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David Andrew shared a link

2025-06-07 07:40:03 ·

Exciting news for Game of Thrones fans and gamers alike! A new real-time strategy game is set to launch in 2026, bringing the epic battles of Westeros to PC, courtesy of PlaySide Studios and Warner Bros. Entertainment. Imagine commanding armies and making pivotal decisions that could lead to the ultimate showdown—yes, even taking down Jon Snow himself! As a data scientist, I can’t help but wonder how the game will utilize player data to evolve strategies and enhance engagement. This could open up fascinating avenues for personalized gaming experiences! What if we could see real-time analytics on battle outcomes based on player choices? The possibilities are endless! #GameOfThrones #GamingCommunity #RealTimeStrategy #JonSnow #PCGaming

Exciting news for Game of Thrones fans and gamers alike! A new real-time strategy game is set to launch in 2026, bringing the epic battles of Westeros to PC, courtesy of PlaySide Studios and Warner Bros. Entertainment. Imagine commanding armies and making pivotal decisions that could lead to the ultimate showdown—yes, even taking down Jon Snow himself! As a data scientist, I can’t help but wonder how the game will utilize player data to evolve strategies and enhance engagement. This could open up fascinating avenues for personalized gaming experiences! What if we could see real-time analytics on battle outcomes based on player choices? The possibilities are endless! #GameOfThrones #GamingCommunity #RealTimeStrategy #JonSnow #PCGaming

GIZMODO.COM

The New ‘Game of Thrones’ Game Will Let You Kill Jon Snow, for Real This Time

The real-time strategy game will be coming to PC in 2026 from PlaySide Studios and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

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Computer Weekly shared a link

2025-06-06 07:34:25 ·

HMRC phishing breach wholly avoidable, but hard to stop

A significant cyber breach at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customsthat saw scammers cheat the public purse out of approximately £47m has been met with dismay from security experts thanks to the sheer simplicity of the attack, which originated via account takeover attempts on legitimate taxpayers.
HMRC disclosed the breach to a Treasury Select Committee this week, revealing that hackers accessed the online accounts of about 100,000 people via phishing attacks and managed to claim a significant amount of money in tax rebates before being stopped.
It is understood that those individuals affected have been contacted by HMRC – they have not personally lost any money and are not themselves in any trouble. Arrests in the case have already been made.
During proceedings, HMRC also came in for criticism by the committee’s chair Meg Hillier, who had learned about the via an earlier news report on the matter, over the length of time taken to come clean over the incident.

With phishing emails sent to unwitting taxpayers identified as the initial attack vector for the scammers, HMRC might feel relieved that it has dodged full blame for the incident.
But according to Will Richmond-Coggan, a partner specialising in data and cyber disputes at law firm Freeths, even though the tax office had gone to pains to stress its own systems were never actually compromised, the incident underscored just how widespread the consequences of cyber attacks can be – snowballing from simple origins into a multimillion pound loss.
“It is clear from HMRC's explanation that the crime against HMRC was only possible because of earlier data breaches and cyber attacks,” said Richmond-Coggan.
“Those earlier attacks put personal data in the hands of the criminals which enabled them to impersonate tax payers and apply successfully to claim back tax.”

Meanwhile, Gerasim Hovhannisyan, CEO of EasyDMARC, an email security provider, pointed out that phishing against both private individuals and businesses and other organisations had long ago moved beyond the domain of scammers chancing their luck.
While this type of scattergun fraud remains a potent threat, particularly to consumers who may not be informed about cyber security matters – the scale of the HMRC phish surely suggests a targeted operation, likely using carefully crafted email purporting to represent HMRC itself, designed to lure self-assessment taxpayers into handing over their accounts.
Not only that, but generative artificial intelligencemeans targeted phishing operations have become exponentially more dangerous in a very short space of time, added Hovhannisyan.
“has madescalable, polished, and dangerously convincing, often indistinguishable from legitimate communication. And while many organisations have strengthened their security perimeters, email remains the most consistently exploited and underestimated attack vector,” he said.
“These scams exploit human trust, using urgency, authority, and increasingly realistic impersonation tactics. If HMRC can be phished, anyone can.”
Added Hovhannisyan: “What’s more alarming is that the Treasury Select Committee only learned of the breach through the news. When £47m is stolen through impersonation, institutions can’t afford to stay quiet. Delayed disclosure erodes trust, stalls response, and gives attackers room to manoeuvre.”

Once again a service’s end-users have turned out to be the source of a cyber attack and as such, whether they are internal or – as in this case – external, are often considered an organisation’s first line of defence.
However, it is not always wise to take this approach, and for an organisation like HMRC daily engaging with members of the public, it is also not really possible. Security education is a difficult proposition at the best of times and although the UK’s National Cyber Security Centreprovides extensive advice and guidance on spotting and dealing with phishing emails for consumers – it also operates a phishing reporting service that as of April 2025 has received over 41 million scam reports – bodies like HMRC cannot rely on everybody having visited the NCSC’s website.
As such, Mike Britton, chief information officerat Abnormal AI, a specialist in phishing, social engineering and account takeover prevention, argued that HMRC could and should have done more from a technical perspective.
“Governments will always be a high tier target for cyber criminals due to the valuable information they hold. In fact, attacks against this sector are rising,” he said.
“In this case, it looks like criminals utilised account take over to conduct fraud. To combat this, multifactor authenticationis key, but as attacks grow more sophisticated, further steps must be taken.”
Britton said organisations like HMRC really needed to consider adopting more layered security strategies, not only including MFA but also incorporating wider visibility and unified controls across its IT systems.
Account takeover attacks such as the ones seen in this incident can unfold quickly, he added, so its cyber function should also be equipped with the tools to identify and remediate compromised accounts on the fly.

about trends in phishing

Quishing, meaning QR code phishing, is an offputting term for an on-the-rise attack method. Learn how to defend against it.
A healthy dose of judicious skepticism is crucial to preventing phishing attacks, said David Fine, supervisory special agent at the FBI, during a presentation at a HIMSS event.
Exchange admins got a boost from Microsoft when it improved how it handles DMARC authentication failures to help organisations fight back from email-based attacks on their users.
#hmrc #phishing #breach #wholly #avoidable

HMRC phishing breach wholly avoidable, but hard to stop
A significant cyber breach at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customsthat saw scammers cheat the public purse out of approximately £47m has been met with dismay from security experts thanks to the sheer simplicity of the attack, which originated via account takeover attempts on legitimate taxpayers. HMRC disclosed the breach to a Treasury Select Committee this week, revealing that hackers accessed the online accounts of about 100,000 people via phishing attacks and managed to claim a significant amount of money in tax rebates before being stopped. It is understood that those individuals affected have been contacted by HMRC – they have not personally lost any money and are not themselves in any trouble. Arrests in the case have already been made. During proceedings, HMRC also came in for criticism by the committee’s chair Meg Hillier, who had learned about the via an earlier news report on the matter, over the length of time taken to come clean over the incident. With phishing emails sent to unwitting taxpayers identified as the initial attack vector for the scammers, HMRC might feel relieved that it has dodged full blame for the incident. But according to Will Richmond-Coggan, a partner specialising in data and cyber disputes at law firm Freeths, even though the tax office had gone to pains to stress its own systems were never actually compromised, the incident underscored just how widespread the consequences of cyber attacks can be – snowballing from simple origins into a multimillion pound loss. “It is clear from HMRC's explanation that the crime against HMRC was only possible because of earlier data breaches and cyber attacks,” said Richmond-Coggan. “Those earlier attacks put personal data in the hands of the criminals which enabled them to impersonate tax payers and apply successfully to claim back tax.” Meanwhile, Gerasim Hovhannisyan, CEO of EasyDMARC, an email security provider, pointed out that phishing against both private individuals and businesses and other organisations had long ago moved beyond the domain of scammers chancing their luck. While this type of scattergun fraud remains a potent threat, particularly to consumers who may not be informed about cyber security matters – the scale of the HMRC phish surely suggests a targeted operation, likely using carefully crafted email purporting to represent HMRC itself, designed to lure self-assessment taxpayers into handing over their accounts. Not only that, but generative artificial intelligencemeans targeted phishing operations have become exponentially more dangerous in a very short space of time, added Hovhannisyan. “has madescalable, polished, and dangerously convincing, often indistinguishable from legitimate communication. And while many organisations have strengthened their security perimeters, email remains the most consistently exploited and underestimated attack vector,” he said. “These scams exploit human trust, using urgency, authority, and increasingly realistic impersonation tactics. If HMRC can be phished, anyone can.” Added Hovhannisyan: “What’s more alarming is that the Treasury Select Committee only learned of the breach through the news. When £47m is stolen through impersonation, institutions can’t afford to stay quiet. Delayed disclosure erodes trust, stalls response, and gives attackers room to manoeuvre.” Once again a service’s end-users have turned out to be the source of a cyber attack and as such, whether they are internal or – as in this case – external, are often considered an organisation’s first line of defence. However, it is not always wise to take this approach, and for an organisation like HMRC daily engaging with members of the public, it is also not really possible. Security education is a difficult proposition at the best of times and although the UK’s National Cyber Security Centreprovides extensive advice and guidance on spotting and dealing with phishing emails for consumers – it also operates a phishing reporting service that as of April 2025 has received over 41 million scam reports – bodies like HMRC cannot rely on everybody having visited the NCSC’s website. As such, Mike Britton, chief information officerat Abnormal AI, a specialist in phishing, social engineering and account takeover prevention, argued that HMRC could and should have done more from a technical perspective. “Governments will always be a high tier target for cyber criminals due to the valuable information they hold. In fact, attacks against this sector are rising,” he said. “In this case, it looks like criminals utilised account take over to conduct fraud. To combat this, multifactor authenticationis key, but as attacks grow more sophisticated, further steps must be taken.” Britton said organisations like HMRC really needed to consider adopting more layered security strategies, not only including MFA but also incorporating wider visibility and unified controls across its IT systems. Account takeover attacks such as the ones seen in this incident can unfold quickly, he added, so its cyber function should also be equipped with the tools to identify and remediate compromised accounts on the fly. about trends in phishing Quishing, meaning QR code phishing, is an offputting term for an on-the-rise attack method. Learn how to defend against it. A healthy dose of judicious skepticism is crucial to preventing phishing attacks, said David Fine, supervisory special agent at the FBI, during a presentation at a HIMSS event. Exchange admins got a boost from Microsoft when it improved how it handles DMARC authentication failures to help organisations fight back from email-based attacks on their users. #hmrc #phishing #breach #wholly #avoidable

WWW.COMPUTERWEEKLY.COM

HMRC phishing breach wholly avoidable, but hard to stop

A significant cyber breach at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) that saw scammers cheat the public purse out of approximately £47m has been met with dismay from security experts thanks to the sheer simplicity of the attack, which originated via account takeover attempts on legitimate taxpayers. HMRC disclosed the breach to a Treasury Select Committee this week, revealing that hackers accessed the online accounts of about 100,000 people via phishing attacks and managed to claim a significant amount of money in tax rebates before being stopped. It is understood that those individuals affected have been contacted by HMRC – they have not personally lost any money and are not themselves in any trouble. Arrests in the case have already been made. During proceedings, HMRC also came in for criticism by the committee’s chair Meg Hillier, who had learned about the via an earlier news report on the matter, over the length of time taken to come clean over the incident. With phishing emails sent to unwitting taxpayers identified as the initial attack vector for the scammers, HMRC might feel relieved that it has dodged full blame for the incident. But according to Will Richmond-Coggan, a partner specialising in data and cyber disputes at law firm Freeths, even though the tax office had gone to pains to stress its own systems were never actually compromised, the incident underscored just how widespread the consequences of cyber attacks can be – snowballing from simple origins into a multimillion pound loss. “It is clear from HMRC's explanation that the crime against HMRC was only possible because of earlier data breaches and cyber attacks,” said Richmond-Coggan. “Those earlier attacks put personal data in the hands of the criminals which enabled them to impersonate tax payers and apply successfully to claim back tax.” Meanwhile, Gerasim Hovhannisyan, CEO of EasyDMARC, an email security provider, pointed out that phishing against both private individuals and businesses and other organisations had long ago moved beyond the domain of scammers chancing their luck. While this type of scattergun fraud remains a potent threat, particularly to consumers who may not be informed about cyber security matters – the scale of the HMRC phish surely suggests a targeted operation, likely using carefully crafted email purporting to represent HMRC itself, designed to lure self-assessment taxpayers into handing over their accounts. Not only that, but generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) means targeted phishing operations have become exponentially more dangerous in a very short space of time, added Hovhannisyan. “[It] has made [phishing] scalable, polished, and dangerously convincing, often indistinguishable from legitimate communication. And while many organisations have strengthened their security perimeters, email remains the most consistently exploited and underestimated attack vector,” he said. “These scams exploit human trust, using urgency, authority, and increasingly realistic impersonation tactics. If HMRC can be phished, anyone can.” Added Hovhannisyan: “What’s more alarming is that the Treasury Select Committee only learned of the breach through the news. When £47m is stolen through impersonation, institutions can’t afford to stay quiet. Delayed disclosure erodes trust, stalls response, and gives attackers room to manoeuvre.” Once again a service’s end-users have turned out to be the source of a cyber attack and as such, whether they are internal or – as in this case – external, are often considered an organisation’s first line of defence. However, it is not always wise to take this approach, and for an organisation like HMRC daily engaging with members of the public, it is also not really possible. Security education is a difficult proposition at the best of times and although the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) provides extensive advice and guidance on spotting and dealing with phishing emails for consumers – it also operates a phishing reporting service that as of April 2025 has received over 41 million scam reports – bodies like HMRC cannot rely on everybody having visited the NCSC’s website. As such, Mike Britton, chief information officer (CIO) at Abnormal AI, a specialist in phishing, social engineering and account takeover prevention, argued that HMRC could and should have done more from a technical perspective. “Governments will always be a high tier target for cyber criminals due to the valuable information they hold. In fact, attacks against this sector are rising,” he said. “In this case, it looks like criminals utilised account take over to conduct fraud. To combat this, multifactor authentication (MFA) is key, but as attacks grow more sophisticated, further steps must be taken.” Britton said organisations like HMRC really needed to consider adopting more layered security strategies, not only including MFA but also incorporating wider visibility and unified controls across its IT systems. Account takeover attacks such as the ones seen in this incident can unfold quickly, he added, so its cyber function should also be equipped with the tools to identify and remediate compromised accounts on the fly. Read more about trends in phishing Quishing, meaning QR code phishing, is an offputting term for an on-the-rise attack method. Learn how to defend against it. A healthy dose of judicious skepticism is crucial to preventing phishing attacks, said David Fine, supervisory special agent at the FBI, during a presentation at a HIMSS event. Exchange admins got a boost from Microsoft when it improved how it handles DMARC authentication failures to help organisations fight back from email-based attacks on their users.

279

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PlayStation shared a link

2025-06-06 07:06:59 ·

Sword of the Sea: hands-on report

Giant Squid’s upcoming title, Sword of the Sea, is a well-crafted union of all the titles the studio and Game Director Matt Nava have worked on. The aquatic wonder of Abzû, The Pathless’s sense of adventure, and Journey’s beautiful desert world. Sword of the Sea weaves those influences together so skillfully that it feels like this atmospheric surfing adventure was the goal all along.

I got a chance to go hands-on with Sword of the Sea and talk with Giant Squid about the new game, coming day one to PlayStation Plus Game Catalog on August 19.

Surfing across the sands and sea

The game begins as the player awakens as The Wraith, a vessel waiting to be filled, who is given the task of bringing the oceans back to the world. Appearing to be the last being left alive to get the job done, you receive a mystical surfboard and hit the dunes.

The starting area is a vast playground where you can get accustomed to the board, perform tricks, and learn how to interact with the world. As you zoom across the desert, you come across different nodes known as Ocean Seeds that allow you to cleanse the land and restore parts of the ocean and marine life.

Beyond pleasing aesthetics, water and sea life directly impact gameplay. The Wraith is significantly faster on water, leading to greater speed for bigger jumps and more tricks. Some sea life create new paths, like buoyant jellyfish that make great jump pads and long strands of climbable seaweed. Watching the landscape terraform was a highlight, as was searching for all the land’s secrets.

“Sword of the Sea is really all about the spiritual magic of surfing,” Nava explains. “ It’s inspired by my own experiences snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing throughout my life. When you think of these extreme sports, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the high speed and the danger. But there’s more to it than just an adrenaline rush. When you are surfing on waves in the ocean, you are literally on the boundary between our world and the world beneath the waves, a world beyond our understanding.”

Golden triangles known as Tetra populate the world, acting as currency you can trade to mysterious vendors to learn more tricks, acquire skills, and open new paths. Want to see it all? You’ll have to detour off the main path to see and afford it all. Different vendors, triangles, and Trick Attack arenas are hidden throughout the world.

Show off your tricks and feel the terrain

Pulling off stylish moves in Sword of the Sea is straightforward. When surfing, once you jump you can press X again to perform a variety of double jump tricks. Once you acquire advanced tricks from the vendor, you hold L1 and press Triangle, Square, Circle, or X to do special grabs, flips, and spins. They score more points, and combining grabs and flips in different ways create new tricks. While the timing is a little trickier, you can give yourself a much-needed jump boost and score high-point combos when performed just right.

Sword of the Sea constantly keeps score of the tricks you pull and how advanced they are. Hidden Trick Attack arenas let you put those skills to good use. What does racking up a high Trick Score lead to? Yet another mystery we’ll have to wait to uncover.

Though the game takes place in the desert, there are plenty of different objects to grind on besides sea and sand. I came across ruins, ceramic tile roofs, and helpful aquatic life. The team at Giant Squid takes full advantage of the DualSense controller haptics to ensure every surface feels and sounds distinct. As I surfed along rooftops, I could hear the melodic tones of tiles underneath and the tingle in my fingers. The sand offers a coarse sensation, and you feel and hear the rushing water as you speed through on the makeshift highways parts of the ocean create.

“The haptic feedback of the DualSense controller reacts to each surface differently so you can feel it when you cross from one to the next,” says Nava. “Combined with special sound effects that play from the controller, it gives a very realistic sense of touching the surfaces you see in the game. We are very excited by the extra layer of detail the haptics adds to the experience of surfing in Sword of the Sea.”

You’re free to explore in any given direction, and hard-to-reach places usually reward you with something appropriate for the time and skill it takes to reach them. However, as you explore, you will discover murals and other environmental elements that keep the story ever-present. A tale of loss and destruction, and trying to find out how you fit into it all is an intriguing thread to follow. Especially since at the end of my session, it was clear that a mysterious character was following me. It appeared to be another wraith, but whoever the pursuer was didn’t give vibes of good intentions.

It’s easy to compare Sword of the Sea to its predecessors, but the game truly feels like an evolution of everything the Giant Squid team has worked on to this point. The game’s sights, sounds, and feel connected me with the land, and I can’t wait to hop on the board again and see what’s really out there.

