Not a fan of the generic iOS message reactions, calledTapbacks? The six original Tapbacks were a heart, thumbs up or down, a "Haha," exclamation points or a question mark. Some people could beconfused or irritatedby these reactions, and some folks feel thethumbs-up emoji is passive-aggressive. ButiOS 18lets you be more expressive and communicative by allowing you to use any emoji or sticker on your iPhone to react to messages.Apple releasediOS 18in September, and the update brought loads of new features to your iPhone, like the ability tocustomize lock screensandschedule messages to send later. One exciting new feature in the update that will make your texts more fun is the ability to use all your emoji(and even your stickers) to react to messages.Read more:Everything You Need to Know About iOS 18Here's how you can use all your emoji and stickers to react to texts in Messages.How to use all emoji for Tapbacks1. Open Messages.2. Tap into the right chat.3. Long-press on a message. The dog emoji seems like a good choice here. Apple/CNETIn the Tapbacks bubble above the message, scroll to the right to show a handful of emoji to use. If you don't see the right emoji, or you want to use a sticker, tap the gray smiley to the far right of the menu to pull up your emoji keyboard. You can scroll through the emoji or use the search function to find the emoji you want to use.You can also tap the sticker icon -- the folded-over circle -- near the left side of the emoji keyboard to access your premade and custom-made stickers. That means you can react to someone's message with a sticker of your pet if you want to, and who doesn't want to see more pets? Enlist Apple Maps to Plan Your Next Vacation See all photos For more on iOS 18, here's what to know aboutiOS 18.2andiOS 18.1and ouriOS 18 cheat sheet. You can also check out what could come to your iPhone withiOS 18.3. Watch this: What to Expect From Apple in 2025 04:23

January 12, 2025A Death from Bird Flu, a Cosmic Kiss and Wildfires in L.A.In this weeks news rundown, norovirus cases are up, a bird flu death is reported and Los Angeles has experienced devastating fires. Anaissa Ruiz Tejada/Scientific AmericanSUBSCRIBE TO Science QuicklyApple | Spotify | RSSRachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific Americans Science Quickly, Im Rachel Feltman. Welcome to our first science news roundup of 2025. Here are a few of the stories you may have missed last week.Theres a bunch of public health news right now, so well get that out of the way up top.First, norovirus cases are up in several parts of the United States right now. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that during the week of December 5the most recent week the agency has official numbers forthere were 91 outbreaks of norovirus registered by state health departments nationwide. That might not sound like a lot, but keep in mind that those are only the official reports. Most folks who get norovirus have a miserable time but dont need to seek medical treatment for their stomach flu. Plus, during the same week of the year from 2021 through 2024, the CDC never saw more than 41 outbreaks reported. Norovirus is highly contagious, and its one of the few pathogens that hand sanitizer cant kill. So make sure youre washing your hands with soap and water before eating, handling food or taking medicine, and of course after using the bathroom or changing a diaper.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Now lets check in on bird flu. Last week the Louisiana Department of Health reported the first U.S. death from H5N1, which has infected at least 66 humans in the U.S. since the start of 2024. The individual who passed away became severely ill after having contact with both wild birds and backyard poultry. The health department has stated that this individual was over the age of 65 and had some underlying health conditions, and most cases of H5N1 in the U.S. havent required hospitalization. But while the current risk to most folks is low, that doesnt mean were not at risk of things taking a turn. Well be having a longer conversation about the state of H5N1 on Wednesday.Lastly, you may have seen headlines about an increase in human metapneumovirus cases in Chinaand news of cases in India, too. But the good news is that this upper and lower respiratory virus, called HMPV for short, isnt currently a cause for concern in the U.S. Unlike COVID, HMPV has been around for more than 60 years, and many people have some amount of immunity to it. There has been a steady uptick in HMPV cases in the U.S. since November, according to data from the CDC, but its impact currently pales in comparison to both COVID and the seasonal flu. So our advice about HMPV is simple, and its also the same advice we have for those other respiratory infections: wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay home if youre feeling sick.Speaking of health, last Tuesday the Biden administration announced a rule that will remove medical debt from U.S. credit reports. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, this will wipe an estimated $49 billion in debt from the credit reports of around 15 million Americans, potentially raising their credit scores by an average of 20 points. This rule will also prevent the repossession of devices such as wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs. Several House Republicans have opposed the rule and are expected to try to undo it under the incoming administration. The Consumer Data Industry Association, which represents credit bureaus, said in a statement that it would be working to safeguard the credit reporting system and combat the CFPBs misguided foray into this area. According to data analysis by KFF, around 14 million people in the U.S. owe more than $1,000 in medical debt. Around 3 million people, or 1 in 100 U.S. adults, owe more than $10,000.Moving on to the climate, last week multiple intense wildfires broke out in Los Angeles.