The Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 gameplay that Sony showed during last week’s PlayStation Showcase shed some light on what it will be like to play as both Peter Parker and Miles Morales in the same game. During a spectacular set piece, the action switched between the two characters. One of the burning questions fans were left with was how swapping between the Spider-Men would work throughout the single-player game, and now developer Insomniac has provided an answer.

"When you're playing the main story, we control when you switch between Pete and Miles... it's done in service to the story when we're making those switches, for sure," Spider-Man 2 creative director Bryan Intihar told Eurogamer. "We have content designed around Peter, we have content designed around Miles and we have content where you can play either. You'll be able to, in the open world, freely switch between them with a simple button press."

It seems that the Grand Theft Auto V-style character switching will happen swiftly too, thanks to the PS5’s capabilities. One of the early examples of the console’s speedy loading times was seen in Spider-Man: Miles Morales, where players could use the fast travel system to get from one end of Manhattan to the other in just a couple of seconds.

In addition, Miles and Peter will each have their own skill trees, and there will be a third one that they share so you can use some of the same abilities with either character. "We saw in the gameplay reveal where Miles has the evolved Venom powers, whereas Peter has the Symbiote abilities. And so those, those change a bit of how you play, and you can upgrade those in their respective trees as well,” game director Ryan Smith said.

Meanwhile, by expanding to Queens and Brooklyn in the sequel, Insomniac says the sequel’s map is around double the size of the previous two games. “Since these two areas are somewhat smaller and residential, I think you’ll find them different from Manhattan,” Intihar said in a Gematsu translation of a Famitsu interview. “We’ve prepared some unexpected situations we haven’t done before, like a battle on the river between two of the cities, so I hope you’ll look forward to them.”

Insomniac hasn’t revealed a release date for Spider-Man 2. However, it said the PlayStation 5 exclusive is still on track to arrive this fall.

One of the biggest announcements at today's Meta Quest Gaming Showcase was Asgard’s Wrath 2, a sequel to the well-regarded original from 2019 that’s slated for release this winter. It's shaping up to be Meta's most ambitious game to date — it's an action RPG that the company thinks can stand alongside the genre’s heaviest hitters on consoles and PC. To live up to that promise, developer Sanzaru Games may have to push a VR headset that uses mobile technology from 2020 to its limits.

In a gameplay overview video, Sanzaru studio creative director Mat Kraemer said that Asgard's Wrath 2 features "massive worlds beyond the scope of any other game on the Meta Quest platform." Much of the action will take place in Ancient Egypt rather than the Norse setting of the first game, though you’ll still visit Muspelheim (a location that God of War fans will be familiar with).

Like Asgard's Wrath, the sequel features animals you can turn into companions to help with puzzles and combat. For the first time in the series, you can also use the animals as mounts to help you traverse the larger landscapes. Elsewhere, there’s a more aggressive approach to combat this time around, compared with the original game's defense-based system. Previously, players had to parry and block before having the opportunity to remove enemy shields. In Asgard's Wrath 2, they can use rapid attacks to chip away at shields or use skilled parries for more powerful attacks. In a neat touch, enemies will be able to catch thrown weapons and hurl them back at you.

Many of the elements you'd expect from a modern action RPG are present here, from crafting, minigames (including fishing and a slingshot shooting gallery) and extensive exploration to gear and weapon upgrades and enemies that grow stronger as you do. Both you and your animal buddies have skill trees to level up. As in the first game, you'll be able to manipulate the world with cosmic powers. Elemental weaponry should provide more enemy variety and customization, while you can possess mortals to use their skills and abilities and help them fulfill their destinies.

Sanzaru Games/Oculus Studios

That's a lot for any game to juggle, let alone one that's running on a similar chipset to the Samsung Galaxy S20 series. Sanzaru, which made the original game for Oculus Rift, is developing Asgard’s Wrath 2 for Meta Quest 2. The headset uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2, which is derived from the Snapdragon 865.

While many players will be diving into the game on a Quest 2, the Meta Quest 3, which was revealed today, will be available by the time Asgard’s Wrath 2 comes out. “Meta Quest 3’s advanced processor and higher resolution will provide an even better look and feel within Asgard’s Wrath 2, while players will have a more comfortable wear during the game’s 60+ hours of gameplay,” a Meta spokesperson told Engadget.

In any case, it seems that Sanzaru is squeezing as much as it can out of the current headset, which gave the studio more to work with than the Rift.

