Watch great films like The Godfather, Pulp Fiction and other free titles this April.

April 4, 20256 min readMeet the Fluffy, Funky and Fabulous Native Bees That Call the U.S. HomeScientists estimate there are about 4,000 species of native bees in the U.S.and theyre both cooler and ecologically more important than honeybeesBy Meghan Bartels edited by Andrea ThompsonA Martinapis luteicornis bee found in the desert in Cochise County, Arizona. Amanda Robinson//USGS Bee Lab via FlickrSpring has finally arrived in the U.S., bringing its bright spectacle of budding trees and migrating birds, along with more subtle but equally important changesamong them, the first emergence of native bees.But native bees doesnt actually include the insect most of us picture upon hearing the word bee. That yellow-and-black-striped, hive-living, honey-making critterformally Apis melliferahails from Europe. Farmers rely on these tiny imports as, essentially, livestock animals that pollinate food crops and produce honey. But their wild, native counterparts are something completely different.An Agapostemon sericeus found in Prince Georges County, Maryland. The genus Agapostemon is full of bright blue or green, metallic-looking bees that are classified as sweat bees, even though, unlike their relatives, they are not attracted to human sweat.Wayne Boo//USGS Bee Lab via FlickrOn supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Take the majority of what you know about honeybees and throw it away, says Sydney Shumar, a biologist and manager of the U.S. Geological Surveys Bee Lab. It does not apply to our native bee friends. To celebrate spring, Scientific American spoke with Shumar about North American native bee species variety, differences from honeybees and importance in their ecosystem.[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]Do I have this right that there are more than 4,000 native bee species in the U.S.? How is that number so big?The reason why there are so many native bees is you have all these different little things evolving to pollinate groups or species of plants. So they all have very different characteristics. When you look at pictures of our native bees, they look totally different than a honeybee, and you have huge ranges of color, size, how they collect pollen and how they nest.A Melissodes desponsa found in Maine. The species is closely associated with thistles and can be found across much of the eastern U.S. and Canada.Dejen Mengis/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrWhat are they like, and how do they live?There are no native bees in North America that live in a hive or produce honey. Most of them live in very small family units, or you could think of it as more like an apartment where you might have families aggregating together.If you go anywhere in the United States, you are bound to find some native bees. Sydney Shumar, biologistNone of them produce honey; none of them produce wax; none of them make big structures like you would think of with a honeybee. Some are stem-nesting; most of them are ground-nesting, so when youre walking around in the winter, you are walking on top of millions of ground-nesting bees that are just laying low until its time for them to come out with spring.Is this true even in cities? Do they have preferences or types of ground that they need?A lot of our native bees are specialists, so they do like a particular type of soil; we have a couple that particularly like sand. In cities and more urban areas, you have a lot of impervious surfaces, so that is going to make it harder for them. But if you have loose soil, if you have native plants, youre most likely going to find native bees.A Melitta eickworti found in Rockingham, Va. The species is a type of blunt-horn bee that specializes in pollenating deerberry shrubs.Erick Hernandez/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrAre there any U.S. ecosystems that dont have native bees, such as deserts or something?No, we worked on a project on xeric habitat, and when you think of xeric, you think of dry; you think of nothing blooming, just aridand the researchers caught hundredshundredsof bees. If you go anywhere in the United States, you are bound to find some native bees.Are there any species or groups that you find particularly cool?Besides all of them? I am very fond of this group thats called squash bees. Theyre medium-sized; theyre very cute and fluffy. But as youd guess, they are squash specialists. They come out super early in the morning; you have to get there at first light. And if you have squash plants, then you most likely have them. The scientific name of the most widespread species is Peponapis pruinosa, and youll find them just relaxing in the big squash bloom, usually early in the morning.An Osmia atriventris found in Washington County, Maryland. The species is also known as the Maine blueberry bee, named for its special talent for accessing blueberry pollen. Blueberry flowers store pollen behind special pores that the bees vibrate open.Brooke Alexander/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrYou mentioned that ground-nesting bees are underfoot all winter. What does a year in the life of a native bee look like?With more than 4,000 species, they are not all coming out at the same time. You have some that are very early in the season, when the first spring ephemerals [long-lived plants that are only briefly active above ground each year] come out. In Maryland, thats typically around April. And then as you get the different blooms, you have this continuing crescendo of bees coming out.A Bombus rufocinctus bumblebee found in Yellowstone National Park. The species