As a 31 year old, I think constantly about my imminent death. After being assassinated by terrorists while rescuing a baby who is also the president from a burning building, how do I want people to remember me?
Fortunately, my contract stipulates that I will be embalmed and lie in state like Lenin in the centre of the PC Gamer offices until the end of time, but others don’t have that luxury (we’re short on desk space as it is). Hideo Kojima, for instance, is achieving immortality by cramming a USB stick full of ideas for his staff to use after he concludes his tenancy on Earth.
In a chat with our comrades at Edge magazine, Kojima said a serious illness during the Covid-19 pandemic reminded him of his mortality: “Until then, I didn’t think I was old, you know? I just didn’t feel my age, and I assumed I would be able to create for as long as I live.” Sickness disillusioned him of that. “I couldn’t create anything. And I saw lots of people around me passing away at that time. I was confronted with death.”
Though Kojima recovered and is now full-swing on putting out Death Stranding 2, the experience stayed with him. He began to wonder how long he had left to keep doing creative work—”Perhaps I would have 10 years?”
It’s that confrontation with mortality, says Kojima, that produced the pitch for Physint, but it produced something else, too: a USB stick filled with Kojima-brand ideas for his staff to pore through after he’s gone. “I gave a USB stick with all my ideas on it to my personal assistant,” said the man himself, “kind of like a will.
“Perhaps they could continue to make things after I’m gone, here at Kojima Productions… This is a fear for me—what happens to Kojima Productions after I’m gone. I don’t want them to just manage our existing IP.”
To be honest, I can’t think of anything more Kojima than games still coming out with his name over the title sometime in 2150. If anyone deserves this kind of intellectual preservation, it’s the guy who got a Game Boy Advance game made with a solar sensor built into the cartridge. You reckon the idea for a game where you get old, die, and forget how to move is on there? Hopefully Kojima’s assistant backed it up, in any case.
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https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747407500_Kojima-has-a-mind-tomb-a-USB-stick-filled-with.jpg11512046Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-16 15:07:022025-05-16 15:07:02Kojima has a mind tomb: a USB stick filled with ideas for his staff to use after he dies ‘kind of like a will’
Use our tips and hints for the May 16 (1427) Wordle to skip through your daily Wordle game with ease. Rush straight for them if you like: they’ll help get your game off to a perfect start. Or you could keep them to one side, something to check back with if those green letters aren’t turning up fast enough later on. Whatever happens, we’ve got your back. As always, today’s answer is here if you need it.
Today’s Wordle was more like an argument than a puzzle. Yellow letters turned up reluctantly, and hoping for anything more than that seemed impossible. And then, just to make sure things were as difficult as possible, the greens I did find sat in odd and unhelpful places. Here’s hoping tomorrow’s game is a little less stubborn.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Friday, May 16
This word refers to a specific number in a sequence, or the place someone could come in a race. Not in the top three, but not too far off.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
Yes, there is a double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
A good starting word can be the difference between victory and defeat with the daily puzzle, but once you’ve got the basics, it’s much easier to nail down those Wordle wins. And as there’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day, here are a few tips to help set you on the right path:
A good opening guess should contain a mix of unique consonants and vowels.
Narrow down the pool of letters quickly with a tactical second guess.
Watch out for letters appearing more than once in the answer.
There’s no racing against the clock with Wordle so you don’t need to rush for the answer. Treating the game like a casual newspaper crossword can be a good tactic; that way, you can come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Stepping away for a while might mean the difference between a win and a line of grey squares.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
One more win. The answer to the May 16 (1427) Wordle is FIFTH.
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Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Past Wordle answers can give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh. They are also a good way to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer is unlikely to be repeated.
Here are some recent Wordle answers:
May 15: EAGER
May 14: BONGO
May 13: AWARE
May 12: BICEP
May 11: DOWEL
May 10: YEAST
May 9: TRIPE
May 8: BALMY
May 7: MACHO
May 6: SUITE
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and you’ll need to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them to keep up your winning streak.
You should start with a strong word like ARISE, or any other word that contains a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels. You’ll also want to avoid starting words with repeating letters, as you’re wasting the chance to potentially eliminate or confirm an extra letter. Once you hit Enter, you’ll see which ones you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.
