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Prusa is at the heart of the open-source 3D printing community, and this machine really shows it, as its partnership with Bondtech has produced one of the finest machines on the market today.

What's even more surprising is that you can buy the simple four-tool kit for less than £2,000/$2,000 assembled, and the eight-tool set that I'm looking at in this review is a touch over that £2,000/$2,000.

That money not only gets you access to eight-tool printing, but also to one of the most reliable and solid-performing 3D printers I've ever used. The machine is based around the CORE One, a machine that I'm just upgrading to the One+, and is still the most used and reliable 3D printer in the workshop.

Whilst that's machine is only one filament, upgrading that reliable system into this eight-tool-changer machine absolutely makes sense.

I went for the fully assembled version because I just don't have time to assemble a machine, but if you do fancy the kit, you can save almost £300/$300 over the pre-assembled version that I'm looking at.

While the eight-tool-changer printing is obviously the major headline here, it's only when you start using it and put it side-by-side against the likes of the Bambu Lab H2C and, at the cheaper end, the Snapmaker U1 that you really start to see the full potential.

The speed is a significant upgrade on both of those machines, and even with the H2C's far larger print bed, in a head-to-head printing a 5-color print, whilst on the Core One+ INDX it had to be done in several batches, the new 3D printer was able to produce substantially more models than the larger machine in less time.

At present, considering the price, the multifilament printing reliability and speed, this is the best 3D printer I've ever tested (and I've tested many). It makes it hard to recommend any other machine, and with the CORE One L now also adapted to utilise the INDX system, Prusa once again leads the field for this scale of machine, from small to large-scale projects.

Prusa CORE One+ (Gen 2) INDX 8-Tool: Price and Availability

The Original Prusa CORE One+ (Gen 2) INDX 8-Tool is available directly from Prusa. Prices start at $2249 / £2039 assembled, and $1949 / £1769 for the kit.

Shipping starts October 15.

If you already own a CORE One or CORE One+, you can buy the upgrade kit, which is $999 / £909 for the 8-tool version (a 4-toolhead is also available). Other INDX conversion kits from Prusa can also be found here.

Essentially, like the very first model, it doesn't matter what Original Prusa machine you have; there is always an upgrade route to the latest version.

Prusa CORE One+ (Gen 2) INDX 8-Tool: Design

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

I looked at the original Prusa CORE One back in January 2025, and at the time it was a significant update to the MK4S, their previous machine. Since then, we've seen the larger version, the original Prusa CORE One L, and more recently the Plus upgrades to both. Now we also have the INDX from Bondtech and Prusa Research.

Since the machine is from Prusa, you have several ways to buy it, unlike most companies these days. The first is to buy it off the shelf as a fully assembled, ready-to-go option, which is exactly the option I went with in this review.

If, however, you really want to see the inner workings of the machine, and for many people running print farms or small businesses, I would probably recommend at least buying one machine in kit form so that you can see how it works. This gives you a good idea of how to repair it if something does go wrong.

Taking a look at the machine, the first thing you notice is that, from the outside, it looks almost identical to the CORE One. In fact, the main body and build area are the same, and it's only the 8 reels on the outside that really give it away.

I've used them without the dry boxes you can attach as well, really because I only have two and need to purchase another six to ensure my machine looks balanced. Still, aside from the four reel holders on each side, the major difference here is the INDX system bolted onto the front top of the machine.

This added dock essentially covers the view to the platform and contains the eight new toolheads, which are all heated through induction rather than traditional wires. This means that they can be attached to their magnetic dock along the front of the machine cold, heated up in just a few seconds, and printing following a filament change can start within a few seconds, far faster than any other system.

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

The other major difference here is that, obviously, the CORE One was a fully enclosed machine. This carries over to the INDX expansion, with a hinged top lid, secured in place by two rotating holders that are, of course, 3D printed.

The area is slightly smalled the original Prusa CORE One because because of the new additions but only marginally at 248 x 205 x 270 mm, dropping from 250 x 220 x 270 mm, so 2mm in one direction and 15mm in the other while the height remains the same.

Essentially, the Prusa CORE One+ INDX is the original Prusa CORE One+, the second generation, with the Bondtech INDX system incorporated.

While it may look very similar asthetically, in practice, this machine's potential goes far beyond what was available before and at this price.

• Design: 4.5/5

Prusa CORE One+ (Gen 2) INDX 8-Tool: Features

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)Specs

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

Print Technology: FFF/FDM, eight-tool INDX tool-changing system

Build Area: 248 x 205 x 270 mm

Minimum Layer Resolution: 0.05mm

Maximum Layer Resolution: 0.30 mm

Dimensions: Width: 620 mm, Depth: 470 mm, Height: 690 mm

Weight: 24.5 kg

Bed: Heated print bed; heated chamber up to 55°C

Print Surface: Removable print sheet; multiple sheet finishes available

Software: PrusaSlicer

Materials: PLA, PETG, TPU, PC, nylon and other engineering filaments; abrasive materials will wear the nozzle

One of the great features of the Prusa machines is their customizability, so one of the first decision you have when looking at a Prusa machine is do you buy it assembled or as a kit. If you're a business and buying several, I would personally buy the majority as assembled and one as a kit, it will just give you that insight that can be invaluable.

Either way, if you need to keep costs down, you can opt for the assembled version without the camera, advanced filtration system, or additional print sheets, which keeps it at its base level. Or, if you want those more advanced features, they can be added on as well, so you can have the camera, advanced filtration, and different sheet finishes depending on the materials you're actually printing.

The machine is also available as a 4, or 8-tool option, with about £300 difference between the two. If you can stretch to it, I would definitely opt for the eight-tool version, which I'm looking at in this review, but if you can't, you can always buy the eight-tool upgrade kit later.

When it comes to the print volume, the machine offers an area of 248 x 205 x 270 mm, which isn't the largest for a machine of this size and a slight reduction over the Core One+, but it's still pretty decent.

Like the CORE One and One+, it's designed for engineering materials such as PC and nylon and has a heated chamber that reaches up to 55°C.

The main feature is its advanced tool changer. Unlike other multifilament machines that have one or two nozzles, or, in the case of the H2C 6, U1 4, here we see 8 individual nozzles that are preloaded with filaments during the initial calibration process.

Those nozzles sit cold in a docking station across the front of the machine, and only when the head picks up each nozzle does it use induction rather than wiring to heat it to the right temperature in about 12 seconds per material, so it's ready for use. This process dramatically cuts both filament waste and the time it takes to get up to speed.

What's impressive here is that when those tools are back in the dock, they cool right down. They're actually just passive toolheads, so whilst the filament is loaded within them, there are no electronics, making it even easier to change those nozzles when needed.

One feature Prusa highlights is that bed levelling is done through pressure, so the nozzles touch the print bed before printing starts; a load cell reads the force, and the machine knows exactly where the print bed is. This differs from many newer printers that have started using optical solutions. Whilst these are generally good, they're not always 100% accurate.

One of the big changes for Prusa, and something the company has tried to avoid until now, is a silicone wiper. Positioned just to the right of the machine, there are some silicone pads which each of the nozzles wipes across to remove any blobs before printing, and this is positioned right next to the purge collector, which, as I found through the test, even after hundreds of hours of printing, gathers very little waste material.

The INDX head features conductive electronics that heat each passive toolhead. Still, it's more than just technology: the extruder is self-adjusting, so it can alter its grip for different materials. This essentially means that, using the same system, you can print with soft materials such as TPU and rigid engineering filaments without having to stop the extruder for each.

Finally, because each one is passive, it takes literally seconds to change them. So, if you want to go from the standard 0.4 to 0.25 at the finest, up to a big, thick 0.8, then the tool-change process takes a couple of seconds. Simply unload the filament, remove the toolhead from the dock with a pull and release the feeder tube; plug in the new one, pop it back in the dock, load the filament, and you're set to go.

Each toolhead needs to be calibrated, and an automatic tool-offset calibration sensor is mounted on the outside of the print area. The speed at which this works, and the fact that it all works automatically, is impressive. To keep things running smoothly, I rerun the full calibration at the end of the week after clearing out any debris from the machine, which is probably one reason this machine has been so reliable.

Once again, to reduce vibration from movement in the machine, and so it sits in with most workshop devices, it features an all-steel build. As you pick up the machine and move it around, it is relatively heavy but easy to manoeuvre, with decent grip handles on either side, so you can move it from one side of the workshop to the other without too much issue.

And these days security is a huge issue, and it's nice to see that Prusa has taken this seriously and offers a 100% offline and, if you want, private solution to transferring files over to the machine. If you want to remove the Wi-Fi module, that's very easy to do, and if you want higher security, Prusa again offers a range of advanced features.

• Features: 5/5

Prusa CORE One+ (Gen 2) INDX 8-Tool: Performance

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

There's been a lot of anticipation around the Prusa CORE One+ INDX 8T in the 3D printing community. Essentially, it blends the robust printing abilities of the Prusa CORE One with Bondtech's tool changer, and the result is an absolutely stunning printer that produces exceptionally fine multicolor prints at a very reasonable price, considering the competition in this sector.

There are, of course, a few small downsides, such as the fact that the print bed on the CORE version is relatively small compared with what we've been used to seeing recently, and on my initial few runs I did have a couple of misprints. But as the printer itself bedded in and I became more familiar with the system, I was able to resolve all issues and also learn more about the printer, which gave me greater confidence that, as with their previous printers, if anything goes wrong, I would be able to fix it without the wait that I've experienced with many other multitool machines.

