Andrew Webster | The Verge

Your guide to sci-fi streaming season

2026-05-01T08:25:59-04:00

I haven’t quite figured out the reason why, but for the last few years, summer has become the moment for new science fiction shows on streaming services. And 2026 isn’t any different — aside from the fact that premiere dates seem to be moving up a little.

This year, the release schedule is nearly as full in the spring as it is in the summer, which should make it easier to check out everything you want to without having storylines overlap in your brain. In fact, a number of these shows are already streaming now: The alternate future of For All Mankind is currently in the midst of its penultimate season, as is the horror mystery box From. But things really kick off toward the end of May. As per usual, Apple TV is heavily represented.

Here’s a handy list of what’s coming so that you can plan accordingly.

The Boroughs

_{Streaming on Netflix on May 21st}

Since the end of Stranger Things, the Duffer brothers have stuck around to produce a few series at Netflix. And next up is a show that looks like it could capture some of the same classic sci-fi feeling of the early Stranger Things seasons — albeit with a slightly older cast. The Boroughs is set at a retirement community that also happens to be home to an extraterrestrial mystery. The premise is great, but the cast might be the most exciting part: The show features Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Denis O’Hare, Clarke Peters, and Bill Pullman.

Star City

_{Streaming on Apple TV on May 29th}

A lot has happened over the course of the first five seasons of For All Mankind, and while we know the show will wrap up soon, there’s also a spinoff that will take things back to the beginning. In the show’s alternate reality, the Soviet Union is the first country to land an cosmonaut on the Moon, and Star City will show that story from the Soviet perspective. And in a nice bit of synchronicity, the show premieres the same day that season 5 of For All Mankind wraps up.

Sugar

_{Streaming on Apple TV on June 19th}

Sugar is an outlier in Apple TV’s lineup in that it’s definitely a sci-fi show, but it’s also a bit of a secret. On the surface it looks like a classic noir-inspired detective story about a private eye named John Sugar (played by Colin Farrell). But thanks to a major twist in season 1 — you can read all about it right here, though, obviously, spoiler warning — it became something much bigger. Season 2 sees John take on a new case “tracking the troubled older brother of an up-and-coming local boxer, though the search for his missing sister continues.

Silo

_{Streaming on Apple TV on July 3rd}

If Fallout didn’t satiate your need for postapocalyptic stories, Silo is coming back with its own gritty take on the genre. The show is heading into its third season, and while it started out as a seemingly small mystery, its scope has steadily grown, and the new season will expand things further by detailing what happened in the distant past that destroyed the world. There’s a lot for Silo to wrap up in a small amount of time, as Apple has confirmed the series will end with season 4.

Lanterns

_{Streaming on HBO Max on August 16th}

It may be about spacefaring cops with superpowers, but the initial trailers for Lanterns — which, for the non-comic book fans, is an HBO series about the Green Lantern — make it look like a surprisingly grounded police show. The network says that the show will follow “two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.”

Dark Matter

_{Streaming on Apple TV on August 28th}

Based on the novel of the same name by Blake Crouch, Dark Matter is probably the trippiest entry in Apple TV’s sci-fi lineup. The first season centered on a scientist played by Joel Edgerton who… kidnapped himself, thanks to some multiverse shenanigans. According to the official description, season 2 picks up when things seem like they’re getting back to normal, though obviously they won’t stay that way for long.

How Adam Scott became an accidental horror movie star

2026-04-30T08:56:20-04:00

Adam Scott grew up watching horror movies at, as he describes it, “probably too young” an age. But he never set out to work specifically in the genre. Even still, horror seemed to follow him around from the very beginning. His first major film role was in Hellraiser IV in 1996. “It wasn’t because I was a Hellraiser fan,” he says. “It was because it was the job I got.” Later, he took a starring role in Krampus not because it was horror, but because it evoked the kinds of ’80s movies he grew up with, like Poltergeist and E.T. It may not have been intentional, but he’s steadily built up a solid body of work in the genre, including leading the often terrifying sci-fi thriller Severance.