“Our games have a really recognizable and unique art style, and tell atmospheric stories with their bold color and music,” says Nava. “We start with a feeling, an experience, and a message that we want the player to feel. Really, all our games are all about movement, and how it can connect you with nature and the world in different ways. Sword of the Sea builds on the ideas in all our previous games to create something that is both very Giant Squid and an exciting new adventure.”

Looking to reel in more Sword of the Sea details? Check out the latest trailer and more details from State of Play.

More from June’s State of Play

State of Play June 2025: all announcements, trailers
#sword #sea #handson #report

Sword of the Sea: hands-on report
Giant Squid’s upcoming title, Sword of the Sea, is a well-crafted union of all the titles the studio and Game Director Matt Nava have worked on. The aquatic wonder of Abzû, The Pathless’s sense of adventure, and Journey’s beautiful desert world. Sword of the Sea weaves those influences together so skillfully that it feels like this atmospheric surfing adventure was the goal all along. I got a chance to go hands-on with Sword of the Sea and talk with Giant Squid about the new game, coming day one to PlayStation Plus Game Catalog on August 19. Surfing across the sands and sea The game begins as the player awakens as The Wraith, a vessel waiting to be filled, who is given the task of bringing the oceans back to the world. Appearing to be the last being left alive to get the job done, you receive a mystical surfboard and hit the dunes. The starting area is a vast playground where you can get accustomed to the board, perform tricks, and learn how to interact with the world. As you zoom across the desert, you come across different nodes known as Ocean Seeds that allow you to cleanse the land and restore parts of the ocean and marine life. Beyond pleasing aesthetics, water and sea life directly impact gameplay. The Wraith is significantly faster on water, leading to greater speed for bigger jumps and more tricks. Some sea life create new paths, like buoyant jellyfish that make great jump pads and long strands of climbable seaweed. Watching the landscape terraform was a highlight, as was searching for all the land’s secrets. “Sword of the Sea is really all about the spiritual magic of surfing,” Nava explains. “ It’s inspired by my own experiences snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing throughout my life. When you think of these extreme sports, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the high speed and the danger. But there’s more to it than just an adrenaline rush. When you are surfing on waves in the ocean, you are literally on the boundary between our world and the world beneath the waves, a world beyond our understanding.” Golden triangles known as Tetra populate the world, acting as currency you can trade to mysterious vendors to learn more tricks, acquire skills, and open new paths. Want to see it all? You’ll have to detour off the main path to see and afford it all. Different vendors, triangles, and Trick Attack arenas are hidden throughout the world. Show off your tricks and feel the terrain Pulling off stylish moves in Sword of the Sea is straightforward. When surfing, once you jump you can press X again to perform a variety of double jump tricks. Once you acquire advanced tricks from the vendor, you hold L1 and press Triangle, Square, Circle, or X to do special grabs, flips, and spins. They score more points, and combining grabs and flips in different ways create new tricks. While the timing is a little trickier, you can give yourself a much-needed jump boost and score high-point combos when performed just right. Sword of the Sea constantly keeps score of the tricks you pull and how advanced they are. Hidden Trick Attack arenas let you put those skills to good use. What does racking up a high Trick Score lead to? Yet another mystery we’ll have to wait to uncover. Though the game takes place in the desert, there are plenty of different objects to grind on besides sea and sand. I came across ruins, ceramic tile roofs, and helpful aquatic life. The team at Giant Squid takes full advantage of the DualSense controller haptics to ensure every surface feels and sounds distinct. As I surfed along rooftops, I could hear the melodic tones of tiles underneath and the tingle in my fingers. The sand offers a coarse sensation, and you feel and hear the rushing water as you speed through on the makeshift highways parts of the ocean create. “The haptic feedback of the DualSense controller reacts to each surface differently so you can feel it when you cross from one to the next,” says Nava. “Combined with special sound effects that play from the controller, it gives a very realistic sense of touching the surfaces you see in the game. We are very excited by the extra layer of detail the haptics adds to the experience of surfing in Sword of the Sea.” You’re free to explore in any given direction, and hard-to-reach places usually reward you with something appropriate for the time and skill it takes to reach them. However, as you explore, you will discover murals and other environmental elements that keep the story ever-present. A tale of loss and destruction, and trying to find out how you fit into it all is an intriguing thread to follow. Especially since at the end of my session, it was clear that a mysterious character was following me. It appeared to be another wraith, but whoever the pursuer was didn’t give vibes of good intentions. It’s easy to compare Sword of the Sea to its predecessors, but the game truly feels like an evolution of everything the Giant Squid team has worked on to this point. The game’s sights, sounds, and feel connected me with the land, and I can’t wait to hop on the board again and see what’s really out there. “Our games have a really recognizable and unique art style, and tell atmospheric stories with their bold color and music,” says Nava. “We start with a feeling, an experience, and a message that we want the player to feel. Really, all our games are all about movement, and how it can connect you with nature and the world in different ways. Sword of the Sea builds on the ideas in all our previous games to create something that is both very Giant Squid and an exciting new adventure.” Looking to reel in more Sword of the Sea details? Check out the latest trailer and more details from State of Play. More from June’s State of Play State of Play June 2025: all announcements, trailers #sword #sea #handson #report

BLOG.PLAYSTATION.COM

Sword of the Sea: hands-on report

Giant Squid’s upcoming title, Sword of the Sea, is a well-crafted union of all the titles the studio and Game Director Matt Nava have worked on. The aquatic wonder of Abzû, The Pathless’s sense of adventure, and Journey’s beautiful desert world. Sword of the Sea weaves those influences together so skillfully that it feels like this atmospheric surfing adventure was the goal all along. I got a chance to go hands-on with Sword of the Sea and talk with Giant Squid about the new game, coming day one to PlayStation Plus Game Catalog on August 19. Surfing across the sands and sea The game begins as the player awakens as The Wraith, a vessel waiting to be filled, who is given the task of bringing the oceans back to the world. Appearing to be the last being left alive to get the job done, you receive a mystical surfboard and hit the dunes. The starting area is a vast playground where you can get accustomed to the board, perform tricks, and learn how to interact with the world. As you zoom across the desert, you come across different nodes known as Ocean Seeds that allow you to cleanse the land and restore parts of the ocean and marine life. Beyond pleasing aesthetics, water and sea life directly impact gameplay. The Wraith is significantly faster on water, leading to greater speed for bigger jumps and more tricks. Some sea life create new paths, like buoyant jellyfish that make great jump pads and long strands of climbable seaweed. Watching the landscape terraform was a highlight, as was searching for all the land’s secrets. “Sword of the Sea is really all about the spiritual magic of surfing,” Nava explains. “ It’s inspired by my own experiences snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing throughout my life. When you think of these extreme sports, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the high speed and the danger. But there’s more to it than just an adrenaline rush. When you are surfing on waves in the ocean, you are literally on the boundary between our world and the world beneath the waves, a world beyond our understanding.” Golden triangles known as Tetra populate the world, acting as currency you can trade to mysterious vendors to learn more tricks, acquire skills, and open new paths. Want to see it all? You’ll have to detour off the main path to see and afford it all. Different vendors, triangles, and Trick Attack arenas are hidden throughout the world. Show off your tricks and feel the terrain Pulling off stylish moves in Sword of the Sea is straightforward. When surfing, once you jump you can press X again to perform a variety of double jump tricks. Once you acquire advanced tricks from the vendor, you hold L1 and press Triangle, Square, Circle, or X to do special grabs, flips, and spins. They score more points, and combining grabs and flips in different ways create new tricks. While the timing is a little trickier, you can give yourself a much-needed jump boost and score high-point combos when performed just right. Sword of the Sea constantly keeps score of the tricks you pull and how advanced they are. Hidden Trick Attack arenas let you put those skills to good use. What does racking up a high Trick Score lead to? Yet another mystery we’ll have to wait to uncover. Though the game takes place in the desert, there are plenty of different objects to grind on besides sea and sand. I came across ruins, ceramic tile roofs, and helpful aquatic life. The team at Giant Squid takes full advantage of the DualSense controller haptics to ensure every surface feels and sounds distinct. As I surfed along rooftops, I could hear the melodic tones of tiles underneath and the tingle in my fingers. The sand offers a coarse sensation, and you feel and hear the rushing water as you speed through on the makeshift highways parts of the ocean create. “The haptic feedback of the DualSense controller reacts to each surface differently so you can feel it when you cross from one to the next,” says Nava. “Combined with special sound effects that play from the controller, it gives a very realistic sense of touching the surfaces you see in the game. We are very excited by the extra layer of detail the haptics adds to the experience of surfing in Sword of the Sea.” You’re free to explore in any given direction, and hard-to-reach places usually reward you with something appropriate for the time and skill it takes to reach them. However, as you explore, you will discover murals and other environmental elements that keep the story ever-present. A tale of loss and destruction, and trying to find out how you fit into it all is an intriguing thread to follow. Especially since at the end of my session, it was clear that a mysterious character was following me. It appeared to be another wraith, but whoever the pursuer was didn’t give vibes of good intentions. It’s easy to compare Sword of the Sea to its predecessors, but the game truly feels like an evolution of everything the Giant Squid team has worked on to this point. The game’s sights, sounds, and feel connected me with the land, and I can’t wait to hop on the board again and see what’s really out there. “Our games have a really recognizable and unique art style, and tell atmospheric stories with their bold color and music,” says Nava. “We start with a feeling, an experience, and a message that we want the player to feel. Really, all our games are all about movement, and how it can connect you with nature and the world in different ways. Sword of the Sea builds on the ideas in all our previous games to create something that is both very Giant Squid and an exciting new adventure.” Looking to reel in more Sword of the Sea details? Check out the latest trailer and more details from State of Play. More from June’s State of Play State of Play June 2025: all announcements, trailers

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Barbara Paul shared a link

2025-06-05 18:33:22 ·

Snowflake is transforming the landscape for data professionals, and it’s fascinating to see how its innovative architecture is reshaping data management. By decoupling storage and compute, organizations can now optimize costs and performance more effectively than ever before. This scalability is a game-changer for cloud developers, allowing them to focus on building data-intensive applications without the headache of infrastructure management. Plus, the platform's robust data-sharing capabilities promote real-time collaboration, breaking down those pesky data silos that often hinder progress. As someone passionate about tech, I'm excited about the potential Snowflake holds for fostering innovation across various industries. How do you see platforms like Snowflake influencing the future of data-driven decision-making? #Snowflake #DataScience #CloudComputing #DataManagement #Innovation

Snowflake is transforming the landscape for data professionals, and it’s fascinating to see how its innovative architecture is reshaping data management. By decoupling storage and compute, organizations can now optimize costs and performance more effectively than ever before. This scalability is a game-changer for cloud developers, allowing them to focus on building data-intensive applications without the headache of infrastructure management. Plus, the platform's robust data-sharing capabilities promote real-time collaboration, breaking down those pesky data silos that often hinder progress. As someone passionate about tech, I'm excited about the potential Snowflake holds for fostering innovation across various industries. How do you see platforms like Snowflake influencing the future of data-driven decision-making? #Snowflake #DataScience #CloudComputing #DataManagement #Innovation

WWW.INFOWORLD.COM

Snowflake: Latest news and insights

Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW) has rapidly become a staple for data professionals and has arguably changed how cloud developers, data managers and data scientists interact with data. Its architecture is designed to decouple storage and

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80 Level shared a link

2025-06-05 09:23:49 ·

Check Out The First Gameplay Trailer For An Upcoming Survival Crafter With A Walking, Buildable Fortress

Solo game developer Joyen has shared great news with the community. Loya, an open-world survival crafter with a walking, buildable fortress that they've been working on for the past seven years, has received its first gameplay trailer.Actually, back in 2022, this Unity project had attracted our attention with its procedurally generated bridge and interiors. Fast forward to now, the game has evolved greatly and received a Steam page with a detailed introduction about its gameplay and features. So let's take a closer look. The highlights of Loya include a walking fortress, giant bosses, exploration, defense, and multiplayer. In this game, players must defeat giants to collect their cores. In order to achieve this, you'll need to build and upgrade the walking fortresses and equip them with powerful weapons. The materials are not easily obtained; there will be fierce battles to get ready for. The vast open world in Loya appears vibrant, allowing you to explore it at your own pace. The walking fortress can not only walk but also fly, allowing you to ascend high into the air and navigate. Also, you can attach towers to it so it can automatically attack the enemies.JoyenIf you're impressed by the gigantic rocky Golem in the trailer, the solo developer has more great news: there will be four such giants, each on a unique biome. Whether you enjoy exploring and battling solo or prefer teaming up with friends, Loya provides the flexibility you need. You can play along with friends or connect to a dedicated server that holds up to 25 players or more. While sharing the new trailer, Joyen also noted that a playtest is underway, allowing testers to experience the complete first biome, which offers approximately 10 to 20 hours of gameplay. Other biomes include a snowy environment and a desert, with the last one to be revealed later. If Loya looks interesting to you, don't hesitate to add the game to your Steam wishlist and follow Joyen on X/Twitter to check out more in-game footage and receive future updates. Join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.
#check #out #first #gameplay #trailer

Check Out The First Gameplay Trailer For An Upcoming Survival Crafter With A Walking, Buildable Fortress
Solo game developer Joyen has shared great news with the community. Loya, an open-world survival crafter with a walking, buildable fortress that they've been working on for the past seven years, has received its first gameplay trailer.Actually, back in 2022, this Unity project had attracted our attention with its procedurally generated bridge and interiors. Fast forward to now, the game has evolved greatly and received a Steam page with a detailed introduction about its gameplay and features. So let's take a closer look. The highlights of Loya include a walking fortress, giant bosses, exploration, defense, and multiplayer. In this game, players must defeat giants to collect their cores. In order to achieve this, you'll need to build and upgrade the walking fortresses and equip them with powerful weapons. The materials are not easily obtained; there will be fierce battles to get ready for. The vast open world in Loya appears vibrant, allowing you to explore it at your own pace. The walking fortress can not only walk but also fly, allowing you to ascend high into the air and navigate. Also, you can attach towers to it so it can automatically attack the enemies.JoyenIf you're impressed by the gigantic rocky Golem in the trailer, the solo developer has more great news: there will be four such giants, each on a unique biome. Whether you enjoy exploring and battling solo or prefer teaming up with friends, Loya provides the flexibility you need. You can play along with friends or connect to a dedicated server that holds up to 25 players or more. While sharing the new trailer, Joyen also noted that a playtest is underway, allowing testers to experience the complete first biome, which offers approximately 10 to 20 hours of gameplay. Other biomes include a snowy environment and a desert, with the last one to be revealed later. If Loya looks interesting to you, don't hesitate to add the game to your Steam wishlist and follow Joyen on X/Twitter to check out more in-game footage and receive future updates. Join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more. #check #out #first #gameplay #trailer

80.LV

Check Out The First Gameplay Trailer For An Upcoming Survival Crafter With A Walking, Buildable Fortress

Solo game developer Joyen has shared great news with the community. Loya, an open-world survival crafter with a walking, buildable fortress that they've been working on for the past seven years, has received its first gameplay trailer.Actually, back in 2022, this Unity project had attracted our attention with its procedurally generated bridge and interiors. Fast forward to now, the game has evolved greatly and received a Steam page with a detailed introduction about its gameplay and features. So let's take a closer look. The highlights of Loya include a walking fortress, giant bosses, exploration, defense, and multiplayer. In this game, players must defeat giants to collect their cores. In order to achieve this, you'll need to build and upgrade the walking fortresses and equip them with powerful weapons. The materials are not easily obtained; there will be fierce battles to get ready for. The vast open world in Loya appears vibrant, allowing you to explore it at your own pace. The walking fortress can not only walk but also fly, allowing you to ascend high into the air and navigate. Also, you can attach towers to it so it can automatically attack the enemies.JoyenIf you're impressed by the gigantic rocky Golem in the trailer, the solo developer has more great news: there will be four such giants, each on a unique biome. Whether you enjoy exploring and battling solo or prefer teaming up with friends, Loya provides the flexibility you need. You can play along with friends or connect to a dedicated server that holds up to 25 players or more. While sharing the new trailer, Joyen also noted that a playtest is underway, allowing testers to experience the complete first biome, which offers approximately 10 to 20 hours of gameplay. Other biomes include a snowy environment and a desert, with the last one to be revealed later. If Loya looks interesting to you, don't hesitate to add the game to your Steam wishlist and follow Joyen on X/Twitter to check out more in-game footage and receive future updates. Join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

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Electronic Arts shared a link

2025-06-05 09:23:42 ·

Real NFL Data Powers EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 to New Heights Featuring All New QB DNA and Coach DNA

"Madden NFL 26 delivers new AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres, each ‘Built from Sundays’ to produce the realest Madden to date.”

