M3GAN was released worldwide in 2023 and featured a familiar robot killer plot with a little twist. The doll, M3GAN, was made by designer Gemma for her tech company. She decided to test the pairing functionality with her niece/adopted daughter, Cady, and things started to go wrong quickly. After getting rid of M3GAN seemingly for good, it appears the sequel had other plans for the murderous doll.

Earlier this week, Capcom shared a new preview for Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth game in the long-running franchise. According to Capcom, Requiem is already on 1 million wish lists across PSN and Steam. But would the number have been that high if Capcom went through with its original plans to make Requiem an online game?Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi shared an online developer diary on Capcom's official site (via VGC) and revealed that the game was originally developed as an online title. Nakanishi added that the team came up with "interesting concepts" for the game, but ultimately abandoned their online plans when the team realized that RE fans didn't want it. Instead, Requiem was re-envisioned as a single-player game like its eight predecessors.Considering the origins of Requiem as an online title, that may explain why it features Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft from the franchise's first multiplayer game, Resident Evil Outbreak. The story is also picking up the narrative threads from the first three RE games by returning to Raccoon City 30 years after it was bombed to end the zombie infestation. Continue Reading at GameSpot

Raccoon City was the American setting where Resident Evil began. After multiple instalments set around the world, Resident Evil Requiem producer Masato Kumazawa shared why the series is returning to the ruins of this iconic city.In a PlayStation Blog interview, Kumazawa explained that after more recent titles that had explored "the broader universe" of Resident Evil, Capcom wanted a story that "continues the overarching narrative rooted in Raccoon City and the secret machinations of the Umbrella Corporation." Following the T-virus outbreak, the US government ordered a missile strike to destroy the city in order to eradicate the virus. In having players return to its ruins about 30 years later, Kumazawa said that the team also wanted a character "with a personal connection to the city itself," introducing Grace Ashcroft, the presumed daughter of Resident Evil: Outbreak's Alyssa Ashcroft.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Perhaps the oldest, most pernicious form of human bias is that of men toward women. It often started at the moment of birth. In ancient Athens, at a public ceremony called the amphidromia, fathers would inspect a newborn and decide whether it would be part of the family, or be cast away. One often socially acceptable reason for abandoning the baby: It was a girl. Female infanticide has been distressingly common in many societies — and its practice is not just ancient history. In 1990, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen looked at birth ratios in Asia, North Africa, and China and calculated that more than 100 million women were essentially “missing” — meaning that, based on the normal ratio of boys to girls at birth and the longevity of both genders, there was a huge missing number of girls who should have been born, but weren’t. Sen’s estimate came before the truly widespread adoption of ultrasound tests that could determine the sex of a fetus in utero — which actually made the problem worse, leading to a wave of sex-selective abortions. These were especially common in countries like India and China; the latter’s one-child policy and old biases made families desperate for their one child to be a boy. The Economist has estimated that since 1980 alone, there have been approximately 50 million fewer girls born worldwide than would naturally be expected, which almost certainly means that roughly that nearly all of those girls were aborted for no other reason than their sex. The preference for boys was a bias that killed in mass numbers.But in one of the most important social shifts of our time, that bias is changing. In a great cover story earlier this month, The Economist reported that the number of annual excess male births has fallen from a peak of 1.7 million in 2000 to around 200,000, which puts it back within the biologically standard birth ratio of 105 boys for every 100 girls. Countries that once had highly skewed sex ratios — like South Korea, which saw almost 116 boys born for every 100 girls in 1990 — now have normal or near-normal ratios. Altogether, The Economist estimated that the decline in sex preference at birth in the past 25 years has saved the equivalent of 7 million girls. That’s comparable to the number of lives saved by anti-smoking efforts in the US. So how, exactly, have we overcome a prejudice that seemed so embedded in human society?Success in school and the workplaceFor one, we have relaxed discrimination against girls and women in other ways — in school and in the workplace. With fewer limits, girls are outperforming boys in the classroom. In the most recent international PISA tests, considered the gold standard for evaluating student performance around the world, 15-year-old girls beat their male counterparts in reading in 79 out of 81 participating countries or economies, while the historic male advantage in math scores has fallen to single digits. Girls are also dominating in higher education, with 113 female students at that level for every 100 male students. While women continue to earn less than men, the gender pay gap has been shrinking, and in a number of urban areas in the US, young women have actually been outearning young men. Government policies