New Fallout game reportedly led by Josh Sawyer would be "good" for bo…

There are, apparently, multiple Fallout games on the way, including one being made by Obsidian Entertainment. This is an appealing prospect, since that's the same studio that gave us Fallout: New Vegas, and rumor has it Josh Sawyer is back in the director's chair as well. One of the studio's co-founders believes this much is good for both the company and for publisher Bethesda.

Chris Avellone, a co-founder and former senior designer at Obsidian who worked on New Vegas, Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic 2 and more, told the Human Can Opener that he immediately got excited at the prospect of New Vegas's writer returning. "If they got John Gonzalez to be the lead writer again, that's going to be awesome," he says.

"I have yet to play a game that John wrote for that I didn't really enjoy the story," Avellone explains. "Overall, I love his writing. I want to know the answers to these questions that he's presenting to me in the narrative. Having him back at Obsidian is going to make that Fallout game shine." piekny-pies.pl

Gonzalez did come back to Obsidian in January 2025 after a spell at Guerilla Games working on the Horizon series, where he's now creative director. "Back to Obsidian for exciting times! (No, it's not [Fallout: New Vegas 2])," he says on LinkedIn, putting a dampener on Avellone's hopes.

However, it's unclear if he's updated his page since Xbox's massive restructuring of its games studios, where there were hundreds of layoffs, and many teams had their slates changed. Obsidian is one such team, where Fallout became a more central priority according to reports. Gonzalez's focus may have shifted as a result.

Naturally, Avellone gives a hat tip to Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, developers who worked on the original Fallout and its sequel and are now at Obsidian, where he "can't imagine" they wouldn't be incorporated into a new Fallout game in some capacity. "I think it's going to be both good for Obsidian, because I don't know how well their original IP was gaining traction," he adds.

"And I think it's going to be good for Bethesda, in many ways," he says. "Bethesda has chronically long lead times for all its titles coming out, it's just how the studio's always worked." Obsidian could be a "satellite studio" to help share the publisher's workload and increase the cadence of releases.

Considering we're now 11 years removed from Fallout 4 without any concrete evidence of Fallout 5, he has a point. We'll see what the future has in store.

You can't buy Fallout 5 or Elder Scrolls 6 yet, but you can buy Bethesda's new $160 Nuka-Girl statue

The two makers of physics-based tower defense game Sir, We Have an Orc Problem are officially Steam millionaires.

After an explosive launch that brought in $360,000 of revenue in just 24 hours, small German developer Mumpitz Games says its orc-obliterating strategy game has now earned $1,053,927 in gross revenue after "exactly one week," or $898,460 in net revenue with taxes, refunds, and chargebacks removed.

Bear in mind, this game took four months to make, though it was notably made by people with many years of experience and other games under their belt. Obviously, more fees will also be cut out of this lump sum, including Valve's Steam tax, but that's still an enviable payday.

Importantly, the game is good. Short and sweet, Sir, We Have an Orc Problem sits at 2,106 Steam reviews averaging 86% positive. According to the dev's Steam backend data, the median player is putting 5 hours and 20 minutes into the game, which is more than enough to finish it according to many Steam reviews. And I do love me a short, $10 game.

"We will continue to improve the game," Mumpitz adds in its Twitter post. One of the devs previously admitted that, yeah, the art "kinda looks bad to be honest," hoping "maybe we can make it a bit prettier soon."

I do want to pause on those numbers for a minute, because this is a useful example of how wide the reviews-to-sales ratio can swing on Steam. With just over 2,100 reviews but over 128,000 copies sold, Sir, We Have an Orc Problem is averaging around one review per 60 units, which is far above the common napkin math estimate of about one to 30 or so.

Responding to a recent Twitter reply which argued the game has a solid cure but "the balance, art, depth, content are really lackluster," the Mumpitz account says, "I appreciate the valid feedback."

There's also another important number in this mix, and it's something many small teams dream of after releasing a game on Steam. Sir, We Have an Orc Problem is going to keep selling, and it's already comfortably above the revenue threshold believed to be used by Valve when sending out gifts of chocolate.

As Steam sleuth Chris Zukowski explained last year (after the Peak devs lamented previously missing Valve's coveted "chocolate tier"), Steam developers who earn approximately $800,000 in annual revenue receive an actual box of chocolate, estimated to be worth around $150, from Valve as a little thank-you and congratulations. If you cross $2 million or so, your chocolate is apparently upgraded to a $250 gourmet box.

There's a lot of 2026 left, so while Sir, We Have an Orc Problem will surely slow down after the launch sales boom, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up hitting $2 million eventually. It is, after all, in what Zukowski calls "real Steam," the algorithmic promised land that will keep a game ticking over until the sun burns out.

An "extremely challenging" action game is spreading like fire on Steam, with nearly 1,800 reviews that are 92% positive after a week.

