Forsaken is a 1 vs. all survival experience where players will join one of two teams. Survivors must complete objectives, while one Killer must find and kill the rest of the players.

Cineverse dropped a first trailer today for the American release of Escape From the 21st Century, Yang Li’s frantic time-travel comedy movie about three hapless teenage nerds who mysteriously gain the ability to jump forward into their future adult bodies whenever they sneeze. The film, released in China in 2024, is the kind of goofy, high-energy, effects-driven mayhem that used to be the specialty of Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer producer/director/star Stephen Chow, but with a twist: This movie was more expressly made for a generation that grew up with video games. That aspect of the story comes across most clearly in a subplot that turns an old Street Fighter II game cartridge into the movie’s central McGuffin. But it plays out on the screen as well, via comic overlays, anime-style splash screens, pop-ups that emphasize the action, and a training montage designed to turn the central threesome into video game characters. The story mostly plays out in live-action, but stylized animation gives the story some texture as well. Here’s Cineverse’s summary: Escape from the 21st Century is a 2024 action sci-fi film from China that follows three teenage boys — Wang Zha, Chengyong, and Pao Pao — who stumble upon a time-traveling phenomenon after falling into a lake with mysterious colors. With every sneeze, they leap 20 years into the future, only to discover a world under threat by a powerful crime syndicate. As secrets unravel and loyalties are tested, the trio must train for two decades to return stronger and save humanity. Escape from the 21st Century is scheduled to release in select American theaters on June 9, and will come to the streaming service Fandor later this year.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.Amazon’s Memorial Day Sale is already happening, and plenty of fitness trackers and smartwatches are on sale. This event intersects with some recent Garmin price drops, too, making it a really good time to shop for a new watch. Here are the best deals I’m seeing. Pixel Google’s Pixel Watch 2 is on sale for just $149.99, down from an original price of $249.99. This is the slightly older version, launched in 2023 and replaced two years later by the Pixel Watch 3 (which I reviewed here). The Pixel Watch 2 has most of the same features as the newer model, but only comes in one size (41 mm) and doesn’t have as big or bright a display.  Google Pixel Watch 2 with the Best of Fitbit and Google - Heart Rate Tracking, Stress Management, Safety Features - Android Smartwatch - Polished Silver Aluminum Case - Bay Active Band - Wi-Fi $149.99 at Amazon $249.99 Save $100.00 Get Deal Get Deal $149.99 at Amazon $249.99 Save $100.00 SuuntoThe Suunto Core watch is on sale for $159.99, normally $219.99. It’s built for outdoor adventuring, with an altimeter, barometer, and compass built in, and can alert you when a storm is a-comin'. Suunto Core Classic, Outdoor Watch, All Black $159.00 at Amazon $219.00 Save $60.00 Get Deal Get Deal $159.00 at Amazon $219.00 Save $60.00 GarminThe Fenix 8, 47mm size, is on sale for $799.99, normally $999.99. The Fenix is one of Garmin’s most rugged and feature-packed watches, with maps, a flashlight, a titanium bezel, and leakproof buttons.  Garmin fēnix® 8 – 47mm, AMOLED, Premium Multisport GPS Smartwatch, Long-Lasting Battery Life, Dive-Rated, Built-in LED Flashlight, Slate Gray with Black Band $799.99 at Amazon $999.99 Save $200.00 Get Deal Get Deal $799.99 at Amazon $999.99 Save $200.00 On the other end of the price spectrum, the Forerunner 165 is on sale for $199.99, normally $249.99. This watch is a budget version of the 265, and a good entry-level option for runners who don’t need a lot of extras. Note that the regular 165 doesn’t come with music storage. If you want to listen to tunes without bringing your phone along, you’ll want to spring for the Forerunner 165 Music, now on sale for $249.99, normally $299.99.The trusty Forerunner 265 is on sale for $349.99, $100 off its original price of $449.99, although that’s probably less about the Memorial Day sale and more about it being replaced with a new Forerunner 570. That said, the 265 is a truly excellent watch, still my personal favorite in the Forerunner line—although I haven’t reviewed the 570 yet, so that may change (I’m wearing a 265S as I write this).The Venu 3 and 3S are on sale for $349.99, down from $449.99.  (S means smaller size; they’re the same watch otherwise.) This is Garmin’s most smartwatch-y watch, with voice calling and an ECG app. It’s aimed at people who want a lifestyle watch with fitness features, rather than a sports-focused watch. You can think of it as the fancier version of the Vivoactive 6, which isn’t on sale today (regular price is $299.99) but happens to be one of my favorite fitness watches.The Instinct 3 Solar is on sale for $349.99 in both 45 mm and 50 mm sizes, down from $399.99 when it launched earlier this year. It has a rugged build, outdoor-focused features including an LED flashlight, and solar charging. It also comes in an AMOLED version that’s on sale for $399.99 and a lower-cost Instinct E that is going for $249.99 right now—all $50 off their original prices.

