Every August for the past two years, Chinese developer Game Science Studio has released new gameplay footage from its upcoming action RPG Black Myth: Wukong. Not one to miss a beat, it has done the same this year. On Friday, the studio shared a new eight-minute gameplay trailer and six-minute in-game cutscene. Much like last year’s Unreal Engine 5 reveal, the former is partly a showcase for NVIDIA’s DLSS AI-powered upscaling tech, and you can see what a difference it – and a year of additional work – has meant for the game’s framerate. Compared to last year’s trailer, the action is smoother and there are fewer framerate drops.

We also see Game Science Studio iterate on From Software’s Souls formula in a few interesting ways. One of my favorites involves a plant the protagonist goes to pick up about a third of the way through the clip. When they go to pull it from the ground, the plant turns out to be an enemy that can root the player in place, leaving them vulnerable to its hard-hitting sweep attacks. It’s a fun twist on From Software’s mimic chests that should force you always to be on your toes. As for the cinematic trailer, it offers a fresh look at Wukong’s Journey to the West-inspired tale. It’s hard to say how the scene we see will fit into the broader story Game Science hopes to tell, but the studio obviously has a talent for animation.

Unfortunately, neither trailer ends with a release date for the game. Back in 2020, Game Science Studio said it was hoping to bring Black Myth: Wukong to PC and consoles by 2023.

Days Gone may never get a proper sequel, but its post-apocalyptic story could eventually make its way to the silver screen. According to Deadline, Sony’s PlayStation Productions unit is developing a film adaptation of the 2019 game. Outlander actor Sam Heughan is reportedly set to star in a script penned by Up in the Air and X-Men: First Class writer Sheldon Turner. Deadline reports Turner envisions the final film being a “love ballad to motorcycle movies.”

After greenlighting adaptations of critically acclaimed games like The Last of Us and Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone may seem like an unusual choice from Sony. After all, while the game has sold 9 million copies to date, it’s one of the company’s least well-received first-party titles in recent memory. However, since Sony decided to port Days Gone to PC, it has enjoyed newfound success. Search for the game on YouTube, and you’ll find countless videos trying to answer the question of whether you should play Days Gone in 2022. Almost every video on the subject agrees: it’s an experience worth your time. Steam reviews tell much the same story. Across 26,146 submissions, it has a “Very Positive” rating. If there's a project for Sony to take a risk on, it's Days Gone.

Jurassic World Dominion will begin streaming on September 2nd, Peacock announced on Friday. The service will host two versions of the film. In addition to the original theatrical cut, fans can watch an extended edition that is 14 minutes longer and includes an alternate opening. If you weren’t a fan of the latest movie, Peacock is also adding Jurassic Park, The Lost World and Jurassic Park 3. All three films will arrive on September 1st.

As The Verge points out, Dominion’s move to Peacock isn’t a surprise. At the end of last year, NBCUniversal said the “majority” of its films would appear on the streaming service, with most making the jump as little as 45 days after their theatrical debut. By September 2nd, it will have been 84 days since Dominion debuted in theaters. The longer wait probably has something to do with Dominion being the year's second highest-grossing film.

Meta is denying that it purposely muted the audio of downloaded Reels videos to keep users from exporting them to TikTok, The Vergereported. A company spokesperson blamed an “audio glitch” for the incident and said it’s in the process of being fixed. The outlet reported earlier this week that users who wanted to export their Reels onto another app (cough, cough TikTok) were forced to publish the video first — or risk losing its audio. Prior to this development, Instagram users could film and edit a video using Reels’ tools and opt to download and publish it elsewhere.

Although Meta is hoping to position Reels as the future of Instagram and Facebook, it has struggled to take the crown from the reigning short-form video app, TikTok. Creators and brands often cross-post Reels onto their TikTok accounts (or vice versa), meaning that Instagram and Facebook are no longer exclusive destinations for that content. TikTok gives users the ability to easily cross-post videos made on the platform to Facebook and Instagram Reels, but doing the reverse on the Meta-owned platforms requires manually downloading the video first. Reels and TikTok have different editing tools, so it’s easy to see why a user may want to edit in one specific platform and cross-post — not to mention that it simply saves time.

