Gaming in Washington. Reviews, Walkthroughs, News

Do you like to play against the environment, or do you prefer to play against other players? Some games offer those experiences separately, and some bring them together for unique titles. We cover both sides within this list of 30.

Since Elon Musk hollowed out Twitter's staffing, pushed services behind a paywall and renamed it X, many users have been thrashing around for an alternative social media platform.

Earlier this week, British eSports announced a partnership with the Saudi eSports Federation. The UK's national body for competitive video gaming said this collaboration aimed to set «new standards of excellence, education and innovation throughout the world of esports». This would include a variety of endeavours between the two parties, including internships, training programs and research projects.

Google's Sundar Pichai raised concerns years before he became the company's chief executive officer that its deal with Apple Inc. had bad “optics” because there was no choice of which search engine to use in the company's web browser.

It was another interesting day in the artificial intelligence space with areas such as regulation, healthcare, and big tech witnessing some big developments. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, in an interview, highlighted that the US government should hold big tech companies accountable for any harm caused by the technology. In other news, China is gearing up to increase its AI and computing capabilities at an exponential rate. This and more in today's AI roundup. Let us take a closer look.

Assassin's Creed Mirage's special move glitches because the Animus can't keep up with Basim - he's just that good.

There is a bogeyman lurking behind corporate America's push to bring workers back to the office: the remote employee who is secretly working a second full-time job, not by working 80-hour weeks, but by toggling between Job 1 and Job 2.

Did you know that artificial intelligence (AI) is aiding in the discovery and study of asteroids? After aiding various industries across sectors such as education, healthcare, engineering and more, AI could also potentially help protect Earth against asteroids. According to a study published by the University of Washington, an algorithm, named HelioLinc3D, helped researchers discover a potentially hazardous asteroid. Asteroid 2022 SF289, which is almost 600 feet wide, was discovered during the algorithm's test in Hawaii and has not been deemed as dangerous in the foreseeable future.

Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is set to be called by Epic Games Inc. to testify in an antitrust trial over Google Play policies that could threaten billions of dollars in revenue generated by the app marketplace.

Ahead of the release of his new epic Napoleon, director Ridley Scott sits down with Total Film to discuss his past, present, and future projects, including the long-awaited follow-up to his 2000s smash hit Gladiator. The sequel stars Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Barry Keoghan, and Denzel Washington, whose role has been left unclear, until now.

In a interview with Total Film, director Ridley Scott shared the reason why he chose Oscar nominee for the leading role in the upcoming action epic. Scott revealed that he became a fan of Mescal’s talent after watching him in BBC’s limited drama Normal People, which served as the Irish actor’s breakout project.

Happy Friday, Polygon movie watchers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

Ridley Scott says the decision to cast Paul Mescal as the lead of Gladiator 2 was all down to Normal People. 

As reported today by IGN, a former HR manager at Destiny developer Bungie is suing the studio for wrongful termination and retaliation. The manager in question alleges that she was laid off when she brought a case of potential racial discrimination to her own supervisor. The plaintiff, Ingrid Alm, was reportedly asked to investigate the only black employee on his 50-person team. The employee apparently told Alm that he felt unfairly singled out.

Bungie is being sued by a former HR manager who claims she was fired from the Destiny 2 developer after raising a potential case of racial discrimination with her supervisors.

Destiny 2 and Marathon developer Bungie is currently being sued for retaliation and wrongful termination by a former HR manager, who alleges she was let go when she raised a potential case of racial discrimination to her supervisors.

was finally released on all current-gen consoles and PC — and was included as part of the main Xbox, PC, and Ultimate Game Pass tiers — on September 21, 2023. The title was highly anticipated by fans of the heist shooter series who had waited just over a decade since the release of its predecessor,, but unfortunately, it has suffered from one of the worst launches of the year so far. Developer Starbreeze Studios seems intent on turning things around, though, promising over 200 improvements are on the way.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google will begin to make its Chromebook laptops in India through a partnership forged with HP Inc. The move makes Mountain View, California-based Google the latest among global technology companies to expand assembly in the key growth market. Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai announced the partnership Monday on X, formerly known as Twitter. The move will help Google compete more effectively with Windows computers from companies such as Dell Technologies Inc. and Asustek Computer Inc. It's also another win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's $2 billion incentive plan to have tech giants make India their production base.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told a US court on Monday that Google's dominance of the search engine market made it very hard for rivals to emerge, hitting out sharply at the business practices of his company's archrival. Nadella spoke to a courtroom in Washington DC, where lawyers from the US Department of Justice are attempting to persuade a federal judge that Google has illegally paid billions to Apple and others to preserve its monopoly. Microsoft's Bing has been trying since 2009 to build market share against Google, but Nadella said it could never compete against the search engine behemoth, largely due to its arrangements with Apple.

