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Action

UXLINK scrambles to contain $11.3m hack, turns to police for action

by admin September 22, 2025

UXLINK admitted its wallet was compromised when attackers stripped admin rights and rerouted tokens across Ethereum and Arbitrum. The Web3 social platform is now working simultaneously with central exchanges to freeze the stolen funds and with law enforcement to initiate formal investigations.

Summary

UXLINK confirmed an $11.3m hack after attackers seized admin rights and rerouted funds across Ethereum and Arbitrum.
The Web3 social platform is working with exchanges and law enforcement to freeze assets and recover stolen funds.
The breach comes just months after UXLINK marked its third anniversary, celebrating 55m+ users and global growth.

On Sept. 22, blockchain security firm Cyvers flagged a series of highly suspicious transactions originating from a UXLINK protocol address. Their analysis revealed a sophisticated attack vector, with an Ethereum address executing a “delegateCall” to effectively seize control by removing the admin role and adding a new owner with threshold permissions.

Cyvers said the attack enabled the hacker to drain approximately $11.3 million in assets, including $4.5 million in stablecoins, WBTC, and ETH, before swiftly bridging and swapping portions of the haul across networks in an apparent attempt to launder the funds. Within minutes, another address received $3 million worth of UXLINK tokens, some of which remain unswapped.

UXLINK responds as breach overshadows recent milestones

UXLINK acknowledged the exploit less than an hour after Cyvers’ alert, issuing what it called an “urgent security notice” to its users. While the official communication did not specify the exact figure, it confirmed that a “significant amount of cryptocurrency” had been illicitly transferred to both centralized and decentralized exchanges.

“We have already reached out to major CEXs and DEXs to urgently freeze suspicious UXLINK deposits and are coordinating closely with them to prevent further movement of funds. The incident has been reported to the police and relevant authorities to accelerate legal action and recovery efforts,” the team wrote on X.

UXLINK’s move to involve law enforcement underscores the severity of the incident and the project’s intent to pursue all available avenues for restitution. Notably, the timing of the hack carries added weight for the Web3 social platform.

Just three months ago, the Tokyo-headquartered project celebrated its third anniversary in July, an event that highlighted a period of remarkable growth. UXLINK reported its registered user base surging to over 55 million, with a presence in more than 100 countries, and emphasized its commitment to regulatory compliance and product innovation.

The hack now poses a direct challenge to that very narrative of maturation and stability. The breach of a core administrative wallet stands in stark contrast to the image of a robust, compliance-first infrastructure provider that UXLINK has carefully cultivated.

The platform has yet to issue another update as of press time.

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September 22, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

X Takes Legal Action Against Crypto Scamming Network’s Bribery Scheme

by admin September 20, 2025

In brief

Social media platform X says it’s taking legal action against some banned accounts.
The accounts in question allegedly bribed X employees to regain access to the platform.
Some of the accounts in question were crypto scammers, X said.

Social media platform X is taking legal action against banned users, including crypto scammers, who have tried to bribe the company’s employees to regain access to the website, the company said in an announcement Friday.

The platform, formerly known as Twitter, said that the bribery network was linked to wider criminal organizations.

X added that it was working with law enforcement. The company did not reveal much else about the nature of the banned accounts. Decrypt reached out to X for comment.

“X has exposed and is taking strong action against a bribery network targeting our platform,” read the announcement. “Suspended accounts involved in crypto scams and platform manipulation paid middlemen to attempt to bribe employees to reinstate their suspended accounts.”

It added: “These perpetrators exploit social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Minecraft, and Roblox and are linked to wider criminal organizations, including ‘The Com.'”

X has exposed and is taking strong action against a bribery network targeting our platform. Suspended accounts involved in crypto scams and platform manipulation paid middlemen to attempt to bribe employees to reinstate their suspended accounts. These perpetrators exploit social…

— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) September 19, 2025

The Federal Bureau of Investigation in July warned of “a growing and evolving online threat group known as The Com,” adding that the network was mainly made up of minors and worked to commit cyber crimes.

“The sophistication of The Com criminal activity has grown over the last four years, with subjects employing increasingly complex methods to mask their identities, hide financial transactions, and launder money,” the FBI’s statement said.

Social media platform X is no stranger to crypto scammers. In 2020, when it was Twitter and owned by Jack Dorsey, criminals hacked a number of celebrity and brand accounts—including former President Barack Obama, Apple, Uber, and rapper Kanye West—to push a Bitcoin scam.

Last year, hackers targeted high-profile accounts to push a Solana-based meme token, compromising the accounts of computer brand Lenovo’s India division, film director Oliver Stone, and Brazilian soccer player Neymar Jr.

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September 20, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

This Tiny Action Camera Got Swacked by a Sword, and Survived

by admin September 17, 2025

My brother punched his rapier toward my head. The blade missed me by inches, but the clever duelist swiped down and chopped at my crown, sending the $450 action camera attached to my fencing mask spinning away. The magnetic pod for Insta360’s Go Ultra tumbled to the floor, the light still blinking red, still recording. His sword left a gash along the side of the lens and a scuff on plastic. The camera still works, so if you were wondering how durable the Go Ultra is, know that it passed the “getting hit by a sword” test.

