Riot Games is launching League of Legends: Wild Rift on Android, iOS and consoles in 2020 -- along with a few other new games. Reports about a mobile game meant to expand LoL's reach in Asia started surfacing earlier this year -- now the developer has confirmed that it's been in the works for quite a while. The company says it took some time to announce Wild Rift, because it's not just a port of LoL for PC. Riot Games chose to rebuild "the whole game from scratch" to create a polished version for the devices it's coming to.
The upcoming multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) for mobile enables faster matches and features a dual-stick, thumb-friendly control scheme designed for the platforms it's for. You'll find that Riot mixed familiar elements with the new, though, including the use of a 5v5 map that's based on LoL's largest map Summoner's Rift. Wild Rift will also feature 40 characters from LoL's existing roster of champions, with more to follow in the future.
Riot Games plans to launch the mobile version of the game "everywhere in the world by the end of 2020," followed by its console debut. It will be free to download and play, and the developer promises that you can earn all its champions without having to pay a cent -- you apparently never have to pay for anything if you don't want to.
The company will start rolling out alpha and beta versions of the game throughout the next few months, starting in China. You can already pre-register on Google Play if you have an Android device, and you can even get bonus rewards if you sign up at launch if you're in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
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The SpaceX Starlink constellation may end up almost four times bigger than what the company originally planned. According to SpaceNews, the company has asked the International Telecommunication Union for permission to access spectrum for 30,000 more Starlink satellites. When SpaceX first launched the project, it introduced Starlink as a space-based internet network comprised of 12,000 satellites. The ITU and the US Federal Communications Commission already approved the company's request for spectrum access for those 12,000 -- this new batch of requests is for an additional 30,000 units.
The FCC submitted a total of 20 filings to the ITU, with each one asking permission for 1,500 satellites in various Low Earth Orbits. The company wants to place them in orbits between 204 and 360 miles in altitude, which MIT's Technology Review notes could be a cause for concern. Aerospace Corporation's Roger Thompson told the publication that while that area of space is cleanest, it's also where we tend to fly crewed spacecraft, including the ISS. He said flooding the area with thousands of satellites "will have an impact on future human spaceflight."
That said, asking for permission for 30,000 satellites doesn't mean the Starlink project will actually launch a total of 42,000. Some of the company's critics believe that the filings are just a ploy to drown the ITU in studies now that it's on the verge of changing its rules. Whether that's true or not, filing with the ITU is just the first step in a very long process. SpaceX has seven years to launch a satellite with the frequencies it requested, and it will have to operate it for 90 days before it loses access to the spectrum rights.
The company successfully launched the first 60 Starlink satellites into orbit earlier this year, with plans of launching 60 more within this month and even more in November.
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League of Legends: Wild Rift promises the same basic gameplay with shortened matches and controls tailored for mobile and console gamers.
Look at all those on-screen buttons...
Legends of Runeterra definitely looks like Riot's answer to Hearthstone and its ilk.
Flashy!
Your first look at "Project L," a fighting game set in the League of Legends universe
Very little was shown of Riot's "Project F," but what was shown looked a bit Diablo-esque.
A dramatic shot from Arcane, an League of Legends animated series coming next year.
For a decade now, Riot Games has been known almost exclusively for League of Legends, the ultra-successful MOBA that can still attract 8 million simultaneous players at its daily peak. But in an anniversary livestream tonight, the company confirmed a veritable smorgasbord of new gaming and entertainment projects for the first time, all set in the same League of Legends universe.
Those projects include:
League of Legends: Wild Rift: A new version of the MOBA built from the ground up with a twin-stick control scheme designed for consoles and mobile phones and a focus on 15 to 18-minutes games. Due on mobile phones in 2020.
Legends of Runeterra: A competitive card game set in the League of Legends universe. Cards will not be unlocked via randomized pack purchases, Riot said.
"Project A": Described as "a stylish, competitive, character-based tactical shooter for PC," this sounds like Riot's answer to Overwatch or Team Fortress 2. More information expected next year.
"Project L": "A fighting game set in the LoL universe" that's "in early stage development." Likely being developed by the remnants of Rising Thunder developer Radiant Entertainment, which Riot acquired in 2016.
"Project F": "A very early development project that explores the possibilities of traversing the world of Runeterra with your friends," as Riot describes it. Brief streamed footage looked reminiscent of Diablo and other third-person action RPGs.
League of Legends Esports Manager: A team management game that lets players manage a team of simulated LoL pros that sounds similar to the Football Manager series. Planned to launch with League of Legends Pro League support next year.
Arcane: An animated series set in the League of Legends universe, planned for 2020.
League of Legends Origins: A "feature-length documentary" highlighting the game's growth, available now on Netflix.
