Like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, Konami and Bloober Team are back in action together. Bloober Team announced that it will continue its partnership with the Japanese publisher working on a new project.

“The trust built upon the success of Silent Hill 2 laid the foundation for signing another agreement for a new project,” the announcement read. And while the new project will be something based on Konami’s IP, the two companies did not share if the next game will be another Silent Hill or something else from Konami’s back catalogue. (Hey, just thinkin’ out loud here, but when was the last Castlevania game released? 2014? Oh, OK.)

Konami and Bloober Team paired up in 2022 when the companies announced they would be collaborating on a remake of Silent Hill 2. Due to lukewarm reviews of Bloober’s original horror game The Medium, there was skepticism that the studio would be able to pull off a remake of one of the most celebrated survival horror games of its time. But Silent Hill 2 launched to rave reviews and sales making it the fastest selling entry in the Silent Hill series. 

Beyond Bloober Team, Konami is also working on a new, non-remake Silent Hill game named Silent Hill F that it debuted in 2022 but has since provided scant updates. There’s also a movie adaptation of Silent Hill 2 in the works with Christophe Gans, the director of the first (not great!) Silent Hill movie, tapped to direct.

There was a time, not so long ago, when people wouldn’t shut up about a revolution in automobiles. No matter where you looked, you’d find someone telling you about how self-driving, all-electric vehicles would change the way we think about car ownership, lead to a total reinvention of how cities work, change the economy, and fix climate change forever. All by roughly 2020.

Obviously things didn’t quite turn out the way the EV and robotaxi boosters hoped. On this episode of The Vergecast, we dig into why. The Verge’s Andy Hawkins joins to explain why the momentum continues to turn against the EV revolution — but why carmakers simply can’t give up the fight, or risk losing it before it even really starts. He also tells us why robotaxis are suddenly cool again, as Uber and Lyft resume their plans to automate ride-sharing everywhere.

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After that, we pivot to the fediverse. Evan Prodromou, the research director at the Social Web Foundation and one of the people overseeing the ActivityPub protocol, catches us up on all things social. We talk through the rise of Bluesky, what’s going on with Threads, …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Trello is launching several new features this week, all designed to turn the Atlassian-owned app into something like a universal to-do list for everything in your life. By integrating with Slack (and soon Teams), email, and Siri, the company is hoping it can help you put all your important stuff in one place – and then use Trello’s organization tools and a little AI to help you get it all done.

Trello originally became popular because of its structure: Kanban boards are powerful and flexible enough to contain almost any kind of project and system. That part doesn’t need to change, says Guarav Kataria, Trello’s head of product. “It’s just that there are too many things in too many places. You’re in email, in Slack, all the social media places and numerous other work tools… and then when you’re running or walking, you probably get ideas in your head.” So now, there’s a new Inbox column in every board, which you can dump things into from all over the web, to be organized later.

Kataria’s insight is not new — from Slack to Dropbox to Notion to Google, everybody’s trying to solve the too-many-tools problem by adding another tool. Trello’s way of solving the problem is not to integrate with a million other apps or try and help you Do More Work inside Trello itself, though, but rather to just more easily get everything in one place. Forward an email to Trello or save a message for later in Slack, or just tell Siri what you need to get done, and it’ll add it to the inbox. It’ll also summarize the message in the card, plus add relevant due dates and sub-tasks. Making capture fast and easy was the key to the whole design, Kataria tells me.

Since this is Atlassian we’re talking about, there are also a couple of Jira-specific integrations, but for the most part Kataria thinks summarizing the thing and linking out to it is all you really need. And he says that between your email and your messaging app, you’re covered on just about any kind of task. “We are not trying to become an uber project management tool,” he says. “It’s just that we can make an individual user more productive by bringing their action items into Trello, and organizing these action items.”

In addition to the side-scrolling boards, there’s also a new calendar view in Trello, called Trello Planner, which you can use to schedule time for all those emails, Slack messages, and tasks. (Time blocking is a huge trend right in productivity nerd circles.) Tasks you add in Trello sync back to your calendar as events, too.

The new features are in beta now, and rolling out to all Trello users in April. Kataria frames the new features as the beginning of a more AI-focused Trello, but also a return to what made the app a success in the first place. “The focus is homing in on an individual user’s productivity problems, not their company’s project-organization problem,” he says. “We are trying to simplify Trello.” Like so many productivity tools, Trello has become complicated and bloated as customers have demanded new features; now it’s trying to get back to helping you manage your life. And all the apps that come with it.

Adobe has released a powerful new Photoshop mobile app that includes many of the design, editing, and generative AI tools found on the desktop version. The app integrates with Photoshop on the web to allow creatives to work on projects across multiple devices and is globally available today on iPhone, with Android coming “later this year,” according to Adobe.

A simplified version of the popular editing software called Photoshop Express has been available on mobile devices since 2010, but Adobe says the new app is more powerful and provides a broader range of recognizable Photoshop capabilities. The two apps share some common features — including tools for resizing, masking, contrast / saturation adjustments, and removing objects or blemishes — but while Photoshop Express is similar to more typical mobile editing apps like Picsart and Facetune, the new Photoshop app seems closer to the desktop experience.

The free version gives users access to many Photoshop editing tools, including the Spot Healing Brush, Tap Select, layers, selections, masks, and features for compositing and blending images together. It also provides Adobe Stock assets, directly integrates with Creative Cloud apps like Adobe Express, Lightroom, and Fresco, and includes Adobe’s Firefly-powered Generative Fill and Generative Expand AI tools.

Other Photoshop features like Object Select, Magic Wand, Content Aware Fill, Clone Stamp, and the Remove Tool are locked behind a $7.99 monthly or $69.99 annual subscription. This premium Photoshop Mobile and Web Plan also includes light / dark adjustment options, advanced blend modes for controlling transparency, color effects, styles, and integration with Photoshop on the web — alongside access to Generate Similar and Reference Image on the web-based platform.

All users who are already subscribed to a paid Photoshop plan will gain premium access to Photoshop on mobile. Adobe hasn’t mentioned if it has anything in store for Photoshop Express, which currently still provides a more affordable $4.99 monthly premium tier subscription. It’ll be confusing if Adobe plans to support both apps simultaneously, especially as it also has another similarly named editing platform called Adobe Express available on mobile.

Rebooting Photoshop on mobile is a welcome and unsurprising move, however. Photoshop Express, while useful for quick edits and throwing together social media graphics, never truly felt like Photoshop. The user interface on the new Photoshop iPhone app is still heavily optimized for mobile, so you can drag and select tools around with your finger, but the overall experience is more geared toward creative professionals and labor-intensive design tasks.

