The future of storytelling with Ken LevineAcclaimed developer also discusses Judas, generative AI and why it "wasn't easy to step away from BioShock"Image credit: Ghost Story Games Feature by James Batchelor Editor-in-chief Published on Dec. 31, 2024 Ken Levine has spent much of his career trying to redefine video game narratives. Most famously with the iconic twists in his acclaimed BioShock series, and most recently with the ongoing development of Judas the debut title from Ghost Ship Games.While some may argue that video games as a medium may be reaching their limit in terms of graphics and production quality, the potential for interactive storytelling remains largely untapped. Judas attempts to explore this by mixing up the story's events depending on the relationship players develop with key characters, but Levine is keen to emphasise this is just one possible future of narratives in video games.We spoke with the renowned designer about the biggest challenges in telling stories that react to players, the balance between author vision and player agency, the potential for generative AI in storytelling, and more.The interview below has been edited for brevity and clarity.Video game storytelling has advanced so much in the last decade or so, but what would you say is the biggest challenge that remains?It's very easy to show a player a story. The harder part is to get them to participate in it and react to how they participate.It wasn't easy to step away from BioShock, but I saw an opportunity to take on some risk creating a new IPI don't think there's one way to make games, but personally, as a narrative games maker, I've never been a big fan of cutscenes because they're not interactive. One of the reasons Judas is taking so long is trying to figure out how we get the game to be substantially more responsive to player decisions. That's a really hard problem, and that's why you don't see a ton of it [in games].Our industry is over 50 years old and we still don't really know what it is, what games are. By the time movies were 50 years old, they were making Citizen Kane. It's changed somewhat [since then], styles have changed, but they had it pretty well figured out by the 1940s we haven't.Now I think that's a feature not a bug because I like being in a field where even at my age, I'm still like 'What is this thing? Let's try shit and see if it works.' That's incredibly exciting.Is it the interactivity that makes it more difficult? With a film, TV, even a book, everyone is going to experience the story in the same way at the same pace you have so much more control as a storyteller. Whereas if players have any level of agency, you lose some of that control. How do you balance between the story you want to tell versus the story that the player thinks they are being told or participating in?In the future, it [will be] player-driven that's where we want to go. Because that's what makes our medium unique. We have different advantages. You want someone to interact in a movie? Well, good luck. They've tried stupid stuff like the Clue movie back in the day where there's different [endings] and I've seen people try more of this now where they're sort of doing this pseudo-branching thing it's just so rudimentary that doesn't work.It's about how you respond to the players' desire to participate, and how you make them feel that their decisions are important. That's validating, and they feel like they've had a different experience than their friend because otherwise we should just make a movie. Judas will build on the work Levine and his team did with the BioShock games | Image credit: Judas, by Ghost Story GamesBranching narratives and a lot of interactive movies are locked to the decision tree structure. We recently spoke to the team behind Bridge Command, an immersive Star Trek-style live action bridge simulator, and they can break away from that decision structure because they have live actors who can react and people behind the scenes who can adapt to what the players are doing. But video games have to be programmed to react to players you have to predict what the players are going to try. How do we overcome that barrier?Yeah, there's a whole range of interactive theater which is very powerful and they bring because improv, and the ability to react to an audience is very powerful. Interactive theatre is probably the closest thing to what we do, but we don't have human brains that decide in the moment what to do. Computers do not know how to improv.The approach we're taking with Judas is heavily based upon recognition of player action and response to player action. Even just characters' observing a long range of player action and commenting on it. 'Hey, you saw this and you did that and then you did this and that was interesting because that caused that' we're doing that kinda stuff right now. And it's really just observing the players and then writing the types of lines that could react to various types of things. It's a huge amount of work because you have to think of all the things a player can do and then write in-character responses for different characters to those actions in a way that feels organic.Another thing we figured out is that continuity is really important. You can do individual moments like a Madlib, filling in the blank. So, an orc comes to you and puts you on a quest to find X, right? Those just feel very boring and rolled out of a random number generator. But once you start observing sequences of events having characters observe 'You did this and then you did that and that caused this and I'm mad because it did that' that's when it gets really interesting. That's the space we've been exploring.It's a complicated problem and I don't think there's any one way to solve it. What I'm interested in is giving the player more space to explore and then supporting that, rather than just say 'No, you're doing our story. Fuck you.'Advocates would argue that generative AI is the solution to this. What are your thoughts on that technology and its capability to react to players?I don't want to underestimate it. I think it's very powerful.One limitation AI seems to have is persistence. You look at Sora, the ChatGPT video generator, you see a woman walking down the street and the street scene is beautiful but if she were to turn around and walk backwards, it wouldn't remember where she has been. It doesn't currently understand persistence, although that may change. We can't tell if it's a limitation of just the nature of the technology. So for all the concerns about AI, have you seen it write a good 20-page movie yet? Scene-to-scene? It doesn't know how to do that."I don't really believe in authorial intent. One day I'll be dead and if I'm lucky enough that people are still interested [in my games], they're not going to be able to ask what I think."There are useful elements of AI right now for instance, training your bug database to query how many bugs you have in certain situations. But what it can't do is tell me a really compelling story that has a three-act structure, or even tell me multiple scenes. It gets extremely confused.We've not used any generative AI in the development of the product outside of things like bug databases, clearing our analytics database that's what it's good for. We haven't used it for [concept art] because there's some legal issues around [sourcing images]. Right now I'm not overly impressed when it comes to game development I'm sure there will be more to it [in future] but I'm not super worried about it yet in a 'it's coming to take everybody's jobs' perspective. Characters that acknowledge and respond to players' actions, especially over time, go a long way to making the overall experience feel more immersive and unique | Image credit: Judas, by Ghost Story GamesYou were saying about giving players a bit more room to explore, but that brings up the challenge of pacing. Does that affect the type of story you can tell? If the main plot is about the world ending imminently, that can be undermined when players spend 20+ hours doing side quests.It's really funny because we're making this game where the ship is falling apart and you've got to get off. So we think about it all the time because anything you're going to be doing, if it's not about getting off the ship, the big question that will come up is 'Why am I doing this?' and you [risk] the player losing faith in the story you're telling. You have to respect all that stuff.There's no universal answer except, I guess, don't make problems for yourself. Does the world have to be ending in your story? ln Judas, that is what we bit off, so we have to think about that problem. But you try to align your story with your capacity to tell it. Originally when we started on Judas, we were thinking of a smaller thing and the story was much smaller, but then as our ambitions rose, and the game had to sort of catch up to it in terms of where you're trying to do a story and character.We've actually never made a game before really where the stakes were this high and that's for a specific reason. This is the problem with Marvel movies: every fucking five minutes, the universe is about to end and eventually that stake can become sort of meaningless. I prefer to avoid that because a player will feel rushed you want to keep the stakes dramatically high, but you also want to make them feel like they can do what they want to do and explore the environment down to every square inch.When you're creating a game with multiple endings, what are your thoughts on developer canon versus the player's decision on what the ending is? There's always debate as to which is the true ending of a game, and Ubisoft is trying something with Assassin's Creed Shadows, which will have a 'canon mode' that makes decisions for the players. What impact does that have on the choices made by other players?I haven't played the game so it may be brilliant and they may have made all the right decisions. At first blush, it sounds to me like, maybe you're doubting yourself a little bit. At the end of the day though, I kind of feel that there is no 'canon'. I don't really believe in authorial intent, because one day I'm going to be dead and if I'm lucky enough that people are still interested [in my games] when I'm gone, they're not going to be able to ask what I think."Originally Judas' story was smaller. As our ambitions rose, the game had to catch up"I really try not to overly insert myself into that decision because it doesn't matter. The user's experience of the art is central, not the artist's experience of the art. Art is the intersection of the art and the person viewing the art. It's different for every painting, every song, every book, every game. If you read a book when you're young and then you read again when you're old, that's a different book, right? And that's beautiful, man. I never want to take that away from you.People often ask me about the end of BioShock Infinite, what was happening there? Did this happen or did that happen? Maybe I'm just being a douche bag for not answering it, but I kind of feel the answer is, 'Well, what do you think of this?' That's the beauty of what we do. There's no medium that's more user-involved than our medium. The stakes in Judas are higher than any of Levine's previous games, and this impacts how the story can be told when it comes to balancing player agency and urgency | Image credit: Judas, by Ghost Story GamesThere's also no other medium that can tell stories in a way that doesn't necessarily have a beginning, middle and end. Look at Her Story by Sam Barlow it's not a branching narrative. There's a story, but you discover it in a non-linear way. The moments that make one person realise what's happening will come in a different order than they will for another person. How do we explore that further as an industry?Game stories are very fungible. What's your story in Mario 64, right? There is a story because you remember your experience in playing it. And then there are stories that are very suggested, like Inside by Play Dead. They use a lot of sort of amorphous edges around the story. They don't want you to know exactly, but you get to sort of form a lot of what's happening because it's fairly abstract.The more literal you get, the harder that is to do. There are certain expectations that arise from dialogue, and characters are motivated by naturalistic