Another month has started and that means more games are leaving Game Pass in two weeks. While Microsoft hasn't yet officially announced these upcoming departures, they can be seen in the service's "Leaving Soon" page, revealing a number of games leaving on March 16.The Yakuza 3 and 4 remasters already left Game Pass last week, and now both Yakuza 5 Remastered and Yakuza 6: The Song of Life are following them. Yakuza 5 has the largest playable cast of the real-time action iterations of the series, while Yakuza 6 sees the return as Kazuma Kiryu as the sole playable protagonist.Lies of P's prequel DLC was recently announced to launch this summer. So give the souls-like game a try to see if you enjoy it before purchasing the DLC. Grasshopper Manufacture's No More Heroes 3 is a humorous Japanese action-RPG with a great soundtrack that's worth playing. Evil West is another action-RPG that's inspired by games like God of War and Devil May Cry.SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is a remake of the beloved 2003 game that includes multiplayer and cut content from the original.Solar Ash is an action-adventure platformer that takes place in the same universe as Hyper Light Drifter. The latter has a direct sequel called Hyper Light Breaker, which has gotten some middling reception so far. While the devs are still currently working out the kinks during Hyper Light Breaker's early access period, Solar Ash is worth checking out in the meantime.Lastly, MLB The Show 24 is leaving Game Pass too, and it's already been confirmed that MLB The Show 25 won't be available on subscription services in 2025. Lies of PLies of P leaves Game Pass for cloud, console, and PC on March 16. Yakuza 5 RemasteredYakuza 5 Remastered leaves Game Pass for cloud, console, and PC on March 16. Yakuza 6: The Song of LifeYakuza 6: The Song of Life leaves Game Pass for cloud, console, and PC on March 16. No More Heroes 3No More Heroes 3 leaves Game Pass for cloud, console, and PC on March 16. SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - RehydratedSpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated leaves Game Pass for cloud, console, and PC on March 16. Evil WestEvil West leaves Game Pass for cloud, console, and PC on March 16. Solar AshSolar Ash leaves Game Pass for cloud, console, and PC on March 16. MLB The Show 24MLB The Show 24 leaves Game Pass for cloud and console on March 16.

A new competitive mode called Seek and Deploy Extraction is coming to Halo Infinite this year, and to celebrate, Halo Studios has partnered with ForgeHub for a contest to build a multiplayer map for it. The event runs now through May 13 and features a $20,000 prize pool.Halo Studios recently released a sneak-peek video on YouTube--seen below--for S&D Extraction that included info on the Halo Infinite map contest. The first-place winner will take home $5,000, with the runner-up receiving $4,000, per ForgeHub's website. Additionally, only one 4-vs-4 arena can be created per person for this event, though people can collaborate in teams. Halo Infinite's take on the tactical competitive mode--think Counter-Strike--will see squads of four rotating between offense (planting the bomb) and defense (stopping the bomb) each round. Winning six rounds first in S&D Extraction will see your team come away victorious. The video notes that players won't have to "worry about carrying a bomb," as a designated area will prompt you to plant it. The starting weapon for Spartans is the Bandit Evo, though you can buy different weapons and equipment between rounds.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Monster Hunter Wilds goes pretty hard when it comes to customization, with players given plenty of control over what their Hunter and Palico look like. Partway through the first chapter, they'll even unlock the ability to customize the appearance of their Seikret, which, for obvious reasons, may be of interest to some Final Fantasy fans.

A new rumor has suggested that the long-awaited Half-Life 3 could finally be announced in 2025. Fans have waited over two decades for any concrete news about Half-Life 3, but Valve has remained tight-lipped over the years about the potential project.