There’s a vast number of mobile editing apps to compete with these days, and downloads for Photoshop Express on iOS have been falling. The creative software giant has also taken steps to simply buy its way into more of the market, having completed its acquisition of Pixelmator’s Mac and iOS apps earlier this month.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, around 50 sign-wielding protesters stood outside the Tesla showroom in Manhattan’s Meatpacking neighborhood, screaming insults at passing Tesla vehicles. 

“Uncool car!” 

“Don’t buy a Swatsticar!”

“Major loser!”

The excitement peaked when an unsuspecting Cybertruck suddenly pulled around the corner. As a woman in the passenger seat stared wide-eyed out the window, the protestors began to chant: “Micro penis! Micro penis!” 

The protest was one of dozens outside Tesla locations across the country that day, spurred by Musk’s attempts to dismantle large parts of the federal government. As part of an effort dubbed #TeslaTakedown or #TeslaTakeover by organizers, groups of protesters have largely planned their actions on Bluesky, a competitor to Musk’s X, and are now entering their third week of activity. 

“Don’t buy a Swatsticar!”

It started with a smattering of demonstrations outside Tesla showrooms in places like Maine, Massachusetts, New York, California, and Colorado. But as Musk continues to blaze a path of destruction, the number of protests has exploded. There are currently 65 events listed on TeslaTakedown.com, e …

Read the full story at The Verge.

It looks like Samsung may have an answer to Oppo’s Find N5 after all, as new leaks claim that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 will only be fractionally thicker than the world’s thinnest foldable. That’s according to renders created by OnLeaks based on leaked information.

OnLeaks, together with Android Headlines, reports that the Z Fold 7 will be just 4.5mm thick when open. The Find N5 — currently the world’s thinnest book-style foldable — is 4.2mm thick, and the previous record-holder, Honor’s Magic V3, is 4.4mm. 

That would put Samsung right up there with the global competition, and make this quite comfortably the thinnest foldable phone in the US. Its Z Fold 6 is 5.6mm thick, and Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold runs to 5.1mm. The OnePlus Open is the thickest at 5.8mm, and the company has already confirmed it has no plans for a new foldable model this year.

The Z Fold 7’s dimensions when closed are a little less clear. The report says that the phone will be 9.5mm thick counting the camera bump, and closer to 9mm without, but that doesn’t make much sense: the camera bump itself is clearly more than 0.5mm thick, protruding quite extensively from the body in the new images, even more so than on previous models.

Interestingly, the Z Fold 7 sounds bigger in its other dimensions, with a larger 8.2-inch inner screen and a 6.5-inch outer one, which will be wider than the previous generation. That might be how Samsung has reportedly been able to fit the same size 4,400mAh battery into a thinner design.

Elsewhere, Android Headlines predicts that the phone will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, and boast a new 200-megapixel main camera, alongside the same 10-megapixel telephoto and 12-megapixel ultrawides as the Z Fold 6.

It’s expected to launch in July 2025 together with the Galaxy Z Flip 7. Recent rumors had suggested that Samsung would use the same event to announce its first trifold phone, though that’s far from certain: leaker Max Jambor took to Twitter today to claim that the trifold will instead launch “at a later point in time.”

Today is the third anniversary of Valve’s Steam Deck, the handheld gaming PC that all but created the market for handheld gaming PCs. It was a mess to start! But three years later, The Verge has data showing how it has dominated the nascent market. While Valve told us in November 2023 that it had sold “multiple millions” of the AMD-powered handheld, we’ve never had a good glimpse at how big it is or how Windows competitors stack up… till now. It seems the Steam Deck, so far, has been bigger than all its competitors combined.

Market research firm IDC uses supply chains to estimate just how many handheld gaming systems have shipped around the world, and creates spending forecasts. When I asked IDC market research analyst Lewis Ward if he’d be willing to isolate SteamOS and Windows gaming handhelds from that data, he said yes.

So here are the estimated combined shipments of the Steam Deck, and the Windows-based Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw from 2022 through 2024, and an estimate for 2025:

2022	2023	2024	2025 (Estimate)
1,620,000	2,867,000	1,485,000	1,926,000

Add it up, and that’s just under 6 million shipments in three years. One way to view that: it’s …

Read the full story at The Verge.

A free version of Gemini Code Assist, Google’s enterprise-focused AI coding tool, is now available globally for solo developers. Google announced today that Gemini Code Assist for individuals is launching in public preview, aiming to make coding assistants “with the latest AI capabilities” more accessible for students, hobbyists, freelancers, and startups.

“Now anyone can more conveniently learn, create code snippets, debug, and modify their existing applications — all without needing to toggle between different windows for help or to copy and paste information from disconnected sources,” said Ryan J. Salva, Google’s senior director of product management. “While other popular free coding assistants have restrictive usage limits, with usually only 2,000 code completions per month, we wanted to offer something more generous.”

That feels particularly targeted at GitHub Copilot, the most direct competitor to Gemini Code Assist, which also provides a free user tier that’s limited to 2,000 code completions and 50 Copilot Chat messages each month. Google is offering up to 180,000 code completions per month by contrast, which it describes as “a ceiling so high that even today’s most dedicated professional developers would be hard-pressed to exceed it.”

Like the enterprise version, Gemini Code Assist for individuals is powered by Google’s Gemini 2.0 artificial intelligence model and can generate entire code blocks, complete code as you write, and provide general coding assistance via a chatbot interface. The free coding tool can be installed in Visual Studio Code, GitHub, and JetBrains developer environments and supports all programming languages in the public domain.

Developers can instruct Gemini Code Assist using natural language, such as asking the coding chatbot to “build me a simple HTML form with fields for name, email, and message, and then add a ‘submit’ button.” It currently supports 38 languages and up to 128,000 chat input tokens in the token context window, which is the amount of text (tokens) that can be processed or “remembered” when generating a response.

The free Individual tier seems pretty expansive, but it doesn’t include all of the advanced business-focused features available in the Standard and Enterprise versions of Gemini Code Assist. If you want productivity metrics, integrations with Google Cloud services like BigQuery, or to customize responses using private code data sources then you’ll need to use Google’s paid tiers.

Microsoft has started testing a free version of Office for Windows that includes ads. Right now, you have to pay for a monthly Microsoft 365 subscription to get access to the full desktop version of Office, but Microsoft has been quietly testing an ad-supported version in certain countries.

