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M. John Harrison wins the Booker Prize

A long-standing star of the British SFF scene, M. John Harrison, has won the Booker Prize, Britain's most prestigious literary award. His post-apocalyptic novel The End of Everything was not considered a likely winner, but beat out five other finalists to clinch the prize. At 81 years old, he is the oldest winner of the prize in its history and is the first winner to overtly come from the field of science fiction, though some previous authors had at least flirted with the genre, such as Margaret Atwood, Marlon James (who was nominated again this year) and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Harrison, born 1945 in Rugby, began publishing short fiction in the mid-1960s. He began working on New Worlds, the magazine at the forefront of the British "New Wave" movement in science fiction, first as a reviewer and then as books editor, working for Michael Moorcock. In the 1970s he began his seminal touchstone work, the Viriconium sequence, starting with The Pastel City. He would return to this sequence periodically in works like A Storm of Wings and In Viriconium, but disliked the idea of a fictional "canon" and once famously decried the notion of worldbuilding as "the great clomping foot of nerdism."

In 1973 he published The Centauri Device, an "anti-space opera" that was hugely influential on the British space opera novelists who followed, such as Iain M. Banks and Alastair Reynolds. In 1989 he published his first major mainstream literary novel, Climbers, which invoked his own love of rock climbing as an activity. He would later write in both the SFF and literary spheres, though came to dislike the idea of genre categories.

Arguably his last major SF work was The Kefahuchi Tract Trilogy, consisting of Light (2002), Nova Swing (2006) and Empty Space: A Haunting (2012). 

The End of Everything, published in June this year, depicts the aftermath of a devastating event where the world has been impacted by the iGhetti, huge lifeforms of unknown origin and purpose. The protagonist makes a living by collecting and selling iGhetti artifacts, until something he finds one day has huge consequences for himself and his family.

The judging panel, including editor Rebecca Liu, Pulp frontman and lyricist Jarvis Cocker, US novelist Patricia Lockwood, poet Raymond Antrobus and chairwoman, historian Dame Mary Beard, awarded the prize to the book unanimously after a day of debating the shortlist.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve

The Republic of Sotoa has launched a devastating attack on the Federation of Central Usea using satellite-launched kinetic harpoons, the so-called Tonitrus Spears. With the Federation's military in shambles, Sotoa quickly advances with ground and air forces spearheaded by two enormous land-battleships, capturing the Usean capital city of Theve. The aircraft carrier FCU Endurance and its supporting forces launch a counter-attack headed by Joker Squadron and the legendary "Wings of Theve" air combat ace. A newly-recruited pilot learns there is no such person, with different pilots inheriting the mantle every time the previous holder dies. As the new Wings of Theve, they have to rally the Federation's scattered forces and show the Sotoans can be beaten before the global superpowers intervene and carve up what's left between them.

Ace Combat 8 is, as per linear causality (not always a given in video game series), the successor to 2019's Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, itself a resurrection of the venerable Japanese air combat series after many years of inaction. It is not a sequel since, as with most games in the series, it depicts a self-contained conflict unrelated to previous ones, aside from some brief mentions of prior events and a couple of character cameos. The only thing you really need to know going into this is that, despite the presence of real-world aircraft like the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning, Su-57 and Eurofighter Typhoon (I'm guessing Namco still can't get the Chinese Air Force on board with licensing), the setting is actually a completely fictional, alternate-universe version of Earth, "Strangereal," with its own geography and political situation. This allows people to fly aircraft against one another without getting caught up in real-world political controversies, which is a creative solution to the problem.

Ace Combat 7 was very good but a bit odd, in that you played a member of a penal battalion that had its own aircraft, another reflection that in Strangereal both fuel and parts to make aircraft are so plentiful that running your own F-15 Strike Eagle is only marginally more expensive than buying a used Fiat Uno in our world. Ace Combat 8 immediately makes its premise more believable by having you as a legit military pilot, initially in a situation akin to classic SF show Battlestar Galactica. Your homeland has been lost and you have to lead the fightback from a convoy of surviving military and civilian vessels. Of course, things aren't quite as apocalyptic as in that franchise, and quickly the game has you linking up scattered-but-still-extant military forces and launching a more credible counter-offensive.

The setting may reflect our real world - there are civilian airliners, drones, smartphones, social media and fast food - but there is also a strong pulp SF influence. This world took a direct hit from a series of asteroid fragments a few decades back, leaving huge impact craters across the surface, whilst one nation has built a space elevator to lift cargo into orbit. The space elevator was a major flashpoint for battles in the previous game and it shows up again here, though now controlled by an independent city-state which holds the elevator in a state of almost religious awe.

The setting and worldbuilding is excellent, if a bit crazy, and the game's actual story is very solid, though it probably needs a bit more setup. Namco has created three live-action short films setting up the start of the war, but the story does start more or less in media res and you have to pick up what's going on as the early missions chaotically unfold. This includes you having to work out that your squadron is hardly the best-of-the-best, and has even been forced to rely on a teenage circus stunt flyer because military pilots are in such short supply (potentially a nod to Macross's Hikaru, aka Robotech's Rick Hunter). Morale is horrendous, but can be turned around as they realise the latest "Wings of Theve" - your good self, naturally - is actually a real ace pilot who can help turn the tide of the war. Watching not just your single squadron but every military unit you fight alongside through the whole game (ranging from local partisans and insurgents to marines, infantry and armoured units) regain their fire and belief after seeing your example is very impressive, if a little corny.

In fact, Ace Combat 8 has relatively little truck with cynicism. There is some in the world, with every mega-corporation turning out to be corrupt and shady, but this is a game that likes to wear its heart on its sleeve. You guys are heroes, and you may have doubts about killing or blind patriotism, but your job is to save innocent lives. The game's positive attitude is endearing, though the near-constant praise (especially in the game's back half) about how amazing you are can get a little over-the-top.

Gameplay is pretty much unchanged from Ace Combat 7, down to controls and UI, though visuals are obviously superior. The big new feature in this game is dynamic cloud formation and how your aircraft can be impacted by clouds, including icing up, getting rained on or losing almost all visibility right down to the deck (though the game tries to at least be fair about that and not kill you with fog). There are multiple flight modes, with a basic arcade one for those using controllers or a more advanced one for those with stick-with-HOTAS setups like the Thrustmaster series. The latter requires much finer control of speed, allowing you to dynamically slow to turn and then blast out of turns with afterburners to shake an enemy missile lock or gain the advantage over a pursuing enemy. It's dynamic and exhilarating. However, the limitations from Ace Combat 7 remain, such as not being able to remap controls on the joystick and some standard features (like using the hat button to look around) not being present.