[CLIP: (Karen Bass, Los Angeles mayor): Good afternoon everyone and let me just thank all of the leaders that are here with us today. We will unify our city. We will get through this crisis. And we will rebuild a better Los Angeles. First and foremost, of course, my thoughts are with the thousands of Angelinos impacted by these continuing fires. There is a new fire, unfortunately.]I talked with Andrea Thompson, SciAms senior news editor for Earth and environment, last Thursday evening about how this all got started and where the disaster might go from here.So, Andrea, can you walk us through whats been happening in Los Angeles this past week?Andrea Thompson: L.A. saw some of the most destructive fires its ever seen in its history, and thats due to a confluence of a few things. One is a major Santa Ana wind event. This is a phenomenon that is common in that part of the country at this time of year, and it occurs when you have a certain meteorological setup.So you have an area of high pressure air over whats called the Great Basin, so thats the interior part of the West, and then an area of low pressure air over Southern California. And air wants to move from high pressure to low pressure, so you have this wind moving in that direction offshore, and the Great Basin is a bit higher than that elevation, and as the air moves downslope, it compresses. And that means it gets hotter and it gets drierhotter and drier weather is very conducive to fires.As the air moves down it wants to move through the path of least resistance, and that is these mountain canyons that are really prevalent in the area. As its funneled into these canyons it speeds up. So all of those factors mean that when you get a fire, they are just primed to spread that fire very quickly. And thats exactly what happened with this event, which was very intense. And it also happened to overlap with really dry weather.Typically this part of the country has its wet season in the winter, and usually you would have rains by now that would help tamp down the fire risk, but it has been one of the hottest and driest starts to the winter ever for Southern California, so thats just a perfect storm of conditions for any spark that ignites to happen and grow into a huge fire.And thats exactly what we saw happen in particular with the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire. Those were wind-driven events where it is virtually impossible to stop them at the height of the wind event because its moving so fast, theres just really nothing firefighters can do to contain the fire at that point. The winds are too high for helicopters and other aircraft to do water drops. The fire is moving far too fast for firefighters on the ground to be able to try and get in front of it.Feltman: How is this any different from the wildfires that California and L.A. have seen in general in the past?Thompson: So these kinds of fires are not unusual in this region; its what this regions ecosystem is evolved to. Theyre unusual in their destructiveness because there are a lot more people in these places than there were historically. And when fires have erupted in the past when there were people living there, we put them out. And all that suppression has meant theres a lot more abundant fuel for any fires that do happen.Thats particularly the case this year because there have been two wet winters in a rowthe preceding wintersso there was a lot of water to fuel a lot of vegetation growth. And then the hot summer and hot fall happened, and all of that vegetation dried out, and its just ready: Its tinder-dry. Its ready to go at any second if theres a spark.These are different from what you might see in other parts of California or other parts of the West if its a forested area. Forest fires and brush fires can be a little different in a few different ways: The way the fire travels can be a little different. The effects and the type of smoke can be a little different. But in terms of the L.A. Basin it has seen fires like this in the past. This is just the most destructive in quite some time. In fact, the Palisades is the most destructive in the citys history.Feltman: As of right now, Thursday, almost 5 p.m. Eastern time, where do things stand in L.A.?Thompson: The main fires, the Palisades and the Eaton fires, are still whats called zero percent contained. So that means theyre burning without any kind of perimeter put in place by the firefighters to try and halt the spread of the fire.The winds are supposed to pick back up. They had died down from their peak overnight Tuesday; thats part of what allowed firefighters to get out in front of the Sunset Fire. Winds were not as bad, so they could actually put the helicopters that did water drops to use, and that really helped stop that fire a bit more in its tracks. And also, the winds dying down meant that fire was not spreading as rapidly, but you could still see the embers going out in front from the winds that were there and starting what are called spot fires that then grow up and merge as the fire front continues to move downslope.So right now firefighters are trying to get a handle on the fires that are burning to try and get some containment to protect whatever structures they can. They are watching for new fires to start because that is always a possibility. The weather is still incredibly dry and very warm.So its basicallytheyre trying to actually get out ahead of the fires now, while the winds arent as bad, in preparation for when they pick back up again because anytime the winds pick back up, even if they arent expected to get as bad as they were on Tuesday, theres still a ton of potential for another big fire to get started.Feltman: Andrea, thanks for taking the time to come on and explain that to us.Listeners: our thoughts are with everyone impacted by the fires in and around Los Angeles. Of course, this a rapidly evolving story, so if you're looking for more up to date information, we recommend checking some breaking news sources. You can see Andrea's latest coverage of the situation if you go to sciam.com.Well wrap up with some stellar space news. Last Friday we talked about the hunt for our solar systems mysterious, totally hypothetical Planet Nine. But just because Pluto isnt a fully-fledged planet anymore doesnt mean scientists dont care about it. A new study aims to explain how Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, wound up in their unique cosmic dance. Instead of the moon orbiting around Pluto, Charon and the dwarf planet both circle the same fixed point between them. The pair are also tidally lockedthat means they rotate in such a way that theyre always presenting the same face to each other, like a pair of ice dancers holding hands and spinning together.So how did Charon get there? This new study says it was a kiss and capture. Basically, the idea is that Charon and Pluto smashed into each other at some point, then spent some time stuck together before Plutos rotation pushed Charon away.Previous theories have mostly centered on a process similar to the one that formed our own moon, where a collision caused both objects to melt and mix. The researchers behind this new study say that because Pluto and Charon are so much smaller than most objects thought to do that kind of smooshing, theyre bound to have behaved differently.Thats all for this weeks news roundup. Well be back on Wednesday with a deeper dive on bird flu. And on Friday weve got a fascinating conversation about why so many different languages say ouch the same way.Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Emily Makowski, Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. Have a great week!

