Coatsink’s charming flight adventure game Skytail releases on March 26 for Quest headsets.
Skytail sees players riding atop the back of a birdlike companion and using telekinetic powers to defeat enemies in the sky. Together, you set off on an adventure to rescue the titular creature’s kidnapped offspring. The new title from Coatsink was first revealed at the 2025 UploadVR Winter Showcase.
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A new trailer from Coatsink shows more of the gameplay players can expect. The telekinetic abilities are handled through different gesture controls, allowing you to tear apart, crush, or otherwise dispatch enemies in your path. The trailer also shows players freeing creatures from captivity, exploring islands, and forging a bond with the winged companion.
Skytail from Coatsink – Images provided by the developer
At the time of this article, there is no news on any additional platforms. A new port of Jurassic World Aftermath combining the two part adventure was released as a launch title for PlayStation VR2 in 2023. Augmented Empire, originally an Oculus Go title, was updated for mixed reality and released for Quest 3 in 2024. Men In Black remains a Quest exclusive.
Google is planning big changes for Android in 2026 aimed at combating malware across the entire device ecosystem. Starting in September, Google will begin restricting application sideloading with its developer verification program, but not everyone is on board. Android Ecosystem President Sameer Samat tells Ars that the company has been listening to feedback, and the result is the newly unveiled advanced flow, which will allow power users to skip app verification.
With its new limits on sideloading, Android phones will only install apps that come from verified developers. To verify, devs releasing apps outside of Google Play will have to provide identification, upload a copy of their signing keys, and pay a $25 fee. It all seems rather onerous for people who just want to make apps without Google’s intervention.
Apps that come from unverified developers won’t be installable on Android phones—unless you use the new advanced flow, which will be buried in the developer settings.
Ubisoft is ending game development at Red Storm Entertainment, a studio responsible for several popular VR titles.
Ubisoft will end game production at Red Storm Entertainment. The studio developed such early Tom Clancy games as Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon, and more recently worked in VR development, creating Werewolves Within, Star Trek: Bridge Crew, and Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR.
The cessation of game development will result in a reported loss of 105 jobs, with all game development jobs being made redundant. The remaining staff of Red Storm Entertainment will reportedly adopt a support role, handling global IT and Snowdrop engine support.
Ubisoft has recently closed multiple studios, laid off hundreds of workers, and canceled or delayed over a dozen projects amidst a “reset” which seeks to lower the company’s global operating costs by more than €200 million.
We had high praise for Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR in our review, awarding it our 2023 Quest Game of the Year, and noting it was “the most fun [we’ve] ever had with Assassin’s Creed.”
Speaking just a few months after the game’s release, Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot noted his disappointment in its sales numbers, and confirmed the publisher’s unwillingness to make further investment in VR until the medium “grows enough.”
Stranger Things fans will soon have permanent access to the Upside Down, as a full DVD set is now available to preorder. Stranger Things: The Complete Series comes in Blu-Ray and 4K UHD editions.
This collection includes all five seasons of the hit show, which totals 25 discs. It’ll be available at brick-and-mortar and online retailers beginning on July 28. Prices range from $200 to $260, depending on the media type and edition.
Return to Hawkins this July with STRANGER THINGS: THE COMPLETE SERIES, available in Special and Deluxe Editions on Blu-ray and 4K UHD.
To that end, there’s a deluxe edition available for true diehards. This includes the complete series, of course, but also bonus content like bloopers, interviews with the cast and crew and various behind-the-scenes featurettes. It also comes with a bunch of doodads, like a self-adhesive Hellfire Club patch, five posters, 25 smaller art cards, a fold-out map of Hawkins and a branded twenty-sided die.
There’s a collector’s box and each season comes in reversible sleeves with new artwork. Finally, this edition ships with a large artbook that includes original design sketches, concept art, storyboards and more. This is a pretty cool and comprehensive package.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/the-complete-stranger-things-dvd-set-includes-25-discs-and-costs-around-200-172222577.html?src=rss
Ubisoft is ceasing game development at its studio, Red Storm Entertainment, best known for its work on the Tom Clancy’s series. While the studio is set to remain open, 105 people will be laid off, a Ubisoft source told GamesIndustry.biz.
Those who survive the cull will reportedly continue to work on the Snowdrop engine, used in many of Ubisoft’s tentpole games over the last decade, including Star Wars Outlawsand Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora more recently. Red Storm had been working on an untitled Splinter Cell VR game that was canceled in 2022, as well as the also-canceled The Division Heartland.