The rapid project expansion, after a full decade of existence as a de facto single-game company puts the Tencent-owned conglomerate and its 2,500 employees immediately in a class with multi-franchise publishing behemoths like Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft. Unlike those companies, though, Riot is currently focusing all of its efforts on games in a single shared universe, building on ten years of lore and character design as it attempts to rapidly expand to other popular genres.
“We have the benefit of being able to be long term," Riot Games Co-founder Marc Merrill told The Washington Post about the long wait for further games from the company. “We don’t have to go push out a product to meet some quarterly deadline or revenue target or whatnot.”
Riot's expansion comes as the company continues to recover from widespread accusations of sexual harassment first published by Kotaku last September. A a number of class-action lawsuits that stemmed from those allegations were settled in August, and Riot said in a blog post at the time that "we can confidently state that gender discrimination (in pay or promotion), sexual harassment, and retaliation are not systemic issues at Riot."
Last year, Facebook released the Portal, a smart display that you put in your home and use to make video calls over Facebook Messenger. Unsurprisingly, the thought of having an always-connected camera and microphone that’s linked to Facebook gave many people pause, including me.
Despite those pervasive reservations — and undisclosed sales figures — Facebook is back with a new range of Portal devices for this year. A redesigned 10-inch model is joined by a new 8-inch version and a Portal camera that clips on top of your TV to use the biggest screen in your home for video calling. The 15-inch Portal Plus is unchanged and remains in the lineup as well.
Aside from the new design, the new $179.99 10-inch Portal has a lower price than last year’s model and comes with a few new software features that were missing the first time around. It’s available to order from Facebook and other retailers starting today. But if the reason you didn’t want a Portal in your home was because it’s a dedicated Facebook calling machine, then you’re not going to want this one either.
The most obvious change with this year’s Portal is its new design. The mini-TV look of the original has been replaced with something that looks more like a picture frame. It’s still obviously a screen, but it can blend in better with your home’s decor, and it has a smaller footprint while maintaining the same size screen.
The display is a 10-inch, 1280 x 800 pixel touchscreen, which seems like a low resolution, but it’s perfectly fine for the distances from which you’ll be using the Portal. It’s bright and colorful, with good viewing angles, and it has a Night Mode that cuts down on blue light in the evening, much like your phone’s night mode. It also has automatic brightness, but it doesn’t have the same kind of impressive color balancing you’ll find in Google’s Nest Hub smart displays.
Cleverly, the Portal can be rotated to either landscape or portrait orientations, thanks to the kickstand on the back that also provides some cable management for the power cord. You can switch orientations at any time, including in the middle of a call, and the software will rotate and adapt to fit the screen properly. It’s not quite as fancy as the larger Portal Plus’ rotating screen, but it takes up far less space and doesn’t look like a McDonald’s kiosk sitting on your counter.
Facebook also redesigned the speakers in the Portal with a 2.1 system using a rear-firing woofer and stereo front speakers that emit sound through the gap between the screen and the frame. The speakers sound fine for voice calls, but they’re disappointing for music, which has an echoey, hollow sound. It’s clear Facebook tuned these speakers for voices at the expense of music, and they don’t compare to the sound from Amazon’s 10-inch Echo Show.
The most important new hardware detail is the three-position sliding switch on the top of the Portal that lets you block the camera and mute the always-listening microphone. You can opt to block just the camera, which gets hidden behind a physical shutter, or both the mic and the camera for the full privacy treatment. It’s a much better solution than the little plastic camera cap the original Portal had, which felt like an afterthought.
I called the original Portal the best smart display for making video calls, so it’s no surprise that the new model is just as competent in that front. All of the features from last year, including the wide-angle camera that automatically frames subjects, the beam-forming microphones that home in on a speaker’s voice, and the integrations with Spotify and storybooks carry over here. Facebook has also expanded the AR masks to support multiple faces simultaneously and even change voices depending on the mask used. There are also new AR-based games you can play between two Portal devices.
Calls made through the Portal have clear video and audio and don’t require me to raise my voice unnaturally. The automatic framing feature, which Google has also adopted for video calls on its Nest Hub Max, makes it easy to casually make a call without having to stay in a rigid spot the entire time. I still don’t think that Portal calls feel the same as an in-person interaction, as Facebook would like you to believe, but they are still better than video calls on the smart displays from Amazon or Google.
Unfortunately, the Story Time mode, which lets you narrate stories with AR effects, is still limited to Portal devices and isn’t very practical for parents who are traveling and want to call home to read a story to their children. I’d have loved to see Facebook add the ability to host a Story Time session from a phone or tablet using the Facebook Messenger app.