have helped accelerate that shift, in part because they have come to recognize the serious social problems that eventually result from decades of anti-girl discrimination. In countries like South Korea and China, which have long had some of the most skewed gender ratios at birth, governments have cracked down on technologies that enable sex-selective abortion. In India, where female infanticide and neglect have been particularly horrific, slogans like “Save the Daughter, Educate the Daughter” have helped change opinions. A changing preferenceThe shift is being seen not just in birth sex ratios, but in opinion polls — and in the actions of would-be parents.Between 1983 and 2003, The Economist reported, the proportion of South Korean women who said it was “necessary” to have a son fell from 48 percent to 6 percent, while nearly half of women now say they want daughters. In Japan, the shift has gone even further — as far back as 2002, 75 percent of couples who wanted only one child said they hoped for a daughter.In the US, which allows sex selection for couples doing in-vitro fertilization, there is growing evidence that would-be parents prefer girls, as do potential adoptive parents. While in the past, parents who had a girl first were more likely to keep trying to have children in an effort to have a boy, the opposite is now true — couples who have a girl first are less likely to keep trying. A more equal futureThere’s still more progress to be made. In northwest of India, for instance, birth ratios that overly skew toward boys are still the norm. In regions of sub-Saharan Africa, birth sex ratios may be relatively normal, but post-birth discrimination in the form of poorer nutrition and worse medical care still lingers. And course, women around the world are still subject to unacceptable levels of violence and discrimination from men.And some of the reasons for this shift may not be as high-minded as we’d like to think. Boys around the world are struggling in the modern era. They increasingly underperform in education, are more likely to be involved in violent crime, and in general, are failing to launch into adulthood. In the US, 20 percent of American men between 25 and 34 still live with their parents, compared to 15 percent of similarly aged women. It also seems to be the case that at least some of the increasing preference for girls is rooted in sexist stereotypes. Parents around the world may now prefer girls partly because they see them as more likely to take care of them in their old age — meaning a different kind of bias against women, that they are more natural caretakers, may be paradoxically driving the decline in prejudice against girls at birth.But make no mistake — the decline of boy preference is a clear mark of social progress, one measured in millions of girls’ lives saved. And maybe one Father’s Day, not too long from now, we’ll reach the point where daughters and sons are simply children: equally loved and equally welcomed.A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!See More:

Until Death Silent Hill revival is far from over, with the original 1999 cult classic finally being remade After a stellar success with the Silent Hill 2 Remake, Bloober Team and Konami are working together to make a remake of the original game a nightmarish reality. Image credit: Konami/Bloober Team News by Kelsey Raynor Guides Writer Published on June 13, 2025 Off the back of the success of the Silent Hill 2 Remake – a remake that blew my initial low expectations out of the water completely – Konami has announced that it is working with Bloober Team once more to remake the original Silent Hill from 1999. We don’t yet have a release window, however, with the game being announced as ‘in development’ from Bloober Team and Konami, with no additional details. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. This reveal isn’t exactly surprising, given that Bloober Team announced it would be working with the publisher again in future not long after Silent Hill 2 Remake’s release. This led many, including myself, to believe that remakes of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3 would be on the cards. After all, Bloober Team did such a good job of faithfully remaking Silent Hill 2, so it would be a damned shame to not give the studio another shot at remaking more cult classic entries in the series. Fortunately, it’s clear that Konami has thought the same, and Silent Hill fans can now look forward to returning to the foggy, disturbing town of Silent Hill once more. Rather than being introduced to James Sunderland and his less-than-pleasant trauma surrounding his late wife, Silent Hill puts players into the shoes of single father Harry Mason as he and his adopted daughter set off on holiday to the town, in an attempt to seek some respite after the passing of Harry’s wife. Ok, that might seem a little similar to Silent Hill 2, but hear me out. On the way to Silent Hill, Harry and Cheryl wind up in a car crash, and when Harry wakes up, his daughter is nowhere to be found. The story then ensues with Harry desperately trying to find his daughter and meeting all manner of terrifying creatures and kooky characters along the way. This still sounds similar to Silent Hill 2, but believe me, there’s a lot more going on here than the likes of Harry Mason’s psyche that I dare not spoil for folk whose first experience of the story will be this remake. Bloober Team has its work cut out for it remaking yet another Silent Hill game. It’s a lot of pressure to be put on any developer’s shoulders. That said, after just how well Silent Hill 2 was executed and how much well-deserved praise it garnered, I personally have pretty high hopes for anything Silent Hill that has Bloober’s name attached to it. What do you think?