Beebom first noticed that the ad-supported version of Office for Windows appeared in India recently, allowing Windows users to access Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office apps without the Microsoft 365 subscription fee.

“Microsoft has been conducting some limited testing. Currently, there are no plans to launch a free, ad-supported version of Microsoft Office desktop apps,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to PCWorld. While Microsoft claims this is limited testing, the company has specifically engineered its Office apps to now work on Windows with ads, so we may well see this version appear in more markets eventually.

The ad-supported version of Office includes banners that are permanently visible at the side, as well as 15-second video ads that play every few hours, according to Beebom. Microsoft also forces users of this free version of Office to store documents in OneDrive, with support for local file storage disabled.

Microsoft currently only offers free versions of Office on the web, so you have to use a browser to access far more limited versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This test version of Office for Windows doesn’t include the full features of the apps, either. Word is missing drawing and design tools, line spacing, and more. The free version of Excel doesn’t support add-ins, pivot tables, or macros. PowerPoint is also missing support for dictation, custom slide shows, and other features.

Microsoft first started testing bundling AI-powered Office features into its Microsoft 365 subscriptions in a small number of countries before rolling out the changes worldwide with price increases.

I’ve never reviewed a perfect product, but Logitech’s Powerplay Wireless Charging System comes close. For over three years and counting, I’ve never even had to think about charging my wireless mouse. It’s so dead simple, it feels like magic, and it’s a shame that most people probably can’t afford it at $120.

The good news: Logitech is releasing a new $100 version in March, called the Powerplay 2, and it’s just as easy to set up. Plug in mousepad, snap a magnetic “Charging Coin” into the base of your mouse, then put mouse on mousepad to continuously charge.

The bad news: It’s only $20 cheaper, yet it feels like Logitech made its mousepad more than $20 cheaper to hit that goal.

The mousepad does come with improvements. Logitech boasts it has a 15 percent wider charging area and is thinner at just 3.5mm, and that’s what I see with my review unit. Now, as long as the entirety of my G502 Lightspeed mouse is resting within any corner of the mousepad, the charging indicator lights up, which wasn’t quite true of the original. My calipers do read 3.5mm when I’m measuring the charging base and its thin fabric mousing surface together.

But my calipers also show the charging base is exactly the same 2.7mm thickness as before, and the old mousepad wasn’t all that much thicker: just 4.3mm in total before vs. 3.5mm in total now, a difference I do not feel. And do you leave your mouse all the way at the corners of your mousepad? Again, I’ve spent over three years charging this mouse on the old mousepad without even thinking about it. I never bother to reposition my mouse on my old Powerplay to make sure it’s charging; I just drop it when I’m done using it, and I’ve never once run out of charge.

What do we lose with the Powerplay 2? First, while Logitech has ditched the old micro-USB cable, we’re not getting USB-C. Instead, Logitech’s opted for a fixed cable, so I can’t as easily take the mousepad off my desk on days I need more space there.

The big one: there’s no more wireless mouse receiver built into the Powerplay 2, a feature I found handy with the original. Now, my mouse requires two full-size USB ports instead of one because I still have to leave the mouse’s dongle plugged into my PC, too. I can’t leave the dongle stowed in the mouse for grab-and-go travel, and I can’t leave it in my laptop and switch between laptop and desktop anymore by turning the mouse on and off and yanking the Powerplay’s plug.

There’s also no more programmable RGB light inside the Logitech G logo. I don’t terribly miss that, since I don’t sync up gamer lights. But the dull black Logitech G feels cheaper; before, the RGB was at least a nice reassuring reminder that my mousepad was properly receiving USB power and ready for action.

And, while I do like the new thinner mousepad that comes with the Powerplay 2, which looks like it might not delaminate from its backing as easily as the original (it’s the one piece of my Powerplay that has deteriorated over the past three years), the original Powerplay came with two mousepads (one hard, one cloth) in the box. Now, you get the one.

(Also, just as FYI, the new Powerplay 2 charging coin doesn’t seem to work with the original pad and vice versa. You can’t mix and match those parts.)

I tried hard to get Logitech to show me more benefits, because the original’s one of my favorite products. Perhaps this one’s so much easier for Logitech to produce that it’ll offer some great discounts, or sell amazing bundles after launch? Or perhaps that 15 percent larger charging area will come in handy for possible additional supercapacitor mice that’d react worse than battery mice if they aren’t getting reliably fed, though the current supercap G309 seems to work fine with the original Powerplay in my early tests.

Logitech wouldn’t comment on future supercap products, wouldn’t hint at sales, and wouldn’t promise its own bundles — though Logitech does “anticipate retailers will be offering bundles shortly after launch,” according to Logitech senior global marketing manager Andrew Siminoff.

The original Powerplay is no longer in stock at major retailers, so I expect it will soon fetch a premium price on eBay. But the Powerplay 2 still seems like a good product that achieves the core goal. Fingers crossed that come Black Friday, we’ll be able to buy a combo pack with it and Logitech’s cheapest compatible mouse — that G309 — for under $100 in total.

The Powerplay 2 should be available on Amazon and Logitech’s site on March 11th.

Disney has had a tumultuous run since Bob Iger’s return as the company’s CEO, which came just two years after he handed the reins over to Bob Chapek. Iger has since worked to undo some of Chapek’s changes as the company contends with a streaming-focused future.

Iger has big plans for the future of Disney and has already combined the Disney Plus and Hulu apps for bundle subscribers in the US. Disney is also gearing up to launch a streaming-only version of ESPN that will exist in addition to a new live sports streaming partnership with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Outside of streaming, Iger is hoping to boost Disney’s slate of films and reinvigorate interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But with Iger’s contract set to expire in 2026, a lot remains unclear about what’s next for the future of Disney. Here are all the major changes Iger has made so far.