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.----
Electronic Arts Inc.and EA SPORTS™ today unveiled EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26, launching worldwide on August 14, 2025, for PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, and Epic Games Store. Powered by a new AI-driven machine learning system trained on nearly a decade of real NFL data, Madden NFL 26 introduces QB DNA and Coach DNA, delivering authentic quarterback behaviors and adaptive coaching strategies. Madden NFL 26 is “Built from Sundays” to produce the realest Madden to date through AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres.Justin Jefferson's authentic pre-game runout embodies team-specific NFL atmospheres coming to life in Madden NFL 26.“Madden NFL 26 represents a leap forward in delivering the authenticity and control our players crave,” said Daryl Holt, SVP and Group GM, EA SPORTS. “QB DNA and Coach DNA, combined with explosive movement and physics-based interactions, create the most lifelike NFL experience yet. With deeper modes and true-to-life presentation, Madden NFL 26 delivers an NFL experience that’s as close to the real thing as it gets.”Madden NFL 26 gameplay redefines NFL simulation with cutting-edge features powered by advanced physics and AI-powered machine learning systems:Coach DNA: Coaches employ real philosophies, backed by nearly a decade of NFL data, with styles like Dan Campbell's aggressive fourth-down calls and Kevin O'Connell's creative offense, adding strategic depth. Dynamic coach suggestions and multi-player counters provide smart play recommendations based on game situations and opponent tendencies, countering repetitive tactics.QB DNA: The most iconic position in sports comes to life with signature throwing motions, pocket presence, scrambling styles, authentic arm slots and more. An All-New traits system powers authentic behavior like you see every Sunday, from Josh Allen’s powerful arm to Lamar Jackson’s agile evasions. This is the most lifelike quarterback experience in franchise history.Explosive NFL Movement: Captures the league’s unmatched athleticism, letting you feel the raw power and precision of every burst. From game-changing cuts to electrifying runs, you create the impact that defines Sunday’s Superstars, putting you in control of gamechanging NFL speed.Physics Expansion: Physics-based interactions, including catch tackles, stiff-arms, and trucks, deliver authentic contact outcomes, while new mechanics like Custom Defensive Zones along with new knockouts and swats take pass coverage to a whole new level.Football Weather: Extreme weather impacts gameplay, with snow, fog, and wet conditions affecting visibility, movement, stamina, and ball security making weather an adversary just like Buffalo and Cleveland in January.Foundational Football: New mechanics, including Adaptive Coverage, enhanced D-line Stunts & Twists, and block steering, provide unparalleled realism across offense, defense, and special teams.Madden NFL 26 introduces a refreshed feature set that immerses players in the heart of the NFL, with deepened modes and engaging live content throughout the year:Presentation: Authentic NFL atmospheres come to life with team-specific run-outs, iconic crowd chants like Minnesota’s Skol, and Baltimore’s electrifying pre-game light show. Dynamic halftime shows, hosted by new addition Scott Hanson, and custom broadcast packages—now featuring primetime slots for Monday, Thursday and Sunday night matchups—produce a distinct look, sound and feel.Franchise: Build your legacy in style with new archetypes and gear for your custom coach or start from a real NFL coach. New features such as playsheets, Wear & Tear and Approval Ratings make every week a unique challenge. Scott Hanson's Weekly Recaps and Rich Eisen's commentary highlight a long list of upgrades to the fan favorite mode.Superstar: Import your EA SPORTS™ College Football 26 player or craft a new avatar, to progress through weekly storylines, master the Sphere of Influence system and achieve 99 OVR - all while balancing Wear & Tear and competing in live events.Madden Ultimate Team™: Build your dream roster with NFL legends and stars, tackle new dynamic MUT Events, and rise through 50-player Leaderboard Campaigns. NFL Team Pass delivers team-specific rewards across online modes, keeping programs fresh and offering ever-evolving ways to play with every new program.Roster Management: Strategically develop your roster to fit your scheme with modern Depth Chart positions including edge, long snapper, gadget players and more. Manage weekly performance with the new Wear and Tear system and Dynamic Substitutions.Fans who pre-order* the Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition by July 24 will receive perks including 3-day early access, 4600 Madden Points, an Elite Player Item, and more. The EA SPORTS™ MVP Bundle includes deluxe editions of Madden NFL 26 and EA SPORTS™ College Football 26, with additional rewards across both titles*.EA Play members will get a 10-hour Early Access Trial starting August 11th†. EA Play Pro members will enjoy unlimited access to the EA Play Pro Edition† of the game, and get up to 6,000 Madden Points, Player and Strategy Items and more. All EA Play members can score rewards such as monthly Ultimate Team™ Packs, as well as receive 10% off Electronic Arts digital content including game downloads, Season Passes, and DLC for certain titles.Stay tuned for more Madden NFL 26 details on the official Madden NFL website and social media.*Conditions & restrictions apply.
See for details.
†Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See EA Play Terms for details.For Madden NFL 26 assets, visit: EAPressPortal.com.Madden NFL 26 is developed in Orlando, Florida and Madrid, Spain by EA SPORTS and will be available worldwide August 14 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, Epic Games StoreAbout Electronic ArtsElectronic Artsis a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company develops and delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, mobile devices and personal computers.In fiscal year 2025, EA posted GAAP net revenue of approximately billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for a portfolio of critically acclaimed, high-quality brands such as EA SPORTS FC™, Battlefield™, Apex Legends™, The Sims™, EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL, EA SPORTS™ College Football, Need for Speed™, Dragon Age™, Titanfall™, Plants vs. Zombies™ and EA SPORTS F1®. More information about EA is available at www.ea.com/news.EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS FC, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Apex Legends, The Sims, Dragon Age, Titanfall, and Plants vs. Zombies are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. John Madden, NFL, and F1 are the property of their respective owners and used with permission.Category: EA Sports

Erin Exum
Director, Integrated Comms
#real #nfl #data #powers #sports

Real NFL Data Powers EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 to New Heights Featuring All New QB DNA and Coach DNA
"Madden NFL 26 delivers new AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres, each ‘Built from Sundays’ to produce the realest Madden to date.” REDWOOD CITY, Calif.---- Electronic Arts Inc.and EA SPORTS™ today unveiled EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26, launching worldwide on August 14, 2025, for PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, and Epic Games Store. Powered by a new AI-driven machine learning system trained on nearly a decade of real NFL data, Madden NFL 26 introduces QB DNA and Coach DNA, delivering authentic quarterback behaviors and adaptive coaching strategies. Madden NFL 26 is “Built from Sundays” to produce the realest Madden to date through AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres.Justin Jefferson's authentic pre-game runout embodies team-specific NFL atmospheres coming to life in Madden NFL 26.“Madden NFL 26 represents a leap forward in delivering the authenticity and control our players crave,” said Daryl Holt, SVP and Group GM, EA SPORTS. “QB DNA and Coach DNA, combined with explosive movement and physics-based interactions, create the most lifelike NFL experience yet. With deeper modes and true-to-life presentation, Madden NFL 26 delivers an NFL experience that’s as close to the real thing as it gets.”Madden NFL 26 gameplay redefines NFL simulation with cutting-edge features powered by advanced physics and AI-powered machine learning systems:Coach DNA: Coaches employ real philosophies, backed by nearly a decade of NFL data, with styles like Dan Campbell's aggressive fourth-down calls and Kevin O'Connell's creative offense, adding strategic depth. Dynamic coach suggestions and multi-player counters provide smart play recommendations based on game situations and opponent tendencies, countering repetitive tactics.QB DNA: The most iconic position in sports comes to life with signature throwing motions, pocket presence, scrambling styles, authentic arm slots and more. An All-New traits system powers authentic behavior like you see every Sunday, from Josh Allen’s powerful arm to Lamar Jackson’s agile evasions. This is the most lifelike quarterback experience in franchise history.Explosive NFL Movement: Captures the league’s unmatched athleticism, letting you feel the raw power and precision of every burst. From game-changing cuts to electrifying runs, you create the impact that defines Sunday’s Superstars, putting you in control of gamechanging NFL speed.Physics Expansion: Physics-based interactions, including catch tackles, stiff-arms, and trucks, deliver authentic contact outcomes, while new mechanics like Custom Defensive Zones along with new knockouts and swats take pass coverage to a whole new level.Football Weather: Extreme weather impacts gameplay, with snow, fog, and wet conditions affecting visibility, movement, stamina, and ball security making weather an adversary just like Buffalo and Cleveland in January.Foundational Football: New mechanics, including Adaptive Coverage, enhanced D-line Stunts & Twists, and block steering, provide unparalleled realism across offense, defense, and special teams.Madden NFL 26 introduces a refreshed feature set that immerses players in the heart of the NFL, with deepened modes and engaging live content throughout the year:Presentation: Authentic NFL atmospheres come to life with team-specific run-outs, iconic crowd chants like Minnesota’s Skol, and Baltimore’s electrifying pre-game light show. Dynamic halftime shows, hosted by new addition Scott Hanson, and custom broadcast packages—now featuring primetime slots for Monday, Thursday and Sunday night matchups—produce a distinct look, sound and feel.Franchise: Build your legacy in style with new archetypes and gear for your custom coach or start from a real NFL coach. New features such as playsheets, Wear & Tear and Approval Ratings make every week a unique challenge. Scott Hanson's Weekly Recaps and Rich Eisen's commentary highlight a long list of upgrades to the fan favorite mode.Superstar: Import your EA SPORTS™ College Football 26 player or craft a new avatar, to progress through weekly storylines, master the Sphere of Influence system and achieve 99 OVR - all while balancing Wear & Tear and competing in live events.Madden Ultimate Team™: Build your dream roster with NFL legends and stars, tackle new dynamic MUT Events, and rise through 50-player Leaderboard Campaigns. NFL Team Pass delivers team-specific rewards across online modes, keeping programs fresh and offering ever-evolving ways to play with every new program.Roster Management: Strategically develop your roster to fit your scheme with modern Depth Chart positions including edge, long snapper, gadget players and more. Manage weekly performance with the new Wear and Tear system and Dynamic Substitutions.Fans who pre-order* the Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition by July 24 will receive perks including 3-day early access, 4600 Madden Points, an Elite Player Item, and more. The EA SPORTS™ MVP Bundle includes deluxe editions of Madden NFL 26 and EA SPORTS™ College Football 26, with additional rewards across both titles*.EA Play members will get a 10-hour Early Access Trial starting August 11th†. EA Play Pro members will enjoy unlimited access to the EA Play Pro Edition† of the game, and get up to 6,000 Madden Points, Player and Strategy Items and more. All EA Play members can score rewards such as monthly Ultimate Team™ Packs, as well as receive 10% off Electronic Arts digital content including game downloads, Season Passes, and DLC for certain titles.Stay tuned for more Madden NFL 26 details on the official Madden NFL website and social media.*Conditions & restrictions apply. See for details. †Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See EA Play Terms for details.For Madden NFL 26 assets, visit: EAPressPortal.com.Madden NFL 26 is developed in Orlando, Florida and Madrid, Spain by EA SPORTS and will be available worldwide August 14 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, Epic Games StoreAbout Electronic ArtsElectronic Artsis a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company develops and delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, mobile devices and personal computers.In fiscal year 2025, EA posted GAAP net revenue of approximately billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for a portfolio of critically acclaimed, high-quality brands such as EA SPORTS FC™, Battlefield™, Apex Legends™, The Sims™, EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL, EA SPORTS™ College Football, Need for Speed™, Dragon Age™, Titanfall™, Plants vs. Zombies™ and EA SPORTS F1®. More information about EA is available at www.ea.com/news.EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS FC, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Apex Legends, The Sims, Dragon Age, Titanfall, and Plants vs. Zombies are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. John Madden, NFL, and F1 are the property of their respective owners and used with permission.Category: EA Sports Erin Exum Director, Integrated Comms #real #nfl #data #powers #sports

NEWS.EA.COM

Real NFL Data Powers EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 to New Heights Featuring All New QB DNA and Coach DNA

"Madden NFL 26 delivers new AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres, each ‘Built from Sundays’ to produce the realest Madden to date.” REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) and EA SPORTS™ today unveiled EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26, launching worldwide on August 14, 2025, for PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, and Epic Games Store. Powered by a new AI-driven machine learning system trained on nearly a decade of real NFL data, Madden NFL 26 introduces QB DNA and Coach DNA, delivering authentic quarterback behaviors and adaptive coaching strategies. Madden NFL 26 is “Built from Sundays” to produce the realest Madden to date through AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres.Justin Jefferson's authentic pre-game runout embodies team-specific NFL atmospheres coming to life in Madden NFL 26.“Madden NFL 26 represents a leap forward in delivering the authenticity and control our players crave,” said Daryl Holt, SVP and Group GM, EA SPORTS. “QB DNA and Coach DNA, combined with explosive movement and physics-based interactions, create the most lifelike NFL experience yet. With deeper modes and true-to-life presentation, Madden NFL 26 delivers an NFL experience that’s as close to the real thing as it gets.”Madden NFL 26 gameplay redefines NFL simulation with cutting-edge features powered by advanced physics and AI-powered machine learning systems:Coach DNA: Coaches employ real philosophies, backed by nearly a decade of NFL data, with styles like Dan Campbell's aggressive fourth-down calls and Kevin O'Connell's creative offense, adding strategic depth. Dynamic coach suggestions and multi-player counters provide smart play recommendations based on game situations and opponent tendencies, countering repetitive tactics.QB DNA: The most iconic position in sports comes to life with signature throwing motions, pocket presence, scrambling styles, authentic arm slots and more. An All-New traits system powers authentic behavior like you see every Sunday, from Josh Allen’s powerful arm to Lamar Jackson’s agile evasions. This is the most lifelike quarterback experience in franchise history.Explosive NFL Movement: Captures the league’s unmatched athleticism, letting you feel the raw power and precision of every burst. From game-changing cuts to electrifying runs, you create the impact that defines Sunday’s Superstars, putting you in control of gamechanging NFL speed.Physics Expansion: Physics-based interactions, including catch tackles, stiff-arms, and trucks, deliver authentic contact outcomes, while new mechanics like Custom Defensive Zones along with new knockouts and swats take pass coverage to a whole new level.Football Weather: Extreme weather impacts gameplay, with snow, fog, and wet conditions affecting visibility, movement, stamina, and ball security making weather an adversary just like Buffalo and Cleveland in January.Foundational Football: New mechanics, including Adaptive Coverage, enhanced D-line Stunts & Twists, and block steering, provide unparalleled realism across offense, defense, and special teams.Madden NFL 26 introduces a refreshed feature set that immerses players in the heart of the NFL, with deepened modes and engaging live content throughout the year:Presentation: Authentic NFL atmospheres come to life with team-specific run-outs, iconic crowd chants like Minnesota’s Skol, and Baltimore’s electrifying pre-game light show. Dynamic halftime shows, hosted by new addition Scott Hanson, and custom broadcast packages—now featuring primetime slots for Monday, Thursday and Sunday night matchups—produce a distinct look, sound and feel.Franchise: Build your legacy in style with new archetypes and gear for your custom coach or start from a real NFL coach. New features such as playsheets, Wear & Tear and Approval Ratings make every week a unique challenge. Scott Hanson's Weekly Recaps and Rich Eisen's commentary highlight a long list of upgrades to the fan favorite mode.Superstar: Import your EA SPORTS™ College Football 26 player or craft a new avatar, to progress through weekly storylines, master the Sphere of Influence system and achieve 99 OVR - all while balancing Wear & Tear and competing in live events.Madden Ultimate Team™: Build your dream roster with NFL legends and stars, tackle new dynamic MUT Events, and rise through 50-player Leaderboard Campaigns. NFL Team Pass delivers team-specific rewards across online modes, keeping programs fresh and offering ever-evolving ways to play with every new program.Roster Management: Strategically develop your roster to fit your scheme with modern Depth Chart positions including edge, long snapper, gadget players and more. Manage weekly performance with the new Wear and Tear system and Dynamic Substitutions.Fans who pre-order* the Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition by July 24 will receive perks including 3-day early access, 4600 Madden Points, an Elite Player Item, and more. The EA SPORTS™ MVP Bundle includes deluxe editions of Madden NFL 26 and EA SPORTS™ College Football 26, with additional rewards across both titles*.EA Play members will get a 10-hour Early Access Trial starting August 11th†. EA Play Pro members will enjoy unlimited access to the EA Play Pro Edition† of the game, and get up to 6,000 Madden Points, Player and Strategy Items and more. All EA Play members can score rewards such as monthly Ultimate Team™ Packs, as well as receive 10% off Electronic Arts digital content including game downloads, Season Passes, and DLC for certain titles.Stay tuned for more Madden NFL 26 details on the official Madden NFL website and social media (Instagram, X, TikTok, and YouTube).*Conditions & restrictions apply. See https://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl/madden-nfl-26/legal-disclaimers for details. †Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See EA Play Terms for details.For Madden NFL 26 assets, visit: EAPressPortal.com.Madden NFL 26 is developed in Orlando, Florida and Madrid, Spain by EA SPORTS and will be available worldwide August 14 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, Epic Games StoreAbout Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA) is a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company develops and delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, mobile devices and personal computers.In fiscal year 2025, EA posted GAAP net revenue of approximately $7.5 billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for a portfolio of critically acclaimed, high-quality brands such as EA SPORTS FC™, Battlefield™, Apex Legends™, The Sims™, EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL, EA SPORTS™ College Football, Need for Speed™, Dragon Age™, Titanfall™, Plants vs. Zombies™ and EA SPORTS F1®. More information about EA is available at www.ea.com/news.EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS FC, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Apex Legends, The Sims, Dragon Age, Titanfall, and Plants vs. Zombies are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. John Madden, NFL, and F1 are the property of their respective owners and used with permission.Category: EA Sports Erin Exum Director, Integrated Comms [email protected] Source: Electronic Arts Inc.

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Hitmarker | Gaming Jobs shared a link

2025-06-05 09:11:23 ·

BI Developer at SciPlay

BI DeveloperSciPlayISRAEL-Tel Aviv-2A Jabotinsky Israel2 hours agoApplySciPlay is a leading developer and publisher of digital games on mobile and web platforms, providing highly entertaining free-to-play games that millions of people play every day for their authenticity, engagement and fun. SciPlay currently offers nine core games, including social casino games Jackpot Party Casino, Gold Fish Casino Slots, Hot Shot Casino and Quick Hit Slots, and casual games MONOPOLY Slots, Bingo Showdown, 88 Fortunes Slots, Backgammon Live and Solitaire Pet Adventure with offices all over the world! Position Summary We're looking for a BI Developer to join our global team and work on our massive data processing pipeline and help us deliver insights. If you have a passion for data, you embrace an agile, success-driven culture, are an excellent communicator, we would love to talk soon. Responsibilities: Pull data from various data sources and integrate into the ETL process Optimize workloads to reduce cost and improve performance Develop monitoring over BI infrastructure Translate business requirements to technical specifications Work closely with Product analysts, Marketing, Data Scientists and Finance to deliver insights Design and own our DWH Work with a variety of databasesMonitor the integrity and validity of the data Design and develop data visualizationsMaintain our PlatformsRequirements: 2 years of experience in a BI Development role Experience with ETL processes Proficient in SQL Experience in Tableau Experience with Snowflake - Advantage Experience in DWH Design - Advantage Experience with workflow managers such as Airflow – Advantage Good communication skills in English SciPlay is a leading developer and publisher of digital games on mobile and web platforms, providing highly entertaining free-to-play games that millions of people play every day for their authenticity, engagement and fun. SciPlay currently offers nine core games, including social casino games Jackpot Party Casino, Gold Fish Casino Slots, Hot Shot Casino and Quick Hit Slots, and casual games MONOPOLY Slots, Bingo Showdown, 88 Fortunes Slots, Backgammon Live and Solitaire Pet Adventure with offices all over the world! At SciPlay, your safety is our top priority, and we want to alert you to an increase in fraudulent job postings. These scams often use a company’s name and branding to lure applicants into providing sensitive information or paying fees. To protect yourself: • Use trusted job platforms: Only apply for jobs through reputable job platforms and our official company career site www.sciplay.com/careers. • Be cautious of requests for money: SciPlay will never ask you to send money or pay any fees in connection with a job offer. • Report suspicious activity: If you encounter a job posting that seems suspicious or receive communication requesting payment, please report it to us immediately at responsiblereporting@lnw.com Please stay vigilant and protect yourself from potential scams. If anyone claiming to represent SciPlay asks for payment, report it to us promptly.

