New Yakuza spinoff features Japan’s infamous porn pool

By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.

Yakuza / Like a Dragon creator Toshihiro Nagoshi says there’s a “high possibility” his next game will use western actors.

Yakuza fans will probably already know that series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi left Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios back in 2021, leaving behind the franchise to set up Nagoshi Studio and work on a brand new title backed by NetEase. There's very little we know about Nagoshi's upcoming title, but some were worried that it may not be a fully fledged console release due tsince the majority of NetEase's portfolio is made up of mobile titles and MMOs.

CD Projekt Red has confirmed which of the new features coming to Cyberpunk 2077 will be free for all players and which ones are tied to the game’s upcoming expansion.

While September is packed with big games, October looks no less epic, especially with titles like Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake 2 on the horizon. The developer recently showcased Wake in The Dark Place, a nightmare reality based on a person’s subconscious. In his case, it’s a replica of New York City.

Over the past few months, generative AI has been utilized by more and more industrial and services segments and most recently social media platforms are also integrating artificial intelligence into their app to make user experience more fun and engaging. Keeping AI advancement and competition in mind, Snapchat has introduced a new AI selfie feature, Dreams that enables users to generate images according to different themes provided in the app. Know more about the latest feature here.

By Andrew Webster, an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

Earlier this week, we learned that Ice-T himself will be making an appearance in Payday 3, courtesy of a reveal during gamescom Opening Night Live 2023. But the extent of his involvement in the game was still a little murky…until we sat down with the Payday 3 team at gamescom to clear things up.

A few months ago, X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk revealed that he wanted to rebuild the video interface of the platform and make it more immersive. Company CEO Linda Yaccarino has also highlighted the need to build a good video deck on the platform. And probably that's why the microblogging platform has received a number of video features in the last few months. In fact, compared to 2022, the video deck of X is entirely different. So, what was added, and how has it changed? Let us take a look.

Text-to-image generation has been one of the biggest feats of generative artificial intelligence (AI). This year, we have seen digital art reach new heights and digital artists leverage it to create unique and stunning pieces in minimal turnaround time. We have also seen big platforms emerge in this space, trying to give the best set of features to lure consumers. The biggest names that exist in this space include Dall-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Photoshop AI Generative Fill. So far, many designers and artists believe that Photoshop is one of the most powerful tools available due to its large set of tools and features. However, Midjourney has just received a new feature called ‘vary (region)' that can be a game changer and might just make it a major competitor of Photoshop.

Amazon has released the first teaser trailer for Wilderness, a new thriller series starring Doctor Who's Jenna Coleman and The Haunting of Hill House's Oliver Jackson-Cohen.

Last night (August 22) during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live 2023, a brand new trailer for Cyberpunk 2077’s one and only DLC expansion, Phantom Liberty, was revealed. Excitingly, it was also confirmed that many of the features showcased in it are also going to be added to the base game for free in its upcoming 2.0 update — but only for those playing on Xbox Series X|S, PC, or PS5.