Insta360 Go Ultra

You won’t find a smaller action cam that’s this portable with video quality to stand up to your favorite GoPro.

Pros

So light and portable
Records at 4K/60 fps
Magnetic mount with wide variety of uses
Durable against sword blows
Fast charging

Cons

Battery doesn’t last too long
Overheating issues
No internal storage

I had been looking for a camera light enough to stick on my fencing mask without rigging up a mount for a much larger recording device, and I think I found it with the Insta360 Go Ultra. The pricey action camera looks like your average GoPro when both of its main parts—the “Standalone Camera” case with the flip-up display and “Action Pod” with the image sensor and lens—are connected. But its detachable design means you can stick the smaller practically anywhere, so long as you rig up the right mount for the appropriate situation.

The Go Ultra doesn’t have all the capabilities of its contemporaries. It’s not the best for slow-motion footage or shooting at the highest possible resolution and frame rate. But because of its light and idiot-proof design, the Go Ultra is now my favorite little device to take on adventures or whenever I next enter the dueling pit.

An action camera for ants?

The Standalone Camera and Action Pod serve as the two pieces to the Go Ultra’s whole. © Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

The Action Pod can communicate with the Standalone Camera up to about 30 feet away, which helps you compose a shot when you can’t physically see the camera’s orientation. Whereas the average rugged action camera, such as the GoPro Hero 13 Black or DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro, can take a hit and keep on filming, the Go Ultra is still durable and can adhere to any magnetic strip or ferromagnetic metal (though you still want the strongest mount to keep it from going astray). However, if you’re planning to attach the Go Ultra’s Action Pod to any moving object, you’ll want a strong magnetic attachment to keep it secure. Compared to the Insta360 Go 3S from 2024, the Go Ultra’s Action Pod is much larger with longer battery life and a bigger sensor that makes it better for low-light shooting.

The Insta360 Go Ultra contains a 14.27mm focal length lens with an f/2.85 aperture and the ability to shoot up to 50-megapixel still photos. With those specs, the lens fits somewhere in between higher-end action cameras and a simple point-and-shoot video camera for recording your family’s antics. It can shoot in a max 180Mbps bitrate with a variety of preset video modes, though most of the time you’ll stick with either “Video” in daylight or “PureVideo” for low-light environments. With a wide-angle lens, you’re more likely to get the shot without having a death grip on a selfie stick.

The Go Ultra comes packed with a magnetic clip and a necklace you can wear under your shirt. The necklace will sit center-mass on your chest, which I found good for doing point-of-view shots when I was reporting on the ground from IFA 2025 in Berlin. The clip can help your lens hitch a ride on a hat or helmet and still feel light enough you may forget it’s there. I clipped the Go Ultra Action Pod on a thin tree branch and managed to get a shot without needing a tripod. The Action Pod is light enough I never had to worry about it weighing down anything it was attached to.

The older Insta360 Go 3S may be lighter, but it’s to such a small degree that the trade off is worth it. Speaking of changes from the older Go-series action cameras, the Go Ultra doesn’t come with any internal storage, unlike the Go 3S. Instead, it records to a microSD card that slots into the Action Pod. I would have appreciated some buffer of internal capacity in case I ran out of storage on the memory card while shooting, but I vastly prefer SD cards to being stuck with limited built-in storage.

Depending on what kind of bundle you buy, you may end up with more attachment points. The Standalone Camera housing can attach to a Quick Release Mount with your traditional GoPro two-pronged threads, a tripod, and a Pivot Stand with a suction cap. There’s even a $17 “Toddler Titan Hat Clip,” which Insta360 implies parents will hang from a child’s cap facing toward the body to take extra-close shots of the tyke’s wide-eyed expressions. I would not blame any toddler who takes that camera and chucks it across the room. Inevitably, it will be up to innovative camera aficionados to create their own magnetic mounts for their needs. To that end, the Action Pod allows for more creativity in how and where you set up your camera.

Better than most for low-light shooting

Insta360 sells several magnetic and non-magnetic mounts, such as its Pivot Stand, but you can DIY your own mounting rig with a little ingenuity. © Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

We all want to believe our action cams can take footage as beautiful as those slickly-produced GoPro promotional videos. The true footage you can get from such a small lens will inevitably disspaoint. The Insta360 Go Ultra shoots at 4K resolution at a max of 60 fps, though the camera will default to 30 fps in most scenarios. If you want to shoot with HDR—aka high-dynamic range for better contrast—you’re also limited to 30 fps. For my amateur hour fencing video that I published straight to Instagram, that’s perfectly acceptable. For those hoping for video footage requiring minimal editing, just know you’ll never get the quality you’ll see in all the promotional video that Insta360 shares to its social feeds. You’ll find that your phone may present better-quality footage for quick and dirty POV feeds.

Still, I would put the Go Ultra’s quality up there with the expensive action cameras I’ve used. Small sensors often struggle with low-light scenarios, a problem that has plagued action cameras since the beginning. The Go Ultra’s “PureView” mode does a fair job brightening up images to make them more visible. I could spot a little bit of noise from the video once I brought it to my PC, but for my purpose the footage was good enough to flip over to my socials. As for the shots I took in the dim halls of IFA, the quality was a mixed bag. Some clips still appeared dark without great contrast. Overall, there’s only so much you can expect from a small sensor.

