Somewhere in the northern US, drones fly over a 2,000-acre preserve, protected by a nine-foot fence built to zoo standards. It is off-limits to curious visitors, especially those with a passion for epic fantasies or mythical creatures. The reason for such tight security? Inside the preserve roam three striking snow-white wolves—which a startup called Colossal Biosciences says are members of a species that went extinct 13,000 years ago, now reborn via biotechnology. For several years now, the Texas-based company has been in the news for its plans to re-create woolly mammoths someday. But now it’s making a bold new claim—that it has actually “de-extincted” an animal called the dire wolf. And that could be another reason for the high fences and secret location—to fend off scientific critics, some of whom have already been howling that the company is a “scam” perpetrating “elephantine fantasies” on the public and engaging in “pure hype.” Dire wolves were large, big-jawed members of the canine family. More than 400 of their skulls have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in California. Ultimately they were replaced by smaller relatives like the gray wolf. In its effort to re-create the animal, Colossal says, it extracted DNA information from dire wolf bones and used gene editing to introduce some of those elements into cells from gray wolves. It then used a cloning procedure to turn the cells into three actual animals.  The animals include two males, Romulus and Remus, born in October, and one female, Khaleesi, whose name is a reference to the TV series Game of Thrones, in which fictional dire wolves play a part. Two of the “dire wolves” at three months old.COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES Each animal, the company says, has 20 genetic changes across 14 genes designed to make them larger, change their facial features, and give them a snow-white appearance. Some scientists reject the company’s claim that the new animals are a revival of the extinct creatures, since in reality dire wolves and gray wolves are different species separated by a few million of years of evolution and several million letters of DNA. “I would say such an animal is not a dire wolf and it’s not correct to say dire wolves have been brought back from extinction. It’s a modified gray wolf,” says Anders Bergström, a professor at the University of East Anglia who specializes in the evolution of canines. “Twenty changes is not nearly enough. But it could get you a strange-looking gray wolf.” Beth Shapiro, an expert on ancient DNA who is now on a three-year sabbatical from the University of California, Santa Cruz, as the company’s CSO, acknowledged in an interview that other scientists would bristle at the claim. “What we’re going to have here is a philosophical argument about whether we should call it a dire wolf or call it something else,” Shapiro said. Asked point blank to call the animal a dire wolf, she hesitated but then did so. “It is a dire wolf,” she said. “I feel like I say that, and then all of my taxonomist friends will be like, ‘Okay, I’m done with her.’ But it’s not a gray wolf. It doesn’t look like a gray wolf.” Dire or not, the new wolves demonstrate that science is becoming more deft in its control over the genomes of animals—and point to how that skill could help in conservation. As part of the project, Colossal says, it also cloned several red wolves, an American species that’s the most endangered wolf in the world. But that isn’t as dramatic as the supposed rebirth of an extinct animal with a large cultural following. “The motivation really is to develop tools that we can use to stop species from becoming extinct. Do we need ancient DNA for that? Maybe not,” says Shapiro. “Does it bring more attention to it so that maybe people get excited about the idea that we can use biotechnology for conservation? Probably.” Secret project Colossal was founded in 2021 after founder Ben Lamm, a software entrepreneur, visited the Harvard geneticist George Church and learned about a far-out and still mostly theoretical project to re-create woolly mammoths. The idea is to release herds of them in cold regions, like Siberia, and restore an ecological balance that keeps greenhouse gases trapped in the permafrost. Lamm has unexpectedly been able to raise more than $400 million from investors to back the plan, and Forbes reported that he is now a multibillionaire, at least on paper, thanks to the $10 billion value assigned to the startup. From left to right: Beth Shapiro, George Church, and Ben Lamm pose with the pups.COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES As Lamm showed he could raise money for Colossal’s ideas, it soon expanded beyond its effort to modify elephants. It publicly announced a bid to re-create the thylacine, a marsupial predator hunted to extinction, and then, in 2023, it started planning to resurrect the dodo bird—the effort that brought Shapiro to the company. So far, none of those projects have actually resulted in a live animal.  