Tag Archives: author_name|Kris Holt

Forza Horizon 6 will hit Xbox Series X/S and PC on May 19

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Forza Horizon 6 is taking the racing series to Japan for the first time, and now we know exactly when you’ll be able to hit the virtual streets of Tokyo. The game will arrive on Xbox Series X/S, PC and Xbox Cloud on May 19, with an early access period commencing on May 15. That lines up with earlier reports about the release date(s) after an in-game ad supposedly appeared in Forza Horizon 5. The upcoming title will hit PS5 later this year.

The standard edition of Forza Horizon 6 is expected to cost $70, though it will be on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. To jump in a few days early, you’ll need the premium edition (a deluxe edition will be available too).

Playground Games and co-developer Turn 10 Studios offered a first look at gameplay during Thursday’s Xbox Developer Direct showcase. You’ll start out by working through Horizon qualifiers in order to join the Horizon Festival racing circuit, then you’ll unlock faster cars and other goodies as you rise up through the ranks. In a few feature called Horizon Rush, you’ll take on obstacle courses.

Playground says this is the largest Forza Horizon game to date. This version of Tokyo, for instance, is said to be five times larger than any urban area the studio has built before and it has multiple districts. There are lots of rural areas in the game as well, and the environments are affected by seasonal changes. As has been the case in previous games, you’ll be able to explore the world as you wish, either solo or with your friends.

There will be more than 550 cars available at the jump, and you’ll be able to apply liveries to their windows. Each player house has a customizable garage. You can build up a part of the world called The Estate as you see fit and your friends can visit to see what you’ve made (building will be available in multiplayer for the first time in the series too). There are also new open-world car meets where you can show off your whips, buy copies of other players’ rides and download more songs.

Playground is including all of the accessibility features from previous games. It’s adding new ones as well, such as a customizable high-contrast mode and an autodrive option.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/forza-horizon-6-will-hit-xbox-series-xs-and-pc-on-may-19-183242726.html?src=rss

AMD’s Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU will arrive on January 29 and cost $499

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At CES earlier this month, AMD announced the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, a more wallet-friendly take on its $700 9950X3D. The company promised the new chip would be out sometime in the first three months of the year, and it's going to arrive a bit sooner than you might have expected. It can be all yours on January 29 for $499.

AMD says the 9850X3D builds on the 9800X3D with an 400MHz upgrade to the boost clock. It can reach boost speeds of 5.6GHz. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is an 8-core CPU with 16 threads and 104MB of combined L2 and L3 cache. AMD is employing its 3D V-cache tech so it can vertically stack more cache memory onto the chip. 

The 9850X3D also has a 120W TDP. AMD claims the CPU is able to deliver an average 27 percent faster gaming performance than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285k. We'll be able to assess that for ourselves very soon given that the 9850X3D will hit shelves in just a few days.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/amds-ryzen-7-9850x3d-cpu-will-arrive-on-january-29-and-cost-499-165000446.html?src=rss

Xbox Developer Direct 2026: How to watch and what we expect to see from Fable, Forza Horizon 6 and Beast of Reincarnation

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Xbox is set to hold the fourth installment of its now-annual Developer Direct showcase on January 22. You’ll be able to watch the 2026 edition at 1PM ET on YouTube (including versions with audio descriptions and ASL), Twitch, Facebook and Steam. Xbox will stream the Developer Direct on its regional channels simultaneously, and it’ll be available on Bilibili on Friday.

The YouTube stream might be the way to go, since that one will be available in 4K and 60 fps. Because we’re so nice, we’ve embedded that stream above, so all you have to do is click the play button when the time is right.

Microsoft has confirmed that it will feature three titles at the Developer Showcase: Fable and Forza Horizon 6 from Playground Games, and Beast of Reincarnation from Game Freak, which is best known for its work on Pokémon games. We should get developer interviews, gameplay footage and (for at least one of those) a release date.

