Tag:

years

Bloodstained is back after 6 years with 3D cutscenes that look like they're from a different era of videogames
Product Reviews

Bloodstained is back after 6 years with 3D cutscenes that look like they’re from a different era of videogames

by admin



Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement Announce Trailer – YouTube

Watch On

I almost didn’t recognize Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement as a Bloodstained game, partly because it’s been six whole years since the last one and partly because the aesthetic is all over the place. The past six years have also been full of Castlevania-likes that feature a lot of the same gothic imagery and it feels like every five minutes a new soulslike with evil knights and dragons shows up. But when the title finally appeared, it was clear that the OG, Koji Igarashi, was back with a new game.

I’m not entirely convinced on the look yet, however. The original Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night mixed visual styles too: there are 2D treasure chests plopped into 3D hallways as if they’ve been painted onto the scene. Damage numbers and items are the same way, but all the monsters and NPCs are rendered in full 3D. It’s a weird style that doesn’t really commit to a fully retro look or a fully modern look and instead sits uncomfortably somewhere in between.

The new game is going for a similar style, but leans even harder into having fully 3D models, except now they all have cel-shading—even the treasure chests. It looks slightly more cohesive until the moment a cutscene plays and it feels like you’ve been transported to 2010. Outside of the 2.5D levels, the character models are weirdly soft and lack details in a way that would fit right in with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It’s not even ugly, it’s just jarring compared to the rest of the game.


Related articles

It certainly sticks out though, which I guess is expected for a game that is a prequel to the Bloodstained we got in 2019. I kind of admire not going for a full-on reboot and sticking to the style that was already established. I just think games like Blasphemous and even Hollow Knight feel more coherent and tied to the Castlevania lineage.

Maybe none of that will matter while you’re busy playing with The Scarlet Engagement’s dual protagonists. You won’t pick one of the two characters at the beginning of the game or anything; you play as both of them at the same time. According to the PlayStation Blog, you will have direct control over either Leonard or Alexander and the other one will hop in to assist. The idea of having even more options for combat by figuring out how to combo attacks with both of them admittedly sounds pretty fun. If it is, I’ll forgive it for whatever is going on with those cutscenes.

The Steam page is already up, but we won’t be able to see how it all comes together until 2026.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Cillian Murphy's Role in the '28 Years Later' Trilogy Is Coming Later Than We Hoped
Product Reviews

Cillian Murphy’s Role in the ’28 Years Later’ Trilogy Is Coming Later Than We Hoped

by admin


Cillian Murphy is set to make his eventual return to the world of 28 Days Later within the upcoming trilogy that 28 Years Later will kick off this summer, but there are a few catches.

Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) revealed vague details about the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer actor’s involvement to IGN. The upcoming trilogy expands on the world Boyle and Alex Garland (Civil War) started with 28 Days Later and its star Cillian Murphy, with a new set of interconnected stories. However, Murphy will not appear in the first film as it introduces a new central character: Spike, a 12-year-old boy portrayed by Alfie Williams whose family (led by Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson) finds itself in the thick of the post-apocalyptic zombie outbreak.

“Although each story completes itself, there’s a handover section to the next film as well. So it’s very ambitious. We haven’t got the money for the third one yet. It will depend how the first one does, I guess,” Boyle shared and explained that Murphy’s return is contingent on how the first two movies do.

“But hopefully if we do ok, they’ll give us the go-ahead for the money and for the third one. Everybody’s standing by for that, really. Including Cillian,” the director confirmed regarding Murphy’s participation.

Currently it’s planned that he will make an appearance at the end of the Nia DaCosta (Candyman)-directed follow-up 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which picks up on the immediate continuation of events from Boyle’s upcoming reboot sequel and is slated to open in theaters next January.

“He is in the second one,” Boyle revealed, “I shouldn’t give away too much. I’ll get killed.” But we can guess that his appearance will only tease the potential of the third film, which Sony has yet to confirm.

