Dadnology Week 24: Halo Returns, Zelda OoT & a New Siri
Week 24, 2026: the Xbox Showcase brings Halo and Zelda Ocarina of Time back, Apple ships a new Siri, and the family movie calendar fills up fast.
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🎮 The Week That Was — Nostalgia Came Back Swinging
Some weeks you cover because something shipped. This one you cover because two games from your own childhood came back from the dead in the same seven days. Week 24 was Summer Game Fest week, and the Xbox Games Showcase didn’t just bring out a sizzle reel — it announced a full remake of Halo: Combat Evolved and, with zero warning, a ground-up remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. For a particular vintage of dad — the one who LAN’d Halo in a friend’s basement and beat the Water Temple on a chunky N64 controller — this was not a normal Tuesday.
And the showcase wasn’t even the whole of it: Summer Game Fest also gave us Final Fantasy VII Revelation going multi-platform and a surprise Resident Evil Veronica remake, while over at Computex NVIDIA quietly detonated the laptop market with its own RTX Spark chip.
Running in parallel, Apple’s WWDC finally put the long-promised, much-delayed new Siri on the table with iOS 27. And while all that fireworks went off, the family movie calendar quietly loaded up: Supergirl, Toy Story 5, and a fresh Spielberg are all on the runway. Here’s the whole week, sorted for a dad scanning on a Sunday.
Jump to: 🎮 Gaming · 🎬 Movies & TV · 📱 Tech & Smart Home
🎮 Gaming News for Dads
Halo: Combat Evolved is being remade — and I’m not okay (in a good way)
I’ll be honest up front: as a Halo fan from literally the first hour, the Xbox Games Showcase ended my week before it started. The headline of the full Xbox Showcase 2026 breakdown is the return of real exclusives, but the announcement that detonated the group chat was a complete, ground-up remake of the game that started it all. New engine, remastered everything, and — the part that matters — three brand-new missions and four-player crossplay co-op. Watch it and try not to grin:
Here’s the practical dad move while we wait: do your homework now. The smartest, cheapest way back into Halo is The Master Chief Collection — six Halo games in one launcher, including Combat Evolved Anniversary, all on Game Pass and all with split-screen restored. If you’ve got a new console, our Halo MCC on Xbox Series X guide explains why it should be the first thing you install: native 4K, up to 120fps, and Quick Resume that lets you drop into a 15-minute firefight and pick up exactly where you left off. That’s the whole saga, ready for a replay before the remake lands.
AdHalo: The Master Chief Collection (Xbox Series X) (opens in a new tab)
Six Halo games in one box, including Combat Evolved Anniversary — the best way to do your homework before the remake lands.
If you want to understand why Halo still matters in a year stuffed with prestige single-player games, it sits squarely in the lineage we mapped in our best cinematic third-person action games guide — except Halo did the “blockbuster you actually control” thing first, and from a visor. For the full slate — Gears: E-Day, Fable, Clockwork Revolution — head to the showcase recap, and for the wider “why we trust this platform” picture, the Xbox brand hub collects it all.
And since every word of that homework plan runs through one subscription: if you’re not already on Game Pass, this is the month to fix that. A three-month Game Pass Ultimate membership covers the entire Master Chief Collection — plus the rest of the library — for less than the price of a single new release. It’s the closest thing to a no-brainer in gaming right now.
AdXbox Game Pass Ultimate (3 Month Membership) (opens in a new tab)
The whole point of replaying Halo before the remake: six MCC games, plus the rest of the library, on one subscription. The no-brainer value play.
Zelda: Ocarina of Time is coming back — I genuinely flipped out
And then, when the heart rate had nearly settled, Nintendo casually dropped a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. One of the best games ever made — arguably the most important 3D action-adventure ever built — rebuilt for modern hardware. I am not embarrassed to say I made a noise. If you grew up timing your sword swings on Ganondorf and getting lost in the Lost Woods, this is the announcement you’ve been quietly hoping for since the last remake rumour died.
The beauty of Ocarina of Time as a dad game is that it’s the perfect bridge title: deliberate, puzzle-forward, low on twitch reflexes, and endlessly explainable to a curious kid sitting next to you on the couch. A modern rebuild with quality-of-life touches could be the co-op-adjacent family classic of the year. We’ll have a lot more to say once a date and platform details firm up — but a remake built for current hardware means it lands on the Switch 2, which is fast becoming the family console you actually want under the TV.
AdNintendo Switch 2 System (opens in a new tab)
You'll need the new hardware for a modern Ocarina of Time rebuild — and it's the family console of the moment regardless.
