WTF Happened July 2025
Welcome to the July 2025 edition of WTF Happened 2025! I did this thing in 2024 where I recapped what happened in each month after the month was over. Those posts were a moderate hit, so I'm keeping it going indefinitely! If you have anything you want to suggest for next month, be sure to share it with me on social media. I'm very active on Bluesky as @Syrsly.com.
Business, World & Health News
Wisconsin Abortion Rights Preserved! Again!
In the United States, there's this wee little place up north that's shaped like a severed head with its brains blown out named Wisconsin where many years ago, a fight was brewing between Planned Parenthood and those in government who claimed abortions were banned due to a 1849 law that was supposively reactivated when Roe-v-Wade was overturned. A judge's ruling in July 2023 stated that the state's laws permit consensual abortions regardless of the old law because it was not about consensual medical abortions and was more about legally protecting women from men who would threaten their unborn child. (AP) Despite this previous ruling, Republican Joel Urmanski AKA "Big Bitch Bro" wrote a 14-page opinion piece on the ruling and submitted the article to the court. On July 2, 2025, this opinion piece was dismissed, and the state's Planned Parenthood clinics continued abortion procedures. Regardless of the outcome, Urmanski should be ashamed of himself for even fighting this battle. He gives Karen vibes because he admitted that from an early age, he wanted to be a prosecutor in this 2014 video. "What a douche," said the only comment on the video, posted only 4 weeks ago, probably due to the abortion ban case.
U.S. will fine $10,000 per violation for buying counterfeit goods
Damn U.S. Republicans are cracking down on good times as always. They passed the "One Big Beautiful Bill" or as I like to call it, the "Most Awful Piece Of Legislation", and it takes effect pretty much immediately. Part of thie De Minimus Ban part of the bill is anyone importing anything can be fined $5,000 for facilitating import of goods which are determined to be in violation of any law, and any additional penalties can be up to $10k if more than one item is charged. Basically, they can fine you any amount they choose based on how they count your items, and they can charge you this penalty regardless of any evidence you didn't know it was there. There's no mention of consumer safeguards with this penalty, either. They're giving customs greater power, and I think this is all an effort to scare people into not importing anything from sites/apps like Temu or AliExpress. That's another win for Amazon. 
Imagine this could kill spike prices for handheld emulator machines in the States. If you want one, buy it locally.
California farm raids by ICE and CBP led to violent encounter with protesters and death of a farm worker
Camarillo, California farms were raided by ICE AKA "federal agents" on July 10. These raids were countered by protesters who felt there was no other choice than to make a spectacle on route to the farm and block the path to the workers. According to FOX LA, the protesters were not peaceful, but I saw footage of this protest from multiple sources, and it took an absurd amount of not just rude or recklessly aggressive behavior by the ICE agents to get any kind of remotely violent response from the protesters. Regardless of the protesters' restraint, a farm worker died after falling from a roof during this raid operation. The worker wasn't even one of the people being persued, but he was so terrified by the raid that he climbed onto a roof that couldn't support his weight and fell 30 feet. (ABC7) According to multiple sources, during this highly publicized raid, ICE was performing another raid on another farm at the same time with much less resistance. It is likely they planned to leak this location as a distraction to more quietly get detainees from at least one other location, Carpinteria. (Independent) Just one week later, we had articles spreading about a disabled U.S. Army veteran, George Retes, suing over being in detention after the Camarillo raid. On July 30, Sheriff Bill Brown was asked to speak out against the tactics used by ICE agents by 29 elected officials in a signed letter. (Independent)
It should be noted that a lot more has happened than I'm stating here. If you're at all interested in this mess, you'll have to do your own research. I just hope I helped with said research a little bit. Everyone should know how to read into news rather than just read news.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia sent to Maryland to await trial to avoid deportation
Kilmar's been fighting tooth and nail to stay in the country that wants to send him to a prison that's not even in the same country. His legal battle continued through this month. Basically, he managed to evade a second deportation by standing trial in Maryland for human smuggling charges. Kilmar was deemed safe for release from jail to await his court date, but Kilmar's lawyers requested he stay in jail to keep him safe from those who would detain him elsewhere. (PBS) I don't know the man, but I doubt he's a danger to society, and even if he was, why would we deport him just to make him someone else's problem? That's selfish. We should be helping all people to become better members of society rather than kicking them to the curb the first chance we get. I hope when all is said and done, Kilmar gets restitution.
