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Creative Assembly has finally revealed the mysterious shooter game it's been working on for the past 5 years.

SEGA just announced a new shooter called HYENAS. It's the new IP that Creative Assembly has been working on for many years, and is described as a new 15-player (4x teams of 3) "ballsy entry" into PVP FPS with unique "escape-to-win" mechanics. HYENAS captures the irreverent style of Watch Dogs 2, mixes it with Fortnite-style crossovers, adds a spice of FPS carnage, and throws in some Payday space heisting for good measure.

Creative Assembly says HYENAS is "an audacious new project from a multi-award-winning studio, aiming to do to shooters what they did to horror with Alien: Isolation."

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 will have a new online gametype inspired by Escape From Tarkov, new reports from leaker Ralph's Valve indicate.

According to latest reports from trusted a trusted leaker, Modern Warfare 2's new Tarkov-like gametype will release as a free-to-play experience sometime in 2023. The mode is reportedly codenamed Project Nexus, and quite ambitious in scope. Nexus has been in development for four years or so and will combine campaign elements with PVPVE action, complete with distinct RPG elements.

Modern Warfare 2's launch in 2022 will see the release of three included modes: Singleplayer campaign, multiplayer, and co-op. Warzone 2 will be a separate, standalone release that resets all progress and starts fresh. The new inclusion of Nexus, also described as a DMZ mode, will mean Activision could have five monetized free-to-play online Call of Duty experiences on the market in 2023: COD Mobile, Warzone, Warzone 2, Warzone mobile, and Project Nexus.

Viewing pornography in China is a crime, and authorities have used artificial intelligence (AI) and "porn appraisers" to flag questionable content.

Researchers from China's Beijing Jiaotong University have created a device that can detect pornography when a man is watching it by "reading his mind." In an experiment involving fifteen male university students aged 20 to 25, a device worn on the head detected spikes in brainwave activity whenever an explicit image appeared on a computer screen in front of the wearer.

The device is a proof-of-concept for human-machine collaboration in detecting explicit imagery, catching what AI misses, and assisting porn appraisers, or jian huang shi, that professionally scour and censor content, and are much more accurate than AI, but cannot continuously carry out the task. A peer-reviewed paper on the prototype device was published on June 13th in the Journal of Electronic Measurement and Instrumentation.

The recent wet dress rehearsal was NASA's first successful attempt after various problems thwarted three previous ones.

The last hurdle in validating NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for its upcoming Artemis I mission was scrapped on previous occasions due to technical issues, including a fuel leak and stuck valves, and a hydrogen leak almost delayed the latest attempt. Despite this, NASA went ahead with a wet dress rehearsal on June 20th, 2022, and completed a mock countdown procedure down to T-29 seconds.

The wet dress rehearsal marked the first time the SLS rocket's propellant tanks were all fully loaded, and engineers could test launch-day conditions in rapid succession. To circumvent the hydrogen leak that arose in preparation for the attempt, launch controllers found a way to mask the data the leak would send to the launch computer to allow them to continue the test as far into the countdown as possible.

The United States' first human trial of CRISPR gene-editing technology has been ongoing since 2019.

The trial sought to treat two rare blood diseases, beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease (SCD). CRISPR was used to make a single genetic change to stem cells harvested from a patient's blood, designed to lead to higher fetal hemoglobin levels in red blood cells, before re-administering the stem cells to the patient.

The treatment effectively cured the first two patients to receive it in a matter of months, and follow-up results from about two years in showed completely successful treatments in 22 patients. Seven of those 22 patients were a year past their first treatment, which was still proving effective.

China has recently outlined the nations plans to return samples from Mars back to Earth, and it believes it can do it much faster than NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

For context, NASA, partnered with the ESA, is planning on returning a selection of samples from the Red Planet that involves a complex method of landing a second spacecraft next to the Perseverance rover to hand off the samples. The second spacecraft, which is planned to launch in 2026 and arrive on Mars in 2028, will deploy a rover that will collect the samples from Perseverance and transport them to the Mars ascent vehicle, which is a small rocket that will launch from the surface of Mars.