The studio was co-founded by the author Tom Clancy himself in 1996 (taking its name from Clancy’s novel Red Storm Rising), and in its 30 years has worked on a large number of Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six games, among others. It also developed 2023’s broadly well-received Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR.
According to GamesIndustry.biz’s source, the layoffs at Red Storm are part of Ubisoft’s wider cost-saving reorganization, which has resulted in sweeping job cuts and game cancellations across the French publisher’s portfolio.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-ends-development-at-tom-clancy-studio-red-storm-170847892.html?src=rss
Unofficial community support for AMD’s FSR 4 upscaler continues to improve, as OptiScaler FSR 4 injection for RDNA 2 GPUs now works with current AMD drivers and no longer requires reverting to older drivers to function. Fancy that!
Just last month, OptiScaler also brought FSR 4 to Vulkan games which previously had no support for FSR 4
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There’s nothing sweeter than listening to your favorite album or watching your favorite movie with pristine audio. And if you’re a true audiophile, few brands approach the quality Sonos can offer. Right now, Sonos is offering major discounts in the lead-up to Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, and the Sonos Beam G2 + Sub Mini combo in particular stands out; it’s currently $749, a 25% drop from the $998 list price and the lowest price it yet reached, according to price tracking tools.
Sonos Beam G2 + Sub Mini – White
$749.00 at Amazon
$998.00 Save $249.00
$749.00 at Amazon
$998.00 Save $249.00
Sonos Beam G2 + Sub Mini – Black
$749.00 at Amazon
$998.00 Save $249.00
$749.00 at Amazon
$998.00 Save $249.00
This soundbar and subwoofer combo is perfect for those who want to keep things minimalistic, whether for space or aesthetic reasons, without sacrificing sound quality. The deal includes the Sonos Beam Gen 2, which normally goes for $499, and the Sonos Sub Mini, which normally also goes for $499.
The Sonos Beam Gen 2 arrived in 2021 with Atmos compatibility, eARC connectivity, NFC connectivity, and a better processor than the Gen 1 from 2018. As a smart soundbar, it supports both Google and Alexa voice assistants, as well as AirPlay. Its flat, tablet-like design (measuring 2.7 x 25.7 x 4.0 inches) makes it extremely compact, yet it still produces big sound, as noted in PCMag’s “excellent” review. The Sonos Sub Mini is a smaller and more affordable version of the Sonos Sub Gen 3, perfect for a small apartment. You can learn more about it in CNET’s review.
The Sonos companion app has improved dramatically over the years, making for a much better experience, adding features like Sonos TruePlay, which calibrates the speaker based on its environment.
Our Best Editor-Vetted Amazon Big Spring Sale Deals Right Now
OpenAI announced it’s acquiring developer tooling startup Astral to strengthen its Codex AI coding assistant, which has over 2 million weekly users and has seen a three-fold increase in user growth since the start of the year. CNBC reports: “Through it all, though, our goal remains the same: to make programming more productive. To build tools that radically change what it feels like to build software,” Astral’s founder and CEO Charlie Marsh wrote in a blog post. The company’s acquisition of Astral is still subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval.
Meta is backtracking on its plans to shut down the VR version of its metaverse. The company now plans to support Horizon Worlds in VR for the “foreseeable future,” though users shouldn’t expect new games, CTO Andrew Bosworth said in an update.
“We will keep horizon worlds working in VR for existing games, to support the fans who’ve reached out,” Bosworth said in a post on Instagram. “For people who already have games they like that they’re using in Horizon Worlds, [they] will be able to download the Horizon Worlds app and use it in VR for the foreseeable future.”
The reversal comes after Meta said earlier this week that Horizon Worlds in VR would no longer be accessible after June 15 as the company pivots its metaverse experiences to mobile. Though Horizon never gained mass appeal, even among VR enthusiasts, Meta’s move to shut it down was just the latest sign of how the company has pivoted away from its metaverse ambitions as it chases AI “superintelligence.”
In his post on Instagram, Bosworth said there was “a lot of misinformation” about the company’s plans. “We announced, ‘hey, we’re moving away from Horizon Worlds in VR,’ and the headline is that Horizon is dead,” he said. “It’s not. And likewise, VR is not dead. We’re continuing to invest tremendously.” The company laid off more than 1,000 employees from its metaverse division and shut down three VR studios earlier this year. Bosworth said that the company is still working on its next two generations of VR headsets.
