Aric Chen is the former lead curator for design and architecture at Hong Kong’s M+ museumThe Zaha Hadid Foundation has named American architecture and design curator and writer Aric Chen as its new director. Since 2021, Chen has been the general and artistic director of the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ national museum and institute for architecture and design. Prior to this he was a professor and founding director of the Curatorial Lab at the College of Design & Innovation at Tongji University in Shanghai. Aric Chen has been named as the new director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation He was also curatorial director of Beijing Design Week and, between 2012 and 2018, oversaw the creation of a design and architecture collection at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong. Chen said: “It’s a huge honour to be building on the forward-looking legacy of Zaha Hadid, and the great work the Foundation has already done.  “I look forward to seeing what new directions we can chart, expanding the understanding of Zaha’s work while furthering her desire to support new voices, and creating a voice of our own with a boundarylessness that I hope would make Zaha proud.” The foundation’s chair Brian Clarke said Chen will bring “a wealth of experience from institutions and projects he has directed all over the world.  “We have asked him to bring Zaha’s energy to both a UK and global audience and he has enthusiastically embraced that challenge,” he added. The Zaha Hadid Foundation was founded by Zaha Hadid in 2013 and says its primary purpose is to preserve, study and exhibit Hadid’s work, much of which is in its collection. It has had a contentious relationship with the practice which Hadid founded, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), which is required to pay the foundation 6% of its annual net income in order to continue to use the late architect’s name. In January, the High Court ruled that ZHA must continue paying the royalties, which have generated £21.4m for the foundation since 2018, after the practice had complained that they limited its ability to operate competitively. ZHA and the foundation were also involved in a protracted conflict over Hadid’s estate, which was settled in 2020. Hadid died in 2016 at the age of 65.

Nintendo still hasn't explained why it's charging more for the game.

April 17, 20252 min readEurope Targets Clothes, Appliances and Tires in Crackdown on Wasteful ConsumerismNew European Union regulations will require products that last longer and are easier to recycleBy James Fernyhough & E&E News IvanWuPI/Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | BRUSSELS — Textiles, furniture, tires and mattresses will be subject to much stricter design standards to ensure they last longer, as the EU aims to stamp out wasteful consumption, the European Commission confirmed Wednesday.Steel and aluminum will also be included in the first wave of regulations under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), along with a range of electronic goods from mobile phones to fridges and washing machines.The ESPR is intended to embed durability, repairability and recyclability into the design of certain products, with the goal of reducing waste, improving energy efficiency, and boosting the EU’s circular economy. The framework legislation came into law last July, but requires delegated acts before it applies to specific products.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.The 2025-2030 working plan, adopted Wednesday, lays out a road map for the ESPR for the next five years, and includes a working plan for the related Energy Labelling Regulation. Chemicals, plastics and footwear had originally been included in the first wave of proposed rules, but were withdrawn earlier this year.The adoption of the working plan marks “a pivotal moment” that will “deliver significant benefits for all Europeans, create opportunities for businesses and employment, and protect the planet through proven impact on reducing emissions,” EU industry chief Stéphane Séjourné said in a statement.“These ecodesign rules apply to all products placed on our single market, regardless of their origin-country, ensuring that each of them meets the European Union’s ambitious goals,” he said.The Commission said the particular rules would now be said through delegated acts “on a product-by-product basis or for groups of similar products.”Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

