Category Archives: Blog

Horizon Zero Dawn was already known for being a beautiful game back in 2017. But the latest gameplay trailer for its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, shows off what the game engine can do with the added horsepower of a PS5. Check out the 14 minutes of gameplay footage that Sony released during its State of Play on Thursday above. 

The post-apocalyptic robo-dinosaur game does not yet have a confirmed release date, but is slated to launch sometime this year. Read more…

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The existence of a new upcoming Nintendo Switch console model has been one of the worst-kept secrets in video games for months now.

While Nintendo has yet to publicly confirm anything about these new Switch rumors, the latest credible reports claim assembly could begin as early as this summer. The alleged release plan would be for either a September or October 2021 launch, according to the sources familiar with the matter that spoke to Bloomberg News but wished to remain anonymous.

A Nintendo spokesman did not respond in time for publication when Mashable reached out for a request for comment on this latest report, and nor has Nintendo provided any previous statements regarding the slow drip of rumors around a new Switch over the past year. Read more…

More about Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, and Ps5

New research from dating app Bumble shows the disturbing reality of fetishization in the United States: 45 percent of survey respondents don’t have a clear understanding of what the word means as it relates to identities, race, and body type.

The groups most likely to face fetishization were also the most likely to recognize it, according to the survey. One in four Black women and one in six Black men surveyed said they experienced unsolicited fetishization while online dating. A third of American Indian or Alaska Native men experienced such fetishization while dating online, while 21 percent of Asian women and 18 percent of Asian men have. Read more…

More about Dating Apps, Bumble, Culture, and Sex Relationships

Sega celebrated Sonic the Hedgehog’s 30th anniversary Thursday with a livestream that gifted fans with the announcement of not just one but two major upcoming video game releases. The Sonic Central livestream, a first of its kind and basically like Sega’s version of a Nintendo Direct Mini, was a fever dream of hedgehog-related announcements both big and small. 

One of the biggest reveals was a trailer (which you can watch above) announcing Sonic Colors: Ultimate, a remaster of the 2010 game originally released on Nintendo DS and Wii. The remaster is set to release Sep. 27 on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (though presumably will also be available on the most recent console generation, the PS5 and Xbox Series X.) Read more…

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After years of hesitation, PayPal continues to double down on cryptocurrency.

Soon, PayPal users in the U.S. will be able to transfer, withdraw, and exchange their crypto (like Bitcoin) across popular third-party platforms and digital wallets like Coinbase, the company’s VP of Global Business Development Jose Fernandez da Ponte announced Wednesday at the Consensus 2021 conference. It is yet another step in PayPal’s recent efforts to fully support and become a part of the unwieldy landscape of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.  

For a while, the OG online payment platform resisted crypto, preferring to mostly stick with good old-fashioned IRL money. In 2019, it even backed out of supporting Facebook’s ill-fated Libra project. But in October 2020, PayPal made a big move to embrace digital currency by announcing it would finally allow users to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies through its own online wallet service. Then in March 2021, it finally allowed Bitcoin to be used as a form of payment, and the PayPal-owned Venmo app quickly followed suit by permitting users to buy and sell Bitcoin in April. Read more…

More about Bitcoin, Paypal, Coinbase, Cryptocurrency, and Tech

Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks? Well, actually, the trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie Old showcases many of the classic tropes we’ve come to expect from his previous works. Despite having more of a horror flavor than some of his most recent titles (they even got the kid from Hereditary), a magical and unexplainable mystery still remains at the center of this film releasing in theaters on July 23. Read more…

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Nature truly is healing, because dumb summer blockbusters are back, baby! In the latest Disney vehicle releasing in July 30, there’s what appears to an army of the undead, leopards, lots of unnecessary slow-mo, explosions, and [checks notes] a tank manned by Jesse Plemmons? Whatever the heck it is Emily Blunt and the Rock are getting into on this Amazon river ride, sign us up. 

You can catch Jungle Cruise in theaters or on Disney+ July 30. Read more…

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Game Builder Garage feels like a crucial step forward for Nintendo.

There were some chuckles directed at the company’s Labo experiment, with its focus on folding cardboard and using physical objects assembled by players themselves to enhance simple games. But those paper creations belie an energizing leap for a company that has traditionally leaned hardest on its intensely familiar stable of beloved series.

Nowhere is the shift more evident than in Labo Garage, the build-what-you-want mode that lets people play with the same kinds of tools that make stock Labo projects work. Now Nintendo is forging ahead with that concept, ditching the cardboard and delivering a Switch game cartridge that carries all the tools one might need to build an entire Switch game. Read more…

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More about Vr, Remote Work, Tech, and Vr Ar

Thanks to lockdown-related travel restrictions, our deputy tech editor Joseph Volpe never had a chance to meet his East Coast co-workers…so he hatched a plan to do it virtually. 

He convinced tech reporters Brenda Stolyar and Alex Perry to don Quest 2 virtual reality headsets and join him in Spatial, an app that lets you collaborate and remotely work within a virtual office. Things didn’t go exactly as planned.  Read more…

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