Each faced dire practical issues. With elephants, it was that their pregnancies last two years, longer than those in any other species. Testing out mammoth designs would be impossibly slow. With the dodo bird, it was that no one has ever figured out how to genetically modify the pigeon, the most closely related species from which to craft a dodo via editing. One of Lamm’s other favorite targets—the Steller’s sea cow, which disappeared around 1770—has no obvious surrogate of any kind.    But bringing back a wolf was feasible. Over 1,500 dogs had been cloned, primarily by one company in South Korea. Researchers in Asia had even used dog eggs and dog mothers to produce both coyote and wolf clones. That’s not surprising, since all these species are closely enough related to interbreed. “Just thinking about surrogacy for the dire wolf … it was like ‘Oh, yeah,’” recalls Shapiro. “Surrogacy there would be really straightforward.” Dire wolves did present some new problems. One was the lack of any clear ecological purpose in reviving animals that disappeared during the Pleistocene epoch and are usually portrayed as ferocious predators with slavering jaws. “People have weird feelings about things that, you know, may or may not eat people or livestock,” Shapiro says. The technical challenge was there was still no accurate DNA sequence of a dire wolf. A 2021 effort to obtain DNA from old bones had yielded only a tiny amount, not enough to accurately decode the genome in detail. And without a detailed gene map, Colossal wouldn’t be able see what genetic differences they would need to install in gray wolves, the species they intended to alter. Shapiro says she went back to museums, including the Idaho Museum of Natural History, and eventually got permission to cut off more bone from a 72,0000-year-old skull that’s on display there. She also got a tooth from a 13,000-year-old skull held in another museum. which she drilled into herself. This time the bones yielded far more DNA and a much more complete gene map. A paper describing the detailed sequence is being submitted for publication; its authors include George R.R. Martin, the fantasy author whose books were turned into the HBO series Game of Thrones, In addition to placing dire wolves more firmly in the Canidae family tree (they’re slightly closer to jackals than to gray wolves, but more than 99.9% identical to both at a genetic level) and determining when dire wolves split from the pack (about 4 million years ago), the team also located around 80 genes where dire wolves seemed to be most different. If you wanted to turn a gray wolf into a dire wolf, this would be the obvious list to start from. Crying wolf Colossal then began the process of using base editing, an updated form of the CRISPR gene-modification technique, to introduce some of those exact DNA variations into blood cells of a gray wolf kept in its labs. Each additional edit, the company  hoped, would make the eventual animal a little more dire-wolf-like, even it involved changing just a single letter of a gene. Shapiro says all the edits involve “genetic enhancers,” bits of DNA that help control how strongly certain genes are expressed. These can influence how big animals grow, as well as affecting the shape of their ears, faces, and skulls. This tactic was not as dramatic as intervening right in the middle of a gene, which would change what protein is made. But it was less risky—more like turning knobs on an unfamiliar radio than cutting wires and replacing circuits. That left the scientists to engineer into the animals what would become the showstopper trait—the dramatic white fur. Shapiro says the genome code indicated that dire wolves might have had light coats. But the specific pigment genes involved are linked to a risk of albinism, deafness, and blindness, and they didn’t want sick wolves. That’s when Colossal opted for a shortcut. Instead of reproducing precise DNA variants seen in dire wolves, they disabled two genes entirely. In dogs and other species, the absence of those genes is known to produce light fur. The decision to make the wolves white did result in dramatic photos of the animals. “It’s the most striking thing about them,” says Mairin Balisi, a paleontologist who studies dire wolf fossils. But she doubts it reflects what the animals actually looked like: “A white coat might make sense if you are in a snowy landscape, but one of the places where dire wolves were most abundant was around Los Angeles and the tar pits, and it was not a snowy landscape even in the Ice Age. If you look at mammals in this region today, they are not white. I am just confused by the declaration that dire wolves are back.” Bergström also says he doesn’t think the edits add up to a dire wolf. “I doubt that 20 changes are enough to turn a gray wolf to a dire wolf.  