Harvard and BCG expose the dual nature of AI's influence in the workplace; Man imprisoned for generating numerous inappropriate children Images using AI; Strategists predict AI will ensure US economic supremacy over China - this and more in our daily roundup. Let us take a look.

Not long ago it was quietly announced that The Division 3 was in the works at Ubisoft. I don’t think many fans of the series were surprised, seeing as how The Division 2 has been rehashing old seasons as the wind down supporting it as a live service. The Division 3 will certainly be a welcome inclusion, but with two other The Division titles also on the horizon, the third iteration of the series will need to make some hefty changes, especially if it intends to compete with many of the other looter shooters that have risen in popularity.

The Defense Department's top artificial intelligence official said the agency needs to know more about AI tools before it fully commits to using the technology and urged developers to be more transparent.

I would read a book set in The Creator’s world. I’d play a tabletop role-playing game, flip through a comic book built around its setting, or play a video game anchored in its world. Its vision of a war between AI robots and humans is rich with story potential. It’s more philosophical than existential, contemplating spiritual ideas about humanity’s capacity for creation and destruction, and what we are willing to sacrifice to exercise it. And yet I’m not sure I’d watch The Creator again.

A five-year truce between rivals Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp. came crashing down in 2020 when the tech giants found themselves at odds over their competing web-search businesses, according to testimony at the US government's antitrust trial against Google.

Apple was never serious about replacing Google with Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine in Macs and iPhones, but kept the possibility open as a "bargaining chip'' to extract bigger payments from Google, a Microsoft executive testified Wednesday in the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century.

Microsoft Corp. weighed investing multiple billions in Apple Inc. in 2016 in order to secure a deal to make its Bing search engine the default on the Safari browser and better compete with Alphabet Inc.'s dominant Google search, a Microsoft vice president testified Thursday in court.

ChatGPT doesn't know whether Taylor Swift is dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

Payday 3 is the third entry in the always online, one-to-four-player, cooperative heist FPS series from Starbreeze Studios. Returning from retirement, the Payday crew have not only moved to terrorise a new city, from Washington DC to New York, but also moved game engine from Payday 2’s Diesel into the more robust Unreal Engine 4.

In some of the day's biggest artificial intelligence news, it has been reported that UK and US have united against AI-generated child abuse images; AI Algorithm have achieved 90% accuracy in detecting signs of life; a paralysed man has regained movement through AI brain implants; Cloudflare has unveiled AI tools for seamless model deployment and cost management- this and more in our daily roundup. Let us take a look.

Apple Inc.'s services chief, set to testify in Washington Tuesday, plans to defend the lucrative deal that made Google's search engine the default option on the iPhone, saying it was the best choice for consumers.

One of Washington’s longest-running tech-policy time loops just got reset: The FCC will move to write net-neutrality regulations, six years after prior leadership at the agency scrapped the net-neutrality rules that it were enacted two years before. 

The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorney generals filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon on Tuesday, alleging the e-commerce behemoth uses its position in the marketplace to inflate prices on other platforms, overcharge sellers and stifle competition.

CD Projekt have dropped the launch trailer for Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, in great news for fans of driving-combat-cutscene montages and wailing, rain-slicked theme tunes, but less great news, apparently, for mega fans of the male-presenting incarnation of player character V, voiced by Gavin Drea. I haven't touched Cyberpunk since release in 2020, and I'm sort of intrigued to discover that the female-presenting version of the protagonist, voiced by Cherami Leigh, has become the default for marketing purposes.

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!

John Giannandrea, a former top Google executive who decamped to Apple Inc. to head its artificial intelligence business, pointed out a quiet change in the latest iPhone software update that allows users to select a search engine other than Google's when browsing the internet in private mode.

Rogue One director Gareth Edwards has addressed his time working on Star Wars – and the filmmaker says he has no hard feelings about the experience.

Apple today released a fix for a trio of iOS vulernabilities that hackers may already be exploiting.

Peacock is adding all kinds of horror movies to its already impressive lineup of spooky fare. The streaming service is taking Halloween extra seriously this year, with over 500 scary movies (and TV episodes) available to watch throughout October.

Star Wars Outlaws creative director Julian Gerighty will take a new role at Ubisoft once that game is done: executive producer of everything Tom Clancy's The Division. That includes oversight of all the Division-branded games: The Division 2, The Division Heartland, mobile game The Division Resurgence, and, what's this? The Division 3, which Ubisoft casually announced in the press release about Gerighty's new job.

