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As usual, summer has sped by in the blink of an eye, which means it’s already back-to-school season. Thankfully, there are some great tech deals for college students (and lucky high school ones), including a record-low price on Apple’s 2022 MacBook Air with an M2 chip. Right now, you can get the 256GB laptop in any color for its Prime Day price of $799, down from $999 — a 20 percent discount. 
The 2022 MacBook Air is our choice for best budget MacBook thanks to a range of features that hold up two years later. It’s a “near-perfect Mac,” as we called it while giving it a 96 in our review, offering a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display with up to 500 nits of brightness and a 60Hz refresh rate.  

This MacBook also has an M2 chip with eight CPU cores and up to 10 GPU cores. Apple has recently introduced the M4 chip, but the M2 should give you plenty of power for any run-of-the-mill programs. Speaking of power, you should get some excellent, vibrant sound quality with the MacBook Air’s quad-speaker system — plus, it’s compatible with Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio. 
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-m2-macbook-air-drops-to-a-record-low-of-799-140005153.html?src=rss

As usual, summer has sped by in the blink of an eye, which means it’s already back-to-school season. Thankfully, there are some great tech deals for college students (and lucky high school ones), including a record-low price on Apple’s 2022 MacBook Air with an M2 chip. Right now, you can get the 256GB laptop in any color for its Prime Day price of $799, down from $999 — a 20 percent discount. 

The 2022 MacBook Air is our choice for best budget MacBook thanks to a range of features that hold up two years later. It’s a “near-perfect Mac,” as we called it while giving it a 96 in our review, offering a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display with up to 500 nits of brightness and a 60Hz refresh rate.  

This MacBook also has an M2 chip with eight CPU cores and up to 10 GPU cores. Apple has recently introduced the M4 chip, but the M2 should give you plenty of power for any run-of-the-mill programs. Speaking of power, you should get some excellent, vibrant sound quality with the MacBook Air’s quad-speaker system — plus, it’s compatible with Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-m2-macbook-air-drops-to-a-record-low-of-799-140005153.html?src=rss

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The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) efforts to ban noncompete agreements has been blocked by a federal judge in Texas. According to The Washington Post, US District Judge Ada Brown has determined that the agency doesn’t have the authority to enforce the rule, which was supposed to take effect on September 4. She reportedly wrote in her decision that the FTC only looked at “inconsistent and flawed empirical evidence” and didn’t consider evidence in support of noncompetes. “The role of an administrative agency is to do as told by Congress, not to do what the agency thinks it should do,” she added. 
FTC Chair Lina M. Khan explained that “noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism” when the agency voted 3-2 in favor of the ban. Noncompete agreements are widely used in the tech industry, and preventing companies from adding them to contracts would mean that workers will be able to freely move to a new job or start a business in the same field. The two Republican commissioners in the FTC, Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson, voted against the ban and also said that the agency “overstepped the boundaries of its power.”
In July, Brown temporarily blocked the rule’s enforcement to assess the lawsuit filed by Dallas tax services firm Ryan LLC mere hours after the FTC announced the ban. The US Chamber of Commerce and other groups of American businesses eventually joined the tax firm in challenging the new rule on noncompete clauses. 
“We are disappointed by Judge Brown’s decision and will keep fighting to stop noncompetes that restrict the economic liberty of hardworking Americans, hamper economic growth, limit innovation, and depress wages,” FTC spokesperson Victoria Graham told The Post. “We are seriously considering a potential appeal, and today’s decision does not prevent the FTC from addressing noncompetes through case-by-case enforcement actions.”
A federal judge in Florida also blocked the rule last week, though only for the lawsuit’s plaintiffs. Meanwhile, another judge in Pennsylvania ruled last month that the agency has the authority to enforce the ban in a separate case filed by a tree-care company in the state. All three cases could still be appealed and could even make their way to the Supreme Court. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/texas-judge-blocks-the-ftc-from-enforcing-its-ban-on-noncompete-agreements-133059676.html?src=rss

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) efforts to ban noncompete agreements has been blocked by a federal judge in Texas. According to The Washington Post, US District Judge Ada Brown has determined that the agency doesn’t have the authority to enforce the rule, which was supposed to take effect on September 4. She reportedly wrote in her decision that the FTC only looked at “inconsistent and flawed empirical evidence” and didn’t consider evidence in support of noncompetes. “The role of an administrative agency is to do as told by Congress, not to do what the agency thinks it should do,” she added. 

FTC Chair Lina M. Khan explained that “noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism” when the agency voted 3-2 in favor of the ban. Noncompete agreements are widely used in the tech industry, and preventing companies from adding them to contracts would mean that workers will be able to freely move to a new job or start a business in the same field. The two Republican commissioners in the FTC, Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson, voted against the ban and also said that the agency “overstepped the boundaries of its power.”

