The workers at Bethesda Game Studios have joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and they say they're the first Microsoft video game studio to form a wall-to-wall union. A total of 241 workers have either signed an authorization card or have indicated that they wanted to join a union through an online portal. The "wall-to-wall" nature of their organization means the CWA will be representing workers across job descriptions and divisions — and not just one type — including artists, engineers, programmers and designers. Bethesda is the developer behind Starfield and the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.
Microsoft has already recognized the union, so workers at the studio's Maryland office have officially joined CWA Locals 2108, while those in its Texas office have become members of CWA Locals 6215. "We are so excited to announce our union at Bethesda Game Studio and join the movement sweeping across the video game industry," Mandi Parker, Bethesda Senior System Designer, said. "It is clear that every worker can benefit from bringing democracy into the workplace and securing a protected voice on the job. We’re thrilled to get down to brass tacks and win a fair contract, proving that our unity is a source of real power to positively shape our working conditions, our lives, and the company as a whole."
Bethesda's workers join the growing number of unionized personnel in video games. In January 2023, quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Studios, the parent company of Bethesda, banded together to form what was then the largest union in the industry with 300 members. It lost the distinction as the largest union in video games when 600 quality assurance workers at Activision, which is also owned by Microsoft, joined the CWA this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-workers-at-bethesda-game-studios-have-fully-unionized-163024914.html?src=rss
Rivian just opened its first EV charging rest stop 24 miles outside of Yosemite National Park, complete with bathrooms, a lounge with a small library, a water refill station, free coffee and (not free) “make your own” trail mix. Only Rivian owners will be able to make use of the five DC fast chargers at the Rivian Yosemite Charging Outpost, but the other amenities are open to anyone.
The Charging Outpost is located in Groveland, California near the park’s west entrance and takes the place of an abandoned gas station. The shop area will be open from 7AM to 7PM, while the bathrooms and chargers will be available 24/7. It’s the first time Rivian has ventured into this kind of infrastructure, building on its growing network of regular charging sites — several of which are situated near Yosemite. The EV maker has 58 Waypoint charging sites, which support any electric vehicle that uses the standard J1772 plug, around the Yosemite Valley, and a Rivian-only Adventure charging site near the park’s east entrance.
Rivian says it has plans for more Charging Outposts “around national parks and other high-traffic areas across the country.” The first such building was designed with the intention of keeping waste to a minimum, and its retaining wall was made using materials from the old parking lot and sidewalk. It’s fitted with solar panels and has a passive cooling design that’s meant to reduce the need for AC or heating.
Beyond Charging Outposts, Rivian plans to eventually have over 3,500 of its Adventure Network DC fast chargers available in 600 sites across the US and Canada, on top of roughly 10,000 Level 2 chargers that will be open to the public.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/rivian-opens-its-first-charging-outpost-a-crunchy-not-gas-station-near-yosemite-152039298.html?src=rss
Rhythm is everything in Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. On a micro scale, the maiden Yoshiro dances through the game with graceful, measured movements, her steps cleansing the black defilement that has consumed her mountain and its people. In combat, Yoshiro’s protector, Soh, directs their sword in nimble arcs, landing attacks and parries based on timing and flow. On a grand scale, Kunitsu-Gami employs a soothing cadence of frenzied combat and peaceful base building. Soh’s abilities grow into a powerful crescendo as they guide Yoshiro down the mountain, her body deteriorating with each encounter.
Amid these crashing waves of tension and tranquility, Kunitsu-Gami also balances beauty and hellish terror with supreme skill. The slopes of Mt. Kafuku are lush, but its plants, animals and people are slathered in caustic pools of defilement, oil-slick and sticky. Yoshiro and Soh wear layers of delicate fabrics and glinting metallic jewelry, their movements mesmerizing. The demons that have taken over the mountain are vile — eyeless and bulging with toxic pus, many of them armed with sharp claws and gaping maws. The creature designs in Kunitsu-Gami are body-horrific and each beast is uniquely, grotesquely gorgeous.
Capcom
Kunitsu-Gami finds harmony in its dichotomies. The game’s core loop involves a day-night cycle: During the day, players carve a path for Yoshiro to cleanse a settlement, meanwhile collecting crystals, repairing defenses and freeing villagers from cocoons of defilement. At night, creatures called Seethe pour out of the Torii gates, and Soh must defend Yoshiro with the help of the rescued villagers. Protecting Yoshiro and completing her ritual reverts each region to its pre-defilement form, creating a base where Soh can upgrade their units and abilities.
