This article contains some Mission: Impossible – The Final reckoning spoilers. In the most recent and supposedly final Mission: Impossible film, Ethan Hunt receives his briefing on a VHS cassette tape. That is a marvelous wink to the era in whichMission: Impossible, but these films have remained consistently at the zenith of quality blockbuster cinema. And through it all remains Tom Cruise, running, gunning, and smoldering with his various, luxuriant haircuts. Indeed, the first M:I picture was also Cruise’s first as a producer, made under the banner of Cruise/Wagner productions. Perhaps for that reason, he has stayed committed to what was once viewed as simply a “television adaptation.” It might have begun as TV IP, but in Cruise’s hands it has become a cinematic magnum opus that sequel after sequel, and decade after decade, has blossomed into one of the most inventive and satisfying spectacles ever produced in the Hollywood system. The final decade of the series’ run in particular has been groundbreaking. After five movies with five very different directors, aesthetics, and sensibilities, Christopher McQuarrie stuck around—alongside stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood. Together with Cruise, they turned the series into an old-fashioned, in-camera spectacle that harkens back to the earliest days of cinema. In the process, Cruise has added another chapter to his career, that of an onscreen daredevil like Harold Lloyd or Douglas Fairbanks. It’s been an amazing run, and honestly it’s a bit arbitrary to quantify it with any sort of ranking. But if we were going to do such a thing, here is how it should go… 8. Mission: Impossible II (2000) It’s hardly controversial to put John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II dead last. From its overabundance of slow-mo action—complete with Woo’s signature flying doves—to its use of Limp Bizkit, and even that nonsensical plot about manmade viruses that still doesn’t feel timely on the other side of 2020, MI:-2 is a relic of late ‘90s Hollywood excess. On the one hand, it’s kind of marvelous that Cruise let Woo completely tear down and rebuild a successful franchise-starter in the Hong Kong filmmaker’s own image. On the other, it’s perhaps telling of where Cruise’s ego was at that time since Woo used this opportunity to transform the original all-American Ethan Hunt into a god of celluloid marble. And make no mistake, there is something godlike to how Woo’s camera fetishizes Cruise’s sunglasses and new, luxuriant mane of jet black hair during Hunt’s big introduction where he is seen free-climbing across a rock face without rope. It would come to work as metaphor for the rest of the movie where, despite ostensibly being the leader of a team, Ethan is mostly going it alone as he does ridiculous things like have a medieval duel against his evil doppelgänger (Dougray Scott), only both men now ride motorcycles instead of horses. The onscreen team, meanwhile, stares slack-jawed as Ethan finds his inner-Arnold Schwarzenegger and massacres entire scores of faceless mercenaries in multiple shootouts. While gunplay has always been an element of modern spy thrillers, the Mission: Impossible movies work best when the characters use their wits (and the stunt team’s ingenuity) to escape elaborate, tricky situations. So there’s something banal about the way M:I-2 resembles any other late ‘90s and early ‘00s actioner that might’ve starred Nicolas Cage or Bruce Willis. Technically the plot, which involves Ethan’s reluctance to send new flame Nyah Hall (Thandiwe Newton) into the lion’s den as an informant, has classical pedigree. The movie remakes Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946) in all but name. However, the movie is so in love with its movie star deity that even the supposedly central romance is cast in ambivalent shadow. 7. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) Yes, we admit to also being surprised that what is allegedly intended to be the last Mission: Impossible movie is finishing near the very bottom of this list. Which is not to say that The Final Reckoning is a bad movie. It’s just a messy one—and disappointing too. Perhaps the expectations were too high for a film with “final” in the title. Also its reportedly eye-popping $400 million only fueled the hype. But whereas the three previous Mission films directed by Christopher McQuarrie, including Dead Reckoning, had a light playfulness about them, The Final Reckoning gets lost in its own self-importance and grandiosity. Once again we have a Mission flick determined to deify Ethan Hunt with McQuarrie’s “gambler” from the last couple movies taking on the imagery of the messiah. Now the AI fate of the world lies in his literal hands. This approach leads to many long expository sequences where characters blather endlessly about the motivations of an abstract artificial intelligence. Meanwhile far too little time is spent on the sweet spot for this series: Cruise’s chemistry with co-stars when he isn’t hanging from some death-defying height. In fact, Ethan goes it pretty much alone in this one, staring down generals, submarine captains, and American presidents—fools all to think for one instance Ethan isn’t the guy sent to redeem them for their sins. The action sequences are still jaw-dropping when they finally come, and it is always good to see co-stars Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, and an all too briefly used Ving Rhames again, but this feels less like a finale than a breaking point. If Mission does come back, it will have to be as something wildly different (and presumably less expensive). 