A group of GeoGuessr map creators have pulled their contributions from the game to protest its participation in the Esports World Cup 2025, calling the tournament "a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record." The protestors say the blackout will hold until the game's publisher, GeoGuessr AB, cancels its planned Last Chance Wildcard tournament at the EWC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from July 21 to 27. GeoGuessr is a browser game where players try to pinpoint locations using only Google Street View images, and it relies on community mapmakers to stay relevant. The blackout, which began on May 21, includes "dozens of creators and their maps, including a supermajority of the most popular competitively relevant world maps," according to a statement the group shared on Reddit. The removed maps have been played tens of millions of times. One of the largest GeoGuessr communities, Plonk It, has also removed its Map Directory and shared the mapping community's open letter. That statement reads in full as follows: We, the creators of a considerable share of GeoGuessr’s most popular maps, have decided to make our maps unplayable in protest of GeoGuessr AB’s decision to host a World Championship wildcard tourney at the Esports World Cup (EWC) in Riyadh. The EWC is a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record. Groups targeted by the government include women, LGBTQ people, apostates and atheists, political dissenters, migrant workers in the Kafala system, religious minorities, and many others. The subjugation of these groups is extensive and pervasive. Members of these groups are routinely subjected to discrimination, imprisonment, torture, and even public executions. These severe human rights violations are well-documented and indisputable. By participating in the EWC, GeoGuessr is contributing to that sportswashing agenda, which is designed to take attention away from Saudi Arabia's human rights violations. The GeoGuessr community is diverse and includes many members of groups that would be harshly persecuted were they to live in Saudi Arabia. In solidarity with those currently residing in Saudi Arabia while being subject to oppression, as well as members of the community who would feel and be unsafe attending the tournament in Riyadh, we have decided to black out our maps by replacing all their previous locations with random garbage locations, rendering them unplayable. This blackout includes dozens of creators and their maps, including a supermajority of the most popular competitively relevant world maps. It will continue until we see action from GeoGuessr; specifically, we demand that GeoGuessr cancels its wildcard event in Saudi Arabia and commits to not hosting any events there as long as it continues its oppressive regime. You don't play games with human rights. Thank you for reading. The GeoGuessr mapping community We've hit up GeoGuessr AB for a comment on the blackout and will update this story as we hear back. The EWC is a huge, multi-game event owned and operated by the Saudi government and held in the country's capital city. It's an evolution of the Gamers8 tournament and this year marks the second EWC-branded competition; it's due to take place in July and August with a total prize pool of $38 million, split among 24 games. Franchises participating in the 2025 event include Rocket League, Apex Legends, Call of Duty, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Overwatch, Dota 2, Valorant, Street Fighter 6, EA Sports FC and PUBG. It's difficult to compete in esports without running into Savvy Games Group, the video game arm of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Alongside hosting the EWC, Savvy has financial stakes in Nexon (10.2 percent ownership), Electronic Arts (9 percent), Embracer Group (8.3 percent), Nintendo (7.5 percent), Capcom (5 percent) and Take-Two Interactive (6.8 percent as of 2023). Savvy also runs ESL FACEIT Group, which contains the Electronic Sports League, a longstanding and significant esports event company. The New York Times reported last year that the Saudi government plans to invest $38 billion in the video game industry by 2030. Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have long documented the abuses of the Saudi government. HRW describes Saudi Arabia's human rights record as "abysmal," and specifically calls out the PIF as a reputational whitewashing tool. Saudi authorities have been accused of sportswashing in traditional sports as well, specifically through the country's ownership of LIV Golf and Newcastle United FC. In February, Riot Games — the operator of League of Legends, Valorant and Teamfight Tactics, and arguably the largest name in esports — signed a three-year deal with the Esports World Cup Foundation for an undisclosed sum. Riot defended the partnership, arguing that the resulting financial boon for players and the esports industry outweighed other concerns. "We know some of you may not feel great about our decision to partner with the EWC in this way, and we respect that," Riot's statement read. Though corporate support for the EWC remains strong, the GeoGuessr mapping community isn't alone in rejecting this year's tournament. Street Fighter 6 player Christopher Hancock, who plays as ChrisCCH for FlyQuest, recently declined his spot at EWC 2025. In a social media statement, Hancock said, "I gave this decision a lot of thought and ultimately decided that, due to the nature in which the event is funded and managed, I do not feel comfortable participating in it." He added that the partnership between the Capcom Pro Tour and the EWC effectively forced him to work with the Saudi-backed group. "Choosing to not participate in any EWC qualifiers would effectively mean retirement from competing," Hancock said. "I find it regrettable that this event has become so deeply embedded in the [fighting game community], but I have not yet made a decision on whether I will stop competing in events associated to it altogether." Alongside the GeoGuessr map blackout, the community protest added one new, short challenge to the game called How to Run A Dictatorship. It takes players through five locations around Riyadh, documenting the alleged government-sanctioned torture, kidnapping, imprisonment and oppression of women, LGBTQ people, religious minorities and political dissenters occurring in these places. The challenge takes just a few minutes, so feel free to experience it yourself.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/geoguessr-community-maps-go-dark-in-protest-of-ewc-ties-to-human-rights-abuses-221037118.html?src=rss