things. [Judas] has lots of different ways it can go, which is very different to the games we've made previously. There are beats and how you got there is going to be fairly different from one player to the next. And places you'll get to are very different from one player to the next.There's different types of stories. Some stories really want sort of very naturalistic beats in it, beginning, middle and end. Some things like Inside or even Katamari Damacy, there's some kind of player story there but it's just not very literal. So it's really a question of how literal your storytelling is. We're trying to find a more literal storytelling thing that is incredibly open-ended, which is one of the hardest things to do because you have to have the story make sense in a very organic fashion, but you also have to have it be more open-ended. That's tricky, but that's why I've been working on the game for so long.How does the game environment affect the story? Her Story's narrative is delivered through short video clips you can view in any order, but a Judas or a BioShock is set in a 3D environment, so there will be specific routes by which players progress from one area to another. It depends. BioShock and BioShock Infinite, if you look at them from a development standpoint and this may be a bit alienating to some readers but they're basically a corridor. A very, very long corridor with a bunch of trigger points that make story elements happen. Judas is made very, very differently and that makes it much more hopefully reflective of players agency, but also much, much harder to make."AAA has become very difficult to take risks and mostly because it's so expensive. And so I'm incredibly fortunate to have the faith from the company to take risks and spend the time I need to make this successful"But we even see in some open world games the developer guiding players through the map, whether it's by level-gating, harder enemies in areas intended to be late-game, or by quests concentrating in one area before you reveal another. They still have some element of control over the story they're telling.It's a trade-off. The more control you give the creator, the easier it is for the creator to give the people what they would perceive as a very gettable story. The more agency the player has, the more work it makes for the developer. In Judas, we've really chosen to lean into that and try to really provide an opportunity to give players what they expect out of us in the story, but also open it up in a way that they've never seen from us before but that is a lot of work.What restrictions or challenges do the time pressures of development put on storytelling, and advancing how stories are told in games? You've been incredibly lucky in having ten years since BioShock Infinite not many developers get to spend a decade working out how to make a game in a different way. Most people just have to get something out of the door.I think one of the problems we have in this industry right now is that games have gotten bigger and bigger and the graphical capacity has gone up and up. Just creating a door now versus creating a door ten years ago just takes a lot more time, because you have normal maps and traders and higher polygons and physics and all this other stuff to contend with.Everything's getting more expensive, especially in the big AAA space because they're spending the most money. And when you're spending all this money, naturally you have people concerned about the commercial viability of it. But the problem with AAA is if you don't innovate, especially in games, you start losing people because they've seen it before. And so we have a potentially an over reliance, in some cases, on franchises.It wasn't easy to step away from BioShock. I never thought I'd have an established franchise. I tried multiple times and I've only made a couple of games that didn't have a sequel, but certainly I never really had a successful franchise before BioShock. But I saw an opportunity to create a new IP and take on some risk. Levine praises Playdead's Inside for its subtle yet effective storytellingI'm very fortunate that Take-Two put their faith in me and not everybody has the wherewithal to do that especially in the last few years, which have been very challenging. Take-Two has had success and I'm very grateful to everybody else who's done well like, obviously, the Rockstar guys, who bring in a lot of revenue and who allow this kind of experimentation because ideally you want to be putting bets on people taking risks in any sort of endeavor.You also want to have people not taking as much risk you need to sort of diversify. But AAA has become very difficult to take risks and mostly because it's so expensive. And so I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to have the faith from the company to take risks and spend the time I need to make this successful.It is hard to do new things. Quite often even if you take those risks, sometimes you're going to fall flat on your face. And the more expensive it gets the trickier it gets. But I do think that without that look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe you stop taking risks and people just tune it out.Nothing is blessed by God to be successful. You've gotta give some people something that excites them and that gets harder every year. But you know what? That's the jobWhich other games inspire you with the way they tell their stories?I think there's different ends of the spectrum. What [Naughty Dog's Neil] Druckman has done in The Last of Us, in terms of telling compelling human stories, was a big step because most games didn't get sort of naturalistic storytelling and were able to convey it that well."Computers do not know how to improv"But at the other end in the spectrum, what excites me a lot at least as a gamer are things like Inside, which is a great example of storytelling in a way that only a game can do it: without a word, without dialogue, without really understanding exactly what's happening, it still gives you this amazing experience.I remember when we were working on Thief talking about story versus vibe. It's important that games have a vibe, it's not as important they have a story. The games I make tend to have stories in them, but Inside is more of a vibe. You get to immerse yourself in this crazy dystopian world, you get to be this kid and you know nothing about him. The first scene, you just see this character and he's just walking from left to right. And that's the whole game, basically walking from left to right and doing puzzles and counters and all that other stuff but it's such a great feeling and it wouldn't be the same if you're watching it as a movie. I admire that game endlessly.

The Verge art team was busy this year, creating illustrations, photographs, and interactive designs to match stories about underwater sea cables, competitive Excel, parental anxiety, AI companions, and so much more. Heres a look back at 20 of our favorite projects from 2024, with comments from those of us who worked on the project.Design by Cath VirginiaIn a special issue on the year 2004, The Verge looked 20 years back to examine how 2004 was the year of the future, setting in motion the internet as we know and use it today. Cath Virginia absolutely crushed the hub design (with three skins! Remember skins?), Graham MacAree built the smoothest pages, and Amelia Holowaty Krales took the early aughts photos of my dreams. This package is both a love letter to a time we all saw ourselves for the first time online and a capsule of what we hope it can become again: a place for play, creativity, and connection. Kristen Radtke, creative directorPhotography by Go TakayamaFor Josh Dziezas feature on the hundreds of thousands of miles of internet cables at the bottom of the worlds oceans and the people who fix and tend to them we created an immersive electric blue world of maps and schematics. Its great to have an opportunity to mash up data visualizations and maps along with stunning original photography, and Go Takayamas intimate photos of these seafaring men give a face to an essential but otherwise invisible job. Kristen Radtke, creative directorPhotography by Stormy PyeatteThe visuals for these pieces are one of my proudest Verge projects. Stormy Pyeattes ethereal style of floral photography and projection mapping makes for a rhythmic and mesmerizing feature design it almost makes you want to fall in love. Cath Virginia, senior designer Design by Kristen RadtkeWe started this story trying to figure out how on earth a bunch of Excel nerds ended up on ESPN. We ended up discovering exactly how powerful, versatile, and important spreadsheets really are and the power they confer when you can reduce the world to rows and columns. In the process, our brilliant design team found yet another way to build a spreadsheet: to use rows and columns to tell the story, and depict its characters, in their natural habitat. David Pierce, editor-at-largePhotography by Amelia Holowaty KralesEvery once in a while, we go bananas on a special-edition print project, and for our subscription launch this year, we somehow convinced our colleagues to pose in 1980s office wear for our Content Goblins magazine. Its an issue about the enshitification of the internet, so I basically lobbed as much goop and slime on top of the design as possible. Our A/V producer Andrew Marino was the real MVP of this project for letting us turn him into a literal goblin. Kristen Radtke, creative directorArt by Adrin AstorganoThe occupant of a home filled with smart technology speakers, lights, a robovac sits by the window and ignores the tech in favor of gazing at the trees and clouds outside. Adrin Astorganos vibrant art gives us a moving (both figuratively and literally) picture of how todays smart homes are useful and even preferable, but not an end in themselves. Barbara Krasnoff, reviews editorArt by Kristen RadtkeGetting Kristen Radtkes beautiful comic up on the site was an interesting challenge: how do we preserve the artwork and animation without compromising on performance? I think the amount of work done to optimize the piece ultimately paid off in the user experience. Its our smoothest comic yet. Graham MacAree, senior engineerArt by Samar HaddadI love everything that Samar Haddad makes, especially how she breaks down complex topics step by step in clever visual ways. For this short series on AI in sports, she created a massive suite of graphics in a cool retro vibe. I hate sports, and I love this series. Kristen Radtke, creative directorPhotography by Amelia Holowaty Krales; design by Maeve Sheridan and Cath VirginiaCreating the lede images for our gift guides is a big job each year. We source all the products, create distinct sets for each guide, and try to keep things fresh for the whole suite. I love the joyful scenes photographer Amelia Holowaty Krales created this year with prop stylist Maeve Sheridan, with bold, poppy wrapping papers designed by our senior designer Cath Virginia. You can even buy your own custom Verge wrapping paper from our merch store. Kristen Radtke, creative directorPhotography by Amelia Holowaty KralesI was so excited to head to a party with Verge senior photographer Amelia Holowaty Krales: one, because it meant we were both off the hook for bedtime with our respective kids, and two, because she can communicate a vibe so sharply through her lens. Her photos from the Pantone Color of the Year party are visual arguments in themselves, and her use of double exposures throughout perfectly communicates the branded extravaganza of the evening. Kristen Radtke, creative directorArt by Cath Virginia with photos from Getty ImagesTheres a lot to call out in this great, cohesive collection of images that helped bring our physical media issue to life. But I have to put a spotlight on the floppy disk turned turntable, which is as clever as it is mesmerizing. Andrew Webster, senior editor, entertainmentArt by Cath Virginia, assets from TurboSquidThe most recognizable part of Pitchfork besides its logo is its 10-point rating scale. How do you convey the diminishment of an august music publication? You just turn the volume down. Elizabeth Lopatto, senior reporterA year of smartringsPhotography by Amelia Holowaty KralesWearables especially smart rings tend to be small gadgets. So when it comes to art, its really important to think about how