There is a chance that there will be some surprises, of course. The three previous editions of Developer Direct all featured five games — the first one showcased Hi-Fi Rush, which was released on the same day.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-developer-direct-2026-how-to-watch-and-what-we-expect-to-see-from-fable-forza-horizon-6-and-beast-of-reincarnation-161000242.html?src=rss

The Switch 2 version of Super Mario Bros. Wonder arrives on March 26

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While many of us wait (im)patiently for a brand new Mario platformer for the Switch 2, Nintendo is filling the gap with an upgraded version of the tremendous Super Mario Bros. Wonder for the console. Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park (to give the new edition's full name) will arrive on March 26. Those who own the original Switch version of the game will be able to buy an upgrade pack, which costs $20. 

There's a lot of new stuff in the Switch 2 version, including co-op and multiplayer features. Bellabel Park, a fresh area of the Flower Kingdom, will open up. You can jump into some multiplayer modes here, such as one where you compete to collect as many coins as possible. 

A section that's all about local multiplayer has 17 co-op and versus modes. You can either play those on the same console or use GameShare so that up to three other people in the same physical place as you can join in on their own Switch or Switch 2. The Game Room Plaza, meanwhile, supports local and online play for six minigames — each player will need their own system for those. Up to eight people can play using the local wireless feature, and up to 12 via online multiplayer.

Along with those multiplayer minigame areas, Bellabel Park is home to Toad Brigade Training Camp. Here, you can take on challenges based on levels from the main game. You can tackle these on your own or recruit up to three friends to help (you'll only need one Switch 2 for this). 

There are new things to check out in the main game as well. You can take on boss courses that feature all seven Koopalings and (finally!) play as Rosalina.

Nintendo is adding an option in which a second player can control a Luma. They can help out the main player by defeating enemies and collecting coins. You can play as the Luma by using the Switch 2 mouse control feature. That's a great idea, as it could allow, say, a parent or guardian who is not too familiar with a game controller to assist a kid who needs some extra help to get through Super Mario Bros. Wonder. 

In addition, there's an assist mode. When this is enabled, you can quickly recover from falling into a pit (with a propeller flower bringing you back into the action) and avoid taking any damage. 

That's not all, folks. Also on March 26, you can snag three new amiibo from the game: Elephant Mario (which I'm going to have to buy), Poplin & Prince Florian and Captain Toad & Talking Flower. 

A couple of weeks earlier, on March 12, Nintendo will start selling a physical version of the Talking Flower from Super Mario Bros. Wonder. The battery-powered device will talk to you a couple of times per hour, mentioning things like the room temperature and time. It can play music as well. There's a button you can press to hear it talk (or hold to make it shut up). There's support for 11 languages and it can chatter at set times, making it a bit similar to Nintendo's Alarmo. You'll be able to buy Talking Flower from Nintendo's New York and San Francisco stores, its online store and some other retailers, with pre-orders opening today.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-switch-2-version-of-super-mario-bros-wonder-arrives-on-march-26-150916983.html?src=rss

Papers Please but with zombies, a farming-based shoot-’em-up and other new indie games worth checking out

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Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. Several neat-looking games arrived this week, we got release dates for several others that I'm really looking forward to and a brand-new Steam festival was announced. 

The Love, Romance, and Heartbreak Debutante Ball is said to be the first Valentine's Day-themed Steam festival. It'll run from February 13 to 20 and feature more than 100 games, including discounts and demos. A showcase will take place on February 13 at 1PM ET on the Sunny Demeanor Games YouTube channel too.

Organizers say the festival includes a wide variety of games about love, including RPGs, puzzle games and (naturally) visual novels. You might play as a cat or someone trying to fish an engagement ring out of a claw machine, as a secret agent or a couple that's run off to another planet. I'm intrigued! There will be some NSFW games involved, for what it's worth.

Quarantine Zone: The Last Check seems like a 3D version of Papers Please but with zombies. At a checkpoint amid a zombie outbreak, your mission is to screen survivors for signs of infection. If you're unsure of their status, you can send an individual to quarantine for further observation or a lab for additional screening. Otherwise, you can let them in or send them to "liquidation." Get things wrong and it could spell disaster, but at least you have a sidearm (and a weaponized drone) to help you deal with sticky situations.

It looks like there's a lot going on in Quarantine Zone: The Last Check, which is from Brigada Games and publisher Devolver Digital. There are base and resource management aspects as well. It's out now on Steam (usually $20, but there's a 10 percent discount until January 26) and PC Game Pass.

