EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominee Vanessa Kirby, BAFTA nominee David Oyelowo and BAFTA winner Sofie Gråbøl lead cast in Audible’s The Strange Case, the first audio drama from the creator of the John Wick franchise, Derek Kolstad. Releasing in July, the modern-day reimagining of the classic Jekyll and Hyde story will see Dr. Jekyll (Vanessa Kirby) as an […]

Developer FuturLab has announced that PowerWash Simulator has been played by 12 million players. Celebrating the milestone, the studio states that the game’s various collaboration DLC releases, including ones with SpongeBob SquarePants, Back to the Future, and Warhammer 40,000, had a hand in hitting the number.

PowerWash Simulator was first released as an early access title back in May 2021. Since then, the game has been released on various other platforms, and has seen the release of DLCs that took players from Lara Croft’s manor to Bikini Bottom, and even Final Fantasy 7‘s Midgar.

“We are continuously in awe of the impact our game has made on people,” said FuturLab CEO Kristy Rigden. “Now with a staggering 12 million players, it’s clear that there’s a desire for games like PowerWash Simulator that provide a soothing sense of satisfaction – and we intend to make them!”

Most recently, PowerWash Simulator saw the release of the Warhammer 40,000 Special Pack, which brought with it quite a few new things for players to clean, including an Ultramarines Land Raider, and a Dark Angels Redemptor Dreadnought.

The game has also seen a release away from flat screens, coming to Meta Quest 2, 3, and Pro headsets back in November 2023.

It’s always hard waiting for a new game in a beloved franchise, especially at a time where development cycles can often last as long as 5-6 years, if not even more. That pain, in fact, is perhaps more keenly felt by fans of Bethesda Game Studios franchises than the fanbases of most other major active franchises. In the here and now, for instance, in the immediate afterglow of Amazon Prime’s excellent Fallout series, with fans hungry for more, people are going back to older instalments in the series in groves- but if what you want is a new instalment in the series to dive right into? Well, you’re out of luck. The same is true of The Elder Scrolls, a series that isn’t going to see its next game for several years yet.

A 5-6 year wait between instalments would feel like a long time for any franchise, but where these two are concerned, the wait is far, far longer. Fallout, for instance, has already gone nearly a decade without a new mainline release, with Fallout 4 having launched nine years ago, in 2015. 2018 brought us Fallout 76, which was not only a spinoff, but at launch, also an unmitigated disaster, and though subsequent years have seen the multiplayer game turn its fortunes around in remarkable fashion, it doesn’t quite scratch the same itch as a new numbered entry in the series.

And when you think about it, we’re probably not even at the halfway point on the road to Fallout 5. Last year, The Elder Scrolls 6 finally entered full production, but only after the fantasy RPG is out the door will Bethesda turn its attention to its post-apocalyptic franchise. Given how long it takes BGS to develop its massive games, that means we’re probably still around 10-12 years away from Fallout 5’s launch. That’s anywhere between 2034 and 2036- so stupidly far away in the future that it feels ridiculous to even think about. For all practical purposes, Fallout 5 is not a thing that exists, and won’t be for a long, long time yet.

The fact that demand for more Fallout has grown rapidly in the wake of the Amazon series has only served to shine a brighter light on this peculiar dilemma. Yes, Fallout 4’s Next-Gen Update will be arriving for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S imminently, and that’s likely going to bring another boost in sales for the game (to add to the already impressive resurgence it is currently enjoying), but a free update feels like a wet band-aid (if that) in the wider context.

With The Elder Scrolls, even though there’s no TV show flaring up renewed interest in the franchise, the situation is no less frustrating. The Elder Scrolls Online has served sort of the same purpose that Fallout 76 has for its franchise, but the wait for a new mainline instalment in the series has been torturously long. Later this year, it will have been 13 years since the launch of Skyrim, and with The Elder Scrolls 6 only just having entered full production last year, it probably won’t come out until 2028 or thereabouts.

Skyrim will be 17 years old at that point. 17 years. Ordinarily, if a sequel was coming out 15 years after its predecessor, it’d be safe to assume that the franchise was trying to come back from a critical or commercial failure. But this is The Elder Scrolls, and Skyrim was Skyrim– widely considered to be one of the greatest games ever made, with over 60 million copies sold worldwide. It’s no surprise that having to wait more than a decade and a half for its sequel has been as frustrating as it has been for fans of the franchise.

So what exactly is the solution here? After all, it’s no secret that game development, already a startlingly complex and intensive process, has only continued to grow that much more complicated at a rapid rate. Development cycles tend to last years now, and for games that are as vast and multifaceted as Bethesda Game Studios’ RPGs are, even longer. So is the answer for BGS to expand to the point where it can concurrently have multiple major large-scale projects in production at once? That, of course, is far easier said than done for a multitude of reasons, especially in an industry as volatile as game dev- from recruiting the right people (and enough people) to having a structure in place that can efficiently manage two simultaneous projects on that scale.

