Category: Video Gaming

Discovering a new game to get lost in for hours can be a phenomenal experience. But sometimes, you need a quick hit — a game you can pick up and play just for a bit and still have a great time. The PlayStation Plus Catalog and Classics Catalog are filled with games that fit that description exactly, offering experiences that you can dip into for a few minutes and have a blast. PlayStation Portal owners, these are great picks for you to cozy up with.

Below, we’ve compiled a list of 9 excellent quick-hit games from the PS Plus Catalog — although they can definitely keep you engrossed for a lot longer. Next time you’ve got a couple of minutes to spare, fire up one of these.

Blue Prince | 2025 | PlayStation Plus Game Catalog

The brilliant idea at the heart of Blue Prince is the combination of first-person puzzler gameplay with roguelike elements. Each time you venture into the mystery-filled Mt. Holly Manor, you’ll chart a new course through the house: Whenever you open a door, you choose the room that appears on the other side. While Blue Prince’s deeper enigmas will keep you obsessed for hours, even a quick run through Mt. Holly will give you a chance to solve a few puzzles and compile a few clues to take in next time.

Publisher: Raw Fury | Developer: Dogubomb | PS5

Cult of the Lamb | 2022 | PlayStation Plus Game Catalog

Cult of the Lamb is part roguelike action game, part base manager, and both sides can be satisfying in long or short bursts. Each foray into its shifting dungeons gives you a chance to earn things to enhance your abilities, improve the buildings, and recruit more followers. Whether you want to spend some time making your followers happy or just lean into dungeon-crawling combat, there’s always something quick and interesting to do to grow your cult.

Publisher: Devolver Digital | Developer: Massive Monster | PS5, PS4

Earth Defense Force 5 | 2017 | PlayStation Plus Classics Catalog

Giant insect-like monsters and alien spacecraft are invading, and it’s up to you to stop them. You have a host of weapons to face down hordes of creepy-crawlies, as well as four character classes with different styles of play. Earth Defense Force 5 offers more than 100 missions, but while each will challenge your third-person combat abilities, they’re all fast enough that it only takes a few minutes to enjoy a few rounds fighting off invading extra-terrestrials.

Publisher: D3PublisherUBLISHER | Developer: Sandlot | PS5, PS4

I.Q.: Intelligent Qube | 1997 | PlayStation Plus Classics Catalog

Speedy movements and quick thinking are essential in puzzler I.Q.: Intelligent Qube. In each level, your goal is to clear a series of cubes as they roll toward you by marking spots on the grid beneath your feet. Clearing certain cubes allows you to release blasts that can knock out several cubes at once, but it takes careful planning of where and when to place and use those advantages to fully clear each level. I.Q. is a great way to exercise your mind with a few fast brain teasers.

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment | Developer: G-Artists | PS5, PS4

LocoRoco Remastered | 2006 | PlayStation Plus Classics Catalog

Navigating the colorful world of LocoRoco Remastered isn’t about controlling a character, but about tilting the landscape beneath your round, jelly-like LocoRoco to roll them where you need them to go. Making your way over obstacles or through passageways requires combining many LocoRoco together into one massive being, or breaking them back into several smaller ones. LocoRoco Remastered is a perfect way to unwind with a breezy, lighthearted experience and short, inventive levels that require some out-of-the-box thinking.

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment | Developer: Japan Studio | PS5, PS4

The Pedestrian | 2021 | PlayStation Plus Games Catalog

The Pedestrian is a puzzle-platformer that has you playing as a stick figure like those often seen on road and bathroom signs, navigating from sign to sign on your way through the world. The fascinating presentation offers a lot of clever puzzles, many of which require you to rearrange signs to connect ladders and doors to create paths from one to another. Though the levels are short and sweet, they’ll test your puzzling smarts.

Publisher: Skookum Arts LLC | Developer: Skookum Arts LLC | PS5, PS4

Tekken 3 | 1997 | PlayStation Plus Classics Catalog

Tekken 3 lets you relive the glory days of 3D fighters on the original PlayStation. Though the storied series has gone on to five more mainline installments, Tekken 3 will still put you through your fighting game paces. Movement in three dimensions is key as you fight one-on-one duels against an iconic roster of punishing opponents, but with matches that can be brutal beatdowns lasting just a few minutes, it’s easy to squeeze in a few rounds of Tekken 3 whenever you have a free moment.

