Author: Louise Ann "LA" Maca

Zynga updated Game of Thrones: Legends on September 12 and added A Blood Debt, a limited-time Legend Trial built around Oberyn Martell. The event runs from September 12 through September 22. During that stretch, players can work through event-specific stages and pick up Champion Shards for the Legendary Champion Oberyn Martell, then use those shards to unlock him and push up his Star Rank.

Oberyn’s arrival is one of the bigger September additions to Zynga’s free-to-play puzzle RPG. And because Pedro Pascal’s season 4 turn remains such a fan favorite, this one has an easy hook even for people who don’t usually pay much attention to mobile RPGs. Zynga also has more Summons and Champions coming this month, including Aemond Targaryen shards through PvP Tier Rewards.

If you play Game of Thrones: Legends on a regular basis, this is an event you’ll probably want to pick up. The game has stayed near the top of the download charts, with thousands of daily players, and reports say it cleared $1 million in revenue in its first 11 days. Still, that doesn’t erase the usual complaints: some players continue to call its monetization pay-to-win, and in those same estimates, the US made up 47% of total earnings.

You can download Game of Thrones: Legends for free on iOS and Android through the App Store and Google Play.

The Ghost and the Darkness, the 1996 Val Kilmer thriller, is now streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S., according to Paramount+. That alone should put the movie back on people’s radar.

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If that’s not an option where you are, there’s another way to find it. The film is also available to rent or buy through Apple TV and Prime Video in several countries, according to listings on both platforms, which makes it easy enough to track down a movie that slipped from major studio release into forgotten-gem territory.

The Ghost and the Darkness stars Val Kilmer alongside Michael Douglas in Stephen Hopkins’ survival thriller, written by William Goldman and based on the 1898 Tsavo attacks in Kenya, when two man-eating lions terrorized railway workers. Kilmer plays engineer John Henry Patterson, and Douglas plays hunter Charles Remington. The movie pulls together historical drama, creature-feature suspense, and that old-school action-adventure style that used to be everywhere. Reviews were mixed when it came out, but it still earned about $75 million worldwide on a reported $55 million budget, won the Oscar for Best Sound Editing, and over time built a cult following for its atmosphere, practical effects, South African landscapes, and even the rough production history behind it.

If you like pre-CGI survival thrillers or just want to give an underrated 1990s adventure another shot, The Ghost and the Darkness is well worth grabbing. You can stream The Ghost and the Darkness now on Paramount+ in the U.S., or rent or buy the film digitally depending on your region.

In 2026, Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic 2001: A Space Odyssey is back in the conversation. Christopher Nolan, the director of Interstellar and Oppenheimer, has once again called it “pure cinema.”

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Nolan has long said that 2001: A Space Odyssey communicates through image, scale, sound, and feeling more than through tidy plot mechanics. He traces that reaction back to seeing the film when he was seven. Even now, he says he doesn’t fully understand everything the film is doing, which helps explain why you can feel 2001 all through Interstellar and across Nolan’s broader fascination with awe, cosmic mystery, humanity’s place in the universe, and the limits of knowledge.

That admiration turned practical in 2018, when Nolan helped present an unrestored 70 mm print struck from the original camera negative, so audiences could get something closer to the tactile, photochemical experience of 1968 rather than a digitally cleaned-up version.

If you follow Christopher Nolan or Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey still makes sense to pick up in 2026. Steven Spielberg has called the film the “big bang” for his generation, and 2001 remains central to criticism, filmmaker interviews, repertory screenings, and online debate. The 2020 monolith sightings pushed it back into mainstream headlines too.

You can revisit 2001: A Space Odyssey at repertory screenings, including 70 mm showings, or through streaming platforms and home video.

Babylon 5: The Road Home is out now, and it’s put the spotlight back on Babylon 5, still one of the most ambitious sci-fi shows television ever produced.

Years before binge-watching was even a thing, J. Michael Straczynski built Babylon 5 as what he called a “novel for television.” The series was mapped across a planned five-year arc, so character reversals, political crises, and prophetic threads could land seasons after they were first set in motion.

