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Dodgebrawl brawler Knockout City will be free-to-play on all platforms, starting with the launch of its sixth season later this year. Game developer Velan Studios will also be publishing Knockout City in-house, instead of through its original publisher, Electronic Arts. According to an announcement published today on the game’s website, this will give Velan the ability to grow Knockout City’s global audience and carry out its vision for the future.

“We couldn’t have introduced Knockout City to the world without the incredible support of EA Originals, but now as we switch to free-to-play, the natural next step is for us to take over publishing responsibilities and work even more closely with our community. We have exciting plans for Knockout City, and bringing publishing in-house will allow us to fully realize our vision for the long-term future of this game. There’s so much to look forward to, because this is just the beginning,” wrote the studio, based in Troy, NY, in its announcement.

As a consequence of Velan focusing on Season 6’s rollout, Knockout City fans can expect Season 5 (to released on March 1) to be a lot lighter. There will be no Brawl Pass, fewer bundles and no new cosmetics. There will also be no new map or new ball. But expect Season 6 to be packed with new features, including a new special ball and multiple maps.

Velan revealed little else about Knockout City’s future, but promised there would be more announcements to come. While the multi-player dodgeball game was a knockout success after launching in May 2021 (it drew roughly 5 million new players in a month), the enthusiasm has died down a bit. Players have complained about the amount of time it takes to match with other players. Going free-to-play will likely reignite the game’s popularity for some time, but players will likely have to tolerate ads or fork over for additional features. For now, Knockout City’s future looks uncertain, but fans should stay tuned.

Tumblr may have introduced ads to user blogs several years ago, but it's now happy to take them away for a price. The social media site has launched an ad-free option that removes the marketing from microblogs for $5 per month, or $40 per year. You'll have to set up the feature on your computer through your account settings, but the zero-ad experience will be available on mobile devices as well.

The offering comes less than a year after Tumblr gave bloggers the option to charge for access at prices ranging from $4 to $10 per month. At the time, Tumblr saw the addition as modernizing the site for a younger audience, particularly creators eager to get paid.

It's too soon to say how successful this will be. Tumblr is effectively asking customers to pay to remove ads that weren't necessarily there before. Tumblr's 2018 adult content ban didn't exactly help the site's popularity, either. However, this might be appealing if you're a fan of Twitter Blue and other subscriptions that let you remove at least some ads — you don't have to put up with a cluttered experience if you don't want to.

Nikola is "laser-focused on delivering vehicles and generating revenue," according to CEO Mark Russell. To help it reach those goals, the embattled company is preparing to ramp up production of the battery-electric Tre semi-truck. Russell said Nikola expects to start "series production of the Tre BEV on March 21." The company plans to deliver up to 500 production Tre BEVs this year, starting in the second quarter.

It delivered the first two Tre BEVs to a port trucking company in California in December as part of a three-month pilot. It says the trucks have logged more than 4,500 miles between them and hauled multiple loads per day. One completed a 204-mile trip on a single charge. Anheuser-Busch, meanwhile, is testing two fuel-cell electric variants of the Tre.

Nikola says its Coolidge, Arizona plant currently has a production capacity of 2,500 trucks per year. Work is underway on an expansion that would increase the capacity to up to 20,000 trucks per annum. Work on Phase 2 of the facility should be completed in early 2023. Meanwhile, Nikola's plant in Ulm, Germany is currently capable of producing 2,000 trucks per year, though that figure is expandable to 10,000 trucks.

In its latest earnings report, the company touched on some of the controversies that have plagued it over the last few years. It reached an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in December to settle civil charges that it defrauded investors. The company is paying a $125 million civil penalty over two years. Nikola is seeking reimbursement from founder Trevor Milton for costs and damages it incurred in connection with government and regulatory investigations.

A grand jury indicted Milton on fraud charges last year. Nikola's former CEO and executive chairman allegedly lied to investors about “nearly all aspects of the business” in attempts to increase Nikola's share price. Milton, who has denied the charges against him, is set to go on trial in April.