In July, Brown temporarily blocked the rule’s enforcement to assess the lawsuit filed by Dallas tax services firm Ryan LLC mere hours after the FTC announced the ban. The US Chamber of Commerce and other groups of American businesses eventually joined the tax firm in challenging the new rule on noncompete clauses. 

“We are disappointed by Judge Brown’s decision and will keep fighting to stop noncompetes that restrict the economic liberty of hardworking Americans, hamper economic growth, limit innovation, and depress wages,” FTC spokesperson Victoria Graham told The Post. “We are seriously considering a potential appeal, and today’s decision does not prevent the FTC from addressing noncompetes through case-by-case enforcement actions.”

A federal judge in Florida also blocked the rule last week, though only for the lawsuit’s plaintiffs. Meanwhile, another judge in Pennsylvania ruled last month that the agency has the authority to enforce the ban in a separate case filed by a tree-care company in the state. All three cases could still be appealed and could even make their way to the Supreme Court. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/texas-judge-blocks-the-ftc-from-enforcing-its-ban-on-noncompete-agreements-133059676.html?src=rss

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Over the past few years, the concept of “AI PCs” has gone from sounding like a desperate attempt to revive the computer industry, to something that could actually change the way we live with our PCs. To recap, an AI PC is any system running a CPU that’s equipped with a neural processing unit (NPU), which is specially designed for AI workloads. NPUs have been around for years in mobile hardware, but AMD was the first company to bring them to x86 PCs with the Ryzen Pro 7040 chips.
Now with its Ryzen AI 300 chips, AMD is making its biggest push yet for AI PCs — something that could pay off in the future as we see more AI-driven features like Microsoft’s Recall. (Which, it’s worth noting, has also been dogged with privacy concerns and subsequently delayed.) To get a better sense of how AMD is approaching the AI PC era, I chatted with Ryzen AI lead Rakesh Anigundi, the Ryzen AI product lead and Jason Banta, CVP and GM of Client OEM. You can listen to the full interview on the Engadget Podcast.

My most pressing question: How does AMD plan to get developers onboard with building AI-powered features? NPUs aren’t exactly a selling point if nobody is making apps that use them, after all. Anigundi said he was well aware that developers broadly “just want things to work,” so the company built a strategy around three pillars: A robust software stack; performant hardware; and bringing in open-source solutions.
“We are of the philosophy that we don’t want to invent standards, but follow the standards,” Anigundi said. “That’s why we are really double clicking on ONNX, which is a cross platform framework to extract the maximum performance out of our system. This is very closely aligned with how we are working with Microsoft, enabling their next generation of experiences and also OEMs. And on the other side, where there’s a lot of innovation happening with the smaller ISVs [independent software vendors], this strategy works out very well as well.”
He points to AMD’s recently launched Amuse 2.0 beta as one way the company is showing off the AI capabilities of its hardware. It’s a simple program for generating AI images, and runs entirely on your NPU-equipped device, with no need to reach out to OpenAI’s DallE or Google’s Gemini in the cloud.
AMD
AMD’s Banta reiterated the need for a great tool set and software stack, but he pointed out that the company also works closely with partners like Microsoft on prototype hardware to ensure the quality of the customer experience. “[Consumers] can have all the hardware, they can have all the tools, they can have all the foundational models, but making that end customer experience great requires a lot of direct one to one time between us and those ISV partners.”
In this case, Banta is also referring to AMD’s relationship with Microsoft when it comes to building Copilot+ experiences for its systems. While we’ve seen a handful of AI features on the first batch of Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ machines, like the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, they’re not available yet on Copilot+ systems running x86 chips from AMD and Intel.
“We’re making that experience perfect,” Banta said. At this point, you can consider Ryzen AI 300 machines to be “Copilot+ ready,” but not yet fully Copilot+ capable. (As I mentioned in my Surface Pro review, Microsoft’s current AI features are fairly basic, and that likely won’t change until Recall is officially released.)
As for those rumors around AMD developing an Arm-based CPU, the company’s executives, naturally, didn’t reveal much. “Arm is a close partner of AMD’s,” Banta said. “We work together on a number of solutions across our roadmaps… As far as [the] overall CPU roadmap, I can’t really talk about what’s coming around the corner.” But given that the same rumor points to NVIDIA also developing its own Arm chip, and considering the astounding performance we’ve seen from Apple and Qualcomm’s latest mobile chips, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see AMD go down the same Arm-paved road. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/amd-explains-its-ai-pc-strategy-123004804.html?src=rss

Over the past few years, the concept of “AI PCs” has gone from sounding like a desperate attempt to revive the computer industry, to something that could actually change the way we live with our PCs. To recap, an AI PC is any system running a CPU that’s equipped with a neural processing unit (NPU), which is specially designed for AI workloads. NPUs have been around for years in mobile hardware, but AMD was the first company to bring them to x86 PCs with the Ryzen Pro 7040 chips.

