WTF Happened August 2025
For those new to this series, welcome to the August 2025 edition of What The Fuck Happened, a series where we retroactively apply importance to a whole month of news. This is a retrospective series, so it's always late, but it serves the purpose of letting you remind yourself of all the most important gossip of the month for a wide variety of topics. For return readers, welcome back!
We always start with...
Business, World, and Health News
Hurricane Erin hit North Carolina
On August 21, North Carolina prepared for the forecasted approaching hurricane Erin. The preparations seemed to exclude any mention of FEMA aid, focusing on state resources instead since they claimed they weren't able to get aid from FEMA in other recent disasters when they needed it. I want to remind everyone that if there's a disaster in the States, FEMA should be contacted by every person affected to get recovery assistance. FEMA will often pay for house repairs for example. FEMA claims they've given over $172 million to NC since January 20, 2025. (FEMA)
Biggest bank in Australia rehires workers after lying about AI productivity
The biggest bank in Australia fired tons of workers in a rush to replace staff with chatbots. (Ars) Oof. This bank's customers should move their business elsewhere as soon as possible.
Manus Metagloves used for Parkinson's research
"Researchers have found a new way to detect subtle motor changes in Parkinson’s disease using Metagloves." (Manus on Bsky) The findings aren't anything groundbreaking, and I can sum it up as confirmation of how the disease affects people's motor functions. I like to see VR gear used for medical research, though. This could lead to some new treatments for Parkinson's disease as well as other treatments for similar ailments if only as a part of the testing procedure for new treatments.
Your electric bill could be paying for AI.
You heard me. There's a really convincing video about the subject from More Perfect Union that was posted on August 29. I don't live in an area where we host AI server farms... yet, but there are a lot of states hosting these farms, and unfortunately, the cost of electricity consistently increases the more electricity is used by these farms. The problem here is consumers are now paying more for electricity than ever before. I've noticed there's also an increase in cost caused by inflation, which makes it harder to notice these bill changes. I want more than ever to go completely off grid.
New York first fully electric building code
The state of New York has commited to all-electric for all new buildings starting in the beginning of 2026. (Grist)
Nissan announced 2026 EV pricing... it's cheap!
Nissan did us a solid and kept costs down on their upcoming EV offering, the 2026 Nissan Leaf. The price was announced to start at $29,990 USD. (Ars) That may appear to be a lot of money to some people, but that's actually a really good price for a new electric vehicle in 2026. Unfortunately, the price will get much higher for their more expensive models with all the bells and whistles.
Kyte, a Hertz competitor, shut down.
Rental car startup Kyte shut down on August after selling its customer list to Turo, another rental car company, in July. (TechCrunch) The way this company shut down was very abrupt and anti-consumer. According to the TechCrunch article already referenced, many customers were stuck with hundreds of dollars in refund limbo.
AOL dial-up finally dialed down.
Speaking of shutting down, AOL dial-up internet had limped on and on and on... and on... until now. (AP) The announcement that it would be finally shutting down service to remaining customers came on August 9, 2025, and stated a planned end date of September 30, 2025.
It is sad to see the old die, because in a lot of ways, they were great in their prime and were never quite replaced. They remind us of a simpler time, which the internet was in its infancy and the web wasn't ruled by social media. However, if you're honest with yourself, you know this is the way of the world. In with the new, out with the old. Scratch that, reverse it.
Truthfully, AOL was a blast. It was a great time... and I wish the internet of today was remotely as interesting as the 90s internet AOL introduced me to. The AOL interface was kid and old person friendly with big graphics and easy to read text and bright colors with giant outlines. The AOL instant messenger was simple to understand and had pretty much the same emojis we have today except smaller. Anonymity was still treasured and usernames reflected that sentiment. Kids could go to a kids section on the interface and be given tons of curated content and a lot of fun things to do. You can get something similar today, but it takes more effort. Similarly, anime fans could get a taste of anime OAVs from the Japanimation Station channel. Dial-up internet was slow, so videos were small and short clips, but that just made your time more valuable. Nowadays, you waste a lot more time looking at dumb shit... like ads and influencers. Times were simpler and the internet wasn't as mandatory for everyday life. AOL failed to evolve with the times, and it's a shame, because AOL was a special experience that hasn't been properly replaced with a younger generation's alternative. Welcome to the internet!
T-Mobile/Sprint failed to get out of $92 Million fine for selling data without consent
T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T and Verizon were all caught selling user data, more specifically location data, without users' consent many years ago, and T-Mobile has been found guilty as of August 18, 2025. (Ars) It takes way too long to punish these big corporations for taking advantage of their customers in some of the most evil and irresponsible ways. We shouldn't just be fining these companies; we should be dissolving them.
