Control is still the GOAT when it comes to uncanny beauty in video games Unhomely alonely. Image credit: Remedy Entertainment Feature by Christian Donlan Contributing Editor Published on May 18, 2025 Stop me if you've heard this before. We say "uncanny", but in Germany it's "unheimlich". The unheimlich was a big deal for people like Freud, and it's hard not to love the term, just a little bit. Unheimlich means, well, it means uncanny - weird, eerie, unsettling. But more specifically, it translates as "unhomely." Unhomely. Now that is a word that carries a chill, a creep of the flesh, a word that registers an arachnid skittering in the corner of your vision. When something is familiar and unfamiliar all at once! You should feel like you're at home, but... Testify! Rotary telephones with no dials. Bodies suspended in the air with a kind of ballerina poise and elegance. Staff portraits, but they're, like, full-blown oil paintings, dark eyes and unknowable aspects. When it comes to the uncanny, there's one big budget game that really delivers on it for me. It's Control. It's a shooter, I guess, a third-person action game inspired by everything from The X-Files to House of Leaves to tropical Brutalism. There's a splinter of Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy and even Stranglehold in there too. But it's also pure, delicious, slow-dripping uncanniness. It's familiar and unfamiliar. It's... Well... Control is set within a building known as the Oldest House, and here, already, things are getting weird. Lots of games are perfectly house-sized. Edith Finch. Maniac Mansion. But a special few are set within houses that feel much bigger than the game they contain - much bigger than a single imagination could ever understand. Jet Set Willy. Impossible Mission. Control. The Oldest House contains Control, then, but it also feels like it contains so many other things, so many other implausible, improbable, impossible things. This week, for example, Remedy gave us a taste of FBC: Firebreak, a hectic multiplayer action game. Yes, it's set in the world of Control, but more specifically it's set within the Oldest House. Why not? There's plenty of room. Here's Aoife's take on Control from back in the day.Watch on YouTube In Control's fiction, the Oldest House is the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control. This is a government agency that deals with extremely bizarre stuff. But the Bureau's surfaces are beautiful and often quietly elegant. The face the Oldest House presents to the world is one of tastefully curated mid-century modernism. Wood looks like wood. Tile looks like tile. Concrete looks like concrete, and there's lots of it, along with indoor bays for tropical plants and wide staircases and bright overhead lighting that's perfect for giving ghostly shape to cigarette smoke. Players come to the Oldest House as Jesse, a woman searching for her kidnapped brother. That's a straightforward set up, and a game as unmoored as Control needs it, just as it needs the surprisingly strict confines of its third-person combat. Shoot stuff with a gun that can change form. Throw stuff around with your mind. Explore and clear out monsters as you dig for the truth. There's this unexpected core of extreme orderliness at the center of Control, in terms of what you do most of the time and why you've been told you're doing it. In retrospect, I guess the name of the game was a hint. This orderliness allows the designers to then bolt on all kinds of antic zaniness with no danger of the whole thing collapsing into fripperies, and it reminds me a little of the way that even the most extravagant skyscraper begins with the fixed core of its elevator shafts. (In Control, it's the central elevator that often sends you off on missions. It all works!) Control. | Image credit: Remedy Entertainment The plot is really just there to direct you back and forth through the Oldest House itself, though, and like all uncanny things, transformation is always in the air. Sometimes the Oldest House is doing the transforming. Sometimes you're more directly in charge. Both these approaches are brilliant. When it comes to the Oldest House's own tricks, it tends to start with subtlety. Places will take slightly too long to reach. The signage looks weird and announces unusual departments. The technology is of the wrong era - green-screen computers? Bakelite phones? Radio equipment that looked like it may have been of use during the space race? This is all just the prelude, the aura before the migraine. But soon the Old House is revealing itself in full. Rooms telescope or twist, like the architect behind the place was willing to bust out a Spirograph. Smooth surfaces give way to jumbled blocks. In one area, chill infects the corridors