Facebook’s security team is taking new steps to protect the accounts of users in Ukraine. The company is enabling its “lock profile” tool for people in the country, and building up a “Special Operations Center” to "closely monitor" what's happening in Ukraine.

The “lock profile” tool is meant to give users “one-click” access to additional privacy and security features, said Meta’sHead of Security Policy Nathaniel Gleicher. “When their profile is locked, people who aren’t their friends can’t download or share their profile photo or see posts on their timeline,” Gleicher said.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has encouraged users in “unsafe” areas to lock their profiles. Most recently, Facebook enabled the “lock profile” tool for people in Afghanistan over the summer amid the US withdrawal from the country. And the company has noted that it can be especially helpful for journalists, activists and others who may be at a higher risk of being targeted.

The social network has also formed a dedicated team to keep an eye on what’s happening in Ukraine. “In response to the unfolding military conflict in Ukraine, we have established a Special Operations Center to respond in real time,” Gleicher said. “It is staffed by experts (including native speakers) so we can closely monitor the situation and act as fast as possible.”

It seems Spotify has moved swiftly to remove episodes of The Alex Jones Show that were recently added to the service. Watchdog Media Matters reported on Wednesday that episodes of the eponymous far-right conspiracy theorist's podcast had emerged on Spotify on a daily basis since Sunday, though they've since vanished.

Spotify banned Jones and his InfoWars outlet in 2018 over violations of its hate speech policies. Several other platforms — including Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Twitter — booted Jones off their services around the same time. Facebook and Instagram banned him the following year. The Alex Jones Show remains on Google Podcasts.

Jones made waves in October 2020, when he made an appearance on Joe Rogan's controversial podcast — several months after Spotify secured exclusive distribution rights to The Joe Rogan Experience. As Variety notes, that episode, in which Jones reportedly made false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines, is still available on Spotify.

Engadget has contacted Spotify for comment.

Nintendo is about to buy its second close ally in as many years. Eurogamerreports Nintendo is acquiring SRD, one of its longest-serving game development partners. SRD has worked with Nintendo since the NES era, and more recently helped with Switch hits like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In that light, it's almost surprising Nintendo hadn't bought SRD sooner.

The purchases is expected to close on April 1st. Nintendo didn't say how much it paid for SRD, but the development house will become a wholly-owned subsidiary. The company bought Luigi's Mansion creator Next Level Games in January 2021.

This isn't as aggressive a move as Microsoft's Activision Blizzard buyout or Sony's acquisition of Bungie. Not that Nintendo is concerned, mind you. Company president Shuntaro Furukawa recently said investors shouldn't expect purchases of studios that lack "Nintendo DNA," and the Switch is still a hot seller. Nintendo just isn't in a rush to snap up developers, and this appears to be largely focused on securing partners while the company is flush with cash.

The next Pokémon Presents livestream will take place on February 27th, aka Pokémon Day, at 9AM ET. The Pokémon Company hasn't revealed what's in store, other than to say in a tweet on its Japanese account that it'll be a relatively brief affair clocking in at around 14 minutes and you'll be able to watch on the official Pokémon YouTube channel.

Pokémon Day marks the anniversary of the first games in the franchise. Pokémon Red and Green were released in Japan on February 27th, 1996. The company has announced updates for titles including Pokémon Unite, Pokémon Go and Pokémon Cafe Mix in the lead up to Sunday's festivities, as Polygon notes. 

It's been a busy spell for The Pokémon Company on the games front. Not only did it release Pokémon Unite and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl last year, Pokémon Legends: Arceus arrived less than a month ago. Meanwhile, the beta of a virtual trading card game, Pokémon TCG Live, was released in Canada this week. It remains to be seen whether the stream will offer details about what's next for those titles, provide an early look at something new or even both.

