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Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. As ever, we've got a whole bunch of new games for you to dive into this weekend, along with announcements and updates on several others that are coming down the pike. I love how spoiled we are for game showcases these days, and I'm really looking forward to the latest installment of the indie-focused Triple-i Initiative at noon ET on April 9 as the first two editions were really strong. The trailer for this one features th

HarperCollins is tapping into AI to bring some of its book franchises to life. Specifically, the publisher is teaming up with Toonstar , an AI animation studio, to turn them into digital shows. The first project will be an adaptation of Lisa Greenwalds Friendship List series, which will also be joined by a graphic novel. Youd be forgiven for being unaware of Toonstar, a studio that received some buzzy early on for simplifying typically complex animation pipelines with AI, but has mostly remained

Jason Blundell, a former creative lead on Activision Blizzard's Call of Duty: Black Ops series, has announced that he's formed a new development studio called Magic Fractal Studios . Blundell announced the studio on a livestream with former Dark Outlaw Games coworker JC Farmer, a little over a week after the previous studio was closed by Sony . Little is known about Magic Fractal beyond its logo and social media accounts. Dark Outlaw Games was similarly mysterious, and closed before it could eve

Cutthroat capitalism sure does bring out the best in humanity. Take, for example, Elon Musk. He reportedly set a condition for banks, law firms, auditors and advisors who want to work on the SpaceX IPO. They're required to subscribe to the bastion of nonconsensual deepfakes and occasional Hitler praise known as Grok. Surely the best and brightest banks our nation has to offer would refuse such a pay-to-play demand, right? Well, no. The New York Times reports that some of them have agreed to spen

On their way around the Moon , the Artemis II crew had time to snap some terrific pictures of our blue planet. NASA has begun sharing the images, including the one above, which shows a striking view of Earth through the Orion capsule's window. Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman overcame the crews problems with Microsoft Outlook and the toilet to capture the photos. He took the above pic after the craft completed its translunar injection burn on April 2. Reid Wiseman / NASA Meanwhile, this second

Lets face it: your bracket was probably busted a long time ago. The 2026 NCAA basketball tournaments, affectionately known as March Madness , is ending soon. The Final Four for both the mens and womens tournaments starts this weekend. Both the mens and womens tournaments are available to stream through various apps and services, but navigating the web of broadcasters and TV channels can be confusing. Weve broken down when all the games are happening, where to watch and the best options for savin

Amid Microsoft's hacking and slashing of its Xbox division , you wouldn't be crazy for thinking State of Decay 3 was dead. After all, the title was announced nearly six years ago , and, well, we haven't heard much since. But the survival game is still in the pipeline, and developer Undead Labs will hold a series of playtests beginning in May. In the announcement, franchise co-creator Brant Fitzgerald emphasized the role of community input in the game's continued development. We've read your feed

The Trump administration's labor board has ordered Amazon to recognize and bargain with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, which represents workers at a warehouse in Staten Island. This is just the latest chapter in a multiyear standoff between Staten Island warehouse workers and Amazon, according to a report by The Washington Post . The union has been trying to bring Amazon to the bargaining table for years to negotiate pay, benefits and workplace safety. The labor board's procla

I realized something was genuinely wrong with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie about 30 minutes in: I hadn't laughed even once. My audience of around 15 people, including a few families, was dead silent as well. The guy sitting behind me, a Nintendo fan decked out in Mario gear, was so bored he fell asleep. Sure, this is made for kids, but as a Nintendo devotee myself, and someone who has to watch a ton of children's films on repeat, even the Despicable Me films are more entertaining. To be fair, th

For a 50-year-old company, Apple remains pretty hip and nimble. This week, Devindra and Senior Reporter Igor Bonifacic dive into Apple's big birthday, the state of the company today and what the next 50 years could bring. It remains one of the few PC companies thats still firmly committed to the idea of personal computing. Also, we celebrate the successful launch of NASA's Artemis II mission, which will bring us back to the Moon (but just for a close look). Subscribe! iTunes Spotify Pocket Casts