The sometimes-harsh difficulty spikes from Ace Combat 7 are not really present this time around, and if I had to restart a mission it was generally down to my own mistakes, with clear ways of how to do the mission differently. Moreso than Ace Combat 7, AC8 relies heavily on orders to your wingmen. Knowing when to gang up on an enemy plane or disperse your wing to engage multiple targets to hit the objective counter in the mission time limit is key. During target-rich missions, like covering a D-Day-sized invasion of a major city, knowing when to focus on enemy fighters and when to provide air cover to ground forces is vital for victory. Blowing all the enemy fighters out of the sky isn't much use when enemy howitzers have hammered your landing forces on the beaches from a dozen kilometres away. You're a squadron commander and sometimes have to hang back a little to orchestrate the battle rather than get caught up in personal dogfights.

Mission variety and quality here is much better than the previous game (which was already decent), with some absolutely gargantuan battles putting anything in the series to shame. Advancing quickly to reach cover before an orbital bombardment starts is genuinely tense, and the multiple assaults on large cities are epic, as is the now-contractually-mandated defend-the-space-elevator mission. One mission, where you simply have to defend an island garrison against an approaching enemy wall of around a thousand planes, is simply glorious.

There is also more content here, with 30 missions compared to the previous game's 20. However, this does not necessarily translate to a longer game, with my counters showing Ace Combat 7 clocking in at 24 hours and Ace Combat 8 at 22 (neither with invoking multiplayer), so the focus here is on some quite short, sharp missions alongside the epic setpiece ones. But the scale and scope of the battlefields, especially the huge cities, goes far beyond what the previous game attempted.

Some of my main problems with the previous game has also been fixed. Your wingmen are better-characterised and now much more useful. In the previous game they did minimal damage to the enemy, apparently needing you to sweep in and finish them off, whilst here they can shoot down enemy planes without your involvement. Characterisation is much better, helped by between-mission cutscenes where you can get to know your wingmen and crewmates on the carrier better, and dialogue choices in missions which can actually impact later events (choose to relieve an allied squadron and that squadron will be available to help in a later mission, let them be destroyed, and they won't be). The story is more layered, with more interesting subplots revolving around the mixed loyalties of Federation member-states that want to declare independence but also don't want to be crushed by Sotoa, and a shady super-corportation that has declared itself neutral but also clearly isn't. Obviously there are also charismatic villains prone to grandstanding and speechifying, but fortunately not on the scale of whatshisname-with-fourteen-surnames from the previous title.

Some very minor negatives remain. Not being able to remap controls is irritating, and only giving you 5 flares whilst allowing you to carry 150 missiles remains deeply weird. There's also a lack of targeting options, such as being able to immediately target mission-critical enemies or the nearest enemy, with you instead usually just targeting the enemy under your reticule regardless of if they are 50 metres away or 15 kilometres. These are options that were available in games like TIE Fighter over thirty years ago, so not having them here is unusual. 

Still, these are far from major problems. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (*****) is outrageously entertaining, allowing you to fulfil your Top Gun fantasies through a pulpy story replete with interesting characters, boo-hiss villains, cheerable heroes, absurdly-scaled battles and possibly the best video game soundtrack this side of Clair Obscur. The game is available now on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.

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Why the heck is ELDER SCROLLS VI taking so long?

This week, Bethesda confirmed that the next game in their mega-selling Elder Scrolls series will be called The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel. This was the most substantive information released about the game since a teaser trailer in 2018 confirmed it was in development. But the previous game in the series, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, was released in November 2011. Even granted that Bethesda has released several games in the interim in other series, that's a huge amount of time to wait for a game that should be a licence to print money, and if it turns out not to be, the immense wait for it will clearly be the main factor. So why is it taking so long?

Bethesda Game Studios was founded in 1986, and this week celebrated its 40th anniversary. During its first few years of existence, it focused on ports, taking games from one system and making them work on another. Their early work for EA Sports provided a steady income stream and allowed the team to consider their dream project: a vast, sprawling fantasy RPG set in a fully open world you could explore at your leisure. This resulted in The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994), which featured the entire continent-spanning Empire of Tamriel in a rudimentary way, and then The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996). Daggerfall "zoomed in" on the Iliac Bay region, consisting of the northern half of the province of Hammerfell and the southern half of the province of High Rock. Sentinel, the capital city of Hammerfell, appeared in both games. Despite taking place in an ostensibly tiny area of the map covered in Arena, Daggerfall was a much bigger game with thousands of procedurally-generated dungeons, towns and cities, mixing optional side-quests with a main storyline. The game was a big success.

Following a financial crisis triggered by the failure of two action-oriented spin-off games, Battlespire (1997) and Redguard (1998), Bethesda was bought out by Zenimax Media who provided the funding for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002). The game brought the gigantic scale of the first two games down to earth, with a much smaller, more easily explorable map packed with side-quests, random encounters and interesting creatures as well as a compelling main plot. It was also the first game in the series to launch on console, the original Xbox, where it sold surprisingly well and began Bethesda's association with Microsoft, which became more formal in 2021 when Microsoft bought Zenimax Media and all its subsidiaries, including Bethesda. Morrowind was credited alongside Grand Theft Auto III (2001) with starting the modern age's obsession with vast open worlds and immense player choice.

Given Morrowind's success, the company was on firmer footing going into the next game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. With development going well and switching from pre-production to full development around 2004, the team realised their pre-production team would not have anything to do, so looked around for another project. Having worked on Elder Scrolls games almost non-stop since somewhere around 1992, they were keen to bring in another style of game and genre to work on. Bethesda head honcho Todd Howard had been a huge fan of the Fallout games created by Black Isle Studios and released by Interplay, then consisting of Fallout (1997), Fallout 2 (1998) and Fallout Tactics (2001). Interplay was collapsing, so Bethesda were able to buy the Fallout IP relatively cheaply in 2004 and they decided to immediately start work on Fallout 3, with the idea being the game would be a first-person experience using a similar structure and format to The Elder Scrolls.

This started the Bethesda practice of "leapfrogging," where work would begin on the next-but-one-game years before the next game even came out. This reduced the wait for a new game and provided very firm foundations for the development team, since they'd start work on the next game with all the fundamental questions like setting, map size, mechanics, concept art etc already worked out rather than mixing the pre-production and full development processes, a mistake made by many other companies. This process has become more common in the industry, with, for example, Rockstar Games doing something similar.

So in this early period, Oblivion started development around 2002 and was released in 2006. Around 2004 the pre-production team started work on Fallout 3, which then entered full development in 2006 and was released in 2008. The pre-production team had already moved on to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, with the earliest pre-production work taking place around 2006. And so on. Noclip's informative documentary about Bethesda confirmed this with a concept artist confirming he had started designing new weapons for Fallout 4 in the same month that Fallout 3 was released, in late 2008, a full seven years before Fallout 4 was actually released in late 2015.