Phantom Liberty is Cyberpunk 2077’s final shot to get it right.

Gareth Edwards' new sci-fi blockbuster The Creator has been impressing early viewers as the first reactions have begun trickling in. 

Tim Cook is not ready to give up on Twitter.

Great stories come in all shapes and forms; while some people would rather watch movies, some others prefer the interactivity that only video games have to offer. For some reason, the practice of turning popular movies into console games has fallen out of fashion in recent years – and that’s terrible news for both film aficionados and gamers alike. It’s a shame, really, because we’ve been getting some of the most game-worthy films in history these days. Things like the entirety of the MCU would make amazing gaming experiences and could help expand the storytelling of movies in ways that no TV show or comic book ever could. That’s why today, we’ve made a list of 10 movies that would make excellent video games.

Google has agreed to pay the state of California $93 million to settle a lawsuit from the state alleging that the company has violated California’s consumer protection laws.

When a small city abruptly parked all its buses to launch a publicly subsidized van service offering $1.50 trips anywhere in town, only one of its bus drivers — a big-city transplant — went along for the ride.

Huawei Technologies Co.'s controversial Mate 60 phones use SK Hynix Inc. memory that has been available for years, TechInsights found after disassembling multiple devices.

Google agreed to pay $155 million to settle claims by California and private plaintiffs that the search engine company misled consumers about how it tracks their locations, and used their data without consent.

Antonio Rangel, a behavioral economist and professor at the California Institute of Technology, knows how to get you to grab a cereal box off a supermarket shelf using product placement and consumer habits. And he said Google understands the same tricks, which is why the tech giant has fought so hard to keep itself as the default search engine on mobile phones.

If you love free PC games, and you think you’ve got a cool head under pressure, then 911 Operator is here to test your mettle. The stressful strategy game places you in the shoes of an emergency service operator, tasking you with responding to calls for firefighters, police, and ambulances and dispatching your crews appropriately and efficiently. 911 Operator aims to capture one of the world’s most high-stakes jobs, and it can be yours for free if you’re quick.

There are some things Googlers must never say in writing about Google, according to an old memo the US government dug up for its monopoly case.

Ten weeks into its existence, Meta Platforms Inc.'s Threads is trying desperately to avoid a fight about what content it allows on its site. After Meta finally added the ability to search for keywords, users looking for posts on several significant topics — such as “Covid” — were surprised to turn up no results. Posts with that word existed, of course, but Meta is making them much harder to find (instead pointing users to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website). To prevent the risk of users finding something potentially dangerous or incorrect on Threads, its competitor to the platform formerly known as Twitter, Meta has decided it is better for them to see nothing at all.

The much-talked-about AI Summit called the AI Insight Forum has concluded in Washington, DC, US. The session was hosted by Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and he invited prominent tech leaders in the US who were actively working with artificial intelligence. The purpose of this summit was to understand the perspective of the market before the government finalizes regulations in the space of AI. While the forum was held behind closed doors and there was no coverage of the event, some leaders spoke to the media or left remarks afterwards. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk were among those who gave statements.

Democratic lawmakers are pressing the top tech firms to open up about the conditions of their “ghost work” — unseen laborers like those labeling data and rating responses who have become pivotal to the artificial intelligence boom.

Do you think Starfield takes place in the same Earth as Fallout? Do you think it should have been officially so? As it turns out, this was a key decision in Starfield’s development.

Earth is an inhospitable wasteland in Starfield. Sounds familiar, aye? Nuclear war ravaged our little floating rock in the Fallout series, leaving much of the planet a smoking radioactive desert. However, the two games aren't connected, but Bethesda did consider setting Starfield in the Fallout universe at one point during development.

The US government on Tuesday accused Google of paying out $10 billion a year to Apple and other firms in order to safeguard its monopoly over online search.

For reasons I won't get into here because it may constitute a little bit of a spoiler, the planet Earth in Starfield is a bit of a wasteland. But what if it was The Wasteland—that is, the post-nuclear hellscape of Bethesda's other big sci-fi-ish game series, Fallout? In an interview with The Washington Post, creative director Todd Howard said developers actually gave thought to the idea.

It looks like a spyware attack that’s been targeting Apple iPhones can also compromise Google’s Chrome browser. 

You may have heard about a little space game called Starfield, the gravitational pull from which risks swallowing all games discourse for months and possibly years to come. Perhaps that's no surprise for a game that's been in development and hyped for as long as any title that I can remember (well, ones that have shipped anyway) but it's easy to forget now the thing's in our hands that it was subject to multiple delays along the way.

