Month: October 2026

Rockstar’s GTA 6 collector’s edition is here: influencer freebies outshine it

Rockstar Games announced the $399.99 Grand Theft Auto VI: The Goodtime State – Vice City Collection on September 25, and the GTA 6 marketing campaign is already catching heat as videos of free influencer merch packs spread online. The bundle itself includes Oakley sunglasses, a Macca the Gator figure, apparel, a New Era cap, and other accessories, but the game still isn’t included, so you have to buy that separately.

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Reports and creator unboxing videos suggest those free influencer boxes also contain unreleased T-shirts, tote bags, a money clip, and, in some cases, a Zippo lighter. On X and Reddit, a lot of fans are saying those extras look more useful, easier to wear, and closer to what they’d actually want to own. Some have gone further and said they’d rather have the free creator kit, or just cancel their orders outright.

If value matters to you, this collector’s edition looks more like something to watch for now than something to buy immediately. A lot of the frustration on X and Reddit comes down to influencers getting free items that look more exclusive than what paying customers get, on top of comparisons to the better-received Red Dead Redemption 2 collector products. YouTuber MoistCr1TiKaL has also reportedly singled out the nearly $400 package, with no copy of the game included, as one of the worst recent examples.

You can pre-order the Vice City Collection from Rockstar Games now. At the same time, some leaked references on Rockstar’s website suggest a few of the influencer-only items may eventually be sold to the public as the promotion grows, including a wider push in Miami and a Miami Heat Vice City tie-in.

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Stan Lee’s first Marvel Captain America story still holds up 85 years later

Stan Lee’s first Captain America story for Timely Comics, the publisher that later became Marvel, appeared in May 1941 in Captain America Comics #3. It wasn’t a comics story in panels, but a two-page prose piece called “Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge.”

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This was long before readers knew Stan Lee, born Stanley Lieber, as Marvel’s public face. He was 18, working as a Timely office assistant and handling odd jobs for Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. He didn’t create Captain America; Simon and Kirby did. He got this assignment partly because prose pages helped publishers qualify for cheaper second-class postal rates, and that small break gave Stan Lee both a byline and a foothold at Timely Comics.

In the wartime story, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes expose Captain Curtis, a treasonous officer trying to kill his commander. What makes it interesting now is how much of Captain America already feels fully there: duty, courage, loyalty, moral clarity. It also features what’s widely credited as an early, and possibly the earliest, ricocheting shield throw.

If you follow Marvel history, this one’s well worth tracking down in reprint. Some period language and wartime tropes come with it, naturally, but it still plays like a World War II adventure. Marvel later adapted “Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge” into sequential art in 2014 for the company’s 75th anniversary.

You can find the original in Captain America Comics #3, and the later adaptation through Marvel’s back catalog.

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Star Trek turns 60: fan-made tech projects are already live online

Star Trek turns 60 in 2026, but fans aren’t waiting for the date to show up on a press calendar. The franchise’s tech-heavy fan scene is already up and running online, from browser-based starships and bridge simulators to LCARS dashboards, old-school software, and 3D-printable props you can download right now.

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Trekorama has rebuilt Star Trek CD-ROM material so it runs in a browser, which means you can poke around bridges, the holodeck, Klingon interiors, and those big open space scenes without digging up old hardware. The Roddenberry Archive has 360-degree tours of the Enterprise bridge. And if a tour sounds too passive, Artemis, Space Nerds in Space, and Empty Epsilon let you run a multiplayer bridge crew yourself, assuming you can round up enough people to fill the stations.

LCARS projects are having another moment too, especially on Android through Total Launcher and Trek: Total Launcher. Beyond that, there are interactive star charts, DIY control panels, and hobby-electronics dashboards floating around online. Older titles are resurfacing as well, including Type Trek and the original 1971 text-based Star Trek game. On the prop side, Thingiverse offers an easy way in with a Next Generation comm badge before you get ambitious and move on to tricorders, phasers, and full starships.

If you want something more hands-on for the anniversary, this is probably the most fun route, especially since Paramount’s official Star Trek 2026 plans still feel a little thin to some viewers. The lineup, according to Paramount, includes restored screenings, a cruise, a Rose Parade float, and Starfleet Academy. Meanwhile, most of the fan-made stuff is already here. You can try it in a browser, on Android, through Linux-friendly downloads, or with 3D-print files online.

