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 When Ubisoft shared the first look at Star Wars Outlaws on Sunday during Microsoft’s Xbox and Starfield Showcase, the publisher promised it would have an extended gameplay trailer to share during its Ubisoft Forward event on Monday. And boy did it deliver. The company shared 10 minutes of footage that offers a comprehensive look at the upcoming game. 

The clip opens on the planet of Toshara with protagonist Kay Vess and her trusty companion Nix sneaking through a criminal syndicate facility. Kay can call on the adorable Nix to help her traverse the environment, while she takes care of knocking out enemies. If she’s caught sneaking by a guard, Kay has a moment where she, like Han Solo before 1997, can shoot first. Once things get messy, combat revolves around a blaster pistol that features a handful of different ammunition types. For instance, there are enemies with energy shields. In the heat of battle, Nix can retrieve blaster rifles dropped by enemies for Kay to use, though it appears they come with limited ammunition. Star Wars Outlaws won’t limit you to walking everywhere on foot. You can traverse the game’s world on a speeder bike, and even take to the skies and space with a starship, with seemingly no loading between different elements of the game.  

Star Wars Outlaws will be available next year on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Massive Entertainment, best known for its work on The Division franchise, is leading development on the project, with what seems like Ubisoft’s entire stable of first-party studios on support duties. The game runs on Massive’s in-house Snowdrop engine and looks stunning as a result. 

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/first-star-wars-outlaws-gameplay-trailer-offers-10-minutes-of-scoundrel-wish-fulfilment-184921702.html?src=rss 

The technology industry has been hit hard by layoffs this year, and GrubHub is the latest to cut staff. The company’s CEO Howard Migdal announced today that the company will be letting go of roughly 400 employees, or 15 percent of its corporate workforce. The layoffs will supposedly help Grubhub stay “competitive” with the market.

He said, “Over the last few months, I met with Grubhub teams to learn about the business from the ground up; I spoke to restaurants and diners to understand their needs – and challenges – when using our service.” Impacted employees will be “notified over the next several hours.” Migdal goes on to say that he understands that this will be a difficult time for all employees. For those who are keeping their jobs, he claims that more details about “our future together” will surface in the coming days.

Back in March of this year, Grubhub’s then CEO Adam DeWitt announced that he would be stepping down at the start of May amid increasing economic pressure. With Migdal as the new CEO, it’s not terribly surprising that his first move would be to try and reduce operating costs due to the continued economic pressure.

Grubhub isn’t the first and likely isn’t the last delivery service to start to cut employees. Late last year, DoorDash announced that it would be laying off nearly 1,300 employees due to “operating expenses.” The company’s CEO Tony Xu said that DoorDash increased hiring during the pandemic and that operating expenses would continue to outgrow sales.

The big difference between DoorDash and Grubhub is that the former offered those who were laid off 13 weeks of compensation along with four weeks of severance pay. Grubhub’s announcement today did not mention any sort of compensation or severance pay for those who are being laid off.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/grubhub-lays-off-15-percent-of-its-employees-190005627.html?src=rss 

New York is about to become the first city in the United States to mandate a minimum wage for food delivery workers. Starting next month, delivery apps, including Uber Eats and GrubHub, will be required to pay their workers $17.96 per hour, plus tips, by July 12th. Then, by 2025, the city will mandate Uber, GrubHub and other players in the space pay delivery workers $19.96 per hour, with adjustments for inflation to follow thereafter.

The minimum wage in New York City is $15 per hour. By setting the hourly pay for delivery workers above that, the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) agency notes it’s accounting for the fact Uber, GrubHub and DoorDash classify their delivery workers as contractors, who tend to pay higher taxes and often need to pay work-related expenses out of their own pocket. According to an estimate from the DCWP, there are more than 60,000 food delivery workers in New York, earning an average of $7.09 per hour.

The final hourly rate the city announced on Monday is less than the $23.82 figure the agency had called for in 2022 (PDF link). In March, the DCWP revised its estimate to account for “multi-apping,” a practice wherein some workers will deliver for more than one app at the same time. App companies, including Uber and GrubHub, pushed back against the regulation, and now that it’s set to finally go into effect, they’re still not happy about it. “The city is lying to delivery workers – they want apps to fund the $30 per hour wage by eliminating jobs and reducing tipping while forcing the remaining workers to deliver orders faster,” Uber spokesperson Josh Gold told Engadget.

“While we believe New York City had good intentions, we are disappointed in the DCWP’s final rule, which will have serious adverse consequences for delivery workers in New York City,” a GrubHub spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, New York City chose not to partner with the industry on a solution that would have benefited all aspects of the gig economy.”