Entertainment News
Celebrity News
Angelina Jolie + Johnny Depp Part Deux
Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp co-starred in a film, The Tourist, in 2010. Depp supported Jolie in her break-up with Brad Pitt during this time. Since then, they have stayed in touch, and after the Amber Heard trial ended in Depp's favor in 2023 and Jolie reached a settlement with Pitt in 2024, Jolie has been discreetly meeting with Depp on a regular basis. (Yahoo!) Jolie has admitted before that she had a crush on Depp's Edward Scissorhands (Japan Times), and honestly, this is looking like a match made in heaven.
AI company employees spotted on megacam cuddling at event
"On Wednesday, July 16, during a Coldplay concert at Gillette Stadium in Boston, Andy Byron, the CEO of data and AI company Astronomer, was spotted on the venue’s large screens embracing Kristin Cabot, the company’s human resources director. As the camera lingered, Andy reacted not with a smile, but by collapsing to the floor in an apparent panic. Kristin, visibly uncomfortable, covered her face. The video -- has since amassed tens of millions of views across every social platform. It has become one of the most talked-about clips of the summer. It has taken over the internet." (Luc Olinga, Gizmodo) You can view the original footage on TMZ. You can view so... many... memes and parodies, though! Even a Simpsons parody! Wanna find more? Search "coldplaygate" on any mainstream social media platform. Twitter/X was where most of the memes got posted, but you can still find some elsewhere.
Captain Sandy launches maritime charity for kids
Captain Sandy Yawn of Below Deck Mediterranean fame started a charity program, Steering Towards Success, to fund maritime education for children and teach kids of all ages and perhaps adults about the many careers related to the marine industry, including welding, carpentry, and electrical work. (RealityTea) I think this is a really cool program and hope it spreads further, because I truly believe a lot of people fail to live up to their potential simply because society fails to build them up. Invest in your nation's future by investing in educational programs.
CBS canceled Colbert
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was officially canceled in July. The show will continue its current run through to Summer next year. (NJ.com) Colbert was known for his really aggressive anti-Trump jokes in recent years, and some believe that's why his show won't see a renewal next year. To me, it's an old show, and I barely watched it anyway, but many people love his show.
Zelda Live Action leading cast confirmed
This is a bit of an anti-celebrity bit of news, but go with it. Nintendo confirmed the leading cast of the upcoming live action The Legend Of Zelda movie! The role of Link will be played by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth and the role of Zelda will be played by Bo Bragason. (Wario64)
Web & Streaming News
Firefox New Tab feature got custom images
In Firefox version 141.0, on July 22, tab features were updated with a lot of new features, including a local AI that helps with organizing tabs into groups, vertical tabs interface improvements, and the ability to upload your own background picture for the new tab interface. (Release Notes) The AI features can be easily disabled, and these features should only impact performance when actually used.
Syrsly created a PCVR Bluesky feed
I created my first Bluesky feed. Here's a link to it. Let me know what you think!
Age Verification Laws Boost VPN Usage and Threaten the Open Internet
The U.K. got some age verification laws enacted on October 23, 2023. (Wired) Those laws went into effect on July 25, 2025. According to Wired, coinciding with this event was a rapid increase in VPN use. Even Bluesky seems to be affected. (Verge) I personally think the internet should fight back and 100% boycott U.K. traffic for having the balls to enact such laws. They say we have to obey their laws if we do business there. Let's take a page out of the porn site playbook and ban the whole country from accessing our major social media platforms based on the country's IP ranges. Then, for anyone viewing our sites from those IPs gets an error message stating why they're banned, blaming their backwards anti-privacy, anti-freedom and pro-censorship laws. I have half a mind to start doing this on my own site, but these laws barely affect me right now, so I don't think I will bother with it. Why waste the time, right?