• Kathleen Kennedy is reportedly planning to leave Lucasfilm.
• The NBA subs in Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck to help take on the NFL.
• ESPN is testing a generative AI avatar called ‘FACTS’
• Disney’s streaming business is finally finding its footing
• He’s in the game.
• Disney’s still looking for a new CEO — but not this year or next year
• Shams Charania takes over for Adrian Wojnarowski as ESPN’s senior NBA insider.
• A Disney, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle is on the way
• Disney’s streaming business gets closer to becoming profitable
• Amazon reportedly has a ‘framework’ of a deal to stream NBA games.
• The NBA’s next media rights deal is up for grabs.
• The clock is ticking on Disney’s streaming strategy.
• Disney reportedly wants to bring always-on channels to Disney Plus
• The Disney Plus password-sharing crackdown starts in June
• “No one has the breadth of what Disney has when it comes to streaming.”
• The Disney Plus-Hulu merger is way more than a streaming bundle
• Disney Plus officially unveils its very green new logo
• “If you build it great, they will come.”
• Marvel has found its Fantastic Four
• The real standalone ESPN streaming channel will launch in the fall of 2025.
• Disney invests $1.5 billion in Epic to create ‘persistent universe’ tied to Fortnite
• ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. are putting together a juggernaut sports streaming app
• Disney Plus’ restrictions on password sharing are now rolling out to US subscribers
• Apple Vision Pro will launch with 3D movies from Disney Plus
• Bob Iger thinks he knows why The Marvels failed at the box office.
• Bob Iger on recent Disney flops.
• ESPN Bet’s big launch happens in two weeks.
• In Marvel we no longer trust
• Disney is about to own all of Hulu
• Disney says subscribers are happy to sit through some ads
• Disney’s password-sharing crackdown has begun
• Disney reportedly held talks about selling ABC
• ESPN’s standalone streaming channel is included in Charter and Disney’s new deal
• Bob Iger and Bob Chapek’s CEO battle made Disney the pettiest place on Earth
• Disney Plus and Hulu are about to get even more expensive
• $1.5 billion licensing deal turns Barstool Sportsbook into ESPN Bet
• Disney’s new vision for ESPN might include part ownership by the NBA, NFL
• Bob Iger’s big ideas for Disney involve cost-cutting at Marvel
• Bob Iger is sticking around Disney longer than he said he would
• Disney just laid off the guy it bought Marvel from… but that’s probably a good thing
• Disney reportedly eliminates metaverse division in first round of layoffs
• Disney’s laying off 7,000 as streaming boom comes to an end

When Nvidia originally confirmed that some of its new RTX 50-series graphics cards had a “rare” manufacturing issue that left them missing some promised render units and a slight amount of performance as a result, it only named three affected cards: the RTX 5090, RTX 5090D, and RTX 5070 Ti. But now, Nvidia has confirmed to us that RTX 5080 production was affected by the same issue as well.

“Upon further investigation, we’ve identified that an early production build of GeForce RTX 5080 GPUs were also affected by the same issue. Affected consumers can contact the board manufacturer for a replacement,” Nvidia GeForce global PR director Ben Berraondo tells The Verge.

In response to The Verge’s questions, Berraondo adds that “no other Nvidia GPUs have been affected” — we specifically asked about the upcoming RTX 5070, and he says it’s not affected either. Nor should any cards be affected that were produced more recently: “The production anomaly has been corrected,” he says. In case you’re wondering, he also told us that Nvidia was not aware of these issues before it launched these GPUs.

Here’s the company’s full amended statement:

We have identified a rare issue affecting less than 0.5% (half a percent) of GeForce RTX 5090 / 5090D, RTX 5080, and 5070 Ti GPUs which have one fewer ROP than specified. The average graphical performance impact is 4%, with no impact on AI and Compute workloads. Affected consumers can contact the board manufacturer for a replacement. The production anomaly has been corrected.

One specific Redditor was the one to discover that their RTX 5080 also demonstrated the issue; he’s since said he’s worked out a deal to hand that card to GamersNexus, which is investigating the RTX 50-series issues, for more study.

While it doesn’t seem like a lot of GPUs were affected, given how few of these GPUs have shipped so far, and Nvidia is also promising replacements, it’s the latest in a line of annoyances with Nvidia’s new cards.

After months of preparation, Epic Games will finally take on Apple in court in a trial that could fundamentally change the makeup of the App Store. The fight dates back to August, when Epic added a direct payment mechanism to its hit battle royale game Fortnite in violation of Apple’s rules. The iPhone maker quickly removed the game from the App Store, and Epic responded shortly after with an antitrust lawsuit aiming to establish the App Store as a monopoly. The case will finally be brought to trial starting May 3rd.

The trial promises to deliver huge revelations about the inner workings of one of the biggest and most influential companies in the world, with testimony from Apple CEO Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, Phil Schiller, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, and more. We’ve already made some fascinating discoveries from documents published ahead of the trial, and there’s sure to be a lot more news ahead.

You can follow along with everything right here.

