First Permanent Pokémon Store Outside Asia to Open in London by 2029

Willa Rowe is a contributing writer at Polygon, covering games and entertainment. She is a New York-based journalist and critic whose work has been featured in Kotaku, Digital Trends, the A. V. Club, GamesRadar+, and more. She also co-hosts the Girl Mode podcast. The monkey's paw curls as Ryan Murphy gets his wish

Patricia is the former editor-in-chief of Kotaku, where she spent a decade writing and editing. Prior to that, she served as the Culture Editor at Polygon, and as a reporter at The Verge. Hernandez specializes in Pokémon TCG, Nintendo, and offbeat internet culture stories. Websites and services ranging from 4Chan to Spotify are all at risk

VisionQuest is already halfway over, and boy, if it keeps up the momentum it has going in its third and fourth episodes, I’m sure gonna miss it in a couple of weeks when it wraps up. I’m such a sucker for its dysfunctional family of robots and its sulking speedster con man. With every episode I can feel myself getting closer to finally seeing Vision’s sons Tommy and Billy reuniting and reader, I’m gonna be a wreck. Thankfully, in last night’s two episodes, the show already managed to fix my biggest issue with its premiere last week, in that it sidelined an underwhelming villain for a much more interesting one. Well, two, perhaps. Todd Stashwick’s Paladin, a gun for hire sent to retrieve Vision by an unknown client, will no doubt return in future episodes of VisionQuest. In “Reboot,” the third episode of the series, Paladin is revealed to essentially be a fraud, which probably explains why he seems incompetent. It’s nice that the show gave him some depth, but as a driving force, he’s not quite as compelling as Vision, Tommy, or any of the AI running around in Vision’s head.

One of the most memorable demos I played at Gamescom Latam 2026 was that of Talaka, a watercoloured 2D action-roguelike that - like many games at the São Paulo-based show – leaned deeply into Brazilian culture and mythology. In this case, it's something of a side-scrolling Hades, with the permahorny Greek gods replaced by a playful pantheon of Orishas (vaguely human-shaped forces of nature) hailing from the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion. Though no fault of theirs, I kinda sucked at Talaka when I played it then, and the demo currently available during Steam Next Fest confirms I kinda suck at it now – though it's still colourful enough, and steeped in a folklore that games so rarely explore, that I'm going to keep an eye on it. The Hades comparison isn't just me doing some divine typecasting: even with the different perspective, some light platforming, and the fact that Talaka herself is an isekai'd artist instead of a rogue demigod, the structure is the same. Pick a weapon, clear a room of lesser mythological minions, get chatted up by an upgrade-granting deity. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until death.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's DMZ mode has dynamic op phones scattered around the map, which let you begin a dynamic operation even when you're in free roam mode. Collecting one of them is required to complete the DMZ order "Payment Due," which is in the second stage of the "Human Intel" chapter, but completing this requires you to know what to look for in order to find a dynamic op phone. We're here to help though, so here's a complete explainer on how to find and collect a dynamic op phone in DMZ in Modern Warfare 4. How to collect a dynamic op phone in DMZ

Elijah is a freelance news writer at Polygon. He was an associate editor at The A. V. Club and Paste, and has been featured in outlets like Game Informer, Fanbyte, Unwinnable, and more. He loves media in all forms, from fighting games and horror flicks to slow cinema and visual novels. He's from the Greater Boston area. Xbox reportedly planning 3 more rounds of layoffs