Visa & Mastercard banned adult content on game storefronts? (No, not really.)
Online gaming storefronts like Steam and Itch.io were seemingly pressured by payment processors in August to remove all 'adult' content from their storefronts. This news was mostly rumor, though. What truly happened was an Australian organization known as Collective Shout published an open letter calling for payment processors of all kinds, including not just Visa and Mastercard but also Paypal and others, to step up and ban adult purchases. (Them.us) (TechCrunch) The group went mostly ignored by the payment processors as far as I can tell, but by coincidence, Steam updated their policies days after this open letter to prohibit content that violates rules set by payment processors and ISPs, making it possible for payment processors to control what goes on the storefront (Automaton), which I shouldn't have to say is a very slippery slope. Anyway, this news wasn't taken lightly, and social media blew up about these changes and blew up even more once games started disappearing from both Steam and Itch.io, eventually resulting in a phone-spamming campaign known as #SaveSpeech to blow up the customer service lines for Mastercard and Visa and maybe a few other processors.
One game that seemed to gain tons of attention thanks to its delisting was Vile: Exhumed, a game worked on and covered by @dirtlord77 on Bsky. The game was delisted from Steam and made free afterward on its own domain.
There's no proof any payment processor strong-armed Steam, just some mild he-said-she-said B.S., and Itch's delistings were simply reactionary to Steam's changes and circulation of rumors. Mastercard officially denied doing anything to delist adult content, but I haven't seen any official statement by other processors or banks and question the legitimacy of Mastercard's claims. Itch relisted adult games after a couple weeks but seems to still be claiming some pressure from Stripe to not allow Stripe to be used for sexually explicit content purchases. People should point their hate toward the religious nutcases at Collective Shout and toward bad laws which do not protect our rights as consumers. If you want to affect change in our society, you have to push solutions into the light at the right time. Right now, there's a law in the works in U.S.A. to protect storefronts from payment processors and prevent processors from ruling over what we're allowed to buy. (TheGamer) Perhaps you should either help support that bill or try to start a similar law change in your own territory... or just shut up and spend your money while you can because you may not have the ability to get what you want later.
Democratic State Rep. locked in building for refusing to sign bill
More U.S. politics, sorry, but this is quite insane shit, ok? Bare with me. On August 18, Texas democratic state representative Collier was locked in the state's capitol building after refusing to sign a Republican-led bill to redraw the state's congressional districts. (Acyn on Bsky) (NPR) It's quite the news story, but honestly, it makes sense when you hear it happened in Texas. That place is crazy. Gerrymandering should just be made illegal already. Switch to an actual popular vote. It would fix so many problems going forward.
Punks For Progress
A small political movement known as Punks For Progress hosted a party on August 28 which featured the following bands: Rude Echoes, First Rule, and Malört & Savior. (bsky) I like the name of the event. The party looked fun!
Man-who-threw-sandwich-at-feds runs free!
This was a bizarre and yet mostly mundane story: A man who was an actual paralegal with the Justice Department, Sean C. Dunn,
got really frustrated at the presence of National Guard troops in
Washington and decided to throw a sub sandwich at one of the men after
mocking their entire group face-to-face. He then booked it and ran away.
He was chased down very poorly but later arrested. He was not indicted
and is now free again after his case was rejected by a grand jury on August 26. (NY Times) (Yahoo) I don't agree with his actions. That sub sandwich did nothing to him. What a waste of food. 
Jokes
aside, I applaud the grand jury for rejecting this as a felony charge.
This helps restore some slither of my faith in humanity. I need more
outcomes like this. These federal agents should be ashamed of themselves
for reacting so poorly toward this man's justified outrage. These
agents should agree that their presence there is not warranted and not
wanted and quite a waste of tax dollars.
Sidney Reid was also denied indictment by a grand jury for assaulting an agent during an immigration operation in Washington in a nearly location. (Reuters) It is unclear if Dunn is out of the woods with his charges, but Reid's charges seem to be dropped down to a misdemeanor.
