The spooky, yet cozy, game Grave Seasons is coming out on August 14, which was announced at today's Xbox Partner Preview event. This is basically Stardew Valley, but set in a Lovecraftian nightmare of a town. Players farm, mine and romance villagers, but also solve murders and deal with the occasional bloodthirsty demon or two. It looks fun!
This is being published by Blumhouse Games, which is a division of the film studio that pumps out modern horror hits like Happy Death Day, M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy's. Perfect Garbage is the development studio behind the game, which previously made the narrative-driven cyberpunk title Love Shore.
Grave Seasons is coming to just about every platform out there, including Xbox Series X/S, Steam, PS5 and the Switch. It's truly a golden age for cozy gamers.
This isn't the only cozy game with a darker undercurrent. Titles like Graveyard Keeper, Cozy Grove and Spiritfarer have all experimented with this idea. Even Nintendo's recent smash Pokémon Pokopia is set in some kind of post-apocalyptic world.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blumhouses-horror-centric-cozy-game-grave-seasons-will-be-released-on-august-14-184042880.html?src=rss
Dispatch was one of 2025’s standout titles and one of the best narrative games in years, which made its no-show on Xbox all the more puzzling. Luckily, that’s being rectified this summer.
Announced during today’s Xbox Partner Preview broadcast, Dispatch is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC and Xbox Cloud later this year. It will also be an Xbox Play Anywhere title at launch, so you can play it on your console and continue on your PC or Windows handheld, or vice versa.
ICYMI last year, the game is pitched as a superhero workplace comedy by developer AdHoc Studio, which was founded by a group of ex-Telltale developers. You play as the excellently named Robert Robertson, a recently out-of-work superhero who’s talked into reluctantly taking a 9-5 desk job that involves him dispatching other heroes.
Dispatch is an episodic game, which rolled out gradually on PS5 and PC last year but will presumably be available in its entirety straight away when the Xbox version arrives. Gameplay is divided between interactive narrative segments that will feel familiar to anyone who played Telltale’s previous titles, and the management sim-like dispatch missions.
Both are very well done, but I was shocked by the quality of Dispatch’s writing and animation when I played it on PS5. It’s essentially a prestige animated superhero show that you participate in, and I genuinely agonized over loads of decisions. It helps that the star-studded voice cast, which features Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, Laura Bailey and Jeffrey Wright, is bringing its A-game across the board. The game was a big hit with the wider Engadget team too, making it into our best games of 2025 list.
Dispatch has also since made its way to Switch, but that port was highly controversial after it emerged that some of the game’s content had been censored. I would assume that all nudity and explicit content will be present and correct in the Xbox version, which will cost $30 or $40 if you want the Deluxe Edition, which includes four digital comics and a digital artbook. A firm release date was not announced in the stream.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/dispatch-is-coming-to-xbox-this-summer-183735998.html?src=rss
With the release of iOS 26.4, Apple Music's Playlist Playground can now generate playlists with the help of AI. Best of all, you don't need an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone to take advantage of the new feature. As long as you're a US Apple Music subscriber with your language set to English, you can start using Playlist Playground right now. Here's how to get started.
How to create playlists using Playlist Playground
A pair of screenshots showing off Apple Music's new Playlist Playground feature.
Igor Bonifacic for Engadget
For the time being, there are two ways to access Playlist Playground. For the time being, the company is highlighting the feature within the "Top Picks for You" section of Apple Music's Home tab. If you don't see a shortcut there, Apple integrated the feature into the app's existing playlist creation tool. Just tap the new icon found in the Library tab. If you're new to Apple Music, the flow looks like this:
Open Apple Music.
Navigate to the "Library" tab.
Tap the playlist creation button.
Write a prompt describing the mood or style of music you want to hear.
To help people get started, Apple provides a selection of sample prompts. One pro tip: it's possible to use metadata in conjunction with Playlist Playground. For example, after Apple Music generates a playlist, you can tell Apple's model to edit it by removing any songs released before 2016. Of course, you're also free to add and remove songs manually as you please.
