Vampire- The Masquerade – Bloodhunt studio Sharkmob reveals a new ‘tactical open world extraction shooter’ at The Game Awards-

Sharkmob, the developer of the World of Darkness battle royale Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt, unveiled its new game tonight at The Game Awards: Exoborne, a “tactical open-world extraction shooter” set in a devastated near-future world where the remnants of humanity use powerful “Exo-rigs” to survive, scavenge, and—of course—shoot at each other.

At first glance, Exoborne looks to me like a cross between Anthem and Far Cry 5. It takes place in a region of the southwestern US where the forces of nature run amok thanks to a supposed world-saving project that—whoops!—was actually not quite as altruistic as it appeared. That leaves you and other survivors, known as Reborn, to suit up in high-tech exoskeletons and venture out into the storm in…

Read more

Two years after ‘toxic’ studio management scandal, Steve Gaynor is working as a solo developer under the Fullbright name-

Indie developer Steve Gaynor is running Gone Home developer Fullbright as a solo outfit from now on, having split with the team making the narrative driving adventure Open Roads.

As reported by PCGamesN, Gaynor published a blog post explaining the organisational change. “Last time I sent one of these we were just wrapping up the first round of press for Open Roads”, it begins. “Then there was some serious turmoil at the studio. I stepped away from the project. Not much was shared about what we were working on. I did my best to reflect and reconsider how I worked with people.”

The “serious turmoil” Gaynor refers to occurred in 2021, when a report by Polygon claimed that Gaynor was a “controlling” and “demeaning presence”, resulting in the departure of fifteen employees from F…

Read more

Viral clip of Tesla driver wearing Apple Vision Pro leads US gov to remind everyone ‘self-driving’ cars don’t mean you can take your eyes off the road-

Mere days after the release of Apple’s Vision Pro headset, a user has been recording wearing the XR headset while driving a Tesla. The event has led US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg to remind diligent citizens that you must remain in control of your vehicle even if it offers some form of assisted driving—in other words, the ‘I swear I had autopilot activated, officer’ defence isn’t going to fly.

The viral video of a Tesla driver wearing the headset while seemingly interacting with some sort of app or game with their hands has been viewed over 25 million times on X.

Buttigieg said on Monday in a repost of the viral video: “Reminder—ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully engaged in the dr…

Read more

XCOM’s greatest DLC was almost a Battletech-style mech expansion before the game’s camera scuppered it all- ‘Our camera angle is not meant for 30 foot mechs, apparently’-

XCOM 2 is eight years old, somehow, which was as offensive for me to write as it was for you to read. And if you ask me, it’s still Firaxis’ high point as a studio. That’s really saying something: Those guys made Sid Meier’s Pirates, after all, but I’ve never loved one of the studio’s games so much as I loved its endlessly inventive guerilla warfare sim.

Actually, I tell a lie. I liked base XCOM 2 well enough, but I only really fell in love with it when I got my hands on its War of the Chosen expansion. Released a year after XCOM 2, WOTC beefed up the original game’s offering by bolting on new factions, maps, heroes, and—most importantly—a kind of lite version of the Shadow of Mordor Nemesis system that saw you take on a trio of supervillains with a random assortment o…

Read more

While players are the main motive, Final Fantasy 14- Dawntrail’s visual makeover is also meant to help devs ‘advance their careers’, says director Yoshi-P-

Final Fantasy 14’s due a new coat of paint, and if you’ve been following the ramp-up to Dawntrail, you know it’s getting one. Better lighting, shinier models, and an overall tune-up to a game that’s past its 10th anniversary by now. In a recent interview with Play magazine (thanks, GamesRadar) Naoki Yoshida—also known as Yoshi-P—let readers in on the team’s reasoning for the upgrade.

First and foremost, Yoshida says he wants to reassure long-time players that the game has a bright future ahead of it: “With Endwalker, we were able to bring one big saga to a close …  I think they would be happy to have seen that conclusion, but I think they probably must have also been a bit concerned about what will happen moving forward.”

Pouring resources into a ne…

Read more

You can now rent a ‘minibrain’ for $500 a month and the potential implications are horrifying-

I know, I know, one man’s dystopia is another man’s utopia, and it’s certainly easier to have a negative take on something than a positive one. But I struggle to accept that anyone could not feel a sense of disquiet upon hearing that you can now rent a human “brain organoid” for “realtime neural stimulation and reading”.

No, this isn’t the dream futurism of some techno-optimist, these in vitro “organoids” are actually available to rent right now from FinalSpark’s Neuroplatform (via Tom’s Hardware), FinalSpark being a wetware computing company. 

For just $500 per month (or free for some projects), university and education groups can access neuronic organoid bioprocessors, which are essentially collections of brain tissue, each containing thousands of living neurons, conn…

Read more