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There have been a lot of big games this year that have felt all-consuming, like Monster Hunter Wilds or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Maze Mice offers something different: a small, pick-up-and-play experience that takes a bunch of ideas from some classics and adds a clever twist.

The game, from Luck Be a Landlord developer TrampolineTales, mixes elements of Pac-Man, Vampire Survivors, and even the classic Snake. As an adorable, pixelated mouse, you zip around a maze to get blue experience gems that are guarded by cats. When you pass by the cats, they'll wake up and start chasing you, sometimes creating a hilariously long line of felines. (Cute ghost cats will also appear and inconveniently float right into your path.) All the action takes place on one screen, so it's easy to see where everything is at any given time.

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When you get enough gems, you can pick from a selection of three power-ups. The upgrades are often a little silly, like knitting needles that fly through the air to attack the cats pursuing you, but as with Vampire Survivors, it's fun to experiment with different abilities to create interesting builds.

Maze Mice's most interesting feature is that time only moves whe …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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From The Verge via this RSS feed

!minionsStrike 3 Holdings is a familiar name in U.S. federal courts. As the most prolific copyright litigant, the adult entertainment company has filed over 15,000 lawsuits in federal courts.

These lawsuits typically target people whose Internet connections were allegedly used to download and share copyright-infringing content via BitTorrent.

Many of these cases result in private settlements and are never heard from again. Occasionally, however, a defendant decides to push back, arguing their innocence before the court. This includes defendant John R., who was sued in a Florida court last year.

‘Thousands of Pirate Downloads’

The case started as a ‘John Doe’ lawsuit, but after an IP address was linked to a Comcast account, the defendant was named. In an amended complaint, Strike 3 accused the man of sharing 25 of its copyrighted works via BitTorrent.

The complaint alleged that Strike 3’s “VXN Scan” detection software was able to download pieces of these pirated files from the IP address. In addition, the same IP address was linked to thousands of other infringements.

“Plaintiff’s Additional Evidence indicates that IP address 73.107.181.65 was used to download and distribute at least 5,595 files relating to other adult movies and mainstream media using the BitTorrent protocol during the period of infringement,” the complaint reads.

The ‘additional’ pirated files include many Star Wars related titles, a Minion movie, a Grey’s Anatomy episode, as well as albums with Halloween hits. Strike 3 doesn’t hold the rights to any of this media, but it uses the alleged downloads as circumstantial evidence to argue that the right person was identified.

Social Media Likes

Strike 3 notes that these frequent and prolonged downloads suggest that the defendant was unlikely a houseguest or passer-by. Instead, the company points out that defendant’s public social media activity “indicates strong matches” between his interests and the observed downloads.

“Defendant’s publicly available social media indicates that Defendant is a fan of Star Wars,” Strike 3 writes, adding that he is also a ‘fan’ of Minions, Grey’s Anatomy, and Halloween.

From the amended complaint!minion evidence

Based on these findings, Strike 3 is convinced that it identified the right defendant. However, John R. disagrees and asked the court to dismiss the case, noting that the allegations are mere speculation.

Defendant Wants Case Dismissed

The defense attorney characterized Strike 3’s evidence as an “imaginary bridge from one thought to another.” While the defendant’s social media likes may be accurate, they represent only 0.45% of the 5,595 downloads that were flagged in total.

The defense notes that this circumstantial evidence is weak, adding that there is no evidence that John R.’s devices were used to download any of the tracked files. Also, there are more people who like Halloween or the Minions.

“Therefore, all of the circumstantial evidence provided merely demonstrates a sheer possibility while there are other equally weak possibilities- like the Defendant’s wife or neighbors may like Minions, Star Wars, and Halloween,” the motion to dismiss reads.

Court: Likes Are Evidence, Case Continues

After reviewing the positions of both sides, District Court Judge Sheri Polster Chappell eventually sided with Strike 3, suggesting that the social media likes have some value at this stage of the case.

“Sure enough, Defendant’s social media shows he is a fan of Star Wars, Minions, Grey’s Anatomy, and Halloween,” the order reads, noting that this is more than mere speculation.

The order heavily cites existing jurisprudence, noting that social media interests can be used as evidence to match a defendant’s identity to BitTorrent activity. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the defendant can’t be innocent, but it’s sufficient for the case to survive a motion to dismiss.

Motion Denied!motion to dismiss denied

As shown above, this means the case will move forward. The defendant is instructed to file a formal answer to the complaint by the end of the month. After that, the discovery phase will start, or alternatively, potential settlement discussions.

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A copy of Judge Sheri Polster Chappell’s order and opinion is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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From TorrentFreak via this RSS feed

From Charles Hoskinson via this RSS feed

From VA Marine Mammal Rescue Society via this RSS feed

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A former DoorDash delivery driver pleaded guilty this week to conspiracy to a wire fraud conspiracy that scammed DoorDash out of over $2.5 million, the US Attorney’s Office in California’s Northern District announced on Tuesday. He and others made it happen over a period of months using fake customer accounts, deliveries that never happened, driver accounts, and access to DoorDash employee credentials.

Here’s how the Attorney’s office describes the scheme. The driver, Sayee Chaitainya Reddy Devagiri, placed expensive orders from a fraudulent customer account in the DoorDash app. Then, using DoorDash employee credentials, he manually assigned the orders to driver accounts he and the others involved had created. Devagiri would then mark the undelivered orders as complete and prompt DoorDash’s system to pay the driver accounts. Then he’d switch those same orders back to “in process” and do it all over again. Doing this “took less than five minutes, and was repeated hundreds of times for many of the orders,” writes the US Attorney’s Office.