This should not be oversimplified, of course. As teams and individuals wrap up their work on one game, they may transition to the next game weeks or months ahead of another individual or team. It's not like the entire main development team of Fallout 3 halted work on the game the second it went gold and was immediately starting on Skyrim the next day. This is especially complicated by the presence of DLC for the games, with smaller teams still working on the previous title months or a year or even more after release providing new content, whilst most of their colleagues are now working on the next full game. The transition from pre-production to full development can therefore be more of a gentle segue than a hard pivot. It's also not the case that the pre-production team are necessarily completely isolated from the full dev team, with people wearing more than one hat, and new weapon designs or location ideas being needed from concept artists even relatively late in full dev due to story changes or technical choices. The writers may be focused on pre-production for the next game, but still be tweaking the script and dialogue for the current one right up to recording.

Still, it emphasises that during Bethesda's "Golden Age," running roughly from 2002 to 2015, when they developed and released five large, open-world RPGs, the games did not take as fast to develop as they looked. It's clear that in the almost-identical time period since then, the process has changed or become more complicated, as they have only released one large, open-world RPG (regarded, fairly or not, as lacklustre), a multiplayer spin-off and a remaster (that was largely the work of a different company). Obviously game development has simply gotten more complicated, with vastly superior visuals requiring much more work. Sub-2K assets needed for Oblivion have been replaced by 4K assets which have four times the graphical fidelity and even more times the work. Expectations for animation, physics and lighting are vastly beyond what they used to be. Gamer expectations now are that open-world games should be very long, providing hundreds of hours of content, whilst with the likes of Oblivion and Fallout 3, a player could see pretty much everything the games had to offer in under fifty hours. A game with 150 quests will simply take longer to develop than one with 50, and a game with 75 dungeons will take longer to develop than one with 30, and so on. In a way, Bethesda themselves created this problem with the repeatable side content in Skyrim, which allowed players to build up, in some cases, thousands of hours in the game. For all the promises of new technology, faster tools and, now, AI speeding up development, in almost every case, with every new generation, it takes longer.

But still, it's clear something has gone amiss. This is an oversimplification, if not a gross one, but we can say the Golden Age development period looked something like this:

• Morrowind: released 2002.
• Oblivion: pre-production 2002, full development 2004, released 2006.
• Fallout 3: pre-prod 2004, full dev 2006, released 2008.
• Skyrim: pre-prod 2006, full dev 2008, released 2011.
• Fallout 4: pre-prod 2008, full dev 2011, released 2015.

After this, the situation became murkier and less clear, not to mention somewhat contradictory, in some cases.

We know that Todd Howard had come up with the concept for Starfield, their big space RPG, in the late 1990s, and for a while Bethesda briefly flirted with the idea whilst they held the video game licence to the Traveller tabletop IP. With the success of Fallout 3, it appears that Howard returned to the idea, but Zenimax were still sceptical of juggling two franchises, let alone three. The immense success of Skyrim, which sold over 12 million copies in its first week on sale alone, seems to have given Howard the leverage to make Starfield the next project after Fallout 4. We know the title was trademarked in 2013, suggesting that pre-production on the game began after Skyrim's release, either in late 2011 or some time in 2012. Thanks to leaked images, we know that by 2018 the game had something of a playable build, a UI similar to that in the final game, and spacesuits and habitats similar to those in the final release.

However, a chaos grenade was thrown into the mix thanks to the project known as "multiplayer Fallout." Fans had been asking for Bethesda games to include co-op multiplayer since almost the dawn of the company, with multiplayer mods being among the most popular for all their titles. Bethesda had co-operated with Zenimax Online Studios to produce The Elder Scrolls Online, released in 2014 to a reasonable reception and still going today, but that was much more of a traditional MMORPG, in the vein of World of WarCraft, rather than the experience fans really wanted. With Zenimax keen to leverage the income stream from a successful multiplayer title, it was decided to add a comprehensive multiplayer mode to Fallout 4. Early results suggested this was not a good idea, the map had been developed as an intense single-player experience and was too small to support tons of players, whilst Bethesda had little experience in online technical systems and Bethesda's propriety Creation Engine had not been designed with multiplayer in mind.

Zenimax assigned BattleCry Studios, based in Austin, Texas, to help Bethesda. Renamed Bethesda Game Studios Austin (the main BGS HQ is in Bethesda, Maryland, hence the name), the newer studio specialised in multiplayer and online netcode. Very quickly, the project expanded in scope from Fallout 4's multiplayer mode to a standalone title, with its own, much larger map. The creative team at Maryland also decided to make the game a prequel to the entire series, so as not to tread on the toes of whatever decisions they took in later singleplayer games, and to reassure fans that the online games were not supplanting their traditional singleplayer, immersive experiences (The Elder Scrolls Online is also a prequel, for the same reason). The new game, now named Fallout 76 to emphasise it was a spin-off rather than a mainline sequel, would also depend on players for a lot of its ecosystem and development, meaning that the traditional, time-consuming development activities of writing and character-building would be minimised. The game also reused a lot of Fallout 4's graphical assets to further speed development. Thanks to all of this, Fallout 76 went from not existing as a concept in 2014 or even early 2015 to being ready for release in late 2018, a remarkably fast turn-around. Despite some claims to the contrary, the introduction of Fallout 76 significantly impacted progress at BGS Maryland, because though Austin handled the technical side of things, all of the creative decisions, story and art design were still handled at Maryland.

"This aged well," - Todd Howard, probably.

Still concerned that Bethesda fans would riot at the perception that Bethesda was going online or multiplayer-only, it was decided to reassure them by announcing their next two games far earlier than Bethesda ideally liked. According to Todd Howard, the platonic ideal for a Bethesda title would be to literally release it with no marketing to avoid the problem of over-hyping the game (a position probably solidified by seeing what over-hyping did to CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020). Short of that, announcing both Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 just four to five months ahead of release had been a big success. He had little interest in telling people what might happen two or four years down the line, especially when delays might happen at any time for any reason and invalidate the promise.

It was therefore with reluctance that Howard announced in June 2018 that not just Fallout 76 was coming that November, but that Bethesda were working on the space RPG Starfield, their first new IP in decades and that very early work had already started on The Elder Scrolls VI, complete with a short teaser trailer of a rocky, coastal landscape, and both would be traditional single-player experiences. I strongly suspect Howard has regretted that decision ever since.

After Fallout 76 was released in 2018 it was clear that Bethesda had commenced full development on Starfield and pre-production on The Elder Scrolls VI, and that at least some development on Starfield had happened earlier to enable the game to be in a good enough condition for the 2018-dated image leaks to exist. But some people who left Bethesda in this time period have recently expressed surprise when Starfield was internally announced to be the next full project after the release of Fallout 4, which would not be the case if Starfield had been in pre-production since 2011/12. They had been anticipating that Elder Scrolls VI would be the next game, but presumably pre-production on ES6 had not even started, so they should have known that would not be the case. The situation seems very confused compared to the very clear timeline for the Golden Age period.