is fairly common and can sport a wide varieties of different color patterns, such as the red patch on this example, earning B. rufocinctus the common name red-belted bumblebee.Colby Francoeur/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrTypically youre only seeing a really small snapshot of a bees life. For the majority of the time, bees are existing as eggs and as little larvae, and then theyre in this weird grub form underground. And then they emerge as what we think of as bees, and thats where they are finding food, finding a mate and then just continuing that cycle over again.Typically a bee is only out for maybe a month or two. They are kind of fragilethey have very thin wings; they have very thin antennaeand so when you catch one, you can kind of tell if its been out for a little while. It looks a little battered, and you can tell its been flying around and bumping into things and damaging its wings. Or if it looks very pristine, then you can kind of guess that its recently emerged or its a little bit fresher than some of the other bees that are out there.A sand-dwelling Augochloropsis sumptuosa found in the bootheel of Missouri.Orr Uzan-Tidhar and Grace Schilling/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrThe larvae and grub phasesdo those look really different from an adult?They look more grublike, more caterpillarlike. If you were to see one, you definitely would not guess that its a bee larva. A lot of our native bees are very tinybut theyre not baby bees. Baby bees actually dont look anything like the bees that we think of. They dont have the three-segmented body; they dont have six legs; they dont have wings; they dont have antennae.A Bombus affinis queen bumblebee found in Racine, Wis. The historical specimen was collected in 1965, before steep population declines led the so-called rusty patched bumblebee to be declared an endangered species in 2017.USGS Bee Lab via FlickrWith honeybees, we only see females out and about. Is that the same with native bees?With native bees, there are very seldom queensbumblebees are the exception.But there are males and females. You do typically find more females than males, but you dont have the queens or [male] drones or those differences unless you are talking about the bumblebees. In general, most females and males do look a little bit different within the same species. Under the microscope, for males, you typically have a little bit more coloration in the face or a little bit more coloration in general. And then they typically have longer antennae compared to females. And then the biggest difference of all is, even in native bees, females have a stinger and males do not.An Augochloropsis fulgida bee found in Lincoln County, West Virginia.USGS Bee Lab via FlickrCan humans get stung by them, then?Technically yes. Now, the stinger is completely different than a honeybees. It is not a barbed stinger, which means, one, its not as painful, and two, the native bee would not die after you get stung by it. Thats the mechanism that kills the honeybee: the barbed stinger gets embedded. [When the honeybee flies away, the stinger detaches, and the bee dies.]A lot of the time, if people are stung by native bees, its because they were handling themactively netting them or trying to grab them. A lot of times that happens with our bigger native bees: bumblebees, carpenter bees, things of that size. Everything else, they have such minuscule stingers that youre lucky if it even breaks the skin, much less gets through clothing.A Coelioxys novomexicana found in Californias Central Valley. The species is a parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of another group of bees called Megachile.Erick Hernandez/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrAlso, theyre not very territorial. The main reason why honeybees would sting you is because youre encroaching on the hive or they are resource-guarding honey or flowers. Because native bees dont really have a hive to protect and they also dont resource guard, youre a lot less likely to get in their way.What do we know about how native bees are doing?In general, native bee species are decliningand that is a result of habitat loss, use of pesticides, more rural areas becoming urbanized, more impervious surfaces, and the like.An Andrena obscuripennis bee collected in Georgia.USGS Bee Lab via FlickrIf someone wants to start paying more attention to native bees, how easy is it to start learning to identify native bees in their area?Bumblebees are the easiest to get started with, and theres tons of resources online. Theyre bigger, and typically how youre identifying them is based off the coloration of the hair on the back of the bee. So if one of them is just sitting on a flower, you can go up to it and with decent certainty know which one it is, depending on your region. In terms of the other groups, its hard. You definitely need a microscope and access to a reference collection where someone who is an expert has already identified some groups.An Anthophora affabilis bee found in Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The species is common and widespread in the western U.S.USGS Bee Lab via FlickrIs there anything people can do to help native bees around them?The most well-researched and documented way of trying to introduce native bees to your area is to plant their habitat and plant their food source. It doesnt have to be anything crazy. Native bees are tinytheyre really small. So even if you have an apartment, if you have a little garden area or if you have a pot, put some native plants in there, and I think youll be astounded at what you wind up seeing coming to visit.

