The sexual harassment lawsuit against Activision Blizzard will have more repercussions for game content. Blizzard is changingOverwatch character Jesse McCree's name now that his real-life namesake has left the company. The developer wants a name that "better represents" Overwatch ideals, according to a statement.
The company had planned a story arc for September that would have featured McCree, but is delaying that narrative until later in 2021 to reflect the name change. Players will instead get a new free-for-all map that month. Blizzard also promised that it would no longer name characters after employees, and said it would be more "thoughtful and discerning" about referencing the real world in Overwatch.
The real Jesse McCree left Blizzard earlier in August, just weeks after his name surfaced in a California lawsuit over sexual discrimination and harassment at the gaming giant. McCree was reportedly spotted in photos of BlizzCon's notorious "Cosby Suite" hotel room where Blizzard workers allegedly harassed women.
This isn't the first time Blizzard has altered content following the lawsuit. It pulled World of Warcraft's references to Alex Afrasiabi, directly accused of harassment, soon after the suit emerged. However, this might be more noticeable. McCree is one of the best-known characters in Overwatch — the name change could easily draw attention to the lawsuit and the "frat boy" culture that reportedly persisted for years.
Amazon is adding more titles to the list Prime Gaming subscribers can claim for free starting on September 1st. One of the latest additions is Knockout City, a recent release from Velan and EA. It's a cross-platform dodgeball brawler launched in May that's already available through Xbox Games Pass Ultimate and EA Play. The game is also free to play until level 25, but Prime Gaming users who want to keep playing until after they reach it will now be able to grab the title at no additional cost.
In addition, subscribers can still claim Lucasfilm Games' Sam & Max: Hit The Road beyond September 1st. The game has been free for subscribers since July, but like the studio's Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, it was supposed to be removed from the list after that date. Sam & Max: Hit The Road is based on a comic featuring an anthropomorphic detective dog and a rabbit-like creature. Completing the list games that will available for free starting on September 1st are Candleman The Complete Journey, Puzzle Agent, Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis, Tools Up! and Unmemory.
Subscribers will also get access to new loot for popular open-world RPG Genshin Impact. Namely: 60x Primogems, 8x Hero's Wit and 5x Calla Lily Seafood Soup. New loot also awaits Madden NFL 22, Fall Guys, Red Dead Online, Brawlhalla, Apex Legends, Grand Theft Auto Online and Rogue Company players. These freebies will be available at different dates throughout the month and will be up for a limited time only. Subscribers can check the official Amazon Prime Gaming website for the offers' start and end dates.
OnlyFans is back. Or at least, business will continue as usual for now. Best known for its adult videos and images from independent creators, the site decided to bring the ban hammer down on adult content last week, citing that big banking was to blame for the sudden shift in policy. Apparently, as of yesterday, OnlyFans has found a way forward. It says it’s “suspended” the ban on pornography for now, but has otherwise left creators and the rest of us in the dark as to the details. In an email to creators, OnlyFans said it’s got “banking partners’ assurances” that it can support the whole gamut of content hosted on the site.
The next challenge for the company are the issues highlighted in a recent BBC investigation of its activities. The report outlined how illegal content from some creators was able to make it onto the site, and how banning policy seemed to contort to fit its most popular creators.
Samsung features a new OS, body composition measurement and sleep-tracking features as well as upgraded sensors and processor in its Galaxy Watch 4. According to Reviews Editor Cherlynn Low, while those are helpful, it’s the core smartwatch experience (what used to be known as Tizen) that shines. Unfortunately, battery life suffers as a result of all those new features.
XCOM developer Firaxis has unveiled Marvel's Midnight Suns, a turn-based role-playing game based on the Midnight Sons team from 1990s crossover issues. The modern take has you play a new Marvel co-created superhero, The Hunter, with help from Midnight Sons members, like Blade, Ghost Rider and Wolverine, and Avengers including Captain America and Iron Man.
Midnight Suns comes to PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch and Windows PCs in March 2022.
If you're a Discord user, there's a good chance you've benefited from Groovy Bot, which lets people jam together with music from YouTube, Spotify and others. But it turns out Google didn't appreciate its ability to rip music out of YouTube. The company has sent a cease and desist letter to Groovy Bot's owners, and against the might of Google, they're not putting up a fight: Groovy Bot will go offline on August 30th.
A YouTube spokesperson noted that Groovy Bot violated its terms of service, particularly because it modified the way YouTube worked and charged for the privilege. If Groovy Bot were merely free, it may have been able to live on — the premium subscription might be what killed it.
West and electronics design firm Kano have introduced a Donda Stem Player that, as the name implies, lets you remix music from Kanye's upcoming album Donda (plus your own tunes) using song stems. The gadget can apparently isolate song parts and control aspects like bass, drums, samples and vocals, though it’s unlikely to be able to perfectly lift out separate elements. You can order the Stem Player now for $200.