He described the metaverse as a “misunderstood concept” that was never meant to only encompass virtual reality. He said that AR is also part of the vision and that even people scrolling their phones could be part of the metaverse. “When somebody is using their phone and you’re physically with them, they’re at the dinner table with you, and yet when you talk to them, they hear nothing because they’ve transported themselves through the glowing rectangle into a digital space,” he said. “Maybe that they’re scrolling media, maybe that they’re in the text world, but like they have transported themselves. So we’ve always had this internally — at least me and Mark — this very expansive construct of the metaverse.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-isnt-shutting-down-its-vr-metaverse-after-all-165520696.html?src=rss
Apple’s MacBook Neo is impressive for its $600 price, but its A18 Pro processor is one of its biggest compromises compared to a modern MacBook Air—in our review, we found it was more than up to basic computing tasks, but for demanding workloads that benefit from more CPU and GPU cores and RAM, the Air is a better choice.
But those limited computing resources are still enough to run Windows on your Mac using the Parallels Desktop virtualization software—so says Parallels itself, which after some testing and benchmarking has declared the Neo suitable for “lightweight computing and everyday productivity, document editing, and web-based apps” while running Windows 11.
Parallels says the MacBook Neo’s respectable single-core CPU performance keeps the Neo feeling “quick and responsive” when running multiple Windows-only software packages, including QuickBooks Desktop and other accounting apps, Microsoft Office, “light engineering and data tools” including AutoCAD LT and MATLAB, and “Windows-only courseware and education software” with “no Mac equivalent.” In Parallels’ testing, the Neo’s single-core CPU performance in Windows was still roughly 20 percent faster compared to a Core Ultra 5 235U chip in a Dell Pro 14 laptop.
The Switch 2 ports keep on coming. This time it’s Kena: Bridge of Spirits, the award-winning 2021 title from Ember Lab. Previously announced for spring 2026, the visually striking title now has an official release date of March 26.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits won Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie Game at The Game Awards 2021. It’s already available for PS5 / PS4, PC (Steam and Epic) and Xbox Series X/S and One.
You play as Kena, a young spirit guide on a quest to a sacred mountain shrine. Gameplay has a Zelda-like flair. (That could make it a solid next play after Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.) Like in Link’s adventures, you’ll find plenty of exploration, puzzles and fast-paced combat. That encompasses whacking bad guys with Kena’s staff, firing arrows and flinging bombs.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits launches for Switch 2 on March 26 in North America, Europe and Asia. Meanwhile, folks in Thailand can get it a day earlier, on March 25. Details about Taiwan will be announced “soon.” You can preorder the game today in North America and Europe and get a taste of its Pixar-esque art style in the trailer below.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/kena-bridge-of-spirits-launches-for-switch-2-on-march-26-163540229.html?src=rss
Nvidia announced back at GDC earlier this month that it was upping framerate on its GeForce NOW cloud gaming service for VR headset streaming. Now the company has pushed the official update, which supports a host of popular standalone XR headsets.
The update brings “up to 90 fps” to the cloud gaming service to all supported VR platforms, which includes Vision Pro, Meta Quest, and Pico headsets.
Notably, the ‘up to 90 fps’ feature comes to Ultimate members, a premium subscription priced at $20 per month, or $200 per year—something Nvidia says offers RTX 50-series performance.
One real caveat though if you’re hoping to play everything on a standalone headset: GeForce Now doesn’t yet include VR cloud gaming—i.e. the ability to play play VR-native titles—but rather access to standard games playable across Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and handheld gaming devices.
Vision Pro users appear to get the best experience among VR headsets, thanks to built-in eye-tracking that enables Nvidia to deliver foveated PC streaming at up to 4K and 120 fps. This is the result of Nvidia partnering with Apple to bring its CloudXR platform to visionOS.
I’ve tested dozens of bike lights over the past decade, and they almost always have one thing in common. Too. Many. Modes.
Being generous, I’m sure it comes from a good place, where product managers and engineers have layered feature and mode on top of feature and mode over a number of years as they seek to improve their products.
But maybe it’s always been a simple game of one upmanship – where more equals better, even if it overcomplicates what should be a simple-to-use safety device.
Even the very best bike lights have plenty of redundant modes – a nuisance we put up with, because that’s just the way it is.
However, Knog’s Modemaker web app is an elegant and fun solution to this problem.
Enter The Matrix
Knog’s retro approach to customisation is fun. Ashley Quinlan / Our Media
Rather pleasingly to this fan of science-fiction, the Modemaker app presents itself a bit like a Web 1.0 scrolling code screen – all monochromatic green tones, reminiscent perhaps of the hacker-turned-humanity-saviour Neo’s workstation CRT monitor in The Matrix.
Or maybe it’s more like the Grid from 1982’s Tron? Or something like the operating system governing Knight Rider’s KITT?
Whatever it is, it’s fantastic. Original, fun and – most importantly – useful.
I used a Cobber Reflex rear light to try out the app. Ashley Quinlan / Our Media
I was shown the ropes by Knog’s director of brand & marketing Colin Brown, who explained that the Modemaker was developed by enterprising Knog engineers. They recognised the pre-programmed modes of bike lights weren’t always optimised for individual users.
“You can tell when you use it that someone cared enough to develop something fun and interesting to engage with, but ultimately makes our products even better,” Brown says.
Of course, he’d say that, but I find myself hooked on the Modemaker – a bit like that arcade game you couldn’t walk away from when you were a child, and just had to put another quid in the slot to beat the final (OK, first) boss.
Plugging in
Now we’re into programming mode.
The software only works for select devices at present, but according to Brown that’s set to change as more customisable Knog lights roll out.
Once I was set up on the Modemaker web app, I plugged in a Cobber Reflex rear light and added it to the dashboard. It instantly began rotating in that nostalgia-laced ‘select-player-one’ way.
From there, you can update firmware when needed, and change the name of the light to make it more recognisable in case you have more than one.
Each mode can be tweaked to suit your needs.
The app shows all the modes pre-programmed onto the light, plus a library of other modes, which can be selected and customised.
The simple drag-and-drop functionality is as simple as it comes, while the sensitivity of certain modes can be tweaked to suit your needs.
This results in a real behaviour change in the light.
In the example shown for the responsive tilt mode, I can adjust the sensitivity of the internal accelerometer and the brightness, and choose whether I want the built-in brake function to override the mode (and how sensitive I want it to be).
Naturally, this sits alongside the other modes Knog offers. But, mercifully, I can choose to remove almost all of them, leaving me with the two or three modes I would need, and saving me from clicking through a whole cycle of modes every time I turn on my lights. Bliss.
Should I want to use my lights across several bikes, I can create profiles with suitable modes within the web app – for example, one to suit my weekend road rides during the day and one for my urban commutes in the dark.
The brake function can be customised.
Naturally, the Modemaker web app is also a natural home for troubleshooting any issues, which I’m told will be expanded upon as new lights are made available.
Simplicity reigns
Success!
Knog’s Modemaker taps into the one thing I suspect most riders want from their bike lights: simplicity.
The opportunity to scrap the unnecessary programs and the annoying mode scrolling of a congested menu, giving you the bike light you really need, is something I’d like to see every brand introduce.
Knog’s approach is fun, too, which is the icing on the proverbial cake.
With this week’s release of Blender 5.1 I have begun benchmarking it on different CPUs and GPUs. In this article is an initial look at the positive impact Blender 5.1 is having on CPU-based rendering performance on Linux.
If your browser of choice happens to be Firefox, good news: Your web surfing is about to get a bit more private. On Tuesday, Mozilla announced a number of upcoming updates to Firefox, all under the theme of user customizability. One such option happens to be a built-in VPN that Mozilla will offer users free of charge.
This new VPN option in Firefox rolls out March 24, as part of Firefox 149. There are no downloads required, since the VPN is baked into the update: Once it hits your browser, you’ll be able to turn on the VPN and start hiding your IP address and location while you use Firefox.
The only caveat here is that Mozilla is capping VPN data usage at 50GB per month. The company doesn’t say what happens once you hit that data limit, and I’ve reached out for clarification, but my guess is that the VPN will simply switch off, sending you back to Firefox’s default browsing experience—at least until the next month starts, and your data limit resets.
