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You Can Now Sign Up for Ad-Free Peacock Through Prime Video

by admin August 29, 2025

Fans of NBC series, Universal Pictures movies and steamy summer dating shows have a new way to access the streaming service that specializes in all of them.

Peacock Premium Plus, NBCUniversal’s ad-free streaming tier, is now available as a Prime Video add-on subscription as part of a broader set of agreements between Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon, the online shopping giant revealed Thursday.

Peacock Premium Plus costs $17 per month or $170 per year, the standard price after last month’s hike. Prime members who pay for the add-on can watch content from Peacock directly through the Prime Video app.

Before the announcement, Prime members could choose from Prime Video add-on subscriptions to prominent streamers like Apple TV Plus, Paramount Plus and HBO Max (according to Amazon, there are more than 100 subscription options in the US). With the Amazon-Comcast NBCUniversal agreements, the Peacock app will continue to be available on Fire TV devices, while Xfinity X1 and Xumo customers will still have access to Prime Video. Customers can also continue to rent and buy Universal Pictures Home Entertainment films through Prime Video.

Peacock Premium Plus has a higher price tag than ad-based Peacock Premium, but it’s the only way to get downloads and your live local NBC station. For more on the streaming service, read our review.

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August 29, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Space Marine 2’s new Techmarine class, Helbrute mode and other update plans detailed in Year 2 video

by admin August 29, 2025

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only more bloody downloadable content for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Developers Saber Interactive are supposed to be working on Space Marine 3, but you wouldn’t know that from all the Stuff they’ve jammed into the previous game’s year 2 content schedule. There’s a major Anniversary patch due on 4th September, just in time for Silksong. Five more patches are coming over 2025 and 2026, plus nine DLC packs via season pass. The manufactorums are overflowing! Here’s a video to lay it all out.

Watch on YouTube

The standout upcoming option is probably the new playable Techmarine class, who don’t get any screentime here. What is a Techmarine? A Space Marine with a lot of spanners where parts of their anatomy should be. They’re good at fixing stuff, though one suspects that, like most Sparse Maureens in Spice Margerine 2, they’ll spend the bulk of their time murdering things.

Techmarines aside, the free updates will add new enemies, bosses, weapons, progression mechanics, PvE stratagems, Eternal War arenas, and operations. Also, the chance to play a Chaos Helbrute, which looks like a berserking tractor with a comically small humanoid head. It’s like Bruce Banner got 90% of the way through Hulking out and ran out of rage. Still, let’s see if you’re still laughing when it stands on your toes in the forthcoming Helbrute Onslaught PvP mode.

Image credit: Focus Entertainment

As for those paid DLCs, there will be the usual shower of cosmetics. The new battle pass kicks off with the Black Templars Champion Pack, which includes a Champion skin for the Bulkwark class and a Power Sword skin. Then there’s the Imperial Fists Cosmetic Pack, which comprises 40 new cosmetics. Future packs will include cosmetics for the Raptors, Iron Hands and Carcharodons. I’m pretty sure they made some of those Space Marine chapters up. Iron Hands, lol, as if.

The only thing missing from Space Marine 2’s roadmap, to my mind, is a mutual crossover with the Helldivers 2 universe – a prospect once dangled by Arrowhead’s CEO, many moons ago. Let us make the commodified fascists fight! Let us see whose space-bigotry is burlier! Arrowhead have already partnered with the goose-stepping Helghast from Killzone. Add Warhammer 40,000’s Space Marines to the mix and you’re basically playing an unofficial PlanetSide 3. Seriously, there’s like, at least six battle passes worth of content here.

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August 29, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Bella Ramsey Tells ‘The Last of Us’ Haters to Go Play Their Video Games

by admin August 28, 2025

The online discourse surrounding The Last of Us season two was entrenched in unwarranted outrage, sparked by outrage over the show’s centering a gay love story and killing off the franchise’s leading man. The trolling, which resulted in the show getting review bombed, of course, is weird considering that both these major plot aspects are also present in Neil Druckmann’s series of Naughty Dog games.

Recently Bella Ramsey, the show’s Emmy Award-nominated lead (alongside Pedro Pascal), discussed with The Awardist podcast their reaction to the reactive rage-baiters who took issue with Ellie’s lesbian relationship.

“Because there’s nothing I can do about it anyway. The show is out. There’s nothing that can be changed or altered. So I’m like, there’s not really any point in reading or looking at anything,” Ramsey shared. “People are, of course, entitled to their opinions. But it doesn’t affect the show; it doesn’t affect how the show continues or anything in any way. They’re very separate things to me. So no, I just don’t really engage.”