The big new addition to calling is the ability to place WhatsApp calls in addition to Facebook Messenger. You can link your WhatsApp account to the Portal just like you can with a laptop or desktop and then make end-to-end encrypted calls from the device. (Facebook says end-to-end encryption is coming to Messenger calls next year.) WhatsApp calls don’t support all of the same features as Messenger, such as the AR masks and games, but they provide largely the same experience, which should make the Portal much more useful in places where WhatsApp is the dominant messaging platform.
Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.
In order to use the Facebook Portal, you must have a Facebook account and agree to Facebook’s terms and conditions and data policy. In addition, the Portal has a supplemental terms and conditions and data policy of its own that you must agree to in order to use the product.
While setting up the Portal, you also are presented with the option to store voice interactions for the “Hey Portal” commands. Linking Amazon Alexa, Spotify, and Pandora accounts with the Portal requires providing Facebook with access to those accounts and services.
Final tally: four mandatory agreements and up to four more optional agreements, depending on how many services are linked to the device.
Aside from video calling, Facebook has expanded the Portal’s capabilities on other fronts. (The company says the software updates and improvements will be delivered to all Portal units once the new model is available for purchase.) It’s now using Amazon’s smart display SDK for Alexa, so it provides the same kinds of screens and information from Alexa voice requests as Amazon’s own Echo Show devices. I can view a summary of weather, recent sports scores, or my Alexa shopping list right on the Portal’s display. I can even call up video feeds from security cameras and doorbells that support Alexa integration, such as Ring products.
The Portal now has a full web browser, which you can access from the grid of app shortcuts on one of the home screens. It’s a bit clumsy to use, and it’s not something I’d even use every day. But for pulling up a website in a pinch, it gets the job done. It also supports YouTube and other video streaming sites, but unfortunately, Netflix doesn’t work.
Video streaming services are still very limited on the Portal, though Facebook says that Amazon’s Prime Video will be coming later this year. Still, video services are largely limited to Facebook’s own Watch platform, and you can’t use the Portal for watching Netflix, Hulu, HBO, or most any other streaming video service you might want. And you can’t “cast” video from your smartphone or tablet to the Portal, like you can with Google’s smart displays. A web browser doesn’t really make up for this lack of options, either.
Streaming music is a little easier since you can use Alexa to request songs and there are dedicated Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Pandora apps on the Portal. You can also use Spotify Connect to play music to the Portal from your phone. But as I noted earlier, the sound quality for music isn’t great, and it’s not something I’d recommend if you want to listen to a lot of music with it.
Facebook has also added the ability to send images from your phone to the Portal through a new mobile app, so you can use it as a digital photo frame. It also still can show slideshows of images from your Facebook or Instagram accounts. But compared to the Nest Hub’s Google Photos integration, the Portal’s photo features are far more limited.
Overall, although the new Portal has a much-improved design, costs less, and fits into more places in my home than the prior model, it’s still a Portal and it still has many of the same limitations as before. Unlike other smart displays, which act as information centers, smart home controllers, and video streamers in addition to making video calls, the Portal is primarily a video calling device that’s limited to Facebook’s services. And it’s still a camera connected to Facebook inside your home.
Photography by Dan Seifert / The Verge
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Microsoft has started publicly testing its new Project xCloud game streaming service, allowing Xbox players the US, UK, and Korea to get an early look at Microsoft’s vision for the future of gaming. I’ve spent the past few hours trying out xCloud on my home Wi-Fi network in London over a 1Gbps connection with an average latency of around 10ms to Microsoft’s Azure servers in London. I’m impressed with the early results, but there needs to be a much bigger game selection to really test the limits of xCloud and see what it’s actually capable of.
Microsoft has limited the xCloud preview to just four games initially, and they’re all Microsoft Studios titles. Gears 5, Halo 5: Guardians, Killer Instinct, and Sea of Thieves are all available, and I spent the most time in Sea of Thieves. The preview requires an Android phone or tablet, a Bluetooth Xbox One controller, and Microsoft’s new game streaming app. This particular application will be used both for xCloud streaming from Microsoft’s servers, and to stream your own content and games from your Xbox One console to anywhere.
The xCloud interface is extremely basic right now, with tiles to launch the games available. It takes around a minute or so to fully load each game, which feels like a long time on a mobile phone where you’re used to apps loading instantly. Once a game is loaded, you can navigate away to other apps and quickly resume. There’s an option to quit the game, but when you do it’ll still keep the instance running on Microsoft’s servers for a few minutes just in case you want to jump back in.