By CHRIS McGOWAN Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. Final Destination Bloodlines, the sixth installment in the graphic horror series, kicks off with the film’s biggest challenge – deploying an elaborate, large-scale set piece involving the 400-foot-high Skyview Tower restaurant. While there in 1968, young Iris Campbell (Brec Bassinger) has a premonition about the Skyview burning, cracking, crumbling and collapsing. Then, when she sees these events actually starting to happen around her, she intervenes and causes an evacuation of the tower, thus thwarting death’s design and saving many lives. Years later, her granddaughter, Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), inherits the vision of the destruction that could have occurred and realizes death is still coming for the survivors. “I knew we couldn’t put the whole [Skyview restaurant] on fire, but Tony [Lazarowich, Special Effects Supervisor] tried and put as much fire as he could safely and then we just built off that [in VFX] and added a lot more. Even when it’s just a little bit of real fire, the lighting and interaction that can’t be simulated, so I think it was a success in terms of blending that practical with the visual.” —Nordin Rahhali, VFX Supervisor The film opens with an elaborate, large-scale set piece involving the 400-foot-high Skyview Tower restaurant – and its collapse. Drone footage was digitized to create a 3D asset for the LED wall so the time of day could be changed as needed. “The set that the directors wanted was very large,” says Nordin Rahhali, VFX Supervisor. “We had limited space options in stages given the scale and the footprint of the actual restaurant that they wanted. It was the first set piece, the first big thing we shot, so we had to get it all ready and going right off the bat. We built a bigger volume for our needs, including an LED wall that we built the assets for.” “We were outside Vancouver at Bridge Studios in Burnaby. The custom-built LED volume was a little over 200 feet in length” states Christian Sebaldt, ASC, the movie’s DP. The volume was 98 feet in diameter and 24 feet tall. Rahhali explains, “Pixomondo was the vendor that we contracted to come in and build the volume. They also built the asset that went on the LED wall, so they were part of our filming team and production shoot. Subsequently, they were also the main vendor doing post, which was by design. By having them design and take care of the asset during production, we were able to leverage their assets, tools and builds for some of the post VFX.” Rahhali adds, “It was really important to make sure we had days with the volume team and with Christian and his camera team ahead of the shoot so we could dial it in.” Built at Bridge Studios in Burnaby outside Vancouver, the custom-built LED volume for events at the Skyview restaurant was over 200 feet long, 98 feet wide and 24 feet tall. Extensive previs with Digital Domain was done to advance key shots. (Photo: Eric Milner) Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein directed Final Destination Bloodlines for New Line film, distributed by Warner Bros., in which chain reactions of small and big events lead to bloody catastrophes befalling those who have cheated death at some point. Pixomondo was the lead VFX vendor, followed by FOLKS VFX. Picture Shop also contributed. There were around 800 VFX shots. Tony Lazarowich was the Special Effects Supervisor. “The Skyview restaurant involved building a massive set [that] was fire retardant, which meant the construction took longer than normal because they had to build it with certain materials and coat it with certain things because, obviously, it serves for the set piece. As it’s falling into chaos, a lot of that fire was practical. I really jived with what Christian and directors wanted and how Tony likes to work – to augment as much real practical stuff as possible,” Rahhali remarks. “I knew we couldn’t put the whole thing on fire, but Tony tried and put as much fire as he could safely, and then we just built off that [in VFX] and added a lot more. Even when it’s just a little bit of real fire, the lighting and interaction can’t be simulated, so I think it was a success in terms of blending that practical with the visual.” The Skyview restaurant required building a massive set that was fire retardant. Construction on the set took longer because it had to be built and coated with special materials. As the Skyview restaurant falls into chaos, much of the fire was practical. (Photo: Eric Milner) “We got all the Vancouver skyline [with drones] so we could rebuild our version of the city, which was based a little on the Vancouver footprint. So, we used all that to build a