For over two decades, The Sims franchise has been a staple in many gamers’ lives, cultivating a fandom that repeatedly buys the same premise yet remains excited for new instalments. What keeps players returning, and can Paralives reinvent the industry?

"Three teenage girls" by justmakeit is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. Jennette McCurdy’s Half His Age has received mixed reviews since its release at the end of January, but, for me, that ambivalence is part of what makes it so compelling. Her unsettling sensibility creates a rich character study, drawing the reader into the narrative. At the centre of the novel is Waldo, whose rebellious inner dialogue cuts through every relationship she navigates: her boy-crazy mother, trapped in cycles of...

The philosophical question, “Is a crime defined by the act itself, or by the mind that conceived it?” anchors The Drama (2026)

Nostalgia is a deeply human experience. But what happens when we romanticise the past to the point of reinventing it? In the film A Pale View of Hills, Kei Ishikawa invites the audience into the quiet world of Etsuko, a Japanese woman in England, whose bandages begin to unwrap as her youngest daughter, Niki, a young writer, itches to investigate her mother’s uncovered past.