The famous fan fiction website Archive of Our Own or AO3 has finally exited open beta, 17 years after it launched way back in 2009. AO3 is a nonprofit created by the by the Organization for Transformative Works. In an announcement, the team reminisced about its early days and how volunteers had to manually send out invitations to prospective writers. Upon launching the website on open beta, it only had 347 accounts and hosted 6,598 works. Now, it has 10 million registered users and is hosting 17

NASAs Artemis II successfully launched on April 1 , with its crew on a 10-day mission to circle the Moon. Its the first crewed Artemis flight and a major step toward humanity returning to our little neighbor in the future. Since launch, the vehicle has separated from its launch system and been manually piloted, testing how the Orion capsule will dock with future lunar landers. There have been some snags, however: The onboard toilet went awry, and Microsoft Outlook has been acting screwy . Jokes

The Integrity, the name of the Orion capsule carrying Artemis II astronauts on a trip around the moon, has left Earths orbit . NASA has announced that it has successfully completed a key burn of Orions main engine. That six-minute firing of the engine provided approximately 6,000 pounds of thrust, which gave the spacecraft the acceleration it needed to set it on its path to the moon. Today, for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, humans have departed Earth orbit, said Dr. Lori Glaze from NAS

Ahead of its premiere , Dave Filoni has revealed that the Star Wars animated series Maul: Shadow Lord will return for a second season. The Lucasfilm co-president revealed that season 2 is already in the works, telling Esquire that at the end of the day, people like that character. Filoni didn't reveal any other details about the plot or release date for season 2. However, the news isn't a great surprise given Lucasfilm's past history with its animated series The Clone Wars ran seven seasons, St

For April Fools' Day, the developer of Look Outside released an update that added a new option to your interactions with NPCs: kissing. Instead of just fighting or talking to enemies and surviving neighbors in the cursed apartment building, you could give 'em a smooch. Their dialogue and sprites were updated accordingly, too. Cue stammering eldritch horrors with bright red blushing cheeks. April Fools' Day is (thankfully) over now, but there's good news for anyone who has been enjoying the lovef

Sony Interactive Entertainment, owner of the PlayStation brand, has acquired Cinemersive Labs , a UK startup developing tools to convert 2D photos and videos into 3D volumes. The startup team will join Sony's Visual Computing Group , a research engineering team focused on graphical technology, including game rendering, video coding and generative AI models. Cinemersive's most recent product is a virtual reality app called Parallax that works as a viewer for parallax photos three-dimensional ima

Everyone's four favorite anthropomorphic turtles are returning to the world of video games. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City will be released on April 30 for the Meta Quest, Steam VR and Pico. It is made by VR game company Cortopia Studios and will retail for $25. Empire City is a first-person action game that youll be able to play solo or co-op with up to four people. And yes, that means all four of the turtles are playable. We've seen a lot of the quartet flexing their fighting form i

In a surprise release , OpenAI has made ChatGPT's Voice mode available through Apple CarPlay. If you're running the latest version of both iOS and the ChatGPT app, and own a CarPlay-compatible vehicle, you can check out the experience. To get started, download all the necessary software, connect your iPhone to CarPlay and select New voice chat from ChatGPT. When the in-app text indicates ChatGPT is listening, you can start a conversation. There are some notable limitations to using ChatGPT Voice

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is suing Illinois, Arizona and Connecticut for attempting to outlaw or regulate prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. The CFTC believes it has sole jurisdiction to regulate these platforms, and that states attempting to classify them as illegal gambling are overstepping their authority. CFTC defines prediction markets as designated contract markets where futures contracts are traded, essentially letting people bet on the outcome of events (for

Coachella officially kicks off next Friday, April 10. But for anyone who doesnt want to fly out to the desert or fork over upwards of $650 for a ticket, YouTube is going to livestream the concert for free so you can enjoy it on your own terms. Heres a quick overview of all the programming that will be available in just over a week. With YouTube planning on providing feeds of seven different stages, there will be no shortage of content. This includes the Quasar stage in both horizontal and vertic