Tempest Rising is a polished, performant and brilliant real-time strategy (RTS) game powered by Unreal Engine 5. That's a sentence I never really expected to say just a few years ago, but a whole host of contributing elements here make this game fun to play and, thankfully, technically sound. This is not typical multi-platform game that I'd review for DF, but a PC exclusive in a genre that defined the platform's earliest days. Slipgate Ironworks and 3D Realms have crafted a new entry into that classic genre that lives up to the legacy of its finest works, and I think a big reason for that is due to the incredible single-player focus. While you can of course play the game in a skirmish against the CPU or in multiplayer, what sets Tempest Rising apart from many modern entries in the RTS genre is its intricate 22-mission campaign. Like some of the most legendary RTS games, you have a choices of factions: the NATO-adjacent, high-tech and synergistic Global Defence Force or the Tempest Dynasty, an eastern/southern force with heavy weapons platforms and flamethrowers. This dichotomy might sound familiar and that's purposeful, with the game's developers being open about their inspiration from Command and Conquer, and the storyline isn't far removed from the beats found in the first two games in that series. A devastating nuclear war has led to the spread of the veiny, organic and titular "tempest" across the globe, a sci-fi lifeform whose byproduct conveniently acts as a fuel source and weapon. The two factions vie for the future of the species by fighting over the remaining land and resources. Here's the full Alex Battaglia breakdown of this modern classic RTS. Watch on YouTube The game's interstitial story moments also feel like something ripped right out of the first Command and Conquerr, albeit with more modern technology. Instead of filmed FMVs, these sequences are instead rendered in real time, with digital actors representing ranking leaders or second-in-commands that brief you on your mission and optionally give you more information and context about the world and your objective. From here you can see your next mission laid out in front of you on a animated geographical map, and upon deploying you're treated to a short FMV sequence where new unit types are shown off and the combat scenario ahead is prepped. Each mission is quite different from the last, and the variety is only enhanced by the different factions where the story and playstyle vastly differ. Even the entire aesthetic to the intermission sequences are different, with GDF's cold blue holograms being replaced with charmingly old-school, Cold War era DOS prompts for Tempest Dynasty. It's simply wonderful. The units, backstory and gameplay are of course all new here for Tempest Rising, but the cadence and presentation of the story will be incredibly familiar to those of you who have played Command and Conquer. For someone like me, this isn't an issue but a plus point, as Command and Conquer hasn't had a decent new entry in decades, and meaty single-player campaigns with this much story and production value are quite uncommon in RTS, especially non-historical entries. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. While the cinematic influence and story-telling style come from Command and Conquer, other areas of the game are inspired by more diverse sources. Yes, there's plenty of Command and Conquer here, but aspects like tech research, unit abilities and the presence of a population cap is more Blizzard-like, while mission rewards and attributed bonuses allocated to your units out of combat are something you might find in a game from Relic or Creative Assembly. The influences run deep and, like the best games in the genre, the moment-to-moment gameplay requires your full concentration even on normal difficulty. You have a lot to account for: making sure your resources are accruing, expanding your base, making the most of your unit abilities and spacing your forces for attack or defense. I was extremely rusty when the game started to get more hectic and I was quickly overwhelmed by the amount of things you can micromanage. After some floundering on my part I discovered the rhythm of the game, and started to better understand how to pace macro and micro. Still, I should stress that the game can be difficult. The campaigns start simply, with few units to control, but this ramps up progressively throughout the campaign. It's challenging and rewards mastery, which I'm sure genre veterans will greatly appreciate. From a Digital Foundry tech perspective, there's plenty to talk about here, with the game shipping on Unreal Engine 5.4.3, according to its executable, and offering the choice of DX11 or DX12 modes. I opted for DX12, and while the initial shader compilation step did disrupt the playback of the intro videos somewhat, it does appear to be effective, with no instances of shader compilation stutter whatsoever in a dozen hours of play. The game in general is smooth and fast, and load times from the main menu took just two seconds on a Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor with a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, with a similar figure for reloading mid-game. Save-scumming in the event of a failed attack has never been easier! The isometric perspective and distinctive user interface mark this as a new game made in the image of RTS classics - particularly Command and Conquer. It runs on UE5, but doesn't use the engine's headline features like Nanite, Lumen or VSMs, instead focusing on visual flourishes that are better suited to the chosen genre and perspective. | Image credit: Digital Foundry In terms of graphics, the game is a bit more modest, which explains its relatively kind performance profile - as I'll discuss later. Based on a visual examination, the game doesn't appear to take advantage of the headline UE5 features such as Lumen, Nanite or Virtual Shadow maps despite being a UE5 release. However, these features aren't key for Tempest Rising's RTS gameplay and isometric perspective, where lighting nuances, level of detail swaps and geometric quality aren't key to the game's aesthetic. The game does appear to use a standard level of detail system, which subtly swaps assets based on camera distance - and this doesn't hurt the game's visuals versus more advanced systems. The only standard UE5 feature that could have improved the presentation is probably VSMs, as the shadow quality could be more precise, but this is a relatively minor critique. Everything you control looks great, with units that have distinctive enough silhouettes at maximum zoom to easily distinguish and control. One of my favourite elements is the headlights on vehicles, which light up the surrounding terrain and objects as they bounce around the environment. Explosions and particle effects are another high point in the game's visuals, with oil barrels, fuel depots and the game's various structures detonating wonderfully with big sparky fireballs like Quake 2. It's key for a game like this to have satisfying effects work, and clearly the developers spared no expense in making sure all the booms and bangs look great. Backing up the explosive action is a solid soundtrack with diverse tracks and several composers. I particularly like that the music plays with the correct context, eg heavy guitar-driven tracks emphasise a battle scenario, while more stealth-based missions have appropriately ambient backing tracks. There's music for a variety of occasions and even some tracks from Command and Conquer's Frank Klepacki that go as hard as you'd imagine. While playing, you'll probably find yourself nodding your head to the beat in the same way that you might have done in a classic RTS of yore. Like all good RTS titles, there are multiple factions here, paralleling the GDI/Nod and Allies/Soviets options in Command and Conquer titles. | Image credit: Digital Foundry Plenty is done well on the presentation side, but I'd be remiss not to mention a few nitpicks. One is how textures load, where quickly clicking across the map can catch textures loading in just after you change viewpoints - not super common in regular gameplay, but still a bit surprising to see. Another issue is more common: animation rate. A large number of game animations appear to occur at half-rate, so a unit moving across the battlefield will change position at 60Hz, for example, but only animate at 30Hz. The intensity of the animation affects how obvious this is, eg helicopter blades are quite a stark example. Other elements, like particle effects and flip book animations, also seem to be half-rate. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to which animations are decimated in this way - eg turrets run at half-rate, while barracks animate at full-rate. Thankfully, higher refresh rates mean smoother half-rate animations, eg playing at 120Hz means half-rate effects run at 60Hz, where the animation inconsistencies are les obvious. I'm not sure if this is an intentional performance saving measure given how inconsistently it's applied, but either way it would be cool to be able to manually enable full-rate animations throughout the game for higher-end hardware. A familiar progression: a briefing from a superior officer, a map and an FMV featuring the new units you'll be using - or facing. | Image credit: 3D Realms/Digital Foundry I spent a healthy amount of time playing at a locked 4K 120fps, and had a fantastic experience on a high-end RTX 5090 and Ryzen 7 9800X3D rig. There were zero dropped frames over a 30-minute span, with GPU utilisation topping out at 70 percent and CPU utilisation also quite low. Some of this performance comes from the fact that the game isn't taking advantage of the highest-end UE5 features, but we've seen several games that perform much worse while using a similar feature set, typically due to poor CPU utilisation. Either