digital recreation of a city that was in line with what the directors wanted, which was a coastal city somewhere in the States that doesn’t necessarily have to be Vancouver or Seattle, but it looks a little like the Pacific Northwest.” —Christian Sebaldt, ASC, Director of Photography For drone shots, the team utilized a custom heavy-lift drone with three RED Komodo Digital Cinema cameras “giving us almost 180 degrees with overlap that we would then stitch in post and have a ridiculous amount of resolution off these three cameras,” Sebaldt states. “The other drone we used was a DJI Inspire 3, which was also very good. And we flew these drones up at the height [we needed]. We flew them at different times of day. We flew full 360s, and we also used them for photogrammetry. We got all the Vancouver skyline so we could rebuild our version of the city, which was based a little on the Vancouver footprint. So, we used all that to build a digital recreation of a city that was in line with what the directors wanted, which was a coastal city somewhere in the States that doesn’t necessarily have to be Vancouver or Seattle, but it looks a little like the Pacific Northwest.” Rahhali adds, “All of this allowed us to figure out what we were going to shoot. We had the stage build, and we had the drone footage that we then digitized and created a 3D asset to go on the wall [so] we could change the times of day” Pixomondo built the volume and the asset that went on the LED wall for the Skyview sequence. They were also the main vendor during post. FOLKS VFX and Picture Shop contributed. (Photo: Eric Milner) “We did extensive previs with Digital Domain,” Rahhali explains. “That was important because we knew the key shots that the directors wanted. With a combination of those key shots, we then kind of reverse-engineered [them] while we did techvis off the previs and worked with Christian and the art department so we would have proper flexibility with the set to be able to pull off some of these shots. [For example,] some of these shots required the Skyview restaurant ceiling to be lifted and partially removed for us to get a crane to shoot Paul [Max Lloyd-Jones] as he’s about to fall and the camera’s going through a roof, that we then digitally had to recreate. Had we not done the previs to know those shots in advance, we would not have been able to build that in time to accomplish the look. We had many other shots that were driven off the previs that allowed the art department, construction and camera teams to work out how they would get those shots.” Some shots required the Skyview’s ceiling to be lifted and partially removed to get a crane to shoot Paul Campbell (Max Lloyd-Jones) as he’s about to fall. The character Iris lived in a fortified house, isolating herself methodically to avoid the Grim Reaper. Rahhali comments, “That was a beautiful location [in] GVRD [Greater Vancouver], very cold. It was a long, hard shoot, because it was all nights. It was just this beautiful pocket out in the middle of the mountains. We in visual effects didn’t do a ton other than a couple of clean-ups of the big establishing shots when you see them pull up to the compound. We had to clean up small roads we wanted to make look like one road and make the road look like dirt.” There were flames involved. Sebaldt says, “The explosion [of Iris’s home] was unbelievably big. We had eight cameras on it at night and shot it at high speed, and we’re all going ‘Whoa.’” Rahhali notes, “There was some clean-up, but the explosion was 100% practical. Our Special Effects Supervisor, Tony, went to town on that. He blew up the whole house, and it looked spectacular.” The tattoo shop piercing scene is one of the most talked-about sequences in the movie, where a dangling chain from a ceiling fan attaches itself to the septum nose piercing of Erik Campbell (Richard Harmon) and drags him toward a raging fire. Rahhali observes, “That was very Final Destination and a great Rube Goldberg build-up event. Richard was great. He was tied up on a stunt line for most of it, balancing on top of furniture. All of that was him doing it for real with a stunt line.” Some effects solutions can be surprisingly extremely simple. Rahhali continues, “Our producer [Craig Perry] came up with a great gag [for the] septum ring.” Richard’s nose was connected with just a nose plug that went inside his nostrils. “All that tugging and everything that you’re seeing was real. For weeks and weeks, we were all trying to figure out how to do it without it being a big visual effects thing. ‘How are we gonna pull his nose for real?’ Craig said, ‘I have these things I use to help me open up my nose and you can’t really see them.’ They built it off of that, and it looked great.” Filmmakers spent weeks figuring out how to execute the harrowing tattoo shop scene. A dangling chain from a ceiling fan attaches itself to the septum nose ring of Erik Campbell (Richard Harmon) – with the actor’s nose being tugged by the chain connected to a nose plug that went inside his nostrils. “[S]ome of these shots required the Skyview restaurant ceiling to be lifted and partially removed for us to get a crane to shoot Paul [Campbell] as he’s about to fall and the camera’s going through a roof, that we then digitally had to recreate. Had we not done the previs to know those shots in advance, we would not have been able to build that in time to accomplish the look. We had many other shots that were driven off the previs that allowed the art department, construction and camera teams to work out how they would get those shots.” —Nordin Rahhali, VFX Supervisor Most of the fire in the tattoo parlor was practical. “There are some fire bars and stuff that you’re seeing in there from SFX and the big pool of fire on the wide shots.” Sebaldt adds, “That was a lot of fun to shoot because it’s so insane when he’s dancing and balancing on all this stuff – we were laughing and laughing. We were convinced that this was going to be the best scene in the movie up to that moment.” Rahhali says, “They used the scene wholesale for the trailer. It went viral – people were taking out their septum rings.” Erik survives the parlor blaze only to meet his fate in a hospital when he is pulled by a wheelchair into an out-of-control MRI machine at its highest magnetic level. Rahhali comments, “That is a good combination of a bunch of different departments. Our Stunt Coordinator, Simon Burnett, came up with this hard pull-wire line [for] when Erik flies and hits the MRI. That’s a real stunt with a double, and he hit hard. All the other shots are all CG wheelchairs because the directors wanted to art-direct how the crumpling metal was snapping and bending to show pressure on him as his body starts going into the MRI.” To augment the believability that comes with reality, the directors aimed to capture as much practically as possible, then VFX Supervisor Nordin Rahhali and his team built on that result. (Photo: Eric Milner) A train derailment concludes the film after Stefani and her brother, Charlie, realize they are still on death’s list. A train goes off the tracks, and logs from one of the cars fly though the air and kills them. “That one was special because it’s a hard sequence and was also shot quite late, so we didn’t have a lot of time. We went back to Vancouver and shot the actual street, and we shot our actors performing. They fell onto stunt pads, and the moment they get touched by the logs, it turns into CG as it was the only way to pull that off and the train of course. We had to add all that. The destruction of the houses and everything was done in visual effects.” Erik survives the tattoo parlor blaze only to meet his fate in a hospital when he is crushed by a wheelchair while being pulled into an out-of-control MRI machine. Erik (Richard Harmon) appears about to be run over by a delivery truck at the corner of 21A Ave. and 132A St., but he’s not – at least not then. The truck is actually on the opposite side of the road, and the person being run over is Howard. A rolling penny plays a major part in the catastrophic chain reactions and seems to be a character itself. “The magic penny was a mix from two vendors, Pixomondo and FOLKS; both had penny shots,” Rahhali says. “All the bouncing pennies you see going through the vents and hitting the fan blade are all FOLKS. The bouncing penny at the end as a lady takes it out of her purse, that goes down the ramp and into the rail – that’s FOLKS. The big explosion shots in the Skyview with the penny slowing down after the kid throws it [off the deck] are all Pixomondo shots. It was a mix. We took a little time to find that balance between readability and believability.” Approximately 800 VFX shots were required for Final Destination Bloodlines. (Photo: Eric Milner) Chain reactions of small and big events lead to bloody catastrophes befalling those who have cheated Death at some point in the Final Destination films. From left: Kaitlyn Santa Juana as Stefani Reyes, director Adam Stein, director Zach Lipovsky and Gabrielle Rose as Iris. (Photo: Eric Milner) Rahhali adds, “The film is a great collaboration of departments. Good visual effects are always a good combination of special effects, makeup effects and cinematography; it’s all the planning of all the pieces coming together. For a film of this size, I’m really proud of the work. I think we punched above our weight class, and it looks quite good.”