Publisher: Namco | Developer: Namco | PS5, PS4

Tetris Effect: Connected | 2023 | PlayStation Plus Games Catalog

Few gaming experiences are as zen-like as Tetris Effect: Connected. The latest version of the classic puzzler marries its block-dropping, line-clearing gameplay with immersive visuals and an excellent soundtrack to create something that can be mesmerizing, as well as intensely challenging. Each of Tetris Effect’s levels lasts just long enough for you to get lost in a flow state of combining blocks to rack up high scores.

Publisher: Enhance | Developer: Monstars, Resonair, Stage Games | PS5, PS4

You Suck At Parking | 2022 | PlayStation Plus Game Catalog

You Suck At Parking puts your driving and puzzle-solving skills to the test with top-down levels in which you need to get your tiny car into an equally small parking spot — often by jumping gaps, whipping through hairpin turns, and avoiding crashes in each short, quirky level. But even if you should fly off a cliff or smash into a wall, you can quickly start again for another try.

Publisher: Curve Digital | Developer: Happy Volcano | PS5, PS4

Honorable mentions

The PlayStation Plus Games Catalog and Classic Catalog are chock full of excellent quick-hit games you can play alone or with friends, in genres ranging from sports to shooters, from racing to intense cooperative multiplayer madness. Don’t miss these favs: 

• Hot Shots Golf 2
• Hotline Miami
• Jet Moto
• Overcooked! All You Can Eat

If you’ve got a few quick-hit go-to games that we haven’t mentioned, be sure to share your favorites and recommendations in the comments below.entioned, be sure to share your favorites and recommendations in the comments below.

GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

Set to launch on February 12, 2026, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 bundles two titles into one: Yakuza Kiwami 3, a remake of the original Yakuza 3 released in 2009, and the all-new Dark Ties, which stars Yoshitaka Mine, Kiryu’s adversary.

I recently had the opportunity to go hands-on with the game at a press event, which covered various sections from both the remaster Yakuza Kiwami 3 and the all-new Dark Ties, a brand-new tale featuring Yoshitaka Mine from Yakuza 3. Read on for my initial thoughts and impressions. 

At the same event, Sega announced a playable demo will be available for the title, more news of which will be shared in the future. 

Yakuza Kiwami 3 hands-on

Yakuza Kiwami 3 follows Kazuma Kiryu as he settles in Okinawa to run the Morning Glory Orphanage, only to find himself entangled in a web of sinister conspiracy.

In the demo, I was embroiled in Kiryu’s clash with the Ryudo Family, an Okinawan yakuza syndicate scheming to seize the Morning Glory Orphanage’s land, where I faced off against the Ryudo patriarch Shigeru Nakahara and family captain Rikiya Shimabukuro.

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A standout moment showed Rikiya — initially hostile towards Kiryu — shifting his perspective after watching him bravely risk everything alone to save the head of the local shopping district. This entirely new scene, missing from the original Yakuza 3, masterfully captures Rikiya’s growing respect for Kiryu through nuanced facial expressions.

Master weapons and enjoy the thrill of “Ryukyu Style” combat

City streets spark spontaneous fights where Kiryu can switch fluidly between his Dragon of Dojima: Kiwami Style and Ryukyu Style.

Ryukyu Style maps weapons to different buttons for easy, diverse attacks. Weapons switch automatically based on the button pressed, so even simple button mashing feels satisfying.

Players can expect a variety of Heat Actions, as well as the Dragon Boost, which activates by maxing out Kiryu’s gauge. The Dragon Finisher delivers a final devastating blow, complete with a backdrop of a roaring dragon.

Life at Morning Glory: deepening ties with the children

Life at Morning Glory is a side-adventure where Kiryu nurtures bonds with children at the orphanage through cooking, sewing, helping with homework, and heartfelt chats. Kiryu’s “Daddy Rank” increases as trust grows, reflecting his growth as a father figure. Earning enough trust unlocks each child’s unique Family Time Event.