to make them pop on the page while also differentiating them from each other. (Lets be real, watches and rings start to look an awful lot alike after a while.) Cue fun, colorful props and sparkly nails! Victoria Song, senior reviewerDesign by Mr.Nelson with photos from Getty ImagesIn one of the most depressing election cycles of all time, Wouter Tjeenk Willink, aka Cath Virginia, senior designerArt by Mojo WangWhen people grow old, they dont stop being individuals capable of joy. Mojo Wangs imaginative drawing of an older woman in celebration of her favorite music beautifully illustrates an article that explains how the writers mother used a smart speaker to enhance the final chapters of her life. Barbara Krasnoff, reviews editorArt by Cath Virginia with photos from Getty ImagesIve spent the last few years writing about all the ways search engine optimization infiltrates Google, making for a frustrating experience for both users and website operators. This image perhaps perfectly encapsulates SEO at its worst: insidious, corrosive, and just plain gross. Mia Sato, platforms and communities reporterArt by Cath Virginia with photos from Getty ImagesBasically my favorite part of the story process is finding out what madness our art team has cooked up this time. In this case, I think I told Cath Virginia that I felt like the its all Ohio meme as I was reporting the story its all copyright law and always has been. And she went galaxy brain with it. Elizabeth Lopatto, senior reporterArt by Richard ParryRichard Parrys playful 3D animations perfectly express the cult status of the infamous Optimus Maximus keyboard. Cath Virginia, senior designerArt by Hunter FrenchVice was never as big and solid as Shane Smith made it seem, and the story had a cartoonish surrealness to it that was captured perfectly in Hunter Frenchs illustrations whether that was the Buster Keaton-inspired lead art or Smith hawking the brand in secretive deals. Sure, there are a bunch of complicated financial details, but the art really gets to the heart of the thing, doesnt it? Elizabeth Lopatto, senior reporterPhotography by Liam James Doyle and Montinique MonroeMia Satos piece about a lawsuit involving two Amazon influencers is amazing, and the photographs of these two individuals are a perfect pairing. The portraits that Montinique Monroe and Liam James Doyle took in Austin, Texas, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, respectively, were individually fantastic and worked so well together, it was really hard to choose which to use. Amelia Holowaty Krales, senior photographer

There is a new Humble Bundle of interest to game developers, The Game Dev Asset Mega Bundle contains a large collection of assets for Unreal Engine and Unity. The assets are from the studio Hivemind. Most of the assets are 3D environments, although there are some 3D model packs and a few audio packs mixed in. As with most Humble Bundles, this one is organized into tiers:5$ TierHorror Ambient Loops (Loopable)Modular Castle: Castle Building Kit (Unreal Engine)Median TierModular Medieval Town (Unreal Engine)Modular Wooden Buildings (Unreal Engine)Modular Stylized Medieval Open World (Unreal Engine)Rain & Wind Sounds (Loopable)Abandoned Factory (Unreal Engine)Game Music Essentials (Loopable)25$ TierModular Castle & Dungeon Megapack (Unreal Engine)Modular Sci-Fi Outpost (Unreal Engine)Modular Wild West Town (Unreal Engine)Modular Warzone / Battlefield Megapack (Unreal Engine)Modular Haunted House (Unreal Engine)Modular Castle & Dungeon Megapack (Unity)Native American Village (Unreal Engine)Modular Dungeon: Temple Of Cthulhu (Unreal Engine)Ultimate Animal Bundle (Unreal Engine)Stylized Nature (Unreal Engine)Stylized Nature (Unity)Modular Post Apocalyptic Town (Unreal Engine)Modular Post Apocalyptic Town (Unity)Modular Medieval Village / Bandit Village (Unreal Engine)Modular Medieval Village / Bandit Village (Unity)Modular Destroyed Buildings (Unreal Engine)Modular Destroyed Buildings (Unity)Modular Dungeon: Dark Halls (Unreal Engine)Modular Dungeon: Dark Halls (Unity)Modular Dark Fantasy Graveyard / Cemetery (Unreal Engine)Modular Dark Fantasy Graveyard / Cemetery (Unity)Modular Medieval Town / Docks (Unreal Engine)Modular Medieval Town / Docks (Unity)Modular Medieval Town Megapack (Unreal Engine)Modular Medieval Town Megapack (Unity)Modular Medieval Fantasy Village (Unreal Engine)Modular Medieval Fantasy Village (Unity)Modular Medieval Houses (Unreal Engine)Modular Desert Town (Unreal Engine)Abandoned Factory (Unity)Monster SoundsModular Medieval Town (Unity)If you wish to convert the assets from one game engine to another, consider the following guides.You can learn more aboutThe Game Dev Asset Mega Bundlein thevideobelow. Using links on this page helps support GFS (and thanks so much if you do!). If you have any trouble opening the links simply paste it into a new tab and it should work just fine.

If 2024 felt like a slightly off year for movies, youre not alone between the Hollywood strikes impacting release dates, audiences gravitating towards streaming rather than actual movie theaters, and the so-called superhero fatigue that has affected even the MCU, its safe to say that movie fans are looking forward to a better 2025.And thats where we come in with our preview of the biggest movies that were looking forward to in the new year. Theres the big-screen debut of James Gunns new DC Universe in Superman, the return of not one but two classic Universal monsters, a new sci-fi tale courtesy of Parasite director Bong Joon-ho, new works from the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, and Edgar Wright, and, yes, the return of the MCU to hopefully full swing with three new movies. Safe to say, weve got high hopes for the next 12 months.Here are the biggest movies coming in 2025Wolf ManDate: Jan. 17Director Leigh Whannell nailed his Universal Monster redo The Invisible Man in 2020, and now hes got a Wolf Man take coming (with Blumhouse producing). Christopher Abbott (Poor Things) stars as a family man who undergoes some, um, changes while trapped in a cabin in the woods with his wife (Ozarks Julia Garner) and daughter (Matilda Firth). Based on The Invisible Man and what weve seen of Wolf Man so far, Whannell seems to understand that the best monster movies are the ones that are really about, well, the monster that lurks inside us.Star Trek: Section 31 (Paramount+)Date: Jan. 24Michelle Yeohs character from Star Trek: Discovery has long been in the running to get a spin-off, and its finally here in the form of the first Star Trek TV movie ever made. Section 31 sees Yeohs Philippa Georgiou teaming up with Starfleets top-secret division that handles the dirty jobs that those fancy-pants Federation types like to avoid. It would be great if this film works out and leads to a series of Trek movies that go straight to Paramount+, allowing for the exploration of the more obscure corners of Gene Roddenberrys universe that a feature film wouldnt typically permit.The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep (Netflix)Date: Feb. 11Netflix's Witcher franchise continues with another animated movie, following 2021's Nightmare of the Wolf, this time featuring the voice of Doug Cockle as Geralt of Rivia. With Henry Cavill no longer playing the character in the live-action series, Cockle returns to the role here, having previously voiced Geralt for the video games. Meanwhile, Joey Batey and Anya Chalotra reprise their roles from the show as Jaskier and Yennefer, respectively. Based on the short story A Little Sacrifice from The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowskis Sword of Destiny, the film sees Geralt pulled into a struggle between humans and merpeople. Sure hope the water doesnt mess up his hair.Captain America: Brave New WorldDate: Feb. 14PlayThe 35th film in the MCU finally puts the new Captain America, Anthony Mackies Sam Wilson, front and center on the big screen, but hes not alone. Joining him are Danny Ramirez, back from his small role in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier as Joaquin Torres, a.k.a. the new Falcon, Shira Haas as former Black Widow Ruth Bat-Seraph, Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, also returning from TFATWS, and Giancarlo Esposito as Marvel villain Sidewinder. And then theres Harrison Ford, making his Marvel debut as Thunderbolt Ross (replacing the late William Hurt in the role). Ross, according to the trailers, is also now president of the United States and the Red Hulk as well, because yeah, this is also kind of a Hulk sequel it seems, with Liv Tyler and Tim Blake Nelson back as Betty Ross and the Leader, respectively (both last seen in 2008s The Incredible Hulk).Paddington in PeruDate: Feb. 14 (US)This third Paddington movie was released in the UK in November of 2024, but its coming to the US and other territories in January of 2025. It's been seven years since Paddington 2, and the previous film's director, Paul King, was busy making Wonka with Timothe Chalamet, so new helmer Dougal Wilson stepped in for his feature debut. In this installment, Paddington and the Brown family do indeed visit Peru, though Emily Mortimer takes over as Mrs. Brown, replacing Sally Hawkins. Ben Whishaw is back as the voice of Paddington, as is Hugh Bonneville as Henry Brown. Upon its UK release, IGNs Matt Purslow gave the film a 7 out of 10, saying Its not as delicious as its practically perfect predecessors, but Paddington in Peru preserves the series sweet-natured fun.The MonkeyDate: Feb. 21Based on the 1980 Stephen King short story of the same name, The Monkey is the next film from Longlegs writer-director Osgood Perkins. The orginal story deals with a cursed toy monkey that causes various deaths, and it looks like the movie is sticking to that broad outline. The trailers VO tells us of a beast not from this Earth which smites the ones who deserved it, the ones who didnt, and everyone in between while scenes of gruesome/hilarious (?) horror are teased onscreen. Theo James stars along with Tatiana Maslany and Elijah Wood, while James Wan is one of the films producers.The Legend of OchiDate: Feb. 28This fantasy from powerhouse arthouse (is that an oxymoron?) A24 stars Helena Zengel as the teenage Yuri, a girl who lives on a small island in the Black Sea. She and other children, including Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard (whos actually old enough to drink IRL now), find themselves on a journey in search of the fearsome creatures of the title the Ochi. Except when Yuri finds one, it's the cutest ol' thing you ever did see. And so her mission of rebellion, and protection, begins in what looks to be a visually fantastic film.SinnersDate: March 7Frequent creative partners Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are back at it with the horror film Sinners, starring Jordan as twin brothers who return to their hometown, according to studio Warner Bros., only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back. Hailee Steinfeld and Jack OConnell (Ferrari) also star, with Coogler and Jordan reuniting with various Black Panther teammates once again including director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw, production designer Hannah Beachler, editor Michael P. Shawver, composer Ludwig Gransson, and costume designer Ruth E. Carter.Black BagDate: March 14Steven Soderbergh is very busy for a guy who retired once, having made 10 movies in the past nine years, but hey, whos complaining? Hes actually got two films out in 2025, the horror-thriller Presence in January, and Black Bag in March, a high-stakes mystery, according to distributor Focus Features, which stars Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. The director reteams with prolific screenwriter David Koepp for both films, after working together on 2022s Kimi. Not much else is known about Black Bag at this point aside from the fact that its got a roster of talent who are almost always worth checking out.Snow WhiteDate: March 21PlayDisneys live-action (ish?) remakes of their animated classics trend continues with Snow White, which has had its fair share of behind-the-scenes controversies. Directed by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man movies) and written by Greta Gerwig (Barbie) and Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary), the film was delayed a year to 2025 