That getting-started process is, in essence, no more complicated than with any other machine, and from the box to sitting on the workshop bench ready to produce its first print took no more than 10 minutes. It was faster than I expected, especially since I set up the XL a couple of years ago.

Essentially, the main machine is complete, and then it's just a matter of opening the box with all the nozzles, popping them into the front of the machine, and inserting each feeder tube. Then you're essentially set and ready to go once the power cable has been inserted.

Also supplied is a USB-C key with plenty of models to get you started. As I loaded the eight reels onto the side of the machine, it did expand the space needed either side of the printer, but it still fit neatly next to some of the machines in the test area.

What I also really like is that I can easily shift this printer around the workshop without too much issue. It's heavy, but nothing compared with some of the larger machines. It is that stopgap between the Snapmaker and the Bambu Lab H2C.

As I started the test, the big question that I had was: with a standard-size print bed, would this printer actually be a viable option for people running print farms? Was it fast enough even though that platform wouldn't be able to print the same volume of models? As the first few test models that Prusa supplied came off the print platform, I was instantly impressed by the complexity of the models produced and by the time it took to print.

I tried out a series of multi-filament and, in some cases, multi-material prints, and they took far less time than I would've expected, even with the H2C set to its fastest usable print speeds.

I ended up running a head-to-head between the two with a dragon model, and this is where the speed of the new Prusa CORE One+ INDX 8T really stood out.

On the H2C, the platform was able to take 14 dragons, which was impressive, whilst the Prusa INDX was restricted to 9. When it came to the time it would take for the dragons to print, this is where the biggest difference came, and whilst there were five additional dragons on the H2C, it takes 3 days and 10 hours to make that print, while the Prusa will took one day and 35 minutes according to the software. When translated to the actual time these printers took to run through those prints, they were quite accurate, plus or minus about 30 minutes. Notably, by the time the H2C, with much the same speed setting as the Prusa INDX, had finished its 15 prints, I had 27 from the CORE One INDX. Obviously there is the inconvenience of clearing the platform after each print run.

Another point here is that there is no purge tower. Instead, a small amount of filament is scraped from the toolhead before it's used, but the tool-change speed is far faster than other tool changers. Essentially, that induction system works incredibly quickly, meaning sometimes you can't even really tell that the tool change has happened, as the printer is only not printing for a few seconds.

This test was also a great time to ensure calibration and accuracy for both printers were spot-on, and it actually took a couple of days to get 100% reliability from both the Prusa and the H2C through tuning. But since I ran the test right at the start, both machines have been running side-by-side flawlessly.

Setting down the models from each printer, what's instantly apparent is how little quality difference there is between the two. Layer by layer, the walls look smooth and the transition between colors is neat. You can obviously still see the layers. These prints are as fine as any.

Through the test, as always, there were plenty of firmware updates, and some of the early issues that I had were with tool eight, which for some reason would always print just a little bit high was resolved.

After an update, a good vacuum of the inner chamber and a full recalibration, that seemed to kick into life and resolved the issue. It was a bit of an odd one. It worked in the initial stages of the test, then after a firmware update and a particularly messy misprint, it stopped working correctly, and then it worked again after the next update. It's now been three weeks, and that particular nozzle is now working absolutely fine.

There are a few other small issues that I've come across. My biggest issue whilst using the machine is the filament mount on the side of the machine, not so much that it's on the side, but the fact that those filaments are exposed. Prusa does sell individual dry cases for each of those filaments, which is a good thing, but these are very much bolt-on, and while they work, there are neater solutions.

Then there's the filament feed, and this is the part that started to get to me over the weeks with plenty of filament changes. Essentially, unlike the Snapmaker or Bambu multi systems, you still have to feed the filament into the machine, and with four filament reels on each side, this can get a little bit messy.

If space is tight, getting your hands in and feeding the reel around while pushing the filament up into the feeder tube all the way to the hot end is one of those tedious, fiddly things. I would love to see some sort of auto-feed system.

Then, for less experienced users, the camera and filtration system on the back need to be fitted, and it's not as simple as plugging them in and attaching them. You do need to remove the panel, feed the cable through, and plug it into the board, which takes about 15 to 20 minutes.

It's not complicated; it's just one additional step rather than being ready out of the box. The idea is that you can customise the machine to your exact needs. Not everyone wants a camera, but since cameras are such a standard part of many setups, it's something you expect.

The other surprise is that the nozzles aren't designed for abrasive printing, so if you do want to use PETG-CF, PC-CF, or another abrasive material, the nozzles will wear out relatively quickly. Essentially, they're rated for 10 kg of PETG-CF or 5 kg of PC-CF. While checking all the different material types, I noted that if you're using Prusament Ultra Glow, you'll get through just 0.5 kg of filament before the nozzle likely needs replacing. These are not hardened nozzles, although those are on the way very soon.

The point is that the print area is just 248 x 205 x 270 mm. That reduces the CORE One's build plate from 250 x 220 x 270 mm, giving a slightly smaller build area again.

One of the good things is that many of the early issues, such as stringing issues with the nozzles carrying filament back into the machine and other early performance problems, have all been addressed by each firmware update.

Obviously, for this review sample, it is an early production model, and what is striking is that with every firmware update that came in, and as I became more familiar with the machine and it bedded in, the machine became more accurate and reliable.

It's now been three weeks since I've had to do anything to it, and it's been running continuously printing ready for a new term. I will obviously give it a bit of oil as it requires, but otherwise this is a multitool machine that will print thousands of models without much maintenance, and that is one of the key points of Prusa machines.

Dimensional accuracy - score of 4

Target 25 = X: 24.76mm / 0.24mm Error | Y: 24.70mm / 0.30mm Error

Target 20 = X: 19.82mm / 0.18mm Error | Y: 19.80mm / 0.20mm Error

Target 15 = X: 14.75mm / 0.25mm Error | Y: 14.72mm / 0.28mm Error

Target 10 = X: 9.88mm / 0.12mm Error | Y: 9.83mm / 0.17mm Error

Target 5 = X: 4.88mm / 0.12mm Error | Y: 4.78mm / 0.22mm Error

X Error Average = 0.182

Y Error Average = 0.234

X&Y Error Average = 0.208

Fine Flow Control - score of 4

Fine Negative Features - score of 5

Overhangs - score of 5

Bridging - score of 4

XY resonance - score of 2.5

Z-axis alignment - score of 2.5

Add the totals for a final score of 27 out of 30.

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

Before I leave the performance section, another point about the prints is the new color-blending mode within PrusaSlicer known as Prusa Color Mix, and this is something I'm still trying to get my head around. It's quite incredible how it works.

Essentially, like a dot matrix, it blends the colors you have together to create more colors by creating fine layers of filament rather than physically blending the two or more. With two fish models I printed very early on, I was first impressed that they printed.

They're quite complex models, and I set them aside for a few days. Then it occurred to me that there were about three or four different greens within the print, yet I only had one green loaded onto the machine. At that point, I realised that the color mix was in full flow with these models.

I went back to PrusaSlicer and started trying some color-blending modes myself and, again, was impressed by how easy it was to use. I would say that randomly loading different-colored filaments onto the spools will get you some pretty interesting results. If you really want headline-worthy features, careful filament choice is definitely needed. However you approach it, the results are incredibly impressive.

Whilst I've just touched on the beginning of how this technology works, it's probably one of the most exciting enhancements from any 3D printer that I've seen, meaning that those eight filament spools, especially if you get the color combinations right, can produce thousands of different colors.

• Performance: 5 / 5

Original PRUSA CORE One: Final verdict

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

The Original Prusa CORE One+ INDX 8T is a 3D printer in a different league, and while the build area is smaller than even the CORE One, the speed at which you can do a multicolor print is much faster than any off-the-shelf machine I've tried.

Most of the initial misprints and small issues I had were mainly the machine bedding in rather than any major problems, and this is an early review sample with fixes coming through the firmware updates. Still, even then as an early production sample its performance has been absolutely solid and rivals and beats any of the machines I have in the workshop.

Unusually, it has also been of major interest to several friends who run 3D print farms and engineering businesses, particularly for prototyping with multiple materials and colors. The production times of those models are vastly reduced, and whilst 3D printing already cut down their prototyping time dramatically, the Prusa CORE One+ INDX once again cuts down that time even further.

What's surprising here is that, even with a fully assembled machine pretty much ready to go out of the box, and with all those new firmware updates and obviously the knowledge that's out there as well, this becomes one of the cheapest multitool machines on the market whilst also being easily one of the best.

Some machines have a refined, fully product-designed, more plastic aesthetic that gives them a high-quality feel, and they are obviously extremely impressive.

The Prusa's more workshop-style design means it's a far better fit for many businesses; if anything ever goes wrong, you have full access to the plans, a huge knowledge base, and one of the best support networks available from any 3D printer manufacturer. You'll never be stuck without a printer.

Should you buy the Original PRUSA CORE One?

Value:

Excellent value for 8-tool printing, giving reliability, speed and repairability when you need it

5

Design:

Robust and practical design, although spool handling and bed size are a compromise.

4.5

Features:

The 8 tools, color mixing, offline operation and essential easy maintenance make this a great business option.

5

Performance:

Fast and reliable multicolor printing with excellent quality after initial bedding in an calibration.

5

Total:

A superb multitool printer that combines speed, flexibility and reliability.

5

Buy it if...

You need fast multicolor printing.

Eight independent toolheads make filament changes extremely fast, cutting delays for multicolor and multi filament printing.

You want a machine you can maintain yourself.

A repairable design, accessible components, and strong support make maintenance easier and reduce reliance on servicing.

Don't buy it if...

