Storm and Killmonger are a pair of freedom fighters - and a couple - in the new Ultimate Universe

Former BioWare writer and project lead Mac Walters recently gave some insights on the new game from Worlds Untold. While details are scarce, we know it'll be a sci-fi action-adventure game, and not at all an RPG like Mass Effect. During an interview with the MinnMax gaming podcast, the studio head of Worlds Untold talked about his career at BioWare and what's next for him at his new venture. According to him, this next project will be a mix of elements from Mass Effect and, surprisingly, Apple TV's grounded sci-fi show Severance.

Owlcat Games continues its work on Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, this time with a patch aimed at rectifying some nagging problems. Patch 1.0.88 contains a multitude of changes, including making skill checks easier across the board. The next major patch will release sometime in January 2024.

Earlier this year, my left ear, previously every bit as capable as my right, started letting me down. I at first had many explanations for this — a buildup of ear wax, some side effect of a sinus infection or a prolonged reaction to a lot of flying recently. It took a specialist to break it to me that I had joined the ranks of 1.25 billion people in the world who suffer from mild to moderate hearing loss.

Amid rising concerns and multiple legal battles of authors, publishers, and media houses over large language models (LLMs) using their copyrighted work to train AI systems, the New York Times has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The publisher has alleged that the two AI firms have been using the former's copyrighted published work unauthorized to train their respective AI models. This lawsuit has now heightened the conflict between publishers and AI companies, as regulatory institutions still try to figure out the right way to control and monitor the data AI models are trained on. 

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. 

We lost Twitter and got X. We tried out Bluesky and Mastodon (well, some of us did). We fretted about AI bots and teen mental health. We cocooned in private chats and scrolled endlessly as we did in years past. For social media users, 2023 was a year of beginnings and endings, with some soul-searching in between.

I love how Microsoft Flight Simulator exists in the background now, like the distant roar of an overhead flight path. Not only is it just nice to have a shiny, new version of one of the gaming OGs there to pick up and play at any time, every now and then it drops an absolutely gorgeous new trailer showing off some wild technical wizardry or hyper-detailed new cityscape. That's exactly what's happened now, with Flight Sim's latest update inviting you to pay a flying visit to an eclectic collection of European cities.

In Flesh and Blood’s latest expansion, Heavy Hitters, the trading card game introduces a brand-new hero named Betsy. Set against the backdrop of a fight club known as Rathe’s Death Match Arena, few competitors elicit the kind of fear and respect that she does. While other fighters have come and gone over the years, Betsy was born to this life — raised in the arena’s shadows. She embodies the determination, hedonism, and excitement that make its gladiatorial spectacle the only place where combatants can be guaranteed to win big or lose it all. Those odds are an excellent match for her signature mechanic, called wager, which invites players to bet against their opponents for increasingly complex and rewarding combat encounters.

Wordle was a lockdown phenomenon: one of those games that, merits aside, simply landed at the right time. I've kicked the habit now but like pretty much everyone else I had a Wordle phase with the family WhatsApp group and, yes, when I'm nearly out of chances I have gone running to my six-letter friend Google. Wordle's enormous popularity was such that, in January 2022, the New York Times purchased the game from creator Josh Wardle for a sum «in the low seven figures.»

Let’s get the obvious talking point out of the way: Pokémon Scarlet & Violet are divisive games. Generation IX has caught a lot of heat for its glitches and lack of polish, but despite that, I personally have still had fun with these games. So someone like me should love The Indigo Disk, right?

Hideo Kojima revealed today that film and television production company A24, whose previous projects include Midsommar and Everything Everywhere All At Once, is collaborating with Kojima Productions on the Death Stranding film project.

A24 is ready to bring Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding to life.