Success and fame are things I imagine any game developer might want. We live in a world where more games are released each year than ever before, all of them rushing by in a frothing torrent of competition, fighting for air and a branch that will hoist them above and get them noticed. Few grasp it, but Citizen Sleeper most certainly did.Released in 2022, and spread widely via Game Pass, this warm-hearted science fiction story about a distantly-controlled robot has now been played by more than a million people, and it made the game's creator, Gareth Damian Martin - also known by their studio name Jump Over the Age (they contracted the artwork and music) - something of a star. A success.It's deserving of that success - it remains one of my favourite games of recent years. Though slight in stature, it smolders like a fire in my memory, held there by the touching relationships you forge with characters on a circular space station called The Eye. The game is a mixture of role-playing, strategy, dice-rolling and narrative, though really it's a ponderance on identity and finding out where you belong. Who or what are you as a Sleeper? It's up to you to figure it out.Watch on YouTubeSuccess, though, can be tricky to deal with. It creates expectations and thrusts people into a spotlight that can be fierce and withering. "At first, it's very, very disconcerting," Gareth Damian Martin says, talking to me in a video call shortly before Christmas. "It's very tricky to deal with. You are absolutely drowning in praise and people sending you direct messages and emails, and sending you pictures of tattoos they've got and things like this.""But you quickly learn," they say, "that you have to set up limits and control things. That it's not about you; it's often about the person who had that experience, and while your game facilitated that, it's really what they brought to it. I found that I was much more comfortable when I started to focus on what it is that they were bringing to their experience of playing the game rather than what I was bringing on my side, and that made it a really pleasant experience."The other side of success is, of course, pressure, not just from the fanbase who now naturally want more, but also the self-imposed pressure to better what came before. In Damian Martin's case, there's something more, too: a pressure to use this rarely achieved stage, and the influence that comes with it, to say something about games and affect the course they might take hereafter."I feel a certain responsibility that comes with success," Damian Martin says. "I feel lots of things about this medium, and I feel if I'm in the one percent of indie developers - and the even smaller percent of solo developers - who manage to make something and have that thing be successful, then I have responsibility towards putting things into the industry and into the world that contribute somehow to whatever I think the industry should be doing."Like, I really want the definition of RPGs to be expanded," they add, using an example. "Tabletop games outside of video games are so rich and varied, and I really wish that video game RPGs were as rich and varied, but they're really, sadly, not, in most cases - although there's a huge amount of small RPGs being made now that are very exciting."Citizen Sleeper 2, due very soon on 31st January, is Damian Martin's answer to this. "The sequel was made with a lot of pressure on it from that perspective. But it's not a pressure that I want to run away from," they say. "It's something that I feel very strongly about." Crew missions, or Contracts, are the big new addition to Citizen Sleeper 2. They are multi-stage events that provide a real sense of risk, and tension, as you collaboratively work towards beating them. | Image credit: Jump Over the Age / Fellow TravellerDamian Martin didn't immediately go for a sequel, as surprising as that might sound now, given Citizen Sleeper's apparent success. They were actually pitching a game that wasn't Citizen Sleeper 2 to their publisher Fellow Traveller after the first game wrapped. They won't say what that game was, though, because they still intend to return to it - "That's actually going to be the next game [after Citizen Sleeper 2]," they reveal. But as Citizen Sleeper's popularity increased, so did the allure of doing add-on content for it, and exploring what - if anything - might come next. They were still hesitant about doing a sequel, but a year of DLC experimentation later, they realised that the ideas they had for the series needed a new framework to enable them. They needed a new game.From its conception, Citizen Sleeper 2 was designed to be different. "I never would have made this game if I was trying to make just more Citizen Sleeper," Damian Martin says. That game is there, still exists, so a sequel didn't need to repeat it. This game needed to be something else. And immediately what Damian Martin's mind went to when conceiving it were the kinds of ragtag, ship-and-crew science fiction stories they'd so loved in Firefly, Farscape, Cowboy Bebop and - to use an example I'm sure you'll all aware of - Mass Effect 2."I always loved those ship and crew stories and I spent so many years Googling 'games like Mass Effect 2' trying to find them," Damian Martin says. But even playing Mass Effect 2 again wouldn't quite scratch the itch, because there were things that bugged them about the game - things they didn't like about it.They didn't like, for instance, the idea of Commander Shepard as a character, as "a kind of terrible secret policeman", and there are things about