The game blends real-time combat with tower-defense mechanics, and all of it takes place in a zoomed-out third-person view with a fully adjustable camera anchored to Soh’s body. It’s an effective approach, inviting players to mess around with perspective and investigate every detour in the environment, purging defilement as they go.
There are 17 bases to cleanse on the mountain plus 10 boss stages. Defeating a big bad in a challenge stage unlocks a new warrior type for Soh to deploy, including healer, sorcerer, ninja, spearman, cannoneer, marksman, and an aesthetic that can slow down enemies. As night falls on a base battle, the game's music grows louder and more discordant, signaling the imminent Seethe invasion. Players assign roles to villagers using the crystals they’ve collected during the day, and then place their fighters around Yoshiro on the map. Each battle involves a different number of units — there are even fights that Soh has to complete on their own, and others where they’re incapacitated, leaving combat to the villagers entirely. The variety built into these encounters is refreshing.
Combat requires preparation and constant attention, as the Seethe attack Yoshiro from multiple sides with a variety of moves, including aerial slashes, suicide bombs and bulbous projectiles that explode in toxic pools. It’s often essential to reposition units mid-battle, and thankfully, time freezes during these tactical moments.
Capcom
Soh mainly attacks with their sword in a smooth, rhythmic form that feels fantastic to control. Attacks are simple — on the DualSense, it’s square for smaller strikes and triangle for a large hit. Pressing square before triangle lines up elaborate sequences where Soh twists and swings their body before landing a series of big blows, and their positioning is completely controllable the entire time. This makes combat feel like one elongated dance, the input perfectly predicting Soh’s on-screen movements. Soh’s abilities evolve steadily with every victory and base repair, eventually adding a ranged bow, an extra form of swordplay, stronger attacks, multiple special moves and other upgrades to their kit.
Mandatory boss levels appear after some settlements are successfully cleansed, offering massive fights against gloriously gross creatures. I had to replay most of these bosses at least once, adjusting my unit types and positions according to each demon’s unique attack style and vulnerabilities. The enemies are all giant and covered in intricate, iridescent designs, but they’re otherwise distinct: There’s a skittering centipede that rushes in for rapid hits, a literal cherry tree with stabbing tentacle roots, a vicious floating sorcerer orbited by a ring of rocky spikes, and a juicy larval beast that moves like a petulant toddler and spews lethal sludge. That last one is called Notsugo and it’s my favorite because it’s so disgustingly adorable.
Capcom
After a fight in a settlement or boss stage, there’s time to take a breath and fix up some bases. The bases trail down the side of Mt. Kafuku in the stage-selection screen following a successful purge — once the defilement is cleared from a settlement, players still have to make it habitable by assigning villagers to fix broken buildings and platforms. Repairs take a few in-game days to complete and they unlock extra resources. It’s easy, tranquil work. This mechanic provides a soft place to land after a big battle, where players can strategize, upgrade their skills, pet a Shiba Inu or let a deer scream at them. I recommend repairing bases as quickly and thoroughly as possible: Not only does this net necessary resources at the proper pace, but it prevents an uncomfortable base-repair backlog from forming. By mid-game, I generally had three or four bases on the go at all times, and that was with immediate, maxed-out repairs.
The bases are also home to some of the most beautiful aspects of the game. Yoshiro sets up a tent in each base where players manage upgrades, and it also contains plates to share food with her. The dessert menu fills up first, offering a variety of mochi treats and crystalline sweets in a fabulous photorealistic viewing mode. I don’t know what it is, but I could stare at hyper-detailed video game food all day. Kunitsu-Gami understands this urge and caters to it.
Capcom
Additionally, the tent contains scrolls featuring traditional, woodcut-style art pieces relating to completed stages, and the bases have collectable ema plaques that showcase detailed, rotatable 3D images of the demons and villagers players encounter. These are sensational touches that not only expand the game’s lore, but shine a brilliant light on Japanese history and culture.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is perfectly balanced, lovingly crafted, and metal as hell. It’s filled with foreboding demons and intense combat, but it’s also a peaceful experience that invites players to slow down and recognize the beauty around them — even when it’s in the form of a giant, oozing monster. Especially then.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass. It's developed and published by Capcom.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/kunitsu-gami-path-of-the-goddess-review-demonic-delights-150004066.html?src=rss
Recent releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention.