The show takes place on a neutral station at the center of interstellar diplomacy. From there, Babylon 5 pulls in aliens, starships, war, peace, fascism, religion, propaganda, free will, and the human condition, all inside a universe that feels scientifically grounded and mythically huge at the same time. That’s a big part of why fans and critics still rate it so highly, and why its sense of cosmic wonder and dense lore still gets compared to Carl Sagan and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Babylon 5 also helped shape early serialized television well before Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and The Expanse. Its 1990s CGI space battles and large-scale environments do look dated here and there, but they gave the series a visual identity all its own, always in service of the story. That legacy helped Babylon 5 pick up two Hugo Awards and a Saturn Award.

If serialized sci-fi with big ideas is your thing, Babylon 5 is an easy one to pick up, and its place in TV history seems secure whether the Warner Bros. Television reboot happens or not.

You can watch Babylon 5: The Road Home now, while the reboot remains in development for a new platform.

Horror had a big 2026. There wasn’t just one breakout hit either. Original chillers, internet-spawned nightmares, and franchise follow-ups all hit, and the genre stayed one of the most lively parts of the box office.

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Obsession still looms over the year. Made for about $750,000, it turned into a real phenomenon and pulled in more than $500 million worldwide. But there was more going on than the obvious juggernaut. Backrooms, drawn from creepypasta and YouTube lore, turned online unease into something fully mainstream and finished with more than $394 million globally.

Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple made less money, but it ended up as one of the most admired horror movies of 2026. As the fourth film in the franchise, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple pushed the series outward through cruelty, hope, care, and compassion. Sam Raimi’s Send Help won critics with its survival-horror tension, streak of dark humor, and strong lead cast. Adam Scott’s Hokum gave the year another well-reviewed supernatural entry.

If you needed proof that horror doesn’t have to pick between new ideas and familiar names, 2026 had plenty of it. Originals like Obsession and Backrooms thrived right alongside Scream 7 and Insidious: Out of the Further. You can catch the 2026 horror lineup in theaters and on the major digital platforms.

Reports out of Japan say the Super Sentai franchise could go on pause after No.1 Sentai Gozyuger. If that happens, Power Rangers loses the Japanese action-footage pipeline that’s shaped the series ever since Mighty Morphin Power Rangers adapted Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger back in 1993.

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That matters for a pretty simple reason. By using Super Sentai footage for the suits, the fight scenes, and the giant robot battles, Power Rangers could keep making new seasons without having to film every big action sequence from the ground up. Even a temporary break would disrupt the production model that kept Power Rangers going for more than 30 years.

Those same reports from Japan say Toei is weighing a hiatus because ratings have slipped and toy sales aren’t what they used to be. There’s also talk of a new tokusatsu initiative, Project R.E.D., which would reportedly begin with Super Space Sheriff Gavan Infinity.

If you follow Power Rangers, this is something to keep an eye on, especially now. Power Rangers Cosmic Fury already looks like the last traditional Sentai-based season, Hasbro’s Netflix reboot and Jonathan Entwistle’s later Disney+ reboot have both reportedly been scrapped, and any fully original replacement would need a much larger budget, a new identity, and better merchandising support.

For now, you can watch Power Rangers Cosmic Fury on Netflix while waiting for official word on what happens next.

Bepuzzled released The Legend of Zelda President Hudson Sign puzzle today, an officially licensed cast-metal brain teaser pulled straight from the Addison sign side quests in Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

It’s made by Bepuzzled with Hanayama, and Bepuzzled gives it a level 6 difficulty rating, so this isn’t just something to stick on a shelf and admire.

It’s also the fifth entry in Bepuzzled’s Zelda puzzle line, following earlier designs based on familiar series staples like the Hylian Shield and the Triforce. This one goes in a different direction, drawing from a very specific Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom-era gag instead of one of the franchise’s more universal symbols.

If you spent hours helping Addison keep President Hudson’s signs from toppling over, this feels like a Zelda merch pickup actually tied to that memory, especially since it’s more distinctive than the usual figure or art book.