You regularly print very large models.

The modest build area makes larger prototypes and models better suited to bigger-format printers instead.

You want completely automated filament handling.

Loading eight reels can be fiddly, while regular material changes still require some manual intervention.

We've also tested out the best laser engravers

Any users of the best Fitbit devices that were watching Apple’s iPhone Duo event yesterday might have felt a chill of all-too-familiar dread during the company’s glitzy keynote presentation.

That’s not because Apple announced some sort of killer smartwatch feature that will bury the Fitbit range alive. No, it’s because viewers got to see Apple’s new plans for its Health app, which now comes with an AI-powered makeover that will likely stir up some painful emotions for many Fitbit fans.

Of course, adding AI into an app doesn’t automatically doom it. But the parallels between Apple Health and the Google Health app that Fitbit users have been lumped with — with all its wild hallucinations and crazy wellbeing inaccuracies — is undeniable.

Indeed, if the Fitbit experience is anything to go by, there’s a risk that Apple customers could be in for a bumpy ride.

Coming to your iPhone

(Image credit: Future)

Why might Fitbit fans be ringing a Google Health-shaped alarm bell? Well, Google-owned Fitbit announced a total overhaul of the companion app for its wearables back in May 2026 — and it was almost immediately unpopular.

The rebranded app was accused of being “unbelievably bad” amid missing features and confusing user interface decisions that made the app much less enjoyable to use than the one it replaced.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg. As the weeks and months rolled on, social media started overflowing with user complaints directly squarely at one target: Google Health’s AI assistant.

This tool is meant to analyze your wellbeing data and make suggestions on ways you can improve your fitness and live a healthier life. The problem, though, is that the AI seemed to frequently go off the rails.

I’ve written about how Google’s AI has been giving people “unhinged” fitness advice, feeding them “nonstop lies” and spinning up completely fictional food-tracking metrics. It’s a real concern and has proven to be a tremendous source of frustration to anyone unfortunate enough to have to use it.

And now with the Apple Health revamp, a similar feature might be coming to your iPhone.

An anxious wait

(Image credit: Future)

In any other app, patchy performance like this might just be a slight irritation. But in an app like Google Health, where the AI is making suggestions that could directly affect your physical wellbeing, the effect is much more serious.

Can Apple escape such problems with its own AI revamp? I’m not sure, despite Apple's excellent track record and cautious implementation of LLMs. After all, Apple tried to go its own way with Apple Intelligence but fell so far behind the competition that it had to enlist the help of — you guessed it – Google.

That means that the same AI models that have messed up Google Health so badly are now propping up Apple Intelligence, and with it, Apple Health.

That said, there’s no guarantee that Apple Health will go the same way as Google Health. While Google’s AI is powering many of the features inside the likes of Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, we don’t know exactly how that’s going to work in Apple’s Health app do-over. Has Apple tweaked Google’s models to its own tastes or imported them wholesale?

(Image credit: Future)

I’d hope that Apple has made some modifications of its own. Apple's website states that 'all of our health innovations are subject to rigorous scientific validation and are developed with clinical experts from start to finish'.

Not only that, but the company is extremely hot on user privacy and security, and what could be more vulnerable than your health data? With almost every health-related feature that it has introduced in recent years, Apple has emphasized the steps it has taken to encrypt, protect and otherwise lock down your sensitive wellbeing information.

Considering that Google could be perceived to be, relatively speaking, far more lax about user privacy, I’d be shocked if Apple hadn’t taken a peek under the hood to ensure that its Health AI is as secure and reliable as possible. It would have been hard for Apple not to notice the furor that Google Health has caused Fitbit fans.

There’s no way Apple would want that kind of feedback from its own users, so I’m hoping it’s made some adjustments to ensure that its own AI is a little less eccentric, shall we say, than Google’s.

We’re not going to know for sure until the new Health app becomes available, which won’t be until 'later this year,' Apple says. Until that happens, it’s going to be an anxious wait for any Apple user aware of the carnage suffered by their Fitbit-wielding colleagues.

• Diablo 5 devs confirmed a new class for the game at BlizzCon 2026
• The Plague Knight will spread and then consume disease across the battlefield to their advantage
• Two returning classes are already confirmed as well

Three Diablo 5 classes have already been confirmed, and the developers behind the game have even shed light on a brand-new one coming to the game during the Diablo 5 — Forging the Next Era panel, which we watched at BlizzCon 2026 in Anaheim.

"The Plague Knight is the first new class that will be joining Diablo 5," said Joe Shely, game director. "This is a heavily armored class; it's a walking death."

Adding more detail, Shely said, "You're going to be roaming the battlefield, spreading disease and consuming it for power." This sounds incredibly deadly, poison-y, and downright unclean.

As well as confirming that the Demon Hunter and Monk classes will be returning for Diablo 5, Shely also added that "Diablo 5 is going to launch with more classes than ever before, and I don't just mean more classes than another Diablo game at ship. I mean more classes total."

The returning classes are likely to be very well received by the community

Finishing the description of the classes, Shely reinforced the key characteristics of Diablo classes, saying that "they're approachable. You can jump in; you can immediately have an exciting time playing them. But there's also deep ARPG mastery there, and a multitude of builds to explore."

I expect more classes and more class info to drop in the coming months as we hear more about the game in the long run-up to its release in Spring 2029.

• Devs say that they're "really doubling down on darkness" with Diablo 5's setting
• This will build on Diablo 4's bleakness and darkness
• And continue to contrast the relative vibrancy of Diablo 3

After the somewhat vibrancy of Diablo 3 that some fans raised an eyebrow at, the bleak darkness and misery of Diablo 4 was a welcome change of vibes and atmosphere for many players — and it sounds like the developers are going to continue this into Diablo 5.

During the Diablo 5 — Forging the Next Era panel, which we watched at BlizzCon 2026 in Anaheim, some of the game's devs spoke openly about the dark and bleak setting that Diablo 5 will have.

"I think that's really the tone, the atmosphere," said John Mueller, senior art director. "We're really doubling down on darkness, and what this means for the art team is we really get to explore all of what we learned from Diablo 4 and expand on it further. You know, that desolation that we're going to see in the world is really the setting for the survivors of this story [in Diablo 5]."

This is something that I'm absolutely here for; Diablo games thrive and are at their bleakest best when they embrace a dark and miserable tone and atmosphere, and help to cement the sense of place Sanctuary has, as well as the overarching richness of the story and narrative.

This doubling down, to the extent of embracing a setting of defeat and one where Sanctuary has fallen, already makes for a compelling starting point that I can't wait for.

However, narrative director Jennifer Hepler went on to add that in the process of "making Sanctuary so, so dark, [and] trying to double down on this darkness of Diablo winning in this apocalyptic setting; we still need to make Sanctuary a place that's worth defending."

So there's a balancing act in play here, then, with the darkness and hopelessness of the setting being somewhat offset by the devs still wanting to make Sanctuary a "place that you want to save."

This narrative conflict and tension is something I'm really looking forward to properly and fully when the game releases in Spring 2029.

• Total War: Warhammer 40,000 battle product owner Dave Petry says it was important to implement player customization in the game
• He says it was a "big deal" to bring those customization options from the hobby forward to the game
• Petry adds that it was "awesome" to bring in the "core" features from the hobby

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 offers plenty of player customization options, which Creative Assembly has now revealed was an essential feature it wanted in the game from the start.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, battle product owner Dave Petry, alongside lead designer Joy Dey, said player customization in all aspects was always a "must-have," as the studio wanted to simulate the same experience for fans of the tabletop Warhammer game and beloved hobby.

"The second we picked this up, we knew we had to make a big deal of being able to tell your own story within this universe to bring in your own identity and get to be part of all of it," Petry said.

The developer also told TechRadar Gaming that it worked closely with Games Workshop to ensure the player experience was as "authentic" to the tabletop game as possible. This included simulating the tabletop's combat the way that fans are familiar with.

"We're trying to create an authentic sense of the lore and the kind of combat that's there, but the love for the tabletop absolutely is present," Petry said.

As for customization, Petry told us that it was "awesome" to bring in the "core" features from the hobby, and teased aesthetic unit personalization, loadout customization, and late-game progression.

Petry also confirmed that the game will feature the actual real-life paint colors used by Games Workshop too, so fans will be able to use the same ones they know and love and recreate their real-life armies or favorites in the game.

"In terms of what you can do, not just the aesthetic customization, colors, etc, etc," he went on, "but being able to specialize your units throughout a campaign and, over that campaign, take your intercessors, specialize them towards using, say, like bolt rifle, auto bolt rifles, or stalkers, leveling them up, kitting them out in different ways, and you know potentially ultimately getting them to be like stern guards.

"All of that sort of stuff is absolutely part of that core hobby that you experience this way."

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 launches in 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.

The robot vacuum market is continuing to move at breakneck pace, with most brands releasing multiple models each year. Despite the proliferation of new vacs hitting the market, there are often clear feature trends that pop up across multiple brands at around the same time. I got a preview of the new fleet of flagship robot vacuums at IFA 2026 last week, and I was interested to see what the bot brands had focused on for their 2027 models.

Three key themes emerged almost immediately, and I've rounded them up for you below. Which of these trends will see their way into any upcoming updates to our best robot vacuum? I'll be watching with interest, and look forward to seeing how the new features stand up in real-world testing. For now, let's dive into what's heading your way in the world of robot vacuums.

Step it up

For a few years now, robovac makers have been focused on finding ways to get their bots over chunky room thresholds. It makes sense: in the UK at least, old homes with uneven floors and tall door frames aren't uncommon, and if a robot can't make it over a certain threshold, and that threshold is in the wrong place, it can curtail the vac's journey quite dramatically.

