From Halloween to The Thing, Christine to They Live, John Carpenter is a modern master of cinematic horror. During Summer Games Fest on Thursday, Focus Home Entertainment and Saber Interactive announced that his unique zompocalyptic vision will be coming to Xbox X|S, the Epic Games Store and Playstation 5 in 2024 with the release of John Carpenter's Toxic Commando.

The game's premise, based on the trailer that debuted on Thursday, is straightforward: you see a zombie, you shoot it until it stops twitching. The plot is equally nuanced, wherein an experiment seeking to draw energy from the Earth's core has instead unleashed an ambulatory zombie plague known as the Sludge God. Players will have to kill it and its unending army of undead monstrosities with an array of melee, edged and ranged weapons, and special abilities. Get ready to rock out with your Glock out because the enemies will be coming at you in hordes. 

A firm release date has not yet been set, however the studio did announce that there will be a closed beta offered ahead of its release. If you want to get in on the undead butchery ahead of time, sign up for PC on the on the beta website. 

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

In the middle of this year’s Summer Games Fest, Geoff Keighley teased a new game with characters from a storied manga artist – and he wasn’t kidding. Sand Land is a new adventure game from Bandai Namco, featuring character design from Akira Toriyama, the man who gave us Dragon Ball’s Goku, the art of the Dragon Quest series, the characters of Chrono Trigger, not to mention countless more manga titles. Sand Land was initially a short manga series written back in 2000 by Toriyama. Now it’s a game. (In fact, in the trailer you can see the protagonist play around with what appears to be a Gameboy Advance, which is cute.)

We got a quick tour of what kind of game Sandland will be, as you’ll take control of a demonic prince, Beelzebub, alongside a cohort of monstrous characters, exploring, well, sandy environments. While you’ll be able to go toe-to-toe with some enemies, you’ll also pilot tanks to gun down enemies from afar, or go up against other military hardware. There appears to be a whole array of vehicles to explore the desert with. There's no release date yet, but hopefully, we’ll hear more in the following days.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

Google Meet, the company's answer to Zoom and Microsoft Teams, just got an update that makes the picture-in-picture (PiP) feature far more useful. Specifically, a new set of controls makes it easier to multitask during a meeting while remaining present and participating in video conferences, according to Google's Workspace Update blog post.

With the picture-in-picture window open, there's now a control that lets you "raise your hand," use PiP while in meeting chat, turn captions on and off, resize the picture-in-picture view more effectively and access flexible layouts, the company said. Google shows exactly how it works in the GIF below, as a user drafts an email while still being able to see his colleagues and remain present in the video chat. Should you need to make a point, you can still raise your hand and access other controls. 

Google

That's a big change from the last version, which offered limited resizing options and a fixed aspect ratio. In addition, the previous controls only let you leave the meeting or turn the camera/microphone on and off. While a relatively small change, it makes the app far more useful from a productivity standpoint (or lets you play the Eggman Game without being noticed). 

The update is now available for Google Meet on Chrome browser, and will be rolling out more widely over the next few weeks. Google has full instructions on how to use the new features here. 

WhatsApp has launched a new feature called Channels that makes it much more like a social media app, the Meta-owned company announced. It allows accounts to send one-way broadcasts to followers in the form of "text, photos, videos, stickers and polls," much as you can with an app like Twitter. Broadcasting accounts can decide who's allowed to follow their channel, whether they want it to be discoverable and more. At the same time, "following a channel won’t reveal your phone number to the admin or other followers," WhatsApp said.

Users can find channels in a new tab on the app called Updates. That area shows Status and channels you decide to follow, separate from chats with family, friends and group chats/communities. For creators who plan to use the feature, WhatsApp will eventually add payment services to monetize it.

Privacy is also key, the company said. A channel's admin info isn't shared and it only retains 30 days of history. Admins can also prevent followers from taking screenshots or forwarding messages. Channels aren't end-to-end encrypted, but WhatsApp said it's exploring the idea for non-profits, health organizations or other privacy-sensitive organizations.

Channels is more or less a copy of a similar feature on rival chat app Telegram of the same name. Earlier this year, Meta launched Broadcast Channels on Instagram, allowing creators to stream updates to their followers’ inboxes much as WhatsApp users will be able to do. The feature can be likened to a newsletter, and in fact, it may have been called Newsletter while still under development (or the latter could arrive later as a separate feature).

