Meta is, by and large, a company built on other companies' ideas. It has almost perfected the strategy: wait for a new platform or social mechanic to take off, then either buy or clone it, put it next to Meta's unmatched user base and advertising engine, and watch the money pile up. Well, the next… read more

Creative Assembly have announced the first six playable factions for historical strategy bash Total War: Medieval 3, while also sharing a little insight on the process of choosing Total War factions. Of course, the optimal way to select Twarieval 3 factions would be to mock up a grand tournament, where designers adorned with the heraldry… read more

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here. About three years ago, a doctor told me I had to lose abdominal fat. She didn't care about my lower… read more

Urgh. Have you seen memory prices lately? If you somehow haven’t, make sure to look through your fingers, as they are truly terrifying. DDR5 RAM sticks are ungodly expensive, older DDR4's not much better, high VRAM graphics cards are ridiculous, and any PC hardware that includes at least one of these (which is a lot)… read more

Prime Day is making it much easier to pick up a Fitbit without spending more than you want. Both the Fitbit Charge 6 and Fitbit Ace LTE are on steep discounts today. Right now, you can buy the Charge 6 for $85.45 ($74.5 off) at Amazon, while the kid-friendly Fitbit Ace LTE is $69.99 (a… read more

Arduino's Raspberry Pi-like microcomputer the Uno Q is joining many other devices in getting a price hike this week. The 2GB version of the Uno Q, which is powered by a Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210 processor, will increase in price from $44 to $59, while the 4GB model is getting a slightly steeper increase from $59… read more

Driven witless by the UK heatwave, I throw open my email inbox and search desperately for videogames about waterfalls, canopies of thick palm leaves, and the sibilant settling of ice in the bellies of the largest, most enduring glaciers. Instead, I am challenged to excavate a world of sand. Hooded Horse and Lantto Games have… read more

Let's start with the good news: Switch 2 has become the second fastest-selling console in US history, after just 12 months on sale. It shifted a whopping 5.9m units, placing it only behind Nintendo's own Game Boy Advance – which sold 6.5m units in the 12 months after it arrived, 25 years ago. Read more… read more

There comes a time in the life of most early access releases that they most abandon that moniker in favour of a fully fledged 1.0 launch. And it appears said time is arriving for Enshrouded, the fantasy survival game that comes with a whole lot of building options, as developer Keen Games GmbH have locked… read more

I want to see something beautiful. Enter stage left Something Beautiful, a "music-driven" point-and-click adventure game that has the vibe of a cursed CD-ROM you find in your parents storage unit where you look for answers in a strange, surreal, unsettling world filled with fleshy, anthropomorphic puzzles. Read more Read Full Article read more

It's not exactly surprising that RAMaggeddon is making new tech hardware really expensive. But if you've been in the market for things like a new computer or tablet, this week has been filled with sticker shock. Given how many companies announced price hikes related to component shortages, it seems unlikely things will get cheaper any… read more

As far as prices go, Apple is kind of a reverse canary in the coal mine. With its famously generous margins and immense purchasing volume, it can afford to ride out price fluctuations in its supply chain in a way no other consumer tech company can. So when Apple raises prices across nearly all of… read more