Boyle continued, “You know that thing about sequels, you want to push it on and take huge risks.”

“I have to say fair play to [studio Sony Pictures]. They did allow us to take great liberties with [28 Years Later]. They could have said, ‘Oh no, it needs to be more sequel-y. You need to rely on some of the ideas that are in the original. And what do you mean Cillian’s not going to appear in the first one? I thought you said Cillian was going to be in it.’ We said, ‘Yeah, Cillian is going to be in it, but not quite the first one.’ So fair play to them. They’ve put up with a lot.”

28 Years Later opens June 20.

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.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Zynga shuts down Torchlight 3 developer four years after its acquisition
Game Reviews

Zynga shuts down Torchlight 3 developer four years after its acquisition

by admin


Echtra Games, the San Francisco-based studio behind Torchlight 3, will be shut down by its owner Zynga by the end of June.

The studio, acquired by Zynga in 2021, had been working alongside NaturalMotion on another RPG, one we’ll never see. While no specific employee count is listed on the official website, the company’s LinkedIn page lists it as having 61 employees as of writing.

IGN received an official statement confirming the news, which states, “Zynga has made the difficult decision to cease operations at its Echtra studio, ending development on future titles and reducing roles. This decision is part of a strategic realignment of the company’s resources and priorities. We will work closely with impacted employees so they are treated with the utmost respect and consideration as we navigate this difficult process.”

Echtra Games was founded in 2016 by Max Schaefer, but had a history that stretched long before that. While Echtra would make Torchlight 3 it was Runic Games, another studio founded in part by Max alongside his brother Erich, that created Torchlight and Torchlight 2.

Even earlier than that, both Schaefer brothers would team up with David Brevik to found Condor in 1993. Three years later, this team would become Blizzard North, and release the original Diablo in 1997. The team would then go on to release the excellent Diablo 2 in 2000.

Many from this team, including both brothers and Brevik among others from Blizzard North, would then go on to found Flagship Studios, releasing the rad action-RPG Hellgate London in 2007. So there’s a lot of history behind Echtra Games, a real legacy, tragically cut short today.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
AI's Power Consumption Will Dwarf Bitcoin by Year's End, Says Study
NFT Gaming

AI’s Power Consumption Will Dwarf Bitcoin by Year’s End, Says Study

by admin



In brief

  • A recently published paper reveals that AI energy consumption is projected to top that of Bitcoin mining by the start of 2026.
  • Unlike Bitcoin’s transparent energy usage, tech giants like Google and Microsoft deliberately obscure AI-specific power consumption data while reporting increased emissions driven primarily by AI operations.
  • The research asserts that Nvidia consumed 44-48% of the world’s advanced chip packaging capacity in recent years, with production set to double in 2025.

Remember when Elon Musk made Bitcoin crash by tweeting that Tesla would stop accepting it due to environmental concerns, and everyone was worried about the environmental impact of proof-of-work mining? That was in 2021, and degens haven’t forgotten.

Yet today, Musk’s xAI is building what might be the world’s largest AI supercluster, with governments rushing to create laws to boost AI innovation—while hardly anyone is questioning the energy consumption.

A new peer-reviewed research paper published in the scientific magazine Joule revealed that artificial intelligence could account for up to 49% of global data center electricity usage by the end of 2025—surpassing even Bitcoin’s notorious energy appetite.

Alex de Vries-Gao, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and longtime Bitcoin energy consumption critic, found AI’s power demand could hit 23 gigawatts by January 1, equivalent to about 201 terawatt-hours annually. Bitcoin currently consumes around 176 TWh per year.

Image: Joule

“Big tech companies are well aware of this trend, as companies such as Google even mention having faced a ‘power capacity crisis’ in their efforts to expand data center capacity,” de Vries-Gao wrote on LinkedIn. “At the same time, these companies prefer not to talk about the numbers involved.”

