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Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday (or Thursday?), broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who’s covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget.

Please enjoy — and I’ll see you next week.

I’ve been playing the Switch 2 alongside 3.5 million of my closest friends since Nintendo’s new console came out on June 5, and I’m having an excellent time. Although to be perfectly transparent, a vast majority of my play has been dedicated to Mario Kart World, a game I’ve been looking forward to for months and that perfectly scratches the couch co-op itch I’ve been meaning to ask my doctor about. Mario Kart World is colorful, bright and infinitely replayable, and one feature that’s getting a lot of attention is its elevated skill ceiling. This installment introduces new mechanics like wall riding and rail grinds, which significantly alter how the game is played at its highest levels, where shortcuts and strategic pathing are a must. There’s too much variability in Mario Kart for it to be a professionally competitive franchise, but that doesn’t stop people from getting extremely good at it, and players are already trying to milk the most milliseconds out of the new moves in Mario Kart World. It’s going to take a while, since these mechanics are surprisingly complex, and I’m excited to see what secrets the community uncovers in the near future.

While that’s happening, I’d like to highlight something on the opposite side of the skill spectrum. Mario Kart World is far less frustrating in moment-to-moment gameplay than Mario Kart 8, and I think this is one of its greatest strengths. I don’t have empirical data here, but it’s a distinct feeling I have every time I play: Getting hit with shells, running over banana peels and bouncing into obstacles is more forgiving than ever. These moments are less jarring than they were in Mario Kart 8 specifically, and it takes noticeably less time to recover and get back into the race after taking a red shell to the behind. Either the stun time is shorter, the post-collision acceleration is faster or there’s some witchy combination of these factors happening, but whatever the cause, I deeply appreciate the effect. 

Mario Kart World is flow-friendly and accessible, and these subtle tweaks diminish some of the series’ most annoying aspects, like resetting after a barrage of explosive bullshit gets hurled into your bumper. The only item in Mario Kart World that feels like a true hard stop is the lightning bolt, but at least that one affects every character around you with the same momentum-jamming force.

Meanwhile, the tracks in Mario Kart World are so very, very pretty — looking at you, Starview Peak and Rainbow Road — the character roster is stacked with super adorable fresh faces, motorcycles are more stable than previous games, and the 24-player Knockout Tour is a fun test of skill. With the potential for 23 items to be aimed at your back, it makes sense that Nintendo would try to make recovery more seamless this time, and I just wanted to say that I notice it and appreciate it.

Now, to figure out this wall riding thing.

The news

Xbox is preparing for a post-console world

Xbox president Sarah Bond announced that the company’s next generation of hardware will be powered by AMD, just like the Xbox Series X/S and the coming ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. That’s cool, but it also offers some clues about the future of Microsoft’s gaming division, and things are looking more decentralized with each new morsel. Xbox appears to be positioning itself as a platform-agnostic software provider, leaning into PC and handheld play, and running an all-inclusive storefront that follows you across devices. It really sounds like the next Xbox could be more of a PC that lives under your TV, rather than a dedicated, closed-system video game machine. Ouya was just 12 years too soon, it seems.

The SAG-AFTRA video game strike is over

Did you hear that sonorous, well-articulated sigh of relief? SAG-AFTRA suspended its strike against 10 major video game studios, following nearly a year of negotiations over AI use and actor compensation. The union and the studios signed a deal that includes wage increases for more than 24 percent of performers and protections around the deployment of AI and digital replicas.

Bungie hits pause on Marathon

Maybe this is for the best. Bungie has indefinitely delayed Marathon, citing a need to overhaul the game as it currently stands. The delay follows a slew of bad news out of Bungie, starting in July 2024, when the studio laid off 220 employees, or 17 percent of its workforce. In May 2025, Bungie was caught using stolen artwork in the Marathon alpha and several former employees accused the studio of fostering a toxic environment. Whether Marathon really requires a revamp or Bungie just needs a moment to breathe, a delay feels like the right move.

EVERYONE CALM DOWN, Borderlands 4 will not cost $80

It will cost $70.

Bloober Team is the Silent Hill studio now

It’s official — Bloober Team is remaking the original Silent Hill for Konami. The project follows Bloober’s highly successful reimagining of Silent Hill 2, which landed in October 2024 and garnered oodles of acclaim from critics and players alike. There’s no word on a release date for the new remake, but it’s joining a trio of other in-development projects in the Silent Hill universe: Silent Hill Townfall from Annapurna Interactive and No Code, Silent Hill: Ascension from Bad Robot and Genvid, and Silent Hill f from author Ryūkishi07.

Read our Switch 2 review

Senior reviews writer Sam Rutherford is a beast for collecting all of his thoughts on the Switch 2 so quickly and with such fabulous insight, and it’d be a shame if you didn’t get to absorb all of that delicious knowledge for yourself. This has been my review of Sam’s review of the Switch 2 — a console that is also pretty fantastic, by the way.

Summer Game Fest never ends

Summer Game Fest 2025 officially wrapped up on June 9, but the embargoed stories, interviews and our hands-on impressions from the show just keep on coming. Since we last spoke, Engadget’s SGF 2025 crew has published articles about Resident Evil: Requiem, Mixtape, Mouse: PI for Hire, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Grounded 2, End of Abyss and Pragmata.

