The director of the original Final Fantasy 7 and producer of the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Remake has explained why Square Enix has opted to release the recreation project in episodic parts, rather than remake the entire game in one package. A new interview also reveals that there is a whole new upper floor added to the Shinra building.Talking to the Square Enix blog, original director and remake producer Yoshinori Kitase explained that in order to replicate everything from the original game in the highest quality possible, without cutting content and also adding new elements, the game had to be over multiple entries.

"In order to make [the entire game as a single release] work as a modern game, we wouldn't be able to go for the highest visual quality and we'd also have to cut back on areas and scenes from the original," he said. "Essentially, to make a single release viable the resulting game would have ended up being a digest of the original story, and we didn't think that fans would be pleased with that."

The first release in the remake project, which launches in April, contains the Midgar portion of the original game. By Kitase's statements it should feature everything from the original rendered in new technology, plus some new zones to explore.

"There were a lot of parts in between sections of Midgar that were implied, but never seen," said Kitase. "That was something that we wanted to address with Remake – to fill in all those gaps, show how the different parts of the city are connected, and make it a continuous experience."

One of the bespoke areas in Remake is an entire new upper floor for the Shinra Building, which – according to Remake's co-director Naoki Hamaguchi – adds "a climax that was not in the original."

Interestingly, this upper floor apparently relies on Red XIII to explore, a character Square Enix has confirmed to be unplayable in this first game. "The key to navigating this floor lies in using Red XIII's unique physical abilities to overcome environmental obstacles," says Hamaguchi. "Letting the player experience his heroics in this way is something that I'm confident will please the fans."

That extra additional material also includes "endgame content", although Hamaguchi refused to reveal what that is in the interview. It may be that optional bosses are available to fight, which are a staple in most Final Fantasy games.

Today the team at GSC Game World released the first official in-engine screenshot from STALKER 2, the sequel to the cult classic open-world shooter franchise that began in 2007. The blurry image shows a dark forest clearing with rusting vehicles. Hovering in the air is a blue vortex. The developer tells Polygon that it shows a new environment, and a new type of energy phenomena broadly known as an anomaly.

The screenshot was released on Twitter with almost no explanation. In a follow-up message, the Ukrainian developer said it was sharing the screenshot as a special treat to those heading into quarantine in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Thirteen years ago we released STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl," the company said in a tweet. "The world was never the same after that. […] You made this day forever special."

The developer goes on to say that the second chapter will be the company's most ambitious game yet. It promises more info throughout 2020.

GSC Game World was wound down in 2011 when CEO Sergei Grigorovich unceremoniously dissolved the company for "personal reasons." The diaspora of developers who left the organization include the leadership of 4A Games, maker of the Metro series. In 2015 GSC sprung back to life, defending its right to the STALKER intellectual property and producing a sequel to its real-time strategy title called Cossacks 3. STALKER 2 was announced in May 2018 with a 2021 release date. No platforms have been announced, but the game is being built with Unreal Engine.

Though all Apple retail locations outside of China technically closed on March 14 in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the company provided customers with a two-day window to collect in-store pickups or any devices previously left for repairs. That grace period expired Tuesday, and if you haven't already visited an Apple store to retrieve your device, sad to say, you won't be able to for the foreseeable future.

An FAQ concerning the closures on Apple's website states that customers can pick up their iPhones, Apple Watches, and whatnot whenever stores reopen—a date originally set for March 27 that has since been updated to a nebulous "until further notice" as the outbreak's intensified.

Apple reached out to customers by phone and email to encourage them to grab their devices within that two-day window, a company spokesperson told Business Insider. However, for customers who missed Apple's contact attempts or who were otherwise unwilling or unable to stop by a store in time, their devices will, unfortunately, remain on indefinite lockdown.

"We made every possible attempt to get people's products back to them," the spokesperson told Business Insider. "There certainly are people that, for whatever reason, did not pick up their products before we closed and their products are at our stores."

For devices sent out to one of Apple's repair centers, the company's contacting customers to try to coordinate shipping them back to the owners directly rather than to an Apple store for pickup.

With how quickly developments about the coronavirus outbreak have been changing, it remains unclear when Apple will open its doors again outside mainland China. While Apple has tentatively begun reopening stores there—closed since January—after some delay, China's number of new COVID-19 cases has also fallen dramatically in recent weeks. Elsewhere, this tally continues to escalate at an alarming rate. In the U.S., the total number of reported cases has more than doubled in the last week, surging past 15,000 as of Friday, per the New York Times.

We’ve already heard how the Captain Marvel star and Oscar winner Brie Larson would like to play Samus Aran in a Metroid movie, and now in an interview with People.com, she’s been asked if she would be interested in starring in a movie adaptation of Animal Crossing. This was her response:

Of course. I support Animal Crossing all the way, through and through. I think it's good for our hearts.

If you’re not convinced with the idea of Brie appering in an Animal Crossing movie, in the same interview she revealed how she’s been a long-time fan of Nintendo’s long-running lifestyle series. It turns out she’s actually been playing these games with her sister since the GameCube release.

The original game, the first time I played it was on Nintendo's GameCube and it was just so important to me and my sister. My mom set up a rule: whoever finished their homework got to play first. It was an amazing tool to get us to finish our homework.

I'm so excited to make new memories with my sister [Milaine Desaulniers] again. We're adults now and yet we still just have such a deep love for this game and it's been really fun to talk with her about it.

Larson also revealed how she had been playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons since about Monday, after partnering with Nintendo to promote the game.

Facebook's automated moderation tools went wild and targeted tons of posts about the coronavirus pandemic and other topics on Tuesday evening, blocking users from sharing articles from legitimate news sources.
After former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos tweeted that the errors could be "the start of the [machine learning] going nuts with less human oversight," current vice president of integrity Guy Rosen responded that "a bug in an anti-spam system" was to blame. He also shot down speculation that the problem was related to an outbreak-related shortage of onsite human moderators. (Facebook said it would pay full time working from home $1,000 to deal with emergency conditions, but the long-suffering contract workers that staff its moderation systems are only eligible for continued pay.)
"We're on this—this is a bug in an anti-spam system, unrelated to any changes in our content moderator workforce," Rosen wrote. "We're in the process of fixing and bringing all these posts back." Later on Tuesday evening, he tweeted that the issue was not specific to coronavirus-related content, adding that it should be fixed and all posts erroneously flagged as spam should be restored. However, other Twitter users responded that the issues weren't yet resolved for them.
Screenshots posted to Twitter and elsewhere showed the system was informing users, "Your post goes against our Community Standards on spam." Facebook had previously conceded that the spread of coronavirus throughout the U.S. might tax the abilities of its automated tools to the limit.