The Go Ultra may not be your first go-to choice for extreme sports, especially if you were planning to shoot in slow motion. You can choose to film in 60 fps, but if you want automated slow-mo video, 4x slow-mo at 120 fps is limited to 1080p recording. Like Insta360’s 360-degree cameras and its upcoming Antigravity A1 drone, the Go Ultra also includes options for automatic dewarping to correct the fisheye effect of the rounded lens, but you may end up going for “Ultra” setting to capture as much of the scenery in one go. The video above used the standard “Ultra” wide field of view, which felt on the money for hands-on shots. With any of these modes, the camera’s automatic FlowState stabilization did a good job even as I was whipping a sword at my fencing partners.

The action camera can shoot in both vertical and horizontal just by changing the orientation of the lens. The default 16:9 shots are when the camera lens is positioned in the top right. When rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise and the lens is on the top left, it will shoot in 9:16. There’s nothing on the Action Pod to mark when it’s vertical or horizontal, and there were times I would lose the Action Pod, reattach it, only to realize I was now shooting in the wrong orientation. This wasn’t a problem on older Go models with the oval-shaped pod compared to the square on the Go Ultra. A small indicator arrow on the Action Pod itself may have resolved this small headache.

Not the longest battery, but it charges up real quick

The Insta360 Go Ultra is about the same size as a GoPro Hero camera, though the detachable Action Pod is much smaller and lighter. © Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

The Go Ultra can’t last you an entire afternoon’s worth of continuous shooting. Filming in 4K at 60 fps, I found it would last a little over 40 minutes before I needed to shove the Action Pod back in its case to let it recharge. In those cases, the Standalone Camera housing essentially acts as a way to give the Action Pod a little extra juice. But after depleting the Action Pod, the Standalone Camera and its limited 500mAh capacity battery won’t be enough for more than 1.5 hours, especially if you’re shooting in low-light or higher frame rate modes.

Though the battery isn’t the best, the more concerning hurdle you’ll run up against is heat management. The Go Ultra alerts users as soon as they choose the 4K 60 fps mode that this could cause overheating, which would also hinder battery life. Outdoors, in the shade, the Action Pod didn’t feel hot to the touch, but it still alerted me about overheating after an extended shoot. A few minutes set aside in its Standalone Camera case eventually let continue recording.

The latest GoPro Hero 13 Black lasts a little more than 2 hours of continuous recording at higher resolutions. The Go Ultra Action Pod should last longer—closer to 2 hours if you drop the frame rate down to 30 fps and only shoot at 1080p. I wouldn’t suggest you limit resolution for the sake of battery life unless it becomes absolutely necessary. To make up for the limited battery, Insta360’s small action camera supports fast charging. I could recharge up to 80% from empty in around 15 minutes. A full charge takes about 40 minutes for both the Standalone Camera and Action Pod.

Most amateurs looking to post their snowboarding tricks to their TikTok won’t have any complaints with image quality. Those with more professional setups could find extra use for a small-form camera. Since the Go Ultra’s Action Pod is so compact, it becomes another arrow in the quiver when you need to get POV footage. It won’t have all the enhanced zoom, resolution, and frame rate options as other action cameras, but in my time using the Go Ultra, I didn’t miss 5.3K resolution or any of the other features, especially when the Action Pod is so damn light. It’s so small I don’t need to duck into a full head or chest mount to get quality shots.

Those imagining all the action shots they can take with the $450 Insta360 Go Ultra need to remember what they may be sacrificing for the sake of portability. The Hero 13 Black’s costs $430 while Insta360’s Ace Pro 2 demands $400. At the very least, the move to smaller magnetic cameras is pushing the industry forward. Multiple leaks have implied DJI is planning to launch its own pod-based action camera. Until somebody comes along and does it better, the Go Ultra has just the right balance of camera quality and portability.

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September 17, 2025 0 comments

A promotional image showing multiple Corsair Vengeance CUDIMM memory sticks on a desk

Gaming Gear

If you bought Corsair PC memory after 2018 you might be entitled to a share of $5.5 million from a class action over advertised DDR4 and DDR5 speeds

by admin September 16, 2025

Corsair has settled a class action lawsuit claiming that the memory specialist overstated the speeds of various DDR4 and DDR5 RAM kits on offer since 2018. Corsair is set to pay out $5.5 million to customers (via Tom’s Hardware).

To boil the dispute right down, Corsair is accused of advertising RAM products according to the speeds attained under XMP or Extended Memory Profiles as opposed to JEDEC defaults.

According to the settlement, you could be entitled to compensation if you bought, “any Corsair DDR-4 (non-SODIMM/laptop) memory product with a rated speed over 2133 megahertz (MHz) or any Corsair DDR-5 (non-SODIMM/laptop) memory product with a rated speed over 4800 megahertz, and made that purchase while living in the United States, and the purchase(s) occurred between January 14, 2018 and July 2, 2025.”

The initial terms say that proof of purchase isn’t necessary, but without it claimants are limited to compensation for five products. Compensation will be on a pro-rata basis. In other words, there isn’t a fixed compensation amount per claim, instead the $5.5 million sum will be divided among the successful claimants.