Follow-up: Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Kilmar has been in and out of both jail and the United States since March, but his legal battles aren't over as he fights to stay in the country and stay with his family! He still has a criminal case in Tennessee, where prosecutors have charged him with human trafficking which he pleaded not quilty but awaits further court proceedings. (NBC) I.C.E. detained him just days after he left jail under the threat of deporting him again, this time to Uganda. (Washington Post) A judge in Maryland barred Kilmar's deportation temporarily for the court case, which moved to Maryland after Kilmar filed a lawsuit there, while the Trump administration offered him a plea deal that aimed to deport him... just to a nicer place, Costa Rica, which is offering refugee status and assurances of no further deportations out of Costa Rica. (NBC) Kilmar continues to be an inspiration to many during these challenging times, so it is my hope he doesn't take any plea deal and continues the fight for what's right... and against what's politically 'right'.
There's
a ton of bad news in U.S. politics nowadays, and I can't shrug the fact
that I'm not covering nearly enough of that here. However, it is my
hope that you'll all look up more news as you get hungry for it. This
monthly recap is more of a highlight reel than a cover-it-all thing, and
I have to keep it reasonably concise or I risk spending an extra month
covering each month's news. If you want to know more about all the
craziness out there, subscribe to some realtime social feeds for that
and maybe consider a news aggregator. It's always best practice to get
your news sooner rather than later.
The Onion stays funny by the way. You should follow Tim Onion, I mean, Ben Collins on Bluesky and consider picking up the physical copy of The Onion for funsies!
Celebrity News
Actor broke collarbone on historical film
James Norton broke his collarbone while filming BBC's King and Conqueror. (The Times) That's gotta hurt! Irony is he kind of deserved it based on the article. Apparently, he was biting people's noses.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce engaged
I know, nobody cares... but well, some people are fans, and some fans want to know all about their fandom, ok?
To sum up what truly makes this an epic engagement, you basically have to remember how rich and popular Taylor Swift is and then realize she needs a man who won't get jealous of her success and won't drag her down and will be able to support her if things go awry. Travis Kelce had an elaborate setup of flowers in a garden at an archway and a giant ring to propose with, and from the look of things, he got a win.
Travis: 1...1.6 billion, that is. Yeah. Taylor just shared her empire with him. Grats to them both. I wish them both a long and happy life together.
Jennifer Welch slammed for being anti-Republican?
This is U.S. political talk, which the rest of the world just gets to eat popcorn over, but Jennifer Welch, star of some hit Bravo shows I know nothing about, made a comment about banning Trump voters from Mexican, Chinese, and Indian restaurants on her "I've Had It" podcast. (New York Post) Granted, this is actually not exactly what she suggested. She said a lot more than this, but headlines very often mislead. I would say this is a great example of bad news reporting on both sides of the aisle, but then again, you have to care about it before it can truly matter enough to be a "great example". This commentary was apparently big enough news to get spread all over the internet and on celebrity news sites, but I just can't give a fuck.
Look, I'm not a fan of this person, but I'm also not a fan of Republicans. I get it. However, I believe this idea of banning people based on their voting habits leads us down a slippery slope of not allowing a free vote and making people vote only one way rather than voting for their own benefit. For the record, I think everyone should vote with two goals in mind, their own benefit and the world's benefit, but they should always be given freedom to vote how they see fit, even if that means voting in a tyrant with a small penis. The problem is we live in a world where we create more evil than good and that is an endlessly worsening cycle of hate and fear. Forgive the voters for their ignorance and make an effort to educate them rather than shunning them entirely. Let these people spend their money on the people they blindly hate and laugh about how they don't even realize they're financially supporting the people they say they hate. Maybe point it out to them... in person, at the restaurant, halfway into their meal. Make them feel bad. Call them idiots. Let them spend their money there, though, and maybe charge them extra... maybe spit in their food.
Web & Streaming News
Bluesky is now the platform of choice for science!
According to a recent survey, Bluesky is the platform of choice for scientists everywhere! (Ars Technica) The article by Ars has a really funny quote: "When I talk about fish on Bluesky, people ask me questions about fish. When I talk about fish on Twitter, people threaten to murder my family because we’re Jewish."
Bluesky added ability to add users directly to starter packs
Bluesky's starter packs were a pain in the ass to maintain because you had to copy a user's handle and edit the pack and add the user to add to the pack, which was kind of a lengthy process. Now, you can add users directly to starter packs from their profiles. I don't understand why this took so long to implement, but it's a welcome addition.
Syrsly created VR Gaming Feed
Last month, I created my first Bluesky feed, the PCVR feed. I created the VR gaming feed soon after that per users' requests to help unite VR gamers regardless of hardware. I also started doubling down on Graze feeds and made a few other helpful feeds, including the SDF/Voxel Modeling feed and the VR Development feed among others. If you like my feeds, please give some feedback here and there and let me know what still needs work. Report anything that seems off.
