WTF Happened February 2026
This is the February 2026 issue of WTF Happened! This is a really lengthy recap article that revisits news from the past month to allow us to highlight the most newsworthy news in a variety of categories.
World News
News Media Misrepresented Minnesota ICE Withdrawal
A lot of popular news media platforms misrepresented the withdrawal of ICE officials from Minnesota around the middle of February.
This led to a lot of right-wing propaganda media thinking this was fact and running with it because it fit their ideal narrative. What actually happened was *some* of the ICE troops were withdrawn, around 700 troops out of the 3000+ troops already stationed there. (NBC)
Portland Oregon Teargassed By ICE
I know, more ice. I'll just drop this link to a clip of one incident (lots more in the thread) and note that this has happened several times throughout February and a federal judge had to say no to it a whole month later. It's ridiculous how little accountability there is for this organization in the States.
Alex Pretti Murderers Named
I found out about this right at the beginning of February via a Substack video post, but I confirmed the information by finding the PubPublica article. These two officers were placed on administrative leave following their public naming, and there's an ongoing investigation into their potential crimes, but nothing solid has surfaced yet about whether or not these men will even see jail time. Meanwhile, people get arrested for way less and see jail time even if there's no proof they did anything wrong. Some of these people are also killed in the street just because officers feel like pulling a trigger. This all seems highly suspect to me. These men should be in jail pending the results of the investigation.
130 People Possibly Exposed To Tuberculosis In Washington
A case of active tuberculosis was confirmed at Rainer Beach High School in Seattle, Washington. (Seattle Schools) They seem to be mostly on top of this based on the article released by their official website, but I would advise anyone who even visited that area to get checked. Better to get treated sooner than later.
Whales Found 400 Km Inland At Alaska
A paleontologist and his colleagues at University of Alaska were searching for Mammoth fossils and found whale bones instead. They determined that the whale bones were possibly from hunted whales which humans transported but could not prove this and found it highly unlikely. The origin story of these bones remains a partial mystery. (Ars)
Sinkhole Opened In Nebraska, But Who Cares
A moderately small sinkhole took down part of a street in the middle of an intersection in Omaha, Nebraska. (Yahoo!) This story went around on social media a lot, and I have to think it's because people don't realize sinkholes are a normal part of life. We get them all the time in some areas of the world, including Kentucky, where a much larger sinkhole formed and took out the entire street (all lanes) just months ago.
Again, it's a normal, natural disaster, but it doesn't mean it doesn't suck. They should call them suckholes, huh?
Speaking of suckholes...
SAVE Act Passed By House
SAVE, short for "Safeguard American Voter Eligibility", is a United States bill that was introduced in the House (of Representatives) back in January. On February 11, it passed the House vote, but to be fair, nearly half the House voted against the bill, and in my opinion, no bill should pass unless at least 80% of the House agrees, but as long as more than half the votes are for the bill, it unfortunately passes the House. You can read up on this bill at its official tracker page on the Congress.gov website. The bill still has to be voted on by the Senate and approved by the President before it can become law, but it is already on the fast track there. Trump is publicly pressuring the Senate to vote on this bill as soon as possible and has shown personal interest in getting it passed into law before the midterm elections. (NPR) Let's hope the bill is rejected for the sake of all women in the States who ever got married and had the burden of changing their name and for all the disabled folks out there who rely on mail-in ballots. If this bill passes the Senate, it will be more one step toward nationalizing the elections and removing one more balancing piece from the board of politics. He who controls the election process controls the government. Think about that. 
Business & Security News
Sony Shut Down Bluepoint
Sony, the makers of PlayStation, shut down Bluepoint, the studio responsible for the Demon Souls remaster.
Canva Acquired After Effects Alternative, Cavalry, and MangoAI
Cavalry and MangoAI are Canva's latest captures in their war against Adobe for supremacy as they continue to acquire great alternatives to Adobe products. (GameFromScratch) Cavalry looks really good, and before this acquisition, I didn't even know it existed, so I'm going to try it out. if you're like me, you're still salty about the Affinity Suite selling out to Canva, and you might be looking for a FOSS alternative. Well, you have to make some concessions, but there are some good FOSS alternatives out there. Hit me up if you want to talk about alternatives. Maybe I'll make an article about it if enough people ask nicely.
