If you're unfamiliar with Van Buren, it was a wildly different take on Fallout 3 from what was ultimately released by Bethesda after it acquired the IP from Black Isle parent company Interplay. Chiefly, it was an isometric RPG with a top-down perspective more in line with the first two Fallout games, and its story centered around an accused criminal whose guilt or innocence was to be decided by the player, dramatically altering which quests, skills, and communities were interactable. 

With the meaty Fallout Yesterday - Van Buren mod now available on Nexus Mods, it's easier than ever to experience what's likely the closest thing to Black Isle's original vision for Fallout 3. Built in the Fallout 2 engine, Fallout Yesterday's recent 0.6 update added 30+ new quests, "multiple" vehicles, hundreds of new weapons, new traits, new perks, new main story content, "many" bug fixes, and more, although in its current state it can only be beaten with a "specific character build focused on Science and Repairs." 

The arrival of the 0.6 update coincided with the project's release on Nexus Mods, not to mention the cracking open of its code on GitLab, making now an ideal time to not only play it but toy around with the code if you're keen. Of course, it's worth noting that much of Van Buren ended up in 2010's Fallout: New Vegas, including the American Southwest setting and the ability to decide on elements of your character's backstory. Still, purists will likely appreciate the faithfulness of Fallout Yesterday to the original source work.

Find out where Fallout: New Vegas ranked on our list of the best RPGs ever.

So what's it all about? We'll unpack all the major developments from X-Men #1 by writer Jed MacKay, artist Ryan Stegman, inker JP Mayer, colorist Marte Gracia, and letterer Clayton Cowles. 

Spoilers ahead for X-Men #1

X-Men #1 follows two concurrent stories - one in which Beast, newly reborn as his heroic self from shortly after his time on the Avengers, shows the X-Men's new base of operations to the chief of police of the small town in Alaska where they've taken up residence, and another in which Cyclops leads his new X-Men team on a rescue mission for another A-list mutant.

In Beast's portion, the bouncing blue mutant shows chief Paula Robbins of the Merle, Alaska police department all around the X-Men's new base, set up in the town's former factory, which closed before the X-Men came to town.

Beast introduces her to their hydroponic growing operation, overseen by Glob Herman, which grows a number of food crops, and introduces her to Xorn, the X-Men's team medic. Through it all Beast tries to foster an atmosphere of friendliness - even after it's revealed that this isn't just any factory, it's a former Sentinel factory, which the X-Men have now reclaimed.

But Magneto - now hovering in a throne-like chair akin to Professor Xavier's iconic golden floating chair - is far less welcoming to chief Robbins, making it clear he sees himself as the "dragon," who will ensure that "my Children of the Atom will thrive," and that he is to be feared.

Over on Cyclops' mission, he leads Magik, Juggernaut, Psylocke, Kid Omega, and Temper on a mission to save none other than Wolverine and six other newly activated mutants, all of whom are being experimented on by an Orchis spin-off group known as the Fourth School, who believe they can create a new form of life that is a fusion of humans, mutants, and AI. 

The team manages to rescue Wolverine, however it turns out that the newly activated mutants aren't adolescents of the age when mutant powers usually activate, but full grown adults whose X-genes have been artificially activated (like what happened in Deadpool's origin). And what's more, they're indoctrinated soldiers for the Fourth School.

The X-Men manage to fight their way out of the base and force the Fourth School mutants to flee, but Wolverine refuses to go join Cyclops' new team, telling Cyclops not to contact him again (we know he'll be showing up as part of August's Uncanny X-Men #1). Cyclops and Beast discuss both of their separate experiences, while standing under the shadow of a massive, frozen Sentinel - which Cyclops says is to remain in place a while longer so the humans "don't forget what they owe us."

Overall, this fresh start feels like a bit of a rehash of the goals of the Krakoa era, with Cyclops, Beast, and Magneto uniting to build a self-sustaining community of mutants in the heart of Alaska. But aside from the much less advanced and ambitious lifestyle the X-Men have created, there's one key difference from how the X-Men started off the Krakoa era. 

In this case, they're not trying to appeal to humankind for co-existence through sharing their advanced mutant technology and engaging in diplomacy. They're stating in no uncertain terms that they will exist in the world alongside humanity, and they will defend themselves however they have to while reminding humanity how mutants have historically been treated.

It's a scaled back start compared to the Krakoa era, but X-Men #1 is already leaving its footprint on the new 'From the Ashes' status quo.

X-Men #2 goes on sale August 14.