the way the crew are handled that Damian Martin believed deadened them. Moreso, "There's lots of stuff in Mass Effect that's a bit goofy," they say. "And it's kind of wonderful, and I really love that, but it's just not what I would make. I would never make something as goofy."They wanted their sci-fi world to feel more real and a like place that they could conceivably exist in. A place where someone who kills people for money bears all of the physical - and emotional - scars of someone in that line of work.In Citizen Sleeper 2, you have a ship, for example - it's one of the key differences between the two games. In it, you can fly to different hubs and into space to find things, whereas in the first game, you were tethered to The Eye. So what might having a ship - something other people don't necessarily have in this world - mean? "It means people are drawn to you," Damian Martin says. "And what kind of people might be drawn to someone who has a ship and is on the run? Well, it's people who are also on the run."For Damian Martin, these connections between people are the key. Humanity is the ingredient that ties all of the ship-and-crew stories they like together."To me it seemed like such an opportunity," they say, "because not only has no one really done it in a way that I would have liked to have seen it done, but also, Citizen Sleeper is a license to make something very human. Everyone's expecting Citizen Sleeper 2 to be human. I've established a language and a world and I have so much permission to make something like that, so it felt like a really fun experiment to see 'what does this genre of thing feel like when it's in the Citizen Sleeper universe?'" Of course, strong characters and punch dialogue return full force in Citizen Sleeper 2. The sequel also takes us to a more diverse and varied set of locations. | Image credit: Jump Over the Age / Fellow TravellerSomething Damian Martin really wanted the sequel to do in a much more pronounced way was to feel like an RPG. Many people described the original game as a visual novel, because it often presented a lot of text to the player to read, and the label bugs Damian Martin. "I don't think people quite realise how much of the emotional experience of Citizen Sleeper is mechanically driven," they say. "They underestimate it." But there's no underestimating it in Citizen Sleeper 2.This is a game that introduces concepts and systems like Stress to the gameplay mix, which builds when you fail dice rolls, eventually taking dice away from you or your companions if you let it accrue too much. This works in tandem with new multi-stage Contract missions to really squeeze you when the pressure is on, and make things tense. Tension itself is a much more pervasive concept in the sequel than in Citizen Sleeper 1.Character classes differ in clearer ways, too, and are now unable to access all of the available skill trees, meaning you have to specialise and think about the role you want to play, because you can't do everything. (You could in Citizen Sleeper 1 because Damian Martin knew that the game was new and would need to win people over, "so I tried to be generous because it's the first time people are playing something like this and I was a little afraid of how people would react." But it's not so now.) Classes also have differing Push abilities to gamble on dice outcomes with. The whole package felt to me, while playing a demo, mechanically more developed and more exciting than before. And crucially, it felt like an RPG."I went through an entropic process of falling apart and being put back together again. It imbued so much into the game"Another aspect that made Citizen Sleeper stand out was its political nature. It had things to say about capitalism and about identity and refugees. But it was never intended as a game to stage political debates in, Damian Martin tells me. Those things are there simply because they're topics prevalent in Damian Martin's - and our - lives. Brexit themes in the first game came from Damian Martin experiencing the alienation that their wife, who's Romanian, felt because of it. "And the identity [themes]: it's less of an identity struggle and it's more just a reflection of my own experiences," they say.Citizen Sleeper 2 sponges up Damian Martin's more recent life experiences in similar ways. Reactions to the Ukraine war, for instance, and what it means to live in a world in proximity to a conflict. "Again," they say, "that came not from reading about it on the news but from going to Romania, and Romania is right there [next to Ukraine], and hearing about sea mines washing up on the Black Sea beaches." Also, hearing different perspectives to a war based on where in the world you were. "It makes you realise how variable all of these things are and how subjective they are," they say. "So I wanted the game to take place on the shores of war."A more prominent influence came from health struggles Damian Martin was having personally while making the game. "It has been pretty rough," they say, reflecting on the game's two-year development. This is mostly because they had to have the same surgery twice during development, once in 2023 and then again in 2024, because it didn't heal correctly the first time. "That had a very strong influence on Citizen Sleeper 2 and the general vibe of it," they say, smiling.It was an experience that altered the key development word Damian Martin had for Citizen Sleeper 2 - something they like to do for all of their games. In Other Waters had the word 'symbiosis' and Citizen Sleeper 1 had the word 'precarity', and for a while, Citizen Sleeper 2 had 'crisis'. But it wasn't particularly emotional as a word, and then, as their health issues continued, a more fitting word appeared: 'entropy'."I think that's because I went through an entropic process of falling apart and being put back together again," they say. "It imbued so much into the game. There's this line in the gameplay reveal trailer where Serafin says, 'We've got to bounce back,' and this started being the mantra for Citizen Sleeper 2. It's all about bouncing back from a gameplay perspective and very much from a development perspective - I was very eager to come back from the surgeries with a real energy of like, 'I'm going to do it anyway.'" With that, they laugh.