April 3, 20255 min readHow Many Rogue Planets Roam the Milky Way?According to new simulations, many, even most, planets get ejected from their star early in their historyBy Phil Plait edited by Lee BillingsAn artists impression of a rogue planet in the depths of interstellar space. Pablo Carlos Budassi/Stocktrek Images/Alamy Stock PhotoAs J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in The Fellowship of the Ring, Not all those who wander are lost. But in the case of planets, its possible that most of them are.Rogue planetsplanets that are adrift in space, unmoored from any starhave been a topic of science fiction for a long time; both Star Trek and Space:1999 featured them in episodes. But they actually do exist in real life. Astronomers, who sometimes like to kill fun, call these worlds free-floating planets, which is not nearly as cool a term.Still, these interstellar drifters are pretty interesting. Most have been found via microlensing: their gravity acts as a lens that boosts the light of a background star in a measurable way. These worlds tend to be so small, dark and far away that theyre otherwise invisible to us. Some, similar to Jupiter in mass, have been glimpsed in images; these likely formed directly from the gas and dust in a nebula, much as a star does, and may have thus always lacked a home star. But others, much lower in mass, are expected to have formed around a star only to subsequently be ejected from their planetary system. Now these outcasts slip silent and cold through the sunless spaces between the stars.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.How are they ejected? While there are a handful of possible methods, the most common is likely via interactions with another planet around its host star. We know that planets dont just orbit their star in the same place forever. Over time, planetary orbits can shift because of the combined gravitational influences of other planets in a system. If two planets get too close to each other, the interaction can cause one (usually the less massive of the two) to gain a lot of orbital energy, causing it to be flung out of the system.A team of astronomers at the TechnionIsrael Institute of Technology examined this question and presented its results in a new preprint paper awaiting publication in the Astrophysical Journal. The researchers ran what are called N-body simulations, computer models that use the equations of gravity and motion to simulate the positions and orbits of planets over time. By running repeatedly while varying the input parameters, these models can give statistical estimates for how often certain events such as ejections can occur.The team ran simulations of 100 different planetary systems, each comprised of anywhere between three to 10 planets that, much like the worlds of our own solar system, were on near-circular coplanar orbits around a sunlike star. They then let the equations run for a billion simulated years.What they found was that encounters are quite common! There are lots of interactions between planets as some get nudged into elongated orbits that can cause one world to essentially cross the path of another. What can happen then is a direct collisionthat is, an actual colossal impact that can shatter the planets or at least do extreme damage. That outcome is more common than you might think, occurring, on average, 0.4 time per planetary system (so, in 100 systems, youd expect to see about 40 collisions). They tend to happen early on; most occur within a million years of a simulations start.But ejections are even more common: the team determined that on average as many as 3.5 planets are ejected per system after a billion years, and most ejections happen within the first 100 million years. That result surprised me; given that there were only three to 10 planets per system in the simulations, I wouldnt have thought there would be so many ejections. But this is exactly why scientists do these sorts of calculations; our expectations can be biased, whereas the math and physics isnt.The researchers also found that a planet at any given location was as likely as any other to be ejected over the course of their simulations, so neither inner nor outer planets could be considered safe, although an innermost planet tends to be ejected first. The ejected planets usually leave the system at a relatively leisurely velocity, about two to six kilometers per second. Earth orbits the sun at more than 30 km/sec, so these ejection speeds are fairly low.Very interestingly, they found that systems with fewer planets tend to exit their ejection phase after about 100 million years, but systems with 10 planets are still unstable even after a billion years. They also found that these more bountiful systems actually eject the majority of their planets, losing 70 percent after a billion years. Most of the ones