It’s worth noting that the settlement does not include an admission of guilt by Corsair, merely it means the company has decided to put an end to litigation with the settlement.

The difference between what the memory kits run at by default and the speeds they can attain under XMP settings are at the heart of the dispute. (Image credit: Future)

“The plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege they were led to believe that the advertised speeds were ‘out of the box’ speeds requiring no adjustments to their PCs,” the settlement website says, “the Court has not decided which side is right.

“Corsair Gaming denies all claims of wrongdoing and denies that it violated any law. The settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing or liability. The parties have agreed to the settlement to avoid the uncertainties, burdens and expenses associated with continuing the case.”

The settlement has been agreed by the protagonists, but has yet to acquire court approval. If the court does approve the deal, Corsair will also be required to adjust the way it advertises RAM.

“The settlement will also require Corsair to take commercially reasonable efforts to implement changes on the packaging, website product pages, and specifications provided to resellers for the covered products. Rated speeds for the products will be listed as ‘up to’ speeds, with the following corresponding text: ‘Requires overclocking/PC BIOS adjustments. Maximum speed and performance depend on system components, including motherboard and CPU.’

Anywho, if you did buy Corsair memory between January 14 2018 and July 2 2025, you have until October 28 to head over to the class action website and register your claim.

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September 16, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

MAHA Wants Action on Pesticides. It’s Not Going to Get It From Trump’s Corporate-Friendly EPA

by admin September 15, 2025

“President Trump made a fantastic choice in selecting Dr. Beck, who has never been a lobbyist in her life, by the way—no lamestream media outlet has reported that correctly,” EPA press secretary Bridget Hirsch told WIRED in a statement. Beck and her colleagues, Hirsch said, “remain committed to being led by the science, unlike Biden EPA appointees with major ethical issues that were beholden to radical groups.”

Zeldin’s public calendar shows that he has met at least six times over the past seven months with chemical and plastics companies and lobbying groups—including a meeting in June with Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto in 2018.

“It’s a disservice to your readers to cherry-pick six of Administrator Zeldin’s many meetings over the last nine months from his very full calendar to paint an inaccurate picture and bolster your false narrative,” Hirsch said. “Administrator Zeldin is committed to protecting human health and the environment 100 percent—any implication otherwise is your opinion and nothing more.”

Brian Leake, the director of external communications for Bayer, said in an email that the company was “pleased to see feedback provided by the agriculture industry—in particular, farmers—was solicited and received by the commission, helping inform the report.

“Bayer stands behind the safety of our glyphosate-based products, which have been tested extensively, approved by regulators, and used around the globe for 50 years,” Leake said. “The EPA has an extremely rigorous review process which spans multiple years, considers thousands of studies, and involves many independent risk assessment experts at the EPA.”

As of May, 3,000 employees had already left the agency. That month, EPA leadership announced its intent to dissolve the Office of Research and Development, its independent scientific arm that employed more than 1,000 scientists at the start of the year, redistributing some to other areas of the agency while laying others off. That reorganization began in July. (Hirsch said that the reorganization will “improve the effectiveness and efficiency of EPA operations and align core statutory requirements with its organizational structure.”)

These crises, employees say, may be affecting the agency’s work with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), colloquially called forever chemicals, which are another area of concern for the MAHA movement. A growing body of research has linked these chemicals, which don’t degrade in the environment, to a variety of health concerns. The strategy document released this week says that the EPA and National Institutes of Health will help the CDC “update recommendations” regarding the health risks of PFAS in water.

It’s unclear how robust such a review will be. In 2024, the Biden administration put limits on six PFAS chemicals in drinking water. In May, the EPA announced that it would be reconsidering limits on four of those.

Two EPA employees working on PFAS issues told WIRED that thanks to shake-ups at the agency, they are struggling to procure supplies, hire lab techs, and do their work. These employees spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak to the press. (“We are confident EPA has the resources needed to accomplish the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment, fulfill all statutory obligations, and make the best-informed decisions based on the gold standard of science,” Hirsch, the EPA press secretary, told WIRED.)

“I’ve been here for several years,” one employee told WIRED. “It is the least productive period for me, including Covid, and it seems like everyone else is in the same boat.”

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September 15, 2025 0 comments

canelo alvarez and terrence crawford face each other at weigh-in

Gaming Gear

Canelo vs. Crawford Fight: What Time to Watch the Action Tonight on Netflix

by admin September 14, 2025

Saul “Canelo” Álvarez and Terence Crawford step into the ring tonight in a pro boxing matchup that will see Álvarez defending his title as super middleweight champion.

As the crowd descends upon Las Vegas to watch the pair square up, the question lingers in the air of whether Crawford will beef up his weight — and by how much — to meet his opponent’s. While Álvarez is a seasoned super middleweight contender (and current undisputed champion), Crawford has never fought in this weight class and planned to pack on pounds to move up two levels for this fight. However, the Nebraska native is undefeated (41-0 with 31 knockouts) and has earned championship titles in four different weight classes as a lightweight, light middleweight, junior welterweight and welterweight.

Veteran boxer Mike Tyson said he’d like Crawford to win, but he doesn’t believe it’s likely with Álvarez being highly skilled and the weight disparity. But, “There’s been upsets before,” he said.

