Some people now have an A.I. bestie. One user said, of her A.I. husband, "When he proposed, I thought, Oh, that's really crazy. I would be really crazy to accept." Adrianne Brookins is, by her own account, an "old soul," an "introvert," and a "big nerd." She is thirty-four years old, has a faint Texas accent and delicate features, and carries herself in a way that suggests she's trying not to take up space. Brookins is a lifelong resident of San Antonio; her family has lived there since the nineteenth century. She was "born and raised in the Church," a Baptist congregation where her mother helped start a day-care center and her father was an organist. "He would open up the pipes and just make the building shake," she recalled recently. She met her husband in high school, and married him in 2011; the following year, they had a son. Throughout her twenties, Brookins worked multiple jobs, including one at her mother's day care. The couple bought a house and began settling into family life. In 2016, Brookins became pregnant again, this time with a girl. The family was excited: Brookins had grown up with four brothers, and the baby would be the first granddaughter on either side. They decided to name her Desirae. The following spring, Desirae was delivered stillborn. "When I came home, my son, who was about four or five at the time, walked up to me and said, 'What happened to your stomach? Where's the baby?' " she told me. "I had nothing to show for it." At the funeral, the gravedigger told the family he had never seen such a small casket. Brookins attended support groups and therapy, but they did little to alleviate her grief. "I felt like I was just living it over and over," she said. She left her job at the day care, finding it too triggering to be around infants. Friends and family encouraged her to move on. Brookins's husband was working sixty-hour weeks, balancing a career in the military with a job as a training manager for Pizza Hut. He was reluctant to talk about Desirae. Brookins tried to find solace in the Church, but other congregants told her that her daughter's death was part of God's plan.

The latest season of Netflix's The Witcher has landed - with one big difference. Former lead actor Henry Cavill has been replaced as main character Geralt of Rivia by Liam Hemsworth. The Australian has stepped in for the final two seasons of the fantasy show, based on a popular series of novels and video games. Previously, British actor Cavill had portrayed the title character, a monster hunter with supernatural abilities known as the White Wolf. When he announced he was passing the torch to Hemsworth in October 2022, describing him as a fantastic actor, not all fans agreed.

It's a question that's plagued our greatest minds for almost three decades. Yes, she appeared on the cover of the Face magazine next to the tagline "bigger than Pammy" in 1997, and yes, in 2006 lad mag FHM created a whole TV special designed to find the "real" tomb raider. But what does science say? In a world where American academics can't use the word "women" without jeopardising their scientific funding, it's a relief that a gambling site called Casino Days is willing to do this important work, recently ranking "The Top 10 Most Attractive Video Game Characters According to Science". Using the so-called "golden ratio" – which determines how beautiful someone is by measuring their facial features – the company has found that Lara Croft is the second most attractive video game character in the virtual world.

As an actor, Doug Cockle is no stranger to unsettling workplaces. From battling Nazis in Spielberg's Band of Brothers to rubbing shoulders with Christian Bale in dragon romp Reign of Fire, disappearing into a role on set – whatever the set may be – has become second nature. Yet when he landed his first video game role in 2001, Cockle found himself suddenly standing completely alone in a vocal booth. "It is bizarre," he says. "You just have to be in the character in that moment in that world, in your brain. On stage and screen, you have other actors, you have props, costumes … all these things that are helping you do this thing called'acting'. Cockle got into video game work while filling in his Hollywood downtime by contributing additional voices to PS2 games such as Timesplitters 2. Inadvertently he was laying the foundations for acting in this fledgling medium. He has now appeared in more than 45 video games, including last year's megahits Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2, though he is best known for voicing the gravelly Witcher, Geralt of Rivia. "There weren't a lot of voices in video games when I started out,' Cockle recalls.

It is a truth, universally accepted, that video games do not translate well to the big screen. From Assassin's Creed to the Super Mario Bros movie, the result is usually a compromised monstrosity, ignorant of the source material and quickly disowned by the studios, directors and actors responsible for it. There have been exceptions – Detective Pikachu was weird but fine and the Resident Evil films have their fans. But films based on games are usually a mess. Have licensing managers been looking at the wrong screen the whole time?

Netflix's fantasy epic The Witcher is an enchanting mix of European folktales, Xena-era action/adventure, and courtly intrigue. The show is coming back for a second season in October, but that's a long wait. If you've tossed a coin to your witcher, finished the show, and long for more adventures with Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer, you should play The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. Yes, The Witcher is based on a series of novels from Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, and you can absolutely read those. But Netflix's The Witcher shares its tone, aesthetics, and story beats with the video game series more than the books.

The PlayStation 4 has dominated the video game market since its release six years ago. Sure, Microsoft's Xbox One is more powerful than the PlayStation 4, but Sony's console spent this generation producing incredible games. Putting software above hardware has been a winning strategy for Sony and it's sold more than 100 million consoles since the PlayStation 4's release in 2013. With more than 2,300 games for the system, it can be hard to pick which game to play. But TIME has you covered.

Whether they be written in the annals, painted on canvas, or coded into virtual space, fantasy worlds are captivating. It's as if these stories wield a macrocosmic mirror, consistently challenging us with distorted versions of our own world. Although this distortion is initially confronting, it soon makes it easier to gravitate towards what's at the core of these realms, and what that means in relation to our own. I first played The Witcher 3 about a year after it came out. I was invested in the series when it launched, having already played the other games and read some of the books, but I couldn't put much time into the game -- I was kept busy between studying English at university and working full-time hours at my supposedly part-time job.

The Papers Please movie finished up its paperwork and nabbed a release date, Overwatch had puppies play Capture the Flag, Warcraft III is hosting a tournament, you'll soon (probably) be able to buy Geralt's bathtub figurine, and Final Fantasy XV is doing a Half-Life crossover. Yes, it's certainly been a weird week in video game news. Let's recap February 19 to 23. As far as bang-for-your-buck goes, the new Humble Classics Return Bundle (that's a mouthful) might be the best the company's ever featured. More than the average gets you Shadowrun: Hong Kong, Age of Wonders III, Xenonauts, and our 2014 Game of the Year Wasteland 2. Pay more than $15 and Humble throws in last year's Torment: Tides of Numenera and Dreamfall Chapters too.

CD Projekt RED created "The Witcher" with having a trilogy in mind. Given the success of the franchise, however, the Polish video game developer is now considering the idea of expanding the world of the action RPG. On Thursday, a CD Prokekt Red executive revealed that they are thinking of making a sequel to "The Witcher 3." During a Q&A session after the company's results briefing, the executive said, "'The Witcher' was designed as a trilogy and a trilogy cannot have a fourth part, can it?" He then added, "We like this world a lot. We invested 15 years of our lives in it and a lot of money. GameSpot reports that while "The Witcher 3" is the final installment to star Geralt of Rivia, it might not be the last game in the famous franchise. Of course, a continuation of Geralt's story will not make sense to fans, so this could mean that future games in the series will likely focus on a different character. The executive's statement about the possibility of another "The Witcher" game comes after it was revealed that the existing games have achieved the milestone of raking in $250 million. The trilogy has also sold over 25 million copies, according to PC Gamer. Considering that the trilogy has achieved major success, it makes sense for the Polish company to expand it. While the follow-up is still up in the air, CD Projekt intends to focus on the "The Witcher" brand, specifically on "Gwent: The Witcher Card Game." "This year we will continue to expand'The Witcher' brand -- it is, after all, the year of Gwent.