On November 4, 2003, a doctor gave Jon Gluck some of the worst news imaginable: He had cancer — one that later tests would reveal as multiple myeloma, a severe blood and bone marrow cancer. Jon was told he might have as little as 18 months to live. He was 38, a thriving magazine editor in New York with a 7-month-old daughter whose third birthday, he suddenly realized, he might never see.“The moment after I was told I had cancer, I just said ‘no, no, no,’” Jon told me in an interview just last week. “This cannot be true.”Living in remissionThe fact that Jon is still here, talking to me in 2025, tells you that things didn’t go the way the medical data would have predicted on that November morning. He has lived with his cancer, through waves of remission and recurrence, for more than 20 years, an experience he chronicles with grace and wit in his new book An Exercise in Uncertainty. That 7-month-old daughter is now in college.RelatedWhy do so many young people suddenly have cancer?You could say Jon has beaten the odds, and he’s well aware that chance played some role in his survival. (“Did you know that ‘Glück’ is German for ‘luck’?” he writes in the book, noting his good fortune that a random spill on the ice is what sent him to the doctor in the first place, enabling them to catch his cancer early.) Cancer is still a terrible health threat, one that is responsible for 1 in 6 deaths around the world, killing nearly 10 million people a year globally and over 600,000 people a year in the US. But Jon’s story and his survival demonstrate something that is too often missed: We’ve turned the tide in the war against cancer. The age-adjusted death rate in the US for cancer has declined by about a third since 1991, meaning people of a given age have about a third lower risk of dying from cancer than people of the same age more than three decades ago. That adds up to over 4 million fewer cancer deaths over that time period. Thanks to breakthroughs in treatments like autologous stem-cell harvesting and CAR-T therapy — breakthroughs Jon himself benefited from, often just in time — cancer isn’t the death sentence it once was.Our World in DataGetting better all the timeThere’s no doubt that just as the rise of smoking in the 20th century led to a major increase in cancer deaths, the equally sharp decline of tobacco use eventually led to a delayed decrease. Smoking is one of the most potent carcinogens in the world, and at the peak in the early 1960s, around 12 cigarettes were being sold per adult per day in the US. Take away the cigarettes and — after a delay of a couple of decades — lung cancer deaths drop in turn along with other non-cancer smoking-related deaths.But as Saloni Dattani wrote in a great piece earlier this year, even before the decline of smoking, death rates from non-lung cancers in the stomach and colon had begun to fall. Just as notably, death rates for childhood cancers — which for obvious reasons are not connected to smoking and tend to be caused by genetic mutations — have fallen significantly as well, declining sixfold since 1950. In the 1960s, for example, only around 10 percent of children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia survived more than five years. Today it’s more than 90 percent. And the five-year survival rate for all cancers has risen from 49 percent in the mid-1970s to 69 percent in 2019. We’ve made strikes against the toughest of cancers, like Jon’s multiple myeloma. Around when Jon was diagnosed, the five-year survival rate was just 34 percent. Today it’s as high as 62 percent, and more and more people like Jon are living for decades. “There has been a revolution in cancer survival,” Jon told me. “Some illnesses now have far more successful therapies than others, but the gains are real.”Three cancer revolutions The dramatic bend in the curve of cancer deaths didn’t happen by accident — it’s the compound interest of three revolutions.While anti-smoking policy has been the single biggest lifesaver, other interventions have helped reduce people’s cancer risk. One of the biggest successes is the HPV vaccine. A study last year found that death rates of cervical cancer — which can be caused by HPV infections — in US women ages 20–39 had dropped 62 percent from 2012 to 2021, thanks largely to the spread of the vaccine. Other cancers have been linked to infections, and there is strong research indicating that vaccination can have positive effects on reducing cancer incidence. The next revolution is better and earlier screening. It’s generally true that the earlier cancer is caught, the better the chances of survival, as Jon’s own story shows. According to one study, incidences of late-stage colorectal cancer in Americans over 50 declined by a third between 2000 and 2010 in large part because rates of colonoscopies almost tripled in that same time period. And newer screening methods, often employing AI or using blood-based tests, could make