Idris Elba once again voices the titular Echidna. This time around, Knuckles will be training human companion Wade Whipple (Adam Pally) to become a warrior, all the while fending off those who want to use his power for nefarious means.
The trailer is entertaining enough. There's a decent gag about a dog's mortal enemy and it sets up the premise of the show neatly. All episodes of Knuckles will hit Paramount+ in the US and Canada on April 26. The show will arrive on Paramount+ elsewhere the following day. Folks in Japan will need to wait until later this year to catch the show.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sonic-spin-off-series-knuckles-will-hit-paramount-on-april-26-170506646.html?src=rss
Homeworld 3, the much-anticipated sequel to 20-year-old real-time strategy game Homeworld 2, has been delayed once again, Gearbox Publishing and Blackbird Interactive announced. It's now set to come out on May 13, 2024, a couple of months after the previously announced March 8 debut.
The decision to delay was made following a playthrough by users from outside the company. "This resulted in additional insights and perspective the will be incorporated to make Homeworld 3 the best experience possible," the team wrote. A public demo also likely weighed on the decision, showing some issues like balky camera and other controls.
Gearbox Publishing/Blackbird Interactive
Homeworld 3 was originally pegged for a 2022 release, but it was postponed until 2023 and later February 2024, then again slightly until March 8. Though public beta users found some elements balky, the game generated positive comments as well, so the new May 13 date may be realistic.
Homeworld 3 is an ambitious sequel to its popular predecessor, attempting to capture the vibe that people loved while introducing new modes including PvP and co-op. The latter (War Games) has a roguelike aspect emphasizing coordination with fellow players and may be the new title's ace in the hole. In any case, May is a generally a quiet month for game releases, so if the latest date works out, it would be a fine time to get into a complex RTS.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/homeworld-3-delayed-again-until-may-113515101.html?src=rss
Disney will invest $1.5 billion in Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, the company announced on Wednesday. As part of the initiative, Disney and Epic Games will create a brand new “games and entertainment universe” over the next few years, Disney said in a statement.
“Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disneys beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games an entertainment universe,” wrote Disney CEO Bob Iger in the statement. “This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion.”
Players will be able to “play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar, and more” in the new entertainment universe, which will be powered by Epic’s flagship Unreal Engine. Disney currently uses Unreal Engine to produce movies, video games, and content used in Disney theme parks around the world. It has also partnered with Epic Games previously to bring characters from Marvel, Tron, and Star Wars to Fortnite.
Neither company disclosed how much the valuation of Epic Games, a private company, would be after Disney's investment. Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent currently owns 40 percent of Epic Games, while Sony owns just over 5 percent.
“[We] are collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities,” said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in the statement. “Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite[.]”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/disney-is-investing-15-billion-in-epic-games-to-create-a-games-and-entertainment-universe-215015443.html?src=rss
Insomniac Games has long-promised a New Game+ mode for its hit superhero sim Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and it’s arriving on March 7. The mode was supposed to drop at the tail-end of 2023, but was delayed until 2024. The forthcoming update won’t just be about New Game+, as Insomniac promises “new suits and more.”
We don’t exactly know what the mode will look like, as the developer urges players to keep an eye on its social media accounts “for a complete list of features closer to release.” However, we can glean some information from the New Game+ option that’s currently available for the original game. This mode lets players restart the story while holding on to items they found during the previous run. It’s possible the New Game+ for Spider-Man 2 will offer more than that, as the developer has advertised that “many more” features will soon arrive for the open-world web-slinging adventure.
The game also currently lacks audio descriptions, which is an accessibility feature intended for players who are blind or have low vision. This is coming, but we don’t know if it’ll be included with March’s update.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 lets you swap between protagonists Peter Parker and Miles Morales with the push of a button. It’s widely regarded as being the rare sequel that’s both bigger and better than the original. We admired the incredibly fun traversal mechanics, engaging open world and the game’s satisfying story. The PS5 exclusive quickly became the fastest-selling first-party title in PlayStation history, with more than 2.5 million copies sold in one day.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spider-man-2s-delayed-new-game-mode-is-coming-on-march-7-193543918.html?src=rss
The production pipeline for mainstream video games has always been hectic. The AAA factory is powered by rigid marketing plans and periods of soul-sucking crunch, and while this process has resulted in incredible games over the years, it's also been detrimental to developers' mental health and long-term job stability. Layoffs have long been baked into the video game industry, but in recent months, this trend has been running in overdrive, and it's happening at studios of all sizes.