6. Mission: Impossible III (2006) Before he transformed Star Trek and Star Wars into remarkably similar franchises, writer-director J.J. Abrams made his big screen debut by doing much the same to the Mission: Impossible franchise. With his emphasis on extreme close-ups, heavy expository dialogue dumps, and intentionally vague motivations for his villains that seem to always have something to do with the War on Terror, Abrams remade the M:I franchise in the image of his TV shows, particularly Alias. This included turning Woo’s Übermensch from the last movie into the kind of suburban everyman who scores well with the Nielsen ratings and who has a sweet girl-next-door fiancée (Michelle Monaghan). Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Your mileage may vary with this approach, but personally we found M:I-3 to be too much of a piece with mid-2000s television and lacking in a certain degree of movie magic. With that said, the movie has two fantastic aces up its sleeve. The first and most significant is a deliciously boorish performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as the franchise’s scariest villain. Abrams’ signature monologues have never been more chilling as when Hoffman cuts through Cruise’s matinee heroics like a knife and unsettles the protagonist and the audience with an unblinking declaration of ill-intent. Perhaps more impressively, during one of the franchise’s famed “mask” sequences where Ethan disguises himself as Hoffman’s baddie, the character actor subtly and convincingly mimics Cruise’s leading man charisma. That, plus introducing fan favorite Simon Pegg as Benji to the series (if in little more than a cameo), makes the movie worth a watch if not a regular revisit. According to more than a few critics in 2023, the then-newest installment in the series was also the best one. I respectfully disagree. The first half of writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise’s Dead Reckoning In terms of old school spectacle and breakneck pacing, Dead Reckoning is easily the most entertaining action movie of summer 2023’s offerings. However, when compared to the best entries in the M:I franchise, Dead Reckoning leaves something be desired. While McQuarrie’s counterintuitive instinct to script the scenes after designing the set pieces, and essentially make it up as they went along, paid off in dividends in Fallout, the narrative of Dead Reckoning’s first half is shaggy and muddled. The second act is especially disjointed when the film arrives in Venice, and the actors seem as uncertain as the script is over what exactly the film’s nefarious A.I. villain, codename: “The Entity,” wants. That this is the portion of the film which also thanklessly kills off fan favorite Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) does the movie no favors. Elsewhere in the film, Hayley Atwell proves a fantastic addition in her own right as Grace—essentially a civilian and audience surrogate who gets wrapped up in the M:I series’ craziness long enough to stare at Cruise in incredulity—but the inference that she is here to simply interchangeably replace Ilsa gives the film a sour subtext. Still, Atwell’s Grace is great, Cruise’s Ethan is as mad as ever with his stunts, and even as the rest of the ensemble feels underutilized, seeing the team back together makes this a good time—while the unexpected return of Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge is downright great. 4. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) There are many fans who will tell you that the Mission: Impossible franchise as we know it really started with this Brad Bird entry at the beginning of the 2010s, and it’s easy to see why. As the first installment made with a newly chastened Cruise—who Paramount Pictures had just spent years trying to fire from the series—it’s also the installment where the movie star remade his persona as a modern day Douglas Fairbanks. Here he becomes the guy you could count on to commit the most absurdly dangerous and ridiculous stunts for our entertainment. What a mensch. And in terms of set pieces, nothing in the series may top this movie’s second act where Cruise is asked to become a real-life Spider-Man and wall-crawl—as well as swing and skip—along the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It’s a genuine showstopper that looms over the rest of the movie. Not that there isn’t a lot to enjoy elsewhere as Bird brings a slightly more sci-fi and cartoonish cheek to the