Kalakshar US

It was Tuesday June 25, 2019. San Francisco became the first US city to (temporarily) ban the sale of vapes, SpaceX successfully launched and deployed 24 satellites and I sat in Nintendo’s UK office on the outskirts of London, playing a demo of a game that still isn’t out. 

However, according to yesterday’s Switch 2 presentation, Hollow Knight: Silksong will arrive at some point this year. Nintendo even showed off a couple of seconds of new footage. There are slopes!

Oh Silksong, oh Hollow Knight: Silksong, oh Hollow Knight’s repurposed DLC. The second Hollow Knight game from Team Cherry was initially meant to be a DLC addition to the original, but plans changed, with the developers saying that it had become “too large and too unique.” (This many years later, exactly how large and unique will Silksong be?)

Later, as part of the 2022 Xbox and Bethesda Games showcase, a Silksong trailer teased a release date in the next 12 months as part of Xbox’s attempt to deliver a wave of exciting games after a lackluster start to the Series X/S launch.

When the early 2023 release date passed us by, Team Cherry delayed the game into 2024 and now, well, it’s 2025. I played that demo so long ago that it might have just been a dream.

Without rewriting my six-year-old hands-on impressions entirely, the new game features a new playable character named Hornet, who featured as a repeatable boss fight in the original Hollow Knight, with silk-based attacks and faster, more agile gameplay. It also offers a more aggressive play style, with Hornet able to heal herself using silk charges and even repair damage with silk bundles left behind from prior unsuccessful attempts. It’s a different gameplay twist from having to beat the Hollow Knight shadow in the original.

I subtitled my hands-on impressions, saying it would be “worth the wait.” Back then, I’d recently finished Hollow Knight on the Switch, putting in a few too many hours and was hungry for more bug-shaped Metroidvania adventures. Silksong felt fresh, more responsive, faster and flashier — and I just wanted to play more Hollow Knight.

Barely six seconds of footage during Nintendo’s Switch 2 presentation was enough to re-ignite the Silksong fandom, when it revealed nothing new more than some downhill traversal. It’s proof that a lot of people are still excited — and still waiting.

I’m excited, and six years on, it feels like it must be pretty close. 

Right?

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/that-one-time-i-played-hollow-knight-silksong-160022483.html?src=rss 

Nintendo is delaying US Switch 2 pre-orders in response to the new set of tariffs announced by President Donald Trump earlier this week, as first reported by Polygon. Following Nintendo’s announcement of the console on Wednesday, pre-orders in the United States were slated to open on April 9. They’re now delayed indefinitely.   

“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the US will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions,” the company told Engadget. “Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.”

As mentioned earlier, Nintendo officially announced the Switch 2 on April 2. Hours later, the Trump administration said it would impose a sweeping set of new tariffs targeted against a broad swath of countries, including Japan, China and Vietnam. Products from the latter two countries, where Nintendo manufactures much of its hardware, will be subject to import duties of 54 percent and 46 percent, respectively.  

In the US, Nintendo said the Switch 2 would cost $450. As Polygon notes, sticker shock was already dominating the conversation around Nintendo’s new handheld, with many fans begging the company to “drop the price!” of console during its recent livestreams. It’s unclear what could happen following Nintendo’s assessment of the situation, but one possibility is that the company could allocate less stock for the US market.              

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-delays-switch-2-us-pre-orders-following-trump-tariffs-150747208.html?src=rss 

A four-pack of Samsung’s SmartTag 2 trackers is on sale for $58 via Woot. That’s a massive discount of 42 percent, as the regular price is $100. This combo pack ships with two black trackers and two white trackers.

They easily made our list of the best Bluetooth trackers. We appreciated the vast finding network, as there are a lot of Samsung phones out there contributing to it. We said the network is “larger than anything out there for Android.” The trackers offer a decent battery life of 16 months, and the batteries are replaceable.

There’s also a large hole for keychains, which is something Apple AirTags lack. The ring volume is also louder than both AirTags and Tile Pro trackers. These trackers are fairly hearty, with IP67 water and dust-resistance. Setup is simple, as the companion app walks users through just about everything.

There’s only one downside, but it’s a doozy. SmartTag trackers only work with Samsung tablets and phones. This doesn’t really impact the finding network, as there are millions of Samsung devices out there, but does limit who should make this purchase.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/a-four-pack-of-samsung-smarttag-2-trackers-is-on-sale-for-58-right-now-152356230.html?src=rss 

Midjourney has released the alpha version of V7, which it says is an “entirely new” AI image generation model and is much smarter at processing your text prompts. The image quality of its output is noticeably higher, the Midjourney team says, and can create better textures, bodies and hands. AI image generators typically struggle with creating accurate depictions of hands, but based on photos posted by some users on their socials, V7 is capable of spitting out some photorealistic images of human hands. 

The new model comes with a feature called “Draft Mode,” which can render images at half the speed the program usually takes. Its results are rougher and less detailed, but it will cost half of what a standard generation costs. Midjourney says Draft Mode is the best way to iterate on ideas. You can use it, say, if you’re collaborating with someone and just spitballing ideas with them — it works with voice, so you don’t even have to type out each other’s suggestions — or if you’re unsure what kind of vibe you’re going for. If you like an image Midjourney creates in Draft Mode, you can click “enhance” or “vary” on it to re-render it at full quality. 

At launch, V7 will have Turbo and Relax modes for standard rendering, with the former costing twice as much as a normal speed job on the V6 model. Midjourney needs more time to optimize its standard speed mode for V7, but it will make the option available in the future. The new mode is missing more capabilities, as well, including upscaling, editing and retexturing, which will fall back to the program’s V6 model for now. Midjourney promises to roll out new updates for the model every week or two over the next two months.

To be able to test the alpha version of V7, you’ll have to unlock your personalization profile first. Midjourney describes personalization as “a style assistant for your image creations,” since it teaches the AI your visual preferences. You’ll have to rank at least 200 pairs of images to create a V7 Global Personalization Profile and test the model. Personalization is switched on by default for the V7, but you’ll be able to switch it off if you want. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/midjourney-launches-its-new-v7-ai-image-model-that-can-process-text-prompts-better-134546883.html?src=rss