As TechCrunch noted, Facebook's sheer scale means that it plays a central role in transmitting information about the outbreak. Breakdowns in automated systems could thus have a greater impact than during business as usual, with major disruptions to daily life and concern that the situation could grow worse playing out across the globe.
Facebook has claimed to be fighting misinformation on its platform about the virus and the disease it causes, covid-19, as well as to be restricting ads for products that fraudulently claim to cure it. It's also placed a ban on advertising face masks after shortages resulted in widespread price gouging. This week, it signed a joint pledge to prevent the spread of false information with Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, but Facebook's shoddy track record on effectively moderating its platform isn't exactly a great omen for how it will handle the flood of coronavirus B.S. already spewing out.

Last week LG said its 2020 lineup of TVs will start rolling out in the US this month, but didn't give precise dates or pricing information. Now, via CNET, we know a little more. In fact, only one model will be available in March — the $1,800 55-inch CX, LG's mainstream 4K OLED set.
The other CX sizes are coming in different months: April for the $2,800 65-inch, May for the $5,000 77-inch, and June for the new 48-inch size, which is going to set you back $1,500. That might not be as cheap as you were hoping, given that the 55-inch C9 from 2019 has often been available on sale for around that much, but prices will no doubt similarly go down throughout the year.
The entry-level BX OLED models are both arriving in May at $1,500 for the 55-inch and $2,300 for the 65-inch. That follows the ultra-thin "gallery" GX line in April — $2,500 for the 55-inch, $3,500 for the 65-inch, or $6,000 for the 77-inch — while the 65-inch "wallpaper" WX is coming for $5,000 in June. Finally, if you really feel like splashing out, you'll be able to buy a new 8K OLED TV in May. The 77-inch ZX will cost $20,000, while the 88-inch model is $30,000. LG assures CNET that the coronavirus pandemic won't affect the launch of these models, though it sounds like the company is exploring the possibility of limited supply. "Although at this time we are not experiencing major disruptions, LG is looking into ways to minimize the effect on our production schedule in the event of a drawn-out scenario," SVP of public affairs John Taylor says.

BOSTON (AP) — The U.S. internet won't get overloaded by spikes in traffic from the millions of Americans now working from home to discourage the spread of the new coronavirus, experts say. But connections could stumble for many if too many family members try to videoconference at the same time.

Some may have to settle for audio, which is much less demanding of bandwidth.

Separately, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia on Saturday applauded announcements by several major U.S. internet providers for taking temporary measures — including the suspension of data caps, free public Wi-Fi and free broadband for households with children who lack it — designed to better accommodate remote access for students, workers and public health officials. He and 17 other colleagues, Democrats and independents, had called for such measures in a letter Thursday to CEOs of AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Verizon, CenturyLink, Sprint and T-Mobile.

The core of the U.S. network is more than capable of handling the virus-related surge in demand because it has evolved to be able to easily handle bandwidth-greedy Netflix, YouTube and other streaming services.

"The core of the network is massively over-provisioned," said Paul Vixie, CEO of Farsight Security and an internet pioneer who helped design its domain naming system.

But if parents are videoconferencing for work at the same time college and high school students are trying to beam into school, they could experience congestion. Figure a packet-dropping threshold of five or more users. That's because the so-called last mile is for most Americans provisioned for cable — download capacity is robust but upload limited. Fiber optic connections don't have the same issues and will do fine.

Italy's internet saw a 30% spike in peak-hour traffic early this past week after the government sent everyone home into isolation, said Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, which shapes and secures internet traffic for websites, more than 10% of which sit behind its network.

Prince said in an interview Friday that Cloudflare saw no evidence, however, that the Italian internet has gotten any slower. World Cup soccer matches have posed a greater burden.

Peak internet usage times in nations where work has shifted from the office to home due to COVID-19 have also shifted — from about dinner time to about 11 a.m. Prince says it happened in Italy and South Korea and expects the same in the U.S.

Traffic has spiked 10% to 20% during peak hours since the first week of February in greater Seattle, the U.S. metropolitan region hardest-hit by COVID-19, according to Cloudflare.

The sudden, unanticipated surge in millions of remote workers has forced companies to scramble to boost their capacity for secure connections through virtual private networks, said Patrick Sullivan, chief technical officer for security at Akamai, a major IT provider for business and government.

The surge is creating some temporary bottlenecks. But because so much of computing has moved to cloud services, the shift doesn't pose much of an on-site burden for companies, said Sullivan, with bottlenecks typically cleared in minutes or hours.

But some conference calling and chat services have been overwhelmed.

A call-in press conference arranged by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown's office on Friday crashed twice because of the high volume of callers to the AT&T teleconferencing center.

Brown's office said in a news release that the cause was the large number of people using the tele-meeting call center and that "similar issues and demand are being reported across the country."

The conference call worked the third time.

Taking a look back at another week of news and headlines from Cupertino, this week's Apple Loop includes the iPhone 9 delay, WWDC cancellation, iPhone 12 secrets, a new MacBook Pro keyboard, updated mouse controls for iPad, the lack of PR momentum in Apple Arcade, and the longest 'one take' filmed on iPhone yet.

Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the very many discussions that have happened around Apple over the last seven days.

