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There have already been plenty of big gaming releases in 2026, including 007 First Light , the new James Bond game starring Patrick Gibson as the up-and-coming MI6 agent. Following 007 First Light were a few big releases in July, including Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced , which has already sold over three million copies during its first few weeks. The PS5 ports of Black Ops and Black Ops II launched on the same day as the new Assassin’s Creed game, and fans around the world have been returning to the fan-favorite games, which have picked up over five million players since launch. The biggest game coming in the second half of the year is GTA 6 , the next game from Rockstar launching two months after Wolverine , the new release from Insomniac Games.

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Silo did not become one of Apple TV 's most beloved original series by sticking to the script. Although the show is based on a trilogy of books by Hugh Howey , the story has been expanded and changed quite a bit in the adaptation , and fans haven't complained. Howey's novels were short and self-published, and practically begging for more detail. However, Season 3 kicked off this month with one of the first changes to cause widespread muttering among fans — the story of Juliette's ( Rebecca Ferguson ) induced amnesia. Now that we're three episodes in, it's clear that this was actually a brilliant move for the TV show, and perhaps an overall improvement to the story.

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Volkswagen secretly built an Amarok SUV prototype years ago, executives recalled.

Project stalled repeatedly because expected sales volumes didn’t justify development.

Third-generation Amarok plans could revive SUV idea through future partnerships.

Volkswagen has spent years watching rivals cash in on rugged, ladder-frame pickup-based SUVs without offering one of its own. But behind the scenes, some Wolfsburg bosses have been pushing hard to green light just such a project, and it sounds like they haven’t given up on the idea of getting it to the showroom.

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We previously reported how Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles developed a one-off seven-seat SUV based on the Amarok pickup , the body-on-frame midsize truck that’s sold in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America, but not the US. The vehicle never made it beyond the prototype stage, but it apparently still survives somewhere within Volkswagen’s internal collection, quietly reminding executives of what might have been.

Related: VW’s Performance Amarok W600 Got Everything But The Performance

The concept itself isn’t hard to understand. Take a rugged body-on-frame pickup, replace the cargo bed with an enclosed passenger cabin, add a third row, and suddenly you’ve got a rival for vehicles like the Ford Everest , Toyota’s 4Runner and Land Cruiser Prado, and Isuzu MU-X.

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Why It Kept Stalling

The current VW Amarok pickup truck.

The problem wasn’t engineering it. VW reportedly advanced the project far enough to establish its overall shape and proportions, VWCV head of design Albert Kirzinger even sharing an image of the creation on LinkedIn in 2024 years after it was nixed. The real hurdle was money. Building a dedicated SUV derivative only makes sense if enough buyers show up, and Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg chiefs couldn’t make the numbers work.

That’s especially true when a vehicle is aimed at a limited number of markets. While ladder-frame, pickup-based SUVs are hugely popular in places like Australia, Thailand, South Africa, and parts of South America, they aren’t necessarily volume sellers everywhere else. Without broader global demand, the business case kept falling apart. Now, though, the idea could be back under consideration.

“To extend the model range is a long-desired wish,” Mecha told Australia’s Go Auto . “In particular, this rugged or closed pickup, for instance, as we would call it, where you have the same platform as the pickup.”

New Amarok Under Development

Volkswagen has already confirmed that a third-generation Amarok is coming to replace the gen-two launched in 2022, and discussions are underway regarding who will help develop and build it.

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One obvious route would be continuing the company’s relationship with Ford. The current Amarok shares much of its DNA with the Ranger, which already has the Everest SUV (shown below) as a close relative. Creating a VW-branded counterpart would seem like a straightforward solution, though VW must also be considering leveraging its Chinese operations – it’s already working on an all-new hybrid Amarok for South America based on Chinese tech .

For American buyers, this is mostly an interesting what-if since the current Amarok isn’t sold in the US, in large part because the chicken tax makes it too expensive to import. But given the success of body-on-frame trucks like the Ford Ranger and Toyota Tacoma in America, maybe VW would consider US production.

Regardless of whether that happens, the thought of a Volkswagen alternative to the Everest, Prado, and other rugged SUV s is intriguing. The prototype may have spent years gathering dust, but it sounds like the dream isn’t dead just yet.

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Ford’s Everest is based on the Ranger pickup.

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Historian Kim Phillips-Fein’s book Country of Lords looks back at the many men who have tried to fight against egalitarianism, from John Adams to Peter Thiel

The historian Kim Phillips-Fein’s new book is published amid celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence and its truth “self-evident, that all men are created equal”. Country of Lords, however, is a history of Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America.

Concise and hard-hitting, the book arrives at a time of glaring social and economic inequality , Phillips-Fein seeing Elon Musk “ emerging as a trillionaire very much on people’s minds, with a deep level of discomfort, both fear and anger about what this portends”.

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