New World servers will shut down on January 31, 2027 and the game will not become playable afterward.

Earlier in October 28, 2025, New World made an announcement that the Nighthaven expansion would be the last content and there would be no more holiday events. Yet the game will be playable throughout the 2026 year.

There was a huge Amazon lay-offs of about 14,000 to 30,000 employees which swept through its corporate landscape in October 2025, including Amazon Games Studios. New World players were stunned despite the live player count picking up after the Night Haven release.

The layoffs also cancelled the development of Amazon's Lord of the Rings MMO.

Players discuss and speculate whether private servers are possible. However, some doubt that AGS will keep the IP in the grave due to the gigantic investment during the development. For now, NightHaven boosts will persist until the server shutdown. And I stand by what I think that the New World is a good MMO game but it was poorly executed.

Image by Nintendo

Two years after Nintendo announced that Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0 will be the final update, ACNH will still get a new update after all. Version 3.0 will release on January 15, 2026! The ACNH Switch 2 edition will also release too. Some key features will be:

Razr flip phones are among the best folding flip phone that rivals the Samsung Z-Flip series. Motorola posts on Instagram teasing the new Razr Fold and with a stream date on January 6, 2026. Evan Blass (@evleaks) also posts the Moto Razr Fold render leak at X.

Credit: Evan Blass

I'm not primarily worried about how well Motorola will implement their folding technology since the current Razr series is a big player in the class. In fact, I noticed that Motorola made the first move on placing larger screen on their flip phone's outer display such as the Razr 5G and the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra. Samsung appeared to follow suit and also made their flip phone outer screens larger.

The Motorola "Razr Fold" has a similar size to the recent Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series. They didn't adopt the passport size folio size. If Motorola puts an impressive camera, install a hi-capacity battery, and optimize their costs (that is make their fold less expensive), then they can rake in some customers. New foldable phones are still expensive. And another another mobile provider is always welcome in the smartphone arena. There is no information yet on its specs but it may release this year.

Udo Kier has passed away at the age of 81. He is a famous German actor who also portrayed the iconic super villain Yuri in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2. Yuri can perform mind controls over his enemies and command them as his own. It's a 'troll' power in what was an emerging game about commanding units over real time strategy.

Game-wise, Yuri added a sense of imbalance in the game -- yet it wasn't game breaking. Including mind controlling enemy MCVs. Story-wise, Yuri blanketed Red Alert 2 with mystery. Surprisingly, the Yuri's Revenge expansion came out and it added his own faction which possesses psychic and mind control abilities.

Udo Kier played the perfect villain as Yuri. He also made an icon to a game with only a handful of memorable characters namely Tanya, Boris, or Einstein. The Command and Conquer universe isn't really known for its lore, but every Red Alert fan knows Yuri. He put caution to Real-Time Strategy players that you can't just rush your units or risk being brainwashed.

Udo Kier will certainly be missed especially among Command and Conquer: Red Alert fans.

I admit that the Steam's Fall sale flew under my radar. I thought that it would take place later in October but Steam's Autumn sale is now live from September 29 to October 6. No word yet when GOG's autumn sale will take place. Steam's Winter sale will start on December 18.

Some notable games wishlisted:

Some notable games you can consider:

The Shiny Treasures of Ruin raid event has concluded and players can now claim their Legendary Shiny Chi-Yu after 3,126,823 player global PS/V victories.

Chi-Yu could be the best among the Ruinous Quartet due to its Beads of Ruin ability. It lowers the Sp. Def. of all other Pokemon on the field while Chi-Yu has a very high Sp. Atk. stat. It's also a cute goldfish. In this case, a cute and shiny blue-fish. Chi-Yu also sports a lovely Dark and Fire type combination.

The Shiny Chi-Yu gift distribution runs from September 18 to September 30, 2025. Players can claim the gift without a Nintendo Online Subscription.

How to claim your Shiny Chi-Yu (until September 30, 2025):

1. Launch Pokemon Scarlet / Violet.
2. Select Poke Portal.
3. Select Mystery Gift, then select Get Via Internet.
4. Choose your gift.
5. Wait for gift to load then save.

Now that the Shiny Treasures of Ruin raid is completed, players can now claim all four shiny variants of the Dark Ruinous Quartet. As a sidenote: Pokemon also announced a gift distribution for the Shiny Koraidon or Shiny Miraidon running on September 26 to October 15. However these are retailer specific events by visiting a GameStop shop in the US or an EB Games shop in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Each player will only receive a code for a Koraidon or a Miraidon only despite players owning both games.

Manitoba will increase its provincial minimum wage from $15.80 to $16 on October 1, 2025. The increase looks to reflect Manitoba's 2024 1.1% inflation rate. While Canada's federally regulated minimum wage sits at $17.75.

Opinion: Work on decreasing the price of goods and services instead of increasing minimum wage. Minimum wage cannot go down, so keep it at this point but strive for lower costs to goods and services. Address inflation. Then workers can enjoy more of their $16 hourly wage. Lowering cost to goods and services means involving more producers, increasing supplies, and creating competition.

It may reach to a point where small businesses will no longer afford to pay workers because of expensive costs of material in addition to paying a high minimum wage. If minimum wage becomes unbearable for businesses, workers would be let go or businesses could close. When small businesses close, big businesses (e.g. Amazon, Wal-Mart, etc.) can become bigger. Which creates less competition and increased pricing to goods and services. $15/hr used to look plenty; now we're pushing to $20; but if goods and services are still expensive (i.e. rent, hydro, food) then it creates a loop to increased costs and we're just fooling ourselves with $20/hr.

