Nightdive Studios’ immersive sim franchise System Shock franchise is being turned into a live-action TV show. You'll be able to watch it on the upcoming streaming service Binge, which is also working on a show based on Ubisoft's Driver.

More details about the System Shock TV show will be revealed in due course. It will tell "a harrowing story of Citadel Station and its rogue AI that subjects the crew to unimaginable horror," Binge said. The service, which is set to launch next year, didn't reveal when the series will premiere.

Meanwhile, Nightdive is working on a System Shock remake. The game was supposed to arrive this past summer, but it's now scheduled to debut by the end of 2021.

System Shock joins a long list of shows and movies based on games that are in the pipeline. Among them are Twisted Metal, Firewatch, Disco Elysium and a ton of Netflix projects, like League of Legends series Arcane. Rumors are also floating around that Epic Games might be making a Fortnite movie.

Elsewhere, Sony is supposed to release the Uncharted film in February at long, long last. Has, uh, anyone happened to see a trailer lying around somewhere?

Facebook is introducing new policies to safeguard users from online bullying and harassment. In a post attributed to Head of Safety Antigone Davis, the company said it will take down mass coordinated harassment campaigns targeted at individuals at heightened risk of offline harm. It will do so even if the content people post wouldn’t normally violate its safety guidelines. Additionally, Facebook says it will remove objectionable content in whatever form it takes, be that direct messages, comments or posts. As part of the same policy, the company will remove state-linked networks that work together to silence and harass people.

Had the above policy been in place in the past, one situation where Facebook may have enforced it was when Taylor Swift’s Instagram account was bombarded with snake emoji following a dramatic breakup with electronic producer Calvin Harris. Speaking of celebrities, the company has also put in place new protections to safeguard public figures from sexual harassment and appearance shaming. To that end, it plans to remove profiles, pages and groups dedicated to sexualizing those individuals. It will also target “severe sexualizing content,” including photoshopped images and drawings.

“We made these changes because attacks like these can weaponize a public figure’s appearance, which is unnecessary and often not related to the work these public figures represent,” the company said. Facebook will also provide additional protections for individuals who become famous involuntarily. Those may include individuals like journalists and human rights activists. 

Facebook has repeatedly faced pressure to do more to prevent bullying and harassment across all of its apps, but particularly on Instagram. In the aftermath of the Euro 2020 final, which saw three Black players on the English national team face a flood of harassment after England lost to Italy, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri promised the company would introduce new features to protect users. “Racism and hate speech have no place on Instagram,” he said at the time. “It is not only honestly fucked up to see people treated that way, but it breaks how Instagram works.”

Some Snapchat users are having problems with the app this morning, with several noting on Twitter that they're unable to send snaps. The company acknowledged the outage and said it was looking into the matter. 

Outage reports from users skyrocketed on Down Detector just before 7AM ET before tapering off somewhat at around 9:30AM. A heat map indicated that reports were coming in from across the US and, at the time of writing, users are still grousing about the outage on Twitter. Engadget has contacted Snap for more details, and we'll update this post when things look like they're getting back to normal.

This is the latest big outage to affect a major social media service over the last week or so. Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were down for more than six hours on October 4th. Facebook blamed the outage on a "faulty configuration change" that caused havoc with the DNS servers. Facebook's apps went down yet again for a couple of hours last Friday. Twitter, meanwhile, briefly had issues of its own on Tuesday evening, with tweets not loading for some users for a spell.

Twitter's latest test is all about how you view tweets in the app. Some users on iOS will be able to swipe between the Home feed, which shows the top tweets in your timeline, and a chronological look at the latest tweets (the proper way to use Twitter, but you do you).

It's a fairly small user interface change, but a handy one for those who dart between the two views. The current method of switching between the views is through the button on the top right of the screen, but a swipe is quicker than a couple of taps.

The update could make the app's home screen a little messier if you have pinned lists that you swipe through. Still, it could be a welcome quality of life change for some folks while making the two options more prominent.

The animated League of Legends series Arcane will hit Netflix on November 6th and Riot Games is marking the launch with an in-person immersive experience connected to the series. The publisher teamed up with Secret Cinema to host the Arcane experience, which will only be available in Los Angeles.

You'll get to explore the Undercity, where you'll delve into the origins of two LoL champions. You'll take on missions, find secret hideouts, form alliances and evade enforcers. The ending of the story will be different depending on the choices you make, so Arcane might encourage repeat visits.