Most recently, he served as the lead in Hokum, an Irish horror movie from Oddity director Damian McCarthy. Again, though, it wasn’t the genre that lured him to the project. “I was mostly attracted to it for the character and the story,” he tells me. “The fact that it was a horror movie was kind of secondary.”

Hokum opens in theaters on May 1st, and Scott plays a novelist named Ohm who ventures to a quaint hotel in Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes. It’s the kind of tucked-away place where goats climb on cars in the parking lot and the basement is almost definitely haunted. Ohm starts out as an asshole struggling with an emotionally difficult task, but as the film progresses and we learn more about both why he is that way and the history of the hotel, his story becomes much more complex. And it’s that element that really attracted Scott to the movie.

“It’s kind of the opposite of the arc in most horror movies,” he says. “Usually a character starts out somewhat innocent and becomes hardened, and this character softens over the course of the movie, and he learns that it might be worth it to save himself and continue living.”

Outside of the character, what interested Scott most was working with McCarthy. He’s a big fan of Oddity, and in particular the way the movie was able to infuse inanimate objects with a very particular kind of terror. “I didn’t know how he did it,” Scott recalls. “I really wanted to work with him to, in one way, find out how he did that.” But that element of Hokum also provided one of the film’s biggest challenges for Scott. A large chunk of the movie takes place in the hotel’s honeymoon suite, which is a dingy, grotesque space. And Ohm finds himself trapped there all alone. For an actor who often plays the straight man, Scott had to learn how to act largely solo for a stretch that lasted several weeks.

“I really depend upon the other actors,” he says. “Usually you find the tone and tenor of a scene with the other actor or actors, you’re all bouncing off of each other. So it was a little daunting. It felt like I was going to be playing tennis by myself. But the room itself, it really started to act as another character. I’ve always thought that was silly when people would say, ‘Oh yeah, well, New York is the seventh character in our story.’ I always made fun of that. But here I was in this room, and I really was interacting with this room as if it was another character.”

He describes the set as being dark and unsettling, a kind of space where he was constantly “discovering bizarre, frightening little details” and which made it “easy to go to that place of being scared and claustrophobic.” In contrast, he describes working with McCarthy as essentially the exact opposite experience.

“He has a crew he’s worked with for a long time, and they trust him implicitly, and he them,” Scott says of McCarthy. “It was just pleasant all around. And we were out in the Irish countryside, in Skibbereen in West Cork, which is one of the most beautiful places in the world. He takes these really terrifying ideas and puts them together in a really relaxed environment.”

Hokum helps further solidify Scott’s place in the genre, and he’s part of a growing list of people working in comedy who have expanded their scope to horror. (See also: the new comedy-horror hybrid Widow’s Bay on Apple TV.) And for Scott, there are clear connections between the genres, which might be why he keeps drifting toward horror despite being best known for his work in comedy.

“When you’re really laughing or when you’re really frightened, there’s nothing you can do about it when it’s actually happening,” he says. “In both [genres] you’re trying to create tension and break that tension with a scare or a laugh, and trying to create a particular tone and atmosphere that serves the joke or the frightening moment. I think there are a lot of parallels with the two.”

Apple TV’s new horror series is scarier because it’s also hilarious

2026-05-01T11:40:06-04:00

Matthew Rhys and Stephen Root. | Image: Apple

Kate O’Flynn views comedy and horror as “kind of the same thing.” Both are at their best when they surprise — a laugh or a scare that comes out of nowhere hits the hardest. That’s why, for the star of the new horror-comedy hybrid Widow’s Bay, mixing up the genres makes perfect sense — they heighten each other. “You’re never on steady ground,” she says. “Your guard is down, and you’re vulnerable to a laugh or a cry or a scream. It’s all up for grabs.”