Devagiri faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and is scheduled for a status hearing in September. He and four others were charged in August for their roles in the scheme, which prosecutors say was carried out between November 2020 and February 2021. The DoorDash employee whose insider credentials they used, Tyler Thomas Bottenhorn, was charged separately in 2022 and pleaded guilty the following year, the Attorney’s Office wrote in October.

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From The Verge via this RSS feed

!"Rust is so good you can get paid $20k to make it as fast as C"

FFmpeg is one of the most widely used open source multimedia frameworks globally, with it powering audio and video processing for applications like VLC, OBS Studio, HandBrake, Jellyfin, etc. and being widely used in live-streaming, including platforms like Twitch.

On the other hand, rav1d is a new Rust-based decoder developed by Prossimo that aims to be a memory-safe reimplementation of the C-based dav1d decoder, which is widely recognized as the fastest software AV1 decoder in use across multiple platforms.

A recent post by FFmpeg has reignited conversation surrounding the trade-offs between performance, cost, and memory safety when building such critical systems.

FFmpeg is Not Impressed

> Rust is so good you can get paid $20k to make it as fast as C:https://t.co/HVDokmLk5r > > — FFmpeg (@FFmpeg) May 15, 2025

Commenting on Prossimo's recent performance bounty program for rav1d, FFmpeg mentioned that "Rust is so good you can get paid $20k to make it as fast as C". That looks like a direct jab at Rust and the rav1d decoder to me. 😲

The performance bounty has set out to close a performance gap where rav1d is ~5% slower than dav1d. Prossimo is offering a sizable $20,000 as a reward for anyone who manages to close the gap.

They have put out a bunch of rules that restrict pretty much most of the world from contributing, limiting this bounty only to certain regions and excluding a large portion of the global developer community.

Are they Right?

The information technology industry has been steadily moving towards Rust, a programming language known for its memory safety and performance. The U.S. White House even formally endorsed the shift towards memory-safe programming languages in a 2024 report from the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD).

However, the push for Rust adoption hasn't been without controversy. One such instance is the effort to integrate it into the Linux kernel, which has faced resistance and internal tension, with a recent occurrence causing friction and resulting in the creation of a Rust kernel policy to prevent future conflicts.

Despite growing adoption, many in the developer community continue to question whether Rust’s benefits truly outweigh those of longstanding languages like C.

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From It's FOSS News via this RSS feed

!Major Boost for Open Source: Canonical, Zerodha & Others Contribute Generously

In a significant show of support for open source developers, major organizations like Canonical, the ones behind Ubuntu, and Zerodha, the Indian brokerage and financial services giant, have made substantial contributions to open source initiatives.

This growing trend of corporate support underscores a shift towards collaborative, transparent, and community-driven software development that benefits a global ecosystem of developers, businesses, and users alike.

Canonical to Donate $120,000

Canonical has announced its intention to donate $120,000 to open source developers, collaborating with thank.dev to disburse $10,000 every month, with an algorithm deciding which open source developer gets how much.

The donations have already begun since April, with Canonical donating to projects that it depends on to ship its products and services. So far, they have donated a total of $20,000 to open source projects, with the amounts ranging from $496.95-$20.

!Major Boost for Open Source: Canonical, Zerodha & Others Contribute Generously

Thanks.dev allocates the funds based on how widely dependencies are used across projects, ensuring more popular packages receive a larger share. While the platform allows fine-tuning by programming language and GitHub organization, Canonical has chosen to adjust only the language-level weights for now.

For a better understanding of how the algorithm works, you can go through the official resource on this topic.

Zerodha joins Open Source Pledge

Zerodha, along with many other organizations like Posit, Sanity, Tideways, and a few others, have joined NASDAQ's Open Source Pledge, which is now 34 members strong.

It is a commitment by companies to help close the funding gap for smaller open source projects. Many of these projects are maintained by developers who receive little to no compensation, despite their software being widely used. The pledge offers direct, no-strings-attached financial support to help maintainers sustain their work.

!Major Boost for Open Source: Canonical, Zerodha & Others Contribute Generously

According to their members page, companies have paid a total of $2,650,212 to open source maintainers over the past year.

If you ask me, it's good to see open source support moving from one-time donations to more regular, reliable contributions.

With companies using platforms like thanks.dev and joining efforts like the Open Source Pledge initiative, it's clear there's a growing understanding that open source needs steady, ongoing support, not just occasional contributions to stay healthy and sustainable.

Suggested Read 📖

[OSU’s Open Source Lab Eyes Sustainable Infrastructure Upgrades After Funding SuccessSome interesting plans have been laid out for Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab.!Major Boost for Open Source: Canonical, Zerodha & Others Contribute GenerouslyIt's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra!Major Boost for Open Source: Canonical, Zerodha & Others Contribute Generously](https://news.itsfoss.com/osu-open-source-lab-future/)

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From It's FOSS News via this RSS feed

!Pixelify Your Android Smartphone with This Wallpaper App

Having a good wallpaper on your Android smartphone is an essential part of personalizing your device. 🎨

Whenever you feel that the default wallpaper collection on your phone too limited, you're likely to end up with an ad-infested wallpaper app you downloaded from the Play Store that's too intrusive, forcing you to watch ads before you can download anything.

What if I told you there's an open source wallpaper app that doesn’t do any of that — and instead offers beautifully recreated Pixel wallpapers?

Doodle: A Collection of Pixel Wallpapers

!Pixelify Your Android Smartphone with This Wallpaper App!Pixelify Your Android Smartphone with This Wallpaper App!Pixelify Your Android Smartphone with This Wallpaper App

Doodle's About, Main, and Appearance pages.