"The biggest and best thing is that now we're working with devices that are completely wireless, untethered, kind of the way this a game like this is meant to be played, because it's so combat centric," Sanzaru creative director Grace Lingad told Engadget. "We really focus on visceral, gesture-based, physics-based combat. Being free of external tracking sensors and wires and everything like that, the Quest platform has really been a game changer for the franchise."

As for how the game might run on the Quest Pro, Lingad (who spoke to Engadget before the Quest 3 was announced) said that Sanzaru’s focus was on the Quest 2 due to that headset having a big install base. “We really want to make sure as many people as possible can enjoy this game,” she said.

Sanzaru Games/Oculus Studios

In recent weeks, critics have called out other major action RPGs, namely Redfall and Diablo IV, over the state of their open worlds outside of the main quests. Striking the right balance between having plenty to do in Asgard's Wrath 2 and giving players open areas to tear across on their mounts while dealing with the limitations of the Quest 2 hardware was something Sanzaru had to bear in mind.

"That's one of the big design challenges that the team had to deal with, because there's ways that we can build the levels so that they feel like they're sprawling, but of course, we have to consider the hardware limitations," Lingard said. "There's some amount of negative space, which is good for the eyes, for the mind to rest.

"We do try to tuck in little side areas, but they're hidden and tucked away," she added. "It's really for the players, the ones who really like to explore that whole, 'hey, there's this little area, if I can crawl through there...' and then you emerge into this secret monster den and we hide some really challenging stuff in there, really good rewards in there. So, in that way, we keep the density high, but it's not like all bam, bam, bam, in your face, which I think is a clever move by our team."

Sanzaru, which Meta snapped up in 2020, estimates Asgard's Wrath 2's campaign will take 60-plus hours to beat. That’s around twice the length of the original game. On top of that, there's an endless mode called Uncharted Rifts that has randomly generated dungeons. Players can dip into that mode at almost any point to plunder high-level loot to take back into the campaign, but Uncharted Rifts could keep ardent fans going well after they've finished the story.

Add everything up, and that's a long time to spend playing a game in a virtual reality headset, particularly one with fast-paced combat. Motion sickness has been a long-standing concern for VR users. Sanzaru has kept that in consideration while building out Asgard Wrath 2's settings and accessibility features.

Lingard said it was important for the team to offer a swathe of settings that players "can use to tailor their experience to their comfort level." Those concern factors such as motion sickness and combat difficulty. The accessibility options include movement settings, such as snap turning and smooth turning with the controller, rather than having to rotate your body. It's particularly important for a VR game to give players a wide array of options, Lingard notes, because the experience is "so visceral and personal."

Since everyone's history with VR is different, "we really make it a point to have a lot of settings available." she said. "We really want to respect people's time. For some people, maybe this is their first game in VR. We're hoping we really launch with a splash and people want to check it out for themselves. We want to make sure that experience is as accessible and as easy to get into as possible."

On that note, Sanzaru wanted to make sure Asgard's Wrath 2 is welcoming to VR newcomers and folks who haven't played the first game. You can opt to see a recap of the previous title before you get started

We’ll need to wait several more months to find out whether the Quest 2 and Quest 3 (which is said to offer double the graphics performance of the current model) can truly support Sanzaru’s ambitions. But if you're a fan of the first game or you're looking for a lengthy, immersive VR experience, it may be worth adding Asgard’s Wrath 2 to your wishlist.

Alongside the official reveal of the Quest 3, Meta has announced when this year's edition of Connect will take place. The event, which focuses on Meta's developments in the augmented and virtual reality spaces, is set for September 27th and 28th, according to its website.

Connect is taking place a little earlier than usual this year. The 2022 edition happened in October. More details about Connect 2023 are coming soon, but one thing's for sure: we'll learn much more about the Quest 3 in late September.

Meta's next virtual reality headset will be available sometime this fall and it'll start at $500. The company says the Quest 3 is its "most powerful headset yet." It will offer full-color passthrough to support mixed reality experiences. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the latest model will have twice the graphics performance of the Quest 2. The Quest 3 comes with redesigned Touch Plus controllers and hand-tracking support out of the gate. The company also noted that it's reducing the prices of the Quest 2 headsets on June 4th.

Mark Zuckerberg has revealed the Meta Quest 3, the company's long-rumored, next-gen virtual reality headset. The Meta CEO showed off the device for the first time a few hours before the latest Meta Quest Games Showcase and just ahead of Apple's WWDC.