New & Returning Shows August 2025
Alien: Earth aired its first episode on August 12th on FX/Hulu and was a huge hit! I personally have watched up to episode 4 so far and am very impressed with not just how the show fits into the mythos of the movies it's based on but also how the show matches the style of said movies. The writing is pretty good, and the dialogue is believable but keeps you guessing. There's a lot of political intrigue and sabotage going on, and the non-human characters add a touch of cyberpunk that is most welcome. I do, however, think it's light on the horror elements and appeals to a slightly more squeamish crowd at times than the movies of old.
Peacemaker season 2 had its first episode air on August 21 on HBO Max. Oh, by the way, it's "HBO Max" again, not just "MAX". I like the undo there. When do we go back to just "HBO", though?
James Gunn runs promo material on social media all the time for his projects, and Peacemaker is no exception. On August 29, he posted about "bird blindness" with a pretty fun poke at one of the supporting characters.
The Water Magician is a new anime that started airing in July and got episodes 5-8 throughout August. The show is ongoing in September. Thanks to TheMrX for the recommendation on this one! I will be watching this show soon. It looks well animated if nothing else.
New & Upcoming Movies August 2025
I didn't watch many new release movies this month, because I was focusing on other things after a rather hectic previous two months of films. This month, I watched The Naked Gun, which was amazing, and I watched the new Final Destination movie, which hit streaming two months ago but still felt pretty new to me. The Bad Guys 2 looks fun, but I'm waiting to watch that one after I watch the previous The Bad Guys movies. Other notable new releases this month included Freakier Friday, Ne Zha 2, Nobody 2, Red Sonja, and Weapons. There was a new Toxic Avenger movie, which is based on stuff I watched decades ago, but it seems half-assed.
Mortal Kombat 2 was delayed until next Summer. 
I was really looking forward to this as an October film. This delay was apparently so they could make more money (EW),
not to give the project more time for polish, but let's hope the extra
time is used well. Honestly, due to this pointlessly stupid delay, I'm
inclined to stop watching W.B. trailers and stop subscribing to their
hype channels. If this is how they treat fandom, I don't want to support
them.
I saw the first trailer for the Kiss of the Spider Woman remake, which has a planned release date of October 10. I'll likely go see this instead of MK2. I won't be nearly as excited about it, though. I'd much prefer something more festive for Halloween.
There was also a trailer for a webtoon movie adaptation of Omniscient Reader released on August 1 which looked really good. Unfortunately, the movie was released at the same time as the trailer and I completely missed the movie... and I can't seem to find it anywhere yet. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.
Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary
The Rocky Horror Picture Show film turned 50 this month. (Ars) The musical is even older! You should (re)watch the film soon. You're not getting any younger.
Gaming News
RedOctane Games announced
RedOctane was founded well before August 6, 2025, but on this date, an official team announcement video that promises a new rhythm game later this year was posted to YouTube. (Gematsu) No further details about the project yet. This video is just hype material for the team themselves, not their project. However, the team is made up of rhythm game veterans and is known for their work on DJ Hero and Guitar Hero.
Helldivers 2 x Halo ODST
On August 19, Helldivers 2 announced a Halo tie-in, titled "Helldivers 2 x Halo: ODST Legendary Warbond" as well as a zombie style enemy city warzone environment where robots have invaded a human city that looks like it came straight out of Halo 3. This is the first of a series of tie-in events called Legendary Warbonds (PlayStation Blog) Players could dress as ODST soldiers and use a new headbutt coop emote as well as collect and equip new armor sets, weapons, and other equipment not yet revealed. The event started August 26 but was considered a premium DLC you have to pay for using Super Credits.
The most notable new feature seems to be the warthog vehicles which can run over enemies and carry 3 players per vehicle. With this update, the legendary warbonds would not be compatible with a new currency introduced called Premium Warbond Tokens. I don't like the monetization practices in this game, but I do love the game's overall quality. I revisited Helldivers 2 for the Halo content, but I was met with a mandatory Super Credits grind to unlock anything. Whether or not I'll be hooked long-term depends on the narrative, and I don't see any new narrative experiences in this update. I need a story or at least some character-building progression, and the only new progression I see is in primary weapon customizations. Helldivers 2 at day one was lacking in both story and progression and proved to be quite repetitive, and I don't think it has improved.
Kirby Air Riders Direct
We got a notable Nintendo Direct on August 19 where the creator of Kirby Air Riders, Masahiro Sakurai, introduced the game for Switch 2. The game's a remake of something from the Gamecube era, though what made this Direct noteworthy was how Sakurai began the video with "Why is making a game so hard?"