Once you're happy with your new playlist, Apple Music treats all Playlist Playground mixes like it does any other playlist, meaning you can save it to your Library, download for offline playback, play it from your Apple Watch and share it with friends and invite them to add songs.
FAQ
What Apple devices is Playlist Playground available on?
As of the writing of this article, Playlist Playground is a beta release only available to Apple Music subscribers in the US with their preferred language set to English. An iPhone or iPad running iOS 26.4, or an Apple Vision headset running visionOS 26.4 is also required.
As Apple releases the feature in more countries and languages, we'll update this article.
Is Playlist Playground available on Android?
Yes, if you use Apple Music on Android, Playlist Playground is available there too.
How does Playlist Playground work?
When generating mixes, Playlist Playground pulls from both trending data and your personal listening history. Along with other AI-powered Apple Music features like AutoMix and Lyrics Translation, Playlist Playground runs as part of the Apple Music service. That’s one of the reasons Apple can offer it outside of Apple Intelligence-capable devices.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/how-to-use-apples-playlist-playground-to-make-ai-generated-mixes-134500610.html?src=rss
HBO released a teaser trailer and premiere date for its take on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The show will premiere on the HBO Max streaming network this December 25. It's a rare case where a big-ticket project is coming out earlier than anticipated instead of later; the series wasn't expected to arrive until 2027.
HBO has already proved its bona fides with lush adaptations of fantastical stories several times over, and this trailer looks like more of the same. The team behind the camera includes notable names who have worked on series such as Succession, Game of Thrones, The Last of Us and Killing Eve. Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, who alienated many fans after outing herself as transphobic, is also one of the show's executive producers.
Engadget's Jess Conditt has already written eloquently on the struggle of when and how to engage with the Harry Potter franchise while rejecting Rowling's worldview, although the author’s involvement at the top level may make this adaptation a harder sell to the disillusioned community than, say, the Hogwarts Legacy video game where Rowling was barely involved and the studios took a more proactive approach toward presenting many types of diversity, including gender expression. If you’re hyped for this particular show, seems you'll have a shorter time to wait for it.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/hbo-maxs-harry-potter-series-premieres-this-christmas-202818238.html?src=rss
YouTube creators can start making money earlier in their careers. On Wednesday, the company said it's reducing the Shopping affiliate program subscriber threshold from 1,000 to 500.
The affiliate program launched in 2022, allowing creators to earn kickbacks when viewers buy products tagged in their videos. It applies to YouTube Shorts, VOD and Live content. Creators will still need to meet the YouTube Partner Program's other requirements to reap the benefits.
Perhaps not a coincidence, the move comes only a day after Meta added shopping links to Reels. Creators on Facebook and Instagram can now link to up to 30 distinct products from marketplace partners in a single video.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/youtube-is-bringing-affiliate-shopping-features-to-more-creators-183927027.html?src=rss
The tool also brings a lot more customization into the mix. Users can now prompt the model to create specific elements within a song, like intros, verses, choruses and bridges. Google says "Lyria 3 Pro better understands musical composition" when compared to the previous model and that it's "great for experimenting with different styles or generating songs with complex transitions."
It's already available for paid Gemini users and for enterprise customers on Vertex AI. Additionally, developers have access to the tool via the Gemini API and Google AI Studio. The company is also integrating it into Google Vids, an AI-based video-generation platform.
Google says that "responsibility was foundational" when designing and training this model, so it only uses materials that the company has actual rights to. Additionally, all Lyria 3 Pro outputs are embedded with SynthID, which is a watermark for identifying AI-generated content.