How delivery apps pay their workers is up to them, so long as they meet the minimum set by the city. Companies that pay only for trip time must pay approximately 50 cents per minute, while firms that compensate workers for the entire time they’re logged in, including any downtime waiting for an order, must pay approximately 30 minutes per minute, not including tips. The law comes after New York began enforcing a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers in 2022.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/new-york-city-sets-an-18-per-hour-minimum-wage-for-food-delivery-workers-193338002.html?src=rss 

Ubisoft’s open-world Avatar game is almost here. At the company’s Summer Game Fest preview event, we got a substantial look at the story and gameplay of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. James Cameron introduced the game in a prerecorded segment, teasing “new environments new flora and fauna and characters”.

A cinematic trailer lays out how this tale will fit in with the Avatar movies. In short, it’ll cover the events of both games, with the protagonist being kidnapped during the events of the first film and schooled by the human invaders. After the events at the end of Avatar, you are cryogenically frozen… then unfrozen 15 years later in time to fight the RDA’s continued invasion.

The game itself is an open-world first-person action-adventure game, where you’ll be able to combine Na’vi skills and weapons with human assault weapons and a casual rocket launcher or two. (Massive, the studio behind the game, is most recently known for its work on Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.)

Your Na’vi instincts will work like a scanner for detecting enemies and environment features. You’ll be able to grow your character to fit your own playstyle, crafting weaponry and items from resources and upgrading your own skills as you see fit. The skill tree will include upgrades to agility and other attributes tied into your deepening understanding of your Na’vi heritage… by interacting with plants and other Na’vi.

 It wouldn’t be an Avatar affair without the ability to bond with sentient animals you can ride. The trailer teases the ability to ride direhorses as well as your very own ikran. You’ll be able to feed and customize your partner when not flying down waterfalls. Frontiers of Pandora will include a new western expanse not seen in the movies, where you’ll meet as-yet unseen Na’vi clans, including a secretive healer clan. 

Frontiers of Pandora launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, PC and, oddly, Luna. (Yes, Luna!) on December 7th 2023.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/avatar-frontiers-of-pandora-launch-date-sgf-2023-174516354.html?src=rss 

Ubisoft pinky swears that Skull and Bones is still happening, and it’ll have a closed beta to prove it. You’ll have a chance to try the long-delayed action-adventure game between August 25th and 28th. You can sign up for the closed beta at the game’s website. The beta, which Ubisoft announced with the help of a sea shanty performance, will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

To give you an idea of how long this game has been in the works, we had our first hands-on with it at E3 2017. The Skull and Bones development process has reportedly been more turbulent than just about any stormy sea. Ubisoft has delayed the game multiple times and it’s currently scheduled to arrive by the end of March 2024, approximately five years behind schedule.

Skull and Bones sees you take control of a pirate ship. You’ll be able to team up with friends to sail the high seas in an open world and take on other players as you try to become a legendary pirate. You’ll need to keep your crew happy as you get your hands on increasingly larger ships. Here’s hoping it’s all worth the wait.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/skull-and-bones-is-still-alive-will-apparently-have-a-closed-beta-in-august-175747813.html?src=rss 

Ubisoft revealed a teaser trailer today for Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. The upcoming Netflix anime is based on the 2013 Blood Dragon expansion for Far Cry 3 — but it appears to be at least as much of a tongue-in-cheek remix of Ubisoft IP and early 90s nostalgia.

Series creator Adi Shankar (producer of Netflix’s Castlevania series) introduced the trailer in a campy cyborg getup befitting the source material. “Seven years ago, I got a call from Ubisoft, offering me the opportunity to adapt one of their very, very, very serious franchises into an anime,” Shankar deadpanned. “But instead, I came back to them with a crazy concept inspired by the mood of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. This concept used Ubisoft’s vast library of characters, and remixed them into one delirious anime series that would become this love letter to the 90s… or at least how I remembered the 90s.”

Shankar describes the series as a violent, dystopian fiction in the spirit of the works of Aldous Huxley, as well as a spoof, satire, dark comedy, love story and “the most philosophically conscious show you’ve watched in a long time.” Bobbypills Studio handles the animation.

Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is scheduled to premiere worldwide on Netflix this fall. You can watch the “Easter-egg-filled” teaser trailer below.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflixs-captain-laserhawk-a-blood-dragon-remix-is-an-anime-love-letter-to-the-90s-180409644.html?src=rss