Subsequent events were at least clearer: Microsoft announced it was acquring Bethesda in 2020 and completed the process in 2021. Starfield got its formal reveal in mid-2021 and confirmation it was targeting a November 2022 release date, a surprising eighteen-month lead time (more than three times that allocated to Fallout 4 and 76), indicating either that Microsoft wanted much more notice of release dates, or it was decided that as a new IP Starfield needed much more marketing, or both. As it stood, Starfield was delayed by a full year. Apparently the game could have hit its original launch date, but post-Cyberpunk 2077 and its technical issues, Microsoft were concerned about ensuring the game be as optimised as possible.

Starfield finally came out in late 2023 to a somewhat muted reception. The game was fiercely criticised for bland dialogue and the majesty of space travel being reduced to a succession of loading screens (which particularly aged like milk compared to the seamless space-to-ground transitions in No Man's Sky, Elite: Dangerous and, in early access, Star Citizen). There were some good quests, some excellent visual design and Bethesda's best-ever action combat, but the overall feeling was subdued at best, not helped by the game launching in the same month as the iconic, generational RPG Baldur's Gate III and the hugely successful Cyberpunk 2077 expansion Phantom Liberty, which completed that troubled game's redemption story. Comparing 2077's realistic, lived-in nightclubs to Starfield's hilariously polite, sterile ones became a meme for a couple of months. Starfield's muted reception, status as an Xbox/PC exclusive (shutting out the large PlayStation market) and simultaneous release on Xbox Game Pass also meant underwhelming, though far-from-disastrous, sales.

Still, the completion of Starfield meant that full development on The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel could begin in earnest, which apparently took place at the start of 2024, whilst a small team continued work on Starfield's expansions (Shattered Space and Terran Armada, both now out). In spring 2025, Bethesda even sprang a welcome surprise on fans by "shadow-dropping" (that is, releasing without fanfare) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Largely the work of companion studio Virtuos, the game had had its graphical interface completely revamped, all of its assets and environments remade in Unreal Engine 5 at a high level of fidelity, and moderate improvements had been made to the game's janky levelling, combat and movement. Though technical problems have persisted since launch, with a very slow patching schedule irritating fans, the sheer beauty of Oblivion Remastered and the reminder of what a bolder, weirder Bethesda Studios was capable of back in the day, saw the game shift over 4 million units in its first week on sale, a remarkable number for a remaster of a twenty-year-old game.

In early 2026, there was a huge shakeup at Microsoft's gaming division. Phil Spencer, the longtime head of Xbox and champion of the Bethesda acquisition, was out, and newcomer Asha Sharma was in. Sharma is, very clearly, not a fan of keeping fans in the dark and not letting people know what's going on, not just with Bethesda but other subsidiary studios including Obsidian, Xbox Game Studios and Activision Blizzard. In short order, she had Bethesda confirm that Fallout 3 Remastered and Fallout: New Vegas Remastered (presumably both from Virtuos) were in development, that they were in pre-production on Fallout 5 as well as working on Elder Scrolls VI, and that Activision Blizzard were developing both Diablo 5 and a new StarCraft game, the former for 2029 and the latter for 2030 (even releasing a trailer for the latter). She tweeted about sampling a playable build of Elder Scrolls VI and even teased its title as Elder Scrolls VI: ********, which was retweeted by Bethesda itself and led to intense fan speculation (which, to their credit, quickly settled on Sentinel as the most likely title).

All of this activity led to speculation that Sentinel was much closer to release than people realised, with subreddits and online groups landing on late 2027 as a possibility. However, with it becoming increasingly clear that Bethesda are targeting the 30th anniversary of the release of the original Fallout (23 October) as the release window for Fallout 3 Remastered, even down to hosting a huge event in Washington DC, the setting for the game, this was starting to look unrealistic. With full development on Sentinel only beginning in 2023 at the absolute earliest, a release date just four years or less later seemed optimistic at best. Reports from multiple insiders, passed to journalists like Jason Schreier, confirmed that Bethesda and Microsoft are more thinking more about a late 2028 release date, possibly extending into 2029.

Bearing in mind this, the development period for the post-Golden Age of Bethesda may now look something like this:

• Fallout 4: pre-prod 2008, full dev 2011, released 2015.
• Fallout 76: full dev 2015, released 2018, updated a lot to make up for the lack of pre-prod and dev ever since.
• Starfield: pre-prod 2012, part-time dev 2015, full-time dev 2018, released 2023 (problems due to COVID, new tech and Fallout 76 disrupting the schedule).
• Sentinel: pre-prod 2018, full dev 2023, release 2028-29? Possibly early pre-prod in 2012-15 when Zenimax were still considering what game to make next.
• Fallout 5: pre-prod 2023, full dev after Sentinel's release.

You can immediate see this schedule is way more chaotic, caveated and complex than for the earlier games, and it's much more arguable how things like COVID, new tech, the Microsoft acqusition and now the changing of gears at Microsoft with a new CEO, impacted development of the games.

Of course fans are not all interested in this behind-the-scenes guff. From the POV of a casual Elder Scrolls enjoyer, Skyrim came out in 2011, sold 65 million copies (and climbing) and, fifteen years later, the sequel is still only lurking on the distant horizon, despite getting a teaser trailer in 2018 and another teaser trailer in 2026. The situation is clearly far from ideal. Bethesda would argue their communication has been straightforward and was designed to keep fans in the loop and not give them unrealistic expectations, but it's also clear from this week's events that this was unsuccessful, and has put more pressure on the studio to control the situation and make a game that, after the underwhelming Starfield and arguably underwhelming Fallout 4 (plus Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76, which may be great online games but not what a large amount of fans wanted), has to deliver big time.

The collapse of BioWare, a one-time competitor of Bethesda in the RPG space, amidst Microsoft's trigger-happiness in closing down studios, is preying on fans' minds. Bethesda are at least vastly financially more solvent than BioWare, all of their recent games have sold well or delivered big numbers on Game Pass, and they have multiple games in development, some close to release such as Fallout 3 Remastered, which is likely under a year away. Bethesda are not going to collapse any time soon, but fans can be forgiven for being nervous.

What will be interesting is to see what happens next. Further Sentinel trailers are likely, and possibly sooner rather than later, with more information about the game likely to trickle out in 2027, possible with a full-blown trailer sometime that year (a surprise double-tap approach, with a full trailer before the end of this year, is unlikely but possible). Grand Theft Auto VI is going to suck up all the gaming discussion oxygen for a while, so Bethesda may decide to hold fire before spinning up marketing in full on the game. But at least we know what the game is called, it's on its way, and though the development time has been long and, at times inexplicably long, we know we're closer to the end of the process than the start. Bethesda now just has to deliver.

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Electronic Arts surprise-drops 25 classic games on Steam, some remastered

Electronic Arts, perhaps eager to make up for shooting beloved RPG studio BioWare in the head last week, have dropped no less than 25 classic video games on Steam, GoG and their own EA App. A bunch of these game have also been remastered, with FMV sequences redone from scratch thanks to the discovery of the original source files.