Now with its Ryzen AI 300 chips, AMD is making its biggest push yet for AI PCs — something that could pay off in the future as we see more AI-driven features like Microsoft’s Recall. (Which, it’s worth noting, has also been dogged with privacy concerns and subsequently delayed.) To get a better sense of how AMD is approaching the AI PC era, I chatted with Ryzen AI lead Rakesh Anigundi, the Ryzen AI product lead and Jason Banta, CVP and GM of Client OEM. You can listen to the full interview on the Engadget Podcast.

My most pressing question: How does AMD plan to get developers onboard with building AI-powered features? NPUs aren’t exactly a selling point if nobody is making apps that use them, after all. Anigundi said he was well aware that developers broadly “just want things to work,” so the company built a strategy around three pillars: A robust software stack; performant hardware; and bringing in open-source solutions.

“We are of the philosophy that we don’t want to invent standards, but follow the standards,” Anigundi said. “That’s why we are really double clicking on ONNX, which is a cross platform framework to extract the maximum performance out of our system. This is very closely aligned with how we are working with Microsoft, enabling their next generation of experiences and also OEMs. And on the other side, where there’s a lot of innovation happening with the smaller ISVs [independent software vendors], this strategy works out very well as well.”

He points to AMD’s recently launched Amuse 2.0 beta as one way the company is showing off the AI capabilities of its hardware. It’s a simple program for generating AI images, and runs entirely on your NPU-equipped device, with no need to reach out to OpenAI’s DallE or Google’s Gemini in the cloud.

AMD’s Banta reiterated the need for a great tool set and software stack, but he pointed out that the company also works closely with partners like Microsoft on prototype hardware to ensure the quality of the customer experience. “[Consumers] can have all the hardware, they can have all the tools, they can have all the foundational models, but making that end customer experience great requires a lot of direct one to one time between us and those ISV partners.”

In this case, Banta is also referring to AMD’s relationship with Microsoft when it comes to building Copilot+ experiences for its systems. While we’ve seen a handful of AI features on the first batch of Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ machines, like the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, they’re not available yet on Copilot+ systems running x86 chips from AMD and Intel.

“We’re making that experience perfect,” Banta said. At this point, you can consider Ryzen AI 300 machines to be “Copilot+ ready,” but not yet fully Copilot+ capable. (As I mentioned in my Surface Pro review, Microsoft’s current AI features are fairly basic, and that likely won’t change until Recall is officially released.)

As for those rumors around AMD developing an Arm-based CPU, the company’s executives, naturally, didn’t reveal much. “Arm is a close partner of AMD’s,” Banta said. “We work together on a number of solutions across our roadmaps… As far as [the] overall CPU roadmap, I can’t really talk about what’s coming around the corner.” But given that the same rumor points to NVIDIA also developing its own Arm chip, and considering the astounding performance we’ve seen from Apple and Qualcomm’s latest mobile chips, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see AMD go down the same Arm-paved road. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/amd-explains-its-ai-pc-strategy-123004804.html?src=rss

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Hyper Light Drifter fans, you’ll have to wait a bit longer to start playing its follow-up title. Heart Machine has announced that it has pushed back Hyper Light Breaker’s Steam Early Access launch to “very early next year.” In its announcement, the developer said that after many conversations with its publisher Arc Games, it determined that it needed more time to polish the title’s gameplay experience. It didn’t reveal the issues it’s still fixing, but it explained that it didn’t want to ship a game that’s not up to its standards. The studio also said that it didn’t want to rush and burn its team out. 
“…we REALLY need to make sure that the core foundational units of the game are as strong as they can be, so that we can build on them during the Early Access period,” Heart Machine wrote. The company originally aimed for a spring 2023 launch when it introduced the game two years ago. Since then, though, it has pushed back the game’s early access launch date a few times, until it was supposed to come out this summer by the time we were able to play a preview of it. 
Hyper Light Breaker is an action rogue-lite with a full 3D environment, unlike its predecessor that has 2D visuals. It’s an open-world game set in a fantasy-cyberpunk universe, where you can explore a landscape called the Overgrowth and play with friends through online co-op. Engadget Senior Editor Jessica Conditt called it a “hoverboard sim” in her hands-on, though, because you can just explore its world on a gliding slab, avoiding enemy encounters and enjoying the scenery if you want to.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/hyper-light-breakers-early-access-launch-delayed-to-2025-110019909.html?src=rss

Hyper Light Drifter fans, you’ll have to wait a bit longer to start playing its follow-up title. Heart Machine has announced that it has pushed back Hyper Light Breaker’s Steam Early Access launch to “very early next year.” In its announcement, the developer said that after many conversations with its publisher Arc Games, it determined that it needed more time to polish the title’s gameplay experience. It didn’t reveal the issues it’s still fixing, but it explained that it didn’t want to ship a game that’s not up to its standards. The studio also said that it didn’t want to rush and burn its team out. 