ejected are lower-mass, as expected.The obvious question is, well, what about us, then? Our solar system has eight major planets and has been around for more than four billion years. If a system can be unstable after a billion years, are we safely past that deadline? Why are we still around?We could just be lucky. Thats possible. The results the team published are averages over many simulations, so some systems lose more planets than others. It could be that the simulations the researchers ran are incomplete and that more parameters need to be included. Its also possible that our solar system beat the odds for long enough to become stable and that, from here on out, well be fine.The team also found that to match the number of ejected free-floating planets detected by astronomers, every star in the galaxy needs to form five to 10 planets on average. Thats a lot but not out of the question. Some stars may have lots of planets, and some may only form a few (or none). TRAPPIST-1, for example, is a tiny, low-mass red dwarf star, and it has at least seven Earth-sized planets! Red dwarfs are the most common kind of star in the universe, so they alone could possibly explain all the low-mass ejected planets we see. Stars like the sun might eject many planets as well, but they only account for about 10 percent of all stars, so thats a molehill compared with the red dwarfs mountain.This work is still preliminary, and theres a lot left to explore. But the numbers do match observations pretty well, giving us good reasons to suspect there are more free-floating planets out there in the galaxy than ones orbiting stars.How many of them once circled our own sun? How many planetary siblings have we lost? None? One? Four? Well likely never know; our solar systems 4.6-billion-year history offers a long time for shedding worlds into the Milky Way. But there very well could be galactic nomads wandering in deep space that began their endless journey right here around our sun. If so, they have a lot of company.

Nintendo Switch 2 doesn't actually run original Switch games natively"We decided to take on the challenge of using new technology."Image credit: Nintendo/Eurogamer News by Victoria Kennedy News Reporter Published on April 4, 2025 Nintendo's upcoming Switch 2 console doesn't actually run the original Switch's games natively, as the two hardwares are incompatible.One of the first things that we knew for absolute certain about the Switch successor was that it would be backwards compatible. "At today's Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch," company president Shuntaro Furukawa said in November.But, while this means Switch 2 owners will still be able to play most of the games from the original Switch's library, this isn't possible because the two consoles are compatible at a hardware level, which would have been handy. Rather, it's all possible thanks to a workaround Nintendo has managed to implement.Nintendo Switch 2 Hands-On Preview: Mario Kart World Impressions & More! Watch on YouTubeDuring a recent Ask the Developer Q&A, Nintendo's Kouichi Kawamoto said the Switch 2 team always wanted the new system to play the original console's games, but "were told there'd be technical challenges" getting it to work."When we first started Switch 2 development, the focus was on enhancing its performance as hardware, namely, expanding its capacity," added Takuhiro Dohta. "So, compatibility was a lower priority."But, it was still something the team wanted to ensure, and in the end the Switch 2 developers settled on "the challenge of using new technology to run Switch games".Said Dohta: "If we tried to use technology like software emulators, we'd have to run Switch 2 at full capacity, but that would mean the battery wouldn't last so long, so we did something thats somewhere in between a software emulator and hardware compatibility."The team goes through many checks to make sure original Switch games run smoothly on Switch 2, but the developers noted "it might not be that all Switch games run perfectly" in time for the console's launch this summer.This method of playing older games explains why a few titles have some compatibility issues, though fixes are in the works. And while only one Switch game is completely unplayable on Switch 2, others will still require the use of original Joy-Con due to specific controls or peripherals."But we will continue our efforts so that we can support as many Switch games as possible," Kawamoto said. Image credit: EurogamerFor more, our Tom has already taken the upcoming console for a spin. You can read his thoughts on his time with the Switch 2 in Eurogamer's feature: Nintendo Switch 2 hands-on reveals a proper generational upgrade, though its biggest new idea remains unproven.Meanwhile, here's everything announced at this week's Switch 2 Direct, including pricing and more.