Widow’s Bay, which starts streaming on Apple TV on April 29th, tells the story of the titular island, which sits off the coast of New England. It has a rustic small-town charm and also happens to very definitely be haunted. There have been countless myths and ghost stories since the town’s founding, along with a possible curse in which anyone born on the island can’t leave without dying. The town’s mayor, Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys), is intent on revitalizing the island and turning it into a tourist destination to rival Martha’s Vineyard. But in doing so he ignores the very clear signs that something is wrong. In the first episode, for instance, a sinister fog rolls into town, but all Tom can think about is a visiting New York Times travel writer.

The show is the brainchild of showrunner Katie Dippold, who has a long track record in comedy, writing episodes for Mad TV and Parks & Recreation and movies like The Heat and the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot. She’s always been a fan of projects that manage to successfully mix the genres — the problem is that they’re rare. “Oftentimes I’ll see a new horror-comedy and I don’t get either the comedy or the horror,” she explains. She cites An American Werewolf in London as a personal favorite that nailed the mix. “I think about it all of the time because it’s terrifying,” she says, “but then they really swing hard for the comedy.”

With Widow’s Bay, her goal was to ensure that the two genres “can feed into each other, and never let the comedy undercut the story or the tension. I never wanted to have a moment where something scary happens and the characters don’t react truthfully. If you’re truthful, then eventually you’ll find the comedy. That was the very hard rule and challenge of this.”

Over the course of its 10 episodes, Widow’s Bay morphs almost into a horror anthology of sorts. There’s the overarching story of the town and its sordid history, but each episode explores different subgenres tied to specific characters and storylines. In one episode, Tom gets a crash course on all of the various curses that have befallen Widow’s Bay when he stays at a haunted hotel where time moves differently. Later, there are episodes that evoke everything from Midsommar to Friday the 13th to a whole lot of Stephen King. That means lumbering killers, sea witches, bizarre rituals, and, yes, even a killer clown at one point. As things progress, and the island’s mysteries deepen and the tension becomes heightened, Dippold says that the comedic elements are designed in a very specific way. “Hopefully it can feel relatable and like a relief,” she says.

For the cast, the task was similar: approach the hybrid nature of the show in a way that felt cohesive and complementary. And doing that, they tell me, mostly meant not thinking about the genres as separate things. “I think Katie built a very real world with very real people with very real problems,” says Rhys. “The biggest thing is to not get in the way of it. It relieves you of the pressure of playing any genre.” Stephen Root, who plays Tom’s rival, a local fisherman who very much does believe in curses, adds, “It’s not playing comedy, or playing drama, or playing horror. It’s playing the reality of the situation and letting it unfold. And hopefully the audience will follow you because they’re interested in the characters.”

Kate O’Flynn. | Image: Apple" data-portal-copyright="Image: Apple" />

Dippold believes that having a background in comedy can prepare you to do great work in horror. After all, two of the genre’s most acclaimed directors of the last few years — Jordan Peele and Zach Cregger — started out in sketch comedy before making films like Nope and Weapons. “There’s a sense of play to those movies,” Dippold says. “I don’t mean that the scary parts are funny. I just really enjoy when horror has a sense of fun to it.”

Ultimately, the goal of both genres is the same: to get a visceral reaction from the audience. They often go about it differently, but the results can be nearly identical. As O’Flynn notes, “When I’m scared, I laugh manically. It comes out as laughter. I think it’s this tightrope of hysteria.” And for Dippold, when it came to crafting the world and story of Widow’s Bay, it wasn’t necessarily all that different from her previous work.

“When I see a good scene in a horror movie in a theater I always laugh,” she says. “It’s almost like a well-constructed joke. Writing a good joke and crafting a good horror scene are two very different things, but there’s a similar energy.”

It’s a busy time for sci-fi, but don’t miss Aphelion

2026-04-27T18:50:49-04:00

The last few weeks have bordered on overwhelming for science fiction fans. While Project Hail Mary is dominating the box office, For All Mankind is currently in the midst of its penultimate season, with a spinoff streaming next month. When it comes to games, Capcom kicked off a new sci-fi franchise with Pragmata, and Housemarque is about to launch the haunting shooter Saros. With all of that going on, it’d be easy to miss Aphelion. It’s a comparatively small and quiet adventure game, one focused more on storytelling than gameplay. But that also makes it a perfect complement to all of the current blockbusters, offering something much more intimate and approachable.

