Month: October 2026

Pokémon TCG may hit select CVS stores in early October: a new place to check

CVS said on Sept. 29 that select U.S. stores will start stocking the Pokémon Trading Card Game Mega Evolution Knockout Collection and Mega Evolution Mini Tin in early October. It’s not the first place most people would think to check, which is exactly why this matters with demand still running high ahead of Pokémon’s 30th anniversary and the holiday season.

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In a Sept. 29 update, CVS said the products should arrive “within the next week or so.” The Mega Evolution Knockout Collection is priced at $14.99, while the Mega Evolution Mini Tin will sell for $12.99.

If you’ve had a hard time finding Pokémon cards at Target, Walmart, or other big chains, CVS is now worth keeping an eye on. Stock will still vary by store, though, and this doesn’t look like a full nationwide reset across the chain.

You could run into the usual issues: low shelf counts, fast sellouts, and online inventory that doesn’t match what’s actually sitting in the store. Checking multiple locations or calling ahead may still be necessary.

That’s the bigger change here. Pokémon cards are moving beyond game shops, hobby stores, and mass retailers. Now they’re showing up in pharmacies too.

Interest in Pokémon cards probably isn’t fading anytime soon, with October 2026 already shaping up to be busy around the 30th Celebration wave and Delta Reign arriving in early November. Check participating CVS stores.

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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms arrives with a spoiler: Game of Thrones already revealed this key death

HBO’s new prequel series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, arrives with an awkward catch: one of its biggest twists may already be out in the open. If you’ve never read George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg stories, Game of Thrones already gave away a major detail about Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen.

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Back in Game of Thrones Season 3, Episode 4, King Joffrey Baratheon points out Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen’s urn in the Great Sept of Baelor and explains what happened to him. Aerion drank wildfire because he believed it would turn him into a dragon. He died horribly.

That hits a little differently now. Aerion Targaryen, played by Finn Bennett, is a major antagonist in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The HBO prequel is set about a century before Game of Thrones and follows Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg. Egg is secretly Prince Aegon Targaryen, who later becomes King Aegon V, which makes Aerion Targaryen his dangerous older brother.

This also isn’t new for HBO’s Westeros shows. Game of Thrones spoiled Rhaenyra Targaryen’s death before House of the Dragon ever got there, and it already tells viewers that Ser Duncan the Tall will become a celebrated Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. If you follow these series, you’ve seen this kind of thing before.

You can watch Game of Thrones on Max, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is part of HBO’s Westeros lineup.

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RuneScape Reignited launches December 2: fresh start, separate economy

RuneScape is getting a reset of sorts. Jagex has announced RuneScape Reignited, a new permanent character type for the live game, and says it launches on December 2 with the idea of giving players a clean start.

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Reignited will have its own economy, Grand Exchange, boss instances, worlds, hiscores, and world-first races. At the same time, it will still share chat, clans, and homesteads with Veteran accounts. Players won’t be able to convert existing characters or gold-swap, paid progression items and Radiant Stars won’t be included, cosmetics will carry over, and Jagex says launch will also bring stronger anti-cheat measures, a remastered early game, and a new Adventure Guide.

Jagex is framing RuneScape Reignited as part of RuneScape’s “year of restoration.” The studio is also teasing Hall of Legends statues for world-first winners, an RS Plugin Beta on October 6, and 2027 story arcs that include Hoard of Dragons, City of Gnomes, and Secrets of Karamja. Player reaction, though, is split: some people are into the reset, while others worry it could divide the player base and put more strain on the main game’s economy.

If you’re new to RuneScape, or coming back after a break, Reignited looks like it’s worth a look when it arrives on December 2. Jagex says players will get free access to member worlds through December 12, after which separate Reignited membership begins.

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Konami renews France deal for eFootball: FFF partnership continues

Konami said today that it has renewed its multi-year agreement with the French Football Federation (FFF) for eFootball. In practical terms, that means the France national team will stay in the series, with Konami continuing as the federation’s Official Football Video Game Partner.

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Konami says the renewed deal extends a partnership that began in 2022. It gives the company commercial, image, branding, media, and activation rights, so France will keep showing up across live-service promotions, squad representation, and broader international tie-ins, even if licensing agreements like this don’t always lead to immediate gameplay changes.

There’s another reason this carries some weight. Konami says free-to-play eFootball, available on PC, console, and mobile, has now passed 1 billion downloads. The game sits at the center of Konami’s business, and the FFF extension adds to a licensing lineup that already includes partnerships with FC Barcelona, Manchester United, Arsenal, and the Confederation of African Football.