It's not just passenger cars and big rigs receiving the EV treatment — the vehicles in the middle are getting some TLC, too. Lightning eMotors is doubling its production capacity just weeks after partnering with GM to electrify medium-duty vehicles like delivery trucks, school buses and shuttles. The company's Colorado factory will make up to 1,500 fleet-worthy EVs per year by the end of 2022, with plans to produce 20,000 per year by 2025. Those figures might not sound like much, but Lightning is targeting a relatively niche audience.

The recent team-up will see Lightning "upfit" GM's medium-duty platform with electrified versions. While GM will provide the chassis, Lightning will produce the end product destined for commercial use. Lightning is GM's first specialty vehicle maker to offer full EVs in this category.

The combined efforts might not be as exciting as from-scratch electric cars headed to your driveway. Even so, it represents an important part of a broader effort to reduce transportation emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency notes that 29 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation, and more than half of those emissions originate from road-going vehicles that include medium-duty machines. The more companies like GM and Lightning can electrify fleets, the closer they can get to eliminating transportation emissions as a factor in climate change.

A lot of gadgets operate on a "tick-tock" development cycle, with the most well-known being past iPhones that sported fresh designs, only to be replaced 12 months later by more refined but similar-looking S variants. And after Samsung ticked the box with a fresh new design for last year's S21, now the company has returned with the more polished Galaxy S22 and S22+. While they might look a lot like last year's phones, there have been some notable upgrades, especially on the S22's display, performance and camera.

Design

Even though I'm still not sure how much I love Samsung's Contour Cut camera design, the Galaxy S22 very much looks and feels like a high-end device. The outside of the phone features Samsung's Armor Aluminum alloy that's been polished to a near-mirror finish, with the S22 also being one of the first phones equipped with Corning's Gorilla Glass Victus+ to protect the phone from drops and scratches — both in front and in back.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

To add a little spice to the mixture, the S22's backside sports a lovely matte texture – which does a surprisingly good job of resisting fingerprints. And for 2022, Samsung also spruced up the S22's color options with new shades of green, pink and white, along with good ole black.

Like previous Galaxy S phones, the S22 comes with an ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint reader, and after years of tweaking its algorithm and improving the tech, this time it feels seriously fast. In my experience, unlocking the phone was practically instant, and I never really ran into recognition issues unless my fingers were legit wet or greasy. (Keep your grubby hands away from my phone if you're eating pizza, k thnx.)

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The one thing avid movie watchers should be aware of though is the color-matched frames on the pink and white models. If you're the kind of person that might be bothered by a glint or sparkle around the edge of the phone while watching videos, you may want to go with one of the darker color options.

And while it's not really a surprise at this point, the S22 doesn't feature a microSD card slot or a headphone jack. With the Galaxy S line now being three generations removed from the last device to include both of those features, it's pretty clear they're not coming back.

Display

Samsung has had a lock on the crown when it comes to making the best mobile displays in the business for a while now. But on the S22, the company has outdone itself once again with displays that can hit a peak brightness of 1,300 nits on the S22, or an astounding 1,750 nits on the S22+. Suffice to say any fears of the S22's screen being hard to read even in direct sunlight are unfounded.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Then, to make things look even better, Samsung created a new feature called Vision Booster designed to amp up things like contrast and color saturation in very bright or dim conditions. While there's no indicator or pop-up that lets you know it's working, I found the effect most pronounced when I used the phone outdoors, with more subtle changes in the dark when compared to phones like the Pixel 6 Pro. I found Vision Booster made dark scenes easier to parse, but even when viewed side-by-side, I basically had to press my face up against the phones to really see the differences.

But regardless of where you are, the end result is a display that lives in technicolor, pumping out vivid shades and hues, along with the perfectly dark inky blacks that make OLED screens so enthralling. Plus, thanks to a 2,340 x 1,080 resolution and a variable 120Hz refresh rate, everything from photos to gifs look sharp and crisp.

