BlizzCon is upon us, which means Blizzard had a ton of announcements for fans of its games duing the opening ceremony. The next Overwatch 2 hero was among the reveals and, as expected, the new tank is Baptiste's old running buddy, Mauga. A leak on the Nintendo Switch eShop's news tab gave the game away a few hours early.

Mauga wields a pair of chainguns and he has an unstoppable charge ability that can knock enemies off of maps. It seems that he'll be able to heal nearby teammates when he deals damage too. Mauga's ultimate ability looks fun, if terrifying for the other team. He traps nearby opponents into a cage match and has unlimited ammo for a short period of time. 

Best of all, you'll have a chance to try Mauga before he officially joins the roster when Overwatch 2's eighth season goes live in December. He'll be available in most game modes on all platforms this weekend. BlizzCon attendees are able to try out Mauga on site too.

Fans have been awaiting Mauga's arrival in the game for several years. Blizzard had long intended to make him a playable character. The latest Overwatch 2 map, Samoa, included several references to the newcomer as well.

Meanwhile, game director Aaron Keller touched on some of the things that are coming to Overwatch 2 in 2024. The next competitive game mode is called Clash, which has five points lined up in a row. The first team to capture all five points or reach a maximum score wins. The first map will be a new take on Hanamura, an old favorite of many (including yours truly). 

Early next year, there will be a major rework of the competitive system with new rewards. Upcoming seasons will be themed around things like eldritch horror, Egyptian mythology and witches. Fans will also enter a mirror universe in which heroes and villains trade places. 

In addition, three more heroes will arrive in 2024. A damage hero named Venture will arrive in season 10 (which is likely to start in April) while a support codenamed Space Ranger will debut in season 12 i.e. around August. Some more details about what's ahead will be revealed during a BlizzCon panel on Saturday.

Formula 1 may do its preseason tests right before the new schedule of races begins, but Formula E holds its trials months before the first E-Prix. The official action starts in Mexico City in January, but last week the all-electric series took to the turns of Valencia for its annual preseason test. 2024’s Season 10 will be the second for the ultra-efficient Gen3 car, following a debut that delivered lots of wheel-to-wheel racing and a hard-fought driver’s championship that was decided in the final two races. While there isn’t a new car this year, there’s still plenty to know before the lights go out in Mexico.

A battery fire cut testing short

Teams lost a considerable amount of track time after a battery fire following the Tuesday morning session. The Race reports that the incident occurred in a pit stall occupied by WAE, the all-electric series’ battery supplier. The fire reportedly started from a battery that had been removed from the DS Penske driven by rookie Robert Shwartzman for three separate stints. Shwartzman had to stop on track due to an issue and once the car was back in the pit lane, the battery was removed and taken to WAE for inspection. Motorsport.com reports that the automatic battery safety system was activated causing the driver to stop. According to The Race, witnesses say there was a small audible explosion about 90 minutes after the car came to a halt on the circuit.

Formula E canceled the Tuesday afternoon and both Wednesday sessions while it looked into the cause of the fire. One person was taken to the hospital as a precaution but was released without any treatment. The series’ governing body, the FIA, deemed conditions safe to resume testing on Thursday afternoon following “investigations and findings provided by the technical suppliers,” Formula E explained.

As The Race notes, there has never been a traction battery fire at an E-Prix in nearly 10 years of events. There were incidents in 2015 and 2017, but those affected the smaller 12-volt battery. This was also unrelated to the new Attack Charge as Shwartzman had yet to demo that infrastructure. Formula E only had eight units for 11 teams and DS Penske didn’t have one at the time, The Race reports.

The first female driver in a Gen3 car

Simon Galloway

During the preseason test in Valencia, teams were required to put rookie drivers in their cars for three of the 18 scheduled hours of running. The lineup included former F2 driver Robert Shwartzman (DS Penske) and current F2 drivers Victor Martins (Nissan) and Zane Maloney (Andretti), among others. The rookie test saw the first female driver in a Gen3 Formula E car as well. ​​LMP3 and GT4 driver Gabriela Jilkova got behind the wheel of the Porsche team’s EVs, completing a 46-lap run. Formula E previously held rookie tests ahead of the Berlin E-Prix and during an extra practice session in Rome, both happening earlier this year.