• New App Store details from Phil Schiller testimony.
• Tim Sweeney says his Epic lawsuits are all about freeing the youth:
• Apple’s homework is due Monday no matter what, says judge
• Why Epic’s lawsuit against Apple just won’t quit
• Only 38 of 65,000 developers have applied for Apple’s outside payment links.
• The judge in Epic v. Apple thinks Apple’s being shady about buttons and links
• Epic says Fortnite is returning to EU iPads.
• Apple and Epic are going back to court.
• Apple files its response to Epic’s latest court accusations.
• Epic asks judge to enforce the Apple App Store injunction
• Apple kills Epic’s iOS game store plans over App Store criticism
• Epic preps its challenge to Apple’s ‘bad-faith’ outside payments changes
• Apple thought it dealt with Epic v. Apple — has it really?
• Apple offers Epic “extremely generous” discount on $81,560,362 legal bill.
• Apple’s App Store policies now let US developers link to outside payments
• Supreme Court rejects Epic v. Apple antitrust case
• Apple also wants the Supreme Court to rule on its antitrust case vs. Epic Games.
• Epic Games asks the Supreme Court to hear its case against Apple’s App Store rules
• Supreme Court says Apple can keep its App Store payment rules for now
• Apple can delay App Store changes to file Supreme Court plea
• Apple is going to ask the Supreme Court to hear its appeal of the ruling in Epic Games v. Apple.
• Apple’s App Store can stay closed, but developers can link to outside payments, says appeals court
• Epic largely lost to Apple, but 35 states are now backing its fight in a higher court
• Epic pushes to overturn App Store ruling in opening appeal brief
• Epic v. Apple ruling put on hold after appeals court grants a stay
• Judge orders Apple to allow external payment options for App Store by December 9th, denying stay
• Apple is appealing the Epic Games ruling it originally called a ‘resounding victory’
• Apple won’t let Fortnite back on iOS until the Epic v. Apple verdict is final
• Tim Cook tells Apple employees he’s ‘looking forward to moving forward’ after Epic ruling
• What comes next for the App Store?
• A comprehensive breakdown of the Epic v. Apple ruling
• Apple and Epic both lost today
• Judge says Apple may be ‘stretching the truth’ on Mac malware concerns
• The Apple App Store: a brief history of major policy changes
• The future of the App Store depends on the difference between a ‘button’ and an ‘external link’
• Epic will appeal the Epic v. Apple decision
• Will Fortnite return to iOS? Probably not any time soon
• Epic v. Apple judge rules Fortnite’s Peely can appear naked in court
• Eight things Apple could do to prove it actually cares about App Store users
• Elon Musk calls Apple’s App Store fees a ‘de facto global tax on the Internet’
• A courtroom artist’s view of the Epic v. Apple trial
• Apple stayed on message while Epic filled out the record
• Tim Sweeney concludes Epic v. Apple trial by repping fried chicken
• Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing
• Tim Cook faces harsh questions about the App Store from judge in Fortnite trial
• Apple wants users to trust iOS, but it doesn’t trust iOS users
• The level of Mac malware is not acceptable, says Apple’s Craig Federighi at Epic trial
• Apple asks court to rule iOS is not an ‘essential facility’
• At the Epic trial, Phil Schiller got away clean
• Apple’s Phil Schiller gives Epic iPhone testimony
• Apple wants you to know it chose not to take a cut of $400 billion in physical goods
• Apple said Roblox developers don’t make games, and now Roblox agrees
• Epic fights Apple in court by playing Candy Crush
• Apple needs to show iOS allows competition… while justifying locking it down
• Epic v. Apple keeps coming back to the gap between ignorance and inconvenience
• Epic and Apple are now fighting over a naked banana
• Apple is using Itch.io’s ‘offensive and sexualized’ games as a cudgel against Epic
• In Epic v Apple, everybody is losing at the game of defining games
• After Xbox testimony, Apple tells Microsoft to put up or shut up
• Epic needs to tarnish Apple’s App Store halo
• Why the bad iPhone web app experience keeps coming up in Epic v. Apple
• Internal emails reveal how badly Apple wanted to keep Netflix using in-app purchases
• Epic v. Apple turns into Windows v. Xbox
• Epic says there’s an App Store payment lockout — but Apple just sees friction
• Tim Sweeney emailed Tim Cook personally to call for open app sales after WWDC in 2015
• Epic pushed Xbox chief to open free multiplayer just ahead of Apple Fortnite battle
• I watched the Epic v. Apple trial on Discord
• Walmart’s unannounced cloud gaming service detailed in confidential Epic emails
• Apple exec suggested cutting App Store commission to 20 percent as early as 2011
• Epic spent at least $11.6 million on free games and gained 5 million new users in return
• Apple antitrust trial kicks off with Tim Sweeney’s metaverse dreams
• Fortnite made more than $9 billion in revenue in its first two years
• Here are Apple’s and Epic’s full slideshows arguing why they should win at trial
• Fortnite is planning skins for LeBron James and The Rock, documents show
• The Epic Games v. Apple trial kicks off with kids screaming ‘free Fortnite’
• Why Epic is burning its own cash to cook Apple
• Epic-backed expert says Apple’s app store profit is as high as 78 percent
• Microsoft’s app store changes crank up the Apple pressure
• Next week’s Fortnite trial could upend Apple’s App Store model — even if Epic loses
• Microsoft shakes up PC gaming by reducing Windows store cut to just 12 percent
• Here’s who Apple and Epic are calling to testify in next week’s trial
• Fortnite’s cash cow is PlayStation, not iOS, court documents reveal
• Fortnite isn’t on Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming service because Epic won’t allow it
• Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013
• Epic Games Store expands to carry Windows apps like Brave and Discord
• Three reasons why Epic Games can give away $17.5 billion worth of games for free
• Epic antitrust case versus Apple in Australia gets three-month stay
• Apple says iMessage on Android ‘will hurt us more than help us’
• Apple’s 20-year head of developer relations retires ahead of Epic App Store trial
• Apple and Epic’s top execs plan to testify live and in person this May in the Fortnite app store trial
• Epic expands app store fight even further with new legal claim against Google in Australia
• Apple lawyers are fighting for Steam sales data on hundreds of games
• Epic Games brings Apple fight to the EU with new antitrust complaint
• Apple won’t have to allow App Store alternatives on iOS after North Dakota bill fails
• Epic Games Store now offers Spotify, signaling app store ambitions beyond just games
• Apple’s biggest App Store critics are not impressed with its new fee cut for small developers
• PSA: Epic will honor V-Bucks trapped on Apple platforms
• Epic says Apple ‘has no rights to the fruits of Epic’s labor’ in latest filing
• Epic judge permanently restrains Apple from blocking Unreal Engine, but won’t force Fortnite
• Microsoft hits out at Apple with its new Windows app store policies
• Epic’s decision to bypass Apple’s App Store policies were dishonest, says US judge
• Fortnite: Save the World for Mac is shutting down because of Epic’s battle with Apple
• Apple accuses Epic of ‘starting a fire and pouring gasoline on it’ in new Fortnite filing
• Epic says ‘Sign In with Apple’ will keep working for Fortnite after all
• Epic Games accounts won’t be able to use Apple’s sign-in system as soon as September 11th
• Apple will seek damages from Epic Games for breach of App Store contract
• Read Epic’s new, full argument why a court should force Apple to reinstate Fortnite
• Why you can no longer install Fortnite on iOS
• Hope you didn’t delete Fortnite or Infinity Blade because Apple just terminated Epic’s dev account
• Fortnite on iOS already feels empty and dated
• Fortnite is splitting into two different games because of Epic and Apple’s fight
• Epic confirms Fortnite’s new season won’t be on iPhone, iPad, or Mac
• Why Epic can’t afford to lose the Unreal Engine in its legal fight with Apple
• Apple and Epic have to win over more than just a judge
• Epic judge will protect Unreal Engine — but not Fortnite
• ‘Developers are fleeing the Unreal Engine,’ Epic tells court
• Apple is holding the Unreal Engine hostage, Epic says in new motion
• Read the emails between Epic and Apple that led to Fortnite’s App Store ban
• Apple says Epic is ‘putting the entire App Store model at risk’
• Fortnite teases Marvel-themed season, but iPhone and iPad players could miss out
• Epic to host a #FreeFortnite tournament with anti-Apple prizes
• Epic used its playbook for Fortnite events against Apple and Google
• Apple fires back at Epic: ‘We won’t make an exception’
• Epic says Apple threatens ‘catastrophic’ response in two weeks if Fortnite doesn’t comply with rules
• Epic’s Fortnite standoff is putting Apple’s cash cow at risk
• Apple stumbled into a war with the gaming industry, and the future of iOS is at stake
• Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says Apple fight is about ‘basic freedoms of all consumers and developers’
• Apple has finally met its Fortnite match
• Fortnite vs Apple vs Google: a brief and very incomplete timeline
• Epic is suing Google over Fortnite’s removal from the Google Play Store
• Epic rallies Fortnite players against Apple with a warning that they’ll miss the next season
• Watch Epic’s Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite short mocking Apple right here
• Epic Games is suing Apple
• Epic will mock Apple’s most iconic ad as possible revenge for Fortnite’s App Store ban
• Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store
• Epic offers new direct payment in Fortnite on iOS and Android to get around app store fees
• Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery,’ says House antitrust committee chair
• Epic Games and Match Group join Spotify in protesting Apple’s App Store fees
• EU opens Apple antitrust investigations into App Store and Apple Pay practices
• Apple faces another EU antitrust complaint as App Store pressure grows
• Epic gives in to Google and releases Fortnite on the Play Store
• Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax, and why other developers won’t
• Amazon Prime Video now allows in-app rentals and purchases on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV
• Google says it won’t grant Fortnite an exemption to the Play Store’s 30 percent cut
• Apple to be formally investigated over Spotify’s antitrust complaint, says report
• Epic’s PC game store is live now