If licensed national-team content matters to you, eFootball is still a download worth considering. That said, a lot of players will probably have mixed feelings, since gameplay problems are still part of the conversation and long-requested features like Master League still haven’t arrived. The deal also keeps the French Football Federation tied to esports through its eFoot program, which launched in 2018 to reach a gaming audience and support French esports.

You can download eFootball on PC, consoles, and mobile.

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Ad Astra is now on Netflix: Brad Pitt’s sci-fi drama lands in the US

Ad Astra, James Gray’s 2019 sci-fi drama with Brad Pitt, hit Netflix US on October 1, 2026, as part of a batch of nearly 60 films added that day.

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Gray directs a story about astronaut Roy McBride, who travels out toward Neptune to look into deadly power surges and find out what became of his missing father, Clifford McBride. Tommy Lee Jones plays the father.

Still, the movie itself moves at a different pace than that setup suggests. Ad Astra is slow, quiet, and introspective, more concerned with loneliness, masculinity, parental legacy, and humanity’s place in the universe than with big action beats. It also looks fantastic, moving from Earth to the Moon, then Mars, then deep space, and Pitt keeps his performance very controlled the whole way through.

That probably goes a long way toward explaining the split in its reception. Critics gave Ad Astra an 83% score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences were much less taken with it at 40%, also according to Rotten Tomatoes. The box office tells a similar story: its reported $135.2 million worldwide haul, against a reported $80-100 million budget, landed with a thud because the marketing pitched something more tense and much louder than the movie people actually got.

If reflective sci-fi is your thing, now’s a good time to queue it up, especially since James Gray said in May 2026 that the version released in theaters wasn’t his final cut and that a version about 12 minutes shorter might still show up someday.

You can stream Ad Astra now on Netflix in the US.

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Taylor Swift steals Dakota Johnson’s SNL return: an unexpected monologue cameo

Dakota Johnson came back to host Saturday Night Live on October 3, 2026, her third time doing it, and the opening monologue took a turn when Taylor Swift walked out for a surprise cameo. Johnson joked that since the last time she hosted, she’d lived through “two very public, very lame breakups with two very awesome musicians,” adding that while most people leave concerts with a T-shirt or a hoodie, she somehow leaves with “a two and a half year relationship.” Then she brought out Swift as her “literal therapist.”

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Swift, leaning into both their real-life friendship and her recent work with Johnson, played the bit like she’d been dealing with this for a while. She said Johnson shows up every week carrying an empty bottle of wine and immediately starts oversharing, then dropped a “Cleveland” line that sure looked like a little nod to Swift’s husband, Travis Kelce. The timing also made sense. Johnson had just appeared in Swift’s self-directed “Patient Zero” video, the episode hit on Johnson’s birthday weekend, and it marked her third hosting gig since season 40.

If unexpected, self-aware SNL cameos are your thing, this monologue is probably one to go back and watch. Johnson also got in a line about somehow still promoting 2024’s Madame Web because it “hasn’t made any money yet,” and while Swift’s appearance seemed to light up the studio and the internet right away, the first reactions to Johnson’s full night as host were more split. The monologue is up on NBC and Peacock.

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Solo Leveling Season 3 still has no date: 5 anime to watch now

Solo Leveling season 3 still doesn’t have a release date, and right now the franchise looks set to come back first with the 2027 movie Solo Leveling: Beyond the System. The anime itself may not return until 2027 or even 2028. If you’re looking for that same progression-fantasy rush in the meantime, these five anime should keep you busy.

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When Solo Leveling premiered in 2024, it turned into a worldwide Crunchyroll hit. A lot of that came down to the sharp animation, the nonstop pace, and the way Sung Jinwoo goes from the weakest guy in the room to someone absurdly overpowered.

Start with The Rising of the Shield Hero, where Naofumi gets betrayed early and slowly builds himself into a monster, with season 4 set for July 2025. Then there’s Kaiju No. 8, where Kafka’s hidden power flips his place in the world almost overnight. Shangri-La Frontier scratches the game-system itch with its mechanics, boss fights, and constant skill growth, and Shangri-La Frontier season 3 is planned for 2027. Arifureta takes a darker, more revenge-heavy route, with Hajime coming back as a ruthless force after Arifureta season 3 started in October 2024. And That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime eases up on the grim side a bit, swapping some of that edge for nation-building and a steadier kind of growth.

