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ASAP Brand Services: Web Media baut Filiale in Köln aus
Pünktlich zur Gamescom 2026 stellt sich die Full-Service-Agentur ASAP Brand Services in Köln neu auf – strategisch, technisch und personell. Mit der Tochter Web Media NRW GmbH bespielt die Agentur-Sparte der Web Media Publishing AG (u. a. Gameswelt) die Games-Kunden am Rhein – als Teil des Games Cluster NRW im Kölner Mediapark und in enger […] freshyourfeel.com
Der Beitrag ASAP Brand Services: Web Media baut Filiale in Köln aus erschien zuerst auf GamesWirtschaft.de.
Esports World Cup sees Rocket League, PUBG Mobile, Rainbow Six Siege, and chess winners crowned
The penultimate weekend of the 2026 Esports World Cup just wrapped up, and calling it chaotic would be a massive understatement. We witnessed individual speed records get broken, undefeated title runs, pure point-counting heartbreak in battle royales, and a grandmaster doing what he does best.
If you were trying to keep up with every stream at once, your monitors probably overheated. Here is the rundown of all the high-stakes madness you might have missed.
Dralii Enters the History Books as Rocket League Belongs to Falcons
Team Falcons put on a total clinic in the Rocket League bracket, culminating in a ruthless 4-0 grand finals sweep over Spacestation Gaming. They went completely undefeated all event, including a cold-blooded 4-0 semifinal beating of defending champions Karmine Corp that quieted down the home crowd real fast. Saleh “Rw9” Bakhashwin snatched the MVP honors alongside his twin brother Yazid “Kiileerrz” Bakhashwin, proving that twin telepathy is real.
The real story belongs to Samy “dralii” Hajji. By lifting the trophy, he officially became the first-ever three-time EWC champion across three totally different rosters (BDS in 2024, Karmine Corp in 2025, and now Falcons in 2026). That is a record that is going to stand for a very long time.
Not that anyone is surprised to see a Team Falcons victory here.
S2G Esports Wins PUBG Mobile the Stressful Way
The PUBG Mobile World Cup finale came down to absolute math-class anxiety. S2G Esports hit match point way back in Game 15, but failed to close it out. By the time the 18th and final lobby rolled around, the Turkish squad was sitting at the top of the table with three other hungry teams right on their heels at match point.
S2G actually got eliminated early in that final match, meaning their players had to sit back, bite their nails, and pray for the lobby to implode. That is exactly what happened. Tianba took the final match win, but nobody crossed S2G’s massive 154-point total, letting the Turkish side take the championship trophy from the sidelines.
FaZe Clan Completes the Rainbow Six Siege Triple Crown
FaZe Clan treated the Rainbow Six Siege bracket like a casual warmup. They breezed through the entire event undefeated, shutting down fellow Brazilian squad FURIA 3-1 in the grand finals. After dropping one map in overtime, FaZe slammed the door on Lair with a 7-5 win, led by an MVP performance from Jaime “Cyber” Ramos.
Winning the event was sweet, but the legacy milestone is even better. Cyber, Lucas “soulz1” Schinke, Eduardo “KDS” Chiste Fontes, and coach Rafael “RafadeLL” de Oliveira officially completed Siege’s coveted Triple Crown. They now own trophies from the Six Invitational, a Major, and the Esports World Cup.
Magnus Carlsen Plays Flawless Chess
Over on the digital boards, Magnus Carlsen defended his EWC Chess title for Team Liquid without dropping a single game all tournament. He shut down 19-year-old challenger Denis Lazavik in the grand final, who managed to force four draws but could never actually find a winning move against the Norwegian goat.
It was an even better run than his 2025 trophy campaign. The runner-up finish kept Lazavik’s squad, AG.AL, near the top of the overall leaderboard, while the 1,000 points handed to Team Liquid pushed them up into 13th place in the Club Championship race.
Counter-Strike 2 Trims the Bush Down to 16
Finally, the Counter-Strike 2 tournament chopped its massive field right in half. Defending champions The MongolZ made it through to the Round of 16, while heavy favorites like Team Vitality, Team Spirit, and Team Falcons are all still alive and kicking.
With $2 million on the line and vital Club Championship points up for grabs, the final week is shaping up to be an absolute brawl. Teams like MOUZ are riding high off recent tournament wins, while giants like G2 and FaZe are desperate to end their major trophy droughts on the big stage.