“…we REALLY need to make sure that the core foundational units of the game are as strong as they can be, so that we can build on them during the Early Access period,” Heart Machine wrote. The company originally aimed for a spring 2023 launch when it introduced the game two years ago. Since then, though, it has pushed back the game’s early access launch date a few times, until it was supposed to come out this summer by the time we were able to play a preview of it. 

Hyper Light Breaker is an action rogue-lite with a full 3D environment, unlike its predecessor that has 2D visuals. It’s an open-world game set in a fantasy-cyberpunk universe, where you can explore a landscape called the Overgrowth and play with friends through online co-op. Engadget Senior Editor Jessica Conditt called it a “hoverboard sim” in her hands-on, though, because you can just explore its world on a gliding slab, avoiding enemy encounters and enjoying the scenery if you want to.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/hyper-light-breakers-early-access-launch-delayed-to-2025-110019909.html?src=rss

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Genshin Impact is bringing its fantastical world to the Xbox this fall. During Gamescom 2024, developer HoYoverse announced that the free-to-play open-world game will be available on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox Cloud Gaming beginning on November 20.
With that release, Xbox players will receive all the same updates, cross-play and cross-progression as Genshin has on other platforms. It can be wishlisted today and Xbox Game Pass players can pre-install it today as well.
Since its debut in September 2020, Genshin Impact has gotten many content updates, arrived on additional platforms, and even spawned an anime series. HoYoverse followed up this international success with a similar science fiction title, Honkai: Star Rail, last spring and then with Zenless Zone Zero this spring.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/genshin-impact-is-coming-to-xbox-this-fall-224105925.html?src=rss

Genshin Impact is bringing its fantastical world to the Xbox this fall. During Gamescom 2024, developer HoYoverse announced that the free-to-play open-world game will be available on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox Cloud Gaming beginning on November 20.

With that release, Xbox players will receive all the same updates, cross-play and cross-progression as Genshin has on other platforms. It can be wishlisted today and Xbox Game Pass players can pre-install it today as well.

Since its debut in September 2020, Genshin Impact has gotten many content updates, arrived on additional platforms, and even spawned an anime series. HoYoverse followed up this international success with a similar science fiction title, Honkai: Star Rail, last spring and then with Zenless Zone Zero this spring.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/genshin-impact-is-coming-to-xbox-this-fall-224105925.html?src=rss

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Firaxis Games announced the release date and shared gameplay for Sid Meier’s Civilization VII at Gamescom 2024. The strategy game will launch on February 11, 2025. It’s been a long wait for fans since Civilization VI arrived back in 2016, and today’s announcements at Gamescom mark a few departures for the storied empire-building series.
For starters, the game will be released across platforms. It will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox and Nintendo Switch at launch. Past entries in the series have arrived on console much later post-release, and sometimes with very clunky ports. Hopefully this approach means a better console experience for Civ VII.
There are also some big changes in gameplay that the team highlighted during a Gamescom livestream. In previous Civilization games, you’d pick one famed leader from history and stick with them for the scenario, guiding their single empire across the decades and centuries. With Civ VII, you’ll pick a new civilization at the start of each age that will continue building on what you’ve already accomplished.
Your options at the start of a new age will vary based on historical context and what you’ve already done with your current civilization. A full game will have three time periods – the Antiquity Age, the Exploration Age and the Modern Age – or you can opt to play a single-age scenario. For even more variety, players will also be able to mix and match, picking from the whole roster of potential leaders and pairing them with historically inaccurate locations. This should yield a whole new array of intriguing and entertaining situations for players to create.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/prepare-for-world-domination-when-civilization-vii-arrives-in-february-2025-213051202.html?src=rss

Firaxis Games announced the release date and shared gameplay for Sid Meier’s Civilization VII at Gamescom 2024. The strategy game will launch on February 11, 2025. It’s been a long wait for fans since Civilization VI arrived back in 2016, and today’s announcements at Gamescom mark a few departures for the storied empire-building series.

For starters, the game will be released across platforms. It will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox and Nintendo Switch at launch. Past entries in the series have arrived on console much later post-release, and sometimes with very clunky ports. Hopefully this approach means a better console experience for Civ VII.