Aphelion is developed by Don’t Nod, a studio best known for the original Life is Strange and more recently the climbing game Jusant. The new game is sort of a mashup of Life is Strange’s storytelling and Jusant’s gameplay. In Aphelion’s near-future, the Earth is very close to becoming uninhabitable, but a recently discovered planet called Persephone has the potential to be humanity’s next home. Two astronauts, Ariane and Thomas, are sent to investigate just how viable the planet is. Naturally, things go wrong almost immediately. The two crash-land on Persephone and are separated. So in addition to trying to complete the mission for the good of humanity, the pair are also desperately trying to find each other on a cold, seemingly barren wasteland.

Aphelion plays like a third-person action game crossed with a walking sim. Much of the time you’re simply making your way through the environment as the story unfolds around you, but there’s also some puzzle-solving and platforming. Eventually, there’s even some stealth when you encounter a terrifying creature reminiscent of the smoke monster from Lost. But Ariane and Thomas find themselves in very different situations, and thus they control very differently. Ariane is mostly healthy and intact, and so her quest involves much of the climbing and exploration. Thomas, meanwhile, was injured and his suit was damaged, so he struggles to navigate the world while dealing with a faulty oxygen tank. There are no weapons, so you deal with everything either by climbing or using tools like a scanning device and a grappling hook.

If you’re comparing it to the other recent sci-fi games, there’s basically a progression: Aphelion is slower-paced and more accessible, Pragmata is a little faster and much more action-oriented, and then Saros is a pure, thumb-wrecking action game.

The story alternates between the pair’s storylines, as they work asynchronously. It’s kind of like a classic sci-fi novel told from multiple viewpoints. Ariane’s sections tend to be more tense and action-focused, with some really great set pieces that lend the game a cinematic vibe, like when you’re making your way through a terrible snowstorm filled with deadly lightning bolts. The Thomas chapters, meanwhile, are slower and more focused, as you uncover all kinds of new information about the mystery of the planet and the company that sent you to explore it.

Much like Pragmata, Aphelion pulls from all kinds of sci-fi influences — everything from Alien to Cat’s Cradle — so that it feels familiar in many ways, particularly when it comes to the core mystery. But what really drives it forward is the seemingly tragic story of its lead astronauts. I wanted to see them reunite much more than I cared about whatever was going on with Persephone, though eventually that mystery grabbed me as well. (Aphelion’s story is perhaps best described as a less trippy version of “The Very Pulse of the Machine.”)

The dual-perspective story is paced nearly perfectly, and at 11 chapters Aphelion is long enough to tell it without overstaying its welcome. The only real issue I had with the game is how rigid it can be. This isn’t anything approaching an open world where problems have multiple solutions. Instead, progress means following the exact route the designers intended.

Usually this works well enough, but there were a few times where I found myself confused about where to go next or how to proceed, all because I missed a small prompt. This happens most often during the climbing sections, where sometimes it looks like you can go somewhere, but making the leap ends with you falling to your death. These moments can be frustrating and mess with the pacing, but Aphelion does at least have very forgiving checkpoints, so when you die you can pick up right where you left off.

Perhaps the game Aphelion reminds me most of is The Invincible. Both are essentially the video game equivalent of a short sci-fi story, something tightly paced and incredibly focused. Aphelion uses the visuals and gameplay of blockbuster action games to tell a more intimate story, and that’s what makes it stand out during this very busy moment for the genre.