and the glass freezes over, and are those tree trunks in the distance? In another, a furnace radiates the full heat of the sun. This is where that splinter of internal order really helps. It helps to orient. Because you know what you're doing and why you're doing it, the building can transform around you in quite wild ways without becoming frustrating. But the Oldest House also has a lovely sense of pace. It will go wild for a few moments and completely transform itself, but then it turns quiet again. Safe? Ah, but now you're left questioning the simplest things - the background hum, the volume of a room. Did I walk this way before? Was this hallway pointed in the same direction? Control. | Image credit: Remedy Entertainment Further on things get really, really weird, but in a way the Oldest House is at its best before it drops too far into sci-fi. It's at its best when it's got something tricksy, something of the funfair to it. There's an incredible sequence towards the end of the adventure when the Oldest House flings everything at you and you're racing through an environment that warps and twists and strobes, an environment that truly contains multitudes. This is fantastic, and feels like the middle-eight in a song, changing things up and leaving them elevated. But it's not the moment people mention the most in my experience when they talk about Control. That moment is an office that is simply overrun with Post-its. Post-its belong in offices, of course, but here they cover absolutely everything. Familiar and unfamiliar. And kind of funny, too. And here's a thing I really admire about Control. It's willing to be very funny, but not in the way that games about hellish offices normally try to be funny. It doesn't take the top-down approach, so often lifted wholesale from Portal's precision wit and cruelty, in which humans are sane lab-rats in an insane hierarchy of faux camaraderie and corporate double-speak, a world in which there are a million euphemisms for dying at work and there's a slice of cake promised if you can survive. Control. | Image credit: Remedy Entertainment No. Control is funny because it looks at the way all offices affect the people who work within them - how the creeping of weird rules and weird ways of being is slow and measured and often hard to spot. The comedy here comes from how that quietly insane hierarchy in turn warps ordinary people. The fact that it relies on the supernatural, in a way, only makes it more relatable. It's the comedy - and horror - of a room in which someone's really busted out the Post-its. It's the comedy of lamping someone with a photocopier. Here's a trailer for FBC: Firebreak. Are you ready to go back in?Watch on YouTube And with that image, we've the other kind of transformation in Control. It's the transformation brought about by the player, as they encounter the Oldest House's many enemies and use gunfire and numerous supernatural abilities to fight back. The gun you're given is pretty great, but Control's really about telekinesis - about picking stuff up with your brain, watching it sway woozily in the air, and then lobbing it somewhere in order to really hurt something. It's the transformation of impact, of violence and splatter. All that concrete is so eager to come apart in gritty chunks. All those office supplies are ready for a second life as a projectile or cudgel. You can take the Oldest House apart just as quickly as it tries to build itself into something monstrous. When I first played Control I would often end action sequences realising I was just firing wildly into the walls. They seemed, I guess, like a viable target. And while Control's mid-century vibes are very pleasant to engage with, it's the violence - this is a very weird thing to say - that's truly beautiful. When I first played the game, I remember chucking stuff at a filing cabinet for hours, just to enjoy the rippling of its drawers caused by the impact. In the moment of connection, it was briefly alive. And after a particularly fraught battle I remember staring at a crater on the wall, made by the impact of some kind of white foam or powder - maybe the aftermath of a fire extinguisher? This crater, this moon landing on a wall, struck me as being one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen in a game. Not least because I suspect if I'd played that encounter slightly differently, I would not have seen it. There's so much more to Control than this, but the uncanny takes strange shapes when it lives in the mind, and this is the shape Control has taken for me. It's not the shape of the Oldest House, because who ever could map such a thing? But it's a shape that clearly fits inside the Oldest House. Deep inside, where it works its strange, dark, endlessly charming magic.