Developed by Patrick Zedler, a developer out of Germany, Doodle is a Java-based wallpaper app. It features the original Doodle wallpaper collection from the Pixel 4 and the unreleased Material You static wallpaper collection of the Pixel 6.

The "Appearance" page is where you will find all the wallpapers, with three distinct categories that have additional controls to select a wallpaper's variant, add an accent color to the smartphone's interface, set a daily random wallpaper, and toggle night mode.

If you go for one of the three live wallpapers, you have the option to enable the "Swipe" and "Tilt" effects, which makes the live wallpaper react according to the actions performed. If you swipe on the home screen, the live wallpaper will move; if you tilt your device, the live wallpaper will react accordingly.

As you saw above, it's very simple to set live and static wallpapers using Doodle.

If you prefer additional control, you can go into the "Parallax", "Shape size" and "Other options" menus to tweak the animation of live wallpapers, change the app color theme, set a higher level of contrast, and toggle hardware acceleration.

!Pixelify Your Android Smartphone with This Wallpaper App!Pixelify Your Android Smartphone with This Wallpaper App!Pixelify Your Android Smartphone with This Wallpaper App

Doodle's Parallax, Shape size, and Other options pages.

I did face some issues with my test setup: an Android 14-equipped Samsung smartphone that was running One UI 6.1. I was unable to use the Swipe effect and Accent Colors. Doodle does mention that there are issues with how the default launcher, One UI Home, handles certain UI elements, so this was not a surprise for me.

When locking/unlocking my device, the live wallpaper sometimes bugged out, and the system's transition from light mode to dark mode required a relaunch of the app for the wallpaper to switch between its light/dark variant.

In the end, I think Doodle could really benefit from offering more non-Pixel wallpaper options. The current collection looks great, but having a few original or differently styled wallpapers would make the app even better.

Install Doodle

The source code is hosted over at GitHub under GPLv3 licensing, with F-Droid and the Play Store being the most straightforward way of getting the latest Doodle release.

Doodle

💬 Know of a wallpaper app that is open source and offers more choices? Let me know below!

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From It's FOSS News via this RSS feed

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Elden Ring Nightreign may look familiar in many ways, but FromSoftware’s stand-alone multiplayer spinoff of Elden Ring will play differently thanks to its battle-royale-inspired map and a roster of playable characters. Unlike the blank-slate, highly customizable characters of the original Elden Ring, the playable heroes of Nightreign — known as Nightfarers — are predefined characters with class roles — think rogues, sorcerers, barbarians, archers, and mages.

There will be eight confirmed Nightfarers in Elden Ring Nightreign. Here’s a guide to everything we know about all Nightreign’s character classes announced so far plus gameplay video of them in action. We’ll update this guide as more information becomes available.

Duchess

The Duchess is “a nimble fighter who specializes in stealth and prefers daggers,” according to her official description. She’s essentially the rogue of the group, a speedy glass cannon who fights with quick, up-close slashes, and can provide crucial combat support to her team. If you’re a dexterity-focused Elden Ring player, she’s your Nightfarer.

Passive Ability

Magnificent Poise: Dodge and attack swiftly with reduced stamina cost. Allows up to two consecutive evasive actions.

Character Skill

Restage: Reapply the last few seconds of team damage to enemies.

Ultimate Art

Finale: Obscure nearby allies to hide from foes. Enemies lose track of the caster (and her allies), wandering aimlessly or becoming prone to leaving themselves vulnerable. Basically, it’s an invisibility spell.

Guardian

The Guardian is a “pinionfolk captain” — a flying birdman, in other words — who is skilled in offense and defense, and who prefers halberds, poking enemies from behind the cover of a heavy shield.

Passive Ability

Steel Guard: Plants his feet and braces with his shield raised for a more powerful guard. Greatly improves guard boost, but prevents running while holding up shield.

Character skill

Whirlwind: Guardian beats his wings to summon a cyclone that draws in enemies, knocking them off their feet. Whirlwind can be charged to enlarge its range and can repel light projectiles

Ultimate Art

Wings of Salvation: Dive from above to attack a large area and protect allies from damage. While in the air, Guardian can move briefly.

Ironeye

Iron Eye is an archer class with “split-second judgment and pinpoint accuracy.” If you like bows (and giant bows), Iron Eye’s your guy.

Passive Ability

Eagle Eye: His keen observation increases drops from downed enemies — allies get the same boost.

Character Skill

Marking: Marks enemies to create a temporary weak point. Iron Eye cuts his foe with a dagger, creating a temporary weak point. Inflicting damage on that weak point to damage and stagger foes. Damaging the weak point extends its duration.

Ultimate Art

Single Shot: Shoots a supersonic arrow that pierces any defense. Single Shot pierces all types of enemies, terrain, and structures.

Raider

Raider is a “powerful sea-farer who favors enormous weapons.” If you like walking around with a giant sword, axe, or hammer, and playing offense, you’re a Raider.

Passive Ability

Fighter’s Resolve: Taking damage boosts the potency of Raider’s character skill, Retaliate. He cannot be knocked down while using it, and will stay in the fight with a sliver of HP even after taking heavy damage.

Character Skill

Retaliate: Assume a defensive posture that reduces incoming damage and unleash a vigorous punch that can stagger large enemies.

Ultimate Art

Totem Stela: Summons a giant tombstone that deals damage, boosts nearby allies, and can be climbed and used as a platform. The tombstone radiates a protective aura, boosting strength of nearby allies, and blocking arrows.

