Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 will officially land on November 16th, bringing Modern Warfare II environments, gameplay and technology to a large-scale battlefield. This release date has been floating around the internet for a few months now, and Activision confirmed it today during a showcase about the new, connected future of Call of Duty.
Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0 will mark a turning point for the Call of Duty franchise, with a focus on cross-progression and shared technology among its various versions. MWII comes out on October 28th, just a few weeks before Warzone 2.0. Both games will use the same underlying technology, a fresh version of the IW engine that powered 2019's Modern Warfare.
Warzone 2.0 will serve as an extension of MWII multiplayer, set in a fictional region of Western Asia called Al Mazrah. The battle royale has a revamped circle mechanic for end-game play, with multiple enclosures dropping down, rather than a single shrinking circle. There's also a new sandbox experience called DMZ and a revamped Gulag, where killed players can fight for the chance to rejoin a match in 2-on-2 skirmishes.
AI mechanics in Warzone 2.0 will be ripped from the mainline installment as well — MWII will feature AI-driven advancements in squad positioning and enemy behavior, offering more lifelike reactions to player movement across the board. This AI system will also be live in Warzone 2.0. Both titles will use Activision's Ricochet Anti-Cheat, a kernel-level solution that monitors your rig while the games are active.
MWII multiplayer emphasizes amphibious play, stealth and vehicular combat, and later this year it'll get a new 3-v-3 Raids mode. The MWII multiplayer open beta goes live September 16th on PlayStation, and September 22nd on Xbox and PC (and still PlayStation). This'll be open to folks who pre-ordered the game.
Warzone 2.0 will be free-to-play, just like its granddaddy, Warzone.
Microsoft might want to abandon the hope of a speedy merger with Activision Blizzard. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority is referring the takeover for an "in-depth" (Phase 2, in CMA lingo) investigation. The regulator is still concerned the buyout could lead to a "substantial lessening" of competition in the country after launching a basic inquiry in July.
The Authority signalled its intention to launch a deeper investigation on September 1st. It gave Microsoft until September 8th to propose acceptable concessions. Microsoft declined, and the CMA stepped up its scrutiny. In a statement to Engadget, Microsoft President Brad Smith said his company was "ready" to work with the CMA and that it wanted people to have "more access to games, not less." You can read the full statement below.
The investigation won't necessarily block the deal. It could significantly delay the proposed union, however, and might demand more compromises on Microsoft's part. With that said, both Microsoft and Activision Blizzard previously said they'll cooperate with regulators. Microsoft gaming lead Phil Spencer said his company would keep Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles, for example. Unless the CMA has strong objections, it may be more a question of when the merger completes than whether it happens at all.
"We’re ready to work with the CMA on next steps and address any of its concerns. Sony, as the industry leader, says it is worried about Call of Duty, but we’ve said we are committed to making the same game available on the same day on both Xbox and PlayStation. We want people to have more access to games, not less."
You might know Apogee for its pocketable headphone or guitar interfaces. Or maybe its microphones. But ask a bedroom producer and most will tell you they know the company for its audio interfaces and software tools. Today, the company unveils the Boom ($300), a new 24-bit/192kHz desktop audio interface with both studio and mobile creators in mind.
Like the popular Duet series, the Boom incorporates a dedicated hardware DSP so it can run Apogee's Symphony ECS channel strip plugin directly on the interface. This can help take a load off of your CPU and also help reduce latency. DSP-enabled interfaces aren’t uncommon, but the Boom is considerably cheaper than most entry-level offerings with similar onboard hardware. A copy of the ECS plugin comes bundled in with the Boom via the companion software. You'll also be able to pick up a "native" (separate/DAW-friendly) copy for half-off - $50 - when you register the device.
The Boom has a pretty standard 2-in/2-out configuration with one XLR-combi input and one 1/4-inch input for instruments. For outputs there’s a pair of 1/4-inch outputs and a headphone jack around the back. The rear placement of a headphone connection always seems a little unhelpful as you fumble trying to find the port, especially if you use your headphones for other things so end up doing this often. There is a gap at the base of the Boom you can feed the cable under which makes things a little neater, but a port on the front seems more practical.
