The march of big-budget Tolkien fantasy has hit gaming yet again.
Nintendo sidestepped sharing the spotlight with all the other gaming companies at Summer Game Fest last week, promising its own Direct later in June. And that happened yesterday, teasing a lot of new games with Nintendo favorites. Mario games, yes. Zelda games, yes, and even a new Metroid game, confirmed. (More on that below the fold).
Black Myth: Wukong is gorgeous. It’s built up a lot of momentum, feeding trailer after gorgeous trailer, and at Summer Game Fest this year, I finally got to play it. Is it just a gorgeous tech demo with a heavy dose of Chinese mythology or your next gaming challenge?
The US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, says social media should come with warning labels, writing in The New York Times that social media is an “important contributor” to the teen mental health crisis. Last year, he issued an advisory making similar arguments, saying social media posed a “profound risk” to teen mental health.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple’s mission to make its thinnest product ever won’t stop at the iPad Pro — the company also has plans for a skinnier Macbook Pro, Apple Watch and iPhone. Gurman says the slimmed-down iPhone — also rumored by The Information — could come as early as 2025, with the introduction of the iPhone 17 line.
Marvel Rivals pits its greatest heroes against each other and it’s a lot of fun. It’s also a familiar kind of fun if you’ve ever played Overwatch. As Overwatch 2 fights to hold onto players (and attract new ones), there’s no shortage of new games with similar team PvP dynamics, modes and characters. Like Valve’s leaked Deadlock title, or PlayStation’s Concord, or Star Wars: Hunters. Add the now console-bound (and more strategy-heavy) Valorant, and yep, there are a lot of team shooters on the horizon.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was given a proper unveiling at Summer Game Fest, with an Ocean’s 11-style intro to the gang of heroes and fantasy character tropes that will make up your cadre. Bioware also invited me to a hands-off demo of Veilguard, where I got to briefly see the character creation setup and the opening chapter of the game, as you join the likes of Varric and other characters from Dragon Ages past.
The long-running Assassin’s Creed video game industrial complex has finally reached Japan – and I’ve been waiting.
After all the delays, studio switches and confusion, and following plenty of updates on those spinoff Prince of Persia games, Ubisoft's SGF 2024 presentation included a release... year for its troubled Sands of Time remake. We're not really getting any more details yet, but it's confirmation that the project is still underway. It's just years away, still.
Alongside announcing its next-generation OS for Vision Pro, Apple wants to improve the content you can capture and share on the headset. It's getting help with that from camera mainstay Canon, which is working on a new dedicated spatial lens for its R7 camera.