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BI Developer at SciPlay
BI DeveloperSciPlayISRAEL-Tel Aviv-2A Jabotinsky Israel2 hours agoApplySciPlay is a leading developer and publisher of digital games on mobile and web platforms, providing highly entertaining free-to-play games that millions of people play every day for their authenticity, engagement and fun. SciPlay currently offers nine core games, including social casino games Jackpot Party Casino, Gold Fish Casino Slots, Hot Shot Casino and Quick Hit Slots, and casual games MONOPOLY Slots, Bingo Showdown, 88 Fortunes Slots, Backgammon Live and Solitaire Pet Adventure with offices all over the world! Position Summary We're looking for a BI Developer to join our global team and work on our massive data processing pipeline and help us deliver insights. If you have a passion for data, you embrace an agile, success-driven culture, are an excellent communicator, we would love to talk soon. Responsibilities: Pull data from various data sources and integrate into the ETL process Optimize workloads to reduce cost and improve performance Develop monitoring over BI infrastructure Translate business requirements to technical specifications Work closely with Product analysts, Marketing, Data Scientists and Finance to deliver insights Design and own our DWH Work with a variety of databasesMonitor the integrity and validity of the data Design and develop data visualizationsMaintain our PlatformsRequirements: 2 years of experience in a BI Development role Experience with ETL processes Proficient in SQL Experience in Tableau Experience with Snowflake - Advantage Experience in DWH Design - Advantage Experience with workflow managers such as Airflow – Advantage Good communication skills in English SciPlay is a leading developer and publisher of digital games on mobile and web platforms, providing highly entertaining free-to-play games that millions of people play every day for their authenticity, engagement and fun. SciPlay currently offers nine core games, including social casino games Jackpot Party Casino, Gold Fish Casino Slots, Hot Shot Casino and Quick Hit Slots, and casual games MONOPOLY Slots, Bingo Showdown, 88 Fortunes Slots, Backgammon Live and Solitaire Pet Adventure with offices all over the world! At SciPlay, your safety is our top priority, and we want to alert you to an increase in fraudulent job postings. These scams often use a company’s name and branding to lure applicants into providing sensitive information or paying fees. To protect yourself: • Use trusted job platforms: Only apply for jobs through reputable job platforms and our official company career site www.sciplay.com/careers. • Be cautious of requests for money: SciPlay will never ask you to send money or pay any fees in connection with a job offer. • Report suspicious activity: If you encounter a job posting that seems suspicious or receive communication requesting payment, please report it to us immediately at responsiblereporting@lnw.com Please stay vigilant and protect yourself from potential scams. If anyone claiming to represent SciPlay asks for payment, report it to us promptly. Create Your Profile — Game companies can contact you with their relevant job openings. Apply #developer #sciplay

GAMEJOBS.CO

BI Developer at SciPlay

BI DeveloperSciPlayISRAEL-Tel Aviv-2A Jabotinsky Israel2 hours agoApplySciPlay is a leading developer and publisher of digital games on mobile and web platforms, providing highly entertaining free-to-play games that millions of people play every day for their authenticity, engagement and fun. SciPlay currently offers nine core games, including social casino games Jackpot Party Casino, Gold Fish Casino Slots, Hot Shot Casino and Quick Hit Slots, and casual games MONOPOLY Slots, Bingo Showdown, 88 Fortunes Slots, Backgammon Live and Solitaire Pet Adventure with offices all over the world! Position Summary We're looking for a BI Developer to join our global team and work on our massive data processing pipeline and help us deliver insights. If you have a passion for data, you embrace an agile, success-driven culture, are an excellent communicator, we would love to talk soon. Responsibilities: Pull data from various data sources and integrate into the ETL process Optimize workloads to reduce cost and improve performance Develop monitoring over BI infrastructure Translate business requirements to technical specifications Work closely with Product analysts, Marketing, Data Scientists and Finance to deliver insights Design and own our DWH Work with a variety of databases (Redshift, Snowflake, Databricks, MySQL) Monitor the integrity and validity of the data Design and develop data visualizations (Tableau) Maintain our Platforms (Snowflake, Tableau etc.) Requirements: 2 years of experience in a BI Development role Experience with ETL processes Proficient in SQL Experience in Tableau Experience with Snowflake - Advantage Experience in DWH Design - Advantage Experience with workflow managers such as Airflow – Advantage Good communication skills in English SciPlay is a leading developer and publisher of digital games on mobile and web platforms, providing highly entertaining free-to-play games that millions of people play every day for their authenticity, engagement and fun. SciPlay currently offers nine core games, including social casino games Jackpot Party Casino, Gold Fish Casino Slots, Hot Shot Casino and Quick Hit Slots, and casual games MONOPOLY Slots, Bingo Showdown, 88 Fortunes Slots, Backgammon Live and Solitaire Pet Adventure with offices all over the world! At SciPlay, your safety is our top priority, and we want to alert you to an increase in fraudulent job postings. These scams often use a company’s name and branding to lure applicants into providing sensitive information or paying fees. To protect yourself: • Use trusted job platforms: Only apply for jobs through reputable job platforms and our official company career site www.sciplay.com/careers. • Be cautious of requests for money: SciPlay will never ask you to send money or pay any fees in connection with a job offer. • Report suspicious activity: If you encounter a job posting that seems suspicious or receive communication requesting payment, please report it to us immediately at responsiblereporting@lnw.com Please stay vigilant and protect yourself from potential scams. If anyone claiming to represent SciPlay asks for payment, report it to us promptly. Create Your Profile — Game companies can contact you with their relevant job openings. Apply

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2025-06-05 08:34:39 ·

Mario Kart World review in progress – not the game you thought it was

Mario Kart World comes at you fastAfter a dozen hours with the biggest game on Nintendo Switch 2, GameCentral tries to evaluate the surprisingly controversial new Mario Kart game.
It’s very obvious why Mario Kart World is the main launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2: it’s been over a decade since the last one and Mario Kart 8 is one of the best-selling video games of all-time. Much of that success is due to the innate simplicity of the concept and the easy accessibility of its controls, so it’s surprising that Mario Kart World has been so difficult for people to get their heads around.
We’ve played it three times now, for increasingly long lengths of time, the previous time being at a press event with a host of other journos. But now that we have a Nintendo Switch 2 of our own, we’ve been able to spend even longer exploring the game at our leisure and we’ve come to the conclusion that Nintendo’s marketing for the game is doing it a disservice.
It emphasises the fact that the game has a massive open world but as soon as you start playing, it becomes obvious that the designers must consider that to be a relatively minor part of the game. Or at least the idea that you can roam around at will, looking for secrets. You can do that, but despite what we and many others assumed it’s very much a side activity.
This is made obvious by the fact that the option to free roam is not part of the main menu for the game, instead there’s an easily missed prompt to press the ‘+’ button and explore the open world at will. This is a lot of fun, because the open world is phenomenally well designed – full of secret pathways and tempting scenery to jump off and grind on – but what’s putting people off is there’s very little structured gameplay for it.
There are a variety of objects to look out for – such as P-switches, ? panels, and special medallions – but all they do is unlock small stickers you can customise your vehicle with. The P-switches activate missions, which are the most complex activity, but most of the time they involve simply collecting blue coins or competing in a mini-race.
There are a few more unusual examples but most barely last 60 seconds, when you beat them, and that’s as complicated as the open world gameplay ever gets. It is enjoyable, and we’ve spent many happy hours already searching for secrets, but there’s no question that the open world feels underutilised – an afterthought almost.

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Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.

Although other AI racers can occasionally be seen driving around you can’t interact with them, there’s no story or dialogue, and no complex mission scenarios. What’s more, you can’t meet random online players in the open world and even if you invite friends all you can do is take photos with them.
You can choose to start one of the other modes from within the open world but we’re very surprised that you can’t set up your own point-to-point races. Instead, all you can do is create a custom Grand Prix by choosing which track to go to once each one ends.
We point all this out because these details weren’t clear beforehand and because it’s almost certainly going to be the main complaint against the game. But while it is certainly a missed opportunity, it doesn’t negatively affect the actual focus of the game.
It seems that the ability to free roam is intended as essentially a bonus. The real changes to the game are in terms of the nature of the tracks, which rather than being a succession of completely unconnected circuits all flow from one to another. Often they’re not circuits at all, but linear races from one point to another, as you work your way across the world map.
Since they’re all in the same corner of the world, a Grand Prix often has a consistent theme, such as snowy or desert levels, and specific elements, like dinosaurs or boos, can appear at the beginning and end of adjoining tracks, reinforcing the impression that it’s all one giant race.

The graphics are very impressiveThat concept seems to have come first and the open world followed, even though technically it’s not needed – or at least not to the level of detail that Nintendo has gone with. But either way, the courses in Mario Kart World are excellent, with wildly different designs even for returning tracks.
The new ones are especially good though, with Boo Cinema, where you travel through the screen and into the film itself, being our current favourite. Although the ones with Wave Race 64 style water physics are also all uniformly excellent.
The action may seem similar in video clips but it’s really quite different to Mario Kart 8. And not just because of the wider roads, new enemies, and the fact that there’s now 24 racers on every track. There’s now far more shortcuts and alternate routes, which seems like it should end up making races feel disjointed and unbalanced but it doesn’t, thanks to the levelling effect of items and the fact that sooner or later everyone is still being funnelled down the same path.
The abundance of point-to-point races is a significant change to the Mario Kart norm and not only does it spice up Grand Prix mode but it allows for the superb Knockout Tour. This is a far more significant addition than free roam, even though it’s a simple sudden death mode, where you have to reach a certain position by the end of a track or you’re out of the game.
In Grand Prix you can try and make up for a bad performance in the next race but with Knockout the tension is sky high throughout, and it works brilliantly, especially online.
When we started playing the game, on Wednesday afternoon, there were only a handful online, but over the course of Thursday morning the matches became full and everything came alive. Playing against 23 other humans also helps to emphasise the fact that while Mario Kart World does make certain things easier – like automatically holding items behind you as a shield or allowing for a little more leeway when escaping shells – this is absolutely still a game of skill.
Playing online, we could see the same names consistently doing well and ourselves… enjoying the mid-table mediocrity that we usually do, when faced with talented opposition. Not that that ever put us off.
On the contrary, we spent almost every match grinning inanely at the sheer Mario Kart-ness of it all. We will still need to play more to do a full review though – we haven’t played a lot on 150cc yet and we only got an hour or two with the online. However, at this point we do feel we’ve seen the basics of what the game is.

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It’s a strange one to be sure, in what is usually one of Nintendo’s most straightforward franchises, but while anyone can look at the open world and think of a dozen other things that could’ve been done with it, the actual racing is top notch. Mechanically it’s not significantly different from Mario Kart 8 but then the series is not a very malleable one, and this does as much as it can to mix things up – and all without resorting to gimmicks.
In terms of a score, we’re not looking at a 10/10. Mario Kart World is many things but it’s not perfect, not like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. We’ll have to spend more time with it to determine if it suits an 8 or 9/10 but longevity has never been a problem for the series, so we imagine it’ll be the higher of the two.
Given how late Nintendo was in sending out consoles that’s all we can say for now but while this is not quite the game many will have been expecting, and it does leave a lot on the table, it’s still an excellent game and a great introduction to the Switch 2.
Formats: Nintendo Switch 2Price: £74.99or £66.99Publisher: NintendoDeveloper: Nintendo EPDRelease Date: 5th June 2025Age Rating: 3

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#mario #kart #world #review #progress

Mario Kart World review in progress – not the game you thought it was
Mario Kart World comes at you fastAfter a dozen hours with the biggest game on Nintendo Switch 2, GameCentral tries to evaluate the surprisingly controversial new Mario Kart game. It’s very obvious why Mario Kart World is the main launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2: it’s been over a decade since the last one and Mario Kart 8 is one of the best-selling video games of all-time. Much of that success is due to the innate simplicity of the concept and the easy accessibility of its controls, so it’s surprising that Mario Kart World has been so difficult for people to get their heads around. We’ve played it three times now, for increasingly long lengths of time, the previous time being at a press event with a host of other journos. But now that we have a Nintendo Switch 2 of our own, we’ve been able to spend even longer exploring the game at our leisure and we’ve come to the conclusion that Nintendo’s marketing for the game is doing it a disservice. It emphasises the fact that the game has a massive open world but as soon as you start playing, it becomes obvious that the designers must consider that to be a relatively minor part of the game. Or at least the idea that you can roam around at will, looking for secrets. You can do that, but despite what we and many others assumed it’s very much a side activity. This is made obvious by the fact that the option to free roam is not part of the main menu for the game, instead there’s an easily missed prompt to press the ‘+’ button and explore the open world at will. This is a lot of fun, because the open world is phenomenally well designed – full of secret pathways and tempting scenery to jump off and grind on – but what’s putting people off is there’s very little structured gameplay for it. There are a variety of objects to look out for – such as P-switches, ? panels, and special medallions – but all they do is unlock small stickers you can customise your vehicle with. The P-switches activate missions, which are the most complex activity, but most of the time they involve simply collecting blue coins or competing in a mini-race. There are a few more unusual examples but most barely last 60 seconds, when you beat them, and that’s as complicated as the open world gameplay ever gets. It is enjoyable, and we’ve spent many happy hours already searching for secrets, but there’s no question that the open world feels underutilised – an afterthought almost. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Although other AI racers can occasionally be seen driving around you can’t interact with them, there’s no story or dialogue, and no complex mission scenarios. What’s more, you can’t meet random online players in the open world and even if you invite friends all you can do is take photos with them. You can choose to start one of the other modes from within the open world but we’re very surprised that you can’t set up your own point-to-point races. Instead, all you can do is create a custom Grand Prix by choosing which track to go to once each one ends. We point all this out because these details weren’t clear beforehand and because it’s almost certainly going to be the main complaint against the game. But while it is certainly a missed opportunity, it doesn’t negatively affect the actual focus of the game. It seems that the ability to free roam is intended as essentially a bonus. The real changes to the game are in terms of the nature of the tracks, which rather than being a succession of completely unconnected circuits all flow from one to another. Often they’re not circuits at all, but linear races from one point to another, as you work your way across the world map. Since they’re all in the same corner of the world, a Grand Prix often has a consistent theme, such as snowy or desert levels, and specific elements, like dinosaurs or boos, can appear at the beginning and end of adjoining tracks, reinforcing the impression that it’s all one giant race. The graphics are very impressiveThat concept seems to have come first and the open world followed, even though technically it’s not needed – or at least not to the level of detail that Nintendo has gone with. But either way, the courses in Mario Kart World are excellent, with wildly different designs even for returning tracks. The new ones are especially good though, with Boo Cinema, where you travel through the screen and into the film itself, being our current favourite. Although the ones with Wave Race 64 style water physics are also all uniformly excellent. The action may seem similar in video clips but it’s really quite different to Mario Kart 8. And not just because of the wider roads, new enemies, and the fact that there’s now 24 racers on every track. There’s now far more shortcuts and alternate routes, which seems like it should end up making races feel disjointed and unbalanced but it doesn’t, thanks to the levelling effect of items and the fact that sooner or later everyone is still being funnelled down the same path. The abundance of point-to-point races is a significant change to the Mario Kart norm and not only does it spice up Grand Prix mode but it allows for the superb Knockout Tour. This is a far more significant addition than free roam, even though it’s a simple sudden death mode, where you have to reach a certain position by the end of a track or you’re out of the game. In Grand Prix you can try and make up for a bad performance in the next race but with Knockout the tension is sky high throughout, and it works brilliantly, especially online. When we started playing the game, on Wednesday afternoon, there were only a handful online, but over the course of Thursday morning the matches became full and everything came alive. Playing against 23 other humans also helps to emphasise the fact that while Mario Kart World does make certain things easier – like automatically holding items behind you as a shield or allowing for a little more leeway when escaping shells – this is absolutely still a game of skill. Playing online, we could see the same names consistently doing well and ourselves… enjoying the mid-table mediocrity that we usually do, when faced with talented opposition. Not that that ever put us off. On the contrary, we spent almost every match grinning inanely at the sheer Mario Kart-ness of it all. We will still need to play more to do a full review though – we haven’t played a lot on 150cc yet and we only got an hour or two with the online. However, at this point we do feel we’ve seen the basics of what the game is. More Trending It’s a strange one to be sure, in what is usually one of Nintendo’s most straightforward franchises, but while anyone can look at the open world and think of a dozen other things that could’ve been done with it, the actual racing is top notch. Mechanically it’s not significantly different from Mario Kart 8 but then the series is not a very malleable one, and this does as much as it can to mix things up – and all without resorting to gimmicks. In terms of a score, we’re not looking at a 10/10. Mario Kart World is many things but it’s not perfect, not like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. We’ll have to spend more time with it to determine if it suits an 8 or 9/10 but longevity has never been a problem for the series, so we imagine it’ll be the higher of the two. Given how late Nintendo was in sending out consoles that’s all we can say for now but while this is not quite the game many will have been expecting, and it does leave a lot on the table, it’s still an excellent game and a great introduction to the Switch 2. Formats: Nintendo Switch 2Price: £74.99or £66.99Publisher: NintendoDeveloper: Nintendo EPDRelease Date: 5th June 2025Age Rating: 3 There’s unlockable costumes for all the named charactersEmail gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy #mario #kart #world #review #progress

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Mario Kart World review in progress – not the game you thought it was