As Marvel superheroes go, Spider-Man has suffered a lot more than most. Aside from losing Tony Stark and Aunt May in the MCU, the death of Uncle Ben is often the catalyst that's used to kickstart Peter Parker's entire hero's journey. But through it all, Spider-Man has always remained true to himself, unwaveringly optimistic in the face of loss.

That's his whole schtick really, this resilience that helps carry Spidey through his darkest moments. But Spider-Man: Brand New Day pushes the limits of that more than ever before, not through the death of another loved one but because of an even crueller twist that our hero might never recover from.

At the end of the previous film, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange made everyone forget who Peter Parker is. This spell was needed to help save the day, but that hasn't made it any easier for Peter, who's been forced to live the last four years in solitude.

By the time Brand New Day begins, MJ has moved on with a new boyfriend, still unable to remember that Peter was once the love of her life. Peter remembers, though, haunted by the knowledge that they can never be together again. Or can they?

When Jean Grey discovers Spider-Man's true identity, she threatens to take control of MJ's mind and use her against him, as she has so many other people already. Terrified for MJ's safety, Peter races across town and whisks her away somewhere safe.

Once it seems like the coast is clear, the pair discuss what's going on. Spider-Man tries to explain why MJ is being targeted without giving away who he really is, but talk inevitably turns to their history together. It's as if MJ is on the cusp of remembering, something Peter and we feel when she pulls up the bottom of his mask to take a closer look at him.

In a scene reminiscent of that iconic upside-down snog from 2002's Spider-Man, the pair smooch and embrace. True love's kiss seems to have broken the spell at last and Peter couldn't be happier. That is, until MJ starts describing herself in the third person as they embrace…

Web of deceit

Yep, it turns out Jean has been controlling MJ this entire time just to mess with him, even going so far as to kiss him knowing how much it will hurt.

It's one thing to possess the woman Peter loves, but it's another thing entirely to trick him in such a way. Realising that MJ doesn't remember him after all, that he's no better off than he was four years ago when the spell was first cast, is devastating for Peter in ways Marvel rarely attempts. And to top it all off, Jean then rubs salt in the wound by revealing Peter is never in MJ's thoughts at all.

The scene ends with Jean forcing MJ to jump off the roof, but it's the deceit that hurts most. Spider-Man was always going to catch her in time, but the impact of this cruel twist can't be undone in quite the same way.

During a brief moment of respite, MJ later finds a letter that Peter wrote but never gave to her, one which explains the spell's impact in full and his undying love for her. She quickly confronts him, upset that he didn't give the letter to her himself years earlier.

Peter explains that he was only trying to protect MJ before going on to admit that he still loves her, that she's still everything to him and always will be. But MJ is unable to say any of this back to Peter. She understands why the girl in the letter loved him so much, but she is no longer that girl.

"I don’t love you," says MJ, adding, "I don't even know you."

What Jean did earlier was incredibly sadistic, but the words that come out of MJ's mouth now are even more gut-wrenching – and that's because they're actually true. She really doesn't love him anymore. Sure, the spell's to blame, but the impact is very much the same. Peter is heartbroken beyond measure, experiencing a new kind of loss that tears him apart at the seams.

Poetry in emotion

Both of these scenes hit incredibly hard for us too. After watching this pair fall for each other these past nine years, seeing MJ reject Peter like this is really tough to see. Any breakup would be bad enough, but this is even worse because of how unfair it feels. They should be together, yet they can't be, all because Peter had to make a sacrifice for the greater good.

Such emotional storytelling is still a rarity in the MCU. Some moments have hit hard, of course, but most of them usually revolve around the concept of death. Yondu's funeral, Vision's love persevering, Spidey's own "death" at the end of Avengers: Infinity War… Death is par for the course when it comes to superheroes who risk their lives every day, so these recurring themes are to be expected. What isn't expected is just how gut-wrenching this film's emotional beats are with nary a death in sight.

The circumstances might be fantastical, but the feelings involved are rooted in feelings of loss and rejection that anyone watching can relate to. It helps that Tom Holland has never been better as Spider-Man than he is in these moments, and Zendaya continues to be pitch-perfect too in her delivery, firm in her feeling with a hint of melancholy that comes with knowing the pain her words will cause.

Loss and how Peter keeps fighting despite it remains the driving force, but in unexpected ways that avoid recycling past stories in favour of something new. More than Aunt May's death, more even than Peter saying goodbye to MJ at the end of No Way Home, it's in the pain of these evolving relationship dynamics where Brand New Day sets itself apart as Spidey's most mature MCU outing yet.

What remains to be seen is whether Peter can weather the storm long enough for MJ to return to him. The end of the film hints that this might be possible, especially when we see her holding the same necklace Peter gifted her in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Still, true love might not be enough to break the spell, especially with Doomsday and Secret Wars looming on the horizon.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now. For more, check out the breakdown of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending and our ranking of the best Spider-Man movies.