You’d probably need hundreds or thousands of changes—no one really knows,” he says. “This is one of those unsolved questions in biology. People argue [about] the extent to which many small differences make a species distinct, versus a small number of big-effect differences. Nobody knows, but I lean to the ‘many small differences’ view.” Some genes have big, visible effects—changing a single gene can make a dog hairless, for instance. But it might be many more small changes that account for the difference in size and appearance between, say, a Great Dane and a Chihuahua. And that is just looks. Bergström says science has much less idea which changes would account for behavior—even if we could tell from a genome how an extinct animal acted, which we can’t. “A lot of people are quite skeptical of what they are doing,” Bergström says of Colossal.  “But I still think it’s interesting that someone is trying. It takes a lot of money and resources, and if we did have the technology to bring species back from extinction, I do think that would be useful. We drive species to extinction, sometimes very rapidly, and that is a shame.” Cloning with dogs By last August, the gray wolf cells had been edited, and it was time to try cloning those cells and producing animals. Shapiro says her company transferred 45 cloned embryos apiece into six surrogate dogs. That led to three pregnancies, from which four dogs were born. One of the four, Khaleesi’s sister, died 10 days after birth from an intestinal infection, deemed unrelated to the cloning process. “That was the only puppy that didn’t make it,” says Shapiro. Two other fetal clones were reabsorbed during pregnancy, which means they disintegrated, a fairly common occurrence in dogs. These days the white wolves are able to freely roam around a large area. They don’t have radio collars, but they are watched by cameras and are trained to come to their caretakers to get fed, which offers a chance to weigh them as they cross a scale in the ground. The 10 staff members attending to them can see them up close, though they’re now too big to handle the way the caretakers could when they were puppies. The pups are being monitored through the different stages of their development but will not be put on public display.COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES Whatever species these animals are, it’s not obvious what their future will be. They don’t seem to have a conservation purpose, and Lamm says he isn’t trying to profit from them. “We’re not making money off the dire wolves. That's not our business plan,” Lamm said in an interview with MIT Technology Review. He added that the animals would also not be put on display for the public, since “we’re not in the business of attractions.” At least not in-person attractions. But every aspect of the project has been filmed, and in February, the company inked a deal to produce a docuseries about its exploits. That same month it also hired as its marketing chief a Hollywood executive who previously worked on big-budget “monster movies.” And there are signs that de-extinction, in Colossal’s hands, has the potential to generate nearly out-of-control of attention, much like that scene in the original King Kong when the giant ape—captured by a filmmaker—breaks its chains under the flashes of the cameras. For instance company’s first creation, mice with shaggy, mammoth-like hair, was announced only five weeks ago, yet there are already unauthorized sales of throw pillows and T-shirts (they read “Legalize Woolly Mice”), as well as some “serious security issues” involving unannounced visitors. “We’ve had people show up to our labs because they want the woolly mouse,” Lamm says. “We’re worried about that from a security perspective [for] the wolves, because you’re going to have all the Game of Thrones people. You’re going to have a lot of people that want to see these animals.”   Lamm said that in light of his concerns about unruly fans, diagrams of the ecological preserve provided to the media had been altered so that no internet “sleuths” could use them to guess its location.