Cool games out now: FBC: Firebreak, Tron: Catalyst, Playdate and the Kris list

Every Saturday morning on Engadget, contributing reporter Kris Holt publishes a roundup of fantastic-sounding and freshly available indie games, so be sure to check for that regularly. This week, the Kris list features The Alters, Dune: Awakening and Instants, among other shout-outs. In related new-game news, Remedy’s extraction shooter FBC: Firebreak and Bithell Games’ isometric action experience Tron: Catalyst are also available now. And finally, we’re halfway through Playdate Season Two, which has already provided a firehose of oddball experiences — all lovingly parsed through each week by Engadget weekend editor Cheyenne Macdonald.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/video-games-weekly-mario-kart-world-is-the-opposite-of-punishing-110039837.html?src=rss 

Photo modes are a pretty common feature for video games where players go bounding around an interesting open world. Today, Minecraft joined their ranks, making an in-game camera available in the Minecraft Marketplace as a free add-on called Vibrant Memories. The feature requires a copy of Minecraft’s Bedrock Edition on any platform; the Java version doesn’t appear to support the camera.

As well as capturing the moment as-is and saving particular camera angles to reuse later, Vibrant Memories will let a player decide whether or not to appear in the image. It will also let them set whether the weather is sunny or rainy and if the time is sunrise, sunset, day or night.

That’s a pared-back take on photo mode, but then in many ways, Minecraft is a pared-back game. Sure, it’s gotten loads of new features and creatures over the past 15 years, but at heart, it’s just about mining and crafting.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/minecraft-now-has-a-photo-mode-with-vibrant-memories-215948221.html?src=rss 

Hideo Kojima said in an interview with Vogue Japan earlier this year that an anime based on his game Death Stranding was in the works. Today, Deadline reports that Aaron Guzikowski will write the screenplay for the upcoming animated feature based on the game world. His most recent credit is the sci-fi series Raised By Wolves, but Guzikowski has also worked on movies including Prisoners and Papillon. The animated film will tell “an original story” from the same universe as the already quite cinematic Death Stranding.

Kojima Productions will be involved with this adaptation and Line Mileage is the animation company attached to the project. The executive team at Line Mileage has previous experience making animated series and adaptations. Their bios mention shows such as Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft and Castlevania that have reimagined popular games as animated projects squarely targeting adult viewers.

This film is a separate project from the live-action adaptation that’s being helmed by writer-director Michael Sarnoski with production company A24 (and of course Kojima Productions). And if you can’t wait for either of these movies to wrap to get more Kojima, the release date for Death Stranding 2 is just around the corner.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/animated-death-stranding-movie-gets-its-screenwriter-200537247.html?src=rss 

Waymo’s autonomous cars are heading back to New York City in July, the company announced today. Cars will be manually driven for now, not unlike the mapping tests Waymo ran in 2021, but the company says it ultimately wants to bring the same autonomous ride-hailing service it offers in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles to NYC.

New York state law currently doesn’t allow for the operation of a vehicle without a human driver, an obvious obstacle for a company like Waymo. As a bridge to offering its full service, Waymo says it’s applied for a permit with the New York Department of Transportation to operate vehicles autonomously with a trained specialist behind the wheel. If NYC DOT approves the permit, the company says this will be the first “testing deployment” of autonomous vehicles in New York City.

Waymo’s previous excursion in New York was focused on navigating city traffic and dealing with icy and snowy weather. Each city the company enters presents a new challenge, but the places Waymo currently operates are primarily in drier, warmer climates. For now, getting the state and city onboard with autonomous vehicles seems like the larger issue.

Outside of New York, Waymo continues to grow. The company recently expanded its service area around San Francisco and Los Angeles, came to Austin with the help of Uber in March and plans to either offer paid rides or test its self-driving system in several other cities over the next year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/waymo-will-start-testing-its-autonomous-cars-in-new-york-again-190530022.html?src=rss 

Wyze, the Seattle-based tech company that specializes in smart home products and wireless cameras, has released a major security update that it hopes will rebuild some lost trust. The company has been plagued by numerous security failures over the past few years, most notably when an AWS outage led to thousands of users gaining access to recorded videos from other people’s homes. That incident, paired with the company’s history of lackluster responses to security flaws, even led The New York Times to explicitly stop recommending Wyze products more than a year ago.

Now, in a YouTube video announcement that cheekily mentions the AWS outage, Wyze is introducing a new layer of security that the company is calling Wyze VerifiedView. The added layer of security works by embedding a unique user ID into the firmware of a Wyze camera upon setup. The camera in turn stamps that ID onto every photo, video and livestream. Before any device can access that footage, the Wyze software will check that the embedded ID matches the one for the user before it allows the footage or images to be seen.

Wyze is adamant that this new layer is simply building upon its already robust security structure, which the company somewhat meaninglessly says is akin to “barbed wire fencing, booby traps, security guards, acid sharks, laser scanners, and AI robot guard dogs.” While it’s not mentioned in the press release, the announcement video clarified that VerifiedView may never come to older models like the Wyze Cam Pan V1 and V2 due to hardware limitations.

Wyze says it has been pushing this update to its most popular models since the beginning of April, and that users of those models just need to update their firmware and app to receive the update. Which models exactly remains unclear, as Wyze also mentioned that some other models will receive the updates over the coming weeks and months, but again did not specify which models they were referring to.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/wyze-adds-major-security-update-to-its-security-cameras-after-numerous-security-lapses-181735619.html?src=rss