Apple Faces WWDC Cancellations And iPhone Delays

Like many around the world, Apple is facing up to the implications of slowing down coronavirus. As well as the cancellation of the (not actually confirmed) launch event for the iPhone 9, Apple is also looking at a cancellation of its Worldwide Developer Conference. The impact is also being felt in Apple's production chain, with the iPhone 9 'indefinitely postponed' and the iPhone 12 also looking at a potential delay. That's all going to have a financial impact:

the lower cost of the iPhone 9 was always going to mark this iPhone out as being a popular handset that would bring in significant sales. These would be on top of the sales of the iPhone 11 family, and boost the number of iPhone units sold in the year. With sales on a downward trend, the iPhone 9 has the potential to reverse that trend. Delay the iPhone 9 and you delay the boost to Apple's numbers.

Software Secrets Of The iPhone 12

Putting aside viral delays, a closer examination of the beta code for iOS 14 has brought to light a number of new features inside the code, such as the ability to recall messages. Robert Jones reports:

Apple looks also like it is going to introduce a new iMessage feature in iOS 14 that will allow people to retract and withdraw messages that they have already posted. If a message was recalled, the receiver would get a message indicating that the message had been removed. In addition, according to the leak, iMessage is also set to get a mentions feature that would allow people type an @ symbol in a group message to see the list of people in the conversation.

MacBook Fans Wait For Scissor Switch Keyboard

Noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is reporting that Apple is ready to remove the ill-fated Butterfly keyboard from all of the MacBook range for the Magic Keyboard that debuted in the 16-inch MacBook Pro last year. The question now is if this waits for the new models expected at the end of the year, or in an intermediate model this summer. Sam Byford reports:

Kuo recently indicated that the current 13-inch MacBook Pro will be replaced by a 14-inch model, but he hasn't said whether that'll happen with this second-quarter update. It's possible that the scissor-switch keyboard will come to the 13-inch model first before a more significant overhaul later. Apple has been shipping butterfly keyboards on all new laptop releases since 2016, so correcting course should be a priority.

Prepare Your iPad For A Mouse

Also lurking in the beta code are the hooks to allow the iPad and iPad Pro to support cursors and mouse/touchpad control. That would bring the iPad even closer the the laptop form factor and further diminishing the MacBook family as Apple's primary keyboard/screen hardware. Benjamin Mayo reports:

The changes coming to the software will bring most of the cursor features you recognize from a Mac desktop experience to iOS.

One difference may be that the pointer disappears automatically after a few seconds of not touching the connected mouse or trackpad, a concession to the touch-first experience of the iPad. It would reappear when the user attempts to move the cursor again.

Apple Arcade’s PR Momentum

Apple Arcade was released to critical acclaim from Apple watchers, but how is the service performing now the initial flush of excitement has left? There are new titles, but Apple appears to have stopped the grind of constant promotion using the new content. Josh Coulson reports:

There was a lot of deserved hype surrounding Apple Arcade upon release. Especially since some of its 50+ titles had been developed by big names such as Sega and Ubisoft. Six months later and that hype has dropped off significantly. Apple is keeping details about Arcade's numbers and performance close to its chest and doesn't seem to be that bothered about advertising the service or adding to it in a way that makes sense.

And Finally…

How long can a single take be on the iPhone 11 Pro? Turns out the answer is nearly five hours and twenty minutes. Apple has taken a 4K walkthrough of the St Petersburg’s State Heritage Museum.

Shot on iPhone 11 Pro in 4K, Apple says the 5 hour 19 minute 28 second video was recorded on one battery charge. The journey covers more than 45 galleries and not only features the art on exhibition, but Apple set up several live performances along the way. Watch the video after the break …

For people that don’t want to sit through the whole thing, Apple has made a trailer featuring the highlights. It indicates the phone started at 100% battery and finished with 19%.

2020 iPhone 12 concept

Apple's 2020 iPhone plans are genuinely exciting with leak after leak pointing to some of the best upgrades in years. And now Apple has accidentally confirmed two of the biggest.

In a pair of exclusives, the famously forensic 9to5Mac has attained leaked Apple iOS 14 code which is full of references to the company's upcoming products and features. These are the standouts for iPhone fans.

03/11 Update: big specs news on the iPhone 12 with popular YouTuber EverythingApplePro combining with prolific leaker Max Weinbach to reveal the iPhone 12 Pro Max will come with a massive 4,400 mAh battery (up over 400mAh from the iPhone 11 Pro Max), further confirmation of the range’s new 120Hz ProMotion displays and a massive camera upgrade to a new 64 megapixel primary shooter. Needless to say, the camera news is the big one and a potential move to Pixel Binning (as used on the Galaxy S20 range) would be the biggest technical change in iPhone cameras for years. As for the battery capacity increases, while they sound great on paper, my understanding is they are simply there to compensate for their more power hungry 5G connectivity. As such, I’d expect the same excellent stamina delivered by the iPhone 11 line-up but not anything significantly better. That camera on the other hand, could be a game-changer. You can read further analysis of the new camera here.

03/12 Update: respected developer Steve Troughton-Smith has attained further information about the iOS 14 build which has given up all these Apple secrets. The important caveat is Troughton-Smith says it originates from a December 2019 build “so information coming out of it may be a little less concrete and less reliable than something more recent”. With Troughton-Smith says he hasn’t had access to the code himself, the context is important because it means the build was extremely early and may, therefore, be more speculative than code closer to release. That said, information about the iPhone 9 should still be solid given its impending launch (dependent on the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic), so I’d still place money on its arrival in the first half of 2020. Though its March launch now appears all but dead.

All-New Budget iPhone Confirmed

9to5Mac found that buried within iOS 14 are repeated references to the iPhone 9 (previously dubbed the iPhone SE2), Apple's exciting re-entry into the budget smartphone sector. iOS 14 code confirms that the iPhone 9 will launch with Touch ID (seemingly confirming its leaked retro design) as well as a reference to support for Express Transit capabilities, which allows you to pay for travel on major travel networks, including New York's MTA and London's TfL.

The iPhone 9 will feature a cutting edge Apple A13 chipset used in the iPhone 11 range, a primary camera also tipped to come from the iPhone 11 and is expected to have top-notch battery life, all for under $400. Now we know it's definitely real, and it's going to sell like hotcakes.

