Relic Entertainment, known for classic game series like Company of Heroes and the Dawn of War franchise, has announced it is to become an independent studio.

The studio has chosen to pursue its independence in collaboration with Emona Capital, a move it feels is necessary to maintain its financial survival.

Relic in survival mode

Relic has been a name in gaming for over thirty years and has been woven into some of the biggest names in gaming publishing. Initially, the studio was snapped up by THQ, who was impressed with its maiden intellectual property (IP) set in the Homeworld universe.

THQ quickly tasked Relic with the stewardship of their newly acquired Warhammer IP in 2004. Relic’s work on the Dawn of War series would become role-playing-strategy gaming gold.

A ten-year period of success followed with the development of the Dawn of War franchise and the creation of the Essence engine for Company of Heroes until SEGA acquired the studio.

SEGA would be next to offload Relic to what we reported at the time, was an unknown investor. This has now been revealed as Emona Capital.

Sadly, Relic took the first brutal action by axing 40-plus staff, a difficult step in the company’s possible financial survival.

The company posted to LinkedIn, “We are working closely with those affected, providing severance packages, extended benefits, and outplacement support options. To those we are saying goodbye to, we are deeply sorry that it has come to this. We thank you for everything you have done for our studio and our projects, and we wish you all the best.”

Relic hopes independence secures future

In light of the success seen by Larian Studios, who recently walked away from Hasbro, a trend is emerging for gaming developers looking to collaborate with publishers.

They aim to keep their independence rather than be tied to a publisher that may face financial troubles and seek to offload studios. This has been a narrative across the gaming industry for the past two years.

“Letting people go was not an easy decision, and was made solely with the goal of providing Relic the best possible chance to survive in an increasingly volatile industry,” said Relic.

Image: Relic.

The latest update to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses means you can share photos directly to Instagram with just one push of a button.

While posting to Instagram Stories isn’t a laborious process usually, the Meta team has made it even quicker and more spontaneous for those looking to share in-the-moment snippers with followers.

The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are a collaboration between designer Ray-Ban and Meta. They have a HD camera installed, along with open-ear speakers, a touchpad, and a power switch.

Once you’re wearing the Ray-Ban Meta glasses you just have to hold down the button on the frame until the white light flashes.

Now, the Meta update means you can simply say ‘Hey Meta, share my last photo to Instagram’ or even ‘Hey Meta, post a photo to Instagram,’ and it’ll do so hands-free.

The feature may not be available to everyone straight away as it’s being rolled out gradually.

Other hands-free capabilities have been added too, like the addition of being able to play Calm’s guided meditation or self-care content directly to the glasses. Again, this works in a similar way to the new Instagram feature as you just speak it into existence.

Audio from Amazon Music can be streamed directly to the smart glasses too, with the wearables being able to play a recommended playlist curated to your liking.

Could Meta soon be bringing out AR glasses to add to its current line up?

At the end of February, a report surfaced from Business Insider which suggested that Meta could showcase and demo its first true augmented reality glasses at the fall developer conference later this year.

These are different from the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and the Meta Quest headsets and are known internally as ‘Orion.’

In 2023, Meta announced a roadmap ahead of its plans to release AR glasses in 2027. But before then, there could be a third generation of Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2025 which could come complete with a ‘neural interface band.’

Featured Image: Via Reality Labs at Meta Account on X

Cycling app Strava is using AI to bring smart training and anti-cheating tools to its audience of more than 125 million users.

In a showcase at Camp Strava on May 16, Strava unveiled some of its upcoming app developments, including some using AI and machine learning to take the app to its next stage.

“Strava is gaining momentum to realize our vision of a world connected through movement,” said CEO Michael Martin. “We are focused on two fundamental shifts to accelerate how we deliver value to 125 million people globally: building for women and leveraging artificial intelligence, which will unlock new community-and-partner-powered experiences across the platform.”

The first of the AI-led features is Leaderboard Integrity, using machine learning to automatically flag “irregular, improbable, or impossible activities”. Essentially, this will allow the Strava team to more easily sniff out people cheating their way up the in-app leaderboards.

Another new feature (although not AI-powered) is the long-awaited arrival of dark mode. The developers hope that the new mode will reduce eye strain and improve accessibility for users, due to come later this summer in a gradual rollout.

AI for Strava means Athlete Intelligence

Last but not least, Strava also outlined its plans to use “the latest technological enhancements in AI and machine learning to transform the athlete experience”.

How it plans to do this is through Athlete Intelligence, a beta AI-powered feature that turns each subscriber’s training data into an easily digestible summary. This includes context on accomplishments and fitness goals so far and brings multiple sports together in one place.

Insights offered by Athlete Intelligence, judging from early screenshots of it in action, include comparing week-on-week progress, updates on how close you’re getting to weekly and monthly fitness goals, and insights on what the paces you’re setting will do for your fitness. These insights appear to come via in-app messages in the ‘You’ tab.

It’s not clear exactly when these features will launch but presumably sometime in the coming months.

Featured image: Strava

Right from the off in Wuthering Waves, you may find yourself caught out when you need to use a specific piece of equipment to continue, but don’t seem to get the information on where it might be. That equipment is the Sensor, and if you haven’t managed to find and use it yet, then this will help you get over this early obstacle with the minimum of fuss.

How to use the Sensor to confirm the patrol route

In Chapter 1: Huangling 1 you will be given a mission quest where you need to confirm a patrol route and find a Detection Beacon. This is where the guidance is missing and you are now left to your own devices, and it seems it’s catching an awful lot of Withering Wabes players out who now find they do not know what to do next. This early on in the game this is frustrating, but don’t give up. It’s simple when you know how.

After you have spoken to the Midnight Ranger the sensor will become unlocked for you for the rest of the game. And you now need to equip it.

If you are playing on a PC, hit the Tab key, or if on mobile or console the key that is used to bring up your Utility Menu.

On the wheel that appears you are looking for the eye that will appear on the left-hand side which you now need to click on to equip the sensor to your character.

Now to use it press the T key on the PC or your grapple button on anything else and you will use your sensor which allows you to see a hologram. Follow this hologram and it will take you on through the rest of the mission.

Note that there is a short cool-down period between using the sensor so you can’t constantly spam it looking for the hologram to follow.

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