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Bethesda's gone and done it again. It's reconfirmed that Fallout 5 is in development even though it's still years away from Reclamation Day. As we once knew about the next Elder Scrolls' place in the development pipes relative to Starfield, Fallout 5 will launch after TES6, and this time we've not even got a logo on a mysterious unidentified bit of scenery to obsess over.

I can't gloss over how Bethesda firehosed out an announcement of pretty much every single thing it's working on right now as either a distraction from, or refutation of, the impact that the massive Microsoft layoffs will have on its projects. Fallout 5 certainly is in development, but we don't know what its plans were prior to the layoffs and how they'll inevitably change the scope or direction of Fallout 5 after.

Fallout 4 Anniversary (Image credit: Bethesda) When might the Fallout 5 release date be?

What we know for sure is that Fallout 5 will release after The Elder Scrolls 6 , which we still don't know even a release year for. Maybe it won't be as long as the still-widening gap between Starfield and TES6, though.

In its July 2026 announcement , Bethesda said that TES6 and Fallout 5 are both being developed in Creation Engine 3, "a shared technology platform" it's been building since Starfield's launch. "It allows our teams to support multiple projects simultaneously," Bethesda also said. So there shouldn't be any reinventing the wheel between releases this time.

Fallout 76 (Image credit: Bethesda) Fallout 5 setting speculation

What's been (mostly) confirmed about the Fallout 5 setting:

"Fallout 5 will be existing in a world where the stories and events of the show happened or are happening," Todd Howard said of the Amazon TV show

"Our plan is to predominantly keep it in the US," Howard told Kinda Funny when speculating about Fallout series locales

At this point, any specifics on when and where Fallout 5 will be set are total speculation. Todd Howard has said that the "Fallout schtick" is intertwined with "Americana naivete," so any official Fallout London probably isn't on the table, though jaunts up into Canada (in Fallout lore, it was annexed as the 51st state before the war) maybe could be.

Where in the post-nukes US might Fallout 5 be set though? Honestly I just don't want it to be Florida since I'm going to get enough of that from GTA 6 (and there's already a Fallout 4 mod in the works set in Miami ). Say what you will about Fallout 76, it certainly has a vibe in chasing the Appalachian geography, folklore, and history. I'd bet on Fallout 5 attempting an equally strong pitch with a location that's really easy to sell the spectacle (or maybe just the accents) of.

Having already been to some iconic east coast and west coast locations, maybe Fallout 5 could take us into the midwest. Somewhere like Detroit would have a lot of potential for classic Fallout storylines about corporate industry tomfoolery. Somewhere up north like Montana would allow for some really striking scenery just like West Virginia did for Fallout 76.

Fallout 4 Vault 111 (Image credit: Bethesda Game Studios.) How long has Fallout 5 been in development?

Fallout 5 hasn't been in development long, but what Bethesda has said so far makes it sound like it hopes to drastically cut down on the years between its major RPG releases.

Way back in 2021, Todd Howard said Bethesda has a "one-pager" on Fallout 5 and what it wants to do. Fallout 5 has likely been some excited scribbles on a whiteboard for most of the five years since then, honestly.

As of July 2026, Bethesda says "Fallout 5 is currently in preproduction" which means it's more than a twinkle in Todd's eye but still probably far out from any kind of playable version.

"Our teams are now developing The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 on Creation Engine 3, a shared technology platform we've been building since Starfield's launch," Bethesda also said in July.

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Clairo hasn't released new music since her critically acclaimed 2024 LP Charm , but she's stayed busy. She's collaborated with Daniel Caesar , Smerz , Rostam , Ryan Beatty , and more; she's signed to Atlantic Records ; and she's offered updates on her forthcoming fourth album. Now, as raging Canadian wildfires prove the planet is becoming more inhospitable, the singer-songwriter is sharing a melancholy new demo called "Losing Pride," with proceeds going to Zero Hour , a youth-led organization devoted to climate and environmental justice. Listen below and purchase here .

The post Clairo Shares “Losing Pride” Demo To Benefit Climate Justice appeared first on Stereogum .

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Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok signed a constitutional amendment on Saturday that will remove him from office.

Sulyok had resisted months of public pressure from Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who called for the president’s resignation as part of his efforts to dismantle what he calls the “mafia” that his predecessor, Viktor Orbán, created while in office.