All-New iPhone Interface Confirmed

And yet the real headline news here is 9to5Mac's discovery that Apple is making fundamental changes to how you will use your iPhone. Similar to Android's app drawer, iOS 14 introduces a new 'list view' option which enables users to see all their installed apps at once. Moving beyond Android, iOS 14 will allow users to sort this list by frequency of use, new notifications and more while smart app suggestions will predict what apps you need based on the time and your location.

In addition to this, iOS 14 will bring system-wide support for mouse cursors and new gestures for switching apps. The combination of all these factors is going to radically change how iPhone owners use their devices, and it's exciting to see Apple shake up the iOS homescreen for the first time, arguably, since the first iPhone launched 12 years ago.

iPhone 12 render showing new blue color options

The Road Ahead

The fly in the ointment here is launch times. Today, an Apple source told Forbes that the company has decided to cancel its March event for the iPhone 9 during to the Coronavirus outbreak and both Cult of Mac and cult YouTuber Jon Prosser have also confirmed this via multiple sources.

Beyond this, Apple is already running low on iPhone warranty stock due to the virus and it is putting the iPhone 12 launch later this year in serious doubt. With the iPhone 12 set to wow premium buyers thanks to MacBook Pro-like performance, a long-range 3D camera, next-gen OLED displays, high refresh rates and Apple-designed 5G, and the iPhone 9 set to demolish budget rivals, this is the last thing Apple's 2020 plans needed.

Tim Cook may be the undisputed master of the supply chain, but he's going to have to be a magician to navigate this year.

When Infinity Ward first announced that it was making a free-to-play Call of Duty game called Call of Duty: Warzone, it focused its marketing around Call of Duty's take on battle royale. But while battle royale mode might get people in the door for Warzone, the game's other mode, Plunder, is the real star of the show.

Each match of Plunder has 102 players, broken up in squads of three players each. Each squad competes to be the first to earn $1 million in in-game cash, or get the most cash in 30 minutes. Players can earn cash from completing contracts, looting, or picking up the cash that enemy players drop when they die. Unlike in battle royale games, everyone in Plunder respawns after death. The only way to keep your cash safe is to deposit it by buying an expensive extraction balloon, which you can place wherever you want, or waiting for a helicopter to arrive at a very public and dangerous location.

A small wrinkle makes Plunder even more unique: the money that you collect doesn't belong to the squad, at least not until it's deposited. Instead, players hold money individually until it's deposited. This makes for constantly shifting roles. If you have two rich squadmates who need to duck out of a dangerous firefight, and your own bank account is empty, guess who gets to stay behind and play the decoy?

But Plunder still feels built on the bones of a battle royale game.

Plunder uses the same map as Warzone's battle royale. The map, Verdansk, is full of varied locations for firefights — from dams to forests to several different massive urban locations that give it the kind of expansive feel that most battle royale maps have.

In fact, Plunder does a great job of encouraging you to explore more of the map than Warzone's battle royale. Contracts, which can include things like hunting down specific enemy players or capturing certain objectives, happen all over and send you to new areas you might not have visited on your own. On top of that, the game marks the three squads with the most money at any given time, which could send you across the map on a hunt for more cash, rather than sticking within the confines of the circle.

Even more important than the map, though, is the player count of Plunder. With over 100 players in each game, it feels like anyone could be waiting around the next corner or in the building across the street. It seems like a fight is always threatening to break out. But in the fights themselves, Plunder sets itself apart.

In typical battle royale match, every skirmish feels like it has high stakes; lose the fight and you risk elimination. But, Plunder gives everyone an unlimited number of respawns, but respawning will diminish your character's cash. This changes the whole equation of how fights work and when you pick them. It keeps the stakes high for each fight, without the threat of the match ending with one well-placed shot.

During one match, my team and I were hunting down one of top earning teams. We finally caught up with them at a small farm and managed to take down two of the three players and grab their money. Before we could get the last squad member, other teams showed up looking for their cut of the prize. Suddenly we were in the middle of a gun fight with at least a dozen players. Any mode that can materialize that kind of chaos would be special, but it's once the respawning starts that things get complicated.

Plunder allows players to respawn, but every death divides your cash in half. The other half is left on the ground where you fell. This makes every respawn a tantalizing risk-versus-reward scenario: do you take the half of the money you still have and run far away, or risk another 50% slash to your bank in hopes of getting back what you lost.

In the case of my squad's farm-house stand, we started out carrying around $200,000. Another $100,000 rested on bodies we hadn't gotten to loot yet. But as our adversaries started to close in, my squad started dying more often — collecting the money we dropped became almost impossible while under siege.

After three or four deaths, our strategy shifted. One player tried to grab as much cash as they could and stay alive. On every respawn, I would sprint back into the fray in hopes of protecting my squad's new piggy bank, only for them to get gunned down, forcing me to hoard the money myself and repeat the cycle. Every time, the overall cash would get a little lower.

At our highest point, my squad had somewhere around $350,000 — a huge amount of money, and 35% of the total we'd need to win the game. But by the time we tucked our tails between our legs and ran away from the battle (still raging on at the farm), we were left with $21,000 between us. We had spent nearly 15 minutes falling victim to a particularly gratuitous example of the sunk cost fallacy and had almost nothing to show for it. On the other hand, it was also one of the most fun multiplayer matches I've played in recent memory.

Plunder's fights are sometimes over in a flash, or they could drag out for ten-plus minutes, but each one still feels like Call of Duty. During my team's fight at the farmhouse-turned-Alamo it felt like we paused our 100-player match to have a mini Call of Duty Team Deathmatch game instead.

Plunder feels like the first large-scale attempt to break the battle royale genre down to its composite parts and build something new out of the pieces. While other battle royale games have pushed the boundaries with limited-time game modes, like Fortnite's John Wick assassin mode, they all still felt like battle royale games. Plunder feels like something different, even if it still has a few battle royale ideas in its DNA.

When Warzone was announced, all eyes were on the battle royale mode. But by taking the foundation of battle royale, with its massive map and high player count, and building a new game mode on top of it, Infinity Ward managed to create a fantastic mode that steals the show. It may not exactly be battle royale, but it does feel like a uniquely Call of Duty-style addition to a genre that's proving bigger than just battle royale.