From Seattle, Washington, to Cape Town, South Africa and everywhere around and between AI is helping conserve the wild plants and animals that make up the intricate web of life on Earth.Its critical work that sustains ecosystems and supports biodiversity at a time when the United Nations estimates over 1 million species are threatened with extinction.World Wildlife Day, a UN initiative, is celebrated every March 3 to recognize the unique contributions wild animals and plants have on people and the planet and vice versa.Our own survival depends on wildlife, the above video on this years celebration says, just as much as their survival depends on us.Learn more about some of the leading nonprofits and startups using NVIDIA AI and accelerated computing to protect wildlife and natural habitats, today and every day:Ai2s EarthRanger Offers Worlds Largest Elephant DatabaseSeattle-based nonprofit AI research institute Ai2 offers EarthRanger, a software platform that helps protected-area managers, ecologists and wildlife biologists make more informed operational decisions for wildlife conservation in real time, whether preventing poaching, spotting ill or injured animals, or studying animal behavior.Among Ai2s efforts with EarthRanger is the planned development of a machine learning model trained using NVIDIA Hopper GPUs in the cloud that predicts the movement of elephants in areas close to human-wildlife boundaries where elephants could raid crops and potentially prompt humans to retaliate.With access to the worlds largest repository of elephant movement data, made possible by EarthRanger users whove shared their data, the AI model could help predict elephant behaviors, then alert area managers to safely guide the elephants away from risky situations that could arise for them or for people in the vicinity. Area managers or rangers typically use helicopters, other vehicles and chili bombs to safely reroute elephants.An elephant named Hugo wears a monitoring device that helps keep him safe. Image courtesy of the Mara Elephant Project.Beyond elephants, EarthRanger collects, integrates and displays data on a slew of wildlife aggregated from over 100 data sources, including camera traps, acoustic sensors, satellites, radios and more. Then, the platform combines the data with field reports to provide a unified view of collared wildlife, rangers, enforcement assets and infrastructure within a protected area.EarthRanger platform interface.Name a country, species or an environmental cause and were probably supporting a field organizations conservation efforts there, said Jes Lefcourt, director of EarthRanger at Ai2.Its deployed by governments and conservation organizations in 76 countries and 650 protected areas, including nearly every national park in Africa, about a dozen state fishing and wildlife departments in the U.S., as well as many other users across Latin America and Asia.Four of these partners Rouxcel Technology, OroraTech, Wildlife Protection Services and Conservation X Labs are highlighted below.Rouxcel Technology Saves Rhinos With AISouth African startup Rouxcel Technologys AI-based RhinoWatches, tapping into EarthRanger, learn endangered black and white rhinos behaviors, then alert authorities in real time of any detected abnormalities. These abnormalities can include straying from typical habitats, territorial fighting with other animals and other potentially life-threatening situations.Its critical work, as there are just about 28,000 rhinos left in the world, from 500,000 at the beginning of the 20th century.A white rhino sports a Rouxcel RhinoWatch. Image courtesy of Hannah Rippon.Rouxcel, based in Cape Town, has deployed over 1,200 RhinoWatches trained and optimized using NVIDIA accelerated computing across more than 40 South African reserves. The startup, which uses the Ai2 EarthRanger platform, protects more than 1.2 million acres of rhino habitats, and has recently expanded to help conservation efforts in Kenya and Namibia.Looking forward, Rouxcel is developing AI models to help prevent poaching and human-wildlife conflict for more species, including pangolins, a critically endangered species.OroraTech Monitors Wildfires and Poaching With NVIDIA CUDA, JetsonOroraTech a member of the NVIDIA Inception program for cutting-edge startups uses the EarthRanger platform to protect wildlife in a different way, offering a wildfire detection and monitoring service that fuses satellite imagery and AI to safeguard the environment and prevent poaching.Combining data from satellites, ground-based cameras, aerial observations and local weather information, OroraTech detects threats to natural habitats and alerts users in real time. The companys technologies monitor more than 30 million hectares of land that directly impact wildlife in Africa and Australia. Thats nearly the size of the Great Barrier Reef.OroraTech detects an early bushfire near Expedition National Park in Australia.OroraTech flies an NVIDIA Jetson module for edge AI and data processing onboard all of its satellite payloads the instruments, equipment and systems on a satellite designed for performing specific tasks. Through GPU-accelerated image processing, OroraTech achieves exceptional latency, delivering fire notifications to users on the ground as fast as five minutes after image acquisition.The AI-based fire-detection pipeline uses the NVIDIA cuDNN library of deep neural network primitives and the NVIDIA TensorRT software development kit for thermal anomaly detection and cloud masking in space, leading to high-precision fire detections.Wildlife Protection Solutions Help Preserve Endangered SpeciesInternational nonprofit Wildlife Protection Solutions (WPS) supports more than 250 conservation projects in 50+ countries. Its remote cameras about 3,000 deployed across the globe using AI models provide real-time monitoring of animals and poachers, alerting rangers to intercede before wildlife is harmed.A lion detected with WPS technologies.WPS which also taps into the EarthRanger platform harnesses NVIDIA accelerated computing to optimize training and inference of its AI models, which process and analyze 65,000 photos per day.The WPS tool is free and available on any mobile, tablet or desktop browser, enabling remote monitoring, early alerting and proactive, automated deterrence of wildlife or humans in sensitive areas.Conservation X Labs Identifies Species From Crowdsourced ImagesSeattle-based Conservation X Labs which is on a mission to prevent the sixth mass extinction, or the dying out of a high percentage of the worlds biodiversity due to natural phenomena and human activity also uses EarthRanger, including for its Wild Me solution: open-source AI software for the conservation research community.Wild Me supports over 2,000 researchers across the globe running AI-enabled wildlife population studies for marine and terrestrial species.In the below video, Wild Me helps researchers classify whale sharks using computer vision:The crowdsourced database which currently comprises 14 million photos lets anyone upload imagery of species. Then, AI foundation models trained using NVIDIA accelerated computing help identify species to ease and accelerate animal population assessments and other research that supports the fight against species extinction.In addition, Conservation X Labss Sentinel technology transforms traditional wildlife monitoring tools like trail cameras and acoustic recorders with AI, processing environmental data as its collected and providing conservationists with real-time, data-driven insights through satellite and cellular networks.To date, Sentinel devices have delivered about 100,000 actionable insights for 80 different species. For example, see how the technology flags a limping panther, so wildlife protectors could rapidly step in to offer aid:https://blogs.nvidia.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/limping_panther.mp4Learn more about how NVIDIA technologies bolster conservation and environmental initiatives at NVIDIA GTC, a global AI conference running March 17-21 in San Jose, California, including at sessions on how AI is supercharging Antarctic flora monitoring, enhancing a digital twin of the Great Barrier Reef and helping mitigate urban climate change.Featured video courtesy of Conservation X Labs.