James Trew / Engadget
Fortunately, the Boom is USB-powered so there’s no need for a separate power supply. There is iOS compatibility, too, but given the USB port does double-duty for data and power, this is limited to the iPad Pro as the iPhone won’t be able to drive it, even with a camera-connection kit. Of course, a full-size interface like this doesn’t make much sense for a phone anyway, but in case you were wondering, now you know.
While there's only one XLR input, the pre-amps are plenty loud enough and can drive hungry microphones like the SM7b easily. Using the Symphony plugin's EQ and compressor allows you to fine tune that sound (whatever the mic/instrument). There are a bunch of presets that should cover the most popular recording scenarios, but you can obviously EQ and compress things to your own personal preference, too.
For musicians, this can really help you perfect a mix without having to interfere with any plugins you might have running in your DAW. But for podcasters and streamers in particular it means you can control how your voice sounds without a DAW or other host application running at all — your mic simply presents the EQ'd signal as the standard output. For now it's only Apogee's ECS channel strip that will work with the Boom, though the company confirmed it's entirely possible for its other plugins to be brought over to the DSP side of things.
Apogee’s desktop products often feature a sleek design and the Boom is no different. The purple-colored steel casing gives it some reassuring heft while the single rotary dial is a neat solution to controlling multiple things (two channels of gain and two effects).
At $300, it’s a shade over some of the most popular interfaces like the Scarlett 2i2 and UA Volt - both of which come in under $200. However, with that DSP Apogee might be pitching this as a simpler alternative to the like of the Apollo Solo ($499) also from Universal Audio or the MOTU UltraLite-MK5 ($595).
Blizzard just clarified how Overwatch 2's switch to a battle pass system will work in practice. When the team shooter debuts on October 4th, there will be both free and $10 premium battle passes like you see in other free-to-play titles. You'll similarly deal with a virtual currency, Overwatch Coins, that you use to buy the pass and other items. Unlike some games, though, you can earn those coins for free simply by playing frequently. If you play often enough (grouping and weekly challenges will accelerate this), you can upgrade to the premium track without paying a cent.
The developer also further explained how you'll unlock heroes. If you want the new support Kiriko (shown above) or other heroes for free, you'll have to reach tier 55 — a lot of work, but it's achievable. The catch, of course, is that premium battle pass owners will have immediate access to these characters and can practice with them sooner. New heroes are expected every other season after Season Two, and Blizzard will let you acquire past seasons' champions by either completing challenges or buying them with Overwatch Coins.
As explained earlier, Blizzard primarily intends to profit from purchases of cosmetic items that now include "Mythic" skins with customizable layers. You'll get one Mythic skin with every season's battle pass. Everyone will have access to new maps at no charge, with new playing fields arriving on alternate seasons. PvE (that is, the more story-oriented mode) is still slated for 2023.
The approach might be welcome if you were worried Blizzard might make it too difficult to earn heroes or some desirable cosmetics without spending real money. With that said, there's still a strong incentive to pay — particularly if you don't have the time or inclination to grind tiers.
If you couldn't join a must-attend Zoom meeting this morning, you weren't alone. Zoom is recovering from a major outage that prevented users from starting or joining meetings. The company didn't yet have an explanation for the problem, but said it had "identified" the cause and continue investigating the fault. It also vowed to monitor the situation.
The company first flagged the outage at 11:17AM Eastern, shortly after users began reporting that zoom.us was unavailable. It pinpointed the issue at about 11:30AM and said it had fixed the problem several minutes later.
We are aware of issues currently impacting Zoom. Our engineering team is investigating this matter. Please follow https://t.co/aqz5nS7fZY for updates.
Zoom outages aren't unheard of. Notably, the service had a rough morning in August 2020 that left meetings unavailable for hours. This downtime has become rarer, though, and outages like these are all the more painful as a result. Look at it this way, though: this might be welcome if you're tired of lengthy video calls that could have been replaced with a simple email.
This news lines up with a leak last week that showed a listing for the game on the Epic Games Store with an October 19th release date. This confirmation comes after Sony had delayed the game's release from its original "early 2022" timeline. As you'd expect, there are a host of features relevant to PC players, including ultra widescreen monitor support and a host of graphics adjustment options including texture and model quality, anisotropic filtering, shadows, reflections and ambient occlusion. The UI has also been tweaked to better fit on PC and you can remap all controls as you see fit.
Speaking of controls, you can also play this game wirelessly with the PS4's DualShock 4 controller; if you plug in a PS5 DualSense controller, you'll get more advanced haptic feedback.