Kirby Air Riders is slated to release on Nintendo Switch 2 on November 20, 2025. I will be skipping this release, but the game is definitely on my wishlist. It looks charming as hell.
New & Upcoming Game Releases
A Few Quick Matches released on Steam on August 5 for $6.99. It reminds me of the 90s Flash animations I grew up with. If you're a fan of arena fighting games like Super Smash Bros., this could be your new fave.
Abyssus, a game I played the demo of many months ago, released August 12 on Steam for $24.99. I expected the game to be cheaper based on its coop focus and small scale environments/battles. That said, the demo was incredibly fun at times.
Supraworld released August 15 for $29.99 on Steam
in Early Access. I still haven't played the original Supraland, but it
looks like fun and has been in my steam library for at least a couple
years. I've wishlisted Supraworld to play it after Supraland.
Upcoming Games
Bubsy 4D started teasing on social media really hard with the Steam store page
giving a loose release date of "2026". A speed run of one of the levels
has already been shown on social media, so I feel a demo is coming
soon.
Sword Of The Sea released August 19 on Steam for $29.99 and looks incredible. It has a casual feel to its sword-surfing mechanics, and I think this game would go great on a handheld.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is one of the most anticipated video games in recent memory. The game finally got an official release date on August 21 with an official announcement from the developer, Team Cherry, confirming the release date as September 4. (PushSquare) Here's a link to the YouTube announcement trailer.
Mortal Sin came out August 29 on Steam for $24.99 with a launch discounted price of $19.99 and was met with Overwhelmingly Positive reviews.
I really love the art style in this game. It has a kind of retro dungeon crawler aesthetic but alsoo has smooth animations and hyper realistic gore at times and then also has an animated cinematic trailer that makes me wonder if any of the game is like that.
Rewilders: The Lost Spring got its Steam store
page sometime in late July. This game has yet to get a release date,
but the game looks incredible. Wishlist and follow it if you want to
stay up-to-date on its release.
StarRupture got its release date trailer a couple weeks ago, on August 18, and the release date was January 6, 2026. It's only a few months away, so I'm looking forward to it. The game was originally rumored to be coming out in August. It gives me Satisfactory vibes in the trailer at times.
Dying Light: The Beast is free to DL2 Ultimate Edition owners!
The upcoming Dying Light game is replacing a second DLC that was promised to Dying Light 2 Ultimate Edition owners. Therefor, Ultimate Edition owners are getting the new game for free to make up for the lost DLC. I personally think this is a weird thing to do when you could have just developed another DLC on the side and then released this game a month or two after the DLC. I imagine a DL2 DLC wouldn't take a ton of time to create since they wouldn't be changing the gameplay much at all and would simply have to voice a few extra lines and add in a couple antagonist models to keep things fresh-ish.
Nintendo 64 emulator Gopher64 added save state slots and other features
According to GamingOnLinux, on August 19, Gopher 64, an up-and-coming N64 emulator, finally got save state slots and hotkeys for saving and loading said slots. This is a feature I expect in all emulators nowadays. Gopher64 finally became an adequate emulator this day. However, Gopher64 also got a few other features since its inception which make this emulator stand out, including CPU overclocking, Japanese VRU support, and on-demand netplay over cloud. Very neat stuff.
Virtual Reality News
New VR Games
Blade and Dragon VR released August 3 for Steam after a previous meta release on June 5. It looks pretty bad if you ask me, and the dev had the nerve to ask for $9.99 for this. No thanks.
Remember Richie's Plank Experience? Well, here it is again but created by a different developer with a newer, more realistic aesthetic. Walk The Plank released August 6 for $6 on Steam. Please note this game was originally released on Meta for the same price on December 24, 2024... over half a year earlier... but the Steam version looks a bit prettier... I think? It's really hard to tell if anything was done for this port....
Hidden Memories of The Gardens Between released August 7 for Steam and Meta with a price of $19.99. It looks great, but this was a non-VR game first, titled The Gardens Between, and the non-VR game and VR game were not bundled together in any way. I played the non-VR version a while ago, and it was kind of dull gameplay-wise. It was a cute story but nothing I'd want to experience again.
World War Z VR launched on the 12th on both Steam and Meta with mixed reviews on Steam. The floating hands demotivated me to even try it because I'm tired of seeing floating hands in AAA action games. Give me full body awareness already! It's 2025! Regardless, even the Meta version seemed to greatly disappoint its customers with some reviews claiming the game was barely playable.