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. These are some of the ideas and experiences that have gone into making Citizen Sleeper 2, a game that's bigger and broader than the original, with around twice the number of words in (230,000) it - though a lot of these are nestled in diverging paths. It's impossible to see everything during one playthrough this time, stretched as the game is across multiple hub areas.It should be a grand finale for what we now know will be the last Citizen Sleeper video game. After this, Damian Martin will go back to making the game that was put on ice before Citizen Sleeper 2 development began, while simultaneously figuring out who to make a fully fledged Citizen Sleeper tabletop role-playing game with. TTRPGs are a passion of theirs, of course, and have heavily inspired the Citizen Sleeper series, so giving it back to TTRPG creators will be like a full-circle moment for them."I really like this idea of setting down my version of Citizen Sleeper and then opening up the space for people to take over," Damian Martin says. "Because one of the really beautiful things about the success of the first game was people coming to me and saying, 'Oh, this really relates to the experience of being disabled, or of having this,' and just feeling like, oh, wow - genuinely feeling a bit honoured that my vulnerability in making Citizen Sleeper created a space in which people could be also vulnerable. I found that solidarity to be very moving."In the end, that's where I've felt what Citizen Sleeper is about, what a Sleeper is about. A Sleeper is an opportunity for us to have this other robot body that allows for difference. I'm interested in how Sleepers could be this space for people to discuss how they feel about their bodies and how they feel about existing. Because that's what our bodies are: they are the existing part that touches and feels and senses, if they're anything - they're not separate from us."That feels like a thing to explore. So I'd like to go and do that a little bit and then allow people to tell those stories. I mean, people already have, but to help people do that. That feels like where Citizen Sleeper should go."

Path of Exile 2 first major patch brings big changes to endgame contentMore "meta-shifting changes" on the way soon.Image credit: Grinding Gear Games News by Ed Nightingale Deputy News Editor Published on Jan. 13, 2025 Path of Exile 2 will receive its first major patch later this week, 0.1.1, which primarily brings some big changes to endgame content.More is planned for a future update too, as game director Jonathan Rogers explained in a new video (below)."We have a huge amount of much more meta-shifting changes that we know we want to make," he said. "And one of the best things about having the game in early access with the endgame, is that we now have a much better idea of where we want character powers to be and what the balance of bosses and monsters should be relevant to that. But, those types of changes are going to have to wait until we are ready to make a new league and a new economy for people to play in.Path of Exile 2 - 0.1.1 Patch PreviewWatch on YouTube"That's still a little while away yet, but in the meantime we'll be continuing to identify things that are causing frustration and try and address them."So what are the biggest changes?Firstly, maps have received balance tweaks to the likes of monsters, chests, essences, and other materials. This is to ensure maps are more rewarding to explore.Four new towers have also been added, as only one tower map was available previously, in order to improve variety. The existing map has also been "redone" to "make playing there less boring".More maps with bosses will also be spawned as the rate was previously incorrect. What's more, Pinnacle content currently takes too long to reach and players have only one attempt at the boss. Now Citadels will spawn within closer reach on the map, and six respawn attempts will be provided on bosses - though only on the Arbiter of Ash boss so far.Other quality of life changes include: better visibility of attack effects thanks to reduced clutter on maps; tweaks to strongboxes to spawn monsters more quickly; an increased zoom level on the Atlas; removal of terrain collision issues; the ability to overwrite item sockets with new runes; and other boss balance changes.Full patch notes will be revealed later this week when the patch arrives. For now, check out the video above for details.Developer Grinding Gear Games admitted back in December Path of Exile 2 was "not rewarding enough" and listed a number of tweaks it's been working on. It's clear, then, the developer is not slowing down now the game is out in early access."Soulslike thrills combine with sky-high production values to make Path of Exile 2 a hugely impressive package, even in early access," reads our Path of Exile 2 review.

