Monolith Productions, the studio responsible for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel, is working on a new game in the Wonder Woman franchise. Publisher Warner Bros. Games showed off a teaser for the new project during The Game Awards.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a third-person action RPG with a clever orc-management system tacked on top of it. It was very well-received when it came out in 2014, and it was followed in 2017 by Shadow of War.
There's no word so far on what type of game Wonder Woman will be, but Monolith's past adaptations might provide some clues.
Ninja Theory revealed Senua's Saga: Hellblade II two years ago at The Game Awards, and since then, it's kept fairly quiet about the sequel, and we've certainly never seen any gameplay. That is, until today. Ninja Theory showed off a hefty chunk of gameplay from Hellblade II today, once again at The Game Awards.
There's no word on a release date for the game, but it's heading to PC and Xbox platforms. It's a much more ambitious effort than the original Hellblade, which came out in 2017 to much acclaim, with high praise for its graphics, mo-cap performances and emotional storyline.
Engadget senior editor Nick Summers visited Ninja Theory in 2017 to get a taste of how the original Hellblade was made, and stepped inside the mo-cap suit himself.
In the midst of multiple lawsuits and investigations over allegations of gender discrimination and sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard, an employee on Wednesday made a public statement about the abuse she says she's experienced over her four-year career at the studio. Christine works for Blizzard, the group responsible for games including Overwatch and Diablo, and she stood outside the studio's headquarters in Irvine, California, with her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, by her side.
Through tears, Christine said she experienced years of sexual harassment at Blizzard, even though it had started out as her "dream job."
"I was so excited to be a part of a community that seemed to care so much about their employees," Christine said. "Unfortunately, that didn't happen to me. Since I've been employed at Blizzard, I've been subjected to rude comments about my body, unwanted sexual advances, inappropriately touched, subjected to alcohol-infused team events and cube crawls, invited to have casual sex with my supervisors, and surrounded by a frat-boy culture that's detrimental to women."
Christine said she brought these negative experiences to her supervisors and they were brushed aside. According to her statement, her superiors said the men harassing her were "just joking" and that she should "get over it." She was told not to go to HR. She was told her abusers had done nothing wrong in the eyes of the law.
Christine said that after she complained about the sexual abuse she was experiencing, she was demoted and faced retaliation. She said she was denied shares in the company and full profit-sharing, and she received minimal raises.
In her statement, Christine said her mental health was shattered by these events, but she was going public in order to fight for a safe work environment for all Activision Blizzard employees.
"Blizzard has some amazing people that work for them, but we need to feel safe and supported by people in leadership roles, and hold people accountable for their actions," she said.
Activision Blizzard is facing multiple investigations and lawsuits regarding its alleged frat-boy culture. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing is suing the studio after an investigation uncovered years of discriminatory hiring practices, a systemic failure to treat sexual harassment seriously, and a culture that encouraged abuse. The result, according to the DFEH report, was a studio where just 20 percent of employees were women, and leadership roles were held only by white men.
Lisa Bloom, Christine's lawyer, made a statement of her own after the employee spoke.
"We are here because sexual harassment victims at Activision Blizzard have been ignored," Bloom said. "They are still suffering and it's time that they are prioritized."
Following an investigation by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this year, Activision Blizzard was ordered to establish an $18 million fund to compensate victims of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at the studio. Bloom argued that this amount is far too low, considering there are hundreds of victims. She also pointed out that Activision Blizzard has already missed critical deadlines when it comes to distributing this money.
"I think we can all agree that the $18 million number is woefully inadequate," Bloom said.
Bloom then outlined three demands. She first said Activision Blizzard should establish a streamlined, fair and fast process for all victims to resolve their legal claims, and asked for a fund exceeding $100 million. Second, Bloom said the studio should deliver a real apology to Christine and the other victims, and third, she demanded a review by a neutral third party of the career damage employees like Christine have endured, with the goal of remedying any discriminatory decisions.
Bloom has ample experience in this legal arena, most recently representing victims of Jeffrey Epstein.
Activision Blizzard employees have staged a handful of walkouts in protest of the studio's response to these allegations, which has been dismissive and generally terrible. More than 800 workers in November signed a petition calling for CEO Bobby Kotick to resign, considering he's held that position for 30 years and has overseen the alleged culture of harassment and discrimination the entire time. Kotick's tenure at the studio and his power over the board is also likely why he hasn't yet been forced out.