Once again, Mark Hamill will fight against a bunch of big space cats.

Whilst we already knew about Wing Commander III getting the remaster treatment from a few weeks back, I don't think anyone was expecting a motherlode of this size. The entire space combat Wing Commander and fantasy RPG Ultima franchises are represented here, alongside Road Rash, Theme Hospital and the almost-forgotten Crusader series.

The games hitting the virtual shelves today consist of:

• Wing Commander 35th Anniversary Edition
• Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi 35th Anniversary Edition
• Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger 30th Anniversary Edition
• Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom 30th Anniversary Edition
• Wing Commander: Prophecy 30th Anniversary Edition
• Wing Commander: Privateer
• Wing Commander: Privateer 2 - The Darkening 30th Anniversary Edition
• Wing Commander: Academy
• Wing Commander: Armada
• Strike Commander
• Road Rash: 30th Anniversary Edition
• Theme Hospital
• Crusader: No Remorse
• Crusader: No Regret
• Ultima 1: The First Age of Darkness
• Ultima 2: The Revenge of the Enchantress
• Ultima 3: Exodus
• Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar
• Ultima 5: Warriors of Destiny
• Ultima 6: The False Prophet
• Ultima 7: The Complete Edition
• Ultima 8: The Gold Edition
• Ultima 9: Ascension
• Ultima Underworld 1
• Ultima Underworld 2

The games listed "Anniversary Edition" have had their full motion video (FMV) elements remastered in a higher definition thanks to the rediscovery of the original film and tapes in the EA archive. These are curiosities featuring actors like Mark Hamill, Jonathan Rhys-Davies and Clive Owen as hard-bitten space jocks getting up to space stuff, whilst extras dressed as giant cats try to look threatening.

In the UK these games are all retailing for £5 each, which is quite impressive, though the Anniversary Editions should be going up to £10 soon.

Wing Commander franchise creator Chris Roberts is preparing to launch his newest spiritual successor to the series, with Squadron 42 due to arrive in early 2027, with the multiplayer equivalent, Star Citizen, to follow at a later date. Meanwhile, some of the team behind Theme Hospital have recently been working on spiritual successors, including Two Point Hospital, Two Point Campus and Two Point Museum.

Gratuitous Lists: The Grand Theft Auto Games, Ranked

19 November marks the release of the video game Grand Theft Auto VI, arguably the most eagerly-awaited entertainment product in history. This will be the eighth mainline entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, the first new game in the series in thirteen years, the first to launch on current hardware and the first to feature a named female protagonist (alongside a male one). With Grand Theft Auto V having sold over 230 million copies and made over $10 billion in lifetime revenue, expectations are high that GTA6 will be the biggest-selling game of the year, if not the decade. Enormous numbers of people will be playing it in a fortnight's time.

I'm not one of them though, as regular readers will be aware that I game on PC, and GTA6's PC version is not expected until next year at the earliest. However, with the game looming on the horizon, I did revisit the previous games in the series a few years back and decided to throw together a Gratuitous List of how good they are, because why not?

I haven't played most of the mobile spin-offs (Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and so forth), so this list is restricted to the main games in the series.

7: Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)

Grand Theft Auto 2 was released in 1999 and was the first game in the series to be worked on by writer Dan Houser. The game retained the overhead viewpoint from the original game, with enhanced lighting, but intriguingly shifted setting dramatically. Rather than being set in the present day in locations based on real cities, the game moved to a futuristic, almost cyberpunk setting with the bizarre "Anywhere City," which is divided into three different districts the player moves between. As with the original game, the player takes on missions from various criminals and organisations to improve their own standing. There is a faction scoring system, and more of a focus on the game's soundtrack. The "Head Radio" station also makes its first appearance.

In many respects the game is more polished than the original and features a more believable world, with gangs sometimes engaging one another and the police in combat and criminals robbing civilians on the street without your involvement. However, the sci-fi future setting feels at odds with the Grand Theft Auto experience, which is better rooted in a real or almost-real world. The idea of a futuristic open-world city game is a good one, it's just not executed well within the GTA framework, and arguably wouldn't be until Cyberpunk 2077 twenty-one years later. As it stands, this is merely adequate.

6: Grand Theft Auto, London 1969 and London 1961  (1997-99)

The original Grand Theft Auto and its two expansion packs, London 1969 and London 1961, have definitely dated since their release, but there's still fun to be had in the absolutely shameless destruction the player unleashes on the three metropolises of Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas, skipping town whenever the heat gets too much. The almost totally-nonexistent story and characters compared to later games is surprising these days, but the anarchic chaos you can unleash and get rewarded for can still while away an hour or two before you have to conclude that literally all of the later games can do this better and with more flavour. Also being able to see far enough down the road to drive fast without crashing into things is nice.

Still, it's very intriguing to see how the franchise first started, and the two expansions provide an interesting look at the GTA world outside of the United States, as well as idea of turning the series into a period piece, an idea the series would later return to.

5: Grand Theft Auto III (2001)

Arguably Event One for the open-world action-adventure genre. There'd been attempts beforehand, but GTA3 arguably nailed it better than ever. A 3D city packed with missions, side-jobs and random activities. Become a hitman for the mafia, but moonlight as a taxi driver or paramedic. Cause absolute have in cars, tanks and speedboats. Race cars, punch random people in the head and listen to a deranged radio talk show hosted by a guy called Lazlow (here the Only Sane Man in the Room rather than the increasingly depraved pervert of later games).

Undeniably influential and important, though in retrospect very much a prototype for what came after. The story and cast of characters is much more important than in GTA1 and 2, but still nothing compared to what comes after. The silent protagonist now feels a bit weird, and the low stakes and small city by modern standards can be a bit stifling. But in 2001 it was revolutionary, and indeed heralded the revolution.

4: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)

Conceived as a GTA3 expansion and developed only in nine months, Vice City is impressive for both clearly being rooted in its forebear whilst being so much better. A bigger, more colourful city, the period 1980s setting, the fantastic soundtrack (for the first time with some recognisable big hits), the fully-voiced protagonist (by Ray Liotta, no less), the uptick in biting satire and the ability to buy property, run businesses and fly helicopters and seaplanes all combine to make a much more compelling gaming experience.

On the minus side, some absurd difficulty spike missions (using radio-controlled helicopters to position bombs in a building) could make the game briefly into a joyless slog, and main character Tommy Vercetti is easily the most loathsome protagonist in a GTA game to date, though arguably his journey from wronged chump to Scarface is well-executed. It's just a surprise - though maybe still a fun one -  to find yourself playing the outright villain of the game.

3: Grand Theft Auto V (2013)

The most recent and best-looking GTA game, for the next thirteen days anyway, GTA5 is probably the most obvious entry point to the franchise as well. It's also the longest game in the series (for now, anyway), has the largest map (etc) and its structure of having three protagonists you switch between is arguably the most ambitious and interesting idea Rockstar have had for the series (GTA6 only gives you two). It's a hugely compelling and playable game with a lot of fun, and some impressive tennis and golf minigames.