[Editor’s note:We held off on releasing this review due to severe technical issues with the pre-release version of the game. The review below reflects time spent on the final, released version that is currently available to players.]

Ori and the Will of the Wispsinvites you to dance inside a beautiful world. There is combat, sure, and there are threats, but the dance, and the beauty of your surroundings, are always the focus.

Moon Studios’ first game,Ori and the Blind Forest, was notable for the same reason. Here was a striking 2D platformer that staked out the visual middle ground between a Pixar short and an oversaturated photograph of a fantastical forest.Will of the Wispsis even more sumptuous and varied in its aesthetic, filled with delightful details that make so many frames look more like paintings than a video game. Screenshots and trailers don’t do it justice.

I found myself dawdling in the dimly beautiful Inkwater Marsh during my first hour with the game, watching the flashes of lightning play on the plump leaves crowding the forest floor. I was later dazzled as sunbeams lit up mossy gears that had once powered a massive waterwheel. The lake below was a marshy swamp, but, by executing a series of precise jumps through the clockwork structure and clearing away obstacles, I was able to get the wheel turning again. The purified water below turned a deep, inviting, clear blue.

Will of the Wisps’ world is constantly in motion. Leaves dance in the wind, bob beneath rain, and light up as Ori’s luminous body passes by.Ori and the Will of the Wisps’environments betray their life with constant, often slight, movement; rising and falling as if a giant pair of lungs were inhaling and exhaling just beneath the level’s surface. But it’s not all about how the game looks, especially when it playsthis well.

Will of the Wisps’ story, like its art style, picks up whereBlind Forestleft off. In the first game, the titular cat-like spirit set off to save the forest from corruption. The encroaching darkness had killed his mother, Naru, and a newly orphaned Ori began a quest to bring his home back to life. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say he succeeded.

Ori is now living with his makeshift family asWill of the Wispsbegins, raising an owl hatchling that had been left behind by Kuro, a hulking bird that antagonized Ori for much of the last game.

Life is good in the quiet forest, in other words. But, the hatchling, with one small wing, is struggling to learn to fly. Ori offers the owl Kuro’s feather to help, fastening it to their wing. This is what allowed Ori to fly in the first game, after all. Ori and the hatchling take off on a test flight — beautifully portrayed in a stunning cinematic — but hey are blown off course by a violent storm, caused by the same corruption that Ori had defeated in his own land. That darkness still exists elsewhere, it seems, so Ori’s work is not yet done. The pair are separated in the chaos and Ori sets out to find the hatchling, and once again return the forest to its natural state of peace and beauty.

It’s a clever set-up, designed to bring Ori to an unfamiliar place, with new power-ups to unlock, new secrets to uncover and a new world to save.Blind Forestkept its characters mostly silent, allowing snippets of narration — delivered in the booming voice of the Spirit Tree — to drive the story. Moon Studios keeps that approach here, but introduces a memorable cast of characters to help Ori along the way.

I was especially fond of the mapmaker, Lupo, who said that he had ruined a perfectly fine piece of parchment by taking the name of Inkwater Marsh too literally. Plenty of other NPCs are waiting to talk with you in the game’s hubworld, Wellspring Glade. Some are just there to chat, like the lemur-like Moki, who approach Ori in groups, finishing each other’s sentences.

Others provide functionality, like Twilen, the opportunistic merchant who sells Ori shards, equippable stones that provide our hero with active skills or passive buffs. You won’t need to interact much with Wellspring Glade’s inhabitants to finish the story, but you’ll unearth a treasure trove of side quests and secrets by dedicating time to the village. The more grounded, yet still clever, conversations with these new characters adds an extra layer of connection to the game’s world.

I spent the bulk of the game exploring this new area of the game’s world, and the most important power-ups are tied to that exploration. I locate a spirit tree from which Ori can absorb a new ability about halfway through each new area, constantly changing how I can interact with the world, and adding to the places I can visit.

I gain the ability to boost through water at one point, enabling me to jet past falling blocks that previously killed me In the sandy Windswept Wastes, I earned a move that let me travel through walls of sand. Each environment I uncover feels unique, and I love the way new abilities tie into the world around me. I sometimes find the glowing orbs that work as the game’s currency, which I can then take back to the village to buy optional skills.

These skills are important for expanding your options in combat, which plays a larger role inWill of the Wispsthan it did last time around. Attack options inBlind Forestwere minimal, designed primarily as a way to keep you airborne. The options at my disposal have been significantly expanded this time around. I can perform a lock-on bash through an enemy, smash them over the head with a hammer, dash, double jump, hit an opponent with a fireball, etc, all without ever touching the ground.

Combat feeds into movement and movement feeds into combat; it’s hard to separate the two when discussing how the game feels to play. This works well, but it’s unfortunate that, to play to this strength,Will of the Wispsfavors traditional boss fights instead of the lengthy, exhilarating platforming sections fromBlind Forest. It feels like a small step backward in a game that’s so inventive in other areas.

Will of the Wispsloses a bit ofBlind Forest’s clear identity by adding so many new systems. Moon Studios’ first game zeroed in on precise platforming and focused on executing that idea nearly perfectly. But this follow-up has so much more: acrobatic jumps, robust combat, multiple upgrade systems and plenty of side quests. Each aspect of the game is done well, but I sometimes missed the focused, elegant design of the first game.

It doesn’t help that the game’s performance often feels like it’s creaking under the weight of all that content. In its pre-release state,Ori and the Will of the Wispshad persistent, crippling technical issues when played on Xbox One S. Those issues impacted the game to such a degree that we didn’t feel comfortable reviewing it until the day-one patch arrived. The good news is that, by and large, those issues are no longer present.

Last night, as I replayed the hours that I lost while playing the bugger, pre-release game, I no longer lost my saved games. There is still some occasional dips in framerate, and the hitches struck at unusual times — not during a frantic boss fight, but, rather, during slower exploration segments out in the world. There are other, small issues with load times, but the game is now significantly more playable than the version I had originally tried to review.

Ori and the Will of the Wispsoffers a gorgeous world to explore and a varied, creative series of abilities and tasks that guide my exploration and help me see more of this wonderful place. It expands my options in combat and offers me more to do, and mostly benefits from that added complexity, while losing some of its focus in the process. Overall, however, it’s a worthy trade off.