because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, according to Disney. That said, it seems likely that criticism of its use of dwarf characters led to a rethinking of their approach, and hence at least part of the delay. As it stands now, the movie will feature seven distinctly cartoonish CGI characters accompanying Rachel Zeglers Snow White. Well see how this one pans out, as while cultural critics may pick away at these live-action remakes, the general public tends to show up in droves for them.Alto NightsDate: March 21Director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Good Morning, Vietnam) teams with screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas) and star Robert De Niro for Alto Nights, the story of real-life competing mob bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello. De Niro plays both roles, somehow. Debra Messing, Kathrine Narducci (The Sopranos), and Cosmo Jarvis (Shogun) also star.A Minecraft MovieDate: April 4PlayMinecraft Steve is coming, and it turns out hes Jack Black! And no, Black isnt in every new video game movie these days it just seem that way. This is another title that hit some controversy, as is too often the case lately, this time when the first trailer was released and some fans complained about the look of the film. So much so that Warner Bros. trotted out director Jared Hess and producer Torfi Frans Olafsson when the second trailer was released in order to do some damage control. Jason Momoa, Emma Myers (Wednesday) and Danielle Brooks (Orange Is the New Black, Peacemaker) also feature in the film, and from where were sitting, A Minecraft Movie looks like it could be a fun ode to the highly addictive game. But then again, we at IGN like to craft and build things not knock them down.Mickey 17Date: April 18PlayOscar-winning South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) goes sci-fi on April 18 with Mickey 17, and hes taking Robert Pattinson with him. Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo also star in the tale of an "Expendable," a.k.a. a space traveler sent on hazardous space missions. If the Expendable dies on such a mission, a new version of their body is printed... and thats how you end up with Mickey 17. But what happens when Mickey 18 shows up while Mickey 17 is still alive? Thats the question the film asks, as does the trailer in a pretty lively and comedic manner.Until DawnDate: April 25An adaptation, of course, of the horror video game of the same name, Until Dawn was directed by David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation, the Shazam! movies) and written by Gary Dauberman (several Annabelle films, two Its). We don't know a ton about the film's plot yet, other than that it's inspired by the game. Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Ji-young Yoo, and Belmont Cameli are among the cast, as is Peter Stormare, who reprises his role from the game as Dr. Hill.Thunderbolts*Date: May 2PlayThe final film of Marvel Studios Phase 5, and the second MCU movie of the year after a pretty light 2024 (which only gave us Deadpool & Wolverine on the big screen), Thunderbolts brings together a long-running plot thread in the bigger universe that saw Julia Louis-Dreyfus Valentina Allegra de Fontaine assembling (ahem) a team of super-powered individuals, albeit figures who havent always been on the side of good. The group consists of Florence Pughs Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stans Bucky Barnes, David Harbours Red Guardian, Wyatt Russells U.S. Agent, Hannah John-Kamens Ghost, Olga Kurylenkos Taskmaster, and newcomer Lewis Pullmans Bob, a.k.a. The Sentry. The specifics of their mission remain a little unclear right now, though perhaps the bigger question is whether or not Thunderbolts can stick the landing for Marvels Phase 5.Lilo & StitchDate: May 23Another of Disney's live-action/CGI combo projects that reimagines an old Disney animated hit, this one leads us to note that the original Lilo & Stich doesnt feel that old, but then again... it came out in 2002, so maybe time is just moving more slowly these days? Because that just doesnt seem right. Whatever the case, Chris Sanders returns as the voice of Stich, the alien creature who is adopted by Maia Kealoha's Lilo. Aulii Cravalho, Judge Reinhold, Zach Galifianakis, Courtney B. Vance, and Hannah Waddingham also star.Mission: Impossible The Final ReckoningDate: May 23PlayThe eighth film in the long-running Tom Cruise spy/action series, and the follow-up to Dead Reckoning Part One from 2023, Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning sees the worlds most stunt-prone star reunite with the likes of Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Vanessa Kirby for one more Ethan Hunt adventure. But will it be his last? With Dead Reckoning slumping as one of the lowest-grossing installments of the series, the future of Hunt and the Impossible Missions Force lies largely on this films shoulders.Karate Kid: LegendsDate: May 30PlayFor this film, Ralph Macchio, the OG KK, is teaming with Jackie Chan, who starred in the 2010 reimagining of The Karate Kid which I guess is now just part of the bigger Karate Kid Cinematic Universe. The pair will play their characters from their respective films, with Ben Wang (American Born Chinese) cast as the new kid who must learn karate to solve all his lifes problems. Even though Macchio is one of the stars of the Cobra Kai TV show, and that apparently exists in the same world as this movie, it seems as though the film wont have a ton do with the series as the actor has said Legends takes place around three years after the end of the show.From the World of John Wick: BallerinaDate: June 6In case you werent clear on what world this film takes place in in case Keanu Reeves showing up in the trailer wasnt enough Lionsgates Ballerina is now called From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. Which OK, fair enough. You cant blame them, I guess. And while the Baba Yagas current status may be, shall we say, unclear, his world of assassins continues with this spin-off/sidequel, which takes place between John Wick: Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. (Ah, thats why he was able to show up in the trailer!) Ana de Armas stars as Rooney, whos seeking Wickian-style revenge for the murder of her family, with Underworld and the Total Recall remake's Len Wiseman directing.ElioDate: June 13Pixar's next film tells the story of Elio (Yonas Kibreab), a boy who wants to be abducted by aliens. As Elio says in the teaser trailer for the film, he has a mole thats the same shape as the Orion Nebula after all! And he does get his wish, finding himself in the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with representatives from galaxies far and wide. Among Elios new alien friends are Brad Garrett as Lord Grigon and Jameela Jamil as Ambassador Questa, while Zoe Saldaa voices his Aunt Olga.How to Train Your DragonDate: June 13Here's another live-action remake of an animated film (its just a genre now, isn't it)? This time it's DreamWorks re-doing 2010's lovely boy-meets-dragon tale, with The Black Phones Mason Thames playing Hiccup and a CGI rendition of Toothless of course playing the dragon he befriends. Gerard Butler co-stars as the live-action version of his animated character, Stoick the Vast (Hiccup's father), while Nico Parker (The Last of Us), Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2), and Nick Frost are also among the cast. Many have noted how closely the first trailer for the film resembles the original animated movie, but is that a good thing? Well find out in June.28 Years LaterDate: June 20PlayDirector Danny Boyle, screenwriter Alex Garland, and star Cillian Murphy return for this sequel to 28 Days Later, and man if this project doesnt have us as excited as a Rage-Virus-infected whacko. The original post-apocalyptic film set a new standard for zombie action (dont start arguing with us about what is or isnt a zombie here), while its first sequel, 28 Weeks Later, was basically a decent thriller made by other people. Ralph Fiennes, who co-stars in the new film, has given us the most info so far regarding the plot, saying that there are "a few pockets of uninfected communities" at this point 28 years after the first film (duh). But wait, theres more: This is just the first of a new trilogy of films in the series, with The Marvels director Nia DaCosta reportedly helming the second movie.M3GAN 2.0Date: June 27Allison Williams returns to be further harassed by the robot-doll from hell in M3GAN 2.0, or however you pronounce it. After the critical and commercial success of the original, not to mention all the memes, a follow-up from the horror mega-producer team-up of Jason Blum and James Wan was all but assured. Director Gerard Johnstone and scripter Akela Cooper are also back for the sequel, as is Violet McGraw as Cady, the niece of Allison Williams Gemma. Quite frankly, maybe Cady needs to stop fucking around with these killer robot toys.F1Date: June 27Director Joseph Kosinski has more than proved he can do high-speed action thrills with Top Gun: Maverick, so perhaps it was inevitable that he'd tackle the world of Formula One racing. Brad Pitt stars as an ex-driver who had to bow out of the sport after a terrible crash years ago. But you know guys like that they always have to come out of retirement to train the next generation!Jurassic World RebirthDate: July 2The Jurassic franchise makes its return to the big screen with a sorta-reboot just three years after Jurassic World Dominion. This trip into the Heart of Dino Darkness finds a covert operations expert, played by Scarlett Johansson, venturing into one of the few remaining locations on Earth hospitable to dinosaurs to collect the genetic secret to their survival. Director Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, Godzilla, The Creator) will bring his gift for massive visual scale to the franchise for the first time, while screenwriter David Koepp (the original Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park) may be able to get a Jurassic story back to the roots of whats kept us loving the original films for the last three decades.SupermanDate: July 11PlayJames Gunns much-anticipated takeover of DCs cinematic adventures kicks off in earnest with the release of Superman: Legacy. With leads David Corenswet (The Politician, Pearl) and Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, House of Cards) joined by a freshly bald Nicholas Hoult (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Menu) as Lex Luthor, we dont know a ton about this just yet. Aside from Supermans penchant for very casually putting his boots on and the fact that James Gunn has said all the right things about his relatively serious take on the Man of Steel, theres still plenty to be excited about.The Smurfs MovieDate: July 18Fuck this movie, but you know youre going to see it anyway. The Smurfs Movie is an animated musical with an absolutely stacked voice cast. Everybody from Rihanna to Kurt Russell, Xolo Mariduea (Cobra Kai, Blue Beetle) to Alex Winter (Bill S. Preston, esquire), and (almost) literally everyone in between gets a chance to be blue on the mic. Chris Miller (not Lord and Miller, but Shrek the Third and Puss in Boots Chris Miller) is directing, so theres an excellent chance The Smurfs Movie is charming AF at minimum.The Fantastic Four: First StepsDate: July 25Marvels first family gets their fourth shot at the silver screen in the ironically titled The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Veteran TV director Matt Shakman (WandaVision, Game of Thrones, Its Always Sunny) leads Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear, Andor) and Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) in a mid-century take on the Richards family. With concept art hinting at something from 60s sci-fi and the shenanigans both on screen and off at Marvel, theres no small amount of pressure on this film to course-correct the much-maligned Multiversal Saga in the MCU, particularly now that Dr. Doom, one of Fantastic Fours most notorious arch enemies, is on the horizon.The Bad Guys 2Date: Aug. 1With a very cool animation style and some legitimately well-choreographed action, The Bad Guys was a kids graphic novel adaptation done right. Following the attempt of a tight-knit group of criminals to go good, The Bad Guys 