Author: matthewephotography@yahoo.com

Tales of the Shire, a heartwarming life-simulation game set in the Lord of the Rings universe, has been delayed until 2025. It was originally scheduled to be released this year. Developer Weta Workshop, the company behind the special effects for all of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth films, said the delay was necessary to ensure players could experience a fully realized version of the original concept.It’s a heartwarming life sim in the same vein as Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, and countless others, but set in Tolkien’s Middle-earth between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Combining a heartwarming sim formula with…

NASA confirmed on Friday that it’s developing a new lunar time system for the moon. The White House released a policy memo in April directing NASA to create a new standard by 2026. More than five months later (government time, you see), NASA confirmed that it will work with “U.S. government stakeholders, partners, and international standards organizations” to establish Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC).We only need to look to Einstein to understand why the Moon needs its own time zone. His theory of relativity dictates that time varies with speed and gravity, so that time runs slightly faster on our celestial…

This October, Vault will release Godfather of Hell, a neo-noir/supernatural hybrid tale about a gangster enforcer seeking to rule Hell itself. Written by New York Times bestselling author Cavan Scott (Star Wars: The High Republic, Shadow Service) and illustrated by Bram Stoker Award-winning artist Pius Buck (Eat the Rich, The Magicians), the series also features art from Nathan Gooden (Barbaric), Joshua Hickson (Deviant), Chris Sheehan (House of Slaughter), Jake Phillips (Destroy All Monsters), Colin Howell (Lilith), and Connor Boyle (Judge Dredd). The Beat spoke with Scott about the new comic. Diana Destito: Where did you get your inspiration for this…

In Hollowbody, an early 2000s-style third-person survival horror game from Nathan Hamley (solo developer at Headware Games), the true terror comes not from terrifying monsters, but from living in a world where ordinary people are abandoned by the system and left to die.Hollowbody pays homage to the PlayStation 2-era classics that helped define the genre, but also adds elements of “tech noir” – think the first few Silent Hill games, Silent Hill 2 and a touch of Blade Runner – with an emphasis on atmosphere and relying almost entirely on building tension over action to create a palpable sense of…

Waymo and Uber plan to expand the robotaxi service to more areas in the near future. Waymo One is expected to arrive in Austin and Atlanta by early 2025. People in both cities will be able to ride in Waymo’s self-driving electric Jaguar I-PACE cars through the Uber app.Waymo employees in Austin are already using the service, and the company plans to launch it to a limited number of public riders through the Waymo One app before transferring the service to Uber early next year. The Atlanta public will be able to ride the robot taxis in early 2025, and…

Anker’s 3-in-1 MagSafe Foldable Charging Station has been reduced to a record low price of $88. We haven’t seen it this cheap since Amazon Prime Day, and that’s a 20 percent discount.As the name suggests, this is a 3-in-1 charging station that can charge your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods all at the same time. It boasts 15W charging and is Qi2 certified, so you can expect charging to happen fast. For example, the company says that an Apple Watch Series 9 can charge to 47% in just 30 minutes. It’s clear why this product made it onto our list…

Unless you’ve been living under a rock this summer (though to be fair, it’s so far out in space that it might be a good place to hide from the xenomorphs), ALIEN: ROMULUS was a massive hit for both the Alien franchise and Disney (which owns it via its acquisition of Fox). Fittingly, it’s been announced that a new prequel one-shot comic, titled ALIEN: ROMULUS #1, written by Zach Thompson and drawn by Daniel Picciotto, will be released on October 16th. This latest issue sheds light on the tragic events that took place on the space station Renaissance before Rain,…

Starting next week, Meta will no longer add visible labels to Facebook images that have been edited using AI tools, making it much harder to tell if they’re pristine or doctored. To be clear, the company will still add annotations to AI-edited images, but you’ll need to tap the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of any Facebook post and scroll down to find “AI Info” among many other options. Only then will you see the annotation that the content of the post may have been altered by AI.However, images generated using AI tools will have an “AI Info” label…

It looks like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has leaked online just two weeks before the game’s release date. According to Nintendo Life, several new images and clips of the Nintendo Switch title have been circulating online.YouTubers Nintendo Prime and Zelda Lore have issued warnings that the ROM files for the game are already available and that some people are playing it on emulators. FYI, several popular sites for pirated Switch games have not yet provided download links for the Echoes of Wisdom ROM, but it may take some time for the leaked file to spread across those…

Marvel Comics has released an unreleased preview of Alien: Romulus, a comic prequel to the upcoming movie. Written by Zach Thompson and illustrated by Daniel Picciotto, the one-shot will hit comic shops on October 16th.”The Alien series is what sparked my lifelong love of body horror, so needless to say, I’m incredibly excited to be able to contribute in some small way to this film,” said Thompson. “Working with Fede Alvarez to produce a prequel to Alien: Romulus is an absolute dream come true and a responsibility I don’t take lightly. The result is a thrilling and terrifying story that…