As with the Quest Pro, the Quest 3 supports mixed reality and offers full-color passthrough. This enables users to see a color version of the physical space around them via the external cameras. The headset will be able to blend augmented reality elements into the outside world. 

It's hardly a surprise that Meta has a Quest 3 on the way. Earlier this week, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said he'd had hands-on time with a Quest 3 prototype. Gurman wrote that the headset “feels far lighter and thinner” than the previous model and that it had a sturdier head strap. Unlike the Quest Pro, though, the Quest 3 may not have face or eye-tracking features.

Even if it weren't for all the reports that an updated headset would arrive this year, Meta is continuing to invest in VR games and experiences — it has sunk tens of billions of dollars into building its vision of the metaverse over the last couple of years. It's hard to imagine the company doing that without having a successor to the three-year-old Quest 2 in the works.

In another year, Zuckerberg might have waited until Meta Connect, which typically happens in October, to reveal the Quest 3. However, Meta may be trying to steal some of Apple's thunder. The latter is widely expected to reveal a premium mixed-reality headset at WWDC next week. As such, Meta may soon have a major competitor in the mixed reality space.

This story is developing, please refresh for additional updates.

Sony has revealed the PlayStation Plus monthly games lineup for June. These are the three titles that folks on the Essential, Extra and Premium tiers can all claim and retain access to as long as they continue to subscribe. The headliner for June is NBA 2K23. The most recent edition of the long-running series features the return of the Jordan Challenge, in which you can play through 15 key moments from Michael Jordan’s legendary career.

Also in the lineup is Jurassic World Evolution 2, a construction and management sim in which you'll build your own Jurassic World theme park. Perhaps you'll have better luck at keeping the dinosaurs in their enclosures than the characters from the movies.

The third game PS Plus subscribers will able to snag next month is Trek to Yomi. It's an Akira Kurosawa-inspired action-adventure set in the Edo period of Japan. You play as a young samurai who seeks revenge against those who attacked his village. I enjoyed Trek to Yomi quite a bit. It's more style than substance, but goodness is that style gorgeous — I've used a screenshot as my desktop background for the last year.

You can add these games to your library at no extra cost starting on June 6th. PS4 and PS5 versions of all three will be available. In the meantime, you still have a chance to claim May's games: Grid Legends, Chivalry 2 and Descenders.

The pro League of Legends scene has been upended after players voted "overwhelmingly" in favor of a walkout to protest changes Riot has made to the minor leagues. Now, the publisher has threatened to cancel the summer season of the League Championship Series (LCS), which would prevent North American teams from qualifying for the LoL World Championship, if an agreement can't be reached.

Players approved the action only a few days before the Summer Split of the LCS, the top level of LoL esports in North America, was set to start. Riot has delayed the season by two weeks in an attempt to resolve issues with players and the LCS Players Association (LCSPA), the association that represents them.

"Hopefully, this two-week window will give us time for productive dialogue between the LSCPA, teams and the league and then resume LCS competition this summer," Naz Aletaha, Riot's global head of LoL esports, wrote in a blog post, which was published after a meeting with the LCSPA. "The LCS will not be penalizing the teams for not fielding their rosters during this two-week period to allow everyone space to focus on constructive dialogue. We are doing our best to ensure LCS employees, contractors and others supporting the LCS are not negatively impacted by the delay."

The company said although it needs "an LCS that is thrilling to watch and showcases the highest levels of League of Legends play," it wouldn't be able to delay the Summer Split any further. Aletaha said doing so "would make it nearly impossible to run a legitimate competition," and as such Riot would be prepared to nix the season entirely. "That is not an outcome we’d want, but it’s unfortunately the reality of ensuring we run a fair, competitive global system," Aletaha added.

The LCSPA claimed on Monday there had been "attempts to require teams to field scab players at the start of the season." The LCSPA urged potential replacements to refuse to play for an LCS team because "crossing the line puts all players’ futures at risk" and "undermines player negotiating power."

On Sunday, a majority of the 50 LCS players voted in favor of the walkout, resulting in one of the first major instances of collective action in esports. They are protesting a decision Riot announced earlier this month to no longer require LCS teams to field a team in an official farm system. The company agreed to a request from the teams in order to "support the continued, long-term success of the teams and the professional esports ecosystem in North America."