Meta is still working on fixing the audio glitch on Reels as of Friday afternoon, a spokesperson told Engadget in an email. The glitch appears to only impact iPhone users. “Due to a bug, the Reels download feature is not working as intended for iOS users and in some cases, audio is missing in downloads — we’re working to fix the issue as soon as possible," the company said in its statement. 

It's a little jarring to consider what's happening over at HBO Max a bloodbath in the context of Sesame Street, but that's exactly what's going on at the streaming platform right now. The platform has removed around 200 old episodes of the classic preschooler show, as Variety reports.

All episodes from seasons 39-52 are still available, along with a selection from the first, fifth and seventh seasons. There are 456 Sesame Street episodes on HBO Max right now, but it offered around 650 episodes not too long ago. HBO landed an exclusive deal back in 2015 to broadcast new episodes of the show before they aired on PBS. HBO Max will be the place to catch new Sesame Street episodes through at least 2025, but good luck trying to find old episodes there.

The platform yanked the Sesame Street episodes in the same week it removed dozens of other shows, including 20 original series (such as animated programs). While it's common for titles to cycle in and out of streaming services, it's rare to see exclusives going away. That's becoming increasingly par for the course at HBO Max.

Parent company Warner Bros. Discovery said it nixed those shows ahead of HBO Max merging with Discovery+ next year. “As we work toward bringing our content catalogs together under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and Discovery+. That will include the removal of some content from both platforms," it said.

Since the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery earlier this year, Warner Bros. Discovery has been on a brutal cost-cutting drive. It laid off dozens of HBO and HBO Max production staffers this week. The company recently removed some other original films and shows from HBO Max — including An American Pickle, HBO show Vinyl and the 2020 remake of The Witches — reportedly to avoid paying residuals on them. 

It also canceled HBO Max exclusive movies Batgirl and Scoob!: Holiday Haunt, which were almost completed. Reports suggest it did so to claim tax write-downs on the projects.

Just as it is to Eddie Munson in Stranger Things 4, Metallica's "Master of Puppets" is, to me, the “most metal ever.” I spent my teen years obsessively learning the guitar, and Metallica was one of my biggest influences. The combination of vocalist and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield's thrash riffs and progressive song structures along with lead guitarist Kirk Hammett's shredding gave me plenty to try and master. I was never quite fast or precise enough to fully nail Metallica's hardest songs, but I could do a pretty decent impression when I was on my game.

Some 20-plus years later, I am decidedly not on my game, having only played sporadically over the last decade. I've tried getting back into playing in fits and starts, but nothing has really stuck. Just recently, though, Finnish company Yousician came on my radar thanks to a collaboration with — who else? — Metallica.

At a high level, the Yousician software listens to your guitar playing and matches it to the lesson or song you're trying to play, giving you a higher score depending on how accurate you are. The app features courses and songs for guitar, piano, bass, ukulele and vocals, but my time was only spent on the guitar section.

For people who've never played before, there are loads of introductory lessons — but the most interesting thing about Yousician for someone like me are the song transcriptions. The app is loaded up with tons of popular songs that have, in my limited testing, fairly accurate transcriptions that help you learn to play along with the original recording. Queuing a song up brings up a continuously scrolling tablature overview of the song; play along with it and Yousician will try and tell you if you hit a chord right on the beat, whether you're a little early or late or whether you blew it completely.

From what I can tell, the vast majority of the music on Yousician has been recorded by session musicians — so you're not playing along to the original Nirvana or Foo Fighters tracks, but a well-recorded, though somewhat soulless, reproduction. That's OK, as these exercises work well enough for learning a song, and then you can just go play along with the original once you have it perfected.

But the Metallica course is different, and far more compelling. Yousician got access to the master recording for 10 of the band's songs, which means you're learning from and playing along with the original songs you (presumably) love.

The Metallica portion of Yousician isn't limited to learning specific songs, however. There are three courses to play through: Riff Life, Rock in Rhythm and Take the Lead, each of which dives into a different aspect of the band's music. Each of those courses, in turn, has a handful of lessons focused on a song and the skills needed to play it. There are also videos featuring members of the band talking about the overarching concept. While James and Kirk aren't literally teaching you the songs, it's still great to see them play up close and personal and hear about how they approach writing and performing.