There are also some big changes in gameplay that the team highlighted during a Gamescom livestream. In previous Civilization games, you’d pick one famed leader from history and stick with them for the scenario, guiding their single empire across the decades and centuries. With Civ VII, you’ll pick a new civilization at the start of each age that will continue building on what you’ve already accomplished.

Your options at the start of a new age will vary based on historical context and what you’ve already done with your current civilization. A full game will have three time periods – the Antiquity Age, the Exploration Age and the Modern Age – or you can opt to play a single-age scenario. For even more variety, players will also be able to mix and match, picking from the whole roster of potential leaders and pairing them with historically inaccurate locations. This should yield a whole new array of intriguing and entertaining situations for players to create.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/prepare-for-world-domination-when-civilization-vii-arrives-in-february-2025-213051202.html?src=rss

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Don’t Nod’s spiritual successor to its popular video game series Life is Strange, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, is confirmed to launch in two parts, and the first gameplay trailer is being revealed. The first part, Tape 1, will launch on February 18, 2025. You can expect Tape 2 to come out exactly one month later, on March 18, 2025.
Earlier this year, Don’t Nod decided to delay the game’s release from late 2024 to early 2025. The primary reason is Square Enix and Deck Nine Games are working on Life is Strange: Double Exposure, a new game in the series. It’s planned for an October release on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. Gamers on the Switch will have to wait.
It’s safe to say that the delay of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is to prevent it from competing with the new Life is Strange title, as they would share similar audiences. Having some breathing room between the two would also allow fans to play them at comfier pace.
The new trailer showcases gameplay from Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, which allows the main character, Swann, to switch between 1995 and 2022 timelines. The game will feature a dynamic dialog system, which changes dialog based on where players look or what they choose to say. Performing or ignoring actions will also affect outcomes.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage will be available on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. There’s currently no word about a Switch version. Don’t Nod also announced plans for physical PS5 copies, but there’s no release date set for them yet.
If you happen to be at Gamescom 2024, feel free to check out Don’t Nod’s space in the B2B and B2C areas. Besides a photo booth themed after Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, you might even bring a keepsake home.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/dont-nods-lost-records-bloom–rage-will-launch-in-two-parts-starting-february-18-2025-203015444.html?src=rss

Don’t Nod’s spiritual successor to its popular video game series Life is Strange, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, is confirmed to launch in two parts, and the first gameplay trailer is being revealed. The first part, Tape 1, will launch on February 18, 2025. You can expect Tape 2 to come out exactly one month later, on March 18, 2025.

Earlier this year, Don’t Nod decided to delay the game’s release from late 2024 to early 2025. The primary reason is Square Enix and Deck Nine Games are working on Life is Strange: Double Exposure, a new game in the series. It’s planned for an October release on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. Gamers on the Switch will have to wait.

It’s safe to say that the delay of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is to prevent it from competing with the new Life is Strange title, as they would share similar audiences. Having some breathing room between the two would also allow fans to play them at comfier pace.

The new trailer showcases gameplay from Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, which allows the main character, Swann, to switch between 1995 and 2022 timelines. The game will feature a dynamic dialog system, which changes dialog based on where players look or what they choose to say. Performing or ignoring actions will also affect outcomes.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage will be available on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. There’s currently no word about a Switch version. Don’t Nod also announced plans for physical PS5 copies, but there’s no release date set for them yet.

If you happen to be at Gamescom 2024, feel free to check out Don’t Nod’s space in the B2B and B2C areas. Besides a photo booth themed after Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, you might even bring a keepsake home.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/dont-nods-lost-records-bloom–rage-will-launch-in-two-parts-starting-february-18-2025-203015444.html?src=rss

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Secret Level is a gaming-inspired anthology series coming to Prime Video on December 15. The upcoming Amazon title is from the same team behind Netflix’s Love, Death and Robots. From the teaser released during Gamescom, this new project will be continuing the Blur Studio specialty for creating masterful animated works for an adult audience. The creative team was looking to inspire “nerd joy” with Love, Death and Robots and from the first glimpse, Secret Level seems like a natural progression of that goal.
Each of the 15 stories in the show are inspired by a different game. The official list of inspirations is: Armored Core, Concord, Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, various PlayStation Studios games, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament and Warhammer 40,000.
Games feel like a natural inspiration for this type of animation showcase. The cinematics in some contemporary AAA titles have all the polish and emotion of standalone films. Plus, game-inspired television series have been reaching new levels of success in recent years thanks to projects like Fallout, The Last of Us and Arcane.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/animated-video-game-anthology-series-secret-level-is-coming-to-prime-video-202027254.html?src=rss

Secret Level is a gaming-inspired anthology series coming to Prime Video on December 15. The upcoming Amazon title is from the same team behind Netflix’s Love, Death and Robots. From the teaser released during Gamescom, this new project will be continuing the Blur Studio specialty for creating masterful animated works for an adult audience. The creative team was looking to inspire “nerd joy” with Love, Death and Robots and from the first glimpse, Secret Level seems like a natural progression of that goal.

