Welcome to Silver Pines. You might recognise it, if you've visited Twin Peaks or Alan Wake's Bright Falls. It's wet, it's weird, it's a bit unsettling. It's also the last-known location of Eddie Velvet, a musician being tracked by private investigator Red Walker—that's you. But who cares about runaway musicians when there are monsters trying to eat your face?

Ol' Silver Pines has gone a bit Resident Evil, you see. A storm's coming, nearly everyone has evacuated the town, and now it's infested by grisly creatures with breathing problems. They would very much like to kill you.

With limited resources, a tiny inventory, lots of locked doors and a fair share of light puzzles, Silver Pines channels Resi a lot more than its other inspirations. You can even find healing herbs, and combine objects in your inventory.

Developer Wych Elm describes Silver Pines as a "love letter to classic survival horror", which is also how most survival horror games seem to be described. We are infected with nostalgia. Aside from the more overt references to games like Resi and Silent Hill, it also channels classic survival horror combat, in that it is quite annoying.

Well, initially at least. I'm only able to discuss the first hour, though, and it was enough to make me consider a life of pacifism.

After my first encounter with a shadowy creature—which was, at the time, unkillable—I discovered my first weapon. A puny boxcutter. It is, unsurprisingly, not very good at killing whatever hellspawn have infected Silver Pines. And despite being a tiny blade, Walker wields it like a much slower weapon, constantly leaving himself open to attack.

Even when just faced by a single foe, I'd usually end up critically wounded—and any injuries make Walker, who's already a sluggish guy, even slower. Faced with a rapidly depleting supply of herbs, I devised another strategy.

I crouched and went for the shins.

This strategy might not be viable for the whole game, but it certainly helped in this first hour. You can just waddle up to oblivious monsters and keep slashing at their shins. And there's nothing they can do about it. Granted, this is not fun. It takes ages and looks stupid. But I did stop needing to devour herbs.

The good news is that you'll eventually net yourself some firearms, though expect to be spending most of your time fighting in close range, regardless of your weapon of choice.

It's a looker, at least, with characters and enemies rendered in an almost rotoscope aesthetic. In motion, it's quite impressive—and that goes for the fights especially, unless you're just being a lil' shin-stabber.

But mostly I just felt a bit bored—even after a single hour. And that's the problem with love letters. They are by their very nature derivative. I've done it all before. And while Capcom was able to revitalise Resident Evil with the bold switch to first-person, I'm not convinced Wych Elm is going to have the same fortune by making it 2D, which feels limiting rather than additive.

At least it's pretty.

It looks like original horror is taking over the big screen, as in addition to Obsession having another successful weekend, Kane Parson's Backrooms has smashed an A24 record during its opening.

After hitting screens on Friday, May 29, Backrooms grossed a whopping $81.4 million during opening weekend in the US, and over $118 million worldwide, as per BoxOfficeMojo. This marks the biggest opening for an A24 movie ever, almost tripling Civil War's $25.7 million opening. Not only this, but as Backrooms is now the number one movie in the world, meaning that at 20 years old, Parsons is the youngest director ever to hold this title.

As for Obsession, Curry Barker's feature directorial debut continues an almost unprecedented run at the box office. After beating its opening weekend with an impressive second weekend on the big screen, the indie horror has done it again, bringing in $26.4 million in the US during its third weekend. This is a 10% rise from last week, bringing its domestic total to over $104.7 million and $148 million worldwide.

This is bad news for The Mandalorian and Grogu, as despite the new Star Wars movie being the number one film in the US last week when it first premiered, it is now sitting in third place behind Backrooms and Obsession. The new film, which just so happens to be the first Star Wars movie since The Rise of Skywalker seven years ago, saw a 69% drop during its second weekend, pulling in $25 million in the US after earning $81.6 million on opening weekend.

What makes two original horror movies outperforming a major Disney blockbuster even more impressive is that both movies had much smaller budgets. Obsession cost just $750,000 to make, meaning it has made almost 200 times its budget back, making it one of the most profitable movies of all time. Backrooms had a reported budget of $10 million, so it has made just under 12 times its budget back. The two horror movies were also shown in far fewer theaters than the Star Wars flick.

The Mandalorian and Grogu, on the other hand, reportedly cost Disney and LucasFilm $165 million to make, according to Collider. Despite the film earning a huge $246.5 million so far worldwide, its big budget means it has only made its budget back 1.5 times over so far.

For more, check out our guide to movie release dates for 2026, and keep up with new movies and upcoming horror movies heading your way this year and beyond.

The saga of TurtleWoW was perhaps inevitable—operating pretty brazenly under the nose of Blizzard, the World of Warcraft private server featured bespoke content for its own vision of the game, and advertised itself as an actual game might.

It also featured in-game microtransactions, and while some private servers for other MMOs (like City of Heroes) have received official permission from the developers to keep operating, they've usually done so via years of muddling by on strictly-documented donations that only cover server costs.

In other words—regardless how neat the work of TurtleWoW's developers was? Legally-speaking, that's cruisin' for a bruisin'. In October of 2025, Blizzard filed a lawsuit against TurtleWoW, and while the team behind it put on a brave face, it didn't matter. Come April 2026, TurtleWoW was given a cease & desist and announced its closure several days later.

Well, as per the TurtleWoW (now Moonwhisper Games) Discord, its developers have said they'll make their own MMO: "This isn't the end of our journey together, but rather the beginning of a new one! We'll be transitioning the team into a game development studio Moonwhisper Games.

"... We've decided to begin work on our own MMO! We know this is an enormous undertaking. MMOs are among the most ambitious and demanding projects in game development, and we're under no illusion that this is something that can be built quickly or easily."

However, as the team points out, it's also sort of been getting in a lot of practice with TurtleWoW itself—regardless of whether the server was playing stupid games and getting stupid prizes, the amount of work put into its extra content was commendable. We're talking new zones, classes, dungeons, the works.

"At the same time, we're not starting from scratch completely. We have spent years building MMO experiences, managing communities, creating content, and learning both the strengths and shortcomings of the genre. We know how challenging this road will be, but we also know it's a challenge worth taking on."

Honestly? Bully for them! While I wish we'd all live in a world where IP laws allowed people to make cool stuff, I do absolutely understand why Blizzard had to put the screws on, here. TurtleWoW was playing with fire—but that doesn't mean its devs shouldn't get to keep making cool stuff. I'm excited to see what Moonwhisper Games'll put together in the coming years. God knows the scene could use an injection of new talent.