Users are reporting a widespread outage at Amazon Web Services, bringing down websites and backend services for organizations including the Associated Press, Disney+ and Vice. Details about the outage are scarce.
The AWS status page reported increased error rates for its Management Console on Tuesday morning.
"We are experiencing API and console issues in the US-EAST-1 Region," the page said. "We have identified root cause and we are actively working towards recovery. This issue is affecting the global console landing page, which is also hosted in US-EAST-1."
BREAKING: Users say Amazon Web Services is suffering a major outage. The company provides cloud computing services to individuals, universities, governments and companies including The Associated Press.
Amazon has yet to comment on the outage and few details are available.
AWS went down in June, taking out sites like Twitch, Reddit, Twitter, Hulu, HBO Max, Shopify and Amazon itself. That outage was resolved the same day. AWS has suffered outages prior to this year, too.
The best thing I can say about Halo: Infinite is that it gets better as it goes. The single-player campaign starts out as a basic first-person shooter dripping in nostalgia juice, and it ends up as a rudimentary open-world shooter swimming in sci-fi tropes, starring everyone's favorite emotionless space soldier and his co-dependent AI assistant.
As the first open-world entry in the Halo franchise and with more than a year of extra development time, I had high hopes for Infinite. Maybe too high. And even with a grapple hook, this game just can’t reach them.
I say all of this with love in my heart. I’ve been a Halo fan since Combat Evolved, and I have two decades of happy memories associated with the franchise, most of which I’ve re-lived while playing Infinite. That part has been a treat — there’s nothing like turning the corner in a random metal-lined corridor, or driving a Warthog down a narrow mountain path, and feeling that warm, gleeful sense of familiarity. This happens over and over again in Infinite.
Engadget
Revamping old environments is the easy part, though. Halo Infinite is the first open-world entry in the franchise’s history, promising more exploration and spontaneity for Master Chief than ever before. However, in practice, the world of Zeta Halo is contained and largely linear, offering few surprises and little incentive to travel off the beaten path. There are bases to capture and hordes to defeat, but with such a cramped map, these sidequests pop up naturally along the path of the main storyline, and the game automatically switches the objective to whatever mission is nearby. Sidequests are folded into the campaign like this, and they become indistinguishable from the main missions.
By the time I felt ready to get out and explore the Ring, I realized I’d already hit all the icons on my map.
Engadget
That said, Infinite introduces new mechanics and tools that are really fun to play with, and the best of these gadgets is the grapple hook. There are no invisible walls in Infinite, and the grapple hook allows players to take advantage of Zeta Halo’s vertical space, scaling mountains and buildings in a series of pops and swings. The grapple hook opens up fresh vantage points for every battle, and it saved my Master Chief from falling to his death many times over. (I may have even sang, "Spider-Chief, Spider-Chief..." under my breath every now and then. Maybe.)
Playing with an Xbox controller, the grapple hook lives on the D-pad, alongside three other tools that get added to Chief's arsenal as the game progresses: a shield, radar darts and a dash move that I rarely use. I’ve tried to deploy the dash, but I really don’t see the point when the grapple hook does the same thing, but faster and in more directions.
Switching among these options on the D-pad takes some practice, but once that becomes second-nature, the hook, shield and radar make each fight more dynamic than Halo’s ever been. The grapple hook allows Master Chief to pick up objects from afar like guns and throwable explosives, it eventually shocks enemies on contact, and it lets players smoothly take over enemy vehicles. Infinite is at its best when it provides a rich environment for grappling, shielding and landing floaty in-air headshots, with enemies attacking from all sides.
Engadget
Now I’m going to talk some shit about the grapple hook. I know, I just sang its praises, and I stand by everything I said, but I have to put it all in context. From my perspective, the most obvious innovation in Halo Infinite is its use of vertical space, aided by the grapple hook — but that’s hardly a new idea at all, and frankly, other games have done it better.
To name just a few recent examples: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild made headlines in 2017 for rethinking vertical exploration in an open-world space; last year, Doom Eternal beautifully demonstrated the power of parkour mechanics in an FPS environment; and Insomniac’s Spider-Man series has perfected the art of high-swinging action. In comparison to games like these, Infinite’s mechanics aren’t innovative at all.
I bring this up because I think it’s a disservice to compare Halo Infinite only to other Halo games, rather than its competitors. After all, competition is the root of evolution — and that's kind of Halo's jam. I expected more from a pioneer of the FPS genre as it ventured into open-world gaming. Just because it’s new for Halo doesn’t mean it’s new for the industry.