way, the development team appears to have made the correct technical decisions to serve the gameplay, and on high-end hardware the game truly flies and is incredibly smooth with no frame-time issues to worry about. On lower-end hardware, you don't have to make settings concessions to hit performance targets, but large numbers of on-screen units and their AI calculations can cause slow-down on older and slower CPUs. For example, a relatively low-end RTX 3060 is able to hit 90-120fps using epic settings at 1440p with DLSS quality mode, which is fantastic, but the similar vintage Ryzen 5 3600 processor often kept the graphics card at 70-80 percent utilisation. When you order a full screen of units to attack-move to an enemy base, I saw the frame-rate tumble below 60fps with spiky frame-times. However, most gameplay was well above 60fps, and the isometric camera makes any frame-rate hiccups less noticeable than in a game with a first-person or third-person perspective. Beyond performance, I want to discuss how well Tempest Rising makes use of ultra-wide monitors. In gameplay, the UI is pushed out to the edges to make good use of the space, contextual menus appear in the correct location and the experience is polished - something that sometimes even big-budget releases don't manage. However, outside of the core gameplay, there are some compromises: the 16:9 map screen is zoomed in to fill the extra space, talking head moments use huge vignettes on the left and right sides to presumably avoid animation weirdness that would be otherwise off-screen, and FMV sequences get classic black bars. When giving orders to a large number of on-screen units on a low-end CPU, you can see frame-rates dip - though the isometric perspective makes these moments less noticeable than in first/third-person perspective games. | Image credit: Digital Foundry However, the ultra-wide experience is still better than the current HDR implementation, which seems buggy. HDR does work when you load up the game, as the monitor detects it, but as soon as you are in-game, it's easy to see how things aren't rendering correctly - for example, snowy terrain looks red in HDR. It'd be great to see the development team provide proper HDR support down the line. Tempest Rising is, bar some smaller things, an extremely polished and performant game that plays extremely well. Its fully-fledged single-player campaign is a treat and I highly recommend this game to anyone out there who like real time strategy games. In an era where publishers and studios such as EA and Blizzard have categorically ignored making new entries into classic franchises, it is incredible to have a game of this high quality coming out doing the things it does.

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 Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 should be a massive turning point for the games industry, although some veterans believe it won’t be the game-changer it should be. While Larian is now leaving the game behind after the release of Patch 8, New Blood Interactive CEO Dave Oshry believes the game has left a mark that is changing the industry. Speaking on a new episode of the Quad Damage Podcast, Oshry explained that we now live in “a post-Baldur’s Gate 3 world”. Via GamesRadar, the beloved indie publisher believes Larian’s success should result in more “deep-a** CRPG” games. “[Larian has] proven that people are not stupid,” Oshry said on the podcast. “They don’t want dumbed down RPGs, and that publishers can “sell 50 million copies of a deep-ass CRPG that will take you fucking months to beat.” Oshry explained that companies like “Microsoft should fund” more CRPGs, using Pillars of Eternity 3 as an example. Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity series—which recently saw an awesome spin-off called Avowed—was a spiritual successor to the original Baldur’s Gate games, and Oshry knows that a third game would succeed. “Microsoft should fund a Pillars 3,” he said. “Josh [Sawyer] really wants to do Pillars 3.” While Larian is hard at work on its next RPG that will probably take us years to complete, the impact of BG3 is yet to really happen for the wider industry. Yes, Hasbro wants to make another Baldur’s Gate game that continues to “raise the bar” without Larian, but will other game developers follow suit? That’s the real question: while Larian has proven that gamers want games with real value instead of battle pass-filled, free-to-play games that jump on trends. However, the success of Larian doesn’t mean that companies like EA, Activision and others will follow suit, which is unfortunate. Nevertheless, the Baldur’s Gate 3 community itself is still going strong. As the game’s official support ends, massive mod teams are creating custom campaigns that take players back to areas from the second game, and Larian has left players with a seemingly endless amount of content to chew through. Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