Each of the 15 stories in the show are inspired by a different game. The official list of inspirations is: Armored Core, Concord, Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, various PlayStation Studios games, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament and Warhammer 40,000.

Games feel like a natural inspiration for this type of animation showcase. The cinematics in some contemporary AAA titles have all the polish and emotion of standalone films. Plus, game-inspired television series have been reaching new levels of success in recent years thanks to projects like Fallout, The Last of Us and Arcane.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/animated-video-game-anthology-series-secret-level-is-coming-to-prime-video-202027254.html?src=rss

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Tarsier Studios, creators of the first two Little Nightmares games, is back with another creepy adventure — and its “partially disemboweled talking pig” teaser video looks like it set the proper tone. Announced at Gamescom Opening Night, Reanimal takes two children on an adventure across land and sea as they work together to rescue their missing friends on an island filled with horrifying creatures.
The developer helmed the first two Little Nightmares installments before Supermassive Games took over for part III. The new game promises to up the ante with “a more terrifying journey than ever before.”
The horror-adventure game stars a brother and sister in an “unsettling tale” who “go through hell to rescue their missing friends.” The protagonists are described as broken but resilient, facing fragments of their troubled past in the guise of gruesome beasts. It will somehow explore themes of hope and redemption as they navigate the chilling environment.
Tarsier Studios / THQ Nordic
The game lets you play single-player or co-op (local and online). In an illustration of the creators’ understanding of the horror genre, it uses a shared, directed camera “to maximize claustrophobia and tension.”
Reanimal doesn’t yet have a launch date other than “coming soon,” but we know it will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. You can check out the announcement trailer below.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/reanimal-promises-a-more-terrifying-journey-than-little-nightmares-200457474.html?src=rss

Tarsier Studios, creators of the first two Little Nightmares games, is back with another creepy adventure — and its “partially disemboweled talking pig” teaser video looks like it set the proper tone. Announced at Gamescom Opening Night, Reanimal takes two children on an adventure across land and sea as they work together to rescue their missing friends on an island filled with horrifying creatures.

The developer helmed the first two Little Nightmares installments before Supermassive Games took over for part III. The new game promises to up the ante with “a more terrifying journey than ever before.”

The horror-adventure game stars a brother and sister in an “unsettling tale” who “go through hell to rescue their missing friends.” The protagonists are described as broken but resilient, facing fragments of their troubled past in the guise of gruesome beasts. It will somehow explore themes of hope and redemption as they navigate the chilling environment.

The game lets you play single-player or co-op (local and online). In an illustration of the creators’ understanding of the horror genre, it uses a shared, directed camera “to maximize claustrophobia and tension.”

Reanimal doesn’t yet have a launch date other than “coming soon,” but we know it will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. You can check out the announcement trailer below.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/reanimal-promises-a-more-terrifying-journey-than-little-nightmares-200457474.html?src=rss

