The Elder Scrolls 6 is hotly anticipated—and has been for a full eight years following its announcement at E3 2018 and complete silence on it ever since. Instead, Bethesda worked very hard at trying to push Starfield which, for a studio that was once the pinnacle of open world RPG makers, just wasn't quite up to snuff.
… %!s()
The setting was a little dull and boilerplate, the procedurally-generated planets didn't have much on offer, it looked a touch dated, and so on. It was left out to dry at The Game Awards, was thrashed by reviews on Steam, and it had the misfortune of coming out in the same year as Baldur's Gate 3, which is one of our highest-scoring games of all time.
According to Bethesda veteran Kurt Kuhlmann, most of the developers at the studio were surprised to be working on Starfield instead of The Elder Scrolls 6. And it's not as though Kuhlmann was some small fry who wasn't in the know: He joined the company in 1996, wrote the main questline of Oblivion, and was the co-lead designer on Skyrim before leaving the studio in 2023.
Speaking with Frvr, Kuhlmann says that "we all expected [The Elder Scrolls 6] to be directly after Fallout 4. Why wouldn't it be? That's what we did, and that was kind of the expectation. And then Fallout 76 came along."
Fallout 76 sidelined the studio for some time, as the project "wasn't originally supposed to involve our whole studio. But then, I mean, what we were supposed to be working on next—it wasn't ever that we were about to suddenly work on TES 6, even though that's what I think most people wanted."
He then describes Todd coming in with the Starfield-shaped steel chair: "Todd was like: 'No, we're doing Starfield. I got that approved. It's going to be a new IP. It's going to be this ambitious [game]. It's going to be the greatest space RPG ever made.'"
Kuhlmann, who it should be noted left due to a "tough conversation" wherein he was refused a lead role on TES6, theorises that Todd Howard "had maybe the opportunity and the ability to go to the people running ZeniMax and say, 'I want to not do TES 6'" after the successes of Fallout 4. "Which seems like a pretty hard sell, right? And it must have been."
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Kuhlmann, understandably, "would've much rather have been making TES 6 instead of [Fallout] 76 and Starfield, personally. And I think that would probably be true for the majority of the studio. That's what most people wanted to do, you know?
"It wasn't like Starfield was this big internal like, 'Hey, we all want to make this space game, Todd.' It was very much, 'Guess what, team? We're making this space game.'"
This picture of Howard as an accidental force of nature in the studio does track with other accounts from former Bethesda employees, including character artist Dennis Mejillones, who said—while comparing him to George Lucas—that "a lot of people were afraid to say no to Todd, and I think that hurt him."
Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many. %!s()
When it comes to cruise itineraries, it's important to review them closely — especially the ports.
Rebecca Shinners
I always envisioned my first visit to Positano involving leisurely strolls through a dreamy, brightly colored coastal landscape. Instead, I found myself rushing down a vine-lined street, feeling lost and confused.
… %!s()
Watching the time fly by, I debated whether I'd make it to the beachfront and back in time to catch my shuttle to the cruise ship. My tour guide's warning from earlier, "Meet here in 45 minutes or we're leaving without you," echoed in my head.
Begrudgingly, I turned around and stopped in some of the well-known shops I had dreamed of visiting for years. I couldn't help be disappointed as I frantically rushed to pick out souvenirs.
Despite being an experienced cruiser, I had made a major mistake tracing all the way back to when I booked this itinerary.
I focused on where I wanted to go and assumed I'd be, not where my ship would dock
I hadn't realized my cruise ship was docking quite far from my goal destination.
Rebecca Shinners
I've grown up going on cruises, including many through the Caribbean and, more recently, several itineraries in Europe. They've become my go-to way to visit multiple destinations without having to drag around a heavy suitcase.
While searching for Mediterranean itineraries, I saw "Amalfi Coast (Salerno)" listed as a stop and got excited. I'd always wanted to visit Positano on the Amalfi Coast, and this sounded like a great jumping-off point.
At the time, I didn't realize that Salerno was a separate port city that cruise ships often use to access the Amalfi Coast. It's not on the Amalfi Coast, it's east of it.
To get from where our cruise ship docked in Salerno to Positano, I'd need to take a car or ferry. Although I could have made the trip independently, the quickest options would still take close to an hour.
For ease and peace of mind, I ended up booking an excursion through my cruise ship that included multiple stops along the Amalfi Coast.
It was nice to visit Sorrento and have lunch along the way, but our time at each stop was limited. By the time we got to Positano, we were only given 45 minutes to explore before we had to head back to the ship. I would've preferred to have more time in one destination rather than cramming multiple into one day.
To make matters worse, we had about a two-hour traffic-filled journey back to Salerno by shuttle, and the winding Italian roads triggered my motion sickness.
I found myself in the ship's medical center after the stressful outing.