2 returns with the same director, Pierre Perifel, and most of the cast (Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina and, most importantly, Richard Ayoade as a philanthropist guinea pig named Professor Marmalade), so the chances of another very fun Bad Guys movie are, well, good.The Naked GunDate: Aug. 1Image is from the original The Naked Gun.Holy crap, we can NOT wait for this movie. With Lonely Island and SNL alum Akiva Schaffer directing, and Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson in the lead roles, the casting alone points to a creative team that understands why The Naked Gun worked so well. Featuring pro wrestler Cody Rhodes and rapper Busta Rhymes, this film has an incredible chance of being one that runs the remake a classic gauntlet unscathed. Dont expect a straightforward remake or a half-assed spoof. Instead, get ready for the parody genre to start working again.The Battle of Baktan CrossDate: Aug. 8In this house, we hold the belief that any news of a Paul Thomas Anderson movie is good news. Even if the news is a semi-official title (The Battle of Baktan Cross) that may be based on a Thomas Pynchon novel (like PTAs Inherent Vice) that also might be the most expensive movie the auteurs ever had the chance to make. Well take our chances with those question marks for now, though, as the confirmed cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio (Growing Pains, This Boys Life), Sean Penn (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and Regina Hall (Scary Movie 1-3). Throw in one of the Haim sisters and well be there opening night.Freakier FridayDate: Aug. 8Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reunite for this follow-up to the 2003 mind-swap classic, which itself was based on the 1976 mind-swap classic starring Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris. Prior to this sequel, there have actually been like six movies inspired by the original 1972 novel, but Freakier Friday is bound to hit folks of a certain age in that sweet spot of nostalgia and curiosity, which we all know Disney is so good at mining. Well see who winds up swapping minds with who this time imagine if they crossed over with the Halloween franchise and Curtis and Michael Myers took a stab at each others lives?Thread: An Insidious TaleDate: Aug. 29As horror spin-offs go for scare factory Blumhouse, Thread: An Insidious Tale will have a puncher's chance at success. Starring Kumail Nanjiani and Mandy Moore, the scant details on the film say well go deeper into The Further, the supernatural, purgatory-like world thats a mere astral projection away. Writer/director Jeremy Slater has credits that include The Umbrella Academy and Moon Knight, which are good signs to be sure, but beyond that, its just hard not to bet on Blumhouse.The Conjuring: Last RitesDate: Sept. 5Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are back as Ed and Lorraine Warren, those paranormal investigators we all know and love, for the ninth movie in the Conjuring Universe. Director Michael Chaves, who has helmed two previous films in the James Wan-created series, has said this will be a finale for the franchise, but come on. Well believe it when we see it.The Bride!Date: Sept. 26If the only thing we knew was that a Bride of Frankenstein film was being made and there was now an exclamation point in the title, wed be intrigued. But add to that a cast that includes Christian Bale, Penelope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard and Jessie Buckley (Men, Fargo, Chernobyl), plus not one but two Gyllenhaals (Maggie is directing with brother Jake in a supporting role), and wed think youd gone mad and were just making things up. On top of everything else, there are rumored to be elaborate dance numbers and a budget north of $100 million, making this a take on classic movie monsterdom that we cant wait to see.Saw XIDate: Sept. 26Yep! More Saw! The eleventhMichaelDate: Oct. 3Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer) directs this Michael Jackon biopic from a script by John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator). Jaafar Jackson, who is the son of Jermaine Jackson and the nephew of Michael, stars as the adult Michael. Reportedly, the film will trace the controversial pop icons life from his time as a child star as part of the Jackson 5 through his adulthood. Colman Domingo and Nia Long play Michael's parents, Joe and Katherine Jackson, and Miles Teller appears as John Branca, the entertainment lawyer who replaced Joe as Michael's manager after Michael fired his father.TRON: AresDate: Oct. 10The long and arduous quest for a TRON: Legacy sequel seems to be nearing its end with TRON: Ares currently scheduled for a 2025 release. The film follows a program called Ares, played by famous doctor/vampire Morbius (Jared Leto), as it enters the real world, giving mankind its first opportunity to shake hands with AI. Tron as a franchise is a curious one, as the original film is a classic in its own right and the 2010 sequel felt largely unnecessary. The opportunity here, however, is with the look of the film, this time in the hyper-capable hands of DP Jeff Cronenweth (The Social Network, Gone Girl), and the music, with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross not even bothering to drop the Nine Inch Nails from their credit for the film.Good FortuneDate: Oct. 17Keanu Reeves stars in this comedy from writer-director Aziz Ansari. Good Fortune is about a so-called budget guardian angel, played be Reeves, who loses his wings and winds up, after a series of unfortunate events, living with Seth Rogen. Hey, Hollywood still makes comedies it turns out? Were there.The Black Phone 2Date: Oct. 17Perhaps the surest bet in Hollywood is that a horror film that made 10 times its budget at the box office is going to get a sequel. Doctor Strange director Scott Derricksons The Black Phone did just that in 2021 and, to nobodys surprise, in 2025 were getting a sequel with Derrickson returning alongside Ethan Hawke and the rest of the first films cast. Given all this, along with Blumhouses track record with franchising their sneak-up hits, it seems just as unwise to bet against this one too.Mortal Kombat 2Date: Oct. 24Image from Mortal Kombat.If we couldnt get WWEs The Miz the role of Johnny Cage in the sequel to 2021s surprisingly awesome Mortal Kombat reboot, Karl Urban is a lovely consolation prize. With director Simon McQuoid and much of the same cast of badasses (especially Hiroyuki Sanada and Joe Taslim as Scorpion and Sub-Zero entrenched in a centuries-old grudge match) back, were looking forward to a helluva tournament in Outworld and, if the rumors are true of actors being locked up for as many as four Mortal Kombat movies, a trilogy worth of fatalities before theyre done.Predator: BadlandsDate: Nov. 7With Dan Trachtenbergs Prey marking the first truly great Predator movie since the 1987 original, the floodgates for Predator projects were officially opened. While a direct sequel to the Amber Midthunder-led Prey was long assumed to be in the works, we recently found out that another, secret Predator movie had also already been shot! But all the while, Trachtenberg was also hard at work on Badlands, a standalone Predator story thats most interesting because of the fact that, for the first time in the franchises nearly 40-year history, its being told from the perspective of the titular hunter himself. Rumored to be set on an alien planet and deploying Elle Fanning in multiple roles, Predator: Badlands, like Prey before it, has a chance to be a completely fresh take on one of cinemas most iconic monsters.Now You See Me 3Date: Nov. 14To be perfectly honest, Im not entirely sure why were getting a third magician heist movie, but honestly, Ill take it because Im equally as confused as to how the first two were so entertaining. After Louis Leterrier made the first one more fun than it probably shouldve been, and John M. Chu made the franchise 2-for-2 a few years later, Ruben Fleischer gets a crack at Now You See Me 3. Of course with that much change behind the camera, the credit needs to be given to the reliably veteran cast in front of the camera. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Mark Ruffalo and Dave Franco are all returning to remind us why these movies are even a little bit fun isnt a trick its an illusion.The Running ManDate: Nov. 21The Running Man from 1987 came at the height of the muscle-bound heyday of 80s action cinema, and Edgar Wright taking another stab at it with an equally muscle-bound cast of Glen Powell, Katy OBrian and Josh Brolin is the best thing that 2025 could offer us. It seems Wright is going back to the source material, a Stephen King book written under his pulpier pseudonym Richard Bachman, to get at the more socially satirical elements the film left out of the first adaptation. Knowing Wrights unconditional love of cinema, this might be pulling from everything from RoboCop to The Truman Show, all with the choreographed mayhem of Hot Fuzz and Baby Driver. Were very excited for this one.Wicked: For GoodDate: Nov. 21With close to three hours worth of Part One, Wicked concludes by taking over its second consecutive Thanksgiving in 2025. With performances from leads Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo that are both great and powerful, the two-part Wicked is a fascinating exercise in adapting from not just one source but two. Folding in elements from the cheery Broadway hit and the decidedly darker novel, the first film was a faithful retelling of them both, and itll be more than a little interesting to see how well it concludes with Part Two.Zootopia 2Date: Nov. 26As secretly in development as the obviously-coming follow-up to a smash Disney animation hit could be, Zootopia 2 was in the works as early as 2017. Ginnifer Goodwins Officer Judy Hopps and Jason Batemans reformed con artist fox, Nick Wilde, must infiltrate another biome in the sequel, but the real question is, can a franchise get by on clever animal puns and positivity alone? The first film had a subversive note to its cute and furry veneer that was something worth talking about, and if theyve found another conversation to start with Zootopia 2, it could be more than just a no-brainer sequel.Five Nights at Freddys 2Date: Dec. 5The depth of lore thats sprung up around a survival game about haunted animatronic pizza place mascots is astounding. Given the games, books, short stories, comics and more, that the first major film adaptation was a success is no surprise. Thanks to the bottomless pit of horror spawned by Freddy Fazbear and friends, Five Nights at Freddys 2 has no shortage of story to pull from. Also, with the director (Emma Tammi) and cast (Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard) all set to return, if you were into the first one, we cant imagine youre going to be mad at the second.Avatar: Fire and AshDate: Dec. 19James Cameron, lover of the ocean and inventor of new ways to make Kate Winslet hold her breath for staggering lengths of time, is giving us another trip to Pandora for Christmas 2025. Avatar: Fire and Ash will be the directors third installment in what may be the only franchise he works on until hes dead. Avatar became the highest-grossing movie of all time after its release, while The Way of Water peaked at the third-highest box office number ever. Whether the continuing saga of former human marine Jake Sully and his family being pursued across Pandora can continue that trend is the most open question about Fire and Ash. With James Cameron, however, we know for sure that well get an inventive approach to blockbuster filmmaking that demands to be seen on as big a screen as you can find.Frankenstein (Netflix)Date: TBD 2025Guillermo del Toro has been talking about making a Frankenstein movie for a very, very long time, and it's finally happening thanks to his deal with Netflix. Oscar Isaac stars as Dr. Victor Frankenstein while Jacob Elordi plays the monster. How handsome will GDT's creature be? That remains to be seen, but you can bet that youre gonna feel for the monster one way or another. Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen and Christoph Waltz also star.So there you have it: The biggest movies that were looking forward to in 2025. Did we miss anything? What can you not wait to see next year? Lets discuss in the comments!

