Technology

The latest Call of Duty game collection may now be too big to fit the base 500GB PlayStation 4 hard drive (via IGN). According to the official Call of Duty blog, if you want to have the latest Call of Duty: Warzone update and the full Black Ops: Cold War and Modern Warfare package on your PS4, you’ll have to uninstall content you don’t use. The games make that somewhat easy to do by letting you remove certain modes — for example, if you only want to play Warzone, you could uninstall Black Ops’s single player, Zombie, and arcade modes, but it seems a bit ridiculous that you can’t fit three (or really, two and a half) games on an entire game console. That’s especially true since Activision sort of treats these three games as one thing: Warzone blends the content from Modern Warfare and Cold ...

Square Enix just announced Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, a PS5-enhanced version of FF7 Remake that includes graphical improvements like “improved textures, lighting, and background environments.” But some users on ResetEra noticed one other potentially huge graphical upgrade: Cloud’s famously skinny arms may have gotten a bit beefier. Did Cloud get more swole for next-gen, like the PS5 itself? Clearly, this warranted a full investigation. Check out this image, from user Tyaren: Image: ResetEra user Tyaren And this GIF, from user Rickenslacker: GIF: ResetEra user Rickenslacker Convincing, right? These two images make a strong argument. But my Verge colleagues and I weren’t totally sure. Like our brothers in arms at Reddit suggested, it could be a trick of the improved lighting or sli...

Sony has confirmed that Japan Studio, its internal video game developer based in Tokyo, will essentially wind down and refocus around a single team. In a statement to IGN, Japan Studio said as of April 1st it would be “re-centered to Team Asobi, the creative team behind Astro’s Playroom, allowing the team to focus on a single vision and build on the popularity of Astro’s Playroom.” In other words, get ready for more Astro games. Astro’s Playroom is a well-received title packaged with every PlayStation 5 console. It’s a 3D platformer designed to show off the advanced haptic feedback of the new DualSense controller. Before that, the same team developed Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, widely considered to be the standout exclusive PlayStation VR title. VGC previously reported today that the “vast ...

The enhanced version of Final Fantasy VII Remake for the PS5 wasn’t the only Midgar-related news today. Square Enix also revealed an even bigger surprise: a battle royale for mobile devices that’s set three decades before the original game. It’s called Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, and it’s slated to come to both Android and iOS devices later this year. We don’t know much more about the game just yet, but, as the title implies, it’s centered on Soldier, a group of enhanced fighters that plays an important role in FFVII’s story. A multiplayer battle royale seems like a strange way to tell a story like that, but the trailer at least shows some iconic FFVII locales and what looks like fast-paced combat involving both weapons and magic. A second mobile spinoff, a story-driven game call...

Square Enix announced two mobile games set in the Final Fantasy VII universe today. One is a battle royale game aiming for a 2021 release, and the other is Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, a compilation of all the games and stories set in the Final Fantasy VII universe (Final Fantasy VII, Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core, and Dirge of Cerberus). The latter is slated to launch sometime in 2022 on Android and iOS. According to a press release, Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis is a chapter-structured single-player experience that covers the entire timeline in one of the most popular installments in Square Enix’s RPG franchise. The compilation will feature all the events from each game, in addition to new story elements focusing on the “origins of SOLIDER.” Watching the announcement trai...

Final Fantasy VII Remake’s soundtrack will be available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, and other music subscription services tomorrow, February 26th, Square Enix announced on Thursday. It will have an eye-popping (ear-popping?) 156 tracks, according to a press release. The game’s soundtrack was an excellent reimagining of the original game’s iconic music, and I frequently listen to it via random YouTube videos. The official arrival on streaming services should make listening to it much easier. We know you’ve been waiting a little while for this… From February 26th, the @FinalFantasy VII Remake Soundtrack will be available on online music subscription services such as Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music Unlimited! pic.twitter.com/IKSSOEhAxW — FINAL ...