This week's stories
Kojima Films
Hideo Kojima is partnering with Sony to build a new game that’s actually more like a movie. Of course, you could say this about any of Kojima’s games since Snatcher, but this time around, he’s doing the Hollywood thing on purpose. The new project is codenamed PHYSINT., and it’s a return to Kojima’s action-espionage roots, but it’s definitely not Metal Gear. Apparently it’s going to blur the boundaries between film and games, and it’ll take advantage of Sony’s connections in movies and music. Kojima Productions will start working on the new IP after finishing Death Stranding 2, which is set to come out in 2025. Kojima is also building OD, an Xbox movie — sorry, game — made in collaboration with horror director Jordan Peele.
Xbox on other platforms
It looks like Xbox is preparing to release some of its exclusive titles on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms. A handful of reports rolled out this week suggesting Starfield, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Sea of Thieves and Gears of War are all slated to hit PS5 or Switch in the near future. Xbox head Phil Spencer neither confirmed nor denied the reports, and instead teased an event next week that should clarify the studio’s multiplatform plans.
Layoffs in 2024
Both Sony and Microsoft have delivered their first showcases of 2024, highlighting all of the big, shiny games coming out soon, like Hellblade 2, Avowed, the Silent Hill 2 remake and Stellar Blade. The trailers for these titles are as vibrant as ever and the marketing beats are just as breathless — but, man, it’s really hard to get excited about video games right now. Rampant layoffs have cast a shadow over the industry, and even if 2024 turns out to be a banner year for video game debuts, it still feels shitty.
In the first month of 2024, an estimated 6,000 people in the video game industry lost their jobs. This figure is steadily climbing and it’s building on a rash of layoffs in 2023, when an estimated 10,500 video game jobs were cut. I don’t want to just drop these numbers without context — 2022 saw about 8,500 layoffs and this was considered terrible. 2023 eclipsed this total and, just six weeks in, 2024 is on track to do the same.
Here are some stats from January alone: Riot Games laid off 530 people, or about 11 percent of its workforce, and closed down its experimental publishing label. Devolver Digital laid off 28 people at Artificer, a team it purchased in 2021. Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive lost 45 people. Sega of America fired 61 workers. Microsoft laid off nearly 2,000 employees across Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax, and Xbox the same week that it became a $3 trillion company. Unity plans to drop 1,800 employees by March, and this is on top of the 1,000 jobs that the studio eliminated in 2023. Embracer Group gutted the team behind Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands and laid off 97 people at Eidos Montreal, canceling a new Deus Ex game in the process. The holding company already terminated about 1,000 jobs in 2023 and its restructuring efforts are expected to last until March.
Recent layoffs have affected studios of all sizes, and they’re happening even as the industry’s leading companies grow financially. If it sounds like I’m repeating myself, that’s because I am — I reported on the layoffs crisis at the end of last year, and things have only become more concerning in the first weeks of 2024. The video game industry received an influx of attention and cash during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and today’s layoffs are a response to a period of unchecked growth and corporate consolidation.
All of this instability provides an unsettling backdrop for the hype coming out of the video game industry this year. It’s tough to get excited about Xbox’s Avowed when we know people lost their jobs during production, and it’s hard to enjoy Devolver’s next edgy showcase when it just downsized a studio it didn’t need to buy in the first place.
At the same time, we’re seeing how unionization can help protect the people who make video games. Though dozens of people lost their jobs at Sega of America this year, the studio’s AEGIS-CWA union negotiated to save some roles and offer severance to temp workers. Unionization efforts have been on the rise since 2021, and the appeal of collective bargaining is only clarifying as the firing squads take aim.
Through our union efforts, we’ve been able to more than double the number of saved jobs, and to offer severance to our temp workers.