Ramsey addressed how that vocal minority of vile-spewing can sincerely excuse themselves from engaging with season three, which will see showrunner Craig Mazin, helming solo after Druckmann stepped back, follow the show’s antagonist Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who killed Joel (Pascal). The story twist has been around since it debuted in the game, but it still continues to divide The Last of Us fandom and shock casual show viewers during season two.

The shift in leading characters will delve into Abby’s world to inform her worldview. How Ellie comes into play is under wraps but Ramsey affirmed that they hope haters steer clear if they won’t approach the story with an open mind: “You don’t have to watch it. If you hate it that much, the game exists. You can just play the game again. If you do want to watch it, hope you enjoy it.”

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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August 28, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Kumaijl Nanjiani’s Marvel Contract Had Clause For Video Game That’s Probably Not Coming Out

by admin August 26, 2025

In 2021, Marvel Studios attempted to expand the reach of the MCU with an adaptation of Eternals, a lesser-known group of immortal heroes. Kumail Nanjiani was cast as Kingo alongside Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek, Barry Keoghan, and more. Eternals didn’t earn enough to merit a sequel, and Nanjiani has revealed that he had a deal for a video game and a theme park attraction that never came to pass.

“I signed on for six movies, you know,” said Nanjiani during his appearance on Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out podcast. “I signed on for a video game. I signed on for a theme park ride. They make you sign up for all this stuff … And so you’re like, ‘Oh, this is the next 10 years of my life, so I’ll be doing Marvel movies every year, and then in-between I’ll do like my own little things, whatever I want to do.’ And then none of that happened.”

That deal appears to have been predicated on Eternals being a hit like Guardians of the Galaxy before it, which did get licensed out for video games and theme park rides. Marvel hasn’t had a lot of video games based directly on the MCU movies in the last two decades, but the studio apparently kept the possibility open for Eternals.

Nanjiani previously disclosed that he went to therapy after Eternals was greeted with bad reviews, but he told Birbiglia that the experience taught him that too much of his self esteem was tied up to other people’s reactions to his work.

Eternals had $402.1 million worldwide, which is a threshold that Marvel Studios has had trouble reaching this year. Regardless, the only Marvel movie to pick up on some of the threads introduced in Eternals was Captain America: Brave New World.

Nanjiani also noted that he’s proud of Eternals, and his experience with it has given him material for his latest standup comedy set.

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August 26, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Today in video games – 26th August: the Gamescom mop-up continues as the industry takes a breath

by admin August 26, 2025

It’s 26th August, the day after a bank holiday in the UK – I hope you had a nice one – and we’re back with another daily live report. We’ll be catching all of today’s news and events here while chatting merrily along with you, providing thrilling coverage about the world of video games. That’s right – thrilling!

Note, Tom’s on holiday this week so I’ve muscled in, which is why you’re already seeing excited words like “thrilling” in the report. Expect a lot of Gamescom mop-up this week as our roving reporters return and share more about the games they’ve seen, and as the games industry takes a breath before September appears and the cascade of autumn releases begins.

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August 26, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

‘Blade Runner 2099’ Gets Official 2026 Window by Prime Video

by admin August 24, 2025

Good news: we now know Blade Runner 2099 still exists, and it’s on track to hit Prime Video sometime in 2026!

The target window was revealed in an internal memo from the streamer’s TV development head Laura Lancaster. Per Deadline, the memo was to announce a pair of company promotions, and in it, Lancaster remarked new co-production head Kara Smith was “pivotal” in several upcoming shows, including 2099 and the upcoming Spider-Man: Noir, which is also due in 2026. 2099 is currently in post-production, and this update comes a few weeks after executive producer David Zucker told ScreenRant he thought the series would arrive “when Amazon wants that show to air.”

Blade Runner 2099 was announced back in 2022, and marks the franchise’s latest foray into television after Adult Swim’s CG anime Black Lotus. The most we know about the show is its cast: Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer are our two leads Olwen and Cora, and they’re further joined by Tom Burke, Dimitri Abold, and Katelyn Rose Downey. This past March, Burke indicated 2099’s aesthetic would lean more toward the 1982 film over 2017’s Blade Runner 2049, while continuing the threads explored in those two films.

Prime Video’s been careful about keeping 2099 close to the chest, in part because the show’s production was delayed in 2023 during the Hollywood strikes. But we’re not that far out from 2026, and depending on when in the year the show is expected to drop, we may finally get a look at Blade Runner 2099 in the near future.

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August 24, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

21st August video games round-up: Silksong finally gets a release date and we agree that games consoles are both expensive and not expensive

by admin August 24, 2025

Huge Path of Exile 2 changes coming

Image credit: Grinding Gear Games

I’m not sure if this is bad news or not, but Path of Exile 2 definitely won’t make a full, 1.0 release this year. There was, if you remember, a chance it might. But those plans have been upended by a need to reblanace and sort out some existing areas of the game. In other words, the playerbase isn’t currently thrilled with the game, so developer Grinding Gear Games is addressing that.