_{Aphelion launches on April 28th on the PS5, Xbox, and PC.}

Xbox’s weirdest studio is on a roll

2026-04-24T12:13:19-04:00

For a while there, it seemed like Double Fine might be struggling under the Microsoft corporate umbrella. The game studio led by Tim Schafer is beloved for offbeat titles like Brütal Legend and Broken Age, but after being acquired by Microsoft in 2019, its only new release for years was a long-awaited sequel to Psychonauts. Of late, though, Double Fine is on something of a roll. Last year the studio released the wonderfully strange Keeper, a game about a sentient lighthouse. This week, it launched Kiln, a multiplayer brawler with adorable spirits and a whole lot of pottery. It’s yet another oddball delight that could only come out of Double Fine.

At its most basic, Kiln is a four-on-four competitive game. The goal of each team is to gather water throughout a map, and use it to put out the fire in the opposing team’s kiln. Douse the enemy’s kiln first and you win. It’s sort of like a streamlined take on League of Legends, with a similar structure, but much more clear and obvious goals. There’s no leveling up, no minions, no farming XP. Just a bunch of people running around beating each other up, while trying to carry water across the level.

Layered on top of that simple core is a pottery theme that adds all kinds of interesting wrinkles. In the world of Kiln, each player is a cute little floating spirit that operates a bit like a hermit crab. In order to actually participate in matches, the spirits must inhabit a pot. The kind of pottery you’re inhabiting makes a big difference. They’re essentially character classes; big pots might be able to take a lot of damage while holding little water, while a fragile bottle-shaped pot is the opposite, making it great for offense.

The best part is that you actually sculpt these pots yourself using a virtual pottery wheel. It’s fun and tactile, as you use the joysticks to move up and down a clump of clay and shape it. As you progress in the game you’ll unlock various ways to customize them through little add-ons or colorful glazes. It’s really satisfying to take full control over how your character looks. You can craft a whole bunch of pots, but in each match you’re allowed to bring three with you that you can swap between whenever you respawn. That means there’s some strategy to having a good lineup of pots: they not only look cool, but also give you different skill sets.

As for the matches themselves, while the goal is straightforward, the experience is pure chaos. Even the most sturdy pots are still very destructible, so there’s a real (double) fine line between being aggressive and getting smashed constantly. The controls are pretty simple — you have one regular attack, one special, and you can both roll and jump — and things move very fast. You respawn after just a few seconds so there’s barely ever a moment to catch your breath.

Adding to this sense of chaos is the level design. The stages are all fairly small, so you’re never too far away from the enemy, and each is laid out differently so that where you collect health and water changes up. Each also has interactive elements that add some fun twists. One level has boats that rotate around the battlefield, letting you try to sneak to the opposing kiln, while another features a conveyor belt that introduces everything from explosive boxes to hiding places. My favorite is the level with a disco floor, where anyone caught standing on a tile at the wrong time will find themselves unable to do anything but dance for several important seconds.

While it’s not a shooter, the game Kiln reminds me most of is Splatoon. Both take an otherwise intimidating genre — online competitive multiplayer — and turn it into something playful and approachable. Both require a degree of teamwork, but you can get by pretty easily without voice chat. In Kiln, you just need to pay attention to where your teammates are so that at least somebody is focused on defending your kiln and somebody is splashing water on the opponents’ base. The matches only last a few minutes, but I usually find myself constantly running back and forth on offense and defense, sort of like a bizzarro game of basketball.

That said, there’s a lot of room to grow for Kiln. Right now there’s a single game mode that, while fun, might get stale. Not everything should be a full-on live-service game, but a bit more variety would be welcome.

Kiln is a solid game that manages to cram the highs and lows of a multiplayer game into a tight, concise package. But it’s really that sense of style and goofiness that elevates it. The game is just so silly, like you’re running around in a Saturday morning cartoon beating up your friends. And it’s another sign that, no matter where Double Fine is, it’ll always be weird in the best way possible.

_{Kiln is available now on the PS5, Xbox, and PC.}

Netflix can’t seem to follow up its biggest shows

2026-04-23T10:41:17-04:00

It hasn’t been that long since Stranger Things ended, but even still fans are clearly clamoring for more. The finale was overshadowed by a conspiracy about a secret episode, and an otherwise standard behind-the-scenes documentary became a hotbed for theorizing. Of course, given the scale of Stranger Things, Netflix was never going to let the franchise die completely, but its first attempt at expanding the franchise largely falls flat. Tales From ’85 is a stakes-free return to Hawkins that’s missing most of what made the original series such a phenomenon. And it’s another example of Netflix struggling to turn its biggest shows into ongoing franchises.