Most LCS teams swiftly said they'd be dropping their North American Challengers League (NACL) rosters. The LCSPA said the move would result in "as many as 70 players, coaches and managers" losing their jobs and that most of the current LCS players came through the official farm system. The LCSPA claimed the average salary cost of an NACL roster "accounts for less than 17 percent of an average LCS organization's League-based salary costs in a year." It claimed that although farm systems in other regions were working well, "North America now has a developmental product with no viewership, no institutional support, no paying jobs and no future."

The LCSPA urged Riot to agree to several conditions, including a promotion and relegation format between the LCS and NACL. It also wanted the publisher to "commit to a revenue pool for player salaries of $300,000 per NACL team per year."

Aletaha addressed each of the LCSPA's five requests in the blog post. In terms of the revenue pool, "this ask is for multiple millions in subsidies for the NACL. That simply isn’t sustainable — and to be brutally honest, it shouldn’t be necessary. We have other Tier 2 leagues around the world which thrive on their own, and we believe the NACL can get to that place too." Aletaha noted that Riot is giving the organization that operates the NACL a one-time payment of $300,000 to "jump-start" the season and provide support to teams.

"Without players, there is no league, and there is no esport," the LCSPA said in response. The association planned to today start discussions "that result in meaningful collaborative action to get our players back where they want to be: competing for fans on the LCS stage."

Samsung's The Frame is a smart TV that has a nifty trick up its sleeve. When you're not watching something, it looks like a piece of art. It's an intriguing alternative to the standard gloomy black box that can dominate a living room when a big-screen TV is turned off. Now, over at Woot, you can snap up a Frame TV at a discount. The retailer is running a sale on several 2022 models and it has dropped prices by up to 33 percent.

You'll need to make up your mind whether to take the plunge relatively quickly, as the sale will run for nine days or until the smart TVs are sold out. The biggest discounts, percentage wise, are on the 50-inch and 75-inch models, as both are a third off. The 50-inch model has dropped by $430 to $870, while the 75-inch model is $1,000 off at $2,000.

When Art Mode is enabled, The Frame can display the artwork of your choice. Some of the pieces are available at no extra cost, though you'll have access to a wider selection with a Samsung Art Store subscription. The options range from iconic works such as the Mona Lisa and The Starry Night to modern photography. The Frame has a low profile and anti-reflective matte glass to bolster the illusion that you're looking at framed art instead of a TV. The bezel is customizable too.

When you do want to tune in to a show or movie, you'll be able to watch in 4K, unless you opt for the 32-inch model, which doesn't have a QLED 4K display. The Frame also has the Alexa voice assistant built in and it uses Samsung's Tizen OS.

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Fresh on the heels of an in-depth look at Marvel's Spider-Man 2 gameplay, there's more news from the Insomniac Games camp. The studio's previous title, 2021's Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, is coming to PC on July 26th.

As is often the case with PC versions of PlayStation exclusives, there are some extra bells and whistles here. There are new "ray-traced shadows for natural light in outdoor areas" which allow for "realistic shadows with natural gradients in softness," as Julian Huijbregts, an online community specialist at Nixxes (the Sony studio that's working on the port), notes on the PlayStation Blog. The gameplay and cutscenes have been optimized for ultra-wide displays, including aspect ratios of 21:9, 32:9 and even 48:9 for triple-monitor setups.

Along with unlocked framerates, there's support for upscaling tech including NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR 2, Intel XeSS and Insomniac's own Temporal Injection, as well as NVIDIA Reflex and NVIDIA DLAA anti-aliasing. You can opt to use a keyboard and mouse with fully customizable controls or a controller. Plug in a DualSense, and you'll be able to experience the same haptic feedback and dynamic trigger effects that you would on PS5.

I finally got around to playing Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart after it hit PlayStation Plus recently and enjoyed it immensely. It's a breathtakingly gorgeous game with strong combat, captivating characters and a smart script. Insomniac also makes better use of the DualSense's capabilities than most studios.

Fingers crossed that Insomniac and Nixxes can avoid the kinds of technical issues that have plagued PC versions of other Sony games. The Last of Us Part 1 (Iron Galaxy worked with Naughty Dog on that port) and Horizon Zero Dawn, which Nixxes helped to fix, both had notable problems at the outset on PC.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart relies on the speedy load times of the PlayStation 5 to make the dimension-hopping feature work seamlessly. With that (and the stellar visuals) in mind, it's likely that you'll need a beefy gaming rig to get the most out of the port. So, it's probably worth waiting for Sony to reveal the PC specs before locking in a pre-order on Steam or the Epic Games Store.

