We're Just Getting Warmed Up! 🔥

Welcome back to Gamer Dad Energy! A newsletter that covers gaming news, tips, and nostalgia for busy gamers.

There are some good games coming out within the next 30 days! We’ve got a classic getting a new coat of paint, and one you might not have heard of. Also, Things at Bethesda are getting shaken up and we’ve got high hopes!

Hopefully your Tuesday is going great, and now let’s take 5 minutes or so to talk games!

Every so often, an indie game appears that makes you stop scrolling through the endless list of Steam games and take a closer look. Luminary, an upcoming action RPG from Refractive Entertainment, made me do just that.

At first glance, Luminary looks like one of gaming’s favorite fantasy adventures, with nods to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and other familiar Action RPG vibes. However, Luminary is trying to build its own identity through deep exploration, rewarding character progression, unique town rebuilding, and straightforward combat.

Players will step into the role of a Luminary, a warrior with the power to push back a mysterious darkness spreading across the land. There’s a pretty slick character creator to get things started, and humans serve as the baseline, with other races having stat variations. The giants are a pretty fun race, and they stood out to me as I tried out the demo on Steam.

With your custom character, you’ll explore handcrafted environments, climb mountains, swim through deep waters, glide across wide gaps, discover hidden treasure, and battle enemies with swords, shields, bows, and magic. Weapons can be swapped during combat, allowing players to quickly change their approach depending on the situation. And if I’m being honest, the combat feels good. It’s impressive what Refractive has been able to do here with limited resources. (More on that in a moment…)

The game can be played solo or through online drop-in, drop-out co-op with up to three players. Your character progression also carries over between your own world and your friends’ games, so you won’t need to start over every time you join someone else. Luminary will also include activities such as mining, fishing, gathering resources, and helping rescued townspeople rebuild their community.

A little while ago I had the chance to play the Luminary Demo while streaming on Twitch. On the stream I was able to meet some cool folks who knew about the game and shared a passion for supporting up and coming indie games.

During my time with the demo, I was able to experience small portion of the world, but enjoyed learning the gameplay loops, combat, and exploring what had been created. What’s even cooler looking back on it now, is that this world is going to be able to be experienced with a friend! Coop in a game like this is something I’ve been wishing we had more of in the action RPG genre.

You know what’s also impressive about Luminary? The game is being created by a development team of only two people. Yeah, you read that right, TWO PEOPLE! Creating anything of value nowadays, especially something like a full-fledged video game, takes significant time and energy, and the Refractive Entertainment team is doing all that with a bag of chips, with just a two-person team!

As has been mentioned in social media posts, the developers have been open about the game’s current state and plan to use player feedback throughout Early Access to improve its systems, content, and overall world. (Which is something I wish AAA game studios would do consistently…)

Luminary enters Steam Early Access on August 11, 2026, with a planned launch price of $19.99. The game has been wish-listed well over 50,000 times, and as more news spreads about Luminary returning to the roots of the action RPG genre and emerging as a love letter to fans, expect those wish lists to keep coming!

There is still work ahead, but Luminary already has a promising foundation and a development team that appears to genuinely care about its community. This feels like an action RPG made for gamers by real gamers and is one indie game I am genuinely excited to support!

Check out the demo on Steam now and give Luminary a look before it launches next month!

_-BensZ28

What would it be like if we had an over-the-shoulder camera angle for Halo? I don’t know, but it sounds like another addiction to add to my list!

There are leaked third-person video clips of the new Halo remake. While we have had years of first-person glory, a third-person point of view might be exactly the kind of refresh this brand really needs!

That brings me to the point that we all need more Halo. We need great Halo, not just good Halo. Remember the days when you spent your moments sitting in a basement that smelled like pizza and flatulence. But you didn’t care because you invented the 360 No scope! Those were where legends were made.

I have extremely high hopes for this Halo remake. The sound quality is awesome! Just hearing the details in the reloading mechanic on Master Chief’s assault rifle is pure nirvana! Again, I only have footage from a pre-alpha YouTube clip, but I feel the winds of change coming!

I am a paying Gamepass member, and I want XBOX to get back to the glory days, or at least some form of actual relevance and not this sad “im an Xbox” slogan that Microsoft has been milking the shit out of.

Power back to the gamer and make Halo F-ing awesome again!

Check out a YouTube video of the third-person gameplay!

_-MadHad

Microsoft’s massive Xbox restructuring has reached Bethesda, with hundreds of workers across ZeniMax reportedly losing their jobs. Unionized employees are pushing back, organizing protests and demanding better severance, healthcare protections, transfer opportunities, and a meaningful voice in what happens next.

Let’s be clear: layoffs aren’t fun. These are real people with families, careers, and bills to pay. Many of them worked hard on games we love, and they should not be treated like numbers on a spreadsheet because leadership made poor decisions.

That said, something at Bethesda needed to change.

Fallout 76 launched as a mess and required years of updates to rebuild its reputation. Starfield was supposed to be Bethesda’s next massive gaming universe, but it failed to capture players the way Skyrim and Fallout once did.

Meanwhile, Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls VI with a short teaser in 2018. Development is underway, but fans have still seen almost nothing meaningful from the game eight years later. Fallout 5 is planned for sometime after The Elder Scrolls VI, which could mean it remains years away.

Yes, The Elder Scrolls Online continues to receive some content and has built a fairly dedicated community. However, for many longtime fans like myself, an online multiplayer game simply does not scratch the same itch as a new single-player Elder Scrolls adventure. I genuinely tried to get into ESO and put in a good amount of work, but it was clear I was not the target audience of the game and always felt like an outsider looking in. I kept wishing ESO felt grittier and had better combat, and I noticed that most of the Crown Store items were a bit too colorful for my taste.

Microsoft says its Xbox restructuring will eliminate approximately 3,200 positions throughout its 2027 fiscal year, with 1,600 roles cut immediately. Reports suggest the remaining studios will place a greater focus on Xbox’s biggest franchises, including Fallout and The Elder Scrolls.

It sucks that people are losing their jobs, but continuing down the same path was not cutting it. Hopefully, Bethesda can become more focused, make better decisions, and finally deliver what its community has been waiting years to play: Fallout 5 and the long-awaited The Elder Scrolls VI.

_-BensZ28

A. Nobuo Uematsu

B. Koji Kondo

C. Yoko Shimomura

D. Grant Kirkhope

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Catch the Live Stream on Twitch here: Backwards Compatibility

Answer: B. Koji Kondo

Fun fact: The original Super Mario Bros. theme song was the first piece of video game music ever to be added to the American National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress, cementing it as a piece of American cultural heritage.