After a year-long delay, Halo Infinite will arrive on December 8th. Developer 343 Industries confirmed the timing during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live event yesterday. However, this date was leaked just hours before the show started. To celebrate, however, we did get a new multiplayer gameplay trailer.
Sony, Bose, Apple and even Razer have headphones worth considering.
In the last two years, true wireless earbuds have made quite the leap. There’s no doubt the popularity of Apple’s AirPods helped make these headphones a mainstay, but companies’ ability to offer reliable connectivity, great sound and active noise cancellation (ANC) in an increasingly smaller form factor has hastened widespread adoption. Here’s our updated guide to the best options out there.
This article contains mild spoilers for season two, episode three of 'Star Trek: Lower Decks.'
This week’s episode of Lower Decks, “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris,” manages to squeeze two references into its title: a season one The Next Generation installment called “We’ll Always Have Paris,” and the name of a main cast member of Star Trek: Voyager, Lieutenant Tom Eugene Paris. But aside from that clever bit of wordplay, the title also carries a deeper meaning: That as much as we’d like to forget about the more embarrassing moments of the Star Trek franchise, they still happened and they weren’t all bad. Even, and especially, Voyager.
CBS
Viewer reactions to Voyager have been rather polarized over the course of the 26 years since it premiered. Back in the ‘90s, many fans were excited to have a “real” Star Trek show again, one that took place on a ship that was constantly exploring, unlike the comparatively stationary political drama of Deep Space Nine. But clunky writing soured many people’s opinion on Voyager, and toward the end of its run the show was known more for Seven of Nine’s skintight outfits and its slate of guest stars of the week, including Jason Alexander and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
After the show went off the air, the franchise stopped moving forward in its timeline, choosing to explore Starfleet’s founding in Enterprise and rebooting the entire universe completely with the 2009 Star Trek movie. While fans were thrown a bone with a brief cameo by Admiral Kathryn Janeway in the last TNG-era film, Nemesis, Voyager would essentially disappear from the Star Trek canon until the appearance of Seven of Nine in episode four of Picard.
Trae Patton
For fans of The Next Generation, Picard had its upsides: We got to see Troi and Riker as a family, and Data got a better sendoff into the afterlife. But for fans of Voyager, it was anything but positive, with the death of a supporting character and a rather grim existence for fan-favorite Seven of Nine.
Star Trek: Lower Decks rolls back the clock a little bit, as it takes place a year after the events of Nemesis, making it our first real view of the Star Trek universe’s immediate future after TNG, DS9 and Voyager. The Dominion War is over, Romulus is under a new regime and the crew of the USS Voyager are basically celebrities after seven years spent in the Delta Quadrant; Picard takes place nearly twenty years later, when the luster would have been gone.
Matt Kennedy
Here everything is just shiny and new and worthy of commemorative plates — a bit of a weird thing to exist in a post-scarcity culture, but this is a comedy series, after all. And in this week’s B-plot, Brad Boimler is looking to get one of his plates signed by a special guest to the USS Cerritos: Tom Paris. Or, as Brad refers to the former Voyager crew member, “Creator of Fairhaven, Captain Proton himself” as well as the first human to break the transwarp barrier. Straight off, that’s a reference to three of the goofiest, oddball and some say worst episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. And just in case you forgot what was so bad about the last one, Mariner asks “is he still a salamander?,” because that is a thing that happened in the episode “Threshold.”
Undeterred (and perhaps even encouraged) by the weirdness, Boimler is all hyped to meet his hero. Even after the ship’s system doesn’t recognize him and won’t let him through any doors, he takes to the Jefferies tubes to make his way to the bridge to meet Lt. Paris.
In a way, it feels like a metaphor for how the fandom feels about Star Trek: Voyager now. While everyone admits it had a lot of dumb moments, those actually made it moreendearing. The famous line “there’s coffee in that nebula” would inspire astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti to bring a replica uniform with her and wear it on a mission back in 2015:
— Samantha Cristoforetti (@AstroSamantha) April 17, 2015
And who can forget the infamous “Tuvix” episode, where crew members Tuvok and Neelix were merged into one being thanks to a transporter accident? Though the resulting individual was healthy and happy, the decision was made to force him to split back into his component persons, inspiring the recent internet rallying cry “Janeway murdered Tuvix.” Even Janeway actor Kate Mulgrew entered the debate, responding to a tweet from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When you’ve got politicians involved it’s not really a fandom in-joke anymore.