Rebecca Shinners
Back on board, I still couldn't shake the nausea and ended up needing treatment in the ship's medical center.
As someone who has been sailing for over 20 years, I was shocked by how poorly I planned my port day. I should have researched the ship's actual docking location and how far it was from the places I actually wanted to visit.
Now, I check exactly where my ship will dock before booking and plan accordingly
Eventually, I made it back to Positano.
Rebecca Shinners
This past June, I decided to embark on another Mediterranean cruise, hoping to get a redo on the Amalfi Coast. This time, I prioritized sailings that brought me closer to Positano.
I ended up booking a 12-night cruise with stops in France, Italy, and Croatia. The itinerary listed "Amalfi/Positano," and I double-checked exactly where the ship would dock. ( If this information isn't available online, you can also reach out to the cruise line and ask.)
I found out the ship would anchor offshore from Amalfi, with a tender boat bringing guests directly into town in about 10 minutes.
Once on board, I checked in with the ship's destination services for the best way to get to Positano. Based on their advice and my own research, I booked a 25-minute ferry from Amalfi to Positano.
This time, since we actually docked in Amalfi, the journey to Positano was quick, easy, and scenic. I hopped off the ferry at the same beachfront I never made it to on my first cruise.
Marveling at the postcard-worthy view, I felt a wave of relief.
I'm glad I knew how to plan better the second time around.
Rebecca Shinners
Since we started closer to Positano, I could skip a full excursion or a long ride to get there and better explore the village at my own pace. I had hours to wander in and out of shops.
Now, I know it's pretty common for cruise ships to dock outside of the destination listed — especially on Mediterranean itineraries.
For example, cruises to Rome actually tend to dock in Civitavecchia, more than 40 miles from the city's center. In Taormina, my ship tendered into Giardini Naxos, and I needed to find my own transportation into town.
My parents also recently took a cruise that advertised a stop in Berlin, but reaching the city actually required a lengthy train ride from a nearby port.
Sometimes, cruise lines will arrange shuttles to and from a port. In other cases, you're on your own. For both, it's really important to plan ahead and set realistic expectations.
Ultimately, having two very different experiences in Positano made me feel more confident in my ability to plan a port day. Now, I take some extra time to look into every stop before I book a cruise.
I confirm the exact port, how far it is from the places I want to visit, and the best way to get around.
While the next-generation BMW 3-series sports sedan will spawn a battery-electric version, this traditional gas-powered model will continue to be the brand’s bread and butter. Styling will be inspired by the Neue Klasse concept, and we expect the new 3-series to push the envelope with new interior tech, including a wall-to-wall dashboard display for infotainment. Turbo-four and turbo-six engine choices will remain the sport sedan’s core offerings, and we drove a prototype of the 437-hp six-cylinder M350 version that suggests serious performance. A high-powered M3 model will also be relaunched, both with gas and electric powertrains. When we learn more about the next-generation 3-series, we’ll update this story with more information.
…
What's New for 2027?
The venerable 3-series is expected to enter an all-new generation—the sedan’s eighth—for the 2027 model year. The gas-powered 3-series will be joined by an electric version called i3, but we review that model separately.
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Engine, Transmission, and Performance
Engine: 437-hp turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Drivetrain: all-wheel drive
A turbocharged four-cylinder will likely continue to be the standard engine option, but we don’t yet have details on that version of the 3-series. We do know that the optional turbo six-cylinder will be offered in the M350 model. This performance-oriented trim has 437 horsepower, and we drove a prototype of the M350 equipped with xDrive all-wheel drive. Its handling is planted and responsive, and the all-wheel-drive system will offer a Drift Moment mode that sends power only to the rear wheels.
0–60-MPH Times
Claimed 60-mph Time: 4.1 seconds
In Comparison: The old M340i got to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds in our testing, so we think the even more powerful M350 will be quicker than BMW’s estimate.
bmw
As more information becomes available, we'll update this story with more details about:
Fuel Economy and Real-World MPG
Interior, Comfort, and Cargo
Infotainment and Connectivity
Safety and Driver-Assistance Features
Warranty and Maintenance Coverage
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“We are going to bring the same energy we bring to our own shows and we cannot wait,” says Cage the Elephant’s Matt Shultz of the Nov. 15 Germany matchup between the Patriots and Lions
… %!s()
Cage the Elephant are heading to Munich on Nov. 15 to headline the halftime show at the 2026 NFL Munich Game, where the New England Patriots take on the Detroit Lions.
“We have played a lot of shows in Germany over the years and the crowds here have always given us everything they have,” Cage the Elephant’s Matt Shultz says in a statement. “Playing a halftime show is a completely different animal — you get one shot in front of a stadium and a global audience, and you have to make every second count. We are going to bring the same energy we bring to our own shows and we cannot wait.”