Tekken 8 receives "emergency patch" in response to Season Two balancing backlash"The result is a disconnect between what the community wants and the tuning results."Image credit: Bandai Namco News by Ed Nightingale Deputy News Editor Published on April 4, 2025 The developers of Tekken 8 will release an "emergency patch" later this month, in response to players furious over the balance changes brought to the game's second season.Even before the second season, Tekken 8 was criticised by players for its aggressive gameplay that lacked the more technical aspects of previous entires. In the patch notes for the latest update, released earlier this week, Bandai Namco acknowledged the prevalence of "one-sided match developments" and detailed a string of changes intended to re-balance the game.However, community feedback to the changes has been overwhelmingly negative, leading to an "emergency patch" and other fixes on the way.Tekken 8 - Anna Williams Gameplay TrailerWatch on YouTubeThe patch - scheduled for mid to late April - will tweak two moves in particular for Paul and Jack-8, which both have unintentional uninterruptable effects."The causes of the two high-priority issues shown in the image have been identified, and fixes are currently underway," a thread on social media reads."Additionally, we are also working on identifying and fixing the causes of other behaviour-related character issues and a malfunction in the Options settings."The patch will additionally "include some of the adjustment items previously announced in the patch notes under 'Future Adjustments', notably the throw break chip damage change."Further changes are also promised, based on feedback from the community.Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada wrote on social media: "In any case, it is clear to me that the result is a disconnect between what the community wants and the tuning results. I understand that whatever words I may be accused by the community about it, that is not the essential issue and it is not the time to worry about it. We have our Battle & Tuning team working around the clock to read through all the feedback logs from the community and work on future policies and changes for the better."To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Perhaps, though, these changes are arriving too late. Many pro players are already threatening to leave the game entirely due to the balance issues (thanks IGN)."I have been optimistic about this game and the balancing direction since release but it feels like enough is enough and we've definitely reached that point. This does not feel like Tekken AT ALL," wrote pro player JoKa on social media."Characters getting buffed even in the slightest is not the way along with more stance-based transitions where 50/50 situations are enhanced. Some of the new moves added are insane with little to no counterplay. Characters getting their weaknesses patched and identities being removed by homogenisation is lazy balancing. Oki being gutted and heat just getting buffed makes no sense. Combo damage is too much across the whole roster. I definitely think the sidesteps are better but does that really matter when moves exist with crazy tracking/hitboxes? Chip damage is still excessive with most heat smashes remaining the same. Removing strategy in favour of more 50/50 situations isn't interesting gameplay and is moving away from the foundation of Tekken."Other players have described it as the "worst patch in Tekken history", or have been left "really sad" as they consider the future of the game.Over on Steam, recent reviews have dropped to "Overwhelmingly Negative" due to the changes."No one literally no one asked for these changes, even new players never asked for more offense in a game that clearly lacks defensive options and is easy to mash button and win like in most Tekken games," reads one review. Another describes it as "the most disappointing iteration of the franchise".Season Two also sees Anna Williams return to the roster, as the first new fighter of this season's Character Pass.When Anna's design was first revealed, Harada responded to fan feedback to curb toxicity.