Google posted scary AI dog video
Here's the video (YouTube) of two dogs in a flat photo being AI-evolved into talking dogs like something out of the 90s classic, Homeward Bound. Wait, wasn't Homeward Bound just video of the animals without any mouth CG? Yeah, I think I prefer that. This video was made to advertise a new Google gen-AI tool called Google Flow. I haven't used the tool, and I don't really want to give it a try. It scares me as an old fart afraid of change. BRING BACK AOL! 
New & Returning Shows July 2025
Reality & Game Shows
My Big Fat Fabulous Life got its season 13 premiere on July 1. 13?! God damn! *Ahem.*
Comedy Shows
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia got its seasion 17 premiere on July 9! 17 tops 13, but this one, I can understand. Awesome show.
Animations
South Park season 27 premiere episode aired July 23. Jeezus! I ain't got time for this. Sike! I always have time for South Park. 
South Park S27E01 was as anti-Trump as possible and used gen-AI to show Trump strip down in a desert and show his insanely small pee-pee with cartoon eyes on it. Yeah. That happened. Can't wait for the rest of the season!
Superheroes & Scifi (and Video Game Shows)
Watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 starting July 17th if you need more silly scifi space sitcoms in your life.
Twisted Metal season 2 airs July 31st.
Dramas & Thrillers
The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 aired July 16th. I will be catching up on this show soon. I promise.
Upcoming Shows
Alien: Earth is coming August 12th, 2025, on FX/Hulu. I will be watching this one ASAP! It looks gooooood.
New Movies July 2025
Superman
released July 7! That movie kind of ruled the public consciousness for
the whole month due in part to its political entanglement but also due
to its really high review scores. You can read my review on Letterboxd.
It's far from a perfect film, and it's not quite as fantastical or as
believably depicted as previous Superman films, but it's a fun action
flick with amusing characters. Definitely worth a watch, especially if
you like the Peacemaker show. 
Fantastic Four: First Steps released July 25! This Marvel movie was the most direct competition for Superman and actually outperformed Superman's opening weekend by just $1 million. I liked the movie, but it was a bit... bland. My wife admitted she was very confused because she was surprisingly completely new to Fantastic Four despite knowing we were going to see this movie. She should have done her research, right?
We also saw Liam Neeson in his shorts.
Upcoming Movies
Sony
announced GOAT, a movie about a goat that plays basketball. It looks
visually pleasing and may be a good animation, but I'm sorry if I'm a
little uninterested in the premise. It's another basketball movie,
y'all.
This movie is scheduled to theatrically release February 13, 2026.
Here's the official teaser trailer.
Mortal Kombat 2, sequel to the horrendous Mortal Kombat movie of 2023, finally got its first teaser trailer and a day later, got its official full trailer. This was a pretty awesome promotion, because it felt like April Fools when the teaser trailer came out, seeing Johnny Cage played by Karl Urban, best known for his work as Butcher in The Boys, starring in a fictitious movie titled Uncaged Fury!
When I saw this teaser, my first reaction was "Boys, I think Butcher's back on the V."
I hope the MK2 movie lives up to the energy levels seen in the Uncaged Fury trailer. MK2 releases October 24, only a couple months away. Watch the full MK2 announcement trailer below, but know that the Uncaged Fury trailer is way more fun to watch.
Gaming News
Studio behind Subnautica undergoes significant leadership changes...
The studio behind Subnautica, Unknown Worlds, has changed leadership as CEO Ted Gill, co-founder Charlie Cleveland, and co-founder Max McGuire parted ways with the company. (Video Games Chronicle) Steve Papoutsis, previously CEO of Striking Distance and general manager of EA’s Visceral, will take over as Unknown Worlds’ CEO. Companies change leadership quite often, but this was in the midst of a Subnautica sequel. I'm nervous for the franchise's future if the original creators have given it up so easily. I still have some hope for the franchise, though, because it has good bones for a sequel and the sequel was already well underway when the founders left. The game at least has some promises made which should provide the new leadership with some direction.