God of War Laufey star Deborah Ann Woll destroyed The Last of Us 2's infamous golf club prop during her "very first day on set"
Perhaps no single object in all of video games is quite so haunted by infamy as the golf club in The Last of Us Part 2. The prop used to represent that golf has apparently remained in PlayStation's motion capture studio for all these years – until, it seems, the day Deborah Ann Woll walked on set for God of War Laufey.
First, if you haven't yet played The Last of Us Part 2 and have somehow avoided learning about its first act twist for all these years, here's a SPOILER WARNING for the rest of this article. Still here? Good. The opening hours of The Last of Us Part 2 see Joel, the protagonist of the previous game, brutally beaten to death with a golf club by the vengeful Abby.
The golf club itself instantly became something of a meme. Now, years later, it still serves both as a symbol of the game's most devastating moment and a lazy shorthand for those who didn't like the way the story went. Either way, the actual prop used in the motion capture sessions for the game is nigh unrecognizable. You can get a brief glimpse of it in the 2024 documentary on the making of The Last of Us Part 2, around the 52:50 mark: a big, purple stick shaped like an elongated baseball bat.
So you can forgive Deborah Ann Woll, who portrays the title character in God of War Laufey, for not instantly noticing the significance of the purple stick. "My very first day on set for Laufey, we were doing a scene, and they handed me a prop," she says in a San Diego Comic-Con panel. "Unbeknownst to me, this was a very famous prop that they had used on The Last of Us."
You’ve heard the story. Now see the evidence. 🪓🏌️♀️Deborah Ann Woll’s first day on the set of God of War Laufey certainly made an impression! pic.twitter.com/YT5hriUSdBAugust 14, 2026
A clip of Woll's comments was recently shared on Twitter by Santa Monica Studio. With an ironic grin, she turns to game director Ariel Lawrence and asks, "Was it a hockey stick? Or a baseball bat?"
"It was a golf club," Lawrence dryly responds.
"Some sort of sporting equipment, you know," Woll continues. "They gave it to me, and I was supposed to use it like an axe. And I… broke it."
The clip also shows footage of the incident. Woll is in normal clothes – not motion capture gear – so this seems to be some sort of test footage or rehearsal session. But she's so into the scene that she absolutely smashes that stick into the ground, where it snaps in two with a loud 'thunk.' She awkwardly drops the stick, clearly afraid she's broken something important, but in the background, somebody shouts "Yeeeeaaaah! Yeah!"
"She swung it so hard, it cracked, and it echoed throughout" the motion capture studio, Lawrence says. "And we were like 'hot damn, let's go.'"
God of War Laufey is just one of many upcoming PS5 games worth keeping on your radar.
Two new Discworld board games are on the way, and one of them adapts fan-favorite Blue Moon City
Two new Discworld board games are inbound, and one of them gives a fan-favorite a Terry Pratchett-inspired makeover.
Revealed by developer Modiphius Entertainment (which is also responsible for the Discworld TTRPG), 'Kill Sam Vimes' and 'Readers Digested' allow players to mess with some of the setting's most beloved characters. While the first sees you attempting to outscore your rivals and murder the eponymous City Watch Commander, the second reimagines award-nominee Blue Moon City by legendary designer Reiner Knizia. Both Discworld board games will be available to pre-order soon.
Originally released in 2006, Blue Moon City sees you rebuilding a destroyed fantasy metropolis and was a nominee for numerous honors when it first launched - including the coveted Spiel des Jahres, which is arguably the industry's most prestigious award. Readers Digest is a licenced reworking of the idea that shifts the action to Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University. Players work as assistant librarians to restore order during chaotic reading week, and they've got to escort students to the exam hall. It's made for two to four players and will take approximately an hour per match.
Meanwhile, Kill Sam Vimes is a competitive strategy game for two to six players where you work as a trainee assassin to outsmart both Vimes' traps and your opponents.
Knizia is something of a legend amongst the tabletop community with plenty of awards to his name (one of his most recent projects was the excellent Hobbit: There and Back Again roll and write game, which you can find for just under $40 at Amazon), so the fact that Readers Digested adapts his work is enough to put it on the radar so far as I'm concerned. If you missed the original Blue Moon City, this is also an opportunity to try a game that is still warmly received amongst the community 20 years after it first hit shelves.
It's unclear when the two Discworld board games will release, but they'll be up for pre-order via Modiphius from August 20, 2026.
Speaking of new ways to enjoy old favorites, this Disney Lorcana digital game sounds like a cross between MTG Arena and Pokemon TCG Pocket.
- See all Discworld offers at Amazon