The Fujifilm X half is a unique retro compact packing a number of half-frame film camera-inspired features.

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The sparks from a magic spell, plumes of smoke, ultraviolet or electric blue energy bolts, city lights seen through mist or rain, open fields of swaying grass... It’s hard to imagine a modern game without the evocative power of visual effects.Visual effects are the key to creating deeply immersive experiences for your players. And thanks to continuous hardware advancements, what used to be available only for Hollywood blockbusters can now be attained in real-time.VFX Graph is one of several major toolsets available in Unity for artists and designers to create with little or no coding. With its node-based visual logic, you can create any number of simple to complex effects for projects across genres.Our new 120-page e-book, The definitive guide to creating advanced visual effects in Unity, guides artists, designers, and programmers using the Unity 2021 LTS version of VFX Graph. Use it as a reference for producing richly layered, real-time visual effects for your games.The VFX Graph creates GPU-accelerated particle systems, and therefore requires compute shader support to maintain compatibility with target devices. It works with theUniversal Render Pipeline (URP, including the 2D Renderer) and the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP).Compared to the Built-in Particle System, the VFX Graph can drive more particles with faster simulation, customizable behaviors, extensibility, Camera Buffer access, and native Shader Graph integration. You can use any custom shader created in Shader Graph to target VFX Graph. These shaders are able to use new lighting models like HDRP hair or fabric, and can even modify particles at the vertex level to enable effects like birds with flapping wings, wobbling particles like soap bubbles, and so much more.The VFX Graph e-book is as beautiful to look at as it is inspiring and informative. Created in collaboration with Wilmer Lin, a veteran VFX artist from the film and games industries, and internal experts on the Unity Graphics team, it’s generous in scope, level of detail, thoughtful instruction, images and videos, and numerous downloadable resources and references for VFX authoring in Unity.Let’s take a quick look at what’s in the guide.Get a thorough understanding of each part of the VFX Graph, starting with the VFX Graph Asset and component, and the VFX Graph window. Learn how to create logic with Systems, Contexts, Blocks, Properties, Operators, Blackboards, Subgraphs, Events, Attributes, and more.Visual effects often involve many moving pieces. Connecting them to the correct points in your application is essential to integrating them at runtime. You’ll learn about the available tools for playing back an effect and how to use them:Event Binders:These listen for several different things that happen in your scene and react to specific actions at runtime.Timeline:Sequence visual effects with Activation Tracks to send events to your graph at select moments. Gain precise control with pre-scripted timing (e.g., playing effects during a cutscene).Property Binders: These link scene or gameplay values to the Exposed properties on your Blackboard so that your effects react to changes in the scene, in real-time.Colorful swarms of Particle Strips, explosive effects for a crashing Meteorite, and an extra slimy GooBall: These are just a few of the effects you’ll find in the Visual Effect Graph Samples(HDRP).Each sample highlights different scenarios involving the VFX Graph. For a better understanding, this section of the e-book examines how some of these samples were created, namely through the use of:Shader and VFX Graph togetherGPU Events to trigger other systems in the same graphOrganic movement added to Particle Strips via the Noise Operator, and available Blocks for customizing each Particle Strip’s texture mapping, spawning, and orientationA single graph to drive other graphs in a visual effectA Spawn Context to trigger many other effectsExperimental mesh sampling to fetch data from a mesh and include the result in the graphSee the e-book for more clips that show the different samples, including the following introduction to the GooBall scene.Effects aren’t isolated in a vacuum. Often you’ll need to supply them with external data to achieve your intended look.What if you want the genie to emerge from a magic lamp? Or you’d like to integrate a hologram? While you can accomplish much of this with math functions and Operators, you might need the effect to interact with more complex shapes and forms.This section explains how to use three Data types supported in Unity to enhance your visual effects: Point Caches, Signed Distance Fields, and Vector Fields. Other tools you’ll learn about are the VFXToolbox, which features additional tools for Unity VFX artists, and Flipbook Texture Sheets to bake animated effects into a sprite.Other chapters in the guide cover optimization techniques for visual effects, future developments for VFX Graph, and finally, a long list of tutorials and videos. We’re thrilled to be able to offer you this valuable resource, which is free to download (as all of our technical e-books are). Please don’t hesitate to share your feedback with us in this forum.For a full list of available Unity e-books, check out the How-to hub or browse the documentation under Working in Unity > Best practices guide.