“Since ChatGPT kicked off the AI hype, we’ve never seen anything like this again,” he added. “As a result, it remains virtually impossible to gain a good insight into the actual energy consumption of AI.”

Unlike Bitcoin’s transparent energy consumption, which anyone can calculate from the network hash rate, AI’s power hunger is deliberately opaque. Companies such as Microsoft and Google reported increasing electricity consumption and carbon emissions in their 2024 environmental reports, citing AI as the main driver of this growth. However, these companies only provide metrics for their data centers in total, without specifically breaking out AI consumption.

Since the tech giants refused to disclose AI-specific energy data, de Vries-Gao followed the chips. He tracked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s chip packaging capacity, since virtually every advanced AI chip requires its technology.

The math, de Vries-Gao explained, works like a business card analogy. If you know how many cards fit on a sheet and how many sheets the printer can handle, then you can calculate total production. De Vries-Gao applied this logic to semiconductors, analyzing earnings calls where TSMC executives admitted to “very tight capacity” and being unable to “fulfill 100% of what customers needed.”

His findings: Nvidia alone used an estimated 44% and 48% of TSMC’s CoWoS capacity in 2023 and 2024, respectively. With AMD taking another slice, these two companies could produce enough AI chips to consume 3.8 GW of power before even considering other manufacturers.

Image: Joule

De Vries-Gao’s projection showed AI hitting 23 GW by end of 2025, assuming no additional production growth. TSMC has already confirmed plans to double its CoWoS capacity again in 2025.

Power demand is unlikely to slow down. Nvidia and AMD announced record revenue, while OpenAI announced Stargate, a $500 billion data center venture. Indeed, AI is the most profitable business in the tech industry, with any of the top three tech companies in the world surpassing the total market capitalization of the entire $3.4 trillion crypto ecosystem.

So the environment will probably have to wait.

Generally Intelligent Newsletter

A weekly AI journey narrated by Gen, a generative AI model.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Screenshots of Final Fantasy characters on TikTok screen
Esports

89-year-old Skyrim Grandma switches to another RPG after 9 years

by admin



Viral YouTuber and grandmother Shirley Curry, better known as ‘Skyrim Grandma’ is finally playing another Bethesda RPG after nine years.

Curry has grown her channel to an impressive 1.3M subscribers in her years on the platform following her adventures playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

While Curry has tried a few other games here and there, such as ‘Call of Cthulhu,’ she has continued to go back to Skyrim even after announcing her gaming retirement in 2024.

Article continues after ad

With The Elder Scrolls VI still nowhere in sight, Skyrim Grandma has ventured to a different game and she’s already found some issues with it.

Skyrim Grandma has big issues with Oblivion Remastered

On May 31, Skyrim Grandma uploaded her first video playing Oblivion Remastered and voiced some criticisms with the RPG.

“What I’m having a fit with is that I don’t know how to show my character and turn the camera in front of me and show me to you,” she told viewers. “I’ve punched every key and nothing happens that way.”

Article continues after ad

Article continues after ad

(segment begins at 8:15)

“Ugly movement, just absolutely ugly movement,” she slammed the game’s controls, adding that she wished studios would keep the same button layout they had in previous releases.

Despite some concerns, Shirley did take time to praise the game’s graphics and was eager to explore the open world.

Jumping into a different game like Oblivion is certainly a big shift for the 89-year-old, but her viewers have been jumping into the comments to help her by suggesting a few setting changes and gameplay tips.

Article continues after ad

Plus, some fans have just been anxiously waiting for her to try out Oblivion. “I have been wating for this more than the release of the remaster itself!” one viewer commented.

Hopefully, Shirley can adapt to the changes in controls and the game can tide her over until Elder Scrolls 6 – something she had previously urged Bethesda to release “before she dies.”