Even with the fresh toys and larger world, Infinite plays like a classic Halo game. The levels are repetitive and mazelike, and the story is packed with military stereotypes, sarcastic robots, women in skin-tight bodysuits and cheesy dialogue. There are a handful of cool new weapons, like the reticle-shifting Heatwave and the revolver-like Mangler, and the entire map is generously stocked with loose ammo and guns. It’s a blockbuster action movie in interactive form, and it has high-energy, entertaining moments, but these are largely overshadowed by the simplistic grind of it all.
Overall, Halo Infinite lacks surprise and intrigue, from the map to individual fights. Failing a boss battle, for instance, rarely feels like a failure of strategy. These encounters generally take place in simple settings with repetitive attacks, and I don’t feel like I’m learning anything new with each runthrough; I’m just going through the motions until I catch a lucky break and I can follow the yellow diamond to my next checkpoint. And then the next. And the next.
Engadget
All of this should make for an incredibly fun multiplayer component, and so far, it seems like that’s the case. Maybe Infinite’s campaign is more engaging in split-screen co-op, historically my preferred way to play, but that mode won’t be available until next year. Neither will Forge mode, for that matter.
If Halo Infinite had launched day-one with the Xbox Series X and S, I likely wouldn’t have many complaints. The fact that 343 Industries and Microsoft took an extra year to build this game, hyping it up the whole way through, shifted my expectations a bit. Maybe too much.
Regardless, I’ll see you in the Halo: Infinite multiplayer lobby on December 8th.
A Google Cloud network issue has taken down a handful of prominent websites today, including Spotify, Snapchat, Etsy and Discord. Google says the issue is partially resolved as of 1:17PM ET, but a full fix is still incoming. Affected websites will display 404 error messages and there is no workaround on the customer side.
We are aware of an issue with Google Cloud Platform. See our status dashboard for details: https://t.co/eEsJOYU7Xg
The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S debuted one year ago this month, and today we're hosting a joint birthday party for them. The main attraction is a 20-minute video conversation about the pros, cons and future of the consoles, hosted by PS5 enthusiast and Engadget senior editor Jessica Conditt, and Xbox Series X fan and senior editor Devindra Hardawar. There's also cake! (There is no cake. Seriously, you should know this by now.)
This isn't about deciding which console is winning an invisible war, or determining which company is churning out the most or best games. Instead, it's a candid conversation about what each console is doing well, where it's falling short, and what we hope to see from each ecosystem in the coming year. And then there's cake! (No, there isn't. Come on now.)
For a more technical breakdown of how the consoles have fared during their debut year, check out our six-month report card. If you're a PS5 or Xbox Series owner, let us know how the systems have been treating you in the comments below.
Vi bounces her leg when she’s nervous. It’s something she does throughout the first four episodes of Arcane, the Netflix series based on League of Legends lore, and it’s a tiny yet charming habit. Vi’s leg shakes up and down with anxious anger as she argues with her friend from a squashed armchair in their makeshift lair; later, her knee bounces as she sits alone in a dark room, facing certain doom. It’s something that makes Vi feel real, like she has a history that she carries with her, as natural as her pink hair.
Even though Arcane is packed with incredible action and delicious animation, small details like these truly bring the world to life — only for Jinx to blow it all to smithereens.
Riot Games
Warning: Slight spoilers for the first four episodes of Arcane ahead.
Arcane begins with a quintessential story of class warfare, depicting violent clashes between the rich citizens of Piltover and the oppressed, criminal society of Zaun, where Vi, Jinx and their crew live. In the first three episodes, Vi and Jinx are kids: Vi is the leader of a small gang of teen outlaws, while Jinx — who actually goes by Powder at this time — is her little sister, a few years of heist experience and growth spurts behind the others. By the fourth episode, Vi and Jinx are older and on equal footing, even when they find themselves on opposite sides.
The sisters start out surrounded by their chosen family members, including their father figure, Vander, who acts as the unofficial mayor of Zaun. A former leader of the resistance, Vander runs a bar called The Last Drop and tries to keep the peace with the Enforcers, Piltover’s militarized security team. Meanwhile, scientists in Piltover are on the verge of harnessing synthetic magic, while the most vile forces in Zaun are creating monster soldiers by feeding people shimmering purple liquid. Altogether, it’s a recipe for war.
