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John Wick Hex is being removed from Steam (and all other platforms) this week, according to a statement released by the game’s publisher, Big Fan Games.

“John Wick Hex will be removed from sale on all platforms beginning July 17th, 2025,” the statement shared on the game’s Steam page reads. “After July 17th, 2025, existing owners of John Wick Hex will still be able to access the game via their digital libraries (PC/Console) and/or physical copies (Console), however new purchases of John Wick Hex will not be possible, regardless of platform or storefront.”

Developed by Bithell Games and released in 2020, John Wick Hex is a cel-shaded tactical strategy game in which players take on the role of the king of revenge himself. The game plays a bit like a board game, and its combat is time-based, not turn-based, so in addition to managing health and ammo, players must also manage the most valuable resource of all: time. Each action eats up some of that time, from a fraction of a second to reload, to multiple seconds to bandage up wounds. Run out of time, and you fail the mission.

Big Fan Games’ statement didn’t detail the reason for the game’s impending removal, but given the fact that the publisher is mainly known for publishing licensed games, it’s possible the publisher’s license to use the John Wick IP has expired and not been renewed. John Wick Hex is currently the only official John Wick game on the market.

Polygon has reached out to Bithell Games for comment and will update when the company responds.

An expert in quantum optics, Kumar is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering, where he directs the Center for Photonic Communication and Computing. At the time of the research, Ramesh was a PhD candidate in Kumar’s laboratory; now he is a quantum systems validation engineer at US-based quantum computing company PsiQuantum.

Ramesh co-led the study with Danielius Kramnik at UC Berkeley and Imbert Wang at BU. Kramnik, who led the circuit design and electronic integration, is a recent PhD graduate from the laboratory of Vladimir Stojanovíc, an adjunct professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley. Wang, who led the photonic device design, is a recent PhD graduate from the laboratory of Miloš Popović, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at BU.

Chip produces its own quantum light, stabilizes itself

With their ability to be manufactured using the same high-volume processes that create billions of transistors for everyday electronics, silicon chips are an ideal platform for light-based quantum systems. But stably operating these tiny quantum optical devices requires capabilities that are not currently standard in a commercial foundry. Slight temperature changes, imperceptible manufacturing imperfections and even heat generated by their own components can completely ruin an entire quantum system. To control these tiny variations, researchers have relied on large, external equipment to stabilize quantum optical devices — making it seemingly impossible to miniaturize full systems.

The generation of quantum light in silicon — which the team used in their foundry-manufactured devices — was first demonstrated in a decades-old experiment from Kumar’s lab at Northwestern. In a 2006 study published in the journal Optics Express, Kumar and his collaborators demonstrated, for the first time, that shining a concentrated beam of light into tiny, appropriately designed channels etched in silicon naturally generates photon pairs. These photon pairs are inherently linked, so they can serve as qubits.

In the new study, the team integrated these tiny, ring-shaped channels — each much smaller than the thickness of a human hair — into the silicon chip. When a strong laser shines into these circular channels, called microring resonators, it generates photon pairs. To control the light, the team added photocurrent sensors, which act like tiny monitors. If the light source drifts due to temperature fluctuations or other disturbances, the sensors send a signal to a tiny heater, which adjusts the photon source back to its optimal state.

Because the chip uses built-in feedback to stabilize itself, it behaves predictably despite temperature changes and fabrication variations — an essential requirement for scaling up quantum systems. It also bypasses the need for large external equipment.

“Our goal was to show that complex quantum photonic systems can be built and stabilized entirely within a CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) chip,” Kramnik said. “That required tight coordination across domains that don’t usually talk to each other.”

Factory-made future

To ensure their complex quantum chip could be manufactured using a standard CMOS process, the scientists adopted a clever design strategy. They built the photonic components directly into the existing structures commercial CMOS factories already use to manufacture computer chips.

“We pushed the photonics to work within the strict constraints of a commercial CMOS platform,” Wang said. “That’s what made it possible to co-design the electronics and quantum optics as a unified system.”

As quantum photonic systems grow in scale and complexity, these integrated quantum chips could become the building blocks for technologies ranging from secure communication networks to advanced sensing and, eventually, quantum computing infrastructure.

“Quantum computing, communication and sensing are on a decades-long path from concept to reality,” said Popović, a senior author on the study. “This is a small step on that path — but an important one, because it shows we can build repeatable, controllable quantum systems in commercial semiconductor foundries.”

The study was supported by the US National Science Foundation, the Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering and the Catalyst Foundation. Chip fabrication support was provided by Ayar Labs and GlobalFoundries.

If you’re interested in checking out what’s coming next for Windows 11, you owe it to yourself to check out the operating system’s Beta and Dev branches. These updates with new features that Microsoft would like people to try out before a full release, but unlike the Canary channel, it’s a little more stable, and the features have undergone at least an initial testing phase before being served. Microsoft has just uploaded a new update to both the Beta and Dev channels, and both of them make the File Explorer a lot better to use.

Windows 11’s test branches add some welcome changes to File Explorer

On the Windows 11 Insider page for the Beta and Dev channels, Microsoft breaks down what’s new for these builds. They’re both pretty much the same and include features like a “describe image” action in Click to Do and new app permission dialog boxes that darken the rest of the screen. It’s pretty interesting, so be sure to give the full notes a read if you’d like a sneak peek into what’s coming to Windows 11.

However, tucked away in the notes are a series of very welcome changes to File Explorer, including fixes for some of the more annoying bugs it has. For instance, Microsoft has squashed a bug that stopped File Explorer from showing file operation progress dialogs when invoked by an app. It also solved an issue where, if you pinned an app shortcut to your desktop and then changed the app’s icon, it would appear as a white missing thumbnail image instead of the new image.

On top of that, the fix stops File Explorer Home from flashing white every time you start up File Explorer. And if you’re a fan of using Narrator, the update fixes a nasty issue with it when it uses File Explorer:

Fixed an issue where Narrator scan mode might not work properly in the action result canvas window for the Summarize AI action for Microsoft 365 files when reading bulleted lists.

Besides the bugfixes, Microsoft also improved File Explorer’s performance when it’s unzipping a file. Now, if you download a ZIP file from the internet, and the archive contains lots of little files, File Explorer should chew through them faster.

If you’re not sure what a “Beta” and “Dev” build even is, but you’re interested in learning more, be sure to check out our explainer on the Windows 11 betas. And if you’d rather just replace it altogether, we have a piece on this more modern alternative to the Windows 11 File Explorer.