Recluse

Keep your distance as the Recluse, a witch of the deep forest who deftly wields ancient sorceries. Elden Ring players who focus on intelligence builds will gravitate toward the Recluse.

Passive Ability

Elemental Defense: Collect elemental residues to replenish FP, and grant allies residues of specific elemental affinities.

Character Skill

Magic Cocktail: Combine elemental resides into different powerful spells. Collect the affinity residues of targets to unleash an affinity-exploiting magic cocktail. Complex affinity combinations create more powerful spells.

Ultimate Art

Soulblood Song: Brand foes with temporary blood sigils that increase damage taken by enemies. Those sigils also restore the HP and FP of caster.

Wylder

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The Wylder is your classic all-rounder, with well-balanced abilities and easy-to-handle skills. Probably a good starting point in Nightreign before specializing.

Passive Ability

Sixth Sense: Cheat death a single time. Can be restored by dying or passing through a Site of Grace.

Character Skill

Claw Shot: Launch a grappling claw to rope in foes or move swiftly. Only certain enemies can be pulled in with Claw Shot, but it’s effective at breaking guard.

Ultimate Art

Onslaught Stake: A powerful single attack that launches an iron stake with a great explosion.

Executor

Official details on the Executor Nightfarer are forthcoming, but the class appears to borrow from FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, with a focus on deflection and Faith-based skills.

Revenant

We also don’t know much about the Revenant, but it appears to fill the role of healer.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

!Tony Todd as Final Destination mortician William Bludworth, sitting in a dimly lit coroner’s office, in Final Destination: Bloodlines

Fans of the Final Destination movies know there isn’t a lot of continuity, apart from each new sequel returning to the basic concept: Someone has a premonition of impending disaster and uses it to save the lives of people who would have died in that disaster, but death finds convoluted ways to claim them anyway. Even more than in more horror franchises, there aren’t legacy characters to check in on, or an elaborate, developing timeline packed with lore. And that’s because the darkest joke of Final Destination movies is that none of the central characters ever does manage to outwit death for long.

But there is one throughline for the whole series: Candyman star Tony Todd as mortician William Bludworth, the wise old soul who lays out the rules of death for the doomed protagonists, so they can fight a little longer. William Bludworth appears in three of the five original Final Destination movies, with a couple of voiceover Easter eggs from Todd in a fourth movie. And he’s back in the latest installation, Final Destination: Bloodlines, one of the final movies Tony Todd shot before his 2024 death — this time with a heartfelt message co-directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein say was aimed directly at his fans.

Lipovsky says bringing Todd back to the franchise was a no-brainer for the directors, especially since he wanted to reprise the role as much as they wanted him back.

“He really wanted to be in this movie,” Lipovsky told Polygon via Zoom. “He was sick when we were developing the film, and we were worried he wouldn’t be well enough [by the time we were shooting], but he really, really wanted to be there. And we wanted to craft a narrative around him, to give him a bit more of an origin story, to fill him out as a character.”

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Lipovsky says William Bludworth has always been “a bit of a mysterious trope mentor figure” in the Final Destination franchise, but that he never really got his due as a character. “Knowing this would probably be his last Final Destination movie, we wanted to flesh him out, give some answers as to why he’s been such an interesting character in the other films, and then also give him the ability to have an ending, and say goodbye to the character and goodbye to the audience.”

Todd isn’t a major part of Bloodlines — he has one significant scene, where he once again meets a new group of protagonists who are staring death in the face. But Stein says the directors asked Todd to help shape that scene as an opportunity to explain Bludworth’s legacy, and the legacy of the Final Destination movies themselves.

“We asked if he would be comfortable putting aside the script and just really speaking from the heart, directly to the fans, about what life’s all about,” Stein told Polygon. “We asked him, ‘Hey, Tony, what is all this Final Destination death stuff? What do you want to leave the fans with, if you had to say it in your own words?’ And the take that’s in the movie is really him speaking from the heart directly to the fans about what he thinks life and death are all about. I think that’s why it’s so emotionally powerful, because it’s really him.”

“We worked incredibly closely with him to craft that,” Lipovsky says. “[We wanted him to be able to] speak to the audience from the heart, and give a really meaningful moment.”

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Given the Final Destination movies’ tendency to clean all the characters off the slate (the other longest surviving character made it into two movies) — and given some particular reveals in Final Destination: Bloodlines about William Bludworth’s origins and the fate that’s coming for him — I absolutely expected a post-credits scene where death finally catches up with him. But Bloodlines doesn’t have a post-credits scene at all, or a finale for William Bludworth. Stein and Lipovsky admit that they considered doing exactly that.

“It was debated,” Lipovsky says. “But in the end, we decided the way he kind of walks through the door, whistling, into the sunset, felt like the right way to say goodbye to Tony.”

“Ultimately, we wanted to make sure he was able to not be a victim, but have power in the way he’s facing death,” Stein says. “And that ultimately tipped the scale — rather than creating a death sequence for his character, [we wanted] to give him the platform to say goodbye on his own terms.

“That final couple of lines he says are just him,” Stein says. “The script ended with ‘I’m retiring, and I’m going to go enjoy the time I have left,’ and that’s it. But he brings it to the next level with what he says at that door, which is basically, ‘All life is precious. Enjoy the time you have left. Enjoy every single second, because you never know when.”

Final Destinations: Bloodlines is in theaters now.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

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NetherRealm Studios’ brand is bloody fighting games, though in 2013, it toned down the violence a tad for Injustice: Gods Among Us. Based on the title, it may not have been even totally clear to Mortal Kombat fans that it was a fighting game starring DC Comics heroes and villains, like Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Joker. But Injustice was a hit for the studio, and spawned a sequel in 2017 that expanded the weird and wild world while offering the same knuckle-busting gameplay.