Arcane’s disparate worlds are vibrant, vast and alive, Piltover shining gold among the clouds and Zaun buried beneath the dirt, filled with toxic green light. The show itself feels less like anime and more like an almost-R-rated Disney film, with buttery-smooth character movements and elaborate environments, courtesy of Riot Games’ go-to animation studio, Fortiche Production. The entire thing looks as if it were the product of motion-capture technology, but it’s hand-animated in a mix of 2D and 3D.
The fights in Arcane are particularly gorgeous. Vi is a boxer, diving in with her fists raised, while Jinx has a bunch of semi-functional homemade grenades covered in crayon scribbles, allowing her to participate from afar — even though she wants to be with the big kids, in the center of the action. The largest battles tend to play out in slow-motion, with emotional electronic music thrumming through the scenes and close-up shots of vicious punches, heavy kicks and last-second dodges. In wider angles, every frame of these fights has desktop-wallpaper potential.
Riot Games
Arcane takes its time establishing characters and revealing how they’re all intertwined, and by the end of episode three, this work crashes into a massive fight scene and pays off in a powerful way. In League of Legends lore, Vi and Jinx are bitter rivals, but in Arcane, they start off as sisters with a deep, true love for one another. They support each other, save each other’s lives, and fall apart together. They feel inseparable. It takes something catastrophic to rip them apart, and Arcane shows us every horrific second. It’s heartbreaking.
It’s not all about Vi and Jinx, and there are plenty of other League of Legends characters with starring roles in Arcane, including Viktor, Jayce, Ekko, Caitlyn and Heimerdinger. As a fan of the game, I feel a happy spark whenever I recognize a face or name in Arcane, but it won’t detract from the experience if you don’t already know who these people are. This is an origin story, after all.
Episode four, which will hit Netflix along with two other episodes on November 13th, fast-forwards to a time when Jinx and Vi look more like their in-game character models, and it establishes the groundwork for a future confrontation — family reunion? — between the two. Jinx and Vi are both haunted by their pasts, and their evolution is captivating. The story spins out around them, tantalizing and tense.
Arcane might ruin me. The show quickly and effortlessly establishes connections with its characters, bolstered by an enchanting animation style and emotional, raw voice acting. It’s making me feel things, and I’m only four episodes in. The first batch of three Arcane episodes is on Netflix today, November 6th, while the second bunch will land on November 13th, and the final three will hit on November 20th.
Sure, it’s easier than ever to start your own video game streaming channel, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to be a streamer. There are dozens of factors to consider before pressing that big GO LIVE button on YouTube or Twitch, such as lighting, audio quality, video output and software organization — and that’s just to get on-air. If you want to succeed as a streamer, it also takes practice, charisma, luck and, of course, the proper equipment.
While we can’t help with the patience, natural talent or social factors that determine who becomes a streaming star, we can recommend the tools to make a channel look as professional as possible from day one. If anyone on your gift list is serious about diving into the business of video game streaming, these are the gadgets they’ll be ecstatic to unwrap (and show off on-camera).
Blue Yeti
Blue Microphones
Classic. Iconic. Legendary. Whichever descriptor you pick, the Yeti by Blue remains one of the most reliable, ubiquitous pieces of technology in the live-streaming business. The Yeti is a USB microphone, meaning it’s plug-and-play with most rigs, and it has a specific setting (cardioid pattern) that’s great for live streaming. It’s also more affordable than comparable mics while offering high-quality sound and simple set-up.
Some mics are built to blend in with their surroundings, and others are designed to stand out — like the QuadCast S by HyperX. The QuadCast S has a light-up core with customizable RGB effects, adding a pop of color to the screen at all times (yep, even when your queue time hits 10 minutes). It also has an internal pop filter and four polar patterns, including cardioid.
Uncomfortable headphones can destroy an otherwise enjoyable gaming session, and this is extra-true for streamers, who don’t have the time or brainpower to deal with squashed ears. Sennheiser’s Game One headset offers incredibly crisp audio in a cozy, breathable frame, complete with velour earpads that play well with glasses. An open-back design provides 3D sound and lets streamers hear their surroundings without sliding one ear to the side. The Game One is also in the same price range as mid-tier headsets from Razer, HyperX or SteelSeries, but its unique open-acoustic design provides high-quality, crystal clear — and comfy! — soundscapes.