That's all well and good, but do we need yet another AI music-making tool? Current estimates suggest that around 50,000 AI-generated tracks get uploaded daily to Spotify alone. The platform had to delete, and this is not a typo, 75 million of these tracks last year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-lyria-3-pro-can-now-generate-ai-music-slop-up-to-3-minutes-in-length-172738752.html?src=rss
Low-quality, mass-produced AI songs have been flooding music streaming platforms like Spotify for a couple of years now. This is annoying, but relatively easy for fans to avoid. However, it leads to real problems for artists. There's so much slop coming in that some gets falsely attributed to actual musicians on these platforms.
This messes with brand identity and audience retention, but Spotify is testing a new tool to help real artists exercise more control over their profiles. The platform's Artist Profile Protection feature lets musicians review releases before they go live and become associated with their profiles.
Spotify
This should prevent AI slop from creeping in, as the actual artist will have final say when 100 new songs show up out of the blue that sort of sound like them but with all of that pesky soul removed. It's in beta right now and if an artist denies a track, it won't be associated with their profile, won't contribute to stats and won't show up in user recommendations. This looks to be a simple and potentially effective solution to an ongoing problem.
"Music has been landing on the wrong artist pages across streaming services, and the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made the problem worse," Spotify wrote in a blog post. "We know how frustrating this can be for both artists and fans alike."
This comes just a week after Sony requested the removal of more than 135,000 AI-generated songs from Spotify after it was discovered the tracks were impersonating real artists. This even happens to bands that have opted out of Spotify entirely. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard left the platform last year, to protest CEO Daniel Ek's investment in a weapons manufacturing company, but a deepfake artist quickly filled the vacuum.
Some of this isn't malicious. It's a numbers game for the "creators" of these tracks. Statistics vary, but it's been estimated that around 50,000 AI-generated songs get uploaded to Spotify each and every day. The platform deleted 75 million of these tracks last year. With this many uploads, it's easy for tracks to accidentally end up on the wrong artist's profile. Bad actors looking to attach their slop to a known quantity compounds the issue.
In any event, it's good that Spotify is doing something about this. We don't know when the tool will exit the beta phase and become available for all artists on the platform. That day can't come soon enough.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/spotify-is-testing-a-tool-to-help-real-artists-deal-with-ai-slop-on-their-profiles-161013653.html?src=rss
It’s been quite a while since we visited Middle-Earth on the big screen (anime prequels aside), but it looks like Lord of the Rings fans have plenty to look forward to in the coming years. We already knew that Andy Serkis’ The Hunt for Gollumwas in the works — and by all accounts is progressing nicely — but another Rings-related film is in development too, and it’s being co-written by none other than Stephen Colbert.
The announcement came from Peter Jackson himself, in a video posted by Warner Bros. to coincide with Tolkien Reading Day. The director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy provided a quick update on Serkis’ film (the British actor is both directing and reprising his role as Gollum), before introducing "very special partner" and diehard Tolkien fan Colbert on a video call.
With The Late Show nearing its end, its host was seemingly going to be out of work in the summer. Colbert is working with his son Peter as well as screenwriter Philippa Boyens (who co-wrote the original film trilogy). They'll adapt some early chapters of Fellowship of the Ring that never made it into Jackson’s 2001 film. The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past is actually set 14 years after the events of Return of the King, and will see Sam, Merry and Pippin retrace the first steps of their famous adventure.
So while the new film is inspired specifically by Fellowship chapters III (‘Three is Company’) through VIII (‘Fog On The Barrow-Downs’), it sounds like we’re actually getting a sequel of sorts, in which we’ll also see Sam’s daughter Elanor make a huge discovery that puts her on her own quest.
Colbert and his son had been scribbling away at their idea for several years before plucking up the courage to show what they had come up with to Jackson, but the legendary 64-year-old filmmaker was clearly a fan. And given the timing of the announcement, Colbert will soon be able to commit all of his energy to the project, which has not yet named any cast members. Will Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan be dusting off their hobbit attire? Only time will tell, but the time jump would presumably make it possible.