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set in 1937, in the space between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, and it’s being developed by MachineGames, the studio behind the most recent Wolfenstein installments. So, of course the game’s main enemies are Nazis, and obviously it has a robust range of Nazi-punching mechanics. What makes The Great Circle intriguing, even after just a 30-minute hands-off preview, is its lighthearted interpretation of classic Indiana Jones tropes, leaning into the series’ humorous tone and adding twists like open-handed Nazi slapping to Indy’s repertoire.
When it comes to combat, Indiana has a whip, a revolver and his fists (or palms). His whip appears to be the most useful tool on his belt, allowing him to swing across gaps, activate levers, and pull in enemies nice and close for a one-two punch. Hitting a Nazi with the whip briefly incapacitates them while they’re reeled in, setting up an advantageous close-quarters melee situation. Hand-to-hand combat requires precise timing in order to land knockout combos or finishing moves, and on top of throwing punches and slaps, Indy is able to block and defensively parry. In fistfights, the game’s first-person perspective crops in extra tight, filling the screen with punchable Nazi surfaces and enhancing the tension behind each blow and dodge. He can also pick up objects and hit enemies with them, and in pre-recorded gameplay footage, it all looks supremely satisfying.
MachineGames
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle isn’t just an action game, though. Many of its encounters can be approached with stealth mechanics, where players sneak past guards and perform silent takedowns without fisticuffs or gunfire at all. The revolver is really a last-ditch option in each scenario, game director Jerk Gustafsson and creative director Axel Torvenius said. Otherwise, puzzles are a pivotal component of gameplay.
Indiana is joined on his adventures by Gina, an Italian journalist who’s searching for her sister, and together they encounter a variety of logic and spatial puzzles. Some are quick, like finding an alternative entrance to a sealed room, and others are more involved, requiring a few minutes of focus to fully understand.
The preview focused on Giza, Egypt, showcasing bustling outdoor marketplaces, a depressing Nazi meeting room and a vibrant temple hidden beneath the sands of the Great Sphinx. Here, Indy and Gina had to catch the sunlight with a series of ancient mirrors, lining them up one by one until the beam bounced to the proper place. This particular puzzle room seemed straightforward and slightly clever (though maybe that’s just because The Mummy is one of my favorite childhood movies), but there are apparently more challenging riddles in the game, too. The most complex puzzles are hidden, requiring some light exploration in various regions, and they’re not necessary in order to complete the main storyline. These bonus riddles are just some of the many secrets to find around the game’s world.
MachineGames
“I don’t really like too difficult puzzles myself,” Gustafsson said. “I like to just enjoy the experience and not be so challenged by them. That said, we do have a mix [of puzzle difficulties] because I like a lot of variation. It’s not like we have some unique puzzle mechanic that goes across the entire game. We tried to create every puzzle in a different, unique way.”
There are also difficulty options for the puzzles overall, allowing players to choose how complex they’ll be throughout the entire game.
Indiana has a notebook that fills up with evidence, objectives and photos that he takes while investigating various relics around the globe. The camera is an essential tool in The Great Circle, and each snapped pic can unlock new clues and trails to follow. Indy also carries a lighter, which functions as a flashlight and can set stationary torches ablaze. His play style is customizable, with dozens of upgrades available as the game progresses. One potential upgrade is True Grit, an ability that allows him to recover from a fatal blow by crawling toward and grabbing his fedora within a certain amount of time. You know, classic Indiana Jones stuff.
MachineGames
I’ve seen some angry chatter online from people who don’t like the first-person perspective in The Great Circle, citing a desire to actually see Indiana as he does all this cool stuff, just like in the movies. I don’t think these people have much to worry about — not only are there plenty of cutscenes featuring Troy Baker’s utterly impressive 1980s Harrison Ford impression, but parts of the game are in third-person after all.
“When it comes to a character like Indiana Jones, I want to play the character and I want to be the character, I want to look through and explore the world through his eyes,” Gustafsson said. “To me that’s a very important part of what we do here. For me, it was a very easy choice. But also, we do mix in some third-person elements here. We have very much come back to our own history with games like Riddick and The Darkness where we also did this mix between first-person and third-person perspective. We do that for this game, too. Everything is not first-person, even though the core experience is in first-person.”
Torvenius added, “There’s a great opportunity here as well for us because we do have a large section of the game that is mystery, it’s solving puzzles, being up front and close to ancient relics and ruins and scriptures. So it adds an intimacy to the adventure to some aspect, that you can get really up and close and can really inspect things, which is actually pretty nice how it plays out in the game.”
MachineGames
Even in first-person scenes, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks, sounds and feels right so far. Baker’s Indiana Jones is nearly indistinguishable from the early film versions, his voice drawling and gravelly with a sarcastic bite. There’s a dry humor built into his interactions, as is fitting. In one scene, he’s introducing himself to a woman who has an intricately designed eye patch; she seems to be indigenous to the jungle they’re sitting in.
“I’m an archaeologist,” Indiana says.
“Another one,” she replies, clearly unimpressed.
It’s a quick moment from a short preview, but it sets a solid tone for the game as a whole: dry, lighthearted, and a little punch-drunk in between all the actual punching. Or you could say, a bit slap-happy amid all the slapping. Either way, these Nazis won’t know what hit them.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to Xbox Series X/S and PC on December 9. It’ll be available on Game Pass Ultimate, and it’s also coming to PlayStation 5 in spring 2025.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-has-a-nazi-slapping-mechanic-200052110.html?src=rss

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set in 1937, in the space between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, and it’s being developed by MachineGames, the studio behind the most recent Wolfenstein installments. So, of course the game’s main enemies are Nazis, and obviously it has a robust range of Nazi-punching mechanics. What makes The Great Circle intriguing, even after just a 30-minute hands-off preview, is its lighthearted interpretation of classic Indiana Jones tropes, leaning into the series’ humorous tone and adding twists like open-handed Nazi slapping to Indy’s repertoire.