The Xbox 25th Anniversary Edition — the trailer I can’t stop rewatching
The Xbox 25th Anniversary Edition is a limited transparent see-through Xbox Series X console and matching controller, arriving in November 2026. If you remember the crystal and clear variants from the original Xbox and 360 era, this hits that nostalgia target precisely. Functionally identical to the standard Series X — 4K/60fps, 1TB NVMe SSD, disc drive — but with a design that makes the console feel like a collector’s piece rather than a black box under the TV.
The matching controller is separately worth considering as a gift. The transparent aesthetic pairs well with “I have been on Xbox since day one” energy, which apparently twenty-five years of gaming gives you permission to express openly. I have rewatched this one more times than I’ll admit:
Final Fantasy VII Revelation — the SGF mega-bomb that goes everywhere
If the remakes were the heart-punches, Final Fantasy VII Revelation was the showstopper. The concluding chapter of Square Enix’s remake trilogy looked, frankly, overwhelming — and then came the line that actually matters for dads: it’s launching day-and-date on Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, not just PS5. After years of timed exclusivity locking this saga to one box, a simultaneous multi-platform release is a genuinely big deal. Whichever console is under your TV, you’re invited this time.
The honest catch: Revelation is the finale, and jumping in cold makes no sense. If you’ve been meaning to catch up, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on Switch 2 is the middle chapter you can play right now — no new hardware required. Get through Rebirth over the summer and you’ll walk into Revelation exactly where the story wants you.
AdFinal Fantasy VII Rebirth – Nintendo Switch 2 (opens in a new tab)
While we wait on Revelation, Rebirth on Switch 2 is the chapter you can play right now — and the best way to get up to speed on the remake saga.
Resident Evil Veronica — the show opened on a scream
Summer Game Fest didn’t ease anyone in: it opened with Resident Evil Veronica, a full remake of the cult Dreamcast-era entry that fans have begged Capcom to revisit for two console generations. Built on the same RE Engine that made the RE2 and RE4 remakes modern classics, it’s shaping up to be the survival-horror event of the year. This is firmly a kids-in-bed game — but for the right kind of dad, a dark room, a good gaming headset, and the most atmospheric horror franchise in the medium is exactly how a Friday night should end. Capcom has earned the trust here; the recent remakes have been near-flawless.
🎬 Movie & TV News This Week
Streaming right now: Vox Machina rocks, and Spider-Noir is the stylish sleeper
If you only have time to start one thing this week, the new season of The Legend of Vox Machina is it. It rocks — the same chaotic, foul-mouthed, surprisingly heartfelt D&D energy that made it the best adult animated series on Prime, and we’re genuinely hooked waiting on the rest of the season. It’s not a kids’ show — save it for after bedtime — but as a “the house is finally quiet” reward, it’s hard to beat.
Still flying under too many radars: Spider-Noir, Sony and Amazon’s live-action series with Nicolas Cage as an ageing 1930s spider-detective. Watch it in black and white — the toggle isn’t a gimmick, it’s the correct way to experience the show — and you’ve got one of the most stylistically distinct things any Spider-Man property has ever attempted. A passionate 8/10 from us, and a great pick if you want something that feels nothing like the usual superhero fare.
Both shows live on Prime, so if you’re not subscribed, a 30-day Prime free trial is the cheapest way to get into either this weekend — and it conveniently expires right around the time the kids have moved on to the next obsession.
On the calendar: a stacked few weeks for families
This is where the next month gets busy, so plan ahead:
- Toy Story 5 — Friday, June 19. Hotly anticipated in our house, full stop. If you want to get the family primed, our Toy Story series guide ranks all four previous films (plus Lightyear) with age guidance and the honest warnings — yes, including that incinerator scene. A perfect rewatch project for the week before.
- Supergirl — Friday, June 26. The new DC era keeps building, and Supergirl is the next theatrical step in James Gunn’s reboot. We just published the DC Universe — Chapter 1 guide, which tracks every confirmed film, show, and animated project in the new continuity — exactly the context you want before walking into the cinema. Read it as your pre-flight briefing for the DCU.
- Spielberg’s Disclosure — disclosure day this week. The marketing curtain officially lifted on the new Steven Spielberg film, and the early signs are intriguing. We’re staying measured — Spielberg has earned the benefit of the doubt, but we’ve been burned by good directors and bad scripts before. Cautiously, genuinely curious. More as it firms up.
📱 Tech & Smart Home Round-up
Apple WWDC: iOS 27 and the new Siri finally show up
The other big stage this week was Apple’s WWDC, and the headline for most families is iOS 27 and — at last — the genuinely new Siri. After the much-discussed delays, Apple put the AI-powered assistant back front and centre: more context across your apps, on-device understanding of what’s actually on your screen, and the kind of “do the multi-step thing for me” capability the old Siri only ever promised.
