Alan Wake 2: 11 Minutes of New Gameplay First

We're thrilled to announce the return of GamesBeat Next, hosted in San Francisco this October, where we will explore the theme of «Playing the Edge.» Apply to speak here and learn more about sponsorship opportunities here. At the event, we will also announce 25 top game startups as the 2024 Game Changers. Apply or nominate today!

Sony is offering some new PlayStation 5 owners a free first-party game.

Lofree has announced its latest keyboard, the Lofree Flow, a brand-new low-profile mechanical keyboard. The peripheral and hardware innovator created the Lofree Flow as the world’s first low-profile keyboard to contain Kalih full POM switches.

Remedy Entertainment has released a few behind-the-scenes videos in the lead-up to Alan Wake 2’s launch, highlighting different aspects of the game and its development process. In a new behind-the-scenes video, the developer has turned its attention to the music and audio design of the highly anticipated survival horror sequel.

Finnish team Remedy has revealed its upcoming PS5 survival horror game Alan Wake 2 will be its longest yet, clocking in at more than 20 hours. Creative director Sam Lake shared the respective playtime in the latest episode of the Kinda Funny Games Daily show, revealing the studio has wanted to makes its games longer for some time. «So Control was our longest game to date, and Alan Wake 2 is going to be longer than that — 20 hours plus,» he said.

Welcome to the weekend – and to another batch of recommendations of all the best new streaming releases. It's a big week for movies, with some of the summer's biggest hits now available to watch at home: Pixar's most recent release Elemental is now on Disney Plus and Fast X is now streaming on Peacock. In other movie news, El Conde, the latest film from Spencer and Jackie director Pablo Larraín, is now on Netflix, and recently released comedy Theater Camp is streaming on Hulu. 

California, the biggest state in the US when it comes to both population and the sheer volume of tech companies squeezed into its borders, has just passed the country's most extreme right to repair bill in the US (via Ars Technica). It's the third state to pass such a bill, but goes further than either Minnesota or New York in that it forces companies to support their products for longer. But while it will cover gaming PCs and laptops, games console manufacturers get a free pass.

Meta has started rolling out its Meta Quest v57 update for its Quest virtual reality headsets. The update brings a range of new features and upgrades for Quest users such as unsending image messages, horizon feed, and more. But one of the most important feature upgrades to come from the update is an improvement to the avatar creator, as the company adds better customization options for users to fine-tune their appearance. Users will now be able to do a bunch of customization previously not possible such as adding highlights to hair, using a slider to pick a specific base hair color, and even choosing the color of your eyebrows. This was a feature many had asked for in the past and Meta has finally delivered.

By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.

Deliciously pulpy horror storytelling was at the heart of the original Alan Wake. It returns for the sequel, too, but the Stephen King-isms look to be confined to The Dark Place; the New York-styled nightmare cage the titular writer is trapped in. Out in the real world (or at least what seems like the real world) – the domain of our second protagonist, FBI agent Saga Anderson – developer Remedy Entertainment has crafted a new collage from pieces of its favourite detective stories. The eerie shadows of True Detective, Seven, and The Silence of the Lambs creep through Alan Wake 2’s gorgeous digital depiction of the Pacific Northwest.

A new Alan Wake 2 gameplay trailer is here with 11 minutes of footage, and although I'm sure it's crammed with references and callbacks to older Remedy games, what I'm most hyped about is that it confirms Ahti from Control is back and still singing his lovely Finnish music.

The Boy and the Heron, the latest animated film from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, is officially set to release in the US and Canada on December 8, and we've now got the very first trailer for the film.