The first test of Attack Charge

During a 10-hour session last Friday, Formula E held a simulated race, giving teams a 27-lap trial to test setups, run through safety car periods and demo the upcoming Attack Charge pit stops. The series had planned to introduce the stops last season, but supply-chain issues meant the technology would only be ready for the final few races. By then, Formula E felt it would be too late and decided to postpone the debut of Attack Charge to this season.

There is still a lot of unknown about how the stops will work, but what we do know is that they will take place during a specific window Formula E officials will announce right before the race. The series has also said that teams will be unable to double stack their two cars, a practice of pitting both vehicles back-to-back, which could lead to some interesting decisions about which driver gets priority. An Attack Charge stop is also expected to be quite long at 30-35 seconds. A mechanic hooks up a charging cable to the back of the car while the battery is replenished.

Jaguar and Porsche are quick… again

Simon Galloway

After strong showings at the start of the Gen3 era last season, it looks like Jaguar TCS Racing and TAG Heuer Porsche are going to be contenders once again. Jaguar and Porsche vehicles claimed four of the top five times in each of the three test sessions, including quick laps from the Envision team that runs Jaguar powertrains.

Jaguar’s Mitch Evans posted the fastest time of the week, notching a 1m24.474s mark that was over half a second quicker than the fastest lap in last year’s test. Evans, who finished third in the driver’s championship in Season nine, also topped the times in the second session. New teammate Nick Cassidy, who finished second in the championship last season while driving for Envision, kept Evans from sweeping all three sessions with a 1m24.617s in the final running of the week.

Mahindra seems poised to bounce back

Season nine was one to forget for Mahindra. The team that’s been in Formula E since the series began finished 10th out of 11. Significant offseason changes include an all-new driver pairing of Edoardo Mortara and Season seven champ Nyck De Vries. Mortara was fifth fastest in the first session of the week while De Vries posted the third best time in session two. Mahindra was hampered by the battery fire as it suffered damage to its equipment and both cars, but both drivers showed great pace at different points during the week.

The driver’s championship should be close again

19 of the 21 drivers set lap times within 0.7 seconds of each other during the last session of the week. Sure, that’s one-lap pace as opposed to managing all of the nuances of a Formula E race (like energy consumption and regeneration), but it’s clear the drivers are learning how to unlock the potential of the Gen3 cars. Last year, for example, teams were grappling with new cars and new tires, having to figure out the optimal performance for a harder Hankook compound.

Nearly two years after its prototype debut and eight months after its public beta, Sony's GT Sophy racing AI for Gran Turismo 7 is back, and going by Gran Turismo Sophy 2.0 now. It will be available to all PlayStation 5 users as part of the GT7 Spec II Update (Patch Update 1.40) being released on Wednesday, November 2 at 2 a.m. ET. 

We got our first look at the Sophy system back in February 2022. At that point it was already handily beating professional Gran Turismo players. “Gran Turismo Sophy is a significant development in AI whose purpose is not simply to be better than human players, but to offer players a stimulating opponent that can accelerate and elevate the players’ techniques and creativity to the next level,” Sony AI CEO, Hiroaki Kitano, said at the time. “In addition to making contributions to the gaming community, we believe this breakthrough presents new opportunities in areas such as autonomous racing, autonomous driving, high-speed robotics and control.”

The system's public beta this past February saw the AI competing against a small subset of the game's user base in the “Gran Turismo Sophy Race Together” event. Players who had already progressed sufficiently through the game were granted access to the special race, where they faced off against four AI-controlled opponents in a limited number of tracks. 

“The difference [between racers] is that, it's essentially the power you have versus the other cars on the track,” Sony AI's COO, Michael Spranger, told Engadget in February. “You have different levels of performance. In the beginning level, you have a much more powerful vehicle — still within the same class, but you're much faster [than your competition].” That advantage shrank as players advanced through the race rounds and Sophy gained access to increasingly capable vehicles. In September, Sophy learned to drift.

“We have evolved GT Sophy from a research project tackling the grand challenge of creating an AI agent that could outperform top drivers in a top simulation racing game, to a functional game feature that provides all game players a formidable, human-like opponent that enhances the overall racing experience," Spranger said in a press statement released Wednesday.