Willing to hear the crew’s thoughts, as always. However, shouldn’t Tuvok and Neelix should have the biggest say...oh wait, they couldn’t! I stand by my decision to restore them to their lives. Rewatch and report back, AOC - and congrats on your win! 👏🏻
Maybe it’s time to give Voyager a bit more credit. It’s not as good as TNG or DS9, but it still has its fair share of fans. I remember a time when it seemed like it was constantly running on Spike TV (now the Paramount Network), as opposed to Deep Space Nine, which is seldom rerun due to its serialized nature. Last year I sat down and rewatched the entire Star Trek franchise, including Voyager, and saw quite a few episodes I had missed the first time. I found myself enjoying some of it, cringing just as often, and eventually remembering why I had stopped watching the show for a while back when it aired. In general, I feel like the show’s biggest problem was missed potential, like the way the conflict between the Starfleet and Maquis crew members was quickly smoothed over, how it underutilized many of its cast, and why on earth did Harry Kim never get promoted.
CBS
However, it’s not the job of Lower Decks to explain or redeem Voyager. Boimler and Tom Paris are only the B-plot here, with the main drive of the episode being Tendi and Mariner’s mission to pick up a package for Doctor T’Ana as well as Rutherford’s quest to find out how a certain dead officer is alive again. The episode just asks us to consider what it would be like to be a Starfleet officer and hear about all of Voyager’s adventures in the Delta Quadrant. Weird and goofy? Yes. But honestly, they’re also pretty cool.
Facebook is considering forming a commission to advise on thorny issues related to global elections, according to a report Wednesday from The New York Times. The company has begun to approach academics and policy experts, who The Times says could potentially weigh in on issues ranging from political ads to election misinformation. What's more, it is not just US elections where a commission could find itself weighing complicated election issues; the commission would also likely have a mandate to weigh in on closely watched elections in Hungary, Germany, Brazil and the Philippines.
But though the makeup of the election commission sounds like the Oversight Board — and could similarly let Facebook side-step ownership of controversial decisions — there could be an important difference, according to The Times. Whereas the Oversight Board weighs in on decisions that Facebook has already made (much like the Supreme Court considers contested court rulings), the election commission would have the latitude to proactively offer advice, even on matters where Facebook had not yet taken a public stance.
If Facebook goes ahead with outsourcing election-related decisions to an advisory committee, it would be a departure from its previous attempts to counter election misinformation, which have been largely reactive, and almost always imperfect. Even after a temporary ban on political ads ahead of the 2020 US election, some ads were still showing as active in Facebook's ad library. Facebook last year also endeavored to label ads from politically connected publications, and earlier this year moved to show users less political content altogether.
Though Facebook reportedly hopes to launch the commission ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, The Times also describes the outreach as preliminary, with no guarantee that Facebook will move forward on this.
Sifu has been on our radar for a while, but until now, it hasn't been clear when exactly we'd get our hands on the kung fu action title. During Gamescom's Opening Night Live event, Sloclap announced a release date for the game: February 22nd, 2022. The Absolverstudio initially planned to ship Sifu this year, but it pushed the game back to early 2022 to avoid overworking the team or compromising on quality.
Sloclap revealed the release date at the end of the latest gameplay trailer. The clip shows the protagonist fighting a bunch of goons in locations including a rooftop, an art gallery and a firelit alleyway. Unlike the last trailer, the latest preview doesn't focus on one of Sifu's most intriguing mechanics: your character is a bit older every time they respawn after dying.
Pre-orders are now open for Sifu, which is coming to PlayStation 4, PS5 and Epic Games Store. If you lock in the $40 standard edition now, you'll receive a special avatar pack and an exclusive cinematic pack for the photo mode. If you pre-order the $50 special edition, you'll get those bonuses, as well as a digital art book, a copy of the soundtrack and 48 hours of early access before the official release date.
We haven't heard much about Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga since TT Games delayed it indefinitely back in April. At Gamescom's Opening Night Live event, the studio and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment showed off a new trailer that embraces the series' trademark irreverent humor, in-jokes and sleek visuals.
There are a bunch of nods to famous scenes from the Star Wars movies (the game adapts all nine entries in the Skywalker saga). Along with X-wing battles and lightsaber duels with the likes of Darth Vader and Darth Maul, you'll see moments like Rey flipping over Kylo Ren's TIE fighter. The game includes 20 unlockable planets you can travel between and more than 300 playable characters.
While there's no firm release date as yet, the game should arrive in spring 2022 on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC.
This is the first game in the Lego Star Wars series since 2016, when TT Games Legofied Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It marks the first time that the studio has adapted The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Warner Bros. initially planned to release Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga in 2020, and then in spring 2021, but TT Games needed "more time" to finish it.
This post contains major spoilers for episode three of What If…?
After two fun, zippy stories that focused on the idea of swapping one character for another, What If…? pivots to a darker outcome in its third installment. This time, the entire Avengers slate is wiped clean, with Nick Fury left to sort out the mess. It’s a nod to the animated series’ comic inspiration, plus a sign that the show isn’t willing to settle into a routine.