Ongoing scarcity has made it challenging to purchase Nintendo’s adorable Alarmo since its soft launch last year, but it appears those days are behind us. The $99.99 alarm clock is now readily available from third-party retailers in the US, starting with Best Buy. You can also buy it directly from Nintendo without a subscription, with the only caveat being that you must sign in with a Nintendo account.

Nintendo announced its alarm clock in October while we patiently awaited (any) news regarding the Nintendo Switch 2, which is set to launch later this year. Although the Alarmo is certainly not as exciting as a new console, it is unapologetically Nintendo, with a cartoonish look that calls to mind a vintage alarm clock — albeit with a few modern features.

Nintendo’s bright red alarm clock features an illuminated button on top and a rounded face that houses an LCD display. The 2.8-inch panel shows the time/date and will attempt to wake you each morning with scenes and sounds from several iconic franchises. It makes room for visits from beloved characters like Link and Mario, as well as pikmin. There are currently 35 scenes across five franchises available, and Nintendo says yo …

Read the full story at The Verge.

We’re nearing the deadline that Elon Musk imposed for government workers to reply to a mass email about productivity, and the results have been predictably confusing — with even a direct statement from President Donald Trump failing to clear things up.

Government agencies have taken significantly different tacks toward the Musk-promoted email, which he announced to the public midday on February 22nd. Sent by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the message demanded all federal employees respond by the end of the 24th with “5 bullets of what you accomplished last week,” and Musk said on X that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The email reportedly didn’t include this noteworthy detail.

But while some agencies have apparently ordered compliance, others have called the email optional or told employees to not respond. The Department of Justice, Administrative Office of the US Courts, and State Department all instructed staff to disregard the message and follow internal review processes instead, according to multiple news outlets. The Treasury Department, conversely, appears to have ordered Internal Revenue Service employees to comply.

Other agencies have issued more nebulous guidance. In an email obtained by The Verge, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson told staff that responses were “voluntary” — but he added that “I enthusiastically responded” to the message and “strongly encourage you to respond as well.”

As of this article’s publication, the White House has done little to clarify the situation. An unnamed administration official said on Monday morning that employees should defer to their agencies’ guidance, reported Politico. An OPM official further told The Washington Post that the office was “unsure what to do with the emails” and had “no plans” to analyze them. Yet more anonymous officials, however, said that workers’ reports would be “fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessary or not,” per NBC News.

Meanwhile, on the same day, Trump said publicly that people who failed to respond would be “sort of semi-fired,” adding that “a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist.” He denied that agencies were clashing with Musk by issuing conflicting guidance, saying it was “done in a friendly manner.”

Musk’s email echoed his behavior after taking over Twitter, where he demanded employees do things like print out 50 pages of their recent coding work or write a memo justifying their jobs to receive previously promised company stock. But unlike at Twitter, where he held sole unquestioned control, he’s dealing with formal chains of command and many other stakeholders here.

Still, the whole impossibly tangled situation is conducive to Musk and Trump’s goal of paralyzing the government, letting them instill fear in employees while creating an excuse to fire people as desired. (If they work on nuclear safety or bird flu, maybe they’ll get semi-rehired afterward.)

Like many moves by Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the latest action ignores existing government structures in a way that may be aimed at avoiding legal or political accountability. The email nonetheless drew an immediate challenge in court. It was included in an amended suit filed by groups including the American Federation of Government Employees, which condemned the email as “thoughtless and bullying … meant to intimidate federal employees and cause mass confusion.”

Ironically for figures who claim to be fighting bureaucratic confusion, Musk and Trump have created one of the most downright kafkaesque scenarios imaginable. We’re now looking at a government order presenting a drastic ultimatum that is never mentioned in the order, in which a response may be either mandatory or forbidden, and failing to respond may or may not get you simultaneously fired and not fired. Also, you may not actually exist.

A pivotal trial over the embattled Dakota Access Pipeline opens today that could have grave consequences for protests in the US and the future of the environmental group Greenpeace.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux and more than 500 other tribes protested the development of the pipeline alongside demonstrators who joined from across the US nearly a decade ago. Legal battles are still in motion, even after oil started flowing through the pipeline that runs from North Dakota to Illinois in 2017.

The company that operates Dakota Access, Energy Transfers, is suing Greenpeace for $300 million in a lawsuit that goes on trial this week. Energy Transfers claims that Greenpeace supported protesters’ “unlawful acts of trespass” and property destruction to stop construction. It also alleges that the organization spread false information about the company and concerns about the pipeline’s impact on the environment and cultural sites to the public and to banks financing the project.

“This directly impacts everybody, not just Standing Rock, not just Greenpeace.”

Paying that amount in damages would be equivalent to about 10 times Greenpeace USA’s annual budget, according to …

Read the full story at The Verge.

SpaceX believes it knows what caused the explosion during the seventh test flight of its Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster on January 16th, 2025. Fires in the aft section of Starship, located between the bottom of its liquid oxygen tank and rear heat shield, caused “all but one of Starship’s engines to execute controlled shut down sequences” leading to a loss of communication and eventually the spacecraft’s safety system triggering its own destruction.

The goal of the seventh test flight was to test several upgrades SpaceX made to its heavy-lift rocket system. After a successful launch and completing a full duration burn, the Super Heavy booster separated from Starship and triggered a boostback burn designed to return it to the launch site. Following a landing burn, the Super Heavy booster was successfully caught mid-air by the launch tower at Starbase for the second time.