As you’re running games on Microsoft’s cloud servers, it’s basically like having a remote Xbox One console. Microsoft has a stripped down version of its Xbox One dashboard running on these xCloud servers, and you can use it to access a friends list, join Xbox Live party chat, or even view achievements for the game you’re playing. You can’t jump into other apps, or play around with settings here, it’s really basic and locked down for now.
I tested out Xbox Live party chat and it worked well, although microphones are muted by default so you have to toggle that setting if you want to use a mic in games like Sea of Thieves or party chat. That’s pretty much it when it comes to customizability or settings, though.
I had a mixed experience streaming games via xCloud. I loaded Sea of Thieves and the intro video stuttered, broke up, and the audio dipped in and out. xCloud doesn’t appear to play well with my 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network, and my router automatically handles either 2.4GHz or a 5GHz connection over the same SSID. I forced it over to the 5GHz option as a separate SSID, and this greatly improved things, but I’ve never experienced similar issues streaming content from Netflix in 4K or via other services.
Sea of Thieves ran really well after the initial connection issues. I was able to complete a mission, voice chat with fellow players, and roam around freely just like I would on a regular Xbox One console. Sea of Thieves isn’t a twitchy action game that requires a lot of movement and control, though. For a multiplayer gaming experiment, I decided to try Halo 5’s player-vs-player (PvP) mode. It’s not as fast paced as games like Overwatch or Fortnite, but it was a chance to test a first-person shooter.
I played a few rounds of quick play, and I definitely noticed input lag from time to time. It wasn’t extreme, but you could certainly tell there was a slight delay in movement speed or responses. I would be interested to test xCloud with something like Overwatch, but the testing is rather limited right now.
The biggest drawback to the xCloud experience right now is simply load times for games. Microsoft is using Xbox One S hardware on its servers, so it’s only as fast as a Xbox One would load the game via its regular hard drive. This is great for game compatibility, but I’d expect Microsoft will upgrade its xCloud servers to the new Xbox Project Scarlett specs once that console launches next year. Scarlett will dramatically improve load speeds thanks to SSD storage and a more capable CPU.
Another drawback is that this is limited to Android during this initial preview period. Microsoft has not mentioned or even demonstrated iOS compatibility yet, despite Apple providing PS4 and Xbox One controller support in iOS 13 recently. This support has already turned the iPad into a portable game console for titles like Fortnite, and with the addition of xCloud it would really open up the amount of games you could play on the go.
You also can’t use xCloud if you’re signed into an Xbox One console and it’s in use. So if your family is watching Netflix using your Microsoft Account on a physical console then xCloud will require you to log out of the console or turn it off to be able to stream games from Microsoft’s cloud. It’s a bizarre requirement, and hopefully it’s just a limitation of this early preview.
If you’re interested in trying xCloud for yourself, I’d highly recommend some type of mount for the phone and Xbox One controller combo. Trying to prop up a slippery phone isn’t ideal, and a clip or mount system removes that headache. You’ll definitely need an Xbox One controller, too, as Microsoft hasn’t implemented any touch controls for games just yet.
Project xCloud invites are rolling out in waves, and you can sign up to test Microsoft’s cloud gaming service right here.
After roughly a day and a half, Fortnite’s black hole is over. Despite the anticipation for a big event, the server simply went offline. There it is.
At around 4am Eastern, with thousands of people around the world staring at Fortnite’s swirling black hole, the game suddenly blinked to a loading screen, with a message reading “Fortnite servers are currently undergoing maintenance. Please try again later.” The servers currently read as “offline,” presumably undergoing maintenance for the next season.
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In a normal Fortnite season, this is pretty standard: developer Epic takes the game offline between roughly 4 and 6am to update things. I’m not surprised to see there be downtime here, but after all the waiting and social media blackout surrounding the black hole, this feels pretty anticlimactic. Was a big event inside us all along? I’m awake at four in the damn morning, so I’m going to say yes, because I need this.
Some folks on Twitter are saying the new cinematic trailer played for them in the lobby, but I was unable to access that, as pressing “relaunch” just took me out of the game, which is currently updating. Here’s what folks are seeing:
Following the game’s big end of season event, Fortnite turned from a game of weird characters and 10-year-old teammates into a swirling black hole. It then, to the internet’s collective shock, stayed that way. Confused players joined forces to decode mysterious numbers, play a hidden minigame, entertain themselves with speculation, and spend more than 35 hours staring at what basically amounts to a screensaver.
At last, we are free from the hole, and we’ll be getting a new season of Fortnite. There have been hints of a new map, and a supposed leaked battle pass trailer shows possible new weapons, a new way to level up, and new things to do. We’ll see what Fortnite’s new world looks like when the game comes back online, which for me is in 60%.
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Update 4:43am—My update finished, but I’m just seeing “servers offline.” I’m making a second pot of coffee.
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