For example, the "Rock in Rhythm" course has a whole section on downpicking, a more percussive and aggressive way of using your picking hand that has come to define much of Metallica's riffs and heavy metal music in general. Seeing James Hetfield perform some of his most complicated and fast riffs in great detail is an absolute treat.

Mixed in with these videos are lessons that focus on a specific part of a song. The Riff Life course starts things out extremely simple, with the key riffs to songs like "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "Nothing Else Matters'' and "Enter Sandman." These lessons follow a pretty standard format. First, you'll listen to the isolated guitar part to get it in your head, sometimes accompanied by a Yousician instructor showing you how to approach the song. After that, you play the part in the context of the song, starting out slowly and then gradually speeding up to play it at full speed. Then, to complete the lesson, you perform the complete song.

For that last option, Yousician offers multiple ways to move forward. If you're a beginner, you can play simplified versions of the song — but Yousician also includes full versions of the rhythm guitar track or a combo of the rhythm and lead parts. If you're just learning the song for the first time, you're not going to want to jump right into those versions. But if you're up for the challenge, the practice mode helpfully divides the song up into sections like intro, verse, chorus, solo and so forth. You can slow the song down, work on those sections, and then string the entire thing together. The app uses time stretching so that the music’s pitch isn’t affected.

As someone already familiar with the Metallica songs included, I can tell Yousician has done an impressive job with these full transcriptions. I've already picked up some tricks and learned a few improved ways to play these songs, even for very simple parts like the opening riff to "Enter Sandman." I've known that song basically since I first picked up a guitar, but Yousician identified that Hetfield plays the riff with his left hand in a fairly unconventional finger position, one that is not simple but makes the notes ring out clearer once you master it.

The lead guitar parts are also impressively detailed, considering how fast and complex some of Hammett's solos can be. This is a case where I'm sure it helped to have access to Metallica's master recordings for these songs; being able to isolate parts and slow things down makes the learning process much more accessible and also likely made a difference in the accuracy of the transcriptions. While I can't say that the notation for extremely fast solos like those in "One" or "Battery" are 100-percent accurate, they should be good enough for a convincing performance.

Unfortunately, I ran into some problems when trying to tackle the aforementioned epic, “Master of Puppets.” While I was working my way through the downpicking lessons, I was presented with the riff played during the main verse. Whether through my own ineptitude, Yousician not “hearing” me well enough or some other unknown issue, I simply could not play the riff accurately enough to move forward. It’s definitely a fast one, but even at slowed down speeds, Yousician consistently didn’t recognize that I was hitting the sliding power chords that anchor the end of the riff. A colleague of mine had previously tried Yousician and had a similar problem with the app not recognizing his playing, which can be a major bummer if you’re trying to ace each lesson.

I can’t say why this happened with this particular riff. Yousician did a good job at hearing me play the song’s introduction, which is equally fast and pretty complex in its own right. There seemed to be something specific to those sliding chords that the app had a hard time picking up. I’m not well-practiced enough to attempt the fastest solos the Metallica course offers, so I can’t say how well it’ll pick those up, but it did a fine job of recognizing the quick, arpeggiated licks near the end of the “Fade to Black” solo. Yousician did a better job of picking things up when I plugged my guitar straight into my computer using the iRig 2 interface. But since I don't usually go straight into my computer, I didn't have any virtual amps or effects set up, which meant playing wasn't nearly as much fun as it is through my amp.

Despite these occasional issues, I really enjoyed the Yousician Metallica course. Whether it’s worth the money is another question altogether – Yousician costs $140 a year or $30 a month. That’s not cheap, but it’s less expensive than the private guitar lessons I took 20 years ago. Obviously, Yousician can’t tailor its lessons to me, but I’m still impressed with the attention to detail and comprehensive nature of the Metallica course, and there’s a host of other things I could play around with, too. Between the accuracy of the transcriptions, a solid song selection and the ability to slow down tracks for practicing, there’s a lot to like here.