Unfortunately, outside of a tie-in comic and an animated film adaptation, the series has been dormant ever since. Despite the series’ strong sales and high review scores, NetherRealm hasn’t delivered a sequel, instead focusing on its Mortal Kombat franchise. While we can certainly hope the studio’s next game is Injustice 3, and there are murmurs that it might be, NetherRealm hasn’t given any indication as to what it’s developing next.

If an Injustice 3 were to be announced, there are some key changes and additions, in my humble opinion, that NetherRealm could make to elevate the franchise.​​​​​​​ For your (and NetherRealm’s) consideration:

Make sure Injustice 3’s DLC characters aren’t one-offs

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The first two Injustice games had expansive rosters, but there are plenty more heroes and villains from the DC universe NetherRealm could bring in for a potential threequel. First, however, some of the DLC fighters need to be brought back — and be used for storytelling purposes. Characters like Batgirl, Martian Manhunter, and Zatanna were great additions in the first game, but were nowhere to be found in the second. Similarly, Black Manta, Starfire, and Enchantress offered great character variety in the second game, and we can only hope they return if the series continues.

Injustice: Gods Among Us had two dozen characters for its base roster while Injustice 2 had 28, and the DLC additions pushed its roster to almost 40. NetherRealm has demonstrated time and again it can deliver plenty of unique heroes for each of its games, so I have no doubt that if Injustice 3’s base roster were to include 30-plus heroes, they’d all feel unique and justified. Personally, I’m hoping for more Teen Titans.

“Add these characters to Injustice 3” lightning round

Batman Beyond Batman: Because a little nostalgia for ’00s cartoons never hurts.Batwoman: Just about everyone else in the Batfamily has made it. Why not Kate Kane?Beast Boy: Fans have long wanted Beast Boy in the series, and for good reason — his shape-shifting powers have the potential for the most unique move set of any fighter.John Constantine: Plays a huge role in the original Injustice comics, but has yet to be playable in the games.Kilowog: The more Green Lanterns, the better.King Shark: Scene stealer in everything he appears in, whether we’re talking The Suicide Squad or Harley Quinn.Mister Miracle: Everyone’s favorite depressed hero before Bob from Thunderbolts came along.Naomi: Probably Brian Michael Bendis’ best addition to the DC universe, it’s time Naomi got to kick some butt in a game.Ra’s al Ghul: Batman’s father-in-law deserves to duel his son-in-law shirtless, just like in the animated show.Peacemaker: He’s already in Mortal Kombat 1, so just bring his peace-loving ass over.Static: How did Static join the mobile game before the real game???Terra: One of the most influential Teen Titans can be Injustice’s version of Mortal Kombat’s Tremor.

Go back to comic-accurate suits

Injustice 2 swapped out alternate costumes for gear. Instead of adorning Batman in his Red Son costume or Nightwing in his New 52 digs, you’d instead equip various pieces of gear to each character. You could also add different shaders, giving each character wildly different color schemes than they were traditionally known for, like a purple Superman or gold Green Lantern. Each character ultimately ended up with a similar, armored-up aesthetic. Gone were the unique, comic-accurate skins.

Personally, I wasn’t a fan of Injustice 2’s gear system. Even aside from the aesthetics, it introduced a tedious item-management system to the game, full of stats, transmog options, and, of course, microtransactions. Instead, I’d prefer Injustice 3 to go back to a focus on alternate costumes inspired by comics, movies, and everything else. There have been plenty of new costumes for each hero introduced since the games dropped, meaning the possibilities for alternate skins in a new game would be quite substantial.

Add premium skins for more character variety

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Premium skins from both games need to return, and I’d love for even more to be included. Premium skins would change the appearance and voice of a character while retaining its move set. For example, equipping the Reverse-Flash costume for Flash would turn the character into his archnemesis but play the same as the hero you know and love. Characters like the Flash and Green Lantern are ripe for premium skins so players could fight as Wally West or Simon Baz without entirely new characters needing to be made. And could you imagine playing as 2022’s The Batman’s version of the character with voice work by Robert Pattinson or as David Corenswet’s Superman? Let’s speak it into existence.

Take advantage of DC Comics’ multiversal characters and stories

The first Injustice game was a light multiverse story. It had heroes from only two worlds interacting, but most of the plot concerned heroes from the main DC universe fighting evil, alternate versions in a parallel universe where Superman broke bad. Injustice 2 stuck to the parallel world and explored how it developed in the years after the first game, telling a story of how its heroes and villains had to unite to stop Brainiac.

In the years since, multiverse stories, especially with superheroes, have exploded in popularity — and characters. I’m not asking NetherRealm to create hundreds of versions of its characters, but it would be fun to see the studio create even more new takes on the existing heroes.

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The story could take inspiration from Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Dark Knights: Metal event, where DC’s heroes contend with twisted versions of Batman. Or it could go with a classic trope of villains meeting variants of each other; perhaps Darkseid could team up with his multiversal counterparts in an attempt to rule the multiverse.

I know this one’s a longshot, but maybe there’s crossover potential with bringing Watchmen characters into the multiverse shenanigans. DC has been open to doing new things with the characters in recent years, like in the Doomsday Clock miniseries and HBO show. I’d love to see how NetherRealm interprets Rorschach, Ozymandias, and Doctor Manhattan, both from a gameplay and a storytelling perspective.