If you can believe it, we've already reached the end of 2024, and that means it's the perfect time to look forward to the best anime that next year has to offer. Whether you're excited for a returning series like Solo Leveling or the final season of Doctor Stone or desperate for a new, highly-anticipated adaptation like Sakamoto Days or Witch Hat Atelier, there's a ton to be excited about. And that's not even including the fact that we're getting a new series from the creator of Cowboy Bebop on Adult Swim. There's something for everyone, so let's dig into our most anticipated anime of 2025, including some already announced titles that we're hoping might end up releasing in 2025. The Biggest Anime Coming in 2025LazarusShinichiro Watanabe lovers rejoice! Yes, the legendary creator behind Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Carol & Tuesday, and Space Dandy is back with what's sure to be another stylistic banger, this time coming directly to the iconic Adult Swim Toonami block and a day later on Hulu. While we don't know exactly when the series will debut, we know it should be here in 2025 no matter what and we couldn't be more excited. As the title hints, this series centers on the hunt for a vaccine after a drug to extend people's lives is revealed years later to be a death sentence. To find a cure, our heroes must hunt down the man who created the miracle drug and fix things before millions of people die. The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 Sometimes an unexpected anime sneaks up on the fandom and gains attention through word of mouth and excitement. In the 2023-2024 season that was definitely The Apothecary Diaries, which has become a firm favorite since debuting. With a great hook a young apothecary's daughter is kidnapped and taken to the royal palace the show soon becomes a perfect mix of court intrigue and detective adventure as our young hero learns to survive in her new surroundings. With the second season coming soon, we can't wait to reenter this dramatic and fantastic world filled with complex women, scheming men, and brightly intelligent antagonists. Sakamoto Days If you're a fan of The Way of the Househusband, then this delightful slice of life/crime mashup is likely already on your radar. Based on the manga by Yuto Suzuki, it follows an old man named Sakamoto. He was once a feared hitman, but retired after falling in love and having kids, becoming a chubby old convenience store owner. However, when his past starts to impact his idyllic life, he has to use his very particular set of skills to protect those he loves. From what we've seen of the trailer, this is going to be lush, hilarious, and action-packed, with plenty of delicious anime food sequences to feed your eyeballs and soul. Basically, a perfect way to start the New Year. Solo Leveling Season 2 (Arise from the Shadow) The first season of the hugely successful adaptation of the South Korean portal fantasy web novel garnered fans across the world, so it probably shouldn't be surprising that Solo Leveling Season 2 is headed our way sooner rather than later. After Sung Jinwoo is chosen by the mysterious System, he becomes the only hunter in his monster-filled world who can level up his powers hence the name and so begins the story of Solo Leveling. The first season was a massive hit, inspiring not only a second season but also a webtoon spinoff, a movie, and a game. When this follow-up hits in early 2025 it's going to be interesting to see how the series evolves with its supernatural main character and whether it continues to grow its audiences to even greater heights. Dr. Stone Final Season (Science Future) (Jan 2025)The fourth and final season of Doctor Stone will be hitting screens early next year and while fans were originally worried that one season wouldn't be enough to cover the end of the manga, the reveal that the fourth season would be three parts instead of two with almost 40 episodes to tie up the story has helped to allay those fears. If you're not yet a fan, Dr Stone is set in a future where all humans were petrified for thousands of years until our teenage hero Senku Ishigami is revived and commits himself to finding a cure. Soon he realizes how to revive other petrified humans, setting himself and his eclectic allies on a wild adventure to save the world and discover what happened to petrify the globe. I May Be a Guild Receptionist, But I'll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on TimeBased on the light novel series published in English by Yen Press alongside its manga adaptation as well this extraordinarily long title has cultivated a fervent fanbase. Alina Clover is the overworked and wildly relatable protagonist who's trying to keep her work life at work and not have it cannibalize her time away from the front desk of the adventurers' guild. The city of Ioffle isn't prepared for this adventurer-who-isn't-an-adventurer and her war hammer as she attacks her overtime woes in such a fierce manner. The show's Japanese broadcast begins on January 10, 2025 and it looks like the English sub shouldn't drop too far behind.Witch Hat Atelier It's hard to put into words just how highly anticipated the animated adaptation of Kamome Shirahama's smash hit manga is. Finding a huge audience outside of just the anime and manga fandom, this gorgeously illustrated series tells the story of a young girl, Coco, who wants nothing more than to become a witch. After a chance meeting at her mother's tailoring shop with Quifery, one of the rare magic users in her world, Coco is swept into an entirely new life at the titular atelier. Shirahama's gorgeous art style seems to have been brought to life perfectly, judging by what we've seen from trailers so far, and it looks like this cozy, magical, and utterly fantastic manga series has the potential to be one of 2025's biggest anime hits. Gachiakuta (2025) Kei Urana delivered a modern classic with her manga Gachiakuta, a twisted take on the classic class-war trope that feels akin to a modern day Battle Angel Alita mixed with the Count of Monte Cristo. When Rudo's foster father is murdered, he finds himself accused of the killing and thrown out of his day to day life surviving in the Sphere where the descendants of criminals live as an underclass into the deadly landscape known as The Pit, a stinking landscape of infinite rubbish filled with deadly trash monsters. This is easily one of the most anticipated anime of the year as fans wait to see Rudo's world and his quest for revenge brought to life by Bones and director Fumihiko Suganuma. The series will also feature character designs by Tokyo Mew Mew's Satoshi Ishino, who will act as the lead animator on the project. Omniscient Reader (Hopefully 2025)In the dynamic South Korean web novel by Sing Shong that this anime is based on, a young man becomes embroiled in the end of the world after being the sole reader of a web novel that seems to be predicting the very apocalypse he has to now survive! This is the kind of meta commentary that we love at IGN, and the novellas have become a fan favorite since they debuted in 2018. While we're not 100 percent sure that we'll see Omniscient Reader next year, we know it is currently in production. So fingers crossed that we'll get to see the anime adaptation at some point in 2025. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 2 (Hopefully 2025)If you're looking for a delightful campaign fantasy, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better one from the last few years than Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. This unexpectedly existential series centers on an elven mage who decides to seek out the path to restoring her past adventuring party after realizing that she never truly got to know them while they were still alive. Exploring the notions of grief, growth, and of course friendship, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is an endlessly entertaining and thought-provoking adventure, and with original animation studio Madhouse signed on for Season 2 it's going to look just as beautiful as the first season did. Which anime are you most looking forward to in 2025? Lets discuss in the comments!