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" The Estonian Pavilion has revealed the theme and curators for its exhibition at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy. The exhibition, titled Let Me Warm You, is curated by architects Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, and Helena Männa.The Pavilion examines whether current insulation-focused renovations are just compliance measures to meet European energy targets or if they can also serve as an opportunity to improve the spatial and social quality of mass housing districts.The Estonian Pavilion will draw attention to this issue by covering the facade of a Venetian building with insulation panels, a method used in Estonia for mass housing. Author: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Let me warm you, 2025. Render, courtesy of the Estonian PavilionThe palazzetto can be found at Riva dei Sette Martiri 1611, situated on the waterfront between Corso Garibaldi and the Giardini in the Castello district. A room on the ground floor of the same building, wrapped in plastic film, will serve as a venue for an exhibition demonstrating the impact of social dynamics among various stakeholders on spatial solutions. Author: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Let me warm you, 2025. Render, courtesy of the Estonian Pavilion"With this project, we question whether insulation is just a bureaucratic checkbox for meeting EU targets or a real chance to tackle social and spatial challenges," said curators Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, and Helena Männa."It exposes the clash between bold global ambitions and the everyday realities of people navigating collective decisions," the curators added.To tackle with climate change, one half of the world is adding thicker layers of insulation, while the other half is relying on more potent cooling systems. With Europe rapidly progressing toward its climate neutrality transition by 2050, Estonia has set an ambitious target of retrofitting all apartment buildings constructed before 2000 to meet at least energy efficiency class C. Author: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Let me warm you, 2025. Render, courtesy of the Estonian PavilionThis extensive renovation initiative is part of a broader European movement aimed at modernizing outdated housing in response to the climate crisis. Insulation should not be viewed as a simple quick fix or 'bandage'; instead, it should be regarded as a significant enhancement of quality of life.Because of the overwhelming cost and long-term effects involved in these renovations, the true difficulty lies in striking a balance between bold climate policies and the daily needs of residents in these spaces.The installation will be mounted directly to the façade of the existing building and will utilize materials and design elements characteristic of renovations in Estonia. This striking contrast, set against Venice's elaborate architecture, constitutes a potent visual statement. Author: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Let me warm you, 2025. Photography © Joosep KivimäeIn Estonia, the renovation of Soviet-era apartment blocks often takes place with minimal or no architectural involvement, perpetuating a troubling neglect of the character and potential of these spaces. The installation seeks to ignite a conversation among architects and residents regarding the cities and environments we wish to inhabit by placing a fiber cement-clad façade alongside Venice’s abundant historical context.An exhibition on the ground floor of the palazzetto will explore the social forces affecting renovation decisions. In Estonia, where the majority of apartment buildings are privately owned, renovation decisions are frequently dictated by budget limitations, resulting in limited opportunities for spatial enhancements beyond insulation.Author: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Let me warm you, 2025. Photography © Joosep KivimäeThe exhibition area (a currently used apartment) will be enveloped in plastic film, representing the unceasing drive for renovation and revealing how technical solutions frequently eclipse the deeper ties and actual needs people have with their homes. A model of a Soviet-era housing block occupies the centre, highlighting human interactions through theatrical dialogues and exaggerated spatial outcomes to illustrate how various relationships and interactions influence space.Author: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Let me warm you, 2025. Photography © Joosep KivimäeThe exhibition incites visitors to imagine the tension between energy goals driven by policy and the realities of those impacted by them, by illuminating the complexities involved in decisions about renovation and communal living. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition, depicting the tragicomedy of an apartment building in six scenes. Drawing on the narratives of actual individuals, it examines issues that span from the anxiety surrounding transformation to the neighborhood's rejuvenation.Architect Carlo Ratti is curating the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale with the theme Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, and will focus on the built environment as a major contributor to atmospheric emissions, identifying architecture as one of the key factors in the degradation of our planet. With the climate crisis speeding up, architects have to provide solutions that are substantial rather than superficial, effective, and can be implemented quickly.Author: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Let me warm you, 2025. Render, courtesy of the Estonian PavilionIn this sense, the Estonian exhibition responds to Ratti’s call for pavilions: "This year’s head theme offers good ground to discuss what happens to architecture when the Architect is excluded from the process. Renovation processes that are planned by residents themselves according to their best knowledge, provide a good example of how collective intelligence, or lack of it, affects our spatial environment," explained Johanna Jõekalda, advisor on architecture and design at the Ministry of Culture of Estonia, Commissioner of the Estonian Pavilion."The Estonian Pavilion gives the message that the architectural quality of the living environment should not be overlooked in renovation processes," Jõekalda added.Estonian Pavilion, Let me warm you, 2025, mixed technique. Photography © Joosep KivimäeVisitors to the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 will engage actively with the pavilion and the building through "Let Me Warm You" Estonia could become a European role model by reevaluating its renovation strategies: converting old housing not only for energy efficiency but also for a more sustainable and livable future.The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale will take place from May 10 to November 23 November 2025 at the Giardini, the Arsenale and various venues in Venice, Italy. Besides Estonia's contribution, other contributions at the Venice Architecture Biennale include the Romanian Pavilion's "Human Scale" exhibition, the Luxembourg Pavilion's Sonic Investigations exhibition, the Albanian Pavilion's "Building Architecture Culture" exhibition, the Turkey Pavilion's "Grounded" exhibition, the Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates's "Pressure Cooker" exhibition, the Finland Pavilion's "The Pavilion – Architecture of Stewardship" exhibition. Find out all exhibition news on WAC's Venice Architecture Biennale page. Exhibition factsPavilion of Estonia: Let me warm youAddress: Riva dei Sette Martiri 1611 (Castello neighborhood), VeniceCommissioner: Johanna JõekaldaCurators: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena MännaOrganiser: Ministry of Culture of EstoniaCo-organiser: Estonian Museum of ArchitectureExhibitors: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Märten Rattasepp, Kirill Havanski, Aadam Kaarma, Joosep KivimäeProduction: Mari-Liis VunderCollaborators: Neeme Külm (Valge Kuup Studio), Margus Tammik, Robert Männa, Markus Puidak, Randel PomberThe top image in the article: Author: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Let me warm you, 2025. Render, courtesy of the Estonian Pavilion.> via Estonian Pavilion 

ZHA directors/senior staff at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in 2024 Source:&nbspFrederic Aranda Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has slashed its gender pay gap, but there still remains a hefty disparity between men and women’s pay in the UK’s largest architecture practices The median pay gap across 15 of the biggest practices now sits at 15.5 per cent, a slight fall from 16.2 per cent a year earlier. The median pay gap records the difference between how much is paid per hour to the median-earning female employee and the median-earning male employee. Newly published data shows the decrease across all 15 practices is mainly due to ZHA, where the median gender pay gap has fallen by 9.5 per cent, and now sits at 6.3 per cent, comfortably the lowest of any practice.  Excluding ZHA, the median gender pay gap across the biggest UK practices only reduced by 0.1 per cent last year. It increased at six practices, including by 3.6 per cent at PRP and 5.2 per cent at Ryder. Advertisement The architecture practice with the largest median pay gap is Corstophine + Wright, at 32.9 per cent. A director at the practice said it has equal pay for equal roles and that its sizeable gap was due to the acquisitions of male-led practices.  Practice name Gender pay gap (hourly pay) - Median 2023/4 Gender pay gap (hourly pay) - Median 2024/5 Increase in pay gap (percentage points) Aecom 13.6% 13.9% 0.3% Allford Hall Monaghan Morris 16.5% 17% 0.5% Allies and Morrison 13.3% 16.6% 3.3% AtkinsRealis 15.9% 14.1% -1.8% BDP 20% 16.4% -3.6% Corstophine + Wright 31.5% 32.9% 1.4% Foster + Partners 14.4% 12.3% -2.1% Grimshaw 9.91% 9.91% 0% Hawkins\Brown 12.9% 11.7% -1.2% PRP 14.4% 18% 3.6% Purcell N/A 15.6% N/A Ryder 16.3% 21.5% 5.2% Sheppard Robson 13.1% 10.2% -2.9% Stide Treglown 19.8% 16.3% -3.5% Zaha Hadid 15.83% 6.3% -9.53% Average pay gap 16.2% 15.5% -0.7% The data is published by the government, which requires large companies with 250 or more employees to submit their gender pay statistics. Only 15 architecture practices are large enough to be required to reveal the data. The data shows that women make up 43.3 per cent of staff at the 15 practices, although this figure is skewed by lower numbers of women at AECOM and AtkinsRealis, which also employ a range of other built environment consultants.  Despite there being fewer of them overall, female employees make up a majority (53.4 per cent) of earners in the bottom quartile of salaries across the 15 practices. However, women make up just 28.5 per cent of employees in the top quartile of earners – effectively meaning only a quarter of those earning the most in the profession are women.  Practice name Percentage of women in each pay quarter Lower Lower middle Upper middle Upper Aecom 35.2% 38.7% 25.8% 21.4% Allford Hall Monaghan Morris 60.9% 41.8% 40.7% 26.1% Allies and Morrison 58% 57% 49% 30% AtkinsRealis 39.3% 36% 29.8% 21.7% BDP 57% 50.2% 46.4% 26.1% Corstophine + Wright 58% 35% 25% 10% Foster + Partners 46% 44% 39% 27.5% Grimshaw 44.23% 44.23% 50% 64.71% Hawkins\Brown 60% 50.8% 52.3% 23.4% PRP 59.65% 61.4% 42.11% 24.56% Purcell 60.3% 66.1% 48.4% 35.5% Ryder 52.7% 59.5% 44.6% 21.6% Sheppard Robson 54.8% 63.1% 49.4% 41% Stide Treglown 60% 46.4% 38.1% 22.6% Zaha Hadid 55% 46% 47% 31% Average 53.4% 49.4% 41.8% 28.5% Only one practice – Grimshaw – has a majority of women among its highest-earners. At Grimshaw women make up 57 per cent of employees in the upper-half of earners, but just 44.3 per cent of the lower half.  Advertisement Corstophine + Wright has a majority (58 per cent) of women among its lowest quartile of earners, but a large majority of men at all other levels, with just 10 per cent of its highest quartile of earners being women.  Simon Jones, group operations director at Corstophine + Wright, said: ‘We recognise that our median gender pay gap is currently higher than the industry average, which is a reflection of our fast-paced growth through mergers, many involving male-led practices. ‘While the median doesn’t reflect equal pay for equal roles, which we rigorously uphold, we know representation at senior levels must improve. We’re committed to long-term change and proud to be making progress through the hard work of our environment, social and governance committee.’ 2025-04-08 Will Ing comment and share

Instagram has already moved 54 million kids into Teen Accounts. And there's more to come.

Path of Exile 2 fixes incoming following criticism of Dawn of the Hunt update's slow pace Huntress re-balanced. Image credit: Grinding Gear Games News by Ed Nightingale Deputy News Editor Published on April 8, 2025 Path of Exile 2 developer Grinding Gear Games has acknowledged feedback to its Dawn of the Hunt update from players frustrated with the game's slow pace. The update, 0.2.0, arrived last week with a wealth of new content and a new playable character class, the Huntress. Simultaneously, the developer nerfed plenty of abilities and made other changes to tweak the endgame, many of which have unintentionally impacted the main campaign. Now Grinding Gear Games has released a post detailing new and forthcoming changes to appease fans, as development continues in early access. Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt Gameplay TrailerWatch on YouTube "Many people are reporting that gameplay is feeling too slow," the developer acknowledged. "Sometimes this comes in the form of people saying that monster life is too high, or player damage is too low, or areas are taking too long. In this post we will talk about some of the things we have already done, and more of the changes we are planning on making." Having nerfed minion damage and life, these will now be increased to a level similar to before the update, while retaining the new scaling for the endgame. Monster health has also already been dropped by 25 percent to alleviate clearspeed concerns. The developer is also looking into the size of environments, with players criticising their large size. "Many players are reporting that areas feel like they are too large," wrote the developer. "Normally when this is the case, the main reason is due to other concerns such as monster life or player damage being incorrect, or just a lack of entertaining content in the area. However, we are checking to see if there are any outliers that players are spending too long in to see if any changes to area size need to happen." Additionally, the developer is making changes to its new Huntress class, following concerns the power of the class is locked behind the parry mechanic. As such, a new skill will be added to provide Frenzy charges without needing to parry, though this will be carefully balanced to still reward those using the mechanic. Further, the feel of the parry itself will be improved and spear throws will be buffed to incentivise players alternate more between ranged and melee playstyles. Server side crashes have been approximately six times higher in this update, but the developer noted these are "significantly easier for us to debug" so should be fixed imminently. Lastly, quality of life features are on the way such as bookmarking locations on the map, and adding stash tab affinities for more item types. It's hoped these changes will address concerns from players, with the game's subreddit full of memes and frustration. Perhaps the game's most famous player, Elon Musk, however, attempted to play from his private jet and died to the tutorial boss. Still, Grinding Gear Games is attempting to give Path of Exile 2 more demanding combat in comparison to its biggest competition, Diablo 4. Indeed, Eurogamer's Bertie described "Souslike thrills" in his Path of Exile 2 early access review. As for the full release of the game, there's a 65 percent chance it will be released this year, according to game director Jonathan Rogers.

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 here Id Software’s original DOOM games are still some of the most satisfying FPS games ever made. To this day, nothing feels better than chucking a slug into the Super Shotgun and blasting through the Cacodemon’s still-confusing rear ports. Nevertheless, DOOM modders are constantly tinkering away to force the original Doom Guy—now known as the Slayer—to do things other than firing through hordes of demons. Following the terrifying MyHouse.wad, one modder has created the scariest mod yet: a McDonalds Simulator. Doom Guy goes to McDonalds Created by modder SlendyMawn, the “Put the Fries in the Bag Mod” curses the 90s FPS hero to work forever in a McDonalds restaurant. As you stand behind the counter, the constant beeps and chirps of fryers, grills and service tills replaces the expected music to fill you with an instant sense of dread. As you continue to work, classic DOOM enemies and marines will come into the restaurant to order food which you then give them with a series of clicks. Sometimes, a demon might enter, run all the way up the cashier’s till, and ask to use the bathroom. (Existing in the outside world tip: every McDonalds is too busy to notice if you go to the bathroom—you don’t need to ask.) As we all know, demons are not the most friendly creatures, and they will punish you for screwing up their order, as well as for being too slow. If you take too long, they’ll shout “Hurry the Hell up”, which is fitting. If you mess up their order, they might simply storm away with anger or summon an Arch-vile to burn you alive—which is how I expect fast food service to work in America. At the end of the day, the new DOOM mod is yet another example of Id Software’s shooter living forever. DOOM is now 31 years old and yet “just put the fires in the bag” is a phrase that’s only become a common saying in the last year-or-so. DOOM is eternal—not the one—and despite being older than the people creating most memes these days, it always finds a way to adapt them. Of course, the series isn’t just kept alive by the talented and passionate modding community. DOOM: The Dark Ages is set to release on May 13, 2025. With an open-ending designed to create even more medieval-style games, this could be a new future for the iconic franchise. Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

As usual, Lionel Messi has a lot to celebrate. Most recently, the Argentine soccer legend broke Inter Miami’s goal contribution record and made some major real estate moves. According to the Wall Street Journal, Messi just entered contract on four luxury condos at Cipriani Residences Miami, an under-construction 80-story tower slated for completion in 2028. One of the units, a 3,500-square-foot four-bedroom, is priced at $7.5 million; details of the other three condos scooped up by the Inter Miami captain are still unknown.Developed by Mast Capital, the curvy glass condominium will house 397 one-to-four-bedroom residences starting at $1.7 million. The structure’s Canaletto Collection (comprised of six penthouses and 68 other high-end units that make up the building’s top 18 floors) features wraparound views of Biscayne Bay and the Miami skyline, with the penthouse units also featuring private pools. Amenities offered to residents will include a private restaurant, 24-hour catering, a wood-paneled speakeasy, a resort deck with two swimming pools, a holistic spa, a screening room, a gym, a library, and a pickleball court.Join NowFlash Sale: Become an AD PRO member today and unlock your design potential.ArrowRenderings showcase modern, organic-inspired interiors designed by 1508 London. Floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors offering sweeping views of the water are among the elements future residents can expect in the luxury units. Each dwelling will also feature a kitchen equipped with high-end appliances and glossy wooden cabinetry; primary suites with walk-in closets and spa-like bathrooms; and curved terraces lined with glass railings.Messi has several lavish options for where to rest his head while he waits for his newest Miami residence to be built. The athlete maintains a $10.75 million Fort Lauderdale mansion that he bought in 2023, the same year he joined Inter Miami. That home spans 10,500 square feet, with 10 bedrooms and an equal number of baths. He also already owns multiple Miami condos, including a space at the Porsche Design Tower.

New Release: 3DT Stylized Rocks & Cliffs Pack – Build Better Environments, Faster By 3D Tudor on April 8, 2025 Models & Rigs The 3DT Stylized Rocks & Cliffs Pack is designed to remove the biggest headaches in environment design—slow sculpting, messy seams, and a lack of modular flexibility. Built in collaboration with Marcus Rosefield (creator of the popular Stylized Ruins Pack), this collection gives you everything you need to create dramatic cliffscapes, rocky outcrops, and floating islands—without the usual grind.What’s in the pack: 16 modular cliff and rock assets (32 total with grass-covered and bare-rock variants) Hand-painted 2048x2048 PBR textures Optimized models ranging from under 1k to 3k vertices Fully 360° visible meshes — no “back-side only” geometry Easy-to-stack, seamless modularity for fast kitbashing Included Blender compositor addon for quick cinematic lighting and renders Compatible with Blender, Unreal Engine, and Unity What problems does it solve: Time-consuming sculpting: Pre-made stylized assets let you skip the sculpting and go straight to layout. Clunky workflows: Modular pieces snap together cleanly with no gaps, speeding up prototyping and final assembly. Visual inconsistency: Grass and bare-rock variations make it easy to mix biomes while keeping a consistent art style. Limited flexibility: Assets are built for scale, rotation, and reuse—so you can create everything from towering cliffs to tiny details. Whether you're building a stylized RPG, a fantasy short film, or an arcade-inspired game level, this pack gives you creative control with professional polish.Support Independent Artists – The Starving Artist CampaignThis release is part of the 3D Tudor Starving Artist Campaign, a project that helps independent creators like Marcus Rosefield earn fairly while focusing on what they do best—creating beautiful 3D art. When you purchase this pack, you’re directly supporting that mission.Check out the pack and see how it can speed up your workflow while powering up your visuals.Join the 3D Tudor community for feedback, support, and inspiration:Until next time, happy modelling everyone! Neil - 3D Tudor

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The Yuck Yuck 3000 Switch 2 cartridges will taste terrible we're afraid, which shouldn't be too big a deal unless the economy gets really bad Doesn't matter if you suck it down or nibble at the edges, Switch 2 carts won't taste good. Image credit: VG247 News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on April 8, 2025 Listen, times are tough. Who knows what the future will hold. But no matter what happens there's something you've got to know. The Nintendo Switch 2, for all its quirks and cool features, will still have physical cartridges and they will taste bad. This was revealed straight from the horse's mouth as it were, as Takuhiro Dohta from Nintendo spoke to GameSpot and dropped us a dose of sad reality. He states: "We don't want anybody to be at risk of any unwanted consumption. We have indeed made it so that if it enters your mouth, you'll spit it out." To see this content please enable targeting cookies. This may sound obvious and stupid, and it is! It is very silly. But, there's a reason it was asked. Back during the early days of the original Nintendo Switch people tried tasting them (for content, obviously) and were surprised just how bad they tasted. The reason is simple: denatonium benzoate. It's a chemical used on the original carts which is used to keep folks from eating plastic and metal, regardless of how tasty they may look. While Dohta was sure to emphasize not putting a Switch 2 cart in your mouth, one Kouichi Kawamoto spilled the beans on his own adventure, showing clearly that at one point in his life he was in tune with his inner animal. "When the Nintendo Switch was being developed, I did lick it once, but never again. I can't believe that other people are trying that." Good on Nintendo, thinking of the children and truly demented among us who'd consider eating such a thing. However, think of what flavours you've not tasted, what colours you've not seen. It could unlock something in you, y'know. Flip a switch, open a door to a new you. A wiser you. Why not taste it, just once? (For legal reasons I assume exist, please do not actually eat a Nintendo Switch 2 cartridge. Or any cartridge, for that matter.) So there we have it, there's no reason at all to try eating a Nintendo Switch 2 cartridge. Unless of course, the economy gets really bad. But at that point, you may as well try eating tree bark or your fellow man first. Who knows when you'll want to get some Mario Kart World in.