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereCapcoms Title Update 1 for Monster Hunter Wilds is the first massive content drop for the new game. Available right now, the new update brings new Arena Quests, Challenge Quests and Challenge Quests to the game with even more to come in the future.After the release of the new update, Capcom warned that the company will no longer be soft on cheaters. In fact, the studio is looking to heavily punish cheaters in the future.Capcom will punish Monster Hunter Wilds cheatersIn a statement to players, Capcom said its new focus on stomping out cheaters is to ensure a fun and fair experience for our players.We will take action against accounts participating in fraudulent ranking activity, such as the use of cheating or external tools, Capcom said.Accounts deemed to be in breach of this may be suspended, or have restrictions placed on them, such as being unable to receive rewards from these quests, the studio continued.Capcom also warned players who arent actively cheating in Monster Hunter Wilds to look out for active cheaters. Players who are actively playing with cheaters will find themselves having quest rewards revoked after finishing a mission.Annoyingly, players who are mistakenly deemed to be cheating or playing with cheaters wont have rewards given back to them. Please take caution to avoid playing multiplayer with those who are engaging in prohibited activity, or those you suspect of such, the studio said.While cheating is primarily a PC issue, the cross-play features of Monster Hunter Wilds mean that players on PlayStation or Xbox will also find themselves playing with cheaters.Its not known what exactly Capcom is treating as a cheat in Monster Hunter Wilds. With mods adding everything from free character edit tokens to awesome speedrunning tools, theres a lot the game developer could treat as some form of cheat. With that in mind, all players should be careful in this regard.For more Monster Hunter Wilds coverage, read about the easy ways to make the game look substantially better on PC. Additionally, read about how some players have been banned for using mods that unlock DLC for free.Monster Hunter WildsPlatform(s):PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series XGenre(s):Action RPGSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereMarvel Rivals has grabbed the gaming community by storm, and its vivid cosmetic skins, particularly Invisible Womans Malice skin, are at the center of the excitement. This bold outfit, inspired by Sue Storms dark alter ego from Fantastic Four #280, debuted in Season 1 and replaced her trademark blue uniform with a provocative black leather garment with crimson accents.The skin went incredibly viral upon its release as devs reported a 3000% search on Google for Invisible Woman, thus increasing her popularity. However, several fans raised eyebrows after a TikTok ad displaying this skin, labeled Abuse Her This Season, aroused uproar for encouraging sexual violence. In March 2025, Australias Ad Standards Community Panel found that it had violated advertising ethics, citing insensitivity to violence and nudity. NetEase stayed silent, leaving players to debate the boundary between edgy marketing and poor taste.However, Season 2s Hellfire Gala is set to reignite the discussion, as Emma Frosts new skin follows a similar style. Her diamond-form style has a similarly daring costume, reminiscent of her personality in comic book lore.Marvel Rivals Season 2s upcoming Emma Frost skin already goes viral ahead of releaseMarvel Rivals leakers such as X0X_Leak and Rivals Assembled have revealed an upcoming skin for Emma Frost called X-Revolution that will be available on April 11, when Season 2 hits the game. The costume takes inspiration from the Uncanny X-Men: Battle of the Atom comic book series, where shes a telepath and wears stuff like this on purpose to weaponize simping and read peoples minds and get what she wants.A bold new Emma Frost skin is on its way. Image by VideoGamer.However players and fans are both excited over the new look as the leaked skin has already received gooner attention on social media, similar to what the Invisible Woman Malice skin was treated to. One such fan said, Im loving people taking initiative and justifying this gooner skin unprovoked lol. Another chimed in, The White Queen making people lose their minds out here.On the other hand, the look of the skin outraged several users, where one wrote, This game just cant help but make every female hero as sexualized as possible. While Rivals devs have recently announced they are going to release a new hero every month from Season 3 onwards, fans are expecting more costumes for characters to drop in the game.Furthermore, early patch notes also reveal that each skin will now have a color choice between two shades that players can choose when purchasing the outfit or even gifting to their friends in the upcoming Season 2. Regardless, itll be interesting to see over the next few weeks whether Emma Frost breaks the viral meter raised by Invisible Woman or sparks another outrage over sexualizing its female roster.As Krakoas mutant festivities unfold on April 11, players brace for another round of bold cosmetics and potential controversy, proving Marvel Rivals isnt shying away from pushing boundaries.Related TopicsMarvel Rivals Subscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

