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The core gameplay loop of Quarantine Zone centers around the inspection line. One by one, you’ll wave people forward and check to see if they have any symptoms. At first, these investigations are purely visual; you’ll take a flashlight and check if their eyes are red, or if they’re covered in oozing bites or worrisome scratches. Later, you’ll get more diagnostic tools like a stethoscope, a reflex hammer, and a portable X-ray. You’ll note the symptoms each person has on a tablet, then decide whether to send them to the survivors' block, quarantine, the laboratory, or “liquidation,” which is… exactly what you think it is.

Symptoms range in severity from green (mild), to orange (iffy), to red (definitely infected). Some people have one or two symptoms, others may have none at all, and once in a while you’ll find some fool with dozens of bites hidden under their clothes. Folks with any code-red symptoms go to liquidation — unless they have a new symptom you can potentially track in future survivors, in which case it’s off to the laboratory. After each inspection, you’ll see a pop-up in the top-right corner indicating whether your inspection was excellent, competent, or poor, depending on whether you correctly noted their symptoms and sent them to the right place.

It seems pretty straightforward at first, but things get complicated fast. Is that dirt or scratches? Is that a bruise, or necrosis, or a tattoo? Are those “normal” freckles or “potentially a mild symptom and thus quarantine-worthy” freckles? You’ll have to rely on your instincts, and you’ll consistently be reminded that your instincts suck. As your quarantine space fills and survivor quotas get higher, the more you’ll be tempted to let someone through who’s probably fine, fingers crossed.

While inspections are the meat of Quarantine Zone, the game does integrate a variety of other systems, with varying results. The best of these are the raids, which happen every few days at night. Piloting a drone armed with an array of guns, you’ll take out hordes of zombies attempting to infiltrate your compound. It’s straightforward arcade-style shooting, and a fun shift from the more deliberate pace of inspections that doesn’t overstay its welcome. I haven’t gotten too deep into the base-building elements of the game, but what I've seen is intriguing. You'll need to expand the capacity of your quarantine room and camp, in addition to keeping the generator, canteen, and clinic stocked. There are some enticing upgrades here to unlock, too.

Unfortunately, the laboratory minigame is a bit undercooked, which is frustrating given the importance of cataloging new symptoms as you progress. You must extract the target organ from each subject in a limited amount of time by destroying the surrounding organs, which sounds basic on paper but is confusing in practice. I’m not sure if it’s a holdover of the original keyboard-and-mouse controls not quite working on the Xbox gamepad, or if it’s just that it's not explained very well, but I can't stop killing these poor bastards pretty much instantly. I’ve only managed to discover two new symptoms after several hours of gameplay, which means I’ve sent a lot of folks with bloody noses and acne to die for no reason.

You'll have to balance all of these components over the course of roughly one month. Every five days your camp will have an evacuation, where you’ll release survivors to a medical facility (which grants research points) or a military facility (which gives you money). As for what happens to them after that, I don’t know and I don’t wanna know.

To its credit, even as it makes the task of sending people to their doom a matter of daily tedium, Quarantine Zone doesn’t let you ignore the humanity of the people who pass through your inspection line. A few survivors will beg to be reunited with a family member, or plead with you to keep quiet if you notice anything amiss. Others will lash out violently. Some will speak in languages other than English: I’ve encountered Spanish, French, and what I assume was either Cantonese or Mandarin. But the game doesn’t translate what they’re saying, calling attention to the terrifying life-or-death power you have over these people in their most vulnerable moments — and how easy it would be to abuse that power.

If you’re a fan of series like The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, and Resident Evil, you’ll find a lot to sink your teeth into with Quarantine Zone. It’s available now on Steam and included with the Premium and Ultimate tiers of Xbox Game Pass. %!s()

Earlier this week, McRae appeared on the cover of Variety‘s Power of Young Hollywood issue. When asked why she avoids commenting on any conversations regarding politics — specifically as it pertains to Donald Trump and his MAGA cult — McRae circled the question carefully, which only made her response catch fire online. “I think it’s pretty obvious what kind of person I am and the things I support,” she said. “And I hope that my fans can see that through the things that I’m putting my energy towards.”

McRae might be hoping fans will notice her support for organizations like the Trevor Project, which aims to end suicide among young LGBTQ+ communities, and the gender equality foundation Global Fund for Women. But some people on the internet have a hard time dismissing her collaboration with Morgan Wallen and her rumored relationship with NHL star Jack Hughes.

Last year, McRae turned into a lightning rod for political projections when she joined Wallen on his single “What I Want.” At 33, Wallen has largely rebounded from the the 2021 moment when he was captured on video spitting out a racial slur while drunk. He remains a chart-topping, stadium-filling act. The music that was pulled from radio and digital playlists has long since been reinstated. McRae earned her first and only Number One song when “What I Want” topped the Billboard Hot 100.

Months after the song’s release, McRae told Rolling Stone she just wanted to make a country song and “didn’t realize how much a song would be connected to all the other factors, and it really shocked me.” She also clarified that she’d never met Wallen in person.