After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
Stellar Blade, the action game where if you squint it will look like Nier: Automata, is finally coming to PC on June 11.
Actually, you don’t even have to squint to make it look like Nier: Automata because the DLC that lets main character Eve wear 2B’s outfit comes with it. It’s a complete edition, after all, so everything PlayStation 5 players got a year ago will be included, like the Nikke DLC and whatever other jiggly outfits were released for Eve.
If you pre-order it, however, you can get something even more ridiculous: ear armor. At least that’s what the trailer calls it. It’s a curved piece of metal that will protect Eve’s precious ears from the sci-fi horrors of Stellar Blade. Horse armor was so 2006—we live in an ear armor era now.
Given that this is a third-person action game, I’m not sure about the value of a handful of pixels on an ear versus, you know, a whole outfit, but I guess there had to be something to convince you to pay for it early. The only use I can think of is the game’s photo mode, which makes the other pre-order bonus, a pair of glasses, make a little more sense. The selfies will go wild.
The PC release will support Nvidia DLSS 4 and AMD FSR 3 upscaling and will let you fully unlock the frame rate. It’ll also support 21:9 ultrawide and 32:9 super ultrawide resolutions. You won’t need beefy hardware to run it either, according to the PC requirements. Anyone with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or newer will be fine.
(Image credit: Shift Up)
There’s a new boss to fight and an outfit to earn from it, and fully-supported Chinese and Japanese voiceovers and facial animations for the cutscenes.
You will also be investing in what will probably be a very popular game for modders, if you’re into that sort of thing. (I will be like Wes and will avoid the NexusMods page at all costs.)
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747335391_Stellar-Blade-comes-to-PC-next-month-with-new-armor.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-15 19:51:112025-05-15 19:51:11Stellar Blade comes to PC next month with new armor to cover up Eve’s woefully exposed ears
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PT2-naoe-kill-the-father-of-junjiro-yasuke-fyp-assassinscreed.jpg7201280DecayeD20https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngDecayeD202025-05-15 15:17:262025-05-15 15:17:26PT2 #naoe kill the father of #junjiro #yasuke #fyp #assassinscreed #assassinscreedshadows #acshadows
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PT1-naoe-kill-the-father-of-junjiro-yasuke-fyp-assassinscreed.jpg7201280DecayeD20https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngDecayeD202025-05-15 15:12:472025-05-15 15:12:47PT1 #naoe kill the father of #junjiro #yasuke #fyp #assassinscreed #assassinscreedshadows #acshadows
Ransomware is already a horrible blight on the tech world. These insidious programs are specifically designed to hold your computer and its data hostage. Criminal hackers and the likes will then use this to extort money or further information from the victims. Of course security protections against things like ransomware are always being worked on, but that’s because ransomware also continues to develop in more complex and terrifying ways.
Some of the latest developments in ransomware are all around microcode found on CPUs. This is the code just one step up from the hardware that tells the processor how to function and order its tasks. Ideally microcode shouldn’t be touched, let alone altered by anyone other than the manufacturer, but in recent days we’re seeing that this isn’t the case anymore.
Recently we saw a BIOS exploit reveal the potential for editing AMD’s microcode in some of its older CPUs. Now, inspired by these kinds of developments, Security researcher and Rapid7 analyst, Christiaan Beek, has come up with a way to hijack microcode updates and use them to install ransomware onto your central processor.
“Coming from a background in firmware security, I was like, woah, I think I can write some CPU ransomware,” Beek told The Register.
And apparently Beek has done just that. While for the good of everyone they’re not planning to release the ransomware to the public, Beek claims to have successfully created a ransomware that hides in a CPU processor.
“Of course, we won’t release that, but it’s fascinating, right?” says Beek. “Ransomware at the CPU level, microcode alteration, and if you are in the CPU or the firmware, you will bypass every freaking traditional technology we have out there.”
The thing with ransomware installed directly into the microcode of a CPU is that it bypasses most aspects of security we already have set up. In previous examples, such as the AMD exploit, you’d also require access to the machine, but of course Beek is keeping tight-lipped on those details.
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He seems rightly more worried that we are still even having to deal with things like ransomware in the capacity that we do. As most cybersecurity folk will tell you, our cyber hygiene is pretty disgusting, and most problems are caused by user error or inaction.