Zelda Universe is hiring writers!
Zelda Universe is actively looking for volunteer writers for their website. (Bsky) This could be a great portfolio-building opportunity if you love the Zelda franchise and want to be a games journalist someday. I used to read articles on that site years ago. Kind of cool to see it's still kicking.
Nintendo Switch ROM site seized
Nsw2u, a repository for Switch ROMs, was taken down by a collaborative effort of the U.S. FBI and a Dutch agency, FIOD, after a seizure warrant from Northern District of Georgia. (Eurogamer) It is unclear if Nintendo is directly involved in this seizure, but I have obvious suspicions after the Yuzu ordeal last year and their recent victory in March against a French file=sharing company, Dstorage, and the ongoing SwitchPirates thing and so many other things. Nintendo's well within their rights to take down these sites and influencers in my eyes, but they have a selfish agenda, and it'd be wrong to hide that from the public. People should know who filed the complaints to FBI and FIOD. It should be public record how these sites were even discovered, and the creators shouldn't be having to pay damages... they should just do community service and maybe some minor jail time. Unfortunately, the punishments do not often fit the crimes, and many of them are being forced into financial ruin to pay Nintendo millions as well as being labeled felons for the rest of their lives.
New video game releases
There were a lot of new releases this month, but the star this month for me was - Oh, banana! - Donkey Kong Bananza!
I thought about reviewing DK Bananza, but other people - Oh, banana! - were much more quick on the draw and the review by Second Wind is actually pretty much how I feel about the game, so go - Oh, banana! - check that out. I will admit the game has major - Oh, banana! - flaws for being priced as a AAA title, but it's a lot of fun and the first 3D Donkey Kong game in over 2 decades! Brings new meaning to "party like it's 1999!" Happy to report, DK Bananza has the DK Rap in it.
Itch.io Delisted Porn Games
If you ever used Itch.io before and then used it today, you wouldn't recognize it as the same site. Itch was always the place to go for uncensored smut games which couldn't be listed on Steam until recently and odd VR titles which didn't want to pay the Steam listing fee. This delisting effort seems tied to anti-porn organizations and payment processors. (Wired) My stance on this is that porn is a genre of fiction like anything else and should be allowed on all stores where violent games are allowed since violence is way worse than consensual sex. Anyway, Itch's adult tag only has a single page of games now, and there isn't an adults only VR porn title to be found! You can still find some questionable material on the site, but it's nowhere near as prevalent as it used to be. Steam also seems to be delisting porn games according to the Wired article, though I still see a bunch on there. I'm curious if we'll get hit with tons more delistings later, and if I was interested in these games, I would buy them as soon as possible.
Interesting Upcoming Games
I noticed the Steam store page for Invokyr, a board game set in the horror genre with some obvious Jumanji inspiration. I'm not sure I want to play Jumanji in a horror setting, but regardless, no release date has been announced. Let's hope it comes out around Halloween.
I'm also moderately interested in the upcoming Guild Wars 2 expansion, Visions of Eternity, which releases October 28! I kind of fell out of love with GW2 once VR MMOs became a thing, but VR MMOs haven't had the staying power I expected, so I might be going back to Tyria... if any friends want to play together. I tend not to play MMOs by myself much.
Oh, and on August 8, Toree Saturn releases! 
Virtual Reality News
I'm changing up the format for this month's VR games. Instead of just giving you image links of 4-8 titles, I'll instead describe why you should want these games and what date they came out. I'll also provide both Steam and Meta links when possible. Let me know if this change is good or bad on Bluesky if you want. Otherwise, enjoy....
New PCVR Games/Apps
Rogue Pinatas: VRmageddon released July 14 on SteamVR and was previously released on Meta Quest 3/3S on March 6. This game is a single player or 2-4 player coop beat-'em-up in VR! It seems a lot of fun, and yes, I already have a copy of this one on Steam. Hit me up if you need a coop buddy for this one!