Last month was a time of love for video games. What game from last months lineup won over your heart? Some of the big new releases included Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.How does it work? At the end of every month, PlayStation Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. After the polls close we will tally your votes, and announce the winner on our social channels and PlayStation.Blog.What is the voting criteria? Thats up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? Note: re-released games dont qualify, but remakes do. We define remakes as ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds such as Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Remake.How are nominees decided? The PlayStation Blog editorial team will gather a list of that months most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll.

The new game releases this week get real weird. Once Two Point Museum is out of the way early in the week, the games either break conventions, like with Carmen Sandiego, or they play with familiar genres, like whatever FragPunk is doing as a hero shooter. Close your eyes and try to land on something normal in the list below you cant!Two Point Museum is our rock, a management sim about being a museum curator. Theres nothing abnormal about that. That is, unless everything comes alive when the lights go off. Lets hope that doesnt happen. Not long after, Knights in Tight Spaces will bring you a card-battling game where medieval knights brawl. I dont remember that in history class. And then theres Everhood 2, a game that looks like someone left Undertale in the fridge too long. When a game promises to let you discover the color of your soul, you know youre in for something you havent seen before.Here are our most anticipated game releases for the week of March 3.Big game updates to watch out forOn March 4, PowerWash Simulator invites you to clean up the house of Wallace and Gromit.On March 4, PC Grand Theft Auto 5 players will finally be able to get all the fancy features console players have had for a while.On March 6, The Sims 4s Businesses & Hobbies expansion finally lets you become a tattoo artist.