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 The next update for The First Descendant is scheduled for May 22nd. For update 1.2.18, Nexon will add a new Party Finder system, and the developer has also just recently confirmed that the patch will fix the persisting sound glitch on PS5. Now The First Descendant developer has shared a list of TFD products that will be “discontinued” when the update arrives. The First Descendant products that will be “discontinued” with update 1.2.18 Below is the list of products that will be discontinued when The First Descendant update 1.2.18 drops on May 22nd: Weekly Fine Adjustment Control Axis Package, Weekly Ion Accelerator Package, Monthly Weapon Upgrade Package, Monthly Energy Activator Package, Monthly Crystallization Catalyst Package, Starter Growth Package The above announcement comes courtesy of the game’s official Discord. Image credit: The First Descendant Discord Aside from the above, there’s plenty else set to happen with update 1.2.18. We’ve already mentioned the incoming Party Finder system, but Nexon has just recently provided a preview of the new VIB, Ice Maden. In addition, the update will see the release of the Glided Death Blossom skin. It’s also expected to be the patch that adds “jiggle physics” to the game after it was originally announced to be coming in 2024. For more The First Descendant, we have a guide to the best skills and loadout for Viessa, along with the best skills, gear, and mods for the hugely popular Bunny. We also have a guide for Freyna along with fundamental tips for beginners. The First Descendant Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X Genre(s): Action, Adventure, RPG 5 VideoGamer Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

Jan van den Hemel writes: This is an updated workflow for turning Grease Pencil strokes into a base mesh that can then be used for sculpting. The previous workflow used the Convert to Path option, which is now gone. Source

submitted by /u/ControlCAD [link] [comments]

SepTerminator “It will find you” Oblivion Remastered’s modded Sean Bean-hunting Terminator wouldn’t exist without Resident Evil and a magical NPC that’s been ambushing newbies since 2006 “I love the idea of something big and scary chasing you down while you're already crushed under the pressure of saving the world.” Image credit: VG247/NaiadGirl News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 17, 2025 Oblivion Remastered modders continue to drop more and more interesting mods by the day, with an ever-advancing set of tools at their disposal to pull off whatever tweaks or additions strike their fancy. There’s a deluge of interesting stuff arriving as the boundaries continue to be pushed, and depending on what you’re looking for, different stuff will catch your eye. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. One of the mods that made me personally do a double take when I came across it on Oblivion Remastered’s Nexus Mods page earlier this week was NaiadGirl’s ‘Martin Septim and the Terminator Gambit’, for obvious reasons. It’s a mod that sees you and Sean Bean be pursued wherever you go by a killer level 70 Terminator. From the moment you leave the sewers, there’s a murderous machine which only becomes defeatable once you finish the main quest right on your tail. I was curious how much work had gone into pulling such a cool concept off at this still relatively early stage of Oblivion Remastered modding, so reached out to NaiadGirl. We talked Terminators and how she's been finding modding the remaster as she's made this mod and also tackled making the game’s iconic Oblivion gate battles and goblin wars more dynamic. Here’s my conversation with her: VG247: What drew you to modding Oblivion Remastered? Did you have any previous experience modding classic Oblivion or other games? NaiadGirl's been venturing into those pesky gates for a good while. | Image credit: NaiadGirl NaiadGirl: I've been a fan of Oblivion since I was a little girl, and the same goes for my wife. At first, we were skeptical about the remaster, but soon, we couldn't help but be drawn in. I've been modding Bethesda games casually for over a decade now, but only recently took to making mods myself. My only previous modding experience was with Deep Rock Galactic, another game that involves Unreal. My wife, on the other hand, has been making mods for years now! Since we both love Oblivion so much, we took to making mods for the remaster. VG247: How have you generally found modding the remaster so far and getting to grips with tools like UE4SS and TesSyncMapInjector? NaiadGirl: Modding the remaster has been a rollercoaster of emotions, with highs and lows. The old tools still work, more or less, but there are limitations. There are many features we still can't work on or with, due to the lack of a proper modding toolkit for this new version of Oblivion. UE4SS, OBSE64, TesSyncMapInjector; I can go on about the awesome tools people in the community have made. They're all insanely impressive, and they make things possible that wouldn't have been without them. I wish some of them had more in-depth documentation, but what can you do? Modding has always been a challenge, and part of the fun is hunting down answers to problems. The last thing you ever see...provided you don't make good use of that new sprint button. | Image credit: NaiadGirl VG247: What inspired the premise for your Martin Septim Terminator mod and what was the process of