‘Goat Simulator 3’ is coming to PC, Xbox and PlayStation this fall

Publisher Coffee Stain is dipping its hooves back into the world of livestock-based chaos. Goat Simulator 3 was announced during Thursday’s Summer Game Fest showcase. It’s coming to Xbox, PlayStation and Epic Games Store this fall.

As fans of the series will expect, it’s an open-world adventure game. You’ll headbutt and lick anything and everything as you triple-jump across the island of San Angora, which is packed with fresh areas, challenges and events. There’s four-player couch and online co-op. You’ll be able to explore the island together and butt heads in seven minigames.

You’ll be able to customize your goat with gear that enhances their abilities. You can kit them out with questionable fashion choices like tea trays and toilet rolls, or skip to the inevitable and slap a jetpack on their back.

‘Stormgate’ is a new free-to-play RTS from the director of ‘Starcraft 2’

In 2020, Starcraft 2 production director Tim Morten left Blizzard to start Frost Giant Studios. At Summer Game Fest, he finally showed off what he and his team have been working on for the past two years. We got our first look at Stormgate, a new free-to-play real-time strategy game that runs on Unreal Engine 5. Morten didn’t share too many details on the project but said the game would feature two races at launch.  

Frost Giant features some serious talent. In addition to Morten, former Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne campaign designer Tim Campbell is part of the team working on Stormgate. Frost Giant plans to begin beta testing the game next year. 

Twitter’s new tweet reporting tools are now available to everyone

Twitter’s newly improved tweet-reporting tools are now available to everyone on the platform. The company first began testing the new process for reporting harmful tweets in December, saying it was trying to take a “people first” approach that would make it easier to flag tweets.

Previously, Twitter’s reporting process required users to navigate a series of menus in order to identify the specific rule they believed had been broken. The process was confusing, even for those familiar with Twitter’s policies, and often resulted in problematic tweets not being properly flagged.

The revamped process instead begins each report by asking users to describe “what happened,” rather than prompting them to guess which rule may have been broken. It also makes it easier to report tweets in which someone else is being targeted, and gives users more options for reporting hate speech.

That simplified approach is already paying off, according to Twitter. The company says the new reporting process has resulted in a 50 percent increase in “actionable reports” since it began testing six months ago.

‘The Callisto Protocol’ gameplay trailer is as bloody as you’d expect

After a moody first trailer, Striking Distance Studios, a team made up of former Dead Space developers, has released new gameplay footage from its upcoming survival horror title, The Callisto Protocol. Shown off during Summer Game Fest, the clip was captured on current generation hardware, according to host Geoff Keighley. The trailer sees the game’s protagonist fight their way through a claustrophobic environment using an arsenal that will be familiar to any Dead Space fan. Their primary weapon maims enemies in much the same way Isaac’s Plasma Cutter did Necromorphs. The protagonist also has access to a telekinesis ability that allows them to use the environment to deadly effect.  

Striking Distance Studios will release The Callisto Protocol on December 2nd, about two months before EA’s Dead Space remake arrives on January 27th, 2023.  

‘Aliens: Dark Descent’ is a single-player, squad-based action game coming in 2023

There’s a new entry in the xenomorph video game catalog, this one called Aliens: Dark Descent. It’s due out in 2023 from French studio Tindalos Interactive, Focus Entertainment and 20th Century Games. It’ll come to PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series consoles and PC.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a single-player, squad-based action game. Here’s how the game’s YouTube description reads: “Drop into an original Alien story where players will lead a squad of marines in real-time combat against the deadliest creature mankind has ever faced.”

Players will be able to customize their team’s weapons, armor and abilities, but the xenomorphs will adapt to these decisions. These space monsters are no idle threat, either — in this game, death is permanent for your squad.