Valve Won Legal Battle Against Patent Troll
Valve Corporation won a lawsuit against Leigh Rothschild and associated companies, with the court ruling that they violated anti-patent troll laws and breached a licensing agreement with Valve. There is some talk about this resulting in a lot of other similar cases being held in the same state of Washington to utilize anti-patent troll laws. (CBR)
Pimax Dream Air Started Shipping
February 20 marked the official launch of the Pimax Dream Air with a launch event on YouTube. (Pimax) It looks crazy comfortable, but I wouldn't be able to justify $2.3k for one. I hope it's a great headset for the mega enthusiasts out there with deep pockets.
Large Landfill Solar Project: Lexington, Kentucky
We need more solar energy factories in the States. We need these to combat energy-based waste and misuse of the power already available by AI companies. A large landfill solar farm project has been announced for more than half of Haley Pike landfill in Lexington, Kentucky. This is far from the only solar farm being built on a landfill, but it could potentially be one of the largest solar farms built on a landfill in the whole country. (FOX56) On February 24, the property lease was established.
Discord Age Verification Delayed
Discord's age verification requirements are starting to roll out to USA users soon, and there's been a mass exodus in the works for the entirety of February. Gruntled and myself are looking at a lot of alternatives, and if I were to pick a favorite drop-in alternative, it would be Stoat. Because of the massive backlash, Discord has delayed the new age verification until the second half of 2026. They're likely hoping people will forget about leaving Discord and become complacent with the age verification stuff. We should all leave the platform as soon as we can. Plan now.
Deaths
Hyperion author Dan Simmons dies from stroke at 77
Dan Simmons, famed for his work on the Hyperion book franchise, died at the age of 77 due to a stroke. (Ars) If you haven't heard of his books, they're tough reads, but if you have patience, they're worth a read once in your life.
Father of SEGA Died Age 77...?
Another 77-year-old bit the dust, right?! Well, not quite. Hideki Sato, the legendary console designer behind the SG-1000 as far back as 1983 and most recently the Dreamcast in 1999, was made president of SEGA Japan in 2001 and held that position until 2003 when he stepped down. He held a less important position at SEGA after that until 2008. (PCGamer) Some outlets are lying about his age and spreading misinformation, even the popular news media is guilty of this. I did some minimal research to confirm his birthdate was November 5, 1950 (Legacy.com), which made him roughly 75.5 years old. March 1, 1949, a date being passed around for some unknown reason, would make him nearly 77 when he died on February 13, but even that date technically makes him 76.9 years old. Granted, whatever age he was, it's a great loss to society to have him go. He was 75, though.
Robert Duvall Died Age 95
Fuck, that's old! Okay, calming down. Duvall, best known to me for his role as Otto in Gone In 60 Seconds, died on February 15 at the age of 95. (Vanity Fair) (Global News YT) What a pro. I hope I'm able to just match his high score, even if it's not the top of the leaderboards.
Entertainment News
Mortal Kombat II Has Begun!
Okay, not yet. We're still waiting... until May 8. However, we got a new movie poster:
This poster and a few others can be found on the official IMDB page here.
Masters Of The Universe Teased Again
A Masters Of The Universe movie trailer dropped and it's a lot to take in. First, it looks like it may be a very different take on the Masters Of The Universe... universe, but when you think about it, it's kind of inspired by the previous live action adaptation, and it actually looks really good. It comes out June 5, and it will be a theater trip for me as a follow-up to Mortal Kombat II and Mario Galaxy. What a time to be alive!
New Music: Cain Culto - Swiper No Swiping!
Watch this admittedly bizarre music video and get back to me. Sorry. Yeah, it's weird. It's a slightly older video of Cain's.