Like Tyson, viewers are planning to watch the bout to see who wins the title. Scroll down to find out what time to stream the live event on Netflix and who else is on the card.

What time is the Canelo vs. Crawford fight on Netflix?

Fight night kicks off on Saturday, Sept. 13, at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT), live from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Regardless of plan type, all Netflix subscribers can watch the event around the globe.

Headlining the main card is the Canelo Álvarez vs. Terence Crawford bout, with a combined purse prize of $200 million. Three other fights are on the main card:

Callum Walsh vs. Fernando Vargas Jr.
Christian Mbilli vs. Lester Martine
Mohammed Alakel vs. John Ornelas

Preliminary fights can also be streamed on Netflix’s Tudum site in Spanish and English beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET.

James Martin/CNET

Netflix offers three plans, ranging from $8 a month for its ad-free version to $18 or $25 per month if you want to stream without ads. You can also watch the docuseries, Countdown: Canelo vs. Crawford, on the service.

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September 14, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

French Lara Croft taking legal action against Aspyr for AI-generated voice use in Tomb Raider remasters

by admin September 11, 2025

Françoise Cadol, the actor who voiced the French version of Lara Croft in all of Tomb Raider games from their inception to 2008, is taking legal action against Aspyr Media for the apparent AI-generated use of her voice in the Tomb Raider 4-6 remasters.

Cadol told French newspaper Le Parisien (via The Gamer) that Aspyr Media generated lines of dialogue using her voice without asking her or even notifying her. She has reportedly issued Aspyr a cease and desist demand.

Examples of the allegedly AI-generated voice lines were shared on social media, and in them you can clearly hear the difference between the original Tomb Raider games and the recently remastered ones. A much more robotic reading of the lines suddenly takes over part-way through the remastered dialogue.

🇫🇷 ALERTE INFO — Le patch des remasters de Tomb Raider IV, V et VI par @AspyrMedia vient de sortir…

Mauvaise surprise pour les fans français de Lara Croft, certaines répliques de Françoise Cadol dans le tutoriel ont été refaites avec l’IA et ça s’entend ! pic.twitter.com/YRbZsY669H

— Bastien D. Fry  (@BastienDruker) August 15, 2025

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Cadol, who has regularly dubbed for high-profile actors like Angelina Jolie, including dubbing her performance in the 2001 Tomb Raider film, was alerted to the recording discrepancies by French Tomb Raider fans. Speaking to Le Parisien, Cadol said the use of AI here was a “betrayal” of their support.

“It’s a game, my voice accompanies the gamers, we play together,” Cadol said in a translation of the article. “Tomb Raider has been followed by a lot of people over the years, for them, it’s a betrayal, a total disrespect. They are angry.”

Alarmingly, this isn’t the only example of AI-generated voice work in the game. Brazilian actor Lene Bastos was also told by fans that her voice seemed to have been AI-generated in the remasters, and she decided to speak out about it. This prompted a reply – and apology – from Aspyr. Bastos explains in an Instagram video that Aspyr promised to remove the AI-generated lines in an update in a few weeks.

It’s unclear if Aspyr has contacted Cadol and said the same. We’ve requested comment from Aspyr.

Earlier this year, the entire French cast of multiplayer shooter Apex Legends refused to sign an agreement allowing their voices to train generative AI for the game.

“We are asked to give up our expertise to train the generative AI that will replace us tomorrow,” commented Pascale Chemin at the time, the French voice of Wraith in Apex Legends. “We are asked to agree to what we specifically fight against. We are asked to shoot ourselves in the foot. We are asked to support AI.”

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September 11, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

A Star Wars AR Game Got Me Playing With Virtual Action Figures Like I Was 6 Years Old

by admin September 10, 2025

It took less than a minute after donning a Meta Quest 3 headset before I was reliving some of my best memories from childhood in augmented reality, sitting on the floor with my digital Star Wars action figures creating fantastical scenes from a galaxy far, far away.

Last week, I visited Meta’s Los Angeles offices a mile from the city’s sunny beaches to try out an upcoming game, Star Wars: Beyond Victory, due out October 7 only for the Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S headsets. The game is developed by Industrial Light and Magic, the special effects wizards that brought the Star Wars galaxy to life with starships and lasers, lightsabers and space battles.

Star Wars: Beyond Victory was first revealed at Star Wars Celebration earlier this year, where ILM teased the game’s central story mode. In it, players take on the role of an up-and-coming podracer guided by the legendary Sebulba, racing rival of Anakin Skywalker in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. In Meta’s offices, I donned a Meta Quest 3 headset and played an early section of the story, including a podrace.

While I was expecting immersive full-screen podracing much like in the Nintendo 64 classic game Episode 1: Racer, Star Wars: Beyond Victory is very different, leaning into the Meta Quest’s augmented reality capabilities to portray racing on, functionally, a digital game table hovering above the real world room I was in. ILM’s developers told me that given concerns over making players nauseous when racing in high-speed VR, they opted to make the game’s action play out on a table in AR that gamers can resize to their liking, while still controlling their racer from a bird’s eye view.

“The original podracing prototypes were based on slot car races because that was like thinking about racing cars in your room,” said David Palumbo, senior experience designer at ILM and for Star Wars: Beyond Victory. “Eventually we hit on that holo-table prototype, and that sort of shifted the way we thought about mixed reality gameplay in a really fun way.”