Cage the Elephant’s halftime show in Munich is part of a series of halftime performances by major acts at NFL games in overseas markets. The Jonas Brothers are playing at the NFL Melbourne Game in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 10, and Pedro Sampaio and Ricky Martin will be performing at the NFL Rio Game on Sept. 27 in Rio de Janeiro.
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“Munich has given us some of the most memorable atmospheres of any international game we have staged, and we wanted a halftime act that could meet a crowd like that head on,” Tim Tubito, senior director of global game presentation, music and entertainment at the NFL, says in a statement. “Cage the Elephant are one of the great live rock bands working today. Germany has a deep rock tradition and a football crowd that sings from start to finish, and we look forward to collaborating with the band on a performance that captures the energy that matches the moment.”
It’s been a relatively quiet year for Cage the Elephant where their live activity has been limited to a handful of U.S. festival appearances (last year, they spent the summer opening the U.S. dates of Oasis’s reunion tour). But they dropped their new single “Beaches in Tennessee” in July, and are working on the follow-up to their 2024 LP, Neon Pill. They return to the road in February for a run of shows all across Europe. %!s()
One of the best survival games around is finally complete.
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…
Need to know
What is it? A Viking-themed survival game set in a procedurally generated open world. Release date: September 09, 2026 (1.0) Expect to pay: $30/£23.49 Developer: Iron Gate AB Publisher: Coffee Stain Publishing Reviewed on: Intel i7 9700K, RTX 4070 Ti, 16GB RAM Steam Deck: Verified Link: Official site
After a day-long battle with one of Valheim's big bosses, I return to my modest cabin in the woods to recover. I'm exhausted, my weapons and armor are mostly broken, and I've burned through my meager supply of food and arrows. I don't even have a spare torch left to light my way home. Even though I was victorious, the cold and rainy night doesn't put me in the mood for a celebration.
Then I spot a shadowy figure in the gloom, leaning on a walking stick, one blue eye gleaming from beneath its hood. Odin. It's frickin' Odin himself, y'know, Thor's dad? He's visiting the exiled tenth world of Valheim to peep me in person. Suddenly my mood lifts and I feel like a complete badass. Odin knows who I am.
This isn't my first visitation from the ancient god: I've been playing Valheim since its early access release in 2021, and I've seen Odin a few times before. But darn it, it's still a thrill whenever he appears to silently approve of my valor. And after a long wait, I can finally prove myself worthy: Valheim 1.0 is here, and even though I've been playing this game for five years, it's still got plenty of magic.
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Ragna rocks
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)
I'm a fallen norse warrior, delivered via Valkyrie into a cursed world to vanquish Odin's enemies. But this is no RPG, it's a survival game, and those always start with a lot of backbreaking work: chopping down trees, shattering boulders, hunting deer, and constructing a base where I can sleep and do some crafting. There's no rest for the dead.
The procedurally generated world of Valheim is a massive disc, separated into biomes and split by oceans, and the deeper you explore from your starting point at the disc's center, the more dangerous the world becomes. Originally with six biomes (including the ocean), more were added over the past several years, culminating in the deep north: the frozen final realm where you finish your work for Odin. And yes, rare as this is for a survival game, there is an actual ending, though you can continue playing in your world once you've seen it.
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)
For such a massive world, there are no quests in Valheim, not really: early on you'll stumble across an altar that will summon the first of several boss monsters, each which drop an item you'll need to survive and thrive in the next biome. But other than an occasional marker on your map, Valheim is a self-guided tour that leaves progression to your discretion and motivation.
In that, it succeeds wonderfully: I've spent nearly 150 hours in the game and I've never felt a need for NPCs to fill my ears with exposition nor wanted a quest log to give me direction. Valheim 1.0 does add animated dream sequences after each vanquished boss, and while they're pretty cool, the game was perfectly fine without them. The world is beautiful and mysterious and the urge to explore it comes simply from wanting to discover what's across the sea or on the other side of a mountain range.
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Hearth and home
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)
Most survival games have a cozy element to them, but I find Valheim the coziest of all. I've never been much of a builder, but I still love my creaky, crude little bases: one in the meadow, one in the forest, and even a small stone hut I built in one of the more dangerous biomes just so I could grow a particular crop. The horrors of the world, from the icky monsters of the swamps to the almost comically hellish swarms of furious skeletons in the ashlands makes for a nice contrast with how relaxing it is to be at home after a long, brutal adventure.
There's a real joy to puttering around my base, tweaking and decorating the structures I've built, doing some farming and animal breeding and putting off the next dangerous expedition until I'm good and ready for it. I especially love cooking: searing enormous lox drumsticks over the roaring hearth, baking bread in my huge stone oven, and brewing mead in my distillery—which takes multiple in-game days. Hey, fine. I'm in no rush to leave my comfy little homestead.