You watch it? What ya think? I think it's meant to be as offensive and ugly as possible. Definitely not my thing, but Cain Culto is constantly changing his image with each video. In an even more recent February video, he did a 180 and looked like a flamboyantly gay man with cartoonishly colorful, long fake nails and sang exclusively in Spanish with the theme of Dora The Explorer. It's all just so charming in that one if you overlook the unhinged parts.
New Neon Genesis Evangelion Series
This new series was officially announced at the 30th anniversary event and later posted to the official website's news blog in Japanese here. They also dropped a teaser video here. The teaser is pretty basic with only a few frames of evangelion animation at the end of the video, so feel free to skip ahead. This could be really good, but currently, it's basically just an announcement.
Trailer for WWII Thriller Starring Brendan Fraser
George of the Jungle is back, baby! You can view the trailer for "PRESSURE" here.
Superbowl LX
The Superbowl happens every year around this time, not always on the same day of the month but always on the same day of the week, Sunday. It's not anything truly 'super' when it comes to how special it is. It's also not a bowl. It's more of a football arena. When I hear "superbowl", I expect a giant bowl of ramen or cereal for a speed eating contest. I'm disappointed every year. That said, football fans flock to this event like bees to a bee hive, and the event generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year.
Every year, when the superbowl airs, it comes with some rather insane ad campaigns. Some people watch the superbowl for the ads alone. Unfortunately, this year's superbowl was plagued with commercials using generative AI.
Turning Point Halftime Show
During the superbowl, Trump's "Turning Point USA" hosted an alternative halftime show that was meant to be more family friendly than the superbowl's halftime show, but the show featured artists I wouldn't exactly want my kids watching, including Kid Rock, who didn't even seem to know the lyrics to his own songs, failing to even lip sync to his own song from decades ago. Thankfully, brighter minds prevailed and the alternative halftime show only got a small fraction of the viewership that the real halftime show received.
Web & Steaming News
3D Printed Couch
YouTube user MarcinPlaza posted a video on February 4 about making a 3d printed couch. Click here to watch it on YouTube. The project is pretty cool.
Brown Hoodie Kid AKA Okay Punch Kid
The internet went crazy for a kid in a brown hoodie who gut-punched another kid after warning him that he would get punched for being a douchebag in the school hallway. Something about this whole thing felt like an act, because why would the kid that got punched release the footage of this incident to the public if not to help the kid who assaulted him get internet famous? I read into these things too much and would probably be happier if I just went with the trend and made doodles... like the one from Bill Amend:
Gaming News
Valheim 5th Anniversary Update - New Emotes
Patch 0.221.10 marked the release of the 5th anniversary content which include emotes, a new hat, some bread, and a slew of bugfixes.
Retro Re-Release: Dino Crisis Franchise On Steam
I used to love Dino Crisis on PS1 way back in the 90s. It got re-released as a Steam port on February 12 along with its sequel. (Steam)
New 3D Platformer, Demon Tides, Released
Demon Tides, a 3D collectathon platformer with a speedrunner friendly scope and design, released February 19 on Steam. The developer, Fabraz, made Demon Turf and Slime-San. Fabraz also made Bubsy 4D, which releases in May.
A New Star Trek Voyager Game
Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown released February 18 for Steam and all modern consoles and handhelds. So weird that this old show got a random commercially released game in 2026. Just wow. Granted, it's a mostly text-based game with very low quality visuals. It looks a lot like Fallout Shelter to me... except in space... because of the cut-away view of the ship. I kind of want it, but the reviews I've read paint a grim and disappointing picture. Best to wait for it to be in a bundle.
Steam NextFest 2026
We got the first NextFest event of the year on Steam! This event is when a ton of demos for yet to be released games are showcased. This year was a bit less interesting than past years if I'm being honest, but there were some good highlights in this NextFest. Before I mention the good stuff, join me for a laugh at Last Flag, what seems to be a low effort parody of Overwatch and Team Fortress 2 with a less than inspired setting of random camp site. I really don't know how to feel about it, though, because the genre of hero shooter isn't exactly booming right now and I really want a good one to come out someday soon. I don't think anything will scratch that Overwatch itch for a long, long time. I tried the Last Flag demo and didn't find anything about it interesting. Sorry to the devs, but you could have a massive IP if you just got a good writer to make sense of the setting and characters.