putting it together like? Were there any elements of it that proved tricky to pull off, or anything you had to cut? NaiadGirl: My inspiration for my Martin Terminator mod came from a game series I hold close to my heart: Resident Evil. It was originally going to just be the Pursuer itself, its name being ‘Nemesis’. I love the idea of something big and scary chasing you down while you're already crushed under the pressure of saving the world. Eventually, I switched gears, and made it into a mod that included Martin. What's better than just you getting hunted by something scary? You and a friend getting hunted by something scary. Terminator rocks (at least two of them do), so I came up with the idea that Mehrunes Dagon had sent back in time a killer to save his butt at the end of the game. Putting it together had me looking at the code for the Conjurer that chases you down at the start of the [OG Oblivion] Spell Tomes DLC. After I had made a new NPC with the help of UE4SS and TesSyncMapInjector, I put together AI packages & two quest scripts to watch over everything. Modding is a constant learning experience, and it's so much fun, even if you can run into walls at times. Frustration quickly gives way to new inspiration. In the end, I didn't have to cut anything! It's a simple mod at the end of the day, but one that was incredibly fun to put together. VG247: Aside from cheesing and running away, is there any other advice you’d give to players trying to beat the Septim Terminator challenge, even if it’s just to invest in spare underpants? The thread of prophecy has been severed. | Image credit: NaiadGirl NaiadGirl: I've been doing a lot of messing around with the Terminator in my latest playthrough. It's tough, but not impossible to defeat (at least after the MQ is over!). Until you beat Dagon, you have to always be one step ahead of this machine marvel. It doesn't care where you might be, because it will find you. I was doing the Mythic Dawn Shrine quest, and by the time I had cut my way through the dungeon, freed the prisoner, and slept an hour to level up, there it was. The Argonian I worked so hard to protect was dead at its cold feet. I had no choice but to cut my losses and run. Plan your journey, hit stores up when you can, and always keep moving. It will kill indiscriminately if it finds you! Once you finish the main quest, you have a few options: Dungeon traps, boss NPCs, crowds, or a duel to the death! You need to be at a fairly high level to defeat it! I would think there's feasibility in taking it on at around level 25 on, if you plan your build well. The Terminator regens health, so always keep the damage on it! You'll need powerful equipment or a massive numbers advantage. I'm thinking I'll slay my dragon at Cloud Ruler Temple, the place I have been keeping it away from at all costs. The Blades and I will make a final stand against Oblivion! I wish only the best of luck to would-be challengers. I love to hear stories about this fella. VG247: What’s the Oblivion Remastered modding scene been like community-wise from your perspective so far? Have you had any interactions with other modders where you’ve gotten any helpful support/feedback on your mods or learned things you might otherwise not have? NaiadGirl: The modding scene is filled with incredibly talented people. Many are willing to offer a helping hand, in my experience (within reason, of course!). Getting feedback on my mods is always greatly appreciated, and seeing the kind things people have said makes my day that much brighter. Like I've touched on, modding is a constant learning experience, and you're always finding something new that you didn't quite know yet. Margaret, my wife, has quite a bit of Bethesda modding experience, and even she learns things through me as we work together. Modding is a beautiful, delicate dance, and it's not one to be rushed. Take your time, do your research, and make something amazing with the community at your side! We could end up dealing with even more terrifying modded threats than this, Grandmaster. | Image credit: VG247 VG247: What are your personal and general hopes for Oblivion Remastered modding going forwards? Are there any complex mod ideas you’re keen to try and make or any tools you’re hoping will pop up to make certain things easier/possible? NaiadGirl: I have immense hopes for the modding scene going forward. Bethesda may be saying that mods aren't officially supported, but I still hold onto the hope that we may one day get a proper Creation Set for Oblivion Remastered. They haven't dropped the ball yet, and I would hope they wouldn't now, with one of their all-time best creations. I truly believe a new kit is on the way, sooner or later. If we do get official tools, modding is going to really pop off. You look at what we have now, and it's only going to get bigger, and more accessible to the masses. Access to official tools will make a world of difference, and change things for the better. I'm hoping for an expansion on the Oblivion Remastered Script Extender (OBSE64) if the official tools give way. That won't stop me from trying to make something crazy, though. My next mod is focused on a pandemic outbreak. I'm very excited to continue my work on it, and share it with the world. I'm even more excited to see what the rest of the community can cook up. The community is insanely resourceful, and official tools or not, we'll be making something beautiful together. Never stop making what you love.