If you’re looking for style and performance in a budget-friendly headset, Razer has you covered. The BlackShark V2 is a relatively affordable gaming headset with everything a streamer needs, from memory foam ear cushions to a detachable mic. This one is a sound-isolating headset, making it good for public streaming spaces with a lot of background noise. Razer knows what it's doing when it comes to gaming accessories, and the Black Shark V2 is a tried-and-true device for any player, all in that classic black-and-green look.
Elgato’s Stream Deck is the piece of equipment that most streamers don’t realize they need, at least until they get one. This little baby is a customizable desktop controller with 15 LCD keys that can be set to launch and manage apps like Twitch, YouTube, OBS, Spotify and XSplit. It’s especially handy for live situations, where streamers need to smoothly swap among programs and monitor multiple apps at the same time.
One thing every streamer needs is a quality camera. Logitech makes a range of reliable webcams, but for streamers today, a good starting place is the C922 Pro Stream. It hovers around $100, and it streams in 1080p at 30fps or 720p at 60fps, with built-in autofocus and lighting correction. The C922 is a workhorse that’ll get the job done with little fuss.
There’s only so much lighting you can squeeze into a single streaming space, and that’s where Razer’s Kiyo Pro comes in. It’s a USB camera with an adaptive light sensor that makes the most of dim, backlit and string-lighted environments, and it’s capable of capturing footage at 1080p and 60fps, or in HDR mode at 30fps. This is a high-quality streaming camera with a wide-angle lens and a sleek circular profile, and it comes with a privacy cover to ensure there are no on-air accidents.
For truly professional-looking streams, a capture card is a must, and Razer’s Ripsaw HD is one of the best. The Ripsaw HD is a plug-and-play device that records and streams gameplay at 1080p and 60fps, while allowing the game itself to hit 4K and 60fps. This is how the experts do it.
Once the basic bits of tech are out of the way, it’s time to add some style to your streamer’s scene. Lighting is an easy way to set the mood and draw the eye of new viewers, and the Line Lamp by Lightsmoon is a classy, unobtrusive option for customizable, multicolor ambiance. The Line Lamp is designed to fit in the corner of a room, reflecting off the walls and making the whole room glow with minimal hardware.
For a mounted lighting option, the Govee Glide Wall Light is the way to go. It consists of six bars that snap together in various configurations, with a range of lighting effects, plus Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice capabilities built-in. Govee’s Glide Wall Light is dimmable, customizable and it has six modes that automatically react to music.
Want a quick, easy and cheap way to make a streaming space pop? Get a big, light-up mouse pad. The large RGB mouse pad by REAWUL is an extended mat that measures 80cm by 30cm, easily covering the area of a full-size keyboard and mouse, with light-up edges. The pad has 14 RGB lighting modes with steady and animated options, and it’s powered via USB. At less than $20, this is a steal as well as a showstopper.
Jen Oneal has stepped down from her role as co-leader of Blizzard, leaving Mike Ybarra as the head of the studio known for making Overwatch, World of Warcraft and Diablo. Oneal will temporarily transition to a new position, but will leave Activision Blizzard (fine, and King) at the end of the year.
Activision Blizzard is facing a handful of lawsuits and investigations into reports of sexual harassment, gropings, and systemic gender discrimination at the studio, stemming from the leadership down. Oneal and Ybarra took over as co-leaders of Blizzard after president J. Allen Brack was named in the original California lawsuit, forcing him to leave that position. Oneal was the first woman in a president role since Activision's founding in 1979.
Oneal published an open letter to the Blizzard community, reading in part as follows:
I have made the decision to step away from co-leading Blizzard Entertainment and will transition to a new position before departing ABK at the end of the year. Effective immediately, Mike Ybarra will lead Blizzard. I am doing this not because I am without hope for Blizzard, quite the opposite — I’m inspired by the passion of everyone here, working towards meaningful, lasting change with their whole hearts. This energy has inspired me to step out and explore how I can do more to have games and diversity intersect, and hopefully make a broader industry impact that will benefit Blizzard (and other studios) as well. While I am not totally sure what form that will take, I am excited to embark on a new journey to find out.
After months of pressure from employees, shareholders and government agencies, Activision Blizzard ended its policy of forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment and discrimination, and implemented a zero-tolerance approach to harassment at the studio. The original California lawsuit is ongoing.
Blizzard announced two big delays alongside news of Oneal's departure: Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV, neither of which was given a release window.
