MultiVersus, the platform fighter that pulls from Warner Bros. properties, could be getting a whole bunch of new stages and characters, according to a report by Kotaku. This includes content from the film Barbie and the Mad Max universe, in addition to more Adventure Land stuff and a potential tie-in with the forthcoming Beetlejuice sequel. WB owns a whole bunch of stuff, so this could get interesting.
The reporting is sourced from a fairly reputable dataminer on X, who published receipts in the form of screengrabs and the like. These images include an early version of a potential Barbie Land stage, complete with palm trees and, of course, a bright pink color palette.
There’s also a picture that allegedly depicts a stage based on Quidditch, the broom-based sport from Harry Potter that makes absolutely zero sense. Other leaked stages include the wastelands from Mad Max, a background inspired by Powerpuff Girls and one pulled from the cartoon Samurai Jack.
Speaking of those last two, both the Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack will be showing up as playable characters. Samurai Jack makes for an interesting addition, being as how fighting is basically his whole thing. The dataminer has also indicated that Beetlejuice will soon be a playable character, likely coinciding with the September 6 release date of the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. This has been confirmed by the developer, as has Samurai Jack. Adventure Time’s resident vampire bassist Marceline could also be joining the roster.
It’s worth noting that this information isn’t set in stone. Many of the stages suggested by the X user look to be extremely early in development and the same goes for some of the playable characters. It’s entirely possible, and likely, that WB and Ready Player Games are always tinkering with new stages and characters and not all of them make it to the final game. To that end, it was reported back in 2022 that Ted Lasso would be a playable character and, well, that hasn’t happened.
Warner Bros. did just buy the game’s developer, so it’s definitely serious about keeping the ball rolling on this whole branded platform fighter thing. WB has a ridiculously deep bench of IPs, including DC Comics, Harry Potter, HBO shows, Dune, Mad Max, Barbie, Looney Tunes and so many more. MultiVersus will never knock Super Smash Bros. from the throne, but it’s definitely proven itself to have a longer shelf life than, say, Sony’s PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/multiversus-leak-suggests-barbie-and-mad-max-tie-ins-are-on-the-way-162251960.html?src=rss
Netflix has hired Alain Tascan as its new president of games. Before joining Netflix, Tascan was executive vice president for Epic Games and oversaw first-party development for some of the company’s (and gaming’s) most successful titles, like Fortnite, Rocket League and Fall Guys.
Since launching its games project in 2021, Netflix has acquired notable indie studios Night School, Boss Fight, Next Games and Spry Fox and has brought many great indie games to mobile — seriously, search the app store, if only forInto The Breach. Netflix recently said it has 80-plus games currently in development. A multiplayer Squid Game project will be part of that, coinciding with the hit show’s next season, later this year.
Meta’s newest large language model (LLM), called Llama 3.1 405B, is the first openly available model to compete with rivals in general knowledge, math and translating. It was apparently trained on more than 16,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, currently the fastest available chips, which cost roughly $25,000 each, and can beat rivals on over 150 benchmarks, Meta claimed.
Unlike OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Anthropic, which hold their AI models proprietary close, Meta’s AI models are open source, meaning anyone can modify and use them for free, without sharing personal data with Meta.
Humble Games laid off all 36 of its staff. Former employees posted about the layoffs on social media. But a PR rep for Humble Games confirmed to Engadget the company would not be shutting its doors after the restructuring. He added the studio would continue to support and publish both ongoing and upcoming projects. Humble Games is owned by media conglomerate Ziff Davis, which counts IGN, Eurogamer and GamesIndustry.biz in its gaming portfolio.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-netflixs-new-gaming-boss-is-a-former-epic-games-exec-111512978.html?src=rss
Netflix has landed a notable new leader for its rapidly-expanding gaming endeavors. Variety reported that the streaming company has hired Alain Tascan as its new president of games. Before joining Netflix, Tascan was executive vice president for game development at a little studio you may have heard of called Epic Games. In that role, he oversaw the first-party development for some of the company's hugely successful titles, such as Fortnite, Lego Fortnite, Rocket League and Fall Guys.
The company is also recruiting talent on the creative side. Since launching the games project in 2021, Netflix has acquired notable indie studios Night School, Boss Fight, Next Games and Spry Fox, and has brought a large number of acclaimed indie games to mobile. In its second quarter earnings call, Netflix execs revealed that it has more than 80 games currently in development, which would nearly double its current library of about 100 titles.
Many of these new projects are interactive fiction based on Netflix shows and movies, with the goal of giving fans new ways to engage with their favorite titles. "I think our opportunity here to serve super fandom with games is really fun and remarkable," Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said during the call. We also learned that a multiplayer Squid Game project will be coming to Netflix Games later this year.