Most of the main brands now have models with secondary wheels and/or a special chassis to allow for step clearance, and the incoming fleet of flagships have especially lofty aspirations.

Dreame's new bot (in the video above) can clear single steps up to 5cm, or double steps up to 10cm. That was impressive in the context of last year's flagships, but this year it's been well and truly outdone. DJI's Romo 2 can handle a single hop of 4cm and a double hop of up to 8.5cm. Roborock's latest flagship, the Saros 20 Flow Complete, can go even higher: it can manage double-layer thresholds of up to 8.8cm. Where will it end?

Getting steamy

On the wet-cleaning front, the big trend is for pre-treating dried-on stains by spraying them with moisture before the mopping begins. Brands have approached this in different ways.

Dreame has opted to include a heating element in its Aqua20 Pro Ultra Roller X Complete, so it can blast hard floors with steam at 180°C. Theoretically, it should be very effective at lifting dirt, but there are some drawbacks.

The steam-creating process is very energy-intensive — you can only use it for zone cleaning, and you should expect your bot to need a recharge afterwards. The demo (video below) wasn't quite as steamy as I was expecting, either.

Ecovacs' effort in this area is the most pared-back. Its DEEBOT X12S OmniCyclone will spray dried-on stains — it doesn't specify with what, so I assume it's just water — to give it time to loosen before going in with its mop. It calls this function the "FocusJet stain spray".

I can see the Ecovacs approach making a difference, but the method I have most hope for is iRobot's. The Roomba Max 875 emits a "heated mist" to pre-treat muck on hard flooring. Since there's no active heating element on the robot itself, use of the function has minimal impact on battery life. Plus, in the demo (shown above), it was kicking out a good amount of mist.

Rolling on by

The suction spec wars don't seem to be quite over yet, but brands are finding clever ways to increase particle pickup without boosting suction. The main solution I saw at IFA was a "seal" between the suction inlet and the floor, which intensifies the suction.

DJI's second-gen robot vacuum, the Romo 2, has a "pressure plate" that lowers to improve pickup of ground-in dirt. iRobot's new flagship also has a frame that can be lowered to improve pickup — although based on the demo I saw, it wasn't dropping quite as low as I'd expect.

(Image credit: Future)

Dyson has a slightly different approach in its R1 and R2 Nurovi robovacs. Rather than sealing down the entire suction area — which could cause large particles to snowplough around the seal rather than being sucked up — these bots have a "Twin-capture system". There's a large, open brush bar area for chunky debris, and above it is a separate area for the fine dust. The latter is sealed down to the floor to concentrate the suction.

(Image credit: Future)

Do you think robot vacuum-makers are directing their efforts in the right areas? Is there a feature you'd still like to see? Let us know in the comments section.

• Diablo 5's player character is the Heir of Westmarch, a fugitive from the forces of hell
• Not much is know about them apart them having a "unique bond with Diablo"
• This bond will apparently give us an "insight" into the big bad Diablo

During the Diablo 5 — Forging the Next Era panel, which we watched at the conference, Diablo 5 devs revealed a couple of key details about the player character.

Instead of stepping into the shoes of another Wanderer or similar protagonist archetype, we now know you'll play as a character known as the Heir of Westmarch.

Not much is known about the Heir, aside from them being a fugitive on the run from the forces of hell, but what is particularly interesting and exciting is that the Heir will have a "unique bond with Diablo that you find out over the course of the game, why and how it came to be", according to Jennifer Hepler, narrative director.

This will allow the Heir of Westmarch to have some form of "insight into him [Diablo], but also a unique vulnerability to what he can do to you," which will apparently give us the chance to "spend the game defining yourself in opposition to the Lord of Terror." Does this imply there's some sort of mental connection between Diablo and our hero? Or some kind of means of direct communication or even control?

To make it even more intriguing, and provide possible insight into the closeness of this connection, Hepler added, "Can you resist his influence? Can you turn his powers against him? That's what the story and the gameplay are going to let you answer." Color me curious.

Also, according to Hepler, "the story really begins when you find out that you can enter the terror realm and survive."

This paints the portrait for a really interesting starting point for the player character, and I can't wait to find out more in the run-up to the game's release window of Spring 2029.

• Diablo 5 developers confirm that Sanctuary is overrun by hell in the upcoming game and has become an "outpost of hell"
• Humanity has fallen and "some humans have been corrupted or raised to become dread commanders"
• Diablo 5 was revealed at BlizzCon 2026 with a Spring 2029 release window

After the reveal of Diablo 5 in the BlizzCon 2026 opening presentation, developers of the upcoming action role-playing game took to the stage to discuss several aspects of the game. The picture of Sanctuary that the devs painted in this Diablo 5 — Forging the Next Era panel that we watched live at BlizzCon 2026 was not cheery at all.

"All of it [Sanctuary] has been overrun. It's become an outpost of hell," said Joe Shely, game director. "There are hardly any humans who haven't bowed or become cultists." But wait, it gets worse, as "some powerful humans have been corrupted and raised to become dread commanders. They have the power of the Dukes of Hell, and anyone who has resisted gets put into a soul cage or pulled into the terror realm."

Make no mistake, the narrative and setting for Diablo 5 isn't one that's built around the risk of the forces of evil entering Sanctuary, or the danger of the spread of evil: Sanctuary has fallen, and everything is on fire.

The official Blizzard blog post describes the world further by saying, "This is not Sanctuary waiting for the apocalypse. It is already living through one. In Diablo V, humanity has fallen into ruin," and that it's a "haunting, desolate land shaped by despair, resilience, and the few survivors fighting to endure another day."

This full embrace of defeat, darkness, loss, and misery as the starting point for Diablo 5 is really interesting, and extends the aforementioned doubling down on the darkness of Diablo 4, and makes for a deeply compelling setting, and one I can't wait to explore when it releases in Spring 2029.

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Saturday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Saturday, September 12 (game #923).

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #924) - hint #1 - today's themeWhat is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Top secret

NYT Strands today (game #924) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• TEARS
• STEAR
• VAST
• CRATE
• CRAVEN
• GRANTED
• STOLE

NYT Strands today (game #924) - hint #3 - spangram lettersHow many letters are in today's spangram?

• Spangram has 10 letters

NYT Strands today (game #924) - hint #4 - spangram positionWhat are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

• First side: left, 4th row

• Last side: right, 4th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #924) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #924, are…

• MOLE
• AGENT
• ASSET
• PLANT
• COUNTERSPY
• OPERATIVE
• SPANGRAM: UNDERCOVER

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 2 hints

The theme was an obvious one, but I still found it difficult to locate any game words.

Fortunately, finding non-game words was less tricky, so I took a couple of hints to get going.

This left me with three long words, including a spangram that I really should have seen from the start. I’d like to think that this was a deliberately well hidden set of words but human error is far more likely an explanation for my performance.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Saturday, September 12, game #923)

• LIBERATE
• FREE
• RELEASE
• DETACH
• UNLOOSE
• SPANGRAM: LETITGO

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.

Looking for a different day?

A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Saturday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Saturday, September 12 (game #1692).

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,500 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today — or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Quordle today (game #1693) — hint #1 — VowelsHow many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #1693) — hint #2 — repeated lettersDo any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 0.

Quordle today (game #1693) — hint #3 — uncommon lettersDo the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #1693) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #1693) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• L

• S

• M

• E

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1693) — the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1693, are…

• LUCID
• SPRAY
• MANGE
• EMAIL

Despite playing Quordle hundreds of times I’m still making silly mistakes — like today guessing “anime” when the letter 'I' had already been ruled out.

Sometimes I just get a word in my head and have to put it down.

Oh well, at least it wasn’t costly as I soon came to my senses and guessed MANGE.

Daily Sequence today (game #1693) — the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1693, are…

• THEME
• CAMEL
• AWARD
• PROSE

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1692, Saturday, 12 September: SUPER, BRUSH, RESET, SOWER
• Quordle #1691, Friday, 11 September: PLUSH, PAINT, RIVAL, AFOUL
• Quordle #1690, Thursday, 10 September: AGENT, EXILE, TITAN, PUREE
• Quordle #1689, Wednesday, 9 September: HAPPY, GONER, SMACK, MOTIF
• Quordle #1688, Tuesday, 8 September: FLUNG, DIARY, HALVE, BERTH
• Quordle #1687, Monday, 7 September: VISIT, CLANK, FEVER, OCEAN
• Quordle #1686, Sunday, 6 September: PILOT, HONOR, BOWEL, TAUNT
• Quordle #1685, Saturday, 5 September: GNASH, GEEKY, WHELP, PUTTY
• Quordle #1684, Friday, 4 September: QUICK, BEEFY, TRUCK, SNAIL
• Quordle #1683, Thursday, 3 September: SIGMA, ESSAY, MERRY, LLAMA
• Quordle #1682, Wednesday, 2 September: INCUR, FELLA, TITAN, FROZE
• Quordle #1681, Tuesday, 1 September: NASAL, ROUTE, ANKLE, MIGHT
• Quordle #1680, Monday, 31 August: ALIVE, LOUSE, ABOVE, MOSSY
• Quordle #1679, Sunday, 30 August: USING, SORRY, FILET, PIPER
• Quordle #1678, Saturday, 29 August: OVINE, ALLOY, VOICE, CARVE
• Quordle #1677, Friday, 28 August: WAIST, EDICT, BONUS, DEUCE
• Quordle #1676, Thursday, 27 August: SHEEN, TRICE, WAGON, BEVEL
• Quordle #1675, Wednesday, 26 August: OPIUM, EPOCH, BESET, FINER
• Quordle #1674, Tuesday, 25 August: BLESS, FELON, PORCH, CHOSE
• Quordle #1673, Monday, 24 August: MAJOR, VERGE, CRUSH, SCOFF

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Saturday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, September 12 (game #1189).

