Star Wars: Unlimited TCG - Intro Battle Hoth

$20

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Asmodee has taken a page out of the Pokemon playbook with its latest addition to the Star Wars: Unlimited TCG catalog. Intro Battle Hoth is a standalone experience geared toward new players of the official Star Wars trading card game. It's very similar in concept to Pokemon TCG: Battle Academy and Disney Lorcana: Gateway. The fast-paced spin on Star Wars: Unlimited is available now for $20. As an added bonus, the game is themed around the Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back.

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Aside from its massive success with Steam, Valve has also benefited from the longevity of Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike 2, which fueled massive in-game marketplaces. However, Dean Hall--the creator of DayZ and Icarus--believes that Valve should be taken to task for using gambling mechanics like loot boxes to monetize Counter-Strike 2.

"It's something I think Valve does not get anywhere near enough criticism about," Hall told Eurogamer. "I'm honestly disgusted with gambling mechanics in video games at all--they have absolutely no place. My challenge to game developers is that if they think these things are not a problem, they make the data available to universities who are crying out to study this stuff."

Loot boxes have largely fallen out of favor in the industry, especially after many attempts to legislate or ban them entirely. In Counter-Strike 2, loot boxes can contain desirable objects like weapon or armor skins that can be traded or resold for real money. But there is often no guarantee that the loot boxes contain the items players want. If players are spending real money to purchase loot boxes over and over again to find what they're looking for, it could be considered a form of gambling.

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Fortnite's worst kept secret--the upcoming Simpsons-themed season, which leaked back in the spring--is fast approaching, and at this point, Epic is officially teasing it. But there's still a little bit of time left in Chapter 6 Season 4, and the final full season of Chapter 6 is going out with a bang. That is, we're getting a live season finale event in Fortnite Battle Royale this weekend that will usher in the all-Simpsons season. Here's what you need to know about Fortnite's next big live event.

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• When is the Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 4 finale live event taking place?
• When will the Fortnite Simpsons season start?

When is the Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 4 finale live event taking place?

The live event is slated to begin on Saturday, November 1 at 8 AM PT / 11AM ET. That's three hours earlier than the usual start time for these things, so plan accordingly. After the event ends, Fortnite will go offline for maintenance in order to deploy the season update.

When will the Fortnite Simpsons season start?

Epic Games is planning for the new season to start on Saturday evening at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET. Fortnite is expected to be offline for about five hours. But that start time is not firm--it could start earlier or later, depending on how maintenance goes.

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Call of Duty Zombies: The Art of Treyarch

$50 | Releases June 16, 2026

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Call of Duty has spent the better part of three decades as one of the biggest video game franchises, and much of that is thanks to the popularity of its recurring Zombies mode, which has been a major part of the series ever since 2008's Call of Duty: World at War. Since then, the mode has appeared in 13 Call of Duty games, including this year's upcoming Black Ops 7, launching November 7 on console and PC. To celebrate its enduring popularity, Call of Duty Zombies is getting its own dedicated hardcover art book, Call of Duty Zombies: The Art of Treyarch, that will explore Call of Duty: Zombies' evolution from a novel bonus to fan-favorite game mode. The book will launch on June 16, 2026, and preorders are available for $50 at Amazon.

Call of Duty Zombies: The Art of Treyarch $50 | Releases June 16, 2026

This 256-page hardcover book examines the origins of this recurring mode, starting from its early days in 2008. You can expect to find exclusive behind-the-scenes interviews with the development team, artwork that has been locked in the Call of Duty vaults for years, and detailed intel on what it takes to make this core part of the Call of Duty franchise. The book is written by James Asmus, who has numerous writing credits for books, comic books, video games, and television.

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Several Call of Duty books have been printed over the years, including other behind-the-scenes art books like Making Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. This 192-page hardcover book provides an in-depth look at the groundbreaking game's development, including the creation of characters, maps, and weapons. And while not technically an art book, you can also pick up the official Call of Duty: WWII Collector's Edition Guide that was published by Prima several years ago. The hardcover 304-page book has a ton of details on the campaign, multiplayer, and Zombies modes. It might be an odd purchase for an older COD game, but it's a cool bit of CoD history that's perfect for collectors and die-hard fans.

Along with these art books, there have also been a handful of stories based on recent Call of Duty games. If you're a fan of 2017's Call of Duty: WWII, then you'll want to check out this tie-in. The Call of Duty: WWII Field Manual is presented as a combat-issued handbook owned by Private Ronald "Red" Daniels. It's full of original illustrations, information on the game's units, vehicles, weapons, and battlegrounds, and it offers a first-hand look at various events that occurred during the campaign set in Axis-occupied France.

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If you don't know what The Backrooms are, you probably don't have kids of a certain age. Born as a more specific branch of the liminal-space genre, The Backrooms is the all-encompassing name for a horror lore bible of sorts that's been handcrafted by communities online over several years. Each inhuman monster and each unnerving location becomes a chapter of a horror universe that the internet built together. It's grown so big that it's spawned dozens of related games, an upcoming horror movie from A24, and what feels like an endless stream of YouTube content to watch. But through it all, Escape The Backrooms has remained one of the most popular portrayals of the fictional world, and now plays like a labyrinthine museum to one of the internet's favorite scary stories.

Escape The Backrooms is a first-person defenseless horror game for up to four players in co-op. It's been popular as a Steam Early Access title for a few years, but its 1.0 version has finally arrived. In Escape The Backrooms, you'll explore a great number of the internet-created pocket universes of the wider Backrooms lore. Each "room" of The Backrooms presents a different take on liminal horror. This includes the iconic yellow labyrinth that kicked off the entire subgenre, as well as other popular landing spots, like Level Fun, the Poolrooms, and the Grassrooms. One of the game's best feats is simply the number of locations it explores. By nature of being owned by, well, everyone in a sense, lore is played fast and loose. Escape The Backrooms does well in involving many of these different rooms, giving players a history lesson on its unsettling universe.

Closely tied to analog horror, The Backrooms as a universe takes on many particular aesthetics.

The gameplay loop is very simple. You'll explore each eerie, liminal space while seeking different means of exiting. Mechanically, you'll hardly do anything at all beyond waving a flashlight around and consuming found cartons of almond water to restore your ever-draining sanity meter. Sometimes, you'll need to solve environmental puzzles, like learning which playground slide you can safely head down (since most eject you in several bloody chunks). Occasionally, key items, including literal keys, must be found to progress, forcing you to repeatedly head off in search of semi-randomly placed quest items. In an early level, you'll need to rebuild a ladder to reach a key to the exit door, for example, while in another, you'll search for elevators in a darkened parking garage that would be totally empty if not for the roaming "skin-stealer" monster hidden in the shadows.

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