For the first time, the new iPhone model you buy on the launch day could be made in India. Apple Inc. plans to make the India-built iPhone 15 available in the South Asian country and some other regions on the global sales debut day, people familiar with the matter said. While the vast majority of iPhone 15s will come from China, that would be the first time a latest generation, India-assembled device is available on the first day of sale, they said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private.

The U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of state attorneys general on Tuesday will begin a blockbuster antitrust trial in Washington, alleging that Alphabet's Google unlawfully abused its dominance in the search-engine market to maintain monopoly power.

Apple has released an emergency patch to protect older iPhones and Macs from last week’s newly discovered spyware attack, which has been traced to NSO Group, a notorious surveillance dealer. 

Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield is available now for Xbox Series X/S and PC, amassing over six million players and topping physical sales charts in the United Kingdom. It was also in development for eight years, and despite that, as usually happens in the industry, some plans didn’t make it in.

Starfield director Todd Howard has spoken about plans for the game that didn’t make the final cut, including the idea for a very neat Fallout reference. 

Three new Spider-Man 2 screenshots have been published, showing off several locations players will get to visit in the upcoming sequel.

Google faces its biggest ever legal challenge in a Washington court on Tuesday, as it fends off accusations from the US government that it acted unlawfully to build its overwhelming dominance of online search.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has impressed on several fronts in all that’s been shown of it so far, which, of course, includes how it’s shaping up on a visual and technical level. With the game now a little more than a month away from launch, developer Insomniac has also shared new screenshots to further drive home just how good it’s looking.

Senators in the US propose government licensing for AI, including language models like GPT-4; Uttar Pradesh schools to introduce coding and AI courses for over 50 lakh students; AI cameras slash traffic violations in Kerala; AI transforming work- this and more in our daily roundup. Let us take a look.

Some technology experts believe innovative commercial software developers now entering the arms market are challenging the dominance of the traditional defense industry, which produces big-ticket weapons, sometimes at glacial speed.

North Korean hackers targeted Russian diplomats and successfully breached a Russian aerospace research institute earlier this year, Microsoft Corp said in a blog post published Thursday.

An iPhone belonging to a staffer at a Washington-based civil society organization was hacked remotely with spyware created by Israel's NSO Group.

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!

UPDATE: Citizen Lab says the vulnerabilities were used in attacks from the notorious Israeli spyware provider NSO Group.

WNBA team the New York Liberty is collaborating with Xbox to play on a Starfield-themed court.

Payday 3 comes with a laundry list of decisions that players will have to answer quickly when walking into the next job. Mask off or on? Creep around corners and avoid armed confrontation or bust in guns blazing? Engage in a hostage negotiation to buy some time or power through as quickly as possible? After 10 years and more than 200 updates since the Payday gang infiltrated Washington, DC, and after acquiring a few new associates along the way, the crew is picking up where they left off and heading to the greater New York City metropolitan area for Payday 3 — even crossing the Hudson River for a sting in New Jersey. They may have learned a few more tricks of the trade, but it’s up to the player to utilize them effectively. And, more often than not, going in with the goal of pulling off a job under the radar ends in reluctantly busting out guns. One false move is all it takes to blow it.

After multiple delays, Payday 3 finally arrives this month, but if you just can’t wait to get your hands on the game, a free open beta is being held this weekend. The Payday 3 Technical Open Beta won’t require you to have pre-ordered the game – anybody on Steam or Xbox Series X/S can jump in (PS5 is excluded for whatever reason). Starbreeze does warn the beta build is from a few months back, so it doesn’t necessarily represent the final state of the game – the beta is more about testing the capacity of the Payday 3 servers.

Elon Musk bought Twitter, now known as as X, ostensibly to protect free speech. But that isn’t stopping him from threatening to sue the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group devoted to fighting antisemitism and a vocal critic of Twitter’s efforts to stop hate speech. 

Denzel Washington is back as Robert McCall in. Director Antoine Fuqua caps his trilogy of action thrillers centered around a vigilante with a mysterious past. The new movie sees McCall finding a home in Southern Italy, but trouble soon finds him as he finds himself face-to-face with the Mafia. The first Equalizer movie was a surprise hit, and the second one wasn’t as good, but it had its moments. Unfortunately, the third Equalizer movie is the weakest in the series. The Equalizer 3 is yet another example of diminishing returns.

A new smartphone from Huawei Technologies Co. has reignited debate over chip technology and China's ability to skirt US-led curbs. In reality, last week's release of the Mate 60 Pro shows that the success of sanctions is painted in shades of grey, with the true impact yet to come.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox