May, 2024 - Softonic English

Sony hasn’t learned: God of War: Ragnarok will require having a PSN account to play on PC

During the past State of Play held on May 30th, Sony revealed several titles that will be coming soon for PlayStation 5 and PS VR 2. Additionally, the arrival of God of War: Ragnarok and the remake of Until Dawn on PC was also confirmed.

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Although we still have to wait until September 19th to enjoy Kratos and Atreus on our computers, we already have the game ready to pre-order on both Steam and the Epic Games Store. Likewise, the announcement of both games was also accompanied by news that many were waiting for: it will be necessary to have a PSN account to be able to play God of War: Ragnarok and Until Dawn on PC.

This requirement is well detailed both in the official PlayStation blog post and on their Steam page: “PlayStation Network account required, subject to the PlayStation Terms of Service and User Agreement”.

After the great controversy surrounding Helldivers 2 and, subsequently, Ghost of Tsushima, Sony wanted to be clear with the community and demonstrated it at the beginning of the State of Play. The company displayed a statement on the screen that read “Sony Interactive Entertainment games for PC require a PlayStation Network account“.

From what we’ve seen, it seems that this will be the general trend we will have with PlayStation Studios releases on PC, even if they don’t have multiplayer mode.

Source: VGC

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These are the free games of June that you can get through Amazon Prime Gaming

Amazon has already confirmed which games Amazon Prime subscribers will be able to claim at no additional cost during June. Specifically, there will be 7 titles that will be unlocked throughout the month, starting with the legendary Star Wars: Battlefront II from 2005.

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The complete list would look like this:

June 6 – Star Wars: Battlefront II (Classic, 2005): With Prime Gaming, you’ll have the perfect excuse to revisit the classic Star Wars shooter as you battle with the heroes of the saga in exciting battles.
June 6 – Weird West Definitive Edition: Your choices will be very important in Weird West, an RPG set in a very magical Wild West.
June 6 – Genesis Noir: A mix of adventure and mystery with a very special artistic style.
June 13 – Everdream Valley: Colorful and cozy, Everdream Valley gives us the opportunity to live a rural adventure on our grandparents’ farm.
June 13 – Mythforce: A dungeon roguelite presented in a visual style reminiscent of 80s cartoons.
June 13 – Blast Brigade vs. the Evil Legion of Dr. Cread: If you like metroidvania games, don’t miss Blast Brigade. Besides being fun, it oozes love for the classic 80s action movies.
June 13 – Projection: First Light: Here we will follow the adventures of Greta, a girl who will take us by the hand through the history of shadow puppets.

In addition, subscribers in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom will also be able to play the following titles for free through Amazon Luna in June: Metro Exodus, Bee Simulator, Fallout New Vegas: Ultimate Edition, Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition, LEGO Fortnite, Fortnite, Fortnite Festival, Rocket Racing, and Trackmania.

Source: Amazon Prime Gaming

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These are the new features of iOS 18 that will harness the capabilities of AI

There is less time left to experience the WWDC24 again, the developer event that Apple celebrates every year to showcase its software innovations. This year, rumors suggest that iOS 18 will completely change our iPhone thanks to artificial intelligence.

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Now, a new article published by Appleinsider has revealed some of these AI-powered features that we will see within iOS 18:

Siri will be much more advanced: Siri has never been particularly known for its brilliance, but Apple is willing to change that with iOS 18. The assistant will now take into account people, events from our calendar, locations, dates, and much more when answering our questions. In addition, it will be able to better recognize our requests, allowing us to interact in a more natural way. Its voices will also become much more “human” to our ears.
Media control: iOS 18 would allow us to use Siri on one device to control the playback on another. For example, we could control Apple TV from our iPhone or Apple Watch through Siri. However, we will have to wait a little longer for it to be available.
Summary of our notifications: We will be able to ask Siri to give us a summary of the notifications we have recently received.

In iOS 18 we will see other very interesting features that will make the most of artificial intelligence capabilities, such as the following:

Smart Replies: Users will be able to respond to messages and emails with automatically generated replies.
Advanced Notes: Voice Notes and Calculator are integrated into Notes. It will allow us to edit and transcribe audio, as well as summarize text. Additionally, it will also be able to recognize mathematical equations and help us find solutions.
Mathematical Predictive Keyboard: The calculations we want to write are recognized as part of the text and can be completed predictively, just like with regular predictive text.
Photo Editing: We will be able to remove unwanted objects from our photos using Generative AI.
Safari, Apple Music, iWork, Calendar, and Reminders are some of the applications that will be enhanced by the implementation of AI.

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‘Valorant’ kicks toxic fans in the ass (and it’s something very good for the industry)

In the end, there are people who want to relieve their insecurity, or their bad day, or their hatred towards a stranger through their computer.

I don’t think anyone will be surprised if I say that, with few exceptions, online gaming communities are a very, very toxic scourge. You never know what you’re going to encounter, whether it’s a child spewing racist insults, an adult suggesting you end your life, or, if you’re a woman, two thousand possible ways to traumatize you. “It’s part of the game,” say the psychopaths who insist on doing it. But as they made clear today from ‘Valorant‘, no. It’s not part of anything.

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Toxicity out, bad vibes out

After a series of insults went viral through Twitter (which I won’t mention here because I want you to keep living without feeling sick), Riot has decided that it’s time to try to tackle, once and for all, the inherent toxicity in ‘Valorant’.

It’s not that they haven’t tried so far, but in the end automation can’t do it all, and many times bans have to be “painfully manual or rely on player reports”, clarifying that it is a general problem in the industry: “In the end there are people who want to alleviate their insecurity, or their bad day, or their hatred against a stranger through their computer”.

Very well, but besides acknowledging that there is abuse, what exactly are you going to do to prevent it? Well, first of all, update your code of conduct to impose stronger punishments (such as permanent bans) for hate speech or sexual threats with a larger team that can handle manual reports.

Are they going to end this with online harassment? Well, frankly, it doesn’t seem like it. At least they have made it clear that those are their intentions, which is more than many developers: “We are not going to reach a middle ground. If you need to make really mean comments disguised as banter to enjoy your game, please play something else. We won’t miss you“. Crystal clear.

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The third part of Knives Out signs its two biggest stars so far

It is clear that this is the week of Knives Out 3, titled Wake Up Dead Man. The Netflix saga started the week with rumors about its possible cast, and these have grown into official confirmations by the production.

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In the last few days, we have already had confirmation from Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, and Kerry Washington. But now, two more actors have just been confirmed, raising the level even higher than expected. These two actors are none other than Jeremy Renner and Mila Kunis.

Benoit Blanc is going to have a lot of work…

That’s right, the action hero from Marvel Studios has just confirmed that he will be joining the third installment of the movie in a role that, like the rest, is still a mystery. And he didn’t do it alone. Mila Kunis, the famous actress from That ’70s Show, has also joined the cast. Perhaps for the role that Rian Johnson wanted Lindsay Lohan for? We will probably find out soon.

Welcome to Derry brings back Bill Skarsgard to play the clown Pennywise

One of the most anticipated series on Max, the new platform that emerged from the restructuring of HBO Max by Warner Bros. Discovery, is Welcome to Derry. As we told you some time ago, this series will explore the origins of the town where Pennywise appears in It, and how the clown was already wreaking havoc before the main children arrived.

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Now, as just confirmed by Discussing Film, the series has secured its protagonist (or antagonist?). Bill Skarsgård will once again portray Pennywise, the evil clown, after playing the role in both parts of Andrés Muschietti’s It. In fact, the director himself will also return as the showrunner of the series.

Pennywise is back

Although we don’t have too many details about Welcome to Derry, it is expected that the series will be released at some point in 2025, so the filming may be closer than we thought. Either way, we are eager to delve back into the dark world created by Stephen King.

After Inside Out 2, Pixar will release a series about the saga on Disney Plus

One of the best movies in Pixar’s history was, without a doubt, Inside Out. The film directed by Pete Docter managed to bring together the best of the brand, telling a story as emblematic and melancholic as it is universal and understandable for everyone. Now, its sequel is underway and will arrive in theaters on June 19th. But that’s not the only thing from Inside Out that is on its way.

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As confirmed by Bloomberg, after Inside Out 2, a series will be released on Disney Plus that will continue exploring this universe. However, it will be a somewhat peculiar series; it will not focus so much on the usual emotions we see in the movies, but rather on a rather curious aspect of our brain: dreams.

What will Dream Productions be about?

The series will be titled Dream Productions and, from what we know so far, it will focus on the studio of the same name located in Riley’s mind, as we saw in the first movie. The role of Dream Productions is to create Riley’s dreams while she sleeps, and we will see how it connects with her emotions in order to generate them.

Undoubtedly, it is a very interesting premise that, seeing the juice that Pixar usually gets from these crazy proposals, promises to work perfectly. In fact, it is Pixar’s first approach to the streaming platform after the conflicts they had with the “lost” releases of Pixar in recent years when they arrived directly on Disney Plus. And, undoubtedly, it seems that it will be a series that can offer much more.

This is not the only Pixar series for Disney Plus that we will see soon. Win or Lose is another original series announced at D23 in 2022 and scheduled for late 2024. For Dream Productions, we do not have a release date yet, but it is expected to be during 2025.

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NASA can’t believe it: this asteroid not only has its own moon, but it is also “conjoined”

In a rather unexpected discovery, the NASA spacecraft Lucy has revealed that the asteroid Dinkinesh, colloquially known as “Dinky”, has a peculiar companion: a binary contact satellite, that is, two fused moons, which researchers have named “Selam”. The finding, published in the journal Nature on May 29, 2024, challenges existing theories about the formation of asteroids and celestial bodies.

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Jessica Sunshine, professor of Astronomy and Geology at the University of Maryland and co-author of the article, highlighted the unexpected complexity of these small celestial bodies. “With the additional observations made by the spacecraft, we were able to better analyze features such as Dinkinesh’s rotation speed and Selam’s orbital pattern,” she explained.

The images sent by Lucy showed a significant depression in Dinkinesh, suggesting that approximately a quarter of the asteroid detached from its main body. This detachment, possibly caused by Dinky’s rapid rotational movement, resulted in the expulsion of rocky debris into orbit. Some of this debris clustered together to form Selam, while others fell onto Dinky, creating visible ridges in the photographs.

Hal Levison, principal scientist of the Lucy mission, emphasized the importance of understanding the resistance and internal structure of asteroids in order to understand how planets formed. “Planets formed when smaller objects like asteroids collided with each other. Whether objects break apart or stay together when they collide has a lot to do with their strength and internal structure,” he said.

Although how Selam formed remains a mystery, Sunshine pointed out that the findings open the door to comparative studies with similar celestial bodies, such as the binary system Didymos. This system shares many similarities with Dinky, despite being located in different parts of the solar system.

Dinkinesh and Selam are the first of the 11 asteroids that Lucy will explore in its 12-year mission. After its next visit to Earth in December 2024 for a gravity assist, the spacecraft will observe the Donald Johanson asteroid in April 2025 and the Trojan asteroids in 2027. Sunshine concluded that studying these asteroids is essential to understand how planets form and, ultimately, the Earth itself.

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Amazon implements AI in Fire TV to improve searches

Nowadays, watching movies and series has become more accessible than ever. However, the immense catalog that streaming platforms have can be overwhelming for users and make it very difficult to find a series or movie to watch. That is why Amazon wants to make use of artificial intelligence to improve searches and solve this problem.

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This is not exactly news. The company, owned by Jeff Bezos, already announced this feature during the event held in the fall of 2023 and also confirmed that it would be available on Fire TVs. Now, this functionality has started to roll out to all users.

The idea behind it is quite simple: with the Fire TV remote, we can now use a more natural language to ask Alexa to suggest something to watch. This is possible thanks to a new language model created by Amazon, specifically designed to display movies and TV shows. This model is capable of locating any type of content based on genre, plot, actors, quotes, and much more, all thanks to its training with platforms like IMDb. The media The Verge has been able to test it firsthand and it certainly seems quite promising.

According to tests conducted by The Verge, Amazon adds useful context to the results, such as showing you which apps you already have installed can stream the program and if it’s free. During the 2023 presentation, Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Fire TV, demonstrated the search function and also described that it would offer an experience similar to “talking to a great friend who is also the best video store clerk in the world”.

This functionality has already started to be deployed among users, so we will be able to check for ourselves if Rausch’s promises have been fulfilled.

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MultiVersus characters have been leaked in the most bizarre way: Pickle Rick

Numerous upcoming characters have been leaked for MultiVersus in the most bizarre way possible: through Pickle Rick’s voice lines.

MultiVersus is making headlines for many reasons. In addition to having very good numbers, it seems that their decision to adopt a much more aggressive monetization has not been well received. This doesn’t take away from the fact that the game is performing well and seems to have a bright future ahead. That’s what one of its own characters, Pickle Rick, seems to imply.

For those who don’t know, Pickle Rick is an alter ego of Rick, the main character of Rick and Morty who, as the name suggests, is, well, a pickle. What does this have to do with anything? Well, besides being a playable character in MultiVersus, several characters that are yet to come to the game have been leaked. All because of him.

According to several dataminers, the voices of several characters are already present in the game. And Pickle Rick, in particular, makes references to several characters that are yet to come to the game.

This particular character has confirmed that The Powerpuff Girls and several characters from RWBY —a series by Rooster Teeth, a studio that recently closed Warner Bros— will be coming to the game in the near future. Explicitly mentioning them in some of their voice lines, there is no doubt that they will be among the next characters to arrive in the game.

On the other hand, dataminers have found references and voices for more characters. Even beyond Pickle Rick. Discovering voice lines from Agent Smith, from The Matrix, and references to other characters like Aquaman, the DC superhero, and Marceline, from Adventure Time, it seems that the game will have a constant inclusion of new characters in the future. Although, we won’t lie to you, we didn’t expect Pickle Rick to be our most reliable source for this kind of leaks.

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MultiVersus is a free-to-play video game that allows you to fight with iconic characters from Warner Bros.