Air Hares seems to draw inspiration from classic top-down shoot-'em-ups. But instead of simply blowing up countless ships, your mission is to restore farmland. You'll fire seeds and water to turn barren land into fertile carrot fields. There are still enemies to contend with — you (and perhaps a co-op partner) can dodge and ram them as you try to protect the land. Expect boss battles, too.

I really like the aesthetic here. It has a '90s-style cartoon look (I suddenly really want a modern Bucky O'Hare game). Also, the song from the trailer is going to live in my head for weeks.

Husband-and-wife team Tim and Megan Bungeroth created Air Hares over six years with the help of several contributors. According to a press release, the game is "inspired by the creators’ personal journey with infertility and the idea of creating life rather than destroying it." 

Air Hares is out now on Steam. It typically costs $9, but there's a 20 percent discount until January 28.

Luckshot Games' Big Hops looks like my kind of 3D platformer: joyous and playful. As a young frog who has been kidnapped, you'll try to find airship parts for a raccoon who has promised to help get you home.

There are tons of movement mechanics here, and Hop's tongue plays a major role in those. You can use it to swing across gaps, hookshot your way to higher platforms and solve puzzles. 

Big Hops is out now on Steam, Nintendo Switch and PS5 for $20. The Switch and Steam versions have a 10 percent launch discount until January 19.

Cassette Boy is a pixel-art game that might appear to be a 2D exploration puzzler, but there's more going on here. You can rotate the world to discover new secrets and hide enemies and hazards from view so you can move past them. If you can't see something on your screen, it doesn't exist. There's a bit of a Fez influence here, it would appear.

Wonderland Kazakiri and publisher Pocketpair are behind this one, which I'm looking forward to checking out when I have a chance. Cassette Boy is available on Steam, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S for $13.

I really enjoyed the demo for Aerial_Knight’s DropShot (as well as Aerial_Knight’s previous games). I'm for sure going to be playing the full game when it hits PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam and Epic Games Store on February 17.

This is a single-player first-person shooter in which you're skydiving with finger guns. You compete with four enemies to grab the only available parachute as you're falling through the air. Rounds are fast-paced too, generally lasting under a minute.

Point-and-click adventure Earth Must Die has been on my radar for a while and we'll all get a chance to try it soon. It's designed to be a playable cartoon (with a runtime of about eight hours) and it has an art style to match. 

The cast is pretty stellar, with Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hades II), Joel Fry (Our Flag Means Death) and a whole load of British comedy figures on board. There's a demo available on Steam now and the full game — from Size Five Games and publisher No More Robots — will land on January 27.

Let's wrap things up for this week something very silly-looking from Monster Shop Games. Pie in the Sky is a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater-inspired action arcade game in which you play as a magpie that terrorizes bystanders. You can knock people off the Sydney Harbour Bridge, ram kids off of scooters, actually go skateboarding and, uh, cause havoc from above. In classic THPS-style, there are hidden areas too. 

This looks like a fun distraction from [gestures at everything]. Pie is the Sky will swoop onto Steam on February 2.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/papers-please-but-with-zombies-a-farming-based-shoot-em-up-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-123000437.html?src=rss

TikTok tightens age verification across Europe

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TikTok is bolstering its age-verification measures across Europe. In the coming weeks, the platform will roll out upgraded age-detection tech in the European Economic Area, as well as in the UK and Switzerland.

The systems will assess the likely age of a user based on their profile information and activity. When the tech flags an account that may belong to a user aged under 13 (the minimum age to use TikTok), a specialist moderator will assess whether it should be banned. TikTok will send users in Europe a notification to tell them about these measures and offer them a chance to learn more.

Also, if a moderator is looking at content for other reasons and thinks an account might belong to an underage user, they can flag it to a specialist for further review. Anyone can report an account they suspect is used by someone under 13 as well. TikTok says it removes about 6 million underage accounts in total from the platform every month.

Those whose accounts are banned can appeal if they think their access was wrongly terminated. Users can then provide a government-approved ID, a credit card authorization or selfie for age estimation (the latter process has not gone well for Roblox as of late, as kids found workarounds for age checks).