Two weeks into 2025, three studios are already closing downGodfall and Robocraft developers among those affected.Image credit: Counterplay Games Inc News by Victoria Kennedy News Reporter Published on Jan. 13, 2025 Since the start of 2025, three studio closures along with multiple layoffs have been reported across the industry.Studios closing down include Toadman Interactive, which developed titles such as third-person shooter Immortal: Unchained and Hero Defense game Bloodsports TV. The studio also offered support on games including The Lord of the Rings Online and MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries.Speaking on Toadman's closure, parent company Enad Global 7 wrote: "This decision does not come lightly and follows several initiatives to turn the subsidiary profitable, including the cost-saving measures executed last year. Ongoing Work-for-Hire (WFH) contracts with Daybreak and Cold Iron will be protected in this process, this means that a complete closure of activities will be optimized to fulfill the contracts deliverables."This will have an immediate effect on all employees not engaged in these contracts."To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The Death of Console Exclusives Is Inevitable and I Don't Know How I Feel About It. Watch on YouTubeIn addition, Enad Global 7 announced 38 employees at its Piranha Games studio will be laid off. These layoffs come after the most recent game in the studio's Mechwarrior series "performed below expectations"."The team at Piranha truly delivered a high-quality game that exceeded both internal as well as external expectations in terms of quality, story and gameplay," said Enad Global 7's CEO Ji Ham. "Despite the phenomenal work by the team at Piranha, the game failed to reach new audiences and expand its core audience as anticipated and therefore has not met the necessary sales targets, which has forced us to undertake necessary actions."As well as Toadman, Robocraft 2 developer Freejam has closed its doors. As reported by Tech Raptor, the developer wrote on its discord server that it will now be sunsetting games such as Robocraft 2 and its predecessor, as well as cardboard survival game CardLife. This will be happening "over the coming weeks".The third studio to reportedly have closed its doors is Counterplay Games, the developer behind PlayStation 5 launch title, Godfall. It was revealed the studio was "disbanded" last month, after it had worked with Jackalyptic Games on a project. "Unfortunately we were unable to continue our partnership into the new year and CPG was disbanded," a Jackalyptic Games employee wrote in a LinkedIn post (thanks, PlayStation LifeStyle). Robocraft. | Image credit: FreejamThese closures and layoffs follow last week's news that Splash Damage had ceased development of Transformers: Reactivate, and that it'll be "scaling down" the studio as result of the game's cancellation.Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League developer Rocksteady also recently suffered another round of layoffs, this time just before the end of 2024.It has been a rough time for the video game industry, and in the last couple of years there have been numerous layoffs and studio closures reported. For more on the subject, be sure to check out Chris Dring's feature: What is going on with layoffs in the video games industry?

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereArrowhead Game Studios Helldivers 2 is getting the movie treatment. Alongside Horizon Zero Dawn, Until Dawn and other popular PlayStation games, the Starship Troopers-inspired multiplayer game will be getting its own film.With the state of Sony video game moviessuch as the Tom Holland vehicle Unchartedbeing rather dog-water, there is a worry that the film wont be very good. Since its announcement, fans have wondered whether or not developer Arrowhead is involved, and it turns out its not.Arrowhead isnt involved in Helldivers movieIn a statement on Twitter, Arrowhead COO Johan Pilestedt revealed that the Heldivers 2 studios is involved in the movies production, but they dont have final say on how faithful it will be. While the studio will be involved in the films development, they do not have the right to shut down ideas to make sure it stays faithful to the games.Ive been dodging this question, Pilestedt said in regards to being involved with the film. The short answer is yes. The long answer is that well see. We are not Hollywood people, and we dont know what it takes to make a movie. And therefore we dont, and shouldnt, have final say.While TV shows like The Last of Us have been revered for their adherence to the video games, the majority of video game adaptations do fail in their faithfulness to the source material. We all know what happened to Xboxs Halo adaptation, and the less said about any Uwe Boll movie the better.As it stands, Helldivers 2 is a strong template for a movie. Outside of the games basic lore, the series is pretty much a blank slate for a film that could make for some epic action. As long as Super Earths totalitarian regime is in place and everything looks right, we could be in for a fun time.For more Helldivers coverage, read about the games biggest urban legend finally being confirmed or check out the very strong enemy leak that has us quaking in our boots.Helldivers 2Platform(s):PC, PlayStation 5Genre(s):Action, Shooter, Third Person8VideoGamerSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Contents hide Destiny 2 has begun 2025 with the release of Revenant Act 3, and the unfortunate news is that it has failed to impress. The finale has been disappointing in the eyes of many fans, but, in better news, Bungie is on the verge of releasing a new patch full of significant balance changes. These balance changes include an assortment of huge buffs and nerfs for weapons in Destiny 2, with some of the guns practically considered useless with one specific other labelled oppressive. Destiny 2 set to nerf oppressive pulse rifles and buff struggling SMGs In the final TWID blog post for Destiny 2 in 2024, Bungie announced a slew of balance changes for the week of January 14th. There are many weapons and perks listed, but arguably the two biggest are the pulse rifles and SMGs. Bungie believes that the high-impact pulse rifles are too OP in the hands of highly skilled players, so they are delivering nerfs to make them feel less oppressive to others. Following the update, players