Welcome back to Wednesday! We're halfway through the week, thankfully. I'm already looking forward to the weekend—if for no other reason than to spend a little time with my Nintendo Switch. You guys know me; I'm mostly a PC player, but sometimes there's something special about being able to curl up in bed for a few hours playing something fun like River City Girls or Splatoon. What are you guys playing these days, regardless of the platform? Let me know at games@WIRED.com! First up this week is an incredible story from Luke Winkie that's been months in the making: the story of the team at GSC Game World, the Ukrainian development studio behind cult classic shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and their struggle to keep their team safe from harm during the Russian invasion and now through Ukraine's long defense and push to reclaim territory. All the while, the team is hard at work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, moving ahead on development even as they simultaneously work to keep their staff in Ukraine safe while others have moved to Poland. It's an incredible story of resilience under literal fire. Next up, more bad news for the so-called metaverse, as the only people who seem to be really excited about the branded and/or crypto-forward virtual worlds seem to be the CEOs of companies desperately trying to make money off of the idea. Meanwhile, game developers are less than impressed, partially because they've been doing a lot of the work to build these virtual worlds for years, long before anyone coined (or trademarked) a term like "metaverse" to describe them. And while this isn't strictly a story about games, it definitely involves games: cheaters at Rocket League—essentially soccer with RC cars and a giant ball if you've never played—managed to hack an AI bot to be unbeatable at the game, and then set it loose on unsuspecting players. The results were predictable, and also obvious from the perspective of a human looking out for cheaters. But it's another example of either a) AI ruining everything, or b) AI making inroads where people, even its proponents, may not have thought that it would, depending on your perspective. Speaking of AI, Reece Rogers has a fun, albeit not totally games-related piece that you might enjoy: tips from artists on how to identify art generated by AI. Right now some of the tricks are obvious: soulless, dead eyes, bad anatomy, and too many fingers or toes, but as the tools get better, it's going to get more difficult to tell the difference. Last, but certainly not least, some updates from our Gear Team, including the best couch co-op games you can play with a friend who came over to hang out and warm up that second controller you have collecting dust. New entries on the list are games like As Dusk Falls and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Also freshly updated is our guide to the best PC monitors, in case you are (like I am!) considering a screen upgrade for your workstation. That'll do it for us this week, but there's more to read over at WIRED Games. We'll see you right back here next week! |
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