Launch price: $24.99
Rage Room: Catharsis released July 14 for SteamVR with a previous release on Meta on May 26. It is looking to be a very good toy app to relieve some stress, but according to reviews, the game doesn't run well on Quest 3, so get the PC version on Steam and be protected with a 2-hour refund window. I have the Steam version wishlisted for now.
Launch price: $16.99
Monster: Titan's Playground released July 24 on SteamVR and is the rare SteamVR exclusive at release! Woo! 
The dev responded to a question thread on Steam Community about a potential Quest release with "Monster: Titan’s Playground was built with the power of PCVR in mind". The game looks really good and I shall be doing a video review soon! I'm buying it to support a fellow PCVR supporter who seems to be passionate about their project, not just trying to make a buck.
I think it's funny how both this and Rage Room: Catharsis are kind of stress relief toys within the same month. Must have been a really stressful month, right?
Store link: Steam
Launch price: $29.99
Elsewhere Electric released July 23 on Steam and Meta. I would have bought this one, but it's one of those play-with-a-non-vr-teammate games, like Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes. I'm not really a big fan of those, because the non-VR player tends to get very bored, very quickly. I won't rule out the possibility that my wife might play this, but at $25, it's definitely a pass. Great production value to the trailer, though! I really like the amount of interactive objects in this game, but I will admit there's a conflict of narrative and theme. The game seems like it's supposed to be mildly scary, but the visual style isn't gritty and looks very bright and cheerful, kind of 70s era visuals.
Launch price: $24.99
Quantum Threshold released on Steam July 17 after a previous Meta release on May 22. The cyberpunk aesthetic is still kind of fresh at this quality level in VR, and I like the gun models, upgrade options, enemy models, etc. This game looks promising as a VR roguelike shooter! I'm going to make a point to try this game in August and give a review for the PC version on moderately high end hardware.
Launch price: $23.99
Ghost Town released July 15 on Steam after a very successful Meta launch on April 24. The visuals are stunning even in the standalone version, and the trailer shows a lot of VR interaction mechanics and some nice character models and animation. Despite a 2 month timed exclusivity that killed most of my hype for the PC release, I really want to try this game someday, and it's on my wishlist on Steam. I will be buying it the next time there's a sale.
Launch price: $29.99
New Meta Releases
The Pirate: Republic of Nassau released July 11 as a Meta exclusive. It looks surprisingly realistic for a standalone exclusive, but keep in mind: this dev is a VR dev veteran from the early days of HTC Vive. Home Net Games previously created VR gems like Warplanes: Battles Over Pacific and well, other Warplanes games! I really like the pirate setting which is often not done justice, but this game might actually do well with the ship combat mechanics.
Store link: Meta
Launch price: $19.99
Side note: If you don't have a Quest but want to get a new pirate-themed VR game, you could try Dragons Reef VR, which released on Steam July 14 for the same price. The quality is much lower, so low I didn't really want to mention it, but here we are. The game's trailer looks like it's for the flat version of the game, but if you look at the flat version, it's a completely different aesthetic and camera angle with even rougher ship movements. Really weird.
Table Troopers, released July 17, is another casual board game experience where you can play against other players. It looks pretty lax, meaning it's maybe kind of boring, but I'm vaguely interested in trying this one out, anyway. It might be fun with friends... but I would never consider it otherwise.
Store link: Meta
Launch price: $9.99
By the way, if you aren't already signed up for Meta, click this referral link to sign up! Once you activate your first Quest headset, you'll get $30 store credit to spend on games/apps! Disclaimer: I also get store credit for the referral. I prefer SteamVR, but I don't get the same referral rewards there.
Requisition VR got its Meta release on July 10. The Steam release was way back on May 4, 2023! The Steam release was in Early Access in a very rough state. It was basically unplayable back then. The Meta release has me wondering if a revisit is warranted. Unfortunately, I'm seeing less than favorable reviews on the Meta store, and while I still have the Steam version, the devs haven't updated this version of the game since June 15, 2023.