I became quite emotionally invested while I was playing, especially when thinking it was all for the children. The interactions perfectly echo Kiryu’s challenges as a novice parent striving to do his best, and transform minigames from mundane tasks into heartfelt moments of caring for the kids.

Bad Boy Dragon: Join the small-time Haisai Girls gang and protect Okinawa

In the new team battle content, Bad Boy Dragon, Kiryu is unexpectedly appointed to head up a struggling Okinawan girls’ gang, Haisai Girls. Together, they stand up to protect Okinawa from the formidable Tokyo Night Terrors.

You can engage in either Total Annihilation, where up to 20 allies clash against over 100 enemies, or Turf Wars, where teams split up to capture and take down enemy bases.

Dark Ties hands-on: revealing an unexpected side of Mine’s cool facade

Dark Ties centers on Yoshitaka Mine, the chilling antagonist who stands in Kiryu’s path, and he stole the spotlight in the preview. Unlike the fiery, heartfelt Kiryu and Ichiban, Mine is cold and detached, dismissing even Daigo’s “family” talk as empty rhetoric. It is rare for the series to convey a character’s thoughts through raw inner monologues.

Fast-paced combat based on shoot boxing

Rooted in shoot boxing (a martial art originating in Japan), Mine delivers swift, stylish, agile attacks.

Filling the Shackled Heart gauge triggers Dark Awakening mode, swapping Mine’s refined shoot boxing style for raw brutality — head grabs, ground drags, and ferocious strikes — mirroring his duality of a cool exterior and inner darkness.

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Kanda Damage Control: turning Kanda into a lovable charmer

In Kanda Damage Control, Mine tackles various missions like street rescues on behalf of Kanda, the Nishikiyama Family patriarch, and Tojo Clan lieutenant. Completing them will boost Kanda’s public perception and gradually transform him into a charismatic figure.

Leveling up Kanda’s Charisma Rank unlocks Drink Links, where you’ll deepen your bond with Kanda and witness his hopelessly goofy flaws. His candid rants made me envy how much he enjoys life to the fullest, and I can’t wait to see his dynamic with Mine evolve.

Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties launches on PS5 and PS4 on February 12. 

Today, Capcom is holding a Resident Evil Showcase event set to feature “brand new gameplay and news” for Resident Evil Requiem, among other things.

The showcase is taking place at 2pm PT, 5pm ET, and 10pm UK, with a post-show discussion stream to follow, though it’s unclear exactly what that will be about.

Resident Evil: Reqiuem is just a few weeks away, and we’ve already seen quite a bit of it, including the long-awaited reveal of Leon S. Kennedy, who is apparently going to be playable as well, and what seems to be a tease of an open world…or at least a pretty big shift in how the series has historically treated its settings.

Now that the showcase itself is over, it turns out it was actually…pretty thin as far as new information. It was entirely related to Resident Evil: Requiem, and almost fully focused on stuff you can buy in connection with the game. Here’s a quick rundown of the five big takeaways from the showcase today:

Resident Evil: Requiem’s Difficulty Settings

Resident Evil: Requiem will have at least three different difficulty settings, and one in particular seems pretty cool. There’s a Casual mode for those who just want to focus on the story, and it comes with an aim assist. And there’s a Standard mode, which is just what it sounds like.

But the really neat one is Standard (Classic) difficulty, which is the Standard difficulty but with an added challenge, where Grace will need to collect ink ribbons for typewriters in order to save her game.

Bloody It Up

A new game mechanic was revealed today related to the crafting system. In RE: Requiem, a number of items are only craftable using infected blood, which is obtained by killing zombies. Though Grace isn’t much of a fighter, she does have a gun on her (appropriately called Requiem) that she uses to get out of tight jams, and she’ll need to use it to take down zombies so she can get their blood and craft more useful survival tools.

There’s a Lot of Stuff You Can Buy, If You Want

A surprising amount of today’s showcase was dedicated to stuff you can buy in real-life that ties in with the game. There’s a watch collaboration with Hamilton for two different watches, one for Grace and one for Leon, that they’ll wear in-game, and only 2,000 of each watch are being made for sale. There’s the amiibo, which we already knew about, and a special Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller themed around Requiem. There are special Resident Evil orchestra concerts coming, and obviously, the Deluxe Edition of the game and all its bonus content. And Capcom is releasing figurines of both Grace and Leon. If you’re interested in buying any of that stuff, it’s all easy enough to find, but this section of the video really did feel a bit shopping channel given the circumstances.