Riot is pushing into another realm of entertainment here. “For the launch of Arcane, we really wanted to find the right partner who shared our vision for bringing such a rich IP and to life in an interactive, immersive way," Brandon Miao, cross-product experiences and partnerships lead for Riot Experience, said. "Bringing players new, authentic out-of-game experiences that tie back to the narrative of the show is a first for us, and something we are incredibly excited to share with players as we expand to entertainment.”

The Arcane experience will debut on November 21st and tickets cost $70. You'll get your first chance at snagging a ticket through a presale that starts on October 13th at 3PM ET. You can sign up for ticket alerts through Secret Cinema. General admission starts 24 hours later.

Secret Cinema has built a reputation for creating immersive experiences based on movies and, more recently with its Stranger Things adaptation, TV shows. This is the first time it has taken on a project with roots in gaming.

Seven years after it disappeared, G4 has a return date. The gaming and fandom TV network will be revived on November 16th on Xfinity TV, Cox and Verizon Fios (Verizon is Engadget's former parent company). You'll be able to stream the network on Philo too.

G4 also has a multi-year promotional and commercial deal with Twitch. The network will keep making dedicated content for social media channels, including YouTube, as well. G4 announced the return date in typically offbeat fashion, with gags about the Xbox Mini Fridge and the Nintendo Switch OLED.

Classic G4 series Attack of the Show! and Xplay are returning with their respective former hosts, Kevin Pereira and Adam Sessler. A weekly show called Boosted will focus on esports coverage, and you'll be able to watch ESL esports events such as IEM Katowice 2022. Also on the docket are a series in which G4 talent and guests play Dungeons & Dragons, along with all 167 episodes of Ninja Warrior (aka Sasuke).

As well as Pereira and Sessler, the G4 talent roster includes esports figures Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez, Ovilee May and Indiana “Froskurinn” Black; YouTube creators Kassem G, Jirard “The Completionist” Khalil and Gina Darling; Twitch streamers Fiona Nova and Will Neff; and WWE wrestler and gaming personality Xavier Woods (aka Austin Creed).

Carriers started dropping the original incarnation of G4 in September 2013. The network's gradual decline came to a head on November 30th, 2014, its final day on the air until now. Comcast announced plans to revive the brand in July 2020. Earlier this year, G4 started streaming shows on Twitch, YouTube and Twitter in the leadup to the relaunch.

All Twitter users can now remove a follower without having to block them. The company started testing this option last month, and starting today, everyone will have access to it. To quietly stop someone from seeing your tweets in their feed, go to the Followers tab on your profile, click the three-dot menu next to the user in question and select the "Remove this follower" option.

This is part of Twitter's efforts to reduce harassment on the platform. Blocking someone you don't want to follow you could lead to retaliation from that person via their allies or their secondary accounts after they find out. Cutting them in this fashion and muting them will mean they're none the wiser that they're out of the loop.

This method won't prevent someone you boot from your followers list from seeing your public tweets. Only blocking them or making your account private will do that. Elsewhere, Twitter is testing a Safety Mode, which automatically blocks accounts that use “potentially harmful language.” It's also looking into more ways to filter and limit replies, so it seems the company is making its anti-harassment efforts a bigger priority.

This post keeps spoilers to the bare minimum since the show will not air until October 28th.

While Star Trek certainly has its share of young fans, it’s never been specifically for the kids. Sure, there was the animated show back in the ‘70s, but that was basically a continuation of the original 1966 series. The newest program, Prodigy, is designed with kids in mind — especially those who might know nothing about Star Trek.

Though the show won’t show up on Paramount+ until the end of the month, fans got a sneak peek at the first episode, “Lost & Found,” during this past weekend's New York Comic Con. It introduces to our core cast of characters, a diverse group of aliens trapped on a distant mining colony and forced to dig in search of a mysterious prize. It’s a pretty grim scenario for a kid’s show, but one that won’t stick for long — this is Star Trek, after all, and part of the franchise’s ethos is exploration.

To keep the series as newbie-friendly as possible, the connections to the wider Trek universe are kept to a minimum. We don’t even know what species our protagonist, Dal, is. The rest of the cast is filled out by aliens that are either new to us or haven’t gotten a lot of screen time in the past. And the Federation is largely unknown here. Not that it isn’t mentioned a few times, but that our group of former prisoners have no idea what that means. Long-time fans will be excited to watch them learn all about it, while new fans will get to take that journey of discovery with them.