TikTok acknowledged that there's no single ideal solution to the issue as things stand. "Despite best efforts, there remains no globally agreed-upon method for effectively confirming a person's age in a way that also preserves their privacy," it stated in a blog post. "At TikTok, we're committed to keeping children under the age of 13 off our platform, providing teens with age-appropriate experiences and continuing to assess and implement a range of solutions. We believe that a multi-layered approach to age assurance — one in which multiple techniques are used — is essential to protecting teens and upholding safety-by-design principles."

TikTok is rolling out these practices after a pilot in Europe over the last year. That project helped the platform to identify and remove thousands more underage accounts. It worked with the Data Protection Commission (its main privacy regulator in the EU) to help ensure it complied with the bloc’s strict data protection standards.

These measures are coming into force amid intensifying calls to keep kids off social media. A social media ban for under 16s in Australia went into effect last month. Affected platforms have collectively closed or restricted millions of accounts as a result. Reddit has filed a lawsuit over the ban. 

A similar ban might be on the cards in the UK amid public pressure and cross-party support. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said "all options are on the table" and that he was watching "what is happening in Australia."

The House of Lords is set to vote on proposals for an under-16 social media ban next week. If an amendment passes, members of parliament will hold a binding vote on the matter in the coming months.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-tightens-age-verification-across-europe-130000847.html?src=rss

007 First Light dev admits it messed up PC specs announcement

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IO Interactive raised a few eyebrows last week when it announced the minimum and recommended PC specs for 007 First Light. To run the James Bond adventure at in 1080p at 60 fps, IOI initially said you'd need to have a rig with at least 32GB of RAM and a GPU with 12GB of VRAM. The studio has now revised those numbers and other elements of the specs after "the community flagged some inconsistencies in an earlier version of the listing."

The developer blamed an "internal miscommunication" which led to it sharing an older version of the specs. One of the recommended GPUs in the original version was an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which has 8GB of VRAM — not enough to meet the supposed recommended VRAM settings. 

It seems a little odd to think that it took IOI over a week and an enormous pile of negative press and online reaction before addressing the inconsistency (not to mention the demand for 32GB of RAM for relatively modest 1080p, 60 fps performance). The studio says it updated the specs after "a thorough re-examination and additional testing."

In the recommended hardware section of the latest version, IOI revised down the VRAM from 12GB to 8GB and it halved the RAM requirement to 16GB. IOI also "fixed" the minimum CPU info. The original specs stipulated that gamers would need at least an Intel Core i5 9500K or AMD Ryzen 5 3500. The former has now been revised down to an Intel Core i5 9500K.

For the tape, then, the minimum PC specs to run 007 First Light with a performance target of 1080p at 30 fps are:

  • Processor: Intel Core I5 9500, AMD Ryzen 5 3500

  • Memory: 16GB RAM

  • Video RAM: 6GB

  • Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, AMD RX 5700 or Intel Discrete GPU equivalent

And the recommended specs for a performance target of 1080p at 60 fps are:

  • Processor: Intel Core I5 13500, AMD Ryzen 5 7600

  • Memory: 16GM RAM

  • Video RAM: 8GB

  • Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, AMD RX 6700 XT or Intel Discrete GPU equivalent

The required operating system is the same on both counts with a 64-bit version of Windows 10 or 11. The storage space needed is also the same at 80GB. 

IOI apologized for "the confusion” it caused with the mixup. It promised to share more details about 007 First Light ahead of the game's arrival on May 27 — including details of additional performance targets. Given the way RAM and GPU prices are going, here's hoping IOI isn't looking for too much more to run the game at 1440p or 4K at a decent framerate.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/007-first-light-dev-admits-it-messed-up-pc-specs-announcement-143000670.html?src=rss

OpenAI quietly rolls out a dedicated ChatGPT translation tool

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OpenAI has debuted a dedicated ChatGPT-powered translation tool. While folks have been using the main chatbot for translation for some time, you can now find ChatGPT Translate on its own webpage, as Android Authority spotted. 