When it comes to combat, Indiana has a whip, a revolver and his fists (or palms). His whip appears to be the most useful tool on his belt, allowing him to swing across gaps, activate levers, and pull in enemies nice and close for a one-two punch. Hitting a Nazi with the whip briefly incapacitates them while they’re reeled in, setting up an advantageous close-quarters melee situation. Hand-to-hand combat requires precise timing in order to land knockout combos or finishing moves, and on top of throwing punches and slaps, Indy is able to block and defensively parry. In fistfights, the game’s first-person perspective crops in extra tight, filling the screen with punchable Nazi surfaces and enhancing the tension behind each blow and dodge. He can also pick up objects and hit enemies with them, and in pre-recorded gameplay footage, it all looks supremely satisfying.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle isn’t just an action game, though. Many of its encounters can be approached with stealth mechanics, where players sneak past guards and perform silent takedowns without fisticuffs or gunfire at all. The revolver is really a last-ditch option in each scenario, game director Jerk Gustafsson and creative director Axel Torvenius said. Otherwise, puzzles are a pivotal component of gameplay.

Indiana is joined on his adventures by Gina, an Italian journalist who’s searching for her sister, and together they encounter a variety of logic and spatial puzzles. Some are quick, like finding an alternative entrance to a sealed room, and others are more involved, requiring a few minutes of focus to fully understand.

The preview focused on Giza, Egypt, showcasing bustling outdoor marketplaces, a depressing Nazi meeting room and a vibrant temple hidden beneath the sands of the Great Sphinx. Here, Indy and Gina had to catch the sunlight with a series of ancient mirrors, lining them up one by one until the beam bounced to the proper place. This particular puzzle room seemed straightforward and slightly clever (though maybe that’s just because The Mummy is one of my favorite childhood movies), but there are apparently more challenging riddles in the game, too. The most complex puzzles are hidden, requiring some light exploration in various regions, and they’re not necessary in order to complete the main storyline. These bonus riddles are just some of the many secrets to find around the game’s world.

“I don’t really like too difficult puzzles myself,” Gustafsson said. “I like to just enjoy the experience and not be so challenged by them. That said, we do have a mix [of puzzle difficulties] because I like a lot of variation. It’s not like we have some unique puzzle mechanic that goes across the entire game. We tried to create every puzzle in a different, unique way.”

There are also difficulty options for the puzzles overall, allowing players to choose how complex they’ll be throughout the entire game.

Indiana has a notebook that fills up with evidence, objectives and photos that he takes while investigating various relics around the globe. The camera is an essential tool in The Great Circle, and each snapped pic can unlock new clues and trails to follow. Indy also carries a lighter, which functions as a flashlight and can set stationary torches ablaze. His play style is customizable, with dozens of upgrades available as the game progresses. One potential upgrade is True Grit, an ability that allows him to recover from a fatal blow by crawling toward and grabbing his fedora within a certain amount of time. You know, classic Indiana Jones stuff.

I’ve seen some angry chatter online from people who don’t like the first-person perspective in The Great Circle, citing a desire to actually see Indiana as he does all this cool stuff, just like in the movies. I don’t think these people have much to worry about — not only are there plenty of cutscenes featuring Troy Baker’s utterly impressive 1980s Harrison Ford impression, but parts of the game are in third-person after all.

“When it comes to a character like Indiana Jones, I want to play the character and I want to be the character, I want to look through and explore the world through his eyes,” Gustafsson said. “To me that’s a very important part of what we do here. For me, it was a very easy choice. But also, we do mix in some third-person elements here. We have very much come back to our own history with games like Riddick and The Darkness where we also did this mix between first-person and third-person perspective. We do that for this game, too. Everything is not first-person, even though the core experience is in first-person.”

Torvenius added, “There’s a great opportunity here as well for us because we do have a large section of the game that is mystery, it’s solving puzzles, being up front and close to ancient relics and ruins and scriptures. So it adds an intimacy to the adventure to some aspect, that you can get really up and close and can really inspect things, which is actually pretty nice how it plays out in the game.”

Even in first-person scenes, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks, sounds and feels right so far. Baker’s Indiana Jones is nearly indistinguishable from the early film versions, his voice drawling and gravelly with a sarcastic bite. There’s a dry humor built into his interactions, as is fitting. In one scene, he’s introducing himself to a woman who has an intricately designed eye patch; she seems to be indigenous to the jungle they’re sitting in.

“I’m an archaeologist,” Indiana says.

“Another one,” she replies, clearly unimpressed.

It’s a quick moment from a short preview, but it sets a solid tone for the game as a whole: dry, lighthearted, and a little punch-drunk in between all the actual punching. Or you could say, a bit slap-happy amid all the slapping. Either way, these Nazis won’t know what hit them.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to Xbox Series X/S and PC on December 9. It’ll be available on Game Pass Ultimate, and it’s also coming to PlayStation 5 in spring 2025.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-has-a-nazi-slapping-mechanic-200052110.html?src=rss

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