Apple is once again releasing an update to prevent a charging problem from killing MacBooks — this time it’s to fix a problem where 2019 and later MacBook Pros, and 2020 and later MacBook Airs were being damaged when connected to third-party USB-C hubs and docks (via MacRumors). It’s unclear how widespread the issues are, but a poll on Reddit had 74 out of 221 respondents report that their M1 Air or Pro had failed after using a hub. As with all polls, it’s best to take the results with a grain of salt, but there’s an indication that some people were experiencing issues. Most of the issues seemed to come from using a third-party dock, and while some of them seem to be from pretty obscure brands, there are a few recognizable ones that are reported to have killed laptops. For its part, Apple ...

If you missed Target’s early morning Xbox Series X restocks today, you have another chance today to secure Microsoft’s next-gen console. A Walmart spokesperson told The Verge that the retailer will have the Xbox Series X and Series S available for purchase today, February 25th, at 3PM ET. Walmart told The Verge you will have two options to pay for the Xbox Series X — with a one-time payment of $499.99 or pay with Xbox All Access, which requires a monthly payment for 24 months. Xbox All Access is a bundle that splits the cost of an Xbox console; Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which includes both versions of the video game streaming service; access to xCloud; and Xbox Live Gold. Xbox Series X / S Prices taken at time of publishing. The Xbox Series X is Microsoft’s flagship console, serving as its ...

Twitch is removing the anti-union ads that its parent company, Amazon, was running on the platform. The ads showed Amazon employees talking about why they want to vote no on unionization and directed viewers to Amazon’s “DoItWithoutDues” website. A Twitch spokesperson said the ads “should never have been allowed to run on [the] service,” as they violate its political advertising policies. Twitch also says that it is “evaluating [its] review processes to ensure that similar content does not run in the future.” The ads were reported by More Perfect Union; their removal was first reported by Rod Breslau. The ads were the latest entry in a long campaign aimed at disrupting organization efforts at an Amazon warehouse outside of Birmingham, Alabama. Those efforts involve pulling employees into m...

Valve has been compelled by a California court to provide sales data on more than 400 Steam games to Apple and possibly reveal its yearly sales, revenue, and profits to Apple as well. The iPhone maker subpoenaed Valve for the data as part of its ongoing dispute with Fortnite developer Epic Games. According to a Wednesday order by Judge Thomas Hixson, Valve will have to provide yearly sales and pricing data on 436 games that are available on both its PC game distribution platform, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Apple has requested the data so it can define the video game market in its case against Epic. In a filing published on February 18th, Valve had argued that Apple’s demands were overly broad. Apple had asked for even more data in its subpoena, including annual revenues from Steam, t...

Fisker Inc. quietly settled a previously unreported trade secret lawsuit with Volkswagen-backed solid-state battery company QuantumScape last July, The Verge has learned. The suit, filed in April 2019 in Santa Clara Superior Court, was centered on a former QuantumScape employee who brought thousands of confidential documents with her to a new job at Fisker Inc. in late 2018 and early 2019. While the lawsuit played out, Fisker Inc. locked away those documents and the work done by the employee, and even “quarantined” battery cells made while she worked there, though it ultimately argued the information was public domain. As part of the settlement, Fisker Inc. ultimately agreed to delete or destroy the documents the employee brought with her. Fisker Inc. recently disclosed in a filing with th...

The Parker Solar Probe, NASA’s closest eye on the Sun, was whizzing by Venus last summer for a gravity assist when it snapped a striking new image of the planet’s mysterious nightside, revealing a surprisingly clear view of the Venusian surface. The spacecraft, launched in 2018, is in the midst of its seven-year journey to study the Sun from 4 million miles away, the closest any human-made object has gone before. To do this, Parker Solar Probe needs to use the gravity of Venus to help tighten its orbit around the Sun through a series of seven flybys, nudging itself closer to the star with each pass. Those scenic passes are valuable opportunities to catch intriguing shots of Venus. The image taken by Parker Solar Probe’s Wide-field Imager (WISPR) came during its third Venus flyby in July 20...