DC’s newest comic initiative would work well in a game, too

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One particular universe that Injustice 3 could draw inspiration from is DC’s Absolute comics line. One of the core tenants of the Absolute Universe is stripping DC’s heroes of key characteristics while keeping the core idea of who they are intact. For example, Absolute Superman grew up on Krypton and arrived on Earth as an adult, removing his Kansas family ties. Absolute Wonder Woman was raised in Hell, giving her a new outlook on the world — and new powers.

Absolute Batman is perhaps the most altered of DC’s heroes. Gone is the rich playboy and in comes a bulked-up engineer. Batman’s appearance is dramatically different; he’s taller and his muscled frame rivals that of Bane’s. The Bat symbol on his chest can be detached and used as an axehead, meaning an Absolute version would play extremely differently in Injustice 3 than the Batman we’re used to.

Or maybe just Mortal Kombat vs. Injustice?

Back in 2008, Midway Games released an ambitious crossover fighting game, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It found the heroes and enemies of both franchises at odds with one another before coming together to fight Dark Khan, a fusion of Shao Kahn and Darkseid, and save their universes. It was a fun crossover that would influence storytelling in fighting games, but unfortunately it was one of Midway’s last titles. The studio eventually shuttered and from it was born NetherRealm, which hit the ground running with a Mortal Kombat reboot and then the first Injustice game.

If an Injustice 3 isn’t going to happen, maybe DC fans could be appeased in a different way — a followup to Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. The title is sitting right there: Mortal Kombat vs. Injustice. It could pick up threads from the ending of Injustice 2 and pit its evil Superman and Wonder Woman against Mortal Kombat stalwarts Liu Kang, Scorpion, and Raiden. A crossover could serve fans of both franchises while exploring the characters in new ways, both in terms of story and gameplay.

Is there hope for an Injustice 3 release?

Between 2011 and 2019, NetherRealm released a game every two years, alternating between Mortal Kombat games and the Injustice series. Since then it’s only released Mortal Kombat 1 in 2023 and hasn’t yet divulged what its next game will be. It could be a new Mortal Kombat, something new entirely, or, ideally for DC fans, a third Injustice game. Injustice director Ed Boon gave fans some hope in 2024, telling The Direct, “[W]e love the Injustice games. You know, I would be surprised if we never did one again.”

James Gunn and Peter Safran became the architects of their DC Universe in 2022, looking to usher in new films and build a cohesive storytelling universe across films, TV series, and games. Earlier in 2025, they met with the heads of NetherRealm and Rocksteady, the makers of the Batman: Arkham games. “It’s really the first time it’s ever been this way at Warner Bros.,” Safran said (via EuroGamer). “We sit with [the studio heads] and we talk about characters and stories that we’re interested in and that they’re interested in.”

Gunn detailed how the film plan may influence the games, saying, “We see designs for the projects in their very earliest stages. We talk about those, we talk about what the story might be and we’ll say ‘Well, maybe you want to go this way because we’re planning on maybe doing something with this character.’” Gunn and Safran meeting with NetherRealm Studios can be looked at positively. To assume it means NetherRealm has something DC cooking would be too much of a stretch, but it at least gives Injustice fans hope that a third entry isn’t dead in the water.

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!Illustration of the App Store logo in front of a background of gavels. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Epic is asking District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to order Apple to review — and approve if compliant with Apple’s guidelines — Epic’s submission of Fortnite to the US App Store in a new court filing. The company argues in the document that Apple is once again in contempt of the judge’s April order restricting it from rejecting apps over their use of outside payment links.

In a letter from Apple that Epic shared late Friday, Apple writes that it won’t “take action on the Fortnite app submission until after the Ninth Circuit rules on our pending request for a partial stay of the new injunction.” Epic claims the delay is retaliation for its legal fight with the company, and notes in its filing that Apple “expressly and repeatedly” told it and the court that it would approve Fortnite if the app complied with Apple’s guidelines, which it insists its current submission does.

Following Gonzalez Rogers’ decision in April, Epic said Fortnite would return to the US App Store. The company has since submitted the game twice, most recently to include content from an update to the EU version of the game. But instead of Apple approving Fortnite in the US, the game disappeared from the EU App Store.

Epic claimed that was because it can’t release in the EU because of Apple’s decision to block its US submission. Apple said it had merely asked that it resubmit the app without including the US storefront, “so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies.” But in a post announcing its new filing, Epic claims that would mean it has to submit multiple versions of the app, which it says is against Apple’s guidelines.

Epic is asking that the court enforce its injunction, find Apple in contempt again, and require the company to “accept any compliant Epic app, including Fortnite, for distribution on the U.S. storefront of the App Store.”

The hitch here is that throughout this case, Judge Gonzalez Rogers hasn’t gone so far as to require Fortnite’s return to the store, finding in her 2021 ruling that Epic had still knowingly broken its developer agreement with apple. 9to5Mac writes that the judge would likely need to agree that Apple is once again in contempt of court, as she did in her April 30th ruling. The difference between now and then — and what could work in Epic’s favor — is just how annoyed she seemed with Apple in the text of that ruling.

Apple did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

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Graduation is one of those unique milestones in life that’s both exciting and nerve-wracking. It’s worth celebrating, but it also marks a new chapter that can feel overwhelming. That’s why your grad will surely appreciate a little support as they step into the next phase of their life, whether that be college or their first job.

Lucky for you, we’ve put together a list of gifts that are designed to make the transition into post-grad life a little smoother. Our picks cover essentials they might need for their first apartment or dorm — from kitchenware to tools — along with a few gifts to remind them of home. We’ve also sprinkled in a ton of gadgets to set them up for success, including e-readers and portable chargers. And because they’ve certainly earned some downtime, we’ve included a selection of other ideas to help them unwind and celebrate a job well done.

