It's been a troubling year for Risk of Rain 2 players. At first, it seemed like the Gearbox acquisition was going smoothly, but then the Seekers of the Storm DLC from August of this year was a rather large disappointment due to balancing issues, bugs and other problems. However, you can't keep a good live-action game down, and the first part of the recovery is now available. Continue reading Risk of Rain 2 update makes key fixes to the roguelike’s controversial DLC MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best roguelike games, Best platform games, Best upcoming PC games

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TCPi / Aardman Aardman Animation, the studio behind the Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, and Shaun the Sheep, and Chicken Run franchises, is working with The Pokémon Company International on a mysterious new project. In a surprising turn of events, TCPi and Aardman announced today that they’re teaming up for “a special project” that’s set to be released some time in 2027. In a press release about the collaboration, TCP marketing and media VP Taito Okiura described it as “a dream partnership for Pokémon.” Aardman’s managing director Sean Clarke added that it was both a huge honor and privilege to be tasked with presenting the Pokémon world in a new way. Pokémon × @aardmanComing in 2027! pic.twitter.com/DQPbtekKXo— Pokémon (@Pokemon) December 11, 2024 “Bringing together Pokémon, the world’s biggest entertainment brand, together with our love of craft, character and comedic storytelling feels incredibly exciting,” Clarke said. “Aardman and TPCi share an emphasis on heritage and attention to detail as well as putting our fans and audiences at the heart of what we do, which we know will steer us right as we together create charming, original and new stories for audiences around the world.” Aside from the projected release year, there aren’t all that many details about what the collaboration is or how we’ll be able to consume it. Clearly, stop-motion claymation will be involved, but what’s less obvious is whether this will end up being a movie, a series, or perhaps a game — which wouldn’t be a first for Aardman. This sort of team-up makes a lot of sense for TCPi after the success of Detective Pikachu and surprise delights like Pokémon Concierge. And the closer we get to 2027, it’s feels like there’s a very strong chance this will be something that has people buzzing.

Here’s what Google’s latest smart glasses prototype looks like. | Image: Google Google is working on a lot of AI stuff — like, a lot of AI stuff — but if you want to really understand the company’s vision for virtual assistants, take a look at Project Astra. Google first showed a demo of its all-encompassing, multimodal virtual assistant at Google I/O this spring and clearly imagines Astra as an always-on helper in your life. In reality, the tech is somewhere between “neat concept video” and “early prototype,” but it represents the most ambitious version of Google’s AI work. And there’s one thing that keeps popping up in Astra demos: glasses. Google has been working on smart facewear of one kind or another for years, from Glass to Cardboard to the Project Iris translator glasses it showed off two years ago. Earlier this year, all Google spokesperson Jane Park would tell us was that the glasses were “a functional research prototype.” Now, they appear to be something at least a little more than that. During a press briefing ahead of the launch of Gemini 2.0, Bibo Xu, a product manager on the Google DeepMind team, said that “a small group will be testing Project Astra on prototype glasses, which we believe is one of the most powerful and intuitive form factors to experience this kind of AI.” That group will be part of Google’s Trusted Tester program, which often gets access to these early prototypes, many of which don’t ever ship publicly. Some testers will use Astra on an Android phone; others through the glasses. Later in the briefing, in response to a question about the glasses, Xu said that “for the glasses product itself, we’ll have more news coming shortly.” Is that definitive proof that Google Smart Glasses are coming to a store near you sometime soon? Of course not! But it certainly indicates that Google has some hardware plans for Project Astra. Smart glasses make perfect sense for what Google is trying to do with Astra. There’s simply no better way to combine audio, video, and a display than on a device on your face — especially if you’re hoping for something like an always-on experience. In a new video showing Astra’s capabilities with Gemini 2.0, a tester uses Astra to remember security codes at an apartment building, check the weather, and much more. At one point, he sees a bus flying past and asks Astra if “that bus will take me anywhere near Chinatown.” It’s all the sort of thing you can do with a phone, but nearly all of it feels far more natural through a wearable. Right now, smart glasses like these — and like Meta’s Orion — are mostly vaporware. When they’ll ship, whether they’ll ship, and whether they’ll be any good all remains up in the air. But Google is dead serious about making smart glasses work. And seems to be just as serious about making the smart glasses itself.

Illustration: The Verge Google has announced an experimental AI-powered code agent called “Jules” that can automatically fix coding errors for developers. Jules was introduced today alongside Gemini 2.0, and uses the updated Google AI model to create multi-step plans to address issues, modify multiple files, and prepare pull requests for Python and Javascript coding tasks in GitHub workflows. Microsoft introduced a similar experience for GitHub Copilot last year that can recognize and explain code, alongside recommending changes and fixing bugs. Jules will compete against Microsoft’s offering, and also against tools like Cursor and even Claude and ChatGPT’s coding abilities. Google’s launch of a coding-focused AI assistant is no surprise — CEO Sundar Pichai said in October that more than a quarter of all new code at the company is now generated by AI. “Jules handles bug fixes and other time-consuming tasks while you focus on what you actually want to build,” Google says in its blog post. “This effort is part of our long-term goal of building AI agents that are helpful in all domains, including coding.” Developers have full control to review and adjust the plans created by Jules, before choosing to merge the code it generates into their projects. The announcement doesn’t say that Jules will spot bugs for you, so presumably it needs to be directed to a list of issues that have already been identified to fix. Google also says that Jules is in early development and “may make mistakes,” but internal testing has shown it’s been beneficial for boosting developer productivity and providing real-time updates to help track and manage tasks. Jules is launching today for a “select group of trusted testers” according to Google, and will be released to other developers in early 2025. Updates about availability and how development is progressing will be available via the Google Labs website.