I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones is something of an expert on slashers. The author has tackled the genre in a slew of his novels (most notably in the Indian Lake Trilogy, with its slasher-movie-obsessed main character) and has an ongoing column in Fangoria dedicated to its impact, so it’s not really a surprise to see he’s churned out another entry for the canon. But this time around, we’re getting a different perspective: the slasher’s point of view.
I Was a Teenage Slasheris the fictional memoir of Tolly Driver, who in 1989 reluctantly became Lamesa, Texas’ very own Michael Meyers at the age of 17 — a transformation that’s seemingly driven by powers beyond Tolly’s control. It takes the classic slasher formula and injects a whole lot of heart.
The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earthwas released in the spring, but it just popped onto my radar and I was immediately drawn in by both the premise and Schlanger’s easy-to-digest writing style. The Light Eaters explores the long-debated concept of plant “intelligence” through conversations with scientists and deep dives into the complex processes that underlie plants’ survival.
There’s a fair amount of anthropomorphizing, but The Light Eaters provides a really fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of plants that’s accessible to non-scientists and at the very least could inspire you to look at the natural world a little differently.
Paranoid Gardens by Gerard Way, Shaun Simon, Chris Weston
The digital first issue of Paranoid Gardens, a new six-issue series from Gerard Way and Shaun Simon, dropped this week and it’s wonderfully bizarre. We’re introduced right away to Loo, a nurse with memory loss and a tragic (but as yet unexplained) backstory who works at a care facility for aliens and paranormal beings. And it’s not just the patients that are out of the ordinary — there’s something unusual about the building itself, too. Drama quickly unfolds, and Loo “must fight her way through corrupt staff members, powerful theme park cults, and her own personal demons and trauma” to understand her role in all of it “and discover what secrets the gardens hold.”
Paranoid Gardens is written by Way (yes, of My Chemical Romance fame but also The Umbrella Academy) and Simon (The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, written with Way), and features art by Chris Weston, colors by Dave Stewart and letters by Nate Piekos.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/what-to-read-this-week-the-light-eaters-paranoid-gardens-and-i-was-a-teenage-slasher-133012961.html?src=rss
Apple fans are eagerly awaiting the release of the iPhone 16, and recent leaks have provided exciting insights into the device’s battery capabilities and other upcoming Apple products, the video below from ZONEofTECH delves into the potential improvements in battery charging speeds, design changes, and new features that you can expect from the iPhone 16, […]
Building it is just half the experience… Once it’s assembled, JMBricklayer’s Steampunk Marble Run works as a perpetual machine of sorts, creating a dynamic mechanical toy that’s always running on your desk. A rollercoaster for marbles, this over-5300-piece marvel offers a closed-loop design featuring interweaving paths, flamethrowers, dinosaurs, and nuclear reactors… all made from bricks of course. The entire structure measures a whopping 24.8 inches tall, and runs on two motors powered by a battery module. A perfect desktop toy for LEGO and other brick enthusiasts, puzzle geeks, pinball nerds, gamers, steampunk-lovers, and just fun YouTubers who like to have an interesting toy in the background of their vlogs, the Steampunk Marble Run’s $158 price tag makes it a no-brainer for people looking for a challenge.
This isn’t your dad’s LEGO set. It’s rated extremely difficult, with over 5,391 pieces that come together over days of painstaking work. The result, however, is beyond glorious. The entire set looks like something out of a mad scientist’s playroom. The GBC(Great Ball Contraption) features multiple paths and a randomizer that sends marbles on unique journeys. The balls roll down these dizzying routes, overshadowing any Hot Wheels track you could have ever built in your life, and make their way to the bottom of the contraption. A lift then carries them back up to the top, where the entire process repeats itself… with different results every time.
The entire Steampunk Marble Run set is the visual representation of a sensory overload. It’s so incredibly detailed you end up discovering new things every time you observe it from a different angle. The 2-foot-tall structure has industrial equipment, prehistoric monsters, chemical tanks and nuclear reactors, flamethrowers, two different kinds of lifts, and just random rails/paths connecting them all together into a symphony of sheer chaos.