For designer John Bambick and his husband and business partner, Michael Bentley, the inspiration for their space started down the hallway. Their Manhattan apartment building is home to a motley ensemble of residents that could’ve come straight from Central Casting. “The guy across the hall works in stage production, the woman down the hall does screenplays,” says Bambick, rattling an array of artistically inclined neighbors in the Greenwich Village building. “Some of the residents have rent-stabilized apartments and have been there for 30, 40, 50-plus years,” echoes Bentley. “Very real New Yorkers, and, especially, very real Village-ites.”From left, John Bambick and Michael Bentley in their Manhattan home The couple, who moved into their rental in 2021, embraced the prewar building’s mulifaceted spirit from the get-go. “The lobby isn’t super pretty. You have some of the character that’s still there [under] 100 layers of paint. There’s 2,000 packages while you’re trying to get to the elevator…,” shares Bambick. “We love how when you enter our space, you’re transported into something that’s thoughtful, but also loose and fun and very comfortable, and not too perfect and not too precious.” With an art curation replete with finds from auction-house favorites and emergent artists alongside personal works, the 850-square-foot apartment reflects the pair’s latest chapter as newly(ish) minted New Yorkers. “Considering that we didn’t move to New York until 2019, to have that glimpse into what the Village used to be became the starting point for how we wanted to decorate it,” says Bambick.Bambick juxtaposes an Instagram find—Hikaru Akieda’s untitled canvas portrait painting—with Jonny Niesche’s acrylic, mirror, and voile work called Schein Blossom Kansai Hanam from The Hole. “I think we found [Akieda when] he was an art student,” shares Bambick, who had to wait for school break to end to obtain the work. The credenza is the USM Haller Mid-credenza, the vintage Accolay ceramics were purchased at Paul Bert Serpette, and the vintage chest of drawers is from Hollar & Squall. The table lamp was purchased at auction, the stoneware bowl is by William Marshal, from Freeforms, and the vintage flushmount light is from Amsterdam Modern. Benjamin Moore’s Creamy White is on the wall at right. In an art filled corner of the living room, the haunting work Face Off, by Chinese painter-sculptor Xue Jiye and obtained from Black Dragon Press, holds court with a 1976 print called Sans Titre by Jean-Pierre Pincemin, 55 Sunrises by Sho Shibuya, and Margaret Maclean’s porcelain anemone. The adjustable desk lamp is from Zara Home. “We really have mixed emerging artists coming out of school with some stuff we found at galleries,” shares Bambick. In the living room, Farrow & Ball’s Salon Drab clads the walls, creating an impact that’s anything but what the name implies. A RH sofa sits front and center, framed by a glazed ceramic table lamp from the 1950s, and a vintage Karl Springer lucite lamp. The jute rug is by S.R. Home, the brass sconces are from Etsy, and the two custom steel lounge chairs feature Mitchell Denburg fabric, while the custom lounge chair is upholstered in Marci Mohair from Yarn Collective. The Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Barcelona table was purchased at auction. Untitled NRA by Felix Gonzalez-Torres hangs on the wall.

Chinese scientists have achieved a milestone in clean energy technology by successfully adding fresh fuel to an operational thorium molten salt reactor, according to state media reports.AdvertisementIt marks the first long-term, stable operation of the technology, putting China at the forefront of a global race to harness thorium – considered a safer and more abundant alternative to uranium – for nuclear power.The development was announced by the project’s chief scientist, Xu Hongjie, during a closed-door meeting at the Chinese Academy of Sciences on April 8, the official Guangming Daily reported on Friday.The experimental reactor, located in the Gobi Desert in China’s west, uses molten salt as the fuel carrier and coolant, and thorium – a radioactive element abundant in the Earth’s crust – as the fuel source. The reactor is reportedly designed to sustainably generate 2 megawatts of thermal power.Some experts see the technology as the next energy revolution and claim that just one thorium-rich mine in Inner Mongolia could – theoretically – meet China’s energy needs for tens of thousands of years, while producing minimal radioactive waste.AdvertisementDuring the April 8 meeting, Xu said China “now leads the global frontier”, according to Guangming Daily.

