A colony sim set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. Build and defend your base. Manage your survivors. Engage raiders, aliens, Remnant soldiers and other factions in real-time-with-pause combat. Or use stealth to outwit them. Explore the massive world. Survive at all costs.

Halloween is close than you think, making now a great time to prep for spooky season by picking up this new compilation featuring two horror stories by Stephen Graham Jones. Graham Jones is a big name in the world of horror novels, winning numerous writing awards like the Ray Bradbury Award and the Bram Stoker Award. If you're seeking an introduction to his work, the new Saga Doubles two-novel compilation featuring The Killer on the Road and The Babysitter Lives is a solid place to start. Not only does it include two of Graham's stories in one, but you can also grab the book at a slight discount for $18.59 at Amazon (normally $20).

Saga Doubles: Killer on the Road & The Babysitter Lives $18.59 (was $20)

Combining two novels into one, the 480-page paperback double pack features full versions of Graham's books Killer on the Road and The Babysitter Lives. If you're unfamiliar with these book, The Baby Sitter Lives is a haunted house tale while Killer on the Road is a thriller that follows a high-school student targeted by a serial killer. Along with both books, this Saga Doubles edition sports unique dual-sided binding with new cover art for both books.

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On the fence? A short sample of the book is available on Amazon, giving you a chance to read through a few pages before making a purchase. Graham Jones' unique writing style is bound to appeal to most readers--but be sure to give the digital sample a look if you're not quite sure you want to add it to your shelf.

This double-pack is part of a new series of compilations from Saga Press, which pull together two books into a single package. There are several other compilations joining the Saga Doubles line soon, including Saga Doubles: Red Star Hustle + Apprehension that includes crime stories from award-winning authors Sam J. Miller and Mary Robinette Kowal. It releases for $20 on October 21. Saga Doubles: Dreadful Dark: Tales of Nighttime Horror/Merciless Sun: Tales of Daylight Horror bundles two anthologies--one featuring horror stories that take place in the day, the other at night. It arrives a bit earlier on September 2 for $20.

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Epic Games apparently removed passive XP gains from Fortnite's main Battle Royale and Zero Build modes on Thursday afternoon, in the midst of its Summer Road Trip event that will award a free Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 car body for gaining XP to complete a series of daily quests. Playing Battle Royale had awarded 550 XP per minute, or a little less than half a level per hour, just for existing in the game mode--but that's no longer the case.

While this certainly is a bit of a nerf, it's actually not typical for Battle Royale and Zero Build to give passive XP. In fact, passive XP was only just added to those modes at the beginning of the current season--before then, we lived without it. The change had made leveling the battle pass this season meaningfully faster.

Assuming the change will stick for a while, there are two fairly obvious potential reasons for the change. The Summer Road Trip event is one of them, since its quests simply require gaining XP to complete. You only need to gain eight total levels across these quests, so the lack of passive XP in BR probably won't slow anyone down very much. Another possibility is that we're approaching the end of Chapter 6 Season 4, and this change will make it a little tougher for folks who are just now getting started on the battle pass to catch up before the season ends on August 7.

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Pokemon Detective Pikachu Steelbook Edition (4K Blu-ray)

$28 (was $33)

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Amazon has the Detective Pikachu Limited Edition Steelbook on sale for only $28. Released in late April, this 4K Blu-ray edition had climbed to as high as $42.49 last month (and prior to launch). The current $28 price matches the all-time low for this adorable collectible version of charming live-action Pokemon film.

Detective Pikachu originally released on Blu-ray back in 2019. At the time, Best Buy had an exclusive edition with a steelbook case. That version is long gone--Best Buy doesn't even carry movies these days--and is regularly listed for ridiculous prices on eBay and other marketplaces. The new edition comes with a different steelbook case featuring Ryme City's best detective.

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Bungie had a lot to prove going into Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate. After a year marred by shock layoffs, the delay of its upcoming shooter, Marathon, following poor player feedback during betas, and less-than-favorable views about Destiny’s monetization system, all eyes were on the studio to see where it would take its most beloved franchise next. 2024’s Destiny 2 expansion, The Final Shape, was one of the series’ most successful. It beautifully and coherently tied up a decade’s worth of story, culminating in a tense and exciting battle against the biggest, baddest Big Bad that the universe had ever seen: The Witness.

Naturally, following such a satisfying and full-circle conclusion, Destiny players were concerned about what a new saga would look like. The seasonal content that followed The Final Shape was lacklustre at best, with major character deaths thrown in seemingly for the shock factor rather than meaningfully contributing to the narrative. As a result, player numbers plummeted to some of the lowest that Destiny 2 has ever seen. Bungie’s best-in-class narrative team seemed to be floundering, so when I jumped into The Edge of Fate, I was skeptical, to say the least. I need not have worried. Well, not for the narrative aspect, anyway. From a gameplay perspective, there are a lot of concerning stumbles.

The 14-mission campaign is monotonous, at best. While Bungie has completely reworked the armor and gear systems--more on that later--the best aspects of it are locked behind the now-trademark Destiny 2 grind. With your power level reset and the weapons in your Vault effectively powerless, Bungie claimed this was to put everyone on an even footing ahead of the new saga, but in reality it feels like years of work and thousands of hours of grinding for the best weapons was a pointless endeavour.

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Earlier this month, Skybound and QuarterUp announced that Rex Splode would be joining Mark Invincible, Atom Eve, and more on the playable roster for Invincible Vs.--the 3v3 tag-team fighting game coming next year. Today, during Robert Kirkman's panel at San Diego Comic-Con, the Invincible creator announced another new fighter for the game, and this one is a little more beastly.

Battle Beast--the fearsome warrior who travels the Invincible universe looking for a fighter to give him a glorious death--is the latest entrant into the Invincible Vs roster. The reveal trailer for the giant showed off some of his smashing moveset--including one attack where he smashed his club into Bulletproof so hard, it knocked off his head and limbs.

Battle Beast becomes the sixth confirmed fighter for Invincible Vs., joining the previously mentioned Invincible, Atom Eve, Bulletproof, and Rex Splode, as well as the Viltrumite Thula. Two other Viltrumites, Lucen and Omni-Man, did feature in the game's initial reveal trailer in June, but neither have been officially confirmed as playable characters.

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