WhatsApp is evolving well beyond it's original purpose as a simple messaging app. Meta recently added the ability to use one account on multiple devices, something that was not only impossible before, but potentially created a hassle when you changed phones. The company has also updated group chats, while adding polls, shopping and more.

The new feature is not launching widely, but starting with "leading global organizations and select organizations in Columbia and Singapore," the company said. It'll arrive to more countries and users down the road "in the coming months."

Paradox Interactive announced today that it will refund all physical pre-orders for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. The long-delayed sequel to the 2004 cult classic was last available for pre-sales in early 2021. That was when Paradox announced it was parting ways with developer Hardsuit Labs and pushing back the title’s release date indefinitely. However, there may be a glimmer of hope for holdouts as the publisher teased more news coming in September about the vampire game.

Paradox says it’s refunding the pre-orders because the previous physical edition included bonus-content items “no longer representative of the game.” Physical variants include the Collector’s Edition created and sold by DPA Merchandising GmbH and boxed versions of the First Blood, Unsanctioned and Blood Moon editions. Additionally, Paradox will grant digital pre-order refunds for anyone who requests one. Refund instructions vary depending on where you ordered it, but you can check Paradox’s FAQ for storefront-specific guidance.

Paradox Interactive

“As development continues, we will be updating the game’s editions and bonus content, and we want to provide the best value to those of you who supported us via digital pre-order after all this time,” Paradox wrote today. “We’re excited to show you more and hope to have all of you with us in September when we reveal more.”

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 was initially slated for 2020 before being pushed back to 2021 and then shelved indefinitely after Paradox fired the game’s creative director and lead writer. The publisher hasn’t yet announced the title’s new developer, although it says it will tell us that in September as well. As for an updated release date, Paradox stops short of explicitly promising one in its September announcements, but it assures gamers it will “share more information about the launch” at that time.

A documentary about Hideo Kojima, one of the most lauded video game designers on the planet, is on the way. A trailer offers a first peek at what's in store for those who plan to check out Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds.

Kojima wrote on Twitter that the film will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the development of Death Stranding, as well as "shots from the early days of our independent studio, memories from my childhood and my creative journey." The trailer encapsulates all of that while suggesting the film is a celebration of Kojima and his work. Friends, collaborators and fans including Geoff Keighley, Guillermo del Toro, Norman Reedus and George Miller are shown talking up Kojima and his credentials.

Whether Kojima truly is "the first auteur of video games" is up for debate, especially if you're of the mind that the auteur theory can't apply to the highly collaborative process of game development. Still, there's no denying that Kojima is a vanguard in his industry. He's a fascinating guy who is behind some of the most memorable and inventive games of the last few decades, which makes him good fodder for a documentary.

PlayStation Studios and Kojima Productions helped to produce Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds, for which there's no release date as yet. The film will premiere at the Tribeca Festival on June 17th and Kojima will be in attendance for a Q&A. In the meantime, we may learn more about Death Stranding 2 during Summer Game Fest.

Disney+ has set a premiere date of August 23rd for the highly-anticipated Star Wars: Ahsoka series. The show takes place in the same timeline of The Mandalorian, but stars a character that, sort of, goes all the way back to the prequels. Former Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano first appeared in the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon and her animated adventures continued on with Star Wars: Rebels before finally appearing as live action in season two of The Mandalorian and the first season of The Book of Boba Fett.

Ahsoka is played by Rosario Dawson and it seems the show will be a pseudo-sequel to Rebels, with many characters from that show appearing in live action for the first time. Natasha Liu Bordizzo stars as Sabine Wren, Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Hera Syndulla and Eman Esfandi appears as Ezra Bridger. Also, notorious franchise villain Grand Admiral Thrawn will make his live action debut, still portrayed by Lars Mikkelsen.

The remaining cast includes David Tennant, Diana Lee Inosanto and the recently-deceased Ray Stevenson. There are also plenty of rumors that Hayden Christensen will return as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. For the uninitiated, Ahsoka Tano was Skywalker’s pupil before he started executing Jedi Padawans and blowing up entire planets.

Disney+ has dropped a new trailer for the show that will air on TV tonight during the NBA Finals Game 3. Most of the footage here was already available in the previous trailer, but there are a few new shots here and there. The entire show is being written by franchise co-steward Dave Filoni, who originally created the character for Clone Wars.