Tales From ‘85 is a spinoff that shows what the main cast of kids were up to in between seasons 2 and 3. It’s an animated series with a Saturday morning cartoon vibe, with bright colors and much less violence than the main show. The story has the crew dealing with yet another collection of monsters. Instead of the standard Demogorgons, Hawkins is being overrun with plant-like creatures that have become dangerous thanks to a combination of the influence of the Upside Down and a mysterious green goo.

Like the rest of Stranger Things, Tales From ’85 is saturated with nostalgia. Characters use She-Ra: Princess of Power to explain key plot points, there are scenes that feel ripped out of It, the goo is very Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and there’s even a Ghostbusters-style weapon toward the end. But it’s also nostalgic in a different way. While the later seasons of Stranger Things dealt with the young cast growing up, here they’re frozen in time, unburdened by their impending adulthood. It’s a throwback to simpler times in more ways than one.

The problem with the show is that there are zero stakes. With the exception of a new character — a tinkerer named Nikki who outfits the team with handmade weapons — it’s always clear that nothing too bad can happen to anyone, because we’ve already seen them survive in later seasons. Telling a story like this is a tricky proposition. It needs to be interesting, obviously, but not too interesting because otherwise viewers will wonder why these moments never came up in the main show. There are a few situations like that in Tales From ’85 — I have no idea why Nikki is never discussed in the later seasons given what close friends they all become — but mostly very little of any significance happens, because it can’t.

That’ll likely be disappointing for fans who are hungering for more Stranger Things, but it shouldn’t be too surprising given Netflix’s history. The streamer is good at making hits, but much less successful at expanding them into bigger franchises through spinoffs. Tales From ’85 is just the latest example. While an American version of Squid Game has been rumored for some time, Netflix has so far only followed it up with a reality series and a mobile game, both of which felt completely incongruous with the show’s nihilistic tone. The Witcher, meanwhile, started out as one of Netflix’s premiere shows, but its prequel Blood Origin was forgettable fantasy that somehow made Michelle Yeoh as a sword-wielding elf seem boring. (One outlier is Queen Charlotte, a well-received Bridgerton prequel.)

It’s not like every hit show needs to become an ongoing franchise, of course, and many of these titles — Squid Game in particular — would’ve probably been better off as one-offs. But Netflix wants franchises, and the problem with each of these spinoffs is that the streamer seems to have misunderstood what made the stories so popular in the first place. Tales From ’85 looks and sounds like Stranger Things, but it’s missing the stakes and the drama that made the original so beloved. Without that, it’s just another cartoon inspired by the ’80s.

The idea behind Netflix’s franchise ambitions makes sense from a business perspective. Making a hit show is hard, and trying to capitalize on that sounds a lot easier than starting from scratch. But as Netflix’s track record has shown, making a hit is hard no matter where you start from. Spinoffs and expansions run the risk of simply being watered-down versions of the original, and that’s largely what has happened to Netflix so far.

Despite all of this, Netflix isn’t stopping this strategy as it pushes forth into a new era of franchises following the end of both Stranger Things and Squid Game. A spinoff of Wednesday is in the works, and Netflix’s live-action adaptation of One Piece is getting not only a third season, but also an animated Lego special and a new anime series. Netflix execs have described this process as “building a universe.” The challenge is building one viewers actually want to visit.

Call of Duty never made much sense for Xbox Game Pass

2026-04-22T09:41:12-04:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. | Image: Activision Blizzard

Yesterday Microsoft announced some surprising news: at a time when everything in gaming is getting more expensive, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate was actually getting a price cut. Going forward, the subscription service will drop from $29.99 to $22.99 per month, less than a year after getting a major hike. But there’s a caveat. Along with the cheaper price, Microsoft also announced that future Call of Duty games will no longer be available through Game Pass at launch.