Ori and the Will of the Wispsis a vibrant platformer, and I’m so happy the technical issues from the pre-release version continue to be worked out so more people can enjoy its vision.

On Wednesday, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) canceled the Electronic Entertainment Expo — better known as E3 — over concerns regarding the spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus. The World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic on Wednesday.

The ESA said it’s “exploring options with our members to coordinate an online experience to showcase industry announcements and news in June 2020.” Immediately following the event’s cancellation, game companies began discussing plans for digital events. Microsoft Xbox boss Phil Spencer tweeted on Wednesday that Microsoft will hold “an Xbox digital event” to showcase the “next generation of gaming.” Details regarding the digital showcase will be announced “in the coming weeks,” Spencer said.

Microsoft is preparing for the launch of its next-generation console, the Xbox Series X, slated for release in holiday 2020. Microsoft will host a two-day livestreamed event next week, where it’ll share some details on the Xbox Series X and Project xCloud, replacing its canceled Game Developers Conference talks. GDC was postponed in late February over the spread of COVID-19.

A full list of companies hosting press conferences for E3 was not yet announced, but it’s typical for large publishers like Square Enix, Bethesda, and Nintendo to showcase upcoming games at the event. A Ubisoft representative told Polygon it’s “exploring other options for a digital experience.” No timing details are available just yet.

Electronic Arts told Polygon it’s “reviewing” changes for EA Play 2020. “We’ve continued to follow the coronavirus developments around the world very closely,” Electronics Arts said in a statement. “Clearly the situation is evolving by the day, and we’ve been reviewing how it will change our plans for EA PLAY 2020. We will share more soon.”

Nintendo told Polygon it “supports the ESA’s decision to cancel this year’s E3 to help protect the health and safety of everyone in our industry — our fans, our employees, our exhibitors and our longtime E3 partners.” No information is available about its planned E3 presence; typically, Nintendo hosts an extended Nintendo Direct presentation during E3, with live coverage through Nintendo Treehouse.

Publisher Devolver Digital was one of the first to tweet about E3’s cancellation on Tuesday night: “Cancel your E3 flights and hotels, y’all.” Following the event’s official cancellation, it issued a statement on Twitter.

“The week of E3 has always been a big part of what we do are are genuinely bummed about the cancelation of the event itself,” the publisher tweeted. “Lots to juggle but right now we plan on having a livestream Devolver Direct / press conference and possibly more.” Devolver Digital’s Big Fancy Press Conference has running lore and is often the most fun — and most ridiculous — part of the show.

Sony Interactive Entertainment, on the other hand, announced in January that it was skipping E3 2020. Like Microsoft, Sony is preparing to launch its next-gen console, the PlayStation 5, during the 2020 holiday season. There are a few details available on the PS5, but Sony’s remained quiet on new information this year — all we’ve really seen so far is the new (yet familiar) logo.

Polygon has reached out to Square Enix and Bethesda, as well as other companies, for more information about E3 — or E3-adjacent — contingency plans.

Update:This story has been updated to add a statement from Nintendo, and additional information from Microsoft.

Update 2 (1:53 p.m. EDT):We’ve updated this story to add a statement from Devolver Digital.

Alexa can now send commuter and traffic details to your phone and give you details about the election.

Amazon announced four new features the Echo can do.

Your Amazon Echo has been a helpful tool around the house — it turns off your lights when you forget to, make calls when your hands are full and quickly orders necessities for you when you’re in a hurry. Now Alexa has four new features that you can try on your Amazon Echo($60 at Amazon).

Some of the new features include asking Alexa to send traffic information to your phone when you don’t have time to look it up. You can also ask Alexa for information about the elections, like when to vote in your area.

We’ll keep this post updated as more new features are added to Amazon’s voice assistant and Echo speakers. Here are four new things you can ask Alexa to do on your Amazon Echo.

Ask Alexa to send commute info to your phone

You can now ask Alexa to send directions, information about your daily commute and traffic conditions directly to your phone. This is helpful for when you’re running out the door and don’t have time to type in the location.

You can ask questions like “Alexa, how is the traffic to work?” or “Alexa, directions to [name of] cafe.” Once Alexa answers, you can say “Alexa, send that to my phone.” Then all you’ll need to do is tap start to begin navigating in your phone’smapsapp (Apple Maps, Google Maps).

Notify you of severe weather alerts

Whether you’re in snowstorm, tornado or hurricane season, you can now ask Alexa to send you alerts to notify you of severe weather coming your way. Just say “Alexa, tell me when there’s a severe weather alert” to begin receiving notifications of bad weather in your area.

You can ask Alexa to let you know when there’s a severe weather alert.

Alexa can give you election information

Alexa can keep you up-to-date on the 2020 presidential elections, which is helpful if you’ve been out of the loop. You can hear details about debates and candidate information, and get local details on where to vote and live election results.

Some questions you can ask Alexa about the elections:

• “Alexa, when is the next debate?”
• “Alexa, what channel is the debate on?”
• “Alexa, where does [candidate] stand on [specific issue]?”
• “Alexa, who is still running for president?”
• “Alexa, who can I vote for in [state]?”
• “Alexa, when are the polls open?”
• “Alexa, when is my primary?”
• “Alexa, when do I need to register to vote?”
• “Alexa, how can I register to vote?”
• “Alexa, what are the election results today?”
• “Alexa, who won in [state?]”

Get caught up on NBA games

If you own an Echo device with a screen, like the Echo Show 5, you can now watch video highlights from NBA games. Just say “Alexa, play the [team] highlights” to see clips from the most recent game.

Find out more things you can do with your smart device by checking out these five unexpected uses for your Amazon Echo and six things you probably haven’t tried with your Amazon Echo.

Slowly, but surely, we’ve been drip-fed more deets on Command & Conquer Remastered – EA’s upcoming HD re-release of Tiberian Sun and Red Alert. Last year we got a brief look at C&C Remastered’s scaled up assets. They’re very nice, too, sharpening decades-old art to bring it up to a modern standard without going overboard on fancy effects. But what about Command & Conquer’s (in)famous FMV cutscenes?

