It’s another week of the pop culture news skewing heavily to gaming. Still, on the film and series front, a couple of notable trailers dropped as well. You’ll find them all below.

Gaming

A heads up that the coming weekend is going to be packed with gaming showcases. Summer Game Fest kicks off tonight, 6 June, with the main live presentation at 11PM South African time, followed by a further 3 days of events (including Sunday evening’s Xbox Games Showcase at 7PM SAST).

You’ll find them all listed here, while the frequently updating Summer Game Fest Steam page will allow you to wishlist announced titles, purchase dropped games and try level samples. If you want an even broader overarching look, there’s Steam’s Summer Showcase of Summer Showcases, including the upcoming Next Fest (kicking off 9 June), where you’ll be able to check out and typically play, for a limited time, the demos of literally hundreds of upcoming games.

That’s what lies ahead, though. Earlier this week, PlayStation managed to sneak in a State of Play stream to separate its various announcements from the pack.

A lot was crammed into that one-hour stream, but if we had to pick three titles featured it would be the following:

Made with the RE Engine, Pragmata is a new science fiction action-adventure from Capcom. What makes this one stand out as is that it has dual-character gameplay, as you must control its two protagonists, Hugh and Diana, at the same time to successfully navigate a damaged lunar research station. In other words, expect the pew-pew to be paired with continual thinking. Pragmata comes to PS5, Xbox Series consoles and PC in 2026.

We knew that Hitman developer IO Interactive was making a James Bond game, but now we know a lot more about this planned 2026 action-adventure. 007 First Light goes the same route as Crystal Dynamics’ Survivor trilogy of Tomb Raider games, rewinding to the early years of the British spy, when the fresh-faced MI6 agent was still finding his feet in the global espionage arena. 007 First light comes to PS5, Xbox Series consoles, PC and Switch 2.

Games (typically indies) with a 2D paper aesthetic regularly pop up on the release schedule, but 3D action platformer Hirogami, made by Bandai Namco Studios Singapore, really embraces the “folding” aspect of its origami world. You’ll need to regularly transform yourself into various creatures and alternate forms to cross levels, solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Hirogami is out on 3 September this year for PlayStation 5 and PC.

Film

Two trailers caught our eye this past week. The first is for Black Phone 2, the unexpected-but-probably-should-have-been-expected sequel to 2022’s surprise supernatural horror hit – which was based on a short story by Joe Hill. Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, and Madeleine McGraw reprise their roles from the original film, while Sinister, The Gorge and Doctor Strange’s Scott Derrickson is back directing. If you were wondering how Black Phone 2 will work, given the events of the first film, well, this time Hawke’s Grabber is on the end of the line, and out for revenge.

Black Phone 2 comes to cinemas on 17 October.

Blockbuster fantasy musical Wicked: Part 2 arrives in cinemas this November – on the 21st in fact. This past week gave us the first trailer for the concluding instalment, which was filmed back-to-back with Part 1, as well as the title reveal.

In Wicked: For Good, rivals turned best friends Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) find themselves positioned as enemies once more… at least publicly. Labelled The Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba is in exile, working to liberate the animals of Oz and expose The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). Glinda, meanwhile, has become the glamorous symbol of Goodness, living a comfortable life in Emerald City, with marriage to Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) on the cards. The Witches of Oz will have to face the consequences of their choices, and ultimately each other.

Series

We’re just over two months away from the release of Alien: Earth, the first-ever TV series in the Alien universe. Set in 2120, two years before the events of 1979 film Alien, in Alien: Earth, a mysterious deep space research vessel crash-lands on our world, forcing a group of soldiers to deal with its dangerous contents. Joining them is Wendy (Sydney Chandler), the product of an experiment to transplant human consciousness into a synthetic body. Alien: Earth is created for television and executive produced by Fargo’s Noah Hawley.

The eight-episode Alien: Earth comes to FX, and Disney+ on 12 August.