“We should not be talking about ransomware in 2025—and that fault falls on everyone: the vendors, the end users, cyber insurers,” says Beek. “Twelve years later, we’re still fighting the battle,” he says, “while we’re still seeing a lot of technological evolution, everybody’s shouting agentic, AI, ML. And if we’re bloody honest, we still haven’t fixed our foundations.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747299325_It-sounds-like-a-six-word-horror-story-but-Ransomware-running.jpg10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-15 06:38:452025-05-15 06:38:45It sounds like a six-word horror story, but ‘Ransomware running directly from your CPU’ is now a real thing
The history of Star Wars is the history of visual effects. For decades, Lucasfilm and its effects division Industrial Light & Magic have—through innovations in camera technology, miniature techniques, practical effects, and computer-generated imagery—charted the course of Hollywood film production, establishing a visual canon that resonates so strongly with its fans that many of them idolize a guy who hacked up a bunch of younglings with a laser sword purely because of how cool his armor looks.
To celebrate that legacy of cutting-edge craftsmanship, former ILM chief creative officer and current senior vice president of creative innovation at Lucasfilm Rob Bredow got on a TED stage in April to share a vision of what he called “a new era of technology” (via 404 Media). That vision was a two-minute AI-generated video of blue lions and chimpanzees with zebra stripes, not to mention the ungodly outcome of snail and peacock interbreeding.
Star Wars Changed Visual Effects — AI Is Doing It Again | Rob Bredow | TED – YouTube
Bredow began his talk with a summary of ILM’s history, founded 50 years ago to “solve the visual storytelling challenges” in Star Wars. As Bredow describes it, ILM’s success came from artists and engineers working in tandem, blending aesthetic sensibility with technical innovation. He shared anecdotes from the production histories of Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, and the Mandalorian—moments where artists elevated what could be achieved with new technology, rather than be replaced by it.
I can safely say that if I sent a probe down to a Star Wars planet and got back images of alligator heads crudely spliced onto turtle bodies, I’d be pretty bummed.
“That’s blending the old and new—how tech and creativity working hand in hand create things we just love,” Bredow said. “So what happens when you put the latest AI tools in the hands of talented artists, both to see how good these tools are these days, and what does it do to our artists’ imagination?”
Unfortunately, I don’t think tech and creativity were particularly aligned on this one.
Bredow then moved on to his premiere of Star Wars: Field Guide, a short film created by an ILM artist over the course of two weeks using AI generation to “explore what it would feel like if you sent a probe droid out to a brand new Star Wars planet.” And I can safely say that if I sent a probe down to a Star Wars planet and got back images of alligator heads crudely spliced onto turtle bodies, I’d be pretty bummed.
Image 1 of 5
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
(Image credit: TED/Lucasfilm)
Field Guide is, to be frank, embarrassing. Despite the triumphant Star Wars score, ILM’s foray into AI generation didn’t produce anything remotely compelling—or even particularly alien. It made a mostly normal sloth with bits of rock sticking out of its fur. It put a peacock head on a snail. There’s a bear with tiger stripes. There’s a blue gazelle, and also a blue lion, and a pink iguana, and a couple walruses with octopus bits stuck on there, and none of it makes me feel anything because why would I care about a barely-fake creature—essentially just two existing animals smushed together—which nobody bothered to make themselves?
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“It’s pretty fun to see artist expression leveraging the latest new tools,” Bredow said as the film ended to perhaps the most generous applause anyone has ever given, and I have to ask: Is it? The AI-generated imagery doesn’t have any glaring errors, but what was fun here? What’s being expressed by a person typing “what if a hyena had an ape’s face” for two weeks?
(Image credit: YouTube)
Bredow closed out his talk as though he had illustrated a point—that his two minutes of animated creature collage is a stepping stone towards, as he said, “that next Star Destroyer moment that’s going to light up screens around the world.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1747263330_Lucasfilm-declares-creative-bankruptcy-with-an-AI-generated-Star-Wars-film.png10801920Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2025-05-14 23:37:122025-05-14 23:37:12Lucasfilm declares creative bankruptcy with an AI-generated Star Wars film that’s just 2 minutes of mostly-normal animals jumbled together
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