But after a constitutional amendment designed to remove Sulyok from office passed on Monday, the Orbán-appointed president’s legal options narrowed sharply.

“I am fulfilling my obligation under the Fundamental Law — after thoroughly weighing my legal options and my conscience,” Sulyok said in a post on social media. “At the same time, however, it is enduring proof that the fundamental values of a free society — the rule of law, democracy, and the principle of the separation of powers — have been trampled upon for the sake of political power.”

Sulyok had five days to sign the amendment, and many Hungarians — including Magyar — expected him to refuse. His alternative was to refer the amendment to Hungary’s Constitutional Court. Although Sulyok has argued that the amendment is unconstitutional because it targeted him, the court could not have actually ruled on the amendment’s constitutionality. Orbán stripped the court of that power with a 2013 amendment, leaving it able to review only procedural violations.

The amendment also reinstates a mandatory retirement age of 70 for all Constitutional Court judges, a change that will force out four sitting justices, including its controversial president, Péter Polt.

“If this could be done to the president of the republic, then tomorrow no one will be safe,” Orbán said in a post on social media. “God protect Hungary!” The former prime minister left the country earlier this week to watch the World Cup final in the U.S.

In his statement, Sulyok warned that the rule of law had ended in Hungary, and that the president “will no longer serve as any kind of check or balance.” Magyar has maintained that Sulyok himself oversaw some of the worst abuses of the rule of law under Orbán and that his removal was necessary to restore it.

“With Tamás Sulyok’s signature, the last obstacle to our joint decisions coming into effect has been removed,” Magyar said in a statement following Sulyok’s decision. “We are restoring something that the Orbán regime has tried for many years to take away from the Hungarian people: the certainty that power can be limited.”

The monthslong campaign to remove Sulyok was seen as a major political test for Magyar, who has been rushing to cement his central campaign promise to turn the page on Orbán. Although Sulyok was not a member of Orbán’s Fidesz and remained relatively unknown, he became the symbol of the party’s entrenched influence within the Hungarian government.

Márta Pardavi, co-chair of the human rights watchdog Hungarian Helsinki Committee, told POLITICO that “what Hungary needs now is people with strong integrity and democratic commitment to lead the country back to democracy and rule of law. President Sulyok did not meet these criteria.”

Sulyok is expected to leave office on Monday, with the speaker of the Hungarian parliament, Ágnes Forsthoffer, succeeding him. Tisza lawmakers submitted a resolution Friday to replace Forsthoffer as speaker ahead of Monday’s extraordinary parliamentary session.

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If hell is other people, heaven might just be Erenshor—assuming you like old-school MMOs in the style of EverQuest, anyway. It's very much that style of game, but in a simulated solo world where other 'players' are just computer-controlled NPCs called simplayers. You can even party up and form a guild with them, which will come in handy now that raids are live.

They arrived last Monday in the Planar March patch, and solo developer Brian of Burgee Media called it "the biggest day for Erenshor since its launch" in the Steam community release blog .

"When I promised raids I had no idea how the heck I was going to implement it. It sort of hung over my head like an intimidating shadow until I finally dove into it," he wrote. "With the help of the amazing community of testers, all of your feedback, and a few really late nights, it's here!"

There are four raid zones, as well as 21 new bosses to kill in exchange for fat loots. You can create raid teams in the guild menu and they'll automatically join when you start the instance—no stopping to wait for someone to pay the pizza guy or head back to a capital city so they can repair all their broken gear, I imagine.

As a lifelong MMO casual who struggles to make time for raid night, this sounds like a dream come true simply for the convenience factor. I do wonder how Erenshor will retain the difficulty and sense of scale you get in an online raid without making you wrangle several dozen real people's schedules and manually ensure they all know what their class does, but considering this is based on the pre-World of Warcraft world of MMOs, I'm sure there's plenty of glorious grinding and dying in store anyway.

It seems like Erenshor has found a hungry audience for its simulated world. You can buy it on Steam , where it sits at a "very positive" rating with 94% of user reviews recommending the game.

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Female farm managers are hidden in plain sight in ancient Roman texts, mentioned in laws, literature and grave inscriptions across five centuries. Modern historians have generally assumed they were housekeepers, in charge of domestic tasks and household meals, and segregated from the productive business of the farm.