It certainly would have been a fantastic tool when I was learning the guitar as a teenager – but in 2022, there are a wide variety of options for learning your favorite songs. That’s probably the biggest catch with Yousician. Most people will probably be happy to view YouTube instructional videos and look up transcriptions for free online. I just did a quick search for “Master of Puppets guitar lesson” and found a host of excellent videos, including one multi-parter where the instructor spent ten minutes just demonstrating the first two riffs. It was a thorough, detailed lesson from someone who clearly knows the song as well as Metallica’s approach to playing in general.

That said, I’d still encourage Metallica fans to check out a monthly subscription to Yousician. The song selection spans simpler tracks to some of their toughest material, making it useful regardless of your skill level. The video content is entertaining and informative; you don’t often get to see a band speaking so candidly about their approach to playing their instruments. And as good as some YouTube lessons are, being able to look at and play along with detailed tablature transcriptions of extremely fast guitar solos makes the learning experience much better. Those transcriptions combined with the original Metallica master tracks that you can slow down or speed up as needed are an excellent practice tool. For anyone looking to unleash their inner Eddie Munson, Yousician’s Metallica course is a solid place to start.

YouTube wants everyone to know if you're simply cross-posting your Shorts to TikTok or Instagram Reels. In an update on its community help center, a Team YouTube member has announced that the website has started adding watermarks to Shorts downloaded from its Studio portal for creators. YouTube will start by watermarking Shorts you create on desktop over the coming weeks before expanding to mobile over the next months. 

After TikTok exploded in popularity, other internet companies realized that short-form videos had won over the younger generation and had quickly developed new products to rival the platform. If you spend time consuming videos on several apps and websites, though, you can easily see that creators tend to repost the same videos across multiple services — a lot of Instagram Reels, for instance, are also TikTok videos.

The Google-owned website said that it's watermarking Shorts so "viewers can see that the content [the user is] sharing across platforms can be found on YouTube Shorts." It sounds like it's hoping that the new feature could raise awareness that it hosts short-form videos, as well, and get you to try it and use it over its competitors. 

YouTube first launched its short-form video format in India back in 2020 before releasing it in 100 countries last year. A few months later, it set aside $100 million to start paying Shorts creators. By June this year, YouTube said Shorts already has 1.5 billion active, signed-in monthly users, which is a lot more than the 1 billion monthly active users TikTok said it reached back in September 2021.

Blizzard has published a long-awaited update on its monetization plans for Diablo IV. The short version of the blog post is that Diablo IV will be a full-priced title with an in-game shop and optional seasonal passes. However, the only way to make your characters more powerful will be by playing the game. Here's how monetization will work. 

Blizzard plans to structure Diablo IV’s endgame around seasons. The game will feature up to four seasons per year, with the first one launching shortly after the game’s release. Each new season will bring additional features, balance changes and quality of life improvements, as well as new quests to complete and items to collect. As in Diablo II and III, you’ll need to create a new character to participate in the latest season. That said, your previous ones will live on in the game’s “Eternal Realm,” where you can continue playing them.

Blizzard

A byproduct of that schedule is that there will be fewer seasonal passes for players to buy in Diablo IV than in Diablo Immortal and Overwatch 2, where new ones are available to purchase every four and nine weeks, respectively. Each season pass will feature both free and paid tracks. Progressing through the former will earn you rewards that make it easier to level your characters. Specifically, the free tier will award “Season Boosts,” which Blizzard says will accelerate your progress for the duration of that season. You won’t be able to spend money to purchase additional Season Boosts or unlock them at a faster rate. 

By contrast, the paid track awards cosmetic items and the game’s premium currency. You can use the latter to purchase cosmetic items through Diablo IV’s in-game shop. “Nothing offered in the Shop grants a direct or indirect gameplay advantage,” said Kegan Clark, Diablo IV director of product. “So, while many of these may look like powerful pieces of gear, they have no in-game stats.”

Additionally, Blizzard claims some of the best-looking armor, weapons and transmorgs – items you can use to change the appearance of a piece of gear – will be found by playing the game. “The Shop offers more diversity of choices, not systematically better choices,” Clark added.