Publisher and game management platform indie.io just announced the pending launch of something called Indie Pass . This is a subscription service, so it's sort of like Game Pass but for indie titles. It launches on April 13 and will offer over 70 games on that date, with more coming down the line. Not a single person on this planet wants another monthly subscription to manage, but this one costs just $8. That's a pretty good deal, considering Game Pass Ultimate costs a whopping $30 per month . H

Russia has closed a loophole that allowed its citizens to pay for Apple digital services. As of April 1, 2026, payment processing is no longer available for purchases made on the App Store or other Apple Media Services in Russia, the company wrote in a support document (via 9to5Mac ). The change affects all Apple services. However, the company says iCloud+ subscribers' data will remain available after their subscriptions end, even after losing premium cloud storage. Customers' previous purchases

When Google released Gemini 3 Pro at the end of last year, it was a significant step forward for the company's proprietary large language models. Now, the company is bringing some of the same technology and research that made those models possible to the open source community with the release of its new family of Gemma 4 open-weight models. Google is offering four different versions of Gemma 4, differentiated by the numberof parameters on offer. For edge devices, including smartphones, the compa

Uber is expanding its EV incentive program across the US. The company began testing the service in select cities last year. This is a program in which Uber offers drivers a $4,000 grant to switch from their current vehicle to an EV. These grants are available for both new and used electric vehicles, which is nice because new cars are expensive and could be out of financial reach for many Uber drivers. This program is available to Platinum and Diamond drivers who complete 100 eligible rides by De

Flipboard has been one of the biggest boosters of decentralized social media . Now, the company, which is known for its social news reading app, is rolling out its latest experiment, social websites. The project offers publishers and creators an easier path into what's often called the open social web, which includes the fediverse, as well as other protocol-based platforms like Blueksy. The company says it could also help creators of all stripes wrest back control of their audiences from mainstr

After sharing pricing and availability for its new Mini LED TVs in March, Samsung is ready to detail some of the other TVs it introduced at CES earlier this year. The 2026 versions of Samsung's The Frame Pro and OLED TVs are both available to order today save for some notable exceptions and they start for as little as $1,200. The Frame Pro was originally introduced in 2025 as the more premium version of Samsung's popular The Frame art TVs. The big advantage of stepping up to a Pro model over a

The four history-making Artemis II crew members are cooped up with each other in a tiny space for 10 days. And yet the most uncomfortable aspect of the mission might be having to deal with not one, but two instances of Microsoft Outlook . Commander Reid Wiseman sent a literal Houston, we have a problem message to mission control in the early hours of Thursday. He sought tech support for internet connectivity issues on a PCD (personal computing device), which is a Microsoft Surface Pro . Before y

Two fantastic indie titles just dropped for Apple Arcade . The platform has received versions of Dredge and Unpacking , both of which have been optimized for mobile devices. Dredge+ is the complete edition of the game, with all released DLC content. This is pretty much a perfect video game that combines fishing with bone-chilling horror. During the day, you sail around and fish, which involves a fishing minigame and a pack the fish in the bag minigame. At night, you are hunted by Lovecraftian mo

Every now and then, I test a gadget so wild that I cant believe a company actually made it. Soundcores $5,000 Nebula X1 Pro projector is the embodiment of that: an ultra bright projector and a 400-watt Dolby Atmos 7.1 speaker system combined in a massive enclosure. With a fast and flexible setup, it lets you screen movies or watch sports nearly anywhere. Its not just a projector crammed into a big speaker system, though. Everything is elegantly integrated and setup is nearly automatic, thanks to

With gas prices rising across the country, consumers are turning to electric vehicles as a way to save money on their commute. And while there werent a ton of all-new EVs on display at the 2026 New York International Auto Show, we did see some notable debuts from automakers including Subaru, Kia, Hyundai and more. So heres a look at some of the most interesting upcoming EV models on display today, including a handful of previously announced vehicles that we havent had a chance to see in person b