Frost Survival VR launched on the 14th with better reviews, also on both Meta and Steam for $14.99 USD. It's a surprisingly nice-looking survival game for VR, but it likely won't turn many heads with its somewhat generic look and cosmetic DLCs. I hope they keep updating the game and get it to a really cool state before their first sales event.
Survival Nation was on sale 40% off, making it almost as cheap as Frost Survival VR but not quite. I suggest checkout out both titles when you can. They were created by the same developer, Wenkly Studio, who also created Elven Assassin. I really enjoyed Elven Assassin back in the day but have not kept up with their newer titles.
Cosmic Star Lounge released August 19 for $17.99 on Steam with
a special launch discount price of $12.59. Great deal! It looks like a
really fun minigame game with tons to do. I was gifted a review copy of
the game, so I'll be doing a video review soon. I personally like to
play these games alone because multiplayer tends to introduce lag and
voice chat issues in a lot of games, but if anyone has the game and
wants someone to play with, send me a DM on Discord and we can try to
schedule some play time.
Virtual Skate launched August 21st on Steam
and Meta with rather ugly visuals but reviews looked promising with an
overall "Positive" rating. Negative reviews were nowhere to be found on
Steam, likely because anyone who didn't like the visuals didn't even
give the game a chance. On Meta, however, reviews garnered an average
3.5/5. At launch, the price was $19.99 on both platforms but the Steam
version had a demo. One Steam review said "doing tricks in this game
feels better than the touch of a woman" so it seems like the controls are nice. I'll try it soon.
Ploko sort of released August 22 on Steam,
but it seems to have been available for purchase on the Steam store as
far back as at least February 2025 based on past sales data. It was also
listed on Sidequest way back on November 5, 2023 and that linked to the Itch page
where version 1.4.6 came out November 2, 2023 with no further updates
after that. Regardless of the game's actual release date, this game is
new to me, and it looks great. I've wishlisted it for later. There's a
demo for this one. Check it out.
Z.O.N.A.: Origin released August 22 as well on Steam for $19.99 with a lauch price of $15.39. I'm kind of disinterested in this one, but it appears to be of high quality and is based on Z.O.N.A Project X VR which released exactly 2 years earlier.
Chainsaw Snuff Shots VR came out August 27 on Steam. for $17.99. It's unclear if this is the same game as The Last Escape on Meta, which is still in pre-order status for the same price with the pre-order discount making it $10.99. This was another indie title which marketed itself on the PS1/PS2 era of visuals and some spooky environments. It seems to be focused on horror elements but has a spare few roomscale VR mechanics which should serve it well. I was gifted a review copy and may play it soon but it's in the backlog until I'm in the mood for horror survival.
Non-Virtual Reality Games released August 27 on Steam
as a free-to-play offering that may be good for siblings to wage quiet
wars to see who gets to have VRChat for the day. This is one of the rare
times I see Vive wands in any kind of marketing in 2025.
Into Black released August 28th, just a few days ago, on PSVR2 and Steam. I grabbed the Steam version for a launch price of $23.99, 20% off the regular price of $29.99, because I wanted to play it with my Vive wands and see how well it works and have some feedback on that with my review. I will admit I wish I could try both versions and see if the PSVR2 version is better in some way. Oh well! I'll put out a video review of this game someday soon.
Iron Guard: Salvation also released on the 28th. Its a tower defense game, so I'm already sold on the premise. I love tower defense games! However, it's a $18 Meta exclusive that looks like it was made with a Unity example asset/framework and a few AI prompts. There's a Steam page with a release date of 2025, so maybe I'll get the Steam release in a year or two after it hits a Fanatical bundle or something. It looks like it should be $5 or less, and the reviews seem pretty disappointed so far.
Man, August 28 is a very popular release day because we also saw Banners & Bastions release on Meta for $9.99. I'll be grabbing this one to play in mixed reality for sure! Looks great.
Upcoming VR Games & Apps
I thought Space Explorers Ultimate Edition was coming out this week, but the Meta store page got an updated release of October 2025. The non-ultimate edition of Space Explorers came out on Meta/Oculus on April 21, 2018 for $3 and was a pretty cool experience app, but the ultimate edition is a port to the standalone Quest 3 hardware with mixed reality features.
Exoshock was teased for a Fall 2025 release on Meta and a Q4 2025 release on Steam. No price yet but the trailer looks really good. Exoshock reminds me of classic Halo on the original Xbox and could be a great coop VR shooter experience that isn't tied to military realism.