I have always wanted to live a life filled with art, declares Susan Aqeel, who took a couple of painting classes in college and, unable to keep up with the classs requirements, resolved to appreciate it in other ways. In 1968, Susan landed in New York's Soho neighborhood, where she brushed shoulders with the likes of artists like Louise Nevelson and Jamie Wyeth (Andrew Wyeth's son). At night, the Italian restaurants were brimming with just two kinds of people: artists and the Mafia, she recalls. Artists had the whole floor of each building to themselves, and it felt like the great American art renaissance.In the years to follow, Susan moved to California where she raised her son, Omar, filling their home with her favorite paintings. Omar moved to New York in 2011, studying interiors at Pratt, interning for Steven Volpe, and then starting his interior design firm, Methods of Assembly, this year. Thats when Susan, now retired, started dividing her time between the west and east coasts, finally purchasing a small pied--terre in the city to be closer to her son. She knew exactly who would design it and how. Susan wanted a city pied--terre that felt cool and relaxing, clean and uncluttered, somewhere to host a party after a gallery opening, a place to work, and a home in the cityone that would certainly be filled with art, says Omar, who was thrilled to step up to the task. I really wanted this project to be a love letter to how I see her: bold, elegant, independent, and defiant of expectation."David MitchellThe apartment sits on the second floor of an 1854 townhouse in the West Chelsea historic district. Its Anglo-Italianate architectural style features ornately carved stone fireplaces and double French door windows that open to look out over the High Line hotel. Fittingly, its just around the corner from galleries like Jack Shainman, Ateliers Courbet, and Gagosian. Before Omar could begin bringing Susans artwork in, however, there were some square footage issues to address. Fortunately, the apartments bones were good, save the core of the apartment, which contains the kitchen, bathroom, and hallways. The front room had these 11-foot ceilings, but when you walked into the kitchen, you were in a two-foot-by-two-foot space that felt like a shoebox, Omar explains. We cut into the ceiling and realized there was another few feet of possible ceiling space there, which is architectural gold in a historic New York apartment. Omars team raised the ceilings and doorways, adding molding to further create that sense of height. The floors, too, were bleached and refinished with a lighter hue. David MitchellBeyond those additions, Omar sought to maintain as much of the original character of the building as possible, seeking to highlight the houses original details, including the moldings, the ornate fireplaces, and a pair of 18th-century French panels, which became a jumping off point for Omar and Susan. I was envisioning a place where she would get off the Jitney, open the door, and exhale, Omar explains. We landed on this idea of the informal gallery with inspiration from the concept of a Parisian salon.The living room, which they dubbed the salon, is a lesson in balance: a creamy white backdrop (Farrow & Ball's All White) is accentuated by a loud pair of cherry red 1978 Don Chadwick club chairs and a larger-than-life painting by Evan Paul English; traditional architectural details sit alongside a contemporary Astep VV Cinquanta Suspension lamp and a Brutalist-style library table in nero black marble with lacquered conical bases. In considering how to bring together Susans tastes and artworks, Omar looked to a lot of Italian design references (Osvaldo Borsani's legendary villa outside Milan, for example) and Jean Dunand, to speak to Susans love of Art Deco. We don't need to over-dramatize the rooms great architectural features with excessive design, Omar explains. It was really focusing on creating this quiet backdrop and letting the furniture become sculptural art pieces. David MitchellEvery project needs one element that pushes one's boundaries. For Susan, that was the kitchen. I spent a lot of time in the San Francisco design center area, and I have seen all the kitchens and have done my homework for years. I knew my kitchen style was Ralph Lauren with a touch of Restoration Hardware, Susan explains. Omar suggested a stainless steel kitchen and at first blush, it seemed way too out there for me. With time, however, Susan says she kept going back to that. I finally told Omar, Do it your way, Im not going to resist anymore.The whole room is a piece of art. Omar, given a carte blanche, threw out the cooking spaces standard cabinets, in place of brushed stainless steel cabinets by Reform. On one side, the cabinets reach from floor-to-ceiling; on the other, similar cabinetry goes up to the standard kitchen counter height. I was trying to un-kitchen it as much as possible, Omar jokes. Its steel minimalism juxtaposed with a warm Akari light sculpture, and there's no backsplashit's all lime wash with a stain-resistant wax finish. I think this really speaks to the tension we were investigating in the project. For Omar, inspiration for the kitchen was sparked by his studies of the late American artist Donald Judd: I like to go back to the simple forms, planes, cubes. Susan says the rooms simplicity speaks for itself, The whole room is a piece of art. See Inside This Artful City HavenThe apartment is filled with treasures that Susan has collected over the years. I know all the artists, Susan fondly recalls. Theyre friends: one is an old boyfriend; another, Michael Snodgrass, is a friend of ours in Carmel; and another is Omars ex-husbandall wonderful artists that are still living. Somehow this apartment feels more alive, because Im surrounded by the work of living, breathing friends. Rachel SilvaAssistant Digital EditorRachel Silva is the associate digital editor at ELLE DECOR, where she covers all things design, architecture, and lifestyle. She also oversees the publications feature article coverage, and is, at any moment, knee-deep in an investigation on everything from the best spa gifts to the best faux florals on the internet right now. She has more than 12 years of experience in editorial, working as a photo assignment editor at Time and acting as the president of Women in Media in NYC. She went to Columbia Journalism School, and her work has been nominated for awards from ASME, the Society of Publication Designers, and World Press Photo.

In the days leading up to January 1, there's a delirious energy, revving its engines to start afresh. Motivation and aspiration peak around the New Year, and we're all busy making promises to ourselves. In 2025, you will look at your phone less. You will work out at least two times a week. And, you will finally clean out the office/pantry/hall closet. That yen to declutter is almost universal; so much of our happiness is tied to our environment, its no wonder then that home projects often make an appearance on our New Year's resolutions. The urge to revamp your home isn't unique to design newbies. Even interior designers, the experts who spend all year decorating other peoples homes, often have their own projects piling up. (See, they're just like us!) And their plans for home improvement can serve as a blueprint for our own. To help jumpstart our design to-do list and facilitate creating a more streamlined and calm home, we checked in with six interior designers to see what they are planning to tackle in 2025. Spoiler alert: Decluttering and rethinking the post-pandemic home office are top tasks.Related StoriesExcise the ExcessDaniel Cortez//Getty ImagesFor the New Year, San Francisco-based designer Jon de la Cruz of DLCID is making an effort to get rid of the extra stuff cluttering his cabinets. Instead, he wants to focus on the items he really loves and needs. "It's a reset from the past few years of padding my nest during (and after) the pandemic," explains de la Cruz. His first task: editing his kitchen and pantry. "Between the amount of china glass and serve ware that I've collected over the yearsand even the abandoned spices and cans from the ambitious recipes I never madethese spaces definitely need thinning out."Designer Nicole Arruda of Nicole Alexandra Design recently purchased her first home, an old Spanish revival in Larchmont, N.Y. Her resolution is to streamline her collection before moving into the new space. "I'm letting go of excess dishware, towels, bedding, and more clothes than I'd care to admit, along with dcor pieces that no longer resonate with me," she says. "What I'm keeping are the vintage treasures, artwork, and everything else that continues to inspire me."Transition a Kid's Room to a Tween RoomElliott FuernissA bedroom by Atelier DavisWhen kids hit milestone agesin interior designer Jessica Davis' case that would be 10 (double digits!) and 13 (teenager!)it's time to revamp their rooms. "I want to make their rooms less juvenile and better places for them to hang out with their friends and do homework," says the Atlanta-based designer and founder of Atelier Davis. An instantly impactful first step is to remove the childlike wallpaper in each room and replace it with fun paint color. In her daughter's room, her plan is to bring in a sage green dresser, and add a built-in desk/vanity in an existing niche with a fun lamp and mirror. To finish the space, Davis will update the bed with a half-round wall-mounted headboard and new nightstands. In her son's room, which the designer says is pretty small, she plans on adding built-ins that include a closet ("right now he uses a locker as a closet"), a long desk surface, and shelving. Sort Out The Home OfficeNicole PapierPapiers Craft RoomThe pandemic created huge shifts in the way we live and work at home. While some of us are returning to in-person office life and are reclaiming that home workspace for other purposes, others now know they are permanently working remotely. And for them, it's time to double down on a home office. During Covid, Charlotte-based designer Natalie Papier's kids' craft room became her spouse's office. "Now that my husband works there so much, the mood doesn't fit the decorespecially when he's on a Zoom call," says Papier. The art-loving designer, who just released a book called Start with the Art, says the quickest way to change up a vibe is with paint color. "The ceiling currently is this very vibrant blue with a grid wallpaper on the walls," says Papier. "So I'm going to take off the wallpaper and repaint the room in a moody cognac brown color." Shes then going to layer in new lighting so there's different levels throughout the day. And finally, she'll find another home for the taxidermy marlin hanging in the back of the desk.Refresh the BedroomPhoto : DOUGLAS FRIEDMANOver the past few years, de la Cruz has focused his home projects on his living spacespecifically, integrating a work-from-home area that's both functional and attractive. Now that the designer is going into the office regularly, he's ready to makeover his bedroom. On his wish list: a new mattress set, a custom bed assembly with integrated nightstands, and, of course, new crisp luxury sheets. "The perfect nightstand has a drawer (for storage) and open shelf below for charging a device and slipping a book into, and a pullout tray for a water bottle and a pair of glasses," says de la Cruz. For his narrow bedroom, he's integrating wood nightstands with a fully upholstered headboard panel. "I'm cleating it to the wall to take advantage of every inch," he says. As for bedding, he's coveting Linen Society's cool and crisp Vintage Percale. Upgrade Tech In-House and In the GarageFuse//Getty ImagesOne New Year's to-do on designer Sondra Ganz's list is to streamline the bluetooth sound capabilities in her San Francisco home. "Right now we have miscellaneous bluetooth speakers that need to be charged all the time in addition to these really cool-looking old-school speakers," explains the founder of Studio Ganz. "I want to find the right balance between invisible technology and purposeful sound decor so we can enjoy music in various rooms of our home more easily." Another tech project on her list is to upgrade the electrical and wall storage in the garage to accommodate the familys hybrid vehicle and bicycles.Find Your Home Decor Holy GrailDaniel Drobik / 500px//Getty Images"We've been looking for the perfect dining chairs for 10 years," Ganz says. "This is the year Im committed to making that happen." Since dining chairs are a big investment, Ganz and her husband are on "the second round of 'test' consignment chairs" to see what style and fit they like best. "Investing in some temporary furniture that you can resell easily is a great way to test proof a concept," she says.Art is another room-changing item that takes a time to find the perfect pieces. Finding the right piece requires combing through sites, galleries, flea markets and more. "We were never really able to finish finding art for our house," says San Francisco-based designer Regan Baker of Regan Baker Design. This is the year she is ready to invest in pieces for several walls throughout their home and especially to their stairwell. Once that mission is accomplished, 2025 will be shaping up beautifully.Follow House Beautiful on Instagram and TikTok.