Curious about the new X-Men line but don't know where to start? Here's our guide to the new 'From the Ashes' X-Men comics relaunch.

In a (machine translated) tweet, Izumi notes that "I often wondered why people thought Mieruko-chan was finished, and when I looked into it, I found that Google had ended it on its own," sharing a screenshot of search results indicating that the manga had ended with volume 10. 

Judging from the UI, the error seems to have come from a "related questions" result in Google, with this summary (again, per machine translation) specifying "All volumes (Volumes 1-10 complete)." In replies to Izumi's tweet, several readers said they were relieved to hear that the abrupt ending was just a mistake. 

It's unclear from this screenshot whether this was a run-of-the-mill error or specifically the result of Google's dalliance with AI search summaries, which have burped up countless falsehoods already. The important takeaway is that, no, Mieruko-chan wasn't canceled and isn't over. 

Published in English by Yen Press, Mieruko-chan stars Miko Yotsuya, the titular "girl that sees them." While driven by lighthearted and comedic scenes featuring Miko and her friends, the series stands out thanks to the repulsive creatures which frequently infest panels. It's something I find myself reading just to see what abomination comes up next. It received an anime adaptation in 2021 from studio Passione which, while inexplicably horny compared to the tamer, more comedy- and tension-focused manga, did give us some solidly animated creature designs. 

After 45 years, Osamu Tezuka's classic manga gets revived as Unico: Awakening, with a new ending authorized by Tezuka's estate.

As if the punishing desert climate, abundance of venomous reptiles, and worsening air pollution weren't enough to declare Phoenix, Arizona an apocalyptic hellscape, my home city is now being invaded by flesh-eating zombies in a new World War Z update some five years after launch.

The harsh city's deserved ribbing aside, it's not often I get to see the place I live get video game-ified. Although you can't see much outside of the new map - an abandoned military museum - you also can't mistake the non-native palm trees we plant to trick ourselves into thinking we live in San Diego or the jagged, cacti-dotted mountains surrounding the valley.

World War Z: Battle of Arizona is a free update available with the upgraded Aftermath version of the game, but the new Horde mode XL Phoenix map is exclusive to PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC. The update also includes a paid DLC pack that comes with a new Kukri melee weapon and four new weapons skins for the DE50 pistol, 1877 SBL rifle, TMP5 SMG, and M500 shotgun.

Everything else is free for all players regardless of platform, such as the new 'Improving Bag' power-up that gives you a unique boost to strikes, more ammo capacity, and one additional equipment slot in PvE and Horde mode. Then there's the nifty new customizable player portrait frames that'll display on the scoreboard in lobbies to show off your undead personality.

Finally, the update adds a quality of life change that should make it a heck of a lot easier to come back from a battle that's going south: you can now change your class one time between waves in Horde and Horde XL. That'll also make it possible to grind different classes more seamlessly, since you can simply swap classes and keep running the same session until you drop.

I'm honestly still a little shocked that Saber is still supporting World War Z five years on from its rocky launch. And most of the new additions are totally free! Couple that with the limitless potential for jokes at the city I love to hate, and I reckon it's time to give ol' World War Z another chance. 

I remember really trying to shape it into the Left 4 Dead-sized hole in my heart at launch but struggling with performance issues and the relative lack of content, so I'm hopeful all that's been sorted out by now. If not, at the very least I'll get to look around and go, 'Hey that's where I live!' and be thankful that, for the time being, rattlesnakes and bad drivers are still the most dangerous things around here.

Elsewise, here are the best co-op games we recommend playing with a friend (or nemesis).

Though the logo might look like a more modern design, the shape itself is based on the symbol Superman wears in the comic Kingdom Come – but with the classic yellow-and-red color scheme instead of the comic's grittier red and black. Fans have been quick to compare the logo to that of Henry Cavill's Superman, which does have a bigger, and clearer S shape and is outlined in red – whereas the new logo has a small yellow outline around the red part of the shield (a callback to the Fleischer cartoons of the 1940s).

"It’s absolutely perfect," one fan said.

"Have to say it barely looks like an S though," one person wrote.

"What’s that? Because it’s not the Superman logo…" said someone else.

"People crying about this feeling 'too modern' as if it hasn’t been around for decades," said another.

"That's basically [the] Alex Ross Superman logo. It looks awesome. You just can't move on from Cavill," someone tweeted.

"I’m no one to get too hung up on a logo, but this one does nothing for me," wrote someone else.

Gunn also recently shared a first look at Corenswet in the full suit, which prompted fans to pore over the details. All we know for certain is that Gunn pulled from many different iterations of ol' Kal-El to make what truly feels like an homage to the classic American hero.