The small rocket will then sync up with a third nearby spacecraft that will collect the samples and then transport them back to Earth sometime in 2033. Now, that is NASA and the ESA's plan on getting the first Mars samples back to Earth, and while it seems somewhat convoluted, it's the best plan the agencies could come up with given the timeframe.

If you are involved in the cryptocurrency market and haven't looked at your portfolio in quite some time, now might be the time, as prices are reaching catastrophic lows.

The price of Bitcoin has been bleeding since it reached its all-time high of $69,000 back in November 2021, and since then, it has been on a slow decline. From January to April 2022, Bitcoin's price fluctuated between $45,000 and $35,000, and what seemed to be a reasonable price range. Then May rolled around, and the selling began, driving the price from an approximate $35,000 to $26,000 by the beginning of June.

Now June has arrived, and the blood simply hasn't stopped but has continued to gush out faster as more sell-offs occurred, causing the world's most valuable cryptocurrency to plummet a further 30% to its current level of approximately $20,000. Notably, Bitcoin's price broke the $20,000 mark, which is the lowest support the market has seen since December 2020.

Twitter wants to secure its $44 billion acquisition offer from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and the company's board is now pushing shareholders to back the deal.

The news comes from a recent regulatory filing by Twitter's board with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and asks Twitter shareholders to vote in agreement with the merger agreement between Twitter's board and Musk. Notably, Twitter's board unanimously gave its recommendation to Twitter shareholders to grant the approval for "the compensation that will or may become payable by Twitter to its named executive officers in connection with the merger".

Notably, Twitter's share price is currently sitting at around $38 a share, which is much lower than Elon Musk's initial offer of $54.20 per share. According to the filing, if the merger is completed, shareholders will receive $54.20, which is a premium of approximately 38% to Twitter's closing price of common stock on April 2022 - the last full trading day before Musk revealed his 9% stake in the company. Essentially, Twitter's board is pointing out to its shareholders that if they vote for the merger to go ahead, they will sell their stock for 38% more than they would if they sold it at current prices.

In an exclusive reveal with IGN, Amazon Prime Video has revealed what the orcs will look like in the upcoming "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power".

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy made a point of using prosthetics and practical effects when designing the orcs, which is a large part of why the movies have aged so well. Jackson switched to CGI effects in The Hobbit trilogy, which wasn't particularly welcomed by Tolkien fans. Now that Amazon has a new Lord of the Rings TV show in the works, fans have been itching to know if the orcs, or the show in general, will be CGI-focused or use practical effects like the original trilogy.

In an exclusive interview with IGN, executive producer Lindsey Weber and prosthetics department chief Jamie Wilson revealed that the show will be taking the practical effects and prosthetic route for their orcs of Middle-Earth, and that visual effects or CGI will only be used when there is an overwhelming number of orcs. Weber explains that when an orc is close to the camera, it will almost be entirely comprised of practical effects.

AMD is unleashing its super-high-end Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 WX series CPUs, with system builders getting their mitts on the chips first, with the DIY market later in the year. Falcon Northwest is taking off, with next-gen Talon and RAK 4U systems.

Falcon Northwest's new systems will offer 3 new AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 WX series CPUs: the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX with 64 cores and 128 threads, the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5975WX with 32 cores and 64 threads, and the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5965WX with 24 cores and 48 threads of CPU power.

Each of the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 WX series CPUs offer 8-channel DDR4 memory support, and 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0 technology. Falcon Northwest will be outfitting its new systems with the high-end ASUS PRO WX WRX80E SAGE WE Wi-Fi motherboard, a motherboard worthy of Godzilla buying it.

I still remember opening up the Nintendo 64 + Mario 64 + GoldenEye 64 on Christmas Day with my brother "MaDDOG" and we didn't stop playing for years... some of my fondest gaming memories of the 90s on consoles were had on the N64. But now, now we have RT64 -- an N64 emulator plugin that supports ray tracing + DLSS + 60FPS, and more.