With Wednesday's announcement, the number of vehicles Sophy can pilot rises from the meager four models available during the beta event, to 340 (yes, three hundred and forty) vehicles across nine unique tracks. Per Sony, that means Sophy can drive 95 percent of the playable in-game models and will select its car for the race based on what the player has available in their garage (that way they're not randomly facing down a 918 in a Nissan Versa or are otherwise disadvantaged).

Players can match against Sophy in Quick Race mode (formerly "Arcade") regardless of their advancement through the game or current skill level. As long as you have a PS5, a network connection and the latest update patch installed, you too can get Toretto'ed by a stack of algorithmic processes. Good luck.

Drones aren't new tools for live sports production, but when the World Series begins this Friday, Fox Sports will use a fleet of three compact aircraft during the Fall Classic for the first time ever. Previously, the network used drones during baseball games for coverage of the All-Star and Field of Dreams games. Fox also employs drones for its broadcasts of USFL and first began using them for production in 2015. 

For the World Series, Fox plans to use the trio of drones to capture moments like relief pitchers coming in from the bullpen, warm-ups between innings and pitchers leaving the mound. The network collaborated with Beverly Hills Aerials on the customized fleet and that company will operate them. While Fox says it will select the drone best-suited for what it's capturing, all three are FPV units (first-person view) and only one will be in the air at any given time. The pilot will be positioned in the outfield either behind or between the bullpens. While all three drones are equipped with 4K cameras, Fox says they'll transmit 1080p HDR footage that will also be available for use on jumbo screens inside the two stadiums. 

The drone shots will join Fox's new UmpCam that it debuted during this year's ALDS. It's exactly what it sounds like: a camera that gives you the vantage point of the home plate umpire. The camera is installed in the top of the umpire's mask, getting viewers as close as they can get to what he sees. Fox uses UmpCam to show ball/strike calls and for an on-field perspective of big hits. The network will employ 52 cameras total during the World Series, including an overhead FlyCam, three DirtCams (near home plate, first base and second base), 13 Super Motion cameras and three RF cameras. To capture audio inside each ballpark, Fox will position over 100 microphones to bring fans at home every bit of sound from the game that it can. 

The World Series begins Friday, October 27 at 8PM ET when the Texas Rangers host the Arizona Diamondbacks for Game 1. 

Respawn Entertainment is adding a long-awaited feature to Apex Legends: cross-platform progression. When the new season goes live on October 31, players will see an in-game message that explains how this works. The profile with the highest account level will be designated as their primary account. They'll maintain that level, and all of the cosmetics, achievements and badges from other profiles that are linked to the same EA ID will be merged into the master account. An EA ID is required to play Apex on any platform.

Account merging for cross-progression is mandatory, Respawn said, but it means that those who play the battle royale across multiple platforms will have access to their cosmetic items and currencies no matter where they happen to be playing at a given time. You'll also make progress on the same battle pass whether you're playing on PC, PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo Switch. Respawn noted that nothing will change for folks who only play on one platform with a single profile.

Cross-progression has been a long time coming. Respawn has been chipping away at the feature since at least 2020, the same year the studio enabled cross-platform play. However, work on cross-progression was delayed by hacks that impacted Apex and both Titanfall games.

Account merging is arriving alongside an intriguing new playable character. Her name is Conduit and she's a support who is focused on shields. With her tactical ability, Radiant Transfer, she can supply nearby teammates with extra temporary shields. If her chums are out of range of her tactical, she can get a burst of speed as she races toward them, thanks to her passive ability. Conduit's ultimate is called Energy Barricade. She'll deploy a row of seven shield jammers that will slow and damage enemies.

Conduit is said to be a superfan of the Apex Games — for one of her finishers, she takes a selfie of her and her enemy before delivering a fatal punch. The support has ties to the Titanfall games as well. She carries a battery from a titan on her back, and this powers her combat rig.

Elsewhere, Respawn has revamped the Storm Point map with six new points of interest. Respawn tweaked around 40 percent of the map to make it smaller. The aim is to push players to engage with each other more often and to deliver faster-paced action.

Meanwhile, there's more good news for some players thanks to big changes to Ranked play. There will no longer be any restrictions on grouping up as a trio, so Bronze and Silver players will be able to play the competitive mode with buddies who are at higher ranks and vice versa.

