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At yesterday's Halo World Championships, developer 343 Industries announced that it was officially changing its name to Halo Studios. The company also revealed that it has multiple new games in the pipeline and is switching all future Halo development from its proprietary Slipspace Engine to Unreal Engine 5. In a YouTube video (below) the new studio showed elements from the "Project Foundry" Unreal Engine research effort that has been ongoing for the past several years. While just a tech demo for now, it showed Master Chief and Covenant elite designs, along with three biomes including a Cascades-type location, Flood-impacted Blightlands and snowy Coldlands. "Respectfully, some components of Slipspace are almost 25 years old, Halo Studios art director Chris Matthews told Xbox Wire. Although 343 were developing it continuously, there are aspects of Unreal that Epic has been developing for some time, which are unavailable to us in Slipspace and would have taken huge amounts of time and resources to try and replicate." The company plans to hire new employees and have multiple teams working on several games at once using a centralized UE5 pipeline. Halo Studios didn't reveal any specific projects or timelines, with CEO Pierre Hintze simply saying that they'll be "ready when they're ready." The studio has been under the leadership of Hintze, GM Bryan Koski and COO Elizabeth Van Wyck since studio GM Bonnie Ross left in 2022. Some of this information was leaked in early 2023, with reports that 343 was "starting from scratch" on Halo development following layoffs. The studio was said to be shifting to Unreal Engine after struggling with its aging Slipspace platform. At the time, 343 Industries affirmed that it was "here to stay" following rumors that Microsoft might shift the Halo franchise to other studios.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/halo-developer-343-industries-rebrands-itself-to-halo-studios-120041943.html?src=rss
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Playing Phoenix Springs feels like being trapped in a gorgeous dream thats steadily becoming a nightmare. Its a point-and-click mystery set in a bleak futuristic world of dramatic shadows and muted primary colors, its scenes connected by streams of anxious static. The game stars Iris Dormer, a technology reporter whos searching for her estranged brother, Leo. Her hunt takes her from the abandoned buildings of a rundown city, to a rich suburb, and finally to Phoenix Springs, a desert oasis bathed in golden light and occupied by a handful of odd, disconnected people. Iris is the heart of Phoenix Springs. She narrates the on-screen action in a stoic, unaffected tone that belies the cutting poetry of her observations. Iris has just three options when interacting with people and items: talk to, look at or use. Relevant concepts and objects are collected in her mental inventory, a simple word cloud of black text on a white background. Open the inventory with a right click and select a word to bring it into the scene, where its combinable with other ideas and with Iris herself, prompting her to remember the clue or provide more details about it. Making Iris remember certain things is a key mechanic throughout the mystery, and its a good move to keep in mind if you ever feel stuck in a point-and-click hole while playing. Iris is the games only voice and she talks directly to the player, sharing unfiltered thoughts as she processes each new set piece. Iris is jaded, dogged and insightful, and her cadence is sedate but sharp. Its the kind of voice that could make a take-out menu sound both sinister and profound, and its a thrill to listen to throughout Phoenix Springs. Iris city is desolate and rife with inequity. The streets are dotted with deserted buildings and barbed wire, and only the richest citizens are allowed to use energy without restriction. Down one alleyway, an intoxicated man is passed out on top of a shipping container, while a mute boy sits nearby, making a plant dance with an electronic box. In an abandoned university, a DJ blasts a thundering playlist for days on end as part of a mass sleep-deprivation experiment, delirious dancers and unconscious bodies piling up on the auditorium floor. The city's shadows are tinged with green, oppressive and sickly. Theres a mid-century edge to the games technology globe lights, push-button intercoms, bulky computer terminals and long train rides which makes the world feel intensely familiar, at least until the stasis pods appear. Make no mistake, Phoenix Springs is hard cyberpunk. Oddly enough, this only becomes clearer once you make your way to the oasis. The lushness of Phoenix Springs is an immediate relief, its flowing waters, red wooden huts and vibrant natural textures highlighting the sterility of the citys metal, glass and wires. Its almost relaxing enough to make you ignore the high strangeness of everything and everyone there. Almost. Calligram Studio On top of combining items to generate new leads about Leos disappearance, its critical to speak with people, bring them relevant ideas from your inventory and listen closely to their answers. The game relies on making common-sense connections and following your intuition, and rarely are solutions provided at face value. At times trial-and-error is a valid way to progress, and in other cases its just a matter of taking a breath and thinking about the problem from a fresh angle. My advice is to have patience and try absolutely everything that comes to mind; if youre paying attention, chances are, youre on the right track. Phoenix Springs occasionally suffers from the most