Launch price on Meta: $19.99
Lowest Steam price to date: $6.89 (IsThereAnyDeal)
Also released July 10, Jungle Man arrived on Meta Quest 2/3/3S as a mixed reality title. You read that right, it works on Quest 2. I doubt it'll be good on Quest 2, mind you. I haven't looked deeply into this one, but it could be worth a try. I don't have a lot of quality mixed reality experiences yet, so it'd be worth the low asking price just to pad the library.
Store link: Meta
Launch price: $9.99
Besiege VR released exclusively to Meta on July 31. Players rightfully questioned the decision to release only on Meta since the non-VR version of the game came out on Steam before anywhere else and was in early access for 5 years. I want it, but I will wait for a sale or a Steam release.
Store link: Meta
Launch price: $19.99
New PlayStation VR2 Releases
Firmament released July 2 on PSVR2. This game released May 18, 2023 on Steam. I fucking love Cyan Worlds. They're just such a wonderful company full of great people, and they release some of the best narrative titles with a really great track record. Their VR titles are a natural extension of their earlier work, and I really love their projects, even the VR Riven remake.
Launch price: $34.99
Upcoming VR Games
On July 11, we had the UploadVR Showcase, a kind of E3 style trailer and announcement showcase but on the internet. It featured many interesting announcements and some very promising trailers. One of the announcements was Hidden Memories of the Gardens Between, the VR remaster of the popular adventure The Gardens Between, which will be released on August 7, 2025, on MetaQuest and SteamVR. This game looks promising as a smaller scale title with a charming art style.
We also had a Kickstarter campaign sneak up on us for a VR MMORPG titled Eldramoor. I unfortunately didn't get to back the campaign, because I only heard about the campaign after hearing about it in the official Orbus VR forum. Orbus, by the way, was sunset this year, and I was unaware until this month. Sad news, but Eldramoor may fill that void for some players. the magic system in Eldramoor looks a lot like Orbus' magic system but the casting system has been greatly streamlined. Though the campaign is over, it was very successful with 1011 backers pledging $171,536 by July 31. They announced they already fully funded base development within 1.5 hours of starting the campaign. (Eldramoor Kickstarter)
Dead In Your TrackZ is a very indie-looking indie title releasing August 4 (after this article finally gets posted but it's still not a July release). It looks promising for its roomscale VR mechanics and firepower upgrades. It looks to be an arcade shooter similar to something I would have played in a arcade booth many years ago.
Dungeon Full Dive... dived?
D&D style board game sim kit for VR, Dungeon Full Dive, was a project well under way, but it didn't really have a great demo impression, and now, we're unsurprisingly seeing this project die. I say 'unsurprisingly' because the demo last year was rough and made me question if these devs could truly deliver what they were selling. The server and client code is not being released currently, but it hasn't been totally dismissed as a possibility. I hope they release the source code for the game client as well as the server so players can evolve the game themselves and if nothing else, learn from the code.
H3VR got a 4th of July grenades update
I was excited for this update until I realized the grenades didn't have a fireworks grenade that turns into a fireworks show. For context, us United States folk like to watch fireworks on July 4th and I've always known H3VR first and foremost for its fireworks possibilities. If you're interested in the update, the dev goes into depth about it here.
Stilt got a major content update titled Forgotten Trials
During the July 10 UploadVR showcase, a content update was teased for Stilt, a VR platformer from over a year ago. (IGN)
Tokyo Node XR Hackathon
XR Tokyo reported the start of the Tokyo Node XR Hackathon on July 11. It honestly wasn't easy to solidify what this event was about, but it was sponsored by Niantic Spatial this year. There seemed to be little focus on actually hacking anything. There were some images circulated of some boring slide/video projector presentations in gray studio spaces. However, if you keep digging, there are actually some really cool sets in this event space, like a giant green screen stage! Unfortunately, the event has been poorly covered online, so I imagine a lot more is going on there. I'd like to see the event fully recorded. I can't really find a lot about the event even from past years! Perhaps I should learn to read Japanese again.