Mario Kart World comes at you fast (Nintendo) After a dozen hours with the biggest game on Nintendo Switch 2, GameCentral tries to evaluate the surprisingly controversial new Mario Kart game. It’s very obvious why Mario Kart World is the main launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2: it’s been over a decade since the last one and Mario Kart 8 is one of the best-selling video games of all-time. Much of that success is due to the innate simplicity of the concept and the easy accessibility of its controls, so it’s surprising that Mario Kart World has been so difficult for people to get their heads around. We’ve played it three times now, for increasingly long lengths of time, the previous time being at a press event with a host of other journos. But now that we have a Nintendo Switch 2 of our own, we’ve been able to spend even longer exploring the game at our leisure and we’ve come to the conclusion that Nintendo’s marketing for the game is doing it a disservice. It emphasises the fact that the game has a massive open world but as soon as you start playing, it becomes obvious that the designers must consider that to be a relatively minor part of the game. Or at least the idea that you can roam around at will, looking for secrets. You can do that, but despite what we and many others assumed it’s very much a side activity. This is made obvious by the fact that the option to free roam is not part of the main menu for the game, instead there’s an easily missed prompt to press the ‘+’ button and explore the open world at will. This is a lot of fun, because the open world is phenomenally well designed – full of secret pathways and tempting scenery to jump off and grind on – but what’s putting people off is there’s very little structured gameplay for it. There are a variety of objects to look out for – such as P-switches, ? panels, and special medallions – but all they do is unlock small stickers you can customise your vehicle with. The P-switches activate missions, which are the most complex activity, but most of the time they involve simply collecting blue coins or competing in a mini-race. There are a few more unusual examples but most barely last 60 seconds, when you beat them, and that’s as complicated as the open world gameplay ever gets. It is enjoyable, and we’ve spent many happy hours already searching for secrets, but there’s no question that the open world feels underutilised – an afterthought almost. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Although other AI racers can occasionally be seen driving around you can’t interact with them, there’s no story or dialogue, and no complex mission scenarios. What’s more, you can’t meet random online players in the open world and even if you invite friends all you can do is take photos with them. You can choose to start one of the other modes from within the open world but we’re very surprised that you can’t set up your own point-to-point races (which would surely have been perfect for the mouse controls of the new Joy-Cons). Instead, all you can do is create a custom Grand Prix by choosing which track to go to once each one ends. We point all this out because these details weren’t clear beforehand and because it’s almost certainly going to be the main complaint against the game. But while it is certainly a missed opportunity, it doesn’t negatively affect the actual focus of the game. It seems that the ability to free roam is intended as essentially a bonus. The real changes to the game are in terms of the nature of the tracks, which rather than being a succession of completely unconnected circuits all flow from one to another. Often they’re not circuits at all, but linear races from one point to another, as you work your way across the world map. Since they’re all in the same corner of the world, a Grand Prix often has a consistent theme, such as snowy or desert levels, and specific elements, like dinosaurs or boos, can appear at the beginning and end of adjoining tracks, reinforcing the impression that it’s all one giant race (these sections are removed for Time Trials). The graphics are very impressive (Nintendo) That concept seems to have come first and the open world followed, even though technically it’s not needed – or at least not to the level of detail that Nintendo has gone with. But either way, the courses in Mario Kart World are excellent, with wildly different designs even for returning tracks. The new ones are especially good though, with Boo Cinema, where you travel through the screen and into the film itself, being our current favourite. Although the ones with Wave Race 64 style water physics are also all uniformly excellent. The action may seem similar in video clips but it’s really quite different to Mario Kart 8. And not just because of the wider roads, new enemies, and the fact that there’s now 24 racers on every track. There’s now far more shortcuts and alternate routes, which seems like it should end up making races feel disjointed and unbalanced but it doesn’t, thanks to the levelling effect of items and the fact that sooner or later everyone is still being funnelled down the same path. The abundance of point-to-point races is a significant change to the Mario Kart norm and not only does it spice up Grand Prix mode but it allows for the superb Knockout Tour. This is a far more significant addition than free roam, even though it’s a simple sudden death mode, where you have to reach a certain position by the end of a track or you’re out of the game. In Grand Prix you can try and make up for a bad performance in the next race but with Knockout the tension is sky high throughout, and it works brilliantly, especially online. When we started playing the game, on Wednesday afternoon, there were only a handful online, but over the course of Thursday morning the matches became full and everything came alive. Playing against 23 other humans also helps to emphasise the fact that while Mario Kart World does make certain things easier – like automatically holding items behind you as a shield or allowing for a little more leeway when escaping shells – this is absolutely still a game of skill. Playing online, we could see the same names consistently doing well and ourselves… enjoying the mid-table mediocrity that we usually do, when faced with talented opposition. Not that that ever put us off. On the contrary, we spent almost every match grinning inanely at the sheer Mario Kart-ness of it all. We will still need to play more to do a full review though – we haven’t played a lot on 150cc yet and we only got an hour or two with the online. However, at this point we do feel we’ve seen the basics of what the game is. More Trending It’s a strange one to be sure, in what is usually one of Nintendo’s most straightforward franchises, but while anyone can look at the open world and think of a dozen other things that could’ve been done with it, the actual racing is top notch. Mechanically it’s not significantly different from Mario Kart 8 but then the series is not a very malleable one, and this does as much as it can to mix things up – and all without resorting to gimmicks. In terms of a score, we’re not looking at a 10/10. Mario Kart World is many things but it’s not perfect, not like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. We’ll have to spend more time with it to determine if it suits an 8 or 9/10 but longevity has never been a problem for the series, so we imagine it’ll be the higher of the two. Given how late Nintendo was in sending out consoles that’s all we can say for now but while this is not quite the game many will have been expecting, and it does leave a lot on the table (possibly to be picked up by DLC, but naturally Nintendo isn’t saying), it’s still an excellent game and a great introduction to the Switch 2. Formats: Nintendo Switch 2Price: £74.99 (physical) or £66.99 (digital)Publisher: NintendoDeveloper: Nintendo EPDRelease Date: 5th June 2025Age Rating: 3 There’s unlockable costumes for all the named characters (Nintendo) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

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EA - Electronic Arts shared a link

2025-06-05 08:27:10 ·

Real NFL Data Powers EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 to New Heights Featuring All New QB DNA and Coach DNA

"Madden NFL 26 delivers new AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres, each ‘Built from Sundays’ to produce the realest Madden to date.”

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.----
Electronic Arts Inc.and EA SPORTS™ today unveiled EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26, launching worldwide on August 14, 2025, for PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, and Epic Games Store. Powered by a new AI-driven machine learning system trained on nearly a decade of real NFL data, Madden NFL 26 introduces QB DNA and Coach DNA, delivering authentic quarterback behaviors and adaptive coaching strategies. Madden NFL 26 is “Built from Sundays” to produce the realest Madden to date through AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres.Justin Jefferson's authentic pre-game runout embodies team-specific NFL atmospheres coming to life in Madden NFL 26.“Madden NFL 26 represents a leap forward in delivering the authenticity and control our players crave,” said Daryl Holt, SVP and Group GM, EA SPORTS. “QB DNA and Coach DNA, combined with explosive movement and physics-based interactions, create the most lifelike NFL experience yet. With deeper modes and true-to-life presentation, Madden NFL 26 delivers an NFL experience that’s as close to the real thing as it gets.”Madden NFL 26 gameplay redefines NFL simulation with cutting-edge features powered by advanced physics and AI-powered machine learning systems:Coach DNA: Coaches employ real philosophies, backed by nearly a decade of NFL data, with styles like Dan Campbell's aggressive fourth-down calls and Kevin O'Connell's creative offense, adding strategic depth. Dynamic coach suggestions and multi-player counters provide smart play recommendations based on game situations and opponent tendencies, countering repetitive tactics.QB DNA: The most iconic position in sports comes to life with signature throwing motions, pocket presence, scrambling styles, authentic arm slots and more. An All-New traits system powers authentic behavior like you see every Sunday, from Josh Allen’s powerful arm to Lamar Jackson’s agile evasions. This is the most lifelike quarterback experience in franchise history.Explosive NFL Movement: Captures the league’s unmatched athleticism, letting you feel the raw power and precision of every burst. From game-changing cuts to electrifying runs, you create the impact that defines Sunday’s Superstars, putting you in control of gamechanging NFL speed.Physics Expansion: Physics-based interactions, including catch tackles, stiff-arms, and trucks, deliver authentic contact outcomes, while new mechanics like Custom Defensive Zones along with new knockouts and swats take pass coverage to a whole new level.Football Weather: Extreme weather impacts gameplay, with snow, fog, and wet conditions affecting visibility, movement, stamina, and ball security making weather an adversary just like Buffalo and Cleveland in January.Foundational Football: New mechanics, including Adaptive Coverage, enhanced D-line Stunts & Twists, and block steering, provide unparalleled realism across offense, defense, and special teams.Madden NFL 26 introduces a refreshed feature set that immerses players in the heart of the NFL, with deepened modes and engaging live content throughout the year:Presentation: Authentic NFL atmospheres come to life with team-specific run-outs, iconic crowd chants like Minnesota’s Skol, and Baltimore’s electrifying pre-game light show. Dynamic halftime shows, hosted by new addition Scott Hanson, and custom broadcast packages—now featuring primetime slots for Monday, Thursday and Sunday night matchups—produce a distinct look, sound and feel.Franchise: Build your legacy in style with new archetypes and gear for your custom coach or start from a real NFL coach. New features such as playsheets, Wear & Tear and Approval Ratings make every week a unique challenge. Scott Hanson's Weekly Recaps and Rich Eisen's commentary highlight a long list of upgrades to the fan favorite mode.Superstar: Import your EA SPORTS™ College Football 26 player or craft a new avatar, to progress through weekly storylines, master the Sphere of Influence system and achieve 99 OVR - all while balancing Wear & Tear and competing in live events.Madden Ultimate Team™: Build your dream roster with NFL legends and stars, tackle new dynamic MUT Events, and rise through 50-player Leaderboard Campaigns. NFL Team Pass delivers team-specific rewards across online modes, keeping programs fresh and offering ever-evolving ways to play with every new program.Roster Management: Strategically develop your roster to fit your scheme with modern Depth Chart positions including edge, long snapper, gadget players and more. Manage weekly performance with the new Wear and Tear system and Dynamic Substitutions.Fans who pre-order* the Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition by July 24 will receive perks including 3-day early access, 4600 Madden Points, an Elite Player Item, and more. The EA SPORTS™ MVP Bundle includes deluxe editions of Madden NFL 26 and EA SPORTS™ College Football 26, with additional rewards across both titles*.EA Play members will get a 10-hour Early Access Trial starting August 11th†. EA Play Pro members will enjoy unlimited access to the EA Play Pro Edition† of the game, and get up to 6,000 Madden Points, Player and Strategy Items and more. All EA Play members can score rewards such as monthly Ultimate Team™ Packs, as well as receive 10% off Electronic Arts digital content including game downloads, Season Passes, and DLC for certain titles.Stay tuned for more Madden NFL 26 details on the official Madden NFL website and social media.*Conditions & restrictions apply.
See for details.
†Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See EA Play Terms for details.For Madden NFL 26 assets, visit: EAPressPortal.com.Madden NFL 26 is developed in Orlando, Florida and Madrid, Spain by EA SPORTS and will be available worldwide August 14 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, Epic Games StoreAbout Electronic ArtsElectronic Artsis a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company develops and delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, mobile devices and personal computers.In fiscal year 2025, EA posted GAAP net revenue of approximately billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for a portfolio of critically acclaimed, high-quality brands such as EA SPORTS FC™, Battlefield™, Apex Legends™, The Sims™, EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL, EA SPORTS™ College Football, Need for Speed™, Dragon Age™, Titanfall™, Plants vs. Zombies™ and EA SPORTS F1®. More information about EA is available at www.ea.com/news.EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS FC, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Apex Legends, The Sims, Dragon Age, Titanfall, and Plants vs. Zombies are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. John Madden, NFL, and F1 are the property of their respective owners and used with permission.Category: EA Sports

Erin Exum
Director, Integrated Comms
#real #nfl #data #powers #sports

Real NFL Data Powers EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 to New Heights Featuring All New QB DNA and Coach DNA
"Madden NFL 26 delivers new AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres, each ‘Built from Sundays’ to produce the realest Madden to date.” REDWOOD CITY, Calif.---- Electronic Arts Inc.and EA SPORTS™ today unveiled EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26, launching worldwide on August 14, 2025, for PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, and Epic Games Store. Powered by a new AI-driven machine learning system trained on nearly a decade of real NFL data, Madden NFL 26 introduces QB DNA and Coach DNA, delivering authentic quarterback behaviors and adaptive coaching strategies. Madden NFL 26 is “Built from Sundays” to produce the realest Madden to date through AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres.Justin Jefferson's authentic pre-game runout embodies team-specific NFL atmospheres coming to life in Madden NFL 26.“Madden NFL 26 represents a leap forward in delivering the authenticity and control our players crave,” said Daryl Holt, SVP and Group GM, EA SPORTS. “QB DNA and Coach DNA, combined with explosive movement and physics-based interactions, create the most lifelike NFL experience yet. With deeper modes and true-to-life presentation, Madden NFL 26 delivers an NFL experience that’s as close to the real thing as it gets.”Madden NFL 26 gameplay redefines NFL simulation with cutting-edge features powered by advanced physics and AI-powered machine learning systems:Coach DNA: Coaches employ real philosophies, backed by nearly a decade of NFL data, with styles like Dan Campbell's aggressive fourth-down calls and Kevin O'Connell's creative offense, adding strategic depth. Dynamic coach suggestions and multi-player counters provide smart play recommendations based on game situations and opponent tendencies, countering repetitive tactics.QB DNA: The most iconic position in sports comes to life with signature throwing motions, pocket presence, scrambling styles, authentic arm slots and more. An All-New traits system powers authentic behavior like you see every Sunday, from Josh Allen’s powerful arm to Lamar Jackson’s agile evasions. This is the most lifelike quarterback experience in franchise history.Explosive NFL Movement: Captures the league’s unmatched athleticism, letting you feel the raw power and precision of every burst. From game-changing cuts to electrifying runs, you create the impact that defines Sunday’s Superstars, putting you in control of gamechanging NFL speed.Physics Expansion: Physics-based interactions, including catch tackles, stiff-arms, and trucks, deliver authentic contact outcomes, while new mechanics like Custom Defensive Zones along with new knockouts and swats take pass coverage to a whole new level.Football Weather: Extreme weather impacts gameplay, with snow, fog, and wet conditions affecting visibility, movement, stamina, and ball security making weather an adversary just like Buffalo and Cleveland in January.Foundational Football: New mechanics, including Adaptive Coverage, enhanced D-line Stunts & Twists, and block steering, provide unparalleled realism across offense, defense, and special teams.Madden NFL 26 introduces a refreshed feature set that immerses players in the heart of the NFL, with deepened modes and engaging live content throughout the year:Presentation: Authentic NFL atmospheres come to life with team-specific run-outs, iconic crowd chants like Minnesota’s Skol, and Baltimore’s electrifying pre-game light show. Dynamic halftime shows, hosted by new addition Scott Hanson, and custom broadcast packages—now featuring primetime slots for Monday, Thursday and Sunday night matchups—produce a distinct look, sound and feel.Franchise: Build your legacy in style with new archetypes and gear for your custom coach or start from a real NFL coach. New features such as playsheets, Wear & Tear and Approval Ratings make every week a unique challenge. Scott Hanson's Weekly Recaps and Rich Eisen's commentary highlight a long list of upgrades to the fan favorite mode.Superstar: Import your EA SPORTS™ College Football 26 player or craft a new avatar, to progress through weekly storylines, master the Sphere of Influence system and achieve 99 OVR - all while balancing Wear & Tear and competing in live events.Madden Ultimate Team™: Build your dream roster with NFL legends and stars, tackle new dynamic MUT Events, and rise through 50-player Leaderboard Campaigns. NFL Team Pass delivers team-specific rewards across online modes, keeping programs fresh and offering ever-evolving ways to play with every new program.Roster Management: Strategically develop your roster to fit your scheme with modern Depth Chart positions including edge, long snapper, gadget players and more. Manage weekly performance with the new Wear and Tear system and Dynamic Substitutions.Fans who pre-order* the Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition by July 24 will receive perks including 3-day early access, 4600 Madden Points, an Elite Player Item, and more. The EA SPORTS™ MVP Bundle includes deluxe editions of Madden NFL 26 and EA SPORTS™ College Football 26, with additional rewards across both titles*.EA Play members will get a 10-hour Early Access Trial starting August 11th†. EA Play Pro members will enjoy unlimited access to the EA Play Pro Edition† of the game, and get up to 6,000 Madden Points, Player and Strategy Items and more. All EA Play members can score rewards such as monthly Ultimate Team™ Packs, as well as receive 10% off Electronic Arts digital content including game downloads, Season Passes, and DLC for certain titles.Stay tuned for more Madden NFL 26 details on the official Madden NFL website and social media.*Conditions & restrictions apply. See for details. †Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See EA Play Terms for details.For Madden NFL 26 assets, visit: EAPressPortal.com.Madden NFL 26 is developed in Orlando, Florida and Madrid, Spain by EA SPORTS and will be available worldwide August 14 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, Epic Games StoreAbout Electronic ArtsElectronic Artsis a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company develops and delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, mobile devices and personal computers.In fiscal year 2025, EA posted GAAP net revenue of approximately billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for a portfolio of critically acclaimed, high-quality brands such as EA SPORTS FC™, Battlefield™, Apex Legends™, The Sims™, EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL, EA SPORTS™ College Football, Need for Speed™, Dragon Age™, Titanfall™, Plants vs. Zombies™ and EA SPORTS F1®. More information about EA is available at www.ea.com/news.EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS FC, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Apex Legends, The Sims, Dragon Age, Titanfall, and Plants vs. Zombies are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. John Madden, NFL, and F1 are the property of their respective owners and used with permission.Category: EA Sports Erin Exum Director, Integrated Comms #real #nfl #data #powers #sports

NEWS.EA.COM

Real NFL Data Powers EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 to New Heights Featuring All New QB DNA and Coach DNA