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #1190) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• PORRIDGE
• GARFIELD
• DROOPY
• EMPTY
• HEATHCLIFF
• EXCESS
• GRANT
• SLACK
• ODIE
• PARAMOUNT
• SAGGING
• MADISON
• FLACCID
• KEWPIE
• CLEVELAND
• DOUBLESPEAK

NYT Connections today (game #1190) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: Squishy
• GREEN: American leaders
• BLUE: Double characters
• PURPLE: Geographical endings

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #1190) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: LACKING IN FIRMNESS
• GREEN: U.S. PRESIDENTS
• BLUE: WORDS THAT SOUND LIKE TWO LETTERS
• PURPLE: ENDING IN ELEVATED LANDFORMS

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #1190) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #1190, are…

• YELLOW: LACKING IN FIRMNESS: DROOPY, FLACCID, SAGGING, SLACK
• GREEN: U.S. PRESIDENTS: CLEVELAND, GARFIELD, GRANT, MADISON
• BLUE: WORDS THAT SOUND LIKE TWO LETTERS: EMPTY, EXCESS, KEWPIE, ODIE
• PURPLE: ENDING IN ELEVATED LANDFORMS: DOUBLESPEAK, HEATHCLIFF, PARAMOUNT, PORRIDGE

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 1 mistake

Not being as knowledgeable about US presidents as I should be, it took me until I had just eight tiles left to connect CLEVELAND, GARFIELD, GRANT, and MADISON.

Earlier, I had assumed the GARFIELD in question was the cartoon cat and we were looking for a quartet of comic strip felines — HEATHCLIFF is another and I took a punt on DROOPY and CLEVELAND.

The silver lining to my error was that it made me notice “cliff” at the end of HEATHCLIFF and I was able to spot the four tiles that made up ENDING IN ELEVATED LANDFORMS, thus snagging a relatively early purple group.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Saturday, September 12, 2026, game #1189)

• YELLOW: WAYS TO PERSONALIZE A CAR: BUMPER STICKER, FUZZY DICE, HOOD ORNAMENT, VANITY PLATE
• GREEN: PEOPLE IN AN ONLINE FORUM: LURKER, POSTER, SPAMMER, TROLL
• BLUE: THINGS THAT BLINK: CURSOR, EYELIDS, SMOKE DETECTOR, TURN SIGNAL
• PURPLE: ______ ALERT: NERD, RED, SPOILER, WEATHER

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

The American engineer Mark Cooper is considered one of the leading pioneers of the wireless communications industry, envisioning a world in which people would communicate wherever they were and not from fixed locations. Without his work in the mid-20th century, the mobile communications industry would arguably be non-existent.

Hello Moto

On the 38th anniversary of the first cell phone call, journalist Bob Greene wrote an article for CNN commemorating Cooper's pioneering work. During this interview, he recounted the way that Cooper explained the thinking behind the concept of the mobile phone.

Quote of the day

This article is part of TechRadar Pro's QOTD project to provide an insight into the minds of the brightest and most recognized figures in the technology industry today and in years gone by. Read the full series here.

The concept for the "personal telephone", as Cooper described it, came from shifting the concept of a telephone number from something that was fixed to a location or infrastructure to something that represented an individual.

This notion, which broke away from the absolute necessity of being tethered to a copper wire, gave individuals (initially working professionals) absolute mobility and freedom to communicate from wherever they were.

Call me maybe

Cooper headed Motorola's communications systems division in the 1970s and conceived of the first portable cellular phone in 1973, which began a 10-year process of bringing the device to market.

He was the lead inventor named on the 'radio telephone system' patent filed in October 1973, but several months earlier he had demonstrated to the press the first handheld cellular phone call in public. He used a prototype DynaTAC device, which he used to call a base station that had been installed on the rooftop of the then-Burlington House in New York.

It's now impossible to envisage how the business world could have been shaped without his pioneering work, with hundreds of millions of units shipping each year. Indeed, this capability to communicate from anywhere – and anytime – has led to immeasurable productivity benefits over the last few decades.

"Lyrics are where people find meaning in music."

So says Marco Paglia, Chief Product Officer at Musixmatch - the platform delivering time-synced lyrics and translations across all major music streaming services.

At a time when passive background streaming feels like it dominates the landscape, I spoke to Marco to find out how lyrics are changing the game for musicians and their listeners.

In an era of passive streaming, why are lyrics still an important tool for turning casual listeners into diehard fans?

A playlist plays at you, while lyrics make you lean in, follow the words and recognise something about yourself.

Lyrics represent one of the few moments in streaming when the listener stops being passive. A playlist plays at you, while lyrics make you lean in, follow the words and recognise something about yourself in what an artist is saying. That moment of connection is often where a casual listener starts to become a fan.

This experience has changed significantly over the last few decades. Lyrics used to be a souvenir: you bought the CD, pulled out the booklet, and read along. Now they are a fundamental part of the listening journey itself - time synced, translated and available immediately on screen as the song plays.

The scale of that behaviour is significant, with 88% of premium subscribers actively using lyrics. People read along, search for a chorus to find a track, share a line on Instagram or TikTok and print it on shirts.

Lyrics are where people find meaning in music. We see that reflected in listening behaviour too: tracks with lyrics generate 3.5x more saves, one of the clearest signals that someone wants to come back to a track. None of that is passive.

Ultimately, that’s why lyrics are such a powerful connective tissue between a song, an artist and the people who become invested in it.

On social media, a track can blow up in 24 hours. How much momentum does an artist lose if their lyrics aren’t synced on day one?

If there is no lyric card to screenshot, no sticker, no karaoke moment, you’re leaving fan engagement on the table right as curiosity peaks.

More than most artists realise, and that loss isn’t recoverable! The first few days of a release are a unique window: attention is at its highest, fans are actively searching for the track, and the moments that shape its trajectory are starting to build. Once that window passes, you can’t recreate it.

There are three things happening all at once in that initial period. Firstly, discovery: 81% of listeners search for lyrics online, so if a track’s lyrics aren’t available, it risks missing people actively trying to find it through words they’ve heard.

Secondly, algorithmic weighting: days one to seven are when saves and completion count most, and lyrics drive both of these things.

Thirdly, social engagement: lyrics give fans something to interact with and share. If there is no lyric card to screenshot, no sticker, no karaoke moment, you’re leaving fan engagement on the table right as curiosity peaks.

Then the window closes. Add lyrics on day eight and the opportunity to capture that initial release-week momentum has already passed. At that point, the focus shifts to longer-term discovery - and there’s no way to recreate that first week.

That’s exactly why we built Pre-Release, which means lyrics, sync and translations can all be in place and live from the moment a track drops.

For example, when the Rolling Stones released their latest album it launched fully covered, with lyrics, sync and translations in eight languages. Day-one lyrics aren’t a nice-to-have. They have to be part of the release itself.

How much manual effort is actually required from an artist or manager to get their lyrics and metadata release-ready across all platforms?

Historically an enormous amount, and almost all of it is invisible, unglamorous work: transcribing, time-syncing line by line.

Historically an enormous amount, and almost all of it is invisible, unglamorous work: transcribing, time-syncing line by line, getting the structure and credits right.

Our job is to collapse that process. Customers can get verified in one step, we then pull their catalogue automatically from distributor data and audit it against what’s live on every Digital Service Provider (DSP). That produces a coverage report showing exactly where lyrics are missing, and prioritising the tracks where filling those gaps will have the greatest impact.

From there, customers can use our AI tools to transcribe and sync lyrics, or hand it to our expert curators. Our transcription engine is built specifically for the singing voice, and is more than twice as accurate as general speech tools.

That technology is backed by a global curator network that can help with proofreading across 100+ languages. Once everything is ready, it can be distributed to 25+ platforms simultaneously, with live status tracking. What could have taken months, now takes days.

There’s another part of this that catalogue managers sometimes underestimate: the same process can power the campaign around a release. Once the lyrics are ready ahead of release day, that file can also produce the vertical video loops for TikTok, Instagram, Spotify Canvas assets, and the YouTube lyric videos ready to go live alongside the track. One deliverable, every surface, no video shoot.

You describe Music Lens as ‘the world’s first Music Agent’. What does that mean in practice, who benefits and how?

It analyses meaning, but it doesn’t write songs.

Music Lens allows users to stop querying a database and to have a conversation with their catalogue. In practice, that means four things.

It can match a catalogue to a creative brief, it turns global trends into readable insight so you can see a breakthrough moment while it’s still happening, it gives clear visibility into royalties, splits and DSP performance (market by market), and it generates campaign-ready visuals from songs in seconds.

I like to think of it as an agent that develops through four stages: first, a musicologist, reading lyrics and extracting meaning, moods and themes. Then a DJ, enabling search by feeling, rather than simply based on the artist or title. Then it becomes a music expert, reasoning through a brand brief in the way a human sync agent would. Finally, it is an analyst, mapping how an artist's themes evolve and identifying patterns across countries and genres.

The biggest beneficiaries are publishers and labels with catalogues too large to know intimately, sync teams doing the matching process from memory, and independent artists who’ve never had this class of analysis available to them at all.