Virtual Handheld desktop settings tool
Virtual Handheld was an app I bought to help me with wait times in VR. You see, playing multiplayer games in VR requires a ton of patience, because multitasking in VR can be daunting. I wanted a quick way to amuse myself while I was playing PCVR and waiting for friends to join a server. The solution I found most enjoyable other than random YouTube videos in the overlay was Virtual Handheld, a virtual handheld... yes, the title fits. It lets you easily play your RetroArch games in the SteamVR overlay in a somewhat intuitive fashion without closing other applications.
Anyway, Virtual Handheld got an update on july 31st to allow changing settings from the desktop rather than having to use the in-VR UI. This new feature seems like it'll help a lot with setup and make the app more accessible overall.
Bigscreen Beyond 2 has started shipping
"Bigscreen Beyond 2 has started shipping to customers, starting with those who ordered Beyond 1 just before the successor was announced" (UploadVR) I would like to point out that Beyond 2e with eye tracking was announced as well. (VRChat) I would love to have any model of the BigScreen Beyond if not for a glaring issue: it's not wireless!
I put up with a tether on PSVR2 for the exclusives, but Beyond is just another PCVR headset option - albeit a really compact one - so I don't feel a need to snag one unless it checks all the boxes. I'll stick with my Vives and Quests for now, which are all wireless.
Tech News
Kickstarter for Linogy Auto-Ejecting Battery Charging Station
This thing charges the typical AA and AAA batteries, nothing else, so it's not exactly revolutionary in that regard, but it offers some nifty features, like auto-ejection of charged batteries, and is priced somewhat well for the Early Bird rewards. Funding as already been reached within the campaign's first few days. You can view the Kickstarter page for more info, but if you want my opinion, it's not anything new. You can find lithium-ion (Li-ion) rechargeable battery kits for less than $50 at Walmart. This Linogy product is priced very well for what you get, but you'll have to wait for it to produce and ship, and the auto-eject feature isn't as necessary as you might think it is. I say wait for it to hit market and in the meantime, buy something else to hold you over.
Analogue’s 4K N64 has been delayed again, but only by a month
Analogue's 4K N64 clone titled the "Analogue 3D" was previously scheduled to release in July after many previous delays, but it was postponed by another month due to sudden tariff changes. (Verge) That's fine. I don't really need to see N64 graphics on a 4K monitor. It would be cool, though.... 
Game Dev & Art News
Unity Summer Flash Sales 2025
Unity is known for hosting massive sale events every Summer, and this year is no exception! In 2025, they're really making a push to top past years with way more flash deals and a lot more time to act on them. Instead of flash deals running only a few hours before reducing their discounts, the flash deals have nearly 24 hours at their max discount, providing plenty of time to get in on the deals. Also, each day is themed as follows:
Mega Pack Monday- Big Bundles
Toolbox Tuesday- Dev tools and scripts to speed up your workflow
Wildcard Wednesday- Up to 98% off across all categories!
Throwback Thursday- Retro, pixel, and old-school gems
Fantasy Friday- Epic deals on RPG & fantasy assets
Surprise Saturday- A mystery theme revealed day-of
Sci-Fi Sunday- Futuristic, space, and cyberpunk vibes
This sale started July 16 and will end August 13. It's still going strong for another week from this post, so use my affiliate link and shop as the deals drop! Definitely check that final Wednesday!
Here are a few assets I think are some of the best assets not just in this sale but on the store in general:
Horse Animset Pro by MalberS Animations
Normal price: $74.99, Sale price: $37.49
This is definitely a misleading asset. I was on the fence about buying it just for the horse model and skins, but it ended up being a nearly feature complete game kit for a game involving mounting and riding a horse. If you want to make a western action game, this should be your first stop! It doesn't do much for dialogue or anything like that, though.
This game kit comes with the author's other asset titled "Animal Controller" and that provides a universal animal controller to allow controlling any animal model within a unified system. It's really a quite intuitive system, which brings me to...
Game Kit Controller by Two Cubes
Normal Price: $59, Sale Price: $29.50
The award for most impressive labor of love goes to Two Cubes for Game Kit Controller! This dev makes nothing else. He just keeps working on the same game kit since July 15th, 2015. That's over a decade ago! He keeps churning out updates to this kit and doesn't even up the price much. I bought the kit way back in 2019 and even then, I felt very late to the party. This kit was and still is amazing.
Game Kit Controller is fairly intuitive to understand if not a little messy and hastily slapped together in some places, but it also integrates Animal Controller and by extension, Horse Animset Pro!
RPG Creation Kit by Silvematt
Normal Price: $99, Sale: $49.50
This game kit came out of nowhere and caught I think everyone by surprise. Silvematt truly made something special in RPG Creation Kit. It's a full package: a full game kit with an open world cell system, exterior level streaming, interior levels, quests, Morrowind quality character models with a lot of diversity and character, equipment that visually changes not just the player character but all other characters as well, branching dialogue, a melee combat system with block and parry, ranged weapons, magic, and even ambient character dialogue.
Honestly, I've owned this kit for a long time, and I'm ashamed I haven't done anything with it. It's really amazing and I should make a RPG sometime.... I know I could take something to the finish line with this.
Hurricane VR + HexaBody by Cloudwalkin Games
Speaking of full kits I bought but never made anything with, Hurricane VR was a VR game framework that had an add-on for Boneworks style physics. That add-on was Hexabody. The bundle with both Hurricane and Hexabody was part of the sale, but you could also just buy Hurricane by itself if you're not into toying with a physics character controller.
Hurricane on its own is already a fine VR framework with a variety of puzzle-focused mechanics included. It is a ton more fun with the Hexabody controller, though, and it becomes one of the best VR experiences as a bundle.
A similar kit for Unreal 4.x was VRGK by Divivor, which was much more expensive but had the physics character controller much sooner and was a lot better planned out. Unfortunately, VRGK was abandoned and taken off the UE store due to UE5 being different enough that the dev no longer wanted to support it. I tried the demo for each version, and version 3 had so much content to toy with that I was basically treating it like its own playground game out-of-box.
To Divivor, I just want to say, "I truly respect your craft. You did an amazing job. So amazing I had to mention the kit in a Unity sale ad despite the asset not even being available in an official sense any longer. It was a phenomenal job. Really."
If anyone knows of any project that filled the void of VRGK on Unreal's side, let me know. I'm currently in the dark about this because I'm not a heavy Unreal user. VRGK has been missing for 2 years now, and I really want to show support to anything new that successfully replaced it. We gotta keep the VR frameworks coming! We need better standardized frameworks for VR projects!
Closing article...
On July 9, a 71-year-old grandmother and U.S. citizen was put in handcuffs by ICE just for attempting to oversee a court proceeding... all over a push that she claims never happened. This is hilariously sad on the ICE agent's part, because it shows they were desperate to either hide something from the public or instill fear so they could hide something in the future, perhaps dissuade others from 'interfering' with or in the case of Barbara Stone, witness their 'work'. They're not even authorized to arrest her, but they did it anyway, and they used excessive force. They bruised her wrist. However, this was a temporary setback for Barbara Stone, and she says she's going to continue volunteering to help protect immigrants. (NBC) It's nice to see people aren't giving in to fearing these assholes so easily, not even 71-year-old grandmothers.
Praise the sun! 
Summer is happening! Well, it's almost over, but August still has some Summer heat! Enjoy those pools while you can!
Also, starting today, we have embroidered hats! Protect your skin with some shade! (Sorry, not actual shades. That would be cool.) Check out the brand new Fourthwall merch shop! Merch sales profits will be used to fund this website's hosting costs and buy content creation tools. If you like my articles or my stream or are just a friend, show your support by getting a hat or shirt and let others know about the site.
If you have any suggestions for future merch, send them to my email.
Have a great rest of the Summer, y'all! See you at the next recap! Syrsly out.