It seems that Respawn has a plan to mitigate account boosting, whereby more skilled individuals help carry low-ranked players up the ladder. The studio is introducing a skill check system, called promotional (or promo) trials. Those who are on the verge of reaching the next rank will first have to complete a challenge to prove that they're good enough. For instance, they may have five attempts to win a match in order to rank up. Otherwise, they can place in the top 10 three times and get three kills or assists three times within those five matches.

If a player fails this time-limited skill check, they'll have to work their way back to the promo trial. They'll gradually get more trial matches (up to 10) to complete their objective. If they perform exceptionally poorly and reach the limit of trial games, they might be pushed far down the Ranked ladder and have to put in even more legwork to have a chance of reaching the next skill tier.

Blizzard hasn’t exactly been subtle in marketing Diablo IV, but its latest PR stunt is especially on the nose. To celebrate the release of the game’s new season, Season of Blood, and the high-payoff Blood Harvest events it introduced, Blizzard has launched a month-long blood drive in the US that’ll unlock in-game rewards as more people participate. Once donations reach 666 quarts altogether, players will be able to enter a sweepstakes for “a custom liquid-cooled PC infused with real human blood.”

The first tier of rewards, a batch of five weapons cosmetics, will unlock once donations hit 33 percent of the goal. At the 66 percent mark, players will also be granted access to the Loch Raeth Maor Barbarian armor cosmetic. When donations reach 100 percent of the goal — a total of 666 quarts of blood — the Vermilion Eye Piebald Mount will become available, and the sweepstakes for the custom PC will open.

Aside from the whole “human blood in the coolant” gimmick, the Seasons of Blood custom PC features NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4090, an Intel Core i9 CPU, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, 3 TB SSD Storage, and the Quantum Vector GPU Waterblock for cooling. And, the sweepstakes won’t just be reserved for those who donated. Once the goal is met, any player in the US over 18 can enter. The blood drive is open from now through November 20, and you don’t need to go anywhere special to get in on it. Players 18+ can donate at their local blood centers, then submit proof on the Diablo Blood Harvest website.

A typical blood donation is 1 pint, so it’ll take a little over 1,300 donations to hit the final goal. Players can keep track of the blood drive’s progress by visiting the above website and its motivational fountain of gushing blood. At the time of writing, it’s already at 15 percent — or almost halfway to the first goal. 

Considering the Red Cross recently announced we’re in the middle of a blood shortage, it’s maybe not the worst idea. All of the rewards will be doled out a few days after the blood drive closes, on November 22. Happy harvest!

Games Done Quick speedrunning marathons have seen plenty of unusual attempts at beating games as quickly as possible in the name of charity. From races between multiple players to blindfolded runs, there’s often something a little offbeat on the schedule to shake things up. A run that’s earmarked for January's Awesome Games Done Quick event might take the biscuit, though: a Shiba Inu is set to become the first dog to take part in GDQ.

Peanut Butter (who is named after the speedrunning term PB, or personal best) is scheduled to tackle NES game Gyromite alongside his human, JSR. The pooch’s run will take place remotely, which may come as slightly disappointing news to those attending AGDQ in-person in Pittsburgh.

According to a video JSR shared of a previous speedrun of the 1985 game, Peanut Butter uses a custom NES controller with four buttons. Those are mapped to A, B, Select and a fourth button that acts as pressing A and B simultaneously. JSR claims Peanut Butter handled all inputs for the run and that “no assistance, autofire, macros or save states were used.” However, it's worth noting that JSR did guide PB through Gyromite with the help of some tasty incentives.

It took the three-year-old Shina Ibu 25 minutes and 28 seconds to finish the game in that earlier attempt. According to How Long to Beat, that's over an hour faster than it takes the typical player to complete Gyromite. So Peanut Butter is probably better than you at this game.

Netflix is getting into live sports streaming, but it's not shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars on NFL games, Formula 1 races or the English Premier League quite yet. The company's first live sports event is a pro-am golf tournament that features athletes from its Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Full Swing docuseries.

The Netflix Cup will see four pairs of Formula 1 drivers and PGA Tour golfers pairing up in a match play tournament that will take place in Las Vegas. You'll be able to watch the event starting at 6PM ET on Tuesday, November 14 — just a few days before F1's inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix.