The way the Great Ball Contraption is visually complicated, but theoretically simple. A battery module powers the entire set, delivering juice to the two lifts that carry the marbles up, and the stairways that also help move the marbles around. However, once the marbles hit the tracks, gravity and randomness kick in. Multiple tracks allow your marble to take a unique path of its own, and objects and obstacles on the journey help the marbles change their paths midway. For example, the T-Rex model at the center plays a role in moving marbles around. Its spine has a two-way switch that allows marbles to go either left or right, and the flamethrower emerging from its mouth also nudges balls into different routes, pushing them down a funnel that diverts them thanks to the same two-way switch.
Although JMBricklayer’s set doesn’t use official bricks from ‘that one famous plastic brick company’, it’s designed to be compatible with them… so if the 5,391-brick megastructure doesn’t feel detailed enough, you can actually add more to it and customize it in different ways. With that many pieces and an ‘extreme’ difficulty rating, the entire set should take days or weeks to put together depending on how proficient you are. There’s a detailed guide that comes with your kit, which should definitely make things easier… but don’t expect it to be as simple as putting together an IKEA sofa set.
Other details add to the Steampunk Marble Run’s gloriously otherworldly design. The color palette is overwhelmingly grunge-inspired, evoking an almost Mad Max style. Meanwhile, you’ve got a combination of industrial machinery, pipes, girders, chains, flamethrowers, Gatling guns, chemical tanks, nuclear reactors, and two dinosaurs dominating the design. The kit comes with a battery pack that lets you input 6 AA batteries to run the entire experience. The battery pack powers two motors that control various aspects of the marble run, and the entire set includes 10 marbles as a part of the experience… although you can absolutely add a few more of your own.
One of the Motors
The Battery Module
The entire kit is an experience to be had. It measures 22×21 inches in length and width, with a 24.8-inch vertical that has allows the kit to look positively monstrous. The complete gizmo also weighs a staggering 15.4 lbs (or a whopping 7 kilos), so it’s best if you placed it away from overtly curious/enthusiastic pets and children. The set starts at $189.99, although JMBricklayer is offering early backers an 18% discount, bringing the full kit to $158 excluding shipping. Grab yours now and the Steampunk Marble Run ships starting August 2024.
Grab yours now$189.99 (18% off) Hurry! Only 26 hours left! Raised over $116,000.
The public beta versions of macOS Sequoia and iOS 18 introduced an innovative feature called iPhone Mirroring, which allows you to control your iPhone directly from your Mac. This groundbreaking innovation offers seamless integration between your devices, allowing you to navigate your phone, type using the Mac keyboard, and manage notifications without the need to […]
X is developing a new feature that could help address spam posts on its website. According to Nima Owji, an independent app researcher who's unearthed several unreleased X features in the past, the platform formerly known as Twitter is working on the ability to disable links in replies. Based on the image Owji posted, users will be able to tick a box for the option if they don't want people to be able to respond with a link to their posts.
X is working on the ability to let you disable links in the replies of your posts! pic.twitter.com/dddP0a8l5w
Christopher Stanley, the Senior Director for Security Engineering at X, confirmed the feature's existence in a response to a post about it. "My team built this," Stanley wrote in his reply. In addition to keeping spam bots away, the feature could also prevent real human users from promoting their websites in other people's posts. However, it can also prevent users from posting links to legitimate sources in case they're trying to debunk false information and prevent fake news from spreading further.
Owji previously found that X was experimenting with an in-app currency that's meant to help creators earn money from the platform. Several months after rampant impersonation on the website, he found that it was working on new ID verification features, as well. He also discovered that the company was looking to compete with LinkedIn by offering job listings to verified organizations.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-is-working-on-a-way-to-block-links-in-replies-110033673.html?src=rss
Tally is a user-friendly, free online form builder that requires no technical skills. It offers customizable templates for various needs such as registration forms, surveys, quizzes, and job applications. Users can create forms without signing in but need a free account to publish them. Tally supports conditional logic, payment integration via Stripe, and design customization. […]
Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 18, is set to transform the way you interact with your iPhone or iPad. This update brings a wealth of new features and improvements designed to enhance your user experience, making your device more intuitive, customizable, and secure. From enhanced widget customization to advanced app management, iOS 18 promises […]