Although Netflix is making a sizable investment into this games division, people haven't been flocking to their titles yet. In 2022, the library had about 1.7 million daily users and its games had been downloaded 23.3 million times.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-hires-former-epic-games-exec-as-new-president-of-games-212614285.html?src=rss
Video games are supposed to provide us an escape from the grinding and anger produced on an average day. Now one of the real world’s most contentious aggravations has slithered its way into Fortnite AND Rocket League. The Cybertruck, Tesla’s electric vehicle that replaced the pink Hummer as the official car for total jerks, makes its digital debut in both games today.
The Cybertruck add-ons are part of a new “Summer Road Trip'' promotion bundle for Fortnite and Rocket League. Both bundles come with a vehicle that looks like a door stop and special body decals such as “Baja Off-Road,” “CyberCamo,” “MatteBlack,” “Stainless Steel” and “OMG Cybertruck,” which recreates the window that Elon Musk broke while trying to prove the strength of the Cybertruck’s windows. Did they also include the sticky accelerator?
Psyonix/Tesla
Presumably, the OMG stands for “Oh my God! (Can’t I go one day without seeing that ego on wheels we call the) Cybertruck?" The Baja Off-Road skin paired with the douchey Cybertruck in particular just screams, “I wear a lot of Ed Hardy!”
We have… some questions. Will the rain in Fortnite cause widespread rusting of the chassis? Will the Rocket League ball dent the “shatterproof” window like a metal ball famously did way back in 2019? Will players be able to finish a whole game if there’s another recall alert? If you really must, you can find out in both games now.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-cybertruck-is-coming-to-fortnite-and-rocket-league-because-were-being-punished-210309356.html?src=rss
Humble Games has reportedly laid off all 36 of its staff. Former employees posted about the layoffs on social media. Humble Games is owned by media conglomerate Ziff Davis, which counts IGN, Eurogamer and GamesIndustry.biz among its gaming portfolio. Humble Games confirmed in a LinkedIn post that there had been a "restructure" at the company, but did not reveal the number of jobs lost.
A PR rep for Humble Games also confirmed to Engadget that the company would not be shutting its doors as a result of today's restructuring. He added that both ongoing and upcoming projects would continue to be supported and published by the studio.
The layoffs at Humble Bundle are the latest in a sweep across the gaming business. Last year saw a shocking number of cuts across studios of all sizes, and the trend has sadly continued into 2024.
"The games industry is volatile, it's been inundated by people who only want exponential growth at the expense of making great games with great teams," Emilee Kieffer, a former lead quality assurance analyst with Humble Games, wrote on LinkedIn following the layoffs.
Well friends, me and the entirety of Humble Games was laid off this morning
If you need senior/lead QA at your game studio HI HELLO I DON'T HAVE A JOB ANYMOOOORE! pic.twitter.com/giAPAiTDsx
The indie publisher helped bring almost 50 video games to market, including notable hits such as Slay the Spire, Unpacking, Wandersong and Coral Island. Humble Games also had several upcoming games slated for release, such as Never Alone 2, a second delve into mythology and stories from the indigenous Iñupiat people in Alaska.
"This decision was not made lightly; it involved much deliberation and careful thought, with the goal of ensuring the stability and support of our developers and ongoing projects," Humble's statement said.
This business is a separate operation from the charity storefront Humble Bundle, which is also part of Ziff Davis but does not appear to be impacted by today's news. We've reached out to Ziff Davis and Humble Games for more information and will update if we hear back.
Update, July 23, 2024, 5:35 ET: Article has been updated to include a response from Humble Games' PR team.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/humble-games-reportedly-lays-off-its-entire-staff-201923446.html?src=rss
Adobe has widely released a new and potentially contentious feature: text-to-image generation for Photoshop powered by Firefly, first teased in April. As with LLMs like Dall-E and Midjourney, you can use it to create an image from scratch by typing a description into Photoshop's updated generative AI tool.
I tried it with the text "Dramatic low angle view of a steamship from the 1800s in a storm with large waves and lightning" in multiple styles (anime, watercolor, sketch, realistic) and got decent results. The usual AI art caveats apply though, particularly with weird details if you look closely. But it certainly created useable results and you have the benefit of already being inside Photoshop to fix any errors.
Adobe Firefly AI-generated image
Previously, Photoshop's Generative Fill feature only let you add, extend or remove specific parts of an image. Now, you can create images from scratch, then tweak them later. "This really speeds up time to creation," Adobe's Erin Boyce told Engadget in April. "The idea of getting something from your mind to the canvas has never been easier."