Performance

The Galaxy S22 line is one of the first phones to feature Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, which when combined with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (or 256GB if you opt for the upgrade) results in a phone that feels blisteringly fast. In my experience, there isn't really anything you can throw at the S22 that makes it even sweat, aside from stuff like hardcore multitasking when connected to an external monitor via Samsung Dex (which is still very much a thing).

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

And while some reports claim that Qualcomm's Snapdragon Gen 8 Gen 1 has a proclivity for running hot, S22's built-in vapor chamber cooling system seems effective at keeping throttling to a minimum. Compared to the S21 FE, which features an older Snapdragon 888 chip, our S22+ posted scores in Geekbench 5's Compute test around 25 percent higher (4,708 vs 5,999). And while the gap wasn't quite as large in Geekbench 5's CPU test, the S22+ still posted a significantly higher single-core score of 1,213 compared to 1,061 for the S21 FE.

As for wireless connectivity, all versions of the S22 and S22+ support all the important flavors of 5G, including Verizon and AT&T's new C-band spectrum.

Cameras

After recent advancements from competitors like the iPhone 13 and Pixel 6, Samsung is now playing catchup to Apple and Google in the camera department. And while Samsung is touting a bunch of new camera features for the S22 and S22+ like Adaptive Pixel and various "Nightography" improvements, the real upgrades are the S22's new sensors — particularly the one for its 50MP main cam.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Thanks to that significantly higher resolution (up from 12MP on the S21), photos from the S22's main wide-angle camera are just flat-out sharper than before. But more importantly, the S22's primary camera offers wider dynamic range and big improvements for low-light photos. In darker scenes, the S22 uses a four-to-one pixel binning technique that combines four adjacent pixels into one big pixel, which allows for improved light sensitivity. The result is brighter photos with richer colors, especially at night. And even though Google's Night Sight still has a slight advantage over Samsung's Night Mode, the S22 has seriously narrowed the gap.

Elsewhere, you also get a solid 12MP ultra-wide camera with a 120-degree field of view, and a 10MP telephoto camera with a 3x optical zoom, the latter of which is important because neither the standard iPhone 13 or Pixel 6 comes with a dedicated zoom lens. So once again, the base S22 is the most well-rounded camera phone for the money. And in front, the 10MP selfie camera captured crisp pictures of my face including my many pores and blemishes, though you can always play around with Samsung's beauty settings if you want to put on a smoother face for social media.

Where things get frustrating is that some of the S22's new camera features are often hard to use, or even tell when they're working — with the main offender being Samsung's Adaptive Pixel feature. Adaptive Pixel uses multi-frame image capture to shoot pics using the main sensor's full resolution along with lower-res pixel-binned shots, before merging them together to create a higher-quality composite final image. The issue is that Adaptive Pixel isn't turned on by default, and searching the phone's settings for it doesn't return any matches.

To even activate this, you need to first make sure Samsung's scene optimizer is on, then you have to turn on the camera app's full 50MP capture mode, make sure the Detail Enhancer setting is disabled, and then point the S22 at a dark scene and hope Adaptive Pixel kicks in. And I do mean hope, because there's no pop-up or notification that lets you know when the feature is activated. Even when you do get it to work, while the pictures are a bit sharper and feature a more neutral color profile (which is better for anyone who wants to edit their pics later), Adaptive Pixel doesn't really produce magically superior images like Samsung's marketing may have led you to believe.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

That's kind of a shame after all the attention Adaptive Pixel got during the S22's debut at Samsung's recent Unpacked event. Thankfully, other new camera features like Auto Framing work as advertised, allowing the phone to track up to 10 people's faces when capturing video, while Samsung's Advanced OIS ensures that your clips look smooth and shake-free. The company's AI Stereo Depth Map technique also makes the phone a bit better at differentiating between your subject's face and the background in portrait mode, though you may have to do some serious zooming in to really see the difference.