While one could argue purchasable cosmetics go against the spirit of an action RPG series like Diablo, the system previewed Blizzard for Diablo IV at least looks much better than its Diablo Immortal counterpart since it will allow you to mix and match individual items to create your own sets. Additionally, once you buy a premium set for a specific class, you can use the included items on every character of that class on your account.

Blizzard

Separate from the battle pass system is a progression mechanic called the Season Journey (pictured above). Like its Diablo III counterpart, the Season Journey will allow you to earn items and cosmetics by completing chapter tasks. The Season Journey is included with the base game, and filling out its pages will also earn you progress toward the current season pass.

Today’s blog post follows weeks of bad press around Diablo Immortal’s aggressive monetization. At the start of August, YouTuber Jtisallbusiness posted a video complaining that he couldn’t participate in the game’s endgame PVP after spending $100,000 to max out his character. Blizzard later said it would address the issue, but not before JT’s story added to the negative discourse around the game. But for all the vocal complaining around Immortal’s monetization, it doesn’t seem to have affected Blizzard’s bottom line. Eight weeks after release, the game surpassed $100 million in lifetime revenue, making it one of the fastest mobile titles to achieve that feat.

Google says it's doing more to downrank low-quality content that's designed primarily to generate traffic through search engine optimization. Over the coming months, it will roll out several updates to Search aimed at making it easier for people to find helpful content created primarily for humans rather than the attention of algorithms.

Starting next week, Google will unleash what it's calling the Helpful Content Update. This is designed to downgrade unoriginal content deemed to be of low quality. In particular, it will try to surface better-quality educational materials, along with more useful entertainment, shopping, and tech-related content.

As an example, the company notes that folks searching for info about a new movie will be more likely to see results for feature authentic and fresh information, rather than ones that offer aggregated reviews with no unique perspectives or details. In general, the aim is to surface more results with in-depth insights and better quality content. Google says that, as with its other systems, it plans to refine this approach over time. 

The company has offered some guidance to content creators in terms of what its search engine prioritizes. Google has long urged them to publish content designed for people while still using SEO best practices. Among the factors the company suggests they keep in mind is whether their intended audience would find the content useful and showing first-hand expertise and in-depth knowledge of a subject. 

It suggests avoiding "extensive automation" to churn out content on a broad range of topics or writing something with a specific word count in mind after hearing that's what Google looks for. Removing unhelpful content from elsewhere on a website will help too.

In addition, Google is planning another update for Search with the goal of surfacing original and high-quality product reviews (such as the ones you'll find on Engadget). This measure, which the company will roll out in the coming weeks, follows a series of updates Google rolled out last year to bubble up more useful and in-depth reviews in results.

Improving Search is an ongoing mission for Google. The company notes that it made thousands of changes to its Search systems last year. It said those were based on the results of hundreds of thousands of quality tests, some of which incorporated feedback from human reviewers.

Netflix's upcoming ad-supported tier might not be the best streaming option for commuters and other viewers who frequently watch on the go. Developer Steve Moser has discovered text within the code of the service's iPhone app that says "Downloads available on all plans except Netflix with ads." If viewers can't download content to their devices on the tier, that means they won't be able to watch their shows or movies while offline. Netflix neither confirmed nor denied the absence of offline viewing with the offering, but it told TechCrunch: 

"We are still in the early days of deciding how to launch a lower priced, ad-supported option and no decisions have been made. So this is all just speculation at this point."

Back in July, Netflix co-CEO and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos admitted in an earnings call that the upcoming subscription option will not include all of the service's licensed content at launch. The company still has to renegotiate deals with studios to be able to offer their shows and movies alongside ads. Similarly, the absence of offline viewing might also have a legitimate reason other than Netflix wanting to compel the tier's subscribers to pay more for premium membership.

As TechCrunch notes, it could be technically challenging to serve ads with offline content. In fact, Netflix won't be the only streaming platform with an ad-supported option that doesn't come with offline viewing. HBO Max's and Hulu's, for instance, don't have a download function either. Based on Netflix's statement, though, things could still change by the time the tier launches early next year.