Image: NintendoThere's been a lot of conversation about Nintendo making Mario Kart World its main launch title for the Switch 2 ahead of certain other key franchises. Nintendo of America's Nate Bihldorff provided an official response about this to Inverse last month, mentioning how it's "one of the most broadly accessible games possible" with a high skill ceiling as well as an easy entry level for all ages. Unsurprisingly, it's also clear from the ongoing sales of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the original Switch that there is "a lot of appetite for racing games" (or at least Mario Kart titles): "Not only does Mario Kart 8 clearly demonstrate that there’s a lot of appetite for racing games, broadly speaking, because it sold very well over the course the entire Switch generation, but really, it comes back to that idea that this [Mario Kart] is a game that really is going to satisfy any kind of Nintendo gamer. Even somebody who isn’t a Nintendo gamer yet might be later. For that reason, it really matches perfectly with the [Switch 2] system.” Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the top-selling game on the Switch, shifting more than 68 million units as of March 2025. Nintendo's Bill Trinen previously spoke about the Switch 2's launch window titles as well - noting how Nintendo hoped people could see Mario Kart World and the new Donkey Kong game as "sort of genre-defining and franchise-defining" moments "that really take advantage of the uniqueness" of the hardware. This followed Nintendo coming under fire after it revealed Mario Kart World would be priced at $80 on the Switch 2. Swansong It's something you "really can't miss" Nate Bihldorff talks pack-ins, game-key cards, and Korok Forest Do you think Mario Kart World is a good fit for the Switch 2 launch? Will you be playing it on release? Let us know in the comments. [source inverse.com, via nintendoeverything.com] Related Games See Also Share:0 0 Liam is a news writer and reviewer across Hookshot Media. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of many iconic video game characters. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Nintendo Unveils Diddy Kong's Brand New Design Cap's off Nintendo Switch 2 Final Tech Specs Have Been Confirmed GameChat has a "significant impact on system resources" Nintendo Apologises For "Error" With Mention Of Switch 2 VRR TV Support "The incorrect information was initially published"

In Brief Posted: 1:28 PM PDT · May 17, 2025 Image Credits:Dan DeLong Microsoft’s Satya Nadella is choosing chatbots over podcasts While Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says he likes podcasts, he might not actually be listening to them anymore. That tidbit comes towards the end of a longer Bloomberg profile of Nadella, with a focus on Microsoft’s AI strategy and its complicated relationship with OpenAI. To illustrate how much he uses the company’s Copilot AI assistant in his daily life, Nadella said that instead of listening to podcasts, he now uploads the transcripts to Copilot, then talks to Copilot about the content during his drive to the office. In addition, Nadella — who jokingly described his job as “email typist” — said he relies on at least 10 custom agents developed in Copilot Studio to summarize emails and messages, prepare for meetings, and perform other tasks around the office. AI already seems to be transforming Microsoft in more substantial ways, with programers reportedly the hardest hit in the company’s recent layoffs, shortly after Nadella declared that 30% of the company’s code was written by AI. Topics

This is a stylized energy portal created in Unreal Engine 5.5 using the Niagara System. The setup includes sprite renderers, flipbook animation, and mesh particles, all controlled with custom materials. The material uses dynamic parameters such as: – UV offset – Distortion strength – Dissolve intensity A translucent black shader was added for better depth, along with trails and ambient particles to make the scene feel more alive. The effect was recorded via Sequencer, and it activates immediately on playback.