Nintendo is launching a sequel to 1-2 Switch, its party title that features a robust collection of mini-games, on June 30th. It's called Everybody 1-2-Switch!, because you don't even need to use Joy-Cons to participate in some of its games — you can join in, as long as you're using a compatible smartphone. The original 1-2 Switch launched with 28 mini-games meant to get people playing and to liven up get-togethers. Some of them were odd, such as the game where you have to get a crying baby to sleep, but some were oddly fun. There's a mini-game where you have to pretend to be sashaying down the runway like a supermodel, and another where you have to milk a cow. 

According to a report by Fanbyte last year, Nintendo has been working on the sequel for quite some time. However, testing groups reportedly excoriated the game, and families with kids, which are Nintendo's prime reason for enabling matches with more than two participants, apparently found the mini-games boring. People were calling the sequel "Horseshit," the publication wrote, because the host is a person wearing a horse mask. Was Nintendo able to fix its issues and create mini-games entertaining enough to change the testers' minds? It's not quite clear. In fact, the official product page for Everybody 1-2-Switch! is pretty bare and mostly just mentions the game's multi-player capability. It also says that the title will "feature everything from balloons to aliens." 

The title will set you back $30 when it arrives. That's much less than its predecessor's $50 launch price, and, at this point, your guess is as good as ours on whether that's a good sign or a bad sign. 

It’s only a few days until the beginning of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference next week, and we’re eager to see what the iPhone maker is cooking up. This week, Cherlynn and Devindra are joined by Engadget Senior Writer Sam Rutherford to dive into all of the Apple rumors: That fabled mixed reality headset, a potential 15-inch MacBook Air and more! But really, all eyes are on the headset. Is Apple setting itself up for failure, or for a future where smart glasses are actually a thing? Also, we discuss the late-breaking news about Meta’s Quest 3 headset, which sounds like it will offer better VR and color mixed reality support for $500.

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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• Apple’s AR Headset, iOS 17, MacOS 14 and everything else we expect to see at WWDC 2023 – 1:16

• Meta Quest 3 details drop ahead of Apple’s developer conference next week – 33:48

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Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Guest: Sam Rutherford
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Graphic artist: Luke Brooks and Joel Chokkattu

Last year, Facebook parent Meta said it may stop Canadians from sharing news content in response to the country's proposed Online Sharing Act. Now, the company has announced that it will begin tests on Facebook and Instagram that "limit some users and publishers from viewing or sharing some news content in Canada," it wrote in a blog post. The testing will take place over several weeks and the "small percentage" of users affected will be notified if they try to share news content. 

"As we have repeatedly shared, the Online News Act is fundamentally flawed legislation that ignores the realities of how our platforms work, the preferences of the people who use them, and the value we provide news publishers," the company wrote.

The proposed law, also known as Bill C-18, was introduced by the ruling Liberal government earlier this year. Modeled after a similar Australian law, it aims to force internet platforms like Facebook into revenue-sharing partnerships with local news organizations. It came about, in part, because of Facebook and Google's dominance of the online advertising market — with both companies combined taking 80 percent of revenue.

Last year, Meta said it was trying to be "transparent about the possibility that we may be forced to consider whether we continue to allow the sharing of news content in Canada." The company made the threat after a government panel failed to invite Meta to a meeting about the legislation. Google also temporarily blocked some Canadian users from seeing news content. 

In response, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez called the tests "unacceptable," Reuters reported. "When a big tech company... tells us, 'If you don't do this or that, then I'm pulling the plug' — that's a threat. I've never done anything because I was afraid of a threat," he told Reuters. 

Facebook, Google and others eventually agreed to the Australian law, and now pay publishers to post news links with snippets. Before that happened, though, Facebook followed through on its threat to block users from sharing news links in the nation. It later reversed the ban following further discussions, after the government made amendments addressing Facebook's concerns about the value of its platform to publishers.

For now, the test will only affect a small number of users and for a limited time. If it follows the same playbook it used in Australia though, Meta may block news sharing for all users in Canada, possibly as a way to force the government and publishers to the bargaining table.

"As the Minister of Canadian Heritage has said, how we choose to comply with the legislation is a business decision we must make, and we have made our choice," the company wrote. "While these product tests are temporary, we intend to end the availability of news content in Canada permanently following the passage of Bill C-18."