If you're interested, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves is up for pre-order on Steam and the Epic Games Store for $49.99. It's the first Naughty Dog title to hit the PC, but a number of other high-profile Sony exclusives (including Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War) have come to the PC in recent years. And Naughty Dog's latest release, the remade The Last of Us Part I will also be released for the PC, though there's no timeframe just yet.
Instagram isn't the only one hoping to capitalize on the daily photo sharing trend. TikTok has unveiled an experimental Now feature that, much like BeReal, asks you to post either a photo (using front and back cameras) or 10-second video to tell friends what you're doing each day. You'll have a limited window to share content after you receive a randomly-timed prompt. Effectively, it's a visual status update.
The test will run over the "coming weeks," according to the social network. TikTok Now is available through the usual app in the US, but you may also find it as a dedicated app in other countries. Not surprisingly, the company is limiting some features for teens. Anyone under 16 who creates an account in the Now app will default to private viewing. Teens between 13 and 15 can only receive comments from friends, and everyone under 18 can't share their content on Explore.
TikTok is more used to rivals duping its features than the other way around. However, it's easy to see the reasons for borrowing BeReal's core concept. Daily posts could keep you coming back to TikTok. They also elevate the importance of friends — you might want to add more people to your social circle if you know you'll see frequent updates. In that sense, Now could change TikTok's role as much as it could improve the company's bottom line.
Adobe just made a big move into team-based creative work. The company is acquiring the online collaborative design platform Figma for roughly $20 billion in cash and shares. That's the largest buyout of a private software company to date, according to Bloomberg's Katie Roof. Adobe hopes the deal will "accelerate" web creativity and put more of the Creative Cloud suite's technology on the internet. You can expect to see Adobe's visual editing features find their way into Figma's platform.
The two firms expect the purchase to close sometime in 2023 if it receives approval from regulators and shareholders. Figma co-founder and chief Dylan Field will continue to lead his company if and when the takeover finalizes, but will report to Adobe's digital media lead David Wadhwani.
THREAD: This morning we’re announcing that @Figma has entered into an agreement to be acquired by @Adobe
Don't worry that Adobe will completely revamp Figma, at least not at first. Field stressed in a blog post that Adobe was "deeply committed" to keeping Figma an autonomous company. There's "no plan" at the moment to change Figma's pricing, and it will remain free for education users. While the executive hoped to draw on Adobe's know-how for upgrades, he also expected to keep running Figma as he did before.
While the acquisition is huge, it's not surprising given Adobe's past moves. It bought the video collaboration platform Frame.io in 2021, and has been making moves into web-based tools with offerings like Creative Cloud Express. Figma is a logical (if major) extension of that strategy — it could help make online teamwork a staple of the creative process in companies that regularly use software like Photoshop and Premiere.
Snapchat's messaging and video chat features first made their way to browsers back in July, but only in select markets and for Snapchat+ subscribers. Now, Snapchat for Web is finally available for all the messaging app's users worldwide. It could be the better choice for users who have a lot of typing to do and messages to send, since they'll be looking at a bigger screen and have access to a real keyboard.
The web interface is pretty basic, but it can also be used to send photos and to make audio and video calls. A company spokesperson previously told us that video calling has become more popular among its users recently. Giving users access to the feature on the web could lead to longer video calls. The spokesperson also told us that Snap could bring more of its core features to the web interface if there's enough demand for them.
In addition, Snap has launched lock screen widgets for the iPhone now that iOS 16 has come out. The widgets allow users to create shortcuts for the conversations they want — perhaps for people they frequently talk to — so they can fire up chats from their screen in one tap.
Speaking of shortcuts, the Snapchat app will feature new shortcuts at the top of its chat page. They'll make it easy for users to get to unread Snaps, chats from friend and replies to stories. They will also show reminders for birthdays or for conversations that users haven't replied to yet. Finally, Snap has introduced Question Stickers that users can post to their stories and Snaps. The company said these features will roll out to users soon if they haven't yet.
The Series 8 is the middle child of Apple’s 2022 Watch lineup, and unfortunately it might be the easiest to overlook. With its main updates being crash detection and a new skin temperature sensor that allows for ovulation tracking, the Series 8 feels like a small update to last year’s Series 7. At $399, it also faces stiffer competition from the Watch SE, which not only saw a price reduction this year to $250, but also shares the same processor as the Series 8, among many other features. And with the high-end Watch Ultra arriving soon, it’s hard to imagine anyone is feeling excited about the Series 8.