"Madden NFL 26 delivers new AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres, each ‘Built from Sundays’ to produce the realest Madden to date.” REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) and EA SPORTS™ today unveiled EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26, launching worldwide on August 14, 2025, for PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, and Epic Games Store. Powered by a new AI-driven machine learning system trained on nearly a decade of real NFL data, Madden NFL 26 introduces QB DNA and Coach DNA, delivering authentic quarterback behaviors and adaptive coaching strategies. Madden NFL 26 is “Built from Sundays” to produce the realest Madden to date through AI-driven systems, explosive gameplay, and authentic NFL atmospheres.Justin Jefferson's authentic pre-game runout embodies team-specific NFL atmospheres coming to life in Madden NFL 26.“Madden NFL 26 represents a leap forward in delivering the authenticity and control our players crave,” said Daryl Holt, SVP and Group GM, EA SPORTS. “QB DNA and Coach DNA, combined with explosive movement and physics-based interactions, create the most lifelike NFL experience yet. With deeper modes and true-to-life presentation, Madden NFL 26 delivers an NFL experience that’s as close to the real thing as it gets.”Madden NFL 26 gameplay redefines NFL simulation with cutting-edge features powered by advanced physics and AI-powered machine learning systems:Coach DNA: Coaches employ real philosophies, backed by nearly a decade of NFL data, with styles like Dan Campbell's aggressive fourth-down calls and Kevin O'Connell's creative offense, adding strategic depth. Dynamic coach suggestions and multi-player counters provide smart play recommendations based on game situations and opponent tendencies, countering repetitive tactics.QB DNA: The most iconic position in sports comes to life with signature throwing motions, pocket presence, scrambling styles, authentic arm slots and more. An All-New traits system powers authentic behavior like you see every Sunday, from Josh Allen’s powerful arm to Lamar Jackson’s agile evasions. This is the most lifelike quarterback experience in franchise history.Explosive NFL Movement: Captures the league’s unmatched athleticism, letting you feel the raw power and precision of every burst. From game-changing cuts to electrifying runs, you create the impact that defines Sunday’s Superstars, putting you in control of gamechanging NFL speed.Physics Expansion: Physics-based interactions, including catch tackles, stiff-arms, and trucks, deliver authentic contact outcomes, while new mechanics like Custom Defensive Zones along with new knockouts and swats take pass coverage to a whole new level.Football Weather: Extreme weather impacts gameplay, with snow, fog, and wet conditions affecting visibility, movement, stamina, and ball security making weather an adversary just like Buffalo and Cleveland in January.Foundational Football: New mechanics, including Adaptive Coverage, enhanced D-line Stunts & Twists, and block steering, provide unparalleled realism across offense, defense, and special teams.Madden NFL 26 introduces a refreshed feature set that immerses players in the heart of the NFL, with deepened modes and engaging live content throughout the year:Presentation: Authentic NFL atmospheres come to life with team-specific run-outs, iconic crowd chants like Minnesota’s Skol, and Baltimore’s electrifying pre-game light show. Dynamic halftime shows, hosted by new addition Scott Hanson, and custom broadcast packages—now featuring primetime slots for Monday, Thursday and Sunday night matchups—produce a distinct look, sound and feel.Franchise: Build your legacy in style with new archetypes and gear for your custom coach or start from a real NFL coach. New features such as playsheets, Wear & Tear and Approval Ratings make every week a unique challenge. Scott Hanson's Weekly Recaps and Rich Eisen's commentary highlight a long list of upgrades to the fan favorite mode.Superstar: Import your EA SPORTS™ College Football 26 player or craft a new avatar, to progress through weekly storylines, master the Sphere of Influence system and achieve 99 OVR - all while balancing Wear & Tear and competing in live events.Madden Ultimate Team™: Build your dream roster with NFL legends and stars, tackle new dynamic MUT Events, and rise through 50-player Leaderboard Campaigns. NFL Team Pass delivers team-specific rewards across online modes, keeping programs fresh and offering ever-evolving ways to play with every new program.Roster Management: Strategically develop your roster to fit your scheme with modern Depth Chart positions including edge, long snapper, gadget players and more. Manage weekly performance with the new Wear and Tear system and Dynamic Substitutions.Fans who pre-order* the Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition by July 24 will receive perks including 3-day early access, 4600 Madden Points, an Elite Player Item, and more. The EA SPORTS™ MVP Bundle includes deluxe editions of Madden NFL 26 and EA SPORTS™ College Football 26, with additional rewards across both titles*.EA Play members will get a 10-hour Early Access Trial starting August 11th†. EA Play Pro members will enjoy unlimited access to the EA Play Pro Edition† of the game, and get up to 6,000 Madden Points, Player and Strategy Items and more. All EA Play members can score rewards such as monthly Ultimate Team™ Packs, as well as receive 10% off Electronic Arts digital content including game downloads, Season Passes, and DLC for certain titles.Stay tuned for more Madden NFL 26 details on the official Madden NFL website and social media (Instagram, X, TikTok, and YouTube).*Conditions & restrictions apply. See https://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl/madden-nfl-26/legal-disclaimers for details. †Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See EA Play Terms for details.For Madden NFL 26 assets, visit: EAPressPortal.com.Madden NFL 26 is developed in Orlando, Florida and Madrid, Spain by EA SPORTS and will be available worldwide August 14 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via EA app for Windows, Steam, Epic Games StoreAbout Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA) is a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company develops and delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, mobile devices and personal computers.In fiscal year 2025, EA posted GAAP net revenue of approximately $7.5 billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for a portfolio of critically acclaimed, high-quality brands such as EA SPORTS FC™, Battlefield™, Apex Legends™, The Sims™, EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL, EA SPORTS™ College Football, Need for Speed™, Dragon Age™, Titanfall™, Plants vs. Zombies™ and EA SPORTS F1®. More information about EA is available at www.ea.com/news.EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS FC, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Apex Legends, The Sims, Dragon Age, Titanfall, and Plants vs. Zombies are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. John Madden, NFL, and F1 are the property of their respective owners and used with permission.Category: EA Sports Erin Exum Director, Integrated Comms [email protected] Source: Electronic Arts Inc.

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2025-06-05 08:26:56 ·

The Last of Us – Season 2: Alex Wang (Production VFX Supervisor) & Fiona Campbell Westgate (Production VFX Producer)

After detailing the VFX work on The Last of Us Season 1 in 2023, Alex Wang returns to reflect on how the scope and complexity have evolved in Season 2.
With close to 30 years of experience in the visual effects industry, Fiona Campbell Westgate has contributed to major productions such as Ghost in the Shell, Avatar: The Way of Water, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Nyad. Her work on Nyad earned her a VES Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature.
Collaboration with Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann is key to shaping the visual universe of The Last of Us. Can you share with us how you work with them and how they influence the visual direction of the series?
Alex Wang // Craig visualizes the shot or scene before putting words on the page. His writing is always exceptionally detailed and descriptive, ultimately helping us to imagine the shot. Of course, no one understands The Last of Us better than Neil, who knows all aspects of the lore very well. He’s done much research and design work with the Naughty Dog team, so he gives us good guidance regarding creature and environment designs. I always try to begin with concept art to get the ball rolling with Craig and Neil’s ideas. This season, we collaborated with Chromatic Studios for concept art. They also contributed to the games, so I felt that continuity was beneficial for our show.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // From the outset, it was clear that collaborating with Craig would be an exceptional experience. Early meetings revealed just how personable and invested Craig is. He works closely with every department to ensure that each episode is done to the highest level. Craig places unwavering trust in our VFX Supervisor, Alex Wang. They have an understanding between them that lends to an exceptional partnership. As the VFX Producer, I know how vital the dynamic between the Showrunner and VFX Supervisor is; working with these two has made for one of the best professional experiences of my career.
Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
How has your collaboration with Craig evolved between the first and second seasons? Were there any adjustments in the visual approach or narrative techniques you made this season?
Alex Wang // Since everything was new in Season 1, we dedicated a lot of time and effort to exploring the show’s visual language, and we all learned a great deal about what worked and what didn’t for the show. In my initial conversations with Craig about Season 2, it was clear that he wanted to expand the show’s scope by utilizing what we established and learned in Season 1. He felt significantly more at ease fully committing to using VFX to help tell the story this season.
The first season involved multiple VFX studios to handle the complexity of the effects. How did you divide the work among different studios for the second season?
Alex Wang // Most of the vendors this season were also in Season 1, so we already had a shorthand. The VFX Producer, Fiona Campbell Westgate, and I work closely together to decide how to divide the work among our vendors. The type of work needs to be well-suited for the vendor and fit into our budget and schedule. We were extremely fortunate to have the vendors we did this season. I want to take this opportunity to thank Weta FX, DNEG, RISE, Distillery VFX, Storm Studios, Important Looking Pirates, Blackbird, Wylie Co., RVX, and VDK. We also had ILM for concept art and Digital Domain for previs.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // Alex Wang and I were very aware of the tight delivery schedule, which added to the challenge of distributing the workload. We planned the work based on the individual studio’s capabilities, and tried not to burden them with back to back episodes wherever possible. Fortunately, there was shorthand with vendors from Season One, who were well-acquainted with the process and the quality of work the show required.

The town of Jackson is a key location in The Last of Us. Could you explain how you approached creating and expanding this environment for the second season?
Alex Wang // Since Season 1, this show has created incredible sets. However, the Jackson town set build is by far the most impressive in terms of scope. They constructed an 822 ft x 400 ft set in Minaty Bay that resembled a real town! I had early discussions with Production Designer Don MacAulay and his team about where they should concentrate their efforts and where VFX would make the most sense to take over. They focused on developing the town’s main street, where we believed most scenes would occur. There is a big reveal of Jackson in the first episode after Ellie comes out of the barn. Distillery VFX was responsible for the town’s extension, which appears seamless because the team took great pride in researching and ensuring the architecture aligned with the set while staying true to the tone of Jackson, Wyoming.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // An impressive set was constructed in Minaty Bay, which served as the foundation for VFX to build upon. There is a beautiful establishing shot of Jackson in Episode 1 that was completed by Distillery, showing a safe and almost normal setting as Season Two starts. Across the episodes, Jackson set extensions were completed by our partners at RISE and Weta. Each had a different phase of Jackson to create, from almost idyllic to a town immersed in Battle.
What challenges did you face filming Jackson on both real and virtual sets? Was there a particular fusion between visual effects and live-action shots to make it feel realistic?
Alex Wang // I always advocate for building exterior sets outdoors to take advantage of natural light. However, the drawback is that we cannot control the weather and lighting when filming over several days across two units. In Episode 2, there’s supposed to be a winter storm in Jackson, so maintaining consistency within the episode was essential. On sunny and rainy days, we used cranes to lift large 30x60ft screens to block the sun or rain. It was impossible to shield the entire set from the rain or sun, so we prioritized protecting the actors from sunlight or rain. Thus, you can imagine there was extensive weather cleanup for the episode to ensure consistency within the sequences.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // We were fortunate that production built a large scale Jackson set. It provided a base for the full CG Jackson aerial shots and CG Set Extensions. The weather conditions at Minaty Bay presented a challenge during the filming of the end of the Battle sequence in Episode 2. While there were periods of bright sunshine, rainfall occurred during the filming of the end of the Battle sequence in Episode 2. In addition to the obvious visual effects work, it became necessary to replace the ground cover.
Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
The attack on Jackson by the horde of infected in season 2 is a very intense moment. How did you approach the visual effects for this sequence? What techniques did you use to make the scale of the attack feel as impressive as it did?
Alex Wang // We knew this would be a very complex sequence to shoot, and for it to be successful, we needed to start planning with the HODs from the very beginning. We began previs during prep with Weta FX and the episode’s director, Mark Mylod. The previs helped us understand Mark and the showrunner’s vision. This then served as a blueprint for all departments to follow, and in many instances, we filmed the previs.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // The sheer size of the CG Infected Horde sets the tone for the scale of the Battle. It’s an intimidating moment when they are revealed through the blowing snow. The addition of CG explosions and atmospheric effects contributed in adding scale to the sequence.

Can you give us an insight into the technical challenges of capturing the infected horde? How much of the effect was done using CGI, and how much was achieved with practical effects?
Alex Wang // Starting with a detailed previs that Mark and Craig approved was essential for planning the horde. We understood that we would never have enough stunt performers to fill a horde, nor could they carry out some stunts that would be too dangerous. I reviewed the previs with Stunt Coordinator Marny Eng numerous times to decide the best placements for her team’s stunt performers. We also collaborated with Barrie Gower from the Prosthetics team to determine the most effective allocation of his team’s efforts. Stunt performers positioned closest to the camera would receive the full prosthetic treatment, which can take hours.
Weta FX was responsible for the incredible CG Infected horde work in the Jackson Battle. They have been a creative partner with HBO’s The Last of Us since Season 1, so they were brought on early for Season 2. I began discussions with Weta’s VFX supervisor, Nick Epstein, about how we could tackle these complex horde shots very early during the shoot.
Typically, repetition in CG crowd scenes can be acceptable, such as armies with soldiers dressed in the same uniform or armour. However, for our Infected horde, Craig wanted to convey that the Infected didn’t come off an assembly line or all shop at the same clothing department store. Any repetition would feel artificial. These Infected were once civilians with families, or they were groups of raiders. We needed complex variations in height, body size, age, clothing, and hair. We built our base library of Infected, and then Nick and the Weta FX team developed a “mix and match” system, allowing the Infected to wear any costume and hair groom. A procedural texturing system was also developed for costumes, providing even greater variation.
The most crucial aspect of the Infected horde was their motion. We had numerous shots cutting back-to-back with practical Infected, as well as shots where our CG Infected ran right alongside a stunt horde. It was incredibly unforgiving! Weta FX’s animation supervisor from Season 1, Dennis Yoo, returned for Season 2 to meet the challenge. Having been part of the first season, Dennis understood the expectations of Craig and Neil. Similar to issues of model repetition within a horde, it was relatively easy to perceive repetition, especially if they were running toward the same target. It was essential to enhance the details of their performances with nuances such as tripping and falling, getting back up, and trampling over each other. There also needed to be a difference in the Infected’s running speed. To ensure we had enough complexity within the horde, Dennis motion-captured almost 600 unique motion cycles.
We had over a hundred shots in episode 2 that required CG Infected horde.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // Nick Epstein, Weta VFX Supervisor, and Dennis Yoo, Weta Animation Supervisor, were faced with having to add hero, close-up Horde that had to integrate with practical Stunt performers. They achieved this through over 60 motion capture sessions and running it through a deformation system they developed. Every detail was applied to allow for a seamless blend with our practical Stunt performances. The Weta team created a custom costume and hair system that provided individual looks to the CG Infected Horde. We were able to avoid the repetitive look of a CG crowd due to these efforts.

The movement of the infected horde is crucial for the intensity of the scene. How did you manage the animation and simulation of the infected to ensure smooth and realistic interaction with the environment?
Fiona Campbell Westgate // We worked closely with the Stunt department to plan out positioning and where VFX would be adding the CG Horde. Craig Mazin wanted the Infected Horde to move in a way that humans cannot. The deformation system kept the body shape anatomically correct and allowed us to push the limits from how a human physically moves.
The Bloater makes a terrifying return this season. What were the key challenges in designing and animating this creature? How did you work on the Bloater’s interaction with the environment and other characters?
Alex Wang // In Season 1, the Kansas City cul-de-sac sequence featured only a handful of Bloater shots. This season, however, nearly forty shots showcase the Bloater in broad daylight during the Battle of Jackson. We needed to redesign the Bloater asset to ensure it looked good in close-up shots from head to toe. Weta FX designed the Bloater for Season 1 and revamped the design for this season. Starting with the Bloater’s silhouette, it had to appear large, intimidating, and menacing. We explored enlarging the cordyceps head shape to make it feel almost like a crown, enhancing the Bloater’s impressive and strong presence.
During filming, a stunt double stood in for the Bloater. This was mainly for scale reference and composition. It also helped the Infected stunt performers understand the Bloater’s spatial position, allowing them to avoid running through his space. Once we had an edit, Dennis mocapped the Bloater’s performances with his team. It is always challenging to get the motion right for a creature that weighs 600 pounds. We don’t want the mocap to be overly exaggerated, but it does break the character if the Bloater feels too “light.” The brilliant animation team at Weta FX brought the Bloater character to life and nailed it!
When Tommy goes head-to-head with the Bloater, Craig was quite specific during the prep days about how the Bloater would bubble, melt, and burn as Tommy torches him with the flamethrower. Important Looking Pirates took on the “Burning Bloater” sequence, led by VFX Supervisor Philip Engstrom. They began with extensive R&D to ensure the Bloater’s skin would start to bubble and burn. ILP took the final Bloater asset from Weta FX and had to resculpt and texture the asset for the Bloater’s final burn state. Craig felt it was important for the Bloater to appear maimed at the end. The layers of FX were so complex that the R&D continued almost to the end of the delivery schedule.

Fiona Campbell Westgate // This season the Bloater had to be bigger, more intimidating. The CG Asset was recreated to withstand the scrutiny of close ups and in daylight. Both Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann worked closely with us during the process of the build. We referenced the game and applied elements of that version with ours. You’ll notice that his head is in the shape of crown, this is to convey he’s a powerful force.
During the Burning Bloater sequence in Episode 2, we brainstormed with Philip Engström, ILP VFX Supervisor, on how this creature would react to the flamethrower and how it would affect the ground as it burns. When the Bloater finally falls to the ground and dies, the extraordinary detail of the embers burning, fluid draining and melting the surrounding snow really sells that the CG creature was in the terrain.

Given the Bloater’s imposing size, how did you approach its integration into scenes with the actors? What techniques did you use to create such a realistic and menacing appearance?
Fiona Campbell Westgate // For the Bloater, a stunt performer wearing a motion capture suit was filmed on set. This provided interaction with the actors and the environment. VFX enhanced the intensity of his movements, incorporating simulations to the CG Bloater’s skin and muscles that would reflect the weight and force as this terrifying creature moves.

Seattle in The Last of Us is a completely devastated city. Can you talk about how you recreated this destruction? What were the most difficult visual aspects to realize for this post-apocalyptic city?
Fiona Campbell Westgate // We were meticulous in blending the CG destruction with the practical environment. The flora’s ability to overtake the environment had to be believable, and we adhered to the principle of form follows function. Due to the vastness of the CG devastation it was crucial to avoid repetitive effects. Consequently, our vendors were tasked with creating bespoke designs that evoked a sense of awe and beauty.
Was Seattle’s architecture a key element in how you designed the visual effects? How did you adapt the city’s real-life urban landscape to meet the needs of the story while maintaining a coherent aesthetic?
Alex Wang // It’s always important to Craig and Neil that we remain true to the cities our characters are in. DNEG was one of our primary vendors for Boston in Season 1, so it was natural for them to return for Season 2, this time focusing on Seattle. DNEG’s VFX Supervisor, Stephen James, who played a crucial role in developing the visual language of Boston for Season 1, also returns for this season. Stephen and Melaina Maceled a team to Seattle to shoot plates and perform lidar scans of parts of the city. We identified the buildings unique to Seattle that would have existed in 2003, so we ensured these buildings were always included in our establishing shots.
Overgrowth and destruction have significantly influenced the environments in The Last of Us. The environment functions almost as a character in both Season 1 and Season 2. In the last season, the building destruction in Boston was primarily caused by military bombings. During this season, destruction mainly arises from dilapidation. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I understand how damp
it can get for most of the year. I imagined that, over 20 years, the integrity of the buildings would be compromised by natural forces. This abundant moisture creates an exceptionally lush and vibrant landscape for much of the year. Therefore, when designing Seattle, we ensured that the destruction and overgrowth appeared intentional and aesthetically distinct from those of Boston.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // Led by Stephen James, DNEG VFX Supervisor, and Melaina Mace, DNEG DFX Supervisor, the team captured photography, drone footage and the Clear Angle team captured LiDAR data over a three-day period in Seattle. It was crucial to include recognizable Seattle landmarks that would resonate with people familiar with the game.

