Connexion
Just over 10 years after its initial release, space exploration and survival crafting game No Man's Sky is making its way to the iPhone and iPad, Apple and developer Hello Games announced today.
It will run on devices as far back as the iPhone 11 and the third-generation iPad Air. No Man's Sky might not have the most cutting-edge AAA graphics (though they're still strong, and they've come a long way since launch via updates), but the game's uncommon method of generating galaxies of incomprehensible scale on-device, and consistently for all players from a single-seed, happening on a phone is remarkable for those of us who remember phones performing far behind consoles or desktop PCs.
With its premiere just two weeks away, Marvel Studios has dropped one last trailer for the limited series, VisionQuest, which will complete the trilogy begun with WandaVision and Agatha All Along.
(Spoilers for WandaVision and Agatha All Along below.)
As previously reported, Marvel’s streaming TV portfolio has kind of been all over the place: a handful of hits, a few misses, and a bunch of middling offerings. One standout was WandaVision, followed by an excellent sequel (of sorts), Agatha All Along. VisionQuest will complete the trilogy. Vision (Paul Bettany) died in Infinity War, but WandaVision resurrected an all-white version whose memories were restored in the finale. We finally get to learn what happened afterward.
Lionsgate has released an action-packed trailer for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping—a sequel to 2023’s Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and a prequel leading into the events of the first film, The Hunger Games (2012). In addition, Laika Studios released a trailer for its highly anticipated stop-motion animated feature, Wildwood.
(Some spoilers for The Hunger Games below.)
The main protagonist is a young Haymitch Abernathy, future District 12 mentor to Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). Woody Harrelson’s older Haymitch is a fan favorite who later becomes a jaded, drunken (yet secretly hopeful) cynic. Per the official synopsis:
In June, we highlighted a behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of Wildwood, director Travis Knight’s forthcoming stop-motion animated fantasy film. Laika Studios released an extended teaser in May, which racked up over 90 million views. And now we've got the gorgeous full trailer, set to a haunting cover of Avicii's "Wake Me Up."
The film is an adaptation of the 2011 novel by Colin Meloy—frontman of indie folk-rock band The Decemberists—and his wife, illustrator Carson Ellis. Meloy and Ellis live in Portland, Oregon, near Forest Park, where they often hike the trails. In Wildwood, they transformed that local landmark into a magical hidden world filled with talking animals and lurking threats, only accessible to people of The Wood—and select Outsider “half-breeds.”
Twelve-year-old Prue McKee discovers the forest while out walking with her baby brother, Mac. A murder of crows swoops down and carries him away, and Prue discovers the Wilderness while hunting for him. Her schoolmate, Curtis Mehlberg, follows her, and both are able to enter that magical world. Fantastical adventures ensue as the pair encounter a mysterious woman, Alexandra, who has lost her son, along with coyotes, bandits, and some pretty big secrets.
With San Diego Comic-Con kicking off later this week, Marvel Studios has released the first official full trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, the penultimate film in the MCU's Phase Six and the end of the so-called "Multiverse Saga."
(Spoilers for prior relevant MCU films below.)
Marvel Studios originally planned to build its Phase Six Avengers arc (The Kang Dynasty) around Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror (and associated variants), introduced in Loki and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. But then Majors was convicted of domestic violence, and Marvel fired the actor soon after. That meant the studio needed to retool its Phase Six plans, culminating in the announced return of the Russo brothers, who directed four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most successful films, which brought in more than $6 billion at the global box office.
ROCKVILLE, Maryland—Hundreds of Bethesda Game Studios and Zenimax Online Studios employees and their supporters braved nearly 100° F temperatures to protest sweeping layoffs across Xbox during a lunchtime rally in front of parent company Zenimax's headquarters today. The rally was one of five today organized by Zenimax Workers United and its parent union, the Communication Workers of America, at offices across Texas, California, and Montreal.
Attendees held up signs with messages like "Layoffs... layoffs never change" and "Our players deserve better" as union organizers and employees rallied the crowd with speeches and songs. The overwhelming message was one of solidarity and a willingness to push back against job cuts they say have decimated their development and quality assurance teams.
"It's about us building our movement and making sure that we get seen and we're visible," Bethesda technical producer and union volunteer organizer Nathan Hahn told Ars. "Because we want to make sure that we're not okay with these layoffs and that Xbox knows."
Color us officially intrigued by Wildwood, director Travis Knight's forthcoming stop-motion animated fantasy film. Laika Studios released an extended teaser back in May, which has racked up nearly 90 million views. A full trailer is likely coming, but in the meantime, the studio has released a fascinating behind-the-scenes featurette showcasing how the animation team built out the elaborate fantasy world piece by piece.