The Shiny Ting-Lu is now available to be claimed via Mystery Gift in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet after a total 3,556,583 player raid victories. Ting-Lu is a Legendary Gen IX Pokemon and a member of the Ruinous Quartet of Paldea. Ting-Lu is a Dark and Ground type Pokemon possessing the Vessel of Ruin ability which lowers all the other Pokemon's Special Attack on the field.

The Shiny Ting-Lu gift distribution runs from September 4 to September 30, 2025. These gifts can be obtained even without a Nintendo Online subscription.

How to claim your Shiny Ting-Lu (until September 30, 2025):

1. Launch Pokemon Scarlet / Violet.
2. Select Poke Portal.
3. Select Mystery Gift, then select Get Via Internet.
4. Choose your gift.
5. Wait for gift to load then save.

Now we finally wait for the last, the Shiny Chi-Yu, after September 14.

Light No Fire is an upcoming medieval fantasy adventure and survival building game that is developed by Hello Games. It's the same developers who brought us No Man's Sky. Light No Fire is a survival sandbox multiplayer game set on a procedural planet sized fantasy Earth.

What is unclear (to me) is whether all Light No Fire players will play on the same procedural earth or not. In terms of how can you say procedural if you can't differentiate it from another instance? However the procedural aspect can also mean that most of the landscape will be procedurally generated as this fantasy Earth will be immensely massive. The planet is planned to be earth size on scale including giant mountains and vast oceans.

Light No Fire can be played both singleplayer and multiplayer similar to No Man's Sky. Exactly how multiplayer will unfold, there's still no concrete information. Player races include humans, elves, ogres, humanoids, and beasts. The game sets up this premise of adventure but also of homesteading and beyond. And along the lines of civilization building.

No Man's Sky recently released their Voyager update which features multi-crew starships and ship building. Light No Fire's release date is still TBD but it is expected around 2026, which would also be around the time for No Man's Sky's 10th anniversary. Check out Light No Fire on Steam.

The Shiny Chien-Pao is now available to be claimed with after total 5,020,994 player victories. Chien-Pao is one of the Legendary Gen IX Ruinous Pokemons of Paldea with elements of Dark and Ice. The gift distribution runs from August 21 to September 30, 2025. These gifts can be obtained even without a Nintendo Online subscription.

How to claim your Shiny Wo-Chien (until September 30, 2025):

1. Launch Pokemon Scarlet / Violet.
2. Select Poke Portal.
3. Select Mystery Gift, then select Get Via Internet.
4. Choose your gift.
5. Wait for gift to load then save.

Next is we wait for the Shiny Ting-Lu raid results after August 31.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is hosting an event to give players a chance to get their own shiny ruinous Pokemon. According to Pokemon.com, from July 22 to September 14, a 5-star Tera raid for a Shiny Wo-Chien, Shiny Chien-Pao, Shiny Ting-Lu and Shiny Chi-Yu will appear but players will not be able to capture them when they're defeated. Instead, each will will unlock if the number of global player victories reach one million per ruinous Pokemon.

And the Shiny Wo-Chien is now available to be claimed with total 6,078,885 player victories.

It should also be noted that these are 5 star raids which are easier than 7-star raids.

How to claim your Shiny Wo-Chien (until September 30, 2025):

1. Launch Pokemon Scarlet / Violet.
2. Select Poke Portal.
3. Select Mystery Gift, then select Get Via Internet.
4. Choose your gift.
5. Wait for gift to load then save.

The Ruinous Legendaries, also known as the dark quartet, are the legendary Pokemon of Paldea. All have a base dark type with a mix of another element. They are also the last set of Pokemon that need to be captured in order to complete the Paldea Pokedex. Each Ruinous Pokemon can be battled after collecting their corresponding stakes spread across the map and then heading to their respective shrines. They're pretty powerful with the right build especially Chi-Yu with a high base Sp. Attk and the Beads of Ruin ability which lowers all Pokemon Sp. Def. in the field.

Wrestling legend and icon Hulk Hogan has passed away at 71. He died from cardiac arrest according to authorities.

Clearwater Police Department and Clearwater Fire Department posted a statement on Facebook finding Terry Bollea, also known as Hulk Hogan, in his Florida Home. Clearwater Fire and Rescue attempted to treat Hulk Hogan before Sunstar Paramedics took him to Morton Plant Hospital where he was pronounced deceased.

Some of Hulk Hogan's notable memories were his match with Andre the Giant, his tag-team and feud with Macho Man Randy Savage, the forming of NWO in WCW, and a return to WWE Wrestlemania X8 match with The Rock. He is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time but was marred with a number of controversy and scandal. He worked on various roles as a manager post-wrestling in WWE, TNA, AEW, and NJPW as a host. He also made numerous appearances on TV as an actor and host. As well as doing voice acting in other media. Hulk Hogan is a Christian who accepted Christ as savior at age 14 and was baptized in Decemnber 2023.

image by Pokemon.com

The first Pokémon themed amusement park will come to Tokyo in spring 2026. According to Pokémon.com: PokéPark KANTO will be the first-ever permanent outdoor Pokémon attraction. The grand opening of PokéPark KANTO will be in early 2026, and advance ticket sales are expected to begin in late 2025.

On another news, Pokemon Legends: Z-A for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 will release on October 16, 2025.

Civilization VI: Platinum Edition will be free in the Epic Games Store which you can redeem and permanently save to your game library. The Civilization VI: Platinum Edition costs CA$97.99 at face value. And it includes two expansion packs, alongside 6 DLC packs namely new civilizations and scenarios.

This Civ 6 edition is the ideal bundle with tons of new features, gameplay, and AI fixes. It's almost the complete version and I'm seriously fine and set with this edition to start or restart my Civ 6 playthrough. Grab it now from Epic before July 24.