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HBO Max and Paramount+ could merge under Skydance: one service after the October 2026 close

Skydance says it expects to complete its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery around October 6, 2026. That’s also when Paramount+ and HBO Max, which is sold as Max in many markets, are expected to be folded into a single streaming service, with the combined company operating under the Skydance name. For subscribers, that’s the biggest shift: Paramount+ and HBO Max are expected to become one platform. Skydance still hasn’t said what the service will be called, what it will cost, or when it will launch, and HBO could still stick around as a sub-brand.

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David Ellison says the service would start with about 200 million subscribers, and analysts think that figure could rise above 240 million by 2030. Coming after Skydance’s $8 billion Paramount merger in August 2025, the larger deal, valued at roughly $110 billion to $111 billion, would also bring Paramount together with Warner Bros., HBO, CBS, CNN, MTV, and an enormous film and TV library.

If you subscribe to both services, this is something to watch as the deal works its way through the remaining approvals. It still needs clearance in nearly 70 countries, an EU sign-off tied to a United International Pictures (UIP) divestment, and a settlement with 12 US state attorneys general. Supporters say the merger gives the company a better shot at competing with the tech giants. Critics are warning about layoffs, fewer greenlights, tighter theatrical windows, and greater influence over CNN and CBS News. You probably won’t get the final streaming details until Skydance takes control next October.

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World of Warcraft Forever patch notes leak surfaces: level 30 cap hinted

A set of supposed World of Warcraft Forever patch notes started circulating online today. If they’re real, the beta update would raise the level cap to 30, set full launch for November 4, add a new Excavation Site: Wetlands zone aimed at levels 26-31 alongside Razorfen Downs and Uldaman, and cut bonus dungeon-quest XP by 50% beyond standard quest values in an effort to slow leveling.

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The same supposed notes also list a grab bag of smaller economy, UI, and quality-of-life changes. Among them: white and green wands would sell for 1 copper, skinning would only work once before creatures disappear, rain would be easier to see, barber shops would be added to Darnassus and Thunder Bluff, camping text would read more clearly, the Boosted Rest debuff would stand out more, campfires would be safer, Rogue-class and racial cooldown support would be added, duplicate spell ranks would be cleaned up, Cannibalize and Eureka would get racial limits, and Druids would get a long round of tuning. That Druid pass includes removing Tiger’s Fury, removing King of the Jungle, giving shapeshifting immunity to Disarm, adding more Rage from crits in Bear forms, and letting Swipe scale with attack power.

If you keep up with World of Warcraft updates, this is something to keep an eye on, but not something to treat as official. Blizzard Entertainment hasn’t announced any game called World of Warcraft Forever, and several details in these supposed notes don’t line up with anything live or formally revealed, including references that seem to point to Undead Paladins.

There’s also nothing to download at this point. These supposed World of Warcraft Forever patch notes read more like a hypothetical ruleset, or maybe a fan-made one, than a confirmed Blizzard Entertainment release.

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Tesla adds Emergency Drive Away: available now for charger emergencies

Tesla has started rolling out software version 2026.38.3 to its cars in the US, and the headline addition is a new feature called Emergency Drive Away. It lets a driver put the car in Drive, confirm the action on the touchscreen, and pull off even if the vehicle is still plugged in. Doing that forcibly breaks the locked charging connection. Tesla says the feature is meant for moments of immediate danger, not for everyday use, and the extra confirmation step is there to stop accidental activation without slowing someone down too much in a real emergency.

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The change comes after sustained pressure from owners following the mass shooting at a Supercharger in Twin Falls, Idaho, in August 2026. Multiple people were killed and injured, including a Tesla driver who was charging at the time.

Tesla is also very clear about the downside: using Emergency Drive Away will severely damage both the charge port and the charger. Some reports put the repair bill as high as $25,000. Deliberate misuse could carry extra penalties, and Tesla reportedly gets a short camera clip when the feature is used so it can review what happened and why the driver activated it.

Other companies had already tried to address this problem. EVject, for example, had promoted breakaway adapters, and Tesla had pushed back on at least one of those products over safety concerns. The issue didn’t come out of nowhere, either. EV drivers at public chargers also deal with vandalism, stolen cables, and harassment.

If you depend on public charging, this is an update you’ll probably want installed. It’s available now in the US for vehicles running version 2026.38.3 or later, with one exception: Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X vehicles built before 2021 don’t get it.

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Wardogs passes $100 million on Steam just weeks after launch

Alinea Analytics says Wardogs cleared $100 million in Steam gross revenue just weeks after its September 10 early access debut, putting Bulkhead’s FPS among Steam’s biggest breakout shooters of 2026.