My new paper , published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, challenges this assumption.

In fact, there is evidence to suggest that many Roman female farm managers supervised wine production and other processes vital to farming and profits.

A false lead

A farming manual written by the Roman writer Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella in the 1st century CE is a window to the roles of the female manager.

An upper class landowner himself, Columella lists the responsibilities of farm managers, who were probably enslaved. The male manager was termed the vilicus, and the female manager the vilica, terms derived from their roles at the "villa".

But many historians reading this text have been side-tracked by a false lead: Columella begins his section on the vilica with a long quote from the Greek philosopher Xenophon , who wrote in Athens more than four centuries earlier.

A quote from Greek philosophy led many to misunderstand the roles women played in ancient Roman farming. (Image credit: Mahmoud Amer/Pexels ) The "natural" role of women, according to Xenophon, was to work indoors. Therefore in his discussion, the ideal upper-class married woman is depicted staying inside her town house to supervise the domestic work of the slaves.

The Greek writer is not discussing farm workers. In fact, Columella says four times that these ideas are not his own, but those of Xenophon, writing long ago.

Columella lists a completely different set of responsibilities for the vilica on a Roman farm: most importantly, the making of wine and olive oil, which were highly valuable commodities — the backbone of landowners' profits.

In his description of the vilica's duties, Columella includes the extraction of the juice from grapes during the harvest; adding flavorings and preservatives such as salt, wormwood, fennel or boiled grape-juice; and overseeing successful fermentation into wine.

According to Columella, the vilica also managed the processing of other farm products to make them long-lasting and profitable, such as turning inedible olives into olive oil for sale.

From archaeology we know that production of wine or oil, using huge machines in substantial buildings, could reach 50,000 to 100,000 litres per year, or even more. The vilica was therefore responsible for overseeing large-scale work essential to the operation of the estate.

Calling on the gods

Correct sacrifices to the gods were seen as vital to the success of the farm. Archaeology has uncovered altars for offerings in Roman wine-making buildings.

Wine-making in the Roman world was a precarious process, due to uncontrolled temperatures, bacteria or oxygenation. Wine could easily go moldy or turn into vinegar.

A striking element of Columella's account is that he includes carrying out offerings to avert such a disaster in his instructions for the female farm manager.

Looking for more clues

Other texts contain barely more than a mention of the vilica, revealing only her presence.

But we can still put together some clues.

Legal writings on inheritance, quoting the 1st century BCE jurist Trebatius, include her in the instrumentum fundi — whatever (including enslaved personnel) is required for productive work, gathering and preserving produce of the estate.

A mosaic shows Roman farm women at the Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily. (Image credit: Joe Lynch) Another aristocratic landowner and writer, Cato the Elder , living two centuries before Columella, lists both the female and the male farm manager as essential staff for a vineyard or olive farm.

He devotes only one small section to outlining the female farm manager's tasks, but a close look shows these are not predominantly domestic. Cato includes keeping poultry and processing of seasonal farm products. Although he does include supervision of cleaning, this could refer to maintenance of work spaces such as stables and wine making buildings, an integral part of estate management – and also listed by Columella among the vilica's duties.

Cato also gives the vilica the responsibility for making sacrifices to the gods for the success of the farm. She must regularly offer garlands at the altar "for abundance", he writes.

A Roman mosaic showing estate work in different seasons depicts a scene of sacrifices for abundant crops to the god Jupiter (in his Celtic form as a sky and weather god). A woman is shown holding an offering of garlands, just as Cato instructs. Beside her are a jug for wine offerings and a male figure.

A woman is depicted at an altar holding the offering of garlands. Beside her is a jug for wine offerings and a male figure. (Image credit: Carole Raddato/Musée d'Archéologie Nationale, Saint-Germain-en-Laye/Flickr , CC BY ) Related stories

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Perhaps this mosaic shows the vilica and vilicus, both essential to the success of annual harvests. While such images of female figures are rare, one fragmentary wall painting from Rome shows a female overseeing wine-making workers, just as Columella describes.

This combined body of evidence suggests we should expand outdated understandings of the roles that Roman women played in farm production, the dominant sector of ancient economies.

No vilica has left us an account of her work in her own words. But by paying careful attention to the evidence, we can hear an echo of her voice.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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