The devastated city almost becomes a character in itself this season. What aspects of the visual effects did you have to enhance to increase the immersion of the viewer into this hostile and deteriorated environment?
Fiona Campbell Westgate // It is indeed a character. Craig wanted it to be deteriorated but to have moments where it’s also beautiful in its devastation. For instance, in the Music Store in Episode 4 where Ellie is playing guitar for Dina, the deteriorated interior provides a beautiful backdrop to this intimate moment. The Set Decorating team dressed a specific section of the set, while VFX extended the destruction and overgrowth to encompass the entire environment, immersing the viewer in strange yet familiar surroundings.
Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
The sequence where Ellie navigates a boat through a violent storm is stunning. What were the key challenges in creating this scene, especially with water simulation and the storm’s effects?
Alex Wang // In the concluding episode of Season 2, Ellie is deep in Seattle, searching for Abby. The episode draws us closer to the Aquarium, where this area of Seattle is heavily flooded. Naturally, this brings challenges with CG water. In the scene where Ellie encounters Isaac and the W.L.F soldiers by the dock, we had a complex shoot involving multiple locations, including a water tank and a boat gimbal. There were also several full CG shots. For Isaac’s riverine boat, which was in a stormy ocean, I felt it was essential that the boat and the actors were given the appropriate motion. Weta FX assisted with tech-vis for all the boat gimbal work. We began with different ocean wave sizes caused by the storm, and once the filmmakers selected one, the boat’s motion in the tech-vis fed the special FX gimbal.
When Ellie gets into the Jon boat, I didn’t want it on the same gimbal because I felt it would be too mechanical. Ellie’s weight needed to affect the boat as she got in, and that wouldn’t have happened with a mechanical gimbal. So, we opted to have her boat in a water tank for this scene. Special FX had wave makers that provided the boat with the appropriate movement.
Instead of guessing what the ocean sim for the riverine boat should be, the tech- vis data enabled DNEG to get a head start on the water simulations in post-production. Craig wanted this sequence to appear convincingly dark, much like it looks out on the ocean at night. This allowed us to create dramatic visuals, using lightning strikes at moments to reveal depth.
Were there any memorable moments or scenes from the series that you found particularly rewarding or challenging to work on from a visual effects standpoint?
Alex Wang // The Last of Us tells the story of our characters’ journey. If you look at how season 2 begins in Jackson, it differs significantly from how we conclude the season in Seattle. We seldom return to the exact location in each episode, meaning every episode presents a unique challenge. The scope of work this season has been incredibly rewarding. We burned a Bloater, and we also introduced spores this season!
Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
Looking back on the project, what aspects of the visual effects are you most proud of?
Alex Wang // The Jackson Battle was incredibly complex, involving a grueling and lengthy shoot in quite challenging conditions, along with over 600 VFX shots in episode 2. It was truly inspiring to witness the determination of every department and vendor to give their all and create something remarkable.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // I am immensely proud of the exceptional work accomplished by all of our vendors. During the VFX reviews, I found myself clapping with delight when the final shots were displayed; it was exciting to see remarkable results of the artists’ efforts come to light.
How long have you worked on this show?
Alex Wang // I’ve been on this season for nearly two years.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // A little over one year; I joined the show in April 2024.
What’s the VFX shots count?
Alex Wang // We had just over 2,500 shots this Season.
Fiona Campbell Westgate // In Season 2, there were a total of 2656 visual effects shots.
What is your next project?
Fiona Campbell Westgate // Stay tuned…
A big thanks for your time.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?Blackbird: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.DNEG: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 on DNEG website.Important Looking Pirates: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.RISE: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.Weta FX: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2025
#last #season #alex #wang #production

The Last of Us – Season 2: Alex Wang (Production VFX Supervisor) & Fiona Campbell Westgate (Production VFX Producer)
After detailing the VFX work on The Last of Us Season 1 in 2023, Alex Wang returns to reflect on how the scope and complexity have evolved in Season 2. With close to 30 years of experience in the visual effects industry, Fiona Campbell Westgate has contributed to major productions such as Ghost in the Shell, Avatar: The Way of Water, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Nyad. Her work on Nyad earned her a VES Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature. Collaboration with Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann is key to shaping the visual universe of The Last of Us. Can you share with us how you work with them and how they influence the visual direction of the series? Alex Wang // Craig visualizes the shot or scene before putting words on the page. His writing is always exceptionally detailed and descriptive, ultimately helping us to imagine the shot. Of course, no one understands The Last of Us better than Neil, who knows all aspects of the lore very well. He’s done much research and design work with the Naughty Dog team, so he gives us good guidance regarding creature and environment designs. I always try to begin with concept art to get the ball rolling with Craig and Neil’s ideas. This season, we collaborated with Chromatic Studios for concept art. They also contributed to the games, so I felt that continuity was beneficial for our show. Fiona Campbell Westgate // From the outset, it was clear that collaborating with Craig would be an exceptional experience. Early meetings revealed just how personable and invested Craig is. He works closely with every department to ensure that each episode is done to the highest level. Craig places unwavering trust in our VFX Supervisor, Alex Wang. They have an understanding between them that lends to an exceptional partnership. As the VFX Producer, I know how vital the dynamic between the Showrunner and VFX Supervisor is; working with these two has made for one of the best professional experiences of my career. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO How has your collaboration with Craig evolved between the first and second seasons? Were there any adjustments in the visual approach or narrative techniques you made this season? Alex Wang // Since everything was new in Season 1, we dedicated a lot of time and effort to exploring the show’s visual language, and we all learned a great deal about what worked and what didn’t for the show. In my initial conversations with Craig about Season 2, it was clear that he wanted to expand the show’s scope by utilizing what we established and learned in Season 1. He felt significantly more at ease fully committing to using VFX to help tell the story this season. The first season involved multiple VFX studios to handle the complexity of the effects. How did you divide the work among different studios for the second season? Alex Wang // Most of the vendors this season were also in Season 1, so we already had a shorthand. The VFX Producer, Fiona Campbell Westgate, and I work closely together to decide how to divide the work among our vendors. The type of work needs to be well-suited for the vendor and fit into our budget and schedule. We were extremely fortunate to have the vendors we did this season. I want to take this opportunity to thank Weta FX, DNEG, RISE, Distillery VFX, Storm Studios, Important Looking Pirates, Blackbird, Wylie Co., RVX, and VDK. We also had ILM for concept art and Digital Domain for previs. Fiona Campbell Westgate // Alex Wang and I were very aware of the tight delivery schedule, which added to the challenge of distributing the workload. We planned the work based on the individual studio’s capabilities, and tried not to burden them with back to back episodes wherever possible. Fortunately, there was shorthand with vendors from Season One, who were well-acquainted with the process and the quality of work the show required. The town of Jackson is a key location in The Last of Us. Could you explain how you approached creating and expanding this environment for the second season? Alex Wang // Since Season 1, this show has created incredible sets. However, the Jackson town set build is by far the most impressive in terms of scope. They constructed an 822 ft x 400 ft set in Minaty Bay that resembled a real town! I had early discussions with Production Designer Don MacAulay and his team about where they should concentrate their efforts and where VFX would make the most sense to take over. They focused on developing the town’s main street, where we believed most scenes would occur. There is a big reveal of Jackson in the first episode after Ellie comes out of the barn. Distillery VFX was responsible for the town’s extension, which appears seamless because the team took great pride in researching and ensuring the architecture aligned with the set while staying true to the tone of Jackson, Wyoming. Fiona Campbell Westgate // An impressive set was constructed in Minaty Bay, which served as the foundation for VFX to build upon. There is a beautiful establishing shot of Jackson in Episode 1 that was completed by Distillery, showing a safe and almost normal setting as Season Two starts. Across the episodes, Jackson set extensions were completed by our partners at RISE and Weta. Each had a different phase of Jackson to create, from almost idyllic to a town immersed in Battle. What challenges did you face filming Jackson on both real and virtual sets? Was there a particular fusion between visual effects and live-action shots to make it feel realistic? Alex Wang // I always advocate for building exterior sets outdoors to take advantage of natural light. However, the drawback is that we cannot control the weather and lighting when filming over several days across two units. In Episode 2, there’s supposed to be a winter storm in Jackson, so maintaining consistency within the episode was essential. On sunny and rainy days, we used cranes to lift large 30x60ft screens to block the sun or rain. It was impossible to shield the entire set from the rain or sun, so we prioritized protecting the actors from sunlight or rain. Thus, you can imagine there was extensive weather cleanup for the episode to ensure consistency within the sequences. Fiona Campbell Westgate // We were fortunate that production built a large scale Jackson set. It provided a base for the full CG Jackson aerial shots and CG Set Extensions. The weather conditions at Minaty Bay presented a challenge during the filming of the end of the Battle sequence in Episode 2. While there were periods of bright sunshine, rainfall occurred during the filming of the end of the Battle sequence in Episode 2. In addition to the obvious visual effects work, it became necessary to replace the ground cover. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO The attack on Jackson by the horde of infected in season 2 is a very intense moment. How did you approach the visual effects for this sequence? What techniques did you use to make the scale of the attack feel as impressive as it did? Alex Wang // We knew this would be a very complex sequence to shoot, and for it to be successful, we needed to start planning with the HODs from the very beginning. We began previs during prep with Weta FX and the episode’s director, Mark Mylod. The previs helped us understand Mark and the showrunner’s vision. This then served as a blueprint for all departments to follow, and in many instances, we filmed the previs. Fiona Campbell Westgate // The sheer size of the CG Infected Horde sets the tone for the scale of the Battle. It’s an intimidating moment when they are revealed through the blowing snow. The addition of CG explosions and atmospheric effects contributed in adding scale to the sequence. Can you give us an insight into the technical challenges of capturing the infected horde? How much of the effect was done using CGI, and how much was achieved with practical effects? Alex Wang // Starting with a detailed previs that Mark and Craig approved was essential for planning the horde. We understood that we would never have enough stunt performers to fill a horde, nor could they carry out some stunts that would be too dangerous. I reviewed the previs with Stunt Coordinator Marny Eng numerous times to decide the best placements for her team’s stunt performers. We also collaborated with Barrie Gower from the Prosthetics team to determine the most effective allocation of his team’s efforts. Stunt performers positioned closest to the camera would receive the full prosthetic treatment, which can take hours. Weta FX was responsible for the incredible CG Infected horde work in the Jackson Battle. They have been a creative partner with HBO’s The Last of Us since Season 1, so they were brought on early for Season 2. I began discussions with Weta’s VFX supervisor, Nick Epstein, about how we could tackle these complex horde shots very early during the shoot. Typically, repetition in CG crowd scenes can be acceptable, such as armies with soldiers dressed in the same uniform or armour. However, for our Infected horde, Craig wanted to convey that the Infected didn’t come off an assembly line or all shop at the same clothing department store. Any repetition would feel artificial. These Infected were once civilians with families, or they were groups of raiders. We needed complex variations in height, body size, age, clothing, and hair. We built our base library of Infected, and then Nick and the Weta FX team developed a “mix and match” system, allowing the Infected to wear any costume and hair groom. A procedural texturing system was also developed for costumes, providing even greater variation. The most crucial aspect of the Infected horde was their motion. We had numerous shots cutting back-to-back with practical Infected, as well as shots where our CG Infected ran right alongside a stunt horde. It was incredibly unforgiving! Weta FX’s animation supervisor from Season 1, Dennis Yoo, returned for Season 2 to meet the challenge. Having been part of the first season, Dennis understood the expectations of Craig and Neil. Similar to issues of model repetition within a horde, it was relatively easy to perceive repetition, especially if they were running toward the same target. It was essential to enhance the details of their performances with nuances such as tripping and falling, getting back up, and trampling over each other. There also needed to be a difference in the Infected’s running speed. To ensure we had enough complexity within the horde, Dennis motion-captured almost 600 unique motion cycles. We had over a hundred shots in episode 2 that required CG Infected horde. Fiona Campbell Westgate // Nick Epstein, Weta VFX Supervisor, and Dennis Yoo, Weta Animation Supervisor, were faced with having to add hero, close-up Horde that had to integrate with practical Stunt performers. They achieved this through over 60 motion capture sessions and running it through a deformation system they developed. Every detail was applied to allow for a seamless blend with our practical Stunt performances. The Weta team created a custom costume and hair system that provided individual looks to the CG Infected Horde. We were able to avoid the repetitive look of a CG crowd due to these efforts. The movement of the infected horde is crucial for the intensity of the scene. How did you manage the animation and simulation of the infected to ensure smooth and realistic interaction with the environment? Fiona Campbell Westgate // We worked closely with the Stunt department to plan out positioning and where VFX would be adding the CG Horde. Craig Mazin wanted the Infected Horde to move in a way that humans cannot. The deformation system kept the body shape anatomically correct and allowed us to push the limits from how a human physically moves. The Bloater makes a terrifying return this season. What were the key challenges in designing and animating this creature? How did you work on the Bloater’s interaction with the environment and other characters? Alex Wang // In Season 1, the Kansas City cul-de-sac sequence featured only a handful of Bloater shots. This season, however, nearly forty shots showcase the Bloater in broad daylight during the Battle of Jackson. We needed to redesign the Bloater asset to ensure it looked good in close-up shots from head to toe. Weta FX designed the Bloater for Season 1 and revamped the design for this season. Starting with the Bloater’s silhouette, it had to appear large, intimidating, and menacing. We explored enlarging the cordyceps head shape to make it feel almost like a crown, enhancing the Bloater’s impressive and strong presence. During filming, a stunt double stood in for the Bloater. This was mainly for scale reference and composition. It also helped the Infected stunt performers understand the Bloater’s spatial position, allowing them to avoid running through his space. Once we had an edit, Dennis mocapped the Bloater’s performances with his team. It is always challenging to get the motion right for a creature that weighs 600 pounds. We don’t want the mocap to be overly exaggerated, but it does break the character if the Bloater feels too “light.” The brilliant animation team at Weta FX brought the Bloater character to life and nailed it! When Tommy goes head-to-head with the Bloater, Craig was quite specific during the prep days about how the Bloater would bubble, melt, and burn as Tommy torches him with the flamethrower. Important Looking Pirates took on the “Burning Bloater” sequence, led by VFX Supervisor Philip Engstrom. They began with extensive R&D to ensure the Bloater’s skin would start to bubble and burn. ILP took the final Bloater asset from Weta FX and had to resculpt and texture the asset for the Bloater’s final burn state. Craig felt it was important for the Bloater to appear maimed at the end. The layers of FX were so complex that the R&D continued almost to the end of the delivery schedule. Fiona Campbell Westgate // This season the Bloater had to be bigger, more intimidating. The CG Asset was recreated to withstand the scrutiny of close ups and in daylight. Both Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann worked closely with us during the process of the build. We referenced the game and applied elements of that version with ours. You’ll notice that his head is in the shape of crown, this is to convey he’s a powerful force. During the Burning Bloater sequence in Episode 2, we brainstormed with Philip Engström, ILP VFX Supervisor, on how this creature would react to the flamethrower and how it would affect the ground as it burns. When the Bloater finally falls to the ground and dies, the extraordinary detail of the embers burning, fluid draining and melting the surrounding snow really sells that the CG creature was in the terrain. Given the Bloater’s imposing size, how did you approach its integration into scenes with the actors? What techniques did you use to create such a realistic and menacing appearance? Fiona Campbell Westgate // For the Bloater, a stunt performer wearing a motion capture suit was filmed on set. This provided interaction with the actors and the environment. VFX enhanced the intensity of his movements, incorporating simulations to the CG Bloater’s skin and muscles that would reflect the weight and force as this terrifying creature moves. Seattle in The Last of Us is a completely devastated city. Can you talk about how you recreated this destruction? What were the most difficult visual aspects to realize for this post-apocalyptic city? Fiona Campbell Westgate // We were meticulous in blending the CG destruction with the practical environment. The flora’s ability to overtake the environment had to be believable, and we adhered to the principle of form follows function. Due to the vastness of the CG devastation it was crucial to avoid repetitive effects. Consequently, our vendors were tasked with creating bespoke designs that evoked a sense of awe and beauty. Was Seattle’s architecture a key element in how you designed the visual effects? How did you adapt the city’s real-life urban landscape to meet the needs of the story while maintaining a coherent aesthetic? Alex Wang // It’s always important to Craig and Neil that we remain true to the cities our characters are in. DNEG was one of our primary vendors for Boston in Season 1, so it was natural for them to return for Season 2, this time focusing on Seattle. DNEG’s VFX Supervisor, Stephen James, who played a crucial role in developing the visual language of Boston for Season 1, also returns for this season. Stephen and Melaina Maceled a team to Seattle to shoot plates and perform lidar scans of parts of the city. We identified the buildings unique to Seattle that would have existed in 2003, so we ensured these buildings were always included in our establishing shots. Overgrowth and destruction have significantly influenced the environments in The Last of Us. The environment functions almost as a character in both Season 1 and Season 2. In the last season, the building destruction in Boston was primarily caused by military bombings. During this season, destruction mainly arises from dilapidation. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I understand how damp it can get for most of the year. I imagined that, over 20 years, the integrity of the buildings would be compromised by natural forces. This abundant moisture creates an exceptionally lush and vibrant landscape for much of the year. Therefore, when designing Seattle, we ensured that the destruction and overgrowth appeared intentional and aesthetically distinct from those of Boston. Fiona Campbell Westgate // Led by Stephen James, DNEG VFX Supervisor, and Melaina Mace, DNEG DFX Supervisor, the team captured photography, drone footage and the Clear Angle team captured LiDAR data over a three-day period in Seattle. It was crucial to include recognizable Seattle landmarks that would resonate with people familiar with the game. The devastated city almost becomes a character in itself this season. What aspects of the visual effects did you have to enhance to increase the immersion of the viewer into this hostile and deteriorated environment? Fiona Campbell Westgate // It is indeed a character. Craig wanted it to be deteriorated but to have moments where it’s also beautiful in its devastation. For instance, in the Music Store in Episode 4 where Ellie is playing guitar for Dina, the deteriorated interior provides a beautiful backdrop to this intimate moment. The Set Decorating team dressed a specific section of the set, while VFX extended the destruction and overgrowth to encompass the entire environment, immersing the viewer in strange yet familiar surroundings. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO The sequence where Ellie navigates a boat through a violent storm is stunning. What were the key challenges in creating this scene, especially with water simulation and the storm’s effects? Alex Wang // In the concluding episode of Season 2, Ellie is deep in Seattle, searching for Abby. The episode draws us closer to the Aquarium, where this area of Seattle is heavily flooded. Naturally, this brings challenges with CG water. In the scene where Ellie encounters Isaac and the W.L.F soldiers by the dock, we had a complex shoot involving multiple locations, including a water tank and a boat gimbal. There were also several full CG shots. For Isaac’s riverine boat, which was in a stormy ocean, I felt it was essential that the boat and the actors were given the appropriate motion. Weta FX assisted with tech-vis for all the boat gimbal work. We began with different ocean wave sizes caused by the storm, and once the filmmakers selected one, the boat’s motion in the tech-vis fed the special FX gimbal. When Ellie gets into the Jon boat, I didn’t want it on the same gimbal because I felt it would be too mechanical. Ellie’s weight needed to affect the boat as she got in, and that wouldn’t have happened with a mechanical gimbal. So, we opted to have her boat in a water tank for this scene. Special FX had wave makers that provided the boat with the appropriate movement. Instead of guessing what the ocean sim for the riverine boat should be, the tech- vis data enabled DNEG to get a head start on the water simulations in post-production. Craig wanted this sequence to appear convincingly dark, much like it looks out on the ocean at night. This allowed us to create dramatic visuals, using lightning strikes at moments to reveal depth. Were there any memorable moments or scenes from the series that you found particularly rewarding or challenging to work on from a visual effects standpoint? Alex Wang // The Last of Us tells the story of our characters’ journey. If you look at how season 2 begins in Jackson, it differs significantly from how we conclude the season in Seattle. We seldom return to the exact location in each episode, meaning every episode presents a unique challenge. The scope of work this season has been incredibly rewarding. We burned a Bloater, and we also introduced spores this season! Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO Looking back on the project, what aspects of the visual effects are you most proud of? Alex Wang // The Jackson Battle was incredibly complex, involving a grueling and lengthy shoot in quite challenging conditions, along with over 600 VFX shots in episode 2. It was truly inspiring to witness the determination of every department and vendor to give their all and create something remarkable. Fiona Campbell Westgate // I am immensely proud of the exceptional work accomplished by all of our vendors. During the VFX reviews, I found myself clapping with delight when the final shots were displayed; it was exciting to see remarkable results of the artists’ efforts come to light. How long have you worked on this show? Alex Wang // I’ve been on this season for nearly two years. Fiona Campbell Westgate // A little over one year; I joined the show in April 2024. What’s the VFX shots count? Alex Wang // We had just over 2,500 shots this Season. Fiona Campbell Westgate // In Season 2, there were a total of 2656 visual effects shots. What is your next project? Fiona Campbell Westgate // Stay tuned… A big thanks for your time. WANT TO KNOW MORE?Blackbird: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.DNEG: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 on DNEG website.Important Looking Pirates: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.RISE: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.Weta FX: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website. © Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2025 #last #season #alex #wang #production