Superman hits theaters on July 11, 2025. For more, check out our full breakdown of the new suit, or, check out our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and shows you need to know about.

In a fascinating bit of development insight, Sasko discussed the clue mechanic in an interview with Flow Games. "When we started The Witcher 3, we felt that the loop with the clues was kind of fresh," he begins. "It was actually something that Danisz Markiewicz, he's an expert quest designer on my team, the two of us, we actually designed that whole loop. And bear in mind it's 2012 - at that time I think you had one Batman [Arkham] game out, and that was it. I think all other games that have that gameplay loop with clues weren't out on the market yet. You didn't have any Tomb Raiders, the new Deus Ex games weren't out yet. All of the things that, right now, we know that we're so tired of, of having clues in the game and investigating them."

The timeline here, with development well underway in 2012 ahead of The Witcher 3's 2015 release, again demonstrates how games may reflect the trends of their production cycle, not necessarily the trends of their launch window. Games take a long time to make, it turns out, and as complex, multi-discipline projects, they can be hard to adjust. If you set an 18-wheeler rolling down a hill, it's not going to turn on a dime. Player tastes, meanwhile, can change in an instant, especially toward once-novel mechanics that become commonplace or genres that become saturated. 

"But at the time it was really fresh, it was something different," Sasko adds. "And when we were doing it in 2012, we felt it was a great way to do it. Then we did Witcher 3 with it, and one of our conclusions was, ok, we've kind of overdone it, we've kind of overcooked it. There was so much of it in the base Witcher game that, when approaching Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine [DLCs], we were thinking, when we are doing those clues, let's try to do it more consciously, let's try not to have long strings of clues. Clue after clue after clue after clue."

Sasko points to the overall pacing of the experience, and reckons that excessive clues could hurt the flow of the game. Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine noticeably improved on the clue problem, but for overall pacing, Sasko points to Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty as CDPR's crowning achievement. 

"There, that pacing is really, really well-crafted," he says of the DLC. "But already in Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, you could see that we'd learned. There were no situations like in The Witcher 3 where it's like, 'Oh god another blood trail, marks from the foot of a monster. How many times can I go through this?' All of those conclusions came in, and that's why it was just a better work." 

The first quest CD Projekt made for The Witcher 3 led to the best one in the RPG: "There are quests that are not that great, and we're very much aware of that."

Speaking in an interview with Edge, Baldur's Gate 3 art director Alena Dubrovna admits that the developers at Larian wanted the game to reach more players - especially newcomers to the RPG series and people unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons altogether. "We're making it for a modern audience that are young people like me," Dubrovna explains. "So they probably haven't really played the first or second game."

That same thought process during development extended toward potential fans who may be D&D newbies as well. "We really wanted to make it so that even if you don't know D&D or Baldur's Gate, you would still have exciting choices as a player, visually and narratively, and be able to enjoy the experience." This doesn't mean that Larian didn't consider the dedicated stans of the first two Baldur's Gate games at all, though.

Lead writer Adam Smith expands on this, recounting worries from older fans about the third Baldur's Gate: "During the whole of early access, I remember reading a lot of comments from people like 'it's good, but it's not Baldur's Gate.' And we were like 'just have a bit of faith - we know what we're doing on that front.'" Larian managed it by pulling recognizable elements from the original two games, like the character Jaheira, all while striving to remain "honorable to the canon."

"Jaheira was the one who really tied it together," Smith explains, "and always gives me that warm, tingly Baldur's Gate feeling. To me, there's something very heroic but tragic for Jaheira to be reminded of the worst times in her life." As someone who played the games in reverse order following the third entry myself, I loved seeing Jaheira's evolution and other Forgotten Realms legacy characters' newer selves - especially Volo, of course. 

Baldur's Gate 3 studio CEO says that if he couldn't make a D&D game, Fallout and Ultima were the only other RPG licenses he would have considered instead: "There was not a lot to choose from"

Per the official synopsis, the sequel takes us back to the world of The Platform, a "large, tower-style 'Vertical Self-Management Center' prison that houses various criminals. The dozens of floors house two occupants per floor and a free-floating platform delivers food to them on a daily schedule."

Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia returns to direct from a screenplay he wrote with David Desola, Pedro Rivero, and Egoitz Moreno. The cast includes Milena Smit, Hovik Keuchkerian, Natalia Tena, and Oscar Jaenada.