There are other ways that Bethesda can find to try and reduce the gap between new Fallout and Elder Scrolls releases. Remakes and remasters, for instance, would be an easy victory that, frankly, we’d be surprised if Bethesda didn’t pounce at. In particular, there’d be no shortage of people lining up for modernized of older releases like Fallout 3 or The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Interestingly enough, leaks have claimed that remasters of those two games are indeed in development– whether that’s accurate remains to be seen, but if Fallot 3 and Oblivion remasters were to come out, if handled well, they’d doubtless do very well for Bethesda.

Another solution, one that’s perhaps likely to be even more popular among fans than remasters or remakes, is spinoffs and smaller instalments developed by external partners. Bethesda Game Studios clearly has its hands full with the things it’s got on its plate as it is, so seeing as there simply isn’t any room in the schedule to fit in, say, a smaller-scale Fallout game in the next few years, why not look to a fellow Microsoft-owned first-party developer to step in instead? After all, there’s no shortage of world-class RPG specialist teams under the Microsoft umbrella at this point, and Fallout in particular is no stranger to having its reins transferred from one team to another. If we were to get a new single-player Fallout spinoff in the next few years, the decade-long wait for Fallout 5 would become a lot less unbearable.

One way or another, what’s clear is that Bethesda and Microsoft both need to figure out how to do more with both of these franchises. Fallout and The Elder Scrolls are both in their prime, both enjoy widespread critical acclaim and mainstream appeal, and both consistently outsell even some of the biggest games in the industry. More importantly, there’s insatiable demand for new games in both franchises, and though it’s certainly understandable why it’s taking as long as it is for Bethesda to get to new instalments, it’s also been baffling to see little to no attempts seemingly being made so far to try and find other solutions. The iron is red hot for both Fallout and Elder Scrolls, and it’s begging to be hit.

It’s either that, or we resign ourselves to the fact that new Fallout and The Elder Scrolls instalments likely won’t be releasing until their predecessors are a decade and a half old, if not even older. For franchises as massive, as successful, and as beloved as these two, that seems like an absolute waste. Hopefully, Bethesda and Microsoft will see things that way, too.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Anne Hathaway is looking back at the start of her career and recalling a particular audition that she thought was “gross” as she had to fake excitement over kissing ten guys. In a new interview, Hathaway says that in the 2000s, it was “normal” to ask actors to make out with potential co-stars during chemistry […]

Netflix has reportedly scrapped a Witcher spin-off show focusing on the band of misfits Freya Allen's Ciri joins at the end of Season 3.

According to Redanian Intelligence, filming of The Rats — named after the group itself which also includes Fabian McCallum's Kayleigh and Christelle Elwin's Mistle — was cut short by several months and will likely be reworked into Season 4 flashbacks.

Though intended to be a prequel series spanning six to eight episodes, focusing on the characters before they meet Ciri, The Rats reportedly only filmed for two months instead of six with only footage for one or two episodes being secured.

Redanian Intelligence said Netflix scrapped plans for an independent season after seeing some early footage, and this will instead be folded into the upcoming Season 4 or released as a short ahead of time. Further evidence comes as the resume of Juliette Alexandra, who plays Reef, was obtained by Redanian Intelligence, who said previous mention of The Rats spin-off has now been removed.

This report comes days after Netflix announced The Witcher will end with Season 5, meaning the final three Witcher saga books from Andrzej Sapkowski will be folded into two seasons instead of lasting roughly a season each as they have so far. Seasons 4 and 5 will film back to back, while Netflix is elsewhere working on a second animated film set in its Witcher universe.

Season 4 will see Geralt searching for Ciri following the events of the Thanned Coup, which played out in the Season 3 finale. "After the shocking, Continent-altering events that close out Season 3, the new season follows Geralt, Yennefer [played by Anya Chalotra], and Ciri who are faced with traversing the war-ravaged Continent and its many demons apart from each other," the official Netflix synopsis reads.

"If they can embrace and lead the groups of misfits they find themselves in, they have a chance of surviving the baptism of fire — and finding one another again."

Critical reception of The Witcher is mixed so far, with IGN awarding Season 1 a 6/10, Season 2 a 7/10, and Season 3 a 7/10 and 5/10 over its split season in our reviews. "The Witcher closes out its most compromised season yet by once again losing Henry Cavill in the clunky, plot-heavy shuffle," we said of the most recent episodes.

The biggest trial is still ahead of Netflix, however, as star Henry Cavill walked away from the show following the completion of Season 3. The actor hasn't given an explicit reason for leaving, though said in November 2021 he was absolutely committed to a seven season run of The Witcher "as long as we can keep telling great stories which honor Sapkowski's work".

Hissrich said the show could've ended or moved on without Geralt after Cavill's departure, but Netflix wasn't willing to because "there's just too many stories left to tell". Liam Hemsworth is now training heavily and reading the book series in preparation for taking the role over.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

EXCLUSIVE: M88 has expanded its roster of multihyphenate talent with the signing of actor, environmental advocate and social entrepreneur Stephanie Suganami aka “Steph Shep.” Since acquiring its sister firm UNCMMN in 2023, M88 continues to diversify its services for clients in traditional and new media. “Now more than ever, it is obvious that the lines that […]