Why doesn't it come in higher? The main problem the game has is tone, it's trying to merge the more grounded crime drama of GTA4 with the zany insanity of late San Andreas and falls down somewhere in the middle. It feels like it would have been better to have either been more serious or more comedic and stuck to that tone, and it would have worked (Rockstar picked a lane with the more serious, grittier Red Dead Redemption 2 and it paid off splendidly). The other option would have been to move linearly over time from one tone to another, as San Andreas did, but the three-character structure encourages a more chaotic merging of the ideas. I'd also argue the game fails in its main idea of having three interesting protagonists, as the game is really just the Trevor & Michael Show, with Franklin occasionally showing up (with the occasional feeling they're trying hard not to have Franklin become CJ Mk. 2 from San Andreas and make the mistake of making him too bland to compensate).

This also doesn't account for GTA Online, which of course offers a multiplayer experience with vast amounts of new vehicles, weapons and missions, which some people have lost thousands of hours to over the last decade.

2: Grand Theft Auto IV, The Lost & The Damned, and The Ballad of Gay Tony (2008-09)

Grand Theft Auto IV pivoted hard from the barking madness of San Andreas to deliver a gritty, grounded crime story about the American Dream as seen by an immigrant trying to escape his violent past and dragged back into violence and murder. It feels like this game was written by Dan Houser after bingeing on nothing but HBO dramas for six months solid. The dark humour of the series is still here, but used more sparingly than in previous games.

The move surprisingly worked, helping assuage fan complaints over heavier-feeling cars and a smaller map than San Andreas. Some of the best voice work in the series and then-incredible HD graphics combined with the best combat in the series to date to make for a really compelling game. The game's reputation for being a bit of a downer was mitigated by its expansions. The Lost & The Damned is about a motorcycle club going through tough times, whilst The Ballad of Gay Tony sees you playing bodyguard to a flamboyant nightclub owner. Cleverly, the three storylines entwine around one another, with you not finding out the real story of a heist that goes wrong in the original game until you've played both expansions.

1: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)

GTA3 spanned a small city, Vice City spanned a bigger, hotter city and San Andreas spans an entire state, home to three separate cities (Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas), half a dozen small towns and impressive areas of desert, forest and mountain. Over twice as long as GTA3 and featuring an immense cast of heroes, villains and deranged oddballs, San Andreas allowed protagonist CJ to hit the gym and become a musclebound hero, or pork out and become totally spherical. CJ can also fly jet aircraft and, in a first for the series, swim. As well as taking over businesses, you can lead your criminal gang to take over entire neighbourhoods. San Andreas feels like The Lord of the Rings to Vice City's The Hobbit: something that is right across the board bigger, better, more interesting and more fun.

San Andreas plays out like a TV show with four distinct seasons, each one more bananas than before. The first feels heavily inspired by Boyz n the Hood, with a touch of The Wire added, being grounded in the urban dystopia of gang-controlled Los Santos. The second act has CJ blackmailed into doing crimes for the police, but thanks to a conspiracy theorist hippy and a blind racing driver, he becomes a business owner magnate in San Fierro. The third loses all touch with reality and has CJ breaking into Area 51 in a jetpack to steal an experimental aircraft whilst beating enemies to death with a dildo, between planning robberies on casinos in Las Venturas. The final act has CJ returning home to wrap up business and seize control of Los Santos's criminal underworld using his new resources and allies. It's a compelling arc almost gleeful in the twists the story takes along the way, helped by CJ being arguably the most likeable protagonist in the series (though it's up to you whether you make him a hero, antihero or psychotic villain). The sheer amount of fun the game lets you have overcomes its dated visuals and occasionally corny dialogue.

Where will Grand Theft Auto VI sit on the list? The game promises to be a mixture of the heavier drama of Red Dead Redemption 2 and the lighter, sunnier tone of Grand Theft Auto V, in the most visually stunning game in the series to date. It'll be interesting to see where the consensus on it rests.

Bethesda confirm THE ELDER SCROLLS VI will be called SENTINEL, but no official release date

Bethesda Game Studios are celebrating their fortieth anniversary and, as part of the celebration, Todd Howard has confirmed that The Elder Scrolls VI will be called Sentinel. The game will be the long, long-awaited follow-up to the mega-selling Skyrim (2011), though exactly how long we'll have to wait for it remains unclear, since the teaser does not mention a release date. However, according to reliable reporter Jason Schreier, Bethesda are targeting a late 2028 release window for the game.

Bethesda created the Elder Scrolls franchise in the early 1990s, partially derived from the Dungeons & Dragons games helmed by some of the staff there, though with some added metaphysical twists. The franchise kicked off with The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994), which saw the player travelling across the vast continent-spanning Empire of Tamriel. The game was a modest success, but its sequel, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996), was a much bigger hit. The game allowed tremendous freedom in a truly colossal open world (a roughly 1:1 scale map about the same size as the island of Britain) but was famously janky and buggy. Two action-focused spin-offs, Battlespire (1997) and Redguard (1998), were financial failures that pushed the company close to bankruptcy before it was rescued by Zenimax Media. Bethesda then embraced both modern 3D technology and a strategic alliance with Microsoft for their Xbox consoles to deliver The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002) and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006), the former making them critical darlings and the latter being their first big, smash-hit game.

Bethesda had bought the Fallout IP from the collapsing Interplay and developed Fallout 3 (2008), whilst collaborating with Obsidian Entertainment on Fallout: New Vegas (2010). Bethesda later returned to that franchise solo with Fallout 4 (2015) and the online game Fallout 76 (2018). Inbetween they released The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in 2011. Still their biggest-selling game, with over 65 million copies solid, Skyrim has infamously been re-released multiple times on different generations of hardware with one full graphical remaster, as well as substantial mod support and two large and several small expansions. The game's multi-generational, perennial popularity is remarkable, with just under 30,000 people playing the game right now on Steam alone.

Given Skyrim's immense success, it was assumed that Bethesda would return to the Elder Scrolls world after the release of Fallout 4 (and the unexpected making of Fallout 76, a radical expansion of what had originally been a planned multiplayer mode for Fallout 4), and indeed, this appears to have been the expectation. However, Todd Howard had long dreamed of making a space opera video game involving travel to different planets, inspired by the Traveller tabletop roleplaying game (which Bethesda had briefly licensed in the late 1990s). The result was Starfield, released in 2023 to a muted reception. In the meantime, Bethesda's sister-team at Zenimax Online Studios had released The Elder Scrolls Online (2014), which was well-received but not regarded as a substitute for the next proper Elder Scrolls experience.

Frustration also mounted given that Bethesda had teased the existence of The Elder Scrolls VI in 2018 with a very brief trailer, but little information was subsequently released. Bethesda had revealed the existence of the game to allay fears that The Elder Scrolls Online would stop the development of new single-player titles (as had occurred at Blizzard with the release of World of WarCraft forestalling the release of new single-player games in the original strategy series).

The province of Hammerfell in western Tamriel, located north-west of Cyrodiil (where Oblivion was set) and south-west of Skyrim. Hammerfell and High Rock to its north were the setting for Daggerfall, whilst the isle of Stros M'Kai was the setting for action spin-off Redguard.

It appears now that pre-production of The Elder Scrolls VI had originally been planned to start after the release of Fallout 4, but the introduction and development of Fallout 76 prevented much headway from being made. Pre-production began properly in 2018 after Fallout 76's launch with the main development team moving to Starfield. Starfield's protracted development (including a year-long delay late in the day) seemed to impact work on Elder Scrolls VI, with full development of the latter not beginning until early 2024, shortly after the release of Starfield. Despite this, some fans had theorised that Bethesda's expanded headcount (the company has more than quadrupled in size since Skyrim's release), new technology, possible parallel development and the relative straightforwardness of Sentinel's development compared to Starfield, which required many new gameplay systems and ideas, would allow the game to get out the door much faster, potentially in 2027.

The failure to provide a launch window for the game suggests 2027 is now off the table, not to mention Bethesda is expected to launch Fallout 3 Remastered on 23 October next year at a special event in Washington DC, so would not want to clash with that in any case. Jason Schreier's reporting indicates late 2028, with a potential delay into 2029, may be more realistic in this case. That would mean a near-eighteen year gap between titles in the series, even more startling than the thirteen-year gap between Grand Theft Auto games.

Bethesda have also confirmed the title gives a clue to the game's location. In Elder Scrolls lore, Sentinel is the capital city of the western province of Hammerfell, home of the legendary warriors known as the Redguards. Daggerfall was previously set in the northern half of Hammerfell and the southern half of neighbouring High Rock, with Sentinel as a visitable location. Whether Sentinel includes all of Hammerfell plus all of High Rock, or again parts of both is unknown. The brief teaser also ends with a quote dated 4E 206 (the 206th year of the Fourth Era), five years after the events of Skyrim, suggesting the game may take place in that time period.

Bethesda have also confirmed that Fallout 5 is in pre-production, and they are collaborating with Obsidian Entertainment once again on a new Fallout game.

RIP Sir Patrick Stewart

News has sadly broken of the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart at the age of 86. Stewart was considered one of the finest Shakespearean actors of his generation, with a dedicated love of the theatre. In later years he reinvented himself as a science fiction genre icon, through roles in Dune, the X-Men movie franchise and, by far his best-known role, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and numerous spin-off projects.

Patrick Stewart was born in Yorkshire in 1940. The youngest of three brothers, his early life was blighted by domestic violence from his father. He was encouraged to study drama by a teacher at primary school and made this his main area of study in secondary school. During an extra-curricular drama course he met and befriended his fellow soon-to-be-iconic British actor, Brian Blessed. After leaving school he worked as a reporter for a local newspaper, though he would frequently skip an assignment to instead attend theatre performances. He had to leave the job after his boss challenged him over his dedication to the role. Stewart received a grant to attend the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where he renewed his acquaintence with Blessed.

Stewart started appearing on stage in 1959, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966 and getting his first screen role in 1967 on British soap opera Coronation Street. His reputation in the theatre was already impressive and led to him being recruited by the University of California, Santa Barbara to teach Shakespeare to American students, in the early 1970s. This accompanied his first appearances on Broadway.

Stewart made numerous small appearances on television before making his breakthrough by playing Vladimir Lenin in Fall of Eagles (1974) and Sejanus in the storied BBC adaptation of I, Claudius (1975), alongside Blessed as Emperor Augustus. This led to more roles, such as in the legendary BBC adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and playing Leondegrance in John Boorman's lavish period drama Excalibur (1981).

Though Stewart was open to any acting challenge, he had a lot of scepticism towards the science fiction genre. In the late 1970s he expressed surprise when an actress acquaintence,  Lalla Ward, accepted a role on Doctor Who (playing the Time Lady Romana; she later married co-star Tom Baker), not considering the genre to be challenging. He overcame his reluctance when offered the chance to work with cult director David Lynch, who was planning an ambitious and lavish film adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel Dune (1984). Stewart was cast in the role of Gurney Halleck, the commander of House Atreides's military forces. Though some of his scenes were cut, Stewart made an impression in the film with his military bearing and some quotable lines. He also may have inadvertently created one of the earliest screen memes for the scene where he charges into battle inexplicably holding a pug, which numerous magazines reprinted.

Stewart's newfound admiration for science fiction quickly saw him cast in Lifeforce (1985). His forays into Hollywood were briefly disrupted by a name dispute with an American actor of the same name; Stewart atypically refused to change his name and instead paid the other actor off to release the rights.

Between films, Stewart gave dramatic readings at the University of California, Los Angeles. Robert H. Justman, a producer of the original Star Trek who was working with Gene Roddenberry on a revival project, saw him at one of the readings and suggested they call him in to audition for the role of the lead. Stewart was sceptical but needed a better-paying job and his agent strongly recommended he attend the audition to make himself known to the casting director, if nothing else. Roddenberry was impressed by his reading and said, "he's a very nice guy, but a bald Englishman is not going to be the successor to Captain Kirk." Other producers in the room, including Justman and Paramount's representative, Rick Berman disagreed and worked on convincing Roddenberry. Roddenberry eventually agreed to let Stewart audition for the Paramount executives, thinking they'd shoot down Stewart for not being an action-oriented leading man and would also be sceptical of him being bald. Stewart had to have his own wig flown in at great expense from the UK to audition in. The Paramount execs were impressed by Stewart but told him to lose the wig when they offered him the role.

Stewart hesitated to accept the offer, and his colleague Ian McKellan advised him against taking the role for fear of typecasting. However, Stewart's agent argued the show would almost certainly fail after just one season and Stewart would be free to choose his own acting roles with the substantial fee and residuals gained from Trek. Stewart initially struggled to adapt to the rigours of American episodic filming and was initially distraught at his younger castmates' more relaxed attitude to shooting, cracking jokes between takes. At one point Stewart said on set, "we are here to work, not have fun!" which he quickly realised was incredibly pompous. The press kept calling Stewart, "an unknown Shakesperean actor," which his costars felt was extremely funny, at one point pinning such an article to Stewart's trailer door. An important bonding moment came during the shooting of the third episode Code of Honor, which the cast unanimously called "the racist episode," leading to the writer being blacklisted from the show and the director quitting halfway through. Stewart quickly relaxed in the role and went from being the most straight-laced actor on the show to one of the most likely to get into hijinks.

However, Stewart also took his role as the de facto leader of the show and a mentor to the younger actors very seriously. He also advised the other actors on representation and the value of their work, often intervening with the producers when he felt they were being exploited. The other castmembers admitted that Stewart gave them all a strong work ethic, including making sure they always turned up on time with their lines memorised. Stewart also relished the episodes which stretched his acting muscles and pitted him against worthy sparring partners like John de Lancie as Q, Mark Lenard (in Sarek, where Picard dealing with Sarek's emotions is sometimes cited as Stewart's finest scene on the show), Paul Winfield (in Darmok) and his favourite guest star, Andreas Katsulas as Romulan Commander Tomalak in several episodes.

Stewart also exercised his power as the show's lead to have his friend Gates McFadden, who played Dr. Beverly Crusher, reinstated after she was fired at the end of Season 1 after falling out with producer Maurice Hurley. Hurley quit in turn as a result at the end of Season 2, allowing Michael Piller to take over as showrunner. This resulted in an immediate, swift upturn in the show's writing and popularity during its third season. Stewart found his opinions being given more weight and gleefully exploited this. One of his favourite gags was to tell new writers on the show, "remember, Picard needs to do more shooting and more f---ing!" Ira Steven Behr took this to heart by delivering Captain's Holiday, an episode in which Picard went on leave to the pleasure planet Risa, foiled an intergalactic heist and got the girl (in more ways than one, with Stewart having a brief fling with co-star Jennifer Hetrick), to Stewart's immense satisfaction. Piller then wrote the cliffhanger episode The Best of Both Worlds, in which Picard is kidnapped by the Borg and converted into their spokesman, Locutus. Stewart realised the impact of Trek for the first time when he was shouted at by fans driving past him on the freeway, "great episode man!" and people asking if he was going to be killed off.

Stewart used his increased profile and wealth to fund personal projects, such as a one-man performance of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (starting in 1990). Stewart initially reacted poorly to coming out on stage to find some of the audience in Starfleet uniforms but then decided to make it a virtue by refusing to sign autographs until after the performance, "forcing" the Trek fans to sit through the full show. He was pleased when many of the fans stayed for the whole thing and enjoyed it.

Stewart was happy to reprise his role as Picard in the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (relishing playing an antagonist role against Avery Brooks's Sisko, whose wife had been killed by the Borg), for an enhanced fee as per his agent's advice. He continued in the role of Picard in the movies Star Trek: Generations (1994, alongside William Shatner and Malcolm McDowell), First Contact (1996), Insurrection (1998) and Nemesis (2002, with a young Tom Hardy). He considered Nemesis to be an underwhelming film and a disappointing finale to the Next Generation saga. From 2020 to 2023 he reprised the role in the CBS All Access/Paramount+ series Star Trek: Picard, with the final episode featuring him once again commanding from the bridge of the Galaxy-class USS Enterprise-D, surrounded by his friends and costars of over thirty years' standing.

After The Next Generation finished in 1994, Stewart found getting screen roles tricky and his reduced presence on the stage had seen roles dry up on that front. Stewart remained philosophical and was sought out by Bryan Singer to appear in his superhero film X-Men (2000). Stewart had long been a dream fan-casting for the role of Professor Charles Xavier, the founder and leader of the X-Men organisation, and Singer had not seriously considered other actors for the role. Stewart was wary of doing another big franchise but was keen to work with Singer and also his friend Ian McKellan, who had been cast as Magneto. The film was a huge success, in part due to the immense chemistry between Stewart and McKellen. They reprised their double act in X2 (2002), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). Stewart returned in the role solo in Logan (2017) and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). He will reprise the role, now for presumably the final time, in Avengers: Doomsday (2026). Assuming neither Wesley Snipes nor Hugh Jackman reprise their Marvel movie roles in Doomsday or later, this should also solidify Stewart's position as the longest-running Marvel actor.

The X-Men experience saw McKellen and Stewart bond as best friends, with McKellen officiating at Stewart's wedding. They performed onstage together in 2014 in a touring version of Waiting for Godot and No Man's Land, publicising the project by recording themselves appearing around New York City in bowler hats.

Now an established screen star, Stewart was happy to poke fun at himself, appearing in an episode of Extras in 2005 as a perverted version of himself where he writes a film script which involves his female co-stars' clothes falling off "instantly," allowing him to "see everything." Co-star Ricky Gervais was almost physically unable to get through the shots without losing his mind laughing. He also co-starred with William Shatner in the documentary The Captains (2011) where they compared notes on their respective Star Trek experiences. Shatner had initially been wary of The Next Generation's success whilst Stewart had been concerned about the earlier show's cultural dominance, but the two actors got on very well.

Stewart benefited from both writers and directors who had been fans of Star Trek beginning their careers in the 2000s and 2010s, leading to a multitude of TV, film and voice actor roles. In particular, Seth MacFarlane, a colossal fan, cast Stewart in many of his projects, including a regular role on American Dad, guest roles on Family Guy and providing the voice-overs for the Ted movie duology.

In 2006 Stewart made his first major appearance in a video game, playing Emperor Uriel Septim in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Despite dying in the opening sequence, Stewart's role was acclaimed and popular with players. His vocal lines were re-used in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (2025).

Stewart's roles and profile made him a British national treasure and icon. In 2010 he was knighted for services to acting, and in 2012 was one of the people to carry the Olympic Torch during the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

Stewart had extensive charity connections, frequently raising money for Amnesty International and speaking out on the importance of being a positive male role model, citing his own unpleasant experiences with his father. He has also campaigned for Combat Stress, which seeks to raise awareness of combat-related PTSD, which he blamed for his own father's experiences. Stewart was a big fan of dogs, owning and fostering several pit bulls and campaigning for animal charities.

For personal interests, Stewart was also a lifelong fan of Huddersfield Town football club and an avid motor enthusiast, regularly attending the British Formula One Grand Prix at Silverstone and making an appearance on the TV show Top Gear racing a reasonably-priced car around the show's airfield racing track.

Stewart was married three times and had a son and daughter. His son Daniel is also an actor and appeared alongside his father in the all-time classic Star Trek episode The Inner Light. In 2023 he published a successful autobiography, Making It So: A Memoir.

Sir Patrick Stewart was easily one of the most iconic British actors of the past fifty years, with a wide-ranging number of roles on screen, in voice-over and on stage. He will be overwhelmingly remembered for Star Trek and X-Men, but his numerous, powerful guest roles on other projects and his tremendous theatrical record should not be ignored. He championed many great causes, stood up for his fellow actors and creatives, and developed a sense of humour about himself and his own image. He would acknowledge his own failings, particularly about romantic relationships and his own arrogance when starting work on Star Trek. He was loyal to his friends, standing up for them against more powerful producers in Hollywood. He was happy to acknowledge fans whilst ensuring he was not just a performing monkey for them.

It is a tremendous understatement to say that he will be missed by not just fans of science fiction, but also anyone who enjoyed seeing a great actor working on the screen.