proceedings with amusing gadgets like those aforementioned “blue means glue” Spidey gloves. Even more amusingly, the damn things never seem to work properly. This is also the first Mission: Impossible movie where the whole team feels vital to the success of the adventure, including a now proper sidekick in the returning Pegg and some solid support from Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner. For a certain breed of fan that makes this the best, but we would argue the team dynamics were fleshed out a little better down the road, and in movies that have more than one stunning set piece to their name. 3. Mission: Impossible (1996) The last four entries of the series have been so good that it’s become common for folks to overlook the movie that started it all, Brian De Palma’s endlessly stylish Mission: Impossible. That’s a shame since there’s something admirably blasphemous to this day about a movie that would take an ancient pop culture property and throw the fundamentals out the window. In this case, that meant turning the original show’s hero, Jim Phelps (played by Jon Voight here), into the villain while completely rewriting the rulebook about what the concept of “Mission: Impossible” is. It’s the bold kind of creative move studios would never dare make now, but that’s what opened up the space to transform a novelty of ‘60s spymania TV into a ‘90s action classic, complete with heavy emphasis on techno espionage babble and post-Cold War politics. The movie can at times appear dated given the emphasis on floppy disks and AOL email accounts, but it’s also got a brisk energy that never goes out of style thanks to De Palma’s ability to frame a knotty script by David Koepp and Robert Towne (the latter of whom penned Chinatown) into a breathlessly paced thriller filled with paranoia, double crosses, femme fatales, and horrifying dream sequences. In other words, it’s a De Palma special! The filmmaker and Cruise also craft a series of set pieces that would become the series’ defining trademark. The finale with a fistfight atop a speeding train beneath the English Channel is great, but the quiet as a church mouse midpoint where Cruise’s hero dangles over the pressure-sensitive floor of a CIA vault—and with a drop of sweat dripping just out of reach!—is the stuff of popcorn myth. It’s how M:I also became as much a great heist series as shoot ‘em up. Plus, this movie gave us Ving Rhames’ stealth MVP hacker, Luther Stickell. 2. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) In retrospect there is something faintly low-key about Rogue Nation, as ludicrous as that might be to say about a movie that begins with its star literally clinging for dear life to the outside of a plane at take off. Yet given how grand newcomer director Christopher McQuarrie would take things in the following three Mission films, his more restrained first iteration seems charmingly small scale in comparison. Even so, it remains an action marvel in its own right, as well as the most balanced and well-structured adventure in the series. It’s the one where the project of making Ethan Hunt a tangible character began. Rightly assessing Ethan to be a “gambler” based on his inconsistent yet continuously deranged earlier appearances, McQuarrie spins a web where Hunt’s dicey lifestyle comes back to haunt him when facing a villain who turns those showboat instincts in on themselves, and which pairs Ethan for the first time against the best supporting character in the series, Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. There’s a reason Ferguson’s MI6 double (triple, quadruple?) agent was the first leading lady in the series to become a recurring character. She gives a star-making turn as a woman who is in every way Ethan’s equal while keeping him and the audience on their toes. She, alongside a returning Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, solidify the definitive Mission team, all while McQuarrie crafts elegant set pieces with classical flair, including a night at the opera that homages and one-ups Alfred Hitchcock’s influential sequence from The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), as well as a Casablanca chase between Ethan and Ilsa that’s the best motorcycle sequence in the series (if only they stopped by Rick’s). Also McQuarrie’s script ultimately figures out who Ethan Hunt truly is by letting all those around him realize he’s a madman. And Alec Baldwin’s Alan Hunley gets this gem of a line to sums the series up in total: “Hunt is uniquely trained and highly motivated, a specialist without equal, immune to any countermeasures. There is no secret he cannot extract, no security he cannot breach, no person he cannot become. He has most likely anticipated this very conversation and is waiting to strike in whatever direction we move. Sir, Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny—and he has made you his mission.” 