These Zombies Are…Different

There’s something different about the zombies in Resident Evil: Requiem. Rather than just violent and lurching, some of them seem to have other personality traits, and have carried over characteristics from their lives before. For instance, one custodian zombie continues to clean the building even after being turned. There’s another man frantically pushing elevator buttons. And at the end of the trailer, there’s one that straight up talks to Grace. Like, seems to be holding a normal, smooth, human conversation. What’s going on here? Is this a different virus than the usual one? Mysteries!

Elpis

What? Pipis? No, you said Elpis? Okay, sure. At the end of the showcase, there was a mention of some sort of “secret” Leon is carrying, referencing something called “elpis.” We have…no idea what that is! We know now that it’s potentially related to the murder of Grace’s mother, Alyssa, and we can maybe guess that it’s connected in some way to that zombie bite mark fans keep seeing on Leon in trailers. But this is another mystery that will need further investigation. Or, as Leon S. Kennedy put it in the trailer, a second opinion.

Resident Evil: Requiem is coming to Xbox, PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch 2 on February 27, 2026.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Bethesda RPGs are so big and take such a long time to develop that there’s naturally a lot left on the cutting room floor, leaving them to be discovered by modders and given a second life. One such dropped idea was Skyrim’s fully dynamic civil war, co-lead designer and former Elder Scrolls loremaster Kurt Kuhlmann tells us. And it was “pretty far along before it got cut,” he says.

“The civil war was originally intended to be much more dynamic, in the sense that we were tracking if you went around and killed Imperial soldiers … and we would say, OK, you’re harming the Empire in this hold … so we could see the balance of power in this hold is shifting towards the Stormcloaks, and at some point, if it shifts far enough through your open world actions, it could trigger the Stormcloaks to attack the capital city.”

EA Sports has revealed the much-anticipated Ultimate Team of the Year cards for the 2025/26 season, including a slew of meta favourites from the likes of the evergreen Virgil van Dijk, super-fast Kylian Mbappe and unplayable queen of FC 26 Claudia Pina.

Elsewhere Lionesses Alessia Russo, Lucy Bronze and Leah Williamson feature alongside now-obligatory Barcelona duo Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmati. On the men’s side, Arsenal’s title tilt sees Declan Rice and William Saliba make the first 11, while Champions League holders PSG have the most players from a single team, with Ousmane Dembele, Vitinha and Nuno Mendes adding both rapid speed and technical prowess to proceedings.

However, the Team of the Year selection hasn’t been without controversy. The FC 26 TOTY promo is voted for by players, you probably cast your vote by selecting time-limited gold cards yourself, but that method has led some to question whether the Team of the Year is more of a popularity contest than a true measure of performance. This is with specific reference to Virgil, whose in-and-out form during Liverpool’s poor start this season has caused some to question his eight-straight inclusion.

In yet another blow to those of us who got Mario Gomez and Gianluca Vialli from the Classic XI Hero pack, during the TOTY event these Classic XI Heroes will be further upgraded to TOTY Honorable Mentions Heroes.

More TOTY items will also be dropping over the next couple of weeks, including a men’s and women’s 12th player, Honorable Mentions, 2 teams of TOTY Icons and both a men’s and women’s “Captain of the Year”.