RT64 was made by modder and software developer "Dario" who tweeted that the path-traced renderer behind "sm64rt" is "evolving" into an N64 emulator plugin. The magic of RT64 includes ray traced lighting, object motion blur, widescreen support, NVIDIA DLSS support, and 60+ FPS support. Awesome stuff to see, Dario.

Dario tweeted: "I'd like to reveal that RT64, the path tracer behind sm64rt, is evolving into an N64 emulator plugin. Here's a small reel of footage I've captured from games that are already showing results. Ray traced lighting, object motion blur, widescreen, DLSS and 60+ FPS".

Mark Zuckerberg the "human" only just turned himself back on after showing off Meta's prototype Butterscotch and Starburst headsets teased. Now... well, barely 24 hours later analyst Ming-Chi Kuo tweets that Meta's metaverse hardware and headset business is on fire.

Kuo tweeted: "Meta's metaverse hardware/headset business slows down".

We also only just heard from the same analyst providing updates and predictions for a "higher-end Meta Quest 2 Pro" headset. The upgraded Meta Quest 2 Pro headset would use newer mini-LED display technology and 2P Panake for "marked visual improvements", VR + AR support driven through 16 cameras (10 on the headset, 3 in each controller: left and right hands).

AMD is finally bringing its beefed-up Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 WX series CPUs for pre-built PCs very soon, and later in the year the DIY market.

The new AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 WX series CPUs see the flagship Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX which is a 64-core, 128-thread CPU with clocks of up to 4.5GHz, 256MB of L3 cache, 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0, support for 8-channel DDR5, and a 280W TDP.

AMD has also said that the new Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 WX series CPUs will support overclocking (OC) on select WRX80 motherboards, both CPU + RAM overclocking will be supported. If you've also got an sWRX8-socket WRX80 chipset-based motherboard, AMD says you'll be able to "perform a drop-in upgrade to Threadripper PRO 5000 WX-Series processors after a BIOS update".

AMD is continuing to march towards its next-gen RDNA 3 GPU architecture, with the future Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs to use the flagship Navi 31 GPU... but now we're hearing about something faster, a dual-GCD masterpiece.

The rumors of a new Navi 3X GPU are coming from leaker "@Greymon55" on Twitter, who said: "there seems to be 16384SP 8SE Navi 3X, but I don't know if it really exists or if it's a gaming card". A follow-up tweet added that it will be a 2023 release, with "specifications to be determined".

The dual-GCD (Graphics Compute Die) is where the action will be happening, with the consumer and gaming side of the Navi 31 GPU offering 12288 GPU cores (at least according to the current rumors), the new Navi 3X GPU with 16384 GPU cores should power a next-gen Radeon PRO workstation GPU.

Meta only just unveiled some new prototype VR headsets it is working on right now, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg teasing the new Butterscotch and Starburst prototype headsets... but now, now we're hearing rumors of the beefed-up Meta Quest 2 Pro.

The new rumors on Meta's upgraded Quest 2 Pro are coming from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has provided some "updates & predictions for higher-end Meta Quest 2 Pro". These include "reiterating" adoption of mini-LED display technology, with 2P Pancake for "market visual improvements". We're expecting to see a 2.48-inch mini-LED display inside of the Meta Quest 2 Pro, with 2160 x 2160 resolution per eye.

We're expecting both VR and AR with "video see-thru support" which will be driven by the massive CIA-happy-about-this-news 16 cameras on the Meta Quest 2 Pro headset. 10 cameras would be on the headset, with 3 each on the controllers for 6 cameras in your hands: 16 cameras in total. The analyst expects Meta to price the upgraded Quest 2 Pro at $799 or higher, with predictions that Qualcomm will provide its Snapdragon XR2 for the headset.