It’s the end to a strange experiment from Microsoft, in which it attempted to boost its subscription service at the expense of selling Call of Duty games, which also happens to be one of the largest and most consistent businesses in video games. By making the change, Microsoft’s gaming division is attempting to solve two problems at once: Game Pass being too expensive and Call of Duty becoming less lucrative. And it could be the start of the company getting back to whatever an Xbox actually is.

The experiment first began in 2024 when Modern Warfare III launched on Game Pass, nearly a year after it first debuted. After that, Microsoft adopted a “day one” strategy, with subsequent releases Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 available on Game Pass at the same time they launched everywhere else. It was an attempt from Microsoft to use one of the most popular franchises in video games to bolster Game Pass, which had largely seemed to plateau at a little over 30 million users.

The concept dates back much further, though, as Microsoft has said that Game Pass is the main reason it spent $68.7 billion to acquire Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard in the first place. “With Activision Blizzard’s nearly 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries and three billion-dollar franchises, this acquisition will make Game Pass one of the most compelling and diverse lineups of gaming content in the industry,” the company said back in 2022.

But that never really happened. Even with Activision Blizzard titles, Game Pass doesn’t appear to have grown much, if at all; we don’t know for sure because Microsoft hasn’t reported subscriber numbers since 2024. But it certainly would if things were going well. Not only did Call of Duty not have a material impact on Microsoft’s subscription service, putting new CoD games on Game Pass also had the very obvious side effect of reducing sales for those games. Last year Bloomberg reported that the company lost $300 million in Call of Duty sales because of Game Pass.

In essence, Microsoft acquired one of the most consistent businesses in the video game industry — selling a new Call of Duty every year — and hindered it in hopes that Game Pass would hit a growth spurt. It disrupted something that worked with the expectation that it would lead to something bigger, and it was wrong. Given just how dysfunctional the games industry is right now, with even hugely successful games and studios struggling (something Microsoft certainly isn’t immune to), that now seems like a particularly bone-headed move.

The timing of the change is also important. Xbox is under new management after an executive shakeup, which saw longtime head Phil Spencer retire and be replaced by new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma. In a leaked memo from last week, Sharma noted that “Game Pass has become too expensive for players.” In a post on X about the price cut, she added that ”We’ll keep learning and evolving Game Pass to better match what matters to players.”

On the surface, the change is a win-win for Microsoft. Game Pass was too expensive, Call of Duty games weren’t selling as well as they used to, and this will likely remedy both of those issues to some degree (though Game Pass Ultimate is still more expensive than it was before the 2025 price hike). It’s also important to note that CoD isn’t disappearing entirely from Game Pass. Existing games will remain on the service, while future titles will be added “during the following holiday season (about a year later),” according to Microsoft.

For Game Pass subscribers, the math is a little more complicated; the service getting cheaper is undoubtedly a good thing, but it also comes at the expense of one of its biggest selling points. It’s far too early to tell if a less expensive, CoD-light version of the service will ultimately lead to more subscribers.

Xbox is at a critical juncture, one where there’s plenty of confusion over what the brand is and what it stands for. Sharma has been vocal about what she describes as “a renewed commitment to Xbox.” What that actually means has been largely unclear. But the Call of Duty news and Game Pass price cut hints at what that might mean, and it looks a lot like correcting poor decisions from the past.

Apple TV has another busy summer of sci-fi with Silo season 3 in July

2026-04-21T09:48:44-04:00

Over the last few years Apple TV has established itself as a force in sci-fi, and that trend looks to continue through 2026. Up next: the post-apocalyptic thriller Silo is returning for its third season on July 3rd. The 10 episode-long season will span 10 episodes and wrap up on September 4th, with new episodes streaming on Fridays.