The mission didn’t go quite as well for Starship. Approximately two minutes after the spacecraft ignited its second stage Raptor engines following separation, a flash was observed in the aft section of Starship known as the attic, followed by sensors detecting a pressure rise from a leak. Two minutes after that, a second flash was observed, followed by sustained fires in the attic section that eventually “caused all but one of Starship’s engines to execute controlled shut down sequences and ultimately led to a loss of communication with the ship.”

Post-flight analysis indicated that Starship’s Autonomous Flight Safety System triggered a self-destruct approximately three minutes after the ground crew lost contact with the spacecraft. According to SpaceX, the most probable cause of the incident was vibrations that were much stronger during the flight than had been experienced during testing. That resulted in increased stress on the propulsion system’s hardware and, eventually, a propellant leak that “exceeded the venting capability of the ship’s attic area and resulted in sustained fires.”

The explosion created falling debris that looked more like a meteor shower over the islands of Turks and Caicos to several tourists who shared videos of the aftermath on social media. Although SpaceX says all the “debris came down within the pre-planned Debris Response Area,” the Federal Aviation Administration briefly slowed and diverted several flights in the area on January 16th as a result of the incident.

As part of the investigation into the explosion involving SpaceX, the FAA, NASA, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the U.S. Space Force, the company conducted a 60-second static test fire with the Starship that will be used on an upcoming eighth flight. Following the results of that test, SpaceX has made hardware changes to fuel feedlines as well as adjustments to propellant temperatures and operating thrust targets.

The company has also added additional vents and a “new purge system utilizing gaseous nitrogen” to the attic section of Starship designed to make that area more robust to propellant leakage.

SpaceX currently plans to launch an eighth test flight of Starship on February 28th, 2025, but is still “working with the FAA to either close the mishap investigation or receive a flight safety determination, along with working on a license authorization to enable its next flight of Starship.”

Verizon and AT&T have each announced milestones in making cellphone-to-satellite video calls in partnership with satellite company AST SpaceMobile.

Verizon has completed its first cellphone-to-satellite video call, while AT&T has completed its first using satellites that will be used as part of a commercial network. There’s lining up competition to T-Mobile’s arrangement with SpaceX and Starlink on satellite-to-cell service which launched a public beta for messaging via satellite earlier this month. AT&T and Verizon have said that T-Mobile and SpaceX’s offerings would harm their networks.

Verizon pulled off “a live video call between two mobile devices with one connected via satellite and the other connected via Verizon’s terrestrial network connection,” according to a company press release. In AT&T’s case, “AT&T and AST SpaceMobile have successfully completed another video call by satellite to an everyday smartphone over AT&T spectrum,” per AT&T’s press release.

Both phone companies relied on AST’s constellation of five BlueBird satellites that were launched last September for the tests. AT&T’s initial video call test happened in June 2023.

Amazon is holding a press event this week, where we expect it to finally launch its “new” Alexa. This could be the beginning of a major shift in how we use generative AI in our homes, or it could be a big disappointment. 

The latter seems likely, based on the delays and persistent rumors that the voice assistant is struggling with its revamp. But I’m hoping we’ll at least end up somewhere in the middle — with a smarter, more useful Alexa, if not the “superhuman assistant” Amazon has promised.

The event, scheduled for 10AM on Wednesday, February 26th, in New York City, is being hosted by Amazon’s new devices and service chief Panos Panay, which is a strong hint there’ll be new hardware. The flagship fourth-gen Amazon Echo speaker is way past due for an upgrade, and with smart glasses being so hot right now, I could see Alexa getting cozier on our faces. 

Here’s a look at what we expect from the event, what not to expect, and what we hope is coming. Remember to tune in to The Verge’s live blog on Wednesday.

A “new” Alexa

I expect Amazon to announce the long-awaited arrival of its new Alexa, which has been rearchitected and infused with generative AI — courtesy of its LLMs, including Titan and reportedly some of Anthropic’s Claude.

First announced in the fall of 2023, the revamp of Amazon’s once trailblazing AI voice assistant has been a long time coming. While it’s fine to set a timer or play music and turn your lights off, the current Alexa has struggled to find purpose in a world dominated by ChatGPT, Gemini, and their ilk.  

The new “Remarkable Alexa,” as it’s reportedly called, should understand natural speech, interpret context, respond to multiple requests in a single command, and take action on your behalf with either deeper API integrations and / or genuine agentic abilities. 

All of this means that we should be able to talk to Alexa without using clunky nomenclature and get more useful responses (assuming Amazon has managed to squash Alexa’s reported need to show off).

For smart home control, we should be able to say a command like, “Alexa, turn out the lights, lock the back door, and turn the thermostat to Sleep — oh, and play sleep sounds in the bedroom,” and the Assistant will do it all. 

Amazon’s new Alexa will be tuned in to your smart home and its capabilities

Amazon’s new Alexa should also be tuned in to your smart home and its capabilities. At CES this year, I spoke with companies working on integrations with the new Alexa, using the new developer tools Dynamic Controller and Action Controller that Amazon announced in 2023. Then Amazon said it was working with GE Cync, Philips Hue, GE Appliances, iRobot, and Roborock on features that would allow the Assistant to better understand what you want devices to do. For example, say “Alexa, the floor is dirty,” and it will send out your robot vac. 

GE Cync’s Carmen Pastore confirmed to The Verge that the smart lighting company is working on integrating what he called “Amazon Alexa Reflex” to simplify lighting scene control with natural language voice commands. 

This is where Alexa can differentiate itself. The voice assistant could bring value if it can fuse its current capabilities with generative AI-powered improvements. However, reports suggest this has been a challenge, with the new Alexa prone to hallucinating or refusing to turn on lights. It’s also an area competitors Apple and Google, who are tackling the same challenge with Siri and Google Assistant, are reportedly struggling with.

A new flagship Echo speaker and better access to Alexa on the go

Thanks to the billions of cheap Alexa-enabled devices in people’s homes, Amazon has a head start in the smart home. However, the flagship Echo fourth-gen smart speaker is now four years old. The company has said its new Alexa will run on all current hardware, but I expect the improved voice assistant will come with a shiny new home — especially considering Panay, the new devices and services chief, has impressive hardware chops, courtesy of his time at Microsoft building the Surface line.

The stage is set for an Echo speaker with a new design, improved processing power, local control, and more sensors

When it announced the new Alexa in 2023, Amazon launched the Echo Hub smart home controller and the third-gen Echo Show 8 smart home display. While we might see an Echo Hub 2.0, the stage is set for a new Echo speaker with a new design, improved processing power, local control, and more smart home sensors.