Worry not, commanders. EA have brought C&C’s B-movie acting chops into high-definition, showing off a brief clip earlier this week. But scaling up decades-old footage didn’t come without tactical challenges of its own.

It’s one thing to spruce up building and unit textures. It’s quite another to upscale 320 x 200 resolution recordings of professional actors chewing up scenery like an all-you-can-eat buffet. For producer Jim Vessella, this meant going on a treasure hunt to track down some original HD recordings.

Despite unearthing a Blockbuster’s worth of old tapes in an LA storage unit, Vessella was disheartened to find these were the same low-res recordings used in-game, and not the HD masters he was looking for. Instead, Vessella notes that the team ended up working with cutscene files taken from the PlayStation ports of the games – shots found in EAs own archives, or else tracked down with the help of community archivists.

The file format of the PlayStation vids was supposedly easier for the team to work with. Over the last year, the developers have managed to upscale every FMV cutscene in Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, and each of their respective expansions in crisp high-definition. ‘Course, the acting’s still hokey and the CG is still very mid-90s, but that’s all part of the charm.

Granted, these ports lacked some of the PC original’s shots. Vessella notes that there’s a noticeable (if minor) drop in remastering quality for cutscenes that never made it to console. It does, however, mean that PS1-exclusive cutscenes will make their way into C&C Remastered, along with never-before-seen B-roll footage the team unearthed. Bonus clips like that will be included as unlockables in a new “Bonus Gallery” Vessela announced this week.

Teased all the way back in 2018, Command & Conquer: Remastered still has no release date in sight. Hopefully, it hasn’t yet escaped to the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism.

Following leaks earlier this week, publisher Cygames and developer Arc System Works have officially announcedGranblue Fantasy: Versusdownloadable content character Zooey as the fifth character in the “Character Pass 1” set during theGranblue Fantasy6th Anniversary Special live stream. She will launch in late April.

Zooey fights using a technical battle style where she fights in cooperation with Lyrn while managing her “Wyvern Gauge.” Her add-on also includes an exclusive Zooey skin for use in the originalGranblue Fantasygame.

In addition to Zooey, Cygames also announced that a “Lumacie Archipelago” stage and two new lobby avatars (Rosetta and Yggdrasil) are due out in early April for 400 yen total (approx. $3.99).

The trailer that confirms Zooey is the “complete version” of the Character Pass 1 trailer first released in December 2019, this also time featuring first in-game footage of downloadable content characters Soriz and Djeeta, who are due out in early April.

Granblue Fantasy: Versusis available now for PlayStation 4 in North America, Japan, and Asia, and will launch for PC via Steam on March 13 worldwide, and for PlayStation 4 on March 27 in Europe.

Watch the trailer below. Another trailer is due out on March 24.

Doom Eternalis launching on March 20, and Bethesda has added PC specs for minimum and recommended settings to the title’s Steam page. Here’s what you’ll need to run the new Doom, as well as the PC components you’ll need to make every drop of blood and spit of fire look and run as best they can.

Minimum settings:

• OS: 64-bit Windows 7 / 64-bit Windows 10
• CPU: Intel Core i5 @ 3.3 GHz or better / AMD Ryzen 3 @ 3.1 GHz or better
• RAM: 8GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 (4GB), GTX 1060 (6GB), GTX 1650 (4GB) / AMD Radeon R9 290 (4GB), RX 470 (4GB)
• HDD: 50GB available space

Recommended

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Core i7-6700K or better, or AMD Ryzen 7 1800X or better
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB), RTX 2060 (8GB) or AMD Radeon RX Vega56 (8GB)
• Storage: 50 GB available space
• Additional Notes: (1440p / 60 FPS / High Quality Settings)

Not that it’s a huge surprise, but Doom Eternal asks a lot out of PCs. As you can see, anyone with a GPU not equivalent to a 6gb 1060 or 4gb RX470 need not apply, unless you’re prepared to suffer some performance drops and slam every available setting to the absolute minimum.

As for recommended settings, Bethesda says an 8gb 1080 or 2060 is what you’ll need for best results at 1440p and 60fps at high settings.

Along with the listed PC specs, you’ll also want a solid speaker setup or headset to enjoy Doom Eternal’s appropriately badass heavy metal choir. The 20-large choir of heavy metal ambassadors blasted out sounds ranging from trap metal to Mongolian metal to make the Doom Eternal score.

Find out why Official Xbox Magazine called Doom Eternal the best Doom yet in their hands-on preview.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 line has just officially launched in the states and already T-Mobile is giving away five

Galaxy S20 5G units. It is part of the latest sweepstakes connected with the carrier’s T-Mobile Tuesdays rewards program. Those hoping to win the phone can submit their entries beginning at 5 am EDT on Tuesday, March 10th through 11:59:59 pm EDT on Monday, March 16th and it is open to residents of all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Those participating must be 13-years of age or older at the time they participate.

T-Mobile customers can submit an entry during the aforementioned hours through the T-Mobile Tuesday app, available from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. An entry can also be submitted through the T-Mobile Tuesdays Sweepstakes site at www.T-MobileTuesdays.com. Those who are not T-Mobile customers can enter on Tuesday, March 11th at amoe.t-mobiletuesdays.com. A participant can receive five entries by identifying two or more items while viewing a short video trailer. During the first visit, a participant can earn five additional entries by clicking on the Samsung Product Site; sharing on Twitter will add five additional entries. There is a limit of 15 entries per person.

On or around March 17th, a random drawing will be held and five lucky winners will walk away with the Samsung Galaxy S20 5G in Cosmic Gray. In addition, each winner will receive a $428 check to pay for taxes or to use at the winner’s discretion. The value of each prize is $1,427 which works out to a total value of $7,135.

T-Mobile subscribers can collect the following rewards on Tuesday from the T-Mobile Tuesdays app:

• T-Mobile is giving away a free neck pillow with the stylized T-Mobile “T” logo on one side and the Samsung logo on the other side.
• $30 off of a painting event for two or more from Twist.
• A free four-week course from Shaw Academy, an online education organization.
• 10 cents a gallon off of Shell gasoline.
• 40% off of hotel rooms from Booking.com.