1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) If one were to rank these movies simply by virtue of set pieces and stunts, pound for pound it’s impossible to top Mission: Impossible – Fallout (forgive the pun). A virtuoso showcase in action movie bliss, there are too many giddy mic drop moments to list, but among our favorites are: Tom Cruise doing a real HALO jump out of a plane at 25,000 feet and which was captured by camera operator Craig O’Brien, who had an IMAX camera strapped to his head; the extended fight sequence between Cruise, Henry Cavill, and Liam Yang in a bathroom where the music completely drops out so we can hear every punch, kick, and that surreal moment where Cavill needs to reload his biceps like they’re shotguns; and did you see Cruise’s ankle bend the wrong way in that building to building jump?! For action junkies, there was no better adrenaline kick out of Hollywood in the 2010s than this flick, and that is in large part a credit to writer-director Christopher McQuarrie. As the first filmmaker to helm more than one M:I movie, McQuarrie had the seemingly counterintuitive innovation to meticulously hammer out all of the above action sequences as well as others—such as a motorcycle chase across the cobblestones of Paris and a helicopter climax where Cruise is really flying his chopper at low altitudes—with stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood and Cruise, and then retroactively pen a surprisingly tight and satisfying screenplay that continues to deconstruct the Ethan Hunt archetype into a man of flesh and blood. McQuarrie also reunites all the best supporting players in the series—Rhames, Pegg, and his own additions of Rebecca Ferguson as the ambiguous Ilsa Faust and Sean Harris as the dastardly Solomon Lane—into a yarn that is as zippy and sharp as you might expect from the screenwriter of The Usual Suspects, but which lets each action sequence unfurl with all the pageantry of an old school Gene Kelly musical number. Many will call this the best Mission: Impossible movie, and we won’t quibble the point.

The popularity of the actual play show Critical Role helped make 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons wildly successful. But now, Critical Role Productions has become more than a booster and frequent collaborator for D&D: It’s become a competitor. After years in development, Daggerheart, a tabletop RPG from Critical Role’s publishing imprint, Darrington Press, launches today. And the book shows just how much lead designer Spenser Starke and the book’s other designers have learned from playing 5e, as they address some of that game’s biggest issues.Problem: Failure is boringThere are few things as satisfying as rolling a natural 20 in a clutch situation in D&D, but D&D’s d20 system has a big drawback. It’s inherently very swingy, with a wide range from success to failure, and it can lead to situations where failure means the PCs accomplish nothing, and the story doesn’t move forward in a meaningful way. Roll low, and you might miss an attack, miss a key clue needed to progress the plot, or be unable to bypass a locked door to get to the next goal.Daggerheart changes the math by having players roll two d12s and add the results, which generally smooths the probability curve in favor of success. But the more significant change is a system inspired by how Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars roleplaying game represents the pull of the light side and dark side of the Force. One of the d12s represents hope, while the other is fear, and the higher number determines which aspect is dominant in the totalled roll.Succeeding with hope is nothing but good news for the PCs. Failing with hope gives them a hope point, a resource that can be spent on numerous special abilities, as a sort of consolation prize. Fear, in turn, gives the game master a fear point they can use to introduce complications or activate abilities for antagonistic NPCs.That system, combined with a collaborative narrative focus, means there’s never an instance where a roll has no effect. If you can’t pick that lock, you might hear guards approaching, or even trigger a trap, depending on whether you failed with hope or fear. Miss a roll with fear in combat, and an antagonist will get a turn to act. Failure always has consequences that move the game forward.Image: Darrington PressProblem: Advantage and disadvantage are too significantOne of 5e’s key mechanics is the concept of advantage and disadvantage — rolling two d20s and taking the better or worse result, respectively. It’s an elegant way to avoid having numerous modifiers for conditions like being aided by an ally or trying to strike a hidden foe. But the math makes those edges and penalties too significant.Daggerheart keeps the concept, but changes the effect to adding or subtracting a d6. The game also simplifies D&D’s laundry list of conditions — “grappled,” “paralyzed,” “heavily obscured,” etc. — to just three options: “hidden,” “restrained,” and “vulnerable.” It creates a convenient way to modify rolls without making GMs worry about the specific mechanics too much.Problem: Species and background choices are too importantIn the original 5e