It's a wonderful day for MapleStory fans, and those with a deep nostalgic love for early 2000's MMOs. MapleStory Classic World has been announced as part of the game's 20th anniversary celebration, a recreation of the original version of the game with select quality of life improvements. Read more

Image: NintendoThe first Nintendo Direct dedicated to a single Switch 2 game has come and gone, giving us a 15-minute deep drive (c'mon, that's a keeper!) into everything we can expect from Mario Kart World when it launches alongside the system on 5th June. If you've been keeping up with hands-on impressions following the Switch 2 Direct and the subsequent Switch 2 Experiences, the MKW Direct probably didn't tell you much you didn't already know, but it did give us an extended look at the titular world, the courses within, and confirmed the return of Battle Mode and more. Let's take a look and round up all the details from the Mario Kart World Direct. On this page: Nintendo Direct: Mario Kart World: Every Announcement - How Would You Rate It? Mario Kart World Nintendo Direct (April 2025) - The Full Presentation If you're keen to catch up, here's the full 15-minute MKW Direct, originally broadcast at 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST / 11pm AET on Thursday 17th April 2025. Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube808k Nintendo Life Live Reaction And if you fancy a little watchalong with Felix and Zion, here are their live takes as the Direct happened. Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube808k Mario Kart World Direct Round Up Okay, enough waffling - let's drive right into things... The New Courses Image: Nintendo First up, we got a look at a selection of the new courses, including some specific callouts: Mario Bros. Circuit Crown City Salty Salty Speedway Starview Peak Boo Cinema - Dracula Waluigi!! We also saw some old favourites highlighted: Toad’s Factory Peach Beach Wario Shipyards / Galleon We got further confirmation of returning courses that have been reworked and integrated into the world (big up for Koopa Troopa Beach!), and Day or Night racing was also confirmed. Grander Prix Characters Image: Nintendo Next up, an overview of some of the main characters. This included regulars such as: Mario (shocker!) Luigi Peach Bowser Yoshi ...plus some less expected new drivers: Goomba Spike Cow Lakitu Check out the enormous roster of confirmed characters in our guide: Every character in Switch 2 Mario Kart Game Modes We then got a closer look at the "two main styles of race" — Grand Prix and Knockout Modes — both of which allow 24 racers. Cars that shoot Bullet Bills and attacks from Hammer Bros. were highlighted as hazards to avoid, natch. Grand Prix Image: Nintendo In GP mode, you choose a cup and race four courses. So far, so Mario Kart. The difference here is that you'll have to drive between courses rather than just being plopped on the next starting grid after passing the checkered flag. While not stating it outright, the trailer essentially confirmed that completing all the Grand Prix cups would unlock "a certain colourful course", too. (That's Rainbow Road.) It's about drive, it's about Ice Flower Knockout Tour Image: Nintendo This part covered known details, giving us another look at the elimination-style 'rally' mode, Knockout Tour. The Direct showed off Golden Rally, Ice Rally, Moon Rally, and Spiny Rally - epic six-course races that eliminate the four karters at the back of the pack every checkpoint. We loved this new mode when we went hands-on with the game. The World Wide Road Items Image: Nintendo Next up, items. Plenty of old faithful in the mix, plus some newbies. Here's what was shown: Coin Shell (drops coins in your path) Ice Flower (freezes enemies when thrown) Hammer (you throw hammers that remain on the ground for a short while) Mega Mushroom (a returner that makes you big) Feather (a vintage item which gives you a big jump, letting you avoid attacks9 Kamek (transform rivals into other racers/things) Support Features A brief look at some returning accessibility features for new Mario Kart players, including Smart Steering, Auto-accelerate, and Tilt Controls. As with Mario Kart 8, everyone can get involved. Food By picking up snacks on the road, you can unlock costumes. Regional cuisine unlock regional threads inspired by the meal. You find this fast food at drive-thru joints around the world. Global fusions New Tricks Image: Nintendo Two new moves here that should prove invaluable. The first is Charge Jump, a mini turbo/trick you charge up by holding down the slide button while moving in a straight line. If you jump towards a wall, you can Wall Ride for a bit. More interestingly, you can now Rewind during a race! This reverses your movement, so you can go back and nail a jump or shortcut you missed. HOWEVER (big however), everyone else keeps moving forward when you rewind, so you'll need a pretty decent lead to make using it worthwhile. This can be used in Free Roam mode and also in races. Get ready to Rewind Modes Image: Nintendo Time Trials Groundbreaking. You can download Ghost data from other online racers. VS Race Another returning mode, although this time with