Ive been arguing that passwords are horrible for the best part of a decade now, and was an enthusiastic early adopter of the far better approach of passkeys.Passkeys were supposed to achieve the holy grail of an approach which is both more secure than passwords and so easy to use that everyone would adopt them. But a new piece outlines four problems with the technology Passkeys are more secure than passwordsPasswords have a number of security issues:Websites may know them, even if they are supposedly encryptedNon-techies tend to re-use passwords, so data breaches are hugely problematicPasswords are vulnerable to phishing attacksPasskeys solve all of this. Instead of being challenged for our username and password when we login, we are invited to use a passkey. With this system, the website or app asks our device to authenticate us, using Face ID or Touch ID. The device tells the website who we are, and that it has confirmed our identity.The web server trusts your device to authenticate you in exactly the same way that payment terminals trust your iPhone or Apple Watch for Apple Pay transactions because it knows your have been authenticated locally using biometrics.In theory, passkeys are way simplerWhen we create an account, we should be offered the option of using a passkey, and all we have to do is agree. Our device authenticates us, and the service creates our account. To login next time, we just use Face ID or Touch ID and were in.But there are four big problemsIf you use only Apple devices, and use Safari as your web browser on all of them, then passkeys get close to being that simple. iCloud synchronization means that an account created on one Apple device will be accessible on all your others.But as Arstechnica points out, there are a lot of situations where the reality is rather different from the promise, starting with inconsistent user experiences.The experience of logging into PayPal with a passkey on Windows will be different from logging into the same site on iOS or even logging into it with Edge on Android. And forget about trying to use a passkey to log into PayPal on Firefox. The payment site doesnt support that browser on any OS.Worse, passkeys are tied to specific browsers.Another example is when I create a passkey for my LinkedIn account on Firefox. Because I use a wide assortment of browsers on platforms, I have chosen to sync the passkey using my 1Password password manager. In theory, that choice allows me to automatically use this passkey anywhere I have access to my 1Password account, something that isnt possible otherwise. But its not as simple as all that. When I look at the passkey in LinkedIn settings, it shows as being created for Firefox on Mac OS X 10, even though it works on all the browsers and OSes Im using.A third issue is that companies like Google and Apple may come close to forcing you to use their own passkey management systems, even when you have a different preference, and sometimes when you already have a passkey set up.I just want to open LinkedIn using the passkey thats being synced by 1Password to all my devices. Somehow, the mysterious entity responsible for this message (its Google in this case) has hijacked the process in an attempt to convince me to use its platform.Also, consider the experience on WebAuthn.io, a site that demonstrates how the standard works under different scenarios. When a user wants to enroll a physical security key to log in on macOS, they receive a dialog that steers them toward using a passkey instead and to sync it through iCloud.Finally, theres the fact that while the whole point of passkeys is to ditch the security holes created by passwords, almost every service forces you to create a password login too.Of the hundreds of sites supporting passkeys, there isnt one I know of that allows users to ditch their password completely. The password is still mandatory [] Threat actors will devise hacks and social engineering attacks that exploit this shortcoming. Then were right back where we were before.The full piece is well worth reading.Photo byTheRegistionUnsplashAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

A US Army soldier has been arrested on suspicion of extorting money from AT&T and Verizon, following data breaches which saw a massive amount of customer data obtained.The 20-year-old was arrested near the Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, on suspicion of being the cybercriminal known as Kiberphant0m and statements by his mother arent likely to help The indictment doesnt reference specific cases, but Krebs on Security ties the arrest to AT&T and Verizon hacks, in large part thanks to statements by the accuseds mother.Federal authorities have arrested and indicted a 20-year-old U.S. Army soldier on suspicion of being Kiberphant0m, a cybercriminal who has been selling and leaking sensitive customer call records stolen earlier this year from AT&T and Verizon []Cameron John Wagenius, 20, was arrested [] on Dec. 20, after being indicted on two criminal counts of unlawful transfer of confidential phone records.The sparse, two-page indictment (PDF) doesnt reference specific victims or hacking activity, nor does it include any personal details about the accused. But a conversation with Wagenius mother Minnesota native Alicia Roen filled in the gaps.Roen said that prior to her sons arrest hed acknowledged being associated with Connor Riley Moucka, a.k.a. Judische, a prolific cybercriminal from Canada who was arrested in late October for stealing data from and extorting dozens of companies that stored data at the cloud service Snowflake.The sites Brian Krebs had previously identified evidence from chat logs that Kiberphant0m was a US soldier stationed in South Korea.Moucka was arrested back in November, and has been indicted of 20 counts. The report suggests that Moucka was the primary hacker, while the main role of Wagenius was to obtain money from the data.Massive AT&T data breachOne of the ransom demands appears to relate to a massive data breach at AT&T, in which personal details were obtained for almost every customer the carrier had at the time.In an incredible security fail, the stolen data includes not only customer phone numbers, but also records of who contacted whom a potential privacy minefield []To make matters worse, hackers were also able to obtain cell site identification numbers for some of the calls and texts which can provide locations of customers to an accuracy of around 300 feet in some areas.It was later reported that AT&T paid a ransom of $373k in Bitcoin in return for the deletion of the data.The carrier said the data was obtained from a third-party cloud platform, and this is now believed to be Snowflake where data from other companies was also obtained. This includes obtaining thepersonal data of 560M TicketMaster customers.Wiredprovides evidence that AT&T paid a ransom to the hacker in return for them deleting the data. The hacker originally demanded $1M in Bitcoin, and the amount finally paid was the equivalent of $373k.Verizon call logsThe other demand appears to relate to Verizon call logs.On Nov. 5, Kiberphant0m offered call logs stolen from Verizons push-to-talk (PTT) customers mainly U.S. government agencies and emergency first responders. On Nov. 9, Kiberphant0m posted a sales thread on BreachForums offering a SIM-swapping service targeting Verizon PTT customers. In a SIM-swap, fraudsters use credentials that are phished or stolen from mobile phone company employees to divert a targets phone calls and text messages to a device they control.The indictment against Wagenius has been transferred to the Western District of Washington in Seattle.Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

CarPlay 2, aka next-generation CarPlay, was announced way back in the summer of 2022. At the time, Apple said that a list of supporting cars would be available in 2023, and two brands were later said to be launching in 2024.Today is the last chance to hit that deadline, and Apples CarPlay webpage still carries that promise. Unless theres a surprise announcement later today, the question is: Will the date be quietly changed to 2025, or is this project now dead in the water ?CarPlayFirst announced as iOS in the Car in 2013, and quickly rebranded to CarPlay, the first version launched as part of iOS 7. It got a new look in 2019.CarPlay Dashboard is the biggest rethinking of the CarPlay Home screen since it launched. While weve seen the ability to rearrange apps and hide select apps added over the years, CarPlay in iOS 13 adds an additional Home screen to the left of the existing icon grid that presents a dynamic cluster of information on a grid.The left half of the Dashboard shows your location on a map, current navigation, or an overview of your route. The right half of Dashboard is even more dynamic, surfacing quick access to upcoming calendar events which can include addresses, suggestions for routes including home, playback controls for audio apps, and Siri Suggestions including HomeKit actions like opening your garage when you arrive home.CarPlay 2 promisesApple announced a huge overhaul of CarPlay at WWDC 2022, in which the feature would take over the entire dashboard.This next generation of CarPlay is the ultimate iPhone experience for the car. It provides content for all the drivers screens including the instrument cluster, ensuring a cohesive design experience that is the very best of your car and your iPhone. Vehicle functions like radio and temperature controls are handled right from CarPlay. And personalization options ranging from widgets to selecting curated gauge cluster designs make it unique to the driver.The webpage read vehicle announcements coming in late 2023, with an impressive list of automakers said to be on board:Land RoverMercedes BenzLincolnAudiVolvoHondaPorscheNissanFordJaguarAcuraPolestarInfinitiRenaultAt the end of the year, Porsche and Aston Martin which had not been on the original list each said they would be launching new models with CarPlay 2 in 2024. As of the time of writing on December 31, Apples website still lists it as coming this year.Will it launch in 2025, or is the project dead?Barring a surprise car launch or two on the final day of the year, that promised date will need to be changed to 2025. But the bigger question is whether it will now happen at all?One of the companies on the original list changed its mind earlier this year. When The Verges Nilay Patel asked CEO Ola Kllenius whether Mercedes-Benz would ever support next-generation CarPlay and let Apple take over all of the infotainment in a car, he replied that the short answer is no.We noted at the time that other car brands were keeping quiet about it, which didnt seem a good sign. That was still the case in September, when Porsche said it had no updates on its plans, and Aston Martin declined to comment at all.Given the continued sound of chirping crickets, it seems more than possible that other car brands have reached the same conclusion as Mercedes. Given the technological sophistication of todays cars, it really doesnt make sense to hand over your screens to a third-party company, and it will make even less sense as we inch ever closer to true self-driving vehicles.Well have to see whether Apple changes the date, or quietly removes all reference to next-gen CarPlay. Either way, if I were a betting man, my money would be on it never launching at all or only in such a watered-down fashion that it will really be more like CarPlay 1.2.What are your views? Please take our poll, and share your thoughts in the comments.Image: AppleAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel