
“This operation device is provided with an operation member that receives an operation from a user,โ the patent description reads. โThe operation device is provided with: a contact part that is disposed on the surface of the operation member and receives a force applied by the user for the operation; and a hardness control unit that changes the hardness of the contact part.”
The technology reportedly relies on smart, magnetically responsive composite materials that could soften or harden depending on the strength of a surrounding magnetic field.
In practice, this means a button could stiffen or loosen depending on in-game context, similar in spirit to the adaptive triggers already found on the DualSense controller, but applied in a broader sense.
According to the patent application, which was filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization in late 2024 and published earlier this year, Sony outlines multiple methods for achieving the effect, including fluid-filled membranes as an alternative to the magnetic approach.
One particularly unusual mechanism allows a button to soften under a player’s finger before hardening again, creating a sensation of being gripped or restrained, which could be useful for certain moments like a character being grabbed.
The same hardness-shifting mechanism could also extend beyond gaming immersion, with potential accessibility uses where the contact surface adapts to alternative input methods.
As always with patent filings, there’s no guarantee this controller will ever reach consumers, but it does hint at directions that Sony may explore for a future DualSense successor.
A freshly minted fan theory surrounding GTA 6, which suggests that a full trailer, dubbed Trailer 3, could be hitting the internet as early as next week. The basis of the theory lies in Rockstar’s marketing habits we have observed with titles such as GTA 4, GTA 5, and Red Dead Redemption 2.
According to the fan theory, June 23, 2026, is expected to be the day when, after months of waiting, fans expect Rockstar to drop the trailer. The company has showcased an attachment to this date, which fans use to derive the timeline, which indicates that the trailer will be dropped early next week. While the original Reddit post was removed, screenshots of the analysis quickly spread across social media and gaming communities.
These speculations came to light after Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick confirmed that GTA 6’s official marketing campaign would begin during the summer of 2026, which prompted fans to build up anticipation for promotional materials expected to come out, including but not limited to the highly anticipated Trailer 3.
Despite the promising theory, fans have been taking it with a pinch of salt as the community continues to argue against this date, as Rockstar has committed to a different marketing strategy for GTA 6 and rightfully so. Fans have pointed out that these numbers may indicate a pattern, but GTA 6 is expected to be the biggest game launch in history, and it is highly unlikely that Rockstar would continue with their usual promotional antics.
As the June 23 date continues to produce significant buzz, Rockstar has yet to confirm a release date, which suggests that it is in our best interest to keep our hopes low and look at the end of the year for the full release. Should the trailer drop as a surprise, then there is little to worry about, but as things stand, we have no official word from the developers.
Playground Games has officially confirmed the next set of free cars coming to Forza Horizon 6 in the Horizon Playlist Series 2, and it’s packed with some serious heavy hitters.
Players will be able to obtain a series of free cars by accumulating Seasonal Points through completing Festival Playlist challenges across each in-game season, meaning you wonโt have to spend a dime to get your hands on some classics.
Summer kicks things off with the 1989 Volkswagen Rallye Golf at 20 points, followed by the 1988 Lamborghini Countach LP5000 QV at 40 points. Autumn brings two British rarities: the 1998 TVR Cerbera Speed 12 at 20 points and the 1993 Schuppan 962CR at 40 points.
Winter shifts gears toward American muscle with the 2006 Dodge Ram SRT-10 at 20 points and the 2003 Ford F-150 SVT at 40 points, both proving trucks can hold their own on the festival circuit. Spring closes the loop with two modern heavy-hitters, the 2017 Mercedes-AMG GT R at 20 points and the 2017 Saleen S7 LM at 40 points.
On top of that, dedicated players chasing the full Horizon Decades arc can also earn the legendary 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau at 80 cumulative points and the 2018 Lotus Exige Cup 430 at 160 points, making this an incredibly rewarding season for collectors.
Forza Horizon 6 Next Free Cars List
Below, we have included a list of all confirmed free cars so far in the Forza Horizon Playlist Series 2:
The Pokemon Company has launched the Pokemon TCG AI Battle Challenge. In this developer competition, teams build AI bots capable of playing the Pokemon Trading Card Game at a competitive level. The competition runs on Google’s Kaggle platform and carries a total prize pool of over $300,000.