(Some spoilers for the 2011 novel below.)
The film is an adaptation of the 2011 novel by Colin Meloy—frontman of indie folk rock band The Decemberists—and his wife, illustrator Carson Ellis. Meloy and Ellis live in Portland, Oregon, right by Forest Park, where they often hike the trails. In Wildwood, they transformed that local landmark into a magical hidden world filled with talking animals and lurking threats, only accessible to people of The Wood—and select Outsider "half-breeds."
If you're using older iPhone or iPad hardware and you're hoping to keep running Apple's latest operating systems, this year's releases bring mostly good news. The iOS 27 update will run on all iPhones that can run iOS 26, all the way back to the iPhone 11 and second-generation iPhone SE. The iPadOS 27 update is slightly less generous, dropping support for the 3rd-generation iPad Air, 8th-generation iPad, and 5th-generation iPad mini (all of these devices used an older A12 Bionic chip; supported devices now use an A13 or better).
Apple says owners of older devices should see performance improvements in iOS 27, thanks in part to an updated CPU scheduler. This scheduler was apparently already included with newer iPhones but has been ported back to older devices with this release.
But many of the new features Apple mentioned require support for Apple Intelligence, which remains confined to newer devices with at least 8GB of RAM. Apple Intelligence still requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, an iPhone 16 or newer, or an iPhone Air. On the iPad, support requires an iPad Air or iPad Pro with an M1 or newer.
No doubt buoyed by all the positive advance reviews on social media, Amazon MGM Studios has released one last trailer for Masters of the Universe, and it comes in strong with the 1980s nostalgia, chock-full of Easter eggs to delight Ars readers of a certain age.
Directed by Travis Knight (Bumblebee, Kubo and the Two Strings), the film is a reboot of sorts of the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series, its spinoff, She-Ra: Princess of Powers, and the many, many other offshoots of this hugely popular Mattel franchise. Per the official premise:
In Masters of the Universe, Director Travis Knight brings the legendary franchise back to the big screen in this epic live-action adventure. After being separated for 15 years, the Sword of Power leads Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) back to Eternia where he discovers his home shattered under the fiendish rule of Skeletor (Jared Leto). To save his family and his world, Adam must join forces with his closest allies, Teela (Camila Mendes) and Duncan/Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba), and embrace his true destiny as He-Man — the most powerful man in the universe.
In addition to Galitzine, Mendes, Elba, and Leto, the cast includes Alison Brie as Professor Evelyn Powers (aka Evil-Lyn); Morena Baccarin as the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull; Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as Malcolm/Fisto; James Purefoy and Charlotte Riley as King Randor and Queen Marlena; Sasheer Zamata as Suzie, Adam/He-Man’s BFF on Earth; Kristen Wiig as Roboto; James Wilkinson as Mekaneck; Jon Xue Zhang as Ram-Man; Kojo Attah as the bounty hunter Tri-Klops; Sam C. Wilson as cyborg/weapons expert Kronis/Trap-Jaw; Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson as Goat Man; Robert Towers as Karg; and Christian Vunipola as Adam's roommate on Earth, Hussein.
We loved the first season of Daredevil: Born Again, Marvel's hotly anticipated revival of the popular series in the Netflix Defenders universe, and its sophomore outing did not disappoint. The show just wrapped its critically acclaimed second season, with a third already well underway—all part of MCU's Phase Six master plan.
(Some spoilers below, but we'll give you a heads up before any major S2 reveals.)
From its inception, Daredevil: Born Again was built around the conflict between Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio), with Fisk attempting to leave his criminal past behind as the newly elected mayor of New York, and Murdock determined to abandon his vigilante activities as Daredevil to focus full time on his law practice.
Apple has released version 26.5 of all of its operating systems today: iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, macOS 26.5, watchOS 26.5, tvOS 26.5, visionOS 26.5, and version 26.5 of the HomePod software (whew).
None of these are particularly momentous updates, which is pretty normal this late in their lifecycle, but they add a small batch of new features alongside the pile of patches outlined on Apple’s security vulnerabilities page. This is Apple’s first release to support end-to-end encryption for the RCS messaging standard, for example, which, when enabled, can give green-bubble messages some of the same security and privacy advantages that iMessage users have long enjoyed.
Encrypted RCS messaging has a “beta” label in this release, and Apple says it’s limited to a subset of supported cellular carriers. Expanded support “will roll out over time.” Encrypted chats will show up with a padlock icon in the Messages app; if you don’t see a padlock, the message isn’t encrypted, even if you’re using RCS.
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