You can get it right now from retailers including Amazon for around $37.79, though wider international availability is still hard to pin down; it also lands after Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom on September 26, 2024, for players who are still invested in this version of Hyrule.

A new Japanese poster for Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday is making the rounds, and one detail jumps out right away: the X-Men logo sits there with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and Wakandan characters. For a movie set to open in Japan and the US on December 18, 2026, that’s about as clear an official signal as Marvel has given so far that mutants could actually matter here.

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If that read is right, this looks like more than a last-second cameo or a post-credits nod. The poster fits with a wider marketing push that groups together several of Marvel’s biggest teams, which makes the X-Men placement feel deliberate, not decorative.

Reports have described Avengers: Doomsday as a multiverse event that pulls in Earth-616, Earth-828 for the Fantastic Four, and Earth-10005 from Fox’s X-Men movies. At the center of it is Doctor Doom, played by Robert Downey Jr., with the story reportedly putting the heroes on a “deadly collision course” as those realities start to overlap.

Ever since The Walt Disney Company bought 21st Century Fox, fans have expected mutants to become a major part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Seeing the X-Men given the same billing as Marvel’s other marquee groups makes it feel like the studio may finally be heading that way.

So if you’ve been waiting for the X-Men to actually count in the MCU, this is one to keep an eye on, especially with reported returns from Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, James Marsden, Halle Berry, and Famke Janssen. There’s already plenty of speculation online and in Japan, even though Marvel Japan still hasn’t said anything about the poster.

Avengers: Doomsday opens in Japan and the US on December 18, 2026.

Gran Turismo 7 has started its latest Viewers Gift Campaign on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. It runs through August 31, 2026 at 8:59 a.m. UTC and gives eligible players two free Stealth Model cars, as long as they register in-game and open the Gran Turismo World Series Round 2 broadcasts from the World Map, according to Polyphony Digital.

The main thing is where you sign up. You need to register inside the game, not through YouTube or another video platform, then open the Gran Turismo World Series Round 2 broadcasts from the World Map for a few seconds. You don’t have to watch the full streams. Eligible players should get the rewards on September 1, 2026 through the Gifts tab, Polyphony Digital says.

The promotion includes the Toyota FT-1 Vision Gran Turismo (Gr.3) and the Mazda 787B ’91, both in matte-black Stealth Model form. The Mazda 787B ’91 will probably be the bigger draw. It’s one of endurance racing’s most famous cars, the Japanese icon that won Le Mans in 1991, and it’s been a Gran Turismo favorite for a long time.

If you collect rare Gran Turismo 7 cars, this one’s worth grabbing. Polyphony Digital says these Stealth Model versions aren’t expected to go on sale later in the in-game store. The campaign is also tied to the Gran Turismo World Series broadcasts, and after earlier registration issues caused by server overload, Polyphony Digital says the system has been restored, so it’s smart to claim them sooner rather than later.

You can grab the giveaway now in Gran Turismo 7 through the World Map’s Gran Turismo World Series Round 2 Viewers Gift Campaign on PS5 and PS4.

A developer update posted on August 27, 2026 announced Game of Thrones: Ancient Ruins as a limited-time event for Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming, not a separate new game. In that update, Ancient Ruins was presented as a new cross-server activity built around a “mysterious grand prize,” but a lot is still unclear. You still don’t know exactly how it works, how long it’ll last, what the rewards look like beyond that one prize, or whether Old Valyria will be used for exploration, story missions, special battles, or something else entirely. The event isn’t live yet, though it looks likely to show up soon in Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming on browser and mobile.

What makes this stand out is Old Valyria, the vanished dragonlord empire destroyed in the Doom of Valyria and one of the most important pieces of House Targaryen lore. That alone gives Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming a chance to get away from the usual run of castles and battlefields. If you’re already playing Yoozoo Games’ officially licensed 2019 real-time strategy game for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and HBO, this update looks like one to keep an eye on, especially now that Game of Thrones: Dragonfire has been out since June 2026 and Game of Thrones: War for Westeros is still expected in early 2027.