None of these shows is a one-to-one match for Solo Leveling, but if you like watching underestimated characters turn into unstoppable forces, this is a solid list to pull from. You can stream Solo Leveling and most of these series on Crunchyroll, depending on where you live.

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Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is official: it hits Switch 2 in 2026

Nintendo says a full remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on November 5, 2026. And it’s not a light touch. According to the company, the game adds fully voiced cutscenes for everyone except Link, a dedicated jump button, free camera control, faster swimming, bigger spaces that include an expanded Hyrule Castle Town, and a new Trails of Time guidance system. Visually, Nintendo is calling it a “stylized realism” approach. Producer Eiji Aonuma says the goal is to hold on to the nostalgia while giving the game a more modern look, though the response to that art direction has been split.

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There’s amiibo news too. Nintendo has new Young Link and Young Zelda figures planned for 2027, and the company says they unlock cosmetic-only masks based on their Nintendo 64 designs. Both are already up for pre-order, stock has been going in and out, and yes, the usual argument about locking extras behind amiibo has kicked up again.

Nintendo is also turning Ocarina of Time on Switch 2 into one of the main pieces of Zelda’s 40th anniversary push. That includes a special Nintendo Switch 2 console on October 29, 2026, a world concert tour in 2027, museum activities in Kyoto, and plenty more merchandise. What you still shouldn’t count on, at least for now, is confirmed new story content. Nintendo also hasn’t said which team is developing the remake, even with Monolith Soft rumors still making the rounds.

If you’ve been waiting for a reason to head back to Hyrule on Switch 2, this feels like a pretty good one. It arrives digitally for $60 and physically for $70.

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Amazon plans smart glasses rollout: 20,000 drivers by 2027

Amazon plans to outfit more than 20,000 of its delivery drivers with smart glasses by the end of 2027. Once a van is parked, the glasses would give drivers walking directions, package information, and alerts about possible hazards on the way to a stop.

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Amazon says the glasses will be optional, and says the design was shaped by more than 500 drivers who tested them over 18 months and across more than 275,000 deliveries. But reports also say the devices take frequent still photos for Wellspring, Amazon’s internal mapping system, and it’s not clear what kind of opt-out exists if your home, car, children, or neighbors end up in the frame.

The glasses are also just one piece of a much larger Amazon logistics machine. By Amazon’s account, that system uses forecasting models to place products closer to buyers, about 1 million robots, and software that helps process roughly 600,000 orders every hour, all of it meant to make each stop faster and easier to predict.

Drivers are already working under Amazon van cameras and real-time apps that track what they’re doing. Add another layer on top of that, and for some drivers it could just mean more pressure. Regulators in Europe may also look closely at how transparent the system is, who oversees it, and whether constant monitoring creates discrimination risks.

If you order from Amazon or drive for Amazon, this rollout deserves attention. The glasses are being deployed to Amazon delivery drivers, not consumers, between now and 2027.

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The Witcher 4 targets 2028: Ciri replaces Geralt

Right now, aiming The Witcher 4 at 2028. Ciri is set to take over as the lead, and the studio is treating it as the start of a new trilogy, with Geralt stepping aside. He isn’t gone yet, though. CD Projekt Red is bringing him back in The Witcher 3 Remastered and setting up the 2027 expansion Songs of the Past as a farewell in game form before the series turns the page.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Download

Andrzej Sapkowski, meanwhile, is working on another Geralt novel. The manuscript is tentatively expected by the end of 2027, which makes a 2028 release feel plausible. Sapkowski has said Geralt, not Yennefer, remains at the center, even if the timeline is still unknown. There also seems to be more room for prequels after the novel Crossroads of Ravens, which followed an 18-year-old Geralt after Kaer Morhen, and Sapkowski’s own comment on the subject was simple: “the sky is the limit.”

Fans are split, much like they were when Netflix recast Geralt with Liam Hemsworth and season 4 reportedly fell more than 50% from season 2. Even so, the franchise is still huge. CD Projekt Red said the games had sold 90 million copies by May 2026, with 65 million of those coming from The Witcher 3 alone. The books were also reported at 15 million copies by July 2020.

If you follow The Witcher, this is a shift to keep an eye on. For now, The Witcher 3 Remastered is the one you can actually pick up while CD Projekt Red lines up 2028 for Geralt’s goodbye in the games and, likely, his return in the books.

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