The futuristic action-RPG Stellar Blade is coming out on April 26, exclusive to PS5.
Dave the Diver, the pixelated non-indie game that somehow got nominated for Indie Game of the Year, is coming to PS4 and PS5 in April, and it’ll get Godzilla DLC in May.
Johanna Faries has replaced Mike Ybarra as the president of Blizzard. Ybarra quit during Microsoft’s downsizing in January, and Faries was previously the head of Call of Duty under Activision.
Now Playing
Now that I can actually talk about it, I want to say that Persona 3 Reload is absolutely delicious. The Morning After host Mat Smith wrote our review, go give it a read if you’re a freak like us.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/layoffs-are-sucking-the-joy-out-of-video-games--this-weeks-gaming-news-174541450.html?src=rss
Bluesky, the open-source Twitter alternative, is now open to anyone. After being in beta for a little less than a year and with just over three million users, the social media platform is an option if the ruins of X (formerly Twitter) or Threads aren’t doing it for you.
Bluesky began life as an internal project at Jack Dorsey’s Twitter, but it ended its association with the entity now known as X after Elon Musk’s takeover. “We really believe that the future of social is, and should be, open and decentralized,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber tells Engadget. “This is something that we think is good for the public conversation overall.”
Decentralized status aside, the service is functionally similar to X and Threads. Posts aren’t tweets but ‘skeets.’ There’s a chronological timeline, but you can also follow numerous other algorithmic feeds created by fellow users. (I’m intrigued by the feed for quiet friends — users you follow who don’t post that often.)
You can find me on there @thatmatsmith.bsky.social. I’m probably going to be one of those quiet friends.
The streaming service has reportedly warned US subscribers in an email.
If it worked for Netflix… Disney+ is emailing its subscribers, notifying them about a change in its terms of service. Its service agreement now states users may not share their passwords outside of their household “unless otherwise permitted by [their] service tier,” suggesting new subscription options in the future. It might be time for Mom and Dad to buy their own subscription. I say Mom and Dad, I mean you.
She threatened legal action against the same guy who ran the ElonJet account.
Taylor Swift has threatened legal action against a Florida student who set up multiple social media accounts that release real-time information of her personal aircraft’s whereabouts. The student facing legal action by Swift’s team is the same guy who ran the ElonJet account that tracked Elon Musk’s jet. Facebook and Instagram banned Sweeney’s accounts that track Swift’s air travel late last year, but they’re still live on Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram and other sites.
At almost seven years old, the Nintendo Switch is proving there’s still life in the hybrid console. Enough life for Nintendo to up its predicted sales figures for its current fiscal year. In its third-quarter earnings release, the company announced it was increasing the Switch’s projected sales from 15 million to 15.5 million. That’s great and all, but where’s the Switch 2?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-twitter-alternative-bluesky-is-no-longer-invitation-only-121534911.html?src=rss
Just one more hand. Just one more attempt to win at the card game, Queen’s Blood. In my limited preview time with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, weeks before the game is due to be released, I may have spent a little too long learning the rules of this companion card game, introduced relatively early into the game. And I regret nothing. (For one, because I previewed most of the changes to the battle system a few months ago.)
This early addiction bodes well for the wider game. It’s a sign that the team behind this sequel-of-a-remake is making a world bigger and richer than the occasionally on-the-rails one in Remake. I’m hoping for a more open-world experience, now that the characters have finally escaped Midgar. (See: the plot of Final Fantasy 7 Remake) A change of location, too, shakes up the look of Rebirth. It has plants! Nature, everywhere! At least once you’re out of a satellite town called Kalm in Chapter 2.
Square Enix
First, I played through Chapter 1, which also acts as a tutorial. It’s a flashback to Nibelheim, which explains how protagonist Cloud and antagonist Sephiroth worked together before; well, the latter seemingly lost his mind and slaughtered everyone in town.
It’s a more story-weighted version of my earlier demo, but I could now explore the town that multiple party members grew up in. When Cloud explores his friend Tifa’s house – without her permission – it sets up some entertaining criticisms of his lack of boundaries. Still, it was all predicated on me choosing to be awful and barge into Tifa’s room, play her piano, and just be a bit of a creep.
