Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games victim of horrendous leak, as hackers steal a decade's worth of plans for the studio's future

A number of staff at Bossa Games, the UK game studio behind the Surgeon Simulator games, I Am Bread and more have recently been impacted by layoffs, it’s been confirmed. 

When it comes to grand strategy titles, not many others can do it as well as the game franchise by Creative Assembly. Melding together aspects of political intrigue, economic development, and real-time strategy, is a chess match that relies on tactics and strategic thinking. Though the franchise has touched on a variety of different time periods, cultures, and conflicts for the 20+ years it's been going, many are wondering what the next game will be.

The horror movie world is littered with prequels. Occasionally, some are great (Orphan First Kill, Annabelle Creation), most are pretty terrible (we don’t have to list those here), and at least a few are surprisingly interesting (Leatherface, Alien: Covenant, Dominion: A Prequel to The Exorcist). Now The Omen is adding a new prequel of its own to the list, called The First Omen, and the initial teaser seems to start things off on the right track.

Apple announced its Vision Pro headset at its WWDC event last year. However, the company did not precisely state the product's release date. The headset is speculated to launch in the first quarter of 2024, and as the launch nears, we are now hearing details on the potential dates. It is now being reported that Apple will launch the Vision Pro headset in the last week of January, according to news from the Chinese investor news service.

EA's football offerings have sat at the top of the UK's annual boxed game charts for the last decade, but now their winning streak has come to an end.

Rebellion co-founders Chris and Jason Kingsley have been recognised for their services to the economy as part of the King's New Year Honours list. This recognition has seen the brothers each being awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire).

While it didn’t reach the top spot in Gfk’s UK physical sales charts for the week ending December 23rd, Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder still performed very well. It ranked second, overcoming Hogwarts Legacy (which dropped to third).

There was a memorable moment in November's Transformers #2 (we wrote about it here) where Decepticon Starscream, dogfighting with a US Air Force fighter jet, changes into his robot form, forces his opponents to eject from their plane, and then claps his metal hands together, gleefully splatting one of the humans in front of the other. It was grimly funny and seemed to exist purely to illustrate just how evil the Decepticons really are. 

As 2023 comes to an end, cybercrime has become a critical issue. Insomniac Games, the famed developer of Marvel's Spider-Man and its sequel Spider-Man 2 became the latest victim of a lack recently. Nearly 1.6TB of information including developer builds of the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine, timeline of upcoming games, as well as personal data of employees were put online by hackers. While this hack was shocking, it isn't the only one suffered by a major gaming developer in recent years. Just last year, Rockstar Games was hacked and 90 early development videos of GTA 6 were leaked online. Sometime later, it was concluded that a teen was behind the hack, and now he has been sentenced to life in hospital prison.

On November 10, Humane, a 2018-founded startup known for working with AI technology, unveiled its first product called Ai Pin, a clothing-based wearable gadget. The OpenAI CEO Sam Altman-backed company presented the device as a new technology that does not require a user to spend time interacting with it and instead gets the information needed quickly so they can focus on the moment. With a displayless design, which goes against the ethos of most consumer tech products, the company focuses on voice and laser ink technology to show and tell the information through an AI chatbot. The company has now revealed that the product will be shipped to consumers starting in March 2024.

The Epic Games Store will allow blockchain games rated Adults-Only back on the PC marketplace after a new exception to its content policy.

Today, December 22, the artificial intelligence (AI) space is asking us deep, philosophical questions, as new developments point towards its innovative use cases and its internal nature. A talkative robot called ElliQ, created by Intuition Robotics, is helping senior citizens in the US combat loneliness by offering them companionship. AI for companionship is a hotly explored space, and it is something even Elon Musk has talked about. In other news, a coalition of scientists is raising serious questions about the AI consciousness. They say the answers to these questions will shed light on the ethical usage of the technology as well as help us guide AI safety measures.