up to 24 racers in up to four teams. You can choose from the Classic ruleset (three laps of the same course) or go Tour style and race between tracks. You can also customise your routes between courses. Battle Mode Okay, now we're talking. Balloon Battle is back (where you compete to burst your opponents' balloons), as is Coin Runners (where you work to collect the most coins before the time runs out). Let battle commence! Free Roam Image: Nintendo While playing a version of Bob-omb's Battlefield from Mario 64, various locations around the (Mario Kart) world were showcased with a breathless 'go anywhere, do anything' vibe. In terms of new details, we saw P-Switches dotted around the world which initiate missions involving collecting coins, racing to a destination and more. There are "hundreds" of these switches around the world, apparently. You can also find hidden coins (we saw the Peach Medallion), hidden panels, and "more" around the world, and the Photo Mode will let you capture your exploration and expression with special frames and poses. Unlocks and missions and friends, oh my! Multiplayer Image: Nintendo Four-player splitscreen is back, and it looks like the frame rate will take a hit (it looked like 30fps to our eyes, but that's unconfirmed at the moment. There's also the local wireless option, which lets you link up to eight Switch 2s together, with two players per console (if you like), meaning you can have 16-player local meetups. Heading online raises the per-race player count to 24 players. You can also play with friends online, with Free Roam accessible whilst waiting for your pals to join. Alternatively, you can just go for a cruise and use GameChat to speak with your friends. The game is compatible with the Switch 2 camera, and you'll be able to see your friends' faces onscreen even if four of you are playing locally - which should stop all the "Who's that in front of me?" questions before you whack a green shell up their tailpipe. Poll Aaand that was it. Lots of known information there, if you've been keeping up to date with all the latest info, but a decent recap nonetheless. We just want to play it, to be honest! Mario Kart World is out in a matter of weeks now, so keep your eyes on NL's road if you're keen to stay ahead of the competition - and let us know below how you'd rate the Direct as a whole. How would you rate the Mario Kart World Direct, on a scale of 1-10? (134 votes) 10 - Outstanding4%9 - Excellent10%8 - Great13%7 - Good14%6 - Not Bad10%5 - Average16%4 - Poor16%3 - Bad7%2 - Terrible  0.8%1 - Abysmal4%Didn't watch it, but polls get my motor running4% Up Next: 2nd April (Switch 2) Related Games See Also Share:0 1 Gavin first wrote for Nintendo Life in 2018 before joining the site full-time the following year, rising through the ranks to become Editor. He can currently be found squashed beneath a Switch backlog the size of Normandy. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Switch 2's Backwards Compatibility List Provides Updates On Two Titles Here's what you can expect Where To Pre-Order Nintendo Switch 2 Where to buy Switch 2 consoles, accessories & games Here's Why Switch 2 Joy-Con And Pro Controllers Don't Have Analogue Triggers Nintendo thought instant input was the "better option"

Instagram on Thursday announced that it’s rolling out Blend, a new feature that lets you create a custom, personalized reels feed for you and your friends. Blends are invite-only and can be created with a singular friend or with a group chat. The custom feeds are refreshed with new content each day. The launch doesn’t come as a surprise, as TechCrunch reported in March 2024 that the social network was developing the feature. Once you join or accept a Blend invite, you will be able to browse through reels picked for each person in the chat. When someone in the group reacts to a reel, Instagram will notify you so you can keep a convo going in the DM (direct messaging) chat.  The idea behind the feature is to explore what sorts of reels your friends are into, while also connecting with them and discovering new content together. Blend aims to introduce a new social element to Instagram, bringing it closer to its roots of sharing moments with friends, something that’s been overshadowed in recent years by an influx of influencers and ads. Image Credits:Instagram With the launch of Blend, Instagram is giving users access to a feature that isn’t available on TikTok, which is one of Instagram’s biggest rivals. For Instagram, Blend could be a way to boost reels’ discovery and watch time on the social network, as it’s encouraging users to watch short-form content together. To create a Blend, you need to open a one-on-one or group DM chat and tap the new Blend icon at the top of the chat. Then, you need to select “Invite” to invite people from your DM chat to join the Blend. The Blend will be created when at least one member of the chat accepts your invite. You can revisit a Blend by going to the DM chat and tapping the Blend icon. It’s worth noting that Blend is somewhat similar to Spotify’s functionality of the same name, which allows people to combine their tastes into one shared playlist that refreshes daily. Topics