Digital Foundry specifically called out Dead Space’s problems with VRS in an in-depth technical analysis video. Just a day later, EA has already issued a patch allowing PC players to turn off VRS entirely and disabled it on consoles. In fact, the option now appears to be off by default on PC.

Honestly, I can barely spot the difference on my setup. The game definitely looks better with VRS off, but whether or not it’s noticeably fuzzy at all on PC is mostly up to what other graphical tricks you have turned on. As pointed out by this helpful comparison video (opens in new tab) by YouTuber Sholva, the fuzzy VRS textures were at their most noticeable in combination with DLSS Performance mode.

That makes sense, considering you’re stacking two different performance-optimizing technical solutions on top of each other. VRS was rendering some parts of the screen at lower fidelity, which DLSS Performance mode exacerbated when upscaling, creating some major pixelation on some edges. I have DLSS set to Quality and didn’t notice nearly as much blurriness with VRS enabled, if any at all, but it did become more obvious with standard TAA antialiasing.

Suffice to say Dead Space is probably going to look very good at whatever configuration you’re running at. VRS may boost your average fps by single digits, but you can comfortably keep it off for cleaner textures and de-fuzzed dark corners, especially if you’re running DLSS at the same time. As for the PS5 version, which is primarily the version that Digital Foundry highlighted VRS issues with in its video, DF staff writer John Linneman reports it’s much improved (opens in new tab) after patch 1.03. 

ElevenLabs (opens in new tab) is a research company specializing in AI speech software that generates realistic-sounding voices to voice-over audiobooks, games, and articles in any language. One of its tools called Voice Lab lets users “clone” a voice by simply uploading a one-minute clip of them speaking. From there, you can use the cloned voice to read up to 2,500 characters using its text-to-speech feature. I know what you’re thinking: there’s no way anyone could exploit this system by uploading someone else’s voice, right?

Enter 4Chan. 4Chan posters used the application to generate sound clips of celebrities saying racist, homophobic, and other offensive messages and then spread them online. I won’t link them here, but the clips that have been circulating most widely include Emma Watson reading an excerpt of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Joe Biden announcing that the US will send troops into Ukraine.

ElvenLabs says it has been taking steps to keep Voice Lab from being used for “malicious purposes,” posting how it plans to keep its tech out of the wrong hands in a lengthy Twitter thread. (opens in new tab)

ElevenLabs claims it “always had the ability to trace any generated audio clip back to a specific user.” Next week it will release a tool that will allow anyone to confirm that a clip was generated using its technology and report it.

The company says that the malicious content was created by “free anonymous accounts,” so it will add a new layer of identity verification. Voice Lab will be made available only on paid tiers, and immediately remove the free version from its site. ElevenLabs are currently tracking and banning any account that creates harmful content in violation of its policies.

ElevenLabs admits that putting the tech behind a paywall “won’t always prevent abuse” but says it does “make VoiceLab users less anonymous and force them to think twice before sharing improper content.”

But what about the problem of people using celebrity voices in general instead of their own? ElevenLabs has suggested requiring users to read a sample prompt to train the AI on their voice instead of uploading any ole audio file.

Free accounts will still be able to use the text-to-speech functionality, but only with access to pre-made voices. ElevenLabs says it will continue to monitor the situation and that all affected accounts will get a refund.

Just this week, the CEO of OpenAI said that the misuse of AI could be “lights out for all of us.” But seriously, what did ElevenLabs think would happen if you gave the internet a tool that could make any voice say anything? Come on, guys.

To be clear, this means the game is going to effectively disappear, because this is an online experience with no singleplayer mode. “Online battles will not be available after the service ends,” Konami said (opens in new tab), before clarifying that “also, the game itself won’t be able to play.”

The news comes after Crimesight, despite mostly positive reviews from players, failed to ever reach an audience big enough to sustain an online game that needs multiple players to work: The all-time highest player count was 572 seven months ago (opens in new tab), while at the time of writing four people are playing it.

Problem being, this isn’t a free-to-play experience. Crimesight launched at $20, and in November last year saw a price cut to $10 in an effort to bump up that player count. So those players are feeling a little shortchanged that the game will simply cease to function in a few months and, unless they’ve played it for less than two hours and can seek a Steam refund, there’s no obvious recourse: Konami certainly didn’t mention anything in this regard.

The immediate outcome of this is that the game’s one bright spot, the positive user reviews, has now been overtaken with negative reviews that are specifically about the closure, with many referencing having paid for the game. The sad thing is, many of them even acknowledge they’re upset because they liked it. “A neat game that will be permanently shut down with ZERO offline support after not even a year of support,” writes Xograph (opens in new tab). “No advertising or dev communication and almost 0 updates led to a pretty quick demise.”.

How long a company should support an online game for is almost like asking how long a piece of string is. Some games just dwindle out, while with others the collapse of the company behind them or the simple economics of not having enough players (as seems to be the case here) means the accountants make the decision. It feels different when it’s a product sold with an upfront price being closed after a year though, and from a publisher of this size: Like Konami maybe didn’t give the players who put their money down enough in return.

The battle mode launches with cross-region matchmaking, per Second Dinner’s Ben Brode (opens in new tab), who also adds “Here we gooooo”, while principal designer Glenn Jones offers an update on, well, updates:

“The new patch includes balance changes, but not to Surfer or Zabu,” said Jones (opens in new tab). “They started overperforming after we locked the changes a few weeks ago. Fortunately we now have the ability to adjust balance without a new patch, and we are planning to adjust those cards in a week or so.”

So, not only does Snap finally have the mode folk wanted, but from hereon in the developer will be able to live-tweak card properties as and when required. This does get interesting when you get into the weeds of it, because often perception of a card’s power is distinct from what the stats show, but it will be another thing for people to froth about when Second Dinner simply won’t make any changes to Killmonger.

Marvel Snap has been on a bit of a journey since launching in beta last summer: The last major update before this added artist credits for the game’s card art (opens in new tab), which is one of the big selling points and was long-overdue. The general sense of the game is that it offers super-speedy and fun card battles, yoked to a super slow and grindy progression system (opens in new tab). But being able to sort out your own Marvel Team-Ups in battle mode is something this has felt like it needed from the start, and I’m looking forward to showing off my absolutely filthy Spider-Man villain deck to all my buddies.

PSVR2 pre-orders (opens in new tab) went live back in December after a few months on a special invite-only basis. Since then, Sony appears to have suffered a pretty drastic drop in expected sales owing to a low pre-order number.

That’s according to unnamed sources familiar with the company, who spoke to Bloomberg (opens in new tab) about the disappointment over PlayStation 5 owners’ slow adoption of the upcoming, high-end VR.

The sources said that not only has Sony given their display panel partners a heads up to expect a reduction in orders, the company is now expecting to sell something closer to 1.5 million PSVR 2 units between this April and March of next year. A bit of a drop from expecting to have 2 million units on standby for launch.

Apparently the 2.4% jump in share price Bloomberg highlighted (opens in new tab) when the PSVR 2 was first announced, when that 2 million unit sales projection surfaced, hasn’t translated to a jump in demand for high-end VR for consoles.

Of course, these numbers could well shift after the PSVR 2’s February 22 release, and we see the first round reviews come in. That’s always going to be a tipping point for adoption, so hopefully it doesn’t disappoint. Then we PC gamers will finally be able to talk about with our console owner buddies.