ruleset, players had to limit their species and background choices to ensure they got attribute boosts to the key stats for their class, or risk not being able to hit as frequently or do as much damage as players who made the more optimized choices. The 2024 ruleset removed attribute bonuses from species, but instead shunted them into backgrounds. That means you’re operating at a real disadvantage if, for story reasons, you want your wizard to have been a soldier instead of a scribe.Attributes are entirely divorced from these decisions in Daggerheart, and just assigned based on what’s best for your character class. The other decisions give you flavorful minor abilities that might be better for some classes, but are fairly broadly applicable, like a giant having extra hit points, or a person who grew up in the wilderness being able to move silently. It keeps the mechanics from getting in the way of the fantasy.Image: Darrington PressProblem: Spellcasters have a lot more choices than non-castersAdmittedly, this isn’t a problem for everyone. Some new TTRPG players can be intimidated by lots of options, and might prefer the simplicity of playing a fighter who’s mostly going to move and attack on their turn, rather than considering which spells to use and prepare. Wizards of the Coast worked to offer more complexity to martial characters in the 2024 rules with the weapon mastery system, but mostly created more subclasses that are hybrids of casters and weapon-wielders.No matter your class, Daggerheart characters all have equivalent options, thanks to a card system reminiscent of 4e D&D or Gloomhaven. Every level, characters get to choose new cards, which could represent a wizard using a runic ward, or a bard bolstering their allies with a pep talk. The modularity of the system also makes it easier to multiclass by just taking cards associated with other classes, at the price of digging deeper into your base abilities.There’s still more work to be doneFor all the problems they’ve solved, the Daggerheart designers left some big holes that need filling. The downtime action section is very thinly sketched. The game is deeply ambivalent about loot, preferring to abstract treasure rewards and costs into amounts like “a handful of gold” or “a chest of gold.” Upgrading gear is important to stay competitive, but the section on weapons is the weakest past of the entire book: Weapons follow a clear linear progression based on character tier, but their stats are printed over and over again, rather than being condensed with the formula.And GMs are encouraged to come up with their own gear, but there are no tools provided. Special items only available at higher tiers have random names, like Wand of Essek or Aantari Bow, with no descriptions to give them the character of powerful D&D magic items.But overall, Daggerheart is a strong evolution of medieval fantasy roleplaying. It shows a deep understanding of Dungeons & Dragons’ flaws, addressing them by drawing on the strengths of other systems. Even for groups not ready to fully make the switch to a new game, the book can provide some inspiration for making a D&D game a bit better.Daggerheart is available for purchase now at through Critical Role shops and local game stores in the Darrington Press Guild, which offer a PDF free with a physical copy. The core set will arrive at Amazon and book stores including Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million starting June 3. The free beta playtest is still available at DriveThruRPG.For those who want to see Daggerheart in action, Critical Role has released several one-shots and specials. “Age of Umbra,” new eight-episode series run by Matthew Mercer will launch on May 29.See More:

Energy vs. hearts.Last week, Duolingo announced a major shift: they’re replacing their long-standing hearts system with a new “energy” mechanic. The company frames this as a way to make learning more motivating by focusing on rewarding correct answers rather than punishing mistakes.But after spending 48 hours thinking about this change and analyzing reactions across the internet, I’ve come to see it as something far more nuanced: a masterclass in behavioral psychology that serves both users and Duolingo’s bottom line in fascinating ways.What’s actually changingUnder the old hearts system, users started with five hearts and lost one for each mistake. When all hearts were depleted, you couldn’t continue learning until you either waited (hearts regenerated over time), watched ads, practiced old content to earn hearts back, or paid for premium.The new energy system gives users 25 energy units. Each lesson costs one unit to start, and mistakes also cost energy. The key difference? Users can earn bonus energy at random intervals when answering correctly.As Moses Wayne, a senior staff engineer at Duolingo, explains to The Verge: “We feel like this is a way that we can motivate you to focus on things you’re getting right rather than penalizing for the things that you’re making mistakes on.”It sounds positive on the surface. But there’s much