Some other great demos I highly recommend you check out include The Eternal Life of Goldman, Goblin Company, and Muri: Wildwoods. That's just a few, but there were a lot of great demos featured during this event, and new demos are always coming. I suggest you check out the latest demos yourself using this Steam search filter link rather than trying to make it to an event page while it's still active.
Coming Soon: Everwind - a Minecraft-like RPG
Coming in March, Everwind. Check out the store page on Steam and wishlist it if it looks good to ya.
Coming Soon: Blossom - Astroneer-like Survival Crafting Cozy Space Game
Coming March 9, Blossom: The Seed Of Life. It looks like Astroneer with more biome stuff and farming. It's only single player, though.
Epitome RPG Kickstarter Funded
Epitome's Kickstarter campaign was unique to say the least. They said in the campaign description that they'd give all backers immediate access to the pre-alpha of the game right after they've backed, "within 10 minutes". (Kickstarter) They reached their minimum funding goal of €85,897 within 44 hours! Very impressive campaign and I think it's all thanks to how they finished some content to show before starting the campaign. They basically had a small vertical slice of their game ready to not just demonstrate but allow backers to play.
The use of AI is minimal and it is not used for content generation. Their project utilizes AI tech to enhance the NPC behaviors and responses, which is something similar to what ARC Raiders does with dynamic voice lines and the use of machine learning for some animations and how the robots traverse terrain and balance themselves.
ARC Raiders Second Expedition and Hurricane Update
ARC Raiders has earned its place as my number one game this year so far by being a great-feeling shooter from the start and churning out big updates with a lot of interesting mysteries to explore and figure out. They hid some kind of U.F.O. in the hurricane update and of course, players ate that content up as soon as it dropped. We also saw a new area added to Dam Battlegrounds with some coop puzzle solving in it. I think the game's struggling to motivate players to cooperate in general, so the more they push coop puzzles, the better, but the loot has to be worth the effort or almost every player will likely stop bothering to go to such puzzles after a short stint of curiosity.
The second expedition also opened on February 25 and ran til March 1. This was most players first expedition because the game's first expedition was during an awkward time around the game's release and a lot of players like myself didn't play much in beta or waited for a discount before grabbing the game. For a short while, the game went on sale on Fanatical for $27 soon after the first expedition had already ended, and that's when I hopped in and started playing regularly. Anyway, the second expedition rewarded players who reset a second time more than it rewarded those new to the process, but the permanent rewards for first reset were still very worthwhile. I finished the expedition quest weeks in advance of the expedition window opening, and I must admit I thought I would be able to reset immediately, so I spent a ton of time making sure I had the coins value to get all the skill points. In the end, it didn't really matter and I got the rest of that window time to make the money, but I didn't need money by then, so I ended up just not playing the game at all for the next 5 days until March. It's rare that a game actually goes out of its way to make me not want to play it, but Arc Raiders did just that. I ended up playing Megabonk instead of Arc Raiders this weekend.
In hindsight, the reset mechanic was not well designed and didn't have much set up in terms of making it a visual spectacle to celebrate your sacrifice. You just load up the game and it wipes your progress mostly quietly. There's no cutscene for departure. You just get some stat bonuses. Granted, the stat bonuses are good, but they aren't game-changing. The biggest perk is the bonus 24 inventory slots, which help a ton to store quest items for later. I would have liked to see a character send-off so it could feel like I completed a character's story. My second character immediately unlocked the new beard cosmetic, so I decided to play as a bearded lady for my second go of the game. I hope it gives someone a good laugh.
On the up side, the Shrouded Sky update came with some mysteries and teasers for upcoming content. For example, this Reddit post shows a clip of something big flying over the player's head way up in the windy gusts. Pausing the frames of the clip can help you see that it's not just glitched hornets but a much larger ship of some kind that just flies across the sky. Some freeze frames make it look like a batwing. We already have Batman's grapple hook. Just sayin'.