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Then she seemed to double down on her decision to work with him in the first place. “I don’t think you should regret anything in life, because it gives you so much clarity,” she said. “I think controversy and criticism is a way of learning and figuring out what you want to move forward with, and how that shapes you as a person. I think it’s all important.”

Another wave of criticism hit McRae when she first became linked to Hughes late last year. Hughes, a center for the New Jersey Devils, became a trending name at the top of the year after leading the U.S men’s national ice hockey team to its first gold medal win in 46 years. The celebration took a turn when the team accepted an invitation to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, which was declined by the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team, though a representative attributed their absence to prior commitments. Hughes was pictured at the White House smiling alongside his teammates in a photo with Trump.

“Everything is so political. We’re athletes. We’re so proud to represent the U.S.,” Hughes said about the team’s excitement for the visit. “When you get the chance to go to White House and meet the president, we’re proud to be Americans, and that’s so patriotic. No matter what your views are, we’re super excited to go to the White House tomorrow and be a part of that.”

When asked about her rumored relationship with Hughes, McRae told Variety, “I try to keep my relationships as sacred and private as possible. I love the people in my life. They love me. You just try to keep that circle as positive and supportive as possible. And the outside noise, I can’t do anything about that. Focusing my energy on something that I can’t control, it just puts me in a bad mood.”

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She told Variety she would prefer to “say my piece through organizations I support and the environment that I have on tour,” as she told Variety, but many fans are still alarmed she hasn’t said more. Online, people are still demanding a more direct statement.

“I think there’s just so much that gets misconstrued online,” she told Rolling Stone. “You have to have humor with it, otherwise you would go insane.” %!s()

Following the European Commission’s clearance of the deal last month, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Thursday concluded the merger would not substantially impact competition within theatrical film distribution, linear children’s TV channels and the supply of subscription VOD services in Britain.

The support Ellison is receiving across Europe follows an extensive lobbying campaign he undertook in January to build backing for the transaction. The Skydance chief met political leaders, policymakers and senior industry players, including the French President Emmanuel Macron and the U.K. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, to stress how committed to the theatrical experience he was, as well as to persuade them that traditional media companies had to come together to compete with global streamers.

That outreach appears to have considerably helped Ellison win over influential figures, several of whom have since publicly embraced his argument. That was the case in Brussels, where Macron pushed for the deal to be cleared by the European Commission, according to a senior industry source.

Vue founder and CEO Tim Richards described the CMA’s greenlight as an important milestone after six years of disruption and uncertainty for the film business, spanning the pandemic and the Hollywood strikes.

“We welcome today’s decision from the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority to approve Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” Richards said. “It has been an incredibly challenging six years for our industry, from the pandemic through to the Hollywood strikes, and this decision is an important step toward providing the final level of certainty for the sector.”

Richards argued that bringing the two studios together would strengthen theatrical exhibition and support greater investment in feature filmmaking under Skydance founder David Ellison.

“We believe the industry will be stronger with Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery coming together, rather than competing separately,” Richards said. “The industry now needs final certainty so it can focus on what matters most: making and releasing great films.”

He added that Ellison was “a highly respected filmmaker” who had consistently demonstrated a long-term commitment to feature films and theatrical exhibition, and urged remaining regulators not to delay the transaction further.

The CMA’s approval also marks a notable departure from the tougher stance regulators adopted several years ago, when the British watchdog blocked Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard before later approving a restructured version of the deal, and took a hard line on Meta’s acquisition of Giphy, forcing the social media giant to unwind the transaction.

Speaking to Variety, Sir Peter Bazalgette, the former ITV chair and longtime government adviser on the creative industries, said consolidation had become both inevitable and increasingly supported by policymakers.

“The trend is toward consolidation,” Bazalgette said. “Regulators were stopping these mergers four or five years ago because they were looking in the rearview mirror and not on the road ahead. They’re now looking at it very differently.”

Bazalgette pointed to the U.K.’s recently published industrial strategy for the creative industries, arguing that consolidation had effectively become part of government policy.

“We actually wrote into it, with government approval, that consolidation is something that needs to happen,” he said. “It’s a matter of necessity that you need to have mergers or merge services.”

He also dismissed concerns that the combined Paramount-WBD business would wield excessive market power in Britain.

“When it comes to competition, Paramount’s not very big, and OK, they’re going to own Warner Bros. Discovery now, but if you look at British media and the role of Netflix, Disney, Apple and the BBC, you could hardly argue that the whole Skydance conglomerate is in a dominant position in the U.K. market,” he said. “They just don’t have a dominant position. Just look at market share. It’s tiny.”

In order to receive the U.K. approval, Paramount Skydance had to address concerns surrounding Channel 5, the U.K. public service broadcaster owned by Paramount, and agreed to maintain its public service broadcasting license through 2034, preserve the editorial independence of Channel 5 News, keep its news operations separate from CNN and CBS News, as well as continue commissioning U.K.-originated programming, and invest £80 million ($108 million) in the broadcaster over the next three years.