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Pooroblem SolvedInZOI achieves the one million copies sold life goal in its first week, as its latest patch fixes, er, "an issue where the toilet sound effect was too long and felt unnatural"You also no longer have to fear your Zoi being unable to give birth if they get divorced mid-pregnancy. Phew.Image credit: Krafton News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on April 4, 2025 InZOI - one of the many games arguably aiming to wrestle away The Sims' life-sim crown - has had a pretty good first week following its early access release last week. It's already shifted a million copies, and its devs are well on their way to rectifying its biggest teething issues.For example, they've just put out a hotfix that's (checks patch notes) "fixed an issue where the toilet sound effect was too long and felt unnatural". Ok then. Damn, now I'm sad I never got to hear this unnaturally lengthy lavatory loudness in all of its glory.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Anyway, to start with the good news, Kraton has confirmed that the game has surpassed one million cumulative sales as of today, April 4. That's nice going given it only came out on March 27, and the publisher says it's "the fastest sales milestone ever achieved by a Krafton-published game."We are grateful and excited to present InZoi to players around the world through Early Access," Krafton CH Kim, said, "We will continue to actively communicate with players and foster InZOI as Kraftons long-term franchise IP." To see this content please enable targeting cookies.As you might be aware given the whole running over kids bug making the rounds the other week, the game's suffered a lot of the kinds of issues you might expect to have to iron out early in Early Access, with their weirdness being inherently magnified by the fact it's a thing that simulates regular life.For example, the devs have deployed that aforementioned patch with the toliet sound fix in it today, April 4, but saving you from weird loo noises isn't all it does. It's also "fixed an issue where giving birth was not possible if a divorce occurred during the pregnancy test stage" and another bug where "the 'give birth' interaction would not proceed when the interaction queue was full". Meanwhile you shouldn't run into Zois going to sleep "for excessively long periods" and the rate at which karma changes has been slowed down.Are you planning on taking an unnaturally lengthy and noisy trip to the latrine in order to celebrate InZOI hitting this milestone? Don't let us know below, and make sure to check our our range of InZOI guides that can help you do stuff like get a job.

Ducking the KingFatal Fury: City of the Wolves' new character is a real life DJ fighting game players haven't heard of, and fans aren't too pleased about itSalvatore Ganacci, a DJ who is playing a show in Saudi Arabia on the CoTW release date, has made it in.Image credit: SNK News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on April 4, 2025 Salvatore Ganacci, a real life DJ, has been announced for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Taking the spot of a legacy SNK character, his announcement hasn't gone down well among fighting game fans, confused as to why he has been added to the game over a selection of popular fighting game characters.Yesterday, both a live action reveal trailer and a gameplay trailer for the character were released. Not only that, but SNK character Duck King - who was already a DJ - was used to tease Ganacci's inclusion. City of the Wolves, a major leap forward in the Fatal Fury narrative, led some to believe a fictional apprentice would get a spot, leading to palpable disappointment when Ganacci came up.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Salvatore Ganacci, known for a selection of viral moments during live shows and songs like Take Me To America and Step-Grandma, is a common performer at Saudi Arabian music festivals, including promotional work for the upcoming Saudi government owned LIV Golf sportswashing venture this year. In addition, he is set to play a live show at the 1001 Festival in Riyadh on April 24, the same date as the City of the Wolves release date.Fans were torn somewhat on the previous character reveal, footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, due to his popularity and the hope that his name could tempt non fighting game players into hopping into the genre. However, Salvatore Ganacci (who has far less cultural stock than Ronaldo) has gone down poorly online. Twitter, Bluesky, and Reddit are all up in arms about his inclusion.It has also led to some fans digging up old statements from the SNK team. Namely, this Gamesindustry.biz article which highlighted a statement from an SNK representative, who claimed that the Saudi Arabian government's 96% ownership in the company "doesn't affect us in any way". This has been called into question with the reveal of Ganacci, as the two real life guest characters both have business ties to Saudi Arabian owned events.For those who aren't sure as to why fighting game players would be so distraught that City of the Wolves would slap a DJ into the roster rather than a legacy character, you should know that the game is a sequel to a truly beloved game called Garou: Mark of the Wolves. It is held up as one of the best fighting games SNK ever made, and a narrative leap forward provides ample opportunity to bring back beloved characters from the history of one of fighting game's longest-lived franchises.On top of that there are criticisms of the Saudi Arabian involvement itself. Saudi Arabia bought SNK a few years ago as part of a wider push to diversify the country's income and rectify negative international reputation. The country has been criticised heavily by human rights organisations like Amnesty International due to treatment of migrants, still using the death penalty, and more. Not only that, another human rights organisation Walk Free has listed Saudi Arabia as forth worldwide in slavery.So for fans, this all feels gross in a very palpable way. Whether or not this will impact the game's performance remains to be seen, but as of right now it certainly isn't in genre diehards' good books.