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Five years later, I've just found a button in Animal Crossing that changes everything
Game Updates

Five years later, I’ve just found a button in Animal Crossing that changes everything

by admin


Reason not the need, but one of the first things I did when I was properly falling in love with Animal Crossing: New Horizons involved building my own version of the Very Large Array on a far corner of my island. The VLA is a telescope array in New Mexico. I’ve been fond of it for a long time and for a number of reasons. It’s in Contact, and Contact is a good film! And my uncle lives in New Mexico, so I have a sort of familial association. Not that he gives a fig about radio telescopes.

Anyway, one day I was paging through one of the catalogues in Animal Crossing and I realised I could buy a radar dish of some kind. I ended up buying a bunch of them and I set them up at a suitably distant point. Some nights, even now, when I am feeling more than typically emo I wander over to stand by them and imagine what they’re studying deep in the vast expanse of the Animal Crossing universe.

Sometimes, because I am a massive loser, I take a few screenshots. Sometimes, I even pull out the in-game camera and snap away on that. Last night, though, I did something I’ve never done before. I pressed the selfie button – it may not be called that. Instead of pressing + to take a picture, I pressed – and discovered I could now appear in the picture. And I have to tell you – it’s changed a surprising amount for me.

Here’s a trailer for Animal Crossing on Switch.Watch on YouTube

Context: I was worried that when I completed the art gallery I was going to play the game less and less. This game has been a companion to me for almost as long as I’ve had a Switch, or so it feels. And there has definitely been a tailing off of use. Without the art gallery to complete – I care not for the other galleries in the museum – I haven’t had a ritual to pin a daily island trip on. Besides a coffee with Brewster, that is, and it turns out that a coffee with Brewster is something I can handle on a weekly basis.

But now I’ve used the selfie camera, I’m back in again. I’m in deep. I think I must have used this camera before, because I seem to have a few snaps with me in them, which is very much the selfie camera’s whole deal. But last night I wasn’t worried about getting me into the pictures. Instead I was seeing this world which I know well but which I typically see in a sort of proscenium manner, kept a polite distance from the action, like a well-behaved theatre goer who has turned off their phone. I was seeing it from something that felt like first-person.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons. | Image credit: Nintendo

I spent an embarrassing amount of time out there at the VLA, suddenly able to tilt the camera up, to see the telescopes loom nobly overhead. And then I started to wonder how widely I could use this thing. Could I take pictures in the museum like this? Reader, I could. And I could suddenly glimpse the upper mouldings on the walls and the dithering shadow as the overhead space lofted up and out of view. I had never seen this before. It felt wildly illicit.

After that I took the camera around everywhere. I’m still doing it. It’s a series of revelations. I have bad eyesight so I don’t really always see a lot of the smaller details in games, so for the first time I was able to get up really close to see the sign outside Brewster’s cafe. I now know what it depicts! And once I was in the cafe, I was looking all over the place. What’s actually in the room behind Brewster’s bar? What’s actually on the time-stained photo frames on the far wall?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons. | Image credit: Nintendo

I probably sound addled, but there is something specific about this experience that feels very rich. Here is a world that I know very well, and that I have been in so long that I’m moved from exploration to a kind of enacting of worn-carpet rituals. Not just that, but it’s a world that I’m slowly getting ready to leave behind. And yet just as I’m primed to say goodbye, I discover this new and rather startling way of being present in it.

All of which is to say: what a game. And maybe try building a VLA of your own. It’s worth it!



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
12 years after teasing buses were coming to Euro Truck Simulator 2, they finally arrive
Game Updates

12 years after teasing buses were coming to Euro Truck Simulator 2, they finally arrive

by admin


You know how it is: you rush to the bus stop because you think you’re going to miss it, then it arrives 12 years late. Typical. The makers of Euro Truck Simulator 2 have shown off a short trailer with a big shiny European coach in it. It confirms that the sim will add driveable buses in some form soon, fulfilling a long-forgotten tease that was first made by the developers back in the cloudy days of 2013.