While the home is Alexa’s comfort zone, Amazon could continue pushing us to use Alexa on the go with new Echo Frame smart glasses and a third generation of the flagship Echo Buds, making the smarter Alexa accessible wherever we are.

New Fire TV features

At the 2023 event, Amazon showed off several new AI features on its Fire TV line, including an improved Alexa search and generative AI screensavers, along with a new soundbar and souped-up Fire TV sticks. While new capabilities are likely, it’s also possible we’ll see new, more powerful Fire TV hardware, perhaps with Thread and Matter functionality built in, to help power deeper integration between Fire TV, Alexa, and the smart home. We’ll have to wait and see.

No firehose of crazy gadgets

We probably won’t see a slew of new devices. There wasn’t a traditional fall hardware event in 2024.  Instead, Amazon has announced a steady flow of new products over the past few months, including new Kindles and two new Echo Shows. And earlier this month, Ring announced its first 2K-capable security camera, and Eero expanded its line of Wi-Fi 7 routers. All of this points to this event being just about Alexa and ways to communicate with the AI.

Alexa for a price

Amazon has said publicly that it’s considering charging for the new Alexa, with reports suggesting a price between $5 and $10 a month. Some have said it will be free for a limited time.

Reuters reported that Amazon could generate $600 million annually if just 10 percent of its users paid $5 per month for the service. Considering that Amazon reportedly lost over $25 billion on its Alexa division, this would be a much-needed boost for the product.

Making Alexa really useful is Amazon’s biggest hurdle

A subscription-based Alexa would be a first for the company, but it’s fairly common with AI services. In the smart home, we’ve already seen features like AI-powered video search from Ring and Google Home behind paywalls. 

But will you pay for a better Alexa? If it can deliver on its promises and more — maybe. The new Alexa needs to create enough value for users. One area it can do this is by solving specific problems. For example, I tested the Skylight Calendar, whose AI assistant could manage my household’s calendar for me. It costs $80 a year but is genuinely useful. 

Making Alexa really useful is Amazon’s biggest hurdle. It doesn’t have the personal context that competing assistants like Siri and Google Assistant have by being embedded in your phone. If Amazon can find a way to connect to that personal data, combined with the context it has about your home, it could get there. It’s a big if, and Amazon has a huge trust and privacy mountain to climb to get there.

A good start would be getting rid of the annoying ads and “By the way” interruptions.

Annapurna Interactive is hosting its first showcase of the year, and it’s an important one. Last year, Annapurna Interactive’s entire staff resigned en masse after negotiations to spin off the respected indie game publisher into its own independent entity broke down. Since then, those employees have formed their own company and even have a new crop of games to manage since it took over publishing duties for Take-Two’s former indie label Private Division. But where does that leave Annapurna?

After the resignations, the company issued a statement assuring players that its games would still be published as normal. With this showcase (which you can watch in full here), we will get more details on what to expect from Annapurna in the first half of 2025. 

To a T

To a T is the latest release from Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, and damn, if it ain’t adorable like most of his games. The game tells the story of Teen, a young person with a… we’ll say “unique” posture, and it’s up to you to help them navigate the challenges that come with being born stuck in a permanent “T” pose. For the showcase, To a T got a special music video a la “It’s Bugsnax!” featuring the vocal stylings of Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar. To a T launches on May 28th on Xbox, PS5, and PC, and a demo is available now on Steam.

Morsels

Morsels is a creature collector roguelite with a creepy / cute grossout vibe. Use your powers of transformation to turn into the right monster for the job and battle against evil cat creatures. (Finally, some cozy cat game counterprogramming!) No release date on Morsels yet, but expect it to launch sometime in 2025 on PC and Nintendo Switch.

Wheel World

There’s something about the kinds of presentations that give a glimpse into the people and lives that make these games that really endears me to both the studio and the game. I’m not a bike person, but after seeing the behind-the-scenes presentation for Wheel World, I want to be. Wheel World is an open-world magical cycling adventure where you can ride, race, customize your bike, and ultimately save the world. It launches summer 2025, but you can check out the demo now during Steam’s Next Fest.

Faraway

According to its one-man development team, Faraway can be played with just one hand. In it, you play as a shooting star destined to flicker out but that keeps itself shining brightly by traveling the stars and making constellations. The game consists of a “story” mode that procedurally generates in response to players’ actions and skill levels. There’s also a puzzle mode designed to challenge players in their journey across the stars. Try out Faraway during Steam’s Next Fest or wait for the game’s release on PC later this year.

Geometric Interactive

Geometric, developer of the phenomenal puzzle platformer Cocoon, is back with some lo-fi vibes to carry orbs to. The studio is working with iam8bit to release a collector’s edition of the game as well as Cocoon’s soundtrack on vinyl. The studio also teased that it’s working on a completely new game but, of course, didn’t share any details yet. 

Lushfoil Photography Sim

As the name suggests, Lushfoil is all about taking pictures using true-to-life photography techniques. Explore different locations around the world, including the torii gates of Kyoto, Japan, the lush forests of Italy, and even the mountainous Annapurna region in Nepal. Each location is rendered in stunning detail and features photography objectives and collectible cameras that’ll encourage players to strive for the perfect shot. Lushfoil has a demo available on Steam and is slated to launch on April 15th, 2025, on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.

Wanderstop

Wanderstop is a cozy adventure sim all about tea and navigating difficult life changes, but mostly about tea. Collect ingredients for tea, brew it in an elaborate contraption that looks more like a mad scientist chemistry kit, and thwart the designs of an apparently nefarious bird. Wanderstop is the first game from Ivy Road and is set to launch on Steam and PS5 on March 11th.

Skin Deep

Skin Deep has one hell of a pitch. According to the developers at Blendo Games, the game is essentially “Die Hard with more comedy.” You play as Nina Pasadena, a legendary assassin turned “insurance commando” tasked with saving a starship from a space pirate invasion using whatever tools and weapons she can scrounge along the way. Based on the trailer, Skin Deep feels like a cross between Hitman and Skibidi Toilet, which, honestly, sounds like a neat vibe. You can test that vibe for yourself in the demo or wait for the game’s launch on April 30th.

Sayonara Wild Hearts

Sayonara Wild Hearts was one of the breakout hits of 2019, and it’s back with next-gen updates and a brand-new game mode exclusively for PS5. Remix Arcade allows players to chase high scores in infinitely replayable, progressively faster, and more difficult sound bites with no loading. Sayonara Wild Hearts on PS5 is out now and available as a free upgrade if you have the PS4 version.