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)
The food system of Valheim is still one of my favorites in any game (and has inspired similar systems in other survival games that have launched since 2021), where your stomach functions like a three-slot inventory: stuff a mushroom, a blueberry, and some cooked meat down there and your health and stamina bars will be fuelled until you digest them. Simple, at first.
I still remember the first time I ate a proper meal in Valheim. I'd left my starter island on a tiny raft, sailing across the sea to unknown lands in the middle of the night, to eventually find a rotting town full of undead Vikings. After barely escaping with my life and a handful of entrails dropped from the few draugr I'd managed to kill, I sailed cautiously back home. In my kitchen I stuffed the entrails with boar meat and thistle and cooked my first sausages in my cauldron, then chowed down—watching wide-eyed as my heath bar abruptly grew twice as tall as it had ever been. I had no idea I could be that strong. From then on, downing draugr was a snap and I never left home without a pocketful of sausages.
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)
In Valheim, eating meals made from your enemies gives you the freedom to boldly tread in extremely dangerous places, and every new recipe unlocked is a chance to take on tougher challenges. Food is as important, if not more, than your armor, making your kitchen the mightiest crafting station in the game. In any forum post where a player complains that they keep getting their asses kicked, the first question Valheim veterans ask is always the same: "What are you eating?"
Where Valheim gives you a break in some aspects of survival—as important as food is, for example, you can never starve to death—it restricts you in other ways. Even when you build fast-travel portals around the world, letting you teleport to different biomes in an instant, you can't pass through them carrying precious metals like silver or iron (at least not until much later in the game).
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)
I'm grateful for that restriction because it's led to so many great adventures. In co-op, we spent hours sailing our longboat across the ocean while battling sea serpents (their meat makes for a fantastic stew, btw), enduring blizzards as we fended off werewolves and ice-spitting drakes on a mountainside, all to mine silver from one of the biome's frozen peaks.
Then we loaded up as much ore as we could into a cart, had a chaotic time trying to safely steer it down the nearly-sheer side of the mountain while still intermittently battling monsters, transferred it all to our ship's hold and had a tense trip back across the stormy sea to our little island base. It's so much damn work, so much time and effort, just to gather a bit of silver, yet so incredibly satisfying to succeed. Enduring hardships is what survival games are all about, and even on a little resupply mission, Valheim always makes you feel like you've been through a major trial.
Norse north
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)
And so five years after my journey in the Norse afterlife began, I finally sailed to Valheim's final biome, the deep north. My ship slowly smashed its way through ice floes as I noted the wreckage of dozens of similar Viking vessels, until I stepped onto the new continent, crossing slippery ice to stand waist deep in blinding white snow.
Truthfully, I found the deep north a bit disappointing at first, especially because there's a quite a bit there that feels like recycled material: more greydwarfs, those squat little dummies we've been mindlessly massacring since our starter biome, more narrow underground tunnel networks to fight through, and yet another iteration of the blob-type monsters that always felt like a placeholder for something better.
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)
But there's also a rather surprising overland enemy that's genuinely exciting to see every time you fight it, some new underground structures that are shocking in their size and scope, and a new type of crafting bench that operates differently than the ones we're used to.
And I love (but won't spoil) the method of gaining access to Valheim's final boss. Talk about hardships to overcome: if I can cross mythologies for a moment, it's a Herculean task, as if Odin wants to be sure you've really mastered the world of Valheim before you do your final round of ass-kicking. I didn't particularly care for the final boss battle itself, but the journey to reach it was a real adventure.
Odinson
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)
There are things I don't love about Valheim, like the swamp biome, where mining its precious iron requires spending ages in dank and cramped underground corridors smashing a pickaxe into a bland heap of metal, a task with zero enjoyment. I don't like the mistlands, either, one of the biomes added in early access, which combines the ickiness of the swamp with fog so thick that just walking around is a frustrating endeavor.
I'd also hoped certain elements of Valheim would have evolved alongside the survival genre it's been so inspiring to. Somehow, there's still no way to craft directly from storage chests, despite it being a pretty common feature in most survival games these days. And despite fans begging for years for armor to have dedicated equipment slots so it doesn't take up precious inventory space, that's still not a feature—though in 1.0 there is finally a way to increase the size of your inventory by a couple of rows, at least.
I love this game, and it's going to be one I return to again and again.
But my few complaints don't stack up to much. I love this game, and it's going to be one I return to again and again. Whether it's looking up during a terrible thunderstorm and spotting Thor speeding across the sky in his chariot, or seeing my health bar double because I've eaten a powerful new meal for the first time, or catching a glimpse of Odin's glowing eye watching me on a cold and gloomy night, these are moments that never lose their thrill. As familiar as the world of Valheim has gotten over the past five years, it's still filled with the same magic that enchanted me the first time I played it.
The Verdict
Valheim
One of the best survival games around is finally complete.
Senior Editor
Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.
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