In short, I like a lot of the changes Samsung has made to the S22's camera setup, raising its general photo prowess, even if some of the phone's new software don't quite live up to expectations.

Software

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The Galaxy S22 line comes with Samsung's One UI 4.0, which is based on Android 12. That means because it has long supported features like scrolling screenshots, the main upgrades in Samsung's latest Android skin are the new Privacy Dashboard and customization options for your home screen, app icons and the phone's UI. Similar to what's available in Google's Pixel phones, the customizations allow you to set a consistent color palette across your phone's menu, while new mic and camera notifications make sure you know when apps are accessing critical hardware components.

Other software upgrades include Live Sharing in Google Duo, which is a Samsung-exclusive feature that lets you share your screen during video chats. It's simple and effective, even if it's not quite as full-featured as Apple's SharePlay in iOS 15. And for those looking to keep better track of digital documents like your ID, credit cards, and even digital car keys, Samsung also made a new Digital Wallet that can securely store all those things in one place.

Battery life

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Featuring 3,700 and 4,500 mAh batteries respectively, both the S22 and S22+ have respectable longevity. But if lasting a long time between charges is really important for you, the S22+ is definitely the better pick as it lasted 17 hours and 33 minutes on our local video rundown test, compared to just 14 hours and 47 minutes for the standard S22. And thanks to its 45W wired charging (up from 25W charging on the S22), the S22+ juices up way faster too. In both cases though, you'll need to make sure you have the proper power brick, as neither phone comes with a charging adapter in the box.

S22 vs S22+

Aside from the obvious differences in screen size (6.1 inches vs. 6.6 inches) and overall dimensions (5.8 x 2.8 x 0.3 inches and 5.9 ounces vs. 6.2 x 2.9 x 0.3 inches and 6.9 ounces), there are a few other features that separate the S22 and S22+. The S22 is limited to 25-watt wired charging while the S22+ gets 45-watt wired charging, with both phones also featuring 15W Qi wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wireless charging (aka wireless power share).

Other differences include slightly faster WiFi speeds on the S22+ thanks to support for WiFi 6E (compared to standard WiFi 6 for the S22). The S22+ also has built-in UWB connectivity, which isn't available on the S22. UWB is one of many protocols used to send files to other devices wirelessly via Nearby Share, though that's not really a big deal since Nearby Share still works, albeit less swiftly, over WiFi and Bluetooth. The other consideration is that for people looking to use digital car keys from automakers like BMW and others, those often work better and have longer ranges using UWB compared to NFC, which might make the S22+ a better choice for more tech-savvy new car buyers.

Wrap-up

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The Galaxy S22 isn't a huge improvement or departure from last year's phone, but just like an "S-year" iPhone, Samsung has tweaked and elevated all the phone's most critical components. You're getting a more refined design, improved performance, a sharper main cam with better low-light photography and an even brighter screen. And that's saying something from the king of mobile displays.

Sure, some features like Vision Booster and Adaptive Pixel are more subtle or harder to use than I'd like, but putting all this in a chassis sporting excellent build quality and other premium features like IP68 dust and water resistance, reverse wireless charging and more is a formula that's hard not to like. And with a starting price of $800 for the standard S22, you're getting more phone for the money than anything you can buy from Apple or Google.

OlliOlli World, the delightfully offbeat skateboarding platformer, launched a few weeks ago on basically every gaming console you could ask for. It’s a clean break for the series, taking familiar gameplay but putting it in a totally redesigned world that allows for more exploration, competition and tricks.

You may not recall, but the original OlliOlli was released in 2014 exclusively for the PS Vita before hitting more platforms over the following years. That was my first exposure to the game, and I played it non-stop whenever I traveled; for a few years, the Vita was a constant companion on work trips and vacations alike.

I sunk untold hours into the two OlliOlli games on the Vita, mastering almost everything they threw at me. (I was never able to hack the insane “Rad” mode, where you had to make every single landing perfectly or else you’d slam and have to start the level over.) So while I was thrilled to try OlliOlli World on the PS5, I’ve also been wondering how it works on the Switch — would this be my new on-the-go gaming addiction, or do the compromises of playing on aging hardware degrade the experience?