It’s that sense of wonder that will keep the show firmly in tone with the franchise, even as its new setting and animation style evoke prior science fiction programs like Star Wars: Rebels and Farscape. Star Wars: Rebels was also intended as a kid’s show, but its role in filling in details about the rise of the Rebel Alliance and sense of pathos also made it an enjoyable watch for adults. While older Trekkies will probably want to keep up with Prodigy for those ties to the greater continuity, the action sequences are solid and the initial plot line is serious enough to keep newcomer adults engaged. It’s a good introduction to the franchise for both kids and grownups alike, something sorely needed when there’s over 800 episodes to trawl through.

Nickelodeon

Prodigy is computer-animated by Eye Animation Productions, part of CBS Television Studios. According to Nickelodeon and Paramount Animation president Ramsey Naito, CG was chosen for being the “most immersive approach,” and that director Ben Hibon’s vision for it had a lot of soul. The show adopts a blocky angular style similar to Rebels but the edges are smoother and the color palette is more expansive. Even when things are grim, it’s still a visual treat in terms of how things are shaded. The planet is a full spectrum of browns and reds, while space isn’t just black and white; it’s purple and blue and pink with an array of glittering stars. It’s a cinematic place you want to explore.

Nickelodeon

And, of course, our tool for exploration is the USS Protostar, a lost Starfleet vessel that the characters unearth in their digging. What exactly is the ship, and how did it end up on this depressing mining colony? Those are questions for the long haul. Some may however be answered by the vessel’s “help desk,” a hologram of Kathryn Janeway. She doesn’t have a huge part to play in the series premiere, which is good because it means she can’t draw attention away from the introduction of the main cast. Paramount+ did, at least, release a short clip starring Janeway to quench your thirst for the coffee-swilling captain.

During the New York Comic Con panel executive producers Dan and Kevin Hageman did share a few casting announcements. Voyager fans will be pleased to hear that Robert Beltran will be reprising Chakotay. It’s unknown if he’ll appear in the flesh or as another hologram, but we do know that he’s been promoted to captain in the time since his last appearance. Kids will probably be more excited by some of the other guest voices, like Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs as Tysess and The Good Place’s Jameela Jamil as Ascensia. These additional announcements also feel like a tip of the hat to Voyager fans, a show that saw its share of guest stars like The Rock. Prodigy will even bring back Jason Alexander, an actor who also appeared on Voyager, but will now appear in the new role of Doctor Noum.

Nickelodeon

There’s a lot about the show to be excited about, and what’s been revealed about Prodigy thus far is extremely promising. But as a middle-aged and long-time Star Trek fan, what got me the most in this premiere was when you get to see the Protostar finally fly. Its ascent from the planet was thrilling, but watching the characters react to seeing the stars for the first time… I might have shed a few tears. Star Trek is about exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations. Now we get to watch a whole new cast, one that had previously been abused and downtrodden, live out that dream. Even if we’ve left the confines of the Federation, the show’s heart is still firmly in place with its past.

Facebook is trying to mend its reputation in the wake of whisleblower Frances Haugen's testimony, and that includes promises of features lessening the potential harm for teens. CNN and Reuters report that Facebook Global Affairs VP Nick Clegg promised Instagram would introduce a "take a break" feature that encouraged teens to simply stop using the social network for a while. Clegg didn't say when it would be ready, but this was clearly meant to reduce addiction and other unhealthy behavior.

The social media exec also said Facebook would "nudge" teens away from material in its apps that "may not be conducive to their well-being." He didn't provide specifics for this new approach. He did, however, suggest that Facebook's algorithms should be "held to account," including by regulation if needed, to be sure real-world results matched intentions.

The new methods might address some of Haugen's concerns. She claimed Facebook was aware its algorithms were destructive, leading children to harmful material and removing only a fraction of hate speech. Haugen also felt Congress should reform the Communications Decency Act's Section 230 to increase Facebook's liability for algorithm-chosen content, and that Facebook should add friction to reduce the virality of content and force users to think about posts rather than share them reflexively.

At the same time, this might not satisfy Haugen and fellow critics. Breaks and nudges may reduce exposure to harmful content, but they won't remove the content in question. Clegg's statements also reflect a familiar strategy at Facebook. It likes to invite regulation, but only the regulation it's comfortable with. While the proposed changes could help, politicians may demand more — in part to prevent Facebook from dictating its own regulation.

Facebook and its apps are down yet again, according to the company. The extent of the latest outage wasn't immediately clear, but Facebook and Instagram both acknowledged that "some" users are having trouble accessing their services. 

Developing...