The tool can translate text, voice inputs and images into more than 50 languages in seconds, OpenAI says. There’s an automatic language detection function too.

Most interestingly, ChatGPT Translate can rewrite the output to take various contexts and tones into account, much in the same way that more general text-generating AI tools can do. With a single tap, it can rewrite the translation into something "more fluent," for a business formal audience, to make it more child-friendly or for academic purposes. The tool’s webpage says ChatGPT Translate understands "tone, idioms and context."

While those tone and context considerations are intriguing, ChatGPT Translate is a little underbaked compared with the likes of Google Translate — which has been around for decades and just got its own Gemini-based makeover with better support for understanding idioms and slang. The desktop version of ChatGPT Translate does not yet allow for voice inputs, though the mobile one does, as Android Authority notes. Despite claims that ChatGPT can translate text in an image, there’s currently no way to upload one to the tool. There’s no website, document or handwriting translation support as yet either. 

Perhaps most crucially, ChatGPT Translate lives on a webpage right now and there’s no dedicated app. So using it offline appears to be out of the question as things stand. No app with on-device translation support could make ChatGPT Translate a no-go for travelers in rural areas with no Internet access. There’s no support for translating real-time conversations as yet either. Google’s Pixel 10, on the other hand, now supports voice translations for calls.

It’s not exactly clear when ChatGPT Translate debuted — it arrived with zero fanfare from OpenAI. There’s a snapshot of the webpage from November on The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine that looks just like the current one, but that may have simply been a case of OpenAI testing a live version of the tool. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-quietly-rolls-out-a-dedicated-chatgpt-translation-tool-133000974.html?src=rss

YouTube adds more parental controls, including a way to block teens from watching Shorts

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YouTube is rolling out some additional parental controls, including a way to set time limits for viewing Shorts on teen accounts. In the near future, parents and guardians will be able to set the Shorts timer to zero on supervised accounts. "This is an industry-first feature that puts parents firmly in control of the amount of short-form content their kids watch," Jennifer Flannery O'Connor, YouTube's vice president of product management, wrote in a blog post. Along with that, take-a-break and bedtime reminders are now enabled by default for users aged 13-17. 

The platform is also bringing in new principles, under which it will recommend more age-appropriate and "enriching" videos to teens. For instance, YouTube will suggest videos from the likes of Khan Academy, CrashCourse and TED-Ed to them more often. It said it developed these principles (and a guide for creators to make teen-friendly videos) with help from its youth advisory committee, the Center for Scholars and Storytellers at UCLA, the American Psychological Association, the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital and other organizations.

Moreover, an updated sign-up process for kid accounts will be available in the coming weeks. Kid accounts are tied to parental ones, and don't have their own associated email address or a password. YouTube says users will be able to switch between accounts in the mobile app with just a few taps. "This makes it easier to ensure that everyone in the family is in the right viewing experience with the content settings and recommendations of age-appropriate content they actually want to watch," O'Connor wrote.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtube/youtube-adds-more-parental-controls-including-a-way-to-block-teens-from-watching-shorts-151329673.html?src=rss

NVIDIA rolls out DLSS 4.5 to all RTX GPUs

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Just a week after announcing the latest version of its image-upscaling tech at CES, NVIDIA is rolling out DLSS 4.5. The company released a beta version of the update last week. Starting today, all NVIDIA app users with a GeForce RTX GPU will be able to upgrade to the full release of DLSS 4.5.

NVIDIA says DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution (to give its full name) delivers sharper visuals and improved temporal stability. The 2nd Generation Super Resolution Transformer reduces ghosting and improves anti-aliasing in more than 400 games and apps, the company claims. "This second-generation model is our most sophisticated yet, utilizing five times the compute power of the original transformer model, having been trained on a significantly expanded, high-fidelity dataset," NVIDIA added.

The company plans to bring an upgraded frame generation feature to DLSS 4.5 sometime this spring for those with GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs. It says the Dynamic 6x Frame Generation feature can generate up to five extra frames for each traditionally generated one, delivering up to 4K 240Hz path traced performance.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nvidia-rolls-out-dlss-45-to-all-rtx-gpus-140000322.html?src=rss