A demo came out on October 1, 2024 for the upcoming action RPG My Monsters. The dev posted about the demo on August 15, 2025 (bsky), so I'm assuming they're preparing for a full release. I was unable to find this game on Steam, so I'm assuming this is a Meta exclusive, but it looks like a good seated experience akin to Moss albeit with less visual splendor and likely a lower budget. Dev was also posting recently asking for beta testers.
Alta, the developers of A Township Tale, are starting playtests for the upcoming Reave on Steam, and it looks pretty promising. Reave is kind of like the early versions of Legendary Tales before the dev changed almost everything or like Dark And Darker but VR. It looks great and has full body awareness rather than just floating hands. I signed up for the playtest in August but have not had time to truly participate because I have a million distractions and some other games have taken priority for now. However, this is a game I'm extremely excited for.
Titan Isles was teased and a release date of September 25 was announced for Meta and Steam. Titan Isles seems like a combination of Risk Of Rain 2 and a first person bullet hell. PlayStation's official trailer
for the game shows tons of generic energy weapon bullets flying at the
player in various patterns as the player shoots a bow. Coop features are
showcases in many scenes of the trailer. I have some days off coming up
which line up with this game's release somewhat, so I may grab this
game, but I'll be honest, I'm not very hyped for this one. We'll have to
see its Steam launch price.
Reach is coming October 16 for Meta, Steam, and PSVR2. (UploadVR)
I know very little about this game, but what I've seen looks really
promising. It's giving "The Gallery" vibes. Remember The Gallery? Damn,
that was a long time ago and such a shame they didn't
continue that series. Well, Reach has a similar vibe to it, and I think
it could be really cool as a kind of spiritual successor... but made by
nDreams instead of Cloudhead Games.
Star Trek: Infection VR is coming to Quest 3/3S and PCVR sometime later this year (UploadVR) but no exact release info has yet been spilled.
VR Game Sales
August was a month of sales, really. We saw so many great bundles and sales events, and VR was no exception.
BlackGate started taking a discounted pre-order for October 2 on Meta while still just having a "To be announced" release date on Steam. I would take advantage of the pre-order if it was for the Steam copy, but I'm not really interested otherwise, because this is a game I'll want to play while streaming and watching Twitch chat and things like that and I think it'll benefit from base station tracking and raw PC horsepower for things like lighting. Regardless, the game looks like it could be pretty fun and the pre-order price of $9.99 is a good deal over the release price of $14.99.
Last Labyrinth went on a 33% discount for $19.99 on Meta until September 2.
Arken Age went on a 40% discount on Steam until September 7. This game released at the start of this year! Grab it!
Arizona Sunshine 2 got a 50% discount on Steam until September 9 and bundle deals could make this game even cheaper if you own the studio's other titles.
Lucky's Tale got a whopping 70% discount on Steam with the price at a measly $5.99.
One of my favorite VR experiences, Shadow Legend VR, got a gigantic 80% discount on Steam until September 7 with the sale price reaching as low as $4.99. This game is short, but it's easily worth that price tag even today.
Penguin Festival removed from Meta store due to political stance
The creator of the upcoming VR game Penguin Festival, Cozy Cube Games, posted that their game would no longer be released on the Meta store due to Meta's recent "business decisions." I like to think that was code for "God, dammit, Meta, I hate you and everything you stand for!" Ahem. Yeah, I respect this decision by Cozy Cube Games. Good move. Now, they can release on Steam, itch.io, and PSVR2 and consider a storefront alternative for a Quest 2/3/3S build. I would assume they could sell on GOG and the GOG version could have a sideload APK for mobile devices running Android like Meta's Quest headsets. For those of you not in-the-know, Meta has been doing shady shit for years, but very recently, they supported the Trump presidency, reversed tons of Facebook safety measures, and went hard into anti-DEI and anti-LGBTQ+ activities, including hiring Robby Starbuck as their "AI bias advisor". (Advocate)
Windows MR headsets work again!
WMR was all but destroyed recently with updates to Windows 10/11 which removed functionality that made WMR work. An open source driver alternative has since been created by the community to fix most of the problems for WMR hardware running on Windows 11.
Tech News
Hauntify implemented continuous room scanning
Hauntify on Quest 3 is now using continuous room scanning to simplify the onboarding for the game for players who don't want to set up multiple rooms before playing. (UploadVR) Click here to go to the game's store page on Meta.