Based on a trilogy of books from author Hugh Howey, Silo follows the residents of an underground city — the titular silo — that live in a tightly-controlled environment amidst a grim and deadly landscape outside their walls. The first season introduced the story as a small-town mystery, before season 2 steadily increased the scope. Season 3 takes things to a new place: the past, before the events that led to everyone living underground.

Here’s the official synopsis from Apple, which was accompanied by an all-too-brief teaser trailer:

Season three of Silo continues the saga of a dystopian society of 10,000 people living underground under mysterious circumstances, while revealing an origin story set centuries earlier. In the present, Juliette Nichols (Ferguson) survives her forced “cleaning” but returns with memory loss as the silo recovers from rebellion and faces a dangerous new threat. Meanwhile, in the “Before Times,” journalist Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick) and Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) uncover a conspiracy that pulls them into a chain of events with catastrophic, irreversible consequences.

While the first two seasons covered the first book in the series, the last two seasons (Silo has already been renewed for a fourth and final season) will cover the rest of the story. That means that the show is in something of a race to wrap things up.

Silo’s return comes at a time when Apple seems to be showing a renewed interest in science fiction, with plenty of releases in 2026. New seasons of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and For All Mankind are currently streaming, while the spinoff Star City is set to premiere in May. Meanwhile, Silo will be joined this summer by two other returning sci-fi series: Sugar in June and Dark Matter in August.

Splatoon Raiders hits the Switch 2 in July

2026-04-21T09:49:30-04:00

The squid kids will be back this summer. Nintendo announced this morning that Splatoon Raiders, a single-player spinoff of its competitive shooter series, will launch on the Nintendo Switch 2 on July 23rd. It’ll be the first new entry in the series since Splatoon 3 in 2022.

In addition to the date, Nintendo also released a new trailer that gives a better idea of what Raiders will actually play like. Essentially, it looks like it retains the same ink-focused shooter gameplay — and killer soundtrack — from the main series, but translates it to a new campaign. That said, while Nintendo describes the game as “single-player-focused,“ Raiders does include some co-op elements, as you can team up with up to three other players, both online and locally.

Here’s the set-up, according to Nintendo:

Play as a mechanic working with Deep Cut, a trio of swashbuckling musicians, and venture out into the mysterious Spirhalite Islands! Customize your appearance, equip mechanical gadgets and ink-splattering weapons, and take on hordes of aggressive sea creatures called Salmonids in search of treasure.

The announcement of Raiders’ release date helps fill out what is currently a very light lineup for the Switch 2 for the rest of the year. Nintendo just released the life sim Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (which is also available on the original Switch) and a big expansion for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, but the rest of 2026 currently consists of just Yoshi and the Mysterious Book (May), Rhythm Heaven Groove (July), Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave (release date TBD), and now Splatoon.

Which means we’re probably in for some big announcements after this summer to see what Nintendo has in store for the holidays.

The Elden Ring movie hits theaters in March 2028

2026-04-20T09:25:40-04:00

It’s going to be a little while before The Lands Between is realized in movie form. Bandai Namco just confirmed that the live-action Elden Ring movie, which was announced last year, is expected to hit theaters on March 3rd, 2028, with production kicking off this spring.

Based on FromSoftware’s open-world fantasy RPG from 2022, Elden Ring is being produced by A24, and Alex Garland — best-known as the writer of the 28 Days zombie franchise and directing the likes of Annihilation and Civil War — is both writing and directing the film.

While we don’t know much else about the movie just yet, today’s announcement also introduced the main cast. That includes: Kit Connor, Ben Whishaw, Cailee Spaeny, Tom Burke, Havana Rose Liu, Sonoya Mizuno, Jonathan Pryce, Ruby Cruz, Nick Offerman, John Hodgkinson, Jefferson Hall, Emma Laird, and Peter Serafinowicz. There’s no word on what roles everyone is taking on, which raises one important question: who will voice the turtle pope?

Of course, Elden Ring isn’t the only big fantasy RPG being adapted for film. Nintendo is also following up the success of its animated Super Mario movies with a live-action take on The Legend of Zelda, which is slated to premiere on May 7th, 2027.