What Is the Pokemon TCG AI Battle Challenge?
The competition asks developers to submit AI agents that play Pokemon TCG matches in real time. These bots do not just pick cards randomly. They must read the in-game state, account for an opponent’s hand, board, and possible strategies, and choose plays on the fly. It is closer to building a thinking player than a simple automation script.
The card pool covers around 2,000 cards from the Standard format. The Pokemon Company supplies the battle environment, official rules, and a training simulator for participating teams.
How the Competition Is Structured
The challenge runs in two stages. The first is the Competition Stage, running from June through August 2026 on Kaggle. It has two categories:
Simulation Category: Teams submit their AI agent for continuous automated matches on Kaggle. Each team can submit up to five bots per day. Results form a live leaderboard ranking all participating agents.
Strategy Category: Teams submit a written report explaining the strategic logic behind their AI agent. Rankings are based on the agent’s stability, deck design concept, and its Simulation Category performance.
The top eight teams from the Strategy Category each receive $30,000 and move on to the Final Stage.
The Final in Japan, September 2026
The Final Stage takes place in Japan in September 2026. The AI players will compete in a live tournament, broadcast on Pokemon’s official YouTube channel. Finalists will also present their methods and approaches. First place at the Final Stage receives $50,000. Second place receives $30,000.
Cybersecurity researchers at Kaspersky have uncovered a malware campaign running through Steam Workshop since late 2025. The attack targets users of Wallpaper Engine, a desktop customization app with nearly a million reviews on Steam, and has already reached thousands of people across multiple countries.
What Is Wallpaper Engine and Why Is It a Target?
Wallpaper Engine lets Windows users set animated backgrounds on their desktops. It supports four types of wallpapers: videos, interactive scenes, web pages, and application wallpapers. That last type is the problem.
Application wallpapers are actual Windows programs running in the background. They can be anything from mini-games to system monitors. Because they run as executable software, they can also carry malware. Kaspersky says attackers figured this out and started using the feature to drop malicious payloads directly onto users’ desktops.
Steam Workshop, the platform’s built-in content sharing system, allows anyone to upload and publish wallpapers for free. There is no requirement for account age or review history. That open access made it easy for attackers to upload infected content and let unsuspecting users install it.
Dozens of Infected Wallpapers, Tens of Thousands of Downloads
Kaspersky researchers found dozens of malicious wallpaper packages on Steam Workshop. According to their report, many of these had already been downloaded thousands of times, with some reaching tens of thousands of installs before being identified.
The malware was hidden in two ways. In some packages, infected executables, DLLs, or scripts were bundled directly alongside the wallpaper files. In other cases, attackers concealed the payload inside password-protected archives. The password was either embedded in the archive name or stored in a JSON config file that came with the wallpaper. Either way, the payload ran automatically the moment a user applied the wallpaper.
What Happens When You Install an Infected Wallpaper
Kaspersky tested one wallpaper posing as a game called NTRaholic. The game launched normally and showed no signs of anything wrong. Behind the scenes, the wallpaper dropped a backdoor file named Synaptics.exe, part of the DarkKomet malware family. A second executable then installed a custom version of a system library called AggregatorHost.dll. That library had one job, which is to find the Steam app on the computer and steal account credentials. Once it located an active Steam session, it hijacked it and sent the stolen data to attacker-controlled servers.
That was just one example. Kaspersky’s research turned up several other malware families distributed through the same method, including the Lumma and Vidar infostealers, crypto miners, botnet loaders, the RenEngine loader, and ransomware strains. Because the variety of tools was so wide, Kaspersky suspects multiple independent threat actors were using Wallpaper Engine at the same time rather than a single coordinated group.
In some cases, once attackers gained control of a victim’s Steam account, they used it to upload more malicious wallpapers to the Workshop, continuing the cycle.
Anyone who thinks they may have already installed an infected wallpaper should run a full malware scan immediately. Changing passwords for Steam, email, and any linked payment services is also advisable.