preliminary screening simpler, less invasive and therefore more readily available. If 20th-century screening was about finding physical evidence of something wrong — the lump in the breast — 21st-century screening aims to find cancer before symptoms even arise.Most exciting of all are frontier developments in treating cancer, much of which can be tracked through Jon’s own experience. From drugs like lenalidomide and bortezomib in the 2000s, which helped double median myeloma survival, to the spread of monoclonal antibodies, real breakthroughs in treatments have meaningfully extended people’s lives — not just by months, but years.Perhaps the most promising development is CAR-T therapy, a form of immunotherapy. Rather than attempting to kill the cancer directly, immunotherapies turn a patient’s own T-cells into guided missiles. In a recent study of 97 patients with multiple myeloma, many of whom were facing hospice care, a third of those who received CAR-T therapy had no detectable cancer five years later. It was the kind of result that doctors rarely see. “CAR-T is mind-blowing — very science-fiction futuristic,” Jon told me. He underwent his own course of treatment with it in mid-2023 and writes that the experience, which put his cancer into a remission he’s still in, left him feeling “physically and metaphysically new.”A welcome uncertaintyWhile there are still more battles to be won in the war on cancer, and there are certain areas — like the rising rates of gastrointestinal cancers among younger people — where the story isn’t getting better, the future of cancer treatment is improving. For cancer patients like Jon, that can mean a new challenge — enduring the essential uncertainty that comes with living under a disease that’s controllable but which could always come back. But it sure beats the alternative.“I’ve come to trust so completely in my doctors and in these new developments,” he said. “I try to remain cautiously optimistic that my future will be much like the last 20 years.” And that’s more than he or anyone else could have hoped for nearly 22 years ago. A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!See More: Health

Something to look forward to: This year's Summer Game Fest presentation ended with a reveal trailer for Resident Evil Requiem, which Capcom confirmed is the ninth mainline title in the long-running survival horror game series. Details on the upcoming title are scant, but it is set to launch on PC and current-generation consoles in a few months. Capcom has not yet revealed gameplay details for Resident Evil Requiem, as the initial trailer focuses on the story, characters, and locations. The game's scenario appears to draw heavily from the franchise's history, likely to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Resident Evil's 1996 release. Much of the trailer highlights the ruins of Raccoon City, suggesting that players will revisit the setting of the series' first three entries. Brief shots clearly show the decayed remains of the city's police station – where much of Resident Evil 2 and 3 took place – with layouts that appear nearly identical to those in the 2019 and 2020 remakes. Another shot depicts the city's deserted landscape, featuring a crater at its center left by the missile that destroyed the town following the events of RE3. Additionally, the game's protagonist is FBI agent Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of one of the main characters from Resident Evil Outbreak, an online multiplayer spin-off released for the PlayStation 2 in 2003. The game's website mentions technological advancements, suggesting it will showcase the next evolution of Capcom's RE Engine. This graphics engine debuted in 2017 with Resident Evil 7, which was known for its impressive level of realism and surprisingly fast performance. However, more recent titles using the engine, such as Dragon's Dogma II and the enormously successful Monster Hunter Wilds, are far more demanding, in part due to their massive open-world environments. Capcom's shift toward open-world games has led some to speculate that the next Resident Evil title might adopt a similar gameplay structure, representing a stark contrast to the franchise's traditional preference for isolated locations. A ruined city would provide a fitting backdrop for such a radical change, but it's difficult to say what Capcom has planned. // Related Stories Other games revealed this week include Atomic Heart II, Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, Dying Light: The Beast, Lego Voyagers, Killer Inn, Felt That Boxing, Nioh 3, 007 First Light, Lumines Arise, Marvel Tōkon, Thief VR, Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection, and more. More new titles are expected to debut this weekend during the Xbox Games Showcase 2025 on Sunday, June 8, at 1 pm ET. Resident Evil Requiem launches on February 27 on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles.

Ballerina is what happens when a studio wants to extend a franchise but really has no reason to do so except a financial one. Subtitled From The World of John Wick, this action thriller contains too much action and precious little thrills. Directed (maybe) by Len Wiseman of Underworld fame, Ballerina is set in the same universe as the four majestic adrenaline epics starring Keanu Reeves, and incorporates as many elements from those films as possible, including the Continental Hotel and the Ruska Roma, not to mention appearances from Ian McShane, Anjelica Huston, the late, great Lance Reddick, and Mr. Reeves himself. But what is also found in ample supply in the John Wick movies and sadly missing in Ballerina is heart, character, and a sense of conviction. At the center of the movie is a miscast, utterly bland Ana de Armas as Eve Macarro, whose father’s death sent her as a little girl into the custody of McShane’s Winston Scott and, eventually, the tutelage of the Director (Huston) of the Ruska Roma ballet/assassin school. It’s there that Eve goes through the usual training montage, with her inability to dance only matched by her evident aptitude at killing and fighting. Once her training is complete, Eve is sent out into the world on Ruska Roma business, but of course her main goal is avenging her dad, who was killed by members of a mysterious cult led by the enigmatic Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). No sooner can you say “she’s gone rogue” than she does just that, jetting off to Prague in pursuit of a cult member (Norman Reedus) who’s trying to get himself and his own little daughter out from under the Chancellor’s thumb, while finding herself at odds with the Director and pursued by the Chancellor’s minions at every turn. The movie’s thin “lady vengeance” premise, which we’ve seen countless times before, is reheated once again by screenwriter Shay Hatten, who has co-written the last two John Wick entries but seems lost here. Unlike John Wick himself, whose single-minded quest for revenge over the death of his dog took on mythic overtones as more layers to both John and the surreal world of elegant criminality in which he moved were revealed, Eve has nothing to define her that hasn’t been done or said before. It doesn’t help that Armas, while up to the role’s physicality, offers nothing in terms of personality—she’s an empty vessel. Which is a shame, since she’s displayed earthiness (Knives Out), complexity (Blonde), and a sexy playfulness (No Time to Die) in previous work. The rest of the non-Wick cast is forgettable as well, with Byrne’s Chancellor and his entire regime badly underdeveloped, and Reedus completely wasted in what amounts to maybe two scenes. McShane, Reddick, and Huston just go through their paces, spouting lots of portentous lines about “choice” and “fate” that ring mostly hollow, as does a late-stage twist that carries no weight because one of the characters involved barely registers. As for the Baba Yaga himself, the largely non-verbal Reeves is the “Chekhov’s gun” of the film: introduced briefly in the first act, he inevitably turns up again in the third act, parachuted in by the magic of rumored reshoots even though his contribution to the narrative amounts to absolutely nothing. It’s always nice to see him, but if you took him out, it wouldn’t drastically change the picture. Speaking of reshoots, there’s a Frankenstein nature to the proceedings that provides evidence for the reports that Wick director (and franchise torch-bearer) Chad Stahelski refilmed much of the movie after Wiseman’s first draft came up short. While the first act is a murky, enervated slog, things seem to pick up in the middle, with a more eye-catching color scheme (such as a sequence in a neon-lit club reminiscent of a similar scene in the magnificent John Wick: Chapter 4), a creative, free-flowing use of the camera, and some of the more inventive, oddball action that has become part and parcel of the franchise—most notably in a scene where de Armas and an enemy smash a pile of dinner plates over each other’s heads with manic Three Stooges-like energy. Unfortunately, there’s also a sadistic edge to a lot of the action this time as well, particularly in a climactic fight involving flamethrowers that badly wants to emulate the famous overhead apartment shot from John Wick: Chapter 4 but goes on for far too long and ultimately becomes actively unpleasant. That’s a problem with even the better action on hand in Ballerina, as if the filmmakers want to make up for the film’s deficiencies by overdoing what the series is best known for. Hatten’s script was an original piece that was rewritten to fit into the John Wick universe, with elements introduced in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum to pave the way for the arrival of Eve and Ballerina. But this reverse engineering highlights the pitfalls of trying to create a cinematic universe without stopping to wonder whether it’s a good idea. Watching John Wick stonily fight and slaughter his way through his off-center world and its population of funky, eccentric weirdos has been fantastic fun (the threat of an arc-undermining John Wick 5 notwithstanding) because of the unique nature of the character and that world. But dropping the more conventional, cliched tropes of Ballerina into the mix, along with a protagonist (and actor) not nearly as compelling, only exemplifies that the John Wick movies are character-driven first and foremost. All the brutal action, heavy-handed callbacks, and predictable cameos in the world can’t make this Ballerina into a better dancer. Ballerina opens in theaters in the U.S. on Friday, June 6. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!