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The firm now estimates Wardogs at roughly $163.9 million in lifetime Steam gross. It sold 1 million copies in its first 24 hours, reached 2 million in five days, and climbed to about 3 million to 3.2 million by day 18, right around the end of September.

Alinea also puts the game at $86.9 million across the rest of September, with about $70 million arriving in its first week alone. That’s roughly one-third of all Steam revenue from brand-new 2026 IP that month. It also topped 428,000 peak concurrents and settled at around 250,000 players per day after launch.

If you follow early access shooters on Steam, keep an eye on this one.

At the same time, Alinea’s data shows Wardogs still opened behind Helldivers 2, which was at about $130 million on a comparable timeline, and Arc Raiders, at about $125 million. Bulkhead is also still dealing with server instability, pressure from early reviews, DDoS attacks, cheating, the push for fresh content, work on season two, and the chance that player counts cool once the launch hype wears off.

Wardogs is available now in early access on Steam.

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PS5 Slim quietly updated: better cooling and easier battery replacement

Sony seems to have slipped a new internal revision into the PlayStation 5 Slim without saying much about it. A teardown of the limited-edition Marvel’s Wolverine PS5 bundle points to an EDM-051 motherboard, along with changes to the cooling setup, repairability, and the way components are arranged inside. From the outside, nothing appears different. Inside, though, this version reportedly uses a liquid-metal containment system that’s closer to the one in the PlayStation 5 Pro, plus a redesigned heatsink that could help with long-term thermals.

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The teardown also shows a CR2032 CMOS battery that’s much easier to replace. That matters, since the earlier PS5 design raised real concerns about longevity and access to games if that battery failed. The internal layout looks simpler too, and the Marvel’s Wolverine bundle teardown says Sony has swapped in a more cost-efficient HDMI retimer chip.

So if you’re thinking about buying a PlayStation 5 Slim, this is probably the version you’d want, assuming you can verify that it has the new EDM-051 board. That’s especially true in markets where disc-drive models are going for around $649.99.

Right now, though, the only proof is the revised hardware shown in the Marvel’s Wolverine edition teardown. Sony still hasn’t announced the revision, and it’s not clear yet which regular PlayStation 5 Slim units in North America, Europe, or other regions are already shipping with EDM-051 inside.

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Ken Kutaragi now says games are more technical, not more creative

Ken Kutaragi has stepped into the conversation around modern gaming, arguing that the industry now has better graphics, bigger budgets, and stronger tech, but not the same jump in creative thinking.

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He says the industry isn’t mature at all. In his view, it’s moving into a “next stage,” even as industry estimates value the software market at about $186 billion, place 2024 revenue near $187.7 billion, and count roughly 3.42 billion players worldwide.

What stands out in Kutaragi’s argument is where he puts the pressure: risk. Studios can pour money into blockbuster production values and still lean too hard on sequels, remakes, remasters, and formulas players already know.

That concern is easy to understand when AAA budgets now run into the hundreds of millions. It also comes at a time when forecasts say the business could top $500 billion by 2027, while layoff trackers counted more than 10,500 job cuts in 2023 and layoffs kept rolling into 2024.

Anyone who follows AAA gaming will probably recognize the warning.

Kutaragi’s message is aimed at developers and students alike: once developers start acting as if the best ideas are already behind them, progress stalls. That’s part of why smaller teams and indie studios are getting so much attention right now for experimentation.

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Nvidia server smuggling case: California tech CEO arrested over alleged $300m China scheme

Greg Lui runs Earthmade Computer Inc. in City of Industry, California, and also goes by Yiu Kong Lui. Federal authorities have arrested him in a case alleging that he and other conspirators moved more than $300 million worth of Nvidia-equipped servers to customers in China between 2023 and 2024, according to a federal indictment.

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Prosecutors say the group used false paperwork and routed the servers through Malaysia and Singapore to cover up who the real end users were and where the machines were actually headed. Court filings also say some of the buyers were allegedly tied to the Chinese government.

The indictment includes charges such as conspiracy to violate U.S. export laws, smuggling goods out of the U.S., and conspiracy to launder money. One deal singled out in the filing involved 27 Nvidia H100 server systems worth about $7.6 million. If convicted, Greg Lui could face up to 20 years in prison.

If you follow Nvidia or tech export controls, this is a case to keep an eye on. For consumers, it’s another sign that top data-center GPUs are now strategic assets, wrapped up in trade policy, national security, and a growing gray market fueled by strong demand from China.

The federal indictment and related court filings are the documents to watch as U.S. authorities push harder on enforcement across the chip and server supply chain.

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