The winning team has been named in an open international competition to transform the 410ha A Panda da Dá estate in Galicia, Spain The overall winner – picked ahead of four rival finalist teams – is a collaboration between Atelier Ander Bados, Estudio Copla, Bamba Studio and TO Arquitectura. Their winning ‘forest of celebration’ concept was praised by the jury for its ‘architectural coherence, technical precision, and ability to create diverse spaces open to evolution.’ The proposal integrates contemporary architecture with the site’s heritage while also delivering new flexible spaces allowing existing forestry activities to coexist alongside proposed new uses. The other finalists included Arrokabe Arquitectos from Santiago and Brandão Costa Arquitectos from Porto. A collaboration between Madrid’s CoLab and London’s Turner Prize-winning collective Assemble, and João Mendes Ribeiro with Luísa Bebiano completed the shortlist. The non-anonymous, two-stage competition – organised by local timber company Finsa and the David Chipperfield-founded Fundación RIA – sought to transform the remote farmstead into a new space dedicated to the sustainable management of the surrounding territory. The call for concepts set out to identify a range of innovative solutions that could help to rehabilitate the architecture and landscape of its 410ha site while also promoting new training and research activities and facilitating visits from organisations involved in the sustainable management of Galicia’s timber. Located close to the settlement of As Pontes de García Rodríguez, the A Panda da Dá estate is a large forestry plantation which has been owned by Finsa for more than three decades.  The main cluster of buildings on the estate includes a staff office and several disused structures. The contest invited architects, architectural firms, and multidisciplinary teams of any nationality to draw up concepts to transform the site into a new local and international hub for sustainable forest management. Contest site: A Panda da Dá, Galicia Credit: Image © Adrián Capelo – Fundación RIA The competition comes seven years after the independent non-profit agency and thinktank Fundación RIA was founded by the British architect David Chipperfield. Concepts were judged 40 per cent on design quality, 20 per cent on outdoor spaces, 20 per cent on sustainability, 10 per cent on feasibility and 10 per cent on economics. The judging panel included two representatives from Finsa along with Aurora Armental of Estar Studio, Graça Correia of Correia/Ragazzi and Carme Pinós of Estudio Carme Pinós who jointly won an earlier contest held by Fundación RIA to transform the Lourizán estate into a forestry complex. The five shortlisted teams each received an honorarium to participate in the second design phase of the contest. The overall winner will receive a €20,000 prize and the remaining finalists will each receive a €5,000 prize. Contest site: A Panda da Dá, Galicia Credit: Image © Adrián Capelo – Fundación RIA

Published May 18, 2025 6:00am EDT close New space capsule just changed the game for bringing stuff back from orbit A European startup successfully completed the first orbital test flight of its Phoenix 1 re-entry space capsule. While the United States has long been a leader in space exploration and commercial launches, Europe is now making significant strides of its own. Recently, a major milestone was achieved when Atmos Space Cargo, a European startup, successfully completed the first orbital test flight of its Phoenix 1 re-entry space capsule. This mission, which launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as part of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare, marks a new chapter in global space logistics. By demonstrating that Europe can develop and operate advanced return technology, Atmos is helping to make space more accessible and efficient for researchers, businesses and innovators on both sides of the Atlantic. This achievement signals the arrival of a new player in the space return market and opens the door to greater collaboration and competition in the rapidly growing field of commercial space logistics.JOIN THE FREE CYBERGUY REPORT: GET MY EXPERT TECH TIPS, CRITICAL SECURITY ALERTS AND EXCLUSIVE DEALS — PLUS INSTANT ACCESS TO MY FREE ULTIMATE SCAM SURVIVAL GUIDE WHEN YOU SIGN UP! Phoenix 1   (Atmos Space Cargo)The mission: From launch to splashdownPhoenix 1 launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as part of the Bandwagon-3 rideshare mission. After reaching a 45-degree inclination orbit, the capsule completed one full trip around Earth. A carefully timed de-orbit maneuver then sent Phoenix 1 back toward the planet. During its descent, the capsule deployed an innovative inflatable heat shield, a technology designed by Atmos to protect the capsule during the intense heat and friction of reentry. FIRST PRIVATE SPACEX POLAR MISSION SPLASHES DOWN NEAR CALIFORNIAAs Phoenix 1 reentered Earth's atmosphere, it transmitted critical system and payload data to ground stations in South America. The capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,240 miles off the Brazilian coast. Because of the remote landing location, recovery of the capsule was not