Overwatch 1 is back! Well, not really...
Overwatch 2 was a disaster, and because it failed as a successor to Overwatch, the game has been rebranded as just "Overwatch." (IGN) Great, they've made it even more confusing to talk about this game and its predecessor. The Overwatch we have today is nothing like the original Overwatch, and we can't play the original Overwatch anymore, so this is clearly the company trying to hide their mistakes. Do not support them!
New VR Games
Some new VR games include Superposition VR, Oldest Golden Treasure, Crossings, and of course, Pickleball. There were other titles, of course, and if you want to see everything that released for VR on Steam, you can go to their official store list. If you're a fan of edu-games and educational experiences, you may want to check out Dino VR Experience, which released into Steam Early Access this month. We also saw the Early Access release of a bizarre teacher sim game titled Robodies: Machine IS NOT Learning.
God, that's a weird one. The premise is basically just a high school classroom setting but all the students are androids with asset flip bodies and cartoony heads. I might enjoy this one if it had body tracking and let me dropkick the students or something crazy like that. The most I see it letting me do is grab the character bodies and throw them around. There are no fancy gore elements, either, despite the creepy faces suggesting this could be a horror game in disguise. It's not.
As far as the Quest store goes, there were Evil Inside VR (previously on Steam), Orcs Must Die: By the Blade, Endless Wonder (previously on Steam), Pirates VR: Jolly Roger (previously on Steam), and The Amygdala Protocol (previously on Steam).
Upcoming VR Ride: Dark Ride: Sweet Dreams
I want to throw in a highlight for this upcoming VR dark ride titled Dark Ride: Sweet Dreams that is scheduled for release sometime in March on Steam. It looks very low poly for a 2026 game, but it also has a certain level of polish and charm to it that makes me want to try it, even if it's just a ride and likely won't have much if any replay value.
Upcoming VR Wave Shooter: Super Hyper, ULTRA!
Yeah, it's 2026 and VR wave shooters were oversaturated way back in 2017, but sometimes, a good wave shooter is all you need, and this game looks like it will satisfy. No idea what the release date is going to be, but the game promises fast-paced arcade shooting and coop features.
New VR Demos
We saw a Steam NextFest demo for an indie toy game titled Diorama Maker, which has its full game slated for a vague Q2 2026 release.
We also saw a demo for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City on Steam which is still up in the air about its full release date. The game has a pre-order option on Meta but no demo in sight on that platform. On Meta, the release is slated for Spring 2026 while the Steam version only tells the year, 2026.
There was also a How To God demo as well as a demo for The Amusement.
Game & Software Dev
ReXGlue - Make Native Ports Of Xbox 360 Games!
The first public alpha release of ReXGlue, a recompilation tool for Xbox 360 SDK games, was released on February 15. (Habr)
Pulsar Edit v1.131.1 - More stable than ever!
If you're unfamiliar with Pulsar Edit, it's Atom Editor's direct community-driven successor based on the community edition of Atom Editor, which was a very popular text editor with syntax highlighting and a really nice UI with support for add-ons to add more functionality. On February 16, v 1.131.1, a hotfix for a bugged major update, was released for Pulsar Edit. (Github) This update fixed major crashes which prevented the previous release from being usable. This hotfix marked the moment Pulsar Edit became stable in my eyes. It's now production ready.
Notepad++ Hacked
Hackers exploited a weakness in the application's update infrastructure, more specifically the app's file hosting, to give end users a malicious version of the application. (GameFromScratch) If you use this editor, do a complete uninstall and then a manual reinstall to the latest version directly from the app's website to make sure you're on a fixed version of the app.
New Linux Kernel 6.19
You can read about v6.19 over at GameFromScratch where Liam does a good job of summarizing some highlights of the update.
Art Stuff
StylusX Art Contest
A StylusX art contest ended February 28.
If you're unfamiliar with StylusX, it's a relatively new paid art app that seems to do a lot right. Its free trial is seemingly really close to the full paid version. The biggest down side is it is Windows only and only through the Microsoft app store, but they have shown interest in releasing elsewhere... as vague as that sounds.