The chapter also raises some unanswered questions around Cloud and his fuzzy memories of Nibelheim. Anyone who’s played the original knows where this is going, but given how some characters in the first third of the game didn’t die, I’m waiting to see how the developers further shake up the plot for new and old fans. There should be a significant death during this middle chapter of the game: Will they twist the knife?
Let’s go back to the new card game. Queen’s Blood follows on from Triple Triad, Tetra Master and that weird pinball-ish game in Final Fantasy XV that might best be forgotten. You’ll be able to customize your deck of cards, each with a different layout of tiles and occasional special effects. It’s almost Risk-like, aiming to dominate the board and rack up the highest score on three rows. Cards can reclaim territory, lower stats, and all the usual videogame card antics, and yes, I am struggling to explain it in words. But it’s fun. And I should have stopped playing to explore more of the grasslands than I did.
Square Enix
Once you’ve wrapped up your card games and stepped out from Kalm, I could explore in most directions. In the time I had leftover, I saw points of interest packed with treasure, unique monster packs, resources to collect, weapons with skills to master, chocobos to tame and race, chocobo stops to repair (which add fast-travel spots to the map); and the return of the terribly-named Chad with virtual battles and tasks for you to help unlock more materia for extra spells and abilities. I then ate dirt in a battle to unlock the summon spell for Titan.
I liked this pick-and-choose busy-ness, but some diversions felt like they were there for the sake of killing time, a la Assassin’s Creed. I hope the developers remember to pare down travel time where they can, because traversing an area can get boring, even when riding a giant bird.
Fortunately, getting from A to B is interrupted by entertaining, occasionally challenging, battles. One new addition to Rebirth is an enemy detection radar that shows enemies' aggression level, helping you avoid fights when you just want to get going.
Another new dynamic is the party’s bonds with each other, which are now integrated with your movesets and stats. This presented itself in dialogue choices and side quests, adding a popular social mechanic seen in somany JRPGs into this remake sequel. What’s notable is that the more you deepen this friendship, a separate skill tree improves characters’ stats and even unlocks new synergy attacks (which I elaborated on here) to use in battle. Square Enix teased that the level of bonds could affect the story too – but that could just reflect the theme park ‘date’ that Cloud goes on, later, in the original game. We’ll find out in a few weeks.
You can test out some of this for yourself now. Square Enix has launched a two-part demo, including the Nibelheim incident, available to download now. Just 49GB! A second section will unlock on February 21.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches on the PS5 on February 29, 2024.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-adds-an-addictive-card-game-and-some-familiar-social-mechanics-000156550.html?src=rss
Meta’s Oversight Board wants the company to update its manipulated media policy, calling the current rules “incoherent.” This follows the board’s decision about a misleadingly edited video of President Joe Biden.
The video featured footage from October 2022, when the president accompanied his granddaughter, who was voting in person for the first time. News footage shows him placing an “I voted” sticker on her shirt. A Facebook user later shared an edited version that looped the moment, so it appeared as if he repeatedly touched her chest, adding the caption that Biden was a “sick pedophile.”
The Oversight Board said the video did not violate Meta’s manipulated media policy because it wasn’t edited with AI tools, and because the edits were “obvious and therefore unlikely to mislead.” (Has the board been on Facebook?)
The board said it was concerned about the current manipulated media policy in many ways, including how it was overly focused on how content has been created rather than on which specific harms it prevents (like damaging electoral processes). It wrote Meta should “reconsider this policy quickly, given the number of elections in 2024.”
Microsoft’s gaming division appears to be considering a significant shift in its major-exclusives strategy. Rumors have been swirling for a while about the company bringing Hi-Fi Rush, a well-received game from last year, and Sea of Thieves to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5. But the company could add some of its more recent blockbuster Xbox exclusives to the PS5 as well, which would mark a monumental change in policy. Multiple publications suggested several games could make the jump, including the Gears of War series, Indiana Jones and Starfield. “We’re listening and we hear you,” Xbox boss Phil Spencer wrote on X: “We’ve been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned.”
Signals will be written entirely by journalists, using Microsoft’s chatbot as a research tool.