“Embark on high stakes missions in treacherous territory, all the while gathering resources to fix up the stranded Otago spacecraft and researching tech upgrades for your crew,” the description continues. “Players will command a squad as one unit thanks to intuitive controls, allowing their Marines to automatically prioritize and execute complex actions in real-time, based on their respective skill sets and the environment around them.”

The new game made its debut with a cinematic trailer during the Summer Game Fest kickoff stream. In fact, it was the first game shown off in the entire show, which must make it feel nice and special.

The trailer shows a squad of Marines hunting and being hunted by a handful of xenomorphs, complete with plenty of gunfire, creeping monsters and interpersonal betrayal.

Polestar begins delivery on 65,000 rental vehicle order for Hertz

Hertz customers in select cities nationwide will soon have the opportunity to rent a Polestar 2. The EV automaker announced Thursday that it has delivered the first batch of some 65,000 vehicles to the Rental corporation as part of a deal struck between the two in April. 

“Our partnership with Hertz is an exciting milestone that provides the opportunity for a significant number of potential new customers to experience an EV for the first time, and it will be in a Polestar,” Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO, said in a prepared statement. “With over 55,000 Polestar cars already on the road across our 25 live markets there is no doubt that our brand is growing at an incredible pace.”

Polestar is quick to point out that this deal is one of the largest single EV purchases in history, a not so subtle dig at rival Tesla which, last October, supposedly had its own deal with Hertz for a whopping 100,000 Model 3s. However, that agreement failed to get beyond Hertz’ press release as Tesla CEO Elon Musk subsequently tweeted that “no contract has been signed yet” and the whole deal fizzled from there. 

In addition to the Polestar 2s, Hertz will also be acquiring a select number of Polestar 1s, giving its customers a hybrid option to choose from as well. As a Polestar rep told Engadget, the metro areas of “Seattle, LA, Burbank and Orange County CA, San Diego, Phoenix/Scottsdale, Miami, Islip NY, and Newark NJ” will all be among the first to receive the new EVs.

The makers of ‘What the Golf’ are back with VR game ‘What the Bat’

Triband, the studio behind early Apple Arcade standout What the Golf, is back with a new game on a completely different platform. What the Bat is a virtual reality title that’s coming to Meta Quest 2 and SteamVR headsets later this year

It looks like another ridiculous physics-based game where part of the fun is in figuring out what exactly is going on in each of the more than 100 levels. This time around, you’ll have baseball bats for hands and you’ll use them for cooking, petting a dog, painting, playing pinball, pickling, parking and brushing your teeth. Although What the Bat isn’t really a baseball game, you will still get to do some batting too.

Apple reportedly plans a 15-inch MacBook Air for 2023

Apple’s MacBook Air M2 might just be the start of a broader laptop renaissance. Bloombergsources claim Apple plans to release a 15-inch MacBook Air as soon as spring 2023. The company might return to tiny laptops, too. It’s reportedly working on a new 12-inch laptop that could debut in late 2023 or early 2024 — if you miss the 2015 MacBook but wish it had modern hardware and a good keyboard, your dream could be fulfilled.

To no one’s surprise, the sources also indicate Apple is planning to launch updated 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros in late 2022 with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips. These might slip into early 2023, however. The new Max chip would offer up to 12 processing cores and 38 graphics cores versus the 10 processing cores and 32 graphics cores of the M1 Max.

The tech firm had reportedly considered releasing a 15-inch MacBook Air this year, but scuttled those plans to concentrate on the 13-inch model it just unveiled this week. Murmurs of a larger Air circulated in March, when Display Supply Chain analyst Ross Young said one might be in the works.

A larger Air wouldn’t be surprising. Apple confirmed at WWDC 2022 that the Air was its best-selling laptop, and a 15-inch version could appeal to buyers who want a larger screen but don’t need the performance and features of the more expensive MacBook Pro line. It would also make sense in light of iPhone 14 rumors that suggest you won’t have to buy a Pro model to get a giant screen. Simply speaking, Apple might be ending its long-time strategy of restricting large displays to its priciest devices.