In dad terms, that’s the stuff that quietly eats an evening. “Find the email from daycare about Friday’s closure and put it in the calendar.” “Text Grandma the three photos from the park and tell her we’ll call Sunday.” “When did I last give the baby Calpol?” — answered or actioned across Mail, Photos, Messages and Calendar in one go, instead of you thumb-typing through four apps with a toddler on your hip. And because the heavy lifting happens on-device, your family’s calendar and messages aren’t being shipped to a server farm to make it work — which, for a household’s worth of private logistics, is the part that actually matters. The honest Dadnology stance is wait-and-see — we’ve heard “Siri is smart now” before — but on paper this is the most meaningful assistant upgrade Apple has shipped in years, and it’s the feature that’ll define whether iOS 27 feels like a real jump.
The device most families will actually run all this on isn’t the newest iPhone — it’s an iPad on the kitchen counter. The iPad Air 13-inch (M4) is the sweet spot: enough silicon to handle the on-device AI features, a big Liquid Retina display the whole family can see, all-day battery, and a price that doesn’t require a Pro-level justification.
AdApple iPad Air 13-inch (M4), 128GB, Wi-Fi (opens in a new tab)
The M4 iPad Air is the device most families will actually run iOS 27's new on-device Siri features on. All-day battery, Touch ID, Wi-Fi 7.
Computex: NVIDIA’s RTX Spark just rewrote the laptop rulebook
Apple wasn’t the only one swinging this week. Over at Computex, NVIDIA dropped the single biggest hardware bombshell of the year: RTX Spark, its own ARM-based system-on-a-chip, and the laptops built around it. The headline number is genuinely silly — up to 1 petaflop of AI performance in a notebook — and the strategic shift is even bigger: NVIDIA is no longer just the graphics card inside someone else’s machine, it’s now making the whole brain of the laptop. That’s a direct shot at the Apple Silicon playbook that’s owned the “fast, quiet, all-day battery” conversation for years.
Microsoft wasted no time answering. The Surface Laptop Ultra is its flagship RTX Spark machine, positioned squarely against the MacBook Pro — the first Windows laptop in a while that looks like it might actually win the comparison on raw capability rather than just price. For dads who do real work on a laptop (and increasingly run AI tools locally on it), this is the most interesting the Windows-vs-Mac fight has been in a decade. Too early for a verdict — but this is the announcement to keep an eye on through the back half of 2026.
Smart home: three new Home Assistant deep-dives
Quietly, the smart-home corner had a strong week on the Dadnology side, with three new pieces aimed at dads who want a local, privacy-respecting smart home rather than a cloud-rental:
- Editing Home Assistant with AI — three practical ways to let Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini do the YAML heavy lifting so you spend less time fighting config and more time with automations that actually work.
- Build a Home Assistant Dashboard with AI — a step-by-step on getting a clean, cross-device dashboard built with an AI co-pilot, instead of wrestling cards by hand.
- Home Assistant Green + Connect ZWA-2 bundle — Nabu Casa’s official, done-for-you starter kit for a fully local smart home. The closest thing to a “smart home in a box” that still keeps your data at home.
If you’ve been waiting for a sign to start — one that doesn’t involve renting your front door from a cloud service that could vanish next quarter — the Home Assistant Green is the box to start with. It’s the local-first hub at the centre of that bundle, and it’s genuinely set-up-on-a-Sunday simple.
AdHome Assistant Green (opens in a new tab)
Nabu Casa's plug-and-play hub for a fully local, privacy-first smart home — the heart of the Connect ZWA-2 bundle.
For the youngest crew: the best Octonauts toys
And for the under-6 contingent, we published a Best Octonauts Toys buying guide — tested by an actual four-year-old, which is the only stress test that matters. If the GUPs and the Octopod are on a birthday list near you, it’ll save you from the ones that fall apart by Tuesday.
Dadnology Take
Week 24 will be remembered for one thing: nostalgia delivered, not just teased. Halo: Combat Evolved and Zelda: Ocarina of Time coming back in the same week is the kind of one-two punch that doesn’t happen often — two of the most important games of our generation, rebuilt for the kids playing on the couch next to us. The honest move isn’t to pre-order anything yet; it’s to fire up the Master Chief Collection on Game Pass and replay the original before the remake arrives. Add a real Siri, a transparent anniversary Xbox, and a stacked family movie calendar, and this was the most fun-to-be-a-dad week of the year so far.
❓ FAQ
What were the biggest dad-relevant announcements in week 24, 2026?
What is the best family pick from week 24, 2026?
Is the Halo: Combat Evolved remake worth getting back into the series for?
What did Apple announce at WWDC in week 24, 2026?
Disclaimer: This review and its visuals were created with the help of AI. Some links may be affiliate links – we may earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.
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