In my four-person race I finished a distant third, but there’s a delightful novelty in reaching out with my Meta Quest controllers and — this will be important later — digitally grabbing the gameplay board to move it around or resize it to my liking. It felt tactile and responsive, letting me place it in the perfect spot to survey the action as I stood up. The ILM developers described their different approaches: one placed it before them while they were sitting, while another got down on the ground to play, much like they did with toy cars as a kid.

“I also think it plays really well with the nostalgia of what we’re doing with action figures and playing with these little toys,” said Harvey Whitney, senior producer at ILM and for Star Wars: Beyond Victory. “I remember as a kid every Christmas either getting a slot car or RC car, and so now being able to do that with Star Wars toys and flying them around and driving around, it just works so well.”

Star Wars: Beyond Victory’s Adventure mode is a story campaign around a rookie podracer climbing the ranks, while Arcade lets players jump into quick races.

Industrial Light and Magic

I only spent around 20 minutes with the Adventure mode, so it’s impossible to comment on how the storyline or podracing gameplay will be in its full release, though it does have an interesting voice cast including Lewis MacLeod (returning to voice Sebulba as he did in The Phantom Menace) and Saturday Night Live’s Bobby Moynihan. Set in the period between the third and fourth Star Wars movies with the Galactic Empire in power but before the Rebel Alliance gets organized, Beyond Victory will tell a story about racing life on the fringes of the galaxy — an aspect of the franchise that’s surprisingly rarely explored given how important hot-rodding was to creator George Lucas and how much it influenced the original films.

Throughout Beyond Victory’s story mode, your podracing rookie will run into some characters from ILM’s previous AR game, Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge, along with a few iconic figures from the movies. But you won’t just be meeting them: many of the cast in the Adventure mode can be unlocked to play with in the Playset mode, which is where I spent most of my time in my preview assembling my own Star Wars scene, bringing my childhood play to the augmented reality future.

Playset mode allows players to pick and choose models of characters, structures and vehicles to move and pose as they please.

Industrial Light and Magic

Star Wars: Beyond Victory is for reliving your childhood

Adventure mode plays through a story with cinematics and climactic races, while Arcade mode allows you to play quick podracing matches, including taking your story rivals’ speedsters for a spin. The aptly named Playset mode lets players make their own dioramas using the characters, scene elements and special effects from Adventure and Arcade.

I clicked on Playset mode from the game’s menu…and immediately felt like I’d popped open a toybox. I used my Meta Quest controllers to sort through an in-game menu and pluck out aliens, droids, vehicles and objects to populate my scene. While I couldn’t physically pick them up, using the grabber functionality on my controllers (which looked like a pair of robot claw arms) was very intuitive. I carefully hovered over specific parts of each character, tweaking limbs and joints to pose them just so.

Regrettably, I wasn’t allowed to take photos of my creation, which was less a film-accurate recreation and more a hodgepodge of oddball characters scattered around a metal causeway — exactly how it felt to upend my toy chest and cobble together a scene from whatever random action figures I had on hand. I sat bounty hunters and podracers around a table, lorded over by a giant slug-like Hutt walking on spider legs (Graccus, a crime boss from Adventure mode) and stood C-3PO up on the side wielding a lightsaber, because why not.

Arcade mode lets players use racers and pods from rivals they raced against in Adventure mode.

Industrial Light and Magic

While I couldn’t physically touch everything, there are several advantages to the digital nature of augmented reality. I could grab a character and make them bigger to more precisely move their limbs around and then shrink them back to the size I wanted (or leave them huge, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman-style). There were also digital effects to add, like explosions, smoke and laser bolts. It was while angling one of the Empire’s iconic TIE Fighter vehicles up above my diorama and placing green laser blasts as if they’d just been shot from the fighter that I felt a sort of technical glee from staging a scene — a frozen moment of tension and adventure that felt, well, Star Wars.

Playset mode and the “action figure”-esque technology behind it are inspired by a pre-visulization tool ILM built for filmmakers to stage their own scenes, albeit one far more technically complex that’s full of “menus within menus,” as Palumbo described it. The game’s developers made Beyond Victory’s version far more simplified for gamers, he continued, citing a mantra I heard repeated multiple times during my preview: “The main driving philosophical difference was toys, not tools.”

Palumbo has been working in virtual reality since the Oculus Rift’s second developer kit was released back in 2014 and emphasized how much playtesting went into developing Beyond Victory. He called out the game’s accessibility options like having both seated and standing modes to play as well as completely mirrored controls for players to be able to use either hand. It should be no surprise that ILM is filled with Star Wars fans who offered feedback on how things should feel in the game, with Whitney shouting out quality assurance manager Marissa Martinez-Hoadley’s specific corrections about how things like a lightsaber should feel and operate.

That attention to detail has been what’s made Star Wars toys the implements of magic for decades of kids (and kids at heart). Beyond Victory brings that joy to augmented reality with some novel perks using its visualization tech: during my preview upon the ILM developer’s suggestion, I took the lightsaber out of my toy-sized C-3PO’s hands and scaled it up fill my hand. With the press of a button, I ignited the lightsaber and waved it around, looking and sounding straight from the films — digital, perhaps, but real enough to thrill the kid inside me.