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hello, Xela and my deliberately chosen weird airbnb.

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Much like the gaming industry, entertainment has long been at war with piracy. But while gamers often turn to piracy to preserve titles lost to digital delistings or scarce physical copies, anime and manga fans, especially in earlier eras, relied on illicit means simply to access the content. Before widespread licensing, piracy played a crucial role in spreading anime and manga’s popularity, ultimately attracting major players like Netflix, Crunchyroll, Hulu, HIDIVE, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney Plus to invest.

Legal options exist today, but licensing agreements and regional restrictions still keep much of anime and manga locked away from international fans. Now that corporations have staked their claim, piracy is under heavy fire. High-profile shutdowns have hit sites like AnimeSuge, AnimeWave, 123Anime, and just this week, the major manga scans hub, Manga Dex.

As anime’s global popularity soars, video piracy is also an issue, prompting Japan to crack down with a strategy of overwhelming platforms with copyright infringement claims, investing in groundbreaking new anti-piracy AI programs, and having anime and manga leakers arrested by the Kumamoto prefectural police’s cybercrime division.

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Two people, including a Tokyo company owner, were arrested by Kumamoto in 2024 for allegedly violating copyright law by posting leaked manga magazine images online ahead of the official release — reportedly obtained by bribing bookstore staff, according to Weekly Shonen Jumpowner Shueisha.

According to Japan Times, Japan plans to deploy AI to combat anime and manga piracy, targeting over 1,000 sites that publishers say cost the industry billions annually. A 300 million yen (about $2 million) pilot program uses image and text detection to track infringing content. Although it is unknown when this program is to be deployed or how effective it would be, the model is part of the “Cool Japan” initiative to further strengthen the ties between other countries.

The initiative mirrors South Korea’s investment in technology to detect piracy. According to Korean outlet Money Today, via Comic Book Resources, a new Ministry of Science and ICT report outlines plans to replace manual piracy detection with AI systems, aiming to automatically track illegal streaming sites as part of a broader strategy to boost the global competitiveness of Korea’s online video industry.

While it’s clear that anime and manga piracy hurts both the industry and its creators, the issue isn’t simply about people avoiding payment — accessibility remains a major barrier. Publishers need to meet global demand through wider international access, because enhancing legal services is a key step toward addressing the root causes of piracy and the demand it fulfills.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

!Verso looks up at Esquie in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen would be the first to tell you: writing a video game is work.

At least writing a novel is a one-person operation for most of the time. At least a screenplay for a film only needs to come in around 120 pages, unless you’re working for Martin Scorsese. But writing a video game? That means filling hours of space, bending the material to fit the play, and usually working with a team of other writers to make it all cohere. Sometimes to hit a deadline, you just need to throw words at the wall. Especially when it’s 3 a.m. That can still result in brilliance.

All the Frenchy bits and bobs in Clair Obscur have captured the imaginations of players, but few quite like the character of Esquie, and especially one camp conversation in which the oversized gestral reflects on his friend François with Verso. Verso knows François to be a grump, but Esquie insists that “Franfran used to be all ‘Wheeee!’ But now he’s all ‘Whooo.’” Over about a minute, Esquie further defines “whee” and “woo” while players even choose their own whee/woo path through the dialogue tree. It is tremendously silly.

“That was me at three in the morning trying to come up with something,” Svedberg-Yen admits with a laugh. “I needed to write seven relationship dialogues for Esquie!”

Svedberg-Yen says the script for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 comes in around 800 pages long, which doesn’t even include all of the NPC dialogue or the piles of lore-related documentation written as foundation for the story. To fill that much space, the writer says she grabbed inspiration from everything and everywhere around her. For instance, Svedberg-Yen says Monoco, the floating gestral who later joins the Expedition 33 crew, is based on her dog, and when her pup needed a haircut, she decided to write that into the story.

“I was like, OK, that’s going to be the conversation for Monoco and Verso about haircuts. He says, ‘you look like an overgrown mop.’ I literally said that to my dog — and I could use that.”

The “whee whoo” sequence made even less sense in the wee hours of the morning, but it felt right.

“I knew what I wanted to say, where it’s talking about something heavy and sad and how you can feel the joy and the grief,” Svedberg-Yen says. “And I was so tired. I didn’t have any words. So I was just like, ‘wheeeeee!’”

As a fantasy writer, Svedberg-Yen says her number one goal is authenticity, sculpting characters who are born from real places and real circumstances, even if they’re otherworldly. So she doesn’t often question her instincts – even the kooky ones. There was room for moments of levity in the otherwise tragic Clair Obscur because, hey, that’s life. “Did I push it too far at all? Sometimes, when I’m at a loss for words, I’m like, what am I feeling right now? And then I put that into the script. That’s authentic because it is what I am feeling.”

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

!A Logitech G502 Lightspeed mouse, black, rakish angles of its buttons toward the camera, surrounded by screws, an adjustable wrench, a precision screwdriver, and several hex keys.

Last fall, Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber was roundly ridiculed after suggesting the company would like to produce a "Forever Mouse" - a mouse with a monthly subscription fee for software updates. It seemed to betray a lack of understanding: many people who buy mice don't want software at all, much less software they have to pay for; the idea they'd pay every month is ridiculous.

But as I sit here with a perfectly good Logitech mouse, the best I've ever owned, I'm starting to think some sort of "forever mouse" wouldn't be such a bad idea. Logitech has an opportunity and a responsibility to make its mice last longer, and I have part of the proof right underneath my palm. I use a great mouse that is slowly disintegrating.