planned. However, the mission's main objectives were met, and the data collected is now being analyzed to inform future missions. Phoenix 1  (Atmos Space Cargo)Why Phoenix 1 is a big milestoneThe success of Phoenix 1 establishes Atmos as the fastest-moving private space logistics company in Europe to conduct an orbital return mission. This achievement demonstrates that Europe is on the path to developing independent, sovereign return capabilities. It also shows that private industry can lead the way in building essential space infrastructure. Atmos' rapid prototyping approach allowed the team to develop, qualify and fly Phoenix 1 in less than a year. This speed is almost unheard of in the space industry and highlights the company's commitment to innovation and hands-on problem-solving. The mission also proved that multinational collaboration is possible, as teams from around Europe worked together to achieve a common goal. Phoenix 1   (Atmos Space Cargo)What was learned and testedThe Phoenix 1 mission had several core objectives. The team aimed to collect in-flight data from the capsule and its subsystems while in orbit. The mission also carried scientific and commercial payloads, including technology demonstrators and biological experiments from partners such as Frontier Space, Imperial College London, DLR and IDDK. Another key goal was to deploy and test the inflatable heat shield under real reentry conditions. Although some data from the final stage of descent could not be retrieved due to the splashdown location, the mission still provided valuable insights. The data received from the capsule has already contributed to the development of Phoenix 2, the next-generation capsule planned for launch in 2026.SPACEX LAUNCH SCRUBBED HOURS AFTER HEGSETH SHARES MESSAGE TO RESCUE MISSION CREW: ‘WISH YOU GODSPEED’ Phoenix 1 (Atmos Space Cargo)The technology: Inflatable heat shield and rapid prototypingThe inflatable heat shield is a breakthrough in reentry technology. Traditional capsules rely on heavy, single-use heat shields or parachutes to survive reentry. Atmos' design is lighter, more efficient and potentially reusable, which could dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of returning cargo from space. Atmos' development philosophy is based on rapid prototyping and real-world testing. The team believes in building and testing hardware quickly, learning from each iteration and making improvements based on real data rather than relying solely on simulations. This approach allowed Phoenix 1 to go from concept to space in record time. Phoenix 1   (Atmos Space Cargo)The road aheadAtmos is already working on Phoenix 2, which will include its own propulsion system. This upgrade will allow the capsule to control its reentry trajectory and choose its splashdown zone, making recovery much easier and more practical. The company's vision is to create a flexible, cost-efficient and reliable logistics platform for space, supporting both commercial and institutional missions. With a payload efficiency of 1:2, Phoenix already offers the highest mass efficiency on the market. This opens new opportunities for microgravity research, in-space manufacturing and biotechnology. The technology will also support Europe's defense sector and strengthen the continent's independent space infrastructure. Phoenix 1  (Atmos Space Cargo)What this means for youThe success of Phoenix 1 is not just a technical achievement for engineers and scientists. It has the potential to assist with many aspects of everyday life. Faster and more affordable access to space means that new technologies, medicines and materials can be developed and tested in microgravity and then brought back to Earth for use.Universities, startups and small companies will have more opportunities to conduct experiments in space without the high costs and long wait times that have been barriers in the past. Atmos Space Cargo's growing space capabilities could also lead to new jobs, investment and technological leadership. Phoenix 1   (Atmos Space Cargo)Kurt's key takeawaysPhoenix 1's successful mission is a sign that space is becoming more accessible and that innovation is happening at an unprecedented pace. By proving that rapid development and new ideas can work in the challenging environment of space, Atmos Space Cargo is paving the way for a future where space logistics are as routine as shipping goods across continents. The next generation of breakthroughs in science and technology may very well start their journey with a ride on a capsule like Phoenix.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPDo you think the United States should accelerate its own space return technology to stay ahead, or is international competition good for innovation? Let us know by writing us atCyberguy.com/ContactFor more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/NewsletterAsk Kurt a question or let us know what stories you'd like us to coverFollow Kurt on his social channelsAnswers to the most asked CyberGuy questions:New from Kurt:Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com.  All rights reserved.   Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on "FOX & Friends." Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.