Star Wars: Beyond Victory will be released on Oct. 7 exclusively for the Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S.

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September 10, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Battle Suit Aces, The Latest From Battle Chef Studio Trinket, Launches Its Mecha Card Battle Action This October

by admin September 9, 2025

It’s almost time to shuffle up and get in the robot. Game Informer can exclusively reveal that Battle Suit Aces, the new mecha card-battling game from Trinket Studios, will arrive on October 7 for PlayStation 5, Switch, and PC.

Trinket Studios made a splash with 2017’s Battle Chef Brigade, which mixed side-scrolling action with a match-3 puzzle system to portray a fantasy cooking competition. Similarly, Battle Suit Aces also blends several genres and concepts; in a card-fighting RPG, you follow the USS Zephyr and its crew through a planet-hopping voyage across the stars to try and stop a looming, universe-endangering threat.

Card battles play out on a board, where you can deploy your team of mechs, pilots, and drones to combat the enemy, trying to strike through their lines and destroy their base before they do the same. Between missions, you’ll be able to recruit and get to know your crewmates, as well as upgrade their mech suits.

Trinket is planning numerous story missions driven by both the plot and your recruited cast of characters, as well as a story influenced by the factions you support and the relationships you build. Different Factions can also help you lean into your chosen playstyle, too, opting for specific methods of crushing your enemies with your small army of pilot pals and giant mecha.

No word on exact pricing just yet, but Trinket Studios has confirmed it will launch Battle Suit Aces on PlayStation 5, Switch, and PC via Steam.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Four Legendary John Woo Action Movies Release On 4K Blu-Ray This Fall

by admin September 9, 2025

When it comes to action, the golden age of Hong Kong cinema is hard to beat. During the ’80s and ’90s, some of the best movies in the genre were made here, and at long last, all three movies in the A Better Tomorrow saga are headed to 4K Blu-ray as a box set with tons of new special features. Restored by Shout Factory, A Better Tomorrow Trilogy is available to preorder for $100 ahead of its November 18 release. Shout Factory is also releasing a 4K Blu-ray edition of Hard Boiled on November 4. This Deluxe Edition looks promising as well, but it’s worth noting the price has jumped from $40 to $65 at Amazon and Walmart. It’s unlikely to launch at this price, and you won’t be charged for preorder until it ships.

$100 | Releases November 18

Directed by renowned filmmakers John Woo and Tsui Hark, all three A Better Tomorrow movies have been remastered in 4K from the original camera negatives. Each one is presented in Dolby Vision–and are HDR-10 compatible and viewers can choose between the original Cantonese language track or the English dub, in DTS-HD Master Audio mono and English DTS-HD Master Audio mono. If you choose to go with the original Cantonese audio, each film features newly translated English subtitles. You’ll also get an exclusive poster in this box set, based on the newly commissioned art.

Each film is accompanied by dozens of brand-new extras, which are mostly audio commentary tracks and interviews with established film critics, members of the cast and crew, and even notable directors like Gareth Evans (The Raid). The real jewel of this collection is the sought-after workprint of A Better Tomorrow 2, which was thought to be lost for years. This version of Woo’s sequel was originally re-edited producer Tsui Hark, and it features an extra 30 minutes of footage. While Woo considers it to be the black sheep of the trilogy–the third film was in turn directed by Hark–he has still spoken fondly about its climatic gunfight as some of his best work in cinema.

You’ll also find the Taiwanese cut of A Better Tomorrow 3 here, which adds around 10 extra minutes of content, resulting in several extended scenes. The seven-disc collection includes 4K UHD and 1080p Blu-ray editions of each film.

You can check out the full list of features on each disc below.

Disc 1: A Better Tomorrow (4K)

Audio commentary with James Mudge, Hong Kong film critic at EasternKicks (New)

Disc 2: A Better Tomorrow (Blu-ray)

Optional English subtitles newly translated for this release (New)
Audio commentary with James Mudge, Hong Kong film critic at EasternKicks (New)
Better Than the Best – an interview with director John Woo (New)
Between Friends – an interview with producer Terence Chang (New)
When Tomorrow Comes – an interview with screenwriter Chan Hing-ka (New)
Thoughts on the Future – an interview with filmmaker Gordon Chan (New)
Better and Bombastic – an interview with filmmaker Gareth Evans (New)
Trailers
Image gallery

Disc 3: A Better Tomorrow 2 (4K)

Optional English subtitles newly translated for this release (New)
Audio commentary with James Mudge, Hong Kong film critic at EasternKicks (New)

Disc 4: A Better Tomorrow 2 (Blu-ray)

Optional English subtitles newly translated for this release (New)
Audio commentary with James Mudge, Hong Kong film critic at EasternKicks (New)
A Tumultuous Tomorrow – an interview with director John Woo (New)
Better Than Ever – an interview with film historian Frank Djeng (New)
Trailers
Image gallery

Disc 5: A Better Tomorrow 3 (4K)

Optional English subtitles newly translated for this release (New)
Audio commentary with critic and author David West (New)

Disc 6: A Better Tomorrow 3 (Blu-ray)