Microsoft is teaming up with media website Semafor on a new project that uses ChatGPT to aid the creation of news stories, called signals. It’s one of several journalism collaborations Microsoft is announcing, conveniently following that New York Times lawsuit filed against the company and OpenAI for copyright infringement.
Google reportedly plans to develop a YouTube app for the Apple Vision Pro. A YouTube spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that the company plans to make a native Vision Pro app while optimizing YouTube for Safari as a stopgap solution. Despite Vision Pro launching with over 600 native apps, YouTube said on January 19 it had no plans for a Vision Pro app. Netflix is another high-profile holdout, while Disney+ went all in.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-meta-oversight-board-says-manipulated-biden-video-can-stay-on-facebook-121507105.html?src=rss
The latest beta update for the PlayStation 5 will make it easier to hear what's going on in your game. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has announced the software update, which will enable DualSense and DualSense Edge wireless controllers to produce louder audio so that you can hear in-game sounds and audio chats more clearly.
In addition to giving controllers the ability to produce louder sounds, the update also gives their noise cancellation feature a boost. Sony's announcement says the controllers now have better mic input, thanks to a new AI machine learning model. It'll give PS5's system the ability to suppress background noises, such as the game audio itself, allowing your voice to go through clearly and improving the quality of voice chats as a whole.
The update brings non-sound-related improvements to the PS5, as well, including the option to adjust the console's power indicator under "Beep and Light" in System Settings. Plus, it will give you access to Share Screen tools that you can use as a viewer to interact with the host's gameplay. Want to catch the host's attention and make them notice a certain element in the game? There's a pointer you can move around or use to draw a line on the display and highlight objects in game. You'll also be able to send the host's screen emoji reactions. These new interactive tools for the Share Screen are enabled by default, but you can always switch them off in settings. Take note that they will only work if both you and the host already have access to the beta features. At the moment, the upgrades are only rolling out to select users in certain countries, but SIE plans to release them to all PS5 gamers around the world in the coming months.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sonys-latest-ps5-beta-update-gives-dualsense-controllers-better-audio-113529372.html?src=rss
Microsoft is teaming up with media website Semafor on a new project that uses ChatGPT to aid in the creation of news stories, The Financial Times has reported. It's one of several journalistic collaborations Microsoft is set to announce today, and follows a New York Timeslawsuit filed against the software giant and its partner, OpenAI, for copyright infringement.
Semafor, co-founded by former Buzzfeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith, will create a feed called "Signals" that will be sponsored by Microsoft for an undisclosed but "substantial" sum, the report states. It will highlight breaking news and analysis, offering a dozen or so posts per day. All stories will be written entirely by journalists, with the AI effectively acting as a research tool.
Signals responds to the deep and continuing shifts in the digital media landscape and the post-social news moment, and to the risks and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence, Semafor wrote.
Specifically, Semafor's team will use AI tools to rapidly find breaking event reporting from other news sources around the world in multiple languages, while providing translation tools. An article might therefore include Chinese, Indian or other sources, with reporters adding context and summarizing the different viewpoints. "Journalists need to adopt these tools in order to survive and thrive for another generation," former AP journalist Noreen Gillespie, now with Microsoft, told The Financial Times.
The use of ChatGPT and other AI chatbots has been controversial in newsrooms, with sites like CNET recently using them to generate entire feature-length articles (albeit with the help of human editors). This despite the fact that AI can "hallucinate" (make up untrue content) and exhibit other kinds of bizarre behavior. Newsrooms are trying to figure out how to use them to improve reporting and potentially compete against chatbots churning out reams of SEO-friendly content.
Late last year, The New York Timesannounced that it was suing OpenAI and Microsoft for using published news articles to train its chatbots without providing compensation. The lawsuit, which potentially seeks billions in statutory and actual damages, marks the first time a major news organization has pursued ChatGPT's developers for copyright infringement.
Microsoft also announced collaborations today with the Craig Newmark School of Journalism, the GroundTruth Project, the Online News Association and other journalism organizations.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-is-teaming-up-with-semafor-on-ai-assisted-news-stories-124320277.html?src=rss