The original comic book, also called What If?, often see-sawed between silly and serious scenarios, like what would happen if Spider-Man had joined the Fantastic Four, Gwen Stacy had lived or if Dazzler became Galactus’ herald. With no need to follow continuity, the creative teams of each issue in the anthology were free to take the story wherever they wanted, often in dark turns that ultimately illustrated why the original timeline was the best.
Marvel Studios
However, the What If…?Disney+ series has taken the opposite tack, showcasing one scenario where things are largely the same level of good and bad (for Captain Carter) and another where events went decidedly better (unless you’re Peter Quill). It’s likely the creators didn’t want to immediately scare away casual viewers with anything too grim, keeping the stories as light and breezy as their cinematic inspirations.
The third episode doesn’t just change this course by featuring a more pessimistic scenario, however, it also steps away from telling us upfront why things are like this. The first two episodes had Uatu explicitly pointing out the moment of divergence. This time around, we know something is different — the prospective Avengers are being murdered — but exactly how and why is a mystery.
Marvel Studios
It actually makes for a more interesting show because rather than playing a half-hour game of “spot the difference,” we become engaged in speculation about why this is happening. We know things would be vastly altered if Tony Stark or Bruce Banner dies, but now we get to play detective, plumbing our knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for suspects and motives. Instead of a straight-up adventure tale, this episode was a murder mystery.
Whether it’s a successful mystery, I’m not entirely sure. Hank Pym is not someone I had considered as a suspect, even with his distaste for SHIELD and the Starks in the main timeline. The point of divergence turns out to be Hope Pym joining SHIELD and being killed on a mission, which leaves Hank alone and bitter. Why he chooses to kill five uninvolved strangers in an attempt to hurt Nick Fury is murky at best. I’d originally pegged the murder of the Avengers as a Hydra plot, which would have actually help shore up the retcon from Captain America and the Winter Soldier of SHIELD being taken over by Hydra — it’s rarely explored why Hydra let the Avengers get as far as they did in the main timeline, rather than strangling that potential opposition in its cradle.
Ultimately, the point of the episode is to set the viewer up for even darker stories to come — at least one future story is focused on zombies, a nod to the rather successful line of “Marvel Zombies” comics from over a decade ago. It also does some tidying up for the main continuity as well, reminding the viewers that three of the early MCU films took place in the same week, and that Loki is stilla jerk. It may not be essential viewing, but What If…? is certainly a useful footnote.
Kanye West is no stranger to dabbling with technology (he discussed a Teenage Engineering collaboration in 2019), but now there's a device you can buy for yourself. The rapper and electronics design firm Kano have introduced a Donda Stem Player that, as the name implies, lets you remix music from Kanye's upcoming album Donda (plus your own tunes) using song stems.
The puck-like gadget reportedly lets you isolate song parts and control aspects like bass, drums, samples and vocals. You can reportedly split "any" song into stems. We've asked Kano how this works, but it's unlikely that it will perfectly separate song elements — that's a difficult feat for a full-fledged PC, let alone something as portable as this.
The Stem Player also includes familiar tools including effects, four-channel audio mixing, live sampling and real-time loop and speed controls. You navigate much of the interface through four touch-sensitive "light sliders" with haptic feedback and customizable colors, and you can save and share your creations with othrs.
You can pipe audio through the built-in speaker, Bluetooth or a 3.5mm headphone jack through a variety of lossy and lossless formats (including AAC, AIFF, MP3 and WAV). You'll have just 8GB of storage to work with, though — minus the bundled Donda stems.
You can order the Stem Player now for $200. That's not a trivial outlay if you're eager to tinker with songs, but it's relatively affordable as far as electronic music-making devices go. Just be aware that it's really just one part of a larger creative toolset, not your ticket to stardom.
Gamescom officially gets underway today as an online-only event for the second year running. It kicks off with Geoff Keighley's Opening Night Live, a two-hour showcase filled with trailers, announcements and updates about a ton of upcoming games.
🎉 Wednesday, celebrate what’s next in video games with @gamescom Opening Night Live!
Here’s the hype trailer I edited to get us geared up for Wednesday’s 2-hour live show with 30+ games
Tune in 🕚 11a PT / 2p ET / 7p BST / 8p CEST to see what we have in store for you 🙂 pic.twitter.com/P6hVM8YdJJ
Publishers involved include Amazon Games, Bandai Namco, Devolver Digital, Mediatonic, PlayStation, Sega, Warner Bros. Games, Ubisoft and Xbox Game Studios.
Opening Night Live starts at 2PM ET. You can watch it via the YouTube embed below, or on Twitch, Twitter or Facebook. Engadget will cover the biggest news coming out of the event too.