You’ll be able to get different TOTY items from packs at different times in FC 26, on the following schedule:

• TOTY Attackers: 16th-18th January
• TOTY Midfielders: 18th-20th January
• TOTY Defenders and Goalkeeper: 20th-22nd January
• TOTY Icon Team 1: 16th-20th January
• TOTY Icon Team 2: 20th-23rd January
• Full TOTY XI: 22nd-30th January
• TOTY Honorable Mentions players: 23rd-30th January

For the players you’re hoping to pack, here are the full teams of the men’s and women’s FC 26 Ultimate Team of the Years:

FC 26 Men’s Ultimate Team of the Year

• Gigi Donnarumma – Man City
• Nuno Mendes – PSG
• Virgil van Dijk – Liverpool
• William Saliba – Arsenal
• Jules Kounde – Barcelona
• Vitinha – PSG
• Declan Rice – Arsenal
• Pedri – Barcelona
• Kylian Mbappe – Real Madrid
• Erling Haaland – Man City
• Ousmane Dembele – PSG

FC 26 Women’s Ultimate Team of the Year

• Christine Endler – Lyon
• Lucy Bronze – Chelsea
• Millie Bright – Chelsea
• Leah Williamson – Arsenal
• Selma Bacha – Lyon
• Mariona – Arsenal
• Aitana Bonmati – Barcelona
• Alexia Putellas – Barcelona
• Claudia Pina – Barcelona
• Alessia Russo – Arsenal
• Ewa Pajor – Barcelona

For more on how to get the best out of these players, check out our page on the best FC 26 formations and custom tactics.

Or for Career Mode help, here are the best FC 26 Wonderkids to add to your squad.

Hello, fellow bikers, this is Paolo Bertoni, Game Director of Ride 6. As we rev things up ahead of the game’s release on PS5, planned for February 12, 2026, I’d like to take you behind the scenes to explore the brand-new career mode we’ve been crafting, and share how it brings our vision to life.

The goal of a project like Ride is to immerse virtual riders in the same thrills that every real biker seeks when they open the garage door and hop on their bike. So we asked ourselves: what fuels that passion? It wasn’t hard to figure out, considering that for much of our team, motorcycles aren’t just a job, they’re a way of life. Over the years, the Ride franchise has built a huge roster of bikes and tracks to give players as many choices as possible. With Ride 6, we wanted to go further. We wanted to capture the very essence of being a biker, an experience we called Ride Fest.

Ride Fest is much more than a career; it’s a motorcycle festival that plunges players into the love of riding, freedom, and the sense of camaraderie that defines the biker spirit. It replaces the traditional championship format with a more open approach, offering a horizontal progression system based on chapters. You will get to choose which events to tackle, from single races and endurance challenges to championships and time attacks, all organized into themed areas based on criteria such as bike category, manufacturer, circuit type, weather conditions, or legendary champions.

Yes, you read that right! For the first time in the franchise’s history, Ride 6 will feature real-world riders. We’ve collaborated with 10 two-wheels legends who will put your skills to the test in their own area of expertise. For instance, Niccolò Canepa, Peter Hickman, and Ian Hutchinson will challenge your endurance and precision, while Tyler O’Hara will bring his unmatched experience on Baggers to the track, turning every lap into a display of power and control. Road races, instead, are the natural habitat of Guy Martin, while Thomas Chareyre and Skyler Howes embody the raw spirit of Motard and Off-Road racing. Facing these legends will allow you to unlock exclusive rewards, including their signature bikes and equipment, but first, you’ll need to build your reputation within the festival.

This is the key concept of the Ride Fest: proving yourself among the greatest riders in history. To do so, you’ll need to accumulate enough Fame Points along your journey, gradually expanding the career map and unlocking new events, including dedicated boss battles where you can take on each legend across a variety of challenges.

To give everyone the chance to perform at their best in every type of race, we’ve also decided to introduce a new dual-physics system. Depending on your level of expertise, you can choose between the Pro and Arcade experiences, freely switching between the two based on the event in order to tailor the gameplay to your preferred level of realism or fun, while always enjoying Ride’s signature simulation core. This will be especially useful for mastering the Maxi Enduro and Bagger, the two new bike categories introduced in this chapter, which, together with the new off-road tracks, will bring fresh dimensions to the riding experience.

Finally, when in need of a break from the competition, you can head to the Ride Fest Paddock, the hub where all in-game activities come together. Here, you can relax with the other riders, upgrade your bikes with the help of your mechanic crew, visit the shop, and customize your look using the bike, helmet, and racing suit editors. Throughout your journey, the official Ride Fest DJ will immerse you even more in the festival atmosphere, introducing each chapter through dedicated cutscenes.