more happening under the hood.The psychological switch: from loss to expenditureThe hearts system was built on loss aversion (our tendency to feel losses more intensely than equivalent gains). Users would desperately try to avoid mistakes to keep their hearts. In psychological terms, this creates anxiety that can inhibit learning, especially for a complex skill like language acquisition.The energy system cleverly shifts the frame from “losing hearts through mistakes” to “spending energy to learn.” This slight repositioning transforms the psychological experience. Instead of punishment, it’s now an investment.But here’s where it gets particularly interesting, and perhaps concerning.At time of writing, users will still be seeing this when they run out of hearts.Variable rewards: the slot machine mechanismThe new system incorporates one of the most powerful psychological techniques in existence: variable reward schedules, or what behavioral scientists call “intermittent reinforcement.”When completing lessons, users now receive random bonus energy for consecutive correct answers. This unpredictability is the same mechanism that makes slot machines so addictive. As behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner discovered decades ago, unpredictable rewards create stronger habit loops than predictable ones.The uncertain nature of “when will I get bonus energy?” creates a dopamine response that keeps users engaged far longer than the more predictable hearts system. One psychology research article noted that “variable ratio schedules have two benefits: They result in the most instances of the behavior than any of the other schedules… and they result in behaviors that are ‘hard to extinguish,” meaning the behavior persists even when rewards decrease.Duolingo isn’t the first app to use this technique. It’s everywhere in modern digital products, from social media (random likes triggering dopamine) to games (loot boxes with variable rewards). What’s notable is how Duolingo is implementing it in an educational context.The inverse energy model: Finch vs. DuolingoTo understand what makes Duolingo’s approach unique, it’s worth comparing it to another popular app that uses an energy system: Finch.In Finch, a self-care app with a virtual pet, users earn energy by completing wellness tasks. As one reviewer describes it: “My effort gives [my pet] energy, but my lack of effort takes none away.” The energy you earn through self-care allows your pet to go on adventures and grow.Energy in Finch and Duolingo are both symbolized by a ⚡Duolingo takes the inverse approach, i.e. you spend energy to engage with the product. This fundamental difference reveals contrasting philosophies:Finch’s model: Do real-world activities → earn in-app energy → enjoy rewardsDuolingo’s model: Spend in-app energy → engage with content → occasionally get energy backWhile both use similar terminology, the direction of energy flow completely changes the behavioral dynamics. One rewards external action; the other creates a closed loop that keeps users in the app.The business of artificial scarcityLet’s not overlook the monetization angle. Super Duolingo subscribers get unlimited energy, just as they previously got unlimited hearts. The new system maintains the same fundamental constraint: free users eventually hit a wall where they need to either wait, work harder, or pay up.What the energy system might do more effectively is increase the perceived value of the premium subscription. By creating a more engaging core loop with the variable rewards, users may be more likely to convert when they hit energy limits.The strategy is brilliant, if perhaps ethically complex. By transforming a negative experience (punishment for mistakes) into a more positive ne (spending a resource with occasional bonuses), Duolingo has maintained its monetization constraints while making them feel less punitive.Critics of the heart system have long pointed out that unlimited hearts are one of the main selling points of Duolingo’s premium tier, suggesting the constraint exists primarily to drive conversions rather than improve learning. The energy system continues this pattern, just with more sophisticated psychological underpinnings.The learning science questionThe most important question is whether this change actually improves learning outcomes.Duolingo claims the energy system helps users “get through more lessons,” as the data shows users can do more with the new system. But completing more lessons doesn’t necessarily mean better language acquisition.Language learning requires making mistakes. It’s a fundamental part of the process. The old heart system discouraged risk-taking by heavily penalizing errors, potentially leading users to stick with easier content where they wouldn’t lose hearts.The energy system might ease this anxiety somewhat — making a mistake costs the same as starting a new lesson. But the fundamental constraint remains: you still have a limited resource that depletes when you make errors.A truly learning-optimized approach might involve