The brief clip, which can be viewed below, is filled to the brim with blood, dead bodies, cannibalism, and fire raining from the sky. As if the first film wasn't upsetting enough, it looks like we're in for another sick, sad time. 

The flagship film, which sits at an 80% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 73% audience score, starred Ivan Massague, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan, Emilio Buale Coka, Mario Pardo, Eric L. Goode, Txubio Fernandez, and Alexandra Massangkay. The Platform had its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival where it took home the People's Choice Award for Midnight Madness as well as a streaming deal with Netflix.

The Platform 2 is set to hit Netflix on October 4. For more, check out our list of the best Netflix movies to add to your streaming queue right now, or, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies in 2024 and beyond.

One-person developer Slavic Magic achieved monumental success with its debut title Manor Lords no matter how you slice it, beating launch records that had long been held by titans of the genre like Cities: Skylines and Civilization 6. Even so, Hooded Horse struck a humble tone in a May interview with Game Developer, arguing that it's "a little unfair to judge us" on Manor Lords' success alone because "publishers shouldn't be judged by their biggest hit."

In an insightful interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender expanded on the holistic lens through which the publisher views its catalog of games. Spurning the perpetual chase for a golden goose that'll please investors, Bender seeks to maintain a business model that doesn't result in any financial pressure that might trickle down to the developer level.

"Sustainability is something we think about a lot," he said. "But usually we think about it in relation to developers. So we're in an interesting situation - we never took money from, like, venture capitalists, or private equity, or international conglomerates, or anything that would put pressure on us. In fact, we even wrote into our bylaws that we can prioritize other things over profits, like artistic integrity and fair treatment."

Without naming names, Bender railed against publishers that treat their business like a venture capitalist firm, investing in several projects at once knowing full-well the majority of them will flop but hoping for just one viral success to carry the whole thing. "It's just a horrible way to think about things, right? It's opportunistic and predatory," Bender said. "People are trusting you with their lives and dreams, they're trusting you with the future of their studio and their employees."

I don't have the time or the insight to explain the intricacies at the center of the layoff crisis battering the industry this year, but a common theme sure seems to be companies rejecting the long road in the interest of short-term profits that'll look good in quarterly financial reports. All too often that materializes in redundancies among teams whose projects didn't immediately meet or exceed sales expectations, even if the larger studio they're under has historically performed well.

Bender went as far as to urge players themselves to spend their money on games backed by publishers who "take care of all the devs, especially the ones that might be struggling." As for developers, he advised they take a close look at any publisher they're considering as a potential buyer and how they care for a stable of developers whose performance on the sales charts will invariably differ.

"What you do for the median game, and what you do for the game that struggled the most, and how you're trying to come back, how you continue to put your efforts into all your games fairly, and live up to the obligations of what you promised those developers, when they trusted their game to you - that means so much more, in terms of whether players should trust a publisher and say, 'oh, I'll try their next game'," Bender said. "That shouldn't be based on the viral hit. And whether a developer who's considering a publisher should trust that publisher, because don't bank on being the next viral hit."

We don't give business advice, but we do have some clutch Manor Lords tips any aspiring land baron should heed.

We've got a fresh preview of interior pages from Daredevil Woman Without Fear #1, showing the lead up to her upcoming fight with the new Punisher, Joe Garrison. 

Check it out:

"After the stunning events of Daredevil #11, Daredevil's allies are left more vulnerable than ever before," reads Marvel's official description of Daredevil: Woman Without Fear #1. "If they're able to survive, it will fall to Elektra and Matt Murdock to not only save their city as Daredevil, but also protect the people they love the most as they're targeted by some of the most dangerous, violent elements the Marvel Universe has to offer!"

In Daredevil #11, out this week, Wilson Fisk's return to the role of Kingpin and his demonic possession escalate, with Fisk showcasing dangerous new abilities, and potentially secret knowledge about Matt Murdock as well.

"I think Elektra is a very different Daredevil than Matt. Aside from their different upbringings and what brought each of them to the horns, Elektra sees her mission differently than Matt," Woman Without Fear writer Erica Shultz told Newsarama. "Matt is forever in a state of penance. Elektra doesn't feel guilt the same way he does, so her motivations differ."

"I think it comes down to the fact that they just look at the world very differently," she continues. "She no longer kills because of the promise she made to Matt, but she also finds it a personal challenge at times. Sure, it's easy to just kill your opponent, but to work outside that is a challenge, and she accepts it."

Daredevil: Woman Without Fear #1 goes on sale July 17.

Check out the best Daredevil stories of all time.