Watch on YouTube

The trailer was included in a brief update post on Steam, showing a big white bus pulling out from behind a Scania truck. Surprise! The game is basically now Euro Truck And/Or Bus Simulator 2.

“We’ve crossed borders, hauled freight, and explored countless cities across Europe,” say developers SCS Software. “But just like any great journey, the road is always full of surprises. Something different is pulling into view, a new way to experience the world of Euro Truck Simulator 2. See you at the next stop.”

The devs haven’t said exactly what form the buses will take, or which lurching road carriages will appear (please, not Megabus) but it’ll likely be a big DLC pack. It is the culmination of a desire the developers seem to have harboured for over a decade. They first pondered the possibility of adding buses back in February 2013, writing in a blog post they were “exploring an opportunity to go beyond just trucks” and saying they were off “recording sounds and taking tons of photos of a Scania Touring HD Bus”. But it looks like those plans got delayed on the roadside until now.

It’s a pleasant possibility to some but not surprising to all. Some players have noted the appearance of more detailed bus stops along their usual trucking routes in recent updates, and say the bussification of the sim makes sense. Although others in the game’s Steam forums seem grumpy that buses aren’t getting their own dedicated sim. However you feel, it’s a move that’s in keeping with the studio’s recent plans for their other sim, American Truck Simulator, which plans to introduce driveable pickup trucks and other smaller cars as part of a “Road Trip” expansion.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
28 Years Later honors digital heritage with a 20-camera iPhone rig
Gaming Gear

28 Years Later honors digital heritage with a 20-camera iPhone rig

by admin


Upcoming horror threequel 28 Years Later is far from the first Hollywood movie to be shot with the help of an iPhone, but it might just be the first shot on 20 iPhones. That’s how many phones director Danny Boyle had mounted on a special rig for select shots in the movie, which releases June 20th.

For Boyle, shooting on iPhones is more than just a gimmick. He returns to the series after directing the 2002 original 28 Days Later, which was shot on a digital video camcorder, a meta nod to the fact that this was how home videos were shot at the time. He and returning cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle took that as an “influence” in choosing to shoot partially on a phone, the camcorder’s closest modern equivalent.

It was first reported last year that Boyle had shot 28 Years Later on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, but according to IGN the movie actually uses a mix of regular cameras, drones, and iPhones, including three special rigs designed to hold eight, 10, or 20 iPhones at once.

“There is an incredible shot in the second half [of the film] where we use the 20-rig camera, and you’ll know it when you see it,” Boyle told IGN. “It’s quite graphic but it’s a wonderful shot that uses that technique, and in a startling way that kind of kicks you into a new world rather than thinking you’ve seen it before.”

Boyle calls the 20-phone rig “basically a poor man’s bullet time,” explaining that it allowed the crew to shoot some of the film’s more violent scenes in new ways. “It gives you 180 degrees of vision of an action, and in the editing you can select any choice from it, either a conventional one-camera perspective or make your way instantly around reality, time-slicing the subject, jumping forward or backward for emphasis.”

It’s not the film’s only unusual cinematographic choice. It was also shot in an especially wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio, the equivalent of 70mm film, to keep viewers guessing about where the film’s infected could pop up: “If you’re on a widescreen format, they could be anywhere… you have to keep scanning, looking around for them.”



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
28 Years Later Trailer Aaron Taylor Johnson
Product Reviews

’28 Years Later’ is Bringing New, Scarier Infected to the Party

by admin


Sony’s 28 Years Later isn’t just reintroducing audiences to the series’ devastating post-apocalypse, it’s also bringing some new horrors along for the ride.

In an interview with IGN, director Danny Boyle teased the Infected have gained some new tricks since their last sighting in 28 Weeks Later. Along with the typical, fast-running ones that’ve been all over the marketing, some have “mutated” to survive in this new environment. Hence, the “Slow-lows,” so named because they “hang about low level” and don’t do running of any sort. Despite their lack of speed Boyle “[doesn’t] advise messing with them.”