The feature is powered by Firefly Image 3 model, something at the heart of a recent artist backlash against Adobe. Creators were incensed by language in Adobe's recent ToS (terms of service), interpreting it to mean that Adobe could freely use their work to train the company's generative AI models.
In its latest post, however, Adobe stated that it has a "commitment to creator friendly AI" which means "never training on customer content." It promised to take a creator-friendly approach as part of its AI ethics principles of accountability, responsibility and transparency.
Adobe
Along with image generation, Adobe introduced an "Enhance Detail" feature in Photoshop's Generative Fill. For Illustrator, it introduced Generative Shape Fill to add detailed vectors in a designer's unique style (above), Enhanced Text to Pattern (creating customized vector patterns in the artists style) and Style Reference. It also added a Mockup tool to create "high-quality visual prototypes of art on objects like product packaging," enhanced selection capabilities and more.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/adobes-photoshop-can-now-generate-ai-images-via-prompts-like-dall-e-or-mid-journey-130018181.html?src=rss
Somehow in all these years, I’ve never gotten into visual novels, despite being a person who loves both reading and video games. The idea has always intrigued me in some way, but I’ve never really felt compelled to actually pick one up. That changed when I first saw the announcement for Echoes of the Emergent a few months ago. Described as “a personal journey through a shattered post-apocalyptic world,” all it took was a glimpse of Echoes of the Emergent’s gritty aesthetic and melancholic atmosphere to get me to preorder it. And now that I’ve finally gotten around to playing (reading? experiencing?) it, I’m kind of blown away.
Echoes of the Emergent is a Playdate-exclusive title from RNG Party Games, the same team that made Bloom. It opens with its main character, Ayumi, on a tense scavenging trip to find any food she can in a ruined city. She’s alone, afraid and increasingly concerned about her dwindling resources. As the story progresses, it bounces between Ayumi’s bleak new reality and flashbacks to a time when things were normal. Her panicked efforts to stay alive, to keep going, are interwoven with memories of her family and friends — some of them happy, some painful. And there’s a cat.
RNG Party Games
The narrative is illustrated with haunting backgrounds of Ayumi’s dilapidated surroundings, and these move ever so slightly to create a really unsettling effect. If you press the down arrow on the D-pad, you can collapse the text box to get a full view of the backgrounds. It takes a few hours to get through the entire story, but it’s definitely worth carving out some time for. You can save your place by pressing ‘B’ to pull up the menu.
Echoes of the Emergent is the kind of experience that will stick with you for a little while even after it’s over. It’s available on the Playdate Catalog for $8, but you can also get it — and its captivating soundtrack — on itch.io.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/echoes-of-the-emergent-a-hauntingly-beautiful-playdate-exclusive-sold-me-on-visual-novels-222033336.html?src=rss
Sukeban Games is working on what it describes as a "cyberpunk active time action" game with a battle system that's similar to Parasite Eve. In a blog post, Chris of Sukeban has officially announced.45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND, featuring a mercenary named Reila Mikazuchi as its protagonist. Enemies can attack you from anywhere while you're exploring environments in the game, and you'll have to dodge and wait for an action bar to fill before you can launch a counterattack. The action bar fills at a speed based on your character and weapon stats, so the stronger you get, the faster you can fight back.
While the announcement doesn't have a in-depth explanation of the game's plot, Chris describes its story as follows: "You play as Reila Mikazuchi; a washed out mercenary whose glory days are long gone. In a last attempt at grabbing life by the horns she decides to go back to the life, only to realize the real enemy isn’t in front of her gun."
The indie developer is planning to make seven chapters for the game, and five are already done and playable. It has yet to announce a release date, though, so as not to repeat its "N1RV ANN-A situation." Sukeban is the developer behind the cyberpunk bartending "booze-em-up" game VA-11 HALL-A, which is set in a post-dystopian world with a corporate-controlled society.
VA-11 HALL-A was wildly successful for an indie title, and Sukeban announced a sequel called N1RV ANN-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action back in 2018 after it hit 200,000 copies sold. The developer hasn't released N1RV ANN-A yet despite announcing a 2020 launch date, and it doesn't look like we're seeing it anytime soon. Chris said .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND is "significantly ahead in development" and that the developer is dedicating its "full attention to it for the foreseeable future."
Sukeban has also released the first trailer for .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND, and you can watch it below.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/45-parabellum-bloodhound-is-a-cyberpunk-rpg-by-the-developer-of-va-11-hall-a-180043556.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