Optional English subtitles newly translated for this release (New)
Audio commentary with critic and author David West (New)
Third Time Lucky – an interview with screenwriters Yiu-Ming Leung and Foo Ho Tai (New)
All Our Tomorrows – an interview with Hong Kong filmmaker and academic Gilbert Po (New)
Nam Flashbacks – an interview with Vietnam War researcher Dr. Aurélie Basha i Novosejt (New)
Theatrical trailer
Image gallery

Disc 7 A Better Tomorrow 2 and 3 (Blu-ray)

Long-lost A Better Tomorrow 2 workprint featuring over 30 minutes of never-before-seen footage
A Better Tomorrow 3 – Taiwanese cut

A Better Tomorrow starred Chow Yun-fat as conflicted police officer Mark Lee, trapped between duty and honor when senior Triad gangster Sung Tse-Ho–who Lee has close ties to–asks him to help avenge the murder of a family member. Released in 1986, the film was a big critical hit and it set the stage for director John Woo and Chow Yun-fat’s eventual journey to Hollywood.

In 1987, A Better Tomorrow 2 was released, and it featured a wild plot twist to justify its existence–for reasons we won’t spoil here in case you never saw the first movie. Like its predecessor, the film featured over-the-top action, explosions, and a ludicrous bodycount once characters finally ran out of bullets.

A Better Tomorrow 3: Love and Death in Saigon brought the series to a close in 1989 and it’s a prequel to the first movie. Set during the final days of the Vietnam War, the story isn’t the best, but it does boast incredible action sequences throughout. Interestingly, Woo’s original vision for the film was different and led to him exiting the director’s chair after he and Hark experienced creative differences. Woo’s script would eventually evolve into 1990’s Bullet in the Head.

As mentioned, the other big new release in the Hong Kong Cinema Classics collection is Hard Boiled. Released in 1992, Hard Boiled is one of the best action movies of all time–and the best collaboration between John Woo and Chow Yun-fat. Over-the-top and incredibly fun, Hard Boiled as a straightforward plot centered around a cop seeking revenge against a gang of criminals. Mayhem ensues, the action is extreme, and Chow Yun-fat is effortlessly cool in every scene, including that iconic shootout in a hospital.

$65 | Releases November 4

Shout Factory’s Deluxe Edition resurrects the cult-classic with a brand-new 4K scan from the original camera negatives, adding in Dolby Vision and HDR 10 support along with the Cantonese and English dub in DTS-HD Master Audio Mono. Like the A Better Tomorrow trilogy, there are also new English subtitles in this release as well and the box set includes an exclusive 52-page collectible booklet.

The three-disc set also includes a standard Blu-ray copy of the film and it contains plenty of bonus materials, like several newly filmed interviews with Woo and other key members of the crew. Topping it all off is a collection of new audio commentary tracks with film critics and historians–as well as the audio commentary from John Woo and several more people that the Criterion Collection recorded–deleted scenes, trailers, and an image gallery.

We included a list of features on each disc below.

Disc 1 (4K)

Optional English subtitles newly translated for this release (new)
Audio commentary with director John Woo and film journalist Drew Tayler (new)
Audio commentary with film historian Frank Djeng (new)
Audio commentary with director John Woo, producer Terence Chang, filmmaker Roger Avary, and critic Dave Kehr (recorded by the Criterion Collection)

Disc 2 (Blu-ray)

Audio commentary with director John Woo and film journalist Drew Tayler (new)
Audio commentary with film historian Frank Djeng (new)
Audio commentary with director John Woo, producer Terence Chang, filmmaker Roger Avary, and critic Dave Kehr (recorded by the Criterion Collection)

Disc 3 (Bonus Blu-ray)

Violent Night – an interview with director John Woo (new)
Boiling Over – an interview with actor Anthony Wong (new)
No Time for Failure – an interview with producer Terence Chang (new)
Hard to Resist – an interview with screenwriter Gordon Chan (new)
Boiled to Perfection – an interview with screenwriter Chung Hang Ku (new)
Body Count Blues – an interview with composer Michael Gibbs (new)
Hong Kong Confidential – inside Hard Boiled with author Grady Hendrix (new)
Gun-Fu Fever – an interview with author Leon Hunt (new)
Chewing the Fat – an interview with academic Lin Feng (new)
Deleted and extended scenes
Trailers
Image gallery

While you’ll have to wait a few months for these Blu-rays, you can grab some classic action movies starring Jet Li. The Jet Li Collection was released in July, and it offers five of his best movies–Fist of Legend, Tai Chi Master, The Legend 1 + 2, and The Bodyguard from Beijing–in 4K and 1080p. Each movie also comes with a selection of bonus features, and the price has dropped to $107 (was $130). In August, Ringo Lam’s acclaimed 1987 action movie City on Fire joined Shout Factory’s collection on 4K Blu-ray, and you can snag a copy for $29 (was $40).

Looking ahead, Shout Factory will be releasing a lot more movies over the next couple of years, as the film distributor recently secured the worldwide rights to the Golden Princess film library, a collection of 156 movies in total. Here’s a list of a few other movies and box sets in the Hong Kong Cinema Classics collection that you can buy or preorder now:

Hong Kong Cinema Classics

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September 9, 2025 0 comments