Still, since most people don’t upgrade their smartwatches on a yearly basis, a generational comparison isn’t the most useful to make. On its own, the Series 8 is a superb watch that makes a great multipurpose wearable with excellent health and fitness tools. I’ve spent about a week testing the Series 8 alongside the Watch SE, as well as the Series 7. (Yes, that is a lot of watches on my wrists.) And, while I don’t feel ready to pronounce a full verdict, I can comfortably say most people will be satisfied with the Series 8.
It’s hard for me to truly compare the Series 8 to the Series 7 because I received a larger size to test than usual. The older model in my possession is the 41mm version, while the Series 8 I have is the 45mm option. It doesn’t translate to a major functional difference, but the size discrepancy did make some features harder to test.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
For example, I’m already more sensitive than most about sleeping with a watch on my wrist. That the 45mm Series 8 is bigger than my Series 7 meant I hated testing its sleep-tracking even more than usual – so much so that I’ve been putting off this part of the review process. Instead, I wore the new 40mm Watch SE to bed, which made for a tolerable experience.
I have so far worn the Series 8 on a redeye flight to see if I’d get some temperature readings then, but despite my having set up a Sleep Focus as required, the watch didn’t track sleep. I’ll have to do more testing, but between that and also testing the Watch SE overnight, I can’t evaluate features like the new skin temperature sensor for now.
Apple uses the data it collects while you sleep to calculate a baseline for your body temperature, and over time it looks at deviations to assess if and when you ovulated. The Series 8 requires at least five nights of data to determine the baseline, after which more time is required to gauge your cycles.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
With all that’s involved in testing this feature, I’ll need to wait a little longer before I can get a better idea of how useful it is. I also can’t safely test crash detection, so that’s not something I can vouch for either.
For now, though, living with the Series 8 is a lot like using the Series 7 . The new beige Starlight color option isn’t something I’m excited about, but it does make the Watch feel less like a black stone on my wrist.
Though the Series 8 uses a newer S8 system-in-package processor, it didn’t feel dramatically faster than its predecessor. It did last a little longer in general, though I need more time testing to know for sure. I also suspect that the larger size might have something to do with this. I used the new low power mode in watchOS 9 one morning when the Series 8 was down to 20 percent battery and I still had to run to the gym for an 8am workout. It managed to last another two hours at least while also being able to track my performance during the HIIT class. I was impressed by how little it felt like I had to sacrifice in exchange for the extra juice.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
I also enjoyed checking out some other watchOS 9 updates like cardio zone pages during workouts and the new watch faces. The Lunar screen in particular helped me remember that the Mid-Autumn Festival was this past weekend, since I could clearly read the date in Mandarin on the page. (The date for the festival in Mandarin is also a colloquialism that refers to the moon.) When I switched Focus Modes on my phone, the corresponding symbol showed up at the top of the Series 8’s screen to indicate it also adopted that profile. Reminders to take the medications I have saved to Apple Health were also helpful, and I liked being able to use the watch to log pills I took.
Most of these features will be available to those using older Apple Watches once the software update is installed.
While it’s nice that you can get ECG and blood oxygen readings on the Series 8, I didn’t run those very much during my time with the device. These aren’t tools that I’d use regularly enough to warrant spending an extra $150 on the higher-end model. For most people, the Watch SE offers plenty for a nice price — especially if you can live without an always-on display and IP6X dust resistance.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
The Series 7 and 8 both charge faster than the SE, but the cheaper watch never took longer than 45 minutes to get enough juice for a day’s use. Also, I have yet to misplace my Apple Watches, so the U1 chip that’s missing from the SE hasn’t felt as important. On the Series 8, that ultra wideband feature will enable more precise location via Apple’s Find My app.
I’ll most likely keep using the Series 8 as my primary smartwatch (after trading it in for a smaller model), but not because I really need the skin temperature sensing or crash detection; my job requires me to stay up to speed on the latest devices and features. But if I were making the decision for myself (and not my career), I’d most likely buy the Watch SE. Still, the Series 8 is well-rounded and full-featured, and arguably the best smartwatch around. That is, until we get our hands on the upcoming Watch Ultra.