The other major hold-up is story content. The Early Access release came with three of six story acts, and the fourth is only just being added to the game, in a huge Third Edict update due 29th August, which will coincide with a free weekend to play the game, by the way. The game can’t launch until the fifth act has been added and tested, so my guess – given the game’s quarterly release schedule – is that we might not see a 1.0 release until June 2026. There, that’s my guesstimate in writing.

I’m OK with that, though. There’s no rush. And watching a video rundown of everything coming in the Third Edict update – and everything changing in it – reminds me how exciting Path of Exile 2 can be. Check out my fuller report compiled after a press briefing, below.

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August 24, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Blade Runner 2099 will reportedly be released next year on Prime Video

by admin August 23, 2025

Amazon’s Blade Runner limited series finally has a release window. Deadline reports that the upcoming sequel show, Blade Runner 2099, is slated for a 2026 release on Prime Video. The story at this point remains a mystery, though the title suggests it’ll take place 50 years after the events of Blade Runner 2049. Ridley Scott is said to be involved in the production.

It was revealed last year that Michelle Yeoh will star in the series, and according to Deadline, she’ll be joined by Hunter Schafer, Dimitri Abold, Lewis Gribben, Katelyn Rose Downey and Daniel Rigby. We first heard about the possibility of Blade Runner 2099 back in 2022, when it was reported that Amazon Studios was developing a live-action series set in that universe, but there have been few updates since. The release window was noted in an internal memo obtained by Deadline, which reports that the series is now in post-production.

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August 23, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Two Point Museum getting spoof video game exhibits in free Digiverse update next week

by admin August 23, 2025

Two Point Museum is set to receive a free update next week adding digital exhibits.

Two Point’s latest management game has players discovering a variety of exhibits to add to their museums, from prehistory to marine life and science.

From 28th August, players will be able to take on expeditions in The Digiverse to add exhibits based on Meat Wizard, Two Point County’s in-game video game spoof. The studio has even hinted at a dark secret in the games.

Two Point Museum: Digiverse Trailer | Free Update Coming August 28th!Watch on YouTube

Here’s what you’ll find, according to a Two Point blog post:

Explore a nostalgic trip into the County’s video game history
Adventure in Meat Wizard 1 & 2, and perhaps discover the franchise’s darkest secret…
Discover seven new Exhibits across four new Points of Interest
Build two new Interactive Displays: Meat Wizard Arcade Machines
Find and unlock Power Ups, a new boon-giving project for the workshop

The new expedition map will become available once players complete City Act 2 (Memento Mile).

The Digiverse will arrive as part of update 5.0, bringing further quality of life changes, bug fixes, and other optimisations.

Two Point Museum released earlier this year and has already received a number of updates. “Come for the clowns and cavemen, stay for the zombie capitalism,” reads our review.

This is a news-in-brief story. This is part of our vision to bring you all the big news as part of a daily live report.

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August 23, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Video Games Weekly: Silksong and Gamescom

by admin August 21, 2025

Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday (or Wednesday, whatever), broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who’s covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget.

Please enjoy — and I’ll see you next week.

On a planet shrouded in myth, in a land surrounded by lore, on a mountain draped in mystery, in a cave suffocated by secrets, the legend sleeps. For six years, the legend has slumbered while wild stories spiral around it, twisting and expanding and entwining. New words have been born and old words infused with evolved meanings: Believer. Doubter. Silkpost. The lies have grown so thick they’ve become corporeal, spreading trickery with a name and a dead smile.

For six years, the legend has slept while the masses roiled, all of them waiting for the signal to awaken and know truth. All of them waiting for a bell that will ring, finally and clearly, on Thursday, August 21, 2025.

Skong. Skong. Skong.

It’s a special time in the Silksong subreddit. After years of silence around its sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Team Cherry has scheduled a livestream with a “special announcement” about the game for August 21 at 10:30AM ET. Not only is this exciting for Metroidvania fans everywhere, but it’s also possible that this announcement marks the final moments of the Silksong subreddit as we know it. A strange cocktail of game delays, inconsistent updates and hyper-focused cult fandom has cultivated a fascinating little universe in r/Silksong, complete with its own rules, villains and heroes. It’s a place where clown wigs are commonplace and contributors have turned trolling into a role-playing artform. A LARPform, if you will. It’s a place that’s consistently made me laugh every time it’s appeared in my feed over the past year or so.

