Game

The latest drip has dropped from Sony, as the company drip-feeds us details about the PlayStation 5. This time we’ve finally been treated to a look at the controller, and the design marks a surprising departure from the last four generations.

Austin-based game developer Frank Force has won the Best Illusion of the Year prize for his mind-bending yet simple animation of twisting rings that seem to be rotating in different directions simultaneously.

Autron VR has just launched in Melbourne, Australia, with a range of shooting games, escape rooms and other VR experiences, all tailored for groups. New Atlas went hands on to check it out – and may have ruined regular escape rooms for ourselves.

Three years ago Infivention launched Square Off, a robotic board that moves pieces on its own, allowing players to play against AI or people around the world. Now, two new models are launching – the updated, chess-focused Neo and the multi-game Swap.

Sony has finally announced its next-generation games console – and surprising absolutely no one, it’s called the PlayStation 5. It launches next year.

The Dejarik holochess game we see Chewbacca and R2-D2 playing in the original Star Wars is one step closer to reality – or augmented reality, anyway.

The 3dRudder, a kind of balance board that players steer with their feet, is making its way to PlayStation VR users in the US.

A team has created an AI system that, for the first time, has defeated several poker professionals in six-player Texas hold 'em. Unlike earlier iterations of the system, the researchers will not publicly release this algorithm’s code, for fear it could decimate the online poker world.

DNA is the building material of life, but recent work shows it can also be used to make art or even store data. Now, a team at Caltech has used DNA to make the world’s smallest game of tic-tac-toe, and the technique could have applications in designing reconfigurable nanomachines.

This Halloween scientists at MIT’s Media Lab are embarking on a massive social experiment. Called BeeMe, the project will let internet users control a real human actor. New Atlas reached out to Niccolo Pescetelli, one of the creators behind the experiment to find out exactly what is about to happen.

After a year of development, design firm Moment Factory has successfully realized GRiD, a large-scale, real-life version of Pong. The game uses LiDAR to track player movements, letting teams of two act as paddles on a giant projected game board.

​Nintendo's best hardware has rarely been about pushing technological boundaries; instead the secret usually lies in putting existing pieces together in a unique, fun and family-friendly way. While the Switch is indeed unique, the writing was already on the wall.