They have a rough roadmap of features they want to add, including a timeline for animations and support for 3D camera and objects for using 3d objects as references. You can view their roadmap here. It's a decent set of goals, but I wouldn't expect that stuff anytime soon. For now, it works as-is and may be a good cheap purchase for those who like to create digital paintings and have no plans to switch to Linux soon.
Adobe Discontinued Animate
Adobe killed Flash decades ago now. They renamed it to Adobe Animate and reduced its feature set and sunset the Flash Player plugin. Well, in February, the roller coaster ride that is Flash continued with Adobe announcing Animate was getting killed. The backlash from this pressured them to come back and say they're instead just discontinuing development and getting rid of users' access to old files/projects in the cloud. Animate is getting put into maintenance mode, meaning it won't get any new features ever again.
If you're in the market for a good Flash alternative that feels like Flash used to, check out Wick Editor. It's free and open source!
Tech News
Samsung Galaxy S26 Series Launched
There was a lot of hype surrounding the newest line-up of Galaxy products from Samsung. The flagship phone saw its S26 announcement with three tiers of phone, the S26, S26 Plus and S26 Ultra coinciding with the release of higher prices. Yeah, same old phones, same old price increases, same old AI overhype and same old RAM shortage... but at least it comes with a built-in privacy screen that works surprisingly well.
AYN Thor Batch 3 Pre-Order
The AYN Thor batch 3 pre-order event ended right at the end of February with batch 4 starting in March. This handheld is insane! It's basically a modern Nintendo DS with emulators and enough power to run PS3 games and enough freedom to basically be a mini PC that watches YouTube while also gaming... and it runs GTA V and a bunch of other titles I wouldn't expect to work thanks to the GameHub app. The price will increase in March, so batch 3 and early batch 4 pre-orders are seeing a boom thanks to people trying to save a few dollars on some really cool tech.
Mini Game Boy That Just... Plays Music
Yep, it's a glorified mp3 player that's themed to look like an original Gameboy. The thing that both makes it stand out and makes it make no practical sense is the music is stored on fake Gameboy cartridges. (CNET) CNET also covered a talking flower from Nintendo.
The Pocket Taco - The Perfect Gaming Sidekick For Your Phone
The Verge covered a new Gamesir phone controller that actually looks really cool. It's a Bluetooth controller that makes your phone look like a classic Gameboy. The biggest problem with it is it doesn't do USB-C connection to your phone and instead has its own battery and leaves a hole to charge your phone in a weird 2-cable way. If not for that design flaw, I would have bought this controller on day one. Because of that design flaw, I'm probably not going to get this product, but if having to charge an extra device and having extra input latency is OK with you, it could be a very good experience for Gameboy emulation. Go to the official store page on Gamesir for more info and to pre-order it.
Closing Discussion: Unemployment
Recently, one of my friends from the good old PCVR community, Zimtok, was fired from his job after decades of service with little to show for it outside of a moderately comfortable life in Canada. You can watch his video about this life change here. Being a remote worker is a good thing for both yourself and the company you work for in my opinion, well, most of the time, but companies don't see it that way, at least not usually. I like how Zim put it:
When you're a crease, sometimes, you get ironed.
That brings me to today's discussion: unemployment. If you've been abruptly fired from a job you poured years of your life into, raise your hand. I'm raising my hand. Most people over a certain age can probably raise their hand to that... if they haven't lost their hand to a work injury or something like that. The point is people in general are constantly let go from jobs they're not just decent at but pour years of their life into just so they can lose their livelihood over less than a couple months and have nothing to show for their years of service. People aren't often given much of a safety net, especially not in the States.
I'm not saying everyone deserves their job of choice, but they shouldn't have to worry about paying basic living expenses and keeping a roof over their heads just because their employers didn't like them. You, for example, are just as valuable as almost any other person on the planet, assuming you aren't a complete douchebag. You aren't a complete douchebag, are you? I hope not. I mean, you gotta be alright if you read this far.
That's where I leave you today.