And the part I care most about is that it’s non-generative: it analyses meaning, but it doesn’t write songs. It’s built on derived data, meaning new information created by processing a catalogue of over 100 million works. It’s permission-based, with no scraping, no unlicensed content and no raw lyric ever surfaces in the output. That was a hard licensing constraint and it shaped every architectural decision downstream.

Do platforms like this level the playing field for artists to build a career without needing the support of a major label?

Now the words travel with the music.

We give independent artists access to the tools and the infrastructure that historically were much harder to access without the support of a major label. We can offer reach across every platform, control over metadata, professional-grade catalogue intelligence, a merchandising operation, and the one people often forget: translation.

For example, an independent artist can verify their profile, own their lyrics, sync them for free, distribute them to 25+ platforms, ask Music Lens which of their songs has untapped potential, turn a lyric into merchandise, and reach fans in their own language on day one.

More than 1.5 million artists already use Musixmatch Pro to do exactly this. Ten years ago, much of that capability would have sat behind a label services deal.

Translation is the most underrated part of that shift. An artist making music in a bedroom in Bologna with listeners in São Paulo used to have no way to close that gap. Now the words travel with the music.

There are of course elements of labels that we don’t replace, and which are still a real advantage, such as capital, generating radio and playlist relationships and dedicated teams focused on building an artist’s career.

But we have certainly helped level the playing field by putting more information, tools and infrastructure directly into the hands of independent artists.

Beyond backend metadata and licensing, how do you plan to turn your platform into an active community and a richer experience for fans?

The part I find most interesting is what happens when an artist opens that experience up to their fans.

Musixmatch has always been a community, a large one, made of people who care enough about a song to get its words right. That passion is our asset. What we’re building now is the layer where fans and artists actually meet.

Translation is one of the most powerful examples. Most people know lyrics in languages they don’t speak, and translation turns that from a novelty into belonging.

Last November, we powered Spotify’s first global rollout of lyric translations on Rosalía’s LUX: 14 languages on one record, 23 translations synced for release day. It became the most-streamed album in a single day by a Spanish-speaking female artist. When language stops being a barrier, fandom stops being local.

Merchandise, and specifically fan-personalised merchandise, is another opportunity. Our Lyrics Merch tool allows an artist to turn a lyric into something a fan wears: designed, printed and sold through us, with the artist keeping 100% of sales. But the part I find most interesting is what happens when an artist opens that experience up to their fans.

If they want to offer it, the fan can choose their own favourite line from the song and have that printed on a shirt. It’s a completely different relationship from buying tour merch. The fan isn’t picking from what the artist decided to print, they’re telling the artist which words mattered most to them. Every shirt becomes a small piece of feedback about which lyric actually landed, and the fan ends up wearing a line they chose themselves.

Finally, there’s participation. We have a global community made up of music lovers, who transcribe, sync and translate lyrics. Our curators help us to ensure lyrics are accurate, properly synced and accessible to fans around the world. The more credit and better tools we give them, the better the data gets, which improves the experience for everyone.

In quite a big surprise at BlizzCon 2026, Blizzard has confirmed Diablo 5 is in development and is on for a Spring 2029 release.

And not content with simply maintaining the previous game's darkness, threat, and edge-of-apocalypse vibes and setting, Diablo 5 looks to go fully bleak, fully miserable, and fully void of hope.

We're on the ground at BlizzCon 2026 in Anaheim and watched the teaser trailer live, which was full of fire, death, and bleakness, as you can see below, and has already set the tone for the next game.

Diablo has always had a specific brand and type of darkness, and almost always soaks its world and settings in a tangible sense of misery, darkness, dread, and hopelessness. And that's one reason why I love the games.

I'm not just being gloomy. That edge-of-apocalypse threat and sense of darkness give the Diablo games an excellent atmosphere and complement the universe's rich lore, as the place of Sanctuary in the battle of good vs. evil.

Diablo 3 received a little pushback when it came out due to it being a bit colorful and vibrant (literally), and while Diablo 4 brought a strong sense of bleakness, death, and darkness to Sanctuary, this early look at Diablo 5 seems like it's doubling down on that original darkness and bleakness to return the series to its roots — as well as welcoming back the series' big bad bossman.

This seems true in both the setting and story. The trailer shows a world on fire, heroes being murdered and their bodies being gruesomely displayed, and, as Blizzard describes the game, instead of continually being on the edge, this is the first time that "players will enter a Sanctuary where Diablo has triumphed, and its heroes have been defeated."

The description goes on to say, "At the heart of Diablo V lies a defining question: what must you become when the world has already fallen?"

It sounds, frankly, awful, full of sorrow, sadness, and relentless bleakness. I can't wait.

Switch 2 players finally get to go to hell

Alongside the Diablo V confirmation and teaser, Blizzard also confirmed the long-running rumor that Diablo 4 is indeed coming to Nintendo Switch 2 — and will do so on September 15, just a few days from now.

In one of gaming's worst-kept secrets in recent times, Blizzard confirmed that the game will come to the handheld in the form of a new edition: Diablo IV: Age of Hatred Collection, that bundle in the base game along with the Vessel of Hatred and Lord of Hatred expansions.

It's a natural fit, with the Diablo 3: Eternal Collection arriving on the original Nintendo Switch and proving a great success and a fantastic way to play the game.

• NEC has reportedly ended quantum hardware development after nearly three decades of research
• Several NEC quantum researchers have reportedly moved to rival Fujitsu
• NEC once ranked first globally in semiconductor sales in 1990

NEC has reportedly stopped building physical quantum computers after roughly three decades of research into superconducting circuits and solid-state qubit technology.

The Japanese technology company is instead expected to concentrate on quantum applications while avoiding the costs associated with developing physical machines.

Several engineers connected to the initiative, including a senior research figure, subsequently moved across to rival firm Fujitsu to continue their work.

A legacy built on chip dominance

NEC once dominated the global chip industry, ranking first worldwide in semiconductor sales back in 1990, ahead of several rivals.

Companies such as Hitachi, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Motorola and Intel all trailed well behind NEC's chip business throughout that period.

Intel eventually surpassed NEC as personal computer processors grew into a massive and highly profitable segment of the global electronics market.

NEC's 1999 breakthrough in superconducting qubits emerged from a firm that possessed vast internal expertise in solid-state device engineering and manufacturing.

Its researchers produced the earliest known solid-state qubit, a milestone still referenced widely across the quantum computing field.

Variants of that early breakthrough now quietly underpin quantum processors currently built separately by both technology giants Google and IBM.

Unlike NEC, IBM remained committed to quantum hardware and grew into a leading global developer of quantum computing systems overall.

That contrast makes NEC's exit relatively rare among the original corporate pioneers of quantum computing hardware development.

A retreat that took nearly a decade

NEC did not exit the semiconductor business overnight; the retreat instead unfolded gradually across roughly a full decade of restructuring.

The company effectively abandoned its DRAM memory operations in 1999, folding them into a joint venture that was later renamed Elpida.

In November 2002, NEC spun off its remaining chip units, covering microcontrollers and system-on-chip devices, into an entirely new firm.

That entity was subsequently renamed NEC Electronics, eventually becoming the major chipmaker now known globally as Renesas Electronics.

NEC's current business portfolio now centers on IT services, enterprise systems, aerospace, defense, telecom infrastructure, AI and security work.

Quantum hardware development apparently did not fit naturally alongside that existing and increasingly diversified corporate business focus of the company today.

NEC has not formally described the move as a complete withdrawal from quantum computing research.

The company says it will keep assessing real-world uses and commercialization paths connected to quantum technology.

Quantum computing hardware remains a notably costly pursuit, and returns on investment can take many additional years to materialize fully.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu, working alongside research partner Riken, already launched a quantum computer built around 256 superconducting qubits last year.

The firm aims to build a system exceeding 1,000 qubits sometime within 2026, according to earlier public statements from company officials.

Longer term, Fujitsu has reportedly set a goal of building machines that carry over 10,000 superconducting qubits before fiscal 2030 arrives.

NEC's departure suggests that even firms with decades of deep expertise increasingly view quantum hardware as commercially unviable in the short term.

Via Diamond Online (originally in Japanese)

• Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calls for frontier model pacing
• He has a detailed plan
• It'll require cooperation from other AI companies and, yes, even China

Maybe you're tired of hearing the three-year AI industry veteran, Jacob Coxon, warn us on every available media platform that AI could kill us all by the end of the decade.

It sounded hyperbolic, and maybe it is. But when the longtime CEO of Anthropic (Coxon's former employer), Dario Amodei, tells us frontier model development is going too fast and we "risk losing control of AI systems," you might be inclined to listen.

In a roughly 3,000-word blog post, Amodei outlined on Saturday the growing risks of unfettered, global frontier model development and laid out a multi-part plan for gaining some level of control and safety.

In a way, Amodei's post echoes Coxon's concerns, who also called for "pacing."

"Carefully wielded, AI can be the latest in a long line of technological miracles that have uplifted and ennobled humanity," wrote Amodei. He warns, though, that we are facing "the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption."

An internet takeover

Naturally, Amodei points to the summer's incidents, the most notable of which is when OpenAI's AI models escaped the sandbox and then attacked Hugging Face's system in a coordinated effort to complete its objectives.

Amodei contends that despite no one getting hurt, the incident should serve as a warning about what could come next.

"A similar level of misalignment could have caused catastrophic damage...it’s my worry that in 6–12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet."

Amodei's post differs from Oxon's alarmist X post in that it offers a framework for global frontier pacing, basically slowing down and managing model development without calling for a pause.