Thanks for your time, I hope you enjoyed reading this! And don’t forget to mark your calendar, as Ride 6 will be available on PlayStation 5 on February 12, 2026, with Early Access available from February 9, 2026.

A group of modders who got multiplayer servers running for Rockstar’s schoolyard mischief simulator Bully late last year have suddenly pulled all traces of their creation offline. The project’s been shutdown about a month after release, and thus far its creators haven’t offered an explanation as to why, beyond emphasising that this outcome wasn’t what they hoped would happen.

(more…)

Magic: The Gathering’s new Lorwyn Eclipsed set is getting closer, but we can already expect another trip to New York not long after.

After the mildly disappointing Spider-Man set, though, we’re hoping the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collab will be a little more tubular.

And, if you’re already sold on meeting up with cardboard versions of the Heroes in a Half Shell, their friends, and their foes, then good news – Amazon is once again discounting boxes of Play Boosters, now down to their lowest ever price.

Spoilers for this week’s episode of Fallout to follow.

Ring a ding ding! Another week, another episode of Fallout. Last week’s episode was notable because it showed our heroes Lucy (Ella Purnell) and Cooper (Walton Goggins) finally arrive at the iconic strip from Fallout: New Vegas. Though the pair had hoped to find Lucy’s father, Hank (Kyle Maclachlan), they were instead greeted by a horrific sight: a Deathclaw, one of Fallout’s most iconic enemies. Elsewhere, Norm (Moisés Arias) and the Vault-Tec junior executives from Vault 31 are exploring the Los Angeles wasteland in hopes of finding Vault-Tec’s headquarters. With plenty of tense situations and big set-ups hanging in the air, let’s dive into this week’s adventure in the Mojave wasteland.

The episode opens with Lucy and Cooper encountering the Deathclaw on the strip. Horrified at the sight of the creature, they quickly realize there is not one but three Deathclaws, making them fully surrounded. Knowing the danger they’re in, Cooper suggests running and staying out of sight. While hidden, Lucy asks Cooper which weapon he suggests they use to take them on. Knowing none of them will work, he takes a sack of grenades and throws it out as a distraction by shooting it. With the Deathclaws occupied, Cooper and Lucy escape to the backside of The Strip into the neighborhood of Freeside.

While in Freeside, which happens to be one of the most thriving communities in the Mojave Wasteland, Cooper finally reveals to Lucy why he wants to hunt down Hank. Cooper’s wife Barbara (Frances Turner) and daughter Janey were put into cryosleep by Vault-Tec in one of the vaults reserved for upper management. He tells her he found two of these vaults in Oregon and California, but they were empty inside. If he finds Hanks, he can find the Vault in the Mojave that is hopefully housing his family inside. With Lucy still addicted to Buffout, he suggests she go to the general store for some Addictol while he retires to a bar where he reflects on who he has become since he’s seen his family.

Jumping to before the bomb fell, we see a flashback with Cooper, Barbara, and Hank at the airport. Hank plans to escort them to Vegas but is also tasked by Vault-Tec to deliver an important briefcase that’s handcuffed to his wrist. Stepping away from them for a moment, Cooper calls Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) on a payphone. Moldaver provides Cooper with poison to assassinate Robert House (Rafi Silver), though Cooper swears to her he’ll get her the Cold Fusion without having to kill a man.

The trio arrive in Vegas during its prime and pull up to the Lucky 38 hotel, where crowds are protesting RobCo industries and the hotel’s owner Robert House. The tension reaches a peak when security throws a woman down the front steps of the hotel and Cooper rushes over to help her. She’s a local congresswoman and she recognizes Cooper and thanks him for his act of kindness.

Inside the bustling Casino the trio are split up. Trying to keep an eye on where Hank is headed, where his wife went, and where to find Mr. House, Cooper gets lost in the crowd of confusion. His task seems impossible until he’s approached by Mr. House who tells him “Mr. House would like to see you” and leads him to his private quarters. Inside, Cooper is greeted by Tex the securitron and The Mysterious Stranger (Justin Theroux), who Cooper recognizes from the bathroom of the VFW. The Mysterious Stranger reveals himself to be the true Robert House, and confessed that the one the public knows has been a ruse for over a decade. After revealing this, he informs Cooper that he knows of the assassination plot against him.