Why you should always use a VPN
If you use the internet without a VPN, you’re being tracked (yes, even if you use an incognito window). Without a Virtual Private Network, your IP address is exposed to the internet. Trackers can follow you around the web, and your internet service provider can keep tabs on what you’re doing. A VPN alone won’t make you impervious to tracking, but it does go a long way—all without having much impact on your browsing experience.
There are a lot of VPNs out there to choose from, and not all of them are equal. However, the general rule of thumb is to be wary of free VPNs. This is often a case of “you get what you pay for,” as many free options aren’t necessarily “upstanding.” The companies aren’t making any money off you directly, after all, so they may seek out data-sharing solutions to make money instead. As such, they may end up compromising your privacy in the end, defeating the purpose of the VPN in the first place.
I don’t see Firefox’s free VPN raising those red flags, however. Mozilla has a better track record than most when it comes to user privacy, and, in fact, already offers a paid VPN. From where I’m sitting, adding a free, limited VPN to Firefox is only a win-win for Mozilla: The company gets points for boosting user privacy for free, and if those users are looking for more flexibility while preserving their internet anonymity, they can check out Mozilla’s paid VPN option.
What else is coming to Firefox in the next update?
In its Tuesday post, Mozilla announced some other Firefox news in addition to its free VPN, including the following:
Smart Window: This feature, previously called AI Window, uses AI to offer “quick help” while you browse, without actually leaving the page you’re on. This help can include things like definitions, article summaries, and product comparisons. Mozilla says the feature is optional and opt-in, following the company’s stance on opt-in-only AI features.
Split view: This places two webpages side-by-side in the same window, following similar features in other browsers like Chrome.
Tab notes: This feature lets you add notes to tabs, up to 1,000 characters. A note will stay attached to the webpage until you delete it, even if you close the tab.
A new look: Firefox is teasing a “fresh new look,” including updated themes, icons, toolbars, menu, and the homepage.
Walmart has secured patents for systems that use machine learning to forecast demand and automate pricing decisions, “pushing the U.S. retail behemoth into a debate over the use of algorithms to adjust product costs,” reports the Financial Times. From the report: In January Walmart obtained a U.S. patent for a “system and method for dynamically and automatically updating item prices” to carry out markdowns in its ecommerce unit, a rapidly growing division that generated more than $150 billion in sales last year. Last week it received another patent for using machine learning to predict demand and recommend prices for goods. […] Walmart said that both patents were “unrelated to dynamic pricing,” as the patent issued in January was specific to markdowns and last week’s patent was designed for merchant teams to make decisions, not the technology.
The patent granted in January involves an “end-to-end price markdown system” for ecommerce platforms such as Walmart.com based on data including predicted demand and consumers’ price sensitivity. Last week’s approved patent outlines ways to forecast demand and set prices at levels that will move stock over periods such as a week, a month or a quarter. “Example categories may include, for example, a food item, outdoor equipment, clothing, housewares, toys, workout equipment, vegetables, spices,” according to the filing. The “demand forecasting and price recommendation” tool envisaged in the patent would incorporate sources including purchases, prices, methods of payment and customer ID, such as a passport or driver’s license number. “Dynamic pricing or anything that smells like it is playing with fire,” said Matt Hamory, a grocery industry consultant at AlixPartners, who cited “the goodwill that you can lose by getting customers to think or suspect or worry even slightly that you are doing things with pricing that are to your benefit and their detriment.”
For decades now, Counter-Strike players have gotten used to tapping the reload button whenever they have a spare, safe moment. Yesterday evening, though, Valve announced that it had decided this system needed “higher stakes,” overhauling Counter-Strike 2‘s reload mechanic in a way that could disrupt years of muscle memory for millions of players.
Until now, reloading in CS2 has meant dumping the remainder of your current clip “back into an essentially endless reserve supply,” Valve wrote in the game’s latest update announcement. From now on, hitting the reload button will instead make players “drop the used magazine and discard all of its remaining ammo. Instead of ‘topping off’ your weapon with a few bullets, a new full magazine will be taken from the reserves whenever you reload.”
While most weapons will now come with three full clips of reserve ammo, Valve wrote that “some weapons will have less to reward efficiency and precision, or more to encourage spamming through walls and smokes.” Counter-Strike specialist Thour did the math on the changes and found that 7 weapons gained ammo, 16 lost ammo, and 12 saw their total ammo remain unchanged under this new system. Shotguns seem to have seen the biggest upgrades, while strategies that rely on “pistol spam” might have to be rethought from now on.