common issue in point-and-click games, where it feels like youve tried every combination and nothing is working, so you just randomly click around until something happens but I encountered only two instances like this in about six hours of playtime. Thankfully, Calligram Studio provides a link to a walkthrough guide in the pause screen, so hope is never truly lost. Calligram Studio The games simple control scheme supports a surprisingly complex narrative that unspools in Iris measured narration. Theres nothing rushed about Phoenix Springs. Iris walks leisurely across expansive wide shots, her light blue silhouette cutting through high grasses and across cold concrete at the same unhurried pace. When she speaks, she gives each thought time to permeate the scene, sentences short and powerful. Haunting choir chords and droning bass lines are eventually replaced by pristine silence and birdsong. Where the environments arent blanketed in shadow, their colors constantly shift like theres a stop-motion river flowing just beneath the screen. Each second of Phoenix Springs demands your attention. In return, the game provides a million moments of intrigue for your eyes, ears and deductive mind. And at the inevitable conclusion, every small detail slides elegantly into place. I want to print out this game, frame by frame, and plaster its hand-drawn neo-noir vistas over every square inch of my office walls. Phoenix Springs is an interactive art installation that happens to use point-and-click game mechanics, and Calligram Studios emphasis on creating something beautiful and then using this canvas to tell a twisted story about biohacking and familial love is clear. Calligram Studio Whats exciting about Phoenix Springs is that it excels as both a piece of art and a detective game. It occupies a similar territory as Kentucky Route Zero, another title that offers depressing social commentary in a visually fascinating package, also made by a small artist collective. In the case of Phoenix Springs, stunning art direction, expert writing, incredible sound design, fabulous voice acting and satisfying mechanics combine to create an unforgettable, utterly unique sci-fi experience. Sure, Phoenix Springs is a game but mostly, its gorgeous. Phoenix Springs is now available on PC, Mac and Linux, developed and published by Calligram Studio. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/phoenix-springs-review-a-dazzling-and-disquieting-sci-fi-mystery-120029156.html?src=rss
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It's been a wait. Apple Intelligence will start rolling out on October 28, according to Bloombergs Mark Gurman. Apple said last month it was targeting October for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 which will bring some of the first Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 16 and the rest of the Apple family. The first wave of Apple Intelligence-powered features will include its summarization tool, Writing Tools and smart audio recording and transcriptions for Mail, Notes, Pages and other apps. Ive been testing the beta, and so far, the most useful feature has been the summarization tool, tackling my forest of notifications and messages and parsing them into glanceable summaries. Mat Smith The biggest stories you might have missed Apples revamped Mac mini and iPad mini could be here as soon as November 1 What happens when solar panels die? What to read this weekend: Preventing an asteroid apocalypse, and Cult of the Lambs first arc wraps up Gmails Gemini-powered Q&A feature comes to iOS Legos website was hacked to promote a crypto scam The company said no user accounts were compromised. Lego Scammers hijacked the toy brick makers website last week. They switched its banner and used it for a crypto scam. A banner with illustrated golden coins bearing the companys logo claimed the "Lego coin is now officially out." It even promised secret rewards to those whod buy some. The incident happened overnight at Legos headquarters. The company responded relatively quickly, removing the unauthorized banner and links. Lego told Engadget no user accounts were compromised. Continue reading. New iOS update fixes microphone and password problems These were issues with the iPhone 16 series. A more immediate update from Apple: It has released two new patches, including iOS 18.0.1 for iPhones and iPadOS 18.0.1. The patch fixes recording issues with all the iPhone 16 models in the Messages app. The iPhones microphone would accidentally start recording a few seconds before becoming activated with the orange microphone icon. Continue reading. X lost a court battle after trying to claim Twitter ceased to exist It was the companys attempt to avoid paying a $400,000 fine. X tried to avoid a $400,000 fine by claiming Twitter (its old name) no longer exists. The creative legal argument came amid a more-than-year-long dispute with Australias eSafety Commission. The commission had asked the company to provide details about its handling of child sexual exploitation on the platform last February. X failed to answer several questions and was slapped with a $415,000-plus fine for non-compliance. The argument isnt exactly new: CEO Linda Yaccarino has also repeatedly claimed X is a brand new company in a bid to avoid scrutiny. She repeated the line multiple times earlier this year while testifying at a Senate hearing on child safety issues. Australia federal judge Michael Wheelahan, however, was not having it. Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-the-first-apple-intelligence-features-should-finally-arrive-on-october-28-111544744.html?src=rss
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