Immersive Dungeons & Dragons show The Twenty-Sided Tavern is soon hitting the road for a national tour. But theres still a chance to see it off-Broadway, with the show getting one last extension through May 11.Part D&D actual play, part improv, and part immersive theater where the audience participates to determine the fate of the characters on stage, The Twenty-Sided Tavern debuted in May 2024. Since then, its run has been extended three times, with many celebrity guests joining the party. Those include Baldurs Gate 3s Neil Newbon, Dimension 20s Aabria Iyengar, and The Adventure Zones Travis McElroy. Many guest stars are expected to join for the shows final New York City dates.The national tour is booked all the way through May 2026, though exact dates and cities have yet to be announced. We do know two The Twenty-Side Tavern will hit Washington D.C. from July 22 to Aug. 3, with planned dates in Chicago. Tickets for this last block of New York tickets can be purchased on the shows website, or by calling 800-447-7400.

Svenskt Tenn recently launched Frank in the Loom at Stockholm Design Week, an exhibition that cleverly merges sustainability, handcraft, and theory. Featured are a collection of limited-edition rag rugs, all carefully constructed from Josef Frank fabrics and double-woven into floor coverings, creating a dynamic, colorful grid. Inspired by Margit Thorns Schackruta rug, the design pays homage to a Svenskt Tenn classic with a modern, sustainable flair. Woven by Vandra Rugs in Ukraine, this collection is a testament of the resilience of textile culture, be it in fabric or family.The handwoven rag rug has always been a symbol of warmth, traditionally taking scraps of worn out woolen garments and weaving them into layers of color and texture, functional art. Created for centuries, much is unknown about their history, having been overlooked as a womens craft and a sign of poverty, instead of a sign of ingenuity and adaptation. After a spike of popularity around the Arts and Crafts movement, and the same around the late sixties to early seventies, rag rugs are again surging on to the scene as a response to the hyperindustrialization of the modern era.In this thoughtful exhibition, Frank in the Loom brings the process to you featuring a loom with a runner in progress in the center of the exhibition. Supported by many historic examples of Franks furniture, the method of production is the centerpiece here. Upcycled Josef Frank textiles are blended with similar linens to create a solid yet soft experience, flecks of color peeking out through the folds. We can see samples of travel fabrics from Franks patterned textiles, Delhi, Brazil, and Green Birds, serving as reminders of the origin of the material, and how we can better utilize existing materials in new and exciting ways.Karin Sdergren, Svenskt Tenns Head Curator explains, The rug takes center stage in Svenskt Tenns spring exhibition. In the stores Strandvgen Gallery, weve created a clean, minimalist presentation that highlights the artistry of weaving. The exhibition delves into the craftsmanship at Vandra Rugs atelier in Ukraine, where the new Frank in the Loom rugs are meticulously woven, and explores how Josef Franks bold, imaginative patterns are transformed into Svenskt Tenns signature double-woven rugs.Josef Frank was an early pioneer of the Viennese Modernist movement, shaping generations of design and promoting a sense of humanity in the process. Refusing to be limited by convention, he found traditional Modernism to be puritanical, homogenous, and boring. Since childhood, he had an intense interest in botany, and by the 1920s had created an entirely new flora of his own, combining features from his favorite plants to create lush, imaginary landscapes. Arguably one of the most important Austrian-Swedish interior designers, this innate sense of wonder certainly contributed to his vision of harmony within the home.Svenskt Tenn proudly preserves the Frank catalogue, an astounding and extensive collection of his interiors, furniture, and drawings. In total 3,000 sketches as well as 250 prints signed by Josef Frank are kept in Svenskt Tenns archive. Celebrating their centennial last year, Svenskt Tenn has adopted a humanist approach for over one hundred years, dedicated to comfort, warmth, and color.Vandra Rugs proudly preserve the time-consuming, intricate, and demanding tradition of handwoven rugs with their beautiful catalogue of luxury pieces, all made to order. The atelier employs mostly women, as weavers and in management positions as well. They regularly organize weaving classes, not only for beginners to get into the industry, but for those already working to develop their skills further. By creating jobs and standing by their workers during political instability, they foster an environment of true luxury, created under conditions of care and respect for the ancient tradition.To learn more about the Frank in the Loom exhibition, which runs through May 12, 2025, visit svenskttenn.com.Photography by Erik Djurklou, courtesy of Svenskt Tenn.