Jay Blahnik, who served as Apples Fitness chief for almost 13 years, has announced that hes retiring this July. According to The New York Times , Blahnik told employees in an email that he was leaving to spend time with his family and make an exciting move to New York City. Blahnik is retiring less than a year after The Times reported on allegations that he was verbally abusive, manipulative and inappropriate towards his employees, creating a toxic workplace environment. Approximately 10 out of

Google's $20 per month AI Pro plan , which includes Gemini, Veo and Nano Banana, got a big storage boost and some other new perks. Users of the plan (also available for $200 per year ) will see their cloud space jump from 2TB to 5TB at no extra cost. That extra storage can be used not only for AI but also Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos backups. Gemini can now pull context from Gmail and the web for Drive, Docs, Slides and Sheets, provide summaries for your Gmail inbox and proofread emails

The Artemis II mission successfully launched into space on April 1, at 6:35pm Eastern time, from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will take NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day trip around the moon. This mission is the first crewed Artemis flight and will lay the groundwork for future trips to the moon itself, the first flight with a crew onboard the SLS rocket and Orion spa

Resident Evil legend Shinji Mikami's new studio, Unbound Inc., has been acquired by Shift Up, the company behind Stellar Blade and Goddess of Victory: Nikke . Unbound's unannounced games will be fully supported and distributed by South Korean publisher Shift Up, which is led by CEO Hyung-Tae Kim. Mikami is an icon of Japanese horror as the director of Resident Evil , its 2002 remake and Resident Evil 4 , as well as a founder of PlatinumGames and Tango Gameworks. Tango was responsible for The Evi

In January, a Finnish-Estonian startup proclaimed it had developed a truly solid state battery, a holy grail for the technology industry. Donut Labs cell wasnt just solid state, however. It claimed it was made from cheap and easily available materials, would charge to full in a few minutes and last for hundreds of years. If real, such a device would change the face of the world, which is why plenty of people dont think it is. And, as the company makes more effort to demonstrate it is telling the

Sony just revealed a trio of PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for April and it's a pretty stacked lineup. These will all be playable on April 7 for subscribers on any tier. After downloading, the games will stay in a player's library as long as the subscription remains active. First up, there's Lords of the Fallen for PS5. This is a sequel to 2014's Lords of the Fallen , despite having the same exact name. The 2023 release boasts a much larger world than the original, but similar fast-paced gamepl

Here's a feature that would've been a lot more useful before this week. Amid recent hours-long airport lines, United is adding security wait times to its app. However, the feature arrives a few days after security lines began returning to normal. Hey, at least it'll be there for the next shutdown. At launch, the feature is only available for United's hub airports. That includes Chicago O'Hare, Denver, Houston, LAX, Newark, San Francisco and Washington Dulles. Passengers traveling through any of

SpaceX has reportedly taken the step many onlookers have long expected: filing paperwork to hold an initial public offering (IPO) on the stock market and become a publicly traded company. Rumors had long pointed toward the IPO taking place by July. The company filed draft IPO registration paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission confidentially, according to Bloomberg . As such, the public wont get a chance to closely scrutinize SpaceXs finances just yet. Taking the confidential a

Lucid Motors has recalled over 4,000 Gravity SUVs after discovering a problem with seat belts . The company told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that some of the anchors for the second-row seat belts weren't welded properly. This means that there's a chance they won't actually hold passengers during a collision. The company blames the issue on a seat supplier changing its manufacturing process without notice to or approval by Lucid. It says it has reverted to the origi

MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy remains so convinced that corporate foul play contributed to the disastrous launch of its debut game that its now planning to prove it to its audience via in-game content. In a wide-ranging interview with GamesBeat , BARB CEO and CTO Mark Gerhard said MindsEye will soon receive a multiplayer update, as well as a new mission called Blacklist in which the studio will share some of the evidence of the sabotage with the community. Gerhard didnt elaborate further