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The Last of Us – Season 2: Alex Wang (Production VFX Supervisor) & Fiona Campbell Westgate (Production VFX Producer)

After detailing the VFX work on The Last of Us Season 1 in 2023, Alex Wang returns to reflect on how the scope and complexity have evolved in Season 2. With close to 30 years of experience in the visual effects industry, Fiona Campbell Westgate has contributed to major productions such as Ghost in the Shell, Avatar: The Way of Water, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Nyad. Her work on Nyad earned her a VES Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature. Collaboration with Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann is key to shaping the visual universe of The Last of Us. Can you share with us how you work with them and how they influence the visual direction of the series? Alex Wang // Craig visualizes the shot or scene before putting words on the page. His writing is always exceptionally detailed and descriptive, ultimately helping us to imagine the shot. Of course, no one understands The Last of Us better than Neil, who knows all aspects of the lore very well. He’s done much research and design work with the Naughty Dog team, so he gives us good guidance regarding creature and environment designs. I always try to begin with concept art to get the ball rolling with Craig and Neil’s ideas. This season, we collaborated with Chromatic Studios for concept art. They also contributed to the games, so I felt that continuity was beneficial for our show. Fiona Campbell Westgate // From the outset, it was clear that collaborating with Craig would be an exceptional experience. Early meetings revealed just how personable and invested Craig is. He works closely with every department to ensure that each episode is done to the highest level. Craig places unwavering trust in our VFX Supervisor, Alex Wang. They have an understanding between them that lends to an exceptional partnership. As the VFX Producer, I know how vital the dynamic between the Showrunner and VFX Supervisor is; working with these two has made for one of the best professional experiences of my career. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO How has your collaboration with Craig evolved between the first and second seasons? Were there any adjustments in the visual approach or narrative techniques you made this season? Alex Wang // Since everything was new in Season 1, we dedicated a lot of time and effort to exploring the show’s visual language, and we all learned a great deal about what worked and what didn’t for the show. In my initial conversations with Craig about Season 2, it was clear that he wanted to expand the show’s scope by utilizing what we established and learned in Season 1. He felt significantly more at ease fully committing to using VFX to help tell the story this season. The first season involved multiple VFX studios to handle the complexity of the effects. How did you divide the work among different studios for the second season? Alex Wang // Most of the vendors this season were also in Season 1, so we already had a shorthand. The VFX Producer, Fiona Campbell Westgate, and I work closely together to decide how to divide the work among our vendors. The type of work needs to be well-suited for the vendor and fit into our budget and schedule. We were extremely fortunate to have the vendors we did this season. I want to take this opportunity to thank Weta FX, DNEG, RISE, Distillery VFX, Storm Studios, Important Looking Pirates, Blackbird, Wylie Co., RVX, and VDK. We also had ILM for concept art and Digital Domain for previs. Fiona Campbell Westgate // Alex Wang and I were very aware of the tight delivery schedule, which added to the challenge of distributing the workload. We planned the work based on the individual studio’s capabilities, and tried not to burden them with back to back episodes wherever possible. Fortunately, there was shorthand with vendors from Season One, who were well-acquainted with the process and the quality of work the show required. The town of Jackson is a key location in The Last of Us. Could you explain how you approached creating and expanding this environment for the second season? Alex Wang // Since Season 1, this show has created incredible sets. However, the Jackson town set build is by far the most impressive in terms of scope. They constructed an 822 ft x 400 ft set in Minaty Bay that resembled a real town! I had early discussions with Production Designer Don MacAulay and his team about where they should concentrate their efforts and where VFX would make the most sense to take over. They focused on developing the town’s main street, where we believed most scenes would occur. There is a big reveal of Jackson in the first episode after Ellie comes out of the barn. Distillery VFX was responsible for the town’s extension, which appears seamless because the team took great pride in researching and ensuring the architecture aligned with the set while staying true to the tone of Jackson, Wyoming. Fiona Campbell Westgate // An impressive set was constructed in Minaty Bay, which served as the foundation for VFX to build upon. There is a beautiful establishing shot of Jackson in Episode 1 that was completed by Distillery, showing a safe and almost normal setting as Season Two starts. Across the episodes, Jackson set extensions were completed by our partners at RISE and Weta. Each had a different phase of Jackson to create, from almost idyllic to a town immersed in Battle. What challenges did you face filming Jackson on both real and virtual sets? Was there a particular fusion between visual effects and live-action shots to make it feel realistic? Alex Wang // I always advocate for building exterior sets outdoors to take advantage of natural light. However, the drawback is that we cannot control the weather and lighting when filming over several days across two units. In Episode 2, there’s supposed to be a winter storm in Jackson, so maintaining consistency within the episode was essential. On sunny and rainy days, we used cranes to lift large 30x60ft screens to block the sun or rain. It was impossible to shield the entire set from the rain or sun, so we prioritized protecting the actors from sunlight or rain. Thus, you can imagine there was extensive weather cleanup for the episode to ensure consistency within the sequences. Fiona Campbell Westgate // We were fortunate that production built a large scale Jackson set. It provided a base for the full CG Jackson aerial shots and CG Set Extensions. The weather conditions at Minaty Bay presented a challenge during the filming of the end of the Battle sequence in Episode 2. While there were periods of bright sunshine, rainfall occurred during the filming of the end of the Battle sequence in Episode 2. In addition to the obvious visual effects work, it became necessary to replace the ground cover. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO The attack on Jackson by the horde of infected in season 2 is a very intense moment. How did you approach the visual effects for this sequence? What techniques did you use to make the scale of the attack feel as impressive as it did? Alex Wang // We knew this would be a very complex sequence to shoot, and for it to be successful, we needed to start planning with the HODs from the very beginning. We began previs during prep with Weta FX and the episode’s director, Mark Mylod. The previs helped us understand Mark and the showrunner’s vision. This then served as a blueprint for all departments to follow, and in many instances, we filmed the previs. Fiona Campbell Westgate // The sheer size of the CG Infected Horde sets the tone for the scale of the Battle. It’s an intimidating moment when they are revealed through the blowing snow. The addition of CG explosions and atmospheric effects contributed in adding scale to the sequence. Can you give us an insight into the technical challenges of capturing the infected horde? How much of the effect was done using CGI, and how much was achieved with practical effects? Alex Wang // Starting with a detailed previs that Mark and Craig approved was essential for planning the horde. We understood that we would never have enough stunt performers to fill a horde, nor could they carry out some stunts that would be too dangerous. I reviewed the previs with Stunt Coordinator Marny Eng numerous times to decide the best placements for her team’s stunt performers. We also collaborated with Barrie Gower from the Prosthetics team to determine the most effective allocation of his team’s efforts. Stunt performers positioned closest to the camera would receive the full prosthetic treatment, which can take hours. Weta FX was responsible for the incredible CG Infected horde work in the Jackson Battle. They have been a creative partner with HBO’s The Last of Us since Season 1, so they were brought on early for Season 2. I began discussions with Weta’s VFX supervisor, Nick Epstein, about how we could tackle these complex horde shots very early during the shoot. Typically, repetition in CG crowd scenes can be acceptable, such as armies with soldiers dressed in the same uniform or armour. However, for our Infected horde, Craig wanted to convey that the Infected didn’t come off an assembly line or all shop at the same clothing department store. Any repetition would feel artificial. These Infected were once civilians with families, or they were groups of raiders. We needed complex variations in height, body size, age, clothing, and hair. We built our base library of Infected, and then Nick and the Weta FX team developed a “mix and match” system, allowing the Infected to wear any costume and hair groom. A procedural texturing system was also developed for costumes, providing even greater variation. The most crucial aspect of the Infected horde was their motion. We had numerous shots cutting back-to-back with practical Infected, as well as shots where our CG Infected ran right alongside a stunt horde. It was incredibly unforgiving! Weta FX’s animation supervisor from Season 1, Dennis Yoo, returned for Season 2 to meet the challenge. Having been part of the first season, Dennis understood the expectations of Craig and Neil. Similar to issues of model repetition within a horde, it was relatively easy to perceive repetition, especially if they were running toward the same target. It was essential to enhance the details of their performances with nuances such as tripping and falling, getting back up, and trampling over each other. There also needed to be a difference in the Infected’s running speed. To ensure we had enough complexity within the horde, Dennis motion-captured almost 600 unique motion cycles. We had over a hundred shots in episode 2 that required CG Infected horde. Fiona Campbell Westgate // Nick Epstein, Weta VFX Supervisor, and Dennis Yoo, Weta Animation Supervisor, were faced with having to add hero, close-up Horde that had to integrate with practical Stunt performers. They achieved this through over 60 motion capture sessions and running it through a deformation system they developed. Every detail was applied to allow for a seamless blend with our practical Stunt performances. The Weta team created a custom costume and hair system that provided individual looks to the CG Infected Horde. We were able to avoid the repetitive look of a CG crowd due to these efforts. The movement of the infected horde is crucial for the intensity of the scene. How did you manage the animation and simulation of the infected to ensure smooth and realistic interaction with the environment? Fiona Campbell Westgate // We worked closely with the Stunt department to plan out positioning and where VFX would be adding the CG Horde. Craig Mazin wanted the Infected Horde to move in a way that humans cannot. The deformation system kept the body shape anatomically correct and allowed us to push the limits from how a human physically moves. The Bloater makes a terrifying return this season. What were the key challenges in designing and animating this creature? How did you work on the Bloater’s interaction with the environment and other characters? Alex Wang // In Season 1, the Kansas City cul-de-sac sequence featured only a handful of Bloater shots. This season, however, nearly forty shots showcase the Bloater in broad daylight during the Battle of Jackson. We needed to redesign the Bloater asset to ensure it looked good in close-up shots from head to toe. Weta FX designed the Bloater for Season 1 and revamped the design for this season. Starting with the Bloater’s silhouette, it had to appear large, intimidating, and menacing. We explored enlarging the cordyceps head shape to make it feel almost like a crown, enhancing the Bloater’s impressive and strong presence. During filming, a stunt double stood in for the Bloater. This was mainly for scale reference and composition. It also helped the Infected stunt performers understand the Bloater’s spatial position, allowing them to avoid running through his space. Once we had an edit, Dennis mocapped the Bloater’s performances with his team. It is always challenging to get the motion right for a creature that weighs 600 pounds. We don’t want the mocap to be overly exaggerated, but it does break the character if the Bloater feels too “light.” The brilliant animation team at Weta FX brought the Bloater character to life and nailed it! When Tommy goes head-to-head with the Bloater, Craig was quite specific during the prep days about how the Bloater would bubble, melt, and burn as Tommy torches him with the flamethrower. Important Looking Pirates took on the “Burning Bloater” sequence, led by VFX Supervisor Philip Engstrom. They began with extensive R&D to ensure the Bloater’s skin would start to bubble and burn. ILP took the final Bloater asset from Weta FX and had to resculpt and texture the asset for the Bloater’s final burn state. Craig felt it was important for the Bloater to appear maimed at the end. The layers of FX were so complex that the R&D continued almost to the end of the delivery schedule. Fiona Campbell Westgate // This season the Bloater had to be bigger, more intimidating. The CG Asset was recreated to withstand the scrutiny of close ups and in daylight. Both Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann worked closely with us during the process of the build. We referenced the game and applied elements of that version with ours. You’ll notice that his head is in the shape of crown, this is to convey he’s a powerful force. During the Burning Bloater sequence in Episode 2, we brainstormed with Philip Engström, ILP VFX Supervisor, on how this creature would react to the flamethrower and how it would affect the ground as it burns. When the Bloater finally falls to the ground and dies, the extraordinary detail of the embers burning, fluid draining and melting the surrounding snow really sells that the CG creature was in the terrain. Given the Bloater’s imposing size, how did you approach its integration into scenes with the actors? What techniques did you use to create such a realistic and menacing appearance? Fiona Campbell Westgate // For the Bloater, a stunt performer wearing a motion capture suit was filmed on set. This provided interaction with the actors and the environment. VFX enhanced the intensity of his movements, incorporating simulations to the CG Bloater’s skin and muscles that would reflect the weight and force as this terrifying creature moves. Seattle in The Last of Us is a completely devastated city. Can you talk about how you recreated this destruction? What were the most difficult visual aspects to realize for this post-apocalyptic city? Fiona Campbell Westgate // We were meticulous in blending the CG destruction with the practical environment. The flora’s ability to overtake the environment had to be believable, and we adhered to the principle of form follows function. Due to the vastness of the CG devastation it was crucial to avoid repetitive effects. Consequently, our vendors were tasked with creating bespoke designs that evoked a sense of awe and beauty. Was Seattle’s architecture a key element in how you designed the visual effects? How did you adapt the city’s real-life urban landscape to meet the needs of the story while maintaining a coherent aesthetic? Alex Wang // It’s always important to Craig and Neil that we remain true to the cities our characters are in. DNEG was one of our primary vendors for Boston in Season 1, so it was natural for them to return for Season 2, this time focusing on Seattle. DNEG’s VFX Supervisor, Stephen James, who played a crucial role in developing the visual language of Boston for Season 1, also returns for this season. Stephen and Melaina Mace (DFX Supervisor) led a team to Seattle to shoot plates and perform lidar scans of parts of the city. We identified the buildings unique to Seattle that would have existed in 2003, so we ensured these buildings were always included in our establishing shots. Overgrowth and destruction have significantly influenced the environments in The Last of Us. The environment functions almost as a character in both Season 1 and Season 2. In the last season, the building destruction in Boston was primarily caused by military bombings. During this season, destruction mainly arises from dilapidation. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I understand how damp it can get for most of the year. I imagined that, over 20 years, the integrity of the buildings would be compromised by natural forces. This abundant moisture creates an exceptionally lush and vibrant landscape for much of the year. Therefore, when designing Seattle, we ensured that the destruction and overgrowth appeared intentional and aesthetically distinct from those of Boston. Fiona Campbell Westgate // Led by Stephen James, DNEG VFX Supervisor, and Melaina Mace, DNEG DFX Supervisor, the team captured photography, drone footage and the Clear Angle team captured LiDAR data over a three-day period in Seattle. It was crucial to include recognizable Seattle landmarks that would resonate with people familiar with the game. The devastated city almost becomes a character in itself this season. What aspects of the visual effects did you have to enhance to increase the immersion of the viewer into this hostile and deteriorated environment? Fiona Campbell Westgate // It is indeed a character. Craig wanted it to be deteriorated but to have moments where it’s also beautiful in its devastation. For instance, in the Music Store in Episode 4 where Ellie is playing guitar for Dina, the deteriorated interior provides a beautiful backdrop to this intimate moment. The Set Decorating team dressed a specific section of the set, while VFX extended the destruction and overgrowth to encompass the entire environment, immersing the viewer in strange yet familiar surroundings. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO The sequence where Ellie navigates a boat through a violent storm is stunning. What were the key challenges in creating this scene, especially with water simulation and the storm’s effects? Alex Wang // In the concluding episode of Season 2, Ellie is deep in Seattle, searching for Abby. The episode draws us closer to the Aquarium, where this area of Seattle is heavily flooded. Naturally, this brings challenges with CG water. In the scene where Ellie encounters Isaac and the W.L.F soldiers by the dock, we had a complex shoot involving multiple locations, including a water tank and a boat gimbal. There were also several full CG shots. For Isaac’s riverine boat, which was in a stormy ocean, I felt it was essential that the boat and the actors were given the appropriate motion. Weta FX assisted with tech-vis for all the boat gimbal work. We began with different ocean wave sizes caused by the storm, and once the filmmakers selected one, the boat’s motion in the tech-vis fed the special FX gimbal. When Ellie gets into the Jon boat, I didn’t want it on the same gimbal because I felt it would be too mechanical. Ellie’s weight needed to affect the boat as she got in, and that wouldn’t have happened with a mechanical gimbal. So, we opted to have her boat in a water tank for this scene. Special FX had wave makers that provided the boat with the appropriate movement. Instead of guessing what the ocean sim for the riverine boat should be, the tech- vis data enabled DNEG to get a head start on the water simulations in post-production. Craig wanted this sequence to appear convincingly dark, much like it looks out on the ocean at night. This allowed us to create dramatic visuals, using lightning strikes at moments to reveal depth. Were there any memorable moments or scenes from the series that you found particularly rewarding or challenging to work on from a visual effects standpoint? Alex Wang // The Last of Us tells the story of our characters’ journey. If you look at how season 2 begins in Jackson, it differs significantly from how we conclude the season in Seattle. We seldom return to the exact location in each episode, meaning every episode presents a unique challenge. The scope of work this season has been incredibly rewarding. We burned a Bloater, and we also introduced spores this season! Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO Looking back on the project, what aspects of the visual effects are you most proud of? Alex Wang // The Jackson Battle was incredibly complex, involving a grueling and lengthy shoot in quite challenging conditions, along with over 600 VFX shots in episode 2. It was truly inspiring to witness the determination of every department and vendor to give their all and create something remarkable. Fiona Campbell Westgate // I am immensely proud of the exceptional work accomplished by all of our vendors. During the VFX reviews, I found myself clapping with delight when the final shots were displayed; it was exciting to see remarkable results of the artists’ efforts come to light. How long have you worked on this show? Alex Wang // I’ve been on this season for nearly two years. Fiona Campbell Westgate // A little over one year; I joined the show in April 2024. What’s the VFX shots count? Alex Wang // We had just over 2,500 shots this Season. Fiona Campbell Westgate // In Season 2, there were a total of 2656 visual effects shots. What is your next project? Fiona Campbell Westgate // Stay tuned… A big thanks for your time. WANT TO KNOW MORE?Blackbird: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.DNEG: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 on DNEG website.Important Looking Pirates: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.RISE: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.Weta FX: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website. © Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2025

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The Last of Us – Season 2: Alex Wang (Production VFX Supervisor) &amp; Fiona Campbell Westgate (Production VFX Producer)

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