Crunchyroll, the global brand for anime, and Discord are teaming up to bring the beloved series My Hero Academia to the Discord platform for an anime-collaboration profile collection. Starting today, users across North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East/Africa, and Australia/Newzealand can level up their profiles and showcase their fandom in new ways. My Hero Academia, the long-running, anime series, makes this collaboration a good fit for the Discord community, just in time for My Hero Academia Final Season, featuring the epic showdown between Deku and Shigaraki, premiering October 2025 on Crunchyroll. Fans can gear up with eight Avatar Decorations and three Profile Effects inspired by iconic characters and their Quirks — Izuku Midoriya (Deku), Katsuki Bakugo, Ochaco Uraraka, All Might, Tomura Shigaraki and more.  “My Hero Academia follows the incredible adventures of a group of friends as they fight together against all odds,” said Anna Songco Adamian, VP of Global Consumer Products at Crunchyroll, in a statement. “Now, through this collaboration with Discord, users can level up to display their inner hero, just in time for the anime’s epic final season.”  The My Hero Academia Shop Collection on Discord launches ahead of the 2025 Anime Awards on May 25, 2025 giving fans powerful new ways to show their love for the series during one of anime’s biggest weekends. My Hero Academia is nominated for the Film of the Year (My Hero Academia: You’re Next) and Best Continuing Series (My Hero Academia Season 7). GB Daily Stay in the know! Get the latest news in your inbox daily Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

The full schedule for SIGGRAPH 2025 is out! While more sessions are always been added, I’ve gone through the list and found a few highlights. As usual, the Talks sessions are SIGGRAPH’s secret weapon of in-depth looks behind the scenes at VFX and animation projects. See the highlights below: Superman: Harnessing Numeric Power for Cinematic Magic, from Wētā FX (a production session) Doodle: A Modular Toolset for 2D Artistic Control in the 3D Effects of The Wild Robot and The Bad Guys 2, from DreamWorks Animation Highly Accurate GPU-Accelerated Animation Rigs for Toothless (in How To Train Your Dragon), from Framestore Choreography of Hair and Cloth in Disney’s “Moana 2”, from Walt Disney Animation Studios Advancements in Non-Procedural Groom Workflows for Mufasa: The Lion King, from MPC/Technicolor Blinded By The Light: A Case Study Of HDR Integration In Animation Production (in Sole Mates), from Netflix Animation Studios (previously, Animal Logic) Designing Oscar: Bespoke Tablet-Based Workflows for ILM StageCraft, from ILM Ooze Control: Procedural Shapeshifting FX in Pixar’s Elio, from Pixar Stabilizing Impossible Collisions with Loki, from Wētā FX Puppets to Pixels – Using live physical puppet performances for digital animation characters and creatures, from a range of presenters There are SO many more! Find the full programme here: https://s2025.conference-schedule.org/ The post The SIGGRAPH 2025 program is out – here’s some highlights! appeared first on befores & afters.

Nvidia announced the opening of the Global Research and Development Center for Business by Quantum-AI Technology.Read More