The totally next-gen PCI Express (PCIe) 7.0 specification has been announced today at the PCI-SIG Developers Conference 2022, ushering in yet another round of doubling the data rate: now up to 128GB/sec.

The new PCIe 7.0 x16 standard will offer up to 512GB/sec bi-directionally, and while your GPU would be sitting on its hands at that point -- graphics cards of today don't need the wicked fast upgraded speeds we're getting with PCIe 5.0, PCIe 6.0, and the just-announced PCIe 7.0 -- the new speeds will be a boon for HPC, AI, and supercomputers.

This means we're going to see next-gen PCIe 7.0 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD of the future pushing a huge 128GB/sec -- up from the 64GB/sec on PCIe 6.0 x4, the 32GB/sec on PCIe 5.0 x4, the 16GB/sec on PCIe 4.0 x4, and 8GB/sec on PCIe 3.0 x4. 128 gigabytes per second, transferring on that tiny M.2 SSD on your motherboard.

Tony Hawk has confirmed that a second remaster collection was in planning stages, but was cancelled when Vicarious Visions was absorbed by Blizzard.

Vicarious Visions and Activision had originally planned to release a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 & 4 remaster collection following the 1 & 2 re-releases in 2020. Everything was interrupted when Blizzard formally absorbed Vicarious Visions in 2021, the studio that developed the original Tony Hawk remasters. Vicarious Visions moved on to Diablo II Resurrected in 2021, and is now focusing on Diablo IV, which is slated to release in 2023.

"I wish I could say we had something in the works, but Vicarious Visions kind of got disbanded and Activision is going through all their stuff so I don't know what's next," Tony Hawk said on Twitch.

It's possible to get refunds for all Diablo Immortal purchases, but the penalties are so high that you'll want quit playing soon afterwards.

Diablo Immortal players are having success getting full refunds for items and content purchased in the free-to-play game. Blizzard has honored multiple refund requests (here and here) for in-game purchases. But if you're going to ask for a refund you should be really sure you want to stop playing.

Blizzard will indeed refund Eternal Orb purchases for a steep cost. After the refund, players' Eternal Orb balances are put in the negative and you're essentially indebted to Diablo Immortal. Once in the red, the game will significant restrict what you can do. Being in Eternal Orb debt means you can't equip any items, play with others in any sort of multiplayer gametype--you can't team up--and you also cannot break down or recycle items at the blacksmith.

EA and DICE are doubling-down on Battlefield 2042 in an effort to bring back the glory days of the franchise.

Despite Battlefield 2042's failures, new DICE general manager Rebecka Coutaz brings hope and optimism to the franchise. In multiple new interviews, Coutaz says that DICE will earn players' trust once again and aims to usher in the triumphant return of Battlefield as a powerhouse name in the FPS business. EA hasn't given up on Battlefield, either; The publisher is investing heavily into new foundational shifts in management, which see Respawn's Vince Zampella taking a greater hands-on approach to the franchise, alongside key talent like Halo co-create Marcus Lehto, who leads a Seattle-based EA studio.

"DICE deserves to be the powerhouse that it should be in FPS. Together with the team here at DICE and the Battlefield franchise, with Byron and Vince and Marcus and Alex, that's what we're going to do," Coutaz told VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi.

Atari will turn 50 years old this year, and to celebrate a half-century of gaming, Atari is hosting a special extravaganza event with reveals and more.

Atari is one of the most iconic and recognizable brands on the planet, and for good reason: It was the largest pioneer of console gaming as we know it today. Few companies have such a long-lasting legacy, and while Atari is just a fraction of the titan it used to be, the current French-based company plans to celebrate 50 years of gaming in style.

Atari management today announced a special semi-centennial showcase on July 27 that will feature major announcements, interviews with founder Nolan Bushnell, merch, and partner publishing showcases. There's even the re-launch of classic Atari 2600 game cartridges as part of the new Atari XP initiative. Atari CEO Wade Rosen confirms two "amazing new titles" will be revealed at the event: