13 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Entertainment

The Verge’s entertainment section collects the latest news from the worlds of pop culture, music, movies, television, and video games. Whether you want to know what to watch on Netflix or how to make the most of your streaming service budget, the entertainment section acts a reliable source. There’s simply too much to read, watch, hear, and play. Let us be your tour guide.

Laurie Spiegel on the difference between algorithmic music and ‘AI’

The legendary composer is celebrating 40 years of Music Mouse, which brought algorithmic composition to home computers.

Terrence O'Brien
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Sony develops tech to identify source material for AI songs.

It can apparently recognize how much influence a given track or artist had on AI content, and can work with or without cooperation from AI developers. Sony thinks it could be used to create a licensing system for AI music, but “has yet to decide” when it might be put to use.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is shutting down on April 17th.

Activision removed the game from app stores in May because it “did not meet our expectations.” If you’re still playing it, you’ll have a couple months until it’s offline for good.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Apple Music might soon help you find concerts nearby.

It’s a new feature showing up in the app as part of the first iOS 26.4 developer beta, as reported by 9to5Mac.

The beta also includes a new “Playlist Playground” feature that uses Apple Intelligence to make a playlist from a text prompt.

Update: Added Playlist Playground details.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
GameSir is making a GameHub app for Mac.

GameHub on Android let Sean Hollister play the Steam version of Hollow Knight: Silksong on his phone, and GameSir says its new Mac app is “coming soon.” Gamesir claims the app will let you run Windows games natively, and it’s teasing a new controller, too.

<em>GameSir, in an image from its Discord, is promising the app will have “proprietary AI frame interpolation.”</em>
1/2Image: GameSir
Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Curling has never been so popular.

It only took an on-camera F-bomb, accusations of cheating, and then video confirmation to get people to take interest. Is the Olympic sport that features frantic brooming having a Hawk-Eye moment?

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Spotify’s CEO bragged that it’s paying its best developers not to code.

During the company’s Q4 earnings call, Gustav Söderström revealed that Spotify had fully embraced vibe coding. AI is coming for a lot of jobs, and software developer is high on the list of those in danger. Still, it’s shocking that the top devs at Spotify haven’t written any code in 2026. Per Business Insider:

“When I speak to my most senior engineers — the best developers we have — they actually say that they haven’t written a single line of code since December… They actually only generate code and supervise it.” - Spotify CEO Gustav Söderström

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Deezer is giving users more control over their infinite algorithmic Flow playlists.

Flow Tuner lets users pick which genres are included in a Flow session, rather than just disliking individual songs. It’s a hamfisted way to customize your algorithm, but the specificity of Deezer’s options are impressive: Metalcore, Balkan Folk, Schlager. This is well beyond your basic buckets like rock and pop.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The God of War trilogy is getting a remake.

It’s now in development, but still in the “early stages.”

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Here come the X-Men.

The latest trailer for the 2D fighter Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls reveals a squad featuring X-Men like Wolverine and Storm. The game looks ridiculous in the best possible way, and is launching on August 6th on both the PS5 and PC.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Tons of details about Saros.

In a new trailer, Housemarque showed off things like the game’s main hub, the skill tree, a way to fast-travel to different locations, and how eclipses will change the game’s world. Saros launches on April 30th.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
It’s not a sprint.

Bungie’s return to the Marathon universe launches very soon — March 5th! — so here’s a new trailer that sort of gets across what the extraction shooter will be like. You can try it out early with a “server slam” event from February 26th to March 2nd.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
A new John Wick game is in the works.

Right now it’s just called the Untitled John Wick Game, so it seems really early in development. It will feature an “original script set in the John Wick timeline.” The game is a “collaboration between Saber, Lionsgate, and franchise director Chad Stahelski.”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Silent Hill’s next game looks frighteningly good.

Silent Hill: Townfall is set to launch sometime in 2026, and Konami will be hosting a dedicated showcase about the game at 7PM ET.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
A new Castlevania? In this economy?

Yes, it’s true, Konami remembered that the vampire-slaying series exists, and the new game looks sick as hell. It”s described as a “2D action-exploration” developed Evil Empire and Motion Twin, of Dead Cells fame. Launching later this year.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
007 in 2026.

Here’s yet another glimpse at Hitman developer IO’s take on a youthful James Bond, which is launching on May 27th.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Now this is Star Wars racing.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer launches in 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X / S, and PC, and Sony just showed off gameplay in a new trailer. There’s even some podracing!

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Mina the Hollower is getting a PlayStation-exclusive demo starting tomorrow.

Yacht Club Games’ next title was delayed last year, and it will now launch sometime in spring 2026. The game is “larger than all of the Shovel Knight games combined,” Yacht Club Games says in a press release.

Update: Added information from press release.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
The Neva ending story.

The gorgeous adventure Neva is getting a prequel that looks just as beautiful and will probably be just as heartbreaking. The DLC launches on February 19th.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Beast of Reincarnation launches on August 4th.

Based on a new trailer, Game Freak’s next game could be shaping up into something special.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Some resonating gameplay.

Remedy showed off its upcoming Control sequel in action, and it sure looks like it emphasizes the action part of action-adventure game. It’s due out later this year.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Dead or Alive isn’t dead.

Dead or Alive 6 Last Round is coming to PS5 on June 26th. There is also a new entry of the series in development.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
A better look at Pragmata’s world.

Capcom’s sci-fi action game has been getting a lot of screen time lately — it was just featured at last week’s Nintendo Direct — but the newest trailer is a little quieter and slower, giving you a taste of the game’s atmosphere.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Bad Robot’s big new game is kind of giving me Returnal vibes.

Sony will be publishing it, and thanks to a new trailer, now we can get a sense of 4 Loop’s co-operative, roguelike-y gameplay. The team is led by Left 4 Dead designer Mike Booth, so I’m optimistic that it will be a good multiplayer game. You can sign up for playtests now.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Ghost your friends.

The excellent samurai action game Ghost of Yōtei’s multiplayer expansion Legends is launching on March 10th, and it looks to bring a lot more Japanese folklore into the mix, as four-player squads will fight all kinds of mythological creatures.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Kena is back.

Kena: Scars of Kosmora is a new sequel to 2021’s Kena: Bridge of Spirits. It’s launching on PlayStation and PC sometime in 2026.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
PlayStation’s next big State of Play is about to begin.

PlayStation, like other big publishers, has been leaning more into games that follow proven formulas, but I’m hoping we’ll see a few announcements that come out of left field.

The show starts at 2PM ET and is set to last for more than an hour. We’ll be covering it live.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a rollicking parable about this moment in tech

Gore Verbinski’s latest film gets at the heart of everything that makes society feel poisoned about the big push for AI.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
The official Nvidia GeForce Now app has arrived on Amazon Fire TV.

Starting on Thursday, GeForce Now users can stream games directly on Amazon Fire TV devices, including a few new arrivals coming this week like Reanimal and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Fire TVs join a growing list of platforms with support for Nvidia GeForce Now, which even includes Linux.