will need to hit six crits to achieve their optimal Time to Kill against all resilience levels over one, and Bungie is also decreasing their range via the aim down sights damage (ADS) falloff scalar to make them more similar to Adaptive Hand Cannons. As for SMGs, Bungie has admitted that they are currently struggling in both high-end PvE and PvP, which is basically an admittance that they are useless. To make them better, Bungie is increasing their magazine size by approximately 10%, while also slightly increasing their damage versus Minor combatants in Heresy. All Destiny 2 buffs and nerfs Below are all the buffs and nerfs set to be released in Destiny 2 on January 14th: Weapon ArchetypesSidearmsHeavy Burst We preemptively nerfed Heavy Burst Sidearms before we made the Destiny 2: Into the Light sandbox changes because they had one of the most forgiving body shot Times to Kill in the game. We have not walked back those changes entirely, as that goes against the spirit of the current PvP sandbox, but we do feel that increasing the strength of some close-range Primary weapons is a worthwhile endeavor given the relative power of other close-range engagement options.Increased body shot damage from 30 to 33.Increased critical hit damage from 48 to 52.8.Submachine GunsGeneral SMGs are currently struggling in both high-end PvE and PvP, where combating more resilient enemies is making their small magazines feel overly punishing. We are bringing their magazine sizes up a small amount globally and will also be slightly increasing their damage versus Minor combatants in Heresy.Increased magazine size by approximately 10%.Auto RiflesRapid Fires Increased damage slightly to remove a resilience gate from their optimal Time to Kill.Increased body shot damage from 13.5 to 13.6.Increased critical hit damage from 23 to 23.1.Pulse RiflesHigh-Impacts We have heard your feedback that, in the hands of highly skilled players, High-Impact Pulses can feel oppressive. We are removing their last bit of baked-in forgiveness, requiring them to hit six crits to achieve their optimal Time to Kill against all resilience levels over one. At the same time, to reduce their top-end effectiveness, we are decreasing their range via the aim down sights damage (ADS) falloff scalar, which will bring them more in line with Adaptive Hand Cannons and reduce their range below all other Pulse Rifles.Reduced body shot damage from 22 to 21.5.Reduced critical hit damage from 39.6 to 38.7.Reduced ADS damage falloff scalar from 1.7 to 1.6.Lightweights Lightweight Pulses can feel too difficult to use for their Time to Kill and Time on Target requirements, so we are bringing their optimal TtK forgiveness up through all resilience levels.Increased body shot damage from 17 to 20.4.Increased critical hit damage from 31.45 to 31.6.Hand CannonsPrecisions Precision Hand Cannons have seen a small bump in usage and effectiveness with the recent buff to body shot damage, but we wanted to lean harder into the fantasy of the intrinsic perk. This change will affect Lunas Howl, Not Forgotten, and Malfeasance.The intrinsic Hand Cannon Precision Frame now reduces your ADS movement speed penalty by 10%.Scout RiflesLightweights For a brief period we buffed Lightweight Scouts to bring down their body shot Time to Kill (which is among the slowest in the game) and to make them more forgiving in terms of their optimal Time to Kill, but these changes were quickly undone when we moved to the Into the Light Crucible sandbox. We have re-implemented these changes, tuned for the new health values in PvP.Increased body shot damage from 32 to 38.Increased critical hit damage from 64 to 64.6.Sniper RiflesGeneral We are continuing with our work to reduce the visual flinch experienced by Sniper Rifles in Crucible to a more reasonable level. The intent is to maintain the difficulty of shooting through flinch to allow for counterplay, without it feeling too jarring to be damaged while scoped in.Reduced the camera roll component of flinch against players by 20%.Whisper of the Worm We have further reduced the flinch experienced by Whisper of the Worm to compensate for it being a Heavy weapon.Reduced the camera roll component of flinch against players by 50%.Weapon PerksSkulking Wolf (Iron Banner Origin) We felt like the Iron Banner origin perk could use an effect to make it worthwhile in PvE, and we think this addition is in line with the fantasy of the perk itself. The perk description string will be updated in a future release to reflect the new functionality.Now activates in PvE, and makes enemies slightly less accurate in targeting you when active (this is like the effect Manticore has when airborne).Target Lock With the increased magazine sizes on SMGs, keeping this perk in its nerfed state rendered it effectively useless. We will keep an eye on how this perk changes the strength of SMGs in Crucible, and we are interested to see how it performs alongside the multitude of other very strong CQB options that currently exist.Removed the custom tuning to make the perk less effective on SMGs.Exotic WeaponsGraviton Lance Graviton Lance is arguably the strongest Primary weapon in the game when viewed across both the PvE and PvP sandboxes. While it is not proving to be too problematic in high-skill Crucible lobbies, it is dominating lower- and middle-skill lobbies to an unhealthy degree, as well as seeing extremely high uptime and potency in all levels of PvE content. As such, it needs to be brought more in line for both sandboxes. One option we considered was bringing down the stats to be closer to other Heavy Burst Pulse Rifles, but that felt like too much of departure from the spirit of the weapon. Instead, we settled on reverting the RPM back to its previous value of 300. In PvE, the RPM reduction will effectively be a small DPS nerf, while in Crucible it will move the weapon back to how it was performing pre-Episode 2.Reverted its RPM to 300.Malfeasance This gun feels noticeably different to shoot compared to other 180 Hand Cannons because it was missing some of the intrinsic benefits provided by the Precision perk.Added the remaining intrinsic effects from the Precision Hand Cannon perk, including accuracy bonuses and the new ADS movement speed penalty reduction (the airborne effectiveness was already baked into the stats).Exotic ArmorStoicismSpirit of Alpha Lupi The healing impulse was tuned around barricade, which has significantly less uptime than Thruster. Now that Alpha Lupi can work on Thruster, we needed to branch the effects strength accordingly.Reduced heal impulse when using Thruster to 30 HP that can roll over into shields.For more Destiny 2, check out the 2025 roadmap along with leaked cel-shaded armor for the imminent return of Bungies Game2Give charity fundraiser. Destiny 2Platform(s):Google Stadia, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Web, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/XGenre(s):Action, Adventure, First Person, Massively Multiplayer, Shooter8VideoGamerRelated TopicsDestiny 2 Subscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereWhile some of us continue to run hardcore characters in Diablo 2 Resurrected, theres always an itch for more. While Diablo 3 and 4 are good games, they dont scratch that feeling that Classic Diablo has. Sure, Path of Exile comes close, but nothing is quite the same, but a new indie game looks like it might actually have what it takes to be the new Classic Diablo weve been craving.Tower of Kalemonvo is Classic Diablo rebornIn development by Eastern European developer Osur, Tower of Kalemonvo is described as a hardcore isometric ARPG with randomly generated levels meant for fans of slower paced action games.Specifically inspired by Diablo 1 and Throne of Darkness, youll explore generated dungeons to collect loot and battle hordes of demonic foes. From floating skulls to cultists, its Classic Diablo through and through.From screenshots and videos alone, the indie ARPG has already recreated one of the best elements of Blizzards original games: the lighting. Dungeons and dark and decrepit with only the players theatrical spotlight and the blast of enemy magic lighting the way.Still in development, but planned to release sometime in Q1 2025, this indie game looks like a brand-new hit of the old Diablo that Ive been desperately craving. (Theres also a demo available.) Unlike Diablo 3 and 4, or even Path of Exile, whats most exciting is its simplicity. After all, Diablo 2 didnt need seasons and endless updates to keep me engaged. Just chuck me in a dungeon with some great classes to play and Im good.Of course, whether or not Tower of Kalemonvo is good all depends on its loot itemisation, something only Diablo 2 has really got right. Time will tell if this indie game manages to be a true successor to Classic Diablo, but it is looking very promising.For more Diablo news, read the series leads thoughts on why players dont actually want Classic Diablo anymore or check out the forgotten concept art that could tease a new class for D4.Related TopicsSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

How About...Five Nights at Freddy's 2 set pics have started to leak, so let the unnecessarily complicated fan theories commenceBite of '87 anyone?Image credit: Blumhouse Productions News by Oisin Kuhnke Contributor Published on Jan. 13, 2025 Some set photos for the upcoming Five Nights at Freddy's 2 film have leaked, so obviously now's the time to kick off some theories.Last year Five Nights at Freddy's 2 was officially announced to be in the works at Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions, later locking itself in with a December 5, 2025 release date. That still seems to be the case now, even if the only thing we've really heard about it is that it's going to be scarier than the first one. But, much like the first one, set photos have started to leak for the second film, showing off another of Freddy's pizzarias, this time an incredibly run down location that features the toy versions of the creepy animatronics on the building's storefront. We already knew that this film would feature the toy models, but obviously fans have wondered how close to the games this one will be.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The Five Nights at Freddy's fandom is obviously known for going deep on theories because of the games' various secrets and hidden bits of lore (some of which are featured in books that may or may not be canonical and definitely don't exist just to make more money), and of course fans are already wondering what it means that this particular location is so rundown. Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the game that is, is actually a prequel, set in 1987, so the toy animatronics would have been relatively new at the time, meaning this film might be taking a slightly different approach. To see this content please enable targeting cookies.You'll still probably have to wait a little while for a trailer to come out still, these things seem to be more and more down to the last minute, but if you've been desperate to see something from the film, you have this now at the very least.

K O N GNintendo Switch 2? Who cares! K O N GK O N GImage credit: VG247/Nintendo News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on Jan. 13, 2025 K O N G.That's what Nintendo's been saying all at once across a whole bunch of its official Twitter accounts for various regions - though not all of them. Yep, as of writing, the great K O N Ging is not yet universal, but rather a selective thing you'll only have seen if you follow the Ninty accounts for certain parts of the world.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Without further adieu, here are the official Nintendo accounts which we've found to have K O N Ged as of writing, with all of them having done so on and around 11AM UK time.Nintendo of EuropeNintendo UKNintendo NederlandNintendo SaudiNintendo BelgiNintendo DE (that's Germany)Nintendo EspaaNintendo ItaliaAs of right now, the list of official Nintendo accounts which we can confirm have not - or are yet to - K O N G is as follows: Nintendo's official Japanese account, Nintendo of America, Nintendo AU NZ, the official Nintendo Russia account that hasn't tweeted since around that time in 2022 when Kirby ate a car, and Nintendo France. Yep, for some reason, Nintendo France hasn't joined a bunch of its European siblings in K O N Ging. To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Why? We've got no f**king idea, to be honest. We assume it has something to do with Donkey Kong Country Returns HD coming out in less than a week's time on January 16, but it could also be a bit of fun trolling as everyone keeps a wary eye on Nintendo's official accounts in hopes of seeing a Nintendo Switch 2 reveal pop up. Either way, fair play Nintendo. Image credit: NintendoK O N G to you too.