Jumping forward to the present, we see the snake oil salesman (Jon Daly) from season one on the road to New Vegas. After a brief but violent encounter with a radroach he arrives in the city only to be swiftly ambushed by Hank and taken back to the Vault-Tec vault. It’s here inside the vault that we do indeed get confirmation that Barbara and Janey’s cryo tubes are in the Mojave. Hank hooks up a mind control device to the snake oil salesman and offers him a fresh start, which he accepts. Hank turns on the device and is pleased when the salesman’s head does not explode.

Back in Los Angeles, Norm and the executives from Vault-31 find the Vault-Tec headquarters. As they head inside they encounter Ma June (Dale Dickey) from Filly, who has apparently been using the former headquarters as a radroach farm. When Norm inquires as to who is, she reveals to him that she encountered Lucy and tells him of the events that took place back in Filly. She tells him that he’s better off taking supplies from her and heading home because Lucy is most likely dead.

Back in Freeside, Lucy heads to the local general store to buy some Addictol but is dismayed to learn that it’s out of her budget. Seeing an open backdoor, Lucy decides to sneak inside and steal the Addictol along with a Power Fist that she comes across. While participating in her stealth check, she spots a chopped up body in a nearby trash can and is confronted by the “store owner” in ill-fitting clothes. Lucy then realizes that the man in front of her murdered the real owner. Before he has time to fire his gun at her, Lucy shoots the man in self-defense, ultimately killing him. Lucy stands mortified at murder she just committed as a Freeside resident stumbles upon the bloodbath.

Back in Pre-War Vegas, Mr. House reveals he’s been following Cooper for some time. He tells him that he had access to West-Tek technologies, granting him the ability to see through the visors of the T-45 power armor that Cooper wore in Alaska. He tells Cooper that the Deathclaw is the key to future control of the country. House then tells Cooper that he plans to use the Cold Fusion relic to stay alive after death–to run Vegas and protect it from the bombs that Vault-Tec plan to drop. Despite working the odds to be in his favor, House remains unsure how Cooper fits into all his plans for the end of the world. During House’s mad ramblings, Cooper makes a quick exit without the Cold Fusion.

At the Vault-Tec headquarters, the executives of Vault 31 scramble to get it back into working order. Norm learns from one of the executives that Barbara Howard was their director of operations and heads to her office to find information on what the plan was for Vaults 32 and 33. Inside her office he finds a terminal and searches “Future Enterprise Ventures” with no returning results. Out of ideas, he decides to search “FEV” and is greeted with a screen that says: “Forced Evolutionary Virus.” Bud Askin’s assistant was spying on Norm the entire time and attacks him when he uncovers the true meaning of “FEV.” In their scuffle, Norm is choked unconscious.

After Lucy walks the streets of Freeside–vomiting from the Addictol as she does–she meets back up with Cooper in a hotel room where they’re greeted by an uninvited guest: the snake oil salesman. Delivering a message from Hank, he informs them that he has Barbara and Janey in his vault and will kill them if they don’t stop attempting to track him. He then strikes a deal with Cooper: if he turns Lucy over to him, he’ll spare his family. Cooper then reveals his true motivation for taking Lucy on this journey: to use her as a bargaining chip to get information on his family. He accepts the deal and shoots Lucy with a tranquilizer. Before she can fully pass out, she arms herself with the Power Fist and launches Cooper out the window impaling him on a pole below.

Sometime later, Hank arrives to pick her up.

This week’s Fallout weaved an intricate web. What once felt like parallel stories have instead become closely tied together. The reveals this week were also bombshells, be it the identity of the real Mr. House or the true meaning of “FEV.” Maximus (Aaron Moten) and the Brotherhood of Steel weren’t even in this episode so it’ll be interesting to see how they tie into the overarching narrative as we head closer to the finale of this season in the Mojave Wasteland.

As survivors of the zombie apocalypse trudge into your military outpost, one by one, they wearily submit to your examinations in Quarantine Zone: The Last Check. Examine their eyes, their lungs, and their skin for any signs of the zombie virus—but don’t forget to look deeper, too.

A lot deeper.