Yet, Bazalgette suggested that while the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 could remain independent, they may ultimately combine services such as streaming platforms or advertising sales. Under that scenario, he added, Channel 5 would become “a ticket to play” for Skydance.

Mark Oliver, a U.K. media analyst, similarly argued that the merger raises few meaningful competition concerns in Britain because neither Paramount nor Channel 5 commands a significant share of the market.

“The main issue is around the shared advertising market, and whether there needs to be a reshuffling of that ownership,” Oliver said. “I don’t think it’s around Warner Bros. and Paramount having too much power in the U.K. market.”

He noted that Channel 5 accounts for roughly 5% of television viewing, or around 6% including its portfolio channels.

“There’s no TV market issues in the U.K. on the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger,” Oliver said. “You obviously still have Disney and Universal through Comcast, while Netflix, Amazon MGM and Netflix’s own productions have fundamentally changed the commissioning landscape. One studio is not going to push it over the edge.”

Oliver said any remaining regulatory questions are more likely to concern the companies’ studio businesses and theatrical distribution than the British television market.

The CMA’s approval comes as British exhibitors are enjoying the highest number of weekly admissions since ‘Barbenheimer,‘ bolstered by “The Odyssey” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.”

Naman Ramachandran and Leo Barraclough contributed to this report. %!s()

The GAO evaluated $110 billion of savings DOGE claimed on a website with its "Wall of Receipts" from cuts including federal contracts, grants and leases. The GAO said it found multiple "issues limiting the transparency and reliability of these reported savings." Including additional categories beyond contracts, grants, and leases, DOGE tallied $215 billion in cuts, the GAO said.

The findings further undercut claims by Musk and President Donald Trump that they have made meaningful cuts in government spending and call into question the effects of the DOGE effort that slashed federal spending with little notice to agencies and slashed hundreds of thousands of government jobs.

The GAO found that of the 13,476 contracts DOGE claimed it terminated, "no termination action" was taken on 2,503 of them. The report also noted DOGE had claimed $113 million in savings from cuts to 264 leases, but GAO found that information overstated the savings. The leases cut and referenced on DOGE's website "actually summed to $53.5 million" in savings, the report found. Of the 264 leases, about 108 were already in the termination process before DOGE was formed after Trump began his second term as president, the GAO report also said.

The report was requested last year by Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) who are, respectively, ranking members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and of the panel's investigations subcommittee.

The GAO is recommending that the DOGE website should prominently caution readers that the site has data-quality problems and other limitations and is therefore not a reliable source of information.

In their review, the GAO said it checked DOGE's Wall of Receipts claims about cut contracts, grants, and leases from Jan. 20, 2025, when Trump took office, through July 7, 2026, three days after DOGE announced on social media it had wound down. The GAO said it compared DOGE reporting to official data from publicly available federal databases.

The GAO said DOGE did not respond to the its requests for information and interviews.

"Everyone supports rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, but DOGE was a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American people while doing real damage to the government's ability to serve them," Peters said in a statement.

Musk and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC on the GAO report. %!s()

The 19 new levels, which join two previous MachineGames expansions, see Quake's protagonist trapped in "a dimension of endless illusion." I'm most curious about some promised new weapon variants: "the Super Axe—unleashing lightning on successive strikes—and the Laser Cannon, firing ricocheting projectiles that tear through enemies from every angle."

The update also adds a gallery of archival material from Quake's development, including a handful of playable levels that were created early in development and never finished.

The creative process on display is decidedly relatable, with level names like "Tim" "Tim10A," and "Tim14," and notes like, "Lots of tight hallways make navigation tough, and similarly there are many dead ends that were not completed, so it is not entirely clear what the idea was."

The update was revealed at QuakeCon today in a panel which included id Software co-founder John Romero, who noted with laughter that the announcement was occurring not on the 30th anniversary of Quake, which released in June of 1996, but on the 30th anniversary of the day he left id Software.

Quake famously marked the end of an era for id: Romero, American McGee, Michael Abrash, Sandy Petersen and others left the company after its development. Petersen said recently that "Quake ruined id Software."

Quake “Dawn of the Machine” | 30 Years w/ John Romero + Marty Stratton & MachineGames - YouTube

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But ruined or not, the studio carried on and released two of my favorite games, Quake 2 and 3, and everything else that came after, including the much lauded run of modern Doom games.

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Id now faces a new kind of adversity following substantial layoffs imposed by Microsoft as part of its plan to "reset" the Xbox business.

"This is certainly going to dampen the mood of the founder reunion at QuakeCon next month," id Software co-founder John Carmack said in reaction to the news.

Romero, John Carmack, Adrian Carmack, and Tom Hall are all scheduled to appear at a founders reunion panel on Saturday for "a rare conversation about the company's earliest days, and the friendships, challenges, and innovations that have forever changed gaming."

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League. %!s()