no penalties for mistakes at all, focusing instead on spaced repetition, comprehensible input, and other evidence-based language acquisition methods. But such an approach might not drive the same level of engagement or monetization.Duloingo falls somewhere in the center of the bottom right quadrantUsers vs. learnersThis tension highlights a key challenge for educational technology: the gap between what creates engaged users and what creates successful learners.The techniques that make an app sticky (intermittent reinforcement, streaks, gamification) don’t always align with optimal learning science. In fact, they can sometimes work against it by encouraging shallow engagement over deep processing.Duolingo has always walked this line, using game mechanics to keep people engaged with language learning when they might otherwise quit. The energy system represents an evolution of this approach, using more sophisticated behavioral psychology to maintain the same fundamental constraints while making them feel better.The verdict: clever design for multiple objectivesAfter analyzing this change from multiple angles, I’m left impressed by its cleverness while somewhat ambivalent about its implications.The energy system:Creates a more positive psychological framing than heartsImplements powerful variable rewards that increase engagementMaintains the same fundamental monetization pressurePotentially allows for more mistakes, which is better for learningUses randomness to create stronger habit loopsIt’s a change that serves both user experience and business goals, likely increasing both engagement and conversion to premium. Whether it truly serves learning outcomes remains to be seen, though it’s probably at least marginally better than the hearts system in this regard.What fascinates me most is how this change reveals the sophistication of behavioral design in today’s digital products. What looks like a simple mechanic change is actually a carefully engineered system to shape behavior through psychological principles.The next time you find yourself compulsively swiping for another lesson, hoping for that bonus energy to drop, remember that this feeling isn’t accidental… it’s by design.And while I appreciate the brilliance of that design, I find myself wishing more of this psychological ingenuity was directed toward optimizing learning outcomes rather than engagement metrics. Perhaps that’s the next frontier for language learning apps: finding ways to make evidence-based learning as addictive as a slot machine.Sam Liberty is a gamification expert, applied game designer, and consultant. His clients include The World Bank, Click Therapeutics, and DARPA. He teaches game design at Northeastern University. He is the former Lead Game Designer at Sidekick Health.Duolingo’s small UI switch that changes everything was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Two years after partnering with OpenAI to automate marketing and customer service jobs, financial tech startup Klarna says it's longing for human connection again.Once gunning to be OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's "favorite guinea pig," Klarna is now plotting a big recruitment drive after its AI customer service agents couldn't quite hack it.The buy-now-pay-later company had previously shredded its marketing contracts in 2023, followed by its customer service team in 2024, which it proudly began replacing with AI agents. Now, the company says it imagines an "Uber-type of setup" to fill their ranks, with gig workers logging in remotely to argue with customers from the comfort of their own homes."From a brand perspective, a company perspective, I just think it’s so critical that you are clear to your customer that there will be always a human if you want," admitted Sebastian Siemiatkowski, the Swedish fintech's CEO.That's a pretty big shift from his comments in December of 2024, when he told Bloomberg he was "of the opinion that AI can already do all of the jobs that we, as humans, do." A year before that, Klarna had stopped hiring humans altogether, reducing its workforce by 22 percent.A few months after freezing new hires, Klarna bragged that it saved $10 million on marketing costs by outsourcing tasks like translation, art production, and data analysis to generative AI. It likewise claimed that its automated customer service agents could do the work of "700 full-time agents."So why the sudden about-face? As it turns out, leaving your already-frustrated customers to deal with a slop-spinning algorithm isn't exactly best practice.As Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg, "cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality."Klarna isn't alone. Though executives in every industry, from news media to fast food, seem to think AI is ready for the hot seat — an attitude that's more grounded in investor relations than an honest assessment of the tech — there are growing signs that robot chickens are coming home to roost.In January of last year, a survey of over 1,400 business executives found that 66 percent