Good luck!

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook on Friday announced it is temporarily banning ads and commerce listings selling medical face masks as the company continues to grapple with the reaction of its users to the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Facebook Director of Product Management Rob Leathern announced the change in a Friday tweet. The social media giant will begin to enforce the temporary ban on these type of ads “over the next few days,” the company said in a blog post. 

“We’re banning ads and commerce listings selling medical face masks,” said Leathern, who leads the product team that enforces ad and business policies across the company’s services. “We’re monitoring COVID19 closely and will make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency. We’ll start rolling out this change in the days ahead.”

“Supplies are short, prices are up, and we’re against people exploiting this public health emergency,” tweeted Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram. 

The policy change comes one day after a company spokesman told CNBC that Facebook will remove political ads posted on its service if they contain misinformation related to the new coronavirus. 

Since the outbreak, Facebook has been impacted in a number of different ways. 

The company on Friday closed its London offices until Monday in response to the outbreak. On Thursday, Facebook told its Bay Area employees to stay home and cancel any trips. And on Wednesday, the company announced that a contract worker in its Seattle office had tested positive for the illness. 

The company also canceled its F8 annual software developers conference that was scheduled for May and it pulled out of a number of other conferences due to the coronavirus. 

Globally, there are now at least 102,168 cases of the coronavirus and there have been at least 3,491 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Someone completed the entirety of Breath of the Wild’s main quest without making Link take a single step.

YouTuber PointCrow permitted himself to swim, jump forwards and backwards, and otherwise reach and destroy Ganon using any tool at Link’s disposal except for his ability to walk and run. I’ve seen some ridiculous things in my time, like someone spending 140 hours beating Pokemon Platinum without taking a hit, but this might just take the crown.

Naturally, the streamer didn’t go the traditional route of clearing the four divine beasts before taking on Ganon, instead taking a popular b-line route straight to the big baddie. Even so, beating the game without walking required clever usage of tools and items, plenty of dying, and an extraordinary will to accomplish something no one had thought to try.

As you might expect, the paraglider came in handy for traveling large sections of land, as did shields and wind bombs. Majora’s Mask was used to avoid detection and Phantom armor for better attack power. Even so, the valiant PointCrow was left staring down the dreaded Game Over screen more than a few times.

The final showdown is something to behold, as PointCrow skips his way through the several phases of enemy before reaching Ganon. After triumphing over the final boss’s first form, the streamer does something truly unthinkable and ditches his horse before the Dark Beast Ganon fight – no shortcuts here, folks.

Nonetheless, PointCrow prevails the only way he knows how: hopping around, timing his shots, and being incredibly patient. My pointy green hat’s off to you, sir.

You can also check out the same YouTuber beating Breath of the Wild using a single bow, and without ever turning left, because reasons.

There’s hard core, and then there’s Elon Musk.

Musk called an all-hands meeting at his SpaceX spacecraft factory in Boca Chica Beach, Texas — at 1 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 23, according to a story published Thursday by Ars Technica.

The billionaire SpaceX and Tesla boss is known for setting outlandish goals (and sometimes missing them). And in the wee hours of the Sunday, he wanted to know from his team why his factory wasn’t running 24-7 to build the Starship rocket system (which will eventually take crew and cargo to Mars).

Musk’s engineering team explained they needed more people to take shifts. So over the next 48 hours, SpaceX hired 252 workers, doubling the workforce at that factory, Ars Technica reported.

The vignette is telling about what it is like to work for Musk.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell joined the rocket company in 2002 as employee No. 7. A decade and a half later, she said she still loved working for Musk. But she also admitted it is intense.

“There’s no question that Elon is very aggressive on his timelines, but frankly, that drives us to do things better and faster,” Shotwell said in a 2018 TED talk. “I think all the time and all the money in the world does not yield the best solution, and so putting that pressure on the team to move quickly is really important.”

Shotwell said she had to learn to listen and to think before rejecting Musk’s bold goals.

“First of all, when Elon says something, you have to pause and not immediately blurt out, ‘Well, that’s impossible,’ or, ‘There’s no way we’re going to do that. I don’t know how.’ So you zip it, and you think about it, and you find ways to get that done,” Shotwell said.

Max Hodak, CEO at Neuralink, where Musk is leading efforts to build a machine-brain interface to connect humans with computers, has had a similar experience.

“Elon has this incredible optimism, where he will pierce through these imagined constraints and show you that really a lot more is possible that you really think is today,” Hodak said in 2019 at the California Academy of Sciences.

In a Tweet recruiting talent to work for his companies, Musk himself acknowledged he can be hard to work for.

“There are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week,” Musk tweeted.

“But if you love what you do, it (mostly) doesn’t feel like work,” he added.

If you haven't been following Stephan Papadakis' 1,000-horsepower 2020 Supra Formula Drift build on YouTube, now's a great time to tune in. Seeing the car completely stripped down is neat, but watching it be rebuilt with custom-made parts is as satisfying as it is fascinating.

Papadakis has been documenting most of this build process on the PapadakisRacing YouTube channel, which is a refreshingly straightforward and educational source of automotive entertainment. Here's his clip on computer-scanning the stripped Supra body and fitting it with a custom roll cage:

If you stay tuned through the whole thing, you'll also see how competition-spec performance parts are being made for this car.

Can you imagine breaking a car down this completely, only to have to put it all back together again, in a way that's never been done before? Just looking at all those holes and empty retainer clips makes me anxious. (I guess that's why I'm blogging and not working crew for a Formula D team.)

The process of uploading the car's skeleton to a computer is incredibly cool to watch, and it's really neat to see how Papadakis' team has to guess-and-check fitment on parts that are being custom made for this car for the first time.

If you're further intrigued, check out the teardown too:

There are even more details of the build on Papadakis' channel and we've blogged a few of them in the last few months here as well. It's pretty cool of this team to share their work online, since it's pretty clear they're "race team" first and "YouTubers" a distant second. Maybe that's what makes these videos so easy and informative to watch.