As things stand, The Netflix Cup is set to feature F1 drivers Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz. The golf pros who have lined up to take part are Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas. The tournament will see the pro-am pairs play an eight-hole match. The top two teams will duke it out on a final hole to try and win the Netflix Cup.

“The continued success of Drive to Survive has played a significant role in the growth of Formula 1 in the US, which has ultimately led to the addition of a third American race,” Emily Prazer, chief commercial officer of Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc, said in a statement. “It’s only fitting that we kick off our inaugural race weekend with a fun event that can be streamed by F1 and PGA Tour fans around the globe.”

This is a logical way for Netflix to dip its toes into live sports streaming. It means that the company doesn't have to immediately snap up expensive rights to high-profile leagues (many of which have deals with rival streaming services anyway) or to showcase lower-tier sports.

It's also another example of Netflix's cross-branding coming to the forefront. The company is placing more focus on its own properties with things like a Squid Game reality competition series and branded retail stores that will feature an obstacle course based on its biggest hit to date. Netflix is also said to be developing more video game adaptations of its shows and movies, such as Extraction and Black Mirror.

Netflix's first livestreamed event was a Chris Rock standup special. However, the company ran into technical problems with its second planned livestream, a Love is Blind cast reunion. The company instead filmed the reunion and uploaded it to the platform as quickly as it could. Netflix will be hoping things go more smoothly this time around.

EA is making a turn-based strategy game based on… soccer? That’s the bizarre premise behind the upcoming EA Sports FC Tactical, a mobile title heading to iOS and Android in early 2024. The company says the most peculiar installment in its decades-old franchise (formerly FIFA) results in “authentic football action like never before.”

As its description suggests, matches will be simulated, so you won’t directly control players’ actions like in traditional sports games. Instead, it focuses on in-game strategies like player stamina and power-play management. Playable modes include online-friendly matches and “intense online competitions” like Rank matches, Leagues, and Guilds. It sounds like a sports game for those who want 100 percent strategy and little or no player-controlled action.

Promotional screenshots show a one-on-one battle with assigned numerical skills for each player. They’re broken down into categories like dribbling, one-two, passing and shooting. The pictured player appears to have “skill move” power-up cards like combative chase shot, wild tap dribble and floating instep shot. It sounds like EA took core gameplay elements familiar from titles like Teamfight Tactics (and many others) and slapped a soccer skin onto it to attract fans of both genres.

EA

The game will have over 5,000 licensed players from “more than 10 top leagues,” including the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, and Serie A. You can train players to upgrade their moves, unlock new traits as you progress and customize cosmetics like stadium designs, uniforms and balls.

“EA Sports FC Tactical embraces strategic gameplay to create an all-new football experience that immerses players in the World’s Game like never before,” said EA Sports senior vice president Nick Wlodyka. The game is available for pre-registration on the App Store and Google Play ahead of an expected January 18, 2024 launch.

Electronic Arts has pulled its FIFA games from digital storefronts such as Steam and console stores just as EA Sports FC 24 arrives. As noted by X (formerly Twitter) user MauroNL, none of EA’s FIFA titles are available for purchase on those storefronts anymore, including last year’s title, FIFA 23.

It’s still possible to play some of the games through EA Play, the publisher’s subscription service. You’ll still be able to find physical copies of the delisted games on consoles if you really want them and, if you’ve already purchased a FIFA game on a digital storefront, you’ll still be able to download it again.

But you’re out of luck if you hadn’t yet snapped up FIFA 23 or one of the earlier games on the likes of Steam. “At the request of the publisher, EA Sports FIFA 23 is unlisted on the Steam store and will not appear in search,” a notice on that game’s Steam page states.

It’s not yet clear exactly why EA has removed all these games from sale. Engadget has contacted the publisher for clarification. However, it seems likely that a licensing issue is at play.

Last year, EA and FIFA ended their long-running licensing partnership for the classic series of soccer sims. EA has rebranded the franchise as EA Sports FC. It will officially release the first entry on September 29, though the game has been in early access since last week.

The FIFA name will still appear on other games in the future, just (in all likelihood) not ones made by EA. "I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans," FIFA president Gianni Infantino said last year, presumably with a straight face.