What should have been a routine release has revealed some of the features Anthropic has been working on for Claude Code. As reported by Ars Technica , The Verge and others, after the company released Claude Code's 2.1.88 update on Tuesday, users found it contained a file that exposed the app's source code. Before Anthropic took action to plug the leak, the codebase was uploaded to a public GitHub repository, where it was subsequently copied more than 50,000 times. All told, the entire internet (

If you're feeling anxious about AI and what it means for the future of humanity, you should watch The AI Doc: Or, How I Became an Apocaloptimist . As I noted in my review , the film aims to deliver some clarity amid all the hype. Now that it's in theaters, we sat down with director Daniel Roher, who won an Oscar for his film Navalny , to dive deeper into his complicated feelings around AI. The entire topic made him nervous, Roher said, so he decided to team up with similarly anxious colleagues t

The horrible winter of 2026 is behind us in New England; now weve moved on to the season where theres a threat of rain basically every day. Given that, the updated Storm Radar app from The Weather Company (owners of the Weather Channel app) caught my eye. There are tons of good weather apps out there, and Im the kind of nerd that likes to try them all, and Storm Radar feels pretty unique to me. The main interface is, as youd expect, your local radar. Tapping on any point of the map calls up a de

A couple of years after its overseas debut , Kias EV3 will finally come to the US. The automaker said at the New York International Auto Show that the 2027 edition of the subcompact electric SUV will arrive stateside later this year. Kia won't announce pricing until closer to its sale date, but it has previously said it would target a starting price of $35,000. The EV3 could be a welcome addition for Americans shopping for a smaller electric SUV. Compact ones that won't break the bank are a rela

Way back in 2017, Roland carved out a little niche for itself with the introduction of the Go:Mixer line. The small, portable audio interfaces are a convenient way to connect a mic and multiple musical instruments (or audio sources) to your phone for more professional public performances or on-the-go recording. At this years NAMM show, the company unveiled the latest in the family the Go:Mixer Studio and its the most premium version to date. The Studio adds a display, multitrack output and onb

There's just something magical about a robot that can convert into a car, tank or plane. It seems that Hollywood agrees as there are several major franchises based around that concept. As someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, Transformers hold a special place in my heart, despite Michael Bay's best efforts at tarnishing its legacy. I spent countless hours as a kid playing with Hasbro and Takara's plastic figures, but there was one type of toy I always wanted but never got: a robot that could t

Banijay is launching the Black Mirror Experience , starting with Montreal in May with additional locations to be announced in the future. Specifically, it will be produced by Banijay Live Studio, the new subsidiary of the production company that owns Black Mirror, in partnership with VR firm Univrse. The studio describes it as an interactive virtual reality experience that blends physical space and VR designed to blur the lines of fiction and reality in which you become the main character. While

WWDC 2026 , the latest version of Apple's yearly developer conference, runs from June 8-12, and by all appearances the company has some important updates to outline. In comparison to Liquid Glass , the design material Apple introduced last year and now uses across all its operating systems, the new features the company is rumored to announce might not be aesthetic, but they could make just as big of a splash. Namely because Apple might finally be ready to show off its second stab at an overhaule

Salesforce has unveiled the newest version of Slack, which comes with a whole host of new AI features to add to its ever-growing catalog. Naturally, many of these tools are embedded into Slackbot, which the company had already pledged to turn into a personalized AI companion. The new features include the stuff youd expect, such as transcription, note taking and deep research, as well as integrations with the rest of the Salesforce family. But itll also get reusable skills, which sound a lot like

Artemis II, the first crewed mission under the Artemis program , is scheduled to launch today, April 1. NASA is opening a two-hour window for its lift off, starting at 6:24 PM Eastern time, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The agency said the forecast for launch day shows an 80 percent chance of favorable weather conditions and that, on March 31, its engineers had finished critical health checks on the Space Launch System rocket that the mission will use. On the evening of March 31, the e