Ahead of Thursday’s special announcement, this sub is experiencing the last gasps of desperate myth-making and hopeless anticipation before it transforms into something else entirely, armed with actual information about the sequel, gameplay videos and maybe even a firm release date. Or, dare I say it, a surprise launch. For just a moment longer in r/Silksong, anything is possible.

And then it’ll be over. No matter what happens during Thursday’s livestream, the day will come when Silksong comes out and the drip-feed of silkposts dries up completely. But for now, our face paint is ready. Sometimes it’s just nice to recognize the madness and the beauty of the moment, before it slips away for good.

The news

News from ONL 2025

Gamescom 2025 kicked off on Tuesday with Opening Night Live, a showcase hosted by Geoff Keighley and the folks behind The Game Awards, and there were plenty of delightful morsels on display. Engadget UK Bureau Chief Mat Smith is on the ground at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, to play upcoming titles and talk to developers, but for now, here are our headlines straight out of ONL 2025:

And our headlines from Gamescom 2025 so far:

Gamescom 2025 runs through August 24.

ROG Xbox Ally lands in October

Microsoft is slowly establishing its handheld era with news that the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X will be available on October 16. There’s still no official word on how much they’ll cost, but there are hints: As spotted by Wario64, Best Buy recently listed the Xbox Ally at $550 and the Xbox Ally X at $900, and these fall in line with our predictions, which were based on the prices of existing ROG Ally handhelds. Alongside the release date, Microsoft announced the Handheld Compatibility Program, an initiative aimed at optimizing games for portable devices and informing players about how well they perform. It’s essentially Steam Deck Verified, but for Xbox handhelds, and it’s yet another sign that Microsoft’s portable gaming ambitions stretch beyond just one hardware manufacturer.

The PS5 will cost more tomorrow than it does today

First Nintendo and Microsoft raised the prices of their latest consoles, and now it’s Sony’s turn. Sony on Wednesday announced the following price increases for the PS5 family:

Standard PS5 with a disc drive: $550, up from $500
PS5 digital edition: $500, up from $450
PS5 Pro: $750, up from $700

Sony blames the increases on a “challenging economic environment,” echoing sentiments from its contemporaries. The price hikes come at a time in the hardware generation when we’re used to seeing consoles get cheaper, which just makes this whole thing more frustrating.

Rod Fergusson is in charge of BioShock again and already making big changes

There have been signs of turmoil at BioShock 4 studio Cloud Chamber for a while now, including news earlier this month that the game failed a review with 2K executives and was due for a complete narrative revamp. Now, we’re seeing even more fallout. Former Gears of War and Diablo head Rod Fergusson has left Blizzard to lead development of BioShock 4 at Cloud Chamber, and his appointment comes alongside news that 80 people at the studio are being laid off. This is actually the second time Fergusson has joined the development of a BioShock game at the last second — he similarly swooped in and cut aspects of BioShock: Infinite at Irrational Games in 2012.

The race through development hell between Judas and BioShock 4 continues.

Blizzard’s cinematic and narrative team is unionizing

Microsoft is the home of another video game union. Workers with Blizzard Entertainment’s Story and Franchise Development team, which handles in-game cinematics and lore for titles including Overwatch and World of Warcraft, voted this week to unionize under the Communications Workers of America. This covers about 169 developers and it marks the fourth unionization effort from Microsoft’s gaming teams, joining QA workers at Activision, ZeniMax and Raven Software.

Steam censorship is breaking PayPal

PayPal isn’t a valid way to buy games on Steam in certain countries any longer. Steam in July removed hundreds of games with adult and NSFW themes from its storefront, and updated its policies to ban “content that may violate the rules and standards” of its payment processors. This was incredibly vague and raised immediate concerns around financial censorship, especially when combined with a related culling of thousands of games from Itch.io. Now, it’s confirmed that PayPal has terminated its partnership with Steam in multiple countries, affecting any denomination “other than EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD and USD.”

Valve says it’s being pressured by payment processors including Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to remove certain games and implement puritanical censorship policies, and this has already resulted in at least one game being unjustly removed from the platform. That game, VILE: Exhumed, is now available as shareware.

Roblox is changing its rules after so, so many child-safety lawsuits

Roblox is locking down its system for sharing and viewing user-generated games following a wave of lawsuits accusing developers of failing to protect their young userbase. All unrated experiences, or user-created games, will be restricted to the developer and anyone actively working on them, rather than being available to anyone over the age of 13, as is currently the case. This change and others, including a new system that automatically detects and tracks “violative scenes” on individual servers, will roll out over the coming months.

Analogue delayed its N64 remake again

It’s now due out in Q4 2025. 🙁

Additional reading

Kris Holt’s indie game roundup
More action than RPG, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 struggles to convince after a few hours’ play by Robert Purchese at Eurogamer

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August 21, 2025 0 comments