NVIDIA has revealed G-Sync Ultra Low Motion Blur (ULMB) 2, the second generation of tech it designed to minimize motion blur in competitive games. Compared with ULMB, which it released in 2015, the company says the latest version offers nearly twice as much brightness, along with almost no crosstalk — the strobing or double-image effect that sometimes appears when blur reduction features are enabled.

Motion clarity is largely determined by the monitor's pixel response time. To improve matters, NVIDIA is using "full refresh rate backlight strobing," which builds on the backlight strobing technique from the original ULMB. Although the previous version of the tech improved motion clarity for many, it needed to switch off the monitor's backlight 75 percent of the time. This reduced the brightness of the screen.

With ULMB 2, NVIDIA is able to match the display's refresh rate when it turns the backlight on and off. The aim is to only turn the backlight on when pixels are at the correct color value for each frame. This mitigates crosstalk, as you shouldn't see pixels when they're transitioning to the accurate color.

This approach wasn't really possible with the slower pixel refresh rates of older monitors. ULMB 2 is able to run at the full refresh rate of current displays. On a 360Hz display, each backlight strobe happens every 2.7 milliseconds — a rate that's imperceptible to the human eye.

What this all boils down to is NVIDIA being able to offer more brightness and an effective motion clarity of over 1000Hz. If you use a 360Hz monitor with ULMB 2 on, NVIDIA says you'll get an effective motion clarity of 1440Hz. The company claims that, without ULMB 2, you'd need a monitor that's capable of 1440Hz to get equivalent motion clarity. Given that we've only recentlystarted seeing 500Hz monitors, mass-market 1440Hz displays seem quite a ways off.

NVIDIA offered some brief demos of ULMB 2 in action. In the video below, you'll see what a motorcycle pursuit sequence looks like in slow-motion at 360 frames per second with the feature both off and on.

ULMB 2 is available now as a free update for compatible 1440p, 360Hz G-Sync monitors. Only two such displays are on the market at the minute, NVIDIA says: the Acer Predator XB273U and the ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQN, both of which are 27-inch monitors. The ASUS ROG Swift Pro PG248QP (a 25-inch 1080p, 540Hz display) and the 27-inch AOC AGON AG276QSG G-Sync Monitor are also compatible, and they'll be available soon.

NVIDIA announced ULMB 2 alongside some AI developments at Computex. The company is developing a supercomputer that's designed to help companies build generative AI models. It also showed off tech that will enable players to use their microphones and have somewhat realistic conversations with in-game characters.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Hiang made a string of announcements during his Computex keynote, including details about the company’s next DGX supercomputer. Given where the industry is clearlyheading, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the DGX GH200 is largely about helping companies develop generative AI models.

The supercomputer uses a new NVLink Switch System to enable 256 GH200 Grace Hopper superchips to act as a single GPU (each of the chips has an Arm-based Grace CPU and an H100 Tensor Core GPU). This, according to NVIDIA, allows the DGX GH200 to deliver 1 exaflop of performance and to have 144 terabytes of shared memory. The company says that's nearly 500 times as much memory as you'd find in a single DGX A100 system.

For comparison, the latest ranking of the Top500 supercomputers lists Frontier at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee as the only known exascale system, having reached a performance of nearly 1.2 exaflops on the Linmark benchmark. That's over twice the peak performance of the second-placed system, Japan's Fugaku.

In effect, NVIDIA claims to have developed a supercomputer that can stand alongside the most powerful known system on the planet (Meta is building one that it claims will be the fastest AI supercomputer in the world once it’s fully built out). NVIDIA says the architecture of the DGX GH200 offers 10 times more bandwidth than the previous generation, "delivering the power of a massive AI supercomputer with the simplicity of programming a single GPU."

Some big names are interested in the DGX GH200. Google Cloud, Meta and Microsoft should be among the first companies to gain access to the supercomputer to test how it can handle generative AI workloads. NVIDIA says DGX GH200 supercomputers should be available by the end of 2023.

The company is also building its own supercomputer, Helios, that combines four DGX GH200 systems. NVIDIA expects Helios to be online by the end of the year.

Huang discussed other generative AI developments during his keynote, including one on the gaming front. NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for Games is a service developers will be able to tap into in order to create custom AI models for speech, conversation and animation. NVIDIA says ACE for Games can "give non-playable characters conversational skills so they can respond to questions with lifelike personalities that evolve."