If you’ve played video games with zombies, you know it’s never just one variant lurking around. Along with the Slow-lows, 28 Years Later will introduce Beserker and Alpha types which are stronger than the regular Infected and might have some intelligence buried within their Rage Virus-addled minds. On a technical level, Boyle said the team generally shot the Infected “in a brittle, almost unreliable way” similar to how they handled the first film. But the new undead get some additional flourishes, like Slow-low actors have cameras attached to them to enhance audience fear, or some sequences with specific Infected requiring 20 iPhones to simultaneously record in order to create “a poor man’s bullet time.”

The new Infected also lend themselves to 28 Years’ photography. For you format sickos, Boyle also told IGN the film was shot on widescreen to replicate the first movie’s “unease…the speed and the velocity, the visceral [aspect] of the way the infected were depicted. If you’re on a widescreen format, they could be anywhere… you have to keep scanning, looking around for them, really.”

28 Years Later hits theaters on June 20.

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.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
35 Years Ago Today, Garfield's Owner (Didn't) Drink Dog Semen
Game Updates

35 Years Ago Today, Garfield’s Owner (Didn’t) Drink Dog Semen

by admin


On May 30, 1990, the world received a new Garfield comic strip. This isn’t a big deal. We’ve been getting daily Garfield comic strips since 1978. We got a new one today! But 35 years ago, a single Garfield comic strip became one of the most infamous in the franchise’s history because a lot of people thought it depicted the lazy cat’s owner drinking dog semen.

GameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores Close

Here’s the Garfield comic strip that appeared in newspapers around the country exactly 35 years ago today:

Image: Paws Inc / Jim Davis / Kotaku

So yeah, that does seem like Garfield’s owner Jon Arbuckle just drank some dog semen that was sitting in a cup while trying to flirt (unsuccessfully) with veterinarian Liz. That would explain why she mentions that Jon should expect a “fine, healthy litter of puppies” and why he appears to have consumed something truly revolting.

And that’s what a lot of people thought after seeing the comic in 1990. For many, many years, Garfield fans and people who like weird facts would spread the story of Jon drinking dog semen around the web as people reacted in disbelief or assumed the strip was altered. And even if you chose to believe that Garfield creator Jim Davis didn’t intend the joke to be about dog semen, there wasn’t a readily available and funny alternative explanation.

In 2017, we finally got some answers. Buzzfeed contacted Davis and asked him about the dog semen comic strip. And to the disappointment of many, the creator behind the famous comic claimed Mr. Arbuckle didn’t drink dog semen. However, his explanation of the strip is still pretty weird and not very funny.

“On the farm, we used to give first-calf heifers a high-protein supplement to help them deliver healthier calves,” Davis told Buzzfeed. “The supplement was provided by our vet. Since Liz is a vet, I assumed that there would be a similar supplement for dogs. There you have it!”

I’m inclined to believe Davis, though it’s still wild to me that nobody involved with the Garfield strip pointed out to the creator how the comic could be misinterpreted. I also find it strange that Davis would assume everyone in the world is familiar with high-protein pre-natal cow supplements and would understand that this random comic was referencing that very specific concept.

Screenshot: Realnutsling / Kotaku

In 2017, however, Davis threw a wrench in the works when someone allegedly bought a signed copy of the infamous strip. And included on the artwork was a message from Davis: “These events are canon.”

You know what, I changed my mind. I think 35 years ago Jon Davis wanted to see if he could get away with making a comic about a dude drinking dog semen, and pulled it off, but can never admit it without destroying Garfield’s brand. But Davis, it’s 2025. The world is weird and loves this kind of shit now. If you admitted it, you could make shirts about it, and make even more money than you already have. So I say fuck it. It’s been nearly four decades. Admit the truth, Jim, and profit.

.





Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Close