After a couple weeks, I’m happy to say that OlliOlli World looks and plays great on the Switch. Still, there are a few things you’ll want to know as you decide which platform to buy it on. Of course, the game gives up some visual fidelity on the Switch — as with all games, 1080p when docked to a TV and 720p on the console’s built-in display is as good as it gets, a far cry from the beautifully detailed 4K visuals you’ll get on the PS5 or Xbox Series X. OlliOlli World on the Switch does target 60 fps, similar to other consoles.

Roll7

None of these changes are surprising; we all know the Switch is less powerful than modern systems. But fortunately, these changes largely don’t make a difference. The character models of your skater, as well as the many people you meet across the skateboarding haven of Radlandia, are indeed less detailed on the Switch. What’s most important is that the game’s gorgeous art style still shines. OlliOlli World is one of the most vibrant games I’ve ever played, and it looks especially vibrant on the OLED Switch’s screen. While it took me a few minutes to adjust to the lower-resolution experience here, I mostly didn’t think about it once I got down to the game’s core skateboarding action.

The difference in frame rate is more noticeable. OlliOlli World is an extremely fast game, one that really benefits from running at 60 fps. But despite the fact that developer Roll7 targeted 60 fps for the Switch, there were times that I felt like it dipped even below 30 fps. Roll7 did a great job of making the Switch version feel smooth enough that gameplay isn’t usually impacted, but sometimes the game would drop frames in a crucial moment that led to me unceremoniously slamming after a trick. The vast majority of the time, things stayed steady enough that it didn’t impact my gameplay. But there’s no doubt that you’ll notice dropped frames compared to how the game plays on the PS5.

I also came across frame rate drops in other parts of the game, like the animation that happens when your skater kicks off a run, or the loading screen transitions that take place when moving from the map into a level. These don’t affect gameplay, but they’re hard to ignore and add to the feeling that the Switch struggles a bit to keep up with the action. But the fact that the frame rate usually stays solid when you’re on a course is far more important.

Probably the most significant compromise that comes when playing on the Switch are the Joy-Con’s relatively tiny analog sticks. Compared to the spacious sticks on PlayStation and Xbox controllers, it’s a bit harder to pull off the game’s more complex tricks when playing on the Switch. Again, though, it’s not a deal-breaker. I’ve thrown down plenty of impressive runs and beat nearly every single challenge the game has thrown at me over the course of dozens of levels.

That said, I’m getting far enough into OlliOlli World on the Switch that levels are getting increasingly difficult, and I’m a little worried about keeping up with the more difficult levels that’ll come over the two worlds I have yet to conquer yet. I’m confident that I’ll be able to make it through basically any level the game throws at me. But each level has a number of specific challenges you can optionally complete — to truly master those, I might end up docking my Switch to the TV and playing with the Switch Pro Controller, which has much better analog sticks than the Joy-Con.

On the other hand, the PS Vita analog sticks are even smaller than those on the Switch, and I eventually mastered two OlliOlli games on that system. There’s no doubt that bigger controllers make pulling off the game’s tricks more comfortable and probably easier, but OlliOlli World is still extremely playable on the Switch.

To sum it up: there are a handful of compromises across graphics and gameplay if you choose to play on the Switch rather than a more powerful console. But I don’t think that they should stop you from playing the game on Nintendo’s handheld. It’s a great pick-up-and-play game, the kind of title you can spend a rewarding 10 minutes with or get lost in for multiple hours. The experience is a little more refined on Sony and Microsoft’s more powerful consoles, but you can’t easily take that on the go with you. If you don’t care about that, snap it up on the PS5 or Xbox Series X / S. But if you’re looking for a game that’s at home both on your TV and away from it, OlliOlli World on the Switch fits the bill perfectly.