The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past doesn’t have a release date, but its announcement coincides with the 25th anniversary of Fellowship of the Ring, which has already been marked by the whole trilogy returning to theaters earlier this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/stephen-colbert-is-writing-a-new-lord-of-the-rings-movie-143004743.html?src=rss
Sony is shutting down Dark Outlaw Games, a first-party game studio led by former Call of Duty producer Jason Blundell, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports. Before leading Dark Outlaw Games, Blundell was the head of Deviation Games, which was an independent studio, but also happened to be developing a PlayStation game before it shut down, Schreier says.
Dark Outlaw Games had yet to announce what it was working on, but considering Blundell's experience with the Call of Duty franchise, it seems likely the studio was developing a multiplayer project for PlayStation. Blundell was a programmer and producer at Activision before making the jump to Treyarch to work on Call of Duty 3, and he contributed to multiple Call of Duty: Black Ops games after that, including serving as the director for the campaign and Zombies mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops III and the career and Zombies modes of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
Engadget has contacted Sony for more information about the fate of Dark Outlaw Games. We'll update this article if we hear back.
The studio's shutdown is being paired with cuts to staff at PlayStation focused on mobile development, according to Schreier. Sony has made a habit of laying off staff and shutting down studios in the last year, seemingly as a way to retreat from an earlier investment in online, live-service multiplayer games. The company shut down Bluepoint Games in February following attempts to get a live-service God of War game off the ground. Sony also closed Firewalk Studios after the spectacular failure of multiplayer shooter Concord in October 2024. And a year before that, Naughty Dog officially abandoned work on a standalone multiplayer version of The Last of Us in December 2023.
That leaves Sony with at least two Horizon Zero Dawn spin-offs, a co-op game from original developer Guerilla Games and a MMO from developer NCSoft; Fairgame$, which is still in active development despite the departure of Haven Studios head Jade Raymond; Arrowhead Game Studios' Helldivers 2; Bungie's Destiny 2 and Marathon; and if you really want to stretch, Gran Turismo 7. Sony clearly hasn't given up on producing online multiplayer games, but it's not hard to characterize its attempt to expand into the space as a disaster.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/sony-is-reportedly-shutting-down-dark-outlaw-games-run-by-former-call-of-duty-director-215634410.html?src=rss
Google has announced a trio of new AI-powered features for its Google TV platform, after showing off smarter Gemini integration at CES back in January.
Google TV can now provide "richer visual help" when you ask it a question. Request the current sports scores, for example, and Gemini will bring up not only a live updating scorecard, but also where you can watch the game. If you’re looking for a recipe, it’ll pair its results with a video tutorial where possible.
If you’d rather learn something new than binge away at your latest Netflix fix, Google TV can also now do visual "deep dives" on topics that interest you. If there’s an economic trend, scientific phenomenon or technological innovation that’s on your mind, Gemini will create a "custom, interactive walkthrough" on the subject in question, allowing you to ask follow-up questions afterwards.
The idea is that the feature lets you turn "passive viewing into meaningful screen time." It would appear that even your TV is now telling you off for watching too much TV.
When you ask about a topic, you can either click "Dive deeper" to learn more, or navigate to the Gemini tab at the top of your home screen and select the "Learn" option.
The last new addition is Gemini-powered sports briefs, which function in the same way as the news briefs Google introduced last year, but strictly for sports. Designed as an alternative to checking your phone, you can ask your AI-assisted TV for "timely, narrated overviews" of the latest goings-on in any league you might follow. Already, the feature supports the NBA, NCAA basketball, NHL, MLS and NWSL, and it will live in the Gemini tab.
Deep dives and sports briefs are initially limited to those with Gemini-enabled devices in the US, with Google promising wider device support later in the spring. Richer visual help is rolling out today in the US and Canada, and Google has also announced that its various Gemini Google TV features are coming to more countries in 2026, starting with Australia, New Zealand and the UK in the coming months.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/three-new-gemini-features-come-to-google-tv-175724155.html?src=rss