Evaluation and coordination

It's an ambitious plan that includes an internal but independent ombudsman at each AI company who might have a series of checkpoints they can use to evaluate ongoing work and to ensure that the AI companies are following standardized guidelines and rules. They can also be there to offer a point of clarity, without the cloudiness of commercial demands.

Amodei also wants "Democratic Coordination," which would mean companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic agree on standards, which of course the third-party evaluators can then use. He even proposes global coordination, though Amodei seems less certain that it can even work.

More interestingly and perhaps in response to recent news that AI's new agentic and recursive model capabilities are making them more inscrutable than ever, Amodei thinks pacing will provide more time for better interpretability. "Despite all the progress," Amodei writes, "we still only understand a tiny fraction of what goes on inside these models."

Slow down, but don't stop

Throughout the document, though, the theme remains almost entirely on "pacing" and not "pausing". In fact, Amodei is quite clear that we can't afford to slow down too much, lest we fall behind the chief AI global competitor, China: "Thus, a key part of pacing within democracies is to keep democracies’ AI lead over autocracies as large as possible, to give us the breathing room we need in order to pace effectively." Not doing so would create a "significant national security risk."

Amodei briefly floats the idea of a global frontier model development pause as participating governments reach an agreement on the pace of AI development, but also adds that such an agreement is "unlikely."

Part of Amodei's plan, and to help, maybe, keep China in line, is a call for us to stop selling AI chips to China, something Nvidia's Jensen Huang will surely have something to say about (he actively lobbied the White House to let his company sell AI chips to the CCP). He also calls for penalties for "frontier model distillation," basically China and other countries using Anthropic and, perhaps, OpenAI models to train their own.

Naturally, Amodei also calls for a "global standards body, though he admits that it won't be easy to give it "real teeth."

A study in contrasts

Coxon's comments created a firestorm of debate around the safety of AI and the advisability of allowing development to continue at this pace. That debate, though, was couched in "consider the source." Coxon worked for just three years as a model trainer and at two different companies. Some wondered if his posts and subsequent media blitz were just a cry for attention.

Amodei's post and plan, by contrast, carry the gravitas of deep experience and a macro view of all the pieces at play. Amodei knows the capabilities because he sees them up close every day; he knows the benefits from a global and a financial perspective, and he understands the risk, likely even better than Coxon does.

While much of his plan is based on "only if everyone cooperates and is generally on their best behavior," it's impossible to ignore the warning. Amodei admits his plan "won't be easy" but thinks we must try because "we owe it to humanity.

Amodei dropped the post over the weekend, perhaps hoping to give his counterparts at Google, Amazon, Meta, and, especially, OpenAI time to consider it before responding on Monday. Amodei actually name-checks Google's Demis Hassabis in the post, but doesn't mention Altman. The OpenAI chief and Amodei have a notoriously chilly relationship, which might make Altman embracing Amodei's seemingly sensible plan a long shot.

I’ve been a huge fan of Dell displays for a long time. So, when I first saw the UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED (U3226Q), I thought two things: What a long name, and Wow, that looks incredible.

I have got really used to my 52-inch beast from Dell, so I know they are capable of delivering spectacular quality and novel ideas. So, the idea of Dell jumping feet first into a creative monitor is really exciting… and they did it very, very well.

This monitor has DisplayHDR True Black; it’s a QD-OLED anti-glare coating; it's a 120Hz, 4K panel; and it’s built from the ground up for color-critical workflows that are vital to getting the colors just right. There’s a magnetic shade for use in areas with harsh or inconsistent lighting, a built-in colorimeter, and up to 1000 nits of peak brightness.

The specs are incredible, and rightfully so; this monitor is truly brilliant in all of the best ways. As long as you forget that unseemly price tag.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED: Price and availability

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )

The Dell UltraSharp 32-inch 4K QD-OLED can be purchased for $2,440 at Dell in the US. And in the UK, it's got an equivalent cost of £2,405 at Dell UK. It's also available from a range of other retailers, but not reliably so.

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED: Unboxing and First Impressions

I haven't really used it on a monitor or with shaders before; however, I've recently seen several. I didn't really understand why it would be used, but now, after seeing half a dozen monitor shaders in the last six months, I have a pretty good idea of why you would want them, why you would need them, and why you wouldn't need them.

Right away, I noticed just how sleek and polished this monitor looks. Granted, I have very good experience with Dell monitors at this point, but I still recognize the build quality on this thing, even from first on most

The packaging is pretty straightforward. After testing all some of the best business monitors over the last couple of years, I've learned to expect a certain level of standard in packaging. The monitor itself had front and back protection to ensure that it won't break during transport.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED: Design & Build Quality

There is a reason why Dell monitors are insanely popular, especially in the business world. That's because, even though they don't have all the gimmicks that many other providers do, they have built their reputation on dependability.

This monitor, even though it is a high-end performance monitor, is built the very same way. It has the essentials covered, so the user can rely on it for any use case. It's able to fit in a really small project space all around.

The last thing I'll mention about design and build quality is the shader itself. It's made from a nice material. It doesn't look like it will sag at all, and it magnetically attaches, which is fantastic.

You may not always want to use this shader, but when you need it, you can easily slip it on to the display.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED: In use

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )

Using this monitor has been fantastic. It looks super sharp. It's clean. It's simple. It's not overstated. It mounts great on modern monitor arms. It has great ports. All these things result in very smooth, easy usability for me.

I was able to get this all set up very quickly, and once everything was set up, I was able to use it right away thanks to its single USB-C cable for connecting a laptop or desktop.

Now, if I want to add more to this monitor, such as a secondary machine or something, it does have great ports and several options, though. It doesn't have nearly as many options as some of the more advanced monitors I have seen.

My team and I have used this monitor for photo editing, for video editing, and for basic website design. So far, it's been spectacular to use. Its picture quality is spectacular, and the shader is super easy to disable when I don't need it.

One thing that I'm very thankful for is that this monitor is still bright. Most of the monitors and shaders I have seen have a really dim max brightness, but this one still looks great with max brightness.

Another thing worth touching on is the ports for the Dell Ultrasharp for the desktop setup in the photo. I use a single USB-C cable running directly from my laptop to the monitor.

If you've a more complicated setup where you're using one of the mini Thunderbolt docking stations or something similar, you can plug directly into it via USB-C or, of course, HDMI.

For the longest time, I would recommend Samsung or BenQ panels for creative work - in my experience, those companies produce some of the best monitors for photo editing and the like.

However, several more companies are stepping up when it comes to high-quality creative panels. Dell is clearly one of them, and honestly, I don't think its are too late to the game either. I think it's right on time, bringing its background of reliability and dependability to a growing demographic.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED: Final verdict

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )

If you know that you are looking for a creative monitor with specific specs, the best panel possible, and you even know what a shader is and what it does, then this is the kind of 4K monitor you should be looking into.

If you have to wonder whether this is worth it, it probably isn’t. It's total overkill for running standard office software and streaming the occasional movie.

If you know you're looking for an absurdly nice monitor because you are a video editor, a photo editor, or a content creator in some way, and you need a high-quality one, then absolutely make sure you check this one out.

Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future

I’ve dipped my toes into the world of e-bikes at various tech shows, but at IFA I got to experience one of the safest models so far. I rode around on the Volkswagen and n+ collaboration e-bike, which borrows from car tech to spot dangers and alert road users to your presence.

According to VW, this is the “world’s safest e-bike” — and it might be right.

To call it an e-bike is to oversimplify the setup, because the Volkswagen comes in three parts: the bike, the glasses, and the helmet.

Beyond typical assistive riding and plenty of lights, the two big things this bike boasts are an integrated rear-view camera and a dashboard display. The camera provides a view of what’s going on behind you without you needing to turn your head, with it also warns you when another vehicle is approaching in your blind spot via a radar sensor.

This, and stats such as your speed, can be viewed on the display and on the glasses’ monocular display.

(Image credit: Future / Hamish Hector)

The see-through screen appears in front of your right eye and will display your speed, a basic map and directions if you’ve planned a route, and warnings about blind spots. The glasses themselves are very lightweight at 47g, and offer an excellent eight-hour battery life.

Admittedly, the helmet is a bit big and goofy-looking, but it both protects your head in a fall and features built-in lights — white on the front; red in the back to make you more visible to drivers and signal if you’re braking or turning, just like a car — as well as other electronics. It comes with an IP67 dust- and waterproof rating, and built-in crash detection. Battery life is decent at three hours (commuters should be fine, although avid riders may have welcomed more), although I wish it matched the eight hours of the glasses.

(Image credit: Future / Hamish Hector)My test ride

Safety is very much the focus of this e-bike, and I can see it becoming the ultimate vehicle for commuting across cities such as London, where cars can come at you from all angles. Making myself more visible, and getting a heads up when a driver is close behind me, are major wins.

I got a taste of this during my demo. While this year's IFA test track was larger than last year’s, it’s still a bit compact for putting an e-bike through its paces. Nevertheless, I got a great feel for how well VW’s bike handles corners, and was able to get a little speed on the short straightaways.

It was also possible to get a sense of how distracting — or not distracting, as the case proved — the HUD of the glasses might be. It sits just in the corner of your vision, so you have to actively look at it to view your speed. As such, your eyes are still facing ahead and will easily see a turn or oncoming vehicle.

(Image credit: Future / Hamish Hector)

The display also simplifies to become less obstructing, reverting to a simple VW logo when your eyes are focused on the road. Directing your sight back at the HUD will reactivate it.

The only thing I’m not sold on is the helmet. The safety credentials seem great but the relatively low battery life and goofy design left me wishing I’d stuck with the regular helmet I was offered on the test track.

