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08 Jun

Xbox Games Showcase 2025: all the news and trailers

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Capping off a very busy week in the world of gaming is Microsoft with its annual Xbox Games Showcase, providing “a look at brand-new games and updates from across our first-party studios and our incredible partners across the globe.” It was followed by a segment focused entirely on the sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds 2. The big reveal was portable gaming news, as Microsoft announced the Xbox app, Game Bar, and Windows OS updates that will arrive on two new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. They’ll have a full-screen Xbox experience that’s supposed to make Windows more friendly to handhelds, and help them…

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08 Jun

Final Fantasy XVI is out on Xbox right now, and FF7 Remake is coming too

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You can play the latest entry in the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy XVI, on Xbox right now. Shadow dropped during today’s Xbox Games Showcase, players will be able to experience FFXVI’s slick-ass kaiju monster battles, incredible voice acting, and ho-hum story (because, hey, you can’t expect Square Enix to be perfect at everything). In addition to the base game, players will also get access to FFXVI’s two story DLCs The Rising Tide and Echoes of the Fallen which adds more story and a new Eikon (the game’s version of summons) Leviathan. But that’s not all as the partnership between…

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08 Jun

Double Fine’s next game, Keeper, turns you into a walking lighthouse

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Psychonauts developer Double Fine just announced a new game — and you’ll be able to play it soon. Keeper, a game where you play as a walking lighthouse with a seabird as a buddy, is launching on October 17th, 2025 on Xbox and PC. Here’s a description from an Xbox Wire post about what you can expect from the game: It has stood alone for countless years, but now the Lighthouse finds companionship in a curious and spirited seabird, who encounters the Lighthouse while seeking refuge from a creeping malevolent presence spreading throughout the isle. The Lighthouse discovers that its…

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08 Jun

Gears of War: E-Day is coming in 2026

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Microsoft first revealed Gears of War: E-Day during its Xbox Games Showcase last year, and at today’s showcase it’s now putting a 2026 release window on the latest entry in the sci-fi shooter series. Developed by The Coalition, E-Day will release in a year that marks 20 years since the original Gears of War game debuted on the Xbox 360, and 25 years of Xbox. E-Day is set 14 years before the first Gears game, and “tells the story of the first Locust emergence on Sera.” It’s being billed as an origin story, and once again stars Marcus Fenix. E-Day is the…

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08 Jun

Persona 4 is getting a remake

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The worst-kept secret in gaming is no longer a secret. At the Xbox Games Showcase, Atlus announced that a full remake of Persona 4 is in development. It’s called Persona 4 Revival, and while there weren’t many details revealed — like when it’ll actually launch — we did get a brief teaser trailer. It’s coming to Xbox, PS5, and PC, and will be available for Game Pass subscribers. While it was just announced, the remake has seemed like a foregone conclusion for some time — and not just because several voice actors leaked its existence. Persona 3 received a similar…

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07 Jun

At the Bitcoin Conference, the Republicans were for sale

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"I want to make a big announcement," said Faryar Shirzad, the chief policy officer of Coinbase, to a nearly empty room. His words echoed across the massive hall at the Bitcoin Conference, deep in the caverns of The Venetian Expo in Las Vegas, and it wasn't apparent how many people were watching on the livestream. Then again, somebody out there may have been interested in the panelists he was interviewing, one of whom was unusual by Bitcoin Conference standards: Chris LaCivita, the political consultant who'd co-chaired Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. "I am super proud to say it on this…

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07 Jun

8 games from the Wholesome Direct 2025 that you can play right now

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The Wholesome Direct is always full of cute and charming games to keep an eye on for the future. But it's also a great place to find things to play now - and that's especially true this year. The 2025 edition of the livestream showcase included a number of games that released during the show itself. So if you like what you see, there's no wait at all. Camper Van: Make it Home Finally, a game that combines designing your own house with going on a road trip. Camper Van: Make it Home is exactly what it sounds like. On…

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07 Jun

The soul of The Last of Us is in Gustavo Santaolalla’s music

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When fans nervously tuned in to watch HBO's adaptation of one of their favorite video games, there was one familiar presence that immediately calmed their nerves: the mournful guitar of Gustavo Santaolalla. As certain story beats changed and beloved polygonal faces were replaced with new actors, the beating heart of The Last of Us - its mesmerizing, tension-ridden score - survived the transition to TV intact. "[Series creator] Neil Druckmann has said that my music is part of the DNA of The Last of Us," Santaolalla says. "I think the fact that we kept the sonic fabric - that we…

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07 Jun

Apple’s latest AirPods Pro with USB-C just received a $70 discount

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This year’s WWDC kicks off in less than a week, which means Apple is likely to announce a string of software changes in short order, some of which are designed to improve Apple’s latest pair of premium earbuds. Thankfully, if you haven’t yet pulled the trigger on the second-gen AirPods Pro, they’re once again on sale at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for around $169 ($70 off), matching their best price of the year. If you’re an iPhone user, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better pair of noise-canceling earbuds than Apple’s latest AirPods Pro with USB-C. The second-gen model…

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07 Jun

Popular AI apps get caught in the crosshairs of Anthropic and OpenAI

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Battlelines are being drawn between the major AI labs and the popular applications that rely on them. This week, both Anthropic and OpenAI took shots at two leading AI apps: Windsurf, one of the most popular vibe coding tools, and Granola, a buzzy AI app for taking meeting notes. "With less than five days of notice, Anthropic decided to cut off nearly all of our first-party capacity to all Claude 3.x models," Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan wrote on X this week, noting that "we wanted to pay them for the full capacity." An additional statement on Windsurf's website said: "We…

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