Argon One Up Pi laptop funded
The Argon One Up laptop kickstarter went live August 5. The project was fully funded within a day of the start of the campaign, and the campaign ended September 2. (Kickstarter blog post) I had been watching this project for many months before it went live and still managed to miss the super early bird deal. I didn't buy one because it isn't copmpatible with my existing Pi4 or Pi5 hardware and I already bought a Surface laptop recently. This kit was not cheap enough to justify buying it even with the early bird discount, which makes me wonder how it got funded so quickly.
Official Pi touchscreen released
Raspberry Pi got a new official accessory in the form of an officially supported touchscreen. (Ars Technica) My opinion is that the touchscreen's price is too high at MSRP and even that price is superseded by retailers upping the price to whatever they want to charge. I haven't been able to find it at the advertised $40 at all, and most retailers are selling this screen for $60+ already, making it an expensive solution I really don't need.
Meta's upcoming HUD will only render to one eye
Meta's upcoming HUD-enabled smartglasses will only render to one lens and by extension, one eye. (David Heaney) I gotta say, this is frustrating... but expected after owning Meta's first generation smartglasses and realizing how limited they are.
HTC released their own smartglasses... in Taiwan only.
HTC, best known in tech circles for their phones but also known more recently for their VR headsets, has finally entered the smartglasses scene with HTC Vive Eagle. (Road To VR) The catch is it's only available in Taiwan for now. (Vive Blog) I would love to try these and give my opinion and honest comparison to Meta's Wayfarer glasses... but I don't plan to upgrade to new smartglasses for at least another year. With Android XR glasses on the way, I know the future of smartglasses is very bright, and I will definitely keep an eye on this space. For now, I'm stuck with my Meta smartglasses and their ridiculous and frustrating limitations. Please note that I'm hoping to get waterproof smartglasses someday and these simply aren't that.
PSVR2 eye tracking on PC
PlayStation VR2's eye tracking can now be utilized on PC via an open source driver mod. (UploadVR)
Lenovo fruit roll-ups
Scratch the fruit part... unless you want to try using these screens for a Raspberry Pi or Orange Pi project! Check out this Gizmodo article about a Lenovo "rollable" screen laptop.
Meta teased ultra-wide VR headset
Meta teased a set of 3 VR headset prototypes which are likely the next iterations of the Quest Pro design and show off the progress toward improved FOV on their headsets. (UploadVR) I would like a more expensive AR/VR headset that flips all my switches, but one of those switches is not to be tied to Meta anymore.
Game Dev & Art Asset News
Unity Flash Sale: Iconic Essentials
The flash deals on Unity Asset Store ended mid-August but picked back up a couple weeks later with the Iconic Essentials Sale. This sale went mostly unnoticed by me, because it wasn't sent to my affiliate email in advance and I figured the store was taking a break from sales after the last big one. Guess I was wrong! The sale included some insanely cheap frameworks, some priced less than $4! I'd link to the sale but it's almost over as I'm typing this.
Computer Entertainer now in public domain!
On August 6, an old gaming magazine was open sourced! The magazine name was Computer Entertainer. Yeah, I never heard of it, either, but apparently, it had quite the history and is now in the public domain. Definitely worth checking out for a glimpse into the early days of video game entertainment news. We've come a long way in such a short time.
Closing Article...
Are you feeling like you lost your creativity? New Rising Media posted a YT video
on August 11 about how the Playdate handheld rebooted their creativity.
It's a good video review of the hardware, but I wouldn't say such
hardware is truly going to save your creativity. All you need is to find
a good inspiration. That could be the Playdate or could be a phone
emulator, but you have to find something you care about. You could
create your own Gameboy games for example and play those on practically
anything, even your phone, and I honestly would prefer that to the
Playdate because I could run that on practically anything, even a $5
Chinese handheld from AliExpress. The point I'm trying to make is
inspiration can come from anywhere but you have to be open to new
sources of inspiration and willing to sail the seas of inspiration in
order to go anywhere worthwhile.
If you want some fucking inspiration, in 2023, Banana Gear Studios released an omni-directional treadmill replica kit for LEGO Technic parts and a single motor. That's either inspiration or demotivation considering there's no way you can ever keep up with these insane projects nowadays. I recall being a teen without the internet in the 90s and it was bliss. Maybe the trick to inspiration is not to look at the internet and avoid your phone as much as possible. Maybe inspiration is the friends we made along the way.
Do what you enjoy... just don't hurt people. (Duh.)
Winter
is coming... but I won't let my watch end. These articles will keep
coming on a monthly basis. If you like what I'm doing and wish to
support my work, buy some merch or buy me a taco. Every little contribution adds up and helps keep me motivated to work on this monthly recap. It really does help.
I'll see you all next month.