In some ways, my wireless Logitech G502 Lightspeed is already a forever mouse. I may never have to charge or replace its battery again, because I use Logitech's magic wireless charging mouse pad to automatically keep its battery at the perfect level. I haven't plugged in this mouse once in nearly three and a half years.

Luckily, the mouse's buttons and sensor have held up well over the same period, as far as I can tell. But the soft rubber grips that let me hold t …

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Let's get one thing out of the way immediately: you shouldn't buy Huawei's trifold phone, the Mate XT. And that's alright, because you probably couldn't if you wanted to - while it's no longer exclusive to China, it's only on sale in a handful of countries, and not in the US or Europe.

Besides, I can reel off a list of major problems with the Mate XT: at almost $4,000 it's far too expensive, it doesn't have native support for Google apps (though you can get around that more easily than you might think), it's limited to 4G, and there are some pretty obvious reasons to worry about its durability. Any one of those individually would be a good reason to steer clear of buying the Mate XT. Taken together, they're insurmountable.

But this isn't a phone you're meant to buy, at least not outside China. It's a phone you're meant to gawk at on the internet, to marvel at Huawei's technological prowess, to ooh and ahh about its many and varied folds. This is Huawei showing off, proving to the world that it's still got it. And in fairness, it has.

As I sit and write this - more than six months after Huawei first released the Mate XT in China - it's still the only one of its kind. Rumor has i …

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After a 14-year hiatus, the Final Destination horror franchise returns to theaters on May 16 with Final Destination: Bloodlines. In the first five Final Destination films, death itself creates Rube Goldberg machines out of everyday objects, constructing freak accidents to kill people who previously escaped its grasp. The latest iteration puts a new spin on the formula by making death’s wrath a generational curse.

Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein took their role of carrying on the series seriously, poring over the series’ previous movies for visual and narrative inspiration. But before they were turning family barbecues into death traps, they wrote and directed a very different thriller about a family in peril.

The suspenseful genre-bending film Freaks is a mystery box in the style of 10 Cloverfield Lane, and you’re best off just cueing it up on Netflix or renting it via Prime Video and going in entirely blind. But if you want a bit more persuasion on why you should check it out, I’ll do my best without revealing too much.

The film follows Chloe Lewis (Lexy Kolker), a 7-year-old who has never left her dilapidated home. Her father Henry (Emile Hirsch) keeps the windows covered at all times and the door sealed with a ridiculous number of locks, warning Chloe that he’s protecting her from bad people who would kill her if she went outside. They share meals of canned salmon and ante up giant stacks of money on poker games, with Henry periodically fretfully leaving to gather supplies.

Chloe’s upbringing makes the suburban setting around her seem post-apocalyptic. The clash between Chloe’s curiosity and Henry’s caution, combined with the girl’s longing for an absent mother, is reminiscent of the opening of Sweet Tooth. But between coloring sessions and lessons about the alphabet, Henry coaches his daughter to lie about her identity and childhood, teaches her meditation techniques meant to help her keep cool under pressure, and references bribing a neighbor to adopt her.

The mystery unfolds slowly through glimpses of the world Chloe sees out her window, where birds are stuck in the sky and a too-friendly ice cream man (Bruce Dern) seems to be perpetually parked outside her door, tempting her with bubbles and frozen treats. The extremely disturbing drawings that fill Chloe’s room give way to the visitation of “ghosts” who haunt her closet, and jarring scenes where perplexed, out-of-place characters wander her shoddy room.

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Freaks is about the limits of parenting, and the battle of wills between Henry and Chloe. But the question of who’s the true villain in their relationship is hard to answer, as both of them alternate between being sympathetic and monstrous. The plot explores themes found in Stranger Things, The Boys, Looper, and The Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life,” recognizing the borderline sociopathy of young children and the peril of trying to control their lives or shape them with a purpose.

As the twists fall into place, the film is at times deeply disturbing. But it can also be extremely funny, thanks to the banter between Hirsch and Dern, who clash over their goals for Chloe. Freaks has some spectacular action sequences in the vein of Sense8, Chronicle, and Push that are light on special effects and heavy on creativity and pathos.Not everything about the film works. It’s a bit overlong, dragged down by explaining things that don’t need to be spelled out. Lipovsky and Stein’s attempt to cram in a political message feels hollow, as they explore the persecution of minorities, the threat of drone strikes, and a debate about the difference between “abnormals” and “freaks,” meant to evoke politicized language choices like “illegal aliens” vs. “undocumented immigrants.” Still, Freaks is a wild ride that keeps delivering surprises up until its very satisfying conclusion.

Freaks is streaming on Netflix, or available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon, Apple TV Plus, and other platforms.

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If you like games with parrying, there are two great new ways to get your fix: Doom: The Dark Ages and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. These very different games - one is a fast-paced first-person shooter, the other a turn-based fantasy RPG - approach the mechanic in very different ways.

Let's start with Doom. One of the big new additions to the game is a giant shield for the Doom Slayer, and you can use it to block projectiles or enemy attacks. The game helpfully signals anything that you can parry in a bright neon green that's easy to see as you're rushing around and destroying hordes of demons.

When a green projectile gets within range or an enemy does a green attack, you can press the parry button at the right time to deflect the danger with a huge reverberation of your shield and an action-movie-like moment of slow motion. Like most of modern Doom's action, it all looks, feels, and sounds very satisfying. But parries are also critical for fights, as they can open up an opportunity to hit the enemy with a punch or a few shots from whatever monstrous gun you're wielding.

> Stay keen for something green

In intense battles, I'm always hunting for green glints to find things to par …

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