were "ambivalent or outright dissatisfied with their organization’s progress on AI and GenAI so far." The top issue corporate bosses cited was AI's "lack of talent and skills."It's a problem that evidently hasn't improved over the year. Another survey recently found that over 55 percent of UK business leaders who rushed to replace jobs with AI now regret their decision.It's not hard to see why. An experiment carried out by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University stuffed a fake software company full of AI employees, and their performance was laughably bad — the best AI worker finished just 24 percent of the tasks assigned to it.When it comes to the question of whether AI will take jobs, there seem to be as many answers as there are CEOs excited to save a buck.There are gray areas, to be sure — AI is certainly helping corporations speed up low-wage outsourcing, and the tech is having a verifiable effect on labor market volatility — just don't count on CEOs to have much patience as AI starts to chomp at their bottom line.Share This Article

Comments from NISTA’s Matthew Vickerstaff come as ministers weigh up benefits of relaunching initiative next monthThe government’s new infrastructure advisory body has said ministers would need to “learn from the mistakes” of the past if a new generation of PFI contracts are launched as part of the upcoming infrastructure strategy. Matthew Vickerstaff, deputy chief executive of the The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), said there was still a “constant drumbeat” of construction issues on schools built through private finance initiatives (PFI). Matthew Vickerstaff speaking at the Public Accounts Committee yesterday afternoon Chancellor Rachel Reeves is understood to be considering reinstating a form of private financing to pay for public projects, including social infrastructure schemes such as schools, ahead of the launch of its 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy next month. It would be the first major rollout of PFI in England since 2018, when then chancellor Philip Hammond declared the successor scheme to the original PFI programme as “inflexible and overly complex”. >> See also: PFI: Do the numbers add up? Speaking at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament yesterday, Vickerstaff highlighted issues that had blighted historic PFI schemes where construction risk had been transferred to the private sector. “Just what we’re seeing on school projects, leaking roofs is a consistent, constant drum beat, fire door stopping, acoustics, lighting levels, the ability of classrooms to be operable in a white board environment, problems around leisure centres or sports facilities, contamination of land, latent defects of refurbishments on old buildings creating real problems,” he said. “The dash to get the schools ready for September, I cannot tell you how many PFI schools have that problem, and we need to get the private sector to fix it.” But while Vickerstaff said he was “ambivalent” about a new generation of PFI contracts, he argued contractual arrangements on new schemes could contain less risk for the public purse if the government did decide to opt for this route in its infrastructure strategy. “I would say that compared with 25 years ago, the asset management, the building information systems and computer aided facilities management has vastly improved so we’re dealing with a generation of contracts that would certainly by improved whether it’s public sector or private sector,” he said. “I’m ambivalent but what we need to make sure is that we learn from the mistakes and definitely get them to fix what we’re experiencing in some situations.” Vickerstaff added: “In terms of lessons learned, making sure construction is monitored by a clerk of works and independently certified would be a really important factor moving forward, because construction defects have been a problem because the construction contracts whether it be public sector or private sector have not been well monitored or controlled.” Meanwhile, a new report by PwC has called on the government to explore a new generation of public-private finance in order to address the deficit in infrastructure including schools and healthcare. The research, published today, found “strong market appetite” for a new model of public-private partnerships which could be based on the Mutual Investment Model developed in Wales. PwC corporate finance associate director Dan Whittle said: “There is a strong view that public-private finance has a valuable role to play as a strategic tool to close the UK’s infrastructure gap, particularly at a time when we are constrained by fiscal rules. “There is no need to reinvent the fundamentals of the PPP model. What must continue to evolve is how we implement this model with refined risk allocation to reflect the current appetite of the market, smarter contract management, and a genuine partnership approach.” The government is expected to unveil its infrastructure strategy alongside its spending review in June.