We’ll still need to review the e-bike to gauge how well Volkswagen’s design stacks up against the competition, but my first impression is a very positive one.

The article contains spoilers for Returnal.

I’ve always been a fan of roguelike games. One of my first PlayStation Plus downloads was an indie known as Tower of Guns, where you blast your way through the titular tower, only to start again each time you die. It hooked me immediately — I spent pretty much an entire summer holiday shooting through the tower’s many floors, only to get kicked back down to the start with each defeat.

From the Backlog

Every gamer has a backlog — and that’s no different for us at TechRadar Gaming. From the Backlog is a series about overdue first-plays, revisiting classics, returning to online experiences, or rediscovering and appreciating established favorites in new ways. Read the full series here.

That type of cyclical gameplay loop just scratches a deep itch in my brain. I’m the kind of player who plays carefully and hoards items for moments that may never appear. However, the high stakes of roguelike games have always given you focus, while the temporary nature of your loadout, abilities, and progress encourages experimentation.

In most story-driven games, player deaths have few consequences – dying in God of War or Control might set you back a few minutes, but you’ll typically carry on as if nothing happened. In contrast, the roguelike genre is defined by hard resets with each death. The issue is that it’s hard to tell an engaging story when you’re constantly sending the player back to square one.

But what if dying was part of the story? That’s the question at the centre of Returnal, the 2021 roguelike third-person shooter from Finnish developer Housemarque that launched as a PS5 exclusive before making its way to Windows. Crucially, Returnal makes its cycle of death and reawakening the central theme of its dense, mysterious narrative.

This summer, about a decade after downloading Tower of Guns, PS Plus delivered me another unforgettable roguelike experience with Returnal – and while I had heard some high praise for its gameplay, I wasn’t prepared for just how much its story would affect me. Keep reading for my take on why Returnal is worth returning to.

Life on loop

(Image credit: Sony)

Returnal follows space-farer Selene Vassos, an astronaut and explorer who crash-lands on the uncharted world of Atropos. After emerging from the wreckage of her ship, Helios, players guide Selene through the jungles and ruins of Atropos, fighting through rooms of alien animals and humanoids to track the ‘White Shadow’ distress beacon she hopes to use to escape.

In theory, you can do this all in one life – but Returnal quickly makes it clear that everything on Atropos wants to kill you. And unless you’ve got the reaction times of an Olympic gymnast, something on Atropos is going to kill you. When you do eventually fall to one of the planet’s many hostile creatures, the game flashes through a series of visions before Selene wakes up at the crash site, which becomes the starting point for each subsequent run. In fact, the screen displays the message ‘Helios Abandoned’ each time you leave camp, to really set the mood.

On these follow-up attempts, you’ll come across corpses – your own corpses. Versions of Selene that didn’t make it to the White Shadow are dotted around Atropos, sometimes accompanied by voice recorders that begin to explain the planet’s war-torn history.

SonySonySony

The core gameplay of Returnal is that of a competent third-person shooter with light movement mechanics. It’s Dark Souls meets Titanfall meets Resogun after three cups of coffee – you move quickly, shoot quickly, and dodge dozens of on-screen projectiles. The controls are tight; the game feels incredibly responsive, fast but never floaty.

Various gameplay aspects come together to make Returnal feel addictive and alive. The game offers ten satisfying weapons, each with a few dozen modifiers, and carefully designed combat rooms that are rearranged with a dash of random number generation (RNG) on each new run. About a third of the way through the game, you unlock the best grappling hook in gaming since Just Cause 3, which is naturally a huge plus.

And while Returnal can be punishingly hard – looking at the PlayStation trophies reveals just under a third of players have beaten the first boss – it’s always incredibly fun to play. Even after beating the main game, I spent a few weeks scaling the Tower of Sisyphus, the endless mode added with a free DLC in 2022.

Our Returnal review has a more detailed breakdown of the game’s mechanics, but it’s the game’s story that, in my opinion, makes it a must-play.

I was quickly hooked by Returnal’s enigmatic premise. It takes a relatively small idea – making the gameplay loop an essential part of the story – and runs with it, filling every spare moment with symbolism and intrigue.

An impossible Apollo-era astronaut stalks Selene around Atropos; Selene’s house appears in the overgrowth, seemingly plucked from its place on Earth and becoming a doorway to surreal cutscenes, and all the while Selene’s visions become infected with robotic beings and eldritch tentacles.

Mystery and mythology

(Image credit: Sony)

Being a fan of games like Outer Wilds and Firewatch, Returnal’s approach to scavenging lore and building your own interpretation of the narrative really clicked with me. The game has a Nolan-esque way of revealing its story (only with much better female characters). Its twists and turns work their way through the player’s expectations like the tentacles that plague Selene’s post-mortem hallucinations, and many of the big twists are hinted at from the beginning.

The first comes halfway, when Selene finds the White Shadow escape signal, is rescued and returned to Earth, lives a normal life, passes away, and wakes up… back on Atropos. The second comes at the end of the game, when it’s revealed that, back on Earth, Selene crashed into a lake after seeing the Astronaut that follows her around Atropos on a bridge, her own ‘white shadow’. In the back seat, a young boy is trapped – Helios, abandoned.

YouTube essayists and Reddit commenters have spent the last five years analysing this game to Atropos and back – some theories suggest that the planet is a manifestation of Selene’s guilt over the crash, while others point to the ghostly astronaut as an avatar of her emotionally distant mother, Theia.

(Image credit: Sony)

Others point to Returnal’s layered Greek mythology references – Selene and Theia are named for the goddesses of the Moon and sky, with Atropos being the goddess of destiny. If you’re a lore-obsessive like me, now’s a great time to explore.

To me, Returnal is a fundamentally abstract piece of art that allows its themes to resonate with one another beyond the confines of a rigid narrative structure – at times, it feels like a sort of conceptual web, tying up ideas of motherhood, trauma, ambition, and release with no prescribed interpretation. Not bad for a shoot-em-up.

In fact, I found Returnal genuinely moving. In the second half of the game, as you fight through frozen wastelands and infinite ocean depths, Selene goes totally mad, talking only in prayer and prophecy. Actor Jane Perry does a phenomenal job of making her character seem both tragically lost and genuinely enlightened. Late-game cutscenes and lore drops put the focus on how much Selene gave up to become an astronaut, again tying this story to roguelike gameplay as Housemarque links sacrifice to pushing forward.

Housemarque released its latest game, Saros, earlier this year. Like Returnal, Saros offers Housemarque’s iconic third-person bullet hell gameplay and cryptic environmental storytelling – the difference is I won’t be waiting 5 years to play it.

• Meta’s Danish facility converts server heat into household heating for thousands
• Odense uses existing infrastructure to transform wasted data center energy
• Heat pumps help raise server warmth to temperatures suitable for homes

A data center operated by Meta in Odense, Denmark is channeling its cooling heat straight into nearby homes.

Server operations typically send almost all of their electricity out as warmth, with one industry estimate placing that figure near 90%.

Most facilities simply vent that energy skyward, but the Odense site routes it through the city's own heating infrastructure instead.

How the recovery system actually works

Roughly 40% of a data center's total energy consumption goes toward cooling servers, and nearly all of it is released as low-grade heat.

That heat arrives too cool for direct use, since server exhaust never reaches temperatures high enough to warm buildings on its own.

Water from the municipal district-heating network runs through the facility's cooling units, absorbing that low-level warmth from the servers, and then moves to a nearby plant packed with ammonia heat pumps that raise the temperature further before distribution.

Engineering firm Ramboll designed this recovery system for district-heating operator Fjernvarme Fyn, lifting water temperatures between 70 and 75°C.

That range makes the water hot enough for household radiators once it re-enters the wider distribution network.

"Our project is relatively unique because we have a very large distribution network," said Jan Strømvig, head of Fjernvarme Fyn, adding Meta placed its facility directly inside that network, allowing highly efficient energy transfer throughout the system.

On its part, Meta described the achievement as one of scale rather than any fundamentally new engineering breakthrough.

"Heat pumps are not a new invention, nor are coils for capturing heat. What is new and innovative is the pairing of these two in hyper scale," said Lauren Edelman, energy specialist at Meta

Numbers vary, but scale remains substantial

Ramboll's published figures describe roughly 45 megawatts flowing directly into Odense's heating network, making it Denmark's largest heat-pump installation.

Recovery figures cited by Ramboll point to about 215,000 megawatt-hours annually, warming more than 12,000 homes across the region.

Earlier project details from Meta cited smaller numbers, including around 6,900 homes and 100,000 megawatt-hours during initial operations.

Following expansion, Meta's own figures rose to roughly 165,000 megawatt-hours serving approximately 11,000 households within the system.

Fjernvarme Fyn confirmed in 2025 that Meta's surplus heat output was equivalent to warming about 11,000 households.

These fluctuating figures reflect different project phases, timeframes and counting methods rather than any inconsistency in performance.

Replicating this setup elsewhere depends heavily on one specific ingredient many cities simply lack entirely — a wide-reaching district-heating network.

Heat cannot travel far without significant loss, meaning facilities must sit close to an existing distribution network.

Odense already had that infrastructure in place before Meta's data center arrived on site, and this is part of the success of the system.

This situation stands out against a backdrop of growing resistance to data centers elsewhere, particularly in the United States.

Communities there have pushed back over